The Stromata (Miscellanies)

Before handling the point proposed, we must, by way of preface, add to the close of the fifth book what is wanting. For since we have shown that the symbolical style was ancient, and was employed not only by our prophets, but also by the majority of the ancient Greeks, and by not a few of the rest of the Gentile Barbarians, it was requisite to proceed to the mysteries of the initiated. I postpone the elucidation of these till we advance to the confutation of what is said by the Greeks on first principles; for we shall show that the mysteries belong to the same branch of speculation. And having proved that the declaration of Hellenic thought is illuminated all round by the truth, bestowed on us in the Scriptures, taking it according to the sense, we have proved, not to say what is invidious, that the theft of the truth passed to them.

Come, and let us adduce the Greeks as witnesses against themselves to the theft. For, inasmuch as they pilfer from one another, they establish the fact that they are thieves; and although against their will, they are detected, clandestinely appropriating to those of their own race the truth which belongs to us. For if they do not keep their hands from each other, they will hardly do it from our authors. I shall say nothing of philosophic dogmas, since the very persons who are the authors of the divisions into sects, confess in writing, so as not to be convicted of ingratitude, that they have received from Socrates the most important of their dogmas. But after availing myself of a few testimonies of men most talked of, and of repute among the Greeks, and exposing their plagiarizing style, and selecting them from various periods, I shall turn to what follows.

Orpheus, then, having composed the line:—

And Musæus having written:—

Again, Musæus having composed the lines:—

Homer transcribes:—

Again, Homer having said:—

Archilochus and Cratinus write, the former:—

…and Cratinus in the Lacones:—

Again, Archilochus, transferring that Homeric line:—

…writes thus:—

As certainly also that line:—

He also, altering, has given forth thus:—

Also, translating the following:—

…he openly encourages youth, in the following iambic:—

Euripides writes in Erechtheus:—

Archilochus having likewise said:—

…in correspondence with the Homeric line:—

Euripides says in Œneus:—

And I have heard Æschylus saying:—

And Euripides, too, shouting the like on the stage:—

Menander, too, on comedy, saying:—

Again, Theognis having said:—

Euripides has written:—

And Epicharmus, saying:—

…and adding:—

Euripides writes:—

Euripides having, besides, said in the Medea:—

Sophocles in Ajax Flagellifer utters this iambic:—

Solon having written:—

Theognis writes in the same way:—

Whence also Thucydides, in the Histories, says: “Many men, to whom in a great degree, and in a short time, unlooked-for prosperity comes, are wont to turn to insolence.” And Philistus likewise imitates the same sentiment, expressing himself thus: “And the many things which turn out prosperously to men, in accordance with reason, have an incredibly dangerous tendency to misfortune. For those who meet with unlooked success beyond their expectations, are for the most part wont to turn to insolence.” Again, Euripides having written:—

Critias writes: “For I begin with a man’s origin: how far the best and strongest in body will he be, if his father exercises himself, and eats in a hardy way, and subjects his body to toilsome labour; and if the mother of the future child be strong in body, and give herself exercise.”

Again, Homer having said of the Hephæstus-made shield:—

Pherecydes of Syros says:—“Zas makes a cloak large and beautiful, and works on it earth and Ogenus, and the palace of Ogenus.”

Euripides writes in Erechtheus:—

Take, by way of parallel, such plagiarisms as the following, from those who flourished together, and were rivals of each other. From the Orestes of Euripides:—

From the Eriphyle of Sophocles:—

And from the Antigone of Sophocles:—

And from the Aleuades of Sophocles:—

Again, in the Ctimenus of Euripides:—

And in the Minos of Sophocles;

And from the Alexander of Euripides:—

And from the Hipponos of Sophocles:—

But let us similarly run over the following; for Eumelus having composed the line,

Solon thus begins the elegy:—

Again, Euripides, paraphrasing the Homeric line:—

…employs the following iambics in Ægeus:—

And what? Theognis having said:—

…does not Panyasis write?

