Regarding the virtues of women, Clea, I do not hold the same opinion as Thucydides.Thucydides, ii. 45. For he declares that the best woman is she about whom there is the least talk among persons outside regarding either censure or commendation, feeling that the name of the good woman, like her person, ought to be shut up indoors and never go out. Cf. Moralia, 217 f, supra. But to my mind Gorgias appears to display better taste in advising that not the form but the fame of a woman should be known to many. Best of all seems the Roman custom, Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Camillus, chap. viii. (133 b), Livy, v. 50; Cicero, De oratore, ii. 11 (44). which publicly renders to women, as to men, a fitting commemoration after the end of their life. So when Leontis, that most excellent woman, died, I forthwith had then a long conversation with you, which was not without some share of consolation drawn from philosophy, and now, as you desired, I have also written out for you the remainder of what I would have said on the topic that man’s virtues and woman’s virtues are one and the same. This includes a good deal of historical exposition, and it is not composed to give pleasure in its perusal. Yet, if in a convincing argument delectation is to be found also by reason of the very nature of the illustration, then the discussion is not devoid of an agreeableness which helps in the exposition, nor does it hesitate To join The Graces with the Muses, A consorting most fair, as Euripides says, Hercules Furens, 673. Plutarch probably quoted from memory, as he made one transposition and on substitution. Cf. the critical note. and to pin its faith mostly to the love of beauty inherent to the soul.
