In Praise of Baldness

VI. Rehdigerianus manuscript of the Elizabethana Library in Wrocław, No. 88, 15th century, on paper, in small folio, consisting of 165 leaves, written in various hands, which, through the intervention of the most illustrious and kind man, Carolus Dominicus Unterholzner, Doctor of Law and Professor at the University of Wrocław, was most liberally sent to me in Munich by the most distinguished magistrate of the city of Wrocław, and which I myself have collated (a).

B. — EDITIONS.

Synesii Episcopi Cyrenensis Opuscula. Greek. By the study and work of Adr. Turnebus. Paris, 1553, in folio. Synesii Episcopi Cyrenes Opera quæ exstant omnia. Interpreted by Dionysius Petavius, etc. Paris, 1612, in folio. This edition was reissued against the wishes of Petavius, with some changes, Paris, 1631, at the expense of Claude Sonnius, at the end of the Works of St. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem. By the study and work of Joan. Prevotius, ibid., 1631, in folio. Synesii Opera. Interpreted by the same Dionysius Petavius, etc. Paris, 1633, at the end of the works of Cyril of Jerusalem, by the study and work of Jo. Prevotius, ibid., 1640, in folio. I have also used the Encomium of Hair by Dio Chrysostom, which exists in the *Schediasmata* of Frederik Morel on the writings of Dio Chrysostom, ed. Paris, p. 102; Reisk. T. II, p. 702 et seq., compared with the old manuscript codex of Huraltus Messaeus and rendered into Latin; likewise the Latin interpretation of the Briton John Phrea, which, with the commentaries of Beatus Rhenanus, is appended to the *Encomium Moriae* of Erasmus of Rotterdam, printed at Basel, 1517, 1519, 1522, in quarto. Added to these resources are the Works of Synesius of Cyrene written in Latin by Janus Cornarius, to which are joined the epitomes of the entire Aristotelian philosophy by Georgius Pachymeres the Hieromnemon, translated into Latin by Philippus Bechius, Basel, 1560, in folio. This little work of Synesius was recently translated into Italian by Massimiliano Angelelli (*delle Opere di Sinesio tradotte dal Greco con qualche dichiarazione*, Bologna, 1827, 8vo, at Riccardo Masi, Vol. I, Part 1, p. 25 et seq.). See *Biblioteca Italiana*, T. XLIX, p. 3 et seq. (a) I have described this book more accurately in the new preface to the *Ephesian Tale* of Xenophon, translated by me into the vernacular, Munich, 1831, at the Fleischmann bookstore.

SYNESIUS' ENCOMIUM ON BALDNESS

^A 63 1. That man, endowed with a golden tongue, wrote an encomium of hair, one so brilliant indeed that it would necessarily make even a bald man feel ashamed. For the discourse itself relies upon the protection of nature, as it were, and makes an assault. For we are all by nature possessed by a desire for beauty, to which hair contributes in great measure, having been endeared to us by nature from our childhood. ^B Indeed, when the evil began, and my hair was falling out, I began to be distressed in my heart; and as it grew worse and worse, with one hair falling after another, and then two or more at once, and a huge war had broken out, and things were being carried and tossed about on my head, then truly I felt that I was suffering things much more grievous than the Athenians did long ago when their trees in Acharnae were cut down by Archidamus; and I was quickly shown to be an Euboean of no account, those whom poetry narrates set out for the Trojan expedition with full heads of hair. In that situation, whom among the gods or demons did I not invoke? My mind persuaded me that I should attempt to write an encomium of Epicurus, not being disposed in the same way regarding the gods, but as one who might, in return, be able to take up a defense (*)

(*) It was not permitted to us to place Krabinger's notes beneath the text as they are too lengthy; you have them at the end of the volume. EDIT. PATR.

where I, for my part, ^A might show what I could. For I used to say to myself: Where is that providence which gives each person that which is just and deserved? For by what merit of mine shall I appear more unseemly than women? It is not a grave matter, if I seem so only to my neighbors; for I am most observant of justice and equity in matters of love, and I think I can truly contend with Bellerophon in chastity. But they say that mothers and sisters attribute something to the beauty of men; and Parysatis proved this, who, on account of the handsome Cyrus, pursued King Artaxerxes with hatred.

β. ^B Therefore I used to lament these things, and I devised nothing small regarding this calamity. But when the passage of time made it more familiar to me, and reason, entering in opposition, stood against the passion, and bit by bit it yielded, I was by this means easier and recovering. But now this very Dio has applied a new impulse to it, and he invades me again with an advocate and defender. And yet, not even Hercules himself, as the saying goes, could withstand two; who could not sustain the Molionidae who attacked suddenly from an ambush, and, when fighting with the hydra, he contended with her alone for some time, as long as she was alone; but when the crab came to her aid, he would have collapsed from the exertion, had he not brought Iolaus to his assistance. But to me, since no nephew of my brother, ^C like Iolaus, is present, something of this sort seems to have happened through Dio. Wherefore, forgetting myself and my reasons again, I compose elegies and laments about my hair. But you, since you are the best of the bald, and show yourself a spirited and bold man, and are so far from being ashamed of this calamity that, when they peer into the faces of the guests as if to verify the head, you voluntarily present yourself, and from this, as if from some good thing, you affect honor and glory: do you, I say, bear that speech with a calm mind, and be, as they say, of an accommodating heart. And as Ulysses once endured the petulance of the serving-maids with an unshaken virtue of mind, so must you strive to be in no way disturbed by that. Or can you not do this? What do you say? You surely can. Hear then: there will be no need to unroll the book; I myself will speak from memory; for few things, the inner ^D concinnity of which adheres to the mind, are such that they would ever fall out of memory, even if one wished it.

γ. ^D Rising early, and saluting the gods, as is my custom, I used to tend to my hair. For I happened then to have a softer body; and it had been long neglected. It was altogether matted and twisted, much like the wool that hangs from the legs of sheep, although ours was even more squalid, inasmuch as it was interwoven with finer hairs. Thus the hair was horrid to behold, and heavy, and stubbornly resistant to being loosed, which, when you combed it, you would see either pulled out or stretched. Therefore, I used to praise the men who are studious of hair, who, for the love of grooming and elegance, take special care of the hair, which they deem of great importance, and have a comb...

^A always in their hair, with which they card it, when they have leisure; and what is even more difficult 68, when they lie on the ground, they are careful that it never touches the earth, supporting their head with a small piece of wood, that it may be as far away from the ground as possible, and they take more care to keep their hair clean than to sleep comfortably. For it seems to make them both handsome and formidable 69. But sleep, however sweet it may be 70, makes one slow and heedless. Nor does this matter seem to have been neglected by the Lacedaemonians 71, who, having arrived 72 before that great and terrible battle, when they alone of the Greeks 73 were about to withstand the king 74, being three hundred in number 75, were sitting and grooming their hair.

