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Sostratus. However, answer me, Minos: for I will put briefly a certain question to you.

Minos. Speak, let it only not be long, that we may pass judgment on the rest of them forthwith.

Sostratus. Whatsoever actions I performed in my life, whether did I do them, of my own free will, or had they been spun out for me by the Fate? 1

Minos. By the Fate, to be sure.

Sostratus. Well, then, did all of us who have the reputation of being good or bad, do those actions of ours as subservient to her?

Minos. Certainly to Klotho, who appoints to each one at birth what he is to do.

Sostratus. If, then, a man, forced by another, should murder some one, having no power of resisting his compulsion, such as a public executioner or an officer of the guard-the one obeying the judge, the other the princewhom would you charge with the murder?

2

Minos. It is clear one would have to charge the judge or prince; since it is not the sword itself we must accuse, for that, as the instrument for his rage, is merely the minister of him who first gave the occasion for its use.

Sostratus. Bravo, Minos, for giving more forcible illustration to my instance.-And if a man, when his master sends him, comes in place of his master, with gold or silver, to whom must one attribute the favour, or whom must one register as the benefactor?

Minos. The sender; for the carrier is an agent merely. Sostratus. Do you see, then, how unjustly you act in

1 Namely Klotho, the Moipa whose particular province it was to unwind or spin out the thread of human existence, whence her name. See Έλεγχομ. She occupies a prominent place in_the Κατάπλούς ἤ Τύραννος. Cf. Χάρων. 13, 14; Νεκρ. Δίαλ. xix. ad fin.

2 "Lucian seems to make sarcastic allusion to a religious ceremony of the Athenians at the festival of the Bovpovía ("Ox-Murder "), when the priest-butcher of the cow or ox fled for his life; while the axe, by which the murder was effected, was brought to trial and condemned as the guilty accomplice. This subject may be seen described at length in Meursius, and Castellanus on the Hellenic Festivals."-Jens. This very significant survival of early sacrificial ritual took place at the Dipolia ("Festival of Zeus"). See Aristoph. Nɛp. 985, 986. Cf. Porphyry, Περὶ τῆς ἐποχῆς.

punishing us, who are simply ministers and agents, in respect of the orders of Klotho, and in rewarding those who are only ministers of the good deeds of others? For, surely, no one could maintain this, at all events—that it was possible to resist commands imposed with the whole force of necessity.1

Minos. My friend Sostratus, you might see many other things, too, which are not to be squared with Reason exactly, if you inquire with any diligence. But, however, you will derive this advantage from your questioning-that you appear to be not only a brigand, but also a sort of sophist.-Let him go, Hermes, and let him receive no further punishment. (To Sostratus.) Beware, however, that you don't put the rest of the Dead up to propounding questions of a like kind.

This sort of special pleading has been most wittily used by Lucian in his Ζεύς Ελεγχόμενος. For a memorable instance of this appeal to "Necessity, the tyrant's plea," see, in the Letters of Phalaris, the defence of himself by the famous tyrant of Agrigentum (for his treatment of the constructor of the brazen bull, and of his other victims), addressed to the Athenians, in which he adopts the highly convenient doctrines of Predestination and " fixed Fate," advanced by Sostratus.

ZEUS THE TRAGEDIAN.

[ZEUS, gloomy and in tragic distress, is implored by Hermes and Athena to divulge the cause of his melancholy condition; while Hera, true to her Homeric character, confidently attributes it to another earthly amour. The king of gods and men, thus adjured, announces the true reason of his anxiety-daring assaults upon the character of himself and the rest of the Olympian divinities, and, in fact, denial of their very existence, by the skeptics, represented by an Epikurean philosopher named Damis; and the weakness of the arguments of their over-zealous apologists, the Stoics, represented by a champion named Timokles: which all-important controversy he had chanced to overhear when present, on the day preceding, at a sacrificial feast given to the Gods at Athens.

