Himerius, Orations

ToposText · Himerius · 532 sections

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§ 47.6 When the Lydians celebrate Dionysus beside the golden river. Lydian tradition refers to the Pactolus as “golden”—they are maddened by the god and break into dance. This celebration occurs when the sun, which is responsible for the changes of season, brings spring to them. This is marked neither by the songs of birds, which are numerous and sing sweetly in groves, nor by meadows turning green with sweet and delicate vegetation. No, it is when Dionysus has left Nysa and the Ethiopians for the Lydians and has come in revelry to Mt. Tmolus and to the Pactolus, it is when the Lydians see that the Bacchae have been incited to begin their leaping that they regard spring as arriving and welcome the season along with the god. So Dionysus brings spring and his Bacchic revelries to the Lydians, but you bring them to us and to eloquence. You madden not bacchants and Satyrs, but priests of the Muses and of Hermes. You give yourself to us to address and hail. You are a great signal to us to form a chorus presided over by the Muses. We hail you instead of shouting “euoi.”188
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§ 47.7 Let no one of you be amazed if eloquence wishes to compare this man to gods. I do not agree that Homer may compare Agamemnon, king of the Achaeans, to three gods [Il. 2.478–79], whereas I am not permitted to do the same. On the contrary, who would not rightly find fault with me if I do not wax poetic and stretch the truth, especially since I can say more in the case of this man than Homer has said about Agamemnon?
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§ 47.8 O friend of the gods, fit to be compared to the gods! I think that perhaps it is fitting for you, because of your countenance, to be compared to Zeus with a Homeric quotation, for a Homerid would surely say of you that your eyes make you “like unto Zeus who hurls the thunderbolt” [Hom. Il. 2.478]. But it is even more fitting, I think, to compare you to Zeus because of the beautiful qualities of your soul. For “no [word] of yours goes unfulfilled once you nod assent to it” [cf. Il. 1.527]— and this was said in praise of Zeus. No person will ever boast that he employed deception in describing you, not even if he should say that he possesses Homer’s kestos, to which poetry [the Iliad ] says that Zeus himself yielded.
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§ 47.9 Apollo too is a friend to you and therefore, I think, like you. He is the leader of the Muses and organizes choruses of the Muses on Mt. Helicon in Boeotia. (There too the Muses make shepherds poets.)190 This is the very thing that links you to the god, for you have made Attica a workshop of the Muses’ activity (mousikh¸ˇ), just as Apollo has done to Helicon. And you order me to engage in the Muses’ activity, giving me the signal yourself, just as the god gives it to the Muses, the maiden [daughters] of Zeus.
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§ 47.10 Greeks honor Poseidon the horse -god and sacrifice to him at the Isthmus [of Corinth ], showing him as a charioteer even in statues. Would someone other than you be rightly compared to this god? Would a person who calls you a student of the art mastered by this god be wrong in so designating you? How could it not be that Poseidon, the teacher of horsemanship, belongs more to you than to the young man of Pylos? The latter, carried along slowly by his horses, shamed the god’s art; but you, it seems to me, would make Bucephalas himself and Pegasus and the immortal team of Achilles submit to the curb-chain and the whip.
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§ 47.11 Now Homer in his verse [Il. 3.237, Od. 11.300] lauds Castor, the son of Zeus, for his excellence in horsemanship; he bestows this skill by itself on him, as though, I think, it alone is enough to honor even Castor, son of Zeus.. A horse made Bellerophon the Ephyraean a worthy subject of song and music, a horse made Darius king in Persia, and a horse made Alexander great among the Macedonians. But what caused great kings to be praised are mere playthings, I think, to you.
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§ 47.12 I want to tell you a local story about this city and the festival to which you come. It is very sweet and admirable not only to see the Panathenaea, but also to say something about it in the midst of the Greeks, whenever the Athenians in the course of this festival carry the sacred trireme in procession in honor of their goddess. The ship sets out directly from the gates [the Dipylon ], as if from a calm harbor. Moving from there as if on a waveless sea, it is carried through the middle of the straight and level course (δρόμος) that descends and divides the porticoes stretching out on either side of it. In those porticoes Athenians and others gather to do their buying and selling.
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§ 47.13 The crew of the ship consists of priests and priestesses, all of them eupatrids, crowned with golden or floral wreaths. The ship, upraised and lofty, as if having waves underneath her, moves on wheels, which are fitted with many axles that run straight under the vessel. These wheels bring her, without hindrance, to the hill of Pallas [the Acropolis ], from where, I think, the goddess watches the festival and the whole festal period.
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§ 47.14 The ship’s cables will be loosened by a song that the sacred chorus of Athenians sing as they summon the wind to the vessel, asking it to be present and to fly along with the sacred ship. The wind, aware, I suppose, of the song of Ceos that Simonides sang to it after [singing to] the sea, immediately follows upon the Athenians’ songs; it blows strongly and favorably at the stern, driving the bark forward with its blast.
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§ 47.15 They say that, when the sun drives its horses to the middle of the sky and causes summer to come, the Egyptian river Nile pours over the land of the Egyptians and conceals their fields with its floodwaters; it turns Egypt into a navigable sea and a land traversed by boats.
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§ 47.16 But the sacred trireme of the maiden [goddess Athena ] moves through dry land without need of any incredible Nile flooding. Rather, clearly resounding breezes blowing from Attic pipes send this vessel forth. The greatest marvel, though, is the evening star itself shining forth along with the sun, the only star appearing along with it in broad daylight and lighting a torch with its father [the sun] over the ship.
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§ 47.17 You too have appeared to us, “of all stars the most beautiful” [ Sappho frag. 104b Campbell]. For the Athenians call you Hesperus. You brought a fortunate festal period to the Greeks, and with auspicious signs you promise us a prosperous future. That is what this populace has said, and I am persuaded by their words.
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§ 48.1 To Hermogenes, The Proconsul of Greece The Greeks once longed for Philoctetes after he was attacked by disease, and they offered many prayers to the gods [to get him back]. After his illness abated, he took up his arrows, desiring to find out if he could again hit his targets. It was Odysseus who, being with that famous Philoctetes, urged him on into combat and signaled him to start exercising his skill—that Odysseus who was the foundation for almost the whole of Homer’s poem [i.e., the Odyssey ] and let himself be hymned in music and song. For Homer does not give much attention to Achilles, son of Thetis, in his poem [the Iliad ], describing [only] his battle at the river Scamander and his run [around Troy ]. But, as for Odysseus, he appears everywhere in Homer’s epic verse; the poet is overwhelmed as he exerts so much effort on Odysseus. So the Greeks considered Odysseus responsible for Philoctetes’ victory and for what he accomplished at Troy through his skill with the bow.
