suspicions, so as to make them fly from one end of Greece to the other; and they continued in lively remembrance for centuries. In the second case-viz. that of sceptical slights shown to the Oracle there are some memorable precedents on record. Most readers know the ridiculous stratagem of Croesus, the Lydian king, for trying the powers of the Oracle by a monstrous culinary arrangement of pots and pans, known (as he fancied) only to himself. But, please your most Lydian majesty, it was known also to your cook, though not perhaps to your chancellor, and therefore to your cook's scullion. Which scullion, if a man, had assuredly told it to his wife, but, if a woman, then by a deadlier necessity to her husband. Generally, the course of the Delphic Oracle under similar insults was warmly to resent them. But Crœsus, as a king, as a foreigner, and as a suitor of unexampled munificence, was privileged, especially because the ministers of the Delphic temple had doubtless found it easy to extract the secret by bribery from some one of the royal mission. A case, however, much more interesting, because arising between two leading states of Greece, and in the century subsequent to the ruder age of Croesus (who was about coeval with Pisistratus, 555 B.C.), is reported by Xenophon of the Lacedæmonians and Thebans. They concluded a treaty of peace without any communication, not so much as a civil notification, to the Oracle; τ μev Dew oudev εκοινώσαντο όπως ἡ ειρηνη γενοιτο—to the god (the Delphic god) they made no communication at all as to the terms of the peace ; αυτοι δε εβουλευοντο, but they personally pursued their negotiations in private. That this was a very extraordinary reach of presumption is evident from the care of Xenophon in bringing it before his readers. It is probable, indeed, that neither of the high contracting parties had really acted in a spirit of religious indifference; though it is remarkable of the Spartans, that of all Greek tribes they were the most facile and frequent delinquents under all varieties of foreign temptations to revolt from their hereditary allegiance to their own established yoke of civic usage —a fact which measures the degree of unnatural constraint and tension which the Spartan usages involved; but in this case I rather account for the public outrage to religion and universal usage by a strong political jealousy lest the provisions of the treaty should transpire prematurely amongst states adjacent to Bœotia,—a point forgotten by Xenophon. Whatever, meantime, were the secret motive to this policy, it did not fail to shock all Greece profoundly. And, in a slighter degree, the same effect upon public feeling followed the act of Agesipolis, who, after obtaining an answer from the Oracle of Delphi, carried forward his suit to the more awfully ancient Oracle of Dodona,—by way of trying, as he most impudently alleged, "whether the child agreed with its papa." These open expressions of distrust were generally condemned; and the irresistible proof that they were lies in the fact that they led to no imitations. Even in a case mentioned by Herodotus, where a man had the audacity to found a colony without seeking an oracular sanction, no precedent was established; though the journey to Delphi must often have been peculiarly inconvenient to the founders of colonies moving westwards from Greece, and the expenses of such a journey, with the subsequent offerings, could not but prove unseasonable at the moment when every drachma was most urgently needed. "Charity begins at home" was a thought quite as likely to press upon a Pagan conscience, in those circumstances, as upon our modern Christian consciences under heavy taxation; yet, for all that, such was the regard to a pious inauguration of all colonial enterprises that no one provision or pledge of prosperity was held equally indispensable by all parties to such hazardous speculations. The merest worldly foresight, indeed, to the most irreligious leader would suggest this sanction as a necessity, under the following reason:-Colonies the most enviably prosperous upon the whole have yet had many hardships to contend with in their novitiate of the first five years, were it only from the summer failure of water under circumstances of local ignorance, or from the casual failure of crops under imperfect arrangements of culture. Now, the one great qualification for wrestling strenuously with such difficult contingencies in solitary situations is the spirit of cheerful hope; but, when any room had been left for apprehending a supernatural curse resting upon their efforts-equally in the most thoughtfully pious man and the most crazily superstitiousall spirit of hope would be blighted at once; and the religious neglect would, even in a common human way, become its own certain avenger, through mere depression of spirits and misgiving of expectations. Well, therefore, might Cicero in a tone of defiance demand, "Quam vero Græcia coloniam misit in Ætoliam, Ioniam, Asiam, Siciliam, Italiam sine Pythio [the Delphic], aut Dodonæo, aut Hammonis oraculo?" An oracular sanction must be had, and from a leading oracle-the three mentioned by Cicero being the greatest 1; and, if a minor oracle could have satisfied the inaugurating necessities of a regular colony, we may be sure that the Dorian states of the Peloponnesus, who had twentyfive decent oracles at home (that is, within the peninsula), would not so constantly have carried their money to Delphi. Nay, it is certain that even where the colonial counsels of the greater oracles seemed extravagant, though a large discretion was allowed to remonstrance, and even to very homely expostulations, still, in the last resort, no doubts were felt that the oracle must be right. Brouwer, the Belgic scholar, who has so recently and so temperately treated these subjects ("Histoire de la Civilisation Morale et Religieuse chez les Grecs." 