Oratoria minora
these things the phalanx-commander more courageous, the leader of the company stronger, the hoplite more ready for the needs of the moment, the one i
This gathering is a symbol of peace, O wise and beloved audience of mine, and, to speak with God, a most accurate stamp of coming peace. But it also h
of the barrier, may he himself also now make peace in our affairs and crush the opposing powers and find a way and a means for the desperate, he who b
through whom corruption has stolen into our souls. But neither are you free from the things of envy for upon your breast and your belly you have walk
None of you is without a share of lily-beds and rose-gardens, nor of other fragrance, what graces would one not enjoy when spring has arrived? But sin
virtues, but these they practiced and pursued, and all, having made the body lean through fasting and having released the soul from the bonds of natur
the heaven, how great, how ever-moving in its revolution, how wonderful in its nature? and the sun, how it is the source of the light here, how it is
is tested by countless signs, but Egypt is punished by darkness and you, the new Israel, have been freed from the clay and the brick-making thence al
has entrusted the rule of all. And having reviewed in his mind everyone, both soldiers and citizens, senators and governors, and all who had gained a
Rejoice and exult at my proclamation which God has shown to be splendid and most illustrious as never another. 6 {1To those who think the philosopher
so as to move the world, not to mention lead it up to heaven, but I am within the great circuit, for these reasons I have not wished to run in the sta
of actions, but you do not act in the proper way, nor do you emulate those ancient orators, Pericles, Cimon, Demosthenes and the others who have under
the pleasure of a matter drawing forth laughter, and the philosopher alone. But here it is the opposite in the case of your creation for you are the
testifying to the sweetness in a philosophical man. And Plato often rebukes Dion for the sullenness and smilelessness of his soul but is not the phil
A second matter is both adorned and set in order. This is the philosophy I too have emulated and if you examine it in one respect, you will count me
are divided into an aristocracy, to be of lesser concern, because it is necessary to adorn the inner nature, while these things superficially beautify
achievements. Aristotle also divided his entire force into cavalry and infantry. and of the infantry, he positioned the light-armed to throw stones an
to judge their customs worthy of comparison to philosophy) those things lift one up above the ether on a whole wing, but this they sink in the sea, ju
dividing and heaping up solids. But I also frequently showed you the images in mirrors and measured their sizes for you optically, having taken their
To those who envied him for the most esteemed honor Neither will an occasion for envy be left for you, nor for me a cause for honor and advancement f
ordained by God. But of the others, some excelled in these things, others in those, and no one in everything, or if anyone did, it was not as I have (
I am called for there are those who give me this name. If, then, I embark on the matter as if it were not permitted or unskillfully, show me this ver
they have imitated my manner for themselves. But look up also to the heavens at night, when all is clear, and see how not all the stars are of equal h
oversights, and the other things of which the tragic daemons are providers for all things are abundant, as if dripping from some spring of evils. The
a more grievous and troublesome evil. How very pleasing to them is the banquet hall. For as if shut up and squeezed together in some narrow place with
he was showing the strength of his words for a prize set before him, but for a matter from which it was not possible to profit from buffoonery and ins
