Toxaris; Or, Friendship (2-4)

Mnesippos You are right about that. But what was it you found so admirable in Orestes and

Pylades that you raised them to equality with the gods, though they were strangers in your land and your bitter foes? For when the Scythians of that day had seized them after their shipwreck and driven them off to be sacrificed to Artemis, they set upon the jailers, overpowered the guard, slew the king, carried off the priestess, and actually stole the statue of Artemis herself and set sail, laughing at the commonwealth of Scythia. Now, if this is the sort of thing you honor the men for, you cannot be too quick to produce many like them. But consider yourselves what the result will be, to judge from the past—whether it is to your advantage to have many cases of Orestes and Pylades sailing into Scythian ports. To my mind this would be the quickest way to become irreverent and godless yourselves, and to banish the surviving gods from your country. Then, I suppose, you will transfer your devotions from the whole body of gods to the men who come to steal them, and sacrifice to your temple-robbers as if they were divine.

But if it is not for these achievements that you honor Orestes and Pylades, tell me, Toxaris, what else they ever did for your good, in return for which you have now reversed your former judgment and sacrifice to them, bringing victims to those who once came extremely near being victims themselves. It seems absurdly inconsistent with the past.

Toxaris And yet, Mnesippos, those were noble deeds, though you laugh at them. Just think, they were only two men, and yet they dared this gallant adventure; sailed all this distance from home and ventured into the Pontos, unknown as yet to the Greeks, except those who manned the Argo in the expedition against Kolchis, and they were not frightened by the stories about this sea or its name of "The Inhospitable," gained for it, I suppose, by the savage tribes on its shores. And when they were captured they took the affair in such a courageous way that they were not contented merely to make their escape, but when they had first taken their revenge and carried off the statue of Artemis, then they sailed away. Now, are not these wonderful achievements, and really worthy of divine honor from any one who gives bravery his approval? Still, it is not because we see these traits in Orestes and Pylades that we deem them heroes.

Mnesippos Do go on and tell of something else they did, really divine and godlike. As far as their voyage and their journey into foreign lands are concerned, I could show you a great many more godlike among the merchants, particularly the Phoenicians, who not only sailed into the Pontos and as far as the Maiotis and the Bosporos, but to every point in Greek or barbarian wa- These people make an annual round of ters.

every cape and every peninsula, so to speak, and late in the autumn they sail back to their own country. To be consistent, you hold these, too, as gods-peddlers, and perhaps fish-mongers, though most of them be.