6 tomes: Groningue, 1840), alleges a case (which, however, I do not remember to have met) where the client ventured to object:- "Mon roi Apollon, je crois que tu es fou." 2 But this way, though not going so far as to charge lunacy upon the lord of prophetic vision. Battus, who was destined to be the eldest father of Cyrene, memorable as the first ground 3 cases are obvious which look 1 To which at one time must be added, as of equal rank, the Oracle of the Branchides, in Asia Minor. But this had been destroyed by the invading Persians, in retaliation of the Athenian outrages-real or pretended-at Sardis. 2" Tu es fou" :-The merely English reader, who is unacquainted with French, must not mistake fou for sot. Sot is the word for fool; and the word fou, though looking too like that opprobrious term, denotes a form of intellectual infirmity-viz. madness-claiming deeper pity, but also deeper awe and respect. 3 "First ground" :-In our modern geography, Egypt is the first region of Africa to those who enter it from the east. But exactly at that point it is that Grecian geography differs from ours. The Greek Libya, as regarded the Mediterranean coast, coincided with our Africa VOL. VII G where it is. of Greek intercourse with the Libyan shore of the Mediterranean, so often as he consulted the Delphic Oracle in reference to his eyes, which happened to be diseased, was admonished to prepare for colonising Libya. "Grant me patience," would the peppery Battus reply; "here am I getting into years; and never do I consult the Oracle about my precious eyesight but you, King Phœbus, begin your old yarn about Cyrene. Confound Cyrene! Nobody knows But, if you are serious, speak to my son he's a likely young man, and worth a hundred of old rotten hulks like myself." Battus was provoked in good earnest; and it is well known that the whole scheme went to sleep for several years, until King Phoebus sent in a gentle refresher to the peppery Battus and his islanders in the shape of failing crops, pestilence, and his ordinary chastisements. The people were roused-the colony was founded —and, after utter failure, was again founded—and the results justified the Oracle. But, in all such cases, and where the remonstrances were least respectful, or where the resistance of inertia was longest, I differ altogether from M. Brouwer in his belief that the suitors fancied Apollo to have gone distracted. If they ever said so, this must have been merely by way of putting the Oracle on its mettle, and calling forth some plainer-not any different-answer from the god, who was essentially enigmatic; for there it was that the doubts of the clients settled, and on that it was the practical demurs hinged. Not because even Battus, vexed as he was about his precious eyesight, distrusted the Oracle, but because he felt sure that the Oracle had not spoken out freely that the Oracle was in debt to him as regarded plain dealing in a matter of national interest and a question of life and death; therefore had he and many others in similar circumstances presumed to linger or to demur. Blind obedience was hard to practise in cases which, being clothed in riddles, might (as a long experience had taught them) be too easily deciphered erroneously. A second edition was what they waited for, corrected and enlarged. We have a except precisely as to Egypt; which (Herodotus tells us) was, or ought to be, regarded as a transitional chamber between Asia and Libya. : memorable instance of this policy in the Athenian envoys who, upon receiving a most ominous doom, but obscurely expressed, from the Delphic Oracle-which politely concluded by saying, "And so get out, you vagabonds, from my temple don't cumber my decks any longer"-were advised to answer sturdily, "No! we will not get out; we mean to sit here for ever, until you think proper to give us a more reasonable reply." Upon which spirited rejoinder, the priestess saw the policy of revising her truly brutal rescript as it had stood originally.1 The necessity, indeed, was strong for not acquiescing in the answer of the Oracle until it had become clearer by revision or by casual illustration. But some were so precipitate as to adopt the first answer in its most literal and apparent sense. As usual, there is a Spartan case of this nature. Cleomenes complained bitterly that the Oracle of Delphi had deluded him, by holding out as a possibility, and under given conditions as a certainty, that he should possess himself of Argos. But the Oracle, agreeably to Pagan casuistry, was justified: there was an inconsiderable place outside the walls of Argos which bore the same name. This was the commonest of dodges amongst the heathen professors of divination. Most readers will remember the case of Cambyses, who had been assured by a legion of oracles that he should die at Ecbatana, generally supposed to be the Hamadan of our days, to which northern city, cooled by Caspian breezes, the Shah of Persia retires when Teheran grows too hot. Suffering, therefore, in Syria from a scratch 1 At first sight the reader is apt to wonder why it was that insolence so undisguised should have been allowed to prosper. But in fact all religions have been indulgent to insolence, where the known alternative has been sycophantic timidity. Christianity herself encourages men to "take heaven by storm." In that spirit it was that the Pagan deities, in the persons of their representative idols, submitted to be caned and horsewhipped without open mutiny, and continually to be chained up by one leg, in cases where the gods were suspected of meditating flight to the enemy. Universally, insolence was but an offence of manner. Even that might have provoked a shade of displeasure, were it not that, more effectually than any other expression of temper, it cured the one unpardonable offence of insincerity, languishing devotion, decay of burning love; to which love, as the one sole pledge of undying loyalty, all frailties were forgiven. |