Selected Essays of Plutarch, Vol. II. · Plutarch
ON THE CESSATION OF THE ORACLES
L. ‘I think, further, that the exhalation is not always the same, it has times of relaxation and of intensity. In proof, I can bring forward witnesses, many of them strangers, and all the members of the temple staff. For the room in which they place consultants of the God, is, at intervals, which are not frequent or fixed, but come as it may happen, filled with fragrance and a sweet gale, such as the most costly spices might emit, which are thrown up, as out of a well, from the sanctuary. [Sidenote: D] We may suppose that they burst out by the action of heat or of some other force within. Or, if this does not seem to you convincing, you will at least grant that the Pythia herself appears to show at different times different states and moods of that part of the soul which is in contact with the current, and does not present throughout one temperament, like a melody which never changes.
Many conscious troubles and excitements, more which are unnoticed, seize her body and stream on into the soul; and when she is charged with these, it is better for her not to go in, not to present herself to the God when she is not perfectly pure, like an instrument well strung and tuneful, but is passionate and disordered. Wine does not always affect [Sidenote: E] the hard drinker in the same way, nor the flute one susceptible to its music; the same men are stirred to tipsy revelling, now less now more, according to difference of temperament. The imaginative part of the soul seems, more than any other, to be controlled by variations in the body, and to change with it. This is clearly shown by dreams; sometimes we find ourselves among many visions of every sort in our sleep, at others again there is a perfect calm and relief from such illusions. We know [Sidenote: F] ourselves Cleon here of Daulia, who says that in the many years which he has lived he has never once seen a dream-vision. In an older generation the same is recorded of Thrasymedes of Heraea. The cause is bodily temperament, just as, on the other side, there is that of melancholic persons, all dreams and phantoms; although these are supposed to have the gift of dreaming right, for their imagination turns them this way or that, [Sidenote: 438] just as those who shoot often, often hit.
LI. ‘When then the imaginative and prophetic faculty of the soul is attempered to the current as to a drug, the inspiration must be brought about in the persons who are to prophesy, when not, not; otherwise the result will be a distortion by no means free from trouble and disturbance, as we know was the case with the Pythia who lately died. A deputation came from abroad to consult the God; the victim remained motionless and impassive under the first sprinkling, then the priests in [Sidenote: B] excess of zeal persisted, and at last it did give in when drenched with their shower-bath. What happened to the Pythia? Unwillingly and with no alacrity, they say, she went down into the vault. In her very first answers she made it clear by the hoarseness of her voice that she could not bear up; she was like a ship driven by the wind, filled with a dumb bad spirit. At last she became all agitation; with a terrible cry she made towards the door of exit, and dashed against it, so that not only the members of the deputation fled, but also the prophet Nicander and the holy persons present. However, after a short [Sidenote: C] time, they went in and recovered her.
She was then in her senses, and lived on for a few days. For these reasons, they keep the person of the Pythia free from intercourse, and from any sort of communication or contact with strangers; and they take the signs before proceeding to the oracle, thinking that it is quite clear to the God when she has the temperament and condition which will allow her to undergo the inspiration with impunity. For the force of the exhaled air does not affect all persons, nor the same persons always in the same way; it only provides fuel, a foundation, as has been explained, for [Sidenote: D] those who are fit to be subjected to the change. It is essentially divine and daemonic, not however exempt from failure, or destruction, or age, nor is it capable of enduring through that infinite space of time in which all things between moon and earth are exhausted, according to our theory. Some go on to say that the things also which are above the moon do not endure, but fail in presence of the eternal infinite, and suffer abrupt changes and new births. LII. ‘These things’, I continued, ‘I commend to your repeated consideration, and my own, as offering many openings for objection and many suggestions of an opposite view, which the present opportunity does not allow us to follow out in their [Sidenote: E] entirety. Let them stand over then, and also the problem raised by Philippus about the sun and Apollo.’