He proceeds to request the opinions of the three divinities upon the best course to be pursued, in the emergency. Hera and Hermes propose a Council of the Gods; Athena, a private settlement of the business. The former opinion prevails, and Zeus directs Hermes to summon the rest of the Gods to a general Council, which the Olympian herald proceeds to do in the orthodox Homeric style, after some reluctance on account of his want of poetic skill, and in face of the discouraging example of Apollo, whose prophetic utterances (in verse) had become the object of so much ridicule. Some difficulty arises, at the outset, on the question of precedence, both because (the representative statues of the divinities being variously formed of gold, silver, ivory, and bronze) it was a question whether it should be decided by the material, or by the excellence of

the workmanship; and, also, by reason of the numerous recent additions to their august_body. Zeus rules that gold must have the preference. By this decision the oldestablished, genuine Hellenic divinities find themselves forced to give way to the novi homines, not without much and protracted squabbling. In the end, by the ruling of the president, the members of the celestial Senate have to take their places promiscuously, on the principle of "first come first served."

Silence having been secured, Zeus rises to open the deliberations. An unaccustomed nervousness and hesitation threaten to spoil his exordium, and even to ruin everything, by raising suspicion of the soundness of their cause. At length, at the suggestion of Hermes, discarding the well-worn Homeric exordium, he opens in the words of a famous oration of Demosthenes. He sets forth the cause of the summoning of the Council, and reports the circumstances which led to his presence at the dispute between the Epikurean and Stoic champions, in the Painted Porch at Athens, and its fortunate interruption at a critical moment by the pressure of the crowd, with its consequent adjournment. The Gods, whom age and standing permit, are then invited to deliver their several opinions upon the course of action to be adopted. Momus, the Censor of the Olympian Court, rises, and, with his usual candour, affirms that the objections and arguments of their avowed enemies are not at all to be wondered at; and, in fact, himself points to the prevalence of injustice and cruelty, the triumph of the bad, and the oppression and sufferings of the good on the Earth. He takes occasion to ridicule the studied ambiguity and obscurity of Apollo and his oracular prophecies, and the mischiefs arising from them; and next criticises the policy which admitted so many strange and outlandish divinities to the rights of Olympian Godship.

Poseidon and Apollo next address the Council; the former voting for violent and summary measures-nothing less, in fact, than the destruction of Damis by a thunderbolt; in which opinion (later) he is vigorously supported by Herakles. The latter calls attention to the inferiority, and confused and illogical method, of their apologist, and advises that an associate-advocate be supplied to him, to whom alone

it should be allowed to speak, Timokles acting merely as his prompter. The opportunity is not lost by Momus for sarcastic allusion to Apollo's own confused prophetical style; and, ridiculing the proposition of an associate-advocate, he calls upon him opportunely to give some ex tempore specimens of his oracular faculty. Thus urged, with much reluctance and diffidence Apollo complies, to the great entertainment of his censor. At this juncture there arrives in hot haste, fresh from the yesterday's scene of verbal conflict at the Painted Porch, Hermagoras, a statuary, who, like the Ephesian town-clerk, may be supposed to have been a not entirely disinterested well-wisher to the Olympian Establishment. In iambic verse he announces the approaching renewal of hostilities, in the oracular strain so dear to Apollo, and so well known to readers of Herodotus, of the 'Opvibes and 'Inç of Aristophanes, and of Lucian.

The Celestials arrange themselves in attitudes of eager expectancy; and the verbal duel below begins with a vituperative onslaught (in which controversial virtue Zeus recognizes their champion's strength to lie) on the part of Timokles, and a dispute on the question upon which of the two rested the onus probandi. This being settled, at length, by the concession of Damis in favour of his opponent, the combatants engage in earnest. As the fortune of the day seems to incline to this side or that, the celestial spectators express, chorus-like, their hopes or fears-the latter, however, very greatly preponderating; Momus not omitting to exercise his powers of sarcasm. Timokles, after vainly throwing overboard his sheet-anchor-in the shape of a remarkable syllogism-takes refuge, as his opponent tauntingly expresses it, at the altars. Damis, claiming the victory, now retires from the scene, pursued by the vituperation and even missiles and blows of his enraged antagonist. The celestial clients of Timokles disperse, consoled by the reflection of Hermes, that, in spite of all the arguments of the wicked philosophers, at all events the larger part of the world, Greek as well as barbarian, will continue to be on their side, and not cease to supply them with the rich steams of sacrifice. Zeus, however, cannot refrain from the expression of his feeling, that he would rather have

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