^B It seems to me, moreover, that Homer deems such a thing worthy of the greatest care 76. Indeed, he does not often praise the handsome by their eyes, nor does he consider that to be the most important proof of beauty. Therefore, he praises the eyes of none 77 of the heroes, except Agamemnon, and that when he is praising his whole body as well; and he calls not only all the Greeks 78 black-eyed 79—which was common to all Greeks 80—but Agamemnon himself as well; however, he bestows praise on the hair of individuals; on Achilles above all: *And she seized Achilles by his yellow hair.* Then, naming Menelaus as yellow because of his hair. He also mentions Hector's hair: *And round about, his dark* *Locks were worn.* Then, when Euphorbus 81, the handsomest of the Trojans, was dying, he laments nothing else but his hair: *His hair was defiled with blood, like the Graces,* *His locks, which were bound with gold and silver.* And when he describes Odysseus 82 as being made handsome by Athena, he says: *His dark locks hung from his head;* and again concerning the same: *He shed curled locks upon his head, like to the hyacinth flower.* ^C Furthermore, does not Homer consider the adornment of hair to be more fitting for men 84 than for women? Indeed, when he speaks of the beauty 85 of women, he does not seem to mention hair as often. For he assigns another type of praise to the goddesses themselves, calling Venus golden, Juno conspicuous for her large, round eyes, and Thetis silver-footed 87. But of Jupiter, the praise of his hair is for him supreme 88: *The great hair of the Thunderer was suddenly shaken.* 89

4. So much for the words of Dio. But 90 as I am not a poor prophet 91, I knew that Thrasymachus would be 92 overcome with shame in seeing me. But a similar experience 93 did not happen to me regarding him. Truly, having been utterly captivated by the first part of the discourse 94, it now seems to me that Dio possesses an incredible faculty for speaking 95, yet he has nothing to say, and despite his very faculty

^A of speech, he could have seemed much more admirable had he turned his force toward praising that which is contrary, namely our own baldness. For he who is so copious on a subject so barren and destitute, what are we to think he would have done had he happened upon a subject capable of such a wealth of eloquence? Now, however, as he possessed hair and the art, he used the art concerning the hair. But how cunningly 98 he introduced himself into the book! For there is no other who is a lover of hair in that discourse, he who is beautifying his hair with a reed-pen, than he himself 99, with that very same reed-pen with which he once wrote the discourse [(1)]. But if I, too, am bald, and am able to speak, and if the subject is in reality much more beautiful than the subject of his praise [(2)]—or rather, if I am no worse than Dio—why do I not gird myself for ^B the conflict, and make a trial of myself [(4)] and of my premise, to see if I might be able to hurl back the reproach [(5)] upon those who are long-haired? I shall speak, however, neither having prefaced [(6)] a vigorous and ringing passage, with which orators arm their competitive discourses just as though they were fitting out triremes with beaks, nor having sung [(7)] what Dio did—a melodic and shrill strain, like a citharoedic song, having preluded [(9)] the discourse: "Rising at dawn, and having greeted the gods, as is my custom, I tended [(10)] to my hair. For I happened to have a softer body; and it had been neglected for some time." And thus [(11)] proceeding through the details ^C of the neglect, he unwittingly arrived at a praise of the care [(13)]. For these things are done to us by those who are clever creators of speeches; now they beguile, and now they strike with terror [(14)]. But I, though I could—no less [(16)] than another—understand [(17)] matters of rhetoric [(18)], do not practice it; but I have set before myself two arts in my life: cultivating trees and keeping dogs for the wildest of beasts. And these fingers of mine are worn down by scoops and hunting-spears [(19)] rather than by reed-pens; unless you would call the arrow-shaft [(20)] a reed-pen instead of a writer's tool. Yet it is no wonder [(21)] that they have even become set to this. For which reason I shall not put to shame the ancestral ways of the fields [(22)], nor shall I appear with ^D round little arguments, or certain prefaces and entitlements; but bringing forward into the light those very things which I consider best and most consistent with the customs of a rustic [(24)], those bare shapes of thoughts, I shall struggle with the facts—only if I might change the tone of my tongue from my customary way of speaking to a turning-point [(25)], from the Dorian mode, as they say, to the Phrygian. For I do indeed have need [(26)] of a spirit that is breathing into my arguments, which I divine will abundantly provide my heart with many things.

The Encomium of Baldness

^A parts of the body that have no life attached to them. Thus, parts that are less rational ^B among living creatures are all completely covered by them; but man, because he has partaken of a clearer life, is bare of the greater part of this connatural burden. Yet, lest on account of having no fellowship with perishable and transient things he should wax arrogant, he has hair in a few parts of his body. And so it is that he who lacks hair even in these few parts, if he be compared to another man, is as much superior to him as a man is to a beast. But just as man is the most intelligent and at the same time the most hairless of all creatures on earth, so it is universally agreed that the sheep is the most stupid of all grazing animals; and this is because it does not produce distinct and separate hairs, but rather a matted density. So the matter has almost come to this point, that this hairiness seems to be in conflict with intelligence and wisdom, since the two cannot exist together. If, however, we must make use of something that is useful to hunters—for these men are our friends, and we are familiar with their art—those dogs are the most sagacious which are smooth-eared and smooth-bellied; whereas the shaggy ones are all dull and reckless, and it is better to keep them away from the hunt. Furthermore, when the wise Plato, in that chariot of his whose charioteer is the soul, calls the one horse that he terms "unjust" both deaf and shaggy-eared, how honorable, pray, does he consider hair to be? But even if Plato were silent, it is necessary that he who has hair where we hear should be deaf, as he who has hair where we see should be blind. If such a thing were to happen to anyone, it would be regarded as a prodigy. Some, indeed, have ^C eyelids growing with a double row of hairs; and this is considered one of the ultimate evils, since those parts occupy the areas adjacent to the eyes, and we employ all our art and force to keep them from us, lest they gouge out our eye. For nature does not allow the most contemptible things to be associated with the most precious. The most precious parts of an animal are the very seats of the senses, by which an animal is an animal more than by other parts of the body; for it is to these that the soul first imparts its powers and faculties. And the sense of sight, which is the most divine of all, is of all parts the most vacant of hair. Again, therefore, just as in a single man the most precious parts are the most bald, so there must of necessity be a correspondence to the race itself, from the strongest of its class. This was demonstrated a little while ago, and applies throughout the entire race, which is as far removed from beasts as it is from hair. If, then, man is the most sacred of all animals, and among men, those to whom fallen hair has happened by a certain divine and happy lot, then it follows that the bald man is the most divine of all things on earth.

6. It is possible to see in the museum the portraits ^D of famous men; I mean Diogenes and Socrates, and whomsoever you wish of the wise men of the ages; you would say that it is a theater and assembly of bald men. And there is no reason for Apollonius, or any other of those jugglers of that sort and experts in magic vanity, to cause me trouble in this matter. For although they are not in the least long-haired, they can nonetheless, by appearing so, fascinate the eyes of the vulgar. Perhaps, indeed, the practice of such men is not wisdom, but rather a kind of trickery and is not knowledge

^A but rather a power. For thus did the lawgivers regard wisdom as among the most precious of things, while they nurtured the executioners of those who were wizards ^B. So, even if Apollonius was long-haired, it is of no account. Although I am friendly toward the man and would wish him to be of our number, there is a risk that the argument, from what has been said, should logically and soundly be reversed: if anyone is wise, he must also be bald; and if anyone is not bald, he is not wise.

The situation with the demons is no different, a truth known to anyone who has participated in the religious mysteries of Bacchus. In that assembly and gathering, those who are hairy and shaggy are adorned partly with natural hair, and partly with artificial. For there is nothing in the Bacchanalian rites more familiar than the fawn-skin itself, or for others, the borrowing of hairpieces from pine trees. You might see all these men shaking and reveling and dancing indecorously; for, as I suppose, they are overcome by drunkenness—whatever kind of drunkenness it is that belongs to the mysteries. But they seem to have been led away into an indulgence of nature. ^C Silenus, however, has his chair and his scourge there, and he has been appointed as the tutor of Bacchus; for it was necessary, I think, that he, being bald, should possess intelligence and remain temperate among those who were in such a state of agitation. Nor should you suspect it to be a small thing that he was preferred by Zeus over all the other demons, so that he might attend to his boy and correct him. For it is sometimes necessary for him to indulge in wine and, by the allurements of nature, to go into a frenzy, even to the point that his madness progresses to the extent that he performs wild dances and choruses with the Bacchantes. But Silenus moderates the madness, so that he does not, through lack of caution, become too inclined toward the other extreme, and eventually prove difficult for his father to manage.

