I. There is a story, Terentius Priscus, that certain eagles [Sidenote:
409] or swans, in flight from the extremities of earth to its middle
[Sidenote: F] point, met at Delphi near the Navel, as we call it; that
later on Epimenides of Phaestus came to examine into the story in the
God’s house, and, receiving an indistinct and ambiguous response, wrote
_No central boss there is of land or sea,
The Gods may know one, but from man ’tis hid._
As for the inquirer, he was properly punished by the God for putting an
old story to the proof as though fingering a picture. [Sidenote: 410]
II. However, shortly before the Pythian games of Callistratus’ year, it
happened that two holy men, travelling from opposite ends of the
inhabited globe, met at Delphi; Demetrius the grammarian, on his
homeward voyage from Britain to Tarsus, and Cleombrotus the
Lacedaemonian, who had wandered much in Egypt and about the land of the
Troglodytes, and had sailed far up the Red Sea, not for commerce, but
because he loved sights and information. Possessing a competence, and
being indifferent to having more, he would use his leisure [Sidenote: B]
in such ways, putting together facts as material for a Philosophy which
was to end in what he himself called Theology. Having lately been at the
temple of Ammon, he made it clear that he was far from admiring its
general arrangements, but he told us a story worthy of serious interest
as related by the priests, about the lamp which is never extinguished.
They say that it consumes less oil each successive year, and claim this
as a proof of an inequality in the years which makes each less in
duration [Sidenote: C] than its predecessor. Of course, the shorter the
period the less the consumption.
III. All present found this wonderful, and Demetrius observed that it
was quite absurd to hunt out such great results from trifles; not, as
Alcaeus puts it, to take the claw and paint the lion from it, but with a
wick and a lamp to shift the whole order of the heavens, and make a
clean sweep of Mathematics. ‘Nothing of that sort will disturb those
gentlemen;’ said Cleombrotus, ‘they will never give in to the
mathematicians on the point of accuracy; they would think it easier for
them to be wrong in their time about movements and periods so [Sidenote:
D] very remote, than for themselves to be wrong in measuring the oil,
when they had their attention jealously fixed all the time on so strange
a phenomenon. Besides, Demetrius, not to allow small things as
indications of great ones would be to stop the way against many arts;
many proofs will be put out of account, and many predictions. Yet you
grammarians prove a fact of no less importance than that the heroes of
old shaved with the razor, because you meet with the word “razor” in
Homer,[129] and again, that they lent money at interest, because he has
_Since of a debt there owing I have need,
Long-standing and not small_,[130]
where the word for “to owe” imports increase! Again, when [Sidenote: E]
he calls night “swift”,[131] you fasten lovingly on the word, and
actually say that it implies that the shadow is conical, as thrown by a
spherical body. Then Medicine tells us that an abundance of spiders
prognosticates a summer of pestilence, and so does a crow’s-foot on the
fig leaves in spring. Who is going to allow this, unless he grants that
small things may be indications of great ones? Who will endure that the
magnitude of the sun should be measured by “half-gallon or half-pint”,
or that the acute angle made on the sundial here by the gnomon with the
surface should be a measure of the elevation of the [Sidenote: F]
visible poles above the horizon? Such, at any rate, were the accounts to
be heard from the prophets down there, so that we must have some other
answer to give if we wish to keep for the sun his constitutional order
without deviation.’
IV. ‘Not for the sun only,’ cried Ammonius the philosopher, who was
present, ‘but for the whole heavens! For his passage from solstice to
solstice must of necessity be curtailed and not [Sidenote: 411] cover so
large a portion of the firmament as mathematicians say, its southern
parts constantly shrinking towards the more northerly. Our summer, too,
must become shorter, and its temperature colder, as his course curves
inwards, and he covers wider parallels among the tropical
constellations. Again, the gnomons at Syene must cease to throw no
shadow at the summer solstice; many fixed stars would be found to have
closed in, some of them touching others and being mingled with them as
the interval disappeared. If, on the other hand, they shall [Sidenote:
B] assert that the other bodies remain as they are, the sun alone being
irregular in his movements, they will be unable to state the cause which
accelerates him alone out of so many bodies, and will throw most of the
phenomena into confusion, those of the moon entirely, so that there will
be no need of measures of oil to prove the difference; eclipses will
prove it, when the sun comes into contact with the moon more frequently,
and the moon with the earth’s shadow. The rest is clear, and there is no
need to unravel any further the imposture of the theory.’ ‘For all
that,’ said Cleombrotus, ‘I saw the measures with my own eyes, for they
showed me several; that of the current year [Sidenote: C] fell
considerably short of the oldest.’ Ammonius rejoined: ‘Then it has
escaped all the others who keep up unextinguished fires, and preserve
them for a number of years which we may call infinite. Assume, however,
that what is said is true; is it not better to take the cause to be
atmospheric chills or moisture, which might probably weaken the fire so
that it would not consume or need so much fuel; on the other hand, times
of dryness or heat? Before now I have heard it said of fire that it
burns better and with more strength in winter, being [Sidenote: D]
contracted and condensed by the cold, whereas in hot times it loses
power, and becomes attenuated and feeble; again, that in sunlight it is
less efficient, attacking the fuel sluggishly and consuming it more
slowly. Most likely of all, the true cause may be in the oil. There is
no improbability in thinking that it was in old days unsubstantial and
watery, being produced from a young plant, but afterwards, when well
matured and condensed, it had more force and better nutritive power in
an equal quantity. I am supposing that we are bound to save this
hypothesis for the servants of Ammon, absurd and unnatural as it is.’
[Sidenote: E] V. When Ammonius had done, ‘Rather’, said I, ‘tell us all
about the oracle, Cleombrotus; for the old reputation of the divine
power there was great, nowadays it seems to be somewhat dwindling.’ As
Cleombrotus was silent, and cast his eyes downwards, Demetrius said:
‘There is no need to raise questions about what is happening there, when
we see the growing enfeeblement of the oracles nearer home, I might
rather say the cessation of all save one or two; the question is from
what cause has their power thus passed away? Why mention others, when
Boeotia, in old times full of voices with her oracles, has now been
quite deserted, as though by sources of [Sidenote: F] water, and a great
drought of prophecy has possessed the land? Nowhere, except round
Lebadeia, has Boeotia anything to give to those who wish to draw water
from prophetic art; for the rest, silence or utter desertion is the
order. Yet in the times of the Persian wars it was in no less repute
than that of [Sidenote: 412] Amphiaraus, and Mys, as it would seem,
tried both.[132] So the prophet of the Ptoan Oracle, in former times
accustomed to use Aeolian, uttered a response in the tongue of the
Barbarians, which none of the local persons present understood, but Mys
alone; however, the Barbarian caught the inspiration, and the injunction
did not need to be translated into Greek. As to the slave sent to the
shrine of Amphiaraus, he seemed to see in his sleep a minister of the
God, who first spoke to turn him out telling him that the God was not
present, then used his hands to push him, and, when he persisted, took a
great stone and smote him on the head. This was all a [Sidenote: B]
prediction in act of what was to come about; for Mardonius was defeated
by the Greeks under no king but a regent and a lieutenant of a king, and
he fell struck by a stone,[133] just as the Lydian appeared in his sleep
to be struck. At that time the oracle at Tegyrae was flourishing; there
they say that the God was born, and of the streams which flow past it
one, as some tell, is called the “Palm”, the other the “Olive” to this
day. Again, in the Persian wars, when Echecrates was prophet, the God
promised victory and might in war to [Sidenote: C] the Greeks. Then in
the Peloponnesian war, when the Delians had been turned out of their
island, it is said that an oracle was brought from Delphi, ordering them
to discover the place where Apollo was born, and to perform certain
sacrifices there. When they were in wonder and perplexity at the idea
that the God had not been born among them but elsewhere, the Pythia
added that a crow should reveal to them the spot. They went away and
reached Chaeroneia, where they heard the landlord of the inn conversing
with certain strangers on their way to Tegyrae about the oracle. These
strangers, on leaving, addressed the woman in saying farewell as Corone
(Crow). Then they [Sidenote: D] understood the oracle, and having
sacrificed at Tegyrae, managed shortly to effect their return. There
have been more recent manifestations at these prophetic shrines, but now
they have failed; so that it may well be worth while here, in the home
of the Pythian, to discuss the cause of the change.’
VI. By this time we were away from the temple, and had reached the doors
of the Hall of the Cnidians. Passing inside, we saw the friends for whom
we were making, seated and waiting for us. There was a general stillness
because of the hour; people were anointing themselves or watching the
athletes. Then Demetrius, with a quiet smile, said: ‘Shall [Sidenote: E]
I tell a story, or shall I speak the truth? My belief is that you have
no problem in hand worth a thought; I see you seated much at your ease,
with relaxation on your faces.‘ ‘Oh yes;’ broke in the Megarian
Heracleon, ‘we are not inquiring whether the verb “to throw” loses a
lambda in the future, nor as to the positive forms of “worse”, “better”,
“worst”, [Sidenote: F] “best”. Those are the questions, those and others
like them, which bring frowns and wrinkles! All others we may examine
like philosophers, with brows steady, and quietly, not looking death and
daggers at the company.’ ‘Then take us as we are,’ said Demetrius, ‘and
with us the subject upon which we have actually fallen, one which is
proper to the place, and concerns us all for the God’s sake. And mind!
no wrinkled eyebrows when you attack it!’
VII. We mingled our companies and sate down in and out [Sidenote: 413]
of each other, and Demetrius had propounded the subject, when up sprang
the Cynic Didymus, by nickname Planetiades, struck the ground two or
three times and shouted out: ‘Oho! Oho! a mighty difficult subject,
which needs much inquiry, you have brought us! A wonder indeed that,
with so much wickedness poured over the earth, not only “Modesty and
Sense of Justice”, to quote Hesiod,[134] have deserted human life, but
Divine Providence, too, has packed up its oracles and is gone from
everywhere. I throw out the opposite problem for you to discuss. Why
have they not ceased long ago? Why has not Hercules or some other God
withdrawn the tripod, [Sidenote: B] filled every day with foul ungodly
questions, propounded to the God by some as if he were a sophist whom
they were to catch out, by others to ask about treasures or inheritances
or marriages which law forbids. The result is that Pythagoras is proved
mighty wrong when he said that men are always at their best when they
approach the Gods.[135] Accordingly, things which it were decent to
cloak and deny in the presence of an older man, diseases and affections
of the soul, these they lay bare and open before the God!’ He wanted to
go on, but Heracleon plucked at his cloak, and I, almost his greatest
[Sidenote: C] intimate present, said: ‘Dear Planetiades, leave off
provoking the God. He is easy to be entreated and gentle:
_Mildest to mortal men pronounced to be_,
as Pindar[136] says. And whether he be sun, or lord and father of the
sun, lord and father beyond all that is visible, it is not likely that
he should deem us modern men unworthy of a voice from himself, being to
them the cause of birth and nurture and being and thinking. It is not
seemly, either, that Providence, our thoughtful kindly mother, who
produces and maintains all things for us, should remember our misdeeds
in one matter only—prophecy, and should take away what she [Sidenote: D]
originally gave. As if in those old days there were not more bad men
because men were more, when oracles were set up in so many parts of the
inhabited world! Come here, and sit down again! Swear a Pythian truce
with wickedness, whom you are chastising in word every day; join us in
seeking some other cause for the alleged failure of the oracles.’ My
words had some effect; Planetiades went away by the doors and in
silence.
