“What were his discoveries, then?” perhaps you
will ask. Listen, therefore, in order to be able to
show up such impostors. The first, my dear Celsus,
was a well-known method; heating a needle, he
removed the seal by melting through the wax
underneath it, and after reading the contents he
warmed the wax once more with the needle, both
that which was under the thread and that which
contained the seal, and so stuck it together without
difficulty. Another method was by using what they
call plaster; this is a compound of Bruttian pitch,
asphalt, pulverized gypsum, wax, and gum Arabic.
Making his plaster out of all these materials and
warming it over the fire, he applied it to the seal,
which he had previously wetted with saliva, and
took a mould of the impression. Then, since the
plaster hardened at once, after easily opening and
reading the scrolls, he applied the wax and made an
impression upon it precisely like the original, just as
one would with a gem. Let me tell you a third
S. Hippolytus (Refut. omn. Haeres. IV. 28-42) contains a highly interesting section “against sorcerers,” including (34) a treatment of this subject. It is very evidently not his own work ; and K. F. Hermann thought it derived from the treatise by Celsus. Ganschinietz, in Harnack’s Texte wnd Untersuchungen 39, 2, has disputed this, but upon grounds that are not convincing. His commentary, however, is valuable.
Well, as I say, Alexander made predictions and
gave oracles, employing great shrewdness in it and
combining guesswork with his trickery. He gave
responses that were sometimes obscure and ambiguous, sometimes downright unintelligible, for
this seemed to him in the oracular manner. Some
people he dissuaded or encouraged as seemed best
to him at a guess. To others he prescribed medical
treatments and diets, knowing, as I said in the
beginning, many useful remedies. His “cytmides”
were in highest favour with him—a name which he
had coined for a restorative ointment compounded
of bear’s grease. It is a nice question whether this reading or that of the other group of MSS., “goat’s grease,” is to be preferred. Galen in his treatment of these ointments (Kuhn xiii, p. 1008) does not mention bear’s grease. But he considers goat’s grease only moderately good ; and every Yankee knows that in America bear’s grease only gave place to goose grease (also mentioned by Galen) when bears became scarce.
A price had been fixed for each oracle, a drachma
and two obols. Alexander’s price was high. Amphilochus got but two obols (one-fourth as much) at Mallus. According to Lucian (Timon 6; 12; Epist. Saturn. 21) the a of a day-labourer at this time was but four obols. Drachmas.
By now he was even sending men abroad to
create rumours in the different nations in regard to
the oracle and to say that he made predictions,
discovered fugitive slaves, detected thieves and
robbers, caused treasures to be dug up, healed the
sick, and in some cases had actually raised the dead.
So there was a hustling and a bustling from every
side, with sacrifices and votive offerings—and twice as
much for the prophet and disciple of the god.
For this oracle also had come out:
When at last many sensible men, recovering, as it
were, from profound intoxication, combined against
him, especially all the followers of Epicurus, and
when in the cities they began gradually to detect
all the trickery and buncombe of the show,
he issued a promulgation designed to scare them,
saying that Pontus was full of atheists and Christians
who had the hardihood to utter the vilest abuse
of him; these he bade them drive away with
stones if they wanted to have the god gracious.
About Epicurus, moreover, he delivered himself of
an oracle after this sort; when someone asked him
how Epicurus was doing in Hades, he replied :
Do you wonder, then, that the shrine waxed great,
now that you see that the questions of its visitors
were intelligent and refined?
In general, the war that he waged upon Epicurus
was without truce or parley, naturally enough.
Upon whom else would a quack who loved humbug
and bitterly hated truth more fittingly make war
than upon Epicurus, who discerned the nature of
things and alone knew the truth in them? The
followers of Plato and Chrysippus and Pythagoras
were his friends, and there was profound peace with
them; but “the impervious Epicurus ’—for that is
what he called him—was rightly his bitter enemy,
since he considered all that sort of thing a laughingmatter and a joke. So Alexander hated Amastris
most of all the cities in Pontus because he knew that
An inscription from Amastris (C.I.G. 4149) honours "Tiberius Claudius Lepidus, Chief Priest of Pontus and President of the Metropolis of Pontus” (i.e. Amastris). This can be no other than the Lepidus of Lucian. The priesthood1 was that of Augustus. Amastris is almost due of Angora, on the Black Sea, W. of Abonoteichus.
