And this one too:
Great strength of body is the gift of nature; But to be able to advise whate’er Is most expedient for one’s country’s good, Is the peculiar work of sense and wisdom.
Another is:
Great riches come to many men by chance.
He used also to say that that man was unfortunate who could not support misfortune; and that it is a disease of the mind to desire what was impossible, and to have no regard for the misfortunes of others. Being asked what was difficult, he said: “To bear a change of fortune for the worse with magnanimity.” Once he was on a voyage with some impious men, and the vessel was overtaken by a storm; so they began to invoke the assistance of the Gods; on which he said: “Hold your tongues, lest they should find out that you are in this ship.” When he was asked by an impious man what piety was, he made no reply; and when his questioner demanded the reason of his silence, he said: “I am silent because you are putting questions about things with which you have no concern.” Being asked what was pleasant to men, he replied: “Hope.” It was a saying of his that it was more agreeable to decide between enemies than between friends; for that of friends, one was sure to become an enemy to him; but that of enemies, one was sure to become a friend. When the question was put to him what a man derived pleasure while he was doing, he said: “While acquiring gain.” He used to say, too, that men ought to calculate life both as if they were fated to live a long and a short time, and that they ought to love one another as if at a future time they would come to hate one another; for that most men were wicked. He used also to give the following pieces of advice: “Choose the course which you adopt with deliberation; but when you have adopted it, then persevere in it with firmness.—Do not speak fast, for that shows folly.—Love prudence.—Speak of the Gods as they are.—Do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches.—Accept of things, having procured them by persuasion, not by force.—Whatever good fortune befalls you, attribute it to the gods.—Cherish wisdom as a means of travelling from youth to old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession.”
Hipponax also mentions Bias, as has been said before; and Heraclitus too, a man who was not easily pleased, has praised him, saying: in Priene there lived Bias the son of Teutamus, whose reputation is higher than that of the others; and the Prienians consecrated a temple to him which is called the Teutamium. A saying of his was: “Most men are wicked.”
Cleobulus was a native of Lindus, and the son of Evagoras; but according to Duris he was a Carian; others again trace his family back to Hercules. He is reported to have been eminent for personal strength and beauty, and to have studied philosophy in Egypt; he had a daughter named Cleobulina, who used to compose enigmas in hexameter verse, and she is mentioned by Cratinus in his play of the same name, except that the title is written in the plural number. They say also that he restored the temple of Minerva which had been built by Danaus.
Cleobulus composed songs and obscure sayings in verse to the number of three thousand lines, and some say that it was he who composed the epigram on Midas.
I am a brazen maiden lying here Upon the tomb of Midas. And as long As water flows, as trees are green with leaves As the sun shines and eke the silver moon, As long as rivers flow, and billows roar, So long will I upon this much wept tomb, Tell passers by, “Midas lies buried here.”
And as an evidence of this epigram being by him they quote a song of Simonides, which runs thus:
What men possessed of sense Would ever praise the Lindian Cleobulus? Who could compare a statue made by man To everflowing streams, To blushing flowers of spring, To the sun’s rays, to beams o’ the golden morn, And to the ceaseless waves of mighty Ocean? All things are trifling when compared to God. While men beneath their hands can crush a stone; So that such sentiments can only come from fools.
And the epigram cannot possibly be by Homer, for he lived many years, as it is said, before Midas.
There is also the following enigma quoted in the Commentaries of Pamphila, as the work of Cleobulus:
There was one father and he had twelve daughters, Each of his daughters had twice thirty children. But most unlike in figure and complexion; For some were white, and others black to view, And though immortal they all taste of death.
And the solution is, “the year.”
