De Defectu Oraculorum

When Ammonius had ceased speaking, I said, Won’t you rather tell us all about the oracle, Cleombrotus? For great was the ancient repute of the divine influence there, but at the present time it seems to be somewhat evanescent.

As Cleombrotus made no reply and did not look up, Demetrius said, There is no need to make any inquiries nor to raise any questions about the state of affairs there, when we see the evanescence of the oracles here, or rather the total disappearance of all but one or two; but we should deliberate the reason wrhy they have become so utterly weak. What need to speak of others, when in Boeotia, which in former times spoke with many tongues because of its oracles, the oracles have now failed completely, even as if they were streams of flowing water, and a great drought in prophecy has overspread the land? For nowhere now except in the neighbourhood of Lebadeia has Boeotia aught to offer to those who would draw from the well-spring of prophecy. As for the rest, silence has come upon some and utter desolation upon others. And yet at the time of the Persian Wars many had gained a high repute, that of Ptoan Apollo no less than that of Amphiaraüs; Mys, as it seems, made

trial of both.[*](The mss. show several lacunae and corruptions here; the general sense must be restored from Herodotus, viii. 133-135. For some unexplained reason Plutarch in his Life of Aristeides, chap. xix. (330 c) and Pausanias, ix. 23, lay this scene at the oracle of Trophonius at Lebadeia.) The prophetic priest of this oracle, accustomed in former times to use the Aeolic dialect, on that occasion took the side of the barbarians and gave forth an oracle such that no one else of those present comprehended it, but only Mys himself, since it is quite clear from the inspired language then used by the prophetic priest that it is not for barbarians ever to receive a word in the Greek tongue subservient to their command.[*](Cf.Life of Themistocles, chap. vi. (114 d); Life of Cato the Elder, chap. xxiii. (350 c).)

The minion who was sent to the oracle of Amphiaraüs had, in his sleep[*](The oracle of Amphiaraüs was an incubation oracle: the consultants went to sleep in the shrine and received their answer in dreams.) there, a vision of a servant of the god who appeared to him and tried first to eject him by word of mouth, alleging that the god was not there; then next he tried to push him away with his hands, and, when the man persisted in staying, took up a large stone and smote him on the head. All this was in harmony, as it were, with events to come; for Mardonius was vanquished while the Greeks were led, not by a king, but by a guardian and deputy of a king[*](Mardonius was defeated at Plataea in 479 b.c. by the Greeks under the command of Pausanias, who was regent of Sparta and guardian of Pleistarchus, son of Leonidas.); and he fell, struck by a stone j ust as the Lydian dreamed that he was struck in his sleep.

That time, too, was the most flourishing period of the oracle at Tegyrae, which place also by tradition is the birthplace of the god; and of the two streams of

water that flow past it, the inhabitants even to this day call the one Palm and the other Olive. [*](Plutarch gives more information about Tegyrae in his Life of Pelopidas, chap. xvi. (286 b).) Now in the Persian Wars, when Echecrates was the prophetic priest, the god prophesied for the Greeks victory and might in war; and in the Peloponnesian War, when the people of Delos had been driven out of their island,[*](In the year 421 b.c. (Thucydides, v. 1).) an oracle, it is said, was brought to them from Delphi directing them to find the place where Apollo was born, and to perform certain sacrifices there. While they were wondering and questioning the mere possibility that the god had been born, not in their island, but somewhere else, the prophetic priestess told them in another oracle that a crow would show them the spot. So they went away and, when they reached Chaeroneia, they heard the woman who kept their inn conversing about the oracle with some strangers who were on their way to Tegyrae. The strangers, as they were leaving, bade good-bye to the woman and called her by her name, which actually was Crow. Then the Delians understood the meaning of the oracle and, having offered sacrifice in Tegyrae, they found a way to return home a short time thereafter. There have been also more recent manifestations than these at these oracles, but now the oracles are no more; so it is well worth while, here in the precinct of the Pythian god, to examine into the reason for the change.