remarkable manner.[1] Striking his cynic's staff upon the ground, he inveighs against the wickedness of the times, and wonders that the Divine Providence has not gathered up its oracles on every side and taken its departure long ago, like the Aidos and Nemesis of Hesiod. "I would suggest for your discussion the question why some god has not repeated the feat of Hercules and shattered the tripod, filled to overflowing, as it has been, with disgraceful and atheistical requests. Some of us have questioned the god as if he were a sophist, anxious to show off his rhetorical skill. Some of us have appealed to him about riches and treasures; some about legacies; some about unlawful marriages. Surely Pythagoras was utterly wrong when he said that men were at their best when approaching the gods. Do we not expose, naked and unashamed, to the eyes of the god such vices and diseases of the soul as we should shun mentioning even in the presence of an old and experienced man?"[2] He was*
- ↑ Didymus, "surnamed Planetiades," is a picturesque figure, evidently drawn from life. It is interesting to compare his attitude with that imposed upon the ideal cynic of Epictetus: "It is his duty then to be able with a loud voice, if the occasion should arise, and appearing on the tragic stage to say, like Socrates, 'Men, whither are you hurrying? what are you doing, wretches? Like blind people you are wandering up and down: you are going by another road, and have left the true road: you seek for prosperity and happiness where they are not, and if another shows you where they are you do not believe him'" (Long's Epictetus, p. 251). Planetiades certainly endeavours to play this rôle on the occasion in question, though he is doubtless as far below the stoic ideal as he is above the soi-disant cynics whom Dion met at Alexandria.
- ↑ Cf. Blount: Apollonius of Tyana, p. 37. Blount collects a number of ancient and modern parallels to the thought of Plutarch
