[390e]
“By no
means.” “Then they must not chant:“
Gifts move the gods and gifts persuade dread
kings.
”unknown1 Nor should we approve Achilles' attendant
Phoenix2 as speaking fairly when he counselled him if
he received gifts for it to defend the Achaeans, but without gifts not to
lay aside his wrath; nor shall we think it proper nor admit that
Achilles3 himself was so greedy as to accept gifts from Agamemnon and
again to give up a dead body after receiving payment4
1 Suidas s.v.δῶρα says that some attributed the line to Hesiod. Cf. Euripides Medea 964, Ovid, Ars Am. iii. 653, Otto, Sprichw. d. Rom. 233.
2 See his speech, Iliad ix. 515 ff.
3 Cf. Iliad xix. 278 ff. But Achilles in Homer is indifferent to the gifts.
4 Iliad xxiv. 502, 555, 594. But in 560 he does not explicitly mention the ransom.
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 5 & 6 translated by Paul Shorey. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1969.
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