VI ll ALExANDRE Kotivz

The Emperor Julian and

His Art o{ Writing.
. . . For one must not speak of the ineffable.
Julian (2184)
When on the cage of an elephant you see the inscription
"bufralo," don't believe your eyes.
Kouzma Proutkov
t
t'

In a book on the art of writing which has been justly {'

t.
tr
noted because it is truly noteworthy, Leo strauss has reminded us of (
t
what has tended to be too easily forgotten since the nineteenth century-
that one ought not to take literally everything that the great authors of
earlier times wrote, nor to believe that they made explicit in their writings
all that they wanted to say in them.
In fact, the old art of writing rediscovered by Leo Strauss consisted
in writing almost the opposite of what one thought, in order to camou-
flage what one said. This literary camouflage had two clearly distinct
ends, which could, nouetheless, be combined. On the one hand, thought
could be camouflaged to escape persecution resulting from intolerance,
which arises necessarily as much from knowledge that is rightly shielded
from doubt as from any opinion that is wrongly shieldeJ from doubt.
on the other hand, literary camoufage could serve to form an elite;
writing was supposed to be able to inform those exceptional men who
were capable of grasping the camouflaged doctrine which shocks preju-
dice, at the same time conffrming average readers in their tradiiional
ignorance, sometimes called learned and always supposed salutary. Thus
* Translated by
James H. Nichols, Jr.

95
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 The Emperor lulian and His Art of Writing ll 97

In the &scourse, To the Uneducated" Dogs (or Cynics), (in which

Julian attacks the monks, too, while feigning to criticize only the neo-
Cynics of his time and, further, opposing them to Antisthenes and
Diogenes, whom he admires), it is said in passing: 'As for me, with
respect to the gods, . . . I wish to say only the pious things" ( 187" ).
Several months previously, the Emperor had spoken in great detail about
many pagan divinities in his discourse, On the Mother of the Goils
(inspired in part by Lucian's Syrian Goddess). Several months later he
availed himself of another opportunity in the discourse, On Ki.ng Heli.os,
which is an intentional parody of the writings of Iamblichus. It is clear
that Julian did not really believe what he had written about the gods in
these two discourses and that he kept sileut as to what he truly thought
of the gods. Yet nothing, it seems, prevented him from developing
therein whatever theological conceptions he had, if any, concerning
pagan theology. Moreover, nothing permits us to suppose that his reason
for concealing what he thought of the pagan gods was that he had
remained a true Christian after his official apostasy. We are thus forced
to admit that, in indicating that he kept his true thoughts about any
divinities to himself, Julian wished to indicate that in his opinion there
were none. This radical, but silent or camoufage, atheism is also sug-
gested by the fact that, in his two ostensibly religious and "mystic"
discourses, the Emperor reproduces the themes of the pagan theology
of his time (assimilable, in his view, to those of Christian theology) only
insofar as those themes have in his opinion a particularly inept and +
t.
ridiculous character, which he takes pains to emphasize discreetly by l.
f
accentuating it.
f
After recoguizing that, on becoming Emperor, the philosopher Julian
eeases to say all that he thiuks and even to think all that he says, one I

must ask the reason for this camouflage. Now, in his discourse, fn t
L
Response to the Cgnic Heracleios (Heracleios in fact designating not
only a neo-Cynic philosopher, but also a Christian bishop or theologian),
the Emperor recalls that in every age orators and writers with philo-
scphic leanings camoufaged their thoughts for fear of reprisal: "[The
poet who uses a eertain kind of myth] wishes to exhort and instruct but
in a concealed way. He does this in the case rfiere he is afraid to speak
clearly because he is anxious about being hated by the audience. This is
how Hesiod too evidently wrote" (2A7*b), Perhaps-but of whom and of
what could a Roman Emperor be afraid? Ju1ian evidently could not fear
persecution by the dying paganism of his time. On the contrary, he could
see that it was impossible in that age to dethrone the pagan gods with-
out enthroning in their place the Christian divinity, whose adepts would
have persecuted the atheist Emperor more eflectively than pagans could
have.2 In the ffnal analysis, then, it was for fear of the hatred of his

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 The Emperor luli,an and His Art otWriting ll 99

and the mockings of the unbelieving or skeptical intellectual that he was.

