Plutarch, Bruta animalia ratione uti
Harold Cherniss and William C. Helmbold, Ed.

Gryllus. Ask rather what sort of virtue is not found in them more than in the wisest of men ? Take first, if you please, courage, in which you take great pride, not even pretending to blush when you are called ‘valiant’ and ‘sacker of cities.’ ¹ Yet you, [p. 503] you villain, are the man who by tricks and frauds have led astray men who knew only a straightforward, noble style of war and were unversed in deceit and lies ; while on your freedom from scruple you confer the name of the virtue that is least compatible with such nefariousness. Wild beasts, however, you will observe, are guileless and artless in their struggles, whether against one another or against you, and conduct their battles with unmistakably naked courage under the impulse of genuine valour. No edict summons them, nor do they fear a writ of desertion. No, it is their nature to flee subjection ; with a stout heart they maintain an indomitable spirit to the very end. Nor are they conquered even when physically overpowered ; they never give up in their hearts, even while perishing in the fray. In many cases, when beasts are dying, their valour withdraws together with the fighting spirit to some point where it is concentrated in one member and resists the slayer with convulsive movements and fierce anger² until, like a fire, it is completely extinguished and departs.

Beasts never beg or sue for pity or acknowledge defeat: lion is never slave to lion, or horse to horse through cowardice, as man is to man when he unprotestingly accepts the name whose root is cowardice.³ And when men have subdued beasts by snares and tricks, such of them as are full grown refuse food and endure the pangs of thirst until they [p. 505] induce and embrace death in place of slavery.⁴ But nestlings and cubs, which by reason of age are tender and docile, are offered many beguiling allurements and enticements that act as drugs. These give them a taste for unnatural pleasures and modes of life, and in time make them spiritless to the point where they accept and submit to their so-called ‘taming,’ which is really an emasculation of their fighting spirit.

These facts make it perfectly obvious that bravery is an innate characteristic of beasts, while in human beings an independent spirit is actually contrary to nature. The point that best proves this, gentle Odysseus, is the fact that in beasts valour is naturally equal in both sexes⁵ and the female is in no way inferior to the male. She takes her part both in the struggle for existence and in the defence of her brood.⁶ You have heard, I suppose, of the sow of Crommyon⁷ which, though a female beast, caused so much trouble to Theseus. That famous Sphinx⁸ would have got no good of her wisdom as she sat on the heights of Mt. Phicium, weaving her riddles and puzzles, if she had not continued to surpass the Thebans greatly in power and courage. Somewhere thereabouts lived also the Teumesian⁹ vixen, a ‘thing atrocious’ ¹⁰; and not far away, they say, was the Pythoness who [p. 507] fought with Apollo for the oracle at Delphi.¹¹ Your king¹² received Aethe¹³ from the Sicyonian¹⁴ as a recompense for excusing him from military service, making a very wise choice when he preferred a fine, spirited mare to a cowardly man. You yourself have often observed in panthers and lionesses that the female in no way yields to the male in spirit and valour. Yet, while you are off at the wars, your wife sits at home by the fire and troubles herself not so much as a swallow to ward off those who come against herself and her home - and this though she is a Spartan born and bred.¹⁵ So why should I go on to mention Carian or Maeonian women?¹⁶ Surely from what has been said it is perfectly obvious that men have no natural claim to courage¹⁷; if they did, women would have just as great a portion of valour. It follows that your practice of courage is brought about by legal compulsion, which is neither voluntary nor intentional, but in subservience to custom and censure and moulded by extraneous beliefs and arguments.¹⁸ When you face toils and dangers, you do so not because you are courageous, but because you are more afraid of some alternative.¹⁹ For just as that one of your companions who is the first to board ship stands up to the light oar, not because he thinks nothing of it, but because he fears and shuns the heavier one²⁰; just so he who accepts the lash to [p. 509] escape the sword, or meets a foe in battle rather than be tortured or killed, does so not from courage to face the one situation, but from fear of the other. So it is clear that all your courage is merely the cowardice of prudence and all your valour merely fear that has the good sense to escape one course by taking another.²¹ And, to sum up, if you think that you are better in courage than beasts, why do your poets call the doughtiest fighters ‘wolf-minded’ ²² and ‘lion-hearted’ ²³ and ‘like a boar in valour,’ ²⁴ though no poet ever called a lion ‘man-hearted’ or a boar ‘like a man in valour’? But, I imagine, just as when those who are swift are called ‘wind-footed’ ²⁵ and those who are handsome are called ‘godlike,’ ²⁶ there is exaggeration in the imagery ; just so the poets bring in a higher ideal when they compare mighty warriors to something else. And the reason is that the spirit of anger is, as it were, the tempering or the cutting edge of courage. Now beasts use this undiluted in their contests, whereas you men have it mixed with calculation, as wine with water, so that it is displaced in the presence of danger and fails you when you need it most. Some of you even declare that anger should not enter at all into fighting, but be dismissed in order to make use of sober calculation²⁷; their contention is correct so far as selfpreservation goes, but is disgracefully false as regards valorous defence. For surely it is absurd for you to find fault with Nature because she did not equip [p. 511] your bodies with natural stings, or place fighting tusks among your teeth, or give you nails like curved claws,²⁸ while you yourselves remove or curb the emotional instrument that Nature has given.