Nine—
Translation of De Providentia:
Egyptians; or, on Providence
Preface[1]
88A This is a story about[2] the sons of Taurus[3] and the first part, as
far as the riddle of the wolf, was recited[4] while the wicked brother
* The page numbers of Petau's edition constitute the most generally useful system of reference to Synesius's text, since the editions of both Migne and Terzaghi include them; other systems of reference are less universal. Accordingly, we have used the Petau numbers throughout our argument and have placed them in the margin of our translation.
[3] Cos. 361; PLRE 1.879. On the identification of his sons Aurelian and Caesarius, see chapter 5; there was a third brother, Armonius, who was killed ca. 391/92 (Joh. Ant. frag. 187; PLRE 1.108).
[4] Despite 113D it is doubtful how widely so outspoken a tract was disseminated at the time.
88B was exercising the power he had won in the rebellion.[5] The second
was added after the return of the best men, who asked that the
book not be left incomplete with the story of their misfortunes.
Since the events foretold by the god[6] seemed to be coming to pass,
they wanted the tale to go on to their better fortunes. And so,
while events had begun to shape the tyrant's downfall,[7] the story
followed along. It is especially remarkable for its comprehensive
treatment of many themes. Several philosophical issues hitherto
undecided[8] found a place for consideration in the story, and each
one was closely investigated. Lives were described, to be examples
of vice and virtue; the work also contains a history of current
events, and the story has been fashioned and elaborated through-
out with a view to utility.
Book I
89A I. The story is Egyptian. Egyptians are extraordinarily wise. So
perhaps this story, even though it is only a story, might hint at some-
thing more than a story because it is Egyptian. If it is less a story
89B than a sacred discourse, all the more should it be written down.[9]
Osiris and Typhos[10] were brothers, born of the same seed. But
[5] That is to say, Gaïnas's coup of April 400.
[6] At 114C–115A.
[8] I.e., the heavenly rather than corporeal origin of the soul, allegedly proven by the existence of blood brothers with opposite characters, and the operation of divine Providence, allegedly proven by Typhos's (allegedly impending) downfall. There is a strong general Neoplatonic influence on Synesius's thought, and he recalls various Neoplatonic and other philosophers at many points, especially Porphyry and Plato himself, yet there is no single (extant) philosophical text that could be described as a "source." It seems natural to suppose that much of what he writes reflects Hypatia's teaching.
the kinship between souls and bodies is not one and the same. For
it is not appropriate that souls be engendered by the same earthly
parents, but that they should flow from a single spring.[11] The na-
ture of the cosmos provides two, one luminous and the other
murky. The murky spring bubbles up from the ground, since it is
89C rooted somewhere below. It springs out from the caverns of the
earth as if it could somehow violate the divine law. But the lumi-
nous spring arises from the back of heaven;[12] it is sent down in
order to administer the earthly lot. Upon coming down it is ordered
to take special care in case, while organizing and arranging the dis-
arranged and disordered, it become infected itself by its proximity
to ugliness and disorder. There is a law of Themis laying down that
if a soul communes with the farthest edge of being and yet guards
its nature and survives undefiled, it will flow back again by the
89D same road and pour back into its own spring,[13] just as nature also
compels souls that have somehow started out from the other re-
gion to settle at the lairs from which they sprang:
Envy is there, and Rancor and the tribes of the other Calamities
roam through the darkness in the field of Delusion.[14]
II. Among souls, these are "the noble and the ignoble";[15] it
might happen that a Libyan and a Parthian are related in this way
and that those whom we call brothers are in no way akin in the
90A relationship of their souls. The two Egyptian children appeared
right from their births to be such a pair. They demonstrated it
clearly as they matured.[16] The younger[17] was engendered and nur-
[12] Image from Pl. Phdr. 247C.
[13] E.g., Plotinus 1.6.7 on the descent of the soul, a commonplace of later Neoplatonism.
[14] Empedocles frag. 121.2, 4 Diels-Kranz (1954, I.6:360). Hierocles and Proclus quote from the same verses in a similar context (see Diels-Kranz, 360), as do Julian (Or. 7 [226B]) and Joh. Lydus (Mens. 4.159, p. 176.24 Wuensch), both omitted by Diels-Kranz. Synesius quotes the last line alone in Ep. 147 (p. 258.10 G); Garzya assumed that he took the line from Julian, but Julian quotes only the one line, and the present passage shows that Synesius knew more. Julian, Hierocles, Synesius, and Proclus must all be drawing from a common source.
[16] Synesius departs from the myth to develop the characters of Osiris and Typhos, philosophical and immoderate respectively; the technique has affinities with contemporary panegyric and invective.
[17] Osiris, as becomes apparent. In the myth (Plut. De Is. et Os. 355E–F, reflecting authentic Egyptian traditions: see Griffiths 1970, 296–307; inexplicitly, also Diod. 1.13.4), Osiris is the elder, born on the first epagomenal day, and Typhos only on the third. Sy-nesius could so casually diverge from the myth only on the basis of contemporary reality. The chronology of the brothers' careers supports the inference.
tured by divine destiny, and in infancy he was fond of listening
and fond of fable, for fable is a child's philosophy book.[18]
As he grew older, he loved an education that ever reached be-
yond his years. He gave full attention to his father, and he wanted
to devour every point of each man's field of knowledge. He was
eager to learn all his first elements all at once, like a puppy dog[19
] 90B as of course is the way with natures that promise great things: they
chafe and start up before their time, since they have already dedi-
cated themselves to some cherished goal. And yet long before ado-
lescence he was more sedate than a well-bred elder: he would lis-
ten decorously and whenever the need arose to speak, whether to
ask a question on a point of the discussion or on some other matter,
everyone noticed that he would hesitate and blush.[20] And he would
make way and give up his seat for the Egyptian elders[21] –and this
though he was the son of the man who held the supreme office![22
] 90C He also treated other children with respect. Consideration for
people was very much a part of his nature. Even at that age it
would have been difficult to find an Egyptian for whom the lad had
not obtained from his father some favor or other.
The elder brother, Typhos, was, in a word, a complete boor.
He wholeheartedly despised all wisdom,[23] both Egyptian wisdom
and such foreign wisdom as the king was having his son Osiris
taught.[24] Typhos ridiculed such stuff as being trivial and mind-
90D enslaving. When he saw his brother going to school and living a
[18] Plato approves the traditional use of fable in the first stages of a child's education (Rep. 377A); Aristotle remarks that it reflects the same wonder at the world that is the start of philosophy (Metaph. 982b18f.). Cf. Synesius Ep. 105, p. 188.17f. G; Dion 45B.
[19] Many details of this section, including the comparison to a puppy dog and the reference to blushing, are taken from Xenophon's Cyropaedia (1.4.4); cf. too Pl. Rep. 539B.
[20] Libanius's biography of Julian combines the same motifs of learning and modest blushing in discourse (Or. 18.30).
[21] Cf. Hdt. 2.80; Achilles Tatius 8.17.5.
[23] The emphasis on literary culture is in full harmony with Synesius's views expressed elsewhere, especially in the Dion . It is also a note that he played loudly in all his solicitations of patronage at this period: cf. De dono 309B–C, De regno 7B–C, 15B.
well-mannered and modest life, he thought it cowardice if no one
saw him punch or kick anyone or cheat in a race, although he was
nimble and lean, and the body that clad him was a light burden for
his soul. In addition, Osiris never even once gulped his drink or so
roared with laughter[25] that it convulsed his whole body, as Typhos
did constantly. He believed that a man lived up to his freedom only
91A by doing whatever he wanted in every situation he encountered. In
his nature, Typhos did not resemble his kin or for that matter any
other man in any way. To put it neatly, he was not even much like
himself but was in every way a thing of evil.[26] At one moment, he
would appear to be a sluggish and "useless burden of the earth,"[27
] only rising from sleep long enough to glut himself and stock up
with other necessities for his return to sleep; at other times, ne-
glecting even nature's modest requirements, he would leap about
gracelessly and bother both young and old. He admired bodily
91B strength as the most perfect good and employed it badly by tearing
off doors and pelting people with globs of dirt.[28] And if anyone was
hurt or if he could inflict any other damage, he took pride in this as
if it proved his valor. Also, he would swell to ill-timed passion and
be most violently inclined to engage in sex. Envy against his brother
smouldered[29] within him. He also hated the Egyptians because the
populace admired Osiris both in speech and song:[30] at home and at
the common temples[31] all men everywhere prayed for all good
things for him from the gods. This was Typhos's character and
manner. He formed a gang of senseless children for the sole pur-
91C pose (it not being in him to love anyone from the heart) of having
partisans who did not share Osiris's views. It was an easy thing for
anyone to buy Typhos's favor and procure from him anything a
child might want: just whisper abuse against Osiris.
[26] For the commonplace of self-contradiction in viciousness as vice's ultimate point, cf. 92C–D, 105C, 107C below; De regno 10D–11B (set within an exposition, 9D–11B, that suggests that this chaotic personality has its antecedents in Plato's contrast of the philosophical and tyrannical man, Rep . 8–9); Claud. Bell . Gild . 1.162–63.
[27] II . 18.104.
[28] Cf. Xen. Cyr . 83.27; Men. Dysk . 83, 365.
[30] The same is said of Cyrus at Xen. Cyr . 1.4.25; with contemporary reference also to prose and verse panegyrics; cf. 113B below.
[31] Cf. Hdt. 2.47: (in contrast to Greek practice) Egyptian temples were open to all with the one exception of swineherds; notably, so were Christian churches. Cf. John Chrysostom's reply to Gaïnas's request for an Arian church, "Every church is open to you" (Theod. HE 5.32).
And so from childhood their different natures assured the dif-
ference of their lives.
III. When roads fork, they part gradually at first and grow ever
farther apart as they advance, until they reach the point of their
91D farthest divergence. One can see the same pattern in the young: a
slight tendency to differ sets them far apart as they grow older.[32
] With these two, it was no slight tendency. They took off in op-
posite directions at once, the one taking perfect virtue as his share,
the other perfect vice. As they grew up, so too the opposition be-
tween their principles[33] grew along with them. More conspicuous
still, their deeds were evidence of their different stamping.[34] While
still a youth Osiris shared in the generalship with the men ap-
pointed to that office: the law did not permit arms to someone so
92A young, but he ruled their will as if he were their mind, and used
the generals as his hands.[35] And as his nature grew, like a plant, he
brought forth fruit of ever greater perfection. When he became
commander of the guards, in charge of royal audiences, city pre-
fect, and leader of the senate, each office he laid down more en-
nobled than when he took it over.[36]
But Typhos, when appointed treasury official (their father had
decided to test the nature of his sons in lesser positions), shamed
both himself and the man who chose him by being convicted of
embezzlement, of venality, and of capriciousness in his admin-
istration.[37] Next he was transferred to another type of office, in the
hope that he might live up to it, but he acted more disgracefully
92B still. And that province of the good kingdom over which he pre-
sided had one unspeakably bad year.[38] He went on to govern
[32] For progressively developing differences, cf. Arist. Cael . 271b init . The image of dividing roads as a moral choice comes ultimately from Prodicus's Choice of Heracles (Xen. Mem . 2.1.21–34); it is especially common in Hermetic writings: Nock 1972, 27.
[34] The metaphor is Platonic (Rep . 377B, Tht . 194C).
[35] Osiris's military aspect is appropriate to an Egyptian prince or an emperor (cf. the program enjoined in the De regno ); a Roman civil official at this date of course would not have been involved with military posts at all. Notably, Synesius does not carry through Osiris's military skill into his actual reign.
[36] On the careers of Aurelian and Caesarius, see chapter 5, section V. Only two offices are indicated here: master of offices and city prefect.
[37] Phrase borrowed from Aeschin. 2.164.
[38] The reference may be to the proconsulate of Achaea or Asia, the sort of prestigious post to which a young man of good family might aspire. Appointments to the proconsulate of Africa (for which there is more evidence) continued to be made for one year inthe first instance, often renewed for further periods of one year: Barnes 1983, 256f.; 1985, 144–53, 273–74. Fewer incumbents are known for Asia and Achaea, though for Asia between 394–97 see Barnes 1983, 260–61; for Achaea, E. Groag, Die Reichsbeamten von Achaia in spätrömischer Zeit , Diss. Pannon. 1.14 (1946), 44. At 111D Synesius refers to provincial governorships in general as annual offices.
others, and lamentation pursued them too. Such was Typhos in his
public life.
In private, he was a cordax dancer,[39] and he rounded up all
the most indecent Egyptians, foreigners too—anyone who was ready
to say or hear,[40] to do or suffer anything at all, so that his dining
room would be a "doing room" of debauchery of every descrip-
tion.[41] Typhos himself would snore[42] loudly even while awake, and
delighted in hearing others do the same; he thought it an admi-
92C rable piece of music. Commendations and honors were accorded to
anyone who prolonged the wanton sound and rounded it out the
more. One member of this band, by far the boldest, blushed at ab-
solutely nothing. As he shrank from nothing shameless, he hit
upon many of the top prizes; in particular, offices were conferred
upon him as a reward for a shameful impudence.[43] Such was Ty-
phos at home.[44]
IV. Whenever he took his seat ostensibly to conduct public
[39] The cordax was a notoriously obscene dance: e.g., Ar. Nub. 540, 555; Theophr. Char . 6.3. In Syn. Ep . 32 (= 45 G, p. 85.15) it is a characteristic item of behavior to be feared in a particularly ruffianly slave Synesius is sending his brother.
[40] Or perhaps "be called."
[43] Synesius seems to imply that some actual member of Caesarius's administration won his office in this way; unfortunately, it cannot be determined whom he is libeling.
[44] Remarkably enough. Bury (1889, 80–81) quotes all of this in his text, concluding with the observation that "Typhos was the leading spirit of a sort of society for the promotion of indecency."
business,[45] he would clearly demonstrate that evil is a thing of
92D every description. (In fact, evil is at variance with virtue and with
itself, and both opposites are portions of it.) Dolt that he was,
he would suddenly go wild and, howling harsher than an Epirot
dog,[46] ruin a private citizen, a house, or a whole city. His delight in
doing evil was enhanced by the thought that with the tears of men
93A he was wiping away the disrepute of his indolence at home.[47] There
was one advantage in his badness: often when he was in the very
act of doing something terrible or issuing a perverse judgment, he
would lapse into strange suspicions so that he seemed possessed,
carrying on about "the shadow in Delphi."[48] In the meantime, his
potential victim would escape, and no further word of him was
brought up. Or else lethargy and drowsiness would grip Typhos
for a while so that his mind was not on its business. Even when he
had collected himself, his memory of recent events had already
93B evaporated. Then he would quibble with his subordinates about
how many grains of wheat a peck contained and how many gills
were in a firkin, and so display an excessive and absurd shrewd-
ness. More than once sleep too snatched a man from calamity, be-
cause it fell on Typhos at just the right moment—it would have
shoved him off his armchair onto his head had not an attendant
dropped his lamp and propped him up. In this way a night-long
orgy of tragedy would often turn into comedy. Typhos would not
conduct business in the day at all, since his nature was averse to
sun and light and suited to darkness. He was well aware that
93C everyone with even the tiniest bit of sense indicted him for the
most consummate ignorance. Yet he would not blame himself for
his absurdity. Rather, because of it he was the common enemy of
all intelligent people, as if they were doing wrong because they
knew how to administer justice, while he was innocent of state-
craft, but ingenious in craftiness.[49] Folly and desperation were
[45] The literature of the age always refers to governors in their official capacity as sitting on their judicial seat: Robert 1948, passim.
[46] Terzaghi supposes that the "Epirot dog" comes from an otherwise unattested proverb; but it is in fact merely a disguised reference to the Molossian hounds so often to be found in Roman poetry (e.g., Verg. G. 3.405; Lucr. 5.1063; Hor. Sat. 2.6.114).
united in him, those mutually reinforcing banes of the soul—no
evils greater than these two and more apt to destroy the race of
men exist now or ever will arise in nature.[50]
93D V. Their father saw and was aware of each of these things, and
he took thought for the Egyptians. For he was king and priest and
sage.[51] Egyptian tales say that he was also a god.[52] For the Egyp-
tians believe that thousands of gods were their kings one after an-
other, before the land was ruled by men and the kings were traced
in their descent, Peiromis from Peiromis.[53]
At last the divine laws translated him to the ranks of the greater
gods.[54] The day appointed arrived. A public announcement had
94A been made long in advance, and now a brotherhood of priests[55] from
every city of Egypt gathered together with the native soldiery.
