Note 258 — ARRIAN ON COURSING.
William Dansey translation
Homer. Odyss. L. iii. 48.
Οὐδὲν ἄνευ θεῶν γιγνόμενον ἀνθρώποις ἐς ἀγαθὸν ἀποτελευτᾷ. To this we may cite many parallel passages: πάντες δὲ θεῶν χατέουσ’ ἄνθρωποι, says the son of Nestor to the divine attendant of Telemachus. Hesiod begins and ends his poem of the Works and Days with inculcating piety towards the Gods; the only way to please whom and to be happy, he says, is to be religious and strictly moral—
Opera et Dies vs. 706. Vide Dies vs. 826.
εὖ δ’ ὄπιν ἀθανάτων μακάρων πεφυλαγμένος εἶναι.
Nor are the passages, recommendatory of due reverence of the Gods, less numerous in the lyric and tragic poets of Greece, than in her heroic poets:
Pindar Pyth. L. i. 79.
ἐκ θεῶν γὰρ μαχαναὶ πᾶ- σαι βροτέαις ἀρεταῖς καὶ σοφοὶ καὶ χερσὶ βια- ταὶ περίγλωσσοί τ’ ἔφυν.
See also the sublime supplication of Hecuba in the Troades of Euripides, vs. 884.
The hymn of Cleanthes,
οὐδέ τι γίγνεται ἔργον ἐπὶ χθονὶ σοῦ δίχα, δαῖμον, οὔτε κατ’ αἰθέριον θεῖον πόλον, οὐτ’ ἐνὶ πόντῳ, κ. τ. λ.
is considered the forgery of a later age. Not so, however, the beautiful truths of the Greek poet of the Halieutics:
Oppian. Halieutic. L. ii. 4.
τί γὰρ μερόπεσσιν ἀνυστὸν νόσφι θεῶν; οὐδ’ ὅσσον ὑπ’ ἐκ ποδὸς ἴχνος ἀεῖραι, οὐδ’ ὅσον ἀμπετάσαι βλεφάρων περιφαέα κύκλα. ἀλλ’ αὐτοὶ κρατέουσι καὶ ἰθύνουσιν ἕκαστα, τηλόθεν ἐγγὺς ἐόντες, ἀναγκαίη δ’ ἀτίνακτος πείθεσθαι, κ. τ. λ.