We have known you as one who counterfeits its laws and has not understood even a trace of true wisdom. But O huckster, I have now suddenly changed my
being torn away from the laws as if from your own limbs, and clinging to other limbs whose form you did not know nor whose use you had studied? How th
and thus, having harmonized them with the rules of dialectic, you thence winged your way to theology. But you, as if having passed over the vale of th
For such a thing had happened to these men, and Herodotus indeed mentions the story right at the beginning of the first of the Muses. And if you shoul
sitting on the floor, knowing not even as much as mules. But I fear lest one of those standing by, taking hold of your cloak, might say, Friend, how
He forces the nonsense into truth. Do not, therefore, speak with the man, do not touch him, do not share a table, neither of salt nor of other things,
Taking a Megarian jar firmly in his two hands and raising it with both and fitting it to his lips, he drinks without taking a breath just like the oxe
they judge matters by their own life, but not by the rule of truth. For since these men have hated indifference, and they live like bees arranged unde
as you are writing, standing by your life. But we too shall write against our persecutors. For just as the seemliness of hair pleased you, so the unke
sitting and with his fingers harnessing and re-harnessing horses in the shadows but there, one fighting against contrary winds and quickly backing wa
Geometry, having taken its beginning from bodies, ended in the mind, though its nature is not so. For perception does not know how to beget mind, but
he has set down some introductions to the subject, then, as if out of necessity, he turned his argument to what he wanted. And he has not chosen in an
It is interwoven with its arguments and divided by its complexities and turned back upon itself. But if such styles have been assigned to perfect orat
he puts to sleep. But the others have leaped out from here and there, from the dormouse-holes and from the caves, one a palm-breadth tall, another but
changing the parts, preserves the same idea of the sound. But you must also take care for the art concerning the arrangement of the argument and do n
mysteries, and there they were taught the equality of geometry, and when they needed to philosophize, they went to Egypt, and having chosen to study a
but drawing them upon yourselves whence someone might indict you for sacrilege for having most shamelessly plagiarized things dedicated to divine men
and you are zealous but you render the account for your studies just as one of the necessary debts which some are required to pay even unwillingly. A
The birth-pangs of Plato and Aristotle are a bringing forth, by whom I am both born and fashioned. Do you see how from every side the argument has pro
you render to me. And while I seem to neglect other things, your affair is my pursuit and care whence, staying awake far into the nights, as soon as
to have the contemplation concerning these things, but from our wisdom to know the type and the truth, and to break the letter as if it were a shell,
having done no wrong thus you are elegant and sophistic, or rather powerful men and tyrants, and you dance upon a gentle character. But you are still
to the philosophers the technical matters, to learn the introductions, the proofs, the matters concerning demonstrations, how one reminds, how one pro
they might fit a diatonic melody and arrange the strings for it, do they not play a prelude for it and practice beforehand, not just once, but as many
should I enumerate poets and orators, who treated ancient genealogies with myths, from the very foundation basing their own discourse on myth? How the
quality and draws as much as its appetite desired but if it sees the liquid of the water corrupted, it leaves this spring, and goes to another and se