VIII. There was a short interval of quiet, then Ammonius [Sidenote: E]
addressed me. ‘Lamprias,’ he said, ‘take care what we are doing, and
give your mind to the discussion, lest we find ourselves making out that
the God is no true cause. He who thinks that the cessation of the
oracles is due to something other than the will of a God, suggests the
thought that they come into being and exist, not because of the God, but
in some other way. For if prophecy be the work of a God, there is no
greater or stronger power to remove and abolish it. Now the argument of
Planetiades displeased me in many points, especially as to the
inconsistency which he makes out in the God, at one time [Sidenote: F]
turning away from vice and disowning it, at another admitting it; as
though a king or tyrant were to shut out bad men at one door, and admit
them to interviews by another. Start with the operation most proper to
the Gods, which is great, yet never excessive, always sufficient in
itself; and tell me that [Sidenote: 414] Hellas has had the largest
share in the general depopulation caused by former revolutions and wars
over the whole perhaps of the inhabited globe, and could now scarcely
provide all round three thousand hoplites, the number which the single
state of Megara sent out to Plataea.[137] Why, for the God to have left
many places of his oracle would be merely to expose the desolation of
Greece. Then I will put myself in your hands for ingenuity. For who
would get the good if there were an oracle at Tegyrae as there formerly
was, or near Ptoum, where it is a day’s work to meet one man minding his
flocks. This very spot, most venerable of all and most renowned “for
time and fame”, was for a long time made desert and unapproachable by a
savage beast, a female dragon as the story goes; but this is to invert
the facts of its lying idle; the [Sidenote: B] wilderness invited the
beast, the beast did not make the wilderness. But when, in the good
pleasure of the God, Hellas revived in her cities, and the place had men
in plenty, two prophetesses were employed, who were lowered in turn, and
a third was appointed to relieve. Now there is only one, and we do not
complain, for she is enough for those who need her. So we have no cause
to blame the God; the prophetic establishment now subsisting suffices
for all, and sends away all with what they want. Agamemnon used to
employ seven heralds, yet [Sidenote: C] scarcely could control the
numerous assembly, whereas in a few days you will see in the theatre
here that a single voice reaches all present, and even so it is with
prophecy; then it used more voices to reach more persons, now we should
fairly wonder at the God if he allowed his prophecy to flow to waste
like water, or like the rocks to find an echo for the voices of
shepherds and their flocks.’
IX. When Ammonius had said this, and I remained silent, Cleombrotus
addressed me: ‘Have you now granted’, he said, [Sidenote: D] ‘that the
God makes and also destroys the oracles?’ ‘By no means’, I said. ‘I
maintain that no prophetic shrine or oracle is destroyed by the God’s
agency. It is as with many other things which he makes or provides;
Nature brings in destruction and negation; or rather Matter, which is
negation, unweaves and breaks up that which is brought into being by the
more powerful cause. Even so I think there are times of obscuration and
withdrawal of prophetic forces. The God gives many fair things to men,
but gives nothing immortal, so that, in the words of Sophocles:[138]
_The works of Gods may die, but not the Gods._
I say that their essence and their power must be sought in [Sidenote: E]
Nature and in Matter, the origin being rightly reserved to the God. It
would be simple and childish to suppose that the God himself creeps into
the bodies of the prophets and speaks from there, using as instruments
their mouths and voices, like those ventriloquists once called
“Eurycleis”, now “Pythones”. He who mixes up the God with mortal needs
does not spare [Sidenote: F] his majesty nor preserve the dignity and
the greatness of his excellence.’
X. Then Cleombrotus: ‘You are right. Yet it is hard to grasp and to
define how, and up to what point, we may make use of Providence; and
therefore those who make the God the cause of nothing at all, and also
those who make him the common cause of all, go wide of moderation and
decency. It is well said, on the one hand, that Plato, in discovering
the element which underlies created qualities, now called “Matter” or
“Nature”, relieved philosophers from perplexities [Sidenote: 415] many
and great. It seems to me, on the other, that those who have inserted
the class of daemons between Gods and men, to draw and knit together the
fellowship of the two orders after a fashion, have cleared away more
perplexities and greater; whether the view belongs to Zoroaster and the
Magi, or comes from Thrace and Orpheus, or from Egypt, or from Phrygia,
as we conjecture from seeing in both those countries many elements of
death and mourning in the rites celebrated there, mingled with those of
initiation. Among the Greeks, Homer appears still to use both names
indifferently, and sometimes [Sidenote: B] to call the Gods daemons.
Hesiod first clearly and distinctly laid down four classes of reasonable
beings, Gods, then daemons, then heroes, last of all men; and here he
appears to admit transition, the golden race of men passing into daemons
many and great, the demigods at last into heroes.[139] Others make out a
change for bodies and souls alike. As water is seen to be produced out
of earth, air from water, and fire from air, and the substance is borne
upwards, even so the better souls receive their change from men into
heroes, from heroes into daemons. From the daemons again, a few in a
long course of time, upborne [Sidenote: C] through virtue, become full
partakers of divine nature. To some it happens not to have control of
themselves; so they subside and again enter mortal bodies, and endure a
life as dim and unillumined as an exhalation.
XI. ‘Hesiod thinks that in certain periods of time the daemons die.
Speaking in the person of the Naïd he darkly indicates the time:
_Full ages nine of men that live their prime
Lives the hoarse crow, four crows the stag outlives,
Three stags the ancient raven, ravens nine
The phoenix, but the phoenix, ten times told,
We fair-haired nymphs, daughters of Zeus most dread._[140]
[Sidenote: D] Those who take the word “age” wrong bring this to a very
large total; it means a year, so that the sum comes out nine thousand
seven hundred and twenty for the years of life of the daemons. Most
mathematicians think it to be less; not even Pindar[141] has called it
greater, when he tells us that the nymphs live
_Their term appointed even as the trees_,
and therefore names them Hamadryads.’ He was still [Sidenote: E]
speaking when Demetrius broke in: ‘What was that, Cleombrotus? The year
called an “age of man”? Human life, whether “at its prime” or, as
some[142] read “in its old age” is not of that length. Those who read
“at its prime”, follow Heraclitus[143] in taking “an age” to be thirty
years, the time in which the parent sees his offspring a parent. Those
who read “in its old age” instead of “at its prime” give a hundred and
eight years to the “age”, taking the middle term of human life to be
fifty-four, the number made up of unity, the two first surfaces, the two
first squares and the two [Sidenote: F] first cubes,[144] the number
taken by Plato[145] in his “Generation of the Soul”. Hesiod’s whole
story seems to have been framed with a veiled reference to the
“Conflagration”, when all things moist will probably disappear and with
them the Nymphs,
_Who in fair glades their habitation have
By river sources and in grassy meads._‘[146]
XII. Then Cleombrotus: ‘I hear of this from many, and now I see the
Stoic “Conflagration”, which already spreads over the verses of
Heraclitus and Orpheus, catching those of Hesiod [Sidenote: 416] too! I
have no patience with this “World-Conflagration”, and then the
impossibility of the thing! When one can remember the periods, as it is
easiest to do with the crow and the hind, one sees how exaggeration
passes in. The year has within itself the beginning and the end
_Of all things which the circling seasons bear,
And parent earth_,[147]
so there is nothing against usage in calling it an “age of man”. You
allow yourselves, I believe, that Hesiod means human life by “the age”.
Is it not so?’ Demetrius agreed. ‘Well, [Sidenote: B] but this is also
clear,’ said Cleombrotus, ‘that the same words are often used for the
measure and the things measured, as pint, quart, gallon, bushel. As then
we call unity a number, being the smallest measure of number and its
origin, so he has called our first measure of human life by the same
word as the thing measured—“an age”. The numbers which the others invent
have none of the clarity or distinctness usual in numbers. As to the
nine thousand seven hundred and twenty, it has come about by taking the
sum of the first four numbers, starting with [Sidenote: C] unity, and
multiplying it by four, or four by ten.[148] Thus we get forty in either
way, which, when five times multiplied [triangle-wise][149] by three,
gave the number proposed. But about these matters there need be no
difference between us and Demetrius. Whether the time be longer or
shorter, determinate or not, in which the soul of a daemon shifts and
the life of a demigod, the point will have been proved, before any judge
he chooses, on the evidence of wise and ancient witnesses, that there
are certain natures on the borderland between Gods and men, subject to
mortal affections and enforced changes, who may rightly receive our
worship according to the custom of our fathers, and be thought of as
daemons and called so.
XIII. ‘Xenocrates, the companion of Plato, used triangles [Sidenote: D]
in illustration of the doctrine; he compared the equilateral to a divine
nature, the scalene to a mortal, and the isosceles to a daemonic; the
first equal in all relations, the second unequal in all, the third equal
in some, unequal in others, like the daemonic nature with its mortal
passions and divine power. Nature has put forward images, which our
sense can perceive, visible likenesses; the sun and the stars standing
for Gods, flashes and comets and meteors for mortal men, an image which
Euripides[150] drew in the lines: [Sidenote: E]
_In all his bloom, like to a falling star
His light was quenched, his spirit passed, to air._
But there is a being which is mixed, and really an imitation of the
daemons, the moon. Men, seeing her circumference so much in accord with
that order of beings, the manifest wanings and waxings and phases which
she undergoes, have called her, some an earthlike star, others an
Olympian earth, others “the portion of Hecate”, who belongs at once to
heaven and earth. As, then, if one were to remove the lower air,
withdrawing all [Sidenote: F] between earth and moon, an empty
unconnected space would be left, and the unity and continuity of the
whole dissolved, even so those who refuse to leave us the daemons break
off all intercourse and mutual dealing between Gods and men, by removing
that order in Nature which could “interpret”, in Plato’s[151] words, and
“minister”, or else they compel us to mingle all things into one mass,
forcing the God into human passions and business, and drawing him down
to our needs, [Sidenote: 417] as Thessalian witches are said to draw the
moon. Only their imposture found credit with women, when Aglaonice the
daughter of Hegetor, who knew her astronomy, chose an eclipse of the
moon, and then pretended to do magic and draw her down. But as for us,
let us never listen when we are told that there are prophecies with no
divine agency, or rites and orgiastic services which the Gods do not
heed; nor on the other hand suppose that the God is in and out and
present there, taking part in the business. Let us leave all this to
those [Sidenote: B] rightful ministers of the Gods, their ushers or
clerks. Let us hold that there are daemons who watch the performance of
rites, and inspire the mysteries, while others go about to avenge crimes
of insolence and pride, and to others Hesiod[152] has given a venerable
name,
_of wealth
The saintly givers; such their kingly trust_.
Observe that to do so is kingly. For there are, as among men, so among
daemons, degrees of excellence, and in some subsists still some slight,
faint, almost excremental remnant of passion and absence of reason; in
others this is strong and hard to do away, its traces and symbols being
in many places preserved and sporadically found in sacrifices and rites
and tales of wonder. [Sidenote: C]
XIV. ‘Now as to the mystic rites, in which the most evident and
transparent indication may be had of the truth about daemons, “peace be
upon my lips”, as Herodotus[153] says. Feasts and sacrifices, days
sinister and gloomy, so to call them, when are meals of raw flesh, and
rendings and fastings and beaten breasts, and in many places unholy
spells over the sacrifices:
_Whoopings wild, and cries of frenzy, necks together tossed in
air_,[154]
all these, I would say, belong to no God, but are modes of appeasement
and soothing to avert bad daemons. The human sacrifices which used to be
performed were neither asked for nor accepted by Gods, we cannot believe
it; yet kings and [Sidenote: D] captains would not have endured to give
up their own children by way of initiating the rites, or to cut their
throats, without a purpose; it was to soothe and satisfy the heavy
displeasure of beings cruel and hard to be moved, or in some cases their
frantic low passions, worthy of tyrants, when bodily approach was
impossible or not desired. As Hercules besieged the town of Oechalia for
the sake of a maiden, so strong and violent daemons, requiring in vain a
human soul still enveloped in the body, bring pestilences to cities and
sterility of land, and stir up wars and seditions, until they succeed in
getting that on which their affection is set. Some have fared otherwise;
[Sidenote: E] thus in a long stay in Crete I came to know of an absurd
festival observed there: the headless form of a man is shown, and you
are told that this was Molus, father of Meriones, who assaulted a maiden
and was found without a head.
