Then in this, I said, Homer shall be our teacher; and we too, at sacrifices and on the like occasions, will honour the brave according to the measure of their valour, whether men or women, with hymns and those other distinctions which we were mentioning; also with
[E] ‘seats of precedence, and meats and full cups[8];’
and in honouring them, we shall be at the same time training them.
[8] Iliad, viii. 161.
That, he replied, is excellent.
Yes, I said; and when a man dies gloriously in war shall we not say, in the first place, that he is of the golden race?
To be sure.
also to be worshipped after death. Nay, have we not the authority of Hesiod for affirming that when they are dead
[469] ‘They are holy angels upon the earth, authors of good, averters of evil, the guardians of speech-gifted men’?[9]
[9] Probably Works and Days, 121 foll.