These men were there under the compulsion of the law. As for the
other parts of the citizen body, they were allowed to be absent, but
none was barred from being present to watch the voting, though
not to vote themselves. But swineherds were not allowed even
to watch,[56] nor any foreigner or man of foreign extraction[57] who
[50] Merely emphatic; cf. De insomniis 155D.
[51] Cf. Plut. De Is. et Os. 354B.
[52] For this uncertainty about the status of the old king, even whether he is alive or dead, see pp. 81, 316–18.
[53] Hdt. 2.143–44, of priestly succession; Synesius standardizes Herodotus's Ionic form of the name.
[55] As Terzaghi observes, Synesius evokes Herodotus by the use of an Ionic form.
[56] Cf. Hdt. 2.47.
[57] Many of the Goths who deserted to the Roman side after Adrianople must by now have had sons of military age, perhaps by Roman mothers, whom Synesius also wishes to exclude. This criterion would also have banned Eudoxia, daughter of the Frankish general Bauto. Synesius's position is thus far more extreme than mere disapproval of barbarian federates.
fought for the Egyptians as a mercenary.[58] These groups were for-
bidden to be present.
It was for this reason that the elder son had far less support:
94B Typhos's faction consisted of swineherds and foreigners. They
were a senseless and numerous category, but one that yielded to
custom, and neither put their disfranchisement to the test nor even
complained at it. They accepted it as the penalty imposed by law,
and in any case natural for their birth.[59]
VI. The Egyptians choose their kings in the following fashion.[60
] There is a holy mountain beside the great city of Thebes, and an-
other mountain opposite;[61] the Nile flows between them. Of the
mountains, the one on the far side is in Libya. It is the law that the
candidates[62] for the kingship dwell on it for the period of prepara-
tion,[63] so as to see nothing of the election.
94C The holy mountain is in Egypt. There is a tent on the peak for
the king,[64] and beside him all the priests who are wise in the great
wisdom.[65] The arrangement continues for all the elite, allotting the
places according to the dignity of their priesthoods. They form a
[58] The Egyptian context permitted a clear distinction between natives and foreigners, enabling Synesius to dismiss barbarians in Roman legions as mere mercenaries.
[60] Nothing in the Egyptian traditions could have suggested to Synesius that the Egyptians elected their kings, nor does the election in any way correspond to the appointment of a praetorian prefect by the emperor. It is rather a vivid dramatization asserting that Typhos/Caesarius was popular only with the vilest elements of the society, whereas Osiris/Aurelian was esteemed by all the better groups, right up to the gods themselves. Details from Egyptian traditions do serve to authenticate the fantasy; see above and Long 1987, 103–15. Similar graphical expressions of social strata are also to be seen in imperial art of the period: see LOrange[*] 1985, passim.
[64] The outgoing one.
[65] Similar construction at Pl. Ap. 20D, of a different sort of wisdom.
single first circle around the king as its heart. The soldiers come next
as a second circle surrounding this one.[66] They too stand around the
peak, which is another mountain upon the mountain slopes and
stands up just like a nipple,[67] displaying the king in full view even
94D for the most distant bystanders. All those permitted to be present
at the spectacle stand around the nipple on the lower slopes of the
mountain. They merely shout their approval at whatever they see,
and the others actually decide the election.[68]
Once homage has been paid to the king, those whose duty it is
cause the whole assembly[69] to rise, since the divinity is present and
joins with them in the deliberations over the election. The name of
one candidate for the kingship is proclaimed, and the soldiers vote
by raising their hands. But those who carry the sacred images, and
the temple acolytes and the interpreters of the oracles cast ballots.
95A They are fewer in number but have by far the most power. For the
interpreter's ballot is worth a hundred hands, and the image
bearer's twenty, and the acolyte has the power of ten hands. Then
the name of the other royal candidate is proclaimed, and the hands
and ballots on him are taken. If the tally is nearly equal, the king's
vote will make a clear majority for one side or the other. If he gives
his vote to the losing candidate, he puts them on a level. Then they
must set aside the vote and turn to the gods, waiting for a longer
time and performing the sacred rites more minutely. At last, not
95B through screens, nor yet by any of the usual signs, the gods them-
selves proclaim the king,[70] and the populace hears the proclama-
tion handed down from the gods.
The ceremony turned out this way or that, as it chanced on
each occasion. But in the case of Typhos and Osiris, the gods were
visible from the very first without any action by the priests, draw-
ing up the ranks themselves, each marshaling his own initiates;
and it was obvious to all on whose side they were. And yet, even if
they had not been there, every hand, every ballot, was waiting for
95C the name of the younger of the royal youths.[71] But great things are
prefigured here by the corresponding greatness of their omens.
[67] Pace LSJ, s.v. "breast."
[68] Cf. Diod. 1.72.5.
[71] I.e., Osiris. Spontaneous unanimous election is a common encomiastic motif: e.g., Aug. Res gestae 34.1; Tac. Hist. 1.45; Pacatus Pan.Lat. 2[12].31.2.
And the mark of divinity appears on events destined to surpass the
ordinary,[72] whether for better or worse.
VII. Osiris remained in the place where he had originally
crossed over, as he was supposed to. But Typhos was chafing with
anxiety to know the result of the vote and in the end could not re-
strain himself from an attempt to corrupt the balloting. And so,
95D taking no account of himself or of the royal laws, hurling himself
into the river, swept along by the current, swimming and flounder-
ing helplessly, a laughable sight, he landed on the other side of
the river. He thought no one had noticed him, except for those he
approached and promised money. But everyone knew, and they
loathed him and his plan. Yet they decided not to rebuke a de-
ranged character.
In fact, it turned out to be the worst thing he could have done:
in his own presence, in his own hearing, he stood condemned by
every judgment, voted against by every hand. The gods put their
curse upon him as well.
But Osiris, who had not troubled himself at all, arrived when
96A he was sent for, with the gods, priests—everybody, in fact—
advancing to meet him beside the riverbank with holy garlands
and holy flutes, where the ferry[73] which was taking the new king
from the Libyan side had to land.[74] Immediately, great signs from
heaven, and auspicious divine voices and every minor and major
omen by which the future is traced, proclaimed the good tidings of
the new reign to the Egyptians.[75] The demons of the worse faction[76
] were not likely to acquiesce in this or tolerate the good fortune of
[74] Such scenes of adventus were a commonplace of late antique life; see MacCormack 1972, 721–52. A similar procession greets Osiris's return from exile at 123D–124A.
[75] Cf. Plut. De Is. et Os. 355E.
[76] Demons are associated with Typhos in the gods' warnings to Osiris (97A); they enter the actual narrative in 107D–108B.
mankind; they resolved to attack and cause it to fester.[77] A plot too
was indicated.
VIII. When the gods and his father had conducted him
96B through the royal initiation, possessed of clear knowledge, they
gave him clear foreknowledge of countless good things. Above all,
they told him to get rid of his brother, so that he should not bring
everything into confusion. Typhos had been born to bring ill for-
tune to the Egyptians and to his father's hearth. Osiris must pre-
vent him from seeing or hearing of the health and prosperity[78] of
Egypt that his own kingship would bring about. For Typhos's na-
ture could endure nothing good. And they imparted to him knowl-
edge of the double essence of souls and the opposition earthly
souls necessarily hold against celestial.
They told him to prevent these consequences and, undaunted
96C by what men call kinship, to cut off Typhos's hostile nature from
the good and divine series.[79] They told him all the things that he
himself and the Egyptians and their neighbors and all their ter-
ritory would suffer if he showed weakness. For the evil did not lack
power, and everyday precautions would not suffice to obstruct and
96D blunt[80] attacks both open and covert. Typhos too had patrons, a
powerful mass of malicious demons,[81] whose kin he was and from
[80] Homeric metaphor: II. 13.562.
[81] The original Platonic conception of demons was simply intermediate supernatural beings between gods on the one hand and heroes and men on the other (e.g., Symp. 202D–203A; Rep. 392A, 427B; cf. Des Places 1969, 113–17). The belief of later Platonists in demons, good as well as evil, is most fully described in Porph. Abst. 2.37–43 (text with commentary in J. Bidez and F. Cumont, Les mages hellénisés , vol. 2 [1938], 275–84; cf. F. Cumont, Les religions orientales , 4th ed. [1929], 142, 280–81; Lewy [1956] 1978, 497–508; for surveys, MacMullen 1968, 90–93 and notes; C. Zintzen, RLAC 9 [1976]: 644–68). But none goes as far as Synesius in presenting them as exclusively evil (Vollenweider 1985a, 178–79); indeed some Neoplatonists actually denied the existence of evil demons (notably Sallustius; see Nock's edition, pp. lxxviii–ix). Synesius's demonology is of a piece with his thoroughgoing dualism, but we should make some allowance for the fact that his plot required evil to triumph over good, at least temporarily. It is also of relevance that he took the myth from a source in which dualism is more marked than in the generality of Middle Platonism: for a synthetic discussion see J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists (London 1977), 199–225; see also Griffiths 1970, 482–86, for a discussion of Plutarch's reference to Plato Leg . 896Df. as authority for the dualism of good and evil world-souls (De Is. et Os. 370F). Synesius also bears the influence of such works as the Hermetica and theChaldaean Oracles (Lewy [1956] 1978, 259–309), to which he alludes at 99D. Lewy characterizes De providentia 97B–101B as "probably the most vivid extant account of demonic temptation given by a Platonist" (305).
whose ranks he had been brought to birth, so that they could use
him as an instrument of evil against men, their wicked plans pro-
ceeding nicely.[82] And they conceived, gestated, delivered, and
raised in the proper fashion their great future help: Typhos. They
thought that one thing was still lacking in their bid to win every-
thing, that they invest him with the might that ruling brings. Then
97A he would be a perfect child of perfect parents, willing and able to
do great evils.[83]
"You they loathe," said one of the gods, "as bringing profit to
men and loss to themselves; for the disasters of the nations are en-
tertainment for base demons."[84] Recognizing Osiris's natural mild-
ness,[85] they warned him again and again to escort his brother out of
the country, expelling[86] the pollution to some distant part of the
earth.[87] In the end, they were forced to tell him that he would hold
out against his brother for a while; but eventually he would yield
unawares and betray himself and all men, in the fine name of
97B brotherly love winning what was in fact the greatest of disasters.
"But if you will graciously assist me," said he, "I shall not fear
my brother if he remains, and I shall be free from the wrath of the
demons. For it is easy for you, if you are willing, to remedy any-
thing I overlook."
IX. "You misunderstand the situation, my son," said his father
in reply. "The divine region in the universe is reserved for other
beings; it acts for the most part in accordance with the primal
power it possesses, and it is filled with noetic beauty.[88] In that place
[83] The independent parallel of the evil demons' creation of Rufinus in Claudian's invective is striking (In Ruf. 1.86ff.). They have a common ancestry in a tradition now mostly lost.
[84] Terzaghi connects this passage with 107D, where the "base demons" suggest to Typhos and his band of dissolute revelers that they effect a coup.
[85] Synesius constantly emphasizes Osiris's mild, not to say weak, disposition; this portrait is hard to reconcile with the popular modern conviction that he was a fanatic.
there is another race of gods, the hypercosmic,[89] which holds to-
gether all beings down to the very last. In itself it is unswerving
97C and unrelenting toward matter.[90] This race is the blessed object of
contemplation of those who are gods in the natural world,[91] but to
look upon its source is still more blessed. In its isolation it is over-
flowing with goodness, as it overflows with itself. It is good for the
other gods to direct their eyes toward the divinity there. But they
also have charge of the regions of the cosmos, for the activity of
goodness is not single or uniform. As far as it is possible, they
97D lower their contemplative activity to what they administer. There-
fore, the pure element in them is arrayed just beneath that primal
essence. They themselves order those closest to them, and the suc-
cession of ranks descends one after another to the farthest levels of
existence. All things enjoy the care of the first rank through these
intermediaries. Of course, there is no equality among them, for
then the chain could not exist. Beings, as they descend, weaken
98A until they err and falsify their rank, at which point even the exis-
tence of the beings ceases.[92]
"Something like this occurs in matters down here. That which
inherently errs is allotted the farthest and most perishable element
[90] That is to say, it has nothing to do with matter: the hypercosmic gods are entirely dedicated to contemplation of the ultimate verities. Cf. De insomniis 133B.
of the nature that is subject to generation, and of the lot that apper-
tains to bodies.[93] Heaven, however, is allotted the primal and most
imperishable element and is assigned a corresponding type of soul.
And what they are there," he said, indicating the gods, "the dem-
on[94] is here, among these turbid elements—a capricious and rash
nature and, because his distance from that place above is so great,
one that does not perceive the orderliness of divine things.
98B "As it is the lowest rank of beings, it is not sufficient for its own
salvation. It seeps away and does not await true being but mimics it
with becoming. And since the demons are connate with the nature
of this world[95] and have as their lot a destructive essence, it is nec-
essary for the divine element to turn its attention here and impart a
first motion that existence here follows successfully for as long as
the impulse lasts.[96] Similarly, marionettes continue to move even
though the force that imparted the source of motion to the mecha-
98C nism has stopped, but do not move perpetually, for their motion
does not come from within—only while the power given them re-
tains its strength and is not slackened by its progressive separation
from its own generation.[97] Understand, my dear Osiris, that in the
[93] "The . . . most perishable element . . . of the lot that appertains to bodies" echoes in part Plutarch's physical allegorization of Typhos: "[Typhos is] of the element that appertains to bodies, the perishable element" (De Is. et Os. 371B).
[94] Although Synesius normally writes of demons in the plural, there is nothing in the present context to warrant taking this singular demon as the "lord of the demons" (so Vollenweider 1985a, 180).
[96] 99B refers to "appointed times" when the gods come down to earth and "impart motion" to it; 102A describes how this motion eventually runs down and the gods return to "rekindle" it, again (unless required earlier by human weakness) at "appointed times." The conception is inspired ultimately by the myth of Plato's Politicus:
There is an era in which the god himself assists the universe on its way and helps in its rotation. There is also an era in which he releases his control . . . . When it must travel on without him, things go well enough in the years immediately after he abandons control, but as time goes on and forgetfulness sets in, the ancient condition of discord also begins to assert its sway. At last, as the cosmic era draws to its close . . . at that very moment, the god looks upon it again, he who first set it in order. Beholding it in its troubles . . . he takes control of the helm once more. (269C–273D; trans. J. B. Skemp)
same way, the good and the divine both are and are not of this
place but are sent down from elsewhere. Because of this, good
souls may be found here, though only with difficulty; and when-
ever the divine overseers do this, they do what belongs to their
province and not to that of the primal life. To these gods belongs a
98D second kind of blessedness, the simple enjoyment of the first order.
That is a more blessed thing than the ordering of inferior beings,
for the one means turning away from this world, but the other,
turning toward it.
"Surely you have viewed the rite[98] in which there are two pairs
of eyes: the bottom pair must close whenever the top pair is open,
and when the top pair closes, the bottom pair opens correspond-
ingly. Consider this a riddle of contemplation and action. The in-
99A termediate gods perform each alternately, while the more perfect
gods are more often occupied with the better activity. They associ-
ate with the worse only as much as is necessary. This is the work of
the gods, who do what is necessary for the cosmos, though that is
not their principal good work.[99] Men too at times look after house-
hold affairs of more or less importance and at other times pursue
philosophy; but it is when they do the latter that they are more
divine.[100]
X. "'Mark my meaning'[101] from this. Do not demand that the
gods attend on you, for they have contemplation and the first
99B regions of the cosmos as their principal occupation. They are in
heaven, far away. Do not suppose that it is easy for them to de-
scend or that they stay forever. They come down at appointed
[99] That is to say, not even the encosmic gods can be counted on to attend constantly to the affairs of men. Once they have paid one of their periodic visits (described in the next paragraph), man must fend with the demons as best he can on his own.