But the discussion must quickly be recalled from here, if these points are for us a most evident proof: that where hair has departed, there is room for mind and prudence, and conversely, where prudence has departed, there is hair. ^D For this reason, especially, that son of Sophroniscus, Socrates—who was otherwise moderate in all things and most sparing of all in recounting his own praises—could not restrain himself from boasting of his likeness to Silenus. For he contained in himself everything he desired, having established his head as a vessel of intelligence. But just as other of Socrates' opinions and actions were overlooked by stupid and inept men, so this too escaped them: that he took great pride in his resemblance to Silenus.

For young children to have hair flourishing at an age when they do not yet have wisdom, and for it to fall away as old age approaches—not waiting for the age that brings, without question, mind and wisdom to a living being—what else does this prove but that the nature of hair is devoid of reason? But there is someone who even in old age still has hair. Indeed, even an old man can be foolish, and it is not the lot of every man to attain the finalized perfection of humanity. Thus, therefore, nature has arranged it, that these two things do not bear one another: hair and

^B prudence; but that the one, as darkness at the light’s presence, might vanish before the other. For those investigating the cause of this, the logic is mysterious and not to be divulged; but we, as regards our own intent, shall endeavor to keep religiously hidden certain things selected from these—things that are by no means profane or fit to be broadcast.

7. Initially, all things are simple, but nature, in descending to lower things, takes on variety. Matter, moreover, is the extremity of all things; whence it is also variable, and if it receives anything divine, it does not immediately receive it in its full essence: but by receiving impressions and seeds, it becomes entangled with them, and occupies itself entirely with them. Therefore, it either preserves what it has happened to grasp, or, on account of the necessary disagreement of both, at the very first encounter, it overcomes and utterly destroys the divine element before the image has been elaborated and completed. Yet both can be performed by it; for these things do not, as they seem, conflict with each other. But since we are not treating of these things now, but these were proposed for the sake of something else, it must be made manifest from the things themselves that in those things which are more imperfect and inchoate, nature itself can do the most, but yields to those that are confirmed and more powerful. Are we not to believe that the seeds committed to the earth, though they be of the lowest order, consist in divine reason? Their end, therefore, is their fruit, but before one arrives at this, behold the pageantry and the beauties of nature. First the root; then the stalk, the husk, the awns, the glumes, and besides these, other glumes; but the fruit is not yet unfolded, remaining hidden in an inner conception; with the advent of which all these playthings of matter fall away. For that which is perfect does not stand in need of grace and ornament; and that is indeed the perfect fruit, which contains within itself another reason of seed. In memory of which, the rites of Ceres are celebrated at Eleusis, which are called *Anacalypteria*, as if they were for revelation. Therefore, since the mind ^C is the most divine of the seeds that are sent from heaven, and is introduced into the head itself, for which the mind, as matter concreted, serves as its fruit—just as the grain is brought forth from that reason of the seed as a fruit—nature performs its usual duty in this. For it adorns the head with a miraculous variety, and makes it more beautiful with the splendor of hair, as if it were the awns, or follicles, or indeed the flowers which it produces on stalks before the berries. But neither is there fruit on the trees before they have shed their blossoms, nor is there mind and prudence in the head before it has attained perfection—having cast off, by the length of time, like a certain winnowing fan, all that is useless and superfluous, and purged away the ejecta of a nature that is, in a way, play-acting. From which it can be held as an evident argument for conjecturing the maturity of the fruit. For what you may observe to be a cleanly shaven head, regard it thus: that it is both the domicile of prudence and the temple of divinity. ^D Wherefore, not undeservedly, certain sacred rites could be performed in honor of a bared head, as if they were for revelation; which, to the eyes of the profane,

^A are but matters of secondary importance, yet by wise men are judged to be the introductory principles of mind and intelligence. And whoever has recently been numbered among the bald, he is to be considered as having been newly admitted to the sacred rites, and initiated into the Theophanies—that is, the mysteries which are celebrated during the apparition of the gods. But just as certain grains of wheat, or pomegranates, or nuts, having contracted rot, perish while corrupted within their shells and husks, so too do some unworthy heads, lacking a divine portion, contain a redundant abundance of dead matter. I myself have observed that the Egyptian priests abhor even those things which grow on the cheeks or eyelids; they were indeed ridiculous to look upon, yet a wise purpose for doing so was not lacking to them, as befits clever men and Egyptians. For it is a sacrilege for things which exist by an eternal nature, and whose substance is life itself, to have any fellowship with dead parts. Therefore, if every man were shaved by the razor, they would be considered pious and religious, since he who is bald by nature is of his own accord joined in affinity with God. And I do not know but that the divine power itself is thus affected. Although I would wish that the cause of those things which shall be said by me be propitious; for it shall be proclaimed with an entirely pious and religious mind. ^B

8. Whatever, therefore, of the divine nature is hidden and secret, why should it be curiously inquired into by anyone, when it can be manifest to no one? But whatever of it is subjected to the eyes, you see nothing else besides perfect globes and spheres—the sun, namely, the moon, all the fixed stars, and the wandering stars. And although some are larger or smaller than others, all are clearly of the same figure. For what can be more spherical, or more bald, or more divine? There is a sentiment celebrated in the discourse of some, that "the soul, as much as it is able, imitates God"; I understand that third God, who is the soul of the world, and who was introduced into the universe by the same Parent and Author of himself, and [the] artificer of this corporeal world. Which, for this reason, he formed perfect and whole, and a universe out of all bodies and seeds, and granted it the figure most capacious of all. Now, of those figures which are comprehended by an equal circumference and circuit, the one which consists of more angles is always the greater; and among all polygons, the circular exceeds those on planes in magnitude; ^C just as among those which consist in depth, the sphere is the most capacious of all. This is known to those who have attained the art of geometry and the measurement of solids. Therefore, just as the whole and integrated soul animates the whole universe itself, which is of spherical form; so the parts that have flowed forth from that whole soul—each one, because it is implanted by nature in every soul—desire to govern bodies and to be the souls of worlds; which was the cause of their division. Thus it came to pass that nature had need of particular spheres; and hence the stars were formed above, and heads below, as habitations of souls, smaller ones in a larger world. For it was fitting that the world should be a living creature, compacted of living creatures. And to the more foolish souls, indeed, it matters little whether they have entered into a hairy head, which is further removed from an exact imitation of a circular figure: ^D but to the wise, according to each one's merit and dignity, the lot has fallen—to some a star, to others baldness. For although the nature of inferior things cannot attain to a sincere and exact perfection in fashioning things, yet the superior and topmost part of the body, which is raised toward heaven, cannot but bear the imitation of the figure of the world. From all these things, therefore, it is manifest that baldness is a certain heaven; so that whatever praises anyone may heap upon the sphere, by those same [praises] it is necessary that baldness also be commended.

