Toxaris; Or, Friendship (6-10)

Our ancestors inscribed an account of their sufferings with each other, or for each other, on a

bronze pillar and set it up as an offering in the Oresteion, making a law that the earliest training and education of their children should be to learn by heart the inscription on this pillar. The result is that it would be easier for one of them to forget his father's name than to be in ignorance of the deeds of Orestes and Pylades. Moreover, on the wall enclosing the temple there are ancient pictures displaying everything related on the pillar. One shows Orestes sailing in company with his friend; another shows him captured after his ship went to pieces on the rocks and made ready for the sacrifice, with Iphigeneia in the act of beginning the ceremony. On the opposite wall he is seen at the moment when he had burst his bonds and was killing Thoas and a number of other Scythians, and, finally, they are painted sailing away with Iphigeneia and the goddess. The Scythians are vainly trying to stop the ship, which is already under sail, and are hanging in the rigging and trying to board her; but they fail completely and some get wounded, and others, in fear of a like fate, swim off to land.

In this picture we can see best how much tenderness they showed for each other in the struggle with the Scythians. For the artist has depicted each careless of his own opponents, but warding off attacks on his friend, and trying to receive the missiles intended for him, thinking it nothing to

die in saving his friend and taking on his own body the blow aimed at the other. Such devotion as this of theirs, such partnership in dangers, the faithfulness and good-fellowship and honesty and firmness of their mutual love, seemed to us not to belong to human nature, but to a finer temperament than that of men. For the majority, as long as the wind is favorable, take it ill if their friends do not divide their pleasures with them in equal shares, but if there comes the least breath of adversity they leave them to face danger alone. I will tell you another thing, too, that there is no office of friendship that a Scythian thinks greater, nor anything in which he takes more pride, than helping a friend in trouble and sharing his dangers, so that we think the hardest name a man can be called is "traitor to friendship." This is the reason we honor Orestes and Pylades, who were the best in what the Scythians deem good, and pre-eminent in friendship, which we admire above all things. So we have given them the name of “Korakoi,” which in our language signifies "genii of friendship."

Mnesippos Toxaris, I see that the Scythians have not only been great archers, and better than other nations in warlike pursuits, but are also the most persuasive orators in the world. For though I was of the other opinion a while ago, I now think you are quite right to deify

Orestes and Pylades. And I had no idea, my dear fellow, that you were a good painter as well. You have brought before me most vividly the pictures in the Oresteion, and the battle of the heroes and their vicarious wounds; but I never should have supposed that friendship was made so much of among the Scythians. I thought that inasmuch as they are inhospitable and wild, they dwelt together in constant feud and passion and anger, and entertained no friendship towards even their next of kin, judging from the things we hear of them, and particularly that they eat their fathers when they are dead.

Toxaris Whether we are juster and more pious than the Greeks in these other matters, such as our relations with our parents, is not a point that I care to dispute with you at present; but it is easy to show that Scythian friends are far truer than Greek friends, and friendship is made more of by us than by you. Now, by the gods of the Greeks, do not take it ill if I tell you some of the things I have noted in my long stay among you. You seem to me to be able to discuss friendship, it is true, better than other people, but your practice of it is by no means worthy of your preaching. In fact, you are perfectly satisfied when you have eulogized it and shown how great a good it is, and in time of need you forsake your theories and make your escape somehow

from the thick of action. Whenever the tragedians mount the stage and show you instances of the friendship you admire, you cry, "Bravo!" and applaud; and when they run into danger for another, most of you are even moved to tears; but in your own persons you do not venture to perform any praiseworthy act for another; and if your friend happens to be in need of anything, all these sentiments of tragedy instantly take to themselves wings and fly away like dreams, leaving you like those empty, hollow masks whose great yawning mouths utter not the slightest sound. With us the case is reversed; for in proportion as we are poorer in arguments about friendship we are richer in its works.

Come, now, let us do something of this sort, if it takes your fancy. Let us leave the friends of old whom you or I could count out of the question; for under that head you would be rich in them, summoning many credible poets to testify to the friendship of Achilles and Patroklos, and the camaraderie of Theseus and Peirithoos and the others, singing them in metre with the most beautiful language. But let us select a few from our contemporaries and tell their exploits-I for Scythia, you for Greece-and he who is victorious and able to produce the best friends will be openly the better man, and will proclaim his the better country, because he has won in a very noble

and beautiful contest. For my part, I should vastly prefer losing my right hand for having been worsted in single combat-that is the Scythian forfeit to being judged inferior to another man in respect of friendship, and that, too, though I am a Greek Scythian myself.