[61,0] THE SIXTY-FIRST DISCOURSE : CHRYSEÏS.
(1) (Dion) Since, as it happens, you praise Homer in no 
ordinary manner and you do not, like most persons, 
merely pretend to admire him, trusting to his reputation, 
but instead have discerned that quality in the 
poet in which he is most effective, his acquaintance 
with the passions of mankind, let us, if you please, 
pass by all else for the moment. the fortunes of kings 
and generals, and turn our attention to just one 
woman among the captives, aiming to discover how 
the poet has depicted the daughter of the priest 
whom he has mentioned at the very beginning of his 
poem. For Agamemnon seems to praise not only 
the beauty but also the character of the young 
woman, for he says that she is in no wise inferior in 
mind to his own wife —clearly believing that Clytemnestra 
has intelligence.
(2) (Interlocutrice) What of it ? Has he not said this 
thoughtlessly, beguiled by his infatuation ?
(Dion) That is worth looking into ; and yet it is very 
difficult to convince men who are in love, for most 
of them are suspicious and easily angered, and they 
never admit that they are loved as they deserve by
their beloved, especially when they are so superior 
in station to the objects of their passion and associate 
with them by virtue of authority.
(Interlocutrice) That kind of thing, in my opinion, happens 
with lovers of the low sort.
(Dion) Well then, if Agamemnon was of the superior 
kind, he was right in his appraisal of the girl ; but if 
he was no better than most men, it is not easy for a 
woman of low degree to please a man like him to the 
point of taking her to be noble. Well now, let us 
examine also the other points.
(3) (Interlocutrice) Why, what additional proof have you in Homer 
of the character of the woman ? At any rate he has 
not depicted her as doing or saying anything, but 
rather as being silently handed over to her father.
(Dion) What ! could one not deduce her faculties 
of mind from what took place in connexion with her, 
provided one were to consider the matter in a manner 
not wholly superficial and foolish ?
(Interlocutrice) Perhaps.
(Dion) Are we, then, to suppose that against the 
wishes of his daughter Chryses came into the camp, 
bearing the fillets of the god along with the ransom, 
and besought the assembly and the kings to release 
her, or, on the contrary, was it because she kept 
begging her father to aid her if he could ? (4) For if 
Chryseïs was content with her situation and wished 
to live with Agamemnon, Chryses would never have 
chosen at one and the same time to grieve his daughter 
and to incur the malice of the king, not being unaware 
of the king's feelings toward her. For it was no less 
to the interest of Chryses that Chryseïs should live 
with the king, so long as he was fond of her, since the 
priest's country, his sanctuary, and he himself had
come under the sway of the Achaeans, and Agamemnon 
was their sovereign. 

[61,5] And, besides, how is it that immediately after her 
capture, at a time when she might be expected to be in greater
distress, Chryses neither came nor made any mention of 
ransom, but rather some time after, at a time when 
her grief had diminished and her intimacy with 
Agamemnon had increased ? For the poet says 
these things took place in the tenth year of the siege 
— I mean the coming of the priest and the bringing 
of the ransom—while it is reasonable to suppose that 
the cities in the neighbourhood of Troy, and especially 
the smaller ones, would have been taken in the 
very beginning of the war, and it is to this group that 
Chrysa and its sanctuary belonged.
(Interlocutrice) Then this reasoning of yours attributes to 
Chryseïs very singular conduct, in that formerly she 
endured her lot as a captive, though newly robbed 
of her father and her country, but after ten years 
had passed she took it hard.
(6) (Dion) Yes, at least if you listen to what else I have 
to say ; for it is not pleasant for free women to 
abandon even an ordinary man, once he has become 
their lover, to say nothing of the most illustrious and 
wealthy man, king of all the Greeks, a man who held 
the greatest power of all among the men of that day, 
who had authority over not merely Chryseïs but her 
father and her country too, and who expected in a 
short time to become lord of Asia as well—for Ilium 
had long been in a bad way and its people were 
having difficulty in defending the city itself and no 
one went out for battle. And observe also that the
king had no casual regard for her, but even openly 
admitted that he preferred her to his own wife.