XV. ‘Now all the crimes of violence, all the wanderings of Gods, all
tales of hiding, banishment, servitude, which are [Sidenote: F] said or
sung in myth or hymn, are adventures which happened not to Gods but to
daemons, and are recorded to show their excellence or power;
Aeschylus[155] was wrong when he wrote
_Apollo pure, the God exil’d from heav’n_,
and so was the Admetus in Sophocles[156] wrong:
_Mine was the cock who called him to the mill._
Widest of the truth of all are the theologians of Delphi, who, thinking
that a battle once took place here between the God and a serpent for the
possession of the oracle, allow poets and speech-writers contending in
the theatres to tell these stories, [Sidenote: 418] expressly belying
their own most sacred rites.’ Philippus, the historian, who chanced to
be present, here expressed surprise, and asked: ‘What rites such
competitors belied?’ ‘Those relating to the oracle,’ was the reply,
‘whereby the city, admitting to initiation those from here to Tempe has
now banished all Greeks dwelling beyond Thermopylae.[157] For the booth
set up afresh every nine years near the court of the temple is not like
any den or serpent’s haunt, but is an imitation of the dwelling of a
tyrant or king. And the assault made upon it in silence through what
they call “Dolon’s Way”, by [Sidenote: B] which the Aeolidae bring the
boy, both of whose parents are living, with lighted torches, put fire to
the booth, overturn the table, and then flee through the gates of the
temple without turning back; and lastly the wanderings of the boy and
his servile offices, and the purification rites at Tempe, all convey a
suspicion of some great crime of shocking audacity. For it is quite
absurd, my friend, that Apollo, after killing a beast, should flee to
the extremities of Greece in quest of purification, and then should pour
libations there and do all which men do to [Sidenote: C] appease and
soften the wrath of daemons (fiends and avengers as they are called,
because they pursue the memories of old unforgotten stains). The story
which I once heard about that flight and removal is strangely absurd and
surprising; but if there be any truth in it, let us never believe that
what passed about the oracle in these old times was any trifling or
ordinary matter. However, fearing to seem to do what Empedocles
describes:
_Stringing sundry myths, nor ever keeping to a single path_,
I will ask you to allow me to affix the proper conclusion to my first
tale, for we have just reached it. Many have said it before [Sidenote:
D] us; let us dare to say it now. When the daemons who have to do with
oracles and prophecies fail, all such things fail too, and lose their
force if the daemons flee or shift their place; then, if they return
after an interval, the things speak aloud, like instruments of music
when those who can play them are present to play.’
XVI. When Cleombrotus had finished, Heracleon spoke: ‘There is no
profane or uninitiated person present, no one who holds views about the
Gods discordant with our own; but let us keep jealous watch on
ourselves, Philippus, lest without our own knowledge we assume strange
and even monstrous [Sidenote: E] hypotheses.’ ‘Well said,’ answered
Philippus, ‘but what shocks you specially in what Cleombrotus is
advancing?’ ‘That the oracles should be administered,’ said Heracleon,
‘not by Gods, who may well be quit of earthly concerns, but by daemons,
assistants of the God, seems to me a not unfair assumption; but then to
pluck, I had almost said by the handful, out of the verses of
Empedocles, sins, infatuations, and God-inflicted wanderings, and to
fasten them upon these daemons, and to suppose that in the end they die
like men, this I do think a somewhat bold and barbarian view.’ Here
Cleombrotus [Sidenote: F] asked Philippus who and whence the young man
was, and, after learning his name and city, said: ‘No, Heracleon, it is
by no means “without our own knowledge” that we have reached strange
propositions; but in discussing great matters it is not possible to
attain what is probable in opinion without starting from great
premisses. But you, though you do not know it yourself, are taking back
what you grant. You allow that there are daemons; but when you require
that they should not be faulty [Sidenote: 419] nor yet mortal, it is no
longer daemons that you retain. For in what do they differ from Gods if
as to their being they are immortal, and as to virtue are passionless
and impeccable?’
XVII. As Heracleon remained silent and in deep thought, he went on:
‘Faulty daemons come to us not from Empedocles only, but from Plato and
Xenocrates and Chrysippus; yes, and Democritus,[158] when he prays to
meet “fair-falling phantoms”, shows that he knew of others which were
disagreeable, with definitely vicious intentions and impulses. As to
death in such beings, I have heard a story from a man who was no fool or
[Sidenote: B] romancer. Some of you have heard Aemilianus the orator;
Epitherses was his father, my fellow-townsman and teacher in grammar. He
said that he was once on a voyage to Italy, and embarked on board a ship
carrying cargo and many passengers. It was already evening when the
breeze died down off the Echinades Islands; and the ship drifted till it
was near Paxi. Most on board were awake, and many still drinking after
supper. Suddenly a voice was heard from the island of Paxi; some one was
calling Thamus in a loud voice, so that they all wondered. [Sidenote: C]
Thamus was an Egyptian pilot, not even known by name to many of the
passengers. Twice he was called, and remained silent; the third time he
paid attention to the caller, who raised his voice and said: “When you
reach the Palodes, tell them that Great Pan is dead.” Hearing this,
Epitherses said, all were in consternation, and began discussing with
one another whether “it were better to do as was ordered, or to refuse
to meddle and to let it be. They decided in the end that, if there were
a breeze, Thamus should sail past quietly, but if there should be calm
about the place, he should hail, and report. When he was off the
Palodes, as there was neither wind nor wave, [Sidenote: D] Thamus at the
helm looked to land and repeated the words he had heard: “Great Pan is
dead.” He had no sooner done this than a great groaning was heard,
proceeding not from one but from many, mingled with cries of wonder. As
there were many present, the story was soon spread in Rome, and Thamus
was sent for by Tiberius Caesar, who so entirely credited the story,
that he caused inquiry to be made about Pan. The scholars, of whom there
were many round him, conjectured that he was the son born of Hermes and
Penelope.’[159] (Philippus [Sidenote: E] was able to produce several
witnesses from the company who had heard the old Aemilianus.)
XVIII. Demetrius told us that, among the islands near Britain, many were
deserted and lay scattered (Sporades), some of them bearing the names of
daemons and demigods. He himself, by the Emperor’s command, made a
voyage of inquiry and observation to the nearest of the deserted
islands, which had a few inhabitants, all sacred persons and never
molested by the Britons. Just after his arrival, there was a great
confusion in the atmosphere, many portents from the sky with gusts of
wind and fiery blasts. When these calmed [Sidenote: F] down, the
islanders said that ‘one of the mightier ones has ceased to be.’ For as
a lamp when lighted, so they explained, has no unpleasant effect, but
when extinguished is disagreeable to many people, so it is with great
souls: their kindling into life is easy and free from pain; their
extinction and death often breed winds and tempests, ‘such as you see
now’, and infect the air with pestilence and sickness. They added that
there is one island in particular where Cronus is a prisoner, being
guarded in his sleep by Briareus; for sleep has been devised to be a
chain to bind him, and there are many daemons about him as satellites
and attendants.[160]
XIX. Cleombrotus spoke next: ‘I have stories of the same [Sidenote: 420]
kind which I might tell; but it is enough for our hypothesis that there
is nothing which actually contradicts it or makes such things
impossible. Yet we know’, he continued, ‘that the Stoics not only hold
the view which I am advancing with [Sidenote: B] reference to daemons,
but also recognize one out of the great multitude of Gods who is eternal
and immortal; the others, they think, have come into being, and will
perish. From the flouts and laughter of the Epicureans, which they
venture to employ against Providence also, calling it a mere myth, we
have nothing to fear. We maintain that their “Infinity” is a myth; so
many worlds, not one of which is governed by divine reason, all produced
spontaneously, and so subsisting. If it be permissible to laugh in
speaking of Philosophy, we may laugh at the dumb, blind, soulless images
which they shepherd during countless cycles of years, to reappear and
anon return in all directions, some issuing from bodies still living,
some [Sidenote: C] from those long ago burned or rotted. Thus they drag
into physiology cyphers and shadows; yet if one asserts that daemons
exist not in physical nature only, but as matter of theory, able to
remain in being for long periods of time, they show irritation.’
XX. When these views had been stated, Ammonius spoke: ‘I think’, he
said, ‘the dictum of Theophrastus was right. For what prevents our
accepting a view which is dignified and highly philosophical? To
disallow it is to reject many things possible but incapable of positive
proof; to allow it is not[161] necessarily to import many which are
impossible and [Sidenote: D] baseless. However, the only argument which
I have heard the Epicureans employ against the daemons as introduced by
Empedocles, that, if they are faulty and liable to sins, they cannot be
blessed beings and long-lived, because vice implies much blindness and a
liability to destructive accidents, is a foolish one. For, on this
showing, Epicurus will be a worse man than Gorgias the sophist, and
Metrodorus than Alexis the writer of comedies. For Alexis lived twice as
long as Metrodorus, and Gorgias more than a third as long again as
Epicurus. It is in another sense that we call virtue strong and
[Sidenote: E] vice weak, not with regard to the duration or dissolution
of body. Look at the lower animals: many which are sluggish in limb and
dull in spirit, loose or disorderly in habits, live longer terms than
the sensible and ingenious. Hence the Epicureans do wrong in ascribing
the immortality of God to the caution and resistance which he opposes to
destructive forces. No, the immunity from suffering and death should be
laid in the nature of the blessed being, and should imply no trouble on
his part. Perhaps, however, it is inconsiderate to argue against persons
not present. It is now for Cleombrotus to resume his [Sidenote: F]
argument lately interrupted, about the migration and exile of the
daemons.’
XXI. Then Cleombrotus: ‘Very well; I shall be surprised, however, if it
does not appear to you much stranger than what we have already said. Yet
its basis lies in Nature, and Plato struck the note, not stating his
view in plain terms, but as an obscure theory, cautiously throwing out a
hint in enigmatical form; for all which even he has been met with a
great outcry [Sidenote: 421] from the other philosophers. Now since we
are here with a bowl in our midst of mingled myths and theories—and
where should a man meet with kinder listeners before whom to try
theories as foreign coins are tried?—I do not hesitate to give you the
benefit of the story of a certain outlandish man. It was after many
wanderings and after paying heavy search fees, that I found him at last
with difficulty, and enjoyed his conversation and kindly welcome. It was
near the Red Sea, where once every year he associated with men, spending
the rest of his time, as he used to say, with nomad nymphs and deities.
