Digressions&Impressions

On Knowing that Imperialism is Bad, Grotius and Plutarch

Victoria therefore rightly saith that the Spaniards got no more authority over the Indians for this cause than the Indians had over the Spaniards if any of them had come formerly into Spain. Nor truly are the Indians out of their wits and unsensible but ingenious and sharp-witted, so that no pretence of subjecting them may be taken from hence, which notwithstanding by itself is sufficient manifest iniquity. Plutarch long since calleth it πρόϕασιν πλεονεξίας ημερώσαι τὰ βαρβαρικά, to wit, a wicked desire of that which is another’s, to pretend this color to himself that he may tame the barbarians. And now also that color of bringing the gentiles against their will to a more civil kind of behavior, which the Grecians in times past and Alexander used, is thought wicked and impious of all divines, but specially the Spaniards.--Hugo Grotius The Free Sea (Hakluyt trans.). Liberty Fund, 1609, chapter 2, pp. 15-16.

It's nice to see Grotius reject natural inequality (of the Aristotelian sort used by Sepúlveda (recall here)); and also to see him reject civilizational missions as a proper justification of imperialism.  I re-encountered the second half of this passage (from Plutarch onward) as a frontispiece to Chandran Kukathas' (2003) The Liberal Archipelago. Before I continue I should acknowledge that I am too aware of the work of Barbara Arneil and Martine Julia van Ittersum, to use this passage to vindicate Grotius from the charge that he was an enabler of settler colonialism (both as a paid lawyer and in his more independent writing). So if you are a debunker of great, dead men don't feel you need to be on guard in what follows (not the least because there may well be a hint of sarcasm at the end of the passage because it is unlikely Grotius treats Spanish theologians -- how rational they may be -- really as authoritative).

I find passages like this useful because they undermine the pseudo-sophistication of what I (recall) call  'modern historicism. Modern historicism is constituted by three claims: first, our minds are "socially conditioned." Second, while we, too, will make socially conditioned moral mistakes, we are the products of moral progress or "Enlightenment." Third, some mechanism of historical change, even improvement, is required. In practice, modern historicism is trotted out to excuse the mistakes of the past and to re-affirm our (moral and intellectual) superiority. 

For, what's really neat about about the passage quoted at the top of the post is that for Grotius the civilizational argument that purportedly justifies imperialism -- one I was taught was only really invented in the Victorian age, and that one could trace back (recall) to Hume  -- is already very old and has been debunked before. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même.

Now the version of the passage that Kukathas cites is translated (in 1916) by Van Deman Magoffin edited by James Brown Scott (here). Somewhat annoyingly the editorial footnote suggests that the passage from Plutarch is on his life of Alexander. The Latin facing text suggests correctly, as does Hakluyt's translation, it's from Plutarch on Pompey (70.3). I quote it in the translation from  Bernadotte Perrin.

Besides, a great task still remained in the subjugation of Scythia and India, and here their greed would have had no inglorious excuse in the civilization of barbarous peoples. And what Scythian horse or Parthian archery or Indian wealth could have checked seventy thousand Romans coming up in arms under the leadership of Pompey and Caesar, whose names those nations had heard of long before that of Rome, so remote and various and savage were the peoples which they had attacked and conquered. 

Now, the wider context here is the Roman civil war (we're on the eve of the battle between Caesar and Pompey) and the self-inflicted implosion of the Roman republic. The romans could have quietly governed and enjoyed "what they had conquered, the greatest and best part of earth and sea was subject to them, and if they still desired to gratify their thirst for trophies and triumphs, they might have had their fill of wars with Parthians or Germans." So, Plutarch's point (and one kind of echoed by Machiavelli long after him) is that the Roman republic could have brought good government (i.e., low taxes, respect for property rights, etc.) to conquered nations, and continued their imperial conquests. But the desire for glory meant an unwillingness to share victory with purported equals. That is, Plutarch defends a kind of manifest destiny for the Romans which is to bring (softly: Greek) civilization to the barbarians (after the Greeks civilized their rulers), as Alexander had done before them.