That she should spurn such numerous and exceptional 
advantages, and in particular a lover who was 
not only a great king and had few who vied with him 
in valour, but was also young and handsome, as Homer 
says in comparing him to Zeus, and that she should 
then go to her native land, now a prize of war, and 
live as the wife of one of Agamemnon's slaves—that 
is, assuming that she would wed one of the men of 
the district—is not that singular ? (7) For that she was 
a prisoner of war and for that reason did not care 
for the man who got her is not enough to explain 
her conduet. At any rate Briseïs apparently loved 
Achilles, and that although, as she declares, it was 
he who slew her husband and her brothers. But as 
for Agamemnon, nothing like that had been done 
regarding Chryseïs.
(Interlocutrice) Very good. Then from this lino of reasoning 
it follows that Chryseïs did not wish to be parted from 
Agamemnon, but that Chryses was conducting these 
negotiations independently ; or else, if indeed she did 
wish it, she would be rather foolish and the case you 
have made out is contrary to what you promised.
(8) (Dion) Well now, as the saying goes, do not judge 
a case before you hear both sides. Of course you 
speak of Homer as being a man of wisdom ?
(Interlocutrice) Possibly.
(Dion) Then you should assume that he tells some 
things but leaves others to the perception of his 
readers. But this is not one of the very obscure 
instances. For Chryseïs at the outset apparently
was content to remain with Agamemnon for the 
reasons I have named, and she was grateful to the 
gods that she had not been given to any of the less 
illustrious persons, but rather to the king of all, and 
also that he was not indifferent toward her ; and 
so she made no move regarding ransom. But when 
she heard what conditions were like in the house of 
Agamemnon, how disagreeable they were, and when 
she heard also about the cruelty of Clytemnestra and 
about her boldness, then she looked with dread to 
her arrival in Argos. Moreover, although she had 
hitherto remained with Agamemnon, possibly for 
love of him, still when the war was near its close and 
a report was current that the Trojans no longer would 
be able to hold out, she did not wait for the capture 
of Ilium. For she knew that in general men who are 
victorious grow arrogant, and that the time when 
religious scruples are more potent is when men are 
at war.

[61,10] For these reasons at that juncture she summoned 
her father and bade him entreat the Achaeans ; for 
she learned, it would appear, that the Atreidae were 
dominated by their wives and that the wives felt 
themselves superior to these men, not alone because 
of their beauty, but also because they believed that 
the right to rule belonged rather to themselves. For 
the Atreidae were descendants of Pelops and newcomers 
in Greece, whereas they themselves were 
women of Achaia, daughters of Tyndareüs and 
Leda. Now Tyndareüs had been illustrious and king 
of Sparta, and so not only had Helen on this account 
been courted by the noblest among the Greeks, but
they had sworn to render aid in case of need. (11) Besides, 
these women were sisters of Castor and Polydeuces, 
who had come to be regarded as sons of 
Zeus, and who to this day are deemed gods by all 
men because of the power they acquired at that time. 
For not only were they pre-eminent among the 
dwellers in the Peloponnese, but among those outside 
the Peloponnese the greatest power was that of 
Athens, and Castor and Polydeuces had overwhelmed 
that city in a campaign which they made in the reign 
of Theseus. Furthermore, Meleager, the noblest 
among the Greeks, had been a cousin of theirs.
Now though Chryseïs did not know these things, 
she did hear of the proud spirit of the women, and 
she learned how far above her husband Helen stood —
so far that, when Helen heard of the great advantages 
of Asia, due alike to excellence of soil and size of 
population and abundance of riches, she came to 
scorn, not only Menelaüs, but Agamemnon too and 
Greece as a whole and she chose the one in preference 
to the other. (12) Now Menelaüs had been accustomed 
to yield to Helen in everything before her elopement, 
and also, when later on he took her captive, he was 
kind to her in spite of all  ; but Agamemnon, puffed 
up because of his position as commander, had disparaged 
Clytemnestra, and so it was clear that they 
were not going to get along well together, but that 
instead there would be just about such actions as
came to pass. Nor was Chryseïs pleased when 
Agamemnon said what he did, moreover publicly in 
the assembly of the Achaeans, namely, that he prized 
her more than his own wife and thought her not 
inferior to her, for Chryseïs knew that such talk 
breeds envy and jealousy. (13) Then too, she observed 
Agamemnon's character and saw that he was not 
stable but arrogant and overbearing, and she calculated 
what he would do to her, a captive, when he 
ceased to desire her, seeing that he referred to his 
wife, queen though she was and the mother of his 
children, in such disparaging terms. For though 
foolish women delight in their lovers when they are 
seen to disparage all other women, those who are 
sensible discern the true nature of the man who acts 
or talks that way.
