Euboean Oration


The Euboean Oration or Euboicus is a speech delivered by Dio Chrysostom in the early second century AD, dealing with the relationship between virtue and poverty and drawing a contrast between rural and urban life. The speech's name derives from the extended anecdote in the first part of the speech in which Dio describes a poor hunter whom he met after being shipwrecked on the island of Euboea. It has been treated as an important historical source for the state of the countryside and civic life in Greece under the Roman Empire.

Summary

The overall argument of the work is that poverty is compatible with a virtuous life. A contrast is drawn between the countryside, where it is easy to be poor and virtuous, and the city, where there are many obstacles to a virtuous life for the poor.
The speech broadly breaks down into two halves. The first half recounts how the speaker was shipwrecked on Euboea and met a rustic hunter, who tells him of his one journey to the city, where he successfully defended himself before the Assembly on charges of failing to contribute financially to city life, and offers the speaker hospitality. The narrative implicitly establishes the hunter as virtuous despite his poverty, comparing his life to that of the ideal state presented by Plato in The Republic. After a bridging section, criticising the hospitality offered by the rich characters in Homer's Odyssey, the second half of the speech considers whether virtuous poor like the hunter can exist in an urban context, concluding that it is possible so long as they avoid taking up jobs that deform or weaken their body or that require them to behave unethically.

Structure

Tale of the Hunter :
  • 1-20: Account of the speaker's shipwreck and meeting with an unnamed rustic hunter
  • 20-63: The hunter recounts a visit to town, where he was brought before the Assembly and charged
  • 64-79: The shipwrecked speaker receives the hunter's hospitality and sees the hunter's daughter engaged to a village boy
Bridging section
Virtue in the city
  • 104-126: Meditation on the possibility of virtuous poverty in the city, focussed on occupations that are incompatible with virtue
  • 127-132: A digression on appropriate digressions
  • 133-152: Denunciation of illicit sexual practices of the city

Editions