Grotius has turned Plutarch's "πρόφασις οὐκ ἄδοξος ἐπὶ ταῦτα τῆς πλεονεξίας ἡμερῶσαι τὰ βαρβαρικά" into πρόϕασιν πλεονεξίας ημερώσαι τὰ βαρβαρικά, and so misrepresented (or misremembered) him for his own ends. When I realized this I was modestly disappointed. It would have been nice if Plutarch had anticipated Grotius' point, although it's undeniable that Plutarch clearly recognizes that often greed often is the real source of purportedly civilizing missions, even ones he endorses.

 

Haberler on Schumpeter; Plutarch, Adam Smith, Huizinga, and Some Decision Theoretic notions

One very nice feature of Quinn Slobodian's Globalists: The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism is that he has keen eye for the way Austrian economics and Ordoliberalism helped shape international institutions and international law in the era we often lazily call 'Bretton Woods' and then mistakenly associate exclusively with Keynes and Keynesianism. Rather than seeing Austrian economics and the ORDOs as the opposition, waiting with Monetarism for stagflation in order to get a hearing, they are, correctly, re-inscribed into the shaping of the world we have inherited.  And he, thereby, also helps recall the significance of figures like Gottfried Haberler (who are otherwise overshadowed in the popular imagination by the Hayeks and Milton Friedmans of the world.) 

Last week, in the British Library reading room, while I wanted to check a copy of Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, I accidentally called up Gottfried Haberler's Schumpeter's Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy after Forty Years (American Enterprise Institute, 1981). The volume was edited by Mutsumi Okada, who seems to have published it (but does not get credit for it anywhere, which is why I mention it here).

In the context of discussing Schumpeter's attitude toward Marx, Haberler (1900–1995) notes that "Schumpeter had developed his own theory of imperialism as early as 1919 in an article, "The Sociology of Imperialism." There [Schumpeter] describes the phenomenon of imperialism as "'objectless' tendencies toward forcible expansion, without definite, utilitarian limits -- that is non-rational and irrational, purely instinctual inclinations toward war and conquest" that have played "a very large role in the history of mankind. It may sound paradoxical, but numberless wars -- perhaps the  majority of all wars -- have been waged without adequate 'reason'--not so much from a moral viewpoint as from that of reasoned and reasonable interest."* Since Schumpeter is clearly familiar with Hobson's evidence that modern imperialism is profitable for well-connected some, one may well wonder why he wishes to emphasize the instinctual.

The quote is from the English translation published in Imperialism and Social Classes translated by Heinz Norden. This was published in 1951. In an accompanying footnote, Haberler cites p. 83. Unfortunately, I only have access to a reprint from 1966 (which reproduced the 1955 edition). There it's on p. 64 at the start of the section on "Imperialism and Capitalism." As an aside, in the translation the title of Schumpeter's essay is in the plural ("The Sociology of Imperialism"), as it is in the original German (imperialismen) whereas Haberler has the singular 'imperialism.'

That wars often lack adequate reason from the perspective of interest does not mean that they are without explanation. In the essay, Schumpeter himself goes on to explain that there are atavistic dispositions and structures, especially among the aristocratic elites, which do provide such an explanation. Haberler seems to ignore this. But in the accompanying footnote (in which Haberler gives the page-number) Haberler adds the following. "A beautiful example from antiquity of "objectless" conquest is reported in Plutarch's Lives:" Haberler then offers a mix of summary and quote:

King Pyrrhus, of Epirus, had a trusted advisor, "A certain Cineas, a man...of great wisdom" who tried to restrain his monarch. When Cineas noted that Pyrrhus made preperations to attack Rome, he started a conversation: "The Romans, O Pyrrhus, are said to be good fighters, and to be rulers of many warlike nations; if, then, Heaven should permit us to conquer these men, how should we use our victory?" Pyrrhus replied: Thy question, O Cineas, really needs no answer; the Romans once conquered, there is neither barbarian nor Greek city there which is a match for us, but we shall at once possess all Italy." After which Cineas said: "And after taing Italy, O King, what are we do to?" And Pyrrhus said: "Sicily is near, and holds out her hands to us, an island abounding in wealth and men, and very easy to capture..." "What thou sayest, replied Cineas, "is probably true; but will our expedition stop with the taking of Sicily?" Pyrrhus replied: "Who could keep his hands off Libya, or Carthage, when that city got within his reach...? And we have become masters here, no one of the enemies who now treat us with scorn will offer further resistance; there is no need of saying that." "None whatever," said Cineas, but "when we have got everything subject to us, what are we going to do?" Pyrrhus smiled and said: "We have a good time, will drink bumpers every day." And now that Cimeas had brought Pyrrhus to this point he said: "Then what stands in our way now if we want to drink bumpers...? Surely this privilege is ours already, and we have at hand, without taking any trouble, those things to which we hope to attain by bloodshed and great toils and perils, after doing much harm to others and suffering much ourselves. Why not have the good  times now?" Plutarch comments: "By this reasoning of Cineas, Pyrrhus was more troubled than he was converted." He attacked any way, and defeated the Romans in a famous battle, his last victory--which ever since has been known as the Pyrrhic victory.**

