De Defectu Oraculorum

Plutarch’s answer to the question why many oracles in Greece have ceased to function is that the population is now much less than it was, and so there is less need for oracles now than in earlier times. For example, at Delphi there used to be twro prophetic priestesses with a third held in reserve; now there is only one, and yet she is sufficient for every need.

The statement of this simple fact hardly requires twenty-nine folio pages, but in this essay, as in the two preceding, there is much of the conversation of cultured persons which is not directly connected with the subject. Thus we find a discussion of whether the year is growing shorter, whether the number of the worlds is one or some number not more than five or is one hundred and eighty-three. We have further discussion of the number five, some astronomy, and a good deal of geometry, some interesting bits of information about Britain and the East and a rather long discussion of the daimones, the beings a little lower than the gods and considerably higher than mortals; perhaps the translation demi-gods might best convey the idea in English. These beings are thought by many persons to be in charge of the oracles; certainly the god himself does not appear personally at his oracles; and in the case of the

oracle at Delphi some account is given of the accidental discovery by a shepherd of the peculiar powers of the exhalation from the cleft in the rocks.

Students of English literature will be interested in the dramatic description of the announcement of the death of Pan; and students of religion will be interested in the essay as a very early effort to reconcile science and religion. That the essay had an appeal to theologians is clear from the generous quotations made from it by Eusebius and Theodoretus. We could wish that they had quoted even more, since their text is usually superior to that contained in the manuscripts, which in some places are quite hopeless. The mss. have also an unusual number of lacunae. Much has been done in the way of correction, sometimes perhaps too much, since Plutarch’s thought is not always necessarily so logical as the editors would make it.

Some parts of the essay make rather difficult reading, but it also contains passages of considerable interest and even beauty.

The essay is No. 88 in Lamprias’s list of Plutarch’s works.

The conversation is professedly narrated by Plutarch’s brother Lamprias to Terentius Priscus, but some have thought that Plutarch has used the person of Lamprias to represent himself, possibly because of the official position held by Plutarch at Delphi.

(The persons taking part in the conversation are: Lamprias, Demetrius, Cleombrotus, Ammonius, Philip, Didymus, and Heracleon.)

The story[*](The numerous other references to this story may be found most conveniently in Frazer’s Pausanias, v. p. 315.) is told, my dear Terentius Priscus, that certain eagles or swans, flying from the uttermost parts of the earth towards its centre, met in Delphi at the omphalus, as it is called; and at a later time Epimenides[*](Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, ii. p. 191, Epimenides, no. b 11.) of Phaestus put the story to test by referring it to the god and upon receiving a vague and ambiguous oracle said,

1. Now do we know that there is no mid-centre of earth or of ocean;
2. Yet if there be, it is known to the gods, but is hidden from mortals.

Now very likely the god repulsed him from his attempt to investigate an ancient myth as though it were a painting to be tested by the touch.

Yet a short time before the Pythian games, which were held when Callistratus[*](The year 83-84 a.d.) was in office in our own day, it happened that two revered men coming from opposite ends of the inhabited earth met together at Delphi,

Demetrius[*](Cf. Inscript. Graec. xiv. no. 2548 Θεοῖς τοῖς τοῦ ἡγεμονικοῦ Πραιτωρίου Σκριβ(ώνιος) (others σκρῖβα) Δημήτριος and Ὠκεανῷ καὶ Τηθύι Δημήτρι(ος). Cf. also Huebner, Ephemeris Epigr. iii. 312; Clark, Archaeol. Jour. xlii. p. 425; Dessau, in Hermes, xlvi. (1911) pp. 156 ff.) the grammarian journeying homeward from Britain to Tarsus, and Cleombrotus of Sparta, who had made many excursions in Egypt and about the land of the Cave-dwellers, and had sailed beyond the Persian Gulf; his journevings were not for business, but he was fond of seeing things and of acquiring knowledge; he had wealth enough, and felt that it was not of any great moment to have more than enough, and so he employed his leisure for such purposes; he was getting together a history to serve as a basis for a philosophy that had as its end and aim theology, as he himself named it. He had recently been at the shrine of Ammon, and it was plain that he was not particularly impressed by most of the things there, but in regard to the everburning lamp he related a story told by the priests which deserves special consideration; it is that the lamp consumes less and less oil each year, and they hold that this is a proof of a disparity in the years, which all the time is making one year shorter in duration than its predecessor; for it is reasonable that in less duration of time the amount consumed should be less.

The company was surprised at this, and Demetrius went so far as to say that it was ridiculous to try in this way to draw great conclusions from small data, not, as Alcaeus[*](Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. iii. p. 184, Alcaeus, no. 113.) puts it, painting the lion from a single claw, but with a wick and lamp postulating a mutation in the heavens and the universe, and doing away completely with mathematical science.