^A 9. Wherefore, if it pleases, let Homer write, and let Phidias fashion, for Dio the arguments to praise the hair, and let them attach to Jupiter the thick, long, and most dense mane, with which, whenever it pleases him, he can shake heaven itself. For as for what kind of being Jupiter is who appears in heaven, there is no one who does not know. But if there can be another Jupiter somewhere else, whether he possesses a body or not is not known to me. Let that be granted, however, to the opinion of anyone. Certainly that one will be either prior or posterior to the one who appears. He will therefore be an effigy and image of that exemplar. But as the case stands, he must be of such a kind as is the one whom all behold, as far as the state of nature in him permits similarity. But indeed, the poetic and the plastic arts, and the whole genus of imitation, seem to have the least care for the truth, but rather to be popular, and all things are accommodated by them more to opinion than to reality. Moreover, among the ignorant, hair is highly valued; and everything that is externally adjunct to it is celebrated by the opinion of the crowd—fields, vehicles, houses, the density of houses, and other things of that kind, which are not joined to the nature of the possessor, but, like hair, are alien to it. For they have departed far from God and mind and providence, and in their place are ruled by the whim of nature and fortune; [things] which are indeed alien to this. And so by fools and the senseless, some happiness is believed to exist in the gifts of nature or fortune. Hence, he who writes or speaks something for the perception of the people must necessarily be popular in his very opinion; so that he may invent and argue for most things from those that are pleasing to them. For though they are ignorant, they are ^B nonetheless tenacious of their purpose, and in absurdities, in a wondrous way, stubborn. Whence, if anyone should do something otherwise than as the ancestral rites and institutions allow, he would immediately drink the hemlock. But what punishments must we think Homer would have paid to the Greeks, had he revealed the truth of the matter concerning Jove, and not invented such portents as those by which little children are terrified?

10. The Egyptians, however, are prudent in this matter, among whom those who are of the prophetic line do not permit the makers of gods' images to be sordid and illiberal craftsmen, lest they attempt any such thing against the laws and rights. But while they mock the people with the beaks of hawks and ibises, which are inscribed in the vestibules of the temples, they themselves, having retired into the sacred recesses and inner chambers, withdraw whatever they do from ^C sight, and under the guise of all manner of feastings and dances they venerate certain capsules in which these globes are enclosed, which, if the people were to see, they would be angry, and because they are too easily led, they would mock them as being too ready [to believe]; for they have need of portents. For how else, being the common people, can they act? For this reason, the beaks of ibises have been placed upon all the images. Only one of them is not hidden, but is kept in the open: Esculapius; whom you may see even balder than a pestle. But this one, however, in Epidaurus is long-haired. The Greeks, indeed, are sluggish and incurious in investigating the truth, a thing which the historian has justly reproached in their race. The Egyptians, however, even see him daily and commune with him through words, not merely him whose hearth he has, nor as if he were himself, and...

^A how often he might appear. But reports besides from many have reached me, that the Egyptians possess an art and certain charms for attracting gods, by means of which, whenever they wish, by whispering certain foreign words, they attract all those gods who are able by the condition of their own nature to be drawn by certain attractions. From them, therefore, not from the Greeks, is a truer and more sincere image of the divine to be taken. Although, indeed, it might be sufficient to hold what was said by us a little before, that if one looks at the sun and the stars, there is nothing for which one ought to inquire more curiously. But if some ^B cometary star appears, it is in truth not one of these. For the place of the stars is that body which is driven in a circle, in which nothing new ever comes to pass; but the region beneath the moon, which is the very borderland of generation, brings forth torches of this kind and kindlings, under the false name of a star; since these, when they are subsequently and successively subjected to other bodies, are carried along with them; but because they are not of the same nature, they fluctuate with a wandering and immoderate agitation. Now, it has been observed that one came from the sign of the heavenly altar, which was carried to the equinoctial point; whence it is again driven transversely ^C toward the northern pole, unless it should first be extinguished. Some of these extend with an oblong appearance; and today, in fact, if it should happen, you might see it equal the magnitude of one sign, on the third day scarcely a third of it; and on the tenth, or the thirtieth, it perishes doing well, and little by little vanishes, and is seen nowhere any longer. These, indeed, I think it impious to call stars; wherefore, if you contend they should be called by that name, it will at least be established from this, that the hair is so great an evil that it can bring a mortal condition even upon the kind of stars. Add that they are an evil, as long as they appear, they harbor an omen, and are managed by certain sacred interpreters of prodigies and seers. They portend, in truth, the greatest public ^D calamities, the enslaving of nations, the destruction of cities, the deaths of kings, nothing small nor moderate, but all things beyond terrible.

"No star unknown to us perishes from Jove, as far as the report of men is known."

Whatever, therefore, has perished cannot be a star, and all things are spherical, blessed, and immortal bodies. For my own part, and for my people, may this happiness be present, which makes me similar to the gods themselves. For it is not to be believed that others, than those who are so affected, are similar to the gods, nor that there is any name worthier of the divine, or of one to be compared to God, and of the other appellations of divine beauty. Nor indeed is it the case that, since it is fitting, it happens otherwise. For you may clearly hear bald men called "little moons" by a certain charming divination of the name.

11. And it almost escaped me even to mention this thing, which is of all things the most appropriate to this proposal: the moon, and the phases of the moon, with which the breed of the bald is synonymous and similar in form. For, indeed, that darling of mine begins sickle-shaped, and becomes half-moon, and again gibbous; and as it finishes, it is already seen as a full moon. And yet, for those who have reached the pinnacle of happiness, I mean those who are completely bald, it is even proper to call them suns; for no longer

do they revisit those changing faces, but with an ^A entire disk, they shine in opposition to those stars which are in the heavens. With such witticisms and cavils did the suitors, those curly-headed youths flowing with luxury, attack Ulysses—men who, though more than a hundred in number, were soon to be utterly destroyed by a single man bald on every side. For when he had previously been a torch-bearer and had produced light made by hand, they urged him to abandon that task, since his own head could suffice to illuminate the entire house. Now, this very thing is clearly divine—that it does not merely resemble the gods, but is akin to them, both possessing light and granting it. The cause of this splendor is the smoothness, which is nothing other than the total lack of hair. For at the same time as one retreats from the inferior and progresses toward the better—in the same way as we said there is a distinction between that which is endowed with life and the dead—life, and light, and all such things, are, and are considered to be, in the series of good things. Whence, if light is akin to baldness, darkness must be considered to be consonant with hair. This not only carries with it a certain rationale, but it is also a necessary consequence. But the argument must perhaps be supported by some probable and pleasing reasoning, so that the necessity of constant, overly rigorous demonstration does not wring it dry. Therefore, all men perceive and profess that hair is a certain natural and congenital umbrella; and the most elegant of poets, Archilochus, praising it, though indeed in the body of a harlot, speaks in this manner:

...To her very shoulders

The hair hangs down and shadows the back.

Shadow, indeed, is nothing other than darkness; for by either name the absence of light is signified. If anyone considers and examines the matter more deeply, he will easily understand that night itself, when the earth is covered by the solar rays, is the greatest of shadows. Indeed, even during the day, ^B deep, dense forests do not admit light precisely because they are too shady and hirsute.

12. Now, these points indeed pertain to showing that baldness is a certain divine thing, and sacred to the most radiant of all the gods who are in the ether. And if health is to be accounted among good things—as it is certainly the best of all good things—then out of a desire for it, I have observed very many who are hairy resorting to the razor and the depilatory plaster, that they might make themselves bald and keep themselves immune from disease. But if eye disease, and rheum, and heaviness of the ears, and all other ailments concerning that region are shaken off along with this burden, that would be a great benefit indeed; ^C and it would be much greater if it were a remedy also for the feet and the viscera. Now those very people who suffer in these parts are forced to endure what are called by physicians "circles," the beginning, middle, and end of which is the depilatory plaster, which removes hairs more precisely than any iron. For it is consistent with reason that from the lofty and eminent place of the head, as if from a citadel, the signs ^D of both disease and health are hung out for the whole body. Thus, even...

