Why, Hera, the circumstances of the gods are as bad as they can be, and as the saying goes, it rests on the edge of a razor whether we are still to be honoured and have our due on earth or are actually to be ignored completely and count for nothing.

It can’t be that the earth has once more given birth to giants, or that the Titans have burst their bonds and overpowered their guard, and are once more taking up arms against us?

Take heart: the gods have naught to fear from Hell.A parody on Euripides, Phoenissae 117.

Then what else that is terrible can happen? Unless something of that sort is worrying you, I don’t see why you should behave in our presence like a Polus or an AristodemusFamous actors in tragedy, contemporaries of Demosthenes. instead of Zeus.

Why, Hera, Timocles the Stoic and Damis the Epicurean had a dispute about Providence yesterday (I don’t know how the discussion began) in the presence of a great many men of high standing, and it was that fact that annoyed me most. Damis asserted that gods did not even exist, to say nothing of overseeing or directing events, whereas Timocles, good soul that he is, tried to take our part. Then a large crowd collected and they did not finish the conversation; they broke up after agreeing to finish the discussion another day, and now everybody is in suspense to see which will get the better of it and appear to have more truth on his side of the argument. You see the danger, don’t you? We are in a tight place, for our interests are staked on a single man, and there are only two things that can happen—we must either be thrust aside in case they conclude that we are nothing but names, or else be honoured as before if Timocles gets the better of it in the argument.