The Golden Themis

an evil mind and an evil heart exists, and the losses and circumventions of others turn into their profit, weariness into pleasure, and dangers into joy.

He is anonymous, but most worthy of faith; unknown to the crowd, but most known to his own. But why would his own care about the crowd? There is no reason that would persuade them; there is not one cause that forbids it, but various ones. Lathe biosas live in obscurity is the saying of the ancient philosophers, in which he considered a great part of his happiness to be placed. Why should the same not suit the moderns, with things demanding it, and indeed far more so than in his time? For we know in what an impure world we live—not regarding the creatures of God, which were all good, but regarding the depravation of morals. Polydorus would not have entrusted himself to him if he had foreseen his outcome, or the affection of another. By his example, others have become more cautious, and no less than Polydorus, they hate the profane crowd and keep them at a distance—that is, they hide themselves from its eyes, since, as it is said, "opportunity makes the thief," and he who carries treasure on his head desires to be robbed. Men have derived their name and nature from the soil Latin: "ab humo". It is now parched and gaping, now moist and flowing, according to the abundance or deficiency of the sun, wind, or rain. So the human mind does not always suffer the same affections: now it gapes and desires what is not its own, soon it exchanges virtue for vice and justice for plunder. This is not to be understood of everyone (heaven forbid), but of those who bear little of the human in them—that is, they reveal an uncultivated mind.

Therefore, the author of these laws was cautious not from a sense of injury to himself, but he was cautious for his successors and the whole Fraternity in this: that he wished his name to be obscured rather than illustrated. For he is not wise who is not wise for himself, which was held against Aristippus, Anaxarchus, and others as a reproach. Everyone desires to fish for fame through magnificent deeds, and some also through crimes, as Herostratus did by burning the temple of Diana of Ephesus. But this author and his successors involve themselves in silence and completely decline and turn away from popular rumors, which not infrequently have more bile than honey. Not that they are misanthropes or haters of men, but that they may see the vices of many without experiencing them. Democritus blinded himself, as they say, so that he would not see all things full of the void—that is, heads with no brain, or those empty when they should be full—or full of inanities, vanities, guile, vices, and lusts. More correctly, this Author and his followers have hidden and withdrawn themselves from the eyes of others who imitate the Marsi and Psylli Ancient tribes known for snake-charming; here used as a metaphor for charlatans or manipulators. For one must not trust the double pupil, nor the hands of Mercury or Mars (of whom the former is the patron of thieves, the latter of plunderers), nor even long-handed Jupiter, nor Apollo polished in arts, if the latter should throw lightning bolts and the former throw the discus, by which Hyacinthus perished and migrated into the flower that bears his name.