^A for us, the condition of health is not equal or on par with others; but, if one may say so with God's good grace, it is far more stable. This is sufficiently indicated by the very statues of Aesculapius, which, after the Egyptian fashion, are bare of hair. They seem to give a common instruction and provide the most wholesome warning of all that pertains to medicine, and almost to declare to that man who seeks health that he must imitate the discoverer and patron of the medical art. For an exposed skull, bared to all the seasons, would it be any wonder if it were transformed by nature into a hardness of iron instead of bone? Being thus tempered, it would be most difficult for all diseases to approach. ^B Just as spears that grow in dense and level ground are inferior, while those from the mountains are far superior—if you inquire the reason from Homer, you will hear him say that they are nourished, blown upon, and agitated by the wind. For do not imagine that the wise Chiron cut the spear for Peleus at random, not from the neighboring vale of Tempe, nor from any nearby mountain or ravine where smooth and very long trees grow, but from the summit of Pelion, where it was exposed to the onslaughts of the winds. That wood, therefore, was excellent, and sufficed even for the succession of his lineage. Such is the case with both heads, the hairy and the bald. The one is sheltered—it dwells in the shade; the other is alpine, exposed to all the winds, and for this reason the latter is hardy, while the former is delicate.

^C 13. It is possible to test this argument by going to the place where the army of Cambyses and Psammitichus clashed, at the invasion of Egypt from Arabia. Those men, fighting each other at that time and believing the situation to be of the utmost importance, could scarcely be separated. A great slaughter took place, and the fallen were so numerous and so powerful that they could not lift or bury the corpses. The survivors of that carnage performed no other duty for the slain than to distinguish them from each other, scattered as they lay just as each had fallen in the battle. Even today two heaps of bones are visible, one of the Egyptians, the other of the Medes. This seemed altogether worthy of admiration to Herodotus (for the excellent man appears to have visited the place to enjoy the sight), specifically the thinness and fragility of those heads; for he says that if you wish to strike/perforate them, you could do so with a single pebble. Then, regarding the density and solidity of the others: they showed such firmness and hardness by their resistance and rebound ^D that they could not be harmed or struck even by a larger stone held in the hand; if one wished to do so, a club would have to be used. The cause of this experiment, to which we have summoned a witness, they say is that the former wear caps, while the latter have their heads exposed to the sun. But if it seems difficult for anyone to undertake a journey through so many nations, and it is not lawful to strike the head of a dead man with a stone, and you do not give credence to Herodotus, then surely I, too, like many others in the city, have slaves of the Scythian race, with hair grown in the Scythian manner. One might strike a knuckle against these and find them sound. As for the man in the theater who provides so much and such fine entertainment for the [people], one is able to watch the spectacle every time the new moon arrives.

^A He is bald by artifice, not by nature, often visiting the barbershops of the day; he presents himself to the people for this very reason, to show off the strength of his head, for which nothing of those things considered terrible is terrifying. For he struggles with boiling pitch, and he contends with a well-trained ram, which is moved from a distance with a certain rhythmic agitation and flickering of the head. Furthermore, the potter's wares of the Megarians shatter when struck against this strong head: they are split and crushed; there is nothing of those things that bring horror to the spectators that he does not do; he bounds about with that same head more nimbly than with an Attic shoe. Watching this man, I congratulated myself on my own fortunate lot. For I could perform all those same things, but he surpasses me in daring: or rather, poverty is what led him to dare this; as for me, there is neither need nor reason for such an trial. But another thing occurs to us, a benefit as great as possible, and not inferior to any of the things mentioned so far. For if, as Pindar says, it should happen that I am master of my wishes and my domestic affairs are sufficient for leading a life, we shall sit in some favorable place for watching the things that are exhibited, as listeners and spectators. And if it should be necessary to contribute to the city, or if largesse is demanded by the people, we shall spend magnificently from our own means. But if fortune should turn, and our livelihood and domestic ^B affairs should fail—a thing which never happens to divine and extraordinary men—at least they are not in danger of starvation, the extreme of evils, for those who can be prestidigitators and circus performers; and if they have set aside a little bit of shame, they can exhibit an art worthy of the spectacle as the occasion requires in the orchestra. 78 Sin fortuna reflaverit, victusque ac familiaris res defecerit; quod divinis et eximiis viris haud unquam evenit; ii saltem fame, quod extremum malorum est, non periclitantur, quibus præstigiatoribus ac circulatoribus esse licet; si pudore paululum submoto, artem spectaculo dignam e re nata in orchestra exhibere possunt.

14. Whoever, therefore, thinks like Dion that hair is more proper for men than for women, does he not oppose the facts themselves and the plain truth the most? For that those who possess it are rendered weaker, can that in itself be reasonable to place in the account of those possessing strength? Nature and the laws have certainly distinguished these things; the laws, indeed, since hair is neither becoming to all men, nor everywhere, nor to the same ones at all times. For the Lacedaemonians grew their hair after Thyrea, and the Argives before Thyrea: and countless nations ^C neither now nor ever before: but for the female sex, it has always been an honorable care to take pains with their hair, everywhere and at all times; for there is not, nor can there be found, any woman who has submitted her head to a razor, except in the case of a grave and ill-omened event; if ever any such time has existed, for me at least it has never been heard of, nor has it ever been seen. Moreover, nature also agrees with the law; for no woman from the memory of man has ever been shown to be bald. And you cannot say that it might have been covered by a hairnet: for comedies are visible even through such things. But if anyone’s hair has fallen out, this has happened from a disease, and even the smallest care could have restored the original state of nature. Conversely, among men at least, those who are actually worth calling men—of them, it is not easy to say who has not arrived at this state of nature. For

in this very thing the end of nature seems to consist, even if not everyone attains it. ^A Just as farmers, having learned from the impulse of healthy plants, and knowing that they both wish and are naturally inclined to grow straight, take care to prop up with poles and stakes those that cannot raise themselves up of their own accord—so too, since all those whose nature is perfect have appeared to me to be in the same condition as myself, it is my duty to correct by the razor those who are in this state, and to lend assistance to nature.

^B

15. The Lacedaemonians

16. A certain Macedonian, having let down his hair to an excessive length and having grown a thick beard, charged at a Persian. The Persian, though placed in such great danger, pulled himself together and threw aside his shield and spear, as if they were weapons ill-suited against a Macedonian; then he leapt out to meet him, and coming to close quarters, seized the [Macedonian] within his own weapons, grasping his beard and hair, and dragged him along like a fish; he threw him to the ground without a fight, and once prostrate, stabbed him with his drawn sword. Another Persian saw this, and immediately another, and another, and all of them ^D thereupon threw down their shields and chased one another across the open fields, capturing men of this sort by their hair. For it went through the whole line of the Persians like a password that these men were easily defeated by their hair. Therefore, as is likely, only those in Alexander’s phalanx who were bald remained in their ranks. While these things were happening, the king was gripped by a shortage of counsel, since he had to retreat with bare...

