Plutarch, De sera numinis vindicta
Goodwin, Ed.

Upon that, so soon as he had done speaking, not a little afraid lest, if he should begin again, he would run himself into many more and greater absurdities, I asked: Do you believe, sir, all that you have said to be true? Then he: Though all that I have alleged may not be true, yet if only some part may be allowed for truth, do not you think there is the same difficulty still remaining in the question? It may be so, said I. And thus it is with those who labor under a vehement burning fever; for, whether covered with one blanket or many, the heat is still the same or very little different; yet for refreshment's sake it may be convenient sometimes to lighten the weight of the clothes; and if the patient refuse your courtesy, to let him alone. Yet I must tell you, the greatest part of these examples look like fables and fiction. Call to mind therefore the feast called Theoxenia lately celebrated, and that most noble portion which the public criers proclaim to be received as their due by the offspring of Pindar; and recollect with yourself, how majestic and grateful a mark of grandeur you look upon that to be. Truly, said he, I judge there is no man living who would not be sensible of the curiosity and elegancy of such an honor, displaying antiquity void of tincture and false glitter, after the Greek manner, unless he were such a brute that I may use the words of Pindar himself:

Whose coal-black heart, from natural dross unpurged,
Had only by cold flames at first been forged.

Therefore I forbear, said I, to mention that proclamation not much unlike to this, usually made in Sparta,—‘After the Lesbian singer,’—in honor and memory of the ancient Terpander. But you, on the other side, deem yourself worthy to be preferred above all the rest of the Boeotians, as being of the noble race of the Opheltiadae; and among the Phocians you claim undoubted pre-eminence, for the sake of your ancestor Daiphantus. And, for my [p. 164] part, I must acknowledge that you were one of the first who assisted me, as my second, against the Lycormaeans and Satilaeans, claiming the privilege of wearing crowns and the honor due by the laws of Greece to the descendants from Hercules; at what time I affirmed, that those honors and guerdons ought more especially to be preserved inviolable to the immediate progeny of Hercules, in regard that, though he were so great a benefactor to the Greeks, yet in his lifetime he was not thought worthy of any reward or return of gratitude. You recall to my remembrance, said he, a most noble contest, and worthy the debate of philosophy itself. Dismiss therefore, said I, that vehement humor of yours that excites you to accuse the Gods, nor take it ill, if many times celestial punishment discharges itself upon the offspring of the wicked and vicious; or else be not too much overjoyed or too forward to applaud those honors which are due to nobility of birth. For it becomes us, if we believe that the reward of virtue ought to be extended to posterity, by the same reason to take it for granted that punishment for impieties committed ought not to be stayed and cease any sooner, but that it should run forward at equal pace with the reward, which will in turn requite every man with what is his due. And therefore they that with pleasure behold the race of Cimon highly honored in Athens, but on the other side, fret and fume at the exilement of the posterity of Lachares or Ariston, are too remiss and oscitant, or rather too morose and over quarrelsome with the Deity itself, one while accusing the Divinity if the posterity of an unjust and wicked person seem to prosper in the world, another time no less moody and finding fault if it fall cut that the race of the wicked come to be utterly destroyed and extirpated from the earth. And thus, whether the children of the wicked or the children of the just fall under affliction, the case is all one to them; the Gods must suffer alike in their bad opinions.

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