Hesiod, too, saying:—

Euripides writes:—

And in addition, Homer, saying:—

Euripides says:—

Besides, Callias the comic poet having written:—

Menander, in the Poloumenoi, expresses himself similarly, saying:—

And Antimachus of Teos having said:—

Augias composed the line:—

And Hesiod having said:—

Simonides said:—

Again, Epicharmas having said:—

Euripides writes:—

Similarly also, the comic poet Diphilus having said:—

Posidippus says:—

Similarly speaks to thee Plato, writing of man as a creature subject to change. Again, Euripides having said:—

Diphilus writes:—

Furthermore, Euripides having said:—

The tragic poet Theodectes similarly writes:—

And Bacchylides having said:—

Moschion, the comic poet, writes:—

And you will find that, Theognis having said:—

Aristophanes, the comic poet, writes:—

For Anacreon, having written:—

Euripides writes:—

But not to protract the discourse further, in our anxiety to show the propensity of the Greeks to plagiarism in expressions and dogmas, allow us to adduce the express testimony of Hippias, the sophist of Elea, who discourses on the point in hand, and speaks thus: “Of these things some perchance are said by Orpheus, some briefly by Musæus; some in one place, others in other places; some by Hesiod, some by Homer, some by the rest of the poets; and some in prose compositions, some by Greeks, some by Barbarians. And I from all these, placing together the things of most importance and of kindred character, will make the present discourse new and varied.”

And in order that we may see that philosophy and history, and even rhetoric, are not free of a like reproach, it is right to adduce a few instances from them. For Alcmæon of Crotona having said, “It is easier to guard against a man who is an enemy than a friend,” Sophocles wrote in the Antigone:—

And Xenophon said: “No man can injure enemies in any way other than by appearing to be a friend.”

And Euripides having said in Telephus:—

Thrasymachus, in the oration for the Larissæans, says: “Shall we be slaves to Archelaus—Greeks to a Barbarian?”

And Orpheus having said:—

…and Heraclitus, putting together the expressions from these lines, writes thus:—

And Athamas the Pythagorean having said, “Thus was produced the beginning of the universe; and there are four roots—fire, water, air, earth: for from these is the origination of what is produced,”—Empedocles of Agrigentum wrote:—

And Plato having said, “Wherefore also the gods, knowing men, release sooner from life those they value most,” Menander wrote:—

And Euripides having written in the Œnomaus:—

…and in the Phœnix:—

Hyperides says, “But we must investigate things unseen by learning from signs and probabilities.” And Isocrates having said, “We must conjecture the future by the past,” Andocides does not shrink from saying, “For we must make use of what has happened previously as signs in reference to what is to be.” Besides, Theognis having said:—

Euripides writes:—

Hyperides himself also says, “There is no feature of the mind impressed on the countenance of men.”

Again, Stasinus having composed the line:—

Xenophon says, “For I seem to myself to have acted in like manner, as if one who killed the father should spare his children.” And Sophocles having written in the Antigone:—

Herodotus says, “Mother and father being no more, I shall not have another brother.” In addition to these, Theopompus having written:—

And before him Sophocles in Peleus:—

Antipho the orator says, “For the nursing of the old is like the nursing of children.” Also the philosopher Plato says, “The old man then, as seems, will be twice a child.” Further, Thucydides having said, “We alone bore the brunt at Marathon,”—Demosthenes said, “By those who bore the brunt at Marathon.” Nor will I omit the following. Cratinus having said in the Pytine:—

Andocides the orator says, “The preparation, gentlemen of the jury, and the eagerness of our enemies, almost all of you know.” Similarly also Nicias, in the speech on the deposit, against Lysias, says, “The preparation and the eagerness of the adversaries, ye see, O gentlemen of the jury.” After him Æschines says, “You see the preparation, O men of Athens, and the line of battle.” Again, Demosthenes having said, “What zeal and what canvassing, O men of Athens, have been employed in this contest, I think almost all of you are aware;” and Philinus similarly, “What zeal, what forming of the line of battle, gentlemen of the jury, have taken place in this contest, I think not one of you is ignorant.” Isocrates, again, having said, “As if she were related to his wealth, not him,” Lysias says in the Orphics, “And he was plainly related not to the persons, but to the money.” Since Homer also having written:—

