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?