nted, and
peopled their own districts; and when they had peopled them they tended
us, their nurselings and possessions, as shepherds tend their flocks,
excepting only that they did not use blows or bodily force, as shepherds
do, but governed us like pilots from the stern of the vessel, which
is an easy way of guiding animals, holding our souls by the rudder of
persuasion according to their own pleasure;--thus did they guide all
mortal creatures. Now different gods had their allotments in different
places which they set in order. Hephaestus and Athene, who were brother
and sister, and sprang from the same father, having a common nature, and
being united also in the love of philosophy and art, both obtained as
their common portion this land, which was naturally adapted for wisdom
and virtue; and there they implanted brave children of the soil, and put
into their minds the order of government; their names are preserved, but
their actions have disappeared by reason of the destruction of those who
received the tradition, and the lapse of ages. For when there were
any survivors, as I have already said, they were men who dwelt in the
mountains; and they were ignorant of the art of writing, and had heard
only the names of the chiefs of the land, but very little about their
actions. The names they were willing enough to give to their children;
but the virtues and the laws of their predecessors, they knew only by
obscure traditions; and as they themselves and their children lacked for
many generations the necessaries of life, they directed their attention
to the supply of their wants, and of them they conversed, to the neglect
of events that had happened in times long past; for mythology and the
enquiry into antiquity are first introduced into cities when they begin
to have leisure (Cp. Arist. Metaphys.), and when they see that the
necessaries of life have already been provided, but not before. And this
is the reason why the names of the ancients have been preserved to us
and not their actions. This I infer because Solon said that the priests
in their narrative of that war mentioned most of the names which are
recorded prior to the time of Theseus, such as Cecrops, and Erechtheus,
and Erichthonius, and Erysichthon, and the names of the women in like
manner. Moreover, since military pursuits were then common to men and
women, the men of those days in accordance with the custom of the
time set up a figure and image of the goddess in