The footnote takes up nearly two pages in Haberler's slim volume (which runs to under 60 pages). I had to look up what a 'bumper' is--it seems to be a cup filled to the brim.

Now, as readers of Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) and my own regular readers know (recall here), Smith uses the very same passage from Plutarch in Part 3 of TMS. And in that post I trace the anti-imperialist provenance of the Cineas story  But in Smith, Cineas' name goes unmentioned (he's just called the King's 'favorite'), and the point is not to illustrate "objectless" conquest, but rather to illustrate what I have called the axiom of status quo bias, that is, "Wherever prudence does not direct, wherever justice does not permit, the attempt to change our situation, the man who does attempt it, plays at the most unequal of all games of hazard, and stakes every thing against scarce any thing." 

Now, it's probably possible to concoct a chain of reasoning such that the axiom of status quo bias is always presupposed in objectless conquest. After all, the absence of prudence may well entail objectless action. But I was struck that the same anecdote illustrates different kinds of things (a kind of principle of decision-making vs a kind of social phenomenon). In addition, in Smith the axiom of status quo bias links up with a more general anti-militarism whereas in this context, Haberler's Schumpeter at least allows some wars of conquest if they can pass a kind of cost-benefit analysis (if they are 'utilitarian').

When Smith concludes his version of the anecdote, he adds the claim: "In the most glittering and exalted situation that our idle fancy can hold out to us, the pleasures from which we propose to derive our real happiness, are almost always the same with those which, in our actual, though humble station, we have at all times at hand, and in our power." Smith here, as elsewhere, is not a subjectivist about happiness. And the passage also links up to his more general concern that our imagination tends delude us about how we might experience possible outcomes (and that we are especially biased by the aesthetic spectacle the rich and powerful present). We often chase fantastic possibilities while we disdain available solid pleasures (and this mistake creates civilization with the arts and sciences and economic growth as we know it).

Smith here partially echoes Plutarch. For just before the anecdote with Cineas we learn that the King of Epirus disdains idleness and actually grows sick from lack of adventure. And both Pyrrhus and his citizens are inspired into military action by the gifts and promises they receive from the war-party in Tarentum (which needs their military aid to hold off the Romans). 

But Plutarch himself offers a subtly different moral to the story which can be seen if we quote the full sentence that Haberler only partially quotes: "By this reasoning of Cineas Pyrrhus was more troubled than he was converted; he saw plainly what great happiness he was leaving behind him, but was unable to renounce his hopes of what he eagerly desired." Now, whatever Pyrrhus desired military glory or adventure (or both), it's noticeable that in Plutarch Pyrrhus becomes a kind of exemplar of akratic action. A life of great happiness holds little allure for him, and despite having it in hand he is willing to throw it away for adventure (or glory).

Perhaps, we are also meant to see a kind of practical irrationality in Pyrrhus where certain happiness is foregone for a path with uncertain outcomes. Obviously, if we care about rationality it matters greatly if we decide that what Pyrrhus really wants is not glory (which is very uncertain), but adventure (which is pretty certain). In the latter case Pyrrhus is not irrational (playing "at the most unequal of all games of hazard") but simply revealing his true preferences. 

I don't mean to suggest Haberler is all wrong here about using Plutarch to convey Schumpeter's idea. One can treat Cineas as representing the pacific values of the market-place with his eloquence (which lands him a reputation for great wisdom), and Pyrrhus represents aristocratic warrior values. And from the vantage point of the market-place, Pyrrhus' actions are not just in violation of justice, but objectless and atavistic. It is no surprise that economists would treat the aristocratic warrior values as atavistic. But one need not be Huizinga to recognize that playing "at the most unequal of all games of hazard" and staking "every thing against scarce any thing" can, in the right circumstances, have an attraction of its own, Dutch books be damned.

