The most important aspect of piety toward the gods is certainly
both to have correct beliefs about them, as beings that arrange the
universe well and justly, and to set yourself to obey them and
acquiesce in everything that happens and to follow it willingly, as
something brought to completion by the best judgment. For in this
way you will never blame the gods or accuse them of neglecting you.
And this piety is impossible unless you detach the good and the bad
from what is not up to us and attach it exclusively to what is up
to us, because if you think that any of what is not up to us is
good or bad, then when you fail to get what you want and fall into
what you do not want, you will be bound to blame and hate those who
cause this. For every animal by nature flees and turns away from
things that are harmful and from what causes them, and pursues and
admires things that are beneficial and what causes them. There is
therefore no way for a person who thinks he is being harmed to
enjoy what he thinks is harming him, just as it is impossible to
enjoy the harm itself. Hence a son even abuses his father when the
father does not give him a share of things that he thinks are good;
and thinking that being a tyrant was a good thing is what made
enemies of Polyneices and Eteocles. This is why the farmer too
abuses the gods, and the sailor, and the merchant, and those who
have lost their wives and children. For wherever someone's
advantage lies, there he also shows piety. So whoever takes care to
have desires and aversions as one should also in the same instance
takes care about being pious. And it is always appropriate to make
libations and sacrifices and give firstfruits according to the
custom of one's forefathers, in a manner that is pure and neither
slovenly nor careless, nor indeed cheaply nor beyond one's means.