TIMOCLES 
Very well. Tell me then, you scoundrel, don’t
you think the gods exercise any providence ?
 DAMIS 
Not in the least.
 TIMOCLES 
What’s that you say? Then is all that we see
about us uncared for by any providence ?
 DAMIS 
Yes.
 TIMOCLES 
And the administration of the universe is not
directed by any god ?
 DAMIS 
No.
 TIMOCLES 
And everything drifts at random?
 DAMIS 
Yes.
 TIMOCLES 
Men, do you hear that and put up with it? Aren’t
you going to stone the villain ?
 DAMIS 
Why do you embitter men against me, Timocles?
And who are you to get angry on behalf of the gods,
especially when they themselves are not angry?
They have done me no harm, you see, though they
have listened to me long—if indeed they have ears.
 TIMOCLES 
Yes, they have, Damis, they have, and they will
punish you some day in the hereafter.


 
 DAMIS 
And when can they find time for me, when they
have so many cares, you say, and manage all creation,
which is unlimited in its extent? That is why they
have not yet paid.you back for all your false oaths
and everything else—I don’t want to be forced to
deal in abuse like you, contrary to our stipulations :
and yet I don’t see what better manifestation of
their providence they could have made than to crush
your life out miserably, miserable sinner that you are!
But it is clear that they are away from home, across
the Ocean, no doubt, visiting the guileless Ethiopians. Iliad, 1, 423. At any rate it is their custom to go and dine
with them continually, even self-invited at times.

 TIMOCLES 
What can I say in reply to all this impudence,
Damis ?
 DAMIS 
Tell me what I wanted you to tell me long ago,
how you were induced to believe that the gods
exercise providence.
 TIMOCLES 
In the first place the order of nature convinced
me, the sun always going the same road and the
moon likewise and the seasons changing and plants
growing and living creatures being born, and these
latter so cleverly devised that they can support life
and move and think and walk and build houses and
cobble shoes—and all the rest of it; these seem to
me to be works of providence.
 DAMIS 
That is just the question, Timocles, and you are
trying to beg it, for it is not yet proved that each of

 

these things is accomplished by providence. While
I myself would say that recurrent phenomena are
as you describe them, I need not, however, at once
admit a conviction that they recur by some sort of
providence, for it is possible that they began at
random In my opinion ἄλλως contrasts with ὁμοίως καὶ κατὰ ταὐτά, not with ὑπό τινος προμηθείας. The idea is more fully and clearly presented in Lucretius 1, 1024-1028. and now take place with uniformity and
regularity. But you call necessity “order” and then,
forsooth, get angry if anyone does not follow you
when you catalogue and extol the characteristics of
these phenomena and think it a proof that each of
them is ordered by providence. So, in the words
of the comic poet,
 That’s but a sorry answer ; try again. 
 TIMOCLES 
For my part I don’t think that any further proof is
necessary on top of all this. Nevertheless I'll tell
ou. Answer me this: do you think that Homer is
the best poet ?
 DAMIS 
Yes, certainly,
 TIMOCLES 
Well, it was he that convinced me with his portrayal of the providence of the gods.
 DAMIS 
But, my admirable friend, everybody will agree
with you that Homer is a good poet, to be sure, but
not that he or any other poet whatsoever is a truthful
witness. They do not pay any heed to truth, I take
it, but only to charming their hearers, and to this
end they enchant them with metres and entrance

 

them with fables and in a word do anything to give
pleasure.
 

However, I should like to know what it
was of Homer’s that convinced you most. What he
says about Zeus, how his daughter and his brother
and his wife made a plot to fetter him? Iliad 1, 396. If Thetis
had not summoned Briareus, our excellent Zeus would
have been caught and put in chains. For this he
returned thanks to Thetis by deceiving Agamemnon,
sending a false vision to him, in order that many of
the Achaeans might lose their lives. Iliad 2, 5. Don’t you see,
it was impossible for him to hurl a thunderbolt and
burn. up Agamemnon himself without making
himself out a liar? Or perhaps you were most inclined to believe when you heard how Diomed
wounded Aphrodite and then even Ares himself at
the suggestion of Athena, Iliad 5, 335, 855. and how shortly afterwards
the gods themselves fell to and began duelling
promiscuously, males and females ; Iliad 20, 54. Athena defeated
Ares, already overtaxed, no doubt by the wound he
had received from Diomed, Iliad 21, 403. and


"Leto fought against Hermes, the stalwart god of
good fortune.” Iliad 20, 72. 
Or perhaps you thought the tale about Artemis
credible, that, being a fault-finding person, she got
angry when she was not invited to a feast by Oeneus
and so turned loose on his land a monstrous boar of
irresistible strength. Iliad 9, 533. Did Homer convince you by
saying that sort of thing?