Section 469

And shall we not believe Hesiod 1 who tells us that when anyone of this race dies, so it is that they become Hallowed spirits dwelling on earth, averters of evil, Guardians watchful and good of articulate-speaking mortals? Hes. WD 121 We certainly shall believe him. We will inquire of Apollo, 2 then, how and with what distinction we are to bury men of more than human, of divine, qualities, and deal with them according to his response. 3 How can we do otherwise? And ever after 4 we will bestow on their graves the tendance and worship paid to spirits divine. And we will practice the same observance when any who have been adjudged exceptionally good in the ordinary course of life die of old age or otherwise. That will surely be right, he said. But again, how will our soldiers conduct themselves toward enemies? In what respect? First, in the matter of making slaves of the defeated, do you think it right for Greeks to reduce Greek cities 5 to slavery, or rather that so far as they are able, they should not suffer any other city to do so, but should accustom Greeks to spare Greeks, foreseeing the danger 6 of enslavement by the barbarians? Sparing them is wholly and altogether the better, said he. They are not, then, themselves to own Greek slaves, either, and they should advise the other Greeks not to? By all means, he said; at any rate in that way they would be more likely to turn against the barbarians and keep their hands from one another. And how about stripping the dead after victory of anything except their weapons: is that well? Does it not furnish a pretext to cowards not to advance on the living foe, as if they were doing something needful when poking 7 about the dead? Has not this snatching at the spoils ere new destroyed many an army? Yes, indeed. And don’t you think it illiberal and greedy to plunder a corpse, and is it not the mark of a womanish and petty 8 spirit to deem the body of the dead an enemy when the real foeman has flown away 9 and left behind only the instrument 10 with which he fought? Do you see any difference between such conduct and that of the dogs 11 who snarl at the stones that hit them but don’t touch the thrower? Not the slightest. We must abandon, then, the plundering of corpses and the refusal to permit their burial. 12 By heaven, we certainly must, he said.