THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY PHILOSOPHIAE CONSOLATIO I Sanderson Beck

Sanderson Beck was born March 5, 1947 in Los Angeles. He earned a B. A. in Dramatic Art from the University of California at Berkeley, an M. A. in Religious Studies from U. C. Santa Barbara, Ph. D. candidacy in the Philosophy of Education from U. C. L. A., and a Ph. D. in Philosophy from the World University. He was a Conscientious Objector during the Vietnam War. In 1982 he formulated World Peace Movement Principles, Purposes, and Methods, and in 1987 he traveled to 47 states and met with 600 peace groups to promote peace and disarmament. He has been arrested many times for nonviolently protesting nuclear weapons and military intervention and in 1989 was imprisoned for six months. Sanderson has taught Philosophy and many other subjects at the World University since 1976. On September 1, 2001 World Peace Communications was incorporated as a nonprofit organization for educational, literary, and charitable purposes. Sanderson's versions of the Wisdom Classics have been published as the WISDOM BIBLE, and the first volume of his HISTORY OF ETHICS was published as Ancient Wisdom and Folly and the second volume as Age of Belief. Sanderson recently published the Nonviolent Action Handbook and GUIDES TO PEACE AND JUSTICE. He became an official candidate for President of the United States in December 2002, and in May 2003 he endorsed Dennis Kucinich.

The Consolation of Boethius

BOOK ONE

"Stars Concealed"

I Songs which once I wrote in flourishing description, tearful, alas, I am forced to form into gloomy measures. Look how the torn Muses dictate to me writing, and elegies bathe my face with real tears. Not even terror could overcome these from proceeding as our companions along the way. Once the glory of my happy and green youth, they now console my fate of gloomy old age. For hurried unexpected age comes with evils, and sorrow has ordered her time to come in. From the head unseasonable gray hairs are spreading, and slack skin trembles on an exhausted body. Human death is lucky which in sweet years itself does not intrude and comes when often called by sorrows. Alas, how it turns aside the wretched by a deaf ear and cruelly refuses to close weeping eyes! While fortune may have favored by wrong trust in easy goods a sad hour nearly overwhelmed my head; now because the clouds have changed their deceitful face vicious life is dragged out by unwelcome delays. Why did you so often consider me happy, friends? Whoever has fallen, that one was not in a steady position.

1 While I was silently thinking over these things in myself and noting mournful complaints by a pen's service there stood over head visions for me, a woman of very majestic appearance, with eyes shining and sharp beyond common human health, from vivid color and of inexhaustible vigor, yet so mature in age as almost to be believed of our time, the height of doubtful determination.

For at one time she held herself to common human measure, while at another time in height she actually seemed to strike the heaven of the highest summit; which when her head was raised higher even penetrated heaven and was frustrating the observation of the humans looking.

Her clothes with the finest threads were by delicate skill from the imperishable material of perfection, which, as I have since learned from her coming out, she wove herself with her own hands; just as it usually does smoky pictures, a kind of fog of neglected antiquity covered their form.

On the lowest border of these a Greek Pi was embroidered, while on the highest a Theta could be read, and between both letters could be seen in the manner of stairs a kind of marked grade, by which the ascent should be from the lower to the higher element.

However the hands of some violent ones had torn this dress and had taken away whatever particulars each could. At any rate in her right hand were books, while in the left she was carrying a scepter.

When she saw the poetic Muses standing by our bed and dictating words for my tears, upset for a little while and inflamed with wild lights: "Who," she asked, "allowed the actress harlots to approach this sick person? These sorrows not only have not encouraged any cures, but they actually nourish them further with sweet drugs. For these are the ones who with the unproductive thorns of passion kill the fertile crop of reason with its fruits and accustom human minds to stress; they do not liberate.

"Now if your allurements had drawn off someone profane, as it is usual with you in the crowd, I would think it bringing in less annoyance, since then none of our work would be harmed; while this one has been nurtured in Eleatic and Academic studies. But rather depart, Sirens pleasant all the way into ruin, and leave him to caring and healing by my Muses."

That sad chorus reprimanded by this cast a gloomier look on the ground and having confessed shame by a blush went out the door.

But I, whose sight immersed by tears may have been dimmed so that I could not distinguish who this woman of such imperious authority might be, was astounded, and I fixed my sight on the earth to wait in silence for what action would begin next.

