Book 2
1
I am neither an official representative of the people of Acragas, men of Delphi, nor a personal representative of Phalaris himself, and I have no private ground at all for good-will to him and no expectation of future friendship. But after listening to the reasonable and temperate story of the ambassadors who have come from him, I rise in the interests of religion, of our common good and, above all, of the dignity of Delphi to exhort you neither to insult a devout monarch nor to put away a gift already pledged to the god, especially as it will be for ever a memorial of three very significant things— beautiful workmanship, wicked inventiveness, and just punishment.
2
for you to hesitate about this matter at all and to submit us the question whether we should receive the gift or send it back again—even this I, for my part, consider impious; indeed, nothing short of extreme sacrilege, for the business is nothing else than temple-robbery, far more serious than other forms of it because it is more impious not to allow people to make gifts when they will than to steal gifts after they are made.
3
A man of Delphi myself and an equal participant in our public good name if we maintain it and in ~ our disrepute if we acquire it from the present case, I beg you neither to lock the temple to worshippers nor to give the world a bad opinion of the city as one that quibbles over things sent the god, and tries givers by ballot and jury. No one would venture to give in future if he knew that the god would not accept anything not previously approved by the men of Delphi.
4
As a matter of fact, Apollo has already voted justly about the gift. At any rate, if he hated Phalaris or loathed his present, he could easily have sunk it in the middle of the Ionian sea, along with the ship that carried it. But, quite to the contrary, he vouchsafed them a calm passage, they say, and a safe arrival at Cirrha.