Neither of these things, said Cleombrotus, will disturb these men; certainly they will not concede any superior accuracy to the mathematicians, since it is more likely that a set period of time, in movements and cycles so far away, should elude mathematical calculation than that the measurement of the oil should elude the very men who were always giving careful attention to the anomaly and watching it closely because of its strangeness. Besides, Demetrius, not to allow that small things are indication of great stands directly in the way of many arts; for it will result in taking away from us the demonstration of many facts and the prognostication of many others. Yet you people try to demonstrate to us also a matter of no small importance: that the heroes of old shaved their bodies with a razor, because you meet with the word razor in Homer[*](Il. x. 173.); also that they lent money on interest because Homer[*](Od. iii. 367-368.) somewhere says that a debt is owing, not recent nor small, the assumption being that owing signifies accumulating. And again when Homer[*](Il. x. 394, for example; cf. also Moralia, 923 b. Further explanation of the idea that Θοός may mean conical may be found in the Life and Poetry of Homer, 21 (Bernardakis’s edition, vol. vii. p. 347).) speaks of the night as swift, you cling to the expression with great satisfaction and say that it means this: that the Earth’s shadow is by him called conical, being caused by a spherical body; and as for the idea that medical science can predict a pestilential summer by a multitude of spiders’ webs or by the fig-leaves in the spring when they are like crows’ feet, who of those that insist that small things are not indications of great will allow this to go unchallenged? Who will endure

that the magnitude of the sun be measured by reference to a quart or a gill, or that, in the sun-diai here, the inclination of the acute angle which its shadow makes with the level plane be called the measurement of the elevation of the ever-visible pole above the horizon? This was what one might hear from the priests of the prophetic shrine there; so some other rejoinder must be offered to them, if we would make for the sun the wonted order of its course immutable, in accord with the tradition of the ages.

Thereupon Ammonius the philosopher, who was present, exclaimed, Not for the sun only, but for the whole heavens. For the sun’s course in passing from solstice to solstice must inevitably become shorter and not continue to be so large a part of the horizon as the mathematicians say it is, since the southern portion is constantly subject to a contracting movement, which brings it closer to the northern portion; and so our summer must become shorter and its temperature lower, as the sun turns about within narrower limits and touches fewer parallels of latitude at the solstitial points; moreover, the phenomenon observed at Syenê,[*](Syenê was on the Tropic of Cancer, and because of the fact that on the day of the summer solstice the sun was directly overhead it was used by Eratosthenes (third century b.c.) as one of the termini in calculating the circumference of the Earth. Cleomedes, On the Circular Movement of Heavenly Bodies, i. 10, describes Eratosthenes’ method.) where the upright rods on the sun-dials cast no shadow at the time of the summer solstice, is bound to be a thing of the past; many of the fixed stars must have gone below the horizon, and some of them must be touching one another, or have become coalescent, as the space separating them has disappeared! But if, on the other hand, they are going to assert that, while all the other bodies are without change, the sun displays

irregularity in its movements, they will not be able to state the cause of the acceleration which affects the sun alone among so many bodies, and they will throw into confusion almost all the celestial mechanics, and into complete confusion those relating to the moon, so that they will have no need of measures of oil to prove the difference. In fact, the eclipses will prove it, as the sun more frequently casts a shadow on the moon and the moon on the earth; the other facts are clear, and there is no need to disclose in further detail the imposture in the argument.

But, said Cleombrotus, I myself actually saw the measure; for they had many of them to show, and that of this past year failed to come up to the very oldest by not a little.

Then, said Ammonius, taking up the argument again, this fact has escaped the notice of the other peoples among whom ever-burning fires have been cherished and kept alive for a period of years which might be termed infinite? But on the assumption that the report is true, is it not better to assign the cause to some coldness or moisture in the air by which the flame is made to languish, and so very likely does not take up nor need very much to support it? Or, quite the reverse, may we assign the cause to spells of dryness and heat? In fact, I have heard people say before this regarding fire, that it burns better in the winter,[*](Cf. Plutarch, Comment. on Hesiod, Works and Days, 559 (Bernardakis’s edition, vol. vii. p. 78).) being strongly compacted and condensed by the cold; whereas in warm, dry times it is very weak and loses its compactness and intensity, and if it burns in the sunlight, it does even worse, and takes hold of the fuel without energy, and consumes it more slowly. Best of all, the cause might be assigned to the oil itself; for it is not unlikely that in days of old it

contained incombustible material and water, being produced from young trees; but that later, being ripened on full-grown trees and concentrated, it should, in an equal quantity, show more strength and provide a better fuel, if the people at Ammon’s shrine must have their assumption preserved for them in spite of its being so strange and unusual.

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.