He was the handsomest man I ever saw, and kept free from sickness
[Sidenote: B] of any sort, treating himself once a month with the
medicinal and bitter fruit of a grass. He was practised in the use of
many tongues; to me he would mostly use a Doric, which was very nearly a
song. While he was speaking, there was a fragrance in all the place from
the sweet breath passing out of his mouth. His general learning and
information were with him all the time; but one day in every year he was
inspired with prophecy, and would then go down to the sea and foretell
the future; potentates and secretaries of kings would come to visit him
and then go away. He used to refer prophecy to daemons; [Sidenote: C] he
paid the greatest attention to Delphi, and there were none of the
stories told of Dionysus, or of the rites performed here, of which he
had not heard. But he would say that all those stories belonged to
mighty sufferings of daemons, and among them this of the Python; only
that his slayer was not exiled for nine years nor to Tempe, but was
turned out into another universe, returning thence after nine
revolutions of the Great Year, purified and “Phoebus” indeed, to resume
possession of the oracle, which had been guarded in the meanwhile by
Themis. That the stories of the Typhons and Titans were [Sidenote: D]
similar; there had been battles of daemons against daemons, followed by
banishment of the defeated or expiation of offenders by a God, for
instance, Typhon is said to have sinned against Osiris, and Cronus
against Uranus; deities whose honours have become dim or been altogether
forgotten since they were removed to another universe. Thus I hear that
the Solymi, who dwell near the Lycians, hold Cronus in special honour;
but when he had slain their princes, Arsalus, Dryus, and Trosobius, he
was banished and removed (whither they cannot say). So he passed out of
account, but Arsalus and his fellows are called “stern Gods”, and the
Lycians publicly [Sidenote: E] and in private make execrations in their
names. Many stories like these may be had out of theological
collections.’ ‘But if we call certain daemons by the recognized names of
Gods,’ the stranger said, ‘it should be no wonder, for to whatever God
each has been assigned, to share his power and honour, after him he
likes to be called; even as among ourselves one is “of Zeus”, one “of
Athena”, one “of Apollo,” one “of Dionysus”, one “of Hermes”; only some
have by accident been rightly called, most have received names quite
inappropriate, [Sidenote: F] misapplied names of Gods.’
XXII. Here Cleombrotus paused. All present found his story a marvellous
one, but Heracleon asked how it bore upon Plato, and in what sense he
had given the note. ‘You perfectly remember’, said Cleombrotus, ‘that he
rejected, on the face of it, an infinity of worlds, but felt a
difficulty as to [Sidenote: 422] a limited number, and was ready to go
up to five,[162] thus conceding probability to those who assume one
world for each element, but himself keeping to one. This appears to be
peculiar to Plato, the other philosophers[163] regarding with horror any
plurality, because, if you do not limit matter to one world, when you
pass outside unity you arrive at once at an unlimited and perplexing
infinity.’ ‘But did your stranger’, I asked, ‘limit the number of worlds
as Plato does, or did you neglect to find this out when you were with
him?’ ‘Was it [Sidenote: B] likely,’ said Cleombrotus, ‘when he
graciously put himself at my disposal? On these points, if on nothing
else, I was, of course, an attentive and eager listener. What he said
was that there is not an infinite number of worlds, nor yet one, nor yet
five, but one hundred and eighty-three, arranged in a triangle with
sixty worlds in each side. Of the three left over, each is placed at one
angle. Each world keeps a light touch on its neighbours while they
revolve as in a dance. The area inside the triangle is the common hearth
of all, and is called the “Plain of Truth”, and within it the formulae,
and ideas, and patterns, [Sidenote: C] of things which have been and
things which are, lie undisturbed. Eternity is around them, and from it,
like a stream drawn off from it, Time passes to the worlds. Once in ten
thousand years human souls, if they have lived good lives, are allowed
to see and inspect this sight; and the best of the initiations performed
here are a dream of that review and that initiation. In our
philosophical discourses we are working on the memory of the fair things
which are seen there, or else our discourse is vain. This’, he said, ‘is
the tale I heard from him; he spoke as a man does in the mystery of an
initiation, and offered no demonstration or evidence.’
XXIII. I turned to Demetrius: ‘How’, I said, ‘do the [Sidenote: D] lines
about the Suitors run, where they wondered to see Ulysses handling the
bow?’ When he had remembered them, ‘Just’, I said, ‘what it comes into
my head to say about your stranger:
_Surely the rogue some pilfering expert is_[164]
in doctrines and theories from everywhere. He had travelled widely in
letters, and he was no Barbarian, but a Greek steeped deeply in Greek
learning. The number of his worlds proves it against him, for it is not
Egyptian nor yet Indian, but Dorian of Sicily, and comes from a man of
Himera named Petron. [Sidenote: E] His own pamphlet I never read and I
do not know whether it is extant; but Hippys of Rhegium, mentioned by
Phanias of Eresus, records it as his view or theory that there are one
hundred and eighty-three worlds all in touch with one another “by
elements”, whatever that may mean; he gives no further explanation or
proof of any sort.’ ‘What proof could there be’, broke in Demetrius, ‘in
matters of that sort, where Plato, without a word to make it reasonable
or likely, simply laid down his theory?’ ‘And yet’, said Heracleon,
[Sidenote: F] ‘we hear you grammarians referring the view to Homer,[165]
on the ground that he distributes the whole into five worlds, Heaven,
Water, Air, Earth, Olympus. Two of these he leaves “common”, namely,
Earth with all the lower portion of the whole, Olympus with all the
upper. The three in the middle have been allotted to the three Gods. So
also Plato,[166] apparently assigning to the different aspects of the
whole the bodily forms [Sidenote: 423] and figures which are the most
beautiful and the first, spoke of five worlds, one each for earth,
water, air, fire, but kept for last that which includes the others, the
world of the Dodecahedron, an expansible and versatile body, and
assigned to it the figure which suits the psychical periods and
movements.’ Demetrius said: ‘Why not let sleeping Homers lie for the
present? We have had enough of myths. But as to Plato, he is very far
from calling the five different aspects of the world five worlds; and,
where he is combating those who assume an infinite number, states his
own opinion that this is the only one, and is the sole creation of God
and beloved by him, brought into being [Sidenote: B] out of the
corporeal whole, entire, complete, and self-sufficing. Hence it may
appear strange that he should himself state the truth, yet supply to
others the fundamental principle of a view which is improbable and
irrational. To give up the defence of a single world was in a sort to
grant the assumption of the infinity of the whole. To make the definite
number of worlds five, neither more nor less, was quite against reason
and removed from all probability. Unless’, he added, turning to me, ‘you
have anything to say?’ ‘It seems to me’, I said, ‘to come to this, that
you have now dropped our discussion about oracles, as concluded, and are
taking up a fresh one of equal [Sidenote: C] importance.’ ‘We have not
dropped the old one,’ said Demetrius, ‘only we do not decline the new
when it fastens on us. For we do not mean to linger upon it, only to
touch on it sufficiently to ask how far it is probable; then we will
return to the original subject.’
XXIV. ‘In the first place then,’ I said, ‘the reasons which prevent the
making of an infinite number of worlds do not prevent the making of more
worlds than one. It is possible that both prophecy and a Providence may
find place in several worlds, and that the intrusion of Chance may be
very small, while most things, and those the greatest, observe order in
[Sidenote: D] their origin and their transition, none of which
suppositions is consistent with Infinity. In the next place, it is most
consonant with reason that God should not have made the world a sole
creation and left it to itself. For, being perfectly good, he is lacking
in no virtue, least of all in the virtues of Justice and Friendliness,
for these are most beautiful and becoming Gods. Now it is the nature of
God to have nothing which is idle or without use. Therefore there are
other Gods and worlds outside, towards which he exercises the social
virtues; for Justice, or Gratitude, or Benevolence, cannot be exercised
towards himself or any part of himself, it must be towards [Sidenote: E]
others. So it is not likely that this world should toss about in the
infinite void without friends, without neighbours, without
communication; since we see Nature herself wrapping up individuals in
classes and species, as though in jars or seed-vessels. There is nothing
in the whole list of things which has not some common formula, nor can
anything be called by a distinctive name which does not possess,
generically or individually, certain qualities.[167] But the world is
not spoken of as possessing generic qualities; it has qualities then as
an individual, which distinguish it from others akin to and resembling
itself. For [Sidenote: F] if there is not in the world such a thing as
one man, one horse, one star, one God, one daemon, what is to prevent
there being in Nature not one world, but several? If any one says that
Nature has one earth and one sea, he fails to see the obvious fact of
similar parts. For we divide earth into parts, all with one common name,
and sea likewise. But a part of the world is no longer a world; it is
composed of parts naturally different.
XXV. ‘Again, the chief fear which has led some to use [Sidenote: 424] up
the whole of matter on our world, that nothing may be left outside to
disturb its coherence by resistance or thrusts, is a needless one. For
suppose several worlds, to each of which is apportioned its own being,
and matter definitely measured and limited, then nothing will be left
outside without place or formation, like an extruded remnant, to put
pressure from without. For the law which has control of the matter
allotted to each world will not allow anything to be thrust out and
wander to strike upon another world, or anything from another to strike
its own, because Nature admits neither quantity without limit, nor
movement without law and arrangement. [Sidenote: B] Or, even if any
stream be drawn off and pass from worlds to other worlds, it must needs
be homogeneous and kindly, mingling itself mildly with all, as the stars
when they blend their rays. And the worlds themselves must have delight,
as they gaze on one another in friendliness, and must also provide for
the Gods in each, who are many and good, times of intercourse and common
cheerfulness. There is nothing impossible in all this, no fairy tale and
no paradox; unless, mark me, the views of Aristotle[168] are to bring it
into suspicion on physical grounds. For if each body has its own place,
as he says it has, earth must necessarily move towards the centre
[Sidenote: C] from every side, and the water rest upon it, underlying
the lighter elements because of its weight. If, then, there are many
worlds, the result will be that earth is in many places above fire and
air, and in many below them; and the same with air and water too, which
will be here in natural places, there in unnatural. Which being
impossible, as he thinks, there must neither be two worlds nor more than
two, but this one only, composed of all matter, and established
according to Nature and to the several qualities of matter.
XXVI. ‘However, all this is more plausible than true. Look at it in this
way,’ I went on, ‘dear Demetrius: when [Sidenote: D] he says that some
bodies move downward towards the middle, others upwards from the middle,
others around the middle, with reference to what does he take the
middle? Not to the void surely, for on his view there is none. But in
the view of those who allow a void, it has no middle, just as it has no
first or last, for these are limits, but the infinite has no limits. Or
if a man were to force himself, by sheer thinking, to conceive any
middle point in an infinite void, what is the resulting difference in
the movements of the different bodies towards it? Bodies have no force
in the void, nor yet have bodies any choice or impulse to make them aim
at the middle and tend towards it from all sides. Besides, where there
are bodies with [Sidenote: E] no soul, and a place which is incorporeal
and without difference of parts, it is as impossible to conceive of any
movement towards it arising out of themselves, as of any attraction upon
them arising out of it. It remains that the middle is spoken of not in a
local sense but in a corporeal. For granted that this world has unity of
structure with many dissimilar elements, the different parts have
necessarily different movements towards different objects. This is clear
from the consideration [Sidenote: F] that different elements, where
their substance is transferred, change their places at the same time;
rarefaction distributes in a circular movement the matter raised upwards
from the middle; consolidation and condensation press matter downward
towards the middle and force it together.
XXVII. ‘On this subject more words are needless here. Whatever you
assume to be the effective cause of these vicissitudes and changes, it
will hold each world together within itself. Each world has earth and
sea, each has a middle point [Sidenote: 425] of its own, its own
vicissitudes and changes of the bodies upon it, and a nature and a force
which preserve everything and keep it in its place. As for what is
outside, whether it be nothing or an infinite void, it presents no
middle point, as we have said; while, if there be many worlds, each has
a middle point of its own, and therefore a special movement of bodies to
or from or about that middle (to follow the distinction made by these
thinkers). To insist that, where there are many middle points, weights
press from all sides to one, is as though we should insist that, whereas
there are many men, the blood from all should flow together into a
single vein, and the brains of all be enveloped in a single pia mater;
and to make it a grievance [Sidenote: B] that all hard bodies in nature
should not be together in one place, and all rarefied bodies in another.
