Zeus Rants (9-11)

Now why is it right, Hermes, for this dog-faced fellow from Egypt[*] to sit in front of me when I am Poseidon?

That’s all very well, but Lysippus made you of bronze and a pauper because the Corinthians had no gold at that time, while this fellow is richer than you are by mines-full. So you must put up with being thrust aside and not be angry if one who has such a snout of gold is preferred before you.

Well then, Hermes, take me and seat me in the front row somewhere, for I am golden.

Not as far as I can see, Aphrodite: unless I am stone blind, you are of white marble, quarried on Pentelicus, no doubt, and then, the plan having approved itself to Praxiteles, turned iuto Aphrodite and put into the care of the Cnidians.

But I'll prove it to you by a competent witness, Homer, who says all up and down his lays that I am “golden Aphrodite.”

Yes, and the same man said that Apollo was rich in gold and wealthy, but now you'll see that he too is sitting somewhere among the middle class, uncrowned by the pirates and robbed of the pegs of his lyre. So be content yourself if you are not quite classed with the common herd in the meeting.

But who would make bold to rival me, when I ain Helius and so great in size? If the Rhodians had not wanted to make me monstrous and enormous, they might have made sixteen gods of gold at the same expense, so in virtue of this I should be considered more valuable. And I have art and precision of workmanship, too, for all my great size.

What’s to be done, Zeus? This is a hard question to decide, at least for me; for if I should consider the material, he is only bronze, but if I compute how many thousands it cost to cast him, he would be more than a millionaire.

Oh, why had he to turn up to disparage the smallness of the others and to disarrange the seating? See here, most puissant of Rhodians, however much you may deserve precedence over those of gold, how can you sit in the front row unless everyone else is to be obliged to stand up so that you alone can sit down, occupying the whole Pnyx with one of your hams? Therefore you had better stand up during the meeting and stoop over the assembly.