[100] Synesius refers similarly elsewhere to the common Neoplatonic distinction between contemplation and action: "When the mind is not occupied with the matters of this world, it is occupied with the divine. For there are two parts of philosophy, contemplation and action," Ep. 103 (p. 178.4ff. G); cf. Ep. 57 (= 41 G, p. 66.4ff.); Ep. 101 and 151 to Pylaemenes urge him to cast off the agora's sullying influence on the temple of his mind. Cf. Plotinus 1.6.6, 3.6.5, 4.4.3.
times to impart, like engineers, the beginning of good motion in
a government.[102] This occurs whenever they create harmony in a
kingdom by bringing down into it souls akin to them. This is a di-
vine and magnificent Providence,[103] that through one man the gods
are often able to care for thousands. From this point on they must
99C be engaged in their own affairs. And you, cut off as you are amidst
aliens, must remember whence you come,[104] and also that this is a
sort of public service you are performing for the cosmos.[105] Try to
raise yourself up, not draw the gods down. Take every precaution
for yourself, just as if you were living in a camp in enemy territory,
a divine soul among demons, who, because they are earthborn, are
likely to grow angry and attack anyone who observes alien laws
within their borders. You must be content to be vigilant night and
99D day, with this one concern: to strive not to be overpowered, one
man against many, a foreigner among natives.[106]
"There is also in this world a holy race of heroes[107] who care for
men. They are able to help in small things and in the pursuit of the
higher good.[108] They live here like a hero who resides in this world
though foreign to it, so that its affairs may not be abandoned with-
out some share in a better nature.[109] These heroes lend assistance
where they have power. But when matter stirs up its own off-
[102] Cf. Ep. 57 (= 41 G, p. 67.14ff.), where Synesius takes this model of behavior for himself as bishop. Runia (1976, 53) notes that "specific divine intervention [is] a repugnant idea to a pagan Neoplatonist," referring to Wallis 1972, 121. But Synesius's exposition here makes plain that he takes for granted that it is the intermediate gods who intervene; which is Neoplatonic orthodoxy, e.g., Jul. H.Helios .
[103] The same phrase is used at De regno 29D, of a king sending out governors, analogously to God's use of Nature (imitation of God/Providence more generally, De regno 8B); and again at Ep. 73 (p. 131.23 G), requesting Troïlus to convey to Anthemius a plea for a better governor for Libya.
[104] Cf. Plotinus 5.1.1ff. on the soul's forgetfulness of its origin; Osiris is enlightened, in contrast.
[105] More precise use of the metaphor of leitourgia than De insomniis 139C, which seems to echo Porph. Abst. 4.18; cf. Smith 1974, 36–38.
[106] Contemporary reality influences Synesius's choice of language, importing a suggestion of alien mercenaries into his philosophical exposition. It produces a striking paradox, for in real life, of course, Aurelian was the native and the soldiers foreigners.
[109] Several times in the De providentia Synesius makes use of this remarkable figure of thought: he begins to explain his subject with an analogy, but the analogue turns out to be virtually identical with the subject itself. A sort of mental implosion results.
shoots[110] to war against the soul, there is little resistance on this side
in the absence of the gods. For each thing is strong in its own prov-
100A ince. The demons' first hope will be to make this one their own.
"This is how they will attack. It is not possible that any creature
on the earth should lack some portion of irrationality in his soul.[111
] This irrational part the majority brandish in front of them; the wise
man keeps it sheathed. But of necessity all men have it. The demons
work through this element that is kindred to them to betray and
attack the living creature. What happens is just like a siege. Con-
sider what happens to coals under a torch, quickly kindled because
of their natural predisposition to fire. In the same way, the nature
100B of a demon, which is passionate, or rather, passion itself,[112] living
and moving, draws near to a soul and arouses the passion in it and
leads its potential into action. It accomplishes everything through
proximity. Each passion becomes like the passion that stirred it up.
Thus the demons ignite lust, anger, and all their sibling evils, deal-
ing with souls through the parts of the soul that are related to
themselves. These parts naturally perceive their presence and are
agitated and strengthened by it in their rebellion against mind, un-
til they either take possession of the whole soul or despair of their
purpose. This is the greatest of contests.
100C "There is no opportunity, trick, or place that the demons ne-
glect in their attack. They make their assault from just that place
where one would never expect it. Everywhere there are traps,
everywhere devices, everything stirs up the war from within, until
the demons either take control or abandon the fight. But the gods
are spectators on high of these noble contests, in which you shall
win the crown. May the same be true of your second contest.[113]
[113] The next paragraphs suggest that Osiris's first victory is the moral one within himself (which receives its recognition in his election); the second contest will be Typhos's coup, which of course Osiris loses.
"But there is reason to fear that you may win in the one and
lose in the other. For whenever the divine portion of the soul does
not follow in the train of the worse portion but repeatedly beats it
100D back and turns toward itself, it is natural that in time even that di-
vine portion will grow hardened so as to withstand the enemy's
charges, roofed over[114] so as to become impervious to the influxes
of the demons. In this way, then, the creature actually becomes a
unified and divine whole. And it is a heavenly plant upon the
earth[115] that does not accept any alien graft and produce its fruit;
even that it transforms into its own nature.
"When the demons have despaired of this attempt, then with
all their energies they fight the second contest, to excise and elimi-
nate the plant utterly from the earth, since there is no way it can
101A belong to them. They are ashamed of the defeat if some alien
should go about triumphant in their lands, a trophy of victory real
and visible. Such a man harms them, not just in himself alone, but
also by leading others to revolt against their dominion. When ex-
cellence becomes the goal, the inferior must perish. For these rea-
sons, the demons plot to destroy both citizen and ruler, anyone at
all who rebels against the laws of matter. But now, since you are
king, you can protect yourself more easily than any citizen.[116] For
when attempts from within have failed, they attack from without,
101B using war and faction and everything else that harms the body,[117
] things to which a provident king is least likely to fall victim.[118
] When might and wisdom are united they are invincible; when they
are separated from each other, strength is foolish and prudence
weak, and they are easily conquered.[119]
[115] The phrase is adapted from Pl. Tim. 90A, of the best of the three parts of the human soul.
[117] Lacombrade (1951a, 114 n. 17) claims much too close a relationship between this passage and Leg. 906A, where Plato merely says that men face an eternal moral combat, in which the gods are their allies. Terzaghi somewhat more relevantly compares Rep. 560C, where at least the moral struggle is described in terms of "faction and counter-faction and fighting within a man, against himself." Synesius, however, here distinguishes "war and faction" from the internal struggle, specifying that they harm the body.
[118] At De regno 27D, Synesius states that such external pressures find the good (i.e., philosophic) king invulnerable.
[119] From this sentence through the explanations of Hermes and the Sphinx, a close paraphrase of De regno 7B–C. Cf. also De dono 309B–C.
XI. "Surely you have admired how ingeniously our fathers de-
vised their holy images. Consider Hermes: we Egyptians make the
101C form of the divinity twofold, setting a youth beside an elder, be-
cause we think that if any of us is to supervise well, he must be
both wise and brave, since the one quality achieves nothing with-
out the other.[120] This is why the Sphinx stands in our temple pre-
cincts:[121] she is the holy symbol of the union of two good qualities,
a beast in might and a human in prudence. Might that lacks ra-
tional leadership tends to be capricious, mixing up everything and
confounding affairs; and intelligence is useless for action if it has
no hands to serve it.
101D "It is only with difficulty that virtue and fortune join together.
They meet only for great ends, as in fact they have in you. So
trouble the gods no more, since you can preserve yourself from
within if you are willing. It is not good for them to be continually
away from their provinces and to become attached to alien, inferior
places—if, indeed, it is not actually impious to make inadequate
use of the resources sown within us for keeping earthly affairs in
order according to the arrangement bestowed upon this world.
This is what men are doing if they force the gods to return before
the appointed times to take charge of the affairs of this world.
102A Rather, when the harmony they established is growing slack and
old,[122] they come back again to tighten it and to rekindle the flame,
[120] Such a biform image of Hermes is not in fact known for Egypt; it has always puzzled commentators, starting at least with a second hand in a thirteenth-century manuscript, quoted by Krabinger ad loc. (1825, 179–81; 1835, 225–27). There might be some connection with the Cabiri, an older-younger pair of divinities who are themselves sometimes connected with Hermes (B. Hemberg, Die Kabiren [Uppsala 1950]) and sometimes with the Dioscuri; Krabinger's scholiast adduces Polydeuces here. But a more attractive possibility is the pair of Hermeses mentioned in the Hermetic Asclepius (37), another old puzzle recently explained by Garth Fowden, who suggests that it was the younger (Trismegistus) who was thought to have translated into Greek the works of his grandfather, the original Thoth-Hermes (1986, 29–31).
[121] At De Is. et Os. 354B Plutarch says that the Egyptians place sphinxes before their temples as a mark of "the riddling wisdom their theology holds"; similarly Clem.Al. Strom . 5.5. Griffiths (1980) notes that for the Egyptians the sphinx bore no suggestion of mystery or enigma; the association is entirely Greek.
[122] Vollenweider (1985a, 168) derives "growing old" from senectus mundi at Asclepius 26 (Nock-Festugière II.329.24). That Synesius knew this work (in its Greek original) there can be little doubt (chapter 7, section VI), but the reference there is eschatological: old age is accompanied by catastrophes of every sort until finally god steps in and restores the world. In Synesius the gods "joyfully" rekindle the "aging" harmony, which is contrasted in the next sentence with the extreme condition "when the harmony is ruined and broken through the weakness of its inheritors." Then the debility of the world gives occasion to some particular destructive force, such as that represented by Typhos. But such a force is superadded to the ordinary old age described here, at which the world arrives naturally at regular intervals.
as it were, when it has grown cold. This they do joyfully, for they
are performing a sort of public service for the nature of the cosmos.
Otherwise, they will come only when the harmony is ruined and
broken through the weakness of its inheritors, when this world can
be saved in no other way. Consequently, a god is not roused by any
trivial occurrence or every single error about this or that. He is truly
a wonder, that one man for whose sake a member of the blessed
102B race comes down here! But whenever the whole order and its great
affairs are destroyed, then the gods must pay a visit to impart the
beginning of a new ordering. Therefore let men not complain
when their troubles are their own fault, nor let them accuse the
gods of not providing for them. Providence requires men to make
their own contributions too.
"It is not surprising that there are evils in the region of evils.
Rather, it is remarkable if there is anything else here as well. Such a
thing is an alien dwelling in a foreign land.[123] It is the gift of Provi-
dence, which permits us, if we are not idle but make use of what
102C she gives us, to be happy in all things in all ways. Providence is not
like the mother of a newborn infant, who must take pains to shoo
away insects that might annoy her child, for it is still imperfect and
unable to help itself. Rather, Providence is like that mother who,
once she has raised and equipped her child, bids it use what it has,
and keep evil away from itself. Study this wisdom always, and
reckon it of infinite value for men to know. For they will believe in
Providence and take thought for themselves, becoming both pious
102D and attentive. And they will not think that respect for god and the
practice of virtue conflict with each other.
"Farewell. Be prudent[124] and stop your brother. Prevent the
destiny that hangs over you and the Egyptians. It can be done. But
if you are weak and give in, you will find yourself awaiting the
gods when it is too late."
XII. So he concluded and left by the same route as the gods.[125]
[125] Cf. the similar conclusion to the deceased Theodosius's speech to Stilicho at Claud. IV Cons. Hon. 162–77: "Nec plura locutus / sicut erat liquido signavit tramite nubes / ingrediturque globum Lunae." (The imagery of souls among the stars is a commonplace with no real pagan associations: see the Christian examples at Cameron 1970a,209 and notes.) The translation to heaven of Osiris's and Typhos's father is now definitely achieved: he does not reappear in the tale.
Osiris was left behind, a prodigy beyond the deserts of this world.[126
] He immediately strove to banish evils from the land, without mak-
ing any use of force. Instead, he sacrificed to Persuasion and the
Muses and the Graces, and he brought all men willingly into ac-
cord with the law.[127] And when the gods, from reverence for the
103A king, furnished in generous abundance all the gifts that air and sea
and land hold, he passed on these advantages to his people. He
himself abandoned all leisure and assumed every labor, taking as
his lot little sleep and many cares; he pursued without relaxing the
relaxation of all.[128] Accordingly, man by man, household by house-
hold, family by family, city by city, province by province, he filled
103B all men with goods both internal and external. He encouraged a
zeal for virtue, directing every lesson and every profession to be
practiced for the sake of this one goal. He established rewards for
those who were best at governing and at making their subjects like
themselves. All that is honored must flourish, and all that is ne-
glected must perish.
There also grew in him a passion for all education both intellec-
tual and rhetorical.[129] Men who excelled in such areas were no
[126] Recalling 99C.
[128] The selfless industry of the ideal king goes back, for example, to Xenophon (Cyr. 1.6.8). The key terms (leisure vs. labor, sleep vs. cares) are repeated in countless panegyrics of the imperial age; Dio Or. 1.13, 21, is representative. In the civil sphere (notably, not the military) Osiris generally lives up to the ideal Synesius proposed in De regno , with frequent verbal echoes (e.g., De regno 5C: no leisure, little sleep, many worries); conversely, Typhos and his wife exemplify tyrannical behavior as De regno describes it (e.g., the justice/auction hall, 30C/112D; his pleasure in the suffering of his subjects is a defining characteristic of the tyrant, 6A).
longer to be seen among the common herd. Instead, they shone
with the honors the king gave them for showing that rhetoric[130] is
the servant of prudence because the mind advances when it is
103C clothed in words. Whether it is dressed well or less well will reveal,
as clothes the man, if it is decent or indecent.[131] Osiris thought it
right to honor even elementary education, for he thought that edu-
cation was the source of virtue. Truly at this time above all others
was piety in vogue among the Egyptians. These are the goods of
the soul, and the Egyptians abounded in them during Osiris's
reign.[132] The land seemed to be a school of virtue,[133] with the chil-
103D dren looking to only one man, the leader, doing only what they
saw and saying only what they heard.
About money he himself cared not at all but made every effort
that there should be enough for all. He would never accept a gift,
but he delighted in giving.[134] He released cities from taxation[135] and
gave freely to those in need. What had fallen he raised up, and
what was in danger of falling he restored to health. One city he
raised to greatness; another he adorned and beautified. Where
there was no city, he founded one.[136] A deserted city he repopu-
lated. Individuals too inevitably benefited from the general pros-
104A perity. Osiris did not shrink from lowering his gaze to ordinary
folk, so that during his reign no man was to be seen weeping. Nor
[131] The analogy of style and clothing is a commonplace: e.g., Sen. Ep. 114.4ff., Maecenas's solutae tunicae .
[133] The locus classicus is Thuc. 2.41.1 (Pericles' funeral oration).
[135] De regno has much to say about the virtue of remitting the taxes of cities, particularly Synesius's own (esp. 27D).
[136] A motif of traditional panegyric with no necessary comparandum in Aurelian. Kings and emperors often founded cities (cf. Diod. 1.15.1–2, Osiris's foundation of Thebes), but it seems inconceivable that a praetorian prefect would have.
did Osiris fail to know who needed what and what was preventing
this man or that from being happy. One man craved his due honor,
so he gave it to him. If another man so devoted himself to his books
that he had no time to make a living, he gave him his meals in the
Prytaneum.[137] Still another cared nothing for the honors of men; al-
though his income supported him comfortably enough, perhaps
104B he felt unworthy of office.[138] Osiris knew his feelings and excused
him from public service. Osiris was not distressed; rather, he dis-
tressed the recipient, by giving before being asked. Osiris, with his
reverence for wisdom, thought it right for such a man to be inde-
pendent and free to dedicate himself to god like a sacred animal.[139]
In a word, no man was deprived of his due reward unless he
deserved ill. To him Osiris did not give his due. He made it his am-
bition to conquer even the most shameless man with mild words
and good actions; in this way he thought he would win over his
brother and his comrades, using his own abundance of virtue to
alter their natures. In this one judgment he was mistaken. Malice is
104C not assuaged by virtue; it is inflamed. For if it is natural to cling to
the good, nevertheless as much as the good increases, the grief
caused by it grows also. This is what his brother suffered under the
rule of Osiris, and deeply did he groan.
XIII. No sooner had Osiris taken over the sovereignty than
Typhos nearly killed himself by cracking his wicked head on the
ground and smashing it against columns. For days at a time, glut-
ton though he was, he took no food, and despite his fondness for
wine he refused drink. Longing for sleep, he continued without it.
