Some time after, a
fisherman brought to Polycrates an enormous fish and in its belly was
found the ring. This was a certain presage of evil. Polycrates was
besieged in his city, taken, and crucified. The gods punished him for
his good fortune.
Greek mythology was immoral in that the gods gave bad examples to men.
The Greek philosophers were already saying this and were inveighing
against the poets who had published these stories. A disciple of
Pythagoras affirmed that his master, descending to hell, had seen the
soul of Homer hanging to a tree and that of Hesiod bound to a column
to punish them for calumniating the gods. "Homer and Hesiod," Said
Xenophanes, "attribute to the gods all the acts which among men are
culpable and shameful; there is but one god who neither in body nor in
soul resembles men." And he added this profound remark: "If oxen and
lions had hands and could manipulate like men, they would have made
gods with bodies similar to their own, horses would have framed gods
with horses' bodies, and cattle with cattle's.... Men think that the
gods have their feelings, their voice, and their body.
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