INTRODUCTION 
 
					Plutarch's essay on the changed custom at Delphi
					is quite as interesting for its digressions as for its
					treatment of the main topic. Portents, coincidences,
					history, a little philosophy, stories of persons like
					Croesus, Battus, Lysander, Rhodope, finally lead up
					to the statement that many oracles used to be
					delivered in prose, although still more in early times
					were delivered in verse; but the present age calls
					for simplicity and directness instead of the ancient
					obscurity and grandiloquence.
				 
 
					We possess a considerable body of Delphic oracles
					preserved in Greek literature, as, for example, the
					famous oracle of the ' wooden wall ' (Herodotus, vii.
					141). Practically all of these are in hexameter verse.
					Many more records of oracles merely state that someone consulted the oracle and was told to perform a
					certain deed, or was told that something would or
					might happen, often with certain limitations. We
					have, therefore, no means of determining the truth
					of Plutarch's statement, but there is little doubt
					that he is right. If we possessed his lost work,
					 Χρησμῶν συναγωγή (no. 171 in Lamprias's list), we
					should have more abundant data on which to base
					our decision.
				 
 
					The essay often exhibits Plutarch at his best.
					Hartman thinks that Plutarch hoped that the.work
					
					 
					
					would be read at Rome, and therefore inserted the
					encomium of Roman rule near the end.
				 
 
					The essay stands as no. 116 in Lamprias's catalogue.
					It is found in only two mss. and in a few places the
					tradition leaves us in doubt, but, for the most part, the
					text is fairly clear.
				 
 
					The references to the topography and monuments
					of Delphi have become more intelligible since the site
					was excavated by the French. Pomtow, in the
					 Berliner Pkilologische Wochenschrift , 1912, p. 1170,
					gives an account of the monuments visited by the
					company in this essay.

(The persons who take part in the dialogue are Basilocles
					and Philinus, who serve to introduce the later speakers;
					Diogenianus, Theon, Sarapion, Boethus, as well as Philinus
					himself and some professional guides.)

BASILOCLES. You people have kept it up till well
					into the evening, Philinus, escorting the foreign
					visitor around among the statues and votive offerings.
					For my part, I had almost given up waiting for you. 
				 
 
					 PHILINUS. The fact is, Basilocles, that wre went
					slowly, sowing words, and reaping them straightway
					with strife, like the men sprung from the Dragon's
					teeth, words with meanings behind them of the
					contentious sort, which sprang up and flourished along
					our way. 
				 
 
					 BASILOCLES. Will it be necessary to call in someone
					else of those who were with you; or are you willing,
					as a favour, to relate in full what your conversation
					was and who took part in it? 
				 
 
					 PHILINUS. It looks, Basilocles, as if I shall have that
					to do. In fact, it would not be easy for you to find
					anyone of the others in the town, for I saw most of
					them once more on their way up to the Cory ei an cave
					and Lycoreia with the foreign visitor. 
					
					 
				 
 
					 BASILOCLES . Our visitor is certainly eager to see the
					sights, and an unusually eager listener. 
				 
 
					 PHILINUS. But even more is he a scholar and a
					student. However, it is not this that most deserves
					our admiration, but a winning gentleness, and his
					willingness to argue and to raise questions, which
					comes from his intelligence, and shows no dissatisfaction nor contrariety with the answers. So, after
					being with him but a short time, one would say, O
						child of a goodly father! 
 You surely know
					Diogenianus, one of the best of men. 
				 
 
					 BASILOCLES. I never saw him myself, Philinus, but
					I have met many persons who expressed a strong
					approval of the man's words and character, and who
					had other compliments of the same nature to say
					of the young man. But, my friend, what was the
					beginning and occasion of your conversation?

PHILINUS. The guides were going through their
					prearranged programme, paying no heed to us who
					begged that they would cut short their harangues and
					their expounding of most of the inscriptions. The
					appearance and technique of the statues had only
					a moderate attraction for the foreign visitor, who,
					apparently, was a connoisseur in works of art. He
					did, however, admire the patina of the bronze, for
					it bore no resemblance to verdigris or rust, but the
					bronze was smooth and shining with a deep blue tinge,
					so that it gave an added touch to the sea-captains 
					(for he had begun his sight-seeing with them), as they
					stood there with the true complexion of the sea and
					its deepest depths. 
					
					 
				 
 	 
					 Was there, then, said he, some process of
						alloying and treating used by the artizans of early
						times for bronze, something like what is called the
						tempering of swords, on the disappearance of which
						bronze carne to have a respite from employment in
						war? As a matter of fact, he continued, it was
							not by art, as they say, but by accident that the
							Corinthian bronze acquired its beauty of colour; a
							fire consumed a house containing some gold and silver
							and a great store of copper, and when these were
							melted and fused together, the great mass of copper
							furnished a name because of its preponderance. 
				 