27 Encomium on the Flea They say ‘the gnat as an elephant.’ And so that our discourse may proceed along its path, let us attempt the flea as a leopard
its begetter for it is precisely black, like an eastern Ethiopian having changed his skin color from sun-burning, and it immediately reveals the heat
grieving. For it has appointed two masters of all things for itself, the sun for its birth, and man for its growth for from the one it has come into
lest it produce apoplexy, nature has cut the skull into various sutures but it also divided the entire bone of the suture with certain small holes, t
the awns guard, so also do the hairs of the louse ward off every attack. And even if the hunt should get close to the skin, it, just as they say spong
So indeed this creature has received its natural power in all the parts of its body. Now, the other beasts, being ambushed from behind, are by nature
from every side, equality bestows youth on nature. For men, when they grow old, and especially those who are graceful and tall in body, are filled wit
He was being plotted against by those revolting within him because of the absence of the regulator and shield-bearer of health and adversary of diseas
This is clear from the fact that it is possible to live without it and be well in the other senses, but the inactivity of these begets sickness and de
shouting like a Bacchant and acclaiming the son of Zeus and Semele. And from where did this good thing come to you, he says, O blessed one? Did you
let your communion with one another not be from habit and the opinion of the many, but let its principle be knowledge, and let the wandering and disor
souls? Far from it. But the body does not work against the spermatic logos (for this reason it is formed according to what that logos wishes), but the
working for just as the most drinkable of waters and the most temperate of airs dispose bodies well and generate a similar disposition, so also the c
But let the one who fails take pride that his brother happens to be better than he. Agesilaus happened to be the first among the Lacedaemonians even b
Let us summarize, by virtue, by reason, and by ancestral goods, using these three things for the best ends, you will be left behind in no part of eter
All things are mixed. But she fails in her plan, as the hero draws his sword against her, whence she almost breathed her last for her form is changed
by reason for see how the limbs have been fitted to nature. or rather, I shall marvel at the artist even from the stone for he did not place the var
being brought up, was he not turned away? Was not the compassionate one pricked to the heart over you? For this reason he shall be un-sacrificed and u
Nothing that exists is above Olympus. and so that I might make the last things of my discourse first, heaven is indeed adorned with stars, but these a
they have been hollowed out spontaneously, he will find how he might live luxuriously. For if he should go under the shade of a tree, immediately soft
pleasing, but all things were full of all things- the first tabernacle, the mercy-seat, the veil, the temple, the side-scenes, the vestibules, the out
discerning that man is an animal, which he did not know, and whatever else belongs to this, lest I make a further example of the foolish, or of the on
Intently and from every side examining subtleties, I was investigating the extensions, the releases, the intonations, the transitions, the displacemen
he has come, nor has he arrived to gather spiritual fruits, but only for the sake of this man whom you see reading with pleasure. For just as one who
Who will relate your magadis upon the breast and the songs and warblings upon your tongue, that all-harmonious melody, the pleasure that knows no sati
and himself, but what kind the others are, I do not know. For I see a form above human nature, and a look in one way cherubic, in another leonine, in
an ineffable sympathy and in turn feels a contrary passion, as the cosmos happens to be one living being, and how Plato, having posited the elements a
