Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

The Delay of the Deity
unjust and merciless he turned out to be gentle and
kindly, when he had got into power. If this is not
certain, we know, at
least, that Gelo and Hiero, both
Sicilians, and Peisistratus the son of Hippokrates,
all men who had put themselves at the head of af
fairs by base methods, used their power
for the fur
therance of virtuous ends; and though they had at
tained power illegally, they nevertheless became just
and popular rulers. They promoted good order and
the cultivation of the soil; made temperate and in
dustrious citizens out of men who had been gossipers
and idlers; and Gelo, after righting bravely and de
feating the Carthaginians in a great battle, would not
make the peace with them which they sued for until
they had pledged themselves to cease from sacrificing
their children to Kronos. In Megalopolis, Lydiades
was a usurper; but when at the height of his
power a change came over him and, having conceived
a loathing for iniquity, he gave a constitution to the
citizens, then in a battle with the enemies of his
country met a glorious death. If some one had slain
the ursurper Miltiades in the Chersonesus, or had
prosecuted Kimon for incest with his sister, or had
driven Themistocles from the city by an indictment,
when he was indulging in drunken revelries and in
sulting people in the market place, as was afterwards
done with Alkibiades, would we not have lost the
and fair
heroes of Marathon, of the Eurymedon
Artemisium, where the sons of the Athenians laid the
glorious corner-stone of liberty?
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Men cast in a large