^A heads, he who was invincible when armed; and Alexander would have retreated into Cilicia almost in disgrace, and would have become an object of mockery to the Greeks, having been defeated by a contest of hair. But now (for it was already fated ^A for the Heracleidae to yield the sceptres to the Achaemenids), he quickly perceived something of the danger, and ordered the trumpets to sound the retreat; and having led the army to a remote spot and encamped in a good place, he sent in the barbers. These men, having been persuaded by the king’s gifts, shaved all the Macedonians in one sitting. For Darius and his Persians, things no longer proceeded according to their hope; for with no more handle to seize, they fought in an uneven struggle against much better prepared combatants.

17. Therefore, hair neither makes men look fearsome nor does it show them to be so, unless they are meant to be bugbears for infants. Especially since we see that soldiers, at the time they need to terrify the enemy, put on helmets. But a helmet is nothing more than—as its name and nature suggest—a bronze skullcap. As for the fact that they are adorned with horsehair, those to whose lot it falls to wear a helmet know the shape of it well. But those to whom it is unknown must be taught that it is adorned with bristles arranged in rows between the cap and the helmet. For not even Vulcan could make the curved and sloping surface hold onto hair. But arranged in this way, it accurately provides us with an image of baldness; and therefore, of all things that soldiers wear, it is the most terrifying. Achilles, to be sure, says that the Trojans took courage, not because they had ceased to see the dangling fly-swatter of his hair. But what does he say, I pray? ... For the brow is not seen of the helmet Of him who burns nearby. For the sheen of it and its smoothness are both baldness and a terror. Now, although Achilles had hair (for that, too, is declared by the same poet), he was at that time a youth, an age when one is more prone to anger, when the age itself did not yet allow him to be perfect in body and mind. And indeed, for adolescents, it is natural for the head to be erupting with hair, and for the heart to seethe with ^D excitement. But just as in Achilles’ case no one approves of the fury of his mind, so neither on the body of the most illustrious men is hair laudable. Nevertheless, one must admit that he, as the son of Thetis, was endowed with an outstanding nature for every virtue of the soul, and my own judgment of Achilles is that, had he survived, he would not have been lacking in baldness and wisdom, seeing that even at a youthful age he was somewhat skilled in music and medicine, and held his own hair in such contempt that he scattered it on the tombs of the dead as ^C an offering. For Aristoxenus also spoke of Socrates, that by nature he was prone to anger, and that whenever a passion seized him, he behaved in an unseemly and uncontrolled manner. But Socrates was not yet bald at that time, being in his twenty-fifth year, when, as Plato reports, Parmenides and Zeno came to Athens to see the Panathenaic spectacles. But if anyone later, as one might speak of a difficult

^A man or a student of hair, were to discourse in that way, I believe he would incur much laughter from those who knew him, since he was the baldest and at the same time the gentlest of all the philosophers who have ever existed. Therefore, do not condemn the hero’s hair; for at the time you are discussing him, he was a mere youth, having only recently passed out of the stage of being an ephebe. And you yourself would be unable to say by what proof you make your pronouncement concerning Achilles’ hair, as if it would have lasted even into his old age; but I, for my part, have many reasons—his father, his grandfather—to believe it would not have lasted, for I have seen, I have seen their likenesses, and I have considered their kinship with the gods. But once stated, this is sufficient concerning the form of the gods.

18. What then, as if catching hold of a piece of luck, you keep turning this phrase over in your mouth: *Flavaque coma prensavit Achillem*? Why, in short, do you bring out only a fragment, and not drag the whole verse into the mix? But since you do not wish it, you have forced the necessity upon me to do so: *Pone stetit, flavaque coma prensavit Achillem*. ^B Well done, Dio; for the syllables you removed are not superfluous, but on the contrary, they contain the very opposite of what you claim. For from this I guess that at that age, too, Achilles was bald. "Pone," he says, "dea veniens coma eum arripuit." And yet someone could surely catch me, or Socrates himself, or the man most withered by old age of all the Greeks, by the back of the head. For there the marks of mortal nature are left behind. Nor can it be said of the gods, or of demons, but rather of a nature of divine status, that it has nothing at all in common with the mortal race.

*Pone stetit, flavaque coma prensavit Achillem.* ^C So that she might grab the hair, she stood behind, as if there were no handle to grasp from the front.

19. And, to say it in one word, there is nothing good in Dio’s argument regarding the nature of hair. And yet, if there were anything to the matter, Dio would have discovered it, and, even if it were small, Dio would have shown it to be of the greatest importance—he who, even now, traces back from so far away the Lacedaemonians, who contribute nothing to the subject, as even a second person can see; but he clings to Homer ^D as to a sacred anchor, and holds fast to the very end of the book. Yet he uses his argument so unjustly, and in the manner of orators, that he now clips off a part of a verse as if it were a law, and elsewhere, where there are no verses, he bears witness as if there were. For he speaks an outright falsehood regarding Hector, or rather he puts a false coloring on what is said by Homer regarding Hector; and perhaps he lies regarding both Homer and Hector. For the one has been passed down as being most similar to those who are truly temperate in their hair-cutting, and he shows these things as having been truly written regarding the heroes.

one has been passed down as being most similar to those who are truly temperate in their hair-cutting, and he shows these things as having been truly written regarding the heroes. ^A For one who was, I think, a fellow-soldier of some, and served in war against others—which is he who says these very things regarding Hector—if you have ever traveled to Ilium, any Ilian will immediately lead you, once you have entered, to the temple of Hector, where his statue is at once visible. And to those who behold it, it occurs that it is fashioned in that very guise in which he once reproached his brother for his artificial beauty—that is to say, his care for his hair. Moreover, as to what ^B he alleges Homer wrote regarding Hector: *His glossy locks were scattered* let someone show me in which place of the Homeric rhapsodies this may be read. Even the rhapsode himself could not show this. For is it credible that hair-styling is commended by Homer in one whom, in the same work, he introduced upbraiding another for that very sort of elegance and finery? To do so would be as if Phileas were to accuse Andocides of sacrilege, as if he himself had not stolen the Gorgon’s head from the Palladium on the citadel. Of the same order are the things which are handed down about this hero. 20. Furthermore, ^C if Menelaus is called "fair-haired," it is not therefore necessary that he was "long-haired," insofar as one may gather from these words. But neither is that a praise of his hair; rather, it indicates what sort of hair it was. Nor is everything that is named by Homer of the class of things praiseworthy. Yet to Dio, so that his matter for speaking might be more abundant, the mention and commendation of hair seems to be one and the same: for he has set about the matter so strenuously that he attributes to the poetic work things that were not in it, and deprives it of things that were. Thus, in order to persuade by his speech that hair becomes men much more than women, he says that even among the gods, Homer praises the females in one way—calling Hera "ox-eyed" ^D and Thetis "silver-footed"—but that he praises the hair of Zeus above all else. For perhaps that book of his was missing many good and frequent verses, such as these: *To sovereign Apollo, whom fair-haired Leto bore*, or *Place the goddess on the knees of fair-haired Athena.* Concerning Hera, when she was plotting to lull Zeus to sleep, he says that the goddess employed many other enticements of form, since she was going to have need of the girdle, which has many other powers, and, most importantly, that it steals away the minds of those who possess them. Then, at that same time, he says she anointed herself with an unguent, and he adds: *Combing with her hand, the goddess twists her bright, fair, ambrosial locks.* This is surely worthy of a multitude of proclamations, since the speech redounds to the praise of Zeus. Many things can be said at this point which were neglected by Dio, or rather, things which, although he knew them well, he pretended not to know; for perhaps the codex was to many people—and those the most beautiful—

