The only solemn oath, by which the gods irrevocably obliged themselves,
is a well known thing, and makes a part of many ancient fables. To this
oath they did not invoke any celestial divinity, or divine attribute,
but only called to witness the River Styx, which, with many meanders,
surrounds the infernal court of Dis. For this form alone, and none
but this, was held inviolable and obligatory; and the punishment of
falsifying it, was that dreaded one of being excluded, for a certain
number of years, the table of the gods.
EXPLANATION.—This fable seems invented to show the nature of the
compacts and confederacies of princes; which, though ever so solemnly
and religiously sworn to, prove but little the more binding for it: so
that oaths, in this case, seem used rather for decorum, reputation, and
ceremony, than for fidelity, security, and effectuating. And though
these oaths were strengthened with the bonds of affinity, which are
the links and ties of nature, and again, by mutual services and good
offices, yet we see all this will generally give way to ambition,
convenience, and the thirst of power: the rather, because it is easy
for princes, under various specious pretences, to defend, disguise,
and conceal their ambitious desires and insincerity, having no judge
to call them to account. There is, however, one true and proper
confirmation of their faith, though no celestial divinity, but that
great divinity of princes, Necessity; or, the danger of the state; and
the securing of advantage.
This necessity is elegantly represented by Styx, the fatal river that
can never be crossed back. And this deity it was, which Iphicrates the
Athenian invoked in making a league; and because he roundly and openly
avows what most others studiously conceal, it may be proper to give
his own words. Observing that the Lacedæmonians were inventing and
proposing a variety of securities, sanctions, and bonds of alliance,
he interrupted them thus: “There may, indeed, my friends, be one bond
and means of security between us; and that is, for you to demonstrate
you have delivered into our hands, such things as that, if you had the
greatest desire to hurt us, you could not be able.” Therefore, if the
power of offending be taken away, or if, by a breach of compact, there
be danger of destruction or diminution to the state or tribute, then
it is that covenants will be ratified, and confirmed, as it were by
the Stygian oath, whilst there remains an impending danger of being
prohibited and excluded the banquet of the gods; by which expression
the ancients denoted the rights and prerogatives, the affluence and the
felicities, of empire and dominion.