Clement of Alexandria: STROMATA (MISCELLANIES), Part IV, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 76

But not to protract the discourse further, in our anxiety to show the propensity of the Greeks to plagiarism in expressions and dogmas, allow us to adduce the express testimony of Hippias, the sophist of Elea, who discourses on the point in hand, and speaks thus: "Of these things some perchance are said by Orpheus, some briefly by Musaeus; some in one place, others in other places; some by Hesiod, some by Homer, some by the rest of the poets; and some in prose compositions, some by Greeks, some by Barbarians. And I from all these, placing together the things of most importance and of kindred character, will make the present discourse new and varied."

And in order that we may see that philosophy and history, and even rhetoric, are not free of a like reproach, it is right to adduce a few instances from them. For Alcmaeon of Crotona having said, "It is easier to guard against a man who is an enemy than a friend," Sophocles wrote in the Antigone:--

"For what sore more grievous than a bad friend?"

And Xenophon said: "No man can injure enemies in any way other than by appearing to be a friend."

And Euripides having said in Telephus:--

"Shall we Greeks be slaves to Barbarians?"--

Thrasymachus, in the oration for the Larissaeans, says: "Shall we be slaves to Archelaus--Greeks to a Barbarian?"

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