Plutarch, De Superstitione, Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator), 8

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[8] Tiribazus, they say, when an attempt was made by the Persians to arrest him, drew his sword, being a man of great strength, and fought desperately. But when the men protested and cried out that they were arresting him by the King’s command, he instantly threw down his sword and held out his hands to be bound. ¹ Is not what actually happens just like this? The rest of men fight desperately against misfortunes, and force their way through difficulties, contriving for themselves means to escape and avert things undesired; but the superstitious man, without a word from anybody, says all to himself, This you have to undergo, poor soul, by the dispensation of Providence and by God’s command, and casts away all hope, gives himself up, runs away, and repulses those who would help him.

Many ills of no great moment are made to result fatally by men’s superstition. Midas of old, dispirited and disturbed, as it appears, as the result of some dreams, reached such a state of mind that he committed suicide by drinking bull’s blood. ² And Aristodemus, king of the Messenians in the war against the Spartans, when dogs howled like wolves, and quitch-grass began to grow around his ancestral hearth, and the seers were alarmed by these signs, lost heart and hope by his forebodings, and slew himself by his own hand.³ It would perhaps have been the best thing in the world for Nicias, general of the Athenians, to have got rid of his superstition in the same way as Midas and Aristodemus,rather than to be affrighted at the shadow on the moon in eclipse and sit inactive while the enemy’s wall was being built around him, and later to fall into their hands together with forty thousand men, who were either slain or captured alive, and himself meet an inglorious end.⁴ For the obstruction of light caused by the earth’s coming between sun and moon is nothing frightful, nor is the meeting of a shadow with the moon at the proper time in its revolutions anything frightful, but frightful is the darkness of superstition falling upon man, and confounding and blinding his power to reason in circumstances that most loudly demand the power to reason.

Glaucus, see, the mighty ocean Even now with billows roars, Round about the Gyrian summits Sheer in air a dark cloud soars, Sign of storm . . .;⁵

when the pilot sees this, he prays that he may escape the storm, and calls upon the Saviours,⁶ but while he is praying he throws the helm over, lowers the yard, and

Furling the big main sail, Hastens to make his escape Out from the murky sea.⁷

Hesiod advises ⁸ that the farmer before ploughing and sowing should Pray to Zeus of the world below and to holy Demeter with his hand on the plough-handle; and Homer says ⁹ that Ajax, as he was about to engage in single combat with Hector, bade the Greeks pray to the gods for him, and then, while they were praying, donned his armour; and when Agamemnon enjoined ¹⁰ on the fighting men,

See that each spear is well sharpened, and each man’s shield in good order,

at the same time he asked in prayer from Zeus,

Grant that I raze to the level of earth the palace of Priam;¹¹

for God is brave hope, not cowardly excuse. But the Jews, ¹² because it was the Sabbath day, sat in their places immovable, while the enemy were planting ladders against the walls and capturing the defences, and they did not get up, but remained there, fast bound in the toils of superstition as in one great net.

De Superstitione. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1928.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.

Current edition Perseus

Superstition (English) (Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. IΙ. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1928 (printing).)

Editions (1)

Περὶ δεισιδαιμονίας Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, Vol I. Vernardakēs, Grēgorios N., editor. Leipzig: Teubner, 1888.) — 8 focus