Theopompus writes, “For if, by avoiding the present danger, we were to pass the rest of our time in security, to show love of life would not be wonderful. But now, so many fatalities are incident to life, that death in battle seems preferable.” And what? Child the sophist having uttered the apophthegm, “Become surety, and mischief is at hand,” did not Epicharmus utter the same sentiment in other terms, when he said, “Suretyship is the daughter of mischief, and loss that of suretyship?” Further, Hippocrates the physician having written, “You must look to time, and locality, and age, and disease,” Euripides says in Hexameters:—

Homer again, having written:—

Archinus says, “All men are bound to die either sooner or later;” and Demosthenes, “To all men death is the end of life, though one should keep himself shut up in a coop.”

And Herodotus, again, having said, in his discourse about Glaucus the Spartan, that the Pythian said, “In the case of the Deity, to say and to do are equivalent,” Aristophanes said:—

And before him, Parmenides of Elea said:—

And Plato having said, “And we shall show, not absurdly perhaps, that the beginning of love is sight; and hope diminishes the passion, memory nourishes it, and intercourse preserves it;” does not Philemon the comic poet write:—

Further, Demosthenes having said, “For to all of us death is a debt,” and so forth, Phanocles writes in Loves, or The Beautiful:—

You will also find that Plato having said, “For the first sprout of each plant, having got a fair start, according to the virtue of its own nature, is most powerful in inducing the appropriate end;” the historian writes, “Further, it is not natural for one of the wild plants to become cultivated, after they have passed the earlier period of growth;” and the following of Empedocles:—

And Plato having said, in the Republic, that women were common, Euripides writes in the Protesilaus:—

Further, Euripides having written:—

Epicurus expressly says, “Sufficiency is the greatest riches of all.”

Epicurus says, “The greatest fruit of righteousness is tranquillity.”

Let these species, then, of Greek plagiarism of sentiments, being such, stand as sufficient for a clear specimen to him who is capable of perceiving.

And not only have they been detected pirating and paraphrasing thoughts and expressions, as will be shown; but they will also be convicted of the possession of what is entirely stolen. For stealing entirely what is the production of others, they have published it as their own; as Eugamon of Cyrene did the entire book on the Thesprotians from Musæus, and Pisander of Camirus the Heraclea of Pisinus of Lindus, and Panyasis of Halicarnassus, the capture of Œchalia from Cleophilus of Samos.

And in the Theogony, it is said by Orpheus of Kronos:—

These Homer transferrred to the Cyclops. And Hesiod writes of Melampous:—

…and so forth, taking it word for word from the poet Musæus.

And Aristophanes the comic poet has, in the first of the Thesmophoriazusæ, transferred the words from the Empiprameni of Cratinus. And Plato the comic poet, and Aristophanes in Dædalus, steal from one another. Cocalus, composed by Araros, the son of Aristophanes, was by the comic poet Philemon altered, and made into the comedy called Hypobolimœns.

Eumelus and Acusilaus the historiographers changed the contents of Hesiod into prose, and published them as their own. Gorgias of Leontium and Eudemus of Naxus, the historians, stole from Melesagoras. And, besides, there is Bion of Proconnesus, who epitomized and transcribed the writings of the ancient Cadmus, and Archilochus, and Aristotle, and Leandrus, and Hellanicus, and Hecatæus, and Androtion, and Philochorus. Dieuchidas of Megara transferred the beginning of his treatise from the Deucalion of Hellanicus. I pass over in silence Heraclitus of Ephesus, who took a very great deal from Orpheus.

From Pythagoras Plato derived the immortality of the soul; and he from the Egyptians. And many of the Platonists composed books, in which they show that the Stoics, as we said in the beginning, and Aristotle, took the most and principal of their dogmas from Plato. Epicurus also pilfered his leading dogmas from Democritus. Let these things then be so. For life would fail me, were I to undertake to go over the subject in detail, to expose the selfish plagiarism of the Greeks, and how they claim the discovery of the best of their doctrines, which they have received from us.