The Lucian of Samosata Project

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
====== Teles ======
===== Donald Dudley, History of Cynicism "Cynicism in the 3rd Century (d-e)" =====

<blockquote>
(d) **Teles**

It is a curious turn of literary fortune that **Teles**, apparently 
a fourth-rate writer of little originality, known in no reference
of earlier date than Stobaeus, should be represented by larger 
fragments than Crates, Bion, and Menippus, whose works 
were admired and frequently alluded to in classical times. 
**Teles** comes down to us in extracts made by Stobaeus from 
an //epitome// made by an otherwise unknown Theodorus 
there may have been other middlemen involved in the process. 
The fragments are edited and the date and sources of **Teles** 
discussed in Hense, //Teletis reliquiae// ; he has also occupied 
the attention of Wilamowitz and Cronert. As a result of 
these studies it is known that **Teles** was a Megarian school- 
master who flourished in the second half of the third century ; 
the one reference which can be definitely dated shows that the 
diatribe //peri phyges//; was composed later than 240, and delivered 
to an audience of youths at Megara ; **Teles** has a Megarian 
name, his writings employ certain Doric forms, and he alludes 
to himself as //paidagogos//; The seven fragments are diatribes ; four on such familiar Cynic themes as Exile, Self-Sufficiency, Poverty and Wealth ; that entitled //peri peristaseon// 
is a warning against //mempsimoria// ; while two have a 
polemical purpose, being respectively directed against the 
Hedonist doctrine that Pleasure is the End, and the popular 
view that outward appearance is the true criterion of justice 
(//peri tou dokein kai tou einai//). 

A literary judgement of **Teles** must be based on the evidence 
we possess, and can only be unfavourable. It is of course 
always possible that this evidence does him much less than 
justice ; it is uncertain whether his diatribes were published 
as delivered or from the notes of an auditor, and in all ages 
it is the fate of lecturers to be remembered for their jokes 
rather than for their matter. But in six of the seven frag- 
ments, if we take away borrowed passages and anecdotes, **Teles** 
himself is represented by little more than a few connecting 
sentences. This may be due to the successive " cuttings " of 
Theodorus, Stobaeus, and whatever other epitomators took a 
hand in it ; but it implies at least that **Teles**' own work was 
less interesting than what he quoted. A further difficulty is
that Theodorus (presumably) maintains an annoying running 
commentary to ensure that his reader is missing nothing 
You see the joke ? ' he asks anxiously, and again, on the 
bravery of Spartan women, What woman of our day would 
have acted thus ? ' These comments are not always easy to 
distinguish from what may have been **Teles**' remarks to his 
class, e.g. Would any of us have gone to sleep in such circumstances ? ' (of Socrates' fortitude in prison). But in the first 
diatribe there is less extraneous matter than in the others and 
some judgement can be formed of **Teles**' style. 

A. They say it is better to seem just than to be just. Well, is 
it better to seem good than to be good ? B. Hardly. A. Again, 
are actors esteemed for seeming to be good, or for being good ? 
B. For being good. A. And do men become accounted good 
harpists by seeming to be good harpists, or for being good ? B. For 
being good. A. And in general, do men become successful in all 
things rather by seeming to be good, or by being good ? B. By 
being good. A. By the presence of that quality success is assured, 
rather than by its absence ; so that it does seem a better thing to 
be good than to seem good, and the just man is good, not he who 
appears to be just. . . . 

And so on. However edifying this may have been to the youth 
of Megara, it is deficient in both literary and logical virtues. 
But, like many bad authors, **Teles** is of interest in reflecting 
the literary tastes of his audience. His great heroes are 
Socrates, Diogenes, and Crates ; and Cynic literature is freely 
quoted, especially Bion. There are references to //hoi archaioi// 
presumably the older Cynic authors, and explicit quotations 
from Crates and Metrocles, though it cannot be decided 
whether he got them at first hand, or, as Hense maintains, 
through Bion, or through books of chreiai. Socrates he knows 
at best through the Xenophontic tradition ; the allusion to 
the //Phaedo// can hardly be at first hand, for it is coupled with 
a magnificent howler about the last words of Socrates which 
argues a very dubious source. Stilpo is naturally drawn upon 
as an eminent Megarian philosopher. Of quotations from the 
poets the great majority are from Homer, in all ages the schoolbook of Hellas. The only gnomic poet quoted is Theognis. 
Of the tragedians Euripides is quoted six times, Sophocles 
once, Aeschylus not at all ; there are several quotations from 
unknown authors. The Old Comedy is not quoted, and the 
New Comedy represented by Philemon and not Menander. 
Finally there are references to mythological characters such as 
Heracles, Cadmus, Tantalus, Oedipus, and Perseus, to familiar 
historical personages, Aristeides, Lysander, Callias, and to 
contemporaries, Ptolemy, Antigonus, Chremonides. Several 
admiring references to Sparta imply that her valorous conduct 
on such occasions as her resistance to Pyrrhus maintained 
during the third century the Spartan reputation for //andreia//. 
The taste catered for is clearly a popular one whose chief 
interest lay in the didactic aspect of literature. 