Then personally approaching she sat down on the farthest part of my bed and observing my face heavy from mourning and so cast down by gloom, about the disturbance of our mind the complaint is in these verses:

II "Alas, how immersed in the deep of the ruined a mind is dull and by proper light abandoned stretches to go into external darkness as often as it is enlarged by terrestrial breezes guilty care arises in immensity! Once this one was free to the open heaven accustomed to going into ethereal movements he was perceiving the lights of the rosy sun, seeing the constellations of the cold moon and wherever a star winding practices its wandering returns through various orbits the victor was having counted with numbers; why and again from where do the noisy winds stir up causes from the sea's surface, what spirit turns the stable world or why does the western constellation on the wave falling rise red from the east, what in truth would moderate the calm hours so that it may adorn the land with rosy flowers, who gives so that in a full year the fertile autumn may flow into the loaded grapes it is the custom to examine and so to report various causes of a secret nature: now it is neglected by the exhausted light of the mind and the neck pressed by heavy chains and bearing under a burden the sloping face it is compelled, alas, to perceive the dull earth.

2 "But," she said, "it is the time of medicine rather than of complaining." Then with her eyes completely intent on me, she said: "Are you not that one who once was nurtured by our milk, educated by our nourishment until you had come out in a manly hardness of spirit? And yet we contributed retaliatory weapons which if you had not previously thrown away would have protected you with invincible firmness.

"Don't you recognize me? Why are you silent? Have you been silenced by shame or by bewilderment? I would prefer by shame, but, as I see, bewilderment overwhelms you."

When she saw me not only silent but absolutely speechless and mute, she softly put her hand on my chest and said: "There is no danger; he is experiencing drowsiness, a common disease of mental delusions. For a little while he has forgotten himself. He will be recollected easily if in fact he recognizes us as before; and so that he can, in a little while let us wipe from his eyes the cloudy fogginess of mortal things."

She said this, and gathering her dress into a fold she dried my eyes weeping with tears.

III Then with night dispelled the darkness left me and the previous energy returned to the eyes, as with the rushed northwest wind the stars are gathered and in storms the rainy pole stood, the sun hides and not yet in heaven with the coming stars is the night from above spilled on the earth; but if the north wind sent out from a Thracian cave beats and unlocks enclosed day the sparkled sun shines out and suddenly by light dazzles admiring eyes with its rays.

3 In no other way with clouds of sadness dissolved did I drink in heaven, and mind I regained in recognizing the physician's face. And so when I was brought back and concentrated my eyes upon her watching, I looked back at my nurse, Philosophy, in whose liberality from youth was I turned out.

"And why," I asked, "have you come into these lonely places of our exile, O mistress of all virtues, fallen down from the pole above? Or is it that you too with me may be a defendant persecuted by false accusations?"

She replied, "Surely I would not desert you, a pupil, and not share the burden which you have taken on from the envy of my name by work communicated to you? Yet it was never right for Philosophy to abandon unaccompanied the way of the innocent. Should I no doubt be afraid of my accusers and as if something new had struck should I tremble?

"Now then do you think it is the first time wisdom is among bad morals challenged by dangers? Did we not among the old too before the great age of our Plato often contend in disputes with the thoughtlessness of folly and by the same superstition his teacher Socrates earned the victory of an unjust death by my assistance?

"The inheritance of which since successively the crowd of Epicureans and Stoics and others each having plundered to the best of their ability they tried to go on and me crying out and resisting they carried off for part of the plunder, a dress they cut up which I had woven with my own hands and with rags dragged from it went away believing I had completely yielded to them. Since among them were seen some traces of our dress, the imprudent having supposed them to be familiar with me some of them were undone by the common multitude's error.

"But if you have not learned of the flight of Anaxagoras nor the poisoning of Socrates nor the tortures of Zeno, since they are foreigners, at least Canius, Seneca, and Soranus could be known, whose memory is neither antiquated nor unhonored. Nothing else dragged them down into ruin except that in the studies of our education they seemed most different from the morals of the bad.

"And so it is no wonder if in this sea of life we are driven by whirling hurricanes, in which this plan is precisely to displease the worst. although in fact the troublesome group is numerous it nevertheless is rejecting, since it is not guided by any leader but is agitated by so much rash error as random distraction.

"The one who if when building a point against us has taken pains more vigorously, our leader in fact assembles her resources inside, while those around are busy seizing useless baggage. Yet each one taking the most worthless of things we are laughing at from above safe from all the frantic disturbance and on that fortified rampart on which it should not be right for the raging of folly to attain.

