108

made him the richest in the world in a short time, not even omitting in his magnanimity as much as was sufficient for sacrifices. 5.20.9 Since, then, he had made so many advances to the god, the Lydian, reasonably encouraged by the great works of his piety, intends to march against the Persians, planning to greatly enlarge his dominion by the alliance of the god. 5.20.10 What then of the wondrous oracle-giver? That very one at Delphi, the Pythian, the friendly one, prepares the suppliant, the pious, the refugee, not to gain a foreign dominion, but even to be cast out from his own, not willingly, it seems to me, but rather through ignorance of the outcome; for the god, not knowing the future, since he was not a god nor any power greater than man, sophistically shaped the oracle for either outcome, all but saying: Croesus, by crossing the Halys [river], will destroy a great empire, he destroys the dominion of Lydia, which had come down to the pious man by succession from his ancestors, being great and long-lasting, returning this fruit to the god-beloved for his excessive zeal about him.” At this the author, hear how not unreasonably he is indignant: 5.21.1 XXI. HOW HE BECAME THE CAUSE FOR CROESUS ALSO TO BE CAST OUT FROM HIS OWN DOMINION THROUGH AN AMBIGUOUS

ORACLE. “You seem indeed truly to know as much as is worth sand, but to know nothing noble. For the knowledge that the smell ‘of a hard-shelled tortoise being boiled’ should come to your senses is worth sand, not even being true itself, but nevertheless resembling the boaster and the shameless one who raises his brow at empty knowledge and persuades the Lydian slave, Croesus, not to despise 5.21.2 him. Who shortly after, upon trial, was about to ask you whether he should march against the Persians, and to make you a counsellor for his own madness and greed. To whom you did not hesitate to say that by crossing the Halys he would destroy a great empire. 5.21.3 This, however, is good, that you cared nothing if he should suffer something terrible, being incited to a foreign dominion by an ambiguous oracle, nor if some bitter and malicious men, when they ought to praise you for collaring a madman, should also accuse you of not having uttered a balanced statement, so that the Lydian might hesitate and take counsel; but “to destroy” can be understood by the Greeks in only one way, not to be cast out from one's own dominion, but rather to acquire a foreign one. 5.21.4 For Cyrus, the half-Mede or half-Persian, or the mule in the riddle, being of tyrannical stock on his mother's side, but of private station on his father's, reveals the blind Muse, but also the unprophetic prophecy, if indeed the seer did not know that he would not 5.21.5 understand the riddle. But if he was playing not out of ignorance, but out of wantonness and wickedness, alas, what divine playthings these are! But if not even this, but that it was fated to happen so, this is the most unholy of sophistical arguments. But why at all, if it was fated to happen so, do you, wretched one, sit at Delphi singing empty and vain things? What use are you to us? Why do we madly run to you from all parts of the earth? Why are you so obscure?” 5.21.6 Such are the detections of the jugglers in the plain-speaking of Oenomaus, not free from Cynic 5.21.6 bitterness. For he wishes the oracles admired among all the Greeks to be not of a daemon, let alone a god, but the delusions and sophisms of jugglers contrived for the deception of the many; and since we have once made mention of these, there would be nothing to hinder us from hearing other refutations also, and first of all that by which he says he was himself deceived by the Clarian Apollo, writing as follows: 5.22.1 XXII. HOW THEY LEAD ASTRAY BY PLAYING THROUGH ORACLES WITH THOSE WHO ASK

108

γῆς ἐν ὀλίγῳ χρόνῳ πλουσιώτατον ἀπέφηνεν, οὐδ' ὅσα 5.20.9 πρὸς θυσίας ἐξήρκει παραλιπὼν τῇ μεγαλοψυχίᾳ. ἐπειδὴ οὖν τὰ τοσαῦτα προδεδάνειστο τῷ θεῷ, ταῖς τῆς εὐσεβείας εἰκότως ὁ Λυδὸς ἐπιθαρσῶν