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§ 48.2 But you, my friend, order me to “shoot” for the Greeks by taking up the Muses’ songs rather than Heracles’ bow and arrows. Behold how I obey you in this too. If I also played my lyre in the past, when I yearned to address in the midst of the Greeks, I now wish [first] to bring an accusation against the Attic Erotes with the support of all of you, my boys, because they have stifled [my] song for so long and have allowed this man to be cherished [exclusively] by his Ephyraean lovers.
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§ 48.3 Oh, how could I explain how silently we passed through the winter? The ridges of Mt. Hymettus were getting white, the Pleiades were quickly setting. The sun no longer wished to burn brightly; it was a gentle and soft sunlight that summoned the Muses to come from Mt. Helicon. And they came and organized the usual choruses in Attic meadows. The winter, now in full force, had taken hold of all the land. Bands of young men danced around their leaders, and the shepherds’ pipes were ready for Attic song, eager to sound their song for the leader of the Muses [i.e., Hermogenes ].19. But that leader himself, whom the Attic people summoned and the maiden goddess [ Athena ] yearned for, greeted the Attic Muses from afar. So how shall I not find fault with the Attic Erotes for this?
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§ 48.4 What I would need now are songs of Teos, what I would need now is Anacreon’s lyre. Whenever he was scorned by a boy he loved, he knew how to use that lyre against the Erotes themselves. I would have used his very words against them: “You are insolent and wicked, and you don’t know whom you should shoot your arrows at!” Perhaps I would also have uttered against the Erotes the threat that Anacreon utters against them. He was once in love with a beautiful young man. When he saw that the young man was not paying much attention to him, he tuned his lyre and issued a threat to the Erotes, telling them that, if they did not immediately wound the young man for him, he would no longer strike up a song in praise of them.
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§ 48.5 Having been in that situation, I congratulate poetry if it is allowed so much that it can even utter a serious and terrible threat against the Erotes themselves. As for me, the art of rhetoric wrongs me in not having taught me to play the lyra or the barbitos, but only to dance this prose dance for the Muses. So I shall let poets be frenzied and shall find fault with the leader of the Muses in my own way.
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§ 48.6 Tell me, then, [ Hermogenes ], why do you disdain the concerns of the Muses so much? Why have you neglected Attic theaters so much, you sprout and offspring of the Muses? Aren’t we actually obligated under your supervision to engage in the activities the Muses oversee? Didn’. God bring you to the Greeks so that eloquence would once again have its ancient vigor? Or should those who are to celebrate the rites of Justice and of Right ( Themis ) be initiated by you every day and in every season of the year, as you [readily] address them and make your disclosures to them, while the spokesmen of Hermes and of the Muses have access to you only after a long and difficult wait? When would we have leaped about in the Muses’ precinct during the winter with more pleasure than after having received the nod from you, whom it would not be a mistake to call the king of our art? When would we have given a more flowery and noble display of eloquence than with you as a witness to our efforts?
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§ 48.7 Or do you think that Satyrs and Bacchae in Lydia refuse to shout out in honor of Dionysus or to become frenzied until spring comes and the god appears and signals to them that the frenzy may commence, whereas we did not greatly yearn for the one who has made the season more manifest to us? How brash are they who have dared to practice the art of eloquence during the winter before your visit! Whom did they put in charge of cultural affairs before engaging in their art? Even the swan by the river Cayster is silent if any wind other than the Zephyr has blown. Even if other birds sing frequently, the swan waits for the Zephyr, wishing to make its music only under that wind.
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§ 48.8 But now it is time for me to dismiss my charge. I know what was in the mind of the leader of the Muses [i.e., Hermogenes ] and why he preferred this season for his visit. Poetry recently taught me [to withdraw my charge], and so, having taken up the following story, I want to sing a palinode and speak on behalf of the leader of the Muses before all of you. The Egyptians always long for the Egyptian river Nile, and, thanks to those who revealed religious truths to them, they pray that the river’s waters will come to them from Ethiopia. Now the Nile also longs for Egypt in all seasons of the year, because Egypt is a wise and divinely inspired land; and the river is gladly receptive to the Egyptians’ prayers. But when the Egyptians, having made sacrifice in honor of Demeter, work at the threshing- floor, then the Nile comes pouring down from Ethiopia with full waters and suddenly turns the whole of Egypt into a sea.
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§ 48.9 When that happens, you can see, yes, you can really see great wonders in that land. On a single plot of land you will see the same man playing the part of sailor and farmer; you will see cattle taken to pasture and, soon after, boats; you will suddenly see an island that was previously a city surrounded by dry land. It is then, they say, then that the whole of Egypt enjoys itself in dance and song. The usual vessels sail the Nile not merely on business, as they were just recently doing, but as if in procession in honor of the river because of the sea of water [they have been given]. The sailors on those vessels are extremely delighted, and they all dance. They carry cymbals instead of naval weapons. Even a very large ship can finally sail, one that was on dry land for a long time because it could not find a waterway big enough for it to loosen its cables. When the Nile’s waters are at their peak, a ship of that size emerges from a marshy inlet and, with sails filled with every kind of wind, is borne on high over the waves.
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§ 48.10 How does this sound to you, my boys? Doesn’t it sound good because (among other reasons) it very suitably fits the present situation. Now I also want to tell you a story from Alcaeus, one that he sang in his lyric poetry when he composed a paean in honor of Apollo. I shall not tell you the story in Lesbian verse, since I am not a poet, but by breaking up the meter of the lyric poetry into prose. When Apollo was born, Zeus outfitted him with a gold headband and lyre. He also gave him a chariot to drive—it was pulled by swans— and sent him to Delphi to the Castalian waters to expound justice and law to the Greeks from there. But Apollo got on his chariot and ordered the swans to fly to the Hyperboreans. When Delphi heard of this, its people composed a paean and song [in Apollo’s honor] and stationed choruses of unmarried youths around the tripod. Then the city summoned the god to leave the Hyperboreans and come to Delphi. But Apollo delivered oracles among those people for a whole year. When he ordained that it was now time also for the Delphic tripods to resound, he again issued an order to the swans, this time to fly away from the Hyperboreans.