Footnote 128: Whose account is, for convenience, somewhat recast and amplified. The fact is understated. ‘There cannot be more than five solids, each of which has all its faces with the same number of sides, and all its solid angles formed with the same number of plane angles.’ Todhunter, _Spherical Trigonometry_, c. 151. Footnote 129: _Il._ 10, 173, and Leaf’s note. Footnote 130: _Od._ 3, 367-8. Footnote 131: _Il._ 10, 394. See p. 265. Footnote 132: Herodotus, 8, 133-5. I have followed W.’s reconstruction. Footnote 133: See _Life of Aristides_, c. 19. Footnote 134: _W. and D._ 199. Footnote 135: See p. 231. Footnote 136: Fr. 149: see above, p. 77. Footnote 137: Herod. 9, 28 (and see ib. c. 21). Footnote 138: Fr. 729. Cp. _O. C._ 607. Footnote 139: The words ‘and here—heroes’ have been supplied from a quotation in Eusebius, _Praep. Evan._ 5, 4. Footnote 140: From a fragment, Gaisford, _Poetae Minores_, ii, p. 489 (cp. Ausonius, _Id._ 18; and Sir T. Browne, _Vulgar Errors_, 3, 9). Footnote 141: Fr. 165. Footnote 142: As Ausonius, loc. cit. Footnote 143: Fr. 87. Footnote 144: 1 + 2 × 1 + 3 × 1 + 2^2 + 3^2 + 2^3 + 3^3 = 54. Footnote 145: See _Timaeus_, 35. Footnote 146: _Il._ 20, 8-9. Footnote 147: See Heraclitus, Fr. 34.
Footnote 148: Inserting, with Mezirius, ἢ δεκάκις before τεσσάρων. Footnote 149: The meaning is simply that 40 × 3^5 = 9720, and ‘triangle-wise’ seems irrelevant. Footnote 150: Fr. 961 (from the _Phaethon_). Footnote 151: _Sympos._ 202 F. Footnote 152: _W. and D._ 125. Cp. Plato, _Crat._ 397. Footnote 153: 2, 171. Footnote 154: Pindar, Fr. 208 (cp. _Sympos._ 7, 5, 4). Footnote 155: _Suppl._ 214. Footnote 156: Fr. 730. Footnote 157: See additional note, p. 312. Footnote 158: Cp. _Life of Timoleon_, c. 1. Footnote 159: Cp. Herod. 2, 145. Footnote 160: See p. 54. Footnote 161: Reading οὐ πολλά (‘nihil secum trahit impossibile’. Xylander). See Preface, p. vi. Footnote 162: _Timaeus_, 55. Footnote 163: As Aristotle, _De Caelo_, I, 8, 276 a 18. Footnote 164: _Od._ 21, 397. Footnote 165: _Il._ 15, 189. Footnote 166: _Tim._ 31 A, 55 C. Footnote 167: Reading, with Madvig (partly anticipated by Emperius) ... ὃ μὴ κοινῶς ποιὸν ἢ ἰδίως ἐστίν· ὁ δὲ κόσμος οὐ λέγεται κοινῶς εἶναι ποιός· ἰδίως τοίνυν ... Footnote 168: See e. g. _De Caelo_, 1, 6, 275 b 29, and Burnet, _Early Greek Philosophy_, p. 397 note; see also p. 270 foll. Footnote 169: Inserting κάτω, with Meziriac. Footnote 170: _Il._ 13, 1 foll. Footnote 171: See p. 115. Footnote 172: _Tim._ 55 E, foll. Footnote 173: There is a play on the words for ‘fire’, ‘Pyramid’.
Footnote 174: _Soph._ 249 B. Footnote 175: _Is. et Osir._ c. 12. Footnote 176: _De Caelo_, 2, 4, 286 b 10. Footnote 177: _Tim._ 55 C. Footnote 178: _Tim._ 57 C. Footnote 179: _Tim._ 52 E. Footnote 180: Fr. 925. Footnote 181: See p. 70. Footnote 182: _W. and D._ 124. Footnote 183: _W. and D._ 122. Footnote 184: μᾶλλον δὲ ὄντα. Cp. Plato, _Philebus_, 33, διὰ μνήμης πᾶν ἔστι τὸ γεγονός. Footnote 185: See Thuc. 1, 12. Footnote 186: Fr. 963. Footnote 187: _Bacchae_, 297-8. Footnote 188: Fr. 75. Footnote 189: The text is corrupt, but probably contained ὁμίχλην. Cp. Plato, _Sympos._ 736 A. Footnote 190: _Theogon._ 117. Footnote 191: Fr. 371. Footnote 192: _Meteor._ 1, 3, 340 b 29. Footnote 193: _Cyclops_, I. 332-3 (Shelley’s tr.). Footnote 194: _Phaedo_, 97 C. Footnote 195: 1, 25, where the work is ascribed to Glaucus. Footnote 196: _Od._ 9, 393. Footnote 197: _Rep._ 6, 18, 507 C. Footnote 198: Cp. Plato, _Laws_, 716 E.
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