Proceeding onward from the temple, we had by this time reached the doors of the Cnidian Clubhouse.[*](In the north-east corner of the sacred precinct. The foundations may still be seen.) Accordingly we passed inside, and there we saw sitting and waiting for us the friends to whom

we were going. There was quiet among the other people there because of the hour, as they were engaged in taking a rub-down or else watching the athletes. Then Demetrius with a smile said, Shall I tell you a falsehood or speak out the truth?[*](Homer, Od. iv. 140.) You seem to have on hand nothing worth considering; for I see that you are sitting about quite at your ease and with faces quite relaxed.

Yes, said Heracleon of Megara in reply, for we are not investigating which of the two lambdas in the verb hurl [*](Present βάλλω, future βαλῶ .) is the one that it loses in the future tense; nor from what positives the adjectives worse and better and worst and best are formed; for these and similar problems may set the face in hard lines, but the others it is possible to examine in a philosophic spirit, without knitting the brows, and to investigate quietly without any fierce looks or any hard feelings against the company.

Then permit us to come in, said Demetrius, and with us a subject which has naturally occurred to us, one which is related to the place and concerns all of us on account of the god; and beware of knitting your brows when you attack it!

When, accordingly, we had joined their company and seated ourselves among them and Demetrius had laid the subject before them, up sprang at once the Cynic Didymus, by nickname Planetiades, and, striking the ground two or three times with his staff, cried out, Aha! a difficult matter to decide and one requiring much investigation is that which you have come bringing to us! It is indeed a wonder, when so much wickedness has been disseminated upon earth that not only Modesty and Righteous Indignation, as Hesiod[*](Works and Days, 199.) said long ago, have deserted the life

of mankind, but that Divine Providence also has gathered up its oracles and departed from every place! Quite the contrary, I propose that you discuss how it happens that the oracle here has not also given out, and Heracles for a second time, or some other god, has not wrested away the tripod[*](Cf. 387 d, supra, and the note.) which is constantly being occupied with shameful and impious questions which people propound[*](Cf. 408 c, supra.) to the god, some of whom try to make a test of him as though his wisdom were an affectation, while others init questions about treasures or inheritances or unawful marriages; so Pythagoras[*](Cf.Moralia, 169 e.) is proved to be utterly wrong in asserting that men are at their best when they approach the gods. Thus those maladies and emotions of the soul which it would be good to disclaim and conceal in the presence of an older man, they bring naked and exposed before the god.

He would have said more, but Heracleon seized hold of his cloak, and I, being about as intimate with him as anybody, said, Cease provoking the god, my dear Planetiades; for he is of a good and mild disposition,

And towards mortal men he hath been judged the most gentle,

as Pindar[*](Ibid. 394 a and 1102 e; Pindar, Frag. 149 (ed. Christ).) says. And whether he be the sun[*](Cf. 386 b, supra, and the note.) or the lord and father of the sun and of all that lies beyond our vision,[*](The language is reminiscent of ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας (Plato, Republic 509 b).) it is not likely that he should deny his utterance to people of the present day because of their unworthiness, when he is responsible for their birth and nurture and their existence and power to think; nor is it likely withal that Providence, like a benign and helpful mother, who does everything for us and watches over us, should cherish animosity in the matter of prophecy only, and take away that from us after having given it to us at the beginning, as if the number of wicked men included among a larger population were not larger at that earlier time when the oracles were established in many places in the inhabited world! Come, sit down again and make a Pythian truce[*](The sacred truce, made throughout the Greek world, for the duration of the Pythian games.) with evil, which you are wont to chastise with words every day, and join us in seeking some other reason for what is spoken of as the obsolescence of oracles; but keep the god benign and provoke him not to wrath.

What I had said was so far effective that Planetiades went out through the door without another word.

There was quiet for a moment, and then Ammonius, addressing himself to me, said, See what it is that we are doing, Lamprias, and concentrate your thoughts on our subject so that we shall not relieve the god of responsibility. The fact is that the man who holds that the obsolescence of such of the oracles as have ceased to function has been brought about by some other cause and not by the will of a god gives reason for suspecting that he believes that their creation and continued existence was not due to the god, but was brought about in some other way. For prophecy is something created by a god, and certainly no greater or more potent force exists to abolish and obliterate it. Now I do not like what Planetiades said, and one of the reasons is the inconsistency which it creates regarding the god,

