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?

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?

Theon, with a quiet smile, said, In such a way as to lodge complaint against you as well for bringing up the most trifling of the peccadilloes of the Greeks. For just as Socrates, while being entertained at Gallias’s house, shows hostility toward perfume only,[*](Xenophon, Symposium, 2. 3.) but looks on with tolerance at children’s dancing, and at tumbling,[*](Ibid. 2. 11.) kissing,[*](Ibid. 9. 5.) and buffoons[*](Ibid. 2. 22.); so you also seem to me, in a similar way, to be excluding from this shrine a poor weak woman who put the beauty of her person to a base use, but when you see the god completely surrounded by choice offerings and tithes from murders, wars, and plunderings, and his temple crowded with spoils and booty from the Greeks, you show no indignation, nor do you feel any pity for the Greeks when upon the beautiful votive offerings you read the most disgraceful inscriptions: Brasidas and the Acanthians from the Athenians, and The Athenians from the Corinthians, and The Phocians from the Thessalians, and The Orneatans from the Sicyonians, and The Amphictyons from the Phocians. But Praxiteles, apparently, was the only one that caused annoyance to Crates by gaining for his beloved the privilege of a dedication here, whereas Crates ought to have commended

him because beside these golden kings he placed a golden courtesan, thus rebuking wealth for possessing nothing to be admired or revered. For it would be well for kings and rulers to dedicate votive offerings to commemorate justice, self-control, and magnanimity, not golden and luxurious affluence, which is shared also by men who have led the most disgraceful lives.

There is one thing that you omit to mention, said one of the guides, that Croesus had a golden statue made of the woman who baked his bread, and dedicated it here.

Yes, said Theon, only he did it not in mockery of the holy shrine, but because he found an honourable and righteous cause for so doing.[*](Cf. Herodotus, i. 51.) For it is said that Alyattes, the father of Croesus, married a second wife, and was rearing a second group of children. So the woman, in a plot against Croesus, gave poison to the baker and bade her knead it into the bread and serve it to Croesus. But the baker secretly told Croesus and served the bread to the stepmother’s children; in return for this action Croesus, when he became king, as it were in the sight of the god as a witness, requited the favour done by the woman and also conferred a benefit upon the god. Wherefore, he continued, it is right and proper, if there is any similar votive offering from States, to honour and respect it, as, for example, that of the Opuntians. For, when the despots of the Phocians melted up many of the votive offerings made of gold or silver,[*](Cf. Müller, Frag. Hist. Graec. i. p. 308, Theopompus, no. 182.) and minted coins and put them into circulation among the

various States, the Opuntians, collecting what money they could find, sent back here a water-jar for the god, and consecrated it to him. For my part, I commend also the inhabitants of Myrina and of Apollonia for sending to this place fruits of the harvest fashioned of gold; and still more the inhabitants of Eretria and Magnesia who presented the god with the first-fruits of their people, in the belief that he is the giver of crops, the god of their fathers, the author of their being, and the friend of man. And I blame the Megarians because they are almost the only people who erected here a statue of the god with spear in hand to commemorate the battle in which they defeated and drove out the Athenians, who were in possession of their city in the period following the Persian Wars. Later, however, they dedicated to the god a golden plectrum,[*](Cf. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, i. 502 (p. 112).) calling attention, apparently, to Scythinus,[*](Diels, Poetarum Phil. Frag. p. 167; cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, v. 8. 48 (p. 674 Potter).) who says regarding the lyre,

1. Which the son of Zeus,
2. Fair Apollo, who embraces origin and end in one,
3. Sets in tune, and for his plectrum has the bright rays of the sun.

As Sarapion was beginning to say something about these matters, the foreign visitor said, It is very pleasant to listen to such conversation as this, but I am constrained to claim the fulfilment of your first promise regarding the cause which has made the prophetic priestess cease to give her oracles in epic verse or in other metres. So, if it be agreeable, let us postpone to another time what remains of our sightseeing, and sit down here and hear about it. For it is the recital of this fact which above all else

militates against confidence in the oracle, since people assume one of two things: either that the prophetic priestess does not come near to the region in which is the godhead, or else that the spirit has been completely quenched and her powers have forsaken her.

Accordingly we went round and seated ourselves upon the southern steps of the temple, looking towards the shrine of Earth and the stream of water, with the result that Boethus immediately remarked that the place itself proffered assistance to the visitor in the solution of the question. For, said he, there used to be a shrine of the Muses near the place where the water of the stream wells up; wherefore they used to use this water for libations and lustrations, as Simonides[*](Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. pp. 409-410, Simonides, nos. 44 and 45; or Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, ii. p. 314. Cf. also Poulsen, Delphi, 4; but the attmpted restorations of the verses by the various editors do not as yet display any felicity.) says:

1. Where from depths below, for pure lustration
2. Is drawn the fair-haired Muses’ fount of holy water.

And in another passage[*](Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 409-410, Simonides, nos. 44 and 45; or Edmonds, Lyra Graeca, ii. p. 314. Cf. also Poulsen, Delphi, 4; but the attempted restorations of the verses by the various editors do not as yet display any felicity.) he addresses Clio in a somewhat affected way as the

Holy guardian of lustration,

and goes on to say that

1. She, invoked in many a prayer,
2. In robes unwrought with gold,
3. For those that came to draw
4. Raised from the ambrosial grot
5. The fragrant beauteous water.