 

On Four or Five Methods of History of Philososphy (and the debates over Stoicism and Spinozism that Encouraged them)

In the middle of the seventeenth century, [I] the standard approach to the historiography of philosophy, which at this time almost universally meant writing the history of ancient philosophy, was still closely modelled on Diogenes Laertius's book on the Lives of Eminent Philosophers. A typical work would be organized by sect, each section being subdivided by author, with a doxography of the sect's distinctive arguments presented in the section to devoted to its founder--in the case of the Stoics, Zeno of Citium. Passages on later philosophers adhering to the particular school would follow the treatment of the founder, in broadly chronological order. While mention would be made of particular specialisms or idiosyncracies which appeared in the work of these later adherents, there would be no detailed treatment of what scholars would today recognize as the basic stuff of the history of philosophy, [II] the presentation of how the course of philosophical argument over time led to modifications in the doctrines maintained by the philosophers and the schools. Those who wrote on the history of philosophy could discuss whether theses were true or false, in light of the best philosophical accounts of their own age, or of revealed religion, but they provided no serious account of how progress in philosophy might be made, of how within a certain tradition of philosophical argument, arguments might be found wanting and replaced, where possible, with better ones. [Emphasis and numbering added--ES] Christopher Brooke Philosophic Pride: Stoicism and Political Thought from Lipsius to Rousseau, pp. 139-140. (For an earlier version of Brooke's argument, see here.)

I have quoted from the opening lines of a section on changes in the historiography of philosophy that Christopher Brooke recounts in chapter six of his impressive monograph (from which I learned a lot). Before I get to that, let me say something about Brooke's wonderful book. The main thrust tells the story of the miraculous come-back of Stoic ideas in political theory (and ethics, meta-ethics) after Machiavelli's seeming knock-out blows against them. The Stoic political theory that Machiavelli undermined is associated with Seneca's views on the ruler's constancy. As Brooke nicely notes a key move made by the re-founder of Stoicism, Lipsius, is to switch constancy as a virtue from the ruler to the subject. In an unusual oversight, Brooke fails to note the significance of this move  to Descartes, whose philosophy is -- as I have noted before (here; see also this post on Descartes's pride and generosity) -- written from the perspective of the technocratic (and constant) subject and, which, in  fact, embraces constancy as a key virtue in his second methodological and regulative maxim in the Discourse on Method.  Be that as it may, a more fundamental difference, and this is nicely emphasized by Brooke, is that the Machiavellian prince is not immanent in the political order (she acquires dominions and subjects for her own glory) whereas for Lipsius she is serving the common good (32-33). Lipsius's position comes under attack from both Christian (Augustianian) moralists as well as 'secular' (61--Montaigne)and (Hobbesian) political realists and Brooke ably recounts the developments of Stoic ideas (switching from Seneca to Marcus Aurelius along the way) all the way to Rousseau.*

Okay, let me turn to methodology. In chapter six, Brooke recounts a "revolution" (141) in the historiography of philosophy away from doxography (which, it is worth noting, itself imposed an order on its source material). One of the innovations was (III) to think of philosophy as "problem-driven," in particular,

examining particular philosophical questions, the arguments to which these had historically given rise, and, crucially, those moments at which the participants in those arguments appeared to agree that the state of the question had changed, or that the argu­ment had moved on. In considering the topics that were debated between the artisans of the different schools, furthermore, the new historians of philosophy had the highest praise for those they considered to be 'eclectic' philosophers, those who were not beholden to the dogmas of a particular school, but who enjoyed the freedom to draw as they saw fit from among the various authorities and arguments that were available to them. (141)

This revolution is associated with Pufendorf and Thomasius and makes a narrative of "progress" possible. (I go over some of the same material here, where I provide an analysis of how the new early modern historiography creates revolutionary baselines from which progress is to be discerned.) Brooke correctly notes that this historiography is itself made possible by the embrace of eclecticism -- the selection (of what is best) -- as a respectable philosophical stance. It also involves a more subtle shift from philosophy as a coherent way of life as philosophy as arguments (of course, arguments are possible in the former and the latter is compatible with a life-style). In context, Brooke notes that it, thereby, rejects a focus on schools and their internal tradition/development. While problem driven philosophy is still familiar to us, it is important to emphasize that such eclecticism is also incompatible with another way of thinking about philosophy, systematicity.

