DISCOVERY 



11 



prosperous and industrious society of business men, 

 farming on scientific principles, learning mensuration, 

 draining and irrigating their arable land and vine- 

 yards, and paying rent and taxes. And in 245 B.C. 

 we read of a strike of slaves who worked in a stone- 

 quarry, and deserted. Nor were the amenities of 

 social life wanting, as may be seen from the following 

 letter of about the same year ; 



" Demophon to Ptolemceus greeting. Do your best 

 to send me Petoiis the flute-player with the Phrygian 

 flutes and the others ; pay any necessary expenses, 

 and I will refund them. Send me also Zenobius with 

 kettle-drum, cymbals, and castanets, for the ladies 

 require him for the sacrifice. Let him also be dressed 

 in the finest clothes. Get the kid also from Aristion 

 and send it to me ; and send as many cheeses as you 

 can, and a new jar ; and vegetables of all kinds, and 

 any delicacies which you have. Good-bye. Put them 

 on board with the guards who will help to bring the 

 boat." 



One point of some historical interest appears. It is 

 probable that in a letter of a.d. 41 we have the earliest 

 known reference to the Jews as money-lenders. A 

 person involved in some money difficulties in Egypt 

 is written to as follows ; " Say to him [i.e. to the 

 creditor], I am not like anyone else, I am a lad. . . . 

 We have many creditors ; do not drive us out. Ask 

 him daily : perhaps he can take pity upon you ; if 

 not, do you, like all people, beware of the Jews." 



Turn now to the more serious side of this newly- 

 found literature which meets us in the Philosophers 

 and Moralists. The different schools of philosophy 

 all had their popular teaching and they were the 

 guides of life for the educated class. As we have 

 already noted, works by Philodemus and Polystratus 

 have been deciphered from the charred rolls of Hercu- 

 laneum. They are popular expositions of Epicureanism ; 

 and there is also a similar exposition of Stoicism of a 

 rather later date, the first century a.d., by one 

 Hierocles. Polystratus, a new writer, with his earnest 

 and intense convictions, reminds us constantly of the 

 great Roman Epicurean Lucretius. " Only by the 

 knowledge of the Plmsis^ of things," he cries, "can 

 men be freed from their enslavement to False Notions 

 and Perturbations, from all Commotions and Fears. 

 This alone makes life free." But how serious these 

 teachers were can best be seen from the remains of 

 another Epicurean who lived in the second century 

 A.D. In a small town called (Enoanda, some thirty 

 miles inland from the Asiatic coast opposite Rhodes, a 

 long and remarkable inscription was discovered a short 

 time ago on a ruined stone portico. The philosopher's 

 name was Diogenes, and the inscription which he 



1 The word means " the Law or process of Growth." The 

 usual, but rather misleading, rendering is " Nature." 



wrote opens thus : "I have observed that mankind 

 was worried and troubled and distracted with unneces- 

 sary matters ; and I felt pity for their life and wept 

 over the perdition of the times, and have decided 

 that it is a good man's duty to come to their help." . . . 

 With apostolic earnestness, and actually in apostolic 

 language, he goes on : " Now that I am an old man 

 and the sun of life is sinking, and I shall soon depart 

 from life, I would do what in me lies. . . . Most men 

 catch the infection of False Notions, one from another, 

 like sheep. ... I have resolved to make use of this 

 portico to publish the Medicines of Salvation. It is 

 right also to help those who will come after us, since 

 they too are ours, even though they have not yet 

 been born ; and to help strangers too, for that is 

 humane " (" philanthropic " is his word). 



Place beside these a writer of quite a different tone, 

 Cercidas, who lived in the third century B.C. and 

 belonged to the school of philosophers called Cynics 

 (lit. "doggish"), from their contempt for elegance 

 and even for decent conventionalities. He may be 

 regarded as practically a new author. He writes 

 a lyric metre in a concise and mordant style, 

 coining words with such facility and vigour that 

 they produce a most emphatic effect. He inveighs 

 against the unequal distribution of wealth, fiercely 

 denounces luxury and high living, the ' ' swinish 

 wealth," enjoyed by " sepulchres of fat," as he calls 

 the profiteers of those days, in two of his vigorous new 

 words. " 'Why should spendthrifts and misers have 

 the money, and not I ? " he cries — and we fancy that 

 many of our modem authors will heartily agree with 

 him ! "Is Justice as blind as a mole, and has the 

 brightness of Themis been dimmed ? How, then, do 

 the gods come in, who have apparently neither the 

 power of hearing nor of seeing ? " He leaves the 

 answer sarcastically to the " sky-praters," who he 

 expects will not find the least difficulty. " But let 

 help for the sick and charity to the poor be our care." 

 The idea of the community of property had been in 

 the air during the fourth century. It had been ridi- 

 culed by the radiant wit of Aristophanes in the Women 

 in Parliament and the Phttiis ; it had occupied the 

 mind of Plato in the Republic, and met with the grave 

 criticism of Aristotle in the Politics. But in the third 

 century it had become a burning question in the south 

 of Greece because of the militarj' needs of Sparta. 

 The most recent writer upon Cercidas suggests that 

 his attack upon the grasping and vicious rich was 

 meant as a warning to his own party (in his own city 

 of Megalopolis, a near neighbour of Sparta) to mend 

 their ways before it was too late, for the time might 

 come when the rich would have to " disgorge." 



The same theme is treated in a fragment of a new 

 poem by Phoenix of Colophon, who lived about a 



