‘Well now,’ said Aesop, ‘you gentlemen make fun of my jackdaws and crows for talking. Do dolphins behave in this outrageous way?’ To which I replied, ‘A different matter, |C| Aesop! A story to the same effect as this has been believed and written among us for more than a thousand years, ever since the times of Ino and Athamas.’
Solon here interposed: ‘Well, Diodes; let us grant that these events are in the sphere of the divine and beyond us. But what happened to Hesiod is on our own human plane. You have probably heard the story.’ ‘For my part, no,’ I answered. ‘Well, it is worth hearing. Hesiod and a Milesian—I think it was—shared the same room as guests in a house at |D| Locri. The Milesian having been found out in a secret intrigue with the host’s daughter, Hesiod fell under suspicion of having all along known of the offence and helped in concealing it. Though in no way guilty, he fell a victim to cruel circumstance at a critical time of anger and misrepresentation. For the girl’s brothers lay in wait for him at the Nemeum in Locris and killed him, together with his servant, whose name was Troilus. Their bodies having been pushed into the sea, that of Troilus, which was carried out into the current of the river Daphnus, was caught by a low wave-washed rock projecting a little above the water. The rock still bears his name. Meanwhile the |E| dead body of Hesiod was picked up immediately off the shore by a shoal of dolphins, who proceeded to carry it to Rhium, close to Molycrea. It happened that the Locrians were engaged in the Rhian festival and fair, which is still a notable celebration in those parts. At sight of the body being borne towards them they were naturally amazed, and when, on running down to the shore, they recognized the corpse—for it was still fresh—they could think of nothing but tracking out the murder, so high was the renown of Hesiod. Their object was soon achieved. They discovered the murderers, threw them into the sea, and razed their house to the ground. Meanwhile Hesiod was buried near the Nemeum. Most strangers, however, are ignorant of his tomb, which has been concealed because the people of |F| Orchomenus are in quest of it, from a desire, it is said, to recover the remains and bury them in their own country in accordance with an oracle.
‘If, then, dolphins show such affectionate interest in the dead, it is still more natural for them to render help to the living, especially if they have been charmed by the flute or the singing of tunes. For, of course, we are all aware that music is a thing which these animals enjoy and court, swimming and gambolling beside a ship as its oarsmen row to the tune of song and flute in calm weather. They take a delight also in children when |163| swimming, and they have diving matches with them. Hence there is an unwritten law that they shall not be harmed. No one hunts them or injures them; the only exception being that, when they get into the nets and do mischief to the catch, they are punished with a beating, like naughty children. I further remember hearing some Lesbians tell of a girl having been rescued from the sea by a dolphin. I am not, however, sure as to the exact details, and, since Pittacus knows them, he is the right person to tell us about them.’
Pittacus thereupon assured us that the story had good warrant and was mentioned by many authorities. ‘An oracle was given to the colonizers of Lesbos that, when on the voyage they came across the reef known as Mesogeum, they should then and |B| there throw a bull into the water as an offering to Poseidon, and a live virgin to Amphitrite and the Nereids. There were seven chiefs, all of whom were kings, Echelaus—whom the Pythian oracle had assigned as leader of the colony—making an eighth. Echelaus was still a bachelor. When as many of the seven as had unmarried girls cast lots, the lot fell upon the daughter of Smintheus. Upon getting near the place, they decked her in fine clothes and gold ornaments, and, after offering prayer, were on the point of lowering her into the water. Now it happened that one of the party on the ship—assuredly a gallant young man—was in love with her. His name has been preserved to us as Enalus. This youth, in the passion of the |C| moment, seized by an eager but utterly hopeless desire to succour the girl, darted forward at the right instant and, throwing his arms about her, cast himself along with her into the sea. Now from the first there was spread among the contingent a rumour, lacking certainty, but nevertheless widely believed, that they were safe and had been rescued; and at a later date, it is said, Enalus appeared in Lesbos and told how they had been carried by dolphins through the sea and cast ashore without harm upon the mainland. He had other still more miraculous experiences to tell, which held the crowd spellbound with amazement, but for all of which he gave actual evidence. For when an enormous wave was rushing sheer round |D| the island and people were terrified, he alone ventured to face it. |*| On its retiring, a number of polypi followed him to the temple of Poseidon. From the largest of these he took a stone which it was carrying, and offered it as a dedication. That stone we call Enalus.
‘Speaking generally, the man who knows the difference between impossible and unfamiliar, between unreasonable and unexpected, will be most a man after your own heart, Chilon; he will neither believe nor disbelieve without discrimination, but will carefully observe your own rule of “nothing in excess”.’
Anacharsis next made the remark that, as Thales believed |E| all the greatest and most important components of the universe to contain soul, there was no reason to wonder if the most splendid actions were brought to pass by the will of God. ‘For the body is the instrument of the soul, and soul is the instrument of God. And as, though many of the motions of the body proceed from itself, the most and the finest are produced by the soul, so again is it with the soul. While it performs many actions on its own motion, in other cases it is but lending itself, as the aptest of all instruments, to the use of God, for Him to direct and apply it as He chooses. It would,’ said he, ‘be |F| a very strange thing if, while fire, wind, water, clouds, and rain are God’s instruments, by which He often preserves and nourishes and often kills and destroys, He has never on any occasion at all used animals as His agents. On the contrary, it is natural that, in their dependence upon the divine power, they should lend themselves more responsively to motions from God than does the bow to the Scythian or the lyre and flute to the Greek.’
After this the poet Chersias mentioned, among other cases of persons rescued in hopeless situations, that of Cypselus, Periander’s father. When he was a newborn babe, the men who had been sent to make away with him were turned from their purpose because he smiled at them. When they changed their minds and came back to look for him, he was not to be found, his mother having hidden him in a chest. ‘It is for this reason |164| that Cypselus built the house at Delphi, believing that the god had then stopped him from crying so that he might elude the search.’
At this Pittacus, addressing Periander, observed, ‘I have to thank Chersias, Periander, for mentioning that house; for I have often wanted to ask you the meaning of those frogs which are carved in such large size at the base of the palm-tree. What reference have they to the god or to the dedication?’ Periander having bidden him ask Chersias, who knew the reason and was present when Cypselus consecrated the house, Chersias said with |B| a smile, ‘No: I will give no information until these gentlemen have told me the meaning of their Nothing in excess and Know thyself, and of those words which have kept many people from marrying, made many distrustful, and reduced some to positive dumbness—the words Give a pledge, and Mischief is nigh.’ ‘Why do you need us to tell you that,’ said Pittacus, ‘seeing that you have so long admired the stories in which Aesop practically deals with each of those maxims?’ ‘Nay,’ replied Aesop, ‘he does need it, when he is joking at me. But when he is in earnest, he proves that Homer was their inventor. He says that Hector “knew himself”, inasmuch as, though |C| he attacked the rest,
Ajax, Telamon’s son, he would not fight, but he shunned him,
and that Odysseus recommends “nothing in excess” since he urges Diomede