and Monimus left little of economic interest.
“ERYXIAS”
The pseudo-Platonic dialogue, Eryxias, is of special interest for our study, since it is the only extant work in Greek literature which deals directly and exclusively with the problem of wealth.943
The work presents nothing new, however, which had not already been observed by the Socratics. The statement of Heidel,944 that it is “distinctly the most valuable contribution of antiquity to the science of political economy,” is therefore an exaggeration.
Nevertheless, the essay is worthy of more notice than it has usually received in histories of ancient economic thought.945 Whatever consideration has been given to it has been largely devoted to the question of its origin. It reveals points of contact with Plato, the later Socratics, and especially with Antisthenes, the Cynic, with whom the author seems to have been most in sympathy.946
The two theses that form the goal of the Eryxias are that the wisest men are in reality the wealthiest, and that material wealth is an evil, since they who possess most of it are the most needy of all, and hence most depraved.947
The keynote of the dialogue is the question of Socrates concerning the wealthy Sicilian, “What sort of a man was he reputed to be in Sicily?”948 The double thesis is illustrated concretely by Socrates, the wisest, and the Sicilian, the richest but worst of men.