No doubt, if Julian had wanted to be simply Emperor, he should and
could have given up completely those mockings and stopped his subtle
jesting. Having remained a philosopher, however, he could not abandon
philosophic pedagogy; in addressing his writings only to a mature elite,
he took care that the tradition of what was for him the (discursive)
truth should not be interrupted. The camouflaged mocking which escapes
the vulgar permits the selection of strong minds who understand such
ironies without being shocked by them, and who thus reveal that they
are not so enslaved by prejudice as to be unapt to receive, perhaps with
some benefit, a philosophic instruction which will itself be given them
only between the lines for the same double reason of selection and
secrecy.
Now, this is exactly what Julian himself tells us on occasion. Thus, in
the discourse, On King Helio's (in which Helios is at the same time the
pagan divinity which the author exalts as Emperor, but which he derides
as intellectual, and the symbol of the nous to which he appeals as phi-
losopher), Julian speaks explicitly of his pedagogic vocation: "May the
greata Helios [reason] grant that I no lesss know about him and that I
teach everyone generally (xowff), but those worthy of learning particu-
larly (;8is)" (fS7u;. Here, the appeal to the philosophic elite and the
exclusion of the mass of the profane are only indicated. Elsewhere, how-
ever, the author expresses himself in a more open fashion, as for example
in the discourse, ln Response to the Cgni,c Heracl.eios, where he says:
"For not everything ought to be said; and even of those things which it is
lawful to say [to an elite], certain things, in my opinion, must be kept
$'
quiet before the many" (239-b). However, it must be done with art: the
same camouflage which seryes to hide from the vulgar the true meaning t
r
of what is said must attract the attention of the chosen few and provoke h
philosophic refection in them. This is precisely what ]ulian himself tells i

us in his discourse, Onthe Mother of the Godst

The Ancients always looked for the causes of things; . , . and when they
had found them, they protected them with paradoxical myths, so that by
means of the paradox and incongruity the counterfeit character [of what is
said to us] would be detected and would turn us to the search for the truth
lwhich is hidden from us or which is indicated only by hints]. I suppose
that for the ordinary men there is sufficient benefft in the irrational story
which is transmitted uniquely by [generally strange and contradictory]
symbols, whereas for t-hose who are exceptional in intelligence, the huth
about the gods can be beneffcial only on the condition that they search for,
ffnd, and grasp it [themselves] under the direction of the gods [that is to
say, here, of reason, truly of philosophy], reminded by the enigmatic allu-
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tr The Emperor lulian and His Art of Writi.ng ll 101

tradition. After the example o{ the great Plato, Julian the philosopher
jested a great deal, particularly about things which the common run of
readers someUmes take tragically and always endow with a seriousness
which they consider profound. But, like Plato himself, Julian made fun
of these things at the same time being careful not to shock the profane,
and he, like Plato, did it so as to stir his chosen few to the intellectual
efiort, which is philosophic precisely insofar as it is deemed able to
liberate from the prejudices 'bf the theatey'' and "of the forum" those
who are capable of it, thus leading them to (discursive) wisdom-that is,
to full satisfaction, perfectly conscious of itself.T