who in one way turns away from wickedness and disavows it, and again in another way welcomes its presence; just as if some king or despot should shut out bad men at certain doors and let them in at others and have dealings with them. Now moderation, adequacy, excess in nothing, and complete selfsufficiency are above all else the essential characteristics of everything done by the gods; and if anyone should take this fact as a starting-point, and assert that Greece has far more than its share in the general depopulation which the earlier discords and wars have wrought throughout practically the whole inhabited earth, and that to-day the whole of Greece would hardly muster three thousand men-at-arms, which is the number that the one city of the Megarians sent forth to Plataeae[*](Cf. Herodotus, ix. 21 and 28.) (for the god’s abandoning of many oracles is nothing other than his way of substantiating the desolation of Greece), in this way such a man would give some accurate evidence of his keenness in reasoning. For who would profit if there were an oracle in Tegyrae, as there used to be, or at Ptoiim, where during some part of the day one might possibly meet a human being pasturing his flocks? And regarding the oracle here at Delphi, the most ancient in time and the most famous in repute, men record that for a long time it was made desolate and unapproachable by a fierce creature, a serpent; they do not, however, put the correct interpretation upon its lying idle, but quite the reverse; for it was the desolation that attracted the creature rather than that the creature caused the desolation. But when Greece, since God so willed, had grown strong in cities and the place was thronged with people, they used to employ two prophetic priestesses who were sent down in turn; and a third was appointed to be held in reserve. But to-day there is one priestess and we do not complain, for she meets every need. There is no reason, therefore, to blame the god; the exercise of the prophetic art which continues at the present day is sufficient for all, and sends away all with their desires fulfilled. Agamemnon,[*](Homer, Il. ii. 96.) for example, used nine heralds and, even so, had difficulty in keeping the assembly in order because of the vast numbers; but here in Delphi, a few days hence, in the theatre you will see that one voice reaches all. In the same way, in those days, prophecy employed more voices to speak to more people, but to-day, quite the reverse, we should needs be surprised at the god if he allowed his prophecies to run to waste, like water, or to echo like the rocks with the voices of shepherds and flocks in waste places.

When Ammonius had said this and I remained silent, Cleombrotus, addressing himself to me, said, Already you have conceded this point, that the god both creates and abolishes these prophetic shrines.

No indeed, said I, my contention is that no prophetic shrine or oracle is ever abolished by the instrumentality of the god. He creates and provides many other things for us, and upon some of these Nature brings destruction and disintegration; or rather, the matter composing them, being itself a force for disintegration, often reverts rapidly to its earlier state and causes the dissolution of what was created by the more potent instrumentality; and it is in this way, I think, that in the next period there are dimmings and abolitions of the prophetic agencies; for while the god gives many fair things to

mankind, he gives nothing imperishable, so that, as Sophocles[*](Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 311, Sophocles, no. 766 (no. 850 Pearson). The same thought is in the Oedipus at Colonus, 607.) puts it, the works of gods may die, but not the gods. Their presence and power wise men are ever telling us we must look for in Nature and in Matter, where it is manifested, the originating influence being reserved for the Deity, as is right. Certainly it is foolish and childish in the extreme to imagine that the god himself after the manner of ventriloquists (who used to be called Eurycleis, [*](Eurycles was a famous ventriloquist. Cf. Plato, Sophist, 252 c, and Aristophanes, Wasps, 1019, with the scholium.) but now Pythones) enters into the bodies of his prophets and prompts their utterances, employing their mouths and voices as instruments.[*](Cf. 397 c and 404 b, supra.) For if he allows himself to become entangled in mens needs, he is prodigal with his majesty and he does not observe the dignity and greatness of his preeminence.

You are right, said Cleombrotus; but since it is hard to apprehend and to define in what way and to what extent Providence should be brought in as an agent, those who make the god responsible for nothing at all and those who make him responsible for all things alike go wide of moderation and propriety. They put the case well who say that Plato,[*](In the Timaeus, 48 e ff., for example.) by his discovery of the element underlying all created qualities, which is now called Matter and Nature, has relieved philosophers of many great perplexities; but, as it seems to me, those persons have resolved more and greater perplexities

who have set the race of demigods midway between gods and men,[*](Cf. Plutarch, Comment. on Hesiod, Works and Days, 122 (Bernardakis’s edition, vol. vii. p. 52); cf. also 390 e, supra.) and have discovered a force to draw together, in a way, and to unite our common fellowship - whether this doctrine comes from the wise men of the cult of Zoroaster, or whether it is Thracian and harks back to Orpheus, or is Egyptian, or Phrygian, as we may infer from observing that many things connected with death and mourning in the rites of both lands are combined in the ceremonies so fervently celebrated there. Among the Greeks, Homer, moreover, appears to use both names in common and sometimes to speak of the gods as demigods; but Hesiod[*](Cf. Plutarch, Comment. on Hesiod, Works and Days, 122 (Bernardakis’s edition, vol. vii. p. 52); cf. also 390 e, supra.) was the first to set forth clearly and distinctly four classes of rational beings: gods, demigods, heroes, in this order, and, last of all, men; and as a sequence to this, apparently, he postulates his transmutation, the golden race passing selectively into many good divinities, and the demigods into heroes.