104D He was hard-pressed by insomnia when he tried to conjure it
away.[140] He tried shutting his eyes to free his mind from stinging
memories, but memory struggles hard against the man who wants
[137] The honor of sitesis for the state's benefactors is a commonplace: e.g., Dem. 23.130; Dio Chrys. Or . 7.60; perhaps uppermost in Synesius's mind, however, Pl. Ap . 36D.
[139] Like the "rustic philosopher" of 113Aff., this man seems to represent Synesius's own hopes. The "sacred animal" conforms with authentic Egyptiana: animals sacred to various gods, such as the Apis bull (on which see Amm. Marc. 22.14.6–8), were kept and were prominently entombed within temple precincts (e.g., P. Teb. 5; P. Oxy . 1188). Synesius uses a similar image of his own life before the bishopric in Ep . 57 (= 41 G, p. 58).
to lay it to rest. When he did close his eyes, the recollection of his
ills remained with him, and when, if ever, sleep did come to him, a
dream would make him still more wretched. Before his eyes he
would see the mountain, the ballots, the hands, every last one for
his brother. Gladly would he awaken then in disgust at that painful
105A sight, and for a long time his ears would ring with the echo of the
cheering crowd.
Nor could he bear to keep quiet in the distress of his soul. He
had only to sneak out of the house for his misfortunes to continue
to dog him. Osiris was in the words, actions, and poems of every-
one: "How good-looking the new king is!" "He speaks so wisely!"
"High-minded yet not boastful; mild yet not lowly!"[141]
Then Typhos would creep back home again and shut himself
in. He and his wife had no reason for living. She was another ap-
105B palling abomination.[142] She tarted herself up[143] and never got her fill
of the theater[144] and marketplace, pleased to suppose that she was
[142] In the character and role of Typhos's wife Synesius departs entirely from Plutarch's myth. There (De Is. et Os . 356B–C), Typhos forms a conspiracy with seventy-two men and the Ethiopian queen Aso; having secretly measured Osiris's body, Typhos makes a chest to fit and tricks Osiris into climbing into it, at which point the conspirators seal him in and hurl it into the Nile to be carried out to sea. Plutarch never indicates Aso's role in the conspiracy, though he does exploit her connection with Ethiopia in a physical allegorization (366C–D). Synesius doubles her in the figures of Typhos's and the Scythian general's wives and makes them lead the plot (108Bff., esp. 113B). Her character bears no resemblance to the passive Nephthys, Typhos's wife of the myth; she rather embodies the antithesis to Osiris's ideally decorous domestic life. Synesius never names these women or the general (or for that matter the old king), presumably because they have no precise correspondents in the myth. Typhos himself, though introduced as the epitome of wickedness, is remarkably inactive in arranging his coup. For this deflection of responsibility from Gaïnas to Caesarius (and wife), see chapter 8, section III (cf. too 110C–D, 111A–B); the ascription of the initiative to his wife is even more discreditable to Caesarius (cf. 107C, 112D; and for further examples of the technique, chapter 7, section III). Naturally, these intimate scenes of intrigue are entirely invented. It is hardly necessary to add that there is no evidence that Caesarius's wife played any such role.
[144] Cf. Chrys. Hom. in Eutr . 1 on the vice of theater attendance; Claud. In Eutr . 2.86–87, 338–41, 354–64; and more generally, C. Baur, John Chrysostom and His Time , vol. 1, trans. M. Gonzaga, 2d ed. (1959), 235–48; and the references in Cameron 1976a, 224 n. 6.
turning every head. Her husband's fall from the kingship[145] dis-
tressed her even more, because she had been planning to pros-
titute the government on a larger scale and to squander its au-
thority in luxury.[146] Middle-aged though he was, Typhos fell for her
like a teenager in love for the first time. Half of his misfortune was
105C the scandal of the person for whose sake he had coveted the su-
preme office and with whom he had intended to share his power.
Even in her personal life she was a most conspicuous creature, am-
bitious to distinguish herself in the most contradictory ways. She
was more feminine than women[147] in discovering yet another lux-
ury, in adding to her beauty, and in surrendering to her nature.
She was more reckless than men in applying herself to a scheme
and in daring an enterprise—a meddlesome and manipulative fe-
105D male. On top of everything else, she had assembled whorish women
and their male hangers-on,[148] to enjoy their unanimity[149] and use
them according to her natural propensities at home or elsewhere.
As for Osiris, only the sight of his child reminded men that
there were women's quarters in his home. Indeed his child Horus
was seen rarely; for the sole virtue of a wife, Osiris thought, was
not to leave the courtyard either in person or in name.[150] Conse-
quently, her rise to the summit of good fortune did not disturb this
sensible woman's established routine, unless by making her even
more retiring because of her greater rank. Osiris himself took no
[145] Synesius lets it slip (despite the conflict with his elaborate fantasy of the royal election) that Typhos had already been king; which on the equation of the kingship with the praetorian prefecture means that Caesarius had already been praetorian prefect. The comparative in the next clause then implies "a larger scale" than Typhos/Caesarius's wife had managed during his first tenure.
[146] The same phrase is used at De regno 6A of the typical behavior of a tyrant.
[147] Superlative for comparative; cf. Kühner-Gerth (hereafter K-G) 2.1.22. The masculine/feminine contrast is a commonplace: e.g., De regno 10B, Ep . 140 (p. 245.10 G), 146 (p. 256.6, 9 G); Cod. Theod . 9.14.3.2 ("pro infinnitate sexus minus ausuras"); Claud. Carm. min . 17.18 ("sexually debiliore").
[149] Literally, "to have them all like-minded": a travesty of the ideal unanimity of a good lung's court; cf. 106D; De regno 29C.
106A pleasure from his good fortune on this score. Rather, he knew that
even without it he would have been no less fortunate: if he wishes
to be good, each man controls such things for himself. We can see
that those who live virtuously, both private citizens and public offi-
cials, are happy in the same way. Each and every life is material for
virtue.
Just as we see on the stage,[151] a tragic actor who has trained his
voice well can play the roles of Creon or Telephus equally well;
purple robes will in no way differ from rags as far as concerns the
volume and beauty of his delivery, or his ability to captivate the
106B theater with the ring of his song.[152] But he will portray both the
handmaid and the lady with the same artistry, and the director of
the drama will demand that he play his part properly whichever
mask he wears. Thus god and fortune provide us, as if with masks,
with lives in the great drama of the cosmos;[153] one life is neither bet-
ter nor worse that another, and each must use his own as he is able.
The serious man is able to live his life well everywhere, whether
106C playing the part of the pauper or the prince. It makes no difference
whatever what the mask is. The actor who avoided one mask but
chose another would be ridiculous! For example, if he shines in the
old woman's role, he wins awards and public acclamation, while if
he turns in a feeble performance as the king, he is hooted and hissed
off the stage, possibly even pelted with stones. No life is our own
possession; rather, we are costumed on the outside with the lives
of others. Both the better and the worse of us do and show what is
experienced within ourselves, players in a real-life drama. Just like
106D costumes, lives may be put on and taken off.
XIV. Now Osiris, since he had been taught what was his own
province and what was not, understood that the soul is the mea-
sure of happiness. He tried to harmonize his own opinions and
those of the members of his household so that, citizens and offi-
cials, they might not be intimidated by external forces. But Typhos
and his wife (who lived by their sensations, without sense) were
[152] A commonplace of popular philosophy, the comparison of actors in rags or purple robes appears to go back to Epictetus: Stob. Flor . 3, p. 211.11 Meineke (frag. 11, p. 412.7 Schenkl); see O. Hense, Teletis reliquiae , 2d ed. (Tübingen 1909), cxff.; compare too the related development in Dio Chrys. Or . 38.39–40.
[153] Another implosive comparison; cf. p. 354 n. 109.
reckless lovers of fortune. They reckoned as their own what was
not, and they were filled with vanity,[154] expecting the kingdom
would be theirs. When it did not come their way, they began to de-
107A spair of themselves and to think that life was insupportable. It is
worth emphasizing again and again that it is the hallmark of boor-
ishness in men not to await life patiently like a course of a meal,
brought round for us to help ourselves, but instead to snatch sur-
reptitiously out of turn. Even if he gets away with it, someone like
this will be laughed at as an unmannerly guest and will be despised
by the host because he churlishly disturbs the arrangements on his
own account. And if he fails, he will cry like a child and cling to the
107B dish that has passed him by and gone on to his neighbor.[155] Every-
thing of this sort was happening to Typhos: the gods had come to
hate him. He himself was lamenting, and the situation had become
a public joke. Even when he took to his bed for many months[156
] and was likely to die any day, it aroused no pity. Those of a more
manly bent were moved to anger and those of a milder to ridicule.
The affair became proverbial, so that anyone who was pale might
be asked, "Has something good happened to your brother?"[157]
107C He might have killed himself, and rightly too, so much was he
given up to evil. But now his abominable wife, all too much a
woman even in this crisis, rescued herself and her husband. Man-
aging him with ease as always, she stopped his tears by keeping
him busy with herself, driving out passion with passion[158] and
barricading his grief with pleasures. In this way he renewed the
struggle, yielding in turn to the most contradictory evils. He would
groan at one moment and swell with passion at the next. Then in-
107D deed licentious boys slipped into his house in even greater num-
bers; there were revels and carousals so he might kill time in their
company and assuage the gloom of his soul.[159] They devised other
[154] A similar phrase at Ep. 143 (p. 250.15 G), of people who falsely pride themselves on philosophic knowledge that is really only superficial.
[155] Or perhaps "and make a spectacle of himself when the dish has passed him by and gone on to his neighbor." Julian (Or. 2.69C), echoing Pl. Rep. 354B, more flatteringly applies the same image to himself, for trying to include too much all at once in his speech.
[156] This is such a specific allegation, without any tendentious implication, that it must be true. If so, then Jones's solution to the problem of the sequence of prefects allows Aurelian far too short a tenure: see chapter 5, section IV.
[157] For a similar witticism, see Macrob. Sat. 2.2.8.
[158] A proverbial expression going back to Arist. Eth. Nic. 1154a27; cf. Rh. 1418a13; here with a more playful application than in the later Ep. 57 (= 41 G, 62.3–4) and 79 (143.17–18 G).
[159] Pl. Alc. min. 150E; used also at De regno 15B of Arcadius's dissolute pastimes.
things too, so that he had as little free time as possible to recall the
good fortune of Osiris. They made swimming pools and islands
in the pools and on the islands artificial hot baths. There they
could strip among the women and leap on one another without
restraint.[160]
XV. While they were occupied in this way, evil demons
prompted Typhos and his wife to attempt a coup.[161] The demons
showed them the way, and now openly helped them manage their
108A other affairs, dancing constant attendance upon them. For they
could not bear to watch their own cause falling ignominiously
apart: prudence practiced, piety increasing, injustice driven away,
concord established, and all good things coming into flower. As for
weeping, only the word was left to the Egyptians. All was aus-
picious; all was in order. Law was the soul of the state, like a single
organism's, and it moved accordingly, its members harmonizing
with the whole.
Maddened by these things, the demons glued themselves to
108B men of their ilk and used them as their instruments. It was in two
boudoirs that the evil was concocted.[162] The general of the foreign
troops[163] had his home in the royal city.[164] He and his troops ap-
peared to be fighting for the Egyptians. They were currently con-
ducting a campaign of sorts, unsuccessfully, against a contingent
[161] Demonizing the instigators of disruption is a useful rhetorical technique: cf. Ep. 57 (= 41 G); Claud. In Ruf. 1, passim; Lib. Or. 19.29, 30, 34; anon. Peri politikes epistemes 5.104 (Mazzucchi [Milan 1982], 33.20 = A. Mai, Script. vet. nov. coll. [Rome 1827], 2:597); the advantage was that no serious motive need be considered. In the present case, Synesius wishes to suggest that the initiative for the plot did not come from the barbarians. They are drawn in later.
[162] Another displacement of responsibility, now with demeaning overtones of emasculation, which is directed against Caesarius, not Gaïnas (cf. below 112D). For the associations of the women's quarters, cf. Dio Chrys. Or. 2.6 on the tyranny of Sarandapallus.
[163] For Gaïnas's barbarian retinue see chapter 4, section III.
[164] "The royal city" is a very common periphrasis for Constantinople. Many references from church council acta are collected in the topographical index of ACO 4.3.3 (1984) 89ff.; cf. Fenster 1968; Dölger 1964, 70–115.
of their own people[165] that had rebelled,[166] and some Egyptian vil-
lages had been faring badly. The demons had devised this for the
purpose of their drama.
108C Typhos's wife, a knavishly subtle creature, visited the wife of
the general day and night. She had no difficulty in winning over
the ignorant and barbarous old woman to the belief that she was
concerned about her and foresaw evil befalling them if things turned
out according to Osiris's plans. For he was, she claimed, accusing
the general of treason on the grounds that he was fighting a col-
lusive war, the barbarians pursuing a common policy with their ar-
mies divided.[167]
"Osiris has decided," she would say, "to bring him back with
all the compulsion and trickery he can manage.[168] As soon as he is
away from his troops, he will take away his command and cruelly
destroy him and you and your children.[169] These fine children,
these beautiful babies—he has decided to cut their throats before
108D they grow up!" With these words she would burst into tears,
chucking them under their chins and pretending goodwill by her
compassion. The old Scythian[170] woman immediately began to wail,
thinking that she was about to see these frightful things before her
very eyes and suffer them herself.
Then Typhos's wife would add another horror, and horror
on horror every day, announcing supposed[171] secret plans against
them: the Scythian race was to be completely eliminated from the
country, and Osiris was daily working toward this end, infiltrating
[166] I.e., the revolt of Tribigild, another Goth, who was commander of barbarian federates in Phrygia. This is one of the most precise references to the events of 400 in book 1.
[167] Contemporaries certainly believed that Gaïnas and Tribigild had planned from the start the rebellion that culminated in Gaïnas's coup, and many moderns have followed them (e.g., Paschoud 1986, 124f.). It is very doubtful whether this was so: see chapter 6, section II. Synesius is not, as usually assumed, a contemporary source here, since he did not write till at least a year after the outbreak of Tribigild's rebellion.
[169] Gaïnas's children are mentioned by Theodoret (HE 5.32) as present with Gaïnas in Thrace later on.
[170] This is the first time the Goths are referred to as Scythians, a barbarian tribe described by Herodotus in a famous digression, 4.46–82. It was a standard reference for the Goths by Synesius's day (Maenchen-Helfen 1973, 5–9); he uses it also at De regno 22C and 23D among other places.
the military rolls[172] and making other provisions so that the Egyp-
tians might be independent. The barbarians they would either kill
109A or drive out.[173] This would be easiest if he made their general a
private citizen by formal dispatch and brought legal proceedings
against him. He thought that once he had managed this, the others
would present no difficulty.
"At this very moment," she says, "Typhos is at home in tears.
He has your affairs at heart, and his policies have always favored
barbarians. It was on your account that we fell short of the king-
dom too, since you did not stand by Typhos at the accession.[174] If
you had, you would now be allowed to insult the Egyptians, own
109B their possessions, and treat your masters as slaves. But you did not
help us then, and now we are powerless to come to your aid. It is a
misfortune for us now that disasters are threatening our friends."
In this way Typhos's wife outmaneuvered the old woman and
utterly terrified her, as if there were no escape. She then laid on her
next scheme, to lead the barbarian back from her panic. The woman
had already learned to follow her lead, and now she gradually
strengthened her and filled her again with hope.
"It is a bold plan," she said, "and requires uncommon daring if
we are not to be under Osiris's rule and live or die as he deter-
109C mines." At first she spoke of insurrection in obscure riddles, then
she hinted at it, and finally she revealed the plan. Bit by bit she
accustomed her to the proposal and the adventure, until finally she
had made the timid creature bold, showing her that Osiris's power
would come to nothing if only they were willing.
"For custom," she said, "habituation to rank, and ancient and
ancestral usages make willing slaves of the lazy. But the revolution-
ary puts the weak to the test. It is the strong man who is free, un-
109D less habit scares him from his intention. Let us not suffer that while
you are armed and Osiris does nothing but pray to the gods, re-
[172] I.e., with nonbarbarians. The expression nicely exaggerates the barbarian dominance in the army. Compare Amm. Marc. 31.16.8, remarking that in 378 the Thracian units all had Roman commanders, "quod his temporibus raro contigit."