τὸν Τιρίβαζόν¹ φασιν ὑπὸ τῶν Περσῶν συλλαμβανόμενον σπάσασθαί τε τὸν ἀκινάκην, εὔρωστον ὄντα, καὶ διαμάχεσθαι· μαρτυρομένων δὲ καὶ βοώντων ὅτι συλλαμβάνουσιν αὐτὸν βασιλέως κελεύσαντος, αὐτίκα τὸ ξίφος καταβαλεῖν καὶ τὼ χεῖρε συνδῆσαι 15 παρασχεῖν. ἆρʼ οὖν οὐχ ὅμοιόν ἐστι τὸ γιγνόμενον; οἱ μὲν ἄλλοι διαμάχονται συμφοραῖς καὶ διωθοῦνται τὰ πράγματα, φυγὰς ἑαυτοῖς μηχανώμενοι καὶ παρατροπὰς τῶν ἀβουλήτων· ὁ δὲ δεισιδαίμων 168f οὐδενὸς ἀκούσας, αὐτὸς πρὸς αὑτὸν εἰπών 20 ταῦτα πάσχεις, ὦ κακόδαιμον, ἐκ προνοίας καὶ θεοῦ κελεύοντος ἔρριψε πᾶσαν ἐλπίδα, προήκατο ἑαυτόν, ἔφυγε διεκρούσατο τοὺς βοηθοῦντας. πολλὰ τῶν μετρίων κακῶν ὀλέθρια ποιοῦσιν αἱ δεισιδαιμονίαι. Μίδας ὁ παλαιός, ὡς ἔοικεν, ἔκ τινων ἐνυπνίων 25 ἀθυμῶν καὶ ταραττόμενος οὕτω κακῶς ἔσχε τὴν ψυχήν, ὥσθʼ ἑκουσίως ἀποθανεῖν αἷμα ταύρου πιών. ὁ δὲ τῶν Μεσσηνίων βασιλεὺς Ἀριστόδημος ἐν τῷ πρὸς Λακεδαιμονίους² πολέμῳ, κυνῶν λύκοις ὠρυομένων ὅμοια καὶ περὶ τὴν ἑστίαν αὐτοῦ τὴν πατρῴαν ἀγρώστεως ἀναβλαστανούσης καὶ τῶν μάντεων τὰ σημεῖα φοβουμένων, ἐξαθυμήσας καὶ κατασβεσθεὶς 5 ταῖς ἐλπίσιν αὐτὸς ἑαυτὸν ἀπέσφαξεν. ἦν 169a δʼ ἴσως καὶ Νικίᾳ τῷ Ἀθηναίων στρατηγῷ κράτιστον³ οὕτως ἀπαλλαγῆναι τῆς δεισιδαιμονίας ὡς Μίδας ἢ Ἀριστόδημος ἢ φοβηθέντι τὴν σκιὰν ἐκλιπούσης τῆς σελήνης καθῆσθαι περιτειχιζόμενον ὑπὸ τῶν πολεμίων, 10 εἶθʼ ὁμοῦ τέτταρσι μυριάσιν ἀνθρώπων φονευθέντων τε καὶ ζώντων ἁλόντων ὑποχείριον γενέσθαι καὶ δυσκλεῶς ἀποθανεῖν. οὐ γὰρ γῆς ἀντίφραξις ἐν μέσῳ γενομένης φοβερόν, οὐδὲ δεινὸν ἐν καιρῷ περιόδων⁴ σκιᾶς πρὸς σελήνην ἀπάντησις, 15 ἀλλὰ δεινὸν τὸ τῆς δεισιδαιμονίας σκότος ἐκπεσόντος⁵ 169b ἀνθρώπου συγχέαι καὶ τυφλῶσαι λογισμὸν ἐν πράγμασι μάλιστα λογισμοῦ δεομένοις

Γλαῦκʼ, ὅρα, βαθὺς⁶ γὰρ ἤδη κύμασι ταράσσεται

⁷

πόντος, ἀμφὶ δʼ ἄκρᾳ Γυρέων⁸ ὀρθὸν ἵσταται νέφος, 20

σῆμα χειμῶνος.

τοῦτʼ ἰδὼν κυβερνήτης εὔχεται μὲν ὑπεκφυγεῖν καὶ θεοὺς ἐπικαλεῖται σωτῆρας, εὐχόμενος δὲ τὸν οἴακα προσάγει, τὴν κεραίαν ὑφίησι,

φεύγει μέγα λαῖφος ὑποστολίσας ἐρεβώδεος ἐκ 25 θαλάσσης.

⁹ ὁ Ἡσίοδος¹⁰ κελεύει πρὸ ἀρότου καὶ σπόρου τὸν γεωργὸν εὔχεσθαι Διὶ χθονίῳ Δημήτερί θʼ ἁγνῇ τῆς 169c ἐχέτλης ἐχόμενον, Ὅμηρος¹¹ δὲ τὸν Αἴαντά φησι τῷ Ἕκτορι μέλλοντα μονομαχεῖν εὔχεσθαι κελεύειν τοὺς 5 Ἕλληνας ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ τοῖς θεοῖς, εἶτʼ εὐχομένων ἐκείνων ὁπλίζεσθαι. καὶ ὁ Ἀγαμέμνων ὅτε τοῖς μαχομένοις προσέταξεν

εὖ μέν τις δόρυ θηξάσθω, εὖ δʼ ἀσπίδα θέσθω,

¹² τότε παρὰ τοῦ Διὸς αἰτεῖ 10

δός με κατὰ πρηνὲς βαλέειν Πριάμοιο μέλαθρον·

¹³ ἀρετῆς γὰρ ἐλπὶς ὁ θεός ἐστιν, οὐ δειλίας πρόφασις. ἀλλʼ Ἰουδαῖοι σαββάτων ὄντων ἐν ἀγνάπτοις καθεζόμενοι, τῶν πολεμίων κλίμακας προστιθέντων 15 καὶ τὰ τείχη καταλαμβανόντων, οὐκ ἀνέστησαν ἀλλʼ ἔμειναν ὥσπερ ἐν σαγήνῃ μιᾷ τῇ δεισιδαιμονίᾳ συνδεδεμένοι.

