De Pythiae oraculis

Then, besides, there is nothing in poetry more serviceable to language than that the ideas communicated, by being botind up and interwoven with verse, are better remembered and kept firmly in mind. Men in those days had to have a memory for many things. For many things were communicated to them, such as signs for recognizing places, the times for activities,[*](As in Hesiod’s Works and Days.) the shrines of gods across the sea, secret burial-places of heroes, hard to find for men setting forth on a distant voyage from Greece. You all, of course, know about Teucer and Cretines and Gnesiochus and Phalanthus and many other leaders of expeditions[*](Cf.Geographi Graeci Minores, i. p. 236, Scymnus, no. 949; scholium on Apollonius Rhodius, ii. 351.) who had to discover by means of evidential proofs the suitable place of settlement granted to each. Some of these made a mistake, as did Battus.[*](Battus was sent by an oracle to found a colony in Africa, but settled in an island (Plataea) off the coast. Since the colony did not prosper, he came again to consult the oracle: cf. Herodotus, iv. 155-157; Pindar, Pythian Odes, v.; Aristotle, frag. 611. 16 (ed. Rose).) For he thought that he had been forced to land without gaining possession of the place to which he had been sent. Then he came a second time

in sore distress. And the god made answer to him[*](The same lines are found in Herodotus, iv. 157.):

1. If without going you know far better than I, who have gone there,
2. Africa, mother of flocks, then I greatly admire your wisdom,

and with these words sent him forth again.

Lysander also failed to recognize the hill Orchalides (the other name of which is Alopecus) and the river Hoplites[*](Life of Lysander, chap. xxix. (450 b-c).) and

Also the serpent, the Earth-born, behind him stealthily creeping,

and was vanquished in battle, and fell in that very place by the hand of Neoehorus, a man of Haliartus, who carried a shield which had as its emblem a snake. Numerous other instances of this sort among the people of olden time, difficult to retain and remember, it is not necessary to rehearse to you who know them.