[173] This was the program recommended by Synesius himself in the De regno . Though the policy is universally attributed to Aurelian by modern scholars, it is significant that Synesius himself does not directly attribute it to Osiris, leaving it to the allegations of Typhos's wife. Indeed, he saw its neglect as a major factor in Aurelian's downfall (cf. 96C–97B).
[174] Synesius's scenario for the royal election did not allow barbarians the vote (94A), so this reproach underlines Typhos's wife's duplicity. At most, she suggests a campaign of intimidation.
ceive delegations, judge lawsuits, or pursue some other peaceful
activity.[175] But if we make common cause, with us supplying the
nobility and you the forces, Osiris will never again cause trouble to
any of the Scythians. The Egyptians will not think that you are de-
basing anything great or disturbing Egyptian affairs or changing
the constitution, but only administering and managing things alto-
110A gether better; for you will be securing the rule for Typhos, who has
the same father as Osiris and is older and has a greater right to rule
Egypt.[176] To begin with, the Egyptians are not likely to unite against
you, since there would be no great change in their ancestral gov-
ernment. The appearance of rule will be ours, but the advantage
will be yours; you can then feast on all Egypt as if it were handed
to you on a platter. Only promise that you will persuade your
husband."
"And you," said the barbarian, "will join me in persuading
him."[177]
And so they did. When it was announced that the general was
110B riding up, a surreptitious vanguard discreetly dropped word of
Osiris's plot, proclaiming it more clearly with their pretense of se-
crecy than if they had cried aloud what they imagined they were
hiding. Obscure letters enjoining safety threw things into confu-
sion. Already someone said, openly, that they must save them-
selves from Osiris's ambush, then another said it more conspicu-
ously, then another and yet another repeated these things. All these
men belonged to Typhos's party and were the women's fellow
conspirators.[178]
As the finishing touch to all this, the women, the authors of the
[175] Conventional duties of the emperor in peacetime; Millar 1977, chap. 5. Diodorus also records similar activities for Egyptian kings (1.70); for their basis in Hellenistic political philosophy, see further O. Murray, JEA 56 (1970): 141–71.
[176] A delightfully sophistic argument, seeking to justify Typhos's revolution with the claim that he is not a revolutionary at all but merely wishes to substitute the rule of one brother for another. Possibly her argument is to be seen as a travesty of Pl. Tim. 34C, where it is asserted that god must have made the soul before the body, because it is improper for the younger to rule the elder.
[178] A remarkable example of the implosive metaphor (p. 354 n. 109) being lived out: the conspirators, who are part of the actual army, draw their general into the plot by metaphorical military tactics.
110C drama, held a meeting, and Typhos himself, leaving town as if on
some other business, conferred with the general secretly.[179] He
made a compact about the kingship and persuaded the general to
go ahead with the deed at once. If necessary,[180] he was even to
destroy the royal city along with Osiris. He actually made such a
concession as this, on the grounds that the rest of Egypt would
suffice for him. "What's more," he concluded, "your soldiers can
make themselves rich by enslaving a prosperous city, the com-
mon home of Egypt's illustrious men, and by plundering their
possessions."
And so the excellent Typhos pledged the city away, hating it
because of the goodwill its inhabitants had shown toward Osiris.
But the Scythian for his part refused. For he held in high esteem
110D the sacred council and the decent citizens and the prerogatives of
the city. He said that he marched against Osiris not as a volunteer
but under a compulsion that Osiris himself had created. And if he
succeeded in overcoming him, with the city safe and the country-
side unravaged, he said, he would reckon it a gain that no greater
evil proved necessary.[181]
XVI. Our story refuses to dwell on the sufferings of Osiris; it is
111A not in its nature to persevere obstinately in a painful tale. But the
inauspicious[182] Days of Holy Tears have been observed from that
[179] Evidently Gaïnas had not yet returned to the city; presumably this meeting took place at the camp, although the specification that the general's home was in the city (108B) implies that his wife and Typhos's met there, and the metaphorical level of the military language in the intervening paragraph obviates assuming a change of scene. It is interesting to note that Caesarius's wife must often have been in and out of the city visiting her friend Eusebia (cf. Soz. HE 9.2), whereas Caesarius himself might have aroused suspicions by openly visiting the camp at such a moment. But, of course, Synesius may simply have invented this visit.
[181] This extraordinary apologia for a barbarian unanimously condemned in the rest of the tradition (written after his death) is a clear indication that Synesius wrote book 1 before his defeat; Lizzi (1981) claims that Synesius had genuinely moved away from his rabid antibarbarianism of the De regno , but she ignores the fact that Synesius gleefully reverts to this earlier attitude in book 2, as soon as Gaïnas was no longer a live threat. Among other things, it seems to prove that Gaïnas did not occupy Constantinople by force.
time until the present, and those to whom it is permitted have be-
held their images moving.[183]
This much is fitting for everyone to hear. For his country, for its
laws, for its temples,[184] Osiris delivered himself into the hands of
men who were prepared to destroy everything if they could not
take him. He crossed the river in a barge.[185] He was immediately
put under guard wherever he went. The barbarians held an assem-
bly to decide what should be done to him, and Typhos demanded
111B that he be put to death as soon and as violently as possible. But the
barbarians, although they believed they had been wronged, were
indignant at this and respected his virtue.[186] They were for impos-
[183] The immediate context does not provide a referent for "their"; there may be some textual corruption. If so, it is insoluble, and may obscure the key element in the reference. On the face of it, Synesius refers to a current festival, for which he supplies an aetiology. Since the tale itself is a fiction, this claim need not be taken too seriously. The festival is described as if it were Egyptian, and suits the dolorousness of Egyptian rituals that was notorious among Greeks (e.g., Hdt. 2.85, 171; Diod. 1.83.5; Plut. De Is. et Os. 366E; Firm. Mat. Err. prof. rel. 8.3; Orph. Argon . 32; August. De civ. d. 6.10; Arn. Adv. nat. 1.36). Synesius could have known from Lucian, for example, that Egyptian cult statues gave oracles by moving (Syr. d. 36). But that took place in public processions (see A Saite Oracle Papyrus from Thebes , ed. R. A. Parker [Providence 1962], esp. chap. 6, by J. Cerny), which would seem to be excluded by the reference "to whom it is permitted." That detail better suits a Greek mystery cult (or something considered in that light: for example, De regno 16B uses the same phrase of the possibility of seeing the emperor). The most reasonable suggestion is the practice in later Neoplatonic theurgy of divination by dedication and animation of statues (E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational [Berkeley 1951], app. 2, particularly 291–95 and notes). A Christian reference might also be considered: a sorrowful festival at this time of year (April/May) might suggest Good Friday—though the expectation of resurrection three days later is much too optimistic for Aurelian at this juncture: the most Synesius could suggest at the conclusion of book 1 was eventual vindication. It is worth observing that references to works or items surviving "to the present day" are a common trick of fraudulent works claiming a measure of authenticity, e.g., the Historia Augusta , where the alleged survivals almost never are; see Syme 1968, 98–99; 1971, 263–80; 1976, 311ff. (= 1983, 98–108).
[184] There is a similar collocation in Ep. 113 to Evoptius, of Synesius's labors in the defense of the Pentapolis. There is no reason to believe that "temples" has a partisan religious reference in this context.
[186] Synesius spectacularly transfers blame from the barbarians to Typhos/Caesarius. Zosimus (5.18.9), on the other hand, pictures Gaïnas actually resting his sword across the hostages' necks before agreeing to pardon them. Chrysostom claims that he interceded for the lives of Aurelian and Saturninus (PG 52.413). The general shape of the plot here (Osiris's voluntary surrender to his brother, confinement, facing the threat of death, and removal from the country) parallels that of Plutarch at Osiris's imprisonment and death in the chest, which floats down the Nile and out the Tanitic mouth (De Is. et Os . 356C, 357A).
ing exile. But they were embarrassed even at this and decided that
it should be not an exile but a "retirement."[187] They allowed Osiris
to keep his wealth and property, although Typhos had offered it to
them. They touched none of it, any more than they would touch
the sacred objects.[188]
Osiris was dispatched under divine and semidivine escort[189] so
that he would be away at the times fated. Divine law did not permit
that the worse elements should prevail in Egypt or that everything
111C should quickly lapse into disorder and sorrow while a holy soul
was living there. The demons responsible began by uniting against
Osiris so that these things might happen. Typhos, their faithful
servant, whom they had long since brought to birth and finally to
tyranny, was feasting them on every kind of misfortune.[190] The
taxes on the cities were at once multiplied. Nonexistent obliga-
tions were "discovered"; others long buried were dug up.[191] River-
111D dwellers were assigned to service inland; boats were requisitioned
from landsmen so that no one might have time to enjoy human pleasures.[192]
These were the most public abuses, but another was com
moner still. Typhos sent out venal men to be his lieutenants and
governors for the provinces. He publicly auctioned off cities.[193] In-
deed, though their contracts ran for a single year,[194] even the youn-
gest lessors of this or that governorship expected to amass the
[188] It might be reasonable in an Egyptian context to expect barbarians to sack temples, but in Constantinople in 400 it is significant that the barbarians were Christians, if heretics. On just this ground were Orosius and Augustine to play down the significance of Alaric's sack of Rome. But for a puzzling reference to Arians "despoiling the apostles" in a homily of 402, see chapter 8, section IV.
[190] Synesius uses the same metaphor of feasting at 97A and 110A.
[191] Cf. Amm. Marc. 26.6.17, sepulta negotia : possibly reflecting a common source in Eunapius.
[192] The charge has an obviously Egyptian flavor, but no clear contemporary reference. Possibly some Alexandrian client of Synesius's.
[193] Sale of offices was an extremely trite charge of political invective: e.g., Claud. In Ruf . 1.180, In Eutr . 1.196–209; Eunap. frag. 87 (= 72.1 and 2 Blockley); Zos. 4.28.3, 5.1.2; Procop. Anecd . 22.7–9; on suffragium and its abuses generally, see Jones 1964a, 390–96.
[194] For the duration of provincial governorships, see above, p. 342 n. 38.
wherewithal for a licentious old age. This is just one of the things
that happened under Typhos's rule.[195] For cash down, he would
112A write up an agreement as to the term of office. Formerly, a man
would be relieved of office at a charge of malfeasance, another re-
warded for his virtue by a senior post, a larger province, and pro-
longation of his term. But from this time on, everyone everywhere
was continually lamenting, each with a personal woe to tell. Com-
munity by community, council by council, they were bludgeoned
by every sort of evil, so that a single voice, the echo of a common
lament, rose from Egypt to heaven.
112B The gods pitied the race and were preparing to defend it. But
they decided not to do so until virtue and vice were still more
manifestly contrasted. Thus even those who used their minds and
perceptions least might distinguish the better from the worse and
pursue the former and turn aside from the latter.[196]
XVII. Typhos now undertook to excise the reign of Osiris com-
pletely from the memory of man. Among many routes to this goal,
112C his particular favorites were to have cases that had been settled at
law reopened. He would require that the man who had been con-
victed now be the winner. He also enacted new measures with re-
gard to earlier embassies: anyone who had been favored by the di-
vine voice of Osiris was now to be an enemy; he, his city, and his
people were forced to live in misery.[197]
In an impossible situation, two stratagems against Typhos
were available. First, one could give money to his wife. She held
court quite openly, like a brothel,[198] and used her whorish atten-
dants as pimps for her body and her business, transforming what
the Egyptians used to call a hall of justice into an auction hall for
[195] It will be remembered that at the time of writing Typhos had been in office for barely three months.
[196] A frail justification for Caesarius's long tenure in power.
[197] Synesius obviously has in mind his own embassy (cf. De insomniis 148C–D, Hymn 1.431), implying that Caesarius revoked benefits Aurelian had conferred. The reference to reopening settled lawsuits may be entirely general, but perhaps Caesarius had also reversed some judgment involving Cyrene or Synesius, or someone whose sympathy he hoped to win. Synesius's charge need not imply any actual abuse by Caesarius: Cod. Theod. 11.30.16 (1 August 331) had formally established the praetorian prefect's as the court of final appeal.
112D lawsuits.[199] Whoever had intercourse with her[200] found Typhos gra-
cious—he was tame and submissive toward the women's quarters,
especially since he was grateful for their having obtained his throne
for him. This was one path out of trouble for those who found Ty-
phos hostile. The other was to approach one of his abominable crew
of eating companions. They were called "great" and "blessed,"[201
] wretched, false little men[202] that they were. One had to go to these
people and let drop some deliciously contrived piece of abuse
against Osiris. Those who did this were the people least concerned
with virtue, the ones who were not ashamed to profit from any
113A source whatever. Thereupon their fortunes changed as quickly
as their opinions. The story weaseled its way up to the tyrant's pal-
ace and was paraded at dinner. Typhos always returned favor for
favor.[203] One man after another did this and profited from it, though
they knew they were hated by the gods and by decent men. Most
people just tried to endure.
XVIII. There was a certain man, dignified, but nurtured by phi-
losophy in a rather rustic manner and unacquainted with the ways
of the city.[204] And this man, like all of mankind, had met with in-
113B numerable benefits from Osiris. He himself was not obliged to per-
[200] The double meaning is clearly present in the Greek.
[203] A topos of gratiarum actiones , e.g., Auson. 1.1; Synesius slyly puts Caesarius in the subservient position.
form public service, and his country's obligations had been made
less burdensome.[205] Hundreds upon thousands were then writ-
ing poems and speeches, panegyrics on Osiris, returning favor for
favor.
This man was as grateful as they—even more so, being better
endowed. For he wrote both poems and speeches and sang to the
lyre in the Dorian mode, which he considered the only one able to
allow for depth of character and diction.[206] He did not expose his
work to the public, but if there was an audience that could appreci-
113C ate manly discourse and would not tolerate titillation and would
take to heart what they heard, he would entrust his work to them.[207
] He knew that Osiris was a discerning judge of literature, especially
of this sort, and could tell the ephemeral from the enduring. Yet he
rejected the idea of addressing Osiris on the subject of himself, be-
cause he considered words an unequal recompense for deeds and
was ashamed lest he acquire a reputation for flattery because of the
rusticity of his background.[208]
But when Typhos had seized Egypt by force and was ruling as
113D a tyrant, this man acted the rustic even more than before. It was
then that he published, then that he revealed his compositions,
horrifying every listener. He considered it impious not to be per-
fectly candid in his hatred of those who had done outrageous
things to his benefactor. In speech and in writing, he called down
the direst curses on Typhos. Previously guilty of silence, he be-
came a great talker both at home and in public. Osiris was every-
where in his discourse, and everywhere he met people he sang the
praises of Osiris. He inflicted his tales even on those who would
[207] Cf. De regno 1C–2A, where also Synesius describes his speech as "manly." This passage specifically implies that that work was aimed at a select audience.
not bear them. He paid no attention to older men and friends who
114A admonished him. Fear did not shake him from his impetuosity; he
was like a man raving with an unrestrained madness. He did not
stop until he stood as close as possible to Typhos himself, at a time
when distinguished men from all the world were gathered around
him, and gave a long speech in praise of his brother. He urged him
to strive after the virtue so closely related to him.[209] Typhos flared
114B up and was visibly infuriated, though out of shame before the
gathering he restrained himself, compelled to be reasonable. But
from his face one could picture what was going on in his mind: one
form of passion succeeded another, and within moments he turned
every possible color.[210]
From then on he became more hateful and behaved worse. He
had already obliterated the good works of Osiris's reign, but now
he was committing crimes of his own in addition, harassing the
cities on whose behalf the rustic philosopher had spoken, and con-
triving a personal hardship for the man himself so that he might
never return home, forced to remain in the city lamenting and
watching men who hated him enjoy their success.[211]
114C Amidst these circumstances, a god[212] appeared to the stranger
in full epiphany and gave him new strength, bidding him endure.
For he said that not years but months made up the allotted time[213]
[210] A reference to Dio Chrys. Or. 1.81, where Tyranny's expression is said to turn "all sorts of colors" from her unsteady emotions; Dio's phrase in turn echoes Pl. Lysis 222B, where Hippothales' face turns all sorts of colors "from pleasure." Compare further Lib. Or. 33.12.
