COMPANION: Well, what do they say about Minos?
SOCRATES: I’ll tell you then, so that you don’t commit an impiety as most people do. For there is
nothing more impious and nothing we should be more careful to avoid than error in word and
deed in relation to the gods, or secondly, in relation to divine humans. You must, rather, employ
great foresight whenever you are about to criticise or praise anyone, in case you speak incor-
rectly. That is why we should learn to distinguish between good and evil people. For the god
gets angry whenever anyone criticises someone who is like himself, or when anyone praises
someone of the opposite sort, the former being a good person. Indeed, you should not think
that there are sacred stones, pieces of wood, birds and serpents, but no sacred humans. A good
human being is, rather, more sacred than all these, while an evil one is more wretched.
And that is why I shall now speak about Minos, as Homer and Hesiod praised him,
lest you, a human being of human birth, fall into error in speaking of a hero and a son of
Zeus. For Homer, telling us that Crete had a large population and ninety cities, says that
“Among them is Cnossus, a great city where Minos was king in the ninth season holding
converse with mighty Zeus.”
3
So this is Homer’s praise of Minos, briefly stated, but unlike
anything Homer wrote about any of the heroes. That Zeus is a sophist, and that this skill is
entirely noble he makes clear in various places, and especially here. For he means to say
that Minos converses with Zeus every ninth year, visiting him regularly for educational pur-
poses, as if Zeus were a sophist. So, the fact that the privilege of being educated by Zeus is
assigned to none of the heroes apart from Minos is wondrous praise indeed. And in the
Odyssey, in the ‘Book of the Dead’, he describes Minos, but not Rhadamanthus, passing
judgement, holding a golden sceptre.
4
But here he does not describe Rhadamanthus passing
judgement, nor anywhere meeting with Zeus. That’s why I maintain that Minos has been
praised by Homer more than all the others. For being a child of Zeus, and the only one edu-
cated by Zeus, is unsurpassed praise. Indeed, this is the meaning of the verse that says “in
the ninth season holding converse with mighty Zeus”.
Minos is a companion of Zeus, since conversations are discourses and a conversation
partner is a companion in discourse. So Minos visited the Cave of Zeus every nine years in
order to learn and in order to demonstrate what he had learned from Zeus over the previous
nine-year period. There are those who understand ‘holding converse’ as being a drinking
companion or playmate of Zeus, but you may use the following as evidence that those who
understand the words in this way are talking nonsense. For of all the peoples there are, Greeks
and non-Greeks, there are none who refrain from drinking parties and the playfulness born
of wine except the Cretans, and the Spartans too, who learned this from the Cretans. In Crete,
among the various laws that Minos instituted, there is one whereby they are not to drink
together to the point of drunkenness. And it is evident that whatever he thought noble, he
instituted as conventions for his fellow citizens. For Minos did not, of course, behave like
some ordinary fellow and think one thing while enacting something else contrary to what he
thought. No, his meeting was, as I say, through discourse for the purposes of education in
excellence. That’s why, for his fellow citizens, he instituted these laws through which Crete
is happy for all time, and Sparta too, once it began to make use of them, since they are divine.
But Rhadamanthus was a good man, for he had been educated by Minos. He had not,
however, been educated in the entire skill of kingship, but in a skill subservient to kingship
sufficient to preside in courts of law, and that’s why he was said to be a good judge. Indeed,
Minos used him as a guardian of the law in the city, and used Talos for the same purpose in
the rest of Crete. For Talos went around the villages three times a year as guardian of the law,
having the laws inscribed on brass tablets, hence he was called ‘brazen’. And Hesiod too says
something similar to this about Minos. For having mentioned his name, he says: “Who proved
319 a
319 b
319 c
319 d
319 e
320 a
320 b
320 c
320 d
1,050 | MINOS – 319a–320d
Minos, David Horan translation, 16 Nov 25