It would not be out of place to tell you another
story about something that happened in Lesbos
long ago. They say that when the women of Thrace
tore Orpheus to pieces, his head and his lyre fell
into the Hebrus, and were carried out into the
Aegean Sea; and that the head floated along on the
lyre, singing a dirge (so the story goes) over Orpheus,


 

while the lyre itself gave out sweet sounds as the
winds struck the strings. In that manner they came
ashore at Lesbos to the sound of music, and the
people there took them up, burying the head where
their temple of Dionysus now stands and hanging
up the lyre in the temple of Apollo, where it was
long preserved.

 

In after time, however, Neanthus,
the son of Pittacus the tyrant, heard how the lyre
charmed animals and plants and stones, and made
music even after the death of Orpheus without anyone’s touching it; so he fell in love with the thing,
‘tampered with the priest, and by means of a generous
bribe prevailed upon him to substitute another similar
lyre, and give him the one of Orpheus. After
securing it, he did not think it safe to play it in the
city by day, but went out into the suburbs at night
with it under his cloak, and then, taking it in hand,
struck and jangled the strings, untrained and unmusical
lad that he was, expecting that under his touch the
lyre would make wonderful music with which he
could charm and enchant everybody, and indeed that
he would become immortal, inheriting the musical
genius of Orpheus. At length the dogs (there were
many of them there), brought together by the noise,
tore him to pieces; so his fate, at least, was like
that of Orpheus, and only the dogs answered his
call. By that it became very apparent that it was
not the lyre which had wrought the spell, but the
skill and the singing of Orpheus, the only distinctive
gifts that he had from his mother; while the lyre
was just a piece of property, no better than any
other stringed instrument.

 
 
But why do I talk to you of Orpheus and Neanthus, when even in our own time there was and still
is, I think, a man who paid three thousand drachmas
for the earthenware lamp of Epictetus the Stoic:
He thought, I suppose, that if he should read by —
that lamp at night, he would forthwith acquire the
wisdom of Epictetus in his dreams and would be just
like that marvellous old man.

 
And only a day or
two ago another man paid a talent for the staff which
Proteus the Cynic laid aside before leaping into the
fire ; Peregrinus ; nicknamed Proteus because he changed his faith so readily. The story of his life and his voluntary death at Olympia is related in Lucian’s Peregrinus. and he keeps this treasure and displays it just
as the Tegeans do the skin of the Calydonian boar,
the Thebans the bones of Geryon, and the Memphites the tresses of Isis. Yet the original owner
of this marvellous possession surpassed even you
yourself in ignorance and indecency. You see what
a wretched state the collector is in: in all conscience
he needs a staff—on his pate.

 

They say that Dionysius The Elder, Tyrant of Syracuse (431-367 B.C.). used to write tragedy in
a very feeble and ridiculous style, so that Philoxenus A contemporary poet, 
was often thrown into the quarries on account of it,
not being able to control his laughter. Well, when
he discovered that he was being laughed at, he took
great pains to procure the wax-tablets on which
Aeschylus used to write, thinking that he too would
be inspired and possessed with divine frenzy in virtue
of the tablets. But for all that, what he wrote on
those very tablets was far more ridiculous than what
he had written before : for example,
 Doris, the wife of Dionysius, Is dead— 






 

and again,
 Alackaday, a right good wife I’ve lost! 

—for that came from the tablet ; and so did this:
 'Tis of themselves alone that fools make sport. The few extant fragments of Dionysius’ plays are given by Nauck, rag. Graec. Fragm. pp. 793-796. Tzetzes (Chil. 5, 180) says that he repeatedly took second and third place in the competitions at Athens, and first with the ansom of Hector. Amusing examples of his frigidity are given by Athenaeus (iii. p. 98 D). 
The last line Dionysius might have addressed to
you with especial fitness, and those tablets of his
should have been gilded for it.