[4708] Lit., "the sacred dedication."
[4709] Lit., "concealed in the restraint of."
[4710] The ms. reads inrogati (the next letter being erased, having probably been s redundant) si inviti, corrected in the margin of Ursinus and Oehler, as above, -tis in.
[4711] Lit., "with the assent of voluntary compliance." "Do you say," or some such expression, must be understood, as Arnobius is asking his opponent to choose on which horn of the dilemma he wishes to be impaled.
[4712] Lit., "bindings."
[4713] So Gelenius, Canterus, Elm., Oberth., and Orelli, reading nobilitent. No satisfactory emendation has been proposed, and contradictory accounts are given as to the reading of the ms. Immediately after this sentence, LB., followed by Orelli, inserts a clause from the next chapter. Cf. the following note.
18. What then? Do the gods remain always in such substances, and do they not go away to any place, even though summoned by the most momentous affairs? or do they have free passage, when they please to go any whither, and to leave their own seats and images? If they are under the necessity of remaining, what can be more wretched than they, what more unfortunate than if hooks and leaden bonds hold them fast in this wise on their pedestals? but if we allow that they prefer these images to heaven and the starry seats, they have lost their divine power. [4714] But if, on the contrary, when they choose, they fly forth, and are perfectly free to leave the statues empty, the images will then at some time cease to be gods, and it will be doubtful when sacrifices should be offered,--when it is right and fitting to withhold them. Oftentimes we see that by artists these images are at one time made small, and reduced to the size of the hand, at another raised to an immense height, and built up to a wonderful size. In this way, then, it follows that we should understand that the gods contract themselves in [4715] little statuettes, and are compressed till they become like [4716] a strange body; or, again, that they stretch themselves out to a great length, and extend to immensity in images of vast bulk. So, then, if this is the case, in sitting statues also the gods should be said to be seated, and in standing ones to stand, to be running in those stretching forward to run, to be hurling javelins in those represented as casting them, to fit and fashion themselves to their countenances, and to make themselves like [4717] the other characteristics of the body formed by the artist.
[4714] It will be seen that these words fit into the indirect argument of Arnobius very well, although transposed in LB. to the end of last chapter, and considered a gloss by Orelli and Hildebrand. "See the consequences," Arnobius says, "of supposing that the gods do not quit these images: not merely are they in a wretched case, but they must further lose their power as divinities." Meursius, with, more reason, transposes the clause to the end of the next sentence, which would be justifiable if necessary.
[4715] Perhaps "into," as Arnobius sometimes uses the abl. after in instead of the acc.
[4716] Lit., "compressed to the similitude of."
[4717] Lit., "to adapt their similitude to."
19. The gods dwell in images--each wholly in one, or divided into parts, and into members? For neither is it possible that there can be at one time one god in several images, nor, again, divided into parts by his being cut up. [4718] For let us suppose that there are ten thousand images of Vulcan in the whole world: is it possible at all, as I said, that at one time one deity can be in all the ten thousand? I do not think so. Do you ask wherefore? Because things which are naturally single and unique, cannot become many while the integrity of their simplicity [4719] is maintained. And this they are further unable to become if the gods have the forms of men, as your belief declares; for either a hand separated from the head, or a foot divided from the body, cannot manifest the perfection of the whole, or it must be said that parts can be the same as the whole, while the whole cannot exist unless it has been made by gathering together its parts. Moreover, if the same deity shall be said to be in all the statues, all reasonableness and soundness is lost to the truth, if this is assumed that at one time one can remain in them all; or each of the gods must be said to divide himself from himself, so that he is both himself and another, not separated by any distinction, but himself the same as another. But as nature rejects and spurns and scorns this, it must either be said and confessed that there are Vulcans without number, if we decide that he exists and is in all the images; or he will be in none, because he is prevented by nature from being divided among several.
[4718] Lit., "a cutting taking place."
