LAMPRIAS, CLEOMBROTUS, DIDYMUS, PHILIPPUS, DEMETRIUS, AMMONIUS,
HERACLEON.
1. There is an old story, friend Terentius Priscus, that heretofore
eagles or swans, flying from the opposite bounds of the earth, met
together where now stands the temple of Apollo Pythius, in the place
now called the Navel; and that some while after, Epimenides the
Phaestian, willing to satisfy his curiosity, enquired of the oracle of
Apollo with regard to this story, but received such an answer as made
him never a jot the wiser; upon which he said:
No navel is there of the earth or sea:
’Tis known to Gods alone, if one there be.
Thus fitly did the God chastise this bold enquirer into ancient
traditions.
2. But in our time, not long before the celebration of the Pythian
games during the magistracy of Callistratus, there were two holy men
who, coming as it were from the two opposite ends of the world, met
together at the city of Delphi. The one was Demetrius the grammarian,
who came from England to return to Tarsus in Cilicia, where he was
born; the other, Cleombrotus the Lacedaemonian, who had been long
conversant in Egypt and the Troglodytic country, and had made several
voyages, as well on the Red Sea as other parts,—not as a merchant, to
get money, but to improve his knowledge and enrich his mind; for he
had enough to live upon, and cared for no more. And he was collecting
history, as the material for philosophy, the end whereof (as he called
it) is theology. He, having been lately at the temple and oracle of
Jupiter Ammon, seemed not much to marvel at any thing he there saw; yet
he mentioned to us one particular (which he said was told him by the
priest of the temple) touching the lamp that is never extinguished and
spendeth less every year than the former. Whence they conjectured an
inequality of years, whereby each year was shorter than the preceding.
3. This discourse was much wondered at by the company, and Demetrius
amongst the rest affirmed it unreasonable to ground the knowledge of
such great matters on such slight and trivial conjectures; for this
was not (as Alcaeus said) to paint the lion from the measure of his
claw,[1] but to change and disorder the motions of celestial bodies for
the sake of a lamp or the snuff of a candle, and to overthrow at one
stroke all the mathematical sciences. These men, replied Cleombrotus,
will not be moved by what you say; for first, they will not yield to
mathematicians in point of certainty, seeing they may be more easily
mistaken in their comprehension of time, it being so slippery in its
motions and with such distant periods, than these men in the measures
of their oil, about which they are so exact and careful because of the
strangeness of the thing. Moreover, Demetrius, by denying that small
things are oft the signs and indications of great, must prejudice
several arts and sciences, and deprive them of the proofs of several
conclusions and predictions. And yet you grammarians will needs vouch
that the Demi-gods and princes at the Trojan war shaved with razors,
because you find in Homer the mention of such an instrument; that also
usury was then in fashion, because he says in one place,