better than these gods who desire to be honoured by theatrical
plays._
We have still to inquire why the poets who write the plays, and who
by the law of the twelve tables are prohibited from injuring the good
name of the citizens, are reckoned more estimable than the actors,
though they so shamefully asperse the character of the gods? Is it
right that the actors of these poetical and God-dishonouring effusions
be branded, while their authors are honoured? Must we not here award
the palm to a Greek, Plato, who, in framing his ideal republic,[100]
conceived that poets should be banished from the city as enemies of the
state? He could not brook that the gods be brought into disrepute,
nor that the minds of the citizens be depraved and besotted, by the
fictions of the poets. Compare now human nature as you see it in
Plato, expelling poets from the city that the citizens be uninjured,
with the divine nature as you see it in these gods exacting plays in
their own honour. Plato strove, though unsuccessfully, to persuade the
light-minded and lascivious Greeks to abstain from so much as writing
such plays; the gods used their authority to extort the acting of the
same from the dignified and sober-minded Romans. And not content with
having them acted, they had them dedicated to themselves, consecrated
to themselves, solemnly celebrated in their own honour. To which, then,
would it be more becoming in a state to decree divine honours,--to
Plato, who prohibited these wicked and licentious plays, or to the
demons who delighted in blinding men to the truth of what Plato
unsuccessfully sought to inculcate?
This philosopher, Plato, has been elevated by Labeo to the rank
of a demigod, and set thus upon a level with such as Hercules and
Romulus. Labeo ranks demigods higher than heroes, but both he counts
among the deities. But I have no doubt that he thinks this man whom
he reckons a demigod worthy of greater respect not only than the
heroes, but also than the gods themselves. The laws of the Romans
and the speculations of Plato have this resemblance, that the latter
pronounces a wholesale condemnation of poetical fictions, while the
former restrain the licence of satire, at least so far as men are the
objects of it. Plato will not suffer poets even to dwell in his city:
the laws of Rome prohibit actors from being enrolled as citizens;
and if they had not feared to offend the gods who had asked the
services of the players, they would in all likelihood have banished
them altogether. It is obvious, therefore, that the Romans could not
receive, nor reasonably expect to receive, laws for the regulation
of their conduct from their gods, since the laws they themselves
enacted far surpassed and put to shame the morality of the gods.
The gods demand stage-plays in their own honour; the Romans exclude
the players from all civic honours:[101] the former commanded that
they should be celebrated by the scenic representation of their own
disgrace; the latter commanded that no poet should dare to blemish
the reputation of any citizen. But that demigod Plato resisted the
lust of such gods as these, and showed the Romans what their genius
had left incomplete; for he absolutely excluded poets from his ideal
state, whether they composed fictions with no regard to truth, or
set the worst possible examples before wretched men under the guise
of divine actions. We for our part, indeed, reckon Plato neither a
god nor a demigod; we would not even compare him to any of God's
holy angels, nor to the truth-speaking prophets, nor to any of the
apostles or martyrs of Christ, nay, not to any faithful Christian
man. The reason of this opinion of ours we will, God prospering
us, render in its own place. Nevertheless, since they wish him to
be considered a demigod, we think he certainly is more entitled to
that rank, and is every way superior, if not to Hercules and Romulus
(though no historian could ever narrate nor any poet sing of him that
he had killed his brother, or committed any crime), yet certainly
to Priapus, or a Cynocephalus,[102] or the Fever,[103]--divinities
whom the Romans have partly received from foreigners, and partly
consecrated by home-grown rites. How, then, could gods such as these
be expected to promulgate good and wholesome laws, either for the
prevention of moral and social evils, or for their eradication where
they had already sprung up?--gods who used their influence even to
sow and cherish profligacy, by appointing that deeds truly or falsely
ascribed to them should be published to the people by means of
theatrical exhibitions, and by thus gratuitously fanning the flame of
human lust with the breath of a seemingly divine approbation. In vain
does Cicero, speaking of poets, exclaim against this state of things
in these words: "When the plaudits and acclamation of the people,
who sit as infallible judges, are won by the poets, what darkness
benights the mind, what fears invade, what passions inflame it!"[104]