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13.2.1 2. AGAIN FROM THE DISCOURSE OF THE EPINOMIS CONCERNING THE SAME «Therefore, concerning theogony and the origin of living beings, it is necessary, it seems, for me first, since those before me have portrayed it badly, to portray it better in a subsequent account, taking up the argument which I have attempted against the impious.» 13.2.2 But that he reasonably rejects the theology of the first writers, he teaches in the second book of the Republic, where it is worthwhile to pay attention to how many and what kind of things he recounts concerning the same poets and theologians and the things handed down from of old concerning the Greek gods, speaking in these very words:

13.3.1 3. AGAIN FROM THE SECOND BOOK OF THE REPUBLIC CONCERNING THE SAME «In the greater, I said, we shall also see the lesser. For the same type must exist and have the same power for both the greater and the lesser. Or do you not think so? I do, he said; but I do not understand which greater ones you mean. Those, I said, which both Hesiod and Homer told us, and the other poets. For these, I suppose, composing false tales for men, both told and tell them. 13.3.2 What sort, he said, and what in them do you find fault with? That which, I said, one ought to find fault with first and foremost, especially if one tells lies badly. What is that? When someone poorly portrays in his account the nature of gods and heroes, what they are like, just as a painter who paints nothing like the things he wants to paint a likeness of. For indeed, he said, it is right to find fault with such things. But how 13.3.3 do we speak, and what sort of things? First, I said, the greatest falsehood and concerning the greatest things, he who told it did not lie well, how Uranus acted, what Hesiod says he did, and how Cronus in turn took vengeance on him. But the deeds of Cronus and his sufferings at the hands of his son, not even if they were true, would I think it right for them to be told so lightly to the foolish and the young, but rather to be passed over in silence for the most part, and if there were some necessity to speak of them, for them to be heard in secret by as few as possible, after sacrificing not a pig, but some great and unobtainable victim, so that it might fall to the fewest possible 13.3.4 to hear. For indeed, he said, these tales are difficult. And not to be told, Adeimantus, in our city. Nor should it be said to a young person hearing it that in committing the worst injustices he would be doing nothing surprising, nor again in punishing an unjust father in every way, but that he would be doing what the first and greatest of the gods did. 13.3.5 No, by Zeus, he said, it does not seem to me either that they are fit to be told. Nor indeed, I said, at all that gods make war on gods and plot against them and fight them, for they are not true; if at least we who are to guard the city must consider it most shameful to be easily hostile to one another. Far from it should we tell them tales of battles with giants and embroider them, and many other various enmities of gods and heroes towards their own kinsmen and relatives, but if we would somehow persuade them, that no citizen ever was at enmity with another nor is this holy, such things should rather be told to the children straightaway and to old men and women and to those growing older, and 13.3.6 the poets must be compelled to compose tales close to these. But the binding of Hera by her son and the casting out of Hephaestus by his father, when he was about to defend his mother who was being beaten, and all the battles of the gods that Homer has composed, are not to be admitted into the city, whether composed with hidden meanings or without hidden meanings. 13.3.7 For the young person is not able to judge what is hidden meaning and what is not, but whatever opinions he takes in at that age tend to become hard to wash out and unchangeable. For which reason, perhaps, every effort should be made that the first things they hear are the most beautifully 13.3.8 mythologized tales for them to hear for the sake of virtue. It has

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13.2.1 βʹ. ΕΤΙ ΑΠΟ ΤΟΥ ΛΟΓΟΥ ΕΠΙΝΟΜΙ∆ΟΣ ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΑΥΤΟΥ «Θεογονίαν τοίνυν καὶ ζῳογονίαν ἀναγκαῖον, ὡς ἔοικε, πρῶτόν μοι, κακῶς ἀπεικασάντων τῶν ἔμπροσθεν, βέλτιον ἀπεικάσαι κατὰ τὸν ὕστερον λόγον, ἀναλαβόντα ὃν πρὸς τοὺς ἀσεβεῖς ἐπικεχείρηκα λόγον.» 13.2.2 Ὅτι δ' εὐλόγως τὴν τῶν πρώτων θεολογίαν παραιτεῖται διδάσκει ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ τῆς Πολιτείας, ἔνθα τὸν νοῦν ἐπιστῆσαι ἄξιον ὁπόσα καὶ οἷα περὶ τῶν αὐτῶν ποιητῶν τε καὶ θεολόγων τῶν τε ἐκ παλαιοῦ παραδεδομένων περὶ τῶν Ἑλληνικῶν θεῶν διέξεισιν, ὧδε ῥήμασιν αὐτοῖς φάσκων·

