Complete Works (137 page)

In Homer you will find other similar stories. He tells how the Trojans, [d] when they pitched camp, “sacrificed to the immortals perfect hecatombs” and how

The winds carried the delicious smell from the plain up to heaven.
But the blessed gods took none of it, and had no pleasure in it;
So deep was their hatred of holy Ilium, and Priam,
[e]
And the people of Priam of the ashen spear.
⁹

So it was no help to them to sacrifice and offer vain gifts, when they were out of favor with the gods. For I don’t imagine that it is like the gods to be swayed by gifts, like some low moneylender; we make ourselves sound very silly when we boast that we do better than the Spartans on this score.

It would be a strange and sorry thing if the gods took more account of our gifts and sacrifices than of our souls and whether there is holiness and justice to be found in them. Yes, that is what they care about, I believe,
[150]
far more than about these extravagant processions and sacrifices offered year by year by states and individuals who may, for all we know, have sinned greatly against gods and men. The gods are not venal, and scorn all these things, as Ammon and his prophet told us. Gods and men of sound mind are more likely to hold justice and wisdom in especial honor; [b] and none are wise and just but those who know how to behave and speak to gods and men. But now I would like to hear what your opinion may be about all this.

A
LCIBIADES
: No different from yours and the god’s, Socrates; it would hardly be fitting for me to take sides against the god.

S
OCRATES
: But you remember that you said you were very worried that [c] without knowing it you might pray for evil, thinking it to be good?

A
LCIBIADES
: I do.

S
OCRATES
: You see, then, how dangerous it is for you to go to pray to the god, in case he hears you speaking amiss, rejects your sacrifice altogether, and perhaps adds some further penalty. I think you would do best to hold your peace; for I expect you are rather too big-hearted (to use the [d] favorite euphemism for stupidity) to be willing to use the Laconian prayer. It takes time to learn how to behave towards gods and men.

A
LCIBIADES
: How long will it take, Socrates, and who will teach me? I would very much like to see the man who could do it.

S
OCRATES
: It is the man who has his eye on you. But you remember how [e] Homer says that Athena took away the fog from the eyes of Diomedes, “so that he could clearly see both god and man.”
¹⁰
You too need to get rid of the fog which is wrapped around your soul, so as to prepare you to receive the means of telling good from evil. At present I don’t think you could do so.

A
LCIBIADES
: Let him remove the fog, or whatever else it is; I am prepared to do whatever he tells me, whoever he may be, so long as it will make me better.

S
OCRATES
: He too is more than anxious to help.

[151]
A
LCIBIADES
: Then I think it is better to put off the sacrifice for the time being.

S
OCRATES
: You’re quite right; it is much safer than running such a big risk.

A
LCIBIADES
: Here’s an idea, Socrates; I’ll put this garland on
your
head, [b] for giving me such good advice. Only when there comes the day of which you have spoken will we give the gods their garlands and their customary dues. God willing, that day will not be too far off.

S
OCRATES
: I am glad to accept, and I look forward to seeing myself receiving other gifts from you. In Euripides’ play, when Creon sees Tiresias crowned with garlands and learns that he has been given them by the enemy as trophies to reward his skill, he says

Good as an omen are your victor’s wreaths
For we, you know, are battered by the waves.
¹¹

[c] Just so, I regard the honor you have paid me as a good omen. For I am just as tempest-tossed as Creon, and I look forward to victory over your lovers.

1
. Socrates refers to
The Thebans
(frg. 2 Davies), an epic poem in the style of Homer about the travails of unfortunate King Oedipus of Thebes and his family. Oedipus’ prayer was granted—and his sons killed one another.

2
. Socrates adapts
Odyssey
i.32–34.

3
. An epigram in the
Palatine Anthology
, X.108, modified.

4
. According to legend, they murdered their mothers to avenge the deaths of their fathers.

5
. Alcibiades’ father died early and left his two sons in the care of Pericles, the most influential Athenian politician of the mid-fifth century.

6
. Socrates adapts some lines from Euripides’
Antiope
(frg. 183 Nauck
²
).

7
. Socrates quotes from the mock epic
Margites
(frg. 3 Allen), which was generally (but incorrectly) attributed to Homer in the ancient world.

8
. An Egyptian god with an oracle in the Libyan desert.

9
. Cf.
Iliad
viii.548–52.

10
. Cf.
Iliad
v.127–28.

11
.
Phoenician Women
858–59.

HIPPARCHUS

Translated by Nicholas D. Smith.

Socrates and a friend try to find a definition of greed. The friend feels that he
understands the concept perfectly well: isn’t greed an inclination to profit from
things which a gentleman shouldn’t exploit, things of no value? Socrates replies
that insofar as greed is an intention to profit from worthless things, it’s a
foolish intention, and no sensible man is greedy; but insofar as it’s a desire for
profit, it’s a desire for the good, and everyone is greedy. The latter conclusion
is especially hard to accept, but the friend cannot get the better of Socrates and
accuses him of deceiving him somehow in the argument. Socrates protests that
deceiving a friend would be contrary to the teaching of Hipparchus, a ruler of
Athens in the late sixth century
B.C.
who was keen to learn from the poets and
bestow his wisdom upon the Athenian people. Although Socrates offers to take
back any disputable premise of the argument, the friend cannot escape the dialogue’s
paradoxical conclusion that everyone is greedy.