Many examples of the art of writing practiced by Julian could be

given. For lack of spaee I shall content myself with a single example,
which seems particularly convincing to me. It is concerned with what
Julian thinks and says when he speaks, in his philosophic writings, of
myths, both generally and particularly. julian speaks of myths in all his
pieces of a philosophic character. But his discourse, ln Responss to the
Cgni.c Heracleios, is devoted entirely to the problem'of myth in general
and of theological myths, pagan as well as Christian, in particular
(cf. 205b"). The philosopher-Emperor explicitly formulates his own point
of view at the very outset of his analysis, which begins as follows: "To
discover the point at which the invention of myths began, as well as the
person of him who ffrst tried to relate false stories in a believable form
for the profft or the diversion of his audience, is probably quite as
impossible as to ffnd the ffrst man who sneezed or spat" (205").
Obviously, in deffning the myth as a false story told in a believable
fashion, ]ulian consciously opposes the traditional deffnition, implicitly
or explicitly admiued by all the theologians, including the Stoics. For
these men, myths (or at least certain myths) are true stories which,
however, present themselves in an unbelievable form, in the sense of
being unlikely, or at least incomprehensible. The task of the pagan or
Christian theologian, on that premise, consists in interpreting a myth so
as to restate in likely and comprehensible (not to say reasonable or
rational) speech the truth which the myth reveals (discursively). The
truth of the myth is defined as a harmonizing of what the myth says
with what it speaks about. Thus the truth of the myth is supposed to
be the (discursive) revelation of a reality. More exactly, it is not the
myth which reveals a reality. It is the reality, generally divine, which
reveals itself in and through the myth. Thus, the theological myth is the
unbelievable discursive form of a divine revelation, which reveals what
is or really exists "outside of its discursive revelation and independently
of the mythical, that is, unbelievable form of the myth. This is the source
of the possibility of interpreting the myth by rationalizing its (dis-
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by its meaning that the theological myth contradicts itself. The mythical
expression, which is also artistic, can at best camouflage this contradic-
tion (at least in the eyes of the "many"; see 213d), by giving it an
"exalted" and "coherent," that is, 'believable" appearance. More exactly,
all myths have a contradictory meaning, because they contradict them-
selves by deffnition: what is not seU-contradictory is not a myth, properly
so-called. But one and the same contradictory meaning can have two
different verbal expressions: the one makes the contradiction appear
explicitly while the other dissembles it without suppressing it, so that
it is only implicit. One must therefore distinguish myths which openly
present themselves as having a contradictory meaning from those which
hide-or pretend to hide-their contradiction by expressing themselves
in apparently "exalted" and'toherent" discourse.
We shall shortly see that the telling of false stories without camou-
flaging their contradictory character in order to pass them off as true is
what distinguishes poetry. But we have just seen that, according to
Julian, if one aims to edify, it is necessary to dissimulate by apparently
coherent speech the implied contradiction in the meaning of poetic
works which treat divine things. We understand very well why this is so.
In effect, the contradictory meaning cannot, by deffnition, correspond
,r
to any reality. To show by the very verbal expression that a story is con-
li
tradictory is hence to present it openly as a ffction. And this is precisely
tl
what the poets do in telling their stories. On the other hand, the theolo-
ii

gians claim to speak of real divinities. They are therefore obliged to cam-
t:
ouflage verbally t}e contradictions inherent in the meaning of the stories
they tell. Thus, it is the theologians who produce myths in the proper
sense of the word, namely, 'Talse stories [because contradictory] in a
believable form [because apparently coherent]" (205"). Now, the art of
ffnding an apparently coherent verbal form for a false meaning which is
not simple or unique (the contradictory meaning being precisely double)
belongs to rhetoric. consequently, theology is a branch of rhetoric, which
tries to ffnd (apparently) coherent verbal expressions for the contra-
dictory meanings of poetic works which have divine things for their
subiect.
Whatever the relations between theology, poetry, and rhetoric may be,
Julian tells us clearly that according to him all myths are false stories.
And we now know that these stories are false because their meaning is
contradictory, in whatever verbal form they may happen to be croaked.
Now, by the curious comparison of men's invention of myths with
sneezing and spitting, Julian gives us to understand that there have
always been and that there will always be myths on earth, as long as
human beings live on it. Hence it can be asked why men invent false
stories everywhere and always, sometimes taking them for true. Julian
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 The Emperor lulian and His Art of Writing ll I05

faith in the myths is such that even his burlesque of them will prevent
almost no one from taking them seriously and from believing that Julian
himself takes them seriously.
Now, if Julian realized that in &eological matters men ffrmly believe
in perfectly "unbelievable" things, he must have asked himself why they
did so. At ffrst glance, his rather in&rect respouse is hardly satisfying,
although traditional in ancient philosophy. It is that people believe in
myths from 'haivet6," that is, from lack of intelligence or, more exactly,
because they do not notice the "strange and contradictory" character
of what the myths tell.8 But a much more profound response-"Hegelian"
before its time-is perhaps found in a curious passage of the Consolntion,
where Julian speaks of Alexander as follows:

It is told that Alexander wished for a Homer, not to profft from his com-
pany, but for the propagation of his glory. . . . However, that man lAlexan-
der] never looked to the present: he was never satisffed with what was
accorded to him in his time and he was not content with the things which
were [actually] given to him. Even if a Homer had befallen him, he would
perhaps have longed for the Apollonian lyre, to which Apollo sang the
nuptials of Peleus. For Alexander took this story [relative to Apollo] not for
a simple product of Homer's understanding, but for a true deed which
Homer had woven into the web of his poem (250d-251-).

