Euthydemus

Soc.

Then tell me, he asked, do you count those things yours which you control and are free to use as you please? For instance, an ox or a sheep,would you count these as yours, if you were free to sell or bestow them, or sacrifice them to any god you chose? And things which you could not treat thus are not yours? Hereupon, since I knew that some brilliant result was sure to bob up from the mere turn of the questions, and as I also wanted to hear it as quickly as possible, I said: It is precisely as you say; only such things are mine. Well now, he went on: you call those things animals which have life? Yes, I said. And you admit that only those animals are yours which you are at liberty to deal with in those various ways that I mentioned just now? I admit that. Then—after a very ironical pause, as though he were pondering some great matter—he proceeded: Tell me, Socrates, have you an ancestral Zeus[*](Zeus was the ancestral or tutelary god of the Dorians)? Here I suspected the discussion was approaching the point at which it eventually ended, and so I tried what desperate wriggle I could to escape from the net in which I now felt myself entangled. My answer was: I have not, Dionysodorus. What a miserable fellow you must be, he said, and no Athenian at all, if you have neither ancestral gods, nor shrines, nor anything else that denotes a gentleman! Enough, Dionysodorus; speak fair words, and don’t browbeat your pupil! For I have altars and shrines, domestic and ancestral, and everything else of the sort that other Athenians have. Then have not other Athenians, he asked, their ancestral Zeus? None of the Ionians, I replied, give him this title, neither we nor those who have left this city to settle abroad: they have an ancestral Apollo, because of Ion’s parentage.[*](Cf. Eur. Ion 64-75. Apollo begot Ion upon Creusa, daughter of Erechtheus.) Among us the name ancestral is not given to Zeus, but that of houseward and tribal, and we have a tribal Athena. That will do, said Dionysodorus; you have, it seems, Apollo and Zeus and Athena. Certainly, I said. Then these must be your gods? he said. My ancestors, I said, and lords. Well, at least, you have them, he said: or have you not admitted they are yours? I have admitted it, I replied: what else could I do? And are not these gods animals? he asked: you know you have admitted that whatever has life is an animal. Or have these gods no life? They have, I replied. Then are they not animals? Yes, animals, I said. And those animals, he went on, you have admitted to be yours, which you are free to bestow and sell and sacrifice to any god you please. I have admitted it, I replied; there is no escape for me, Euthydemus.