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§ 48.11 It was summer, the very middle of summer, when Alcaeus led Apollo away from the Hyperboreans. So, with summer beaming forth and Apollo arriving in Delphi, the poet’s lyrics about the god took on something of the lushness of summer. Nightingales sing to the god, as birds are likely to sing in Alcaeus. Also swallows and cicadas sing, not reporting the fortune that was theirs among human beings, but making the god the subject of all their songs. The Castalian spring flows, as poetry puts it, with silvery waters, and the great Cephisus River surges up, swelling with its waves, in imitation of Homer’s Enipeus River. For, in the manner of Homer, Alcaeus uses every effort to portray even water as capable of sensing the arrival of gods. But don’t you think that my charge [against Hermogenes ] has been adequately dismissed? I myself am certainly ready to cast my vote and to ask you all to vote as I do on the present matter.
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§ 48.12 I shall now address the leader of the Muses after first saying a few words about his soul, in order that you may see the man contained, as if in a mirror, in what I say about a divine and blessed soul. This is the nature of his divine and newly initiated soul: it always aims for the best and greatest pursuits. Once it attended on God, often beholding the plain of truth in heaven’s revolution and being filled with the spectacle of heaven’s wonders. Then it encountered misfortune: its wings fell off, and, clothed in a body, it had to accept life in this earthly zone. Yet even though it has descended for a while to a fortune quite the opposite of that which it had previously enjoyed, and despite having forgotten the wonders of heaven, it does not remain completely wingless here, nor does it spend its life here in ignorance. When it sees something good and beautiful on earth, it is stirred up and carried in memory to the things it once saw when it was at large in heaven itself with the gods. When moved by something here, it turns its attention to heavenly things, seeks after that region, and focuses on what [truly] exists.
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§ 48.13 To those who make trial of it, it displays the gentleness of a truly divine nature. It wants to exercise legal and political authority and never harms anyone, for it is never right for a divine nature to be the cause of any evil to human beings. This soul overcomes fears, has mastery over pleasures, and appears to be free of passion. It shapes its body, bringing it into conformity with its nature; what it seeks for it are dark eyes, a dignified face, and true symmetry of limbs, which wise men call beauty, so that, having put together a body that is beautiful and noble on both sides, it may let that body show itself forth to the human race as the image of a god.
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§ 48.14 See how my oration depicts the man for all of you; this image that it forms on its own is more accurate than one made from any wax and colors. If all the plastic arts that sought to replicate the human body were still in high repute today, I would have proposed that those artisans use their hands to compete in representing you, [ Hermogenes ]. Didn’t the Alexander fashioned by Lysippus bring the latter fame and reputation, so much so that even poetry expressed great admiration for his handiwork? Don’t you hear the epigram about the statue of Alexander, “ Lysippus, sculptor of Sicyon, skillful hand” [cf. Anth. Plan. 119.1], and all the rest that the poet wrote about that craftsman?
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§ 48.15 Wouldn’t someone who had depicted you [in stone] for the Greeks have understandably felt superior to other artisans, because he would have portrayed a person who is a philosopher as well as a strategos? But such an artisan would not have had any poetry capable of honoring his work. Not true, for wouldn’t all poetry, both lyric and other poetry, have made your image its subject? I would have erected such a statue in Attic precincts next to the maiden goddess [ Athena ] if all the Greeks agreed to this, for you have honored wisdom and temperance. But if they disagreed about the erection of the statue, I would have taken you to Delphi and set you up beside the tripod of the Seven Sages, because your mind belongs with theirs and it would have been appropriate for your statue to be seen in the Pythian god’s dwelling place by those who come there during public festivals.
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§ 48.16 But now that there is no Lysippus nor any other living person who can display the skill worthy of the model before us, new arts busy themselves with you, and select individuals from all parts of the world minister to those arts. These individuals judge that their offerings are suitable to Attic audiences and therefore decide to dedicate them there. I myself have been eager to portray you verbally, with my own paints, and no passage of time will ever insolently obliterate that portrait.
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§ 48.17 All right, then, I shall speak, going through each one of your qualities separately. I don’t want some quibbler to accuse me, because of my failure to cite a sufficient number of true grounds for praise, of pushing my oration beyond what the facts allow. On the other hand, I shall limit my remarks in accordance with what time and proportionality allow. Of course I wanted free rein in speaking, like a horse that has been let loose and got onto a low-lying plain—the free rein that is reasonably required by one who is eager to sing to the human race the praises of a man such as this one. But guarding against another charge that I would incur if I indulged this urge, I shall once again postpone speaking at length; on this occasion I shall allow my oration to address only those matters it initially set out to address.
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§ 48.18 When it was in the hands of others to guide him and to direct his pursuits, [ Hermogenes ] learned to study and to behave in accordance with his guides’ wishes and with what seemed best [to them], for his philosophical nature was compliant. Finding himself in the imperial court at an early age, he was deemed worthy of so much trust that he alone was regarded as a worthy keeper of secrets. He both consulted the gods about those secret matters and conveyed their utterances to the person who had sent him [to them]. He was an expounder of the best laws and customs, always wishing to mollify the mind of the ruler, as they say that Pythagoras of Samos did when he was with Phalaris in Sicily.
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§ 48.19 For it is said that, as his tyranny got stronger, Phalaris desired to associate with Pythagoras. The latter was summoned and came, thinking that, if he was with Phalaris, he might make him a better ruler of his subjects in the future. But Phalaris’s character was incorrigible and could not be changed. So when none of his proposals was acted on, Pythagoras quickly left Sicily. He gave up before either making the tyrant more benevolent or persuading him to make peace with his subjects. In contrast, this man of ours kept talking and reasoning so much that, as he told the ruler ancient stories and called his attention to passages from poetry and prose, he made the regime milder. For he was already fond of learning before becoming versed in philosophy.
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§ 48.20 When he became a man and reached full adulthood—at a time when wisdom shows us, by the kind of life men choose, who are possessed of it—he said good-bye to and walked away from those offices and positions of power. He became a lover of the virtue and knowledge by which the soul is nurtured and, thus fostered and lifted up, goes lightly on its upward journey. He was so distinguished in virtue and learning that, if anyone who still inhabits a body has ever investigated the upper region and latched on to the wonders there through the helmsman of the soul, I am quite convinced that it is he.
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§ 48.21 I hear that Plato, the follower of Socrates, trained in wrestling and bestowed care upon his body early in life. Then, as he got older and heard Socrates conversing with young men, he became so enamored of philosophy that he turned away from his early pursuits and, after associating with Socrates, became a font and source of philosophy for subsequent generations. Precisely such a love of philosophy also has hold of this man [whom we are praising]; for, possessed by some god, and like someone who has touched the flower of the greatest mysteries, no amount of initiation in them has been able to fill him up.