IV "Everyone clear in an orderly age may set overbearing fate underfoot and watching fortune straight in both directions can maintain an invincible expression; the fury and threats of the sea turned not that tide utterly with the disturbing nor so often as the unsettled bursting forge hurls the smoky fires of Vesuvius or to strike the eminent towers of custom the way of the burning thunderbolt was moving.

"Why are so many of the wretched amazed at cruel tyrants raging without powers? You should neither hope for anything nor be afraid, and you would have disarmed the anger of the powerless; yet every anxious one who fears or wishes, which may not be steady and independent, throws away a shield and having changed place binds a chain which can drag.

4 "Do you understand," she asked, "and do these work into your soul or is it 'the donkey lyre'? Why are you crying, why do you yield to tears?

'Speak out, do not conceal your mind.' If you expect the service of a physician, you should uncover the wound."

Then I recovered the powers in the soul: "Is there still a need for a reminder and does not the cruel severity of fortune by itself stand out in us enough? Doesn't the appearance of this place itself move you? Is this the library, which you yourself assigned as a most certain seat for you in our home, in which residing with me you often discussed about knowledge of human and divine matters?

"Was the condition such and expression such, when I would search with you the secrets of nature, when you would describe for me with a rod the ways of the stars, when you would shape our morals and the whole system of life according to the example of the heavenly order? Are these the rewards we receive for complying with you?

"Yet you sanctioned this doctrine from Plato's mouth that commonwealths would be blessed if either those studious in wisdom were ruling or their rulers came to study wisdom. You from the mouth of the same man advised this to be a necessary reason for the wise to go into politics, that for the government of the city to be left to the bad and disgraceful citizens would be ruin and destruction for the good.

"Therefore having operated on this authority what I learned from you in quiet privacy I wished to transfer into the act of public administration. You and God who serves you in the minds of the wise are aware that I never offered myself to any office unless it was the study of all goods in common.

"Then with the bad came serious and inexorable disagreements and, because freedom of conscience holds, for watching justice always the scorned displeasure of the more powerful.

"How often did I in the way catch Conigastus making an attack on the fortunes of someone helpless, how often did I put down Trigulla, the overseer of the royal palace, from attempting a wrong he was already carrying forward, how often did I protect by authority exposed to dangers the miserable who were vexed with unending prosecutions by the ever unpunished greed of barbarians!

"Never has anyone pulled me away from justice to wrong. I have felt sorry no differently than those who suffered their provincial fortunes to be ruined not only by private robbery but by public taxation. When in the time of the bitter famine an oppressive and inexplicable sale was considered putting a ruinous price on Campania province scarcity, I undertook a contest against the praetorian commander on account of the common interest; by the king learning of it I fought and defeated it and the sale was not enforced.

"Paulinus, a brave consul, whose resources the Palatine dogs in hope and ambition had already devoured, I drew from their gaping jaws. The penalty of a prejudiced accusation might have seized another brave consul, Albinus, had I not exposed myself to the hatred of the informer Cyprian.

"Do I seem to have aroused great enough discord on me? But I should have been more protected among the others, I who by my love of justice reserved nothing among the courtiers by whom I might have been more protected.

"Now by which informers was I knocked down? One of them, Basilius, once expelled from royal service was forced into the denouncing of our name by the necessity of debt.

"While Opilio and Gaudentius when for countless and various frauds royal decree decided they should go into exile and when evidently unwilling they themselves were looking to temple sanctuary for defense and it was found out by the king, he said unless they withdrew by a specified day from Ravenna they would be expelled from the city with distinguishing marks on their foreheads. What does it seem could be added to this severity? Yet on that day the denouncing of our name by the same informers was undertaken.

"Then why? So did our virtues deserve this or did prejudged condemnation make these accusers right? So does nothing shame fortune if not in the innocence of the accused at least the cheapness of the accusers?

"But you investigate the sum of the charge for which we are blamed. It was said I wished the Senate to be safe. You want the method. I was charged with having hindered an informer, lest he bring proof by which he could make the Senate a defendant for treason.

"So what do you think, o teacher? Shall we deny the crime, lest we be a shame to you? But I did wish it, and I shall never cease to wish it. Shall I confess? But I stopped hindering the work of the informer. Or should I call it wrong having wished the welfare of that order?

