useful to men as a
medicine. But this employment of falsehood must remain a privilege of
state; the common man must not in return tell a lie to the ruler; any
more than the patient would tell a lie to his physician, or the sailor
to his captain.

In the next place our youth must be temperate, and temperance consists
in self-control and obedience to authority. That is a lesson which Homer
teaches in some places: 'The Achaeans marched on breathing prowess, in
silent awe of their leaders;'--but a very different one in other places:
'O heavy with wine, who hast the eyes of a dog, but the heart of a
stag.' Language of the latter kind will not impress self-control on the
minds of youth. The same may be said about his praises of eating and
drinking and his dread of starvation; also about the verses in which he
tells of the rapturous loves of Zeus and Here, or of how Hephaestus once
detained Ares and Aphrodite in a net on a similar occasion. There is a
nobler strain heard in the words:--'Endure, my soul, thou hast endured
worse.' Nor must we allow our citizens to receive bribes, or to say,
'Gifts persuade the gods, gifts reverend kings;' or to applaud the
ignoble advice of Phoenix to Achilles that he should get money out of
the Greeks before he assisted them; or the meanness of Achilles himself
in taking gifts from Agamemnon; or his requiring a ransom for the body
of Hector; or his cursing of Apollo; or his insolence to the river-god
Scamander; or his dedication to the dead Patroclus of his own hair which
had been already dedicated to the other river-god Spercheius; or his
cruelty in dragging the body of Hector round the walls, and slaying
the captives at the pyre: such a combination of meanness and cruelty in
Cheiron's pupil is inconceivable. The amatory exploits of Peirithous and
Theseus are equally unworthy. Either these so-called sons of gods were
not the sons of gods, or they were not such as the poets imagine them,
any more than the gods themselves are the authors of evil. The youth who
believes that such things are done by those who have the blood of heaven
flowing in their veins will be too ready to imitate their example.

Enough of gods and heroes;--what shall we say about men? What the poets
and story-tellers say--that the wicked prosper and the righteous are
afflicted, or that justice is another's gain? Such misrepresentations
cannot be allowed by us. But in this we are anticipating the definition
of justice, and h