Stated otherwise, a poet, in order to divert, invents a false story which

he himself presents as a ffction; but in the eyes of another man, this same
story can seem "believable" to the point of being considered true, in &e
sense of conforming to reality, even if it has a "strange and contradictory''
character. Since the man in question is Alexander, there can be no ques-
tion of naivet6 or of lack of intelligence. Thus Julian indicates an entirely
different reason, namely, a desire for glory (or tecognition," in the
Hegelian sense of the word) which is not satisffed by the fame acquired
in one's lifetime. Now, since Julian speaks of Alexander and of Homer,
he certainly wishes to tell us that the desire for glory, or for 'iecog-
nition," that Ieads men to transform poetic ffctions into theological myths
which people accept as true is such that it cannot be satisffed by any
action performed on earth or by any eulogies earned there. Moreover,
Julian carefully emphasizes that nothing occurring in the dimension of
time could satisfy Alexander. That is to say that men believe in the truth
of theological myths because these allow human beings to expect an
eternal glory, an afterlife, in and through "recognition" on the part of
immortal or divine beings. In short, men believe in the gods because
they themselves wish to be immortal.
Julian could have stopped there, if myths were told only by poets (who
devote themselves to ffctions in play and to divert) or by religious men

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 The Emperor lulian and His Art of Writing ll 107

ought to be composed, if, in a general way, philosophy somehow needs

the invention of myths too" (205r). To reply to this question, ]ulian
begins by asking what branch of philosophy might need myths-'Talse
stories with a believable form." He says:

With regard to these difierent branches [of philosophy, namely, accord-

ing to the Stoic tripartition, logic, physics, and ethicsl, the invention of
myths is appropriate neither to logic nor to mathematies, which is a part of
physics; but if this invention is appropriate to any of these branches at all,
it is with practical philosophy [with ethics] that it is concerned, namely,
with that part of it which concerns the individual man [not the state as
suchl, as well as the part of theology which deals with initiations and
mysteries (216b).

On the page preceding this passage, Julian had adopted the Stoic
division of philosophy into only three parts. Stated otherwise, following
the Stoics, he subsumes theology under physics. For him, though (as
perhaps for Plato and certainly for Kant, as well as for certain "Demo-
critbans," if not for Democritus himself ), physics can be true only insofar
as it is mathematical, The nonmathematical remnant of physics is for
him, as for Plato in the Timaeus, only a bevy of "myths," that is to say, t
false stories presented in a more or less "believabld' form. This is the ti
tl
case especially when the stories claim to describe a 'transcendent" or Ir
divine world. It is precisely because nothing true can be said of this ,I
world, for the simple reason that it does not exist at all, that one is obliged
t
to have recourse to myths when one intends to speak of it. Now Julian
gives us to understand, in the pages which follow the passage quoted,
that the use of myths by a philosopher can be justiffed only in ethics-
and not ethics as a whole, but only that part which is addressed to indi-
{
viduals. Stated otherwise, when a philosopher speaks as a theorist of the
rt
state or of society, that is, of man in gerreral or man as such, he must
speak seriously and try to say the truth, avoiding all kinds of myths. A
philosopher can himself tell, or have others tell, 'Talse stories in a believ-
able form," intending to make them pass as true, only when he wants
to act as a peda-gogue or as a dema-gogue, that is to say, when his goal
is to educate individuals so that their life in common can take the form
of a viable state truly worthy of the name, such as the Roman state was
before its decadence.
This understood, the philosopher-Emperor believes it necessary and
possible to make his thought even more speciffq and to say directly that
in any event myths, even edifying ones, should be told only to those
who are not capable of understanding or accepting the truth. "The one
who makes stories for the sake of the improvement of morals and intro-
duces myths must not do this for men but for children, whether in age or

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eq se 1sn[ 'uepqrq3 ro ue8ed req]eq^.r ,sqldu Jo urFI epensred o] sraq]o .t,
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elqBlarreq pue (luql IIB JoJ ..r(rolcJDe4uoc pue a8uer1s,, are rlcrtl^, salJols
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seop oq.r\ iuorpe.qqp ro Surlzoc-reBns e paeu lou saop oqtlr pue sqln4
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-rcsm dlluelcsns ueru 1ua31ge1u1 uu 'prozn aql Jo esuas
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'aureu lerll Jo dqlrom d1n4'uaurselsls eql s" ,sraqdoso[qd cn
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Jo
srossecapard sFI IIE 3uptto11o3'puulsrapun o1 sn sealB aq
JI puy...llnpu,
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aoploy otpuuxalv ll sor
 Th.e Emperor Julian and His Art of Writing ll I0g
shelter themselves from persecution, but also to gratify their
taste for
play and jest and in order that phirosophers courir""og.rir" each
other
more surely.