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§ 48.22 The first thing he did was to give his fullest attention to his instruments, just like a good craftsman who feels that he is best executing each of his undertakings when none of the instruments required for the completion of a proposed piece of workmanship is missing. Then he learned how to argue, to overpower the sophistical, and to prevail over mere babblers. He combined skillful arrangement with noble words, and it is only the person with an accurate knowledge of how to arrange words who is naturally disposed and said to be a skilled rhetor or an inspired poet. In a word, having acquired all these skills, he entrusted them to his mind.
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§ 48.23 With his instruments gathered together, he now proceeded to consider substantive issues. The whole of philosophy is divided into three parts, one concerned with [human] actions, one with nature, and one that investigates and studies supercelestial reality. Our man did not consider one part, ignore another, and slight another as useless to the individual [who wants to be] happy. Rather he gave himself to and mastered all the parts of philosophy more thoroughly than anyone who had ever put a very high value on mastering only one part. He gave special honor to the views of Plato and Aristotle and worked hard on their philosophies, going directly to their writings. He knows the philosophy of Stoics like Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, and all those who, having put order into irrational human behavior through reason, passed their philosophy on from one person to another.
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§ 48.24 He also knows the views held in common by Epicurus and Democritus and how those men visualized nature. He understands all the Academies as well as the school of thought that traveled from the Lyceum to Libya and Cyrene. He also investigated the tropes of Pyrrho (and the strife that arose from them among all men), although he regarded them not as an important subject of study, but as a side dish of the rest of philosophy.
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§ 48.25 Having become skilled in astronomy and geography, he knows what others have written [on these subjects]. But he wished to learn about these matters through personal experience and precisely; he wanted to understand what is asserted in books by seeing for himself the phenomena they discuss. So this man traveled around most of the earth, imitating Plato. For Plato, after being admonished by Socrates, went to Egypt and to the expounders of the gods’ will there. He wanted to track down among them more than what he had learned in Attica. He even went to Sicily and to those among whom Pythagoras’s philosophy was still being kept alive after his death.
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§ 48.26 And I hear the following story about Dionysus. The myths say that, before becoming a god, when he was offering sacrifices but desired to extend his knowledge beyond the realm of sacrifice, Dionysus rushed off to Egypt and the Nile and then to the Indians, Ethiopians, and all other men in his curiosity about the workings of nature. He then came to the Greeks, all of whom were pleased to see him, and received honors from them. Wanting the Athenians to be the first to receive his gifts and wares, he came to Athens. The Athenians, who happened to be celebrating a festival at that time, held a public festival in Dionysus’s honor and voted henceforth to organize a procession in honor of Dionysus as a god.
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§ 48.27 Such was the intention of [ Hermogenes’] travels; and if you hear him telling about the peoples and cities he visited, you would marvel at how he remembers those travels and how much pleasure he got from them. The drops of honey, so to speak, that fall from his words truly fill all his hearers with sweet pleasure. I used to get such delight from the stories in Herodotus, but I have now come to regard Herodotus as a mere child when compared to this man’s charm. Writers like Hellanicus and Duris and the work of the man from Halicarnassus [i.e., Herodotus ] and of all who exerted themselves to describe in words the inhabited earth are henceforth insignificant compared to those charms by which [ Hermogenes ] so enchants his listeners.
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§ 48.28 Once he desired to be likened to God, and aware that the divine cares for human nature, he exercised political virtue, taking on the Greek and Latin languages as bodyguards, I think, to assist him in his state of mind. Now there is a city [ Constantinople ] at the mouth of the Euxine [Black] Sea, on the left as you sail into that sea and at the very end of Europe. It is a great and fortunate city, at which a small, narrow strait of the sea [i.e., the Bosporus ] divides the continents by its flow, like a boundary stone set midway between them. Going there, [ Hermogenes ] gave himself to a most lawful emperor with a noble nature, at whose side he could make use of his arsenal of knowledge.
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§ 48.29 The emperor gladly welcomed him and immediately made him a partner in his work, just as Heracles did to Theseus, Cyrus to Clearchus, Hieron to Simonides, and Alcibiades to Socrates. He trusted him in everything, looked to him, and marveled at him, regarding him as a sort of helmsman of his rule. So the emperor provided the name for the regime, but [ Hermogenes ] did the work. This is how it was in the case of the all-wise Themistocles. He was appointed co-general with Eurybiades. When the Greek force set out against the Persians, he formally yielded the naval command to the Laconian, but in the engagement he showed that it was he who was actually commanding the fleet for the Greeks.
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§ 48.30 What laws that were not humane were ventured through [ Hermogenes’] agency? What people in [legal] trouble did not escape from their troubles through his agency? Who, worthy of office, did not obtain an office through his agency? Who in need of something did not flee to him? Standing as he did between the emperor and his subjects, he served the needs of the latter before their emperor and worked to implement the commands of the former among his subjects. So too the myths say that Hermes was a messenger of Zeus and learned and announced what was in Zeus’s mind to gods and men.
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§ 48.31 But now that God and time have established this man as ruler in the greatest office on earth—for the belief is well established that the race of Greeks is the greatest and best under the sun—take part with me here, Greeks, in the panegyric from this point on yourselves. We, an Attic and ancient people, shall be first in putting together a panegyric jointly and in striking up together a harmonious dance, so to speak, around the seat of Justice. I shall give the sign to begin the dance.
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§ 48.32 A calm has possession of all the subjects [of this province], as if they have gone from a mighty wave and a storm to a waveless haven. There is no act of arrogance here, no mention of the word. Reason guides everything and has no need of the sword. I know that shepherds who are excellent at tending sheep do not use the crook much, but shepherd their animals with the pipe. Now, though, we have really come to know that Homeric ruler whom Homer, in his desire to liken him to something in light of his love of human beings, has honored with the title “father”: “he was as gentle as a father,” he says [Od. 2.47]. It is good, it is good to address you this way too, you who alone work on behalf of all, you who alone, for the sake of the Greeks, strain your eyes and mind and give them no rest. You are like an excellent helmsman who allows all the sailors to travel on the ship without having to work, while he alone stands at the helm and guides the vessel so that it is not troubled by waves.
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§ 48.33 The morning star has often led you to the shrine of Justice, and the evening star has often escorted you back from there, shining its pure light on your rites. Peoples and cities summon you, they beg you to come to them, and they congratulate the Athenians on their good fortune, but they are speechless before them in their victory. I myself have even persuaded Delian Apollo to leave his island and be with us, to be our ancestral god and tune his first lyre among all the Athenians. Because of you, eloquence is flourishing and is daring what it did not previously dare.
