Timokles For my part, I do not think that additional proof is necessary; but still I will go on.
Answer me, do you consider Homer the best of
poets? Damis Certainly. Timokles Well, he convinced me by setting
forth the providence of the gods. Damis But, my astonishing friend, every one
will grant you that Homer is a great poet, but not
that he or any poet whatsoever is a reliable witness in these matters. For their concern, I imagine, is not for truth, but to charm their hearers;
and on this account they lull us with metres and
amuse us with stories, and devise the whole thing
in the interests of pleasure. Still, I should be
pleased to hear what passages of Homer chiefly
convinced you.
 
Probably those in which he
speaks of Zeus, and tells how his daughter and
his brother and his wife plotted to put him in
irons. And if Thetis had not perceived what was
going on and called Briareos, our glorious Zeus
would have been seized and tied up. It was in
return for this and to repay his obligation to Thetis that he deceived Agamemnon by sending him
a false dream for the destruction of many Greeks.
Notice that he was unable to launch a thunderbolt

 

and burn up Agamemnon himself, but must
assume the role of cheat. Or was conviction forced
upon you chiefly when you heard how Diomedes
wounded Aphrodite and then Ares himself at the
suggestion of Athene, and how the gods themselves
fell to after a little and fought duels indiscriminately, gods and goddesses together, and how Athene
overcame Ares because, I imagine, he was weak from
the wound he had already got from Diomedes, and

 Hermes, the ready-helper, stoutly stood against
Leto? 

Or did the account of Artemis strike you as convincing, telling how her discontented nature was
angered because Oineus did not ask her to his
banquet, and how, accordingly, she let loose upon
his land a certain boar of surpassing size and irresistible strength? Was it, then, by such narratives as these that Homer convinced you?