In the light of historical experience, the Emperor

Julian's art of writing
appears most extraordinary. For although he permitted himself
to tell us
unmistakably that he himself did not believe in any of the theological
myths which were told with more or less success in his epoch, it is
not
a-s an atheistic philosoplrer_but as a self-procraimed "devoit
pagan,, and
"Neo-Platonic mystic" that history has trinsmitted ^
him to ,s. '
Telling of Juliant art of writing, I hope r have not behayed his secret-
1or, lor that matter, anyone's secret-by writing the prlceding pages.
For these pages will say nothing of interest to those whlor. tt e i-pero,
wanted to exclude from the small number of comprehending readers
of
his philosophic writings. They wilr indeed say riothing at"all. In the
spirit of their author, these pages contain-nothing othlr, and nothing
more, than a modest sahrt addressed to the boi entend.eurs
of phil
losophy-over the oceans and through the centuries.

il
t
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ll nru" :,'
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- 1, The Works
Heinemann,
of the Emperor lulian, trans. W. C. Wright (S vols.; London;
1g1g), 24gd-249", All references to the writings'of
lulian will be
to this edition.
2. It is obviously the crosiers of the bishops and not the stafis of ..the
-
philosophers" that Julian really has in view in the followi.rg
i.rr";iir" *hi"h
he pretends to address to the "Cynic" Heracleios:

-why do. you [the "Cy]ics,'].circrrlate everyr,vhere and ply

Furthermore,
not only the mules but also, as- r hear tell, thlir drivers, ,"t o ur" *o." frigii-
ened before you,than before the soldiersi For, as I hear, yoo,rr" yo*
even more cruellv than the soldiers do their swords. l[ i, trr"rlrore
rtrfi,
fftting
that you also inspire th"; ;th;;f"* ('izq").
3. As-Emperor, Julian often takes issue with the'pure" intelectuars who
isolate themselves from political action, and who nevirtheless p"rrnit
th"*_
selves to advise statesmen. He does this notably in his very iroi"ui
rnttn, to
the Philosopher Themistius, wlrich he paroiies the styie or
_in
"sophists" and cruelly derides, although again in u cu*orfluged "orrt"*porrry
lorm, the
advice lavished on the new Emperor by his former tutor in phiro-sophy
(whom
Eunapius does not mention in his Li,fe of the sophisfs, wheie he
civers lrnian
with flowers). see more particularly 263b-267b. Letter 16 could also b1 quoted
 ,(l8uplprun eir,l '[slsruoleld-oaN eE pue .epolspy .o1e16 Buprollo;] ureql uo
pesodurrredns lou sJ asnec .roJrd e gr .ra,razuoq :uJod leualeur E osle lnq .JellBIAJ
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-eC[ o] seo8 qclqzn 'ursgerro]Bru cpsleqle ue o1 ,sJ
lceq leq] ...ruspplsod,, e o1
peraqpe uegnf luqt epnlcuoc plnoc auo leql suorsnfle orer pue en8ea uo
Jleseuo
SuJseq lq,(po sI tI tng '(au{u.o !c6gl pue ,gg1 .eldwexe ro;.,;c) rusruoleld
-oeu Jo [lrelncqred pue eurtt srq 5o dqdosogqd eqf Jo seJcuepue] crlcelca
eq] solncrprr eq suorsBcco IBreAes uo 'erourreqJrnd '(p-,69r ';c) ..sclsdqdepur
pc18o1oeql,, Jo enplser e se (..dgecruo4, s,(ezr.r,1e) slueserd JIesu4rI eq qcFI \
'roipo aql Jo uollou uBllelo$1ry eql Jo onbqrrc .snqcreuex pe.llolloJ er{ l€q}
elqeqord sr 11'l11eurg'(po.oJ eq ol sr seepr Jo drooql eql yo enbpuc Iecruorr
uB eraq { 'qggl-p6gI tsnoJ qo lpepcnred sJ .{uorr eql oraq/$, .p_q6gl :oleld
,c,_rg?l .eldurexe
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i
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'esmocslp eql uI urrel srq] Jo osn peleader eql'eldurexe.rol ,.yc) enlel Iecruorr
ue 'uerlnf .ro1 'seq ,1eet?,, lor{lJde Ituoqrperl eql ,alnr lereue8 B sy .z
'(os 'gg
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 The Emperor lulian and His Art of Writing II Iil
introduce the opinion of Epicurus"). This hypothetical interpretation would
become absolutely certain if the author of the small treatise, OI the Cods and
of the World, were the same Sallust who was Julian's friend. For the credo of
that author (which is openly expressed in chapter XVII, the other chapters
being "ironicali') is clearly Democritean and atheistic. But it is possible that the
"Sallust" in question is only one of the pseudonyms of Damscius (alias "Mari-
nus" as the supposed author of the so-called biography of Proclus, a pamphlet
as ironical as it is ferocious). It seems, moreover, that Damscius, himself a
"materialist" and a notorious atheist, knew the writings of Julian very well and
imitated him in his own vita lsidori (which is in fact only a persiflage of neo-
Platonism), and whose "diadochian Isidorus," moreover, never existed. As to
Julian s anti-christianity, it is universally known because
it was publicly
avowed. But it has perhaps not been sufficiently emphasized that the Emperor-
philosopher was "Nietzschean" or "Hegelian" before his time, insofar as he
reproached Judeo-christianity above all for being a 'ieligion of slaves" (cf.
195"-196"; Lggdr 207d*208"; 213b; 238"-d). Cf. also fr. 5: "They [the Christian
soldiersl Inew only how to pray [but were unfft for combat]" (Works Vol. III,
pp. 298 and 299).
7. With regard to the Platonic origin of Julian's "irony," the following
('ironicali') passage from the discourse, In Resporwe to the Cynic Heracleios,
is particularly characteristic:
He [Plato n the Philebas and the Timaeus] insists that everything the ,t
poets say of the gods be implicitlybelieved, and-that no proof for what tiey
I
I
iay be demanded of them. But I have quoted here this passage fTimaeus, I
4$e-", which Julian obviously considers "ironical," although te must have
known tlat this same passage was taken literally and seriously by the author 't
I
of. the Epinornis] solely so that you ["Heracleios," here the syrnbol of the I
Christian theologianl will not be able to pretend, as many Platonists do, that
Socrates' being naturally ironic is a ground for slighting the Platonic doc-
trine. For these words are not uttered by Socrates, but by Timaeus, who is
least of all ironical. [This shows, incidentally, that Julian did not take at all .I
seriously the myths of a pseudo-scientiffc cast that Plato jokingly put in the
mouth of Timaeus to make fun of him (aiming perhaps at Eudoxus, or the
young Aristotle, who was impressed and influenced !V Eudo-xus to the point
of Urbati,rg with the philosophy of t}le Academy).1 For that matter, it is
not sound, instead of examining what is said, to ask who says it and to whom
the speeches are addressed. [An ironical passage, which shows tlat Julian
knew full well that it is, on the contrary, only by posing these last two ques-
tions that the dialogues of Plato can be correctly interpreted.l Must I now
refer you again to the omniscient Siren, the image of the messenger-god
Hermes and the friend of Apollo and the Muses [namely, Aristotle]P He
thinks that to those who ask if there are gods or who, in a general manner,
undertake a [critical] study of this subject, one must not give an answer as
to human beings, but administer a punishment as to beasts (237b-d).
Evidently, Julian did not greatly appreciate people who take things too seri-
ously, particularly in matters of religion or science, but also of politics and
raisons diEtat. On several occasions he paid tribute to the philosophers of the
past who knew how to joke, putting Democritus at their head beside Plato'