Others postulate a transmutation for bodies and souls alike; in the same manner in which water is seen to be generated from earth, air from water, and fine from air, as their substance is borne upward, even so from men into heroes and from heroes into demigods the better souls obtain their transmutation. But from the demigods a few souls still, in the long reach of time, because of supreme excellence, come, after being purified, to share completely in divine qualities. But with some of these souls it comes to pass that they do not maintain control over themselves, but yield to temptation and are again clothed

with mortal bodies and have a dim and darkened life, like mist or vapour.

Hesiod thinks that with the lapse of certain periods of years the end comes even to the demigods; for, speaking in the person of the Naiad, he indirectly suggests the length of time with these words:[*](Hesiod, Frag. 183 (ed. Rzach); Cf. the Latin version of Ausonius, p. 93, ed. Peiper (1886). See also Moralia, 989 a; Martial, x. 67; Achilles Tatius, iv. 4. 3.)

1. Nine generations long is the life of the crow and his cawing,
2. Nine generations of vigorous men.[*](Cf. Aristophanes, Birds, 609.) Lives of four crows together
3. Equal the life of a stag, and three stags the old age of a raven;
4. Nine of the lives of the raven the life of the Phoenix doth equal;
5. Ten of the Phoenix we Nymphs, fair daughters of Zeus of the aegis.

Those that do not interpret generation well make an immense total of this time; but it really means a year, so that the sum of the life of these divinities is nine thousand, seven hundred and twenty years, less than most mathematicians think, and more than Pindar[*](Pindar, Frag. 165 (ed. Christ); quoted also in Moralia, 757 f.) has stated when he says that the Nymphs live

Allotted a term as long as the years of a tree,

and for this reason he calls them Hamadryads.

While he was still speaking Demetrius, interrupting him, said, How is it, Cleombrotus, that you can say that the year has been called a generation? For neither of a man in his vigour nor in his eld, as some read the passage, is the span of human life such

as this. Those who read in their vigour make a generation thirty years, in accord with Heracleitus,[*](Cf. Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 76, Heracleitus, no. a 19.) a time sufficient for a father to have a son who is a father also; but again those who write in their eld and not in their vigour assign an hundred and eight years to a generation; for they say that fifty-four marks the limit of the middle years of human life, a number which is made up of the first number, the first two plane surfaces, two squares and two cubes,[*](That is 1 + (1x2) + (1x3) + 4 + 9 + 8 + 27 = 54.) numbers which Plato also took in his Generation of the Soul.[*](Cf. Plato, Timaeus, 34 c - 35 a.) The whole matter as stated by Hesiod seems to contain a veiled reference to the Conflagration, when the disappearance of all liquids will most likely be accompanied by the extinction of the Nymphs,

1. Who in the midst of fair woodlands,
2. Sources of rivers, and grass-covered meadows have their abiding.[*](Homer, Il. xx. 8-9.)

Yes, said Cleombrotus, I hear this from many persons, and I observe that the Stoic Conflagration, just as it feeds on the verses of Heracleitus and Orpheus, is also seizing upon those of Hesiod. But I cannot brook this talk of universal destruction; and such impossibilities, in recalling to our minds these utterances, especially those about the crow and the stag, must be allowed to revert upon those that indulge in such exaggeration. Does not a year include within itself the beginning and the end of all things which the Seasons and the Earth make grow, [*](Cf. Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 97, Heracleitus, no. b 100.) and is it not foreign to men’s ways to

call it a generation? As a matter of fact you yourselves surely agree that Hesiod by the word generation means a man’s life. Is not that so?

Yes, said Demetrius.

And this fact also is clear, said Cleombrotus, that often the measure and the things measured are called by the same name, as, for example, gill, quart, gallon, and bushel.[*](Cf. Censorinus, De die natali ad Iu. Caerellium, xviii. 11, and Geffcken in Hermes, xlix. 336.) In the same way, then, in which we call unity a number, being, as it is, the smallest number and the first; so the year, which we use as the first measure of man’s life, Hesiod has called by the same name as the thing measured, a generation. The fact is that the numbers which those other persons produce have none of those notable and conspicuous qualities which may be inherent in numbers. The number nine thousand, seven hundred and twenty[*](Cf. 415 d, supra.) has been produced by adding together the first four numbers and multiplying them by four,[*]((1 + 2 + 3 + 4) x 4 = 40.) or by multiplying four by ten. Either process gives forty, and when this is multiplied five times by three it gives the specified number.[*](40 x 35 = 9720.) But concerning these matters there is no need for us to disagree with Demetrius. In fact, even if the period of time in which the soul of the demigod or hero changes its life[*](Cf. 415 b, supra.) be longer or shorter, determinate or indeterminate, none the less the proof will be there on the basis which he desires, fortified by clear testimony from ancient times, that in the confines, as it were, between gods and men there exist certain natures susceptible to

human emotions and involuntary changes, whom it is right that we, like our fathers before us, should regard as demigods, and, calling them by that name, should reverence them.