Systematicity is mentioned when Brooke discusses another methodological innovation (one responding to the ways in which Stoicism and Spinozism were seen as species of atheism or at least hostile to "religious orthodoxy" (141)) pioneered by Buddeaus:

Rather than examining each of the ancient philosophical schools by list­ing their opinions on various topics, Buddeus sought (IV) to identify the nuclear or constitutive principles of those philosophical schools, the key teachings from which other doctrines were considered to flow. This was then a way of dist­inguishing the core from the peripheral arguments of the various schools...(141)

The core is here like a timeless, but knowable essence from which other less essential doctrines flow. (This is the central explanatory framework of seventeenth  century science before it gets displaced by a focus on laws.) Buddeus treats a temporal tradition here as akin to a substance. But once such a body of knowledge is treated as a substance with an essence it is not a huge step to seeing it as a system with a core and a periphery. This allows then a comparison, as Brooke notes, in Spinozism before Spinoza, between Stoicism and Spinozisms and the identification of these as instances of the same system. (Leo Catana has done fine work (see here, and here) on how Buddeus's ideas on systematicity were carefully developed (and partially transformed) and made influential in the work of Brucker whose ideas were taken up in the critical (Kantian) philosophy and its historiography.)

Okay, so we have here three methods of history of philosophy:

• Doxography of potentially many sects (I)
• A focus on the innovations in arguments that solve (philosophical) problems and, thereby, produce new doctrines (II&III)
• A focus on systems with a core and a periphery. (IV)

In Brooke's hands the views of Pufendorf and Thomasius (III) are very close to what he takes to be the contemporary understanding ('scholars today') of the history of philosophy (IV) which is why I don't distinguish them in this list. To be sure, and Brooke ignores this, there are able adherents of IV today (see Alan Nelson; not to mention those of us that reject I-IV).

Of course, there is a non-trivial difference between II & III: many scholars today would, while not eschewing evaluation altogether ('does an argument succeed on its own terms?;' 'are there hidden tensions?;', etc.), understand  themselves primarily as describing the arguments that lead to novel doctrines of the past finding, as it were, the historical truth or historical meaning (see Lærke); while the eclectic historians (of the seventeenth and eighteenth century) are seeing themselves as paving the way for improved doctrines, that is, more progress (say in a 'science of morality' (144)) by learning from other people's mistakes.

That is to say the eclectic historians share  something in common with Lipsius and Machiavelli. For, one commonality between Lipsius and Machiavelli noted by Brooke is that both believe (V) that history can be instructive. For Lipsius and Machiavelli, the instruction does not generate "general rules with universal application" (31), but maxims which rely on contextual judgment and prudence in knowing then and knowing when to apply them.  That is the historian can also aim

• to be instructed by the past (III&V)

Now, here my point is not to collapse entirely the distinction between political history and the history of political theory, although a too rigorous separation makes one misunderstand, even underestimate, contributions to both genres (Thucydides  Machiavelli, Hume, maybe Tacitus),--about which another time very soon. Rather, I want to close with a pet-peeve about the contemporary stance that Brooke subscribes and exemplifies so ably: it privileges recent scholarship and, thus, exhibits a certain unwillingness to learn from the source material. So, for example, Brooke does not treat his sources (many of which are offering philosophical interpretations about the nature of Stoicism) as symmetrical in understanding with recent scholars. So, for example, the sources are never allowed to challenge the findings about ancient Stoicism by recent scholars (although he ably notes controversies among them and also ably shows when material was or was not available). Now, undoubtedly recent scholars have the advantage of using more sources and better technical tools (about dating, authorship, etc.), and I would not wish to deny that classical philology advances (say, from the days of Lipsius). But Brooke always privileges the perspectives of recent scholars over his early modern sources.