 	 
					Theon, taking up the conversation, said, We have
						heard another more artful account, how a worker in
						bronze at Corinth, when he had come upon a hoard
						containing much gold, fearing detection, broke it
						off a little at a time and stealthily mixed it with his
						bronze, which thus acquired a wondrous composition.
						He sold it for a goodly price since it was very highly
						esteemed for its colour and beauty. However, both
						this story and that are fiction, but there was apparently some process of combination and preparation;
						for even now they alloy gold with silver and produce
						a peculiar and extraordinary, and, to my eyes, a sickly
						paleness and an unlovely perversion.

What do you think, then, said Diogenianus,
					 has been the cause of the colour of the bronze here? 
				 
 	 
					Theon replied, When of the primal and simplest
						
						 
						
						elements in Nature, as they are called and actually
						are — fire, earth, air, and water — there is none other
						that comes near to the bronze or is in contact with it,
						save only air, it is clear that the bronze is affected by
						this, and that because of this it has acquired whatever
						distinctive quality it has, since the air is always about
						it and environs it closely. Of a truth
						 All this I knew before Theognis' day, 
 
						as the comic poet has it. But is it your desire to
						learn what property the air possesses and what power
						it exerts in its constant contact, so that it has imparted
						a colouring to the bronze? 
				 
 	 
					As Diogenianus assented, Theon said, And so also
						is it my desire, my young friend; let us, therefore,
						investigate together, and before anything else, if you
						will, the reason why olive-oil most of all the liquids
						covers bronze with rust. For, obviously, the oil of
						itself does not deposit the rust, since it is pure and
						stainless when applied. 
				 
 	 
					 Certainly not, said the young man. My own
						opinion is that there must be something else that
						causes this, for the oil is thin, pure, and transparent,
						and the rust, when it encounters this, is most visible,
						but in the other liquids it becomes invisible. 
				 
 	 
					 Well done, my young friend, said Theon, and
						excellently said. But consider, if you will, the reason
						given by Aristotle. 
 
				 
 	 
					 Very well, said he, I will. 
					
					 
				 
 	 
					 Now Aristotle says that when the rust absorbs
						any of the other liquids, it is imperceptibly disunited
						and dispersed, since these are unevenly and thinly
						constituted; but by the density of the oil it is prevented from escaping and remains permanently as it
						is collected. If, then, we are able of ourselves to
						invent some such hypothesis, we shall not be altogether at a loss for some magic spell and some words
						of comfort to apply to this puzzling question.

Since, therefore, we urged him on and gave him
					his opportunity, Theon said that the air in Delphi is
					dense and compact, possessing a certain vigour because
					of the repulsion and resistance that it encounters from
					the lofty hills; and it is also tenuous and keen, as the
					facts about the digestion of food bear witness. So
					the air, by reason of its tenuity, works its way into
					the bronze and cuts it, disengaging from it a great
					quantity of rust like dust, but this it retains and holds
					fast, inasmuch as its density does not allow a passage
					for this. The rust gathers and, because of its great
					abundance, it effloresces and acquires a brilliance and
					lustre on its surface.
				 
 	 
					When we had accepted this explanation, the foreign
					visitor said that the one hypothesis alone was sufficient
					for the argument. The tenuity, said he, will
						seem to be in contravention to the reputed density
						of the air, but there is no need to bring it in. As a
						matter of fact the bronze of itself, as it grows old,
						exudes and releases the rust which the density of the
						air confines and solidifies and thus makes it visible
						because of its great abundance. 
				 
 	 
					Theon, taking this up, said, My friend, what is
						there to prevent the same thing from being both
						
						 
						
						tenuous and dense, like the silken and linen varieties
						of cloth, touching which Homer has said
						Streams of the liquid oil flow off from the close-woven linen,
						showing the exactitude and fineness of the weaving
						by the statement that the oil does not remain on the
						cloth, but runs off over the surface, since the fineness
						and closeness of the texture does not let it through?
						In fact the tenuity of the air can be brought forward,
						not only as an argument regarding the disengaging
						of the rust, but, very likely, it also makes the colour
						itself more agreeable and brilliant by blending light
						and lustre with the blue.

Following this a silence ensued, and again the
					guides began to deliver their harangues. A certain
					oracle in verse was recited (I think it concerned the
					kingdom of Aegon the Argive , whereupon Diogenianus said that he had often wondered at the
					barrenness and cheapness of the hexameter lines in
					which the oracles are pronounced. Yet the god is
						Leader of the Muses, and it is right and fair that he
						should take no less interest in what is called elegance
						of diction than in the sweetness of sound that is
						concerned with tunes and songs, and that his utterances should surpass Hesiod and Homer in the
						excellence of their versification. Yet we observe
						that most of the oracles are full of metrical and verbal
						errors and barren diction. 
				 
 	 
					Sarapion, the poet who was present from Athens,
					said, Then do we believe these verses to be the
						
						 
						
						god's, and yet dare to say that in beauty they fall
						short of the verses of Homer and Hesiod? Shall we
						not treat them as if they were the best and fairest
						of poetic compositions, and correct our own judgement, prepossessed as it is as the result of unfortunate
						habituation? 
				 
