The Oracle at Delphi no Longer Given in Verse (15)

Theon, with a quiet smile, said, In such a way as to lodge complaint against you as well for bringing up the most trifling of the peccadilloes of the Greeks. For just as Socrates, while being entertained at Gallias’s house, shows hostility toward perfume only,[*] but looks on with tolerance at children’s dancing, and at tumbling,[*] kissing,[*] and buffoons[*]; so you also seem to me, in a similar way, to be excluding from this shrine a poor weak woman who put the beauty of her person to a base use, but when you see the god completely surrounded by choice offerings and tithes from murders, wars, and plunderings, and his temple crowded with spoils and booty from the Greeks, you show no indignation, nor do you feel any pity for the Greeks when upon the beautiful votive offerings you read the most disgraceful inscriptions: Brasidas and the Acanthians from the Athenians, and The Athenians from the Corinthians, and The Phocians from the Thessalians, and The Orneatans from the Sicyonians, and The Amphictyons from the Phocians. But Praxiteles, apparently, was the only one that caused annoyance to Crates by gaining for his beloved the privilege of a dedication here, whereas Crates ought to have commended him because beside these golden kings he placed a golden courtesan, thus rebuking wealth for possessing nothing to be admired or revered. For it would be well for kings and rulers to dedicate votive offerings to commemorate justice, self-control, and magnanimity, not golden and luxurious affluence, which is shared also by men who have led the most disgraceful lives.