Dialogi deorum

Lucian of Samosata

The Works of Lucian of Samosata, complete, with exceptions specified in thepreface, Vol. 1. Fowler, H. W. and Fowlere, F.G., translators. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1905.

Ares Did you hear Zeus’s threat, Hermes? most complimentary, wasn’t it, and most practicable? ‘If I choose,’ says he ‘I could let down a cord from Heaven, and all of you might hang on to it and do your very best to pull me down; it would be waste labour; you would never move me. On the other

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hand, if I chose to haul up, I should have you all dangling in mid air, with earth and sea into the bargain’—and so on; you heard? Well, I dare say he is too much for any of us individually, but I will never believe he outweighs the whole of us in a body, or that, even with the makeweight of earth and sea, we should not get the better of him.

Hermes Mind what you say, Ares; it is not safe to talk like that; we might get paid out for chattering.

Ares You don’t suppose I should say this to every one; I am not afraid of you; I know you can keep a quiet tongue. I must tell you what made me laugh most while he stormed: I remember not’so long ago, when Posidon and Hera and Athene rebelled and made a plot for his capture and imprisonment, he was frightened out of his wits; well, there were only three of them, and if Thetis had not taken pity on him and called in the hundredhanded Briareus to the rescue, he would actually have been put in chains, with his thunder and his bolt beside him. When I worked out the sum, I could not help laughing.

Hermes Oh, do be quiet; such things are too risky for you to say or me to listen to.