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§ 48.34 O you who are worthy to be sung of in every hymn and utterance, especially by me and in my orations! For you loved my rhetorical talent even when it was being shaped in swaddling clothes. You often predicted that it was absolutely certain that, when my talent reached maturity, it would shine out widely and greatly through the human race in its wondrousness. See if it is fulfilling your prophecy. I shall command it to be confident and to leap up.
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§ 48.35 Come now, eloquence of mine, take wing henceforth; abandon the lower regions and from now on aim for the skies! For the leader of the Muses [ Apollo ] gives you wings and shows you to the human race. He does not attach wings onto you as Daedalus did [to Icarus ]. The story is that, when Icarus, the young man of Attica, was lifted up by those wings, he became confident that he would be able to fly over the ocean; but when he got near the sun, he was undone along with the wax and became, with his wings, nothing but a story for future generations. But your wings, [O eloquence of mine], were brought forth by the Muses in the gardens of Mnemosyne, and the Hours and Graces nourished them, drawing water for them from the springs of truth. Thus you rise up above the many and become weightless; you cannot be seen by unhallowed and wingless souls any more than they say that the Cimmerians could see the sun. So address your lover himself [i.e., Hermogenes ] in accordance with your nature.
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§ 48.36 You came to me, [ Hermogenes ], as a sweet and gentle light, just as the morning star shines its light on the human race as herald of a spring day, just as the noontime sun stands before those who are weary of winter. I yearned to see you while you were still dancing along with swans by the eddies of the Ister [i.e., the Danube ] in honor of the leader of the Muses [ Apollo ]. I wanted to invent some device by which I could be lifted up on wings into the air and fly away from the Greeks and to the Ister. But you, my friend, anticipated my yearning; for you had to, you had to shine your light on all the Greeks, so great and beautiful a wonder you are. But I want to ask the gods themselves for a small favor on behalf of the Greeks. And first I call my own goddesses, the Muses, to my prayer.
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§ 48.37 O children of Zeus, come, come, you gold-winged Muses —it occurs to me to address you in a poetic manner—whether you are dancing with Apollo on Mt. Helicon or in Pieria and playing a sweet and divine song on the lyre, or playing with Castalian nymphs at Delphi and [the spring of ] Castalia, or flying through Attic meadows and making crowns for your leader [ Apollo ]. Come and listen to this prayer, which I say on behalf of the Greeks, and grant that this man guide the bands of young men for a very long time, so that [my] eloquence may pour a libation to him from a second and third mixing-bowl.
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§ 54.i To Newly Arrived [Students] [ Himerius ] delivered this [talk] extempore in his house in the presence of his pupils when welcoming some newly arrived [young men].77
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§ 54.1 How sweet this lecture hall is to me again! How sweet is my chorus [of pupils]—which is to say the Muses’ chorus [of pupils]—as it rouses itself up to leap around my lyre again! Consider those individuals who have ever endured separation from my friendship and life apart from me even for one day. What an act of daring, what hearts they have! They are insolent and reckless and have little regard for love. If it were at all possible, how gladly would I ask them some questions: What sound is sweeter to them than my tongue? Whose bearing is more cheerful to behold than mine? What naturally musical birds of spring speak as sweetly and pleasantly as I do? What melodious and rhythmical chorus, resounding with the music of the aulos or the donax, ever touched their souls as much as the sound that comes from my lecture halls?
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§ 54.2 So I find fault with those herdsmen who have refused to shepherd their flocks with song and the syrinx and, instead, threaten them with blows and whips. As for my flock and my creatures, may I never look angrily upon them. Let it be my words that lead them to the Muses’ meadows and waters, let them be led by song rather than by harsh blows so that, nurturing in this way our mutual love, I may, with music and harmony, keep my governance of them on the right path.
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§ 54.3 Share these norms, my boys, with these newly arrived students as part of your hospitality toward them so that, after having tasted of the finest norms and principles at their first arrival, they may move from that point, as they become more fully initiated, toward the contemplation of our mysteries. For those who are experienced in the rite make good mystagogues for initiates. Those who have familiarized themselves with much of the great ocean are good at sailing and directing a sea voyage. Dogs practiced at controlling wild beasts are the ones who teach puppies who are just learning how to hunt. And birdcatchers say that eagles just ready to fly do not let themselves fall behind the older birds in flight but follow them until they have got above the clouds and are flying around the great sun itself.
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§ 54.4 I also want to tell you a story about a king. They say that Alexander [the Great], son of Philip — Alexander is known to all Greeks, I think, from books; we hear that he had a noble nature and was reared in a manner that matched his nature, for in the midst of military trophies, victories, and glorious deeds—anyway, we hear that, whenever he learned that his father was marching off to war, his desire was not to lag behind the battle line, but to follow his father, despite the fact that he was still young and just at the beginning of his adolescence and not yet mature enough for battle. His father was anxious about his son and bid him stay home, but Alexander would have none of this. Instead, he offered his father the same object lesson that I just offered you about the puppies —namely, that noble bitches are trained right from the time they are puppies and when just on the verge of hunting. He persuaded his father to let him engage in battle; and so, with this military experience acquired in his youth, he went on to put all lands under the sun in the palm of his own hand.
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§ 54.5 They say, then, that Alexander offered these remarks [about puppies on that occasion]. Homer too, I think, would give us advice on the same matter. In Homer Antilochus is a young soldier and fond of war, and he imitates Achilles and is immortalized by his Asian victories. In other poets Iolaus imitates Heracles, and Theseus imitates Pirithous. In this way the whole band of noble youths achieves glory.
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§ 54.6 Come, then, teach these things yourselves so that these [newly arrived students], reared on these principles, may become prominent in Attic meadows and then, after taking the beautiful wares [of rhetoric] from here, practice it in their own locales.
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§ 59.1 To Those Who Came [to Athens ] from Ionia These guests are Ionians, of Attic ancestry. Come, let me show them their mother-city, not by putting on a cicada brooch, but by giving them a verbal tour. When they left Attica, the bee led them to Ionia; but now that they are returning from there to Athens, it is eloquence that will guide them.
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§ 59.2 I shall direct you to the great sights that keep the knowledge of your ancestors alive. I shall show you, in pictorial form, the battle of Marathon and your ancestors checking the onslaught of Persians, as they ran toward and hacked at those barbarians. I shall also show you my soldiers, one of whom, even in the painting, is fighting against nature; for you will think that this Callimachus, even though merely depicted, is fighting rather than dead. The other soldier [ Cynegirus ] is trying to sink the Persian fleet with his bare hands and meting out his bodily strength to meet the demands of [the] elements.