Plato called the irrational part of the soul ‘greedy’ (
Republic
581a, 586d).
The sketch of the greedy man in the
Characters
of Theophrastus (§30) is vivid
and witty; Theophrastus knew well what he was talking about. So when the
speakers in
Hipparchus
seem unable to avoid the idea that everyone, even a
good person, is greedy, many readers will agree with Socrates’ friend that he
has been tricked somehow. This is the other main theme of the dialogue: intellectual
honesty and fair play in the conduct of dialectical discussion. Socrates
tells an implausibly revisionist history of Hipparchus, whom he represents as
wise and cultivated, whereas his regime was generally regarded by Athenians
of later generations as tyranny, and his assassins Harmodius and Aristogiton
were celebrated as national heroes. Socrates protests that he would never disobey
Hipparchus’ wise injunction and deceive a friend. To no avail: right to
the end of the dialogue the friend is unpersuaded by Socrates’ arguments,
though he cannot say what is wrong with them, just as many modern readers
of Socratic dialogues feel that the wool has somehow been pulled over their
eyes. But has it?

From the formal point of view,
Hipparchus
is composed of dry Academic dialectic
together with a literary-historical excursus on Hipparchus. The classic
example of such an excursus is the Atlantis myth in Plato’s
Timaeus
and
Critias,
and there are other examples in
Alcibiades, Second Alcibiades, Minos,
and probably in the (now mostly lost) Socratic dialogues of Antisthenes and Aeschines.
The academic dialectic of
Hipparchus
is a good example of the way
questions were discussed in the mid-fourth-century Academy, the dialectic studied
in Aristotle’s
Topics
and
Sophistical Refutations
. The combination of
dialectic and excursus is similar to that in
Minos,
as is the scepticism toward
the values implicit in Athenian popular culture and history; many scholars conclude
that they are the work of the same author, probably writing soon after
the middle of the fourth century
B.C.

D.S.H.

[225]
S
OCRATES
: What is greed? What can it be, and who are greedy people?

F
RIEND
: In my opinion, they’re the ones who think it’s a good idea to profit from things of no value.

S
OCRATES
: Do you think they know these things are of no value, or do they not know? For if they don’t know, you mean that greedy people are stupid.

F
RIEND
: No, I don’t mean they’re stupid. What I mean is this: they’re [b] unscrupulous and wicked people who are overcome by profit, knowing that the things from which they dare to profit are of no value; yet their shamelessness makes them dare to be greedy.

S
OCRATES
: So, then, do you mean that the greedy person is, for example, like a farmer who plants, knowing his plant is of no value, and thinks it’s a good idea to profit from the plant when fully grown? Is this the sort of person you mean?

F
RIEND
: The greedy person, at any rate, Socrates, thinks he ought to profit from everything.

S
OCRATES
: Don’t let me make you give in like that, as if you had somehow [c] been tricked by something; pay attention and answer as if I were asking again from the beginning. Don’t you agree that the greedy person knows about the value of the thing from which he thinks it is a good idea to profit?

F
RIEND
: I do.

S
OCRATES
: So who knows about the value of plants, in what seasons and soils it’s a good idea to plant them—if we may throw in one of those clever phrases with which legal experts beautify their speeches?
¹

[d] F
RIEND
: The farmer, I think.

S
OCRATES
: By “thinking it’s a good idea to profit” do you mean anything but thinking one ought to profit?

F
RIEND
: That’s what I mean.

[226]
S
OCRATES
: Well then, don’t try to deceive me—I’m already an old man and you’re so very young—by answering as you did just now, saying what you yourself don’t think; tell the truth. Do you think there is any man who takes up farming, and expects to profit from planting crops that he knows to be of no value?

F
RIEND
: By Zeus, I don’t!

S
OCRATES
: Well then, do you think that a horseman who knowingly gives his horse food that is of no value is unaware that he is harming his horse?

F
RIEND
: I don’t.

S
OCRATES
: So
he
doesn’t expect to profit from food that is of no value. [b]

F
RIEND
: No.

S
OCRATES
: Well then, do you think that a ship’s captain who has rigged his ship with sails and rudders that are of no value is unaware that he will suffer loss, and risks being lost himself and losing the ship and all it carries?

F
RIEND
: No, I don’t.

S
OCRATES
: So
he
doesn’t expect to profit from equipment that is of no [c] value.

F
RIEND
: Not at all.

S
OCRATES
: Or does a general who knows that his army has arms that are of no value expect to profit, or think it’s a good idea to profit from them?

F
RIEND
: Certainly not.

S
OCRATES
: Or does a flute-player who has flutes that are of no value, or a lyre-player with a lyre, or an archer with a bow, or, in short, does any other craftsman, or any other sensible man who has worthless tools, or any other sort of equipment, expect to profit from them?

F
RIEND
: Obviously not. [d]

S
OCRATES
: Then who
do
you say the greedy people are? For surely the ones just mentioned are not the ones who expect to profit from what they know has no value.
²
But in that case, my wonderful friend, there aren’t any greedy people at all, according to what you say.

F
RIEND
: What I mean, Socrates, is this: greedy people are those whose greed gives them an insatiable desire to profit even from things that are actually quite petty, and of little or no value. [e]

S
OCRATES
: Not, of course, knowing that they are of no value, my very good friend; for we have just proved to ourselves in our argument that this is impossible.

F
RIEND
: I believe so.

S
OCRATES
: And if they don’t know this, plainly they’re ignorant of it, thinking instead that the things of no value are very valuable.

F
RIEND
: Apparently.

S
OCRATES
: Now, of course, greedy people love to make a profit.

F
RIEND
: Yes.

S
OCRATES
: And by profit, you mean the opposite of loss?

F
RIEND
: I do.
[227]

S
OCRATES
: Is there anyone for whom it is a good thing to suffer loss?