I have not heard of him rising up against anyone nor boasting for the whole time, but just as they say that the very learned accuse themselves of a te
to know what sort of thing your grandfather had become in life and what command of language he had. But I shall praise you, not by bringing in falseho
to revel. But whenever your bond was loosened and you shed the swaddling clothes, you did not know what to do with yourself, looking more cheerful, sm
and you are zealous; but you render the account for your studies just as one of the necessary debts which some are required to pay even unwillingly. And if you should have to go to something else, my, what swiftness of feet and of pushing forward and being pushed against and much of the "the sun is slow beneath the earth" and the "twilight would not find us lying down." And you are then ashamed even of the rising sun, just like the Scythians, because they have not yet made their sacrifices. But if you choose to go to the schools, as if you have eaten an octopus's head beforehand, thus you are weighed down and happen to have your reason clouded; and your eyelids lie upon your eyes like some leaden devices, which one could not willingly raise, except with much force. Then the sun has passed a full sixteen stades beyond the horizon, but you, as if already laid down for sleep, thus nail your heads to the bedding, while I, as to those who are roused for a wrestling match and are waiting, walk with swift foot. Then do you think that from this I will say something kind to you or that I will bear it gently? Is this anything else but to be seasick, whenever I care for you when you are careless and take hold of you when you are indolent? For this reason I have retuned my tongue and leaving harmony I have chosen the high-strung, if somehow even so you might turn your souls toward right reason; for this alone is the manner of instruction left to me, since I have employed the others. If, at any rate, you appear unchanged even by this and I will have been rhapsodizing again, I will become an oracle for you, or rather a self-speaking Delphic tripod, declaring that in vain I both plowed you and cast the seed; for you will neither yield the ear of corn and you will produce much grief. 23 To the students who missed the interpretation of *On Interpretation* The discourse is to you, who were absent, whom I know not how I shall ever assail with my words; for those whom I was first to beget through the birth pangs of reason, how could I dishonor them with my words? But since neither do natural parents tolerate their children when they are insolent, nor does the one who first formed us allow us, when we turn aside from the right path, to be carried down into pits, but by pulling on the rein of discipline he directs the one who has thrown off the rein toward the right path, neither will I act otherwise, having such examples. What then is the purpose of your lateness (so that I may not cause pain by speaking again of your absence)? For if the school were of a kind not to improve reason, or if I myself did not charm the soul with the variety of my delivery, your lateness would have an excuse; but since the lessons are of such a kind, as to lift the soul to heaven on the one hand, and to sharpen the tongue for rhetoric on the other, and I myself have a skillful handling of both, as you yourselves have often testified to me, another person would rub much deep sleep into you. And while it is possible for you to be filled with nectar daily and to be sober and watchful, you have become so violently drunk from the streams of a muddy spring, as to be ignorant even of the time for assembling at the school. Or do you think I am so foolish, as to repay your negligence with more diligent teaching and not to travel crookedly with the crooked, or rather, even to abandon movement toward the crooked while you remain motionless toward the good? For what reason do I myself come so very early to the school, prepared long in advance for this contest of reason? So that I may depart having gained something from you by trade? What sort of thing is this? If one should say gold, but you are to me in this respect both witnesses and a crown of boasting. But what a soul is accustomed to give? But I myself am not in need of your rational generation; for it is sufficient for me for the sake of knowledge