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§ 59.3 After you have seen the Painted Stoa, I shall lead you up to the hill, to Athena’s workshop [i.e., the Acropolis ]. There you will be able to fill yourselves with innumerable stories, just like people who search a document for evidence of their ancestors. You will see the olive sprout, the triumphal monument of the armed goddess [ Athena ]. You will see an ocean wave high up on the hill, still making a crashing sound, as if shaken up along with the god [ Poseidon ] as he contends for his beloved [city]. I shall also lead you in my oration to the tribunal of the gods and show you the Areopagus. I shall tell you mythic tales as you look around and shall make what you see even sweeter by providing a narrative.
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§ 59.4 Perhaps you will accuse me of slowness. Perhaps you will borrow the law that our ancestors passed on idleness and bring against me a charge and accusation that, in my words to you, I have not yet brought you to Ion’s father [ Apollo ]. Well, then, I shall verbally portray him too for you and shall provide a feast for your ears before your eyes are feasted.
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§ 59.5 His golden hair is parted on his forehead. On both sides his locks hang down over his neck and fall like waves onto his divine chest. His robe falls over his feet, he has a lyre but no bow. The god is smiling. It is as though he is prophesying to the Ionians that they will be colonizers.
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§ 59.6 He is a musical god, boys. So let me too pluck the lyre in my soul so that, by sounding forth strongly in speech, I may join colonists to their mother-city.
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§ 60.i To the Ionian Guests On the previous day [ Himerius ] was in their presence just long enough to deliver a discourse [Διάλεξις], but on this day he spoke on a topic extempore.
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§ 60.1 Yesterday we addressed Ionia in a pleasant little piece [Orat. 59], playfully taking a verbal sightseeing tour of the city with its [mythic] tales. But now let us sing for the Ionians the orthios nomos. For the mark of their land is not only linen tunics, that fancy knot of hair, or a gourmet’s table; it is also a land known for its seriousness, its eloquence, its arms, and its battles. One could more or less say that the Ionian race prides itself on the very things its ancestors took pride in. Those men of old traversed the Aegean, purging it of Persian arrogance; they sailed the Ionian Sea to colonize Sicily; and they caused the name Greece to be extended to the peoples of Italy through Pythagoras’s tongue.
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§ 60.2 In those days, the art that I practice was modest and unsophisticated; it did not extend beyond the courtroom. But those Ionians lifted it on high and made it resound more loudly than tragic poetry. They made many contributions to stringed music, medicine, and poetry. These [ Ionians here before us] are fellow citizens and kin of the wise Heraclitus, because of whom Plato’s genius took wing and contemplated the knowledge that surpasses eloquence. And in Ionia rivers are said to bring forth poets; all the Ionians give credit to [the river] Meles for the genius of Homer.
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§ 60.3 In line with all this, [ Apollo ], leader of the Muses, in portioning out the whole earth [and giving part of it] to his sister [ Artemis ], chose to dwell among the Greeks himself but made [ Ionian ] Ephesus Artemis’s allotment. Actually, Apollo himself puts his arms around Ephesus, to the south and to the north, causing his tripods to resound from Branchidae and from Colophon. I make this salute to Ionia through you, dear guests. Tell the Ionians that they have their just verbal deserts from my tongue.
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§ 60.4 I shall now tell you a story that is both Attic and Ionic. Once, during the festival of Dionysus, Pindar with his lyre had the full attention of his audience, as usual. Now some Ionian visitors, very prominent Ionians from the families that trace their ancestry back to Codrus and Neleus, came to Athens. They desired the mystic fire and initiation at Eleusis. Well, when they arrived, they found Pindar just beginning to win over a pair of young men. He delighted in the Muses, but on that occasion, since he was not feeling well, he acknowledged the arrival of the Ionians as best as he could, with only a short melody. But he told them that he would appear before an audience on the next day, and he retuned his lyre for them in preparation for the orthios nomos.
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§ 61.1 As Studies Began Let us honor the season for eloquence with an oration, so that, as if under the auspices of a lyre of the Muses, we may open Hermes’ doors with a song. For if the pipe opens the doors of a bedchamber, if trumpets go in procession before agonothetes, and if pastoral melodies escort a flock of sheep, then surely, as the season for eloquence begins, it will bid eloquent words honor it.
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§ 61.2 Besides, I have often heard from other craftsmen, those who use their hands as well as literary craftsmen, that, before beginning instruction, they create examples of their art for those who come to learn it from them, so that the young may thereby learn the arts more easily. The painter is equipped with a tablet that has just been prepared and is ready to be sketched on. The sculptor displays wax figures and small statues as an introduction to his art.
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§ 61.3 The piper teaches the student of piping by playing a tune on the reed instrument first himself, and the lyre-player teaches the student of the lyre by sounding the instrument himself before the students do. A boy holds onto the rudder with the aid of an old man, and the youth who is learning how to shoot fingers the arrow with the aid of an Indian archer. When birds lead their young out of the nest, don’t they teach them to venture on flying by spreading their own wings. The teacher of eloquence does the same thing so that he may teach the young to venture on speaking by lifting up their souls, just as people get nonswimmers to swim by supporting them with their hands.
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§ 61.4 What I am saying is not inappropriate to our present situation. For we have two foreigners in our midst. One of them was a comrade of eloquence long ago and now comes here as an ambassador and agonothete; he came to us from the region where the Hellespont runs between Asia and Europe, splitting and separating them with its waves. The other individual is still young; he came here from abroad because he wished to taste of our rites.
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§ 61.5 Come, then, let us tell him a story concerning his own country. Before Cimon, the Pamphylians were not genuinely Greeks; they still sided with the Medes and were followers of Xerxes and the Persians. But when Cimon defeated Pamphylia in a double victory, not only was the Eurymedon celebrated more than the Nile, but the Pamphylians also sided with the Athenians, and our city’s name was extolled even among them.
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§ 62.1 The [Talk] He Published for a Constantinopolitan Student I hear that the Ethiopian stone [statue] wondrously makes music when the light of day appears. (The Ethiopians themselves call this stone statue Memnon, saying that it is named after Memnon the son of Day.) According to the Ethiopians, when the statue first sees dawn smiling, it suddenly breaks its silence and makes music, producing melodies for its mother. Now is it right, my friends, for me to seem musically inferior to Memnon? Is it right for me to behold this city [ Constantinople ] in silence, without mobilizing every piece of music and every Siren for it?
