lty, that we may shun the
living and conversing with kings. Nor do they ever name any of those
great personages who have intermeddled in civil affairs, but only to
scoff at them and abolish their glory. Thus they say that Epaminondas
had something of good, but that infinitesimal, or [Greek omitted], for
that is the very word they use. They moreover call him iron-hearted,
and ask what ailed him that he went marching his army through all
Peloponnesus, and why he did not rather keep himself quiet at home with
a garland on his head, employed only in cherishing and making much of
his body. But methinks I ought not in this place to omit what Metrodorus
writ in his book of Philosophy, when, utterly abjuring all meddling in
the management of the state, he said thus: "Some, through an excess of
vanity and arrogance, have so deep a comprehension into the business of
it, that in discussing the precepts of good life and virtue, they
allow themselves to be carried away with the very same desires as were
Lycurgus and Solon." What is this? Was it then vanity and abundance of
vanity, to set free the city of Athens, to render Sparta well-policied
and governed by wholesome laws, that young men might do nothing
licentiously, nor get children upon common courtesans and whores, and
that riches, delights, intemperance, and dissolution might no longer
bear sway and have command in cities, but law and justice? For these
were the desires of Solon. To this Metrodorus, by way of scorn and
contumely, adds this conclusion: "It is then very well beseeming a
native born gentleman to laugh heartily, as at other men, so especially
at these Solons and Lycurguses." But such a one, O Metrodorus, is not
a gentleman, but a servile and dissolute person, and deserves to be
scourged, not with that whip which is for free-born persons, but with
that scourge made with ankle-bones, with which those eunuch sacrificers
called Galli were wont to be chastised, when they failed of performing
their duty in the ceremonies and sacrifices of the Goddess Cybele, the
great Mother of the Gods.

But that they made war not against the lawgivers but against the laws
themselves, one may hear and understand from Epicurus. For in his
questions, he asks himself, whether a wise man, being assured that it
will not be known, will do anything that the laws forbid. To which he
answers: "That is not so easy to settle simply,"--that is "I will do
it indeed, but I am not willing to confess