That would be preposterous, and equally so to complain that wholes
should have their parts disposed in their natural order within each of
them. It might be absurd to call that a world which has a moon low
down[169] within it, like a man with his brain lodged in his ankles or
his heart in his temples. But to make several independent worlds, and
then to differentiate the parts in sets to follow their wholes, and so
divide them, is not absurd. Earth, [Sidenote: C] sea, and heaven will be
in their natural and proper arrangement within each. Above, below,
around, middle have no relation to another world or to the outside, each
world has them all in and for itself.
XXVIII. ‘As to the “stone” which some assume to be outside the world, it
is not easy to form a conception of it, either as at rest or in motion.
For how is it either to remain at rest, being weighty, or to move
towards the world, like other heavy bodies, being no part of it nor
reckoned in with its substance? Earth embraced in another world, and
attached to it, need cause [Sidenote: D] no difficulty, when it does not
part from the whole because of its weight, and shift hitherwards, since
we see the natural strain by which each of the parts is held in its
place. For if we look, not to the world but outside it, to get our
conception of “below” and “above”, we shall find ourselves in the same
difficulties as Epicurus, who made all his atoms move to places under
our feet, as though either the void had feet, or infinite space
permitted us to conceive of “above” or “below” within itself! Hence,
again, we must feel surprise at Chrysippus, or indeed be quite at a loss
as to what possessed him to say that the world has been settled “in the
middle”, and that its substance, having occupied this middle place from
all eternity, [Sidenote: E] works therewith for permanence and in fact
for indestructibility. These are his words in the Fourth Book of his
work on “_Things Possible_”, where he falsely dreams of a middle of the
infinite, and assigns, still more preposterously, to that non-existent
middle the cause of the stability of the world; and yet he had often
said in other works, that substance is controlled and maintained by the
movements towards and away from its own middle point.
XXIX. ‘Then as to the other arguments of the Stoics, who can find them
alarming? They ask how we are to keep one Destiny and one Providence if
there are many worlds, and whether we shall not have many “Diès” and
many “Zenès”. [Sidenote: F] In the first place, if it is absurd that we
should have Zeus in the plural number, surely their scheme will be far
more absurd; for they make, in the revolutions of infinite worlds, sun,
moon, Apollo, Artemis, Poseidon, all multiplied to infinity. Then, what
makes it necessary that there should be many “Diès”, if there are more
worlds than one, rather than one principal God the emperor of the whole,
possessing intelligence and reason, sovereign in each world, such a one
as he who is called with us lord and father of all? Or what is to
prevent all worlds [Sidenote: 426] from being subject to the Destiny and
Providence of Zeus, and that he should overlook and control each in
turn, supplying to each the principles, the seeds, the formulae of all
which is brought about? It cannot be that here we often have a single
body composed of diverse bodies, as an assembly, an army, a choir, each
of whose component bodies has life, thought, apprehension (and this is
the view of Chrysippus), and yet that it should be impossible that in
the Whole there should be ten worlds or fifty, or a hundred, all based
on a common [Sidenote: B] formula, and ranged under a single principle.
Nay, such a disposition is altogether worthy of Gods. We have not to
make them sovereigns of a hive out of which they never pass; to guard,
nor to enclose or imprison them in matter, which is what the Stoics do
when they make the Gods atmospheric phases, or powers of the waters or
the fire, infused therein, brought into being with their world and again
burnt up with it, not leaving them unattached or free, as charioteers or
steersmen might be; but rather, as statues are nailed or soldered to
their bases, shut into the corporeal and clamped thereto, to share with
it till there come destruction and general dissolution and change.
XXX. ‘Yet the other theory is loftier and more magnificent, [Sidenote:
C] that the Gods are masterless and self-controlled, as the Tyndaridae
when they help sailors in storm.
_They visit them, the waves they bind
By soothing pow’r, and tame the wind_,
not going on board themselves to share the peril, but appearing from
above and delivering men; even so the Gods visit the worlds, now one and
now another; drawn on by joy as they contemplate, and steering each in
its natural course. [Sidenote: D] For the Zeus of Homer[170] had not
very far to carry his eye from Troy to the parts of Thrace, and the
wandering tribes about the Ister; but the real Zeus has beautiful
passages and becoming to himself among worlds more than one, not looking
out upon an infinite void, nor having his mind intent upon himself and
nothing else (as was the view of some), but surveying many works of Gods
and men, and movements and periodic orbits of stars. The divine nature
is no foe to changes, but takes much delight in them, if we may judge
from the bodies which [Sidenote: E] appear in the heavens, their changes
and periods. Now Infinity is altogether without feeling or reason; it
has no room to admit a God, all goes by chance and spontaneously. But
the Providence which cares for worlds defined and limited in number
appears to me to involve nothing less dignified or more laborious than
that which has entered a single body, and attached itself thereto, to
refashion or shape it anew in infinite particulars.’
XXXI. Having said so much, I paused. Philippus, after a short interval,
went on: ‘Whether the truth about these [Sidenote: F] things be so, or
not, I could not, for my own part, assert with confidence. But if we are
to force the God outside one world, why make him the artificer of five
worlds and no more; and what is the bearing of that number on the
plurality of worlds? I would rather be informed on this point than as to
the inner meaning of the consecration of the letter “E” in this place.
That letter is neither triangle, nor square, nor “perfect”, nor cubic,
nor has it any other apparent elegance for those who love and admire
such things. The process out of the elements, at which the Master
obscurely hinted, is hard to grasp [Sidenote: 427] in every respect, and
shows none of that probability which must have drawn him on to say that
it is likely that out of five solid bodies having equal angles and equal
faces and enclosed by figures of equal area, when set into matter, the
same number of perfect worlds was at once produced.’
XXXII. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘yet Theodorus of Soli seems to treat the argument
very fairly, in expounding the Mathematics of Plato. This is his method:
the Pyramid, the Octahedron, the Eicosahedron and the Dodecahedron, the
solid figures which Plato ranks first, are all beautiful because of the
symmetry and equality of their formulae; nothing better than these or
equal to them has been left over for Nature to compose [Sidenote: B] or
to frame. They have not, however, all been constructed on a single plan,
nor have all a similar origin. The Pyramid is the finest and smallest,
the largest and the one of most parts is the Dodecahedron; of the
remaining two the Eicosahedron is more than double the Octahedron in
number of triangles.[171] It follows that it is impossible for all to
take their origin at once from one and the same matter. For those which
are fine and small, and more simple in their structures, must be the
first to obey him who stirs and fashions the mass; they must sooner
cohere and be completed than those whose parts are abundant, and the
figures complex, and their construction more laborious, [Sidenote: C] as
the Dodecahedron. It follows that the Pyramid is the only primal body,
and that none of the others is so; they are left behind by Nature in the
becoming. For this strange result there is, however, a remedy, the
division and distribution of matter into five worlds. Here the Pyramid
(for it first formed substance), there the Octahedron, in a third world
the Eicosahedron. But from the figure which first took substance in each
the rest will take their origin, all change arising by concretion or
dissolution of parts, as Plato himself shows.[172] He goes thoroughly
into nearly all the cases, but for us a brief survey will suffice. Since
air is formed when fire is extinguished, and when rarefied [Sidenote: D]
again yields fire out of itself, we must observe what happens to the
seeds of either element, and the changes. The seeds of fire[173] are the
Pyramid with its twenty-four primary triangles; the seeds of air are the
Octahedron with its forty-eight. Therefore one element of air is formed
by the commixture and coherence of two of fire; and one of air is
exchanged into two of [Sidenote: E] fire, or by close pressure into
itself passes away into the form of water. Thus, universally, that which
is first formed readily allows the others to come into being by
transmutation. It is not the case that one is first; different elements
in different structures give the initial and prerogative movement into
being, yet the common name is kept throughout.’
XXXIII. ‘Bravo, Theodorus!’ said Ammonius; ‘he has worked out his task
with spirit. Yet I shall be surprised if he is not found to be using
assumptions which are mutually destructive. He wants to have it that all
five solids do not attain their structure together, the finest and
easiest of [Sidenote: F] composition always breaking first into being.
Then, as though following upon this, and not conflicting with it, he
lays it down that it is not all matter which admits the finest and
simplest element first, but that sometimes the heavy and complex objects
are the first to emerge out of matter. But to pass over this, whereas it
is assumed that there are five primal bodies, and therefore an equal
number of worlds, he makes out probability for four only; he has
discarded the Cube as if playing at [Sidenote: 428] counters, since
Nature does not adapt it to pass into the others or them into itself,
because the triangles are not of the same kind. In the other cases the
basis of formation is the semi-(equilateral) triangle; to the Cube the
right-angled isosceles is peculiar, which is incapable of converging
towards the others or joining with them to form one solid angle. If
then, there are five bodies and five worlds, and in each the primary
belongs to some one, then where the Cube has been the first to come into
being, the rest will be nowhere, for it is unable to change into any of
them. I pass by the fact that they make the element of the Dodecahedron
also a different thing from that scalene [Sidenote: B] out of which
Plato constructs the Pyramid, the Octahedron, and the Eicosahedron. And
so’, added Ammonius, with a laugh, ‘you must either resolve these
difficulties, or give us something of your own about the common
problem.’
XXXIV. ‘I have nothing more probable to offer, at least at the moment;’
I said, ‘yet perhaps it is better to show cause for one’s own view than
for that of others. I say then, going back to the beginning, that if we
assume two natures, one sensible, liable to changes of becoming and
perishing, and to various movements at different times, the other
essential, intellectual, always behaving alike under the same
conditions, it is strange, friend, that the intellectual should admit of
distinction and division within itself, while with regard to that which
is bodily, and subject to affections, there should be trouble and
[Sidenote: C] dissatisfaction if we refuse to leave it one,
self-coherent and self-convergent, but separate and part it. Surely it
is rather the permanent and divine which should hold together and
shrink, as far as may be, from all dissection and analysis. Yet the
force of “the Other” has gripped them, and has worked greater
divergences than those of place in things intellectual, I mean those
made by Reason and Idea. Hence Plato,[174] opposing those who make out
the Whole to be one, tells us of Being, and the [Sidenote: D] Same, and
the Different, and, besides all these, of Movement and Rest. Given then
these five, it would not be wonderful if these five corporeal elements
have been made by Nature copies and images of them severally, none free
from admixture or transparent, but each element so far as it could best
participate in each principle. Thus the Cube is clearly a body congenial
to Rest, because of the stability and firmness of its surfaces. No one
can fail to detect the fire-like, active character of the Pyramid in the
fineness of its sides and the sharpness of its angles. The nature of the
Dodecahedron, which embraces [Sidenote: E] the other figures, might well
be taken for an image of Being in relation to all that is corporeal. Of
the remaining two, the Eicosahedron is found most to partake of the idea
of the Different, the Octahedron of that of the Same. Therefore the
latter represented air, which holds all being in one constant form, the
former water, which when mixed assumes new qualities the most numerous.
If then Nature requires throughout equality before the law, it is
probable that worlds have been created neither more nor less in number
than the patterns, in order that each pattern in each world may hold
that primacy and power which it has had in the composition of the
elementary bodies.
