[175] The name is written Mithradates on the Greek coins. The word Mithradates occurs in various shapes in the Greek writers; and it was a common name among the Medes and Persians. The first part of the name (Mithra) is probably the Persian name Mitra or Mithra, the Sun. This Mithridates is Mithradates the Sixth, king of Pontus in Asia, who succeeded his father Mithridates V. B.C. 120, when he was about eleven years of age. He was a man of ability, well instructed in the learning of the Greeks, and a great linguist: it is said that he could speak twenty-two languages. He had already got possession of Colchis on the Black Sea, and placed one of his sons on the throne of Cappadocia. He had also strengthened himself by marrying his daughter to Tigranes king of Armenia. Other events in his life are noticed in various parts of the Lives of Sulla, Lucullus, and Pompeius. (See Penny Cyclopædia, "Mithridates VI.")
[176] This name was common to a series of Armenian, and to a series of Parthian kings. One Arsaces is considered to be the founder of the dynasty of the Parthian kings, which dynasty the Greeks and Romans call that of the Arsacidæ. This Arsaces is reckoned the ninth in the series, and was the son and successor of Arsaces the Eighth. He is placed in the series of Parthian kings as Arsaces IX. Mithridates II. (On the series of Parthian Arsacidæ, see "Arsaces," in Biograph. Dictionary of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.) From the time of this interview of Sulla to a late period under the Roman Empire, the Romans and Parthians were sometimes friends, oftener enemies. No name occurs so frequently among the Roman writers of the Augustan period as that of the Parthians, the most formidable enemy that the Romans encountered in Asia, and who stopped their victorious progress in the East.
[177] The MSS. have "a native of Chalkis" ( Χαλκιδεύς), a manifest blunder, which has long since been corrected.
[178] Censorinus was a family name of the Marcii. This appears to be C. Censorinus, whom Cicero (Brutus, c. 67) speaks of as moderately versed in Greek Literature. He lost his life in the wars of Sulla B.C. 81.
[179] Timotheus distinguished himself during the period of the decline of the power of Athens. In the year B.C. 357 he and Iphicrates were sent with a fleet to reduce to obedience the Athenian subject states and especially the island of Samos. The expedition was unsuccessful, and Timotheus and other generals were brought to trial on their return home. Timotheus was convicted, and sentenced to pay a heavy fine, but as he was unable to pay it, he withdrew to Chalkis in Eubœa, where he died B.C. 354. (Penny Cyclopædia, art. "Timotheus.") This story of the painting is told by Ælianus, Var. Hist. xiii. 43.
[180] The original has "the dæmon" ( δαιμόνιον), which is Fortune, as the context shows. It is not very easy to unravel all the ancient notions about Fortune, Nemesis, and the like personifications. The opinion that the deity, or the dæmon, looks with an envious eye on a man's prosperity and in the end pays him off with some equivalent loss, is very common in the Greek writers. One instance of it occurs in the letter of Amasis, the cunning King of Egypt, to Polykrates the tyrant of Samos. (Herodotus, iii. 40.) The Egyptian King tells Polykrates plainly that his great good luck would certainly draw upon him some heavy calamity, for "the dæmon (τὸ θεῖον) is envious;" and so it was, for Polykrates died a wretched death. Timotheus, according to Plutarch, provoked Fortune by his arrogance.
[181] This word (δαίμων) often occurs in Plutarch. In order to understand it, we must first banish from our minds the modern notions attached to the word Dæmon. A little further, Sulla speaks of what the dæmon (το δαιμόνιον) enjoins during the night. People in ancient times attached great importance to dreams, because they were considered as a medium by which the gods communicated with men. There is great difficulty in translating an ancient writer on account of the terms used in speaking of superhuman powers.
Apuleius, who lived in the second century of our æra and was consequently nearly a contemporary of Plutarch, has explained this doctrine of dæmons in his treatise On the God of Sokrates. "Moreover there are certain divine middle powers, situated in this interval between the highest ether and earth, which is in the lowest place, through whom our desires and deserts pass to the gods. These are called by a Greek name dæmons, who being placed between the terrestrial and celestial inhabitants, transmit prayers from the one and gifts from the other. They likewise carry supplications from the one and auxiliaries from the other as certain interpreters and saluters of both. Through these same dæmons, as Plato says in the Banquet, all denunciations, the various miracles of enchanters, and all the species of presages, are directed. Prefects, from among the number of these, providentially attend to everything, according to the province assigned to each; either by the formation of dreams, or causing the fissures in entrails, or governing the flight of some birds, and instructing the song of others, or by inspiring prophets, or hurling thunder, or producing the coruscations of lightning in the clouds, or causing other things to take place from which we obtain a knowledge of future events. And it is requisite to think that all these particulars are effected by the will, the power, and authority of the celestial gods, but by the compliance, operations, and ministrant offices of dæmons."—T. Taylor's Translation: he adds, "For a copious account of dæmons, their nature, and different orders, see the notes on the First Alkibiades in vol. i. of my Plato, and also my translation of Iamblichus on the Mysteries." A little further on Apuleius says: "It is not fit that the supernal gods should descend to things of this kind. This is the province of the intermediate gods, who dwell in the regions of the air, which border on the earth, and yet are no less conversant with the confines of the heavens; just as in every part of the world there are animals adapted to the several parts, the volant being in the air and the gradient on the earth."