[211] Though Synesius purports to be reporting fresh outrages, he also repeats the charge relating to his own embassy. There seems no reason why Caesarius should have wanted to retain so obnoxious a character at court; Synesius himself felt obliged to remain in hopes of restoring his tax exemption. In De insomniis 148C–D he says that dream-divination helped him to escape plots directed against him while he was serving as ambassador, which may or may not be connected with the "hardship" here described.
[212] On Synesius's own system, apparently an individual god of the intermediate class, who himself refers to "the gods." Grützmacher (1913, 51) connects this manifestation with Synesius's claims for dream warnings, De insomniis 148C–D. But the god is not issuing private warnings against the personal hazards alluded to in De insomniis . He delivers an apocalyptic prophecy for the whole Egyptian people. The prophecy reflects a long Egyptian tradition (see above, chapter 7, section VI), and this unidentified god is merely a device for working it into Synesius's plot.
[213] The interval before the restoration of better times is normally far longer (900 years in the case of the Oracle of the Lamb). This short interval, as well as corresponding with what Synesius hoped would be the facts, in addition provides a further parallel with the prophecy Dio Chrysostom represents himself as receiving from the Peloponnesian priestess at Or. 1.55 (cf. p. 374 n. 204). It is often inferred from this passage that the real-lifecounterpart to Typhos can only have held his prefecture for "months, not years," but Typhos was still in office when Synesius wrote. It is an optimistic prediction , not a statement.
during which the scepters of Egypt would lift up the claws of the
wild beasts[214] and hold down the crests of the sacred birds.[215] This
is an ineffable token. The stranger recognized it as the writing en-
graved on obelisks and sacred precincts.[216] The god interpreted for
him the meaning of the hieroglyph and gave him the key to the
114D time.[217] "When," he said, "those who are now in power attempt
to tamper with our religious rituals as well,[218] then expect the
Giants"[219] –by this he meant the aliens—"soon to be driven out,
themselves their own avenging Furies.[220] But if any element of their
faction should remain, if it should not be altogether destroyed, if
Typhos himself should remain in his tyrant's palace, even so do not
despair of the gods. This shall be another token for you. When
with water and fire we purify the air about the earth, now defiled
by the exhalation of the godless,[221] then even upon those who re-
[214] The claws evoke the brazen claws of the fourth and most terrifying beast in Daniel (7.7 and 19). The wild beasts are of course Typhos and the barbarians.
[215] Presumably the sacred hawks of the Egyptians; according to DArcy[*] Thompson, archaeologists have found "no less than twenty-six species of diurnal rapacious birds . . . in a collection of over a thousand Egyptian bird-mummies" (A Glossary of Greek Birds , 2d ed. [Oxford 1936], 118). The lowering of their heads symbolizes the humiliation of the Egyptian monarchy. Krabinger (1835, 305) improbably suggested that the crest of the hoopoe was meant, on the grounds that the hoopoe was legendary for its filial piety (Thompson, 99) and might therefore symbolize Osiris, humiliated by his exile.
[216] More than casual Egyptian coloring. This is a traditional device giving authority to the prophecy: see Fowden 1986, 35 and 66 n. 84.
[217] Synesius specifies hieroglyphs in part for obvious historical reasons, in part because by his day it was believed that even for the ancient Egyptians they were "ineffable symbols" (for a contemporary illustration, see Socr. HE 5.17). The fifth-century treatise of Horapollon, himself from Upper Egypt, "combines correct notions of the meanings of many hieroglyphic signs with the most grotesque allegorical reasons for those meanings" (A. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar , 3d ed. [1957], 11). For more details, Fowden 1986, 63–65.
[218] A transparent reference to Gaïnas's attempt to obtain an Arian church within the walls of Constantinople, thwarted by John Chrysostom (Theod. HE 5.32).
[219] For Giants as an apocalyptic symbol, see J. H. Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha , vol. 1 (1983), 106 (4 Esra; Gospel of Eve; 2 Enoch). Even in less specialized contexts battles with barbarians might be compared to the Gigantomachies of Greek myth: for example, Goths in Claudian (Cameron 1970a, 468).
[220] Another detail taken from the apocalyptic tradition: the Oracle of the Potter prophesies that the invaders will kill themselves (chapter 7, section VI).
[221] The defiling of the air need not have any contemporary meteorological reference; it is another datum of the apocalyptic tradition: "fructus terrae conrumpentur nec fecunda tellus erit et aër ipse maesto torpore languescet" (Asclepius 25, Nock-Festugière II.329.22–23), whence Lactantius: "aër enim vitiabitur et corruptus ac pestilens fiet" (Div.inst. 7.16.6); and though the text is damaged, it is clear that the various versions of the Oracle of the Potter said something very similar (Koenen 1968a, 200–202; Nock-Festugière II.382, n. 219). On the other hand, the gods' purifying of the air "with water and fire"(presumably the same as the "missiles and thunderbolts" of the next sentence) is to be the second sign after the tampering with religion. It should therefore be a real and conspicuous heavenly phenomenon, something that Synesius's audience would instantly identify. The obvious candidate is the conspicuous comet of March–May 400 (see p. 168). Vollenweider (1985a, 166) rashly added the earthquakes and other "Naturerschütterungen" listed by Claud. In Eutr. 2.24–45 and Philostorg. HE 11.7. But Claudian's portents are imaginary, and if the quake happened at all, it was not till after the publication of both books of De providentia . It was the quake in the autumn of 400 that encouraged Synesius to leap on the nearest boat home (Cameron 1987, 351–54).
115A main shall justice come. Expect immediately a better dispensation
upon Typhos's removal.[222] For we drive out this sort of monster
with fiery missiles and thunderbolts."
Then the stranger felt that what he had long felt harsh seemed
to augur well, and he no longer grieved at his compulsory deten-
tion, since through it he was to be an eyewitness to the visitation of
the gods. For it was beyond human prediction that a vast armed
force—the barbarians had the legal right to carry weapons in peace-
time[223] –be defeated with no force to resist them. He pondered
how these things could happen, but it seemed beyond his powers
to understand.
115B But not long thereafter there arose a false piece of religious
observance, a counterfeit ritual like a counterfeit coin: something
ancient law bars from the cities, shutting the impiety outside the
gates, beyond the walls.[224] When Typhos tried—not personally, for
fear of the populace of Egypt, but through the barbarians—to in-
troduce this innovation and grant a temple in the city, dissolving
the ancestral laws, the stranger immediately realized that this was
what the god had predicted. "Perhaps then," he thought, "I shall
also see what is to follow." And he waited, now understanding
what was to happen about Osiris in the near future, as well as in
[222] Though Synesius alludes above to Caesarius's continuation in power even after the expulsion of the Goths, it is notable that he still expects that he will fall soon; not altogether unreasonably, on the assumption that they had been his support, provided that Synesius finished book 1 very shortly after the expulsion. In a few months, when he came to write book 2 and the Goths had fallen back from the city and Caesarius nevertheless still was not deposed, a more elaborate apology became necessary.
[223] On the importance of this curiously anachronistic allusion to the Roman ban on civilians bearing arms, see chapter 6, section I.
[224] The "ancient law" referred to was in fact Theodosius's, as Theodoret indicates (HE 5.32): he says that Arcadius was willing to grant Gaïnas this concession, but Chrysostom persuaded him not to yield by calling upon his filial duty. It was only in his myth that Synesius could claim that heresy had always been against the law; in fact this was an innovation of his own day. Holum (1982, 86 n. 30) oddly cites this passage in illustration of Aurelian's religious views; for Synesius's own hostility to heresy, see chapter 2, section IV.
the years yet to come, when Osiris's son Horus would decide to
select the wolf rather than the lion for his ally. The identity of the
wolf is a sacred tale that it would be irreverent to expound, even in
the form of a myth.[225]
Book II[226]
116B I. After this, the gods' attention began to be evident, since evil
was everywhere, and belief in Providence had by now faded from
the minds of men, their impious suspicions supported by the evi-
dence of what they saw. The barbarians were using the city as a
camp,[227] and no human remedy was anywhere to be found. The
general suffered from terrors in the night—Corybantes, I think, as-
saulted him—and outbreaks of panic[228] seized the army by day.[229
] 116C This recurrent alarm rendered them witless and unable to control
their thoughts. They wandered around alone or together, all of
[226] Book 2 shows signs of being a much quicker and less careful composition than book 1. Roughness of construction is particularly apparent in the first chapter. Synesius starts a narrative of the Gothic occupation but almost immediately turns aside into a moralizing summary anticipating the action to come, which he then summarizes more concretely, stressing the theme just brought out: a proem, with one false start.
[228] At Plut. De Is. et Os. 356D, "panic" is etymologized from the behavior of Pans and Satyrs on hearing of the death of Osiris.
[229] A mysterious anxiety that afflicted Gaïnas before the massacre is well documented: see chapter 6, section I. Synesius exploits this anxiety extravagantly, without at all explaining its origin (a fear of reprisals from the civilian population; justified, in the event). Synesius does not deny the Goths' nervousness but ascribes it to divine inspiration so as not to complicate his claim that the Egyptians/Constantinopolitans were helpless before the barbarians and owed their salvation not to ill-provoked violence against Gothic civilians, but to divine Providence. This marks a new conception of Providence from that developed in book 1: see next paragraph and notes.
them like men possessed. At one moment they would test the draw
of their swords[230] as though already eager to do battle, and at the
next piteously beg to be spared. Or they would leap up, now ap-
parently in flight, now in pursuit, as if some opposition had hid-
den itself in the city. But there was not a weapon in the place nor
anyone to use it,[231] and the populace was an easy prey delivered up
by Typhos.
116D It is as clear as day that even those who are well prepared are in
need of God if their preparations are not to be in vain. Victory has
no other source. In judging, imprudently, that the better prepared
are likely to win, one robs the higher cause of its due. When our
plans succeed, God seems superfluous and lays claim to a victory
that is the result of preparation.[232] But if no one intervenes to
produce the result, and the invisible alone is the cause of victory,
117A we have an unimpeachable refutation of those who do not believe
that the gods care for mankind.[233] This is precisely what happened.
Brave, victorious, armed men, whose work and play alike were
all training for war and the battle line, whose cavalry went about
the marketplace in ranks, moving in squadrons to the sound of the
trumpet—if any of them needed a shopkeeper or a shoemaker or
someone to polish his sword, all the rest stood guard over his need,
so that the phalanx would not be broken even in the streets—these
are the soldiers who fled in rout from naked, unarmed, disheart-
ened men who had not even a prayer of victory. They withdrew
117B from the city at a signal, stealing away with their children, their
wives, and their most valued possessions—as if they could not
quite openly have enslaved the Egyptians' wives as well![234]
When the populace saw them packing up, they did not yet
[231] On this tendentious assertion see chapter 6, section I.
[232] For the text, see Cameron, Long, Sherry 1988, 60.
[233] In book 1 Synesius carefully defines Providence as the action of the gods periodically sending down individual good souls as the agents of their care for mankind (Osiris, who fails, and the anticipated Horus, who presumably will not). He now redefines Providence in a sense more like the modern conventional usage, as direct divine intervention, through which an unarmed and demoralized populace, without planning or organization, turned on and defeated an occupying army.
[234] Once again, Synesius does not explain why the barbarians were trying to leave the city secretly instead of enslaving the natives, as he claims was their intention. The reference to wives, children, and possessions makes it plain that Gothic civilians, not soldiers, are in question. Similarly, Sozomen says that the exiting Goths had weapons concealed "in women's coaches." See chapter 6, section I.
understand what was happening but despaired for themselves all
the more. Some locked themselves up at home to wait there for the
fire. Others, choosing the sword instead, purchased a lighter in-
strument of death, not for any enterprise, but so they might offer
themselves to the slaughter when it came. Still others were trying
117C to sail away, their minds set on islands and villages and foreign
cities; any place now seemed safer than great Thebes, where the
palaces of the Egyptians stood. How the gods, with difficulty,
gradually brought them to trust in events and, their courage re-
stored, to choose to save themselves is a tale that will strike the
hearer as utterly incredible.
II. A poor woman, quite elderly,[235] had her business next to one
of the side gates, not a lucrative trade, but one of need. She held
117D out her hands in the hope someone would give her an obol.[236] She
had come to her mendicant's seat very early in the morning—the
necessities of life are good at cheating nature of sleep—and she sat
there doing what one might expect, sending the early risers to their
work with blessings, proclaiming the glad tidings of the day, pray-
ing, and proclaiming that god was propitious.
When she saw in the distance what the Scythians were doing,
since it was fully daylight and they kept on running in and out like
burglars, all packing their goods and carrying them away, she con-
cluded with horror that this was the last day Thebes would see:
118A they must be doing this so that the city would no longer contain
anything of theirs as security. As soon as they had moved camp,
they would strike the first blow without fear that they might share
in the consequences, as would have happened if criminals and vic-
tims had been living together.
She knocked over her beggar's cup[237] and cried out, with many
a lament and appeal to the gods: "When you were wanderers
exiled from your own land, Egypt received you as suppliants. But
118B she treated you more generously than suppliants deserve, for she
even honored you with political rights[238] and shared privileges
with you,[239] and, to top it all, gave you authority in our affairs, so
that there are already some Egyptians who act like Scythians;[240] the
affectation actually benefits them. Your ways are more esteemed
than our own! But what is this? Why are you moving camp? Why
are you packing up and going away? Do you suppose the gods
don't punish ingratitude against benefactors?[241] For they exist and
they will come, even if only when Thebes is no more."
Saying this, she threw herself face down on the ground. A
Scythian sprang upon her, cutlass drawn to chop off the head of
118C the wretched creature who, he surmised,[242] was reviling them and
had made their night's work public. He had thought they were still
acting in secret: none of the people who had noticed had been cou-
rageous enough to confront them. She would have fallen before
his steel, but someone appeared, either a god or like a god—he
appeared, at any rate, as a man[243] –who rose up in indignation,
turned the Scythian toward himself and met his onslaught, got in
118D the first blow, lifted him up, and threw him to the ground. Another
Scythian was upon him and quickly met the same fate. A shout
[240] Synesius is probably thinking of the adoption of barbarian dress and hairstyle, a well-documented affectation that, in the West at least, inspired legislation attempting to ban it: Cod.Theod. 14.10.2 (tentatively dated by Mommsen to 7 April 397; by Seeck 1919, 77, to 399), 3 (6 June 399), 4 (12 December 416); cf. De regno 23C; Claud. In Ruf. 2.82–85, IV Cons. Hon. 466, Bell.Get. 481; Chrys. Hom.act.apost. 37 (PG 60.267); Rut. Namat. Red. 2.49.
[241] . For the text, see Cameron, Long, Sherry 1988, 60–61.
[242] . His difficulty in understanding her language underlines the soldier's foreignness.
[243] There is a marked epic flavor to this whole passage. Compare Socrates' vision of angels defending the palace, and his recommendation that "those who want to learn more precisely about that war [of the Roman army against Gaïnas] should turn to the Gaïnias of Eusebius Scholasticus, who was at that time a pupil of Troïlus the sophist; and having been an eyewitness of the war, related the events of it in an epic of four books; and since the events were recent, he was greatly admired for the poem" (HE 6.6).
rose up from the spot, and men rushed to help. On the one side
were the barbarians who were on the point of leaving or else just
outside the gate when the crisis overtook them. They let go their
pack mules and started back to help their own as quickly as pos-
sible. On the other side was a great mass of Egyptians. One fell
wounded. Another killed a Scythian before another Scythian killed
him in turn. Men were killing and being killed constantly on both
sides.
For the Egyptians, everything that came to hand was a weapon
119A in time of need. They stripped the dead for swords to use or took
them from the living. They outnumbered the aliens, some of whom
had encamped as far as possible from the city to minimize their
fear; god had threatened them with ambush, groundlessly,[244] so
that they would abandon the city whose center was in their hands.
The remainder, the smaller part,[245] were still in the city, busy with
their furnishings so that nothing would be left behind. As it was, a
force many times greater engaged the smaller, any who happened
to be around the gates and others as they arrived to leave.