^A unknown, or he concealed it. But as for me, these things are understood, and nothing false has been said by me regarding the subject; nor would I concede that any of those who dwell in heaven are long-haired. The reasoning for males and females is the same. For Jupiter is not more perfect with regard to a spherical surface than the star of Venus. Such, in fact, was what was said about Jupiter, whom Dio placed like a crown upon his discourse, as has been theologized by Homer, for the most part according to human opinion, and but little according to the truth of the matter. ^B And indeed, this—the hair of Jupiter being shaken and moving the very heavens itself—is one of those things said according to opinion, which he yielded to the masses and the sculptors. Therefore, with Jupiter and the Lacedaemonians removed, no part of Dio’s discourse remains. And even if these points were to suffice, he nevertheless said nothing about the nature of hair, as we were saying just now, which he might have thought out himself or gathered from them; for he did not reveal what hair truly is or of what sort; nor did he demonstrate that it is a good for those who have it, or an evil for those who lack it. But this discourse of ours, examining the very natures of things, has discovered that ^C baldness is a divine thing and akin to the gods themselves, and a completion of nature, and a temple consecrated to the God by whom we possess wisdom, while recounting countless other bodily and mental goods, how they are and for what reason. Nor has anything been proposed without a clear and illustrious cause. But it has been discovered that all things contrary to this befriend hair: a lack of reason, animalistic nature, and whatever else is of a lot contrary to God. Moreover, they have appeared as mere awns of an animal, and coverings of seeds, the trifles of nature, and the eruptions of imperfect and crude matter.

21. I think it appropriate to distinguish men by kind and occupation, those whom both this discourse of ours and the other have commended. Therefore, adulterers belong to those who are lovers of hair. For Homer placed the lover of excessively sleek hair close to the deceiver of maidens, ^D as if hair were adorned for the corruption of women; and he is himself an adulterer—indeed, the easiest prince of all adulterers—to whom that shameful reproach is cast. Yet one class of men is the most suspect, and within the walls, the most hostile of all of that same kind. For those for whose sake we endanger ourselves by going on expedition to prevent them from suffering violence—I mean our daughters and wives—these, should a chance arise, some youth of more elegant grooming might easily abduct, having snatched them away by land or by sea, or if not by land or sea, then in some corner or shadow. And yet, if a wife be captured in war, the same affection may persist for the spouse; but from the adulterer, every benevolence is first removed from the minds of the men, so that the loss of wives for the men is not merely halved; and deservedly are the executioners armed against them by the laws, while market gardeners plant the Attic radishes, against which, as soon as someone is caught, they proceed with punishment. This, then, is one such class of men, which has frequently left houses ruined.

^A and indeed even entire cities; and the very occasion of adultery has engaged two continents in battle against each other, and spurred the Greeks to storm the scepters of Priam. But there is another evil much worse than this, which has made Alexander infamous to us under the name of adultery; from which Clisthenes and Timarchus first became notorious, and others too, for whom the appearance of their own body is venal for money; or if not for money, then for some other thing; or if for nothing at all, then at least for the sake of accursed lust; and in a word, all effeminates take pleasure in the shine of dyed hair. And indeed, those who openly prostitute themselves in the brothel, although they may think themselves the winners, as if they could in this way best imitate the female sex—whoever is secretly most depraved, even though he might publicly abjure the very deed, and offers no other sign of being an initiate of Cotytto—if only he were detected in this one thing, that he sets great store by his hair, wishing to have it plucked and twisted into curls, it is immediately obvious to everyone to say that this man has celebrated the orgies of the Goddess of the Chians and of the Ithyphalli. For Pherecydes, veiling his face with his garment, used to say, "From the skin it is manifest," and would point to the disease with his finger; but we indicate a youth who affects feminine ways in the manner of a pathic by his hair.

22. But if the proverb is also wise ^B—and why should it not be wise, concerning those things of which Aristotle says that they are the remains of an older philosophy that have perished in the greatest downfalls of men, yet have been preserved for their brevity and clever elegance? This, then, is a proverb, and a saying possessing the dignity of the antiquity of the philosophy from which it was handed down, such that it is worth while to look upon it with gravity. For the ancients were in many ways more keen than the moderns in investigating the truth. What, then, is that proverb? "No one is long-haired, who is not."

Do you, then, adapt the end of the proverb to the sound of the trimeter. For I shall never pronounce that grave matter, neither the name nor the deed. Well done, that you have adapted it yourself. What, then, does it seem to you? ^C O, the miracle of truth! It is an oracle beyond a doubt. And the truth of this is manifest in itself; but how many witnesses it has, both those who use it now, and those who used it in the past! For that which makes proverbs immortal is this very thing, the constant use of those who employ them, whom the realities themselves bring to memory. For those things which are observed in daily events are brought forward as testimony, and they are themselves witnesses through their own examples.

23. But although things stand in this way, nevertheless Dio produced an admirable speech in defense of hair. What need, then, is there for Plato ^D to refute him, when the orator has explicitly declared rhetoric to be the art of painting and of pimping? Or do you think that the tincture-sellers of hair would have rendered it more lovely and graceful after a man, a Greek in speech, had praised such a thing in the theater? I believe, indeed, that those who have been corrupted in the temples of Cybele will owe him the greatest thanks for his speech.

^A For it is necessary that what is publicly honored should be envied, especially when the one dispensing the praises is granted the opportunity. He, therefore, would add to the number of our city’s most depraved men. But what sort of folk, on the other hand, does Baldness offer in comparison to these? What sort of men have we praised in the place of adulterers? Why, those from whom the priests, prophets, and temple-wardens in the temples of the gods are drawn; from whom the teachers and tutors in the schools are drawn; and in the military ranks, provided that things are in a healthy state, the generals and the battalion commanders; and everywhere, those who are judged by the majority to possess more sense. I believe that the singer too, whom Agamemnon left behind for Clytemnestra, was of our own kind; for a woman from a disgraced household would never have been entrusted to a long-haired man. ^B Furthermore, painters provide strong evidence for our discourse when they do not paint from an original archetype, but are permitted by someone to devise a form for a subject according to their studies and habits. For if someone commissions them to paint an adulterer or a catamite on a tablet, the painter receives a long-haired man and has what was requested. But if you were to commission a philosopher or a priest, the painter will stand a bald man, full of dignity, on the tablet. For this is the distinctive mark of our coin.

^C I have therefore bestowed this speech upon philosophers, priests, and all temperate men, in which matters pertaining to the divine are treated religiously, and men are provided with the best counsel. If, upon being published among the masses, it attains glory and splendor, so that those who are fond of hair are moved by shame to adopt a more moderate and temperate tonsure, and proclaim blessed those who have no need of a barber, then no thanks are due to me for this; rather, the credit must be given to the argument, through which even someone who is most inept at speaking appeared not to be despised when compared with the most eloquent man. But if I persuade no one with this speech, someone will rightly hold it against me that, even while relying on the abundance of the material, I was unable to withstand the naked grace of Dio’s eloquence. ^D I only wish that this speech, taken up for the benefit of many, may be found in people’s hands!

