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ἐλεγέτην. The dual links together Homer and Hesiod as jointly responsible for Greek theology: see on 363 A. Among the first to rebel against their authority were Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Heraclitus (D. L. VIII 21, IX 18, IX I). Xenophanes' protest was particularly famous in antiquity: see Sext. Emp. adv. Math. I 289 and IX 193 ap. Ritter and Preller Hist. Philos. Gr.^{7} pp. 76, 77. Plato's attack on the Olympian theology in this and the succeeding book was perhaps the severest blow that Paganism received before the Christian era, and pointed the way for those exaggerated diatribes against the heathen gods in which it afterwards became the fashion of early Christian apologists to indulge, beginning with the Apology of Aristides (cc. 8—11). Cf. X 607 B note ὅπερ -- ψεύδηται . ὅπερ is τὸ εἰκάζειν κακῶς περἰ θεῶν etc. A distinction is drawn between mere lies and the lie which is in itself οὐ καλόν, unbeautiful and immoral in tendency, e.g. the story of Uranus and Cronus (ὁ εἰπὼν οὐ καλῶς ἐψεύσατο in E below). Such legends not merely misrepresent the gods, but also corrupt mankind.
The Republic of Plato. James Adam. 1902. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press.
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