119B The shouting became louder, and at that point the attention of
the gods became manifest. The entire city, large as it was, had now
perceived the uproar, and news of it reached even the aliens'
camp. Each side had long feared attack from the other. Every citi-
zen now thought that this was Egypt's day appointed, when they
were fated to wipe away the shame the barbarians caused them.
119C They resolved to die in action and to win honor in the grave, for
not even a god could have offered a credible guarantee against
death. They all forced their way through to the disturbance, where
every one of them wished to be, thinking that he would gain by
courting danger while there were still witnesses left to see him.[246]
The barbarians had tried to conceal their departure. When they
realized that they were detected, they ignored those who were left
behind, something like a fifth part of the army.[247] Fearing only for
[244] Returning to the theme of barbarian anxiety, Synesius gives a sensible explanation for their behavior (which the event bore out), only to reject it at once in favor of divine Providence.
[246] That is, while they could at least inspire others by a noble attempt, if not succeed.
[247] Zosimus reports that 7,000 of the Goths took refuge in a Catholic church (5.19.4). It is tempting to combine the figures (whence the traditional estimate that Gaïnas had 35,000 men: Albert 1984, 131). But it is impossible to determine how accurate either might be. It seems unlikely that the church would be large enough to hold 7,000 refugees, as Bury ([1923] 1958, 134) remarks. Nor is it clear whether Synesius's estimate refers toGothic soldiers only, civilians being uncounted; to Gothic soldiers and civilians as a fraction of the total Gothic population in the city; or to Gothic soldiers and civilians counted together but reckoned in terms of the number of the army. Liebeschuetz's cautious "numerous" (1986c) is the best estimate that can be reached.
119D themselves, in case the enemy came out after them, they fled and
took their position a little distance away. They were grateful that
the majority had been saved, when they might have risked the en-
tire force.
Some of the people they left behind were still in their houses.
The gods had long filled them with foreboding; they suspected that
the Scythians were to suffer some fatal ill at the hands of the Egypt-
ians. They concluded that those who were leaving were being pur-
sued as fugitives and that their camp would soon be ransacked.
They supposed that it would be to their advantage to stay right
where they were if they laid down their arms and presented them-
120A selves as suppliants. It might appear that they had been left behind
all alone because they had done no harm to Egyptian concerns,
whereas the others had quit the city in fear of just punishment for
what they had done.
Only those who happened to be by the gates, in the middle of
the terrible scene, knew the truth: the Egyptians had no strong or-
ganized force, no spearman, no spear; no javelin thrower, no jav-
elin. They based their decision on present circumstances. They re-
solved to seize the gates, if they could, and call in their comrades,
whose fear had been groundless,[248] for then the entire city could[249
] be plundered like a bird's nest. A mighty battle was joined; the
120B Egyptians triumphed and sang a song of victory. This too inspired
fear in the barbarians, both inside the city and out. Each group
thought that the Egyptians raised the song in triumph over the
other, so that both broke into lamentation. The victors had not
barred all the doors of all the gates (no small task in Thebes, which
Greek poetry hails as the "hundred-gated"[250] ) before one of the
combatants from the struggle around the gates ran out from the
middle of the fighting to report what was happening and promise
the city to the Scythians. They were there at once, but to no avail.
120C In one moment they praised and blamed their fortune. For a while,
they were overjoyed at the fact that they had escaped the net, but
[248] I.e., the four-fifths of the "army" that had fled the city in groundless fear of ambush, presumably still close enough to be called back.
[250] II . 9.383. Constantinople too was a walled city with many gates, though when Synesius was there not yet the Theodosian wall and gates that still stand.
then they decided to break through the wall and reoccupy the city.
How irresistible a thing is the wisdom of god! No weapon is mighty
nor mind ingenious unless god stands by it! And so it is that before
now men have waged war against themselves. It seems to me an
excellent observation that man is god's plaything, and with his af-
fairs god ever jests and gambles.[251] I think Homer was the first of
120D the Greeks to understand this, when he made up the contest and
set the prizes for every sort of competition at the funeral of Pa-
troclus. In every instance the more likely winners fall short. Teucer
gets second prize after an insignificant archer, "the best man drives
last his single-hoofed horses,"[252] the young man is defeated on the
running track by his elder, and Ajax loses the contest in heavy
armor—yet Homer himself proclaims that Ajax was far the best
121A of all those who mustered at Troy, except for Achilles. But skill,
Homer is saying, and practice and youth and natural superiority
are all small matters compared to the divine.
III. The Egyptians, when they had gloriously won the gates
and put the city wall between themselves and the enemy, turned
against those who had been left behind. They bombarded them
with missiles, beat them, and stabbed them, whether alone or in
groups. Any who seized some fortified position they smoked out[253
] like wasps, along with their priests and temples,[254] to the indignant
[251] As Terzaghi points out, the passage evokes Heraclitus frag. 52 Diels-Kranz and perhaps Plato Leg. 803C. Although this strange formulation of divine Providence seems closer to the spirit of Homer than to that of Platonism, it recalls as well the Neoplatonists' concern with the demiurge's children, the creators of the sublunar world (Tim. 69C).
[252] Il. 23.536.
121B protest of Typhos. He had become Scythian[255] even in his religious
beliefs.[256] He demanded that they negotiate with the barbarians,
and was again working to admit the enemy army,[257] claiming that
no irreparable damage had been done. The people[258] had no lead-
ers but commanded themselves; with the aid of the gods every man
was himself both general and soldier, captain and comrade-in-
arms. What may not occur when a god wills it and imparts to men
the impulse to save themselves by every device? They still did not
yield the gates to Typhos, and in general his tyranny was as good
as dead, since the force that sustained it had been driven from
the city.[259]
121C The people held their first meeting in the presence of the great
priest.[260] The holy fire was kindled,[261] and there were prayers of
[256] For Caesarius's Arian sympathies, see pp. 327–28.
[257] Grützmacher (1913, 55) seems to identify this attempt with John Chrysostom's embassy to Gaïnas in Thrace (Theod. HE 5.33), but the barbarians cannot have gotten that far yet (he makes a second attempt when they have "withdrawn a great distance from Thebes," 122A). This must be some earlier negotiation. Synesius's feeling that any such attempt was rank treachery was not universal.
[259] From now on Synesius consistently and falsely suggests that though still in office Typhos/Caesarius completely lacked influence.
[260] There has been much debate about which historical character Synesius's "great priest" represents, the main candidates being Arcadius and John Chrysostom. He is better seen as an imaginary, composite character. Synesius's equation of the praetorian prefect with the king of Egypt left no room for a superior civil office, once the old king was out of the way. See chapter 5, section VII, for a full discussion. Neither the patriarch nor the emperor would have held public meetings to convict the praetorian prefect, as a simple equation would imply. These meetings merely embody what Synesius claims was popular opinion. The importance of the great priest to the narrative is that a popular appeal might be addressed to him. The appeal itself is Synesius's own wishful thinking; there is no evidence that Caesarius suffered any unpopularity in connection with Gaïnas.
[261] It has been suggested that "the holy fire" refers to the eucharist, which hardly seems likely (Crawford 1901, 520–21). McCormick (1986, 109 n. 126) regards the scene as a Christianized form of victory celebration, but we cannot join him in following Lacombrade (1951a, 105, 109) to identify the great priest as Arcadius. The scene is evocative but vague. The premise of his "prophetic myth" makes Synesius particularly fond of antique references obscurely suggesting contemporary counterparts; here perhaps Ar. Vesp. 860–62 might be compared.
thanksgiving for what had been achieved and of supplication for
what was going to come. They demanded Osiris, seeing no other
salvation for their affairs. The priest promised that he would return
if the gods granted it, as well as those who had been exiled with him
for sharing his policies.[262] Typhos they resolved to string along[263] for
a while.
121D Typhos did not at once suffer what he deserved, which was
that he be made a sacrificial offering for the war, as the man most
responsible that the Egyptians were so long the Scythians' slaves.
Since Justice, who is wise and knows how to husband her opport-
tunities, kept deferring his case, he thought he would escape the
gods' punishment altogether. Still maintaining his hollow tyranny,
he began to extort taxes more strictly and more unscrupulously.[264
] He was already gathering up a second round of contributions even
122A from his underlings, now threatening that he would do some pro-
digious evil while he could, now again humbly begging pity, "so,"
he would say, "that I may not be expelled from the tyranny." He
was, in fact, so utterly infatuated and arrogant[265] as to hope to get
around the priest with flattery and bribes—a man to whom putting
money before ancestral customs was anathema.[266] Even when the
aliens had completely abandoned their position and withdrawn a
great distance from Thebes, Typhos invited them back again with
122B envoys and pleas and gifts.[267] His every act and strategem pro-
claimed clearly that he was going to pledge Egyptian affairs to the
barbarians again. He himself apparently had no anxiety about his
darling Scythians; or at any rate he was glad to think that he would
not live to see Osiris return to his country and to office.
Barbarian hostility toward the country was now directed not at
modifying Egyptian society, as formerly, but at destroying it utterly
and governing in Scythian fashion.[268] To put it briefly, what was
[262] Synesius's one indication that there were other exiles; most other sources mention Saturninus, but only Zosimus names John (5.18.8).
[264] If true, an indication that Caesarius's authority, despite Synesius's assertions, was just as strong as ever.
[267] Cf. Theod. HE 5.33: the "great distance from Thebes" would suit John Chrysostom's embassy to Thrace.
[268] In book 1 Synesius made the barbarians high-mindedly reject this offer of Ty-phos and his wife; he now implies that it had been their intention all along. Apparently Gaïnas no longer seemed to threaten the city, so Synesius now felt free to blame him.
now happening embodied the worst elements of the twin evils,
122C war and faction. Faction's part was its concessions and betrayals
from within, which are no part of war, and war's part was the fact
that the risk belonged to all in common; since the factions, thinking
to save the common lot, sought to transfer sovereignty from those
who had it to the other side. In the present situation both worse
elements from both evils prevailed. There were no Egyptians left
who did not think that the tyrant thought thoughts and did deeds
that were reprehensible; even the wholly reprobate were being
122D chastened by fear. It was this for which the gods had resolved to
wait, so that no smoldering ember[269] of the opposite faction might
be nursed secretly in the government, with specious if not just pre-
texts for evil.[270]
At long last a synod of gods and elders convened to discuss
Typhos,[271] and matters long debated by individuals were brought
into the open. Women who were bilingual interpreted from barbar-
ian into Egyptian and from Egyptian into barbarian for the benefit
of women who did not understand one another's views.[272] Eu-
[269] Od . 5.488–90 is the locus classicus for the banking of coals to preserve a fire.
[270] This is the development for which the gods had been waiting in book 1 (112B; the moralist has to deny the possibility that on longer acquaintance people might actually prefer evil), but now their remedy is to bring back Osiris, whereas in book 1 it was to send a Horus to succeed where Osiris had failed (115B). Formerly they had refused to intervene on behalf of a single mortal, as Osiris's father explains, preferring to send down good souls individually to succor all mankind (97Bff.). In effect, Synesius reverses his picture of the operation of Providence, after the fact, to suit present political conditions.
[271] The synod balances the election of part 1. Both represent (supposed) popular opinion, but whereas the election fictionalizes the imperial appointment, the synod refers to no real event and even in the fiction has no effect.
[272] The fact that the translators and audience are women is puzzling. They may be meant to balance artistically the coup's inception "in two boudoirs," or the jury of elders, who are presumably male. They expand the tableau like a tragic chorus, suggesting avid interest in the community; possibly Synesius's point is that dissatisfaction with Typhos is so widespread that even women turn out for the trial. They may bear an emotive charge as well, though the passage stresses merely the exchange of information: compare Ep. 67 (= 66 G, p. 106.11ff.), where the emotional reaction of the women of the town to their lack of a bishop, over and above that of the men, touches even Synesius and his party. It is notable here that Synesius reveals there were still Goths left unslaughtered for whom to translate. Herodotus refers to the class of Egyptian interpreters (2.154). By this period professional interpretes diversarum gentium were on the staff of the magister officiorum (R. Helm, in Antike Diplomatie , ed. E. Olshausen and H. Biller, Wege der Forschung 462 [Darmstadt 1979], 321–408, cites numerous testimonia on p. 407 n. 343). And John Chrysostom is reported to have used interpreters in his attempts to convert Goths from Arianism (Theod. HE 5.30; further on interpreters in the Church, see MacMullen 1966, 364 n. 44, for numerous references; and Holl 1908, 252f.).
nuchs[273] were there too and clerks,[274] all from the group Typhos and
123A his wife had set against Osiris.[275] These people had just produced
the most damaging evidence that Typhos had surrendered key
positions and all but arranged the siege himself[276] so that the holy
city might be gripped by a reign of terror. And he was, they said,
all eagerness for the Scythians to cross to the other side of the river
as well[277] so that there should be no half-measure in the ruination of
Egyptian affairs and everything might be utterly destroyed, with
no time to summon Osiris.[278] When all this had come out, the hu-
man jury unanimously sentenced Typhos to be put under arrest,
123B and voted for a second trial to determine his penalty or fine. The
gods for their part commended the members of the jury for giving
an adequate sentence.[279] They themselves voted, when Typhos
should have departed life, to hand him over to the Furies to be in
Cocytus, and that finally he be a damned soul, a demon in Tar-
tarus,[280] a monster in the company of Titans and Giants. He was
[275] Plutarch records that just before Typhos's defeat "many," including "his concubine Thoueris" "changed over to Horus's side" (De Is. et Os. 358C). Synesius exploits an opportune pattern in the myth to prop up his own wishful thinking.
[276] Since the "siege" of July 400 was a freak accident, the implied transference of this accusation to Caesarius is naturally preposterous.
[277] As there is no previous indication that the barbarians of the myth were on the other side of the Nile, this can only refer to Goths crossing the Bosporus from Chalcedon.
[278] Literally, "seek after Osiris"; Synesius's wording is prompted by the focus of the myth in Plutarch on the search of Isis for Osiris, and his information that this was reflected in Egyptian ritual. Nothing in book 2 really fits the myth, least of all Osiris's return, but Synesius incorporates such suggestions of it as he can, to lend some coherence to the work as a whole. He does use vocabulary proper to the recall of exiles in the prologue and in 124A below.
[279] Curiously, for all they had done was to postpone the sentencing.
[280] There may be a suggestion of damnation of his soul as a heretic; hardly of excommunication, since Typhos was to be dead by the time it would be applied. Note that Synesius is still waiting for Typhos/Caesarius's death; he was still in power at the time of writing. Interestingly enough, Synesius himself later on was one of the first bishops to use excommunication as a political measure, against the governor Andronicus (Ep. 57, 58 =41, 42 G); for the process, see J. Bingham, The Antiquities of the Christian Church ([1708–22] 1875), 887f.
not ever to see Elysium, not even in a dream, much less lift up his
123C head to glimpse the holy light that is the object of contemplation of
good souls and the blessed gods.
IV. This is the story of Typhos. It may all be told—for what
story of earthly nature could be holy and ineffable? But the affairs
of Osiris are a sacred tale, of divine inspiration, so that it is danger-
ous to risk a narrative.[281] But his birth and upbringing, his primary
and higher education, his high offices, his election to the supreme
123D office on the vote of gods and godly men, his rule, the growth
of the conspiracy against him, how far it succeeded, and where
it fell short[282] –these things should be proclaimed to all, as they
have been.[283]
It might be added that to a man who is blessed in all things
even exile may not be without profit. During that time he was
initiated into the most perfect rites and mysteries of the gods
above. Letting go the reins of government, he lifted up his mind to
contemplation.[284]
124A Let his holy return be told also,[285] the garlanded populace join-
ing the gods in bringing him back and crossing over the whole
promontory to escort the returning party; night-long festivals,
torch-lit processions, distributions of gifts, the eponymous year,[286]
[281] From now on Synesius consistently veils his own reluctance to reveal Aurelian's failure to be restored to office in terms of fear to disclose holy mysteries.
[282] Literally, "how it did not succeed in all respects." It should be noted that Synesius does not dare to claim that Typhos's alleged plot failed outright. It was implausible enough to claim any reversal, since Caesarius was still in office. The alleged failure amounted to no more than Gaïnas's defeat and Osiris's return, neither of which is there any evidence Caesarius opposed.
[283] Synesius's own table of contents for the two books so far, corresponding to the divisions of formal panegyric.
