Page:History of Greece Vol II.djvu/270

 254 HIST OK V OF GREECE. the gods would grant him relief. The three priestesses of Do dona with their venerable oak, and the priestess of Delphi sit- ting on her tripod under the influence of a certain gas or vapor exhaling from the rock, were alike competent to determine these difficult points : and we shall have constant occasion to notice in this history, with what complete faith both the question was put and the answer treasured up, what serious influence it often exercised both upon public and private proceeding. 1 The hex- ameter verses, in which the Pythian priestess delivered herself, were, indeed, often so equivocal or unintelligible, that the most serious believer, with all anxiety to interpret and obey them, often found himself ruined by the result ; yet the general faith in the oracle was noway shaken by such painful experience. For as the unfortunate issue always admitted of being explained upon two hypotheses, either that the god had spoken falsely, or that his meaning had not been correctly understood, no man of genuine piety ever hesitated to adopt the latter. There were many other oracles throughout Greece besides Delphi and .Do- dona : Apollo was open to the inquiries of the faithful at Ptoon in Boaotia, at Abas in Phokis, at Branchidas near Miletus, at Patara in Lykia, and other places : in like manner, Zeus gave answers at Olympia, Poseidon at Taenarus, Amphiaraus at Thebes, Amphilochus at Mallas, etc. And this habit of consulting the 1 See the argument of Cicero in favor of divination, in the first book of his valuable treatise De Divinatione. Chrysippus, and the ablest of the stoic philosophers, both set forth a plausible theory demonstrating, a priori, the probability of prophetic warnings deduced from the existence and attributes of the gods : if you deny altogether the occurrence of such warnings, so essential to the welfare of man, you must deny either the existence, or the foreknowledge, or the beneficence, of the gods (c. 38). Then the veracity of the Delphian oracle had been demonstrated in innumerable instances, of which Chrysippus had made a large collection : and upon what other sup- position could the immense credit of the oracle be explained (c. 19) ? " Col- Jegit innumerabilia oracnla Chrysippus, et nullum sine locuplete teste et auctore : quse quia nota tibi sunt, relinquo. Defendo unum hoc : nunqnam illud oraculum Delphis tarn celebre clarumque fulssct, neque tantis donis refertum omnium populorum et reguni, nisi omnis setas oraculorum illornm veritatem esset experta Maneat id, quod negari non potest, nisi omnem historiam perverterimus, multis ssecnfis verax fuisse id oraculuir." Cicero admits that it had become less trustworthy in his time, and tries to explain this decline of prophetic power : compare Plutarch, De Defect. Cvacul.