13.3.1 γʹ. ΕΤΙ ΑΠΟ ΤΟΥ ∆ΕΥΤΕΡΟΥ ΤΗΣ ΠΟΛΙΤΕΙΑΣ ΠΕΡΙ ΤΟΥ ΑΥΤΟΥ «Ἐν τοῖς μείζοσιν, ἦν δ' ἐγώ, ὀψόμεθα καὶ τοὺς ἐλάττους. δεῖ γὰρ δὴ τὸν αὐτὸν τύπον εἶναι καὶ ταὐτὸν δύνασθαι τούς τε μείζους καὶ τοὺς ἐλάττους. ἢ οὐκ οἴει; Ἔγωγ', ἔφη· ἀλλ' οὐκ ἐννοῶ οὐδὲ τοὺς μείζους τίνας λέγεις. Οὓς Ἡσίοδός τε, εἶπον, καὶ Ὅμηρος ἡμῖν ἐλεγέτην καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι ποιηταί. οὗτοι γάρ που μύθους ψευδεῖς τοῖς ἀνθρώποις συντιθέντες ἔλεγόν τε καὶ λέγουσι. 13.3.2 Ποίους δή, ἦ δ' ὅς, καὶ τί αὐτῶν μεμφόμενος λέγεις; Ὅπερ, ἦν δ' ἐγώ, χρὴ πρῶτόν τε καὶ μάλιστα μέμφεσθαι, ἄλλως τε καὶ ἐάν τις μὴ καλῶς ψεύδηται. Τί τοῦτο; Ὅταν εἰκάζῃ τις κακῶς οὐσίαν τῷ λόγῳ περὶ θεῶν τε καὶ ἡρώων, οἷοί εἰσιν, ὥσπερ γραφεὺς μηδὲν ἐοικότα γράφων οἷς ἂν ὅμοια βουληθῇ γράψαι. Καὶ γάρ, ἔφη, ὀρθῶς ἔχει τὰ τοιαῦτα μέμφεσθαι. ἀλλὰ πῶς 13.3.3 δὴ λέγομεν καὶ ποῖα; Πρῶτον μὲν δή, ἦν δ' ἐγώ, τὸ μέγιστον καὶ περὶ τῶν μεγίστων ψεῦδος ὁ εἰπὼν οὐ καλῶς ἐψεύσατο, ὡς Οὐρανός τε εἰργάσατο, ἅ φησι δρᾶσαι αὐτὸν Ἡσίοδος, ὅ τε αὖ Κρόνος ὡς ἐτιμωρήσατο αὐτόν. τὰ δὲ δὴ Κρόνου ἔργα καὶ πάθη ὑπὸ τοῦ υἱέος οὐδ' ἂν εἰ ἦν ἀληθῆ, ᾤμην δεῖν ῥᾳδίως οὕτω λέγεσθαι πρὸς ἄφρονάς τε καὶ νέους, ἀλλὰ μάλιστα μὲν σιγᾶσθαι, εἰ δ' ἀνάγκη τις ἦν λέγειν, δι' ἀπορρήτων ἀκούειν ὡς ὀλιγίστους, θυσαμένους οὐ χοῖρον, ἀλλά τι μέγα καὶ ἄπορον θῦμα, ὅπως ὡς ἐλαχίστοις 13.3.4 συνέβη ἀκοῦσαι. Καὶ γάρ, ἦ δ' ὅς, οὗτοί γε οἱ λόγοι χαλεποί. Καὶ οὐ λεκτοί, ὦ Ἀδείμαντε, ἐν τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ πόλει. οὐδὲ λεκτέον νέῳ ἀκούοντι ὡς ἀδικῶν τὰ ἔσχατα οὐδὲν ἂν θαυμαστὸν ποιοῖ οὐδ' αὖ ἀδικοῦντα πατέρα κολάζων παντὶ τρόπῳ, ἀλλὰ δρῴη ἂν ὅπερ θεῶν οἱ πρῶτοί τε καὶ μέγιστοι. 13.3.5 Οὐ μὰ τὸν ∆ία, ἦ δ' ὅς, οὐδὲ αὐτῷ μοι δοκεῖ ἐπιτήδεια εἶναι λέγειν. Οὐδέ γε, ἦν δ' ἐγώ, τὸ παράπαν ὡς θεοὶ θεοῖς πολεμοῦσί τε καὶ ἐπιβουλεύουσι καὶ μάχονται οὔτε γὰρ ἀληθῆ· εἴ γε δεῖ ἡμᾶς τοὺς μέλλοντας τὴν πόλιν φυλάσσειν αἴσχιστον νομίζειν τὸ ῥᾳδίως ἀλλήλοις ἀπεχθάνεσθαι. πολλοῦ δεῖ γιγαντομαχίας τε μυθολογητέον αὐτοῖς καὶ ποικιλτέον καὶ ἄλλας ἔχθρας πολλὰς καὶ παντοδαπὰς θεῶν τε καὶ ἡρώων πρὸς συγγενεῖς τε καὶ οἰκείους αὐτῶν, ἀλλ' εἴ πως μέλλοιμεν πείσειν, ὡς οὐδεὶς πώποτε πολίτης ἕτερος ἑτέρῳ ἀπήχθετο οὐδ' ἐστὶ τοῦτο ὅσιον, τοιαῦτα μᾶλλον λεκτέα πρὸς τὰ παιδία εὐθὺς καὶ γέρουσι καὶ γραυσὶ καὶ πρεσβυτέροις γινομένοις καὶ 13.3.6 τοὺς ποιητὰς ἐγγὺς τούτων ἀναγκαστέον λογοποιεῖν. Ἥρας δὲ δεσμοὺς ὑπὸ υἱέος καὶ Ἡφαίστου ῥίψεις ὑπὸ πατρός, μέλλοντος τῇ μητρὶ ἀμύνειν τυπτομένῃ, καὶ θεομαχίας ὅσας Ὅμηρος πεποίηκεν, οὐ παραδεκτέον εἰς τὴν πόλιν, οὔτ' ἐν ὑπονοίαις πεποιημένας οὔτε ἄνευ ὑπονοιῶν. 13.3.7 ὁ γὰρ νέος οὐχ οἷός τε κρίνειν ὅ τι τε ὑπόνοια καὶ ὅ τι μή, ἀλλ' ἃ ἂν τηλικοῦτος ὢν λάβῃ ἐν ταῖς δόξαις, δυσέκνιπτά τε καὶ ἀμετάστατα φιλεῖ γίγνεσθαι. ὧν δὴ ἴσως ἕνεκα περὶ παντὸς ποιητέον, ἃ πρῶτα ἀκούουσιν, ὅτι κάλ13.3.8 λιστα μεμυθολογημένα πρὸς ἀρετὴν ἀκούειν. Ἔχει