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Updated: June 12, 2025
"It is well," said he, "that neither a merchant nor a fisherman shall have it; for such men think only of their business and care really nothing for beauty." "We agree with you," said the messengers; "and we present the prize to you because you are the wisest of the wise." "You are mistaken," answered Pittacus.
Sixthly, Pittacus said, Where evil men are kept from ruling, and good men from not ruling. Chilo, pausing a little while, determined that the best and most enduring state was where the subject minded the law most and the lawyers least. Periander concluded with his opinion, that all of them would best approve that democracy which came next and was likest to an aristocracy.
Bias subjoined, And who would be first and foremost in conforming to the laws of his country. Thales added, I reckon that prince happy, who, being old, dies in his bed a natural death. Fourthly, Anacharsis, If he alone be a wise man. Fifthly, Cleobulus said, If he trust none of his courtiers. Sixthly, Pittacus spake thus, If he could so treat his subjects that they feared not him but for him.
Myrcinus, an Edonian town, also came over to him; the Edonian king Pittacus having been killed by the sons of Goaxis and his own wife Brauro; and Galepsus and Oesime, which are Thasian colonies, not long after followed its example. Perdiccas too came up immediately after the capture and joined in these arrangements.
Pittacus does not say as Simonides says, that hardly can a man become good, but hardly can a man be good: and our friend Prodicus would maintain that being, Protagoras, is not the same as becoming; and if they are not the same, then Simonides is not inconsistent with himself. I dare say that Prodicus and many others would say, as Hesiod says,
Pittacus wronged by one whom he had it in his power to punish, let him go free, saying, Forgiveness is better than revenge. The one shows native gentleness, the other savagery. "My brother ought not to have treated me thus." True: but he must see to that. However he may treat me, I must deal rightly by him. This is what lies with me, what none can hinder.
The foundation of the poet's superiority is, of course, his claim that his inspiration gives him mystical experience of the things which the scholar can only remotely speculate about. Therefore Percy Mackaye makes Sappho vaunt over the philosopher, Pittacus: Yours is the living pall, The aloof and frozen place of listeners And lookers-on at life. But mine ah!
Anacharsis subjoined: He fears your severe law, my friend Pittacus, wherein you decreed the drunkard a double punishment. You seem, said Pittacus, a little to fear the penalty, who have adventured heretofore, and now again before my face, to break that law and to demand a crown for the reward of your debauch. Why not, quoth Anacharsis, when there is a reward promised to the hardest drinker?
Now Pittacus had a saying, 'Hard is it to be good: and Simonides, who was jealous of the fame of this saying, wrote a poem which was designed to controvert it. No, says he, Pittacus; not 'hard to be good, but 'hard to become good. Socrates proceeds to argue in a highly impressive manner that the whole composition is intended as an attack upon Pittacus.
Then you and I are prepared to take up arms against any one who attributes such a saying to Simonides or Bias or Pittacus, or any other wise man or seer? I am quite ready to do battle at your side, he said. Shall I tell you whose I believe the saying to be? Whose?
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