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 The Emperor lulian and His Art of Writing ll lI3
destiny (;rpopr"ivn); and to permit me tlereafter to rise toward him and to
remain hi*,'if that is fossible, forever lwhich Julian certainly does not
believel;"""r
if however this must be [as Julian himse]f thinks it mustl a [re-
ligious] desire which goes beyond my merits in this life, may it at the very
le*ast [Lut, of course, per impossibilel be for numerous and lengthy periods
of time (15Sr-";.
Let us ffnally note that this last passage is found again almost word for word
in the last chapter (it is also both ironical and serious, although not at all tragic)
of the small work already mentioned which is traditionally attributed to a
certain "Sallust."
10. Cf. The Caesars 318b: "Gods ought to test and investigate the tuuth,
and not persuasiveness or seductiveness" (including the 'tweet spices" of
myths of any type whatsoever) '
11. Cf. TheCaesars 314"-d:
You [the Emperor Probus] were too austere and always harsh, never
yielding. You have sufiered unjustly and yet fittingly. O_ne cannot govern
irorses,-cattle, mules, and still less men, without conceding something to
what gratiffes them. It is thus that doctors sometimes make small concessions
[sweeiening bitter medications] to the sick, in order to ffnd them obedient
on great occasions. "What, Papa [Silenus]," says Dionysus,'Are you going
philosophic on us?" "Why not, my boy! ' . ' Let us then mix some serious
words with our laughing onest" t
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