Chapter XIII
How may each several thing he done acceptably to the gods?
1Now when someone asked him how it is possible to eat acceptably to the gods, he said. If it is done justly and graciously and fairly and restrainedly and decently, is it not also done acceptably to the gods? 2And when you have asked for warm water and the slave does not heed you; or if he does heed you but brings in tepid water; or if he is not even to be found in the house, then to refrain from anger and not to explode, is not this acceptable to the gods? — 3How, then, can a man bear with such persons? — Slave, will you not bear with your own brother, who has Zeus as his progenitor and is, as it were, a son born of the same seed as yourself and of the same sowing from above; 4but if you have been stationed in a like position above others, will you forthwith set yourself up as a tyrant? Do you not remember what you are, and over whom you rule — that they are kinsmen, that they are brothers by nature, that they are the offspring of Zeus? — 5But I have a deed of sale for them, and they have none for me. — Do you see whither you bend your gaze, that it is to the earth, that it is to the pit, that it is to these wretched laws of ours, the laws of the dead, and that it is not to the laws of the gods that you look ?