In the Republic, Plato's Socrates sharply criticizes the two greatest ancient Greek poets, Homer and Hesiod. He does so not on aesthetic, but on moral and philosophical grounds. Socrates sees them as offering a seductive but ultimately dangerous distortion of the truth through their portrayal of the gods.

It is a popular misconception that Plato, in the guise of Socrates, was completely hostile to all forms of poetry. It's rather more accurate to say that he objected to poetry that wasn't morally uplifting, that would turn men away from the path of truth as he conceived it. The poetry of Homer and Hesiod was charged by Socrates of having just such a baleful effect.

What he objects to most strongly is the poets' portrayal of the gods as greedy, selfish, and amoral. In other words, he portrays them as if they were humans, and very bad humans at that. One only has to take a quick peek at Homer's Iliad to see how unpleasantly human the gods' behavior can sometimes be. As for Hesiod, in his account of how the gods came to be born, he dwells at considerable length on the savage violence and conflict from which the Titans, the race of pre-Olympian gods, emerged.

Socrates finds all of this deeply offensive. The writings of Homer and Hesiod constitute a serious challenge to his moral and political ideal of a republic ruled by philosopher-kings. This is because the rule of philosopher-kings is based on their apprehension of what Socrates would regard as the truth. Whereas Homer and Hesiod, and indeed all poets who fail to produce morally edifying works, are essentially trading in falsehoods and must therefore be banished from the ideal community envisaged in the Republic.