Of his apothegms, the following are the most celebrated: “Ignorance and talkativeness bear the chief sway among men. Opportunity will be the most powerful. Cherish not a thought. Do not be fickle, or ungrateful.” He used to say too that men ought to give their daughters in marriage while they were girls in age, but women in sense; as indicating by this that girls ought to be well educated. Another of his sayings was that one ought to serve a friend that he may become a greater friend; and an enemy, to make him a friend. And that one ought to guard against giving one’s friends occasion to blame one, and one’s enemies opportunity of plotting against one. Also, when a man goes out of his house, he should consider what he is going to do: and when he comes home again he should consider what he has done. He used also to advise men to keep their bodies in health by exercise.—To be fond of hearing rather than of talking.—To be fond of learning rather than unwilling to learn.—To speak well of people.—To seek virtue and eschew vice.—To avoid injustice.—To give the best advice in one’s power to one’s country.—To be superior to pleasure.—To do nothing by force.—To instruct one’s children.—To be ready for reconciliation after quarrels.—Not to caress one’s wife, nor to quarrel with her when strangers are present, for that to do the one is a sign of folly, and to do the latter is downright madness.—Not to chastise a servant while elated with drink, for so doing one will appear to be drunk oneself.—To marry from among one’s equals, for if one takes a wife of a higher rank than oneself, one will have one’s connections for one’s masters.—Not to laugh at those who are being reproved, for so one will be detested by them.—Be not haughty when prosperous.—Be not desponding when in difficulties.—Learn to bear the changes of fortune with magnanimity.
And he died at a great age, having lived seventy years, and this inscription was put over him:
His country, Lindus, this fair seagirt city Bewails wise Cleobulus here entombed.
One of his sayings was: “Moderation is the best thing.” He also wrote a letter to Solon in these terms:
Cleobulus to Solon
You have many friends, and a home everywhere, but yet I think that Lindus will be the most agreeable habitation for Solon, since it enjoys a democratic government, and it is a maritime island, and whoever dwells in it has nothing to fear from Pisistratus, and you will have friends flock to you from all quarters.
Periander was a Corinthian, the son of Cypselus, of the family of the Heraclidae. He married Lyside (whom he himself called Melissa), the daughter of Procles the tyrant of Epidaurus, and of Eristhenea the daughter of Aristocrates, and sister of Aristodemus, who governed nearly all Arcadia, as Heraclides Ponticus says in his Treatise on Dominion, and had by her two sons Cypselus and Lycophron, the younger of whom was clever boy, but the elder was deficient in intellect. At a subsequent period he in a rage either kicked or threw his wife downstairs when she was pregnant, and so killed her, being wrought upon by the false accusations of his concubines, whom he afterwards burnt alive. And the child, whose name was Lycophron, he sent away to Corcyra because he grieved for his mother.
But afterwards, when he was now extremely old, he sent for him back again, in order that he might succeed to the tyranny. But the Corcyreans, anticipating his intention, put him to death, at which he was greatly enraged, and sent their children to Corcyra to be made eunuchs of; and when the ship came near to Samos, the youths, having made supplications to Juno, were saved by the Samians. And he fell into despondency and died, being eighty years old. Sosicrates says that he died forty-one years before Croesus, in the last year of the forty-eighth Olympiad. Herodotus, in the first book of his History, says that he was connected by ties of hospitality with Thrasybulus the tyrant of Miletus. And Aristippus, in the first book of his Treatise on Ancient Luxury, tells the following story of him: that his mother Cratea fell in love with him, and introduced herself secretly into his bed; and he was delighted, but when the truth was discovered he became very oppressive to all his subjects, because he was grieved at the discovery. Ephorus relates that he made a vow that, if he gained the victory at Olympia in the chariot race, he would dedicate a golden statue to the God. Accordingly he gained the victory; but being in want of gold, and seeing the women at some national festival beautifully adorned, he took away their golden ornaments, and then sent the offering which he had vowed.
But some writers say that he was anxious that his tomb should not be known, and that with that object he adopted the following contrivance: He ordered two young men to go out by night, indicating a particular road by which they were to go, and to kill the first man they met, and bury him; after them he sent out four other men who were to kill and bury them. Again he sent out a still greater number against these four, with similar instructions. And in this manner he put himself in the way of the first pair, and was slain, and the Corinthians erected a cenotaph over him with the following inscription:
The sea-beat land of Corinth in her bosom, Doth here embrace her ruler Periander, Greatest of all men for his wealth and wisdom.