[284] It is possible that the disappointed exile devoted more of his time to prayer, but the enthusiasm for mysteries is characteristic of Synesius. His purpose in any case is to lend respectability to Aurelian's period of removal. It is typical of the panegyrist to make a virtue of necessity; Pacatus similarly makes Theodosius's enforced retirement from public life a georgic idyll in old-Roman style (Pan. Lat. 2[12].9). On Synesius, Aurelian, and the mysteries, see chapter 3, section I.
[285] Synesius has prepared for the possibility of Osiris's return in the narrative, but strikingly he states neither its cause nor its consequences. He implies that Osiris is summoned back by an adoring population disgusted with Typhos, but according to Zosimus the exiles either escaped their jailors or bribed their way out. Zosimus concludes: "Whatever the manner of their escape, they unexpectedly returned to Constantinople" (5.23.1).
and the second sparing of his hostile brother, for whom he inter-
ceded with an enraged populace, praying to the gods for his salva-
tion. In this last matter he behaved with more clemency than justice.
V. We may venture to say this much about Osiris; let holy si-
lence cloak the rest.[287] So says one who touches on holy discourse
cautiously. It would take a rash mind and tongue to attempt what
124B lies beyond; let it remain in holy silence, undisturbed by writing,
lest someone "cast his eye on things not permitted."[288] Both he
who reveals and he who sees arouse the anger of the divine, and
Boeotian tales pull to pieces those who intrude and look upon the
rites of Dionysus.[289] Obscurity is majesty for initiations. Therefore
are the mysteries entrusted to night, and grottoes dug that may not
be trodden. These are the times and places that know how to con-
ceal the divine and the ineffable.[290] Perhaps this is the one thing
124C that we may and do say, cloaking the inviolable as we are able: the
glory of Osiris's youth increased with his years,[291] and the gods
granted him the reward of overseeing the state[292] with a higher
[287] Synesius had originally called his tale a "holy discourse" to enhance its authority (89A); he now takes advantage of this "holiness" to avoid saying any more about Osiris. Much of the rest of the work is devoted to further pseudoreligious rationalization. Cf. O. Casel, De philosophorum Graecorum silentio mystico (1919) and O. Perler "Arkandisziplin," RAC 1 (1950): 667–76; Anastos 1948, 274–76. The truth is that since Aurelian had not been restored to office, there was nothing more to say. The farther Synesius might carry the story, the more obvious it would become. He can hardly have expected his readers to take all this seriously, but it is another matter to claim with Liebeschuetz (1983) that his reticence is "patently humorous."
[289] E.g., Eur. Bacch .
[291] On the basis of this passage and 125C, Liebeschuetz (1983) argues that Synesius describes Aurelian's actual return to the prefecture in 414, when he was indeed an old man. But Synesius himself probably died in 412. The reference to old age is admittedly puzzling. Presumably, since he cannot claim his restoration to office, Synesius is trying to make Aurelian into an elder statesman, a senior voice of wisdom speaking quietly but authoritatively behind Arcadius's throne: see chapter 5, section VI.
title,[293] to show that he was above the injuries inflicted by men.
And the prosperity that he had given to the Egyptians and found
extinguished during Typhos's supremacy he restored and actually
increased. It surpassed its earlier felicity, which now seemed to
have been but a prelude of the good fortune yet to come, no more
than a promise once talked of by the poets of the Greeks, how
124D the virgin who is now among the stars, whom we call Justice, I
think—[294]
The story runs
that earth was once her home,
that she mixed in human throngs and never shunned
society of man or woman of the olden times
but sat among them, immortal though she was.
She dwelled under the same roof with men.
As yet they knew not baleful strife
nor parted interests' bitter feud nor battle.
125A Thus they lived, far from the dangerous sea,
and no ships brought their food from foreign lands,
but oxen and the plough and throned Justice
yielded thousandfold to all their needs, with distribution due.
These things were when earth still fed the golden race.
So long as[295] men made no use of the sea, he says, they were golden
125B and enjoyed the intercourse of the gods. But when ships came into
the service of commercial life, Justice departed so far from the earth
that she is scarcely to be seen on a clear night. Even now when we
do see her she stretches forth to us an ear of corn, not a rudder.
Perhaps she might descend now, and will again converse with us
in person, if farming were encouraged and sailing discouraged.[296]
[293] Apparently Aurelian's patriciate (chapter 5, section VI, above); he would then have received that honor somewhat earlier than otherwise attested.
[294] Aratus Phaen. 101–4, 108–14. The omitted 105–7 include her name. We adapt slightly the translation of E. Poste (1880).
[295] Krabinger's Atticizing correction of the text (followed by Terzaghi) is unnecessary; the sense is unaffected. See further Cameron, Long, Sherry 1988, 62–63.
[296] Whatever Synesius may genuinely have thought about agriculture and commerce in Cyrene, he is here the prisoner of his Hesiodic/Aratean commonplace. At Lib. Or. 18.284 and Amm. Marc. 22.10.6 and 25.4.19 the return of Justice, without the opposition of agriculture and commerce, is applied to Julian, whom Ammianus says applied this tag to his own reign.
No other age has closer approached the tales that poets of old sang
about Justice than Osiris's most glorious kingship.
125C But if the gods, having brought him back from his "retire-
ment,"[297] did not immediately place everything in his hands at the
same time,[298] let us make no more of it than this: the nature of the
body politic does not admit of wholesale change for the better as it
does for the worse.[299] Evil is an instinctive thing, but virtue is at-
tained with toil.[300] Someone must intervene to clear the way; the
divine must proceed in a leisurely and orderly fashion. It was nec-
essary that Osiris, before being deprived of leisure,[301] see and hear
many things. A king's ears are often deceived.[302]
125D VI. But we must take care not to divulge any of the ineffable
mysteries. May the divine be propitious.
Now that we have learned the fortunes of one brother long ago
and one in our own day, a fascinating question confronts us. Why
is it that whenever a nature arises that is not just slightly better or
worse than the norm, but enormously so—virtue unmixed with evil
or evil unmixed with virtue—its undiluted opposite also springs up
somewhere nearby? Widely divergent offspring proceed from one
home, and the root for the two shoots is single.[303]
Therefore, let us ask Philosophy what she will identify as the
126A cause of this paradoxical situation. Perhaps she will borrow some-
thing from Poetry and answer, "Mortals,
[298] Synesius's way of conceding that Aurelian was not restored to office. Pace Liebeschuetz, this passage does not imply that Synesius knew that Aurelian was eventually reappointed (see above, n. 291). The concluding note Synesius sounds for the tale, looking to "the remaining days," looks to the future as much as the "riddle of the wolf" that concludes book 1.
[299] Synesius proposes two contradictory justifications for Osiris's not being restored to office: (1) Typhos is allowed to continue in office until everyone is fully convinced of the undesirability of evil, and then the gods will intervene; and (2) a preliminary cleansing of the state must be done before the godlike Osiris will deign to resume the kingship. The problem is that Typhos's rule covers the latter period also.
[300] The concept can be traced back to Hes. Op . 287ff.
[302] At De regno 27B, ambassador Synesius says that it is only through embassies that the king can have full knowledge of his realm.
[303] This image dramatically contradicts Synesius's derivation of good and evil souls from diametrically opposed springs (book 1, 89B). A similar point about the proximity of extremes is made by Themistius (Or . 22.267C, vol. 2:55.22 Downey-Norman).
on the threshold of Zeus are set two jars
of gifts such as he grants, one of evil, the other of good.[304]
He usually pours and mixes in an equal or nearly equal amount
from each jar, producing a symmetry in accordance with nature,[305
] since at the beginning the generations of man have equal quantities
of seed from both jars, and the good and bad seeds are united by
reason of the nature they share.[306] But whenever he pours exclu-
sively from one or the other portion, and a father is entirely blessed
or cursed in the elder of his children, the entirety of what is left in
126B the jars goes to a future child. The god who is doing the pouring
will make up the deficiency, since the two jars must be drained
equally. Whenever a god somehow exhausts one portion on the
first child, the remainder will be unmixed.[307]
If she were to say these things, she would persuade us, since
we observe likewise that the sweetest part of the fig tree is the fruit,
but the leaves, bark, root, and trunk are all very bitter. It would
seem that the nature of the tree consumes all the inferior matter it
possesses in its inedible parts, but lets its best matter remain pure
126C in its fruit. Accordingly the sons of farmers (let us be content with
humble illustrations to help us do more to convey the truth) in
accordance with nature, perhaps instinctively, plant bad-smelling
plants beside good-smelling ones, and sweet ones beside bitter
ones. Through their affinity with it, the bitter plants draw to them-
selves all the bad matter the earth holds matted within it, leaving
[304] II . 24.527–28. Plato (Rep . 379D) reproaches this passage for implying that the god causes evil as well as good; he is followed by Plutarch (De and. poet . 24A-B; De Is. et Os . 369C). Sophists also quote the passage freely, often without criticism, e.g., Dio Chrys. Or . 64.340; Max.Tyr. 34.3 (p. 394 Hobein); Syn. De insomniis 140B, Hymn 1.663–78 (Terzaghi ad loc. adduces among other passages De providentia 89B, but in fact the two springs represent a different kind of dualism: they have to do with the type of soul, not its experience, and the springs do not mix). It is clear that Synesius belongs to the rhetorical rather than the philosophical tradition, especially since he here flagrantly contradicts his earlier dualism. His implication that the net good and bad must be equal within every family is highly idiosyncratic.
[307] Cf. 91C.
126D distilled in the better roots only the better sap and smell. This is
how they purify a garden.[308]
VII. It follows logically, in the manner of one geometrical corol-
lary emerging from another,[309] that utterly wicked children are the
elder sons in their generation.[310] And this purifies the seeds in a
family whenever a god prepares a birth of immaculate and pure
virtue. Thus it comes about that the thing that is seemingly most
127A one's own is actually the most alien of all. This will not happen to
those who follow nature, half bad and half good, but rather to
those who disdain the natural condition and are distributed in its
separate parts, which nature keeps united. It would be miraculous
if it did not happen to such people.
This is enough on that point. But another problem arises that
requires another discussion. The same things very often happen in
different places and times,[311] and as they age men become spec-
127B tators of the things they heard of as boys, either from books or
from their grandfathers: this seems very strange to me. And if it is
not to remain a puzzle, we should seek an explanation. Let us find
and expound its proper cause—although that may be no small or
simple problem.
Let us suppose that the cosmos is a single whole composed of
its parts. We shall then think of it as flowing and breathing as one,
for thus might it preserve its oneness.[312] And we shall assume that
[308] Rotating crops is advantageous, of course, and certain plants do grow well in company with one another; but Synesius obviously speaks as a philosopher, not as a gardener. His information comes from Plut. Quaest. conv. 5.9, 684B.
[309] Synesius was fond of such plays on the language of geometry, doubtless with some thought of Hypatia: cf. Ep . 93 (to Hesychius, p.155.11–12 G), 131 (to Pylaemenes, p. 225.1–3 G).
[311] Fitzgerald (1930, 434–36) reads this passage too narrowly as alluding to Plato's doctrine of recurrent cataclysm and divine intervention in the world, though certainly his version of the idea of cycles of time exerted great influence on the later traditions (see in general Sorabji 1983, 182–90); here his periodic destruction is absent. Synesius introduces the question particularly to hint again that his myth has its counterpart in recent history.
[312] Terzaghi cites De insomniis 132B, where Synesius claims that the possibility of oracles is implied by the sympathy of the universe (cf. Pl. Tim . 40A, and more generally 20Cff., 33–34).
its parts do not lack sympathy for one another, for how may they
be one if they are not joined together by nature? Accordingly, the
parts will act upon one another and be acted upon by one another.
127C Some will only act, and others will only be acted upon. Proceeding
to our second problem with this assumption, we may logically
identify the blessed body that moves in a circle as the cause of the
things of this world.[313] For both are parts of the cosmos, and they
have some effect on one another. If there is generation in the realm
about us, the cause of generation is in the realm above us. It is from
this source that the seeds of events arrive here. If anyone should
127D propose on the basis of astronomy that the proofs, some simple
and others complex, recur with the circuits of the stars and spheres,
he would be following the lore of Egypt as well as Greece,[314] su-
premely wise in both, combining intelligence with knowledge. Such
a man would know that when the same movements recur, the
effects recur along with the causes, and that lives on earth now are
the same as those of old, and so are births, upbringings, intellects,
128A and fortunes.[315] Therefore, we should not be surprised to see an-
cient history come to life again. Indeed, we have seen it, since
events that happened in the past and have been happening for a
period of several months[316] agree exactly with the revelations of
this story. The forms hidden in matter accord with the mysteries of
the fable. What they may be is not yet for me to reveal. Different
people will have different guesses, and if the myth's clarion call
sounds around their ears, men will pore over Egyptian tales with a
128B craving to know what will be, and draw the parallel to present
events from the allegory. But history and myth do not entirely
agree with one another.[317] Let men know that it is no act of piety to
attempt to unearth what should be buried for the present,
for the gods keep life hidden from man.[318]
[314] Egyptian claims to the origins of astronomical science are well attested in the Greek tradition: e.g., Diod. 1.9.6, 1.50.1–2 (beyond the section believed to have been taken from Hecataeus of Abdera; see Jacoby, FGrH 264), 1.81.6, 5.57.2–4; Griffiths refers also to Pease on Cic. Div . 1.2.
[315] Again, the biographical schedule of panegyric; cf. 123C–D.
[317] Synesius's own admission that the wishful thinking of his myth does not invariably correspond with the unwelcome facts of A.D. 400. He also avoids the philosophical difficulties that a rigorous doctrine of recurrence presents.
VIII. Pythagoras of Samos says that the wise man is simply a
spectator of things that are and things that come to be, for the wise
man enters the cosmos[319] as though it were a holy contest,[320] in
order to watch what happens. Hence let us reason out what sort of
128C spectator the man in this position should be. Do we need to state
the obvious, that it is the man who waits in his place[321] for things to
emerge from the curtain one by one in order? But if anyone should
force his way onto the stage and brazenly look in[322] as though he
had a right to inspect all the jumble of stage equipment through
128D the proscenium, the judges of the competition alert their guards
against him. Even if he got away with it, he would understand
nothing clearly, scarcely even making out the confused and indis-
tinguishable images. Indeed, it is the custom of the theater for
some things to be stated in a prologue:[323] someone must come for-
ward and explain to the audience what they are about to see. This
man causes no offense. He serves the producer and gets his infor-
mation from him, not by prying or by disturbing things better left
undisturbed.[324] Moreover, once he has learned his part he must
keep silent before rushing to make it public. Custom does not al-
ways permit even the actors to know the time of their competi-
129A tion—instead they must wait for the signal for them to go on. So
too let him with whom god shares life's stage equipment, which
nature holds in reserve, keep silent out of respect for the honor—
even more so, perhaps, than those who did not hear it. We guess at
what we do not know, but the farther a guess is pushed, the more
uncertain it becomes and the more controversy it generates. But
[321] As Osiris awaits the results of the royal election (95C; cf. 94B). The message here is that Aurelian must wait patiently for his restoration.
[323] See Viljamaa 1968, 68–92; Cameron 1970b, 119–29.
[324] For the proverb see Anth.Pal. 9.685 and the other passages quoted in the Budé edition ad loc.
knowledge of truth is precise; precise too its telling.[325] This too will
be concealed by the wise man, since it has been given to him on
129B trust by god. Men hate babblers. If god does not think a man
worthy of initiation, he should not push himself forward, nor
should he spy. Men hate busybodies; it makes no sense for a man
who will soon receive a fair portion to become upset.[326] It is only a
short time before men are allotted their deserts, and things end up
being seen and heard by all:
The remaining days
are the wisest witnesses.[327]
[325] Cf. Amm. Marc. 14.10.13, "veritatis enim absoluta semper ratio est simplex," on which Rolfe cites Cic. Fin. 5.14.38.
[326] The Greek of these concluding sentences is extremely vague, but the Pindaric tag makes it plain that Synesius is thinking of the information he withholds, in justification of his failure to complete his story.
[327] Pind. Ol. 1.33–34. As with his allusion to Horus at the end of book 1, Synesius urges his audience to await patiently Osiris/Aurelian's eventual vindication—demonstrating, against Liebeschuetz 1983, 40, that he wrote before Aurelian's return to office in 414.