[Sidenote: F] XXXV. ‘So much for that! May it reassure any one who is
surprised at our dividing the natural processes of becoming and mutation
into so many classes! Now comes another point, which I will ask you all
to consider with me. Of the ultimate first principles, by which I mean
unity and the undelimited two, the latter, as the element of all
shapelessness and disorder, has been called Infinity; but unity by its
nature limits and arrests what is void and irrational and undetermined
in [Sidenote: 429] Infinity, and imparts shape, and fits it to receive
and endure that definition of things apprehended by the senses which is
implied in counting. These principles appear first in connexion with
number; but I would rather say, universally, that plurality is not
number until unity supervenes, as form upon matter, and cuts off from
undetermined Infinity, more on this side, less on that. For plurality in
each case only becomes number when it is determined by unity. Again, if
unity be struck off, the undetermined two throws all into a confusion
without balance or limit or measure. Now since form is not a withdrawal
[Sidenote: B] of underlying matter but is shape and order thereof, both
principles must necessarily be found in number, and hence arises the
first and greatest difference or dissimilarity. The undetermined
principle is the constructive cause of the even, the better one of the
odd. Two is the first of the even numbers, three of the odd; out of them
comes five, in its composition common to both lists, in its effect, odd.
For when the sensible and corporeal was to be divided into several
parts, in virtue of the inherent cogency of the Other, their number must
not be the first even nor yet the first odd, but the third, that formed
out of these, so that it may take its origin from both [Sidenote: C]
principles, that which constructs the even and that which constructs the
odd; for neither could possibly be separated from the other; each
possesses the nature and power of a principle. Both principles then
being paired, the better one checked the indeterminate when it was
dividing up the corporeal; and prevailed; when matter was being
distributed between the two it set unity in the middle, and did not
allow an equal division of the whole. So a plurality of worlds has been
brought into being by the “Other” quality in the undetermined, and by
difference; but that plurality is odd, made so by the operation of “the
Same” and “the Determinate”, and odd in such a sense that Nature was not
allowed to advance beyond what was best. For if the unity had been
without admixture [Sidenote: D] and pure, matter would have been exempt
from any breaking up whatever; but as it has been mingled with the
discriminative power of the two, separation and division were so far
accepted; but there it stopped, the even overcome by the odd.
XXXVI. ‘Hence again the ancients were accustomed to use the words “to
take fives” for to count. I think, too, that the word for “all”
(_panta_) has been logically formed as though from “five” (_pente_)
because the number five is composed of the first numbers. For the others
when multiplied by other numbers come out to a product different from
themselves; but five if taken an even number of times gives a perfect
ten, if an odd, it reproduces itself. I pass over the facts [Sidenote:
E] that five is composed of the first two squares, one and four, and
that its own square is equal to the sum of the two before it, forming
with them the most beautiful of right-angled triangles, and that it is
the first number to give sesquiplicate ratio. For perhaps they are not
germane to the subject before us. This, however, is more germane, that
the number five has a divisory virtue, and Nature divides most things by
five. In [Sidenote: F] ourselves are five senses, and there are five
parts of the soul, those of growth, sense, appetite, passion, reason. We
have five fingers on each hand; seed is most fertile when it parts into
five (no instance has been recorded of a woman bearing more than five at
a birth); Rhea is said in Egyptian mythology to have given birth to five
Gods,[175] a veiled reference to the production of the five worlds out
of one matter. Turning to the universe, the surface of earth is divided
into five zones, and the Heavens are divided by five circles, two
Arctic, two [Sidenote: 430] Tropic, one in the middle, the Equinoctial.
Five are the orbits of the planets, if we take those of the sun and
Venus and Mercury as one. Lastly, the universe has been composed in the
Enharmonic Scale, just as our melody is made up of the arrangement of
five Tetrachords, lowest, middle, conjunct, disjunct, highest. And the
intervals are five: diesis, semitone, tone, tone and a half, double
tone. Thus it seems that Nature loves to make all things on the
principle of five, rather than, as Aristotle[176] used to say, of the
Sphere.
XXXVII. ‘What is the real reason, some one will ask, why Plato[177]
referred the number of five for his worlds to the five solid figures,
saying that “God used the fifth formation on the universe to mark it
out”? In the sequel, when he raises the [Sidenote: B] problem of
plurality of worlds, whether we should properly speak of one or of five
as naturally existing, he shows clearly that the suggestion came from
the solids. If, then, we are to adjust what is actually probable to his
conception, let us consider that difference in movement must in each
case follow difference in the solids and their shapes, as Plato[178]
himself teaches, when he [Sidenote: C] shows that what is rarefied or
condensed suffers a change of place simultaneously with alteration of
substance. If from air fire be formed, the Octahedron being resolved and
broken up into Pyramids, or again if air from fire, when compressed and
thrust into an Octahedron, it is impossible that either should remain
where it was before; they fly off rapidly to another place, forcing a
way out and battling with whatever resists and presses upon them. The
result is shown still more clearly by an illustration from grain “tossed
and winnowed by the fans and implements used for cleaning corn”;
Plato[179] says that [Sidenote: D] in like manner the elements toss
matter about and are tossed by it; like approaches like, different
objects take different places, before the whole comes out finally
marshalled. Thus then, matter being what any universe must be from which
God is absent, the first five properties, each with its own tendency, at
once began to move apart, not being entirely or purely separated,
because, when all things were mixed up together, the vanquished
particles always followed their conquerors, in despite of Nature. Hence
they produced in the kinds of bodies, as they were borne in different
directions, parts and divisions as many as themselves: one not of pure
fire but [Sidenote: E] resembling fire, one not of unmixed air but
resembling air, one not of earth simple and absolute but resembling
earth. Most general was the association of air with water, because they
passed out saturated with the many other classes. For God did not
separate nor disperse being; but taking it up dispersed by its own
operation and borne about in so many streams of disorder, he ordered and
disposed it in symmetry and proportion. [Sidenote: F] Then he set reason
in each to be a governor and guardian, and created as many worlds as
there were kinds of primal bodies. Let so much then be inscribed to
Plato for Ammonius’ sake. For myself, I could never speak with
confidence as to the number of worlds and affirm that there are so many:
but I think the view that there are more than one, yet not an indefinite
but a limited number, as reasonable as either of the other views, when I
see how scattered and divided matter naturally is, that it does not
abide in one place, nor yet [Sidenote: 431] is suffered by reason to
pass into Infinity. Here, if anywhere, let us remember the Academy rule,
and clear ourselves of excessive credulity, and treading on this
slippery ground when reasoning about Infinity, only make sure that we
keep our footing.’
XXXVIII. When I had finished, ‘Lamprias gives us sound advice’, said
Demetrius. ‘The Gods by many forms—not “of sophistries”, as it is in
Euripides,[180] but of things—deceive us, when we dare to pronounce
opinions about these [Sidenote: B] great matters as if we knew. But “we
must cry back”, to quote the same authority,[181] to the assumption from
which our argument started. The statement that the oracles, when the
daemons move off and desert them, lie idle and speechless, like musical
instruments with none to play on them, raises another and a greater
question as to the cause and power whereby they make the prophets and
prophetesses subject to fits of inspiration and fancy. For it is
impossible to allege the desertion as a cause of the silence unless we
are first satisfied in what sense they preside and by their presence
make the oracle active and vocal.’ ‘What?’ rejoined Ammonius, ‘do you
suppose that the daemons are anything but souls which move around, as
Hesiod[182] says “garmented in mist”? In my view, as man differs from
man when he plays tragedy or [Sidenote: C] plays comedy, so soul differs
from soul after it has fashioned for itself a body convenient to its
present life. It is not then irrational or even wonderful that souls
meeting souls should create within them fancies of that which is to be,
just as we convey to one another, not only through voice, but often by
written signs, by a touch, a glance, many intimations of things past,
and forewarnings of things future. Or perhaps you have something
different to tell us, Lamprias? For a rumour reached us lately that you
had held a long discussion on these subjects with strangers at Lebadeia;
but our informant [Sidenote: D] did not clearly remember any of it.’ ‘Do
not be surprised at that,’ I said, ‘for there were many interruptions
and much was going on, because it was a day of consultation and
sacrifice, which made our conversation fragmentary and intermittent.’
‘But now’, said Ammonius, ‘you have listeners with full leisure, and
eager to inquire and to be told. There is no question of rivalry or
faction, and you see what a frank full hearing has been accorded to
every view.’
XXXIX. The others joined in encouraging me, and after a few minutes of
silence I went on: ‘I must begin by saying [Sidenote: E] that it so
happens that you, Ammonius, have given me a sort of opening for bringing
forward now what I then said. For if the souls which have been separated
from the body or have never had commerce with one at all, are daemons as
you say, and God-like Hesiod[183] also:
_Holy visitants of Earth and guardians sure of mortal men_,
on what principle do we deprive souls while in their bodies of that
faculty whereby the daemons know and declare beforehand things to be? It
is not likely that any power or new part accrues to souls when they
leave the body, which they did not possess before. Rather, they always
have it, but in a weak degree while they are intermingled with the body;
it is sometimes quite invisible and veiled, sometimes weak and dim, and,
as with those who see through a mist or who try to move in a marshy
place, inoperative and dull, demanding much attention to the virtue that
is in them, and much pains to raise and remove and purify the
obstructing veil. The sun when he chases the clouds away does not then
become bright; he is bright always, [Sidenote: 432] but to us through
the mist his light appears dim and struggling. Even so the soul does not
assume the prophetic power when it passes out of the body as out of a
cloud; it has it even now, but is blinded by its close admixture with
the mortal state. We should not be surprised or incredulous, if only
because we see the great energy which Memory, as we call the faculty in
the soul which answers to prophecy, exhibits, in preserving and
protecting things that are past, or rather things that now are,[184]
since of things past none is or has substance; all things [Sidenote: B]
come into being and at the same time perish, all actions, words, and
feelings, as time like a river bears each along. But this faculty of the
soul, I know not how, gets a grasp of them, and invests with appearance
and being that which is not present. The oracle given to the Thessalians
about Arne[185] bade them attend to
_That which a deaf man hears, a blind man sees._
But Memory is the hearing of things to which the ear is deaf, the seeing
of things to which the eye is blind. Wherefore, as I said, it is no
marvel that, as it grasps things which no longer are, so it should
anticipate things which have not yet come into being. For these touch it
more nearly, and with these it has sympathy; it confronts the future and
attaches itself [Sidenote: C] thereto, whereas it is quit of things past
and finished, saving only to remember them.
XL. ‘Having then this inborn power yet dimmed and hardly appearing,
souls nevertheless break out and are uplifted, in dreams some of them or
when nearing initiation, as the body becomes pure, and takes on a
temperature, so to speak, which is suitable, or whether it be that the
rational and intellectual part is relaxed and discharged from the
present things, and so with the irrational and imaginative they reach
towards futurity. That line of Euripides[186] is not true:
_The best of prophets he who guesses well._
No, the prophet is the sensible man, he who follows the rational part of
his soul in the road where it leads him with probability. Divination,
like a scroll with no writing or method, in itself [Sidenote: D]
indeterminate, but capable of receiving fancies and presentiments by the
feelings, gets touch with the future, yet not by inference, when it
passes most completely outside the present. It passes out through such a
temperament and disposition of the body as produce a change called by us
inspiration. Often the body attains this disposition of itself; but the
earth sends up many streams of many potencies, some which bring trances,
diseases, or death, others beneficial, mild, and serviceable, as is
proved on those who chance upon them. Of all the currents the stream, or
breath, of prophecy is most divine and holy, [Sidenote: E] whether it be
drawn from the air direct, or come mingled with the moisture of a
spring; for when absorbed into the body it produces in souls a
temperament unfamiliar and strange, the special quality of which it is
hard to state in clear words, though reason suggests many conjectures.
Probably, by heat and dispersion, it opens certain passages to admit
imaginings of the future, just as the fumes of wine bring many other
stirrings, and unveil words and thoughts which were stored away and
unheeded, [Sidenote: F]
_For in the wine-god’s votary’s mood,
As in the madman’s, lies much prophecy_,
says Euripides;[187] when the soul, warmed and set on fire, rejects the
caution which human prudence brings, to avert inspiration, as it so
often does, and to quench it.
