Dialogues

have been often told of the reign of Cronos. Young Socrates Yes, very often. Stranger Did you ever hear that the men of former times were earthborn, and not begotten of one another? Young Socrates Yes, that is another old tradition. Stranger All these stories, and ten thousand others which are still more wonderful, have a common origin; many of them have been lost in the lapse of ages, or are repeated only in a disconnected form; but the origin of them is what no one has told, and may as well be told now; for the tale is suited to throw light on the nature of the king. Young Socrates Very good; and I hope that you will give the whole story, and leave out nothing. Stranger Listen, then. There is a time when God himself guides and helps to roll the world in its course; and there is a time, on the completion of a certain cycle, when he lets go, and the world being a living creature, and having originally received intelligence from its author and creator, turns about and by an inherent necessity revolves in the opposite direction. Young Socrates Why is that? Stranger Why, because only the most divine things of all remain ever unchanged and the same, and body is not included in this class. Heaven and the universe, as we have termed them, although they have been endowed by the Creator with many glories, partake of a bodily nature, and therefore cannot be entirely free from perturbation. But their motion is, as far as possible, single and in the same place, and of the same kind; and is therefore only subject to a reversal, which is the least alteration possible. For the lord of all moving things is alone able to move of himself; and to think that he moves them at one time in one direction and at another time in another is blasphemy. Hence we must not say that the world is either self-moved always, or all made to go round by God in two opposite courses; or that two Gods, having opposite purposes, make it move round. But as I have already said (and this is the only remaining alternative) the world is guided at one time by an external power which is divine and receives fresh life and immortality from the renewing hand of the Creator, and again, when let go, moves spontaneously, being set free at such a time as to have, during infinite cycles of years, a reverse movement: this is due to its perfect balance, to its vast size, and to the fact that it turns on the smallest pivot. Young Socrates Your account of the world seems to be very reasonable indeed. Stranger Let us now reflect and try to gather from what has been said the nature of the phenomenon which we affirmed to be the cause of all these wonders. It is this. Young Socrates What? Stranger The reversal which takes place from time to time of the motion of the universe. Young Socrates How is that the cause? Stranger Of all changes of the heavenly motions, we may consider this to be the greatest and most complete. Young Socrates I should imagine so. Stranger And it may be supposed to result in the greatest changes to the human beings who are the inhabitants of the world at the time. Young Socrates Such changes would naturally occur. Stranger And animals, as we know, survive with difficulty great and serious changes of many different kinds when they come upon them at once. Young Socrates Very true. Stranger Hence there necessarily occurs a great destruction of them, which extends also to the life of man; few survivors of the race are left, and those who remain become the subjects of several novel and remarkable phenomena, and of one in particular, which takes place at the time when the transition is made to the cycle opposite to that in which we are now living. Young Socrates What is it? Stranger The life of all animals first came to a standstill, and the mortal nature ceased to be or look older, and was then reversed and grew young and delicate; the white locks of the aged darkened again, and the cheeks the bearded man became smooth, and recovered their former bloom; the bodies of youths in their prime grew softer and smaller, continually by day and night returning and becoming assimilated to the nature of a newly-born child in mind as well as body; in the succeeding stage they wasted away and wholly disappeared. And the bodies of those who died by violence at that time quickly passed through the like changes, and in a few days were no more seen. Young Socrates Then how, Stranger, were the animals created in those days; and in what way were they begotten of one another? Stranger It is evident, Socrates, that there was no such thing in the then order of nature as the procreation of animals from one another; the earthborn race, of which we hear in story, was the one which existed in those days⁠—they rose again from the ground; and of this tradition, which is nowadays often unduly discredited, our ancestors, who were nearest in point of time to the end of the last period and came into being at the beginning of this, are to us the heralds. And mark how consistent the sequel of the tale is; after the return of age to youth, follows the return of the dead, who are lying in the earth, to life; simultaneously with the reversal of the world the wheel of their generation has been turned back, and they are put together and rise and live in the opposite order, unless God has carried any of them away to some other lot. According to this tradition they of necessity sprang from the earth and have the name of earthborn, and so the above legend clings to them. Young Socrates Certainly that is quite consistent with what has preceded; but tell me, was the life which you said existed in the