De Pythiae oraculis

Such was my answer to Boëthus, and in similar vein mention was made of the oracles of the Sibyl. For when we halted as we reached a point opposite the rock which lies over against the council-chamber, upon which it is said that the first Sibyl[*](Cf. Pausanias, x. 12. 1 and 5; and the scholium on Plato, Phaedrus, 244 b.) sat after her arrival from Helicon where she had been reared by the Muses (though others say that she came from the Malians and was the daughter of Lamia whose father was Poseidon), Sarapion recalled the verses in which she sang of herself: that even after death she shall not cease from prophesying, but that she shall go round and round in the moon,[*](Cf. Plutarch, Moralia, 566 d.) becoming what is called the face that appears in the moon; while her spirit, mingled with the air, shall be for ever borne onward in voices of presage and portent; and since from her body, transformed within the earth, grass and herbage shall spring, on this shall pasture the creatures reared for the holy sacrifice, and they shall acquire all manner of colours and forms and qualities upon their inward parts, from which shall come for men prognostications of the future.

Boëthus even more plainly showed his derision.

The foreign visitor remarked that even if these matters appear to be fables, yet the prophecies have witnesses to testify for them in the numerous desolations and migrations of Grecian cities, the numerous descents of barbarian hordes, and the overthrow of empires. And these recent and unusual occurrences

near Cumae and Dicaearcheia,[*](Cf.Moralia, 566 e; this is, of course, the famous eruption of Vesuvius in a.d. 79, which destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum. Dicaearcheia is the Latin Puteoli (Pozzuoli).) were they not recited long ago in the songs of the Sibyl? and has not Time, as if in her debt, duly discharged the obligation in the bursting forth of fires from the mountain, boiling seas, blazing rocks tossed aloft by the wind, and the destruction of such great and noble cities that those who came there by daylight felt ignorance and uncertainty as to where these had been situated, since the land was in such confusion? Such things, if they have come to pass, it is hard to believe, to say nothing of foretelling them, without divine inspiration.

Thereupon Boëthus said, My good sir, what kind of an occurrence can there be that is not a debt owed by Time to Nature? What is there strange and unexpected round about land or sea or cities or men which one might foretell and not find it come to pass? Yet this is not precisely foretelling, but telling; or rather it is a throwing and scattering of words without foundation into the infinite; and oftentimes Chance encounters them in their wanderings and accidentally falls into accord with them. As a matter of fact, the coming to pass of something that has been told is a different matter, I think, from the telling of something that will come to pass. For the pronouncement, telling of things non-existent, contains error in itself, and it is not equitable for it to await the confirmation that comes through accidental circumstances; nor can it use as a true proof of having foretold with knowledge the fact that the thing came about after the telling thereof, since Infinity brings all things to pass. Much more - is it true that the good

guesser, whom the proverb has proclaimed the best prophet,[*](The reference is to a much quoted line of Euripides which will be found in 432 c, infra: bene qui coniciet, vatem hunc perhibeto optimum, as Cicero translates it, De Div. ii. 5 (12). See Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag., Euripides, no. 973; and Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. 65, Menander, no. 225.) is like unto a man who searches the ground over, and tries to track the future by means of reasonable probabilities.

These prophets of the type of the Sibyl and Bacis toss forth and scatter into the gulf of time, as into the ocean depths with no chart to guide them, words and phrases at haphazard, which deal with events and occurrences of all sorts; and although some come to pass for them as the result of chance, what is said at the present time is equally a lie, even if later it becomes true in the event that such a thing does happen.

When Boëthus had expounded these views, Sarapion said, That is setting a fair valuation on things which are predicated, as Boëthus affirms, so indefinitely and groundlessly. Granted that victory was foretold for a general: he is victorious; or the destruction of a city: it is now overthrown. But where there is stated not only what shall come to pass, but also how and when and after what and attended by what, that is not a guess about what may perhaps come to pass, but a prognostication of things that shall surely be. These, for example, are the lines referring to the lameness of Agesilaüs:[*](Cf.Life of Agesilaüs, chap. iii. (597 c); Life of Lysander, chap. xxii. (446 a); Pausanias, iii. 8. 9, where the four verses are repeated with very slight variation.)

1. Sparta, take thought as thou must, although thou art haughty and boastful,
2. Lest from thee, who art sturdy of foot, shall spring a lame kingship,
3. Since for a long time to come shall troubles unlocked for engage thee.
4. Likewise the onrushing billow of war, bringing death to thy people.

And then again these lines about the island which the sea cast up in front of Thera and Therasia,[*](Cf. Strabo, i. 3. 16; Justin, xxx. 4. 1.) and also about the war of Philip and the Romans;

1. But when the offspring of Trojans shall come to be in ascendant
2. Over Phoenicians in conflict, events shall be then beyond credence;
3. Ocean shall blaze with an infinite fire, and with rattling of thunder
4. Scorching blasts through the turbulent waters shall upward be driven;
5. With them a rock, and the rock shall remain firm fixed in the ocean,
6. Making an island by mortals unnamed; and men who are weaker
7. Shall by the might of their arms be able to vanquish the stronger.

The fact is that these events, all occurring within a short space of time — the Romans’ prevailing over the Carthaginians by overcoming Hannibal in war, Philip’s coming into conflict with the Aetolians and being overpowered by the Romans in battle, and finally an island’s rising out of the deep accompanied by much fire and boiling surge — no one could say that they all met together at the same time and coincided by chance in an accidental way; no, their order makes manifest their prognostication, and so also does the foretelling to the Romans, some five hundred years beforehand, of the time when they should be at war with all the nations of the world at once: this was their war with their slaves, who had rebelled. In all this, then, there is nothing unindicated or blind which is helplessly seeking to meet chance in infinity[*](Cf. 398 f, supra.); and reason gives many other trustworthy assurances regarding experience, and indicates the road along which a destined event travels. Eor I do not think that anybody will say that by chance it coincides in time with those things with which it was foretold that it should be attended. If that were so, what is to hinder someone else from declaring that Epicurus did not write his Leading Principles [*](Cf. Usener, Epicurea, p. 342.) for us, Boëthus, but that, by chance and accidentally, the letters fell in with one another as they now stand, and the book was completed?