 	 
					At this point Boëthus the mathematician entered
					into the conversation. (You know that the man is
					already changing his allegiance in the direction of
					Epicureanism.) Said he, Do you happen to have
						heard the story of Pauson the painter? 
 
				 
 	 
					 No, said Sarapion, I have not. 
				 
 	 
					 Well, it is really worth hearing. It seems that
						he had received a commission to paint a horse rolling,
						and painted it galloping. His patron was indignant,
						whereupon Pauson laughed and turned the canvas
						upside down, and, when the lower part became the
						upper, the horse now appeared to be not galloping,
						but rolling. Bion says that this happens to some
						arguments when they are inverted. So some people
						will say of the oracles also, not that they are
						excellently made because they are the god's, but
						that they are not the god's because they are poorly
						made! The first of these is in the realm of the
						unknown; but that the verses conveying the oracles
						are carelessly wrought is, of course, perfectly clear to
						you, my dear Sarapion, for you are competent to
						judge. You write poems in a philosophic and restrained style, but in force and grace and diction they
						bear more resemblance to the poems of Homer and
						
						 
						
						Hesiod than to the verses put forth by the prophetic
						priestess.

The fact is, Boëthus, said Sarapion, that
					we are ailing both in ears and eyes, accustomed as
					we are, through luxury and soft living, to believe and
					to declare that the pleasanter things are fair and
					lovely. Before long we shall be finding fault with the
					prophetic priestess because she does not speak in purer
					tones than Glaucê, who sings to the lyre, and because
					she is not perfumed and clad in purple when she goes
					down into the inner shrine, and does not burn upon the
					altar cassia or ladanum or frankincense, but only laurel
					and barley meal. Do you not see, he continued,
					 what grace the songs of Sappho have, charming and
						bewitching all who listen to them? But the Sibyl
						‘with frenzied lips,’ as Heracleitus has it, ‘uttering
						words mirthless, unembellislied, unperfumed, yet
						reaches to a thousand years with her voice through
						the god.’ And Pindar says that ‘Cadmus heard
						the god revealing music true,’ not sweet nor voluptuous nor with suddenly changing melody. For the
						emotionless and pure does not welcome Pleasure, but
						she, as well as Mischief, was thrown down here, and
						the greater part of the evil in her has, apparently,
						gathered together to flood the ears of men.

When Sarapion had said this, Theon smiled and
					
					 
					
					said, Sarapion has yielded as usual to his propensity
						by taking advantage of the incidental mention of
						Mischief and Pleasure. But as for us, Boëthus, even
						if these verses be inferior to Homer's, let us not
						believe that the god has composed them, but that he
						supplies the origin of the incitement, and then the
						prophetic priestesses are moved each in accordance
						with her natural faculties. Certainly, if it were
						necessary to write the oracles, instead of delivering
						them orally, I do not think that we should believe the
						handwriting to be the god's, and find fault with it
						because in beauty it fell short of that of the royal
						scribes. As a matter of fact, the voice is not that
						of a god, nor the utterance of it, nor the diction, nor
						the metre, but all these are the woman's; he puts
						into her mind only the visions, and creates a light
						in her soul in regard to the future; for inspiration
						is precisely this. And, speaking in general, it is
						impossible to escape you who speak for Epicurus 
						(in fact you yourself, Boëthus, are obviously being
						borne in that direction); but you charge the prophetic
						priestesses of old with using bad verse, and those of
						the present day with delivering their oracles in prose
						and using commonplace words, so that they may not
						be liable to render an account to you for their wrong
						use of a short syllable at the beginning, middle, or
						end of their lines! 
 
				 
 	 
					 In Heaven's name, said Diogenianus, do not
						jest, but solve for us this problem, which is of universal
						interest. For there is not one of us that does not seek
						
						 
						
						to learn the cause and reason why the oracle has
						ceased to employ verse and metre. 
				 
 	 
					Whereupon Theon, interrupting, said, But just
						now, my young friend, we seem rather rudely to be
						taking away from the guides their proper business.
						Permit, therefore, their services to be rendered first,
						and after that you shall, at your leisure, raise questions about any matters you wish.

By this time we had proceeded until we were
					opposite the statue of Hiero the despot. The foreign
					visitor, by reason of his genial nature, made himself
					listen to the various tales, although he knew them
					all perfectly well; but when he was told that a
					bronze pillar of Hiero's standing above had fallen of
					itself during that day on which it happened that
					Hiero was coming to his end at Syracuse, he expressed
					his astonishment. Whereupon I proceeded to recall
					to his mind other events of a like nature, such, for
					example, as the experience of Hiero the Spartan,
					how before his death, which came to him at Leuctra,
					the eyes fell out of his statue, and the stars disappeared which Lysander had dedicated from the
					naval battle at Aegospotami; and the stone statue
					of Lysander himself put forth a growth of wild
					shrubs and grass in such abundance as to cover up
					the face; and at the time of the Athenian misfortunes in Sicily, the golden dates were dropping
					from the palm-tree and ravens were pecking off the
					edge of the shield of Pallas Athena ; and the crown
					
					 
					
					of the Cnidians which Philomela, despot of the
					Phocians, had presented to the dancing-girl, Pharsalia caused her death, after she had emigrated from
					Greece to Italy and was disporting herself in the
					vicinity of the temple of Apollo at Metapontum; for
					the young men made a rush for the crown, and as
					they struggled with one another for the gold, they
					tore the girl to pieces.
				 
