look further into this matter. Tell me
truly, did you ever kill other people's children with arrows?"

"It goes without saying, never! Do you think so ill of me?"

"Nor have you, I trust, ever seduced the wives of other men?"

"I was an upright tanner and a good husband. Don't forget that,
Socrates, I beg of you!"

"You never became a brute, nor by your lustfulness gave your faithful
Larissa occasion to revenge herself on women whom you had ruined and
on their innocent children?"

"You anger me, really, Socrates."

"But perhaps you snatched your inheritance from your father and threw
him into prison?"

"Never! Why these insulting questions?"

"Wait, my friend. Perhaps we will both reach a conclusion. Tell me,
would you have considered a man great who had done all these things of
which I have spoken?"

"No, no, no! I should have called such a man a scoundrel, and lodged
public complaint against him with the judges in the market-place."

"Well, Elpidias, why did you not complain in the market-place against
Zeus and the Olympians? The son of Cronos carried on war with his own
father, and was seized with brutal lust for the daughters of men,
while Hera took vengeance upon innocent virgins. Did not both of them
convert the unhappy daughter of Inachos into a common cow? Did not
Apollo kill all the children of Niobe with his arrows? Did not
Callenius steal bulls? Well, then, Elpidias, if it is true that he who
has less virtue must do honour to him who has more, then you should
not build altars to the Olympians, but they to you."

"Blaspheme not, impious Socrates! Keep quiet! How dare you judge the
acts of the gods?"

"Friend, a higher power has judged them. Let us investigate the
question. What is the mark of divinity? I think you said, Greatness,
which consists in virtue. Now is not this greatness the one divine
spark in man? But if we test the greatness of the gods by our small
human virtues, and it turns out that that which measures is greater
than that which is measured, then it follows that the divine principle
itself condemns the Olympians. But, then--"

"What, then?"

"Then, friend Elpidias, they; are no gods, but deceptive phantoms,
creations of a dream. Is it not so?"

"Ah, that's whither your talk leads, you bare-footed philosopher! Now
I see what they said of you is true. You are like that fish that takes
men captive with its look. So you took me captive in order to confound
my believing soul an