καὶ ζηλοῦτε· τὸν δὲ πρὸς τοὺς λόγους λόγον οὕτως ἀποδίδοτε ὥσπερ τι τῶν ἀναγκαίων ὀφλημάτων ἃ δή τινες ἀπαιτοῦνται καὶ μὴ
βουλόμενοι. κἂν μὲν εἰς ἄλλο τι βαδίζειν ὑμᾶς δέοι, βαβαὶ τῆς ὀξύτητος τῶν ποδῶν καὶ τοῦ προωθεῖν καὶ ἀντωθεῖσθαι καὶ πολὺ
τὸ «βραδὺς ὑπὸ γῆν ὁ ἥλιος» καὶ τὸ «λυκόφως οὐκ ἂν ἡμᾶς φθάσῃ κατακειμέ νους». αἰδεῖσθε δὲ τηνικαῦτα καὶ τὸν ἥλιον ἀνατείλαντα
ὥσπερ οἱ Σκύθαι ὅτι μὴ ἔφθασαν προτεθυκότες. ἢν δὲ εἰς μουσεῖα βαδίζειν αἱρῆσθε, ὥσπερ πολύποδος προβεβρωκότες κεφαλήν, οὕτω
δὴ βεβάρησθε καὶ τυγχάνετε τεθολωμένοι τὸν λογισμόν· ἐπίκεινται δὲ καὶ αἱ βλεφαρίδες τοῖς ὄμμασιν ὥσπερ τινὲς μηχαναὶ μολύβδιναι,
ἃς οὐκ ἄν τις ἑκὼν εἶναι ἀνασπάσαιτο, εἰ μὴ σὺν βίᾳ πολλῇ. εἶτα ὁ μὲν ἥλιος ἑκκαίδεκα ὅλοις σταδίοις ὑπερβέβηκε τὸν ὁρίζοντα,
ὑμεῖς δέ, ὡς ἤδη πρὸς ὕπνον κατακλι θέντες, τὴν κεφαλὴν οὕτω προσηλοῦσθε τοῖς στρώμασιν, ἐγὼ δὲ ὡς πρὸς πάλην διεγηγερμένους
καὶ περιμένοντας ὀξεῖ βαδίζω ποδί. Εἶτα οἴεσθέ με ἐντεῦθεν χρηστόν τι πρὸς ὑμᾶς εἰπεῖν ἢ ἡμέρως ἀνέξε σθαι; τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν
ἄλλο τι ἢ ναυτιᾶν, ὁπόταν ἀμελούντων ὑμῶν ἐπι μέλωμαι καὶ ῥᾳθυμούντων ἀντέχωμαι; διὰ τοῦτο μεθηρμοσάμην τὴν γλῶτταν καὶ τὴν
ἁρμονίαν ἀφεὶς εἱλόμην τὸ σύντονον, εἴ πως κἂν οὕτως πρὸς τὸν ὀρθὸν λόγον τὰς ψυχὰς ὑμῶν μεταγάγοιτε· οὗτος γὰρ καὶ μόνος
ὁ τρόπος τῆς παιδείας μοι περιλέλειπται, ἐπεὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀπέδωκα. εἰ γοῦν καὶ πρὸς τοῦτον φανήσεσθε ἀναλλοίωτοι καὶ πάλιν
ἐρραψῳδηκὼς ἔσομαι, πυθόχρηστος ὑμῖν γενήσομαι, μᾶλλον δὲ τρίπους ∆ελφικὸς αὐτοπύθιος, ὡς μάτην ὑμᾶς καὶ ἠροτρίασα καὶ τὸν
σπόρον κατεβαλόμην· οὔτε γὰρ τὸν στάχυν ἀποδώσετε καὶ πολλὴν τὴν λύπην ἐκφύσετε. 23 Πρὸς τοὺς μαθητὰς ἀπολειφθέντας τῆς ἑρμηνείας
τοῦ Περὶ ἑρμηνείας Πρὸς τοὺς ἀπολειφθέντας ὁ λόγος ὑμᾶς, ὧν οὐκ οἶδ' ὅπως ποτὲ τῷ λόγῳ καθάψομαι· οὓς γὰρ ταῖς λογικαῖς ὠδῖσι
φθάσας ἐγεννησάμην, πῶς ἂν τούτους τῷ λόγῳ διατιμάσαιμι; ἀλλ' ἐπεὶ μήθ' οἱ τῇ φύσει τεκόντες τῶν παίδων ὑβριζόντων ἀνέχονται,
μήθ' ὁ πρώτως πλάσας ἡμᾶς τῆς ὀρθῆς ἐκτρεπομένους ὁδοῦ ἐᾷ κατὰ βαράθρων φέρεσθαι, ἀλλὰ τῷ τῆς παιδεύσεως ἀνακρούων χαλινῷ
πρὸς τὴν ὀρθὴν οἷμον ἀπευθύνει τὸν ἀφηνιάζοντα, οὐδὲ ἐγὼ ἄλλως πως ποιήσω τοιαῦτα ἔχων τὰ παραδείγ ματα. Τίς οὖν ὁ σκοπὸς
τῆς βραδυτῆτος ὑμῖν (ἵνα μὴ λυπῶ λέγων πάλιν τῆς ἀπολείψεως); εἰ μὲν γὰρ τὸ γυμνάσιον οἷον μὴ βελτιοῦν λογισμόν, ἢ αὐτὸς μὴ
θέλγων ψυχὴν τῷ πολυειδεῖ τῆς ἀπαγγελίας, εἶχεν ἂν ὑμῖν λόγον ἡ βραδυτής· ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ τὰ μαθήματα τοιαῦτα, ὡς τὸ μὲν ψυχὴν
ἐπαῖρον εἰς οὐρανόν, τὸ δὲ γλῶτταν θῆγον πρὸς ῥητορείαν, καὶ αὐτὸς πρὸς ἄμφω δεξιὰν ἔχω τὴν μεταχείρισιν, ὡς ὑμεῖς μοι τοῦτο
πολλάκις μεμαρτυ ρήκατε, πολὺν ἂν ὑμῖν τις τὸν κάρον προσεπιτρίψειεν ἕτερος. ἐξὸν δὲ τοῦ νέκταρος ὁσημέραι πληρουμένους ὑμᾶς
νήφειν καὶ διεγηγέρθαι, οἱ δὲ ἐκ τῶν τῆς θολερᾶς πηγῆς ναμάτων κατεμεθύσθητε οὕτω σφοδρῶς, ὡς καὶ τὸν καιρὸν τῆς εἰς τὸ διδασκαλεῖον
συνελεύσεως ἀγνοεῖν. ἢ ἐμὲ τοσοῦτον ἀνοηταίνειν οἴεσθε, ὡς τὴν ὑμετέραν ἀμέλειαν ἐπιμελέστερον διδασκαλίᾳ ἀμείψασθαι καὶ οὐχὶ
πλαγίοις συμπορεύεσθαι πλάγιον, μᾶλλον μὲν οὖν καὶ τὴν εἰς τὸ πλάγιον ἀπολιπεῖν κίνησιν ἀκινήτων ὑμῶν μενόντων πρὸς τὸ καλόν;
τίνος δὲ αὐτὸς ἕνεκα πρωϊαίτατα πρὸς τὸ γυμνάσιον ἀπαντῶ, πόρρωθεν πρὸς τὸν λογικὸν τοῦτον ἀγῶνα παρεσκευασμένος; ἵνα τι παρ'
ὑμῶν ἀπέλθω ἐμπορευσάμενος; ποῖον τοῦτο; εἰ μὲν χρυσὸν εἴποι τις, ἀλλ' ὑμεῖς μοι τούτῳ τῷ μέρει καὶ μάρτυρες καὶ καυχήσεως
στέφανος. ἀλλ' ὃ ψυχὴ διδόναι εἴωθεν; ἀλλ' οὐ τῆς ὑμῶν αὐτὸς ἐπιδεής εἰμι γεννή σεως λογικῆς· ἀρκεῖ γάρ μοι εἰς γνωστικὴν
