Zeus Well, revolving this in my mind, I turned up near the Painted Porch, and there I saw a great crowd of men gathered, some inside the porch itself, but most of them in the open air, and some were shouting, stretched out on the benches. I guessed what was the case: that they were philosophers of the eristic order, and I determined to stand by and listen to what they might say. I happened to have a cloud wrapped round me—a thick one-so I took on an exterior of their sort, drew forth my beard, and presented no bad imitation of a philosopher. And so I elbowed my way through the crowd and got inside without being recognized, and I found a violent controversy going on between that fox Damis the Epicurean and Timokles the Stoic, the best of men. Timokles was in a perspiration, and had lost his voice already with screaming, and Damis was exasperating him still further by sardonic mockery. Now, if you will believe it, their whole discussion was about us. Damis (confound him) declared that we have no forethought for men or guardianship of their affairs, asserting that we do not exist at all, for this was plainly the purport of his speech. And some there were who applauded him. Zeus But the other, Timokles, took our side and fought for us, and excited himself, and did his best for us, praising our watchful care, and rehearsing how all things are arranged and reduced to regularity and order by us. He, too, had some applause, but he had already been speaking too long and his utterance was labored, so that the crowd looked away from him to Damis. Seeing what was at stake, I bade the night descend and break up the meeting, and so they went their ways, agreeing to examine the question completely the next day. I followed along with the crowd, and heard them praising Damis's arguments among themselves as they walked home, and already decidedly siding with him. But there were some, too, who did not think it right to decide beforehand between the rivals, but to wait and see what Timokles would say on the morrow. Zeus These, deities, are my reasons for summoning you; no slight ones, if you consider that all our honor, revenue, and prestige come from men. And if they should be persuaded either that we do not exist at all or that we have no forethought for them, we shall have no more sacrifices and gifts and honor from earth, and we shall sit idly in heaven oppressed by hunger when we are deprived of those feasts and national holidays and games and sacrifices and vigils and processions. In such a crisis we all ought certainly to devise some means of safety by which Timokles may be victorious and be held to make the truer argument, and Damis may be jeered by the audience. For I myself have small confidence that Timokles will win by his own exertions unless he also receives assistance from us. Accordingly, Hermes, announce in due form that remarks are in order. Hermes Hear ye, silence! Make no disturbance! Who wishes to speak, of those full-grown divinities whose right it is? What is this? Does no one rise? They are all silent, overwhelmed by the importance of the news. Momos Now I would that you all might turn to earth and to water! But for my part, Zeus, if I am at liberty to speak with perfect freedom, I have a good many things to say. Zeus Speak, Momos, without restraint. I am sure your frankness will be for our good. Momos Hear, then, deities, what at any rate I think in my heart of hearts, as they say. You must know that I have been pretty confidently expecting that our affairs would come to as bad a pass as this, and that numbers of sophists like these would spring up against us, finding grounds for their temerity in our own conduct. By heaven, we have no right to be angry with Epicurus or with his disciples and successors if they have conceived these notions about us. What, then, could you ask them to think when they see such anarchy in human life, the best of them neglected, perishing utterly in poverty and disease and slavery, while worthless blackguards are preferred to them in honor, and surpass them in riches, and are placed in authority over their betters; when they see that sacrilege is not punished but escapes unnoticed, while sometimes innocent men are impaled on stakes and beaten to death? It is only natural, then, that when they see such things they decide as they do, that we have no existence at all, Momos particularly when they hear the oracles saying that if a certain man crosses the Halys he will overthrow a great kingdom, without specifying whether it will be his own kingdom or his enemy's. And then again the oracle says: Salamis, dear to the gods, thou shalt slay children of women. But I imagine both the Persians and the Greeks were children of women. And then when they hear from the minstrels how we fall in love, and receive wounds, and get put in chains and made servants, and are divided against ourselves, and have a myriad of troubles, all the time claiming to be blessed and indestructible, have they not a perfect right to jeer at us and make us of no account? But we get angry if certain persons who are human beings, and not altogether devoid of wits, sift these matters and deny our providence, whereas we ought to felicitate ourselves if any still continue to sacrifice to sinners like us.