nor shall we think it proper nor admit that Achilles Footnote 1Cf. Iliad xix. 278 ff. But Achilles in Homer is indifferent to the gifts. himself was so greedy as to accept gifts from Agamemnon and again to give up a dead body after receiving payment Footnote 2 Iliad xxiv. 502, 555, 594. But in 560 he does not explicitly mention the ransom.
but otherwise to refuse.
It is not right,
he said, to commend such conduct.
But, for Homer’s sake,
said I, I hesitate to say that it is positively impious Footnote 3Cf. 368 B. to affirm such things of Achilles and to believe them when told by others; or again to believe that he said to Apollo
Me thou hast baulked, Far-darter, the most pernicious of all gods, Mightily would I requite thee if only my hands had the power.
Hom. Il. 22.15 Footnote 4Professor Wilamowitz uses ὀλοώτατε to prove that Apollo was a god of destruction. But Menelaus says the same of Zeus in Iliad iii. 365. Cf. Class. Phil . vol. iv. () p. 329. And how he was disobedient to the river, Footnote 5Scamander. Il. 21. 130-132. who was a god and was ready to fight with him, and again that he said of the locks of his hair, consecrated to her river Spercheius: This let me give to take with him my hair to the hero, Patroclus,
Hom. Il. 23.151 Footnote 6Cf. Proclus, p. 146 Kroll. Plato exaggerates to make his case. The locks were vowed to Spercheius on the condition of Achilles’ return. In their context the words are innocent enough. who was a dead body, and that he did so we must believe. And again the trailings Footnote 7Iliad xxiv. 14 ff. of Hector’s body round the grave of Patroclus and the slaughter Footnote 8Iliad xxiii. 175-176. of the living captives upon his pyre, all these we will affirm to be lies, nor will we suffer our youth to believe that Achilles, the son of a goddess and of Peleus the most chaste Footnote 9Proverbially. Cf. Pindar Nem. iv. 56, v. 26, Aristophanes Clouds 1063, and my note on Horace iii. 7. 17. of men, grandson Footnote 10Zeus, Aeacus, Peleus. For the education of Achilles by Cheiron Cf. Iliad xi. 832, Pindar Nem. iii., Euripides, I. A. 926-927, Plato, Hippias Minor 371 D. of Zeus, and himself bred under the care of the most sage Cheiron, was of so perturbed a spirit as to be affected with two contradictory maladies, the greed that becomes no free man and at the same time overweening arrogance towards gods and men.You are right,
he said.
Neither, then,
said I, must we believe this or suffer it to be said, that Theseus, the son of Poseidon, and Peirithous, the son of Zeus, attempted such dreadful rapes, Footnote 11Theseus was assisted by Perithous in the rape of Helen and joined Perithous in the attempt to abduct Persephone. Theseus was the theme of epics and of lost plays by Sophocles and Euripides. nor that any other child of a god and hero would have brought himself to accomplish the terrible and impious deeds that they now falsely relate of him. But we must constrain the poets either to deny that these are their deeds or that they are the children of gods, but not to make both statements or attempt to persuade our youth that the gods are the begetters of evil, and that heroes are no better than men. For, as we were saying, such utterances are both impious and false. For we proved, I take it, that for evil to arise from gods is an impossibility.
Certainly.
And they are furthermore harmful to those that hear them. For every man will be very lenient with his own misdeeds if he is convinced that such are and were the actions of
The near-sown seed of gods, Close kin to Zeus, for whom on Ida’s top Ancestral altars flame to highest heaven, Nor in their life-blood fails Footnote 12Plato was probably thinking of this passage when he wrote the last paragraph of the Critias. the fire divine.
Aesch. Niobe Fr.
Book 3