Translations (1)

Of Superstition, or Indiscreet Devotion Perseus (Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. II. Goodwin, William W., editor; Baxter, William translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.) — 8 focus

[8] It is reported of Teribazus that, being seized by the Persians, he drew out his scimitar, and being a very stout person, defended himself bravely; but when they cried out and told him he was apprehended by the king’s order, he immediately put up his sword, and presented his hands to be bound. Is not this the very case of the superstitious? Others can oppose their misfortunes, repel their troubles, and furnish themselves with retreats, or means of avoiding the stroke of things not under the disposal of their wills; but the superstitious person, without anybody’s speaking to him,—but merely upon his own saying to himself, This thou undergoest, vile wretch, by the direction of Providence, and by Heaven’s just appointment,—immediately casts away all hope, surrenders himself up, and shuns and affronts his friends that would relieve him. Thus do these sottish fears oftentimes convert tolerable evils into fatal and insupportable ones. The ancient Midas (as the story goes of him), being much troubled and disquieted by certain dreams, grew so melancholy thereupon, that he made himself away by drinking bull’s blood. Aristodemus, king of Messenia, when a war broke out betwixt the Lacedaemonians and the Messenians, upon some dogs howling like wolves, and grass coming up about his ancestors’ domestic altar, and his divines presaging ill upon it, fell into such a fit of sullenness and despair that he slew himself. And perhaps it had been better if the Athenian general, Nicias, had been eased of his folly the same way that Midas and Aristodemus were, than for him to sit still for fear of a lunar eclipse, while he was invested by an enemy, and so be himself made a prisoner, together with an army of forty thousand men (that were all either slain or taken), and die ingloriously. There was nothing formidable in the interposition of the earth betwixt the sun and the moon, neither was there any thing dreadful in the shadow’s meeting the moon at the proper time: no, the dreadfulness lay here, that the darkness of ignorance should blind and befool a man’s reason at a time when he had most occasion to use it.

Glaucus, behold!

The sea with billows deep begins to roll;

The seas begin in azure rods to lie;

A teeming cloud of pitch hangs on the sky

Right o’er Gyre rocks; there is a tempest nigh;

which as soon as the pilot sees, he falls to his prayers and invokes his tutelar daemons, but neglects not in the mean time to hold to the rudder and let down the mainyard; and so,

By gathering in his sails, with mighty pain,

Escapes the hell-pits of the raging main.

Hesiod² directs his husbandman, before he either plough or sow, to pray to the infernal Jove and the venerable Ceres, but with his hand upon the plough-tail. Homer acquaints us how Ajax, being to engage in a single combat with Hector, bade the Grecians pray to the Gods for him; and while they were at their devotions, he was putting on his armor. Likewise, after Agamemnon had thus prepared his soldiers for the fight,—

Each make his spear to glitter as the sun,

Each see his warlike target well hung on,—

he then prayed,—

Grant me, great Jove, to throw down Priam’s roof.

For God is the brave man’s hope, and not the coward’s excuse. The Jews indeed once sat on their tails,—it being forsooth their Sabbath day,—and suffered their enemies to rear their scaling-ladders and make themselves masters of their walls, and so lay still until they were caught like so many trout in the drag-net of their own superstition.⁴

Notes on the current edition

Superstition

1. Plutarch, in his Life of Artaxerxes, chap. xxix. (p. 1026 C), represents Tiribazus as fighting to the end, but this may have bee on another occasion.

2. Plutarch, in trying to be a physician of the soul to cure superstition, has here unwittingly turned homeopath. Cf. B. Perrin’s note on chap. xxxi. (p. 128 A) of the Life of Themistocles in Plutarch’s Themistocles and Aristides (New York, 1901), page 256. To the references there given should be added Nicander, Alexipharmaca, 312.

3. Other portents which disheartened Aristodemus are related by Pausanias, iv. 13.

4. The details regarding Nicias are to be found in Thucydides, vii. 35-87, and in Plutarch’s Life of Nicias, chap. xxiii. (p. 538 D) ff.

5. A fragment from Archilochus; cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. ii. p. 696, Archilochus, No. 54.

6. Castor and Pollux.

7. Cf. Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 730; Plutarch, Moralia, 475 F, and Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 910, Adespota, No. 377.

8. Works and Days, 465-8.

9. Homer, Il. vii. 193 ff.

10. Ibid.ii. 382.

11. Adapted from Homer, Il. ii. 413-414.

12. Perhaps the reference is to the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 B.C. ( cf. Dio Cassius, xxxvii. 16), or possibly to its capture by Antony in 28 B.C. ( cf. Dio Cassius, xlix. 22). Cf. also Josephus, Antiquitates Jud. xii. 6. 2, and 1 Maccabees, ii. 32 ff.

Plutarch De Superstitione 8

Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator)

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