Note 74 — Chapter XXXVII · REPUBLIC — REMARKS ON THE PLATONIC COMMONWEALTH.
Reading edition
Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathematicos, ix. 54, p. 562. Compare Polybius, vi. 56; Dion. Hal. ii. 13; Strabo, i. p. 19.
These three, like Plato, consider the matters of religious belief to be fictions prescribed by the lawgiver for the purpose of governing those minds which are of too low a character to listen to truth and reason. Strabo states, more clearly than the other two, the employment of μῦθοι by the lawgiver for purposes of education and government; he extends this doctrine to πᾶσα θεολογία ἀρχαϊκὴ … πρὸς τοὺς νηπιόφρονας (p. 19).