"In fact by its own decrees about me it tried to prove how this was wrong. But imprudence ever deceiving itself cannot change the merits of things, nor for me by Socratic resolve do I think it is right either to have the truth concealed or to have a lie conceded.

"In whatever way it may be true, I leave the valuing to you and to the judgment of the wise. The sequence and truth of which matter cannot escape the notice of posterity, as I have committed the history to writing.

"Now why would it pertain to tell about the forged letters by which I am blamed for having hoped for Roman liberty? Their fraud would have been made clear if only for us by the confession of the informers themselves, since in every business it has the most strength, granted that it had been allowed.

"Now what freedom can be left to be hoped for? And if only there could be any! I would have answered in the words of Canius, who when he was accused by Gaius Caesar, the son of Germanicus, of being aware of a plot against himself: replied, 'If I had known, you would not have known.'

"For that reason grief has not dulled our feelings so far that I should complain of the wicked working impiety against the virtuous, but I am surprised they hoped to be effective violently. Now to wish it might be perhaps weakness from our lower nature, to be able to do against the innocent what every wicked one has conceived with God looking on is quite monstrous.

"Thus it is not wrong that a certain follower of yours has questioned: 'If in fact God exists,' he asks, 'where is evil from? While where is good from, if it does not exist?'

"But it might be possible for criminal persons, who aim at the blood of all the good and the entire Senate, also having wished us to go to ruin, whom they had seen fight for the good and the Senate. But surely we did not deserve the same from patriots too?

"You remember, I think, since you yourself always were present guiding me in whatever words and action, you remember," I said, "at Verona when the king eager for its common outcome tried to transfer the charge of treason by which Albinus was accused to the whole order of the Senate, a Senate entirely innocent which in spite of the danger to my safety I defended.

"You know this I am mentioning is both true and I am not at any time boasting in praise of myself; for the mystery of conscience is lessened in some way in approving itself, as often as anyone accepts the reward of fame for displaying what was done.

"But you see the result followed after our innocence; instead of the rewards of true virtue we undergo the penalties of a falsified crime. Did ever a clear confession of any action so find the judges agreed on severity that some were not moderated either by the human nature of error itself or by the uncertain condition of fortune for all mortals?

"If it were said we had wished to burn sacred temples, or to murder priests with an impious sword, or to plot the slaughter of all the good, even then I would have been present for the sentence, at least confessed or convicted before being punished;

"Now about five hundred miles away mute and defenseless on account of inclining affection toward the Senate I am condemned to death and proscription. O for such a crime no one can deserve to be convicted!

"Even those who indicted me saw the honor of the charge; considering how much some were blackening it with the mixture of some crime, they were lying that I had polluted my conscience by sacrilege out of ambition for position.

"And yet you implanted in us expelled from the seat of our spirit all desire of mortal things, and under your eyes room for sacrilege was not possible. For you were instilling in my ears and daily thoughts that Pythagorean saying, 'Follow God.'

"Nor was it proper for me to try for the support of the meanest characters, in this excellence which you were composing considering how you made me just like a god.

"Further the interior innocence of the home, the meeting of most honored friends, besides my father-in-law pious and equal to you yourself in veneration defend us from every suspicion of this crime.

"But---oh the shame! while those take from you the trust of such a crime and we seem by this itself to have been allied with mischief because we are steeped in your teachings, educated in your morals.

"So it is not enough that your reverence has been of no benefit to me, but besides you may be torn by the offense rather than me. But certainly this even adds to the mass of our evils, because the opinion of most does not look at the merits of things but at the results of fortune and at the same time judges foresight to be worth what luck has approved; thus it is that the good opinion of all first deserts the unlucky.

"What now are the rumors of the people, how discordant and various the opinions, I dislike recalling; this I would rather say is the ultimate burden of adverse fortune because, as long as some crime is fastened on the wretched, what they endure they are believed to have deserved. And I in fact driven from all good things, stripped of positions, disgraced in reputation for kindness I bore punishment.

"Now I seem to see the criminal workshops of the wicked flowing with delight and joy, the most desperate threatening new and false denunciations, the good lying low prostrated by terror of our crisis, the profligate daring in fact any act with impunity, while encouraged in accomplishing it by rewards, and the harmless deprived not only of safety but even of defense itself.

