De Pythiae oraculis

During this conversation we were moving forward. While we were looking at the bronze palm-tree in the treasure-house of the Corinthians, the only one of their votive offerings that is still left, the frogs[*](Cf.Moralia, 164 a.) and water-snakes, wrought in metal about its base, caused much wonder to Diogenianus, and naturally to ourselves as well. For the palm does not, like many other trees, grow in marshes, or love water; nor do frogs bear any relation to the people of Corinth so as to be a symbol or emblem of their city, even as, you know, the people of Selinus are said to have dedicated a golden celery plant,[*](Selinon (celery), from which the city derives its name.) and the people of Tenedos the axe, derived from the crabs which are found on the island in the neighbourhood of Asterium, as the place is called. For these, apparently, are the only crabs that have the figure of an axe on the shell. Yet, in fact, wre believe that to the god himself ravens and swans and wolves and hawks, or anything else rather than these creatures, are pleasing.

Sarapion remarked that the artisan had represented allegorically the nurture and birth and exhalation of the sun from moisture, whether he had read what Homer[*](Od. iii. 1.) says,

Swiftly away moved the Sun, forsaking the beautiful waters, or whether he had observed that the Egyptians, to show the beginning of sunrise, paint a very young baby sitting on a lotus flower.[*](Cf. 355 b, supra.) I laughed and said, Where now, my good friend? Are you again slyly thrusting in your Stoicism here and unostentatiously slipping into the discussion their kindlings and exhalations,[*](Von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ii. 652-656 (p. 196).) not indeed bringing down the moon and the sun, as the Thessalian women do,[*](Cf. Aristophanes, Clouds, 749; Plato, Gorgias, 513 a; Horace, Epodes, 5. 46; Propertius, i. 1. 19, and especially Lucan, vi. 438-506; cf. also 416 f infra.) but assuming that they spring up here from earth and water and derive their origin from here? For Plato[*](Plato, Timaeus, 90 a; cf. Moralia, 600 f.) called man also a celestial plant, as though he were held upright from his head above as from a root. But you Stoics ridicule Empedocles[*](Cf. Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 243, Empedocles, no. b 44; cf. also Moralia, 890 b.) for his assertion that the sun, created by the reflection of celestial light, about the earth,

Back to the heavens again sends his beams with countenance fearless.

And you yourselves declare the sun to be an earth-born creature or a water-plant, assigning him to the kingdom of the frogs or water-snakes. But let us refer all this to the heroics of the Stoic school, and let us make a cursory examination of the cursory work of the artisans. In many instances they indeed show elegance and refinement, but they have not in all eases avoided frigidity and over-elaboration. Just as the man who constructed the cock upon the hand of Apollo’s statue showed by suggestion the early morning and the hour of approaching sunrise, so here, one might aver, has been produced in the frogs a token of springtime when the sun begins to dominate the atmosphere and to break up the winter; that is, if, as you say, we must think of Apollo and the Sun, not as two gods, but as one.

Really, said Sarapion, do you not think so, and do you imagine that the sun is diiferent from Apollo? [*](Cf. the note on 386 b, supra.)

Yes, said I, as different as the moon from the sun; but the moon does not often conceal the sun, nor conceal it from the eyes of all,[*](Cf.Moralia, 932 b.) but the sun has caused all to be quite ignorant of Apollo by diverting the faculty of thought through the faculty of perception from what is to what appears to be.

Following this, Sarapion asked the guides why it is that they call the treasure-house, not the house of Cypselus the donor, but the house of the Corinthians. When they were silent, as I think, for lack of any reason to give, I laughed and said, What knowledge or memory do we imagine these men have still remaining, when they are utterly dumbfounded by your high-flown talk? As a matter of fact, we heard them say earlier that when the despotism wras overthrown, the Corinthians wished to inscribe both the golden statue at Olympia and the treasure-house here with the name of their city, and the people of Delphi accordingly granted this as being a fair request, and gave their consent; but the Eleans refused out of ill-will, and the Corinthians voted that the Eleans should not be allowed to take part in the Isthmian Games. Consequently, from that time on

there has been no competition from Elis at these games. The slaying of the Molionidae by Heracles near Cleonae[*](Cf. Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, ii. 7. 2.) is not, as some think, a cause contributing in any way to the exclusion of the Eleans. On the contrary, it would have been appropriate for them to exclude the Corinthians, if they had taken offence against them for this reason. That was all I said.

When we had passed the house of the Acanthians and Brasidas, the guide pointed out to us the site where iron spits of Rhodopis the courtesan were once placed,[*](Cf. Herodotus, ii. 134-135.) at which Diogenianus indignantly said, So, then, it was the province of the same State to provide Rhodopis with a place where she might bring and deposit the tithes of her earnings, and also to put to death Aesop,[*](Cf.Moralia, 556 f.) her fellow-slave.

Why, said Sarapion, are you indignant over this, my good sir? Look up there and behold among the generals and kings Mnesaretê wrought in gold, who, as Crates said, stands as a trophy to the licentiousness of the Greeks. [*](Ibid. 336 c, Athenaeus, 591 b; cf. also Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyklopaedie, Supplement V. pp. 87-88.)

The young man accordingly looked at it and remarked, Then it was about Phrynê that this statement was made by Crates?

Yes, said Sarapion, she was called Mnesaretê, but she got the nickname of Phrynê[*](Toad.) because of her sallow complexion. In many instances, apparently, nicknames cause the real names to be obscured. For example, Polyxena, the mother of Alexander, they say was later called Myrtalê and Olympias and Stratonicê.

Eumetis of Rhodes most people call, even to this day, Cleobulina[*](Cf.Moralia, 148 d.) from her father; and Herophilê of Erythrae, who had the gift of prophecy, they addressed as Sibyl. You will hear the grammarians assert that Leda was named Mnesinoë and Orestes Achaeus--- But how, said he, with a look at Theon, do you think to demolish this charge of guilt against Phrynê?