 	 
					Aristotle used to say that Homer is the only poet
					who wrote words possessing movement because of
					their vigour; but I should say that among votive
					offerings also, those dedicated here have movement
					and significance in sympathy with the god's foreknowledge, and no part of them is void or insensible,
					but all are filled with the divine spirit.
				 
 	 
					 Yes indeed, said Boethus. It is not enough
						to incarnate the god once every month in a mortal
						body, but we are bent upon incorporating him into
						every bit of stone and bronze, as if we did not have
						in Chance or Accident an agent responsible for such
						coincidences. 
				 
 	 
					 Then, said I, does it seem to you that chance
						and accident have ordered every single one of such
						occurrences; and is it credible that the atoms slipped
						out of place and were separated one from another
						and inclined towards one side neither before nor
						afterwards, but at precisely the time when each of
						the dedicators was destined to fare either worse or
						better? And now Epicurus comes to your aid,
						apparently, with what he said or wrote three hundred
						years ago; but it does not seem to you that the god,
						unless he should transport himself and incorporate
						
						 
						
						himself into everything and be merged with everything, could initiate movement or cause anything to
						happen to any existent object!

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 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, 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, 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,’ 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: 
						 
 Sparta, take thought as thou must, although thou art
							haughty and boastful,
							 
 Lest from thee, who art sturdy of foot, shall spring a
							lame kingship,
							 
 Since for a long time to come shall troubles unlocked
							for engage thee.
							 
 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, and also
						about the war of Philip and the Romans;
						 
 But when the offspring of Trojans shall come to be in
							ascendant
							 
 Over Phoenicians in conflict, events shall be then
							beyond credence;
							 
 Ocean shall blaze with an infinite fire, and with rattling
							of thunder
							 
 Scorching blasts through the turbulent waters shall
							upward be driven;
							 
 With them a rock, and the rock shall remain firm fixed
							in the ocean,
							 
 Making an island by mortals unnamed; and men who
							are weaker
							 
 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 ;
						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 
 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 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, 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 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. 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,’ not indeed bringing down the
						moon and the sun, as the Thessalian women do, 
						but assuming that they spring up here from earth
						and water and derive their origin from here? For
						Plato 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 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? 
 
				 
 	 
					 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, 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 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, 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, 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. 
 
				 
 	 
					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 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 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, 
					but looks on with tolerance at children's dancing, and
					at tumbling, kissing, and buffoons ; 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. 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, 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, calling attention, apparently, to Scythinus, who says regarding the lyre,
					 
 Which the son of Zeus,
						 
 Fair Apollo, who embraces origin and end in one,
						 
 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 says:
						 
 Where from depths below, for pure lustration
							 
 Is drawn the fair-haired Muses' fount of holy water. 
 
						And in another passage he addresses Clio in a somewhat affected way as the
						 Holy guardian of lustration, 
						and goes on to say that
						 
 She, invoked in many a prayer,
							 
 In robes unwrought with gold,
							 
 For those that came to draw
							 
 Raised from the ambrosial grot
							 
 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 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 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. 
				 
 	 
					“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.’ 
					
					 
				 
 	 
					“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 ); 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.

“Some of the oracles even to-day come out
					in metre, one of which an affair has made famous.
					There is in Phocis a shrine of Heracles the Womanhater, and it is the custom that the man who is
					appointed to the priesthood shall have no association
					with a woman within the year. For this reason they
					usually appoint as priests rather old men. By exception, only a few years ago, a young man, not at all
					bad, but ambitious, who was in love with a girl, gained
					the office. At first he was able to control himself,
					and succeeded in keeping out of her way; but when
					she suddenly carne in upon him as he was resting
					after drinking and dancing, he did the forbidden
					thing. Frightened and perturbed in consequence,
					he resorted at once to the oracle and asked the god
					about his sin, whether there were any way to obtain
					forgiveness or to expiate it; and he received this
					response:
					 All things that must be doth the god condone. 
					
					 
				 
 	 
					“However, even if anybody were to grant that no
					word of prophecy is uttered in our time without
					being in verse, such a person would be in much more
					perplexity regarding the oracles of ancient times
					which gave their responses at one time in verse and at
					another time without versification. However, neither
					of these, my young friend, goes counter to reason if
					only we hold correct and uncontaminated opinions
					about the god, and do not believe that it was he himself who used to compose the verses in earlier times,
					while now he suggests the oracles to the prophetic
					priestess as if he were prompting an actor in a play
					to speak his words.