(14) And at the same time Chryseïs was aware that he 
was insolent too in his treatment of herself, and that 
too at a time when he was most in love with her. 
For example, that he should so roughly have driven 
off the father of his beloved, instead of sparing him 
on her account, to say nothing of his not having 
soothed the old man by saying that his daughter had 
nothing to fear from him, but, on the contrary, not 
only threatening him but also speaking slightingly 
of Chryseïs by saying,
"But I'll not free her ere old age o'ertakes 
Her far from home, at Argos, in our house, 
Plying the loom and visiting my couch."
What overweening insolence ! Why, what would he 
have done later on, seeing that while still in love 
he talks of her in such a fashion? Therefore, to
guard against these things and to forecast them is 
the mark of a woman by no means ordinary. 

[61,15] However, to my way of thinking, what happened 
in Argos both to Cassandra and to Agamemnon himself 
revealed that Chryseïs was a sensible woman to have 
saved herself from these disasters. Accordingly, 
that neither passion nor kingly station nor these 
things which are deemed glorious and good turned 
her head, young though she was, and that she did 
not plunge into perilous ventures and a disordered 
house and envy and jealousy -- these are the marks 
of a prudent woman, one truly worthy of being 
daughter of a priest, nurtured in the house of a god.
(Interlocutrice) How so ? Do you mean that these are the 
reasons why Agamemnon thought her wise ?
(16) (Dion) By no means, for it is not likely that she said 
any such thing to him ; rather that he formed his 
judgement on the basis of her conduct in general.
(Interlocutrice) Why, then, does not the poet say that she 
departed in gladness, just as he says that Briser, 
departed in sorrow ?
(Dion) Because in this too she was showing her 
prudence, her aim being not to exasperate Agamemnon 
or drive him to contentiousness. However, 
the poet makes the situation plain in the passage in 
which he says she was restored by Odysseus to her 
father beside the altar :
"Thus having said, he placed her in his arms. 
And he rejoicing took his darling child."
For, methinks, if she were sorrowing, her father 
would not be receiving her " rejoicing " ; nor, perchance, 
would the poet have called her "darling" unless she loved 
her father dearly for what had taken place.
(17) (Interlocutrice) Very well ; yet why did Chryseïs reason 
thus rather than Chryses on his own account ?
(Dion) Because it was to be expected that what 
concerned Clytemnestra would hold greater interest 
for Chryseïs ; but even if it was her father who 
reasoned thus and she agreed with him and followed 
his advice, that was no trifling feat either. At any 
rate most women in their folly are more devoted to 
their lovers than to their parents.
(Interlocutrice) Why, then, if she really was sensible, did she 
not try to prevent Chryses from appealing to Agamemnon 
publicly, in order that he might be less angry ?
(18) (Dion) Because she knew that, though in private 
lovers desire in every matter to gratify their passion, 
they are sometimes embarrassed in the presence 
of the crowd, and she believed that the fillets of the 
god had a certain power with the people, as proved 
to be the case.
(Interlocutrice) Still here is something that troubles me. How 
did it happen that Agamemnon not only fell in love 
with the priest's daughter at the time in question, 
but afterwards with Cassandra too, a divinely inspired 
and holy maid ? 
(Dion) Because this too is a sign of pride and wantonness
— to desire the forbidden and rare rather than 
the easily obtainable.
(Interlocutrice) I do not gainsay that Chryseïs was prudent, 
if these things took place as you claim.
(Dion) Would you rather hear how they assuredly 
did take place, or how it would be well for them to 
have taken place ?