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§ 62.2 I think that I shall take up Pindar’s lyre and, with it, make music for this city. It will not be enough to call the city the support of Greece, the phrase that Pindar used with reference to Athens; rather it is the sweetest glory of every land that the sun shines on. Poseidon, king of the sea, surrounds you with his bluish waves, as if you were a Naiad nymph; he embraces you on every side and rejoices in you. Choruses of sea-purple Nereids, leaping on the surface of the waves, dance around the whole of you in a circle. Your lover is not some alien river, like those boasted of in certain poetic utterances about cities. No, it is divinely possessed emperors who love you; it is they who put the golden diadem [of walls] around you and added a kind of heavenly beauty to your earthly features.
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§ 62.3 It would not be a lie to call you the apex of all Europe, for Europe begins from you and stretches to the very ocean and to the shores of the Atlantic. Every kind of sea displays itself around you. On one side, the Aegean comes up onto your beaches right through the middle of the Hellespont; on the other side, a narrow strait [the Bosporus ] assumes the form of a river, as if contracted so that, through its agency, it can bring close to you, as a gift, the continent [of Asia ]. And, in another part of the region, the Cyanean [rocks], which tragedy has called the Symplegades, close off the Propontis and send forth the great [ Euxine (Black)] Sea from where they are located.
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§ 62.4 So I find fault with Homer because, when wishing to write about Poseidon’s marriage, he makes a river’s wave his bridal chamber. He should have put the god’s bedroom on your shores, where he would have been able to have not a small amount of water, but the whole sea all around him—not a wave mimicking the sea, but the whole surging ocean around his bedroom.
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§ 62.5 You alone have outdone the city of Romulus in the wonder you instill; you have combined such beauty with your size that the inhabitants of [ Rome ] have nothing to match with your beauty. Merchantmen sail to you from everywhere and from all harbors, in need of no Tiber to get to your fortifications; they put in immediately from the sea and tie their cables right to your walls.
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§ 62.6 Since the Muses too must honor this city along with the other gods, they all gather here from everywhere, not only from Helicon and Pieria, and not only the ones who inhabit Pangaeum, but also those whom Attic meadows rear. They seem to me always to love this city and gladly to establish their choruses here, but to be delighted to dance here much more now because it happens that a man who takes his name from them and has rejoiced in their rites is governing the city.
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§ 62.7 Thus I believe what Simonides has proclaimed about the Muses in his songs. This is what he says. The Muses always dance, and these goddesses love to be engaged in music and song. But whenever they see Apollo beginning to lead the dance, then they prolong their melody more than before and broadcast from Helicon an elaborately harmonious sound. One can see this happening now in the city under you, for everything everywhere is brimming with the Muses’ arts (mousikh¸ˇ) and has been adorned because of them. It was your great yearning [for me] that caused my eloquence to travel before its hair turned gray in Attic meadows and that brought it here and now persuades it to display its youthful beauty in public.
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§ 62.8 But accept the first-fruits [of my oratory] with a tranquil countenance, O most excellent creature of the Muses [i.e., the “man who... is governing the city”]—for it is good to use such language of you. Please look upon my eloquence in this way, just as it expected when it undertook the present contest.
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§ 63.i A Discourse [Διάλεξις] in the Presence of His Students after His Return from His Homeland [ Himerius ] delivered this [discourse] at home in the presence of his students after returning from his homeland [i.e., Bithynian Prusias ] and before announcing a public oratorical display. Here he maintained that exercise in all skills is very useful before undertaking a more ambitious [display of them].
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§ 63.1 Let us first sacrifice to the Muses at home—the sacrifice we offer them is, of course, a verbal one—and let the domestic hearth be the place where our offerings begin. For it is an Attic custom to conciliate the gods through domestic sacrifices before moving on to the mysteries outside of the home. Even in other matters it is our habit to go on and attempt something bigger only after beginning with something smaller. No sailor goes out into the vast ocean before he has got his ship going inside of the harbor. When the seaman sees that his ship is watertight in a contained part of the ocean, then he confidently lets it sail out onto the open sea.
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§ 63.2 An athlete may be a first-class Olympic victor and have been grandly proclaimed as such by the Eleans; but if he sees that his bodily strength has not been put to use for some time, he does not enter the stadium until he has stripped for exercise in the palaestra. I know that serious musicians do not rush into public theaters without having first exercised their hands at home. The piper does not dare to go on stage unless he first warms up on his instrument in private. The lyre-player does not come before the public until he plays the lyre at leisure.
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§ 63.3 And of course we see that those musical birds make their music in the air and up on tall trees only after they have practiced their melodies in this manner. So it is with the cicada sounding his melodies. So it is with the swan readying his wings to hymn Apollo. If a charioteer has been training a foal for a long time to run in a race, he does not immediately yoke the horse to the chariot; he first lets the foal exercise itself free of the yoke the wheels and only then mounts the chariot and guides the animal against its rivals.
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§ 63.4 I want to tell all of you a story about this very point that I am making. The Ethiopians who live in the east are nomads and archers. The whole race keeps itself alive through archery—for they get their food by hunting—and those very same arrows are their weapons in war. To be precise, they ride around high up on elephants, just as if on horses, and shoot at their enemies from there. Now in the course of traversing much of the earth, Alexander [the Great] came to the land of these Ethiopians. When he made an inquiry and learned which Ethiopian was the best archer, he summoned that individual and asked for a demonstration of his skill. The man paused briefly and became quietly thoughtful. Then he said that he needed some practice, for he had not used the bow for a whole day. This is what the Ethiopian said.
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§ 63.5 It seems to me that Homer also wishes to allude to this same principle in his poetry. He does not arm the man of Ithaca [ Odysseus ] against Antinoos, the [really] wicked one among the suitors, immediately after the former has ended his sea voyage and disembarked from the Phaeacians’ ship. Instead, Homer first gives Odysseus axes for practice, and only after the poet shows him successfully shooting at these axes does he present him bending his great bow against Antinoos.
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§ 63.6 Well, then, boys, since I am returning to oratory after a considerable lapse of time, let me take it inside my own precincts and train it before stripping it [for a contest] on the public stage. Perhaps it will be very daring and utterly proud. Perhaps it wishes to be untiring and in full bloom, patterning itself on its divine founder [ Apollo ], whom poets, painters, and sculptors always depict as vigorous and young. For their art does not profess to be a cosmetic one; it always represents that god just as his father [ Zeus ] engendered him when he lay with the goddess [ Leto ].
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§ 63.7 But since the custom is well-established that in declamation (εις ταῖς μελέταις) one practices before entering contests, let me sport [with oratory] in the privacy of my own home and reserve the contests themselves for the great theater.