“However, it is worth our while to discuss these
					matters at greater length and to learn about them
					at another time; but for the present let us recall to
					our minds what we have learned in brief: that the
					body makes use of many instruments and that the
					soul makes use of this very body and its members;
					moreover, the soul is created to be the instrument of
					God, and the virtue of an instrument is to conform as
					exactly as possible to the purpose of the agent that
					employs it by using all the powers which Nature has
					bestowed upon it, and to produce, presented in itself,
					the purpose of the very design; but to present this,
					not in the form in which it was existent in its creator,
					uncontaminated, unaffected, and faultless, but combined with much that is alien to this. For pure
					design cannot be seen by us, and when it is made manifest in another guise and through another medium,
					it becomes contaminated with the nature of this
					medium. Wax, for example, and gold and silver I
					
					 
					
					leave out of account, as well as other kinds of material, 
					which, when moulded, take on the particular form of
					the likeness which is being modelled; and yet each
					one of them adds to the thing portrayed a distinguishing characteristic which comes from its own substance; and so also the numberless distortions in the
					reflected images of one single form seen in mirrors
					both plane and concave and convex. Indeed, if
					we contemplate the shining constellations, there is
					nothing that shows greater similarity in form, or
					which, as an instrument, is by nature more obedient
					in use than the moon. Receiving as it does from the
					sun its brilliant light and intense heat, it sends them
					away to us, not in the state in which they arrived,
					but, after being merged with it, they change their
					colour and also acquire a different potency. The
					heat is gone, and the light becomes faint because of
					weakness.
				 
 	 
					“I imagine that you are familiar with the saying
					found in Heraeleitus to the effect that the Lord
					whose prophetic shrine is at Delphi neither tells nor
					conceals, but indicates. Add to these words, which
					are so well said, the thought that the god of this
					place employs the prophetic priestess for men's ears
					just as the sun employs the moon for men's eyes.
					For he makes known and reveals his own thoughts,
					but he makes them known through the associated
					medium of a mortal body and a soul that is unable
					to keep quietior, as it yields itself to the One that
					
					 
					
					moves it, to remain of itself unmoved and tranquil,
					but, as though tossed amid billows and enmeshed in
					the stirrings and emotions within itself, it makes itself
					more and more restless.
				 
 	 
					“For, as the eddies exercise no sure control over the
					bodies carried round and round in them, but, since
					the bodies are carried round and round by a compelling force, while they naturally tend to sink,
					there results from the two a confused and erratic
					circular movement, so, in like manner, what is called
					inspiration seems to be a combination of two impulses,
					the soul being simultaneously impelled through one
					of these by some external influence, and through the
					other by its own nature. Wherefore it is not possible
					to deal with inanimate and stationary bodies in a way
					contrary to their nature by bringing force to bear
					upon them, nor to make a cylinder in motion behave
					in the manner of a sphere or a cube, nor a lyre like a
					flute, nor a trumpet like a harp. No, the use of each
					thing artistically is apparently no other than its
					natural use. And as for the animate, endowed with
					power to move of itself and with its share of initiative and reason, could anyone treat it in a manner
					other than in keeping with the condition, faculty, or
					nature, already pre-existent in it, as, for example,
					trying to arouse to music a mind unmusical, or to
					letters the unlettered, or to eloquence one with no
					observation or training in speeches? That is something which no one could assert.

“Homer also gives testimony on my side by
					his assumption that practically nothing is brought to
					pass for any reason ‘without a god’ ; he does not,
					
					 
					
					however, represent the god as employing everything
					for every purpose, but as employing each thing in
					accordance with the aptitude or faculty that each
					possesses. Do you not see,” he continued, ‘my
					dear Diogenianus, that Athena, when she wishes to
					persuade the Achaeans, summons Odysseus ; when
					she wishes to bring to naught the oaths, seeks out
					Pandarus ; when she wishes to rout the Trojans,
					goes to Diomedes ? The reason is that Diomedes is
					a man of great strength and a warrior, Pandarus a
					bowman and a fool, Odysseus adept at speaking and
					a man of sense. The fact is that Homer did not have
					the same idea as Pindar, if it really was Pindar who
					wrote
					 God willing, you may voyage on a mat; 
 
					but Homer recognized the fact that some faculties
					and natures are created for some purposes and others
					for others, and each one of these is moved to action
					in a different way, even if the power that moves them
					all be one and the same. Now this power cannot
					move to flight that which can only walk or run, nor
					move a lisp to clear speaking, nor a shrill thin voice
					to melodious utterance. No, in the case of Battus 
					it was for this reason, when he came to consult the
					oracle for his voice, that the god sent him as a colonist
					to Africa, because Battus had a lisp and a shrill thin
					voice, but also had the qualities of a king and a statesman, and was a man or sense. So in the same way
					it is impossible for the unlettered man who has never
					read verse to talk like a poet. Even so the maiden
					