Again and again, as I said before, he exhibited the
serpent to all who requested it, not in its entirety,
but exposing chiefly the tail and the rest of the body
and keeping the head out of sight under his arm.
But as he wished to astonish the crowd still more,
he promised to produce the god talking—delivering
oracles in person without a prophet. It was no
difficult matter for him to fasten cranes’ windpipes
together and pass them through the head, which he
had so fashioned as to be lifelike. Then he answered
the questions through someone else, who spoke into
the tube from the outside, so that the voice issued
from his canvas Asclepius. S. Hippolytus (l.c., 28) mentions a tube made of windpipes of cranes, storks, or swans, and used in a similar way. Du Soul has a note in the Hemsterhuys-Reitz Lucian (ii, p. 234), telling of a wooden head constructed by Thomas Irson and exhibited to Charles I, which answered questions in any language and produced a great effect until a confederate was detected using a speaking-tube in the next room. Du Soul had the story from Irson himself.
These oracles were called autophones, and were
not given to everybody promiscuously, but only to
For
example, the oracle given to Severianus in regard to
his invasion of Armenia was one of the autophones.
Alexander encouraged him to the invasion by saying :
The corona radiata, worn by Augustus, Nero, and the emperors after Caracalla. This passage seems to point to its use (in addition to the laurel wreath?) as one of the triumphal insignia. The Parthians had been interfering with the succession to the throne in Armenia. Severianus, Roman governor of Cappadocia, entered Armenia with a small force in 161, and was disastrously defeated at Elegeia by Chosroes. Accordin to Dio Cassius (71, 2) the entire force was surrounded an wiped out. See also Lucian, de Hist. Conscrib, 21, 24, 25.
Then when that silly Celt, being convinced, made
the invasion and ended by getting himself and his
army cut to bits by Osroes, Alexander expunged
this oracle from his records and inserted another in
its place :
That was one of his devices, and a very clever
one—belated oracles to make amends for those in
which he had made bad predictions and missed the
mark. Often he would promise good health to sick
As he was aware that the priests at Clarus and
Didymi and Mallus were themselves in high repute
for the same sort of divination, he made them his
friends by sending many of his visitors to them,
saying:
Apollo.
and at another time,
and again,
So far, we have been concerned with his doings
near the frontier, extending over Ionia, Cilicia, Paphlagonia, and Galatia. But when the renown of his
prophetic shrine spread to Italy and invaded the city
of Rome, everybody without exception, each on the
other’s heels, made haste, some to go in person,
some to send; this was the case particularly with
those who had the greatest power and the highest
rank in the city. The first and foremost of these
was Rutilianus, P. Mummius Sisenna Rutilianus. What office he then held (see below) is uncertain. He eventually went through the whole cursus honorum, including the consulship (probably suffect) and the governorship of Upper Moesia, and ending, about a.D. 170, with the proconsulship of the province of Asia. For the Greek worship of stones, see Frazer’s Pausanias, vol. iv, 154 sq.; v, 314 sq., 354. In the note last cited he quotes Arnobius adv. Nationes 1, 39: si quando conspexeram lubricatam lapidem et exolivi unguine sordidatam, tamquam inesset vis praesens adulabar adfabar, beneficia poscebam nihil sentiente de trunco. Add Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 7, 4, 26: πᾶν ξύλον καὶ πάντα λίθον τὸ δὴ λεγόμενον λιπαρὸν προσκυνοῦντες.
When this man heard the tales about the oracle, he very nearly abandoned the office which had been committed to him and took wing to Abonoteichus. Anyhow, he sent one set of messengers after another, and his emissaries, mere illiterate serving-people, were easily deluded, so when they came back, they told not only what they had seen but what they had heard as if they had seen it, and threw in something more for good measure, so as to gain favour with their master. Consequently, they inflamed the poor old man and made him absolutely crazy.
