well-affectioned toward the gods, who were their kinsmen; for they
possessed true and in every way great spirits, practising gentleness and
wisdom in the various chances of life, and in their intercourse with one
another. They despised everything but virtue, not caring for their
present state of life, and thinking lightly on the possession of gold
and other property, which seemed only a burden to them; neither were
they intoxicated by luxury; nor did wealth deprive them of their
self-control; but they were sober, and saw clearly that all these goods
are increased by virtuous friendship with one another, and that by
excessive zeal for them, and honor of them, the good of them is lost,
and friendship perishes with them.

"By such reflections, and by the continuance in them of a divine nature,
all that which we have described waxed and increased in them; but when
this divine portion began to fade away in them, and became diluted too
often, and with too much of the mortal admixture, and the human nature
got the upper-hand, then, they being unable to bear their fortune,
became unseemly, and to him who had an eye to see, they began to appear
base, and had lost the fairest of their precious gifts; but to those who
had no eye to see the true happiness, they still appeared glorious and
blessed at the very time when they were filled with unrighteous avarice
and power. Zeus, the god of gods, who rules with law, and is able to see
into such things, perceiving that an honorable race was in a most
wretched state, and wanting to inflict punishment on them, that they
might be chastened and improved, collected all the gods into his most
holy habitation, which, being placed in the centre of the world, sees
all things that partake of generation. And when he had called them
together he spake as follows:"

[Here Plato's story abruptly ends.]