As to the expression "the god" (ὁ θεός), which often occurs in Greek writers, Taylor observes (note a.) "According to Plato one thing is a god simply, another on account of union, another through participation, another through contact, and another through similitude. For of super-essential natures, each is primarily a god; of intellectual natures, each is a god according to union; and of divine souls, each is a god according to contact with the gods; and the souls of men are allotted this appellation through similitude." He therefore concludes that Apuleius was justified in calling the dæmon of Sokrates a god; and that this was the opinion of Sokrates appears, as he says, from the First Alkibiades, where Sokrates says, "I have long been of opinion that the god did not as yet direct me to hold any conversation with you."
Apuleius further says, "There is another species of dæmons, more sublime and venerable, not less numerous, but far superior in dignity, who, being always liberated from the bonds and conjunction of the body, preside over certain powers. In the number of these are Sleep and Love, who possess powers of a different nature; Love, of exciting to wakefulness, but Sleep of lulling to rest. From this more sublime order of dæmons, Plato asserts that a peculiar dæmon is allotted to every man who is a witness and a guardian of his conduct in life, who, without being visible to any one, is always present, and who is an arbitrator not only of his deeds, but also of his thoughts. But when, life being finished, the soul returns [to the judges of its conduct], then the dæmon who presided over it, immediately seizes and leads it as his charge to judgment, and is there present with it while it pleads its cause. There, this dæmon reprehends it, if it has acted on any false pretence; solemnly confirms what it says, if it asserts anything that is true; and conformably to its testimony passes sentence. All you therefore who hear this divine opinion of Plato, as interpreted by me, so form your minds to whatever you may do, or to whatever may be the subject of your meditation, that you may know there is nothing concealed from those guardians either within the mind or external to it; but that the dæmon who presides over you inquisitively participates of all that concerns you, sees all things, understands all things, and in the place of conscience dwells in the most profound recesses of the mind. For he of whom I speak is a perfect guardian, a singular prefect, a domestic speculator, a proper curator, an intimate inspector, an assiduous observer, an inseparable arbiter, a reprobator of what is evil, an approver of what is good; and if he is legitimately attended to, sedulously known, and religiously worshipped, in the way in which he was reverenced by Sokrates with justice and innocence, will be a predicter of things uncertain, a premonitor in things dubious, a defender in things dangerous, and an assistant in want. He will also be able, by dreams, by tokens, and perhaps also manifestly, when the occasion demands it, to avert from you evil, increase your good, raise your depressed, support your falling, illuminate your obscure, govern your prosperous, and correct your adverse circumstances. It is not therefore wonderful, if Sokrates, who was a man exceedingly perfect, and also wise by the testimony of Apollo, should know and worship this his god; and that hence, this his keeper, and nearly, as I may say, his equal, his associate and domestic, should repel from him everything which ought to be repelled, foresee what ought to be noticed, and pre-admonish him of what ought to be foreknown by him, in those cases in which, human wisdom being no longer of any use, he was in want not of counsel but of presage, in order that when he was vacillating through doubt, he might be rendered firm through divination. For there are many things, concerning the development of which even wise men betake themselves to diviners and oracles." I have adopted Taylor's translation of this eloquent passage, because he was well acquainted with the theological systems of antiquity. The whole passage is a useful comment on this chapter of Plutarch and many other passages in him, and may help to rectify some erroneous notions which people maintain of the philosophical systems of antiquity, people who, as Bishop Butler expresses it, "take for granted that they are acquainted with everything." The passage about conscience contains, as Taylor observes, a dogma which is only to be found implicitly maintained in the Scholia of Olympiodorus on the First Alkibiades of Plato. Olympiodorus says that we shall not err if we call "the allotted dæmon conscience;" on which subject he has some further remarks. This doctrine of the sameness of conscience and the internal dæmon seems to be that of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus (ii. 13): "It is sufficient to attend only to the dæmon within us and to reverence it duly," and he goes on to explain wherein this reverence consists. In another passage (ii. 17) he says that philosophy consists "in keeping the dæmon within us free from violence and harm, superior to pleasures and pains, doing nothing without a purpose, and yet without any falsehood or simulation, without caring whether another is doing so or not; further, taking what happens and what is our lot as coming from the same origin from which itself came; and finally, waiting for death with a tranquil mind, as nothing else than the separation of the elements of which every living being is composed. And if there is nothing to fear in the elemental parts constantly changing one into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of the whole? for it is according to Nature, and nothing is bad that is according to Nature." Bishop Butler remarks (Preface to his Sermons): "The practical reason of insisting so much upon the natural authority of the principle of reflection or conscience is, that it seems in a great measure overlooked by many who are by no means the worst sort of men. It is thought sufficient to abstain from gross wickedness, and to be humane and kind to such as happen to come in their way. Whereas, in reality, the very constitution of our nature requires, that we bring our whole conduct before this superior faculty; wait its determination; enforce upon ourselves its authority; and make it the business of our lives, as it is absolutely the whole business of a moral agent, to conform ourselves to it. This is the true meaning of that ancient precept, reverence thyself."