Furthermore, it could be easily proved on chronological grounds also that the statements
 of the detractors of Busiris are false. For the same writers who accuse Busiris of slaying
 strangers also assert that he died at the hands of Heracles; but all chroniclers agree that Heracles was later by four generations than Perseus, son
 of Zeus and Danae, and that Busiris lived more than two hundred years earlier than
 Perseus. And yet what can be more absurd than that one who was desirous of clearing
 Busiris of the calumny has failed to mention that evidence, so manifest and so conclusive?
 But the fact is that you had no regard for the truth; on the contrary, you followed the
 calumnies of the poets, who declare that the offspring of the immortals have perpetrated
 as well as suffered things more atrocious than any perpetrated or suffered by the
 offspring of the most impious of mortals; aye, the poets have related about the gods
 themselves tales more outrageous than anyone would dare tell concerning their enemies. For
 not only have they imputed to them thefts and adulteries, and vassalage among men, but
 they have fabricated tales of the eating of children, the castrations of fathers, the
 fetterings of mothers, and many other crimes e.g., Hermes
 steals Apollo’s oxen ( HH Herm. ); the illicit love of Ares and
 Aphrodite ( Hom. Od. 8 ); Apollo, servant of Admetus ( Eur. Alc. ); Cronus devours his children and mutilates his father
 Uranus; and Hephaestus fetters Hera. 
 For these blasphemies the poets, it is true, did not pay the penalty they deserved, but
 assuredly they did not escape punishment altogether; some became vagabonds begging for
 their daily bread; others became blind; another spent all his life in exile from his
 fatherland and in warring with his kinsmen; and Orpheus, who made a point of rehearsing
 these tales, died by being torn asunder For example, Homer
 was represented as a blind wanderer; Stesichorus was smitten with blindness for abuse of
 Helen in his verses; and Orpheus was torn to pieces by the women of Thrace . Perhaps Archilochus is the poet in exile. 
 Therefore if we are wise we shall not imitate their tales, nor while passing laws for the
 punishment of libels against each other, shall we disregard loose-tongued vilification of
 the gods; on the contrary, we shall be on our guard and consider equally guilty of impiety
 those who recite and those who believe such lies The poet
 Xenophanes, and later Plato, had strongly protested against the attribution of
 immoralities to the gods.