If we pass from Aristotle’s Protrepticus to Boethius’s masterpiece, the Consolation of Philosophy, the dialogue Boethius creates between himself and Lady Philosophy (Philosophia), we gain a further picture of how philosophy speaks to the human condition. Boethius’s work is a prosimetrum, prose interspersed with verse. It became one of the several books to gain universal appeal throughout the Middle Ages. In late Latin, consolatio meant “aid” or “support” rather than “consolation” or “comfort.” Boethius, in prison, facing his death, is visited by Lady Philosophy, who immediately drives away the Muses of poetry whom, Boethius says, had been helping him find the words for his grief. Their instruction in poetry is not enough. Only attention to philosophy will take us to a knowledge of virtue and true justice, as it resides in the human soul. Boethius must come to understand that politics is always the enemy of philosophy, that is, politics that takes the actions of the state as the key to human nature and conduct.
Boethius says: “But you, Lady, dwelling in me, drove from my soul’s depths all desire for mortal things, and to have made any room for sacrilege under your very eyes would have been wicked indeed, for daily you instilled into my ears and my mind the Pythagorean saying, “Follow God’” (1.4.140). Epou deo is one of the ancient precepts, like those on the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Philosophy has freed Boethius to be self-determinate and free. It allows him to comprehend the Socratic conception of philosophy as practice of death. The pursuit of philosophy transcends the need to trust in fortune (fortuna) because fortune is always wont to change into misfortune (2.1.60). Good fortune is not the Good, for the Good is unchanging; it is ultimate, and knows no opposite.
Philosophy further teaches that happiness cannot be obtained by political power. If we consider well what political power is, we will see that: “whenever the power that makes kings happy ends, there their lack of power creeps in and makes them miserable; in this way, then, kings must have a larger share of misery than happiness. Knowing by experience the dangers of his own position, one tyrant [Dionysius I of Syracuse (see Cicero, Tusc. 5.21.61–62)], likened his fears as king to the terror of the sword hanging over Damocles’ head” (3.5.12–17). Happiness can be found only through the power of the divine. Boethius says to Lady Philosophy, “you spoke of that same form of the good being the substance of God and of happiness, and you taught me that unity itself was the same thing as the good, which was sought after by the whole natural world” (3.12.88–94).
There is an element of the Stoic in Boethius as there is in every philosopher. As such, neither the Stoic nor the Epicurean position is acceptable. The true philosopher has the sense of self-sufficiency that Aristotle attributes to contemplation. A dedication to reason and to the power of thought to think itself makes the philosopher unreachable by the ordinary means whereby the non-philosopher is affected—wealth, honor, power, glory, pleasure (De Con. 3.2.46–48). Pleasure is acceptable to the philosopher, but not as the highest good.
The true philosopher engaged in contemplation (theoria) can enjoy ataraxia, peace of mind. When fear is removed, as in the peace of the garden of Epicurus, the philosopher can flourish, not as a public figure but as a human engaged in the distinctively human activity of friendship, of friendly conversation. But the Neo-Platonic philosopher, whether Socratic or Christian, unlike the Epicurean, does not take pleasure to be the highest good. Nor does the true philosopher conquer the fear of death by the study of natural philosophy in order to remove fear of the gods. Death is a natural condition of life, but those who have listened to Socrates in the Phaedo overcome the fear of death because of the immortality of the soul—a view Boethius accepts philosophically and in his commitment to Christianity.
If the propensity to philosophize cannot be overcome by an act of philosophizing, this propensity must be taken to its limit. In so doing there is a sense of self-sufficiency and peace of mind that is inherent in the love of wisdom. In this way Lady Philosophy, as the absolute Muse, guides us by means of memory, as she does Boethius, through what was, what is, and what is to come.
Plutarch’s Delphic Epsilon
After Trophonius and Agamades had built a temple for
Apollo at Delphi, they asked the god while worshipping
to recompense their deed and their toil, and in no small
way to be sure—nothing they could describe, but what
would be best for a human—and Apollo gave them a sign
that a gift would come. Three days later they were found
dead, confirming that death was what this god judged
best, the one to whom the rest of the gods conceded
primacy in divination.
Giannozzo Manetti, On Human Worth and Excellence 4.13;
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.47.114
The most often cited precept inscribed on the temple of Apollo at Delphi urges the entrant to seek self-knowledge (gnothi seauton). The precept that accompanies it, to seek moderation (meden agan) is less discussed. But both are well known. Taken together they appear to offer a complete guide to life. Rarely cited is a third inscription, the letter epsilon or ΕΙ. Is this inscription intended as a precept, to accompany the other two and to stand alone? Or is it the beginning of a word or phrase, the completion of which is lost or was never made? There is no way to know what was intended. We are left with the task of drawing forth a meaning from it as it stands.
The most famous attempt at treating this issue is Plutarch’s “The Ε at Delphi,” that appears in his Moralia. Plutarch advances seven possible explanations of the Greek letter. Of its general status, Plutarch writes: “For the likelihood is that it was not by chance nor, as it were, by lot that this was the only letter that came to occupy first place with the god [Apollo] and attained the rank of a sacred offering and something worth seeing; but it is likely that those who, in the beginning, sought after knowledge of the god either discovered some peculiar and unusual potency in it or else used it as a token with reference to some other of the matters of the highest concern, and thus adopted it” (385a).
Apollo is the most Greek of all gods. With the Muses as his retinue, he is associated with the higher developments of civilization. In regard to ritual, especially ceremonies of purification, his oracles are the supreme authority. Delphi was the chief of his oracular shrines. It was to the Pythian at Delphi that Chaerephon, the friend of Socrates, went with his question of whether anyone was more wise than Socrates, as Socrates reports in the Apology (21a). Among the gods it was Apollo who most governed divination.
The first explanation asserts that the Wise Men were actually five in number, and not seven. They were Chilon, Thales, Solon, Bias, and Pittacus. These five, “after conferring together, dedicated that one of the letters which is fifth [ΕΙ] in alphabetical order and which stands for the number five, thus testifying for themselves before the god [Apollo] that they were five, and renouncing and rejecting the seventh and the sixth as having no connexion with themselves” (385f).
In the Protagoras, Plato lists “Thales of Miletus, Pittacus of Mytilene, Bias of Priene, our own Solon, Cleobulus of Lindus, Myson of Chen, and, the seventh in the list, Chilon of Sparta” (343a). The list of the Sages is given with variation by various authorities to include Periander, the tyrant of Corinth, who would replace Myson of Chen in Plato’s list. Myson was not a tyrant but was said to be the son of a tyrant. In Plutarch’s “Dinner of the Seven Wise Men,” Periander appears as the host of the dinner, not as one of the Seven