As an illustration of this subject, Xenocrates, the companion of Plato, employed the order of the triangles; the equilateral he compared to the nature of the gods, the scalene to that of man, and the isosceles to that of the demigods; for the first is equal in all its lines, the second unequal in all, and the third is partly equal and partly unequal, like the nature of the demigods, which has human emotions and godlike power. Nature has placed within our ken perceptible images and visible likenesses, the sun and the stars for the gods, and for mortal men beams of light,[*](All last night the northern streamers flashed across the western sky.) comets, and meteors, a comparison which Euripides[*](Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 674, Euripides, no 971. Plutarch quotes the lines again in Moralia, 1090 c.) has made in the verses:

1. He that but yesterday was vigorous
2. Of frame, even as a star from heaven falls,
3. Gave up in death his spirit to the air.

But there is a body with complex characteristics which actually parallels the demigods, namely the moon; and when men see that she, by her being consistently in accord with the cycles through which those beings pass,[*](Cf.Moralia, 361 c, and the lines of Empedocles there quoted.) is subject to apparent wanings and waxings and transformations,some call her an earth-like star, others a star-like earth,[*](Ibid. 935 c.) and others the domain of Hecate, who belongs both to the earth and to the heavens. Now if the air that is between the earth and the moon were to be removed and withdrawn, the unity and consociation of the universe would be destroyed, since there would be an empty and unconnected space in the middle; and in just the same way those who refuse to leave us the race of demigods make the relations of gods and men remote and alien by doing away with the interpretative and ministering nature, as Plato[*](Cf.Republic, 260 d, and Symposium, 202 e.) has called it; or else they force us to a disorderly confusion of all things, in which we bring the god into men’s emotions and activities, drawing him down to our needs, as the women of Thessaly are said to draw down the moon.[*](Cf. the note on 400 b supra.) This cunning deceit of theirs, however, gained credence among women when the daughter of Hegetor, Aglaonicê, who was skilled in astronomy, always pretended at the time of an eclipse of the moon that she was bewitching it and bringing it down.[*](Cf.Moralia, 145 c.) But as for us, let us not listen to any who say that there are some oracles not divinely inspired, or religious ceremonies and mystic rites which are disregarded by the gods; and on the other hand let us not imagine that the god goes in and out and is present at these ceremonies and helps in conducting them; but let us commit these matters to those ministers of the gods to whom it is right to commit them, as to servants and clerks, and let us believe that demigods are guardians of sacred rites of the gods and prompters in the Mysteries, while others go about as avengers of arrogant and grievous cases of injustice. Still others Hesiod[*](Works and Days, 123, 126; cf. also Moralia, 361 b, supra.) has very impressively addressed as

1. Holy
2. Givers of wealth, and possessing in this a meed that is kingly,

implying that doing good to people is kingly. For as among men, so also among the demigods., there are different degrees of excellence, and in some there is a weak and dim remainder of the emotional and irrational, a survival, as it were, while in others this is excessive and hard to stifle. Of all these things there are, in many places, sacrifices, ceremonies, andlegends which preserve and jealously guard vestiges and tokens embodied here and there in their fabric.

Regarding the rites of the Mysteries, in which it is possible to gain the clearest reflections and adumbrations of the truth about the demigods, let my lips be piously sealed, as Herodotus[*](Herodotus, ii. 171; cf. Moralia, 607 c and 636 d.) says; but as for festivals and sacrifices, which may be compared with ill-omened and gloomy days, in which occur the eating of raw flesh, rending of victims, fasting, and beating of breasts, and again in many places scurrilous language at the shrines, and

1. Frenzy and shouting of throngs in excitement
2. With tumultuous tossing of heads in the air,[*](Pindar, Frag. 208 (ed. Christ). Cf.Moralia, 623 b and 706 e.)

I should say that these acts are not performed for any god, but are soothing and appeasing rites for the averting of evil spirits. Nor is it credible that the gods demanded or welcomed the human sacrifices of ancient days, nor would kings and generals have endured giving over their children and submitting them to the preparatory rites and cutting their throats to no purpose save that they felt they were propitiating and offering satisfaction to the wrath and sullen temper of some harsh and implacable avenging deities, or to the insane and imperious passions of some who had not the power or desire to seek satisfaction in a natural and normal way. But as Heracles laid siege to Oechalia for the sake of a maiden,[*](Iolê; cf. e.g. Sophocles, Trachiniae, 475-478.) so powerful and impetuous divinities, in demanding a human soul which is incarnate within a mortal body, bring pestilences and failures of crops upon States and stir up wars and civil discords, until they succeed in obtaining what they desire. To some, however, comes the opposite; for example, when I was spending a considerable time in Crete, I noted an extraordinary festival being celebrated there in which they exhibit the image of a man without a head, and relate that this used to be Molus,[*](A son of Deucalion.) father of Meriones, and that he violated a young woman; and when he was discovered, he was without a head.