XLI. ‘After all, it might be not unreasonably asserted that a dryness
introduced with the heat subtilizes the current and makes it ethereal
and pure. “Best a dry soul”, says Heraclitus;[188] moisture not only
dulls sight and hearing, but if it [Sidenote: 433] touch a mirror or
raises[189] a mist upon it, takes away brightness and lustre. As the
opposite to this, it is not impossible that, by a sort of chilling and
condensation of the breath of air, the organ of prognostication is made
tense and keen, like steel out of the bath. Or again, as tin when melted
in with copper, itself rarefied and full of apertures, welds it together
and condenses it, and yet in the result makes it brighter to the eye and
purer, so there is nothing to prevent the prophetic exhalation,
[Sidenote: B] wherein is something congenial and akin to souls, from
filling up their rarefied places, and inserting itself, and pressing all
together. For certain things are congenial and proper to certain other
things; thus an infusion of the bean into the dyer’s bath seems to
assist its efficacy for purple, of nitre for saffron.
_Scarlet is mingled for the pearly weft_,
says Empedocles. But about Cydnus, and the sacred sword of Apollo at
Tarsus, we used to hear the story from you, dear Demetrius, how Cydnus
cleans that steel best, and no other water suits the sword. And again,
at Olympia, water from [Sidenote: C] Alpheus is poured on the ashes to
make them adhere to the altar in a mass, and the water of no other river
which has been found has the power of cementing the ash.
XLII. ‘It is not to be wondered at, then, that of the many streams which
the earth sends up, these alone affect souls with inspiration and give
them imagination of the future. Certainly legend agrees with reason as
to this. In this very place it is related that the prophetic virtue was
first made manifest by the accidental falling into it of a shepherd, who
thereupon uttered sounds as of one inspired. These passed at first
unheeded by those present; but afterwards, when the things which the man
foretold had happened, there was astonishment. The most learned of the
Delphians even mention [Sidenote: D] the man’s name, which was Coretas.
I am, however, myself strongly of opinion that a soul acquires a
temperature congruous with the prophetic current, such as the eye has
with light sympathetic to it. Though the eye possesses the power of
seeing, this cannot act without light; and the prophetic organ of the
soul needs, as the eye does, a congenial medium to help in kindling its
flame, or whetting its edge. Hence most of the older generations used to
think that Apollo and the sun were one and the same God, while those who
knew and honoured that beautiful and wise proportion, “as body to soul,
so sight [Sidenote: E] to intellect, so light to truth”, would add the
conjecture “so the power of the sun to the nature of Apollo”, declaring
the sun to be his offspring and scion, the ever becoming of the ever
subsisting. For the sun kindles and enhances and helps to excite the
visual power of the sense, as the God that of prophecy in the soul.
XLIII. ‘It was natural, however, that those who take the view that they
are one and the same God should have dedicated this oracle to Apollo and
Earth in common, thinking that the sun produces in the earth the
disposition and temperament from which come the prophetic exhalations
out of her. We [Sidenote: F] then, like Hesiod,[190] who understood the
matter better than some philosophers, when he called her
_Unshaken base of all_,
consider her to be eternal and imperishable. But of the powers which are
about her it is to be expected that some should fail here, and others
come into being there, and that there should be shiftings from place to
place, and cross-currents, and that such cycles should often revolve
within her if we take time as a whole; and the phenomena point to such
an inference. For in the case of lakes and rivers, and still more
frequently in that of hot springs, there have been failure and entire
disappearance in some places, in others a retreat so to call it, and an
absorption; [Sidenote: 434] then they reappear at intervals of time in
the same places, or bubble up in their neighbourhood. Again, we hear of
mines where the ore has been exhausted and then renewed, as in the
silver mines of Attica, and the copper lodes of Euboea, out of which the
chilled sword-blades used to be manufactured, as Aeschylus[191] has said
_Th’ Euboean blade, self-tempered, in his hand._
Then there is the rock at Carystus where it is only lately that the
yield of delicate thread-like filaments of mineral has ceased. I think
some of you will remember having seen towels, and nets, and caps made of
these, which were non-inflammable. [Sidenote: B] Any which were soiled
by use were placed in a flame out of which they came bright and clear.
Now there has been an entire disappearance of these, and scarcely a few
fibres or thin filaments run in streaks about the mines.
XLIV. ‘Yet Aristotle[192] holds that exhalation is the operative cause
within the earth of all these things, that is, of the natural effects
which necessarily fail, shift place, and break out concomitantly. The
same view must be taken of prophetic currents; the power which they have
is not perennial nor ageless, it is liable to changes. Probably they are
extinguished by excessive storms of rain, and dispersed by thunderbolts
[Sidenote: C] falling upon them; above all, when the earth is shaken,
and subsidence or conglomeration takes place in her depths, the
exhalations are shifted or wholly lost to view; thus the effects of the
great earthquake which actually overturned the town are said to be
permanent here. In Orchomenus they say that there was a pestilence in
which many men perished, and that the oracle of Teiresias then wholly
failed, and remains to this day idle and voiceless. If the like happened
also to those in Cilicia, as we hear it did, there is no one, Demetrius,
who could tell us about it more clearly than you.’
XLV. Demetrius said: ‘I cannot say how things are now, for it is a long
time since I left home, as you know; the [Sidenote: D] oracle of Mopsus
was in full force when I was there, and also that of Amphilochus. I can
tell you of a very remarkable thing which happened to that of Mopsus, in
my presence. The propraetor of Cilicia was himself still of two minds
about religious questions; from the weakness of his scepticism, I
imagine, for his general character was violent and bad; but he had about
him certain Epicureans, professed mockers at all such things on the
strength of their fine physiology. He sent in a freedman, equipping him
like a spy going into an enemy’s land, with sealed tablets inside which
was written the question, but no one knew what it was. The man spent a
night in the [Sidenote: E] sanctuary, as the custom was, and went to
sleep. The following day he reported a dream, which was this. He thought
that a handsome man stood over him, and said the one word “Black”,
nothing more, and went straight away. This appeared to us strange, and
caused much perplexity. However, that propraetor was struck with
consternation, and worshipped; then he opened the tablets and showed us
this question written inside: “Shall I sacrifice a white bull or a
black?” Even the Epicureans [Sidenote: F] were confounded at this, and
he himself completed his sacrifice, and ever afterwards held Mopsus in
reverence.’
XLVI. After saying this, Demetrius was silent. As I wished to bring the
discussion to a head, I glanced again at Philippus and Ammonius, who
were sitting together. They appeared to me to wish to exchange some
remarks, and again paused. Then Ammonius spoke: ‘Philippus has also
something to say on our past discussion; his own view, as that of most
people, is that Apollo is not a different God from the sun, but the
same. [Sidenote: 435] My own difficulty is a greater one, and turns on
greater matters. Just now we managed to let the argument take its own
way with due solemnity, to transfer prophetic art simply from Gods to
daemons. But now it seems to me that we are thrusting the latter out in
their turn, chasing them hence from oracle and tripod, and resolving the
origin—I would rather say the existence and power—of prophecy into
winds, and vapours, and exhalations. What we have heard about
temperatures, and [Sidenote: B] heatings and sharpenings, withdraws no
doubt the credit from the Gods, but thereby suggests the inference as to
cause which the Cyclops in Euripides[193] draws:
_The earth by force, whether it will or no,
Bringing forth grass, fattens my flocks and hinds._
Only he says that he does not sacrifice to Gods,
_but to myself,
And this great belly first of deities_,
whereas we sacrifice and pray to get our oracles; and why do we do it,
if souls carry within themselves a power of prophecy, which power is
stirred up by temperature of some sort in air or breeze? And then the
condition of the priestesses, what does [Sidenote: C] that mean, and the
refusal to respond unless the whole victim from the hoof-joint up be set
quivering when it is sprinkled? For it is not enough, as in other
sacrifices, for it to shake the head, the shivering must be in all the
parts, and with a tremulous sound; otherwise they tell you that the
oracle is not giving responses, and do not bring in the Pythia. Now, if
they ascribe the cause mainly to a God or daemon, it is reasonable to do
and think thus, but on your view it is not reasonable. For the
exhalation, if it be there, will produce the transport whether the
sacrifice quiver or not, and will affect the soul, [Sidenote: D] not
only of the Pythia, but equally of any chance comer who has physical
contact with it. Thus it is mere folly to employ one woman only for the
oracles, and to take trouble to keep her chaste and holy all her life.
For that Coretas who fell in, as the Delphians tell you, and was the
first to make evident the virtue of the place, was in no respect
different, as I think, from the other goatherds and shepherds, always
supposing that this is not a story and an idle fiction, which I think it
is. Then, when I reckon up the great benefits of which this oracle has
been the cause to the Greeks, in wars, in the founding of cities, in
[Sidenote: E] times of pestilence and of failure of crops, I think it
dreadful to ascribe its discovery and origin, not to God and Providence,
but to Chance and automatic causes. It is this point’, he added, ‘that I
want Lamprias to argue; will you not wait?’ ‘Indeed I will,’ said
Philippus, ‘and so will the others, the discussion has stirred us all.’
XLVII. I turned to him. ‘Stirred us, Philippus? It has confounded me, to
think that before so large and so grave a company I should seem so to
forget my years as with a show of plausible rhetoric to upset and
disturb any view about religion which is established in truth and
holiness. I will [Sidenote: F] defend myself by producing Plato, as
witness and advocate in one. Plato[194] found fault with old Anaxagoras
because he attached himself too much to physical causes, and because, in
his constant pursuit of the working of necessary law in all which
affects bodies, he dismissed the better causes or principles, the Final
and the Efficient. He himself, first of the philosophers or more than
any of them, went into both sets, attributing to God the origin of all
things which are according to reason, but [Sidenote: 436] refusing to
deprive matter of the causes necessary for their production; he
recognized that in some such way the whole sensible universe is
organized, yet is not pure nor free from admixture, but has its origin
in matter involved with reason. Now look at this first in the case of
the artists. Take, for instance, the famous base or stand, called by
Herodotus[195] “cup-stand”, of the bowl here; it had its physical
causes, iron, steel, fire to soften and water to temper it, without all
which the object could not possibly be produced; but the more potent
principle [Sidenote: B] which stirred the others and was working through
them, was furnished to it by Art and Reason. Now the name of the maker
or artificer has been inscribed on these several figures or works of
imitation:
_Here Polygnotus, son of Aglaophon,
The Thasian, painted towering Ilion’s sack._
You may see it for yourself. But without pigments crushed and compounded
it would be impossible to present such a composition to the eye. Does
then the man who seeks to grasp the physical principle, investigating
and laying down the effects and [Sidenote: C] the changes of a mixture
of Sinopic red earth with yellow, or Melian gray with black, rob the
painter of his glory? Or he who follows out the processes of tempering
or softening steel, how it is weakened by fire and submits itself to be
drawn and hammered, then, plunged into fresh water and compressed and
densified by the cold, because of the softness and rarefication induced
by the fire, acquires temper and consistence—“the iron’s might”
Homer[196] calls it—does he any the less preserve for the artist his
part in the causation? I think not! There [Sidenote: D] are those who
criticize the properties of medical appliances; they do not overthrow
the art of Medicine. As, for the matter of that, Plato[197] in proving
that we see by means of the flash of our eyes mingling with that of the
sun, and hear by the pulsations of the air, did not rule out the fact
that we have received our sight and our hearing in accordance with
Reason and Providence.