					 
					
					who now serves the god here was born of as lawful and
					honourable wedlock as anyone, and her life has been
					in all respects proper; but, having been brought up
					in the home of poor peasants, she brings nothing with
					her as the result of technical skill or of any other
					expertness or faculty, as she goes down into the
					shrine. On the contrary, just as Xenophon believes
					that a bride should have seen as little and heard as
					little as possible before she proceeds to her husband's
					house, so this girl, inexperienced and uninformed
					about practically everything, a pure, virgin soul,
					becomes the associate of the god. Now we cherish
					the belief that the god, in giving indications to us,
					makes use of the calls of herons, wrens, and ravens;
					but we do not insist that these, inasmuch as they are
					messengers and heralds of the gods, shall express
					everything rationally and clearly, and yet we insist
					that the voice and language of the prophetic priestess,
					like a choral song in the theatre, shall be presented,
					not without sweetness and embellishment, but also
					in verse of a grandiloquent and formal style with
					verbal metaphors and with a flute to accompany its
					delivery I

“What statement, then, shall we make about
					the priestesses of former days? Not one statement,
					but more than one, I think. For in the first place,
					as has already been said, they also gave almost all
					their responses in prose. In the second place, that
					era produced personal temperaments and natures
					which had an easy fluency and a bent towards composing poetry, and to them were given also zest and
					eagerness and readiness of mind abundantly, thus
					creating an alertness which needed but a slight
					initial stimulus from without and a prompting of the
					
					 
					
					imagination, with the result that not only were
					astronomers and philosophers, as Philinus says,
					attracted at once to their special subjects, but when
					men carne under the influence of abundant wine or
					emotion, as some note of sadness crept in or some joy
					befell, a poet would slip into ‘tuneful utterance’ ;
					their convivial gatherings were filled with amatory
					verses and their books with such writings. When
					Euripides said
					 
 Love doth the poet teach,
						 
 Even though he know naught of the Muse before, 
 
 
					his thought was that Love does not implant in one
					the poetical or musical faculty, but when it is already
					existent in one, Love stirs it to activity and makes it
					fervent, while before it was unnoticed and idle. Or
					shall we say, my friend, that nobody is in love nowadays, but that love has vanished from the earth
					because nobody in verse or song
					 
 Launches swiftly the shafts
						 
 Of sweet-sounding lays
						 
 Aimed at the youth beloved, 
 
					as Pindar has put it? No, that is absurd. The fact
					is that loves many in number still go to and fro among
					men, but, being in association with souls that have no
					natural talent nor ear for music, they forgo the flute
					
					 
					
					and lyre, but they are no less loquacious and ardent
					than those of olden time. Besides it is not righteous
					nor honourable to say that the Academy and Socrates
					and Plato's congregation were loveless, for we may
					read their amatory discourses ; but they have left
					us no poems. As compared with him who says that
					the only poetess of love was Sappho, how much does
					he fall short who asserts that the only prophetess
					was the Sibyl and Aristonica and such others as
					delivered their oracles in verse? As Chaeremon 
					says,
					 Wine mixes with the manners of each guest, 
					and as he drinks, prophetic inspiration, like that of
					love, makes use of the abilities that it finds ready at
					hand, and moves each of them that receive it according to the nature of each.

“If, however, we take into consideration the
					workings of the god and of divine providence, we
					shall see that the change has been for the better.
					For the use of language is like the currency of coinage in trade: the coinage which is familiar and well
					known is also acceptable, although it takes on a
					different value at different times. There was, then, a
					time when men used as the coinage of speech verses
					and tunes and songs, and reduced to poetic and
					musical form all history and philosophy and, in a
					word, every experience and action that required a
					more impressive utterance. Not only is it a fact
					
					 
					
					that nowadays but few people have even a limited
					understanding of this diction, but in those days the
					audience comprised all the people, who were delighted with Pindar's song,
					 Shepherds and ploughmen and fowlers as well. 
					Indeed, owing to this aptitude for poetic composition,
					most men through lyre and song admonished, spoke
					out frankly, or exhorted; they attained their ends
					by the use of myths and proverbs, and besides composed hymns, prayers, and paeans in honour of the
					gods in verse and music, some through their natural
					talent, others because it was the prevailing custom.
					Accordingly, the god did not begrudge to the art of
					prophecy adornment and pleasing grace, nor did he
					drive away from here the honoured Muse of the
					tripod, but introduced her rather by awakening and
					welcoming poetic natures; and he himself provided
					visions for them, and helped in prompting impressiveness and eloquence as something fitting and
					admirable. But, as life took on a change along with
					the change in men's fortunes and their natures,
					when usa ge banished the unusual and did away
					with the golden topknots and dressing in soft robes,
					and, on occasion, cut off the stately long hair and
					caused the buskin to be no longer worn, men accustomed themselves (nor was it a bad thing) to oppose
					expensive outlay by adorning themselves with
					economy, and to rate as decorative the plain and
					
