Athene

For example, the address to the poets: 'Best of strangers, we also are poets of the best and noblest tragedy; for our whole state is an imitation of the best and noblest life, which we affirm to be indeed the very truth of tragedy.' Or again, the sight of young men and maidens in friendly intercourse with one another, suggesting the dangers to which youth is liable from the violence of passion; or the eloquent denunciation of unnatural lusts in the same passage; or the charming thought that the best legislator 'orders war for the sake of peace and not peace for the sake of war;' or the pleasant allusion, 'O Athenian—inhabitant of Attica, I will not say, for you seem to me worthy to be named after the Goddess Athene because you go back to first principles;' or the pithy saying, 'Many a victory has been and will be suicidal to the victors, but education is never suicidal;' or the fine expression that 'the walls of a city should be allowed to sleep in the earth, and that we should not attempt to disinter them;' or the remark that 'God is the measure of all things in a sense far higher than any man can be;' or that 'a man should be from the first a partaker of the truth, that he may live a true man as long as possible;' or the principle repeatedly laid down, that 'the sins of the fathers are not to be visited on the children;' or the description of the funeral rites of those priestly sages who depart in innocence; or the noble sentiment, that we should do more justice to slaves than to equals; or the curious observation, founded, perhaps, on his own experience, that there are a few 'divine men in every state however corrupt, whose conversation is of inestimable value;' or the acute remark, that public opinion is to be respected, because the judgments of mankind about virtue are better than their practice; or the deep religious and also modern feeling which pervades the tenth book (whatever may be thought of the arguments); the sense of the duty of living as a part of a whole, and in dependence on the will of God, who takes care of the least things as well as the greatest; and the picture of parents praying for their children—not as we may say, slightly altering the words of Plato, as if there were no truth or reality in the Gentile religions, but as if there were the greatest—are very striking to us.

'There you come to first principles, like a true votary of the goddess Athene; and this is all the better, for you will the sooner recognize the truth of what I am saying—that all men everywhere are the enemies of all, and each individual of every other and of himself; and, further, that there is a victory and defeat—the best and the worst—which each man sustains, not at the hands of another, but of himself.' And does this extend to states and villages as well as to individuals?

First, we will erect an acropolis, encircled by a wall, within which shall be placed the temples of Hestia, and Zeus, and Athene.

In our dances imitations of war should be practised, as in the dances of the Curetes in Crete and of the Dioscuri at Sparta, or as in the dances in complete armour which were taught us Athenians by the goddess Athene.

In every division there shall be temples of Hestia, Zeus, and Athene, as well as of the local deity, surrounded by buildings on eminences, which will be the guard-houses of the rural police.

The class of artisans is consecrated to Hephaestus and Athene; the makers of weapons to Ares and Athene: all of whom, remembering that the Gods are their ancestors, should be ashamed to deceive in the practice of their craft.

On the other hand, he who has ordered any work and does not pay the workman according to agreement, dishonours Zeus and Athene, and breaks the bonds of society.