Whatever our disparagement of **Teles** as a writer, we can 
but be grateful that these fragments have been preserved ; 
without them we should know little of third-century diatribe 
or of Bion. 

(e) Educational Theory 

The Cynics had always laid great stress on //paideia// though 
**Teles** is the only known case of a Cynic schoolmaster. During 
the third century Cynic works on education appeared in which 
Diogenes was depicted as the ideal //paidagogos// ; two such 
books known to us were the //Paidagogikos//, of Cleomenes 
and the //Diogenous prasis// of Eubulus. The fragment pre- 
served from the latter is of especial interest, for it outlines a 
curriculum supposed to have been adopted by Diogenes in 
educating the sons of his master Xeniades of Corinth. After 
their other studies he taught them to ride, to shoot with the 
bow, to sling stones and hurl javelins. He also took them out 
hunting . . . Such exercises were presumably recommended 
as involving //ponos//, and it is interesting to be told that in 
the wrestling-school he would not permit the master to give 
them full athletic training, but only sufficient to keep them 
in colour and in good condition'. The Cynics deprecated 
specialization in athletics and several apophthegms directed 
against athletes were attributed to Diogenes. 'He would 
wonder that men would strive to outdo each other in digging 
and kicking, and yet no one strove to become a good man. Athletes are so stupid because they are built up of pigs-flesh 
and bulls-flesh; a victory at the Great Games was won over 
slaves, the Cynic's victory over men. The point was, of 
course, that the athlete's abounding energy might be better 
directed. The boys' intellectual development was to be 
secured by making them learn by heart many passages from 
the poets, historians, and the works of Diogenes himself ; and 
he would try every short cut to improve their memories '. 
We see from the quotations and historical allusions in **Teles** 
that the poets and historians were esteemed for their didactic 
value, they provided //logoi chestoi//. As for behaviour, he 
taught them to wait on themselves, to eat plain food, and to 
drink water. They were made to crop their hair, and wear 
it unadorned, and to go about lightly clad and barefoot ; in 
the streets they were to be silent and not to stare about them.' 
The educational programme thus fostered on Diogenes is a 
compound of various existing systems, interpreted in a Cynic 
spirit. The ordinary Greek elementary education (//ta grammata//) forms its backbone, augmented by features derived from 
Sparta (hunting) and from the Persian system described by 
Xenophon in the //Cyropaedia// (shooting with the bow, riding). 
The regimen is that of the Cynic //autarkeia//, but the aim of 
the system is not to produce little Cynics, as //paidagogos// in the 
literal, largos in a figurative sense, the Cynic labours not on 
behalf of his movement but of mankind. 

The papyri dealing with the theme of //aischrokerdeia// are 
on the same literary level as the diatribes of **Teles**. They are 
obviously part of an anthology ; Knox's theory that the 
compilation is due to Cercidas is attractive and probable. 
Addressed to a certain Parnos, who ' lends a ready ear to 
ennobling verse ', they are an expression of disgust at an age 
of shameless commercialism whose keynote is the line of 
Sophocles, The author announces his own intention of abiding by ' That 
old rule of simplicity, to be no slave of luxury, nor of the 
stomach's pleasures '. Though Business Ethics have driven 
Faith and Justice from the earth, and Zeus and the gods of 
popular belief are apparently impotent, the righteous man can 
live in the knowledge that a day will come ... for I see 
many who grow rich on shamelessness, yet their wealth all 
vanished as though it had never been '. There follows a 
remarkable outburst. 

//estin gar estin, os tade skopei daimon\\
os en chronoi to theion ou kataischunei,\\
nemei d' heskastoi ten kataision moiran//

The deity in question is, one may conjecture, Nemesis ; 
Theophrastus, asked what powers govern human life, answered 
//Euergesia kai timoria//, divinities also recognized by Democ- 
ritus. 1 To enforce the warning against //aischrokerdeia// an 
iambic poem of Phoenix of Colophon is cited ; it deals with 
profiteers where * houses are fair and noble and worth a fortune, 
but they themselves would be no bargain at three obols a 
head '. Gerhard's very full discussion of these fragments 
shows how the ' commonplaces ' and similes they contain are 
those regarded as especially appropriate to the theme of 
//aischrokerdeia// ; and Fiske points out the parallels in Horace, 
Satires, i. i.
\\
Source modified. [[http://archive.org/stream/historyofcynicis032872mbp/historyofcynicis032872mbp_djvu.txt|Source]]</blockquote>