The Eunuch (1-5)

PAMPHILUS Where have you been, Lycinus, and what are you laughing at, I should like to know, as you come? Of course, you are always in a good humour, but this appears to me to be something out of the ordinary, as you cannot restrain your laughter over it.

LYCINUS I have been in the Agora, I’d have you know, Pamphilus; and I shall make you share my laughter at once if you let me tell you what sort of case has been tried in my presence, between philosophers wrangling with each other.

PAMPHILUS Well, what you have already said is laughable, in all truth, that followers of philosophy should have it out with one another at law, when they ought, even if it should be something of importance, to settle their complaints peaceably among themselves.

LYCINUS Indeed, you blessed simpleton! Peaceably! They! Why, they came together at full tilt and flung whole cartloads of abuse upon each other, shouting and straining their lungs enough to split them!

LYCINUS Not at all; this was something different, for they were of the same sect and agreed in their doctrines. Nevertheless, a trial had been arranged, and the judges, endowed with the deciding vote, were the most prominent and oldest and wisest men in the city, in whose presence one would have been ashamed even to strike a false note, let alone resorting to such shamelessness.

PAMPHILUS Then do please tell me at once the point at issue in the trial, so that I may know what it is that has stirred up so much laughter in you.

LYCINUS Well, Pamphilus, the Emperor has established, as you know, an allowance, not inconsiderable, for the philosophers according to sect—the Stoics, I mean, the Platonics, and the Epicureans; also those of the Walk, the same amount for each of these. It was stipulated that when one of them died another should be appointed in his stead, after being approved by vote of the first citizens. And the prize was not “a shield of hide or a victim,” as the poet has it,[*] but a matter of ten thousand drachmas a year, for instructing boys.

PAMPHILUS I know all that; and one of them died, they say, recently—one of the two Peripatetics, I think.

PAMPHILUS Yes, but that is the doctrine of the Peripatetics, not to despise wealth vehemently but to think it a third “supreme good.”

LYCINUS Right you are; they do say that, and the war that they were waging was on traditional lines.

But listen now to the sequel. Many competitors took part in the funeral games of the deceased, but two of them in particular were the most favoured to win, the aged Diocles (you know the man I mean, the dialectician) and Bagoas, the one who is reputed to be a eunuch. The matter of doctrines had been thrashed out between them already, and each had displayed his familiarity with their tenets and his adherence to Aristotle and his placita; and by Zeus neither of them had the better of it.

The close of the trial, however, took a new turn; Diocles, discontinuing the advertisement of his own merits, passed over to Bagoas and made a great effort to show up his private life, and Bagoas met this attack by exploring the history of Diocles in like manner.