Plutarch's Morals - Part 20
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Part 20

[447] Homer, "Iliad," xiv. 84, 85.

[448] Compare Cicero, "De Officiis," i. 25: "Omnis autem animadversio et castigatio contumelia vacare debet: neque ad ejus, qui punitur aliquem aut verbis fatigat, sed ad reipublicae utilitatem referri."

[449] "Iliad," xi. 654.

[450] "Iliad," xvi. 33-35.

[451] Cf. Plutarch, "Phocion," p. 746 D.

[452] A proverb of persons on the brink of destruction.

Wells among the ancients were uncovered.

[453] "Iliad," ii. 215, of Thersites. As to Theagenes, see Seneca, "De Ira," ii. 23.

[454] Literally, "brings a cloud over fair weather."

[455] The MSS. have Lydian. Lysian Dionysus is also found in Pausanias, ix. 16. Lyaeus is suggested by Wyttenbach, and read by Hercher. Lysius or Lyaeus will both be connected with [Greek: luo], and so refer to Dionysus as the G.o.d that looses or frees us from care.

See Horace, "Epodes," ix. 37, 38.

[456] Compare Juvenal, iii. 73, 74: "Sermo Promptus et Isaeo torrentior."

[457] "Orestes," 667.

[458] Euripides, "Ion," 732.

[459] "Anabasis," ii. 6, 11.

[460] Perhaps by Euripides.

[461] "Olynth." ii. p. 8 C; "Pro Corona," 341 C.

[462] Homer, "Iliad," ix. 108, 109. They are the words of Nestor to Agamemnon.

[463] See Herodotus, i. 30-32.

[464] See Plato's "Symposium," p. 215 E.

[465] See Plato, "Epist." iv. p. 321 B.

[466] See our author, "Apophthegmata," p. 179 C.

[467] Compare Horace, "Satires," i. 1. 7, 8: "Quid enim, concurritur: horae Momento cita mors venit aut victoria laeta."

[468] And so being dainty. See Athenaeus, ii. ch. 76.

[469] We see from this and other places that the mountebanks and quacks of the Middle Ages and later times existed also among the ancients. Human nature in its great leading features is ever the same. "Omne ignotum pro magnifico est."

[470] "Laws," p. 729 C.

[471] Homer, "Odyssey," i. 157; iv. 70; xvii. 592.

[472] Ptolemy V., Epiphanes. The circ.u.mstances are related by Polybius, xv. 29; xvii. 35.

[473] See "Acharnians," 501, 502.

[474] Thucydides, i. 70: [Greek: kai hama, eiper tines kai alloi, nomizomen axioi einai tois pelas psogon epenenkein].

[475] See our Author, "Apophthegmata," p. 190 E.

[476] A line of Euripides, quoted again in "How a Man may be benefited by his Enemies," -- iv.

[477] Homer, "Iliad," xi. 313.

[478] Do. viii. 234, 235.

[479] Do. ix. 461.

[480] "Iliad," xiii. 116-119.

[481] Do. v. 171, 172.

[482] Euripides, "Phoenissae," 1688.

[483] Euripides, "Hercules Furens," 1250.

[484] "Iliad," v. 800. Athene is the speaker.

[485] A play by Sophocles, now only in fragments, relating the life of Achilles in the island of Scyros, the scene of his amour with Deidamia, the daughter of Lycomedes, by whom he became the father of Pyrrhus.

[486] Thucydides, ii. 64. Quoted again in "On Shyness,"

-- xviii.

[487] See also "De Audiendo," -- x.

[488] [Greek: potous] comes in rather curiously here.

Can any other word lurk under it?

[489] "Phoenissae," 528, 529.

[490] Homer, "Iliad," vi. 347.

[491] Do. vi. 326.

[492] Homer, "Iliad," ix. 109, 110.

[493] In Dindorf's "Poetae Scenici Graeci," Fragment 152.

[494] As it is not quite clear why Achilles should have been angry about his supper, [Greek: dia to deipnon], apropos of the context, Wyttenbach ingeniously suggests, as this lost play of Sophocles was called [Greek: Syn deipnon], that Plutarch may have written [Greek: en to Deipno].