					 
					
					simple rather than the ornate and elaborate. So, as
					language also underwent a change and put off its
					finery, history descended from its vehicle of versification, and went on foot in prose, whereby the truth
					was mostly sifted from the fabulous. Philosophy
					welcomed clearness and teachability in preference to
					creating amazement, and pursued its investigations
					through the medium of everyday language. The god
					put an end to having his prophetic priestess call her
					own citizens ‘fire-blazers,’ the Spartans ‘snake-devourers,’ men ‘mountain-roamers,’ and rivers
					‘mountain-engorgers.’ When he had taken away
					from the oracles epic versification, strange words,
					circumlocutions, and vagueness, he had thus made
					them ready to talk to his consultants as the laws talk
					to States, or as kings meet with common people, or as
					pupils listen to teachers, since he adapted the language to what was intelligible and convincing.

“Men ought to understand thoroughly, as
					Sophocles says, that the god is
					 
 For wise men author of dark edicts aye,
						 
 For dull men a poor teacher, if concise. 
 
					The introduction of clearness was attended also by a
					revolution in belief, which underwent a change along
					with everything else. And this was the result: in
					days of old what was not familiar or common, but was
					expressed altogether indirectly and through circumlocution, the mass of people imputed to an assumed
					manifestation of divine power, and held it in awe and
					reverence; but in later times, being well satisfied to
					apprehend all these various things clearly and easily
					without the attendant grandiloquence and artificiality,
					
					 
					
					they blamed the poetic language with which the
					oracles were clothed, not only for obstructing the
					understanding of these in their true meaning and for
					combining vagueness and obscurity with the communication, but already they were coming to look
					with suspicion upon metaphors, riddles, and ambiguous statements, feeling that these were secluded nooks
					of refuge devised for furtive withdrawal and retreat
					for him that should err in his prophecy. Moreover,
					there was the oft-repeated tale that certain men with
					a gift for poetry were wont to sit about close by the
					shrine waiting to catch the words spoken, and then
					weaving about them a fabric of extempore hexameters or other verses or rhythms as ‘containers,’ so
					to speak, for the oracles. I forbear to mention how
					much blame men like Onomacritus, Prodicus, and
					Cinaethon have brought upon themselves from the
					oracles by foisting upon them a tragic diction and a
					grandiloquence of which they had no need, nor have
					I any kindly feeling toward their changes.
				 
 	 
					“However, the thing that most filled the poetic art
					with disrepute was the tribe of wandering soothsayers
					and rogues that practised their charlatanry about the
					shrines of the Great Mother and of Serapis, making up
					oracles, some using their own ingenuity, others taking
					by lot from certain treatises oracles for the benefit of
					servants and womenfolk, who are most enticed by
					verse and a poetic vocabulary. This, then, is not the
					least among the reasons why poetry, by apparently
					lending herself to the service of tricksters, mountebanks,
					
					 
					
					and false prophets, lost all standing with truth
					and the tripod.

“I should not, therefore, be surprised if there
					j were times when there was need of double entendre ,
					indirect statement, and vagueness for the people of
					ancient days. As a matter of fact, this or that
					man assuredly did not go down to consult the oracle
					about the purchase of a slave or about business. No,
					powerful States and kings and despots, who cherished
					no moderate designs, used to appeal to the god
					regarding their course of action; and it was not to
					the advantage of those concerned with the oracle to
					vex and provoke these men by unfriendliness through
					their hearing many of the things that they did not
					wish to hear. For the god does not follow Euripides 
					when he asserts as if he were laying down a law:
					 
 None but Phoebus ought
						 
 For men to prophesy. 
 
					But inasmuch as the god employs mortal men to
					assist him and declare his will, whom it is his duty to
					care for and protect, so that they shall not lose their
					lives at the hands of wicked men while ministering to
					a god, he is not willing to keep the truth unrevealed,
					but he caused the manifestation of it to be deflected,
					like a ray of light, in the medium of poetry, where it
					submits to many reflections and undergoes subdivisions,
					and thus he did away with its repellent harshness,
					There were naturally some things which it was well
					that despots should fail to understand and enemies
					should not learn beforehand. About these, therefore,
					
					 
					
					he put a cloak of intimations and ambiguities which
					concealed the communication so far as others were
					concerned, but did not escape the persons involved
					nor mislead those that had need to know and who
					gave their minds to the matter. Therefore anyone is
					very foolish who, now that conditions have become
					different, complains and makes unwarranted indictment if the god feels that he must no longer help us
					in the same way, but in a different way.

“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, 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 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. 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 :
					 
 If without going you know far better than I, who have gone
						there,
						 
 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 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.

