protagoras   

They are the best for the longest time whom the gods love.



All this relates to Pittacus, as is further proved by the sequel.

For he adds:



Therefore I will not throw away my span of life to no purpose in

searching after the impossible, hoping in vain to find a perfectly

faultless man among those who partake of the fruit of the

broad-bosomed earth: if I find him, I will send you word.



(this is the vehement way in which he pursues his attack upon Pittacus

throughout the whole poem):



But him who does no evil, voluntarily I praise and love;-not even

the gods war against necessity.



All this has a similar drift, for Simonides was not so ignorant as

to say that he praised those who did no evil voluntarily, as though

there were some who did evil voluntarily. For no wise man, as I

believe, will allow that any human being errs voluntarily, or

voluntarily does evil and dishonourable actions; but they are very

well aware that all who do evil and dishonourable things do them

against their will. And Simonides never says that he praises him who

does no evil voluntarily; the word "voluntarily" applies to himself.

For he was under the impression that a good man might often compel

himself to love and praise another, and to be the friend and

approver of another; and that there might be an involuntary love, such

as a man might feel to an unnatural father or mother, or country, or

the like. Now bad men, when their parents or country have any defects,

look on them with malignant joy, and find fault with them and expose

and denounce them to others, under the idea that the rest of mankind

will be less likely to take themselves to task and accuse them of