"Therefore it is pleasing to cry out:

V "O builder of the starry orbit, who is set on a universal throne you turn heaven in a swift spiral and compel the stars to submit to law, so that at one time bright with a full horn exposed to all the brother's flames the moon conceals the lesser stars, at another time paled by a dark horn nearer it loses the lights from the sun and who at the earliest time of night rising drives the cooling western ones again may alter the usual reins paling the morning star with the rising of the sun: you in the leaf-stripped cold of winter draw tight the light to a shorter span, you when the fervid heat comes divide the agile hours of night.

"Your power regulates the diverse year, so that the leaves which the north wind took away the mild west wind brings back, all the seeds Arcturus has seen Sirius may parch as high crops: nothing exempt from the ancient law leaves the work of its proper station.

"Certainly governing all things by an end the act of humans alone you refuse as a guide to restrain by merit only. For why does fleeting Fortune keep changing conditions so much?

"The harmful penalty due the wicked presses the innocent, but the morals of the perverted residing on a high throne trample on the pious, and the guilty in retaliation trample on the wrong necks. Hidden in dark unconsciousness is concealed bright virtue, and the just bear the crime of the unfair.

"For themselves fraud harms neither the perjured nor the ones embellished with a colorful lie. But since the strong ones liked to use them, they are glad to subdue the highest rulers whom countless people fear.

"O directly look to the wretched lands, whoever binds the agreements of things! Not a poor part of such great work humans are shaken on the sea of fortune. Check, guide, the impetuous floods and where you rule immeasurable heaven confirm in federation the steadfast lands."

5 When in continued sorrow I poured these out, she with a calm expression and not moved by my complaints said, "When I saw you mourning and crying I knew instantly you were wretched and in exile; but how long the exile was I would not have known unless your speech had revealed it.

"But you have not even been pushed so far from home, but strayed and, if you think you were pushed, rather you expelled yourself; for it is the case concerning you what never would have been right for anyone else.

"For if you remember the country from which you descended, not as Athens was formerly ruled by command of a crowd, but 'It is one ruler, one king' who rejoices in crowds of citizens not in rejection; to be led by those reins and so comply is the freedom of justice.

"Or are you ignorant of that oldest law of the community whereby it is a sacred right for that one not to be an exile who has preferred to establish a seat in it? For the one who is contained by its fort and defense, there is no fear of exile being deserved; but whoever wishes to abandon living there equally abandons also the deserving.

"And so not so much of this place moves me as your face, nor do I need library walls arranged with ivory and glass rather than the seat of your mind, in which are no books but that which creates value in books, sentences of my books I once arranged.

"And it is true about your services to the common good, but as for the many carried out by you few have you told. Of objections to you either honest or false you have mentioned what is noted by all.

"Of the accusations by the wicked and fraudulent you have correctly thought to touch on them slightly, since they are repeated by the mouth of the public better and more fully reviewing them all.

"Also you have vehemently noised about the action of the unjust Senate. About us also have you grieved for the slander; for hurts damaging our reputation too have you wept.

"The last sorrow got hot against fortune and in outcry of its not repaying the equal reward of merit; in the extreme poetry of raging, you proposed prayers that the peace which rules heaven should rule lands too.

"But since the most emotional disturbance broods over you, and varied sorrow, anger and mourning are distracting you, so that you are now of a mind, not yet do the more powerful remedies take hold of you.

"And so let us use milder ones for a little while, so that which in flowing disturbances hardens into swelling may soften by a coaxing touch until the taking of the medicine of sharper power.

VI "When with severe rays of the sun the constellation of Cancer scorches, then whoever in declining plenty entrusted seeds to the furrow cheated by the promise of Ceres must go to the oak trees.

"Never look in purple woods for a couch of violets when the hissing plain bristles with the fierce north wind; nor would you look with eager hand to prune the vines in spring if you would enjoy the taste of grapes; rather in autumn Bacchus confers his gifts.

"God designates the times adapting to the proper functions, and these cycles which it itself controlled it does not allow to be mixed.

"Thus because a way of violence abandons reliable order it does not have a pleasant outcome.

6 "First then will you open to me the state of your mind to undertake and test it with a very few questions, so that I may understand what should be the method of your treatment?"

"Certainly," I said, "in your judgment whatever request you will wish I shall answer."

Then she said, "Do you suppose this world is led by random and chance accidents or do you believe there is any rule of reason in it?"

"No," I said, "I don't at all think that such certain accidents would be changed by chance; truly I know the founder God presides over its work nor ever would there be a day which will dislodge me from this true belief."

