Were the Athenians More Famous in War or in Wisdom? (intro-4)

Plutarch’s discussion whether the Athenians were more famous in war or in wisdom, sometimes referred to by a briefer title. De Gloria Atheniensium, is an epideictic oration like the preceding essays; we may perhaps infer from the words (345 f), This city has been the mother and kindly nurse of many other arts, that it was delivered at Athens. Like the preceding essays, it closes abruptly, and again we do not know the reason therefor.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his introduction to the translation of Plutarch revised by Goodwin, says, The vigor of his pen appears in the chapter Whether the Athenians were more Warlike or Learned... It is strange that this vigour should be devoted to glorifying the men of arms and vilifying the men of letters, and yet this is precisely what Plutarch attempts to do in this essay. It is true that he lived in an era of profound peace, when the horrors of war were remote, but it is somewhat surprising to find him arguing for this thesis, especially since he shows by incidental statements that he is thoroughly aware of the contributions that Athens has made to literature. We may, then, be justified in the inference that the essay is a tour de force, like other rhetorical discussions which were

popular in Plutarch’s day; it does not necessarily represent his own belief.

Many of the historical references will be found in an amplified form in the Lives.

The essay is no. 197 in Lamprias’s list of Plutarch’s works where it bears the simpler title, In what were the Athenians famous? (Κατὰ τί ἔνδοξοι Αθηναῖοι;;).

⋯Thus[*] rightly spoke the great Themistocles to the generals who succeeded him, for whom he had opened a way for their subsequent exploits by driving out the barbarian host and making Greece free. And rightly will it be spoken also to those who pride themselves on their writings; for if you take away the men of action, you will have no men of letters. Take away Pericles’ statesmanship, and Phormio’s trophies for his naval victories at Rhium, and Nicias’s valiant deeds at Cythera and Megara and Corinth, Demosthenes’ Pylos, and Cleon’s four hundred captives, Tolmides’ circumnavigation of the Peloponnesus, and Myronides’[*] victory over the Boeotians at Oenophyta-take these away and Thucydides is stricken from your list of writers. Take away Alcibiades ’ spirited exploits in the Hellespontine region, and those of Thrasyllus by Lesbos, and the overthrow by Theramenes of the oligarchy, Thrasybulus and Archinus and the uprising of the Seventy[*] from Phyle against the Spartan hegemony, and Conon’s restoration of Athens to her

power on the sea - take these away and Cratippus[*] is no more.

Xenophon, to be sure, became his own history by writing of his generalship and his successes and recording that it was Themistogenes[*] the Syracusan who had compiled an account of them, his purpose being to win greater credence for his narrative by referring to himself in the third person, thus favouring another with the glory of the authorship. But all the other historians, men like Cleitodemus, Diyllus,[*] Philochorus, Phylarchus, have been for the exploits of others what actors are for plays, exhibiting the deeds of the generals and kings, and merging themselves with their characters as tradition records them, in order that they might share in a certain effulgence, so to speak, and splendour. For there is reflected from the men of action upon the men of letters an image of another’s glory, which shines again there, since the deed is seen, as in a mirror, through the agency of their words.

This city, as we all know, has been the mother and kindly nurse of many other arts, some of which she was the first to discover and reveal, while to others she gave added strength and honour and advancement; not least of all,painting was enhanced and embellished by her. For Apollodorus the painter, the first man to discover the art of mixing colours and chiaroscuro, was an Athenian. Upon his productions is inscribed:

It were easier that you blame than try to make the same.[*]

Euphranor, Nicias, Asclepiodorus, and Panaenus, the brother of Pheidias, some of them painted conquering generals, others battles, and still others the heroes of old. As, for example, Euphranor compared his own Theseus with that of Parrhasius, saying that Parrhasius’s Theseus[*] had fed on roses, but his on beef; for in truth Parrhasius’s portrait has a certain delicacy and subtlety in its execution, and it does somewhat resemble Theseus; but someone, on seeing Euphranor’s Theseus, exclaimed, not inaptly,

Race of the great-hearted hero Erechtheus, whom once Athena

Nurtured, the daughter of Zeus.[*]

Euphranor has painted also, not without some animation, the cavalry battle against Epameinondas at Mantineia. The action came about in this way:[*] Epameinondas the Theban, after the battle of Leuctra, was greatly elated, and conceived the desire to trample upon the prostrate Sparta, and grind her pride and self-esteem into the dust. And first he attacked with an army of seventy thousand, pillaged the Spartans’ territory, and persuaded the Perioeci to revolt from them. Then he challenged to battle the forces that were drawn up in the vicinity of Mantineia; but when they did not wish or even dare to risk an engagement, but continued to await reinforcements from Athens, he broke camp by night and, without being observed by anybody, descended into Lacedaemon and almost succeeded, by a sudden

attack, in capturing and occupying the city, which was without defenders. But when the Spartan allies perceived this, and aid for the city quickly arrived, he retired as though he were again about totum to plundering and devastating the countryside. But when he had thus deceived his enemies and quieted their suspicions, he set forth by night from Laconia and, rapidly traversing the intervening territory, appeared to the Mantineans unexpectedly, while they also were engaged in discussing the right moment for sending aid to Sparta, and ordered the Thebans to arm straightway for the attack. Accordingly the Thebans, who took great pride in their skill at arms, advanced to the attack and encircled the city walls. There was consternation among the Mantineans, and shouting and running hither and thither, since they were unable to repulse this assembled force which was bursting upon them like a torrent, nor did any thought of possible succour occur to their minds. At this crucial and fateful moment the Athenians were descending from the heights to the plain of Mantineia, with no knowledge of this turn of fortune or of the keenness of the struggle, but were proceeding leisurely on their journey. However, when one of the Mantineans ran out with report of the danger, although the Athenians were few in comparison with the great numbers of their enemy, and although they were weary from their march, and none of their other allies was at hand, nevertheless they straightway took their places in battle-array with almost their whole number, while the cavalry donned their armour and rode ahead of the rest, and under the very gates and the wall of the eity engaged in a sharp cavalry encounter; the Athenians prevailed and rescued Mantineia from the clutches of Epameinondas.

