Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/28

 20 DEMOSTHENES. tions uttered by the Pythian priestess, and this old oracle cited out of the Sibyl's verses, — The battle on Thermodon that shall be Safe at a distance I desire to see, Far, like an eagle, watching in the air. Conquered shall weep, and conqueror perish there. This Thermodon, they say, is a little rivulet here in our country in Chaeronea, running into the Cephisus. But we know of none that is so called at the present time ; and can only conjecture that the streamlet which is now called Haemon, and runs by the Temple of Her- cules, where the Grecians were encamped, might perhaps in those days be called Thermodon, and after the fight, being filled with blood and dead bodies, upon this occa- sion, as we guess, might change its old name for that which it now bears. Yet Duris says that this Thermo- don was no river, but that some of the soldiers, as they were pitching their tents and digging trenches about them, found a small stone statue, which, by the inscrip- tion, appeared to be the figure of Thermodon, carrying a wounded Amazon in his arms; and that there was another oracle current about it, as follows : — The battle on Thermodon that shall be. Fail not, black raven, to attend and see ; The flesh of men shall there abound for thee. In fine, it is not easy to determine what is the truth. But of Demosthenes it is said, that he had such great confidence in the Grecian forces, and was so excited by the sight of the courage and resolution of so many brave men ready to engage the enemy, that he would by no iGeans endure they should give any heed to oracles, or hearken to prophecies, but gave out that he suspected even the prophetess herself, as if she had been tampered