60
And so much greater honor is paid to beauty among the gods than among us that they pardon their own wives when they are vanquished by it; and one could cite many instances of goddesses who succumbed to mortal beauty, and no one of these sought to keep the fact concealed as if it involved disgrace; on the contrary, they desired their adventures to be celebrated in song as glorious deeds rather than to be hushed in silence. The greatest proof of my statements is this: we shall find that more mortals have been made immortal because of their beauty than for all other excellences.
61
All these personages Helen surpassed in proportion as she excelled them in the beauty of her person. For not only did she attain immortality but, having won power equalling that of a god, she first raised to divine station her brothersCastor and Pollux; cf. § 19., who were already in the grip of Fate, and wishing to make their transformation believed by men, she gave to them honorsA reference to “St. Elmo’s fire”; cf. Pliny ii. 37. so manifest that they have power to save when they are seen by sailors in peril on the sea, if they but piously invoke them.