“For my part, I am well content with the
					settled conditions prevailing at present, and I find
					them very welcome, and the questions which men
					now put to the god are concerned with these conditions. There is, in fact, profound peace and tranquillity; war has ceased, there are no wanderings of
					peoples, no civil strifes, no despotisms, nor other
					maladies and ills in Greece requiring many unusual
					remedial forces. Where there is nothing complicated
					or secret or terrible, but the interrogations are on
					slight and commonplace matters, like the hypothetical
					questions in school: if one ought to marry, or to start
					on a voyage, or to make a loan; and the most important
					
					 
					
					consultations on the part of States concern the
					yield from crops, the increase of herds, and public
					health — to clothe such things in verse, to devise
					circumlocutions, and to foist strange words upon
					inquiries that call for a simple short answer is the
					thing done by an ambitious pedant embellishing an
					oracle to enhance his repute. But the prophetic
					priestess has herself also nobility of character, and
					whenever she descends into that place and finds
					herself in the presence of the god, she cares more for
					fulfilling her function than for that kind of repute or
					for men's praise or blame.

“We also, perhaps, ought to have this frame of
					mind. But as it is, we act as if we were anxious and
					fearful lest the place here lose the repute of its three
					thousand years, and some few persons should cease
					to come here, contemning the oracle as if it were
					the lecturing of some popular speaker; and we offer
					a plea in defence and invent reasons and arguments
					for matters which we do not understand, and which
					it is not fitting that we should understand. We
					try to appease and win over the man who complains, instead of bidding him take his leave for all
					time, 
					 Since for himself first of all it will prove to be more 
						distressing, 
 
					if the opinion which he holds about the god is such that he can accept and admire the maxims of 
					the Wise Men inscribed here, ‘Know thyself’ and 
					‘Avoid extremes,’ because of their conciseness 
					especially, since this very conciseness contains in 
					small compass a compact and firmly=forged sentiment, 
					
					 
					
					and yet he can impeach the oracles because
					they give nearly all their communications in brief,
					simple, and straightforward language. Now such
					sayings as these of the Wise Men are in the
					same case with streams forced into a narrow
					channel, for they do not keep the transparency
					or translucence of the sentiment, but if you will
					investigate what has been written and said about
					them by men desirous of learning fully the why and
					wherefore of each, you will not easily find more
					extensive writings on any other subject. And as
					for the language of the prophetic priestess, just as
					the mathematicians call the shortest of lines between
					two points a straight line, so her language makes no
					bend nor curve nor doubling nor equivocation, but is
					straight in relation to the truth; yet, in relation to
					men's confidence in it, it is insecure and subject to
					scrutiny, but as yet it has afforded no proof of its
					being wrong. On the contrary, it has filled the
					oracular shrine with votive offerings and gifts from
					barbarians and Greeks, and has adorned it with
					beautiful buildings and embellishments provided
					by the Amphictyonic Council. You yourselves, of
					course, see many additions in the form of buildings
					not here before and many restored that were dilapidated and in ruins. As beside flourishing trees
					others spring up, so also does Pylaea grow in vigour
					along with Delphi and derives its sustenance from
					the same source; because of the affluence here it is
					acquiring a pattern and form and an adornment of
					shrines and meeting-places and supplies of water such
					as it has not acquired in the last thousand years.
					
					 
				 
 	 
					“They that lived in the neighbourhood of Galaxium
					in Boeotia became aware of the manifest presence of
					the god by reason of the copious and overabundant
					flow of milk :
					 
 From all the flocks and all the kine
						 
 Like purest water from the springs
						 
 Milk in abundance welling down
						 
 Made music in the milking-pails.
						 
 And all the folk in eager haste
						 
 Filled every household vessel full;
						 
 Wineskin and jar were put to use,
						 
 Each wooden pail and earthen tun. 
 
					But for us the god grants clearer, stronger, and
					plainer evidence than this by bringing about after a
					drought, so to speak, of earlier desolation and poverty,
					affluence, splendour, and honour. It is true that I
					feel kindly toward myself in so far as my zeal or
					services may have furthered these matters with the
					co-operation of Polycrates and Petraeus ; and I
					feel kindly toward the man who has been the leader
					in our administration and has planned and carried
					out practically all that has been done. But it is not
					possible that a change of such sort and of such magnitude could ever have been brought about in a short
					time through human diligence if a god were not
					present here to lend divine inspiration to his oracle.

But, just as in those days there were people
					who complained of the obliquity and vagueness of
					the oracles, so to-day there are people who make
					an unwarranted indictment against their extreme
					
					 
					
					simplicity. Such an attitude of mind is altogether
					puerile and silly. It is a fact that children take more
					delight and satisfaction in seeing rainbows, haloes, and
					comets than in seeing moon and sun; and so these
					persons yearn for the riddles, allegories, and metaphors which are but reflections of the prophetic art
					when it acts upon a human imagination. And if
					they cannot ascertain to their satisfaction the reason
					for the change, they go away, after pronouncing
					judgement against the god, but not against us nor
					against themselves for being unable by reasoning to
					attain to a comprehension of the god's purpose.