This was the action which Euphranor depicted, and in his portrayal of the battle one may see the clash of conflict and the stout resistance abounding in boldness and courage and spirit. But I do not think you would award judgement to the painter in comparison with the general, nor would you bear with those who prefer the picture to the trophy of victory, or the imitation to the actuality.

Simonides, however, calls painting inarticulate poetry and poetry articulate painting:[*] for the actions which painters portray as taking place at the moment literature narrates and records after they have taken place. Even though artists with colour and design, and writers with words and phrases, represent the same subjects, they differ in the material and the manner of their imitation; and yet the underlying end and aim of both is one and the same; the most effective historian is he who, by a vivid representation of emotions and characters, makes his narration like a painting. Assuredly Thucydides[*] is always striving for this vividness in his writing, since it is his desire to make the reader a spectator, as it were, and to produce vividly in the minds of those who peruse his narrative the emotions of amazement and consternation which were experienced by those who beheld them. For he tells how Demosthenes[*] is

drawing up the Athenians at the very edge of the breakwater at Pylos, and Brasidas is urging on his pilot to beach the ship, and is hurrying to the landing-plank, and is wounded and falls fainting on the forward-deck; and the Spartans are fighting an infantry engagement from the sea, while the Athenians wage a naval battle from the land. Again, in his account of the Sicilian[*] expedition: The armies of both sides on the land, as long as the fighting at sea is evenly balanced, are enduring an unceasing struggle and tension of mind because of their battling forces; and because of the continued indecisiveness of the struggle they accompany it in an extremity of fear, with their very bodies swaying in sympathy with their opinion of the outcome. Such a description is characterized by pictorial vividness both in its arrangement and in its power of description; so, if it be unworthy to compare painters with generals, let us not compare historians either.

Again, the news of the battle of Marathon Thersippus of Eroeadae brought back, as Heracleides Pontieus relates; but most historians declare that it was Eucles who ran in full armour, hot from the battle, and, bursting in at the doors of the first men of the State, could only say, Hail! we are victorious! [*]

and straightway expired. Yet this man carne as a self-sent messenger regarding a battle in which he himself had fought; but suppose that some goatherd or shepherd upon a hill or a height had been a distant spectator of the contest and had looked down upon that great event, too great for any tongue to teli, and had come to the city as a messenger, a man who had not felt a wound nor shed a drop of blood, and yet had insisted that he have such honours as Cynegeirus received, or Callimachus, or Polyzelus, because, forsooth, he had reported their deeds of valour, their wounds and death; would he not have been thought of surpassing impudence? Why, as we are told, the Spartans merely sent meat from the public commons to the man who brought glad tidings of the victory in Mantineia which Thucydides[*] describes! And indeed the compilers of histories are, as it were, reporters of great exploits who are gifted with the faculty of felicitous speech, and achieve success in their writing through the beauty and force of their narration; and to them those who first encountered and recorded the events are indebted for a pleasing retelling of them. We may be sure that such writers are lauded also merely through being remembered and read because of the men who won success; for the words do not create the deeds, but because of the deeds they are also deemed worthy of being read.

Poetry also has won favour and esteem because it utters words which match the deeds, as Homer[*] says,

Many the lies that he spoke, but he made them all to seem truthful.

The story is also told that one of Menander’s[*] intimate friends said to him, The Dionysian Festival is almost here, Menander; haven’t you composed your comedy? Menander answered, By heaven, I have really composed the comedy: the plot’s all in order. But I still have to fit the lines to it. For even poets consider the subject matter more necessary and vital than the words.

When Pindar was still young, and prided himself on his felicitous use of words. Corinna warned him that his writing lacked refinement, since he did not introduce myths, which are the proper business of poetry, but used as a foundation for his work unusual and obsolete words, extensions of meaning, paraphrases, lyrics and rhythms, which are mere embellishments of the subject matter.[*] So Pindar,[*] giving all heed to her words, composed the famous lyric:

Ismenus, or Melia of the golden distaff,

Or Cadmus, or the holy race of men that were sown,

Or the mighty strength of Heracles,

Or the gladsome worship of Dionysus.

He showed it to Corinna, but she laughed and said that one should sow with the hand, not with the whole sack. For in truth Pindar had confused and jumbled together a seed-mixture, as it were, of myths, and poured them into his poem.[*] That poetry concerns itself with the composition of mythological matters Plato[*] also has stated. A myth aims at being a false tale, resembling a true one; wherefore it is far removed from actual events, if a tale is but a picture and an image of actuality, and a myth is but a picture and image of a tale. And thus those who write of imaginative exploits lag as far behind historians as persons who tell of deeds come short of those that do them.