Exhortation to the Greeks 2.41

At Phalerum, too, a certain hero “at the stern” is honored; and the Pythia ordered the Plataeans to sacrifice to Androcrates, Democrates, Cyclaeus, and Leucon, when the Persian wars were at their height. Anyone who can look even a little more closely can see a great many other daemons too: “For thrice ten thousand are there on the much-nourishing earth, immortal daemons, guardians of mortal men.” Who are these guardians, Boeotian? Do not grudge to tell us. Or is it clear that they are these, and those more honored than these, the great daemons: Apollo, Artemis, Leto, Demeter, Kore, Pluto, Heracles, and Zeus himself? But, poet of Ascra, they do not guard us to keep us from running away, nor perhaps from sinning, since they certainly have no lack of experience of sins themselves. Here it is fitting to repeat the proverb: “A father who is himself unadmonished admonishes his son.” And if these really are guardians, they are not moved by goodwill toward us; bent on your destruction, they fasten themselves on human life like flatterers, lured by smoke. The daemons themselves somewhere confess their own gluttony, saying: “Of libation and the savor of burnt flesh; for this is the honor that is our portion.” What other voice would the gods of the Egyptians, cats and weasels, utter, if they were given a voice, than the Homeric and poetic one, the voice of lovers of savor and of cookery? Such are your daemons and your gods, and any demigods, called so as if they were half-asses (hemionoi); for you have no lack even of names for the combinations of your impiety.