[4719] i.e., of their character as independent and not compounded. This is precisely such an expression as that which closes the fourth book, and its occurrence is therefore an additional ground for regarding the earlier passage as genuine.
20. And yet, O you--if it is plain and clear to you that the gods live, and that the inhabitants of heaven dwell in the inner parts of the images, why do you guard, protect, and keep them shut up under the strongest keys, and under fastenings of immense size, under iron bars, bolts, [4720] and other such things, and defend them with a thousand men and a thousand women to keep guard, lest by chance some thief or nocturnal robber should creep in? Why do you feed dogs in the capitols? [4721] Why do you give food and nourishment to geese? Rather, if you are assured that the gods are there, and that they do not depart to any place from their figures and images, leave to them the care of themselves, let their shrines be always unlocked and open; and if anything is secretly carried off by any one with reckless fraud, let them show the might of divinity, and subject the sacrilegious robbers to fitting punishments at the moment [4722] of their theft and wicked deed. For it is unseemly, and subversive of their power and majesty, to entrust the guardianship of the highest deities to the care of dogs, and when you are seeking for some means of frightening thieves so as to keep them away, not to beg it from the gods themselves, but to set and place it in the cackling of geese.
[4720] Claustris repagulis pessulis.
[4721] Cf. p. 481, n. 5. Geese as well as dogs guarded the Capitol, having been once, as the well-known legend tells, its only guards against the Gauls.
[4722] The ms., first four edd., and Elm. read nomine--"under the name of," corrected momine by Meursius and the rest.
21. They say that Antiochus of Cyzicum took from its shrine a statue of Jupiter made of gold ten [4723] cubits high, and set up in its place one made of copper covered with thin plates of gold. If the gods are present, and dwell in their own images, with what business, with what cares, had Jupiter been entangled that he could not punish the wrong done to himself, and avenge his being substituted in baser metal? When the famous Dionysius--but it was the younger [4724] --despoiled Jupiter of his golden vestment, and put instead of it one of wool, and, when mocking him with pleasantries also, he said that that which he was taking away was cold in the frosts of winter, this warm, that that one was cumbrous in summer, that this, again, was airy in hot weather,--where was the king of the world that he did not show his presence by some terrible deed, and recall the jocose buffoon to soberness by bitter torments? For why should I mention that the dignity of Æsculapius was mocked by him? For when Dionysius was spoiling him of his very ample beard, which was of great weight and philosophic thickness, [4725] he said that it was not right that a son sprung from Apollo, a father smooth and beardless, and very like a mere boy, [4726] should be formed with such a beard that it was left uncertain which of them was father, which son, or rather whether they were of the same [4727] race and family. Now, when all these things were being done, and the robber was speaking with impious mockery, if the deity was concealed in the statue consecrated to his name and majesty, why did he not punish with just and merited vengeance the affront of stripping his face of its beard and disfiguring his countenance, and show by this, both that he was himself present, and that he kept watch over his temples and images without ceasing?
[4723] So the ms., reading decem; but as Clement says pentekaideka pechon, we must either suppose that Arnobius mistook the Greek, or transcribed it carelessly, or, with the margin of Ursinus, read quindecim--"fifteen."
[4724] Stewechius and Heraldus regard these words as spurious, and as having originated in a gloss on the margin, scz. junior--"to wit, the younger." Heraldus, however, changed his opinion, because Clement too, says, "Dionysius the younger." The words mean more than this, however, referring probably to the fact that Cicero (de Nat. Deor., iii. 33, 34, 35) tells these and other stories of the elder Dionysius. To this Arnobius calls attention as an error, by adding to Clement's phrase "but."
[4725] Only rustics, old-fashioned people, and philosophers wore the beard untrimmed; the last class wearing it as a kind of distinctive mark, just as Juvenal (iii. 15) speaks of a thick woolen cloak as marking a philosopher. [Compare vol. i. p. 160; also ii. p. 321, n. 9.]
[4726] Impuberi.
[4727] Lit., "one."