As for the various tales of rapine and wanderings of the gods, their concealments and banishment and servitude, which men rehearse in legend and in song, all these are, in fact, not things that were done to the gods or happened to them, but to the demigods; and they are kept in memory because of the virtues and power of these beings; nor did Aeschylus[*](Aeschylus, Supplices, 214.) speak devoutly when he said

Holy Apollo, god from heaven banned;

nor Admetus in Sophocles,[*](Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 311, Sophocles, no. 767 (no. 851 Pearson).)

My cock it was that sent him to the mill.

But the greatest error in regard to the truth is that of the theologians of Delphi who think that the god once had a battle here with a serpent for the possession of the oracle, and they permit poets and prose-writers to tell of this in their competitions in the theatres, whereby they bear specific testimony against the most sacred of the rites that they perform.

At this Philip the historian, who was present, expressed surprise, and inquired against what hallowed rites Cleombrotus thought that the competition bore testimony. These, said Cleombrotus, which have to do with the oracle here, and in which the city recently initiated all the Greeks west of Thermopylae and extended the rites as far as Tempê. For the structure which is erected here near the threshing-floor[*](At the right of the second section of the sacred way, as one progresses upwards toward the temple of Apollo.) every eight years[*](See Moralia, 293 b-e.) is not a nest-like serpent’s den, but a copy of the dwelling of a despot or king.[*](That is, a copy of the primitive circular house.) The onset upon it, which is made in silence through the way called Dolon’s Way, by which the Labyadae with lighted torches conduct the boy, who must have two parents living, and, after, applying fire to the structure and upsetting the table, flee through the doors of the temple without looking back; and finally the wanderings and servitude of the boy and the purifications that take place at Tempê — all prompt a suspicion of some great and unholy deed of daring. For it is utterly ridiculous, my good friend, that Apollo, after slaying a brute creature, should flee to the ends of Greece in quest of purification and, after arriving there, should offer some libations and perform those ceremonies which men perform in the effort to placate and mollify the wrath of spirits whom

men call the unforgetting avengers, as if they followed up the memories of some unforgotten foul deeds of earlier days. And as for the story which I have heard before about this flight and the removal to another place, it is dreadfully strange and paradoxical, but if it has any vestige of truth in it, let us not imagine that what was done in those days about the oracle was any slight or common affair. But that I may not seem to be doing what is described by Empedocles[*](Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 235, Empedocles, no. b 24.) as

1. Putting the heads of myths together,
2. Bringing no single path to perfection,

permit me to add to what was said at the outset the proper conclusion, for we have already come to it. Let this statement be ventured by us, following the lead of many others before us, that coincidently with the total defection of the guardian spirits assigned to the oracles and prophetic shrines, occurs the defection of the oracles themselves; and when the spirits flee or go to another place, the oracles themselves lose their power, but when the spirits return many years later, the oracles, like musical instruments, become articulate, since those who can put them to use are present and in charge of them.

When Cleombrotus had expounded these matters, Heracleon said, There is no unsanctified or irreligious person present, or anyone who holds opinions about the gods that are out of keeping with ours; but let us ourselves be stringently on our guard lest we unwittingly try to support the argument with extraordinary and presumptuous hypotheses. That is a very good suggestion, said Philip,

but which of the theses of Cleombrotus makes you the most uncomfortable?

That it is not the gods, said Heracleon, who are in charge of the oracles, since the gods ought properly to be freed of earthly concerns; but that it is the demigods, ministers of the gods, who have them in charge, seems to me not a bad postulate; but to take, practically by the handful, from the verses of Empedocles[*](Cf. Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, i. p. 267, Empedocles, no. b 115.) sins, rash crimes, and heaven-sent wanderings, and to impose them upon the demigods, and to assume that their final fate is death, just as with men, I regard as rather too audacious and uncivilized.

Cleombrotus was moved to ask Philip who the young man was and whence he carne; and after learning his name and his city he said, It is not unwittingly, Heracleon, that we have become involved in strange arguments; but it is impossible, when discussing important matters, to make any progress in our ideas toward the probable truth without employing for this purpose important principles. But you unwittingly take back what you concede; for you agree that these demigods exist, but by your postulating that they are not bad nor mortal you no longer keep them; for in what respect do they differ from gods, if as regards their being they possess immortality and as regards their virtues freedom from all emotion or sin ?