WARNING CONCERNING THE FOLLOWING BOOK

^A The books *On Providence* are in large part allegorical, and under the fable of the Egyptians they obliquely touch upon the state of the Roman Empire, such as it was particularly in the East under Arcadius. For the power of the Scythians—that is, the Goths—was at that time excessive and formidable, which he lamented before the emperor himself in the oration *De Regno*: to such an extent that they were participants not only in the city, but almost in the government itself, since they held the consulships and the honors of the remaining dignities; and they administered the prefectures of both militaries and the sum of military affairs. ^B Zosimus and others who produced written accounts of the history of that age attest to this. In particular, I judge that those things read there concerning Gainas, the betrayal of the Goths, and the tumult at Constantinople, pertain to the subject matter of the work. Compare with this fable of Synesius, and especially the second book, those things which Zosimus (Book V), Claudian (Book II, *In Eutrop.*), Orosius (Book VII), Socrates (Book VI), Sozomen (VI), Prosper, and Marcellinus reported in their Chronicles—matters upon which we shall offer observations sparingly, should the opportunity arise.

(We have collated the text with the new recension instituted by Joan. Georg. Krabinger, curator of the Royal Library of Munich, in the book to which he gave the title: *Synesios des Kyrenaeers Egyptische Erzählungen über die Vorsehung, griechisch und deutsch* [The Egyptian Tales of Synesius the Cyrenaean on Providence, Greek and German], Sulzbach 1835, 8vo. He employed twenty-six manuscripts, the list of which we deem worth the trouble to record here. — EDIT.)

A. — MANUSCRIPT CODICES.

I. Munich Codices.

No. 476, cotton paper, 13th century, quarto, consisting of 106 folios (see Hardt, *Catal. codd. mss. Græc. Biblioth. Reg. Bavar.*, vol. V, p. 6 ff.). No. 481, cotton paper, 14th century, quarto, 220 folios (see Hardt, vol. V, p. 27 ff.). No. 29, paper, 16th century, folio, consisting of 413 folios (see Hardt, vol. I, p. 162). No. 87, paper, 16th century, folio, 380 folios (see Hardt, vol. I, p. 485 ff.). The editor himself undertook the labor of collating all these manuscript codices.

II. Four most ancient codices kept in the Royal Library of Paris.

Codex Coislinianus no. 249, parchment, approximately 10th century, 168 folios (see Montfaucon, *Biblioth. Coislin.*, formerly Segueriana, p. 302 ff.). Codex Regius no. 1039, parchment, 11th century, as it seems (*Catal. codd. mss. Bibl. Reg.*, vol. II, p. 206). Codex Regius no. 1038, paper, 14th century, as it seems (see *Catal. cit.*, vol. II, p. 205 ff.). Codex Regius no. 1040, cotton paper (according to the Catalog; but as Immanuel Bekker [*Plat. Dial.* p. 1, t. 1, p. x] says, ordinary paper, quarto, 264 folios), written at Constantinople in the year 1325, then transferred from that city to Paris. Phil. Le Bas, very dear to me, saw to the collation of these codices; Walz, professor at the Academy of Tübingen, had already inspected the Coislinianus.

III. Codex Pirckheimerianus.

This Pirckheimer codex had once been communicated to the illustrious Joachim Camerarius, upon whose inspection Es. Rudingerus, his son-in-law, wrote these things in the preface on page 39, which he placed before the same work translated by him into Latin: «This (Joachim Camerarius), among other proofs of affection toward me and of his hope, once gave me the book when he had leisure, so that I might convert it into the Latin language. The book did not have the name of the author noted: however, Joachim, although at first he suspected other things, later discovered from the thread of these letters, which Aldus once published, that it was by Synesius. And it was written by one of the more recent type of scribes. For neither were the letters elegant, and the ductus and composition were such that it departed quite a bit from the examples of ancient writing, and reading became laborious and difficult. There were also so many errors that it was manifest that that scribe was not only less prepared in scholarship, but certainly not at all diligent.» Indeed, I have converted to my own use the various readings which Rudingerus provided, having collated them from that codex with the greatest care.

IV. Codex Rehdigerianus.

No. 88, paper, 15th century, smaller folio, 165 folios (see A. W. J. Wachler: *Th. Rehdiger und seine Bibliothek in Breslau*, p. 49 ff.). This codex, which at the request of Professor Unterholzner the magistrates of Wrocław allowed to be communicated to me while I was residing in Munich, is described more fully in the preface which you have in the *Xenophon of Ephesus* translated by me. And indeed that codex differs from all other manuscripts in that the Egyptian narratives are exhibited there in no less faulty a manner than in the Turnebus and Petavius editions; however, it offers many readings not to be despised.

V. Codex Vindobonensis (Vienna).

Codex philosophicus 38, paper, 15th century, in folio (see Lambecius, *Commentar. Biblioth. Cæsar. Vindob.*, 2nd ed., by the study and labor of Ad. Fr. Kollarius, vol. VII, p. 76 and 82 XIV), whose variant readings I owe to Bartholomäus Kopitar, curator of the Imperial Library of Vienna.

Besides these, which I have cited up to this point, eleven other manuscript codices, specimens of which have been communicated to me, will also be cited.

I. From the Ambrosian Library in Milan. Codex L, 44, paper, in-quarto, designated by me as A; the variants of which, like those of several other codices, were kindly excerpted by Massmann, professor at the Munich Academy, while he was traveling through learned Italy.

II. From two most ancient Medicean-Laurentian Library codices. 1) Plut. 55, cod. 6, parchment, 11th c., in-quarto, 56 folios (see Bandini, Catalog of Greek Manuscripts of the Medicean-Laurentian Library, Tom. II, p. 244). 2) Plut. 80, cod. 19, parchment, 12th c., in-quarto, 247 folios (see Bandini, Tom. III, p. 208). The first part, from the beginning up to *πόλις μὲν, ἀλλά*, p. 19, l. 3, was collated by R. Dietz, professor of medicine at Regensburg; both were explored and continued by our Massmann in the year 1833, from p. 59, l. 8 onwards.

III. From the Barberini codex in Rome, no. 286, paper, 13th or 14th c., in-8°. Phil. Le Bas, in the year 1827, while he was staying in Rome, collated it up to p. 27, l. 9; Massmann continued it to the end.

IV. From six Vatican codices. 1) Cod. 64, no. 379, formerly 9, parchment in folio. 2) Cod. 91, paper in-folio. 3) Cod. 92, paper in-8°. 4) Cod. 94, formerly 992, paper in-quarto min. 5) Cod. 433, formerly 857, from the library of Maximus the Confessor, paper in-folio. 6) Cod. 1534, from the library of Fulvius Ursinus, parchment in-quarto. You have the collation from no. 91 from p. 59, l. 8 to the end; some of the most important passages of the others were excerpted by my friend Massmann. Cod. 92, from the beginning up to p. 14, l. 5, *ἀναδειχθέντος*, was scrutinized by the same Phil. Le Bas, who would have examined further, had not illness prevented him.

V. From the Venetian codex of the Library of St. Mark. No. 264, silk paper, 14th c., in-quarto maj., 365 folios. Collated, at the request of Massmann, by D. E. Heimbach, learned man, from p. 59, l. 8 to the end.

VI. From the Madrid codex. No. 69, paper, from about the middle of the 14th c., in-quarto, 186 folios (see Reg. Bibl. Matrit. Codd. Græc. mss. apud Iriarten p. 247 sq.).

VII. From the Barocci codices in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. No. 56, 139 and 219, all paper, 15th c., in-8, collated for my use by a learned man of Oxford.

SYNESIUS: DISCOURSE ON PROVIDENCE, OR THE EGYPTIAN

PREFACE

^A The first part of this work was written under the sons of Taurus, and was read as far as the enigma of the wolf, at the very time when the one who was worse [than the other] was prevailing by stirring up sedition. ^B But what follows concerning those...