Eudoxus, therefore, was wrong in believing those who declared that this is called the water of the Styx. But they established the cult of the Muses as associates and guardians of the prophetic art in this very place beside the stream and the shrine of Earth, to whom it is said that the oracle used to belong because of the responses being given in poetic and musical measures. And some assert that it was here that the heroic verse was heard for the first time:

Birds, contribute your feathers, and bees, bring wax as your portion.

Later Earth became inferior to the god and lost her august position.

That, Boëthus, said Sarapion, is more reasonable and harmonious. For we must not show hostility towards the god, nor do away with his providence and divine powers together with his prophetic gifts; but we must seek for explanations of such matters as seem to stand in the way, and not relinquish the reverent faith of our fathers.

What you say, my esteemed Sarapion, said I, is quite right. We have not been surrendering hope for philosophy either, as if it had been completely done away with and destroyed, just because formerly the philosophers used to publish their doctrines and discourses in the form of poems, as Orpheus, Hesiod, Parmenides, Xenophanes, Empedocles, and Thales. Later they ceased to do this, and now all have ceased using metrical form, all except you. At your hands the poetic art returns to philosophy from its banishment, and sounds a clear and noble challenge to the young.

Nor did Aristarchus, Timocharis, Aristyllus, and Hipparchus, and their followers make astronomy less

notable by writing in prose, although in earlier days Eudoxus, Hesiod, and Thales wrote in verse, if indeed Thales, in all truth, composed the Astronomy which is attributed to him. Pindar also confesses that he is puzzled by the neglect of a mode of music and is astonished that---[*](Unfortunately the cause of Pindar’s astonishment has been omitted by the copyist, who left a blank here.) The fact is that there is nothing dreadful nor abnormal in seeking the causes of such changes; but to do away with these arts and faculties themselves because something about them has been disturbed or changed is not right.

Theon, taking up the subject, said, But these matters have actually undergone great changes and innovations, whereas you know that many of the oracles here have been given out in prose, and those that concerned no unimportant matters. For, as Thucydides[*](Thucydides, i. 118.) has recorded, when the Spartans consulted the god about their war against the Athenians, his answer was a promise of victory and power and that he himself would come to their aid, bidden or unbidden; and in another oracle that if they would not allow Pleistoanax to return from exile, they should plough with a silver ploughshare.[*](Ibid. v. 16. The meaning seems to be that they would have to buy their grain.)

When the Athenians sought advice about their campaign in Sicily, he directed them to get the priestess of Athena at Erythrae; the name which the woman bore was Quiet.[*](Cf.Life of Nicias, chap. xiii. (532 a), where it is explained that the god advised them τὴν ἡσυχίαν ἄγειν, to keep Quiet.)

When Deinomenes of Sicily asked advice about his sons, the answer was that all three should rule as despots; and when Deinomenes rejoined, To their sorrow, then, O Lord Apollo, the god said that he granted this also to Deinomenes, and added it to the response. You all know, of course, that Gelo, while he was despot, suffered from dropsy; and likewise Hiero from gall-stones; and the third, Thrasybulus, became involved in seditions and wars, and it was no long time before he was dethroned.

Then there was Procles, the despot of Epidaurus, who did away with many men in a cruel and lawless manner, and finally put to death Timarchus, who had come to him from Athens with money, after receiving him and entertaining him with much show of hospitality. The body he thrust into a basket and sank in the sea. All this he accomplished through Cleander of Aegina, and nobody else knew anything about it. But later, when his affairs were in sad confusion, he sent here his brother Cleotimus to ask advice in secret concerning his flight and withdrawal to another country. The god therefore made answer that he granted Procles flight and withdrawal to the place in which he had bidden his friend from Aegina deposit the basket, or where the stag sheds his horns. The despot at once understood that the god ordered him to sink himself in the sea or to bury himself in the earth (for stags, whenever their horns fall off, bury them out of sight underground[*](Cf.Moralia, 700 d.)); but he waited for a short time, and then, when the state of his aflairs became altogether desperate, he had to leave the country. And the friends of Timarchus seized him, slew him, and cast forth his dead body into the sea.

Most important of all is the fact that the decrees through which Lycurgus gave form and order to the Spartan constitution were given to him in prose.

Now Herodotus and Philochorus and Ister, men who were most assiduous in collecting prophecies in verse, have quoted countless oracles not in verse; but Theopompus, who has given more diligent study to the oracle than any one man, has strongly rebuked those who do not believe that in his time the prophetic priestess used verse in her oracular responses. Afterwards, wishing to prove this, he has found to support his contention an altogether meagre number of such oracles, indicating that the others were given out in prose even as early as that time.