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§ 64.1 An Extempore Talk (Λαλιά) Delivered at His Modest School On this island of Delos the inhabitants say that people are shown a temple that is modest [but regarded as great] in what is said and narrated about it. There a story prevails that, when Leto gave birth to the deities [ Artemis and Apollo ], her travails were ended, and Apollo, honored by the land, set up the sacred tripods there in the midst of the branches; from there he issued oracles to the Greeks. For the place where a person takes his first steps is sweet and highly prized, even if it seems small.
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§ 64.2 The sailor delights in the harbor from which he began his first sea voyage, the soldier delights in the field where he first erected a trophy, and the farmer is fond of the land from which he cut his first stalks of grain. I have noticed that this same inclination obtained among the ancients. Odysseus prefers small Ithaca to Ogygia itself and to Calypso, Nestor prefers Pylos to Troy, and Aeacus prefers Aegina to Corinth. They say that, when Democedes of Croton was spending time with the king of the Persians and had access to all the very beautiful things available to him, he never preferred any of those things to Croton but regarded Susa, Bactra, the waters of the Choaspes, and the king’s golden table itself as inferior to the life he had in Croton.
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§ 64.3 Come, then, since I have met with you here again for rhetorical purposes after having contended in many great auditoria, let me address this small one. O precinct of the Muses and of Hermes! O sacred and most lovely place, which first welcomed the fruits of my eloquence. Longing for you and welcoming you, I greeted your gold-roofed halls, I greeted your riches and those distinctions of yours that the masses embrace. The reputation I have acquired from you I regard as loftier than everything else. I think that people often experience a greater sense of wonder from smaller things than from things that seem large. What stranger who comes to Athens is more inquisitive about the great house of Hipponicus than about Demosthenes’ dwelling or Socrates’ abode? Who has ever gone to Thebes and desired to see Timagenides’ house and those of other rich men there instead of Pindar’s? Of the sites to see in their land, the Lacedaemonians especially show foreigners who come to Sparta the house of Lycurgus.
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§ 64.4 So let us not be ashamed of this place, my boys, if we study eloquence here. Phidias’s workshop was small, but he sculpted his Zeus and his [Athena] Parthenos there; Praxiteles’ workshop was small, but everyone sailed to Cnidus. The nightingale’s thicket is small, yet everyone hears its melody at a distance; the swan’s meadow is small, yet there is nothing that does not wish to resound with its song.
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§ 64.5 But please, O Muses’ Apollo —for you too delight, I think, in being called upon in the hymns of poets—please, you chorus of Muses who dwell on Helicon, do not abandon us as we speak. Be our fellow workers in letters (την μουσικήν) everywhere, whether we gather in small or large auditoria.
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§ 65.1 To Those Involved a Conflict and Absent from a Lecture At one point Homer gathers together an assembly, even though Achilles is absent from it; but it is small and sullen, as though, it seems to me, the poet wants to show that he convenes this meeting reluctantly and unwillingly. Consider that spectacle and what the poet thought about it. The king [ Agamemnon ] was depressed about the current situation and blamed fortune for having caused his whole army to be wounded. Of his soldiers and generals, one showed the effects of a blow to the forehead, another had been struck on the head, one had an injured hand, another had a missile lodged in his leg. So the sight of his army was painful to the king. For the poem shows us that he loved his soldiers very much. He was grieved and made sadder by the fact that the very leader of the Greeks [ Achilles ] had been forced by a serious wound to remain absent from battle.
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§ 65.2 Let us approve of this attitude of the king, my boys; for I do think that, if a person rejoices with soldiers when they are winning and grieves with them when they are not doing well, we can take this as an indication that he has the mind of a general. For a person who accepts an unpleasant performance from dancers is certainly not skilled in [directing] a dance; no one who tolerates ineptness in sailors is skilled in seamanship. The lyre does not sound its song if even one string is not properly tuned. We enjoy listening to cicadas, but only when all of them produce their summer song together.
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§ 65.3 But perhaps this is not the time to continue in a sullen vein. Fortune demands a recantation from me. Come, then, let us put this gloomy talk aside and hymn the gods’ victory. Let us pray that victory may attend [my oration] here. O golden-winged Victory, Victory, daughter of great Zeus, child of a noble father, and lover of laughter—for these are the epithets by which poetry exalts you—be propitious and grant that we may sacrifice to you again, as we have in the past, in celebration of a victory over barbarians.
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§ 66.1 An Extempore Speech to Some Students Who Seemed to Be Rebellious Again I shall use story with reference to the present situation. Again I shall call upon Aesop to come and help me. I have found for you, not a Libyan or an Egyptian tale, but one that comes right from the midst of the excellent Phrygians, among whom story first appeared—I found it among the very delights of Aesop —and I want to narrate this tale to all of you.
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§ 66.2 When Apollo was tuning his lyre for a song—and it is my belief that he is always tuning his lyre, because he is nothing but lyre and word— the Muses came from all directions and stood around him, forming a chorus for the lyre. But another group also showed up as an audience for the song, some Dryad and Hamadryad nymphs. They were mountain spirits, and they may have been utterly wicked. When they expressed a desire to dance with the Muses, they seemed to be goddesses and were regarded as Muses. But when they leaped to the sound of the music in a boorish and sorry way and in disaccord with Apollo’s lyre, he got angry. Why shouldn’t he have got angry when he saw a most unrefined chorus prancing around. Yet he did not immediately resort to his arrows and quiver.
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§ 66.3 Aesop, you see, does not tell the kinds of story about Apollo that Homer dared to tell in the Iliad. Homer often tells lies about the gods in his desire to curry favor with his audience. Consequently, I shall not readily believe that the gods have the characteristics that Homer assigns to them. I shall beg the Homerids to forgive me if I do accept such assertions about the gods. For how would it be possible for me to believe that Apollo, a god and leader of the Muses, always gets as angry as Homer wants him to get, or that he changes his looks in conformity with night, or that he takes hold of his arrows even to shoot a Greek subject [Il. 1.44–52]? Let us refuse to accept such assertions from Homerids and from any other poet who wishes so loosely to tell lies about the gods. Let us believe Aesop instead.
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§ 66.4 Aesop does summon the gods to his tale and lets his reproach ascend to the heavens; but, unlike poets, the Phrygian [ Aesop ] has no desire to speak arrogantly against the gods. Although he fashions tales, all his remarks and utterances about the gods are such that they have some bit of wisdom cloaked in them.

Via ToposText (topostext.org), a project of the Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation created by Brady Kiesling. Translated by Robert J. Penella (1947 - ). Composed ca. 380 CE. Licence: copyright Robert J. Penella, used by permission. Source.