Slander: on not Being Quick to Put Faith in it

It is really a terrible thing, is ignorance, a cause of many woes to humanity; for it envelops things in a fog, so to speak, and obscures the truth and overshadows each man’s life. Truly, we all resemble people lost in the dark—nay, we are even like blind men. Now we stumble inexcusably, now we lift our feet when there is no need of it; and we do not see what is near and right before us, but fear what is far away and extremely remote as if it blocked our path. In short, in everything we do we are always making plenty of missteps. For this redson the writers of tragedy have found in this universal truth many and many a motive for their dramas—take for example, the house of Labdacus, the house of Pelops and their like. Indeed, most of the troubles that.are put on the stage are supplied to the poets, you will find, by ignorance, as though it were a sort of tragic divinity. What I have in mind more than anything else is slanderous lying about acquaintances and friends, through which families have been rooted out, cities have utterly perished, fathers have been driven mad against their children, brothers against own brothers, children against their parents and lovers against those they love. Many a friendship, too, has. been parted and many an oath broken through belief in slander.