"So it is," she said; "for you even recited it a little before and deplored humans being so much outside of divine care; for concerning the others nothing would change that they are ruled by reason. But ooh, I wonder very much why one placed in so healthy an attitude should be ill. Let us search deeper for the truth; I cannot but think some interpretation is missing. But tell me, since you do not doubt God rules the world, do you also pay attention by which governments it is ruled?"

"Scarcely," I said, "do I recognize the meaning of your question, much less can I reply to the inquiry."

"Surely," she said, "I am not mistaken that something is missing, in that as with an opening in a hard fortification emotional disease has insinuated itself into your spirit? But tell me, do you remember what the end of things may be, the intent toward which all of nature is aiming?"

"I have heard it," I said, "but mourning has dulled the memory."

"Yet you know from where all things have proceeded."

"I know," I said, and I answered it is God.

"And how could it happen that in having understood the origin you should be ignorant of what the end of things should be? Yet it is true the behavior of these disturbances is strong, so that it can in fact change a person's position, but it cannot destroy and uproot the whole for oneself. But I should like you to answer this too: do you remember that you are a person?"

"Why should I not remember?" I replied.

"Can you then reveal what a person should be?"

"Are you asking this, whether I am sure I am an animal by the rational and mortal? I know it, and I confess myself to be it."

And she said, "Do you know yourself to be nothing else?"

"Nothing."

"Already I know," she replied, "the other very greatest cause of your illness; you have stopped knowing what you should be yourself. Thus I have come upon fully the reason for your sickness and the approach for the restoring of safety.

"For since you are confused in your forgetfulness, you also have grieved that you are exiled and robbed of your personal goods; while since you are ignorant of what should be the end of things, you think worthless and criminal people are powerful and happy; while since you have forgotten by which governments the world is ruled, you estimate these changes of fortune to waver without a guide: great causes not only of illness, but truly of death too.

"But give thanks to the author of safety, because your whole nature has not yet forsaken you. We have the greatest spark of your health, the true judgment about the government of the world, because you believe it is not subject to the fall of chance but to divine reason; therefore be alarmed at nothing, already for you from this smallest little spark a vital heat will blaze.

"But since it is not yet time for stronger remedies, and it is agreed to be the nature of minds that as often as they will abandon truths, they will assume false opinions, from which the fog of emotions sprang which confuses that true insight, I shall attempt for a little while to reduce this with the mild and moderate ones, so that with the shadows of the deceitful emotion dispersed you can recognize the clarity of true light.

VII "Stars concealed by black clouds can shed no light.

"If the sea is rolling the troubled south wind mixes the surf, just now a glassy wave and like the clear ones the wave for days soon released filthy mud obstructs with sights, and what is wandering from the high mountains the flowing river often stops freed from rock thrown against a boulder.

"You also if you wish clear light to perceive the truth, by the straight path to travel the foot-path: pleasures drive out, drive out fear and banish hope and sorrow may not appear.

"The mind is cloudy and defeated by restraints when these are ruling."

Notes to Book 1:
1: The Pi and Theta represent the first letters of Greek words describing philosophy from the practical to the theoretical.

1: The Eleatic school of philosophy was founded by Parmenides a little before Socrates and emphasized the unity of being. The Academics were those who studied at the Academy founded by Plato.

3: The Epicureans followed the philosophy of Epicurus (341-270 BC) which believed in maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain. The Stoics included Zeno of Citium, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.

3: Anaxagoras was condemned for impiety and exiled from Athens about 450 BC. Socrates was executed by the Athenians in 399 BC. Zeno of Elea was tortured for challenging the tyranny of Nearchus about 440 BC.

3: Canius was executed by Caligula in 40 CE. Seneca was forced to commit suicide by Nero in 65 CE, and Soranus was condemned to death by Nero in 66.

4: A Greek proverb referred to those who would not listen any better than a donkey to a lyre.

4: Plato discusses the importance of having wise rulers in his Republic V and VI (473, 487).

4: Gaius Caesar, son of Germanicus, is better known as the Roman Emperor Caligula (reigned 37-41).

4: The mystical Pythagorean brotherhood began in the sixth century BC with Pythagoras and his school at Krotona in Italy.

VI: The sun is in the sign of Cancer during the first month of summer.

VI: Bacchus was also known as Dionysus, a god of fruitfulness as well as wine and ecstasy.

NEXT - BOOK TWO