Minos

Comp. Yes.

Soc. Do you know, then, who among them were good kings? Minos and Rhadamanthys, the sons of Zeus and Europa, whose laws these are.¹

Comp. Rhadamanthys, yes, they say was a just man, Socrates; but Minos a savage one, harsh and unjust.

Soc. That is an Attic tale you are telling, my excellent friend, and a tragic one.²

Comp. 318e Why? Is that not what is said about Minos?

Soc. Not by Homer and Hesiod, at any rate; and yet they are more persuasive than all the makers of tragedy together, from whom you have heard what you say.

Comp. Well, what do they say about Minos?

Soc. I will tell you, so that you too may not be impious like the many. For there is nothing more impious than this, nor anything one should be more wary of: to make mistakes in word and deed against the gods, and second against divine human beings. But one must always take very great forethought, whenever you are about to 319a censure a man or praise him, lest you should not speak rightly. It is for this reason too that one must learn to distinguish decent men from base. For the god is indignant whenever someone censures one like himself, or praises one who is the opposite of himself; and the one like him is the good man. For do not think that stones and wood and birds and snakes are sacred, but human beings not; no: of all these the most sacred is the good human being, and the most polluted the base one.

Now about Minos too, how Homer and Hesiod 319b eulogize him, I will tell you for this reason: so that you, a human being, the son of a human being, may not make a mistake in word against a hero, the son of Zeus. For Homer, saying of Crete that there are many people in it