As Heracleon was reflecting upon this in silence, Philip said, Not only has Empedocles bequeathed to us bad demigods, Heracleon, but so also have Plato, Xenocrates, and Chrysippus[*](Cf. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ii. 1104 (p. 321).); and,

in addition, Demolitus,[*](Cf. Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker, ii. p. 94, Democritus, no. 166; and Life of Timoleon, chap. i. (235 b).) by his prayer that he may meet with propitious spirits, clearly recognized that there is another class of these which is perverse and possessed of vicious predilections and impulses.

As for death among such beings, I have heard the words of a man who was not a fool nor an impostor. The father of Aemilianus the orator, to whom some of you have listened, was Epitherses, who lived in our town and was my teacher in grammar. He said that once upon a time in making a voyage to Italy he embarked on a ship carrying freight and many passengers. It was already evening when, near the Echinades Islands, the wind dropped, and the ship drifted near Paxi. Almost everybody was awake, and a good many had not finished their after-dinner wine. Suddenly from the island of Paxi was heard the voice of someone loudly calling Thamus, so that all were amazed. Thamus was an Egyptian pilot, not known by name even to many on board. Twice he was called and made no reply, but the third time he answered; and the caller, raising his voice, said, When you come opposite to Palodes, announce that Great Pan is dead. On hearing this, all, said Epitherses, were astounded and reasoned among themselves whether it were better to carry out the order or to refuse to meddle and let the matter go. Under the circumstances Thamus made up his mind that if there should be a breeze, he would sail past and keep quiet, but with no wind and a smooth sea

about the place he would announce what he had heard. So, when he came opposite Palodes, and there was neither wind nor wave, Thamus from the stern, looking toward the land, said the words as he had heard them: Great Pan is dead. Even before he had finished there was a great cry of lamentation, not of one person, but of many, mingled with exclamations of amazement. As many persons were on the vessel, the story was soon spread abroad in Rome, and Thamus was sent for by Tiberius Caesar. Tiberius became so convinced of the truth of the story that he caused an inquiry and investigation to be made about Pan; and the scholars, who were numerous at his court, conjectured that he was the son born of Hermes and Penelopê.[*](Cf. Herodotus, ii. 145.)

Moreover, Philip had several witnesses among the persons present who had been pupils of the old man Aemilianus.

Demetrius said that among the islands lying near Britain[*](Presumably the Scilly islands; cf. Moralia, 941 a - 942 a.) were many isolated, having few or no inhabitants, some of which bore the names of divinities or heroes. He himself, by the emperor’s order, had made a voyage for inquiry and observation to the nearest of these islands which had only a few inhabitants, holy men who were all held inviolate by the Britons. Shortly after his arrival there occurred a great tumult in the air and many portents; violent winds suddenly swept down and lightning-flashes darted to earth. When these abated, the people of the island said that the passing of someone of the mightier souls had befallen. For, said they, as

a lamp when it is being lighted has no terrors, but when it goes out is distressing to many,[*](Cf. the interesting account which Plutarch gives in Moralia, 941 a ff., and Lucretius’s statement that a smouldering lamp may cause apoplexy.) so the great souls have a kindling into life that is gentle and inoffensive, but their passing and dissolution often, as at the present moment, fosters tempests and storms, and often infects the air with pestilential properties. Moreover, they said that in this part of the world there is one island where Cronus is confined, guarded while he sleeps by Briareus; for his sleep has been devised as a bondage for him, and round about him are many demigods as attendants and servants.

Cleombrotus here took up the conversation and said, I too have similar stories to tell, but it is sufficient for our purpose that nothing contravenes or prevents these things from being so. Yet we know, he continued, that the Stoics[*](Cf. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ii. 1049 (p. 309).) entertain the opinion that I mention, not only against the demigods, but they also hold that among the gods, who are so very numerous, there is only one who is eternal and immortal, and the others they believe have come into being, and will suffer dissolution.

As for the scoffing and sneers of the Epicureans[*](H. Usener, Epicurea (Leipzig, 1887), 394.) which they dare to employ against Providence also, calling it nothing but a myth, we need have no fear. We, on the other hand, say that their Infinity is a myth, which among so many worlds has not one that is directed by divine reason, but will have them all produced by spontaneous generation and concretion. If there is need for laughter in philosophy, we should laugh at those spirits, dumb, blind, and soulless, which

they shepherd for boundless cycles of years, and which make their returning appearance everywhere, some floating away from the bodies of persons still living, others from bodies long ago burned or decayed, whereby these philosophers drag witlessness and obscurity into the study of natural phenomena; but if anyone asserts that such demigods exist, not only for physical reasons, but also for logical reasons, and that they have the power of self-preservation and continued life for a long time, then these philosophers feel much aggrieved.