XLVIII. ‘The whole matter, as I maintain, stands thus. All becoming has
two causes, of which the most ancient theologians and poets chose to
turn their attention to the stronger only, pronouncing over all things
the universal refrain:
_Zeus first, Zeus middle, all things are of Zeus_,[198]
while they never approached the necessary or physical causes. Their
successors, called physicists, did the very reverse; they [Sidenote: E]
strayed away from that beautiful and divine principle, and refer
everything to bodies, and pulsations, and changes, and temperaments.
Hence the systems of both are deficient; they have ignored or neglected,
the latter the person through whom and the agent by whom, the former the
things from which and the means through which. He who first distinctly
grasped both, and attached by necessary law the subject affected to the
rational Maker and Mover, relieves us as well as himself from any charge
of contempt or detraction. We do not make [Sidenote: F] prophecy a
godless or irrational thing, when we assign to it for its matter the
soul of man, and for its instrument, or harp-quill, the inspiring
current and the exhalation. For, in the first place, the earth which
breeds the exhalations, and the sun who gives to earth all power of
temperature or of change, are reckoned Gods in the traditions of our
fathers. Further, in leaving daemons to preside over and guard this
temperature, as though it were a melody, to relax the strings in due
course [Sidenote: 437] or to tighten, to clear away that excess of
ecstasy and agitation which it causes in the worshippers, and to leave
excitement a painless and harmless compound, we shall not be thought to
do what is irrational or impossible.
XLIX. ‘Nor can we allow that in offering the previous sacrifice, or
crowning the victim, or pouring on it lustral draughts, we do anything
repugnant to this view. For when the priests and holy men sacrifice the
victim, and sprinkle it, and watch its movement and its trembling, they
do not profess to get from it an intimation of anything but the one fact
that the God is giving answers. For the thing offered in sacrifice must
be pure both in body and in soul, and free from any injury or taint. As
to body, it is not very difficult to make [Sidenote: B] out visible
proof; the test of soul is to offer corn to the bulls, pease to the
he-goats; an animal which refuses is reckoned out of health. For the
she-goat it is cold water; a soul in a normal state cannot be apathetic
and motionless under the sprinkling. For my own part, even if it be
certain that trembling is a sign that the God is ready to give
responses, the contrary that he [Sidenote: C] is not, I see no
disastrous consequence. As I said before, every natural force produces
its result better or worse according to season; if the right season is
escaping us, it is to be expected that the God should signify the fact.
L. ‘I think, further, that the exhalation is not always the same, it has
times of relaxation and of intensity. In proof, I can bring forward
witnesses, many of them strangers, and all the members of the temple
staff. For the room in which they place consultants of the God, is, at
intervals, which are not frequent or fixed, but come as it may happen,
filled with fragrance and a sweet gale, such as the most costly spices
might emit, which are thrown up, as out of a well, from the sanctuary.
[Sidenote: D] We may suppose that they burst out by the action of heat
or of some other force within. Or, if this does not seem to you
convincing, you will at least grant that the Pythia herself appears to
show at different times different states and moods of that part of the
soul which is in contact with the current, and does not present
throughout one temperament, like a melody which never changes. Many
conscious troubles and excitements, more which are unnoticed, seize her
body and stream on into the soul; and when she is charged with these, it
is better for her not to go in, not to present herself to the God when
she is not perfectly pure, like an instrument well strung and tuneful,
but is passionate and disordered. Wine does not always affect [Sidenote:
E] the hard drinker in the same way, nor the flute one susceptible to
its music; the same men are stirred to tipsy revelling, now less now
more, according to difference of temperament. The imaginative part of
the soul seems, more than any other, to be controlled by variations in
the body, and to change with it. This is clearly shown by dreams;
sometimes we find ourselves among many visions of every sort in our
sleep, at others again there is a perfect calm and relief from such
illusions. We know [Sidenote: F] ourselves Cleon here of Daulia, who
says that in the many years which he has lived he has never once seen a
dream-vision. In an older generation the same is recorded of Thrasymedes
of Heraea. The cause is bodily temperament, just as, on the other side,
there is that of melancholic persons, all dreams and phantoms; although
these are supposed to have the gift of dreaming right, for their
imagination turns them this way or that, [Sidenote: 438] just as those
who shoot often, often hit.
LI. ‘When then the imaginative and prophetic faculty of the soul is
attempered to the current as to a drug, the inspiration must be brought
about in the persons who are to prophesy, when not, not; otherwise the
result will be a distortion by no means free from trouble and
disturbance, as we know was the case with the Pythia who lately died. A
deputation came from abroad to consult the God; the victim remained
motionless and impassive under the first sprinkling, then the priests in
[Sidenote: B] excess of zeal persisted, and at last it did give in when
drenched with their shower-bath. What happened to the Pythia?
Unwillingly and with no alacrity, they say, she went down into the
vault. In her very first answers she made it clear by the hoarseness of
her voice that she could not bear up; she was like a ship driven by the
wind, filled with a dumb bad spirit. At last she became all agitation;
with a terrible cry she made towards the door of exit, and dashed
against it, so that not only the members of the deputation fled, but
also the prophet Nicander and the holy persons present. However, after a
short [Sidenote: C] time, they went in and recovered her. She was then
in her senses, and lived on for a few days. For these reasons, they keep
the person of the Pythia free from intercourse, and from any sort of
communication or contact with strangers; and they take the signs before
proceeding to the oracle, thinking that it is quite clear to the God
when she has the temperament and condition which will allow her to
undergo the inspiration with impunity. For the force of the exhaled air
does not affect all persons, nor the same persons always in the same
way; it only provides fuel, a foundation, as has been explained, for
[Sidenote: D] those who are fit to be subjected to the change. It is
essentially divine and daemonic, not however exempt from failure, or
destruction, or age, nor is it capable of enduring through that infinite
space of time in which all things between moon and earth are exhausted,
according to our theory. Some go on to say that the things also which
are above the moon do not endure, but fail in presence of the eternal
infinite, and suffer abrupt changes and new births.
LII. ‘These things’, I continued, ‘I commend to your repeated
consideration, and my own, as offering many openings for objection and
many suggestions of an opposite view, which the present opportunity does
not allow us to follow out in their [Sidenote: E] entirety. Let them
stand over then, and also the problem raised by Philippus about the sun
and Apollo.’
Footnote 128:
Whose account is, for convenience, somewhat recast and amplified. The
fact is understated. ‘There cannot be more than five solids, each of
which has all its faces with the same number of sides, and all its
solid angles formed with the same number of plane angles.’ Todhunter,
_Spherical Trigonometry_, c. 151.
Footnote 129:
_Il._ 10, 173, and Leaf’s note.
Footnote 130:
_Od._ 3, 367-8.
Footnote 131:
_Il._ 10, 394. See p. 265.
Footnote 132:
Herodotus, 8, 133-5. I have followed W.’s reconstruction.
Footnote 133:
See _Life of Aristides_, c. 19.
Footnote 134:
_W. and D._ 199.
Footnote 135:
See p. 231.
Footnote 136:
Fr. 149: see above, p. 77.
Footnote 137:
Herod. 9, 28 (and see ib. c. 21).
Footnote 138:
Fr. 729. Cp. _O. C._ 607.
Footnote 139:
The words ‘and here—heroes’ have been supplied from a quotation in
Eusebius, _Praep. Evan._ 5, 4.
Footnote 140:
From a fragment, Gaisford, _Poetae Minores_, ii, p. 489 (cp. Ausonius,
_Id._ 18; and Sir T. Browne, _Vulgar Errors_, 3, 9).
Footnote 141:
Fr. 165.
Footnote 142:
As Ausonius, loc. cit.
Footnote 143:
Fr. 87.
Footnote 144:
1 + 2 × 1 + 3 × 1 + 2^2 + 3^2 + 2^3 + 3^3 = 54.
Footnote 145:
See _Timaeus_, 35.
Footnote 146:
_Il._ 20, 8-9.
Footnote 147:
See Heraclitus, Fr. 34.
Footnote 148:
Inserting, with Mezirius, ἢ δεκάκις before τεσσάρων.
Footnote 149:
The meaning is simply that 40 × 3^5 = 9720, and ‘triangle-wise’ seems
irrelevant.
Footnote 150:
Fr. 961 (from the _Phaethon_).
Footnote 151:
_Sympos._ 202 F.
Footnote 152:
_W. and D._ 125. Cp. Plato, _Crat._ 397.
Footnote 153:
2, 171.
Footnote 154:
Pindar, Fr. 208 (cp. _Sympos._ 7, 5, 4).
Footnote 155:
_Suppl._ 214.
Footnote 156:
Fr. 730.
Footnote 157:
See additional note, p. 312.
Footnote 158:
Cp. _Life of Timoleon_, c. 1.
Footnote 159:
Cp. Herod. 2, 145.
Footnote 160:
See p. 54.
Footnote 161:
Reading οὐ πολλά (‘nihil secum trahit impossibile’. Xylander). See
Preface, p. vi.
Footnote 162:
_Timaeus_, 55.
Footnote 163:
As Aristotle, _De Caelo_, I, 8, 276 a 18.
Footnote 164:
_Od._ 21, 397.
Footnote 165:
_Il._ 15, 189.
Footnote 166:
_Tim._ 31 A, 55 C.
Footnote 167:
Reading, with Madvig (partly anticipated by Emperius) ... ὃ μὴ κοινῶς
ποιὸν ἢ ἰδίως ἐστίν· ὁ δὲ κόσμος οὐ λέγεται κοινῶς εἶναι ποιός· ἰδίως
τοίνυν ...
Footnote 168:
See e. g. _De Caelo_, 1, 6, 275 b 29, and Burnet, _Early Greek
Philosophy_, p. 397 note; see also p. 270 foll.
Footnote 169:
Inserting κάτω, with Meziriac.
Footnote 170:
_Il._ 13, 1 foll.
Footnote 171:
See p. 115.
Footnote 172:
_Tim._ 55 E, foll.
Footnote 173:
There is a play on the words for ‘fire’, ‘Pyramid’.
Footnote 174:
_Soph._ 249 B.
Footnote 175:
_Is. et Osir._ c. 12.
Footnote 176:
_De Caelo_, 2, 4, 286 b 10.
Footnote 177:
_Tim._ 55 C.
Footnote 178:
_Tim._ 57 C.
Footnote 179:
_Tim._ 52 E.
Footnote 180:
Fr. 925.
Footnote 181:
See p. 70.
Footnote 182:
_W. and D._ 124.
Footnote 183:
_W. and D._ 122.
Footnote 184:
μᾶλλον δὲ ὄντα. Cp. Plato, _Philebus_, 33, διὰ μνήμης πᾶν ἔστι τὸ
γεγονός.
Footnote 185:
See Thuc. 1, 12.
Footnote 186:
Fr. 963.
Footnote 187:
_Bacchae_, 297-8.
Footnote 188:
Fr. 75.
Footnote 189:
The text is corrupt, but probably contained ὁμίχλην. Cp. Plato,
_Sympos._ 736 A.
Footnote 190:
_Theogon._ 117.
Footnote 191:
Fr. 371.
Footnote 192:
_Meteor._ 1, 3, 340 b 29.
Footnote 193:
_Cyclops_, I. 332-3 (Shelley’s tr.).
Footnote 194:
_Phaedo_, 97 C.
Footnote 195:
1, 25, where the work is ascribed to Glaucus.
Footnote 196:
_Od._ 9, 393.
Footnote 197:
_Rep._ 6, 18, 507 C.
Footnote 198:
Cp. Plato, _Laws_, 716 E.
ON THE INSTANCES OF DELAY
IN DIVINE PUNISHMENT