society and the constitution, and in the constitution what is honourable
and not expedient, why should he "live unknown"? Is it that he should
instruct nobody, inspire in nobody an emulation for virtue, and be to
nobody a pattern in good?[901] Had Themistocles been unknown at Athens,
Greece would not have repelled Xerxes; had Camillus been unknown at
Rome, Rome would not have remained a state; had Plato been unknown to
Dion, Sicily would not have won its freedom. And as light, I take it,
makes us not only visible but useful to one another, so knowledge gives
not only glory but impetus to virtue. Epaminondas in obscurity up to his
fortieth year was no use to the Thebans, but when his merits became
known and he was put into power, he saved his state from ruin, and
liberated Greece from slavery, making his abilities efficacious in
emergency through his reputation like the bright shining of a light. For
Sophocles' words,

"Brightly shines brass in use, but when unused
It groweth dull in time, and mars the house,"[902]

are also appropriate to the character of a man, which gets rusty and
senile by not mixing in affairs but living in obscurity. For mute
inglorious ease, and a sedentary life devoted to leisure, not only
injure the body but also the soul: and as hidden waters overshadowed and
stagnant get foul because they have no outlet, so the innate powers of
unruffled lives, that neither imbibe nor pass on anything, even if they
had any useful element in them once, seem to be effete and wasted.

Sec. V. Have you never noticed how when night comes on a tired languor
seizes the body, and inactive torpor overpowers the soul, and reason
shrinks within itself like a fire going out, and feeling quite worn out
is gently agitated by disordered fancies, only just indicating that the
man is alive? But when the sun rises and scares away deceitful dreams,
and brings on as it were the everyday world[903] and with its light
rouses and stimulates the thoughts and actions of everybody, then, as
Democritus says, "men form new ideas for the day," and betake themselves
to their various pursuits with mutual impetuosity, as if drawn by a
strong impulse.

Sec. VI. And I think that life itself, and the way we come into the world,
is so ordained by the deity that we should know one another. For
everyone comes into this great universe obscure and unknown casually and
by degrees, but when he mixes with his fellows and grows to maturity he