[12] When this discussion had come to an end, I said that it seemed to me to be only fair that these men should tell us how a house should be managed.
For, said I,
but few persons are in control of kingdoms and states, whereas we all have to do with a hearth and home,
Aesop laughed and said,
Not all, if you include also Anacharsis in our number; for not only has he no home, but he takes an immense pride in being homeless and in using a wagon, after the manner in which they say the sun makes his rounds in a chariot, occupying now one place and now another in the heavens.
And that, I would have you know, said Anacharsis,
is precisely the reason why he solely or pre-eminently of all the gods is free and independent, and rules over all and is ruled by none, but is king, and holds the reins. Only you seem to have no conception of his chariot, how surpassing it is in beauty, and wondrous in size; else you would not, even in jest, have humorously compared it to ours. It seems to me, Aesop, that your idea of a home is limited to these protective coverings made of mortar, wood, and tiles, just as if you were to regard a snail’s shell, and not the creature itself, as a snail. Quite naturally, then, Solon gave you occasion to laugh, because, when he had looked over Croesus’s house with its costly furnishings, he did not instantly declare that the owner led a happy and blessed existence therein, for the good reason that he wished to have a look at the good within Croesus rather than at his good surroundings.
1
But you, apparently, do not remember your own fox.
2
For the fox, having entered into a contest with the leopard to determine which was the more ingeniously coloured, insisted it was but fair that the judge should note carefully what was within her, for there she said she should show herself more ingenious. But you go about, inspecting the works of carpenters and stonemasons, and regarding them as a home, and not the inward and personal possessions of each man, his children, his partner in marriage, his friends, and servants; and though it be in an ant-hill or a bird’s nest, yet if these are possessed of sense and discretion, and the head of the family shares with them all his worldly goods, he dwells in a goodly and a happy home. This then,
said he, is my answer to Aesop’s insinuation, and my contribution to Diocles. And now it is but right that each of the others should disclose his own opinion.
Thereupon Solon said that the best home seemed to him to be where no injustice is attached to the acquisition of property, no distrust to keeping it, and no repentance to spending it.
Bias said,
It is the home in which the head of the household, because of his own self, maintains the same character that he maintains outside of it because of the law.
Thales said,
The home in which it is possible for the head of the household to have the greatest leisure.
Cleobulus said,
If the head of the household have more who love him than fear him.
Pittacus said that the best home is that which needs nothing superfluous, and lacks nothing necessary.
Chilon said that the home ought to be most like to a State ruled by a king; and then he added that Lycurgus said to the man who urged him to establish a democracy in the State,
Do you first create a democracy in your own house.
3
Septem sapientium convivium. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1928.
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