Notes from Wikiquote
Xerxès, Act I, Sc. I (Artaban), reported by Harbottle (1904), p. 103; also reported by King (1904), no. 2149: "Fear made the gods, audacity made kings." | Cp. Petronius, Fragment 27, from whom it was borrowed verbatim by Statius, Thebaid, III, 661: Primus in orbe deos fecit timor.—"It was fear first made the gods."