Timokles Well, since you do not think the analogy of the ship very forcible, listen while I cast the last blessed anchor I have, which you will not drag by any device. Zeus What in the world is he going to say? Timokles For see now whether my syllogism is fallacious, and whether you can possibly overturn it. If altars exist, gods exist also. But altars certainly exist, therefore gods exist also. What have you to say to that? Damis Let me have my laugh out first and then I will answer you. Timokles But it looks as if you would never be done laughing. However, tell me why my speech struck you as ridiculous. Damis Because you do not perceive that you have slung your anchor on a slender thread, though it is the last blessed one you have. For when you have made fast the proposition "gods. exist" to the proposition "altars exist" you imagine that you have brought it to a safe anchorage. So since you have nothing more blessed to urge let us adjourn at once. Timokles Do you then admit yourself worsted by crying" Enough?" Damis Yes, Timokles, for you, like a hardpressed fugitive, have taken sanctuary on your altars, and so, by the blessed anchor, I long to swear a truce with you on these very altars, so that we may no longer wrangle about them. Timokles You are chaffing me, you grave-robber, you blackguard, you disgusting beast, you knavish slave, you refuse! Don't I know who your father was and your mother, too, and how you strangled your brother, and are an evil-liver and corrupter of lads, you filthy, shameless wretch? Don't run away now, for you are going to get blows from me, too, before you get off. I am going to cut your throat directly with this potsherd, miscreant that you are! Zeus Damis is running off laughing, deities, and the other is chasing him with abuse, put out past bearing by Damis's wealth of impertinence, and apparently he is going to clip him in the head with the tile. But what shall we do now? Hermes It seems to me the comic poet was right when he said: Do not profess defeat and you will suffer none. For what great harm is it if a handful of men go off persuaded to these views, seeing that there are many who know to the contrary, the majority of the Greeks, a numerous race, and all the barbarians? Zeus However, Hermes, that was a capital remark that Dareios made about Zopyrus. In the same way I, too, would rather have one Damis for my ally than rule ten thousand Babylons.