So, for example, as we have seen, in chapter six (in fact, the argument starts at the end of chapter five), Brooke treats the interest in the Stoic attitude toward providence and divinity as a modern phenomenon primarily as  a result of the rise of Spinozism, Pantheism, and Deism and the ways these (each) swerve uncomfortably close to atheism. I agree with his reading of the early moderns. But he treats their interpretation of Stoicism as a distinctly (early) modern phenomenon. This is odd because it is a recurring theme in a widely read text and important source, Cicero's On the Nature of the Gods, that (recall) ancient schools disguise their true doctrines on the gods out of fear of popular odium. (In Cicero the topic is raised polemically about the Epicureans twice, but it is also discussed in the context of other schools and himself). Early Modern readers did not miss the point and often treated fear of popular odium as a danger for all of the ancient, philosophical sects (recall here, and here on Smith and Toland on Pythogoreans). While this seems apt for Epicureans, it may seem odd to raise this concern about the Stoics. But while, the Stoics often talked of (partial) providence (for the virtuous [for evidence and this terminology, see Runia]), they also embrace fatalism and so the early modern suspicion of the nature of their theism is not without ground. The point here is not to defend esotericism or the early modern readings of the Stoics (who, inspired, by Plutarch often treat Stoics as religious hypocrites);** rather the point is to nudge us toward a methodology that treats our historical subjects as equal partners in our intellectual voyage(s).

 

On Wisdom of the Ancients (on Plutarch, Philo, and Spinoza)

Wherefore this very ancient opinion [δόξα] comes down from theologians [θεολόγων] and from lawgivers to poets and philosophers; it can be traced to no source, but it carried a strong and almost indelible conviction, and is in circulation in many places among barbarians and Greeks alike, not only in speech and tradition but also in mystery cults [τελεταῖς] and sacrifices, to the effect that the Universe is not of itself suspended aloft without sense or reason or guidance, nor is there one Reason which rules and guides it by rudders, as it were, or by controlling reins, but, inasmuch as Nature brings, in this life of ours, many existences [οὔθ᾽ εἷς ἐστιν] in which both evil and good are commingled, or better, to put it very simply, Nature brings nothing which is not combined with something else, we may assert that it is not one keeper of two great vases who, after the manner of a barmaid, deals out to us our failures and successes in mixture, but it has come about, as the result of two opposed principles and two antagonistic forces, one of which guides us along a straight course to the right, while the other turns us aside and backward, that our life is complex, and so also is the universe; and if this is not true of the whole of it, yet it is true that this terrestrial universe, including its moon as well, is irregular and variable and subject to all manner of changes. For nothing comes into being without a cause [εἰ γὰρ οὐδὲν ἀναιτίως πέφυκε γίγνεσθαι], and if the good cannot provide a cause for evil, then it follows that Nature must have in herself the source and origin of evil, just as she contains the source and origin of good..--Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 45.

My Ghent colleague, the historian Peter Van Nuffelen, discusses the passage quoted from Plutarch in his wonderful Rethinking the Gods: Philosophical Readings of Religion in the Post-Hellenistic Period (62).Van Nuffelen calls attention to the fact that Plutarch does not dismiss ancient opinion (δόξα  understood here "to indicate the non-philosophical character of primitive wisdom), but rather construes it as an instance of ancient wisdom shared by many peoples and introduced by theologians and lawgivers into human society. The truth is, in Van Nuffelen's felicitous phrase, "couched in symbols and myth." (62) It's the task of the philosophers to unearth the wisdom of ancients in the laws and maxims, but also in "mystery cults and sacrifices." The Plutarchian philosopher is, thus, not just a cultural and political historian, but also a kind of anthropologist capable of interpreting a variety of practices and 'going native' among the mystery cults. (Plutarch himself was a priest at the famous oracle of Delphi.)

As Van Nuffelen  makes clear, relying on "philosophy" as his "guide," Plutarch reads "his own ideas into specific cults." (63 n. 90) In the quoted passage (and this goes unmentioned by Van Nuffelen), Plutarch insists that a version of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (i.e., nothing comes into being without a cause) can be found among the variety of expressions of ancient wisdom. In particular, the original version of the PSR inclines not to Monism (as we might expect post Spinoza-Leibniz), but rather to a Zoroastic Dualism with two opposed powers that constitute the world because* all existence always has a positive or negative valence. It is no surprise, then, that Plutarch names Zarathustra among the wisest [σοφωτάτοις], who teach such opinions (as well as superstitious myths (μυθολογία)) and his era is situated before the dawn of historical time, "five thousand years before the time of the Trojan War."**