Plutarch, De superstitione
Frank Cole Babbitt, Ed.

A despot much feared in Samos was Polycrates, as was Periander in Corinth, but nobody feared these men after he had removed to a free State governed by its own people. But as for the man who fears [p. 465] the rule of the gods as a sullen and inexorable despotism, where can he remove himself, where can he flee, what country can he find without gods, or what sea ? Into what part of the universe shall you steal away and hide yourself, poor wretch, and believe that you have escaped God ? There is a law even for slaves who have given up all hope of freedom, that they may demand a sale, and thus exchange their present master for one more mild. But superstition grants no such exchange ; and to find a god whom he shall not fear is impossible for him who fears the gods of his fathers and his kin, who shudders at his saviours, and trembles with terror at those gentle gods from whom we ask wealth, welfare, peace, concord, and success in our best efforts in speech and action.

Then again these same persons hold slavery to be a misfortune, and say,

For man or woman 'tis disaster dire Sudden to be enslaved, and masters harsh To get.¹

But how much more dire, think you, is the lot of those for whom there is no escape, no running away, no chance to revolt ? For a slave there is an altar to which he can flee, and there are many of our shrines where even robbers may find sanctuary, and men who are fleeing from the enemy, if once they lay hold upon a statue of a god, or a temple, take courage again. These are the very things that most inspire a shuddering fear and dread in the superstitious man, and yet it is in them that those who are in fear of the most dreadful fate place their hopes. Do not drag the superstitious man [p. 467] away from his shrines, for it is in them that he suffers punishment and retribution.

What need to speak at length ? ‘In death is the end of life for all men,’ ² but not the end of superstition ; for superstition transcends the limits of life into the far beyond, making fear to endure longer than life, and connecting with death the thought of undying evils, and holding fast to the opinion, at the moment of ceasing from trouble, that now is the beginning of those that never cease. The abysmal gates of the nether world swing open, rivers of fire and offshoots of the Styx are mingled together, darkness is crowded with spectres of many fantastic shapes which beset their victim with grim visages and piteous voices, and, besides these, judges and torturers and yawning gulfs and deep recesses teeming with unnumbered woes. Thus unhappy superstition, by its excess of caution in trying to avoid everything suggestive of dread, unwittingly subjects itself to every sort of dread.