On Sacrifices (6-10)

Their rhapsodies about Hera are of similar tenor, that without intercourse with her husband she became the mother of a wind-child, Hephaestus, who, however, is not in great luck, but works at the blacksmith’s trade over a fire, living in smoke most of the time and covered with cinders, as is natural with a forge-tender; moreover, he is. not even straightlimbed, as he was lamed py his fall when Zeus threw him out of Heaven. In fact, if the Lemnians had not obligingly caught him while he was still in the air, we should have had our Hephaestus killed just like Astyanax when he fell from the battlements.[*]

Prometheus, then, received a sentence and served it out, but what about Rhea? One must surely speak of this also. Does not she misconduct herself and behave dreadfully? Although she is an old woman, past her best years, the mother of so many gods, nevertheless she still has a love affair with a boy and is jealous, and she takes Attis about with her behind her lions, in spite of the fact that he cannot be of any use to her now. So how can one find fault with Aphrodite for being unfaithful to her husband, or with Selene for going down to visit Endymion time and again in the middle of her journey?

Come, dismissing this topic, let us go up to Heaven itself, soaring up poet-fashion by the same route as Homer and Hesiod, and let us see how they have arranged things on high. That it is bronze on the outside we learned from Homer, who anticipated us in saying so. But when one climbs over the edge, puts up one’s head a little way into the world above, and really gets up on the “back,”[*] the light is brighter, the sun is clearer, the stars are shinier, it is day everywhere, and the ground is of gold. As you go in, the Hours live in the first house, for they are the warders of the gate; then come Iris and Hermes, who are attendants and messengers of Zeus; next, there is the smithy of Hephaestus, filled with works of art of every kind, and after that,

“The gods, assembled in the house of Zeus”[*]—it is in order, I take it, to elevate one’s diction when one is on high—look off at the earth and gaze about in every direction, leaning down to see if they can see fire being lighted anywhere, or steam drifting up to them “about the smoke entwined.”[*] If anybody sacrifices, they all have a feast, opening their mouths for the smoke and drinking the blood that is spilt at the altars, just like flies; but if they dine at home, their meal is nectar and ambrosia. In days of old, men used to dine and drink with them—Ixion and Tantalus—but as they behaved shockingly and talked too much, they are still undergoing punishment to this day, and there is now no admission for human beings to Heaven, which is strictly private.

That is the way the gods live, and as a result, the practices of men in the matter of divine worship are harmonious and consistent with all that. First they fenced off groves, dedicated mountains, consecrated birds and assigned plants to each god. Then they divided them up, and now worship them by nations and claim them as fellow-countrymen; the Delphians claim Apollo, and so do. the Delians, the Athenians Athena (in fact, she proves her kinship by her name), the Argives Hera, the Mygdonians Rhea, the Paphians Aphrodite. As for the Cretans, they not only say that Zeus was born and brought up among them, but even point out his tomb. We were mistaken all this while, then, in thinking that thunder