Hence too, Achilles in Homer acts with rectitude in practical affairs,[185] and at the same time exhibits specimens of magnificent, vehement, and divinely-inspired energy, as being the son of a Goddess. And such is his attachment to practical virtue, that even when in Hades, he desires a union with body, that he may assist his father. While on the contrary, Minos and Rhadamanthus, who were heroes illuminated by Jupiter, raised themselves from generation to true being, and meddled with mortal concerns no further than absolute necessity required. In the last place Proclus adds, that heroes are very properly denominated from Love, since Love is a great dæmon: and from the co-operation of dæmons heroes are produced. To which may also be added, that Love originated from Plenty as the more excellent cause, and from Poverty as the recipient and the worse cause; and heroes are analogously produced from different genera. Plato who was one of these heroes or demigods, was the offspring of Apollo in the way above explained by Proclus, as we are informed by Olympiodorus in his life of him. For he says, “It is reported that an Apolloniacal spectre had connection with Perictione the mother of Plato, and that appearing in the night to Aristo the father of Plato, it commanded him not to sleep with Perictione during the time of her pregnancy--which mandate Aristo obeyed.” The like account of the divine origin of Plato is also given by Apuleius in his treatise on the dogmas of Plato, and by Plutarch in the 8th book of his Symposiacs. Epimenides likewise, Eudoxus and Xenocrates asserted that Apollo becoming connected with Parthenis the mother of Pythagoras, and causing her to be pregnant, had in consequence of this predicted concerning Pythagoras by his priest.[186] And thus much concerning those undefiled souls who were called by the ancients terrestrial dæmons, heroes and demigods, and who descended into the regions of mortality for the benevolent purpose of benefiting those apostate souls, who are elegantly called by Empedocles, Heaven’s exiles straying from the orb of light. CHAPTER XLVII.