Page:History of Greece Vol VI.djvu/181

 SECOND AND THIRD YEAKS OF THE WATi 15J incantations ' to which the unhappy patient resorted, likely to bo more efficacious. While some asserted that the Peloponnesians had poisoned the cisterns of water, others referred the visitation to the wrath of the gods, and especially to Apollo, known by hearers of the Iliad as author of pestilence in the Greek host before Troy. It was remembered that this Delphian god had promised the Lacedaemonians, in reply to their application imme- diately before the war, that he would assist them whether invoked or uninvoked, and the disorder now raging was ascribed to the intervention of their irresistible ally : while the elderly men far- ther called to mind an oracular verse sung in the time of their youth : " The Dorian war will come, and pestilence along with it." 2 Under the distress which suggested, and was reciprocally 1 Compare the story of Thaletas appeasing an epidemic at Sparta by hia music and song (Plutarch, De Musicd, p. 1146). Some of the ancient physicians were firm believers in the efficacy of these charms and incantations. Alexander of Tralles says, that having originally treated them with contempt, he had convinced himself of their value by personal observation, and altered his opinion (ix, 4) evioi yovv olovrai rolf TUV ypauv uv-&otf eotKevai rag eTruJaf, uairep Kayu fiexpi ?ro/U /loti' T> xpovu <5e inrb TUV kvapyu<; aivo/nevuv e.neia'&riv elvai 6vvap.iv iv avralf. See an interesting and valuable dissertation, Origines Contagii, by Dr. C. F. Marx (Stuttgard, 1824, p. 129). The suffering Herakles, in his agony under the poisoned tunic, invokes the doifJdf along with the xeiporexvris laropiuf (Sophokles, Trachin. 1005). 8 Thucyd. ii, 54. 4>ao7covref oi Trpa(3i>Tepoi Tra/lat adea&ai 'Hfet Aupiaitbf no^e/uof, K.a.1 /Icu/zoc /*' avTu. See also the first among the epistles ascribed to the orator ^Eschines. respecting a hoifi.bg in Dclos. It appears that there was a debate whether, in this Hexameter verse At//df (famine) or Twtpbf (pestilence) was the correct reading : and the probability is, that it had been originally composed with the word Zipb?, for men might well fancy beforehand that famine would be a sequel of the Dorian war, but they would not be likely to imagine pestilence as accompa- nying it. Yet, says Thucydides, the reading hoifibc was held decidedly preferable, as best fitting to the actual circumstances (ol -yup uvtipuirot irpbf u etraaxov rt/v [ivTHirjv ETTOIOVVTO). And " if (he goes on to say) there should ever hereafter come another Dorian war, and famine along with it, She oracl: will probably be reproduced with the word fafibf as part of it." This deserves notice, as illustrating the sort of admitted license with which men twisted the oracles or prophecies, so as to hit the feelings of thf actual moment.