Having many powerful friends, he went about not only telling what he had heard from his messengers but adding still more on his own account. So he flooded and convulsed the city, and agitated most of the court, who themselves at once hastened to go and hear something that concerned them.
To all who came, Alexander gave a very cordial
reception, made them think well of him by lavish
entertainment and expensive presents, and sent
At the same time, however, the plaguy scoundrel devised a trick which was really clever and not what one would expect of your ordinary swindler. In opening and reading the forwarded scrolls, if he found anything dangerous and venturesome in the questions, he would keep them himself and not send them back, in order to hold the senders in subjection and all but in slavery because of their fear, since they remembered what it was that they had asked. You understand what questions are likely to be put by men who are rich and very powerful. So he used to derive much gain from those men, who knew that he had them in his net.
I should like to tell you some of the responses
that were given to Rutilianus. Asking about his
son by a former marriage, who was then in the full
bloom of youth, he enquired who should be appointed
his tutor in his studies, The reply was:
Then after a few days the boy died, and Alexander
was at his wit’s end, with nothing to say to his critics,
as the oracle had been shown up so obviously. But
Rutilianus himself, good soul, made haste to defend
the oracle by saying that the god had predicted precisely this outcome, and on account of it had bidden
him to select as his tutor nobody then alive, but
rather Pythagoras and Homer, who died long ago,
with whom, no doubt, the lad was then studying
At another time, when Rutilianus enquired whose
soul he had inherited, the reply was :
But as a matter of fact he died insane at seventy
without awaiting the fulfilment of the god’s promise !
This oracle too was one of the autophones.
When one time he enquired about getting
married, Alexander said explicitly :
He had long before given out a story to the
effect that his daughter was by Selene; for Selene
had fallen in love with him on seeing him asleep
once upon a time—it is a habit of hers, you
know, to adore handsome lads in their sleep!+
Without any hesitation that prince of sages Rutilianus sent for the girl at once, celebrated his nuptials
as a sexagenarian bridegroom, and took her to wife,
propitiating his mother-in-law, the moon, with whole
hecatombs and imagining that he himself had
become one of the Celestials !
No sooner did Alexander get Italy in hand than
he began to devise projects that were ever greater
and greater, and sent oracle-mongers everywhere in
The terrible plague which swept the whole Empire about A.D. 165.
Moreover, Alexander posted a great number of his fellow-conspirators in Rome itself as his agents, who reported everyone’s views to him and gave him advance information about the questions and the especial wishes of those who consulted him, so that the messengers might find him ready to answer even before they arrived !
He made these preparations to meet the situation
in Italy, and also made notable preparations at home.
The reference is to the proclamation that preceded the Eleusinian mysteries. Its entire content is unknown, but it reqnuired that the celebrants be clean of hand, pure of heart, and Greek in speech. Barbarians, homicides, and traitors were excluded; and there was some sort of restriction in regard to previous diet.
On the third day there was the union of Podaleirius
and the mother of Alexander—it was called the Day
of Torches, and torches were burned. In conclusion
there was the amour of Selene and Alexander, and
the birth of Rutilianus’ wife. The torch-bearer and
hierophant was our Endymion, Alexander. While
he lay in full view, pretending to be asleep, there
came down to him from the roof, as if from heaven,
not Selene but Rutilia, a very pretty woman, married
to one of the Emperor’s stewards. She was
genuinely in love with Alexander and he with her ;
and before the eyes of her worthless husband there
were kisses and embraces in public. If the torches
Hereditary priesthoods in the Eleusinian mysteries.
Often in the course of the torchlight ceremonies
and the gambols of the mysteries his thigh was
bared purposely and showed golden. No doubt
gilded leather had been put about it, which gleamed
in the light of the cressets. There was once a
discussion between two of our learned idiots in
regard to him, whether he had the soul of Pythagoras, on account of the golden thigh, or some other
soul akin to it. As Pythagoras had a golden thigh (Plutarch, Numa, 65 ; Aelian, Var. Hist., 2, 26), a believer in metempsychosis might think that Alexander was a reincarnation of Pythagoras,