22. But you will perhaps say that the gods do not trouble themselves about these losses, and do not think that there is sufficient cause for them to come forth and inflict punishment upon the offenders for their impious sacrilege. [4728] Neither, then, if this is the case, do they wish to have these images, which they allow to be plucked up and torn away with impunity; nay, on the contrary, they tell us plainly that they despise these statues, in which they do not care to show that they were contemned, by taking any revenge. Philostephanus relates in his Cypriaca, that Pygmalion, king [4729] of Cyprus, loved as a woman an image of Venus, which was held by the Cyprians holy and venerable from ancient times, [4730] his mind, spirit, the light of his reason, and his judgment being darkened; and that he was wont in his madness, just as if he were dealing with his wife, having raised the deity to his couch, to be joined with it in embraces and face to face, and to do other vain things, carried away by a foolishly lustful imagination. [4731] Similarly, Posidippus, [4732] in the book which he mentions to have been written about Gnidus and about its affairs, [4733] relates that a young man, of noble birth,--but he conceals his name,--carried away with love of the Venus because of which Gnidus is famous, joined himself also in amorous lewdness to the image of the same deity, stretched on the genial couch, and enjoying [4734] the pleasures which ensue. To ask, again, in like manner: If the powers of the gods above lurk in copper and the other substances of which images have been formed, where in the world was the one Venus and the other to drive far away from them the lewd wantonness of the youths, and punish their impious touch with terrible suffering? [4735] Or, as the goddesses are gentle and of calmer dispositions, what would it have been for them to assuage the furious joys of [4736] the wretched men, and to bring back their insane minds again to their senses?
[4728] Lit., "punishment of violated religion."
[4729] Clemens says merely "the Cyprian Pygmalion."
[4730] Lit., "of ancient sanctity and religion."
[4731] Lit., "imagination of empty lust."
[4732] Cf. ch. 13.
[4733] So Gelenius, reading rebus for the ms. and first ed. re a (ms. ab) se.
[4734] Lit., "in the limits of."
[4735] Lit., "agonizing restraint."
[4736] Lit., "to."
23. But perhaps, as you say, the goddesses took the greatest pleasure in these lewd and lustful insults, and did not think that an action requiring vengeance to be taken, which soothed their minds, and which they knew was suggested to human desires by themselves. But if the goddesses, the Venuses, being endowed with rather calm dispositions, considered that favour should be shown to the misfortunes of the blinded youths; when the greedy flames so often consumed the Capitol, and had destroyed the Capitoline Jupiter himself with his wife and his daughter, [4737] where was the Thunderer at that time to avert that calamitous fire, and preserve from destruction his property, and himself, and all his family? Where was the queenly Juno when a violent fire destroyed her famous shrine, and her priestess [4738] Chrysis in Argos? Where the Egyptian Serapis, when by a similar disaster his temple fell, burned to ashes, with all the mysteries, and Isis? Where Liber Eleutherius, when his temple fell at Athens? Where Diana, when hers fell at Ephesus? Where Jupiter of Dodona, when his fell at Dodona? Where, finally, the prophetic Apollo, when by pirates and sea robbers he was both plundered and set on fire, [4739] so that out of so many pounds of gold, which ages without number had heaped up, he did not have one scruple even to show to the swallows which built under his eaves, [4740] as Varro says in his Saturæ Menippeæ? [4741] It would be an endless task to write down what shrines have been destroyed throughout the whole world by earth quakes and tempests--what have been set on fire by enemies, and by kings and tyrants--what have been stript bare by the overseers and priests themselves, even though they have turned suspicion away from them [4742] --finally, what have been robbed by thieves and Canacheni, [4743] opening them up, though barred by unknown means; [4744] which, indeed, would remain safe and exposed to no mischances, if the gods were present to defend them, or had any care for their temples, as is said. But now because they are empty, and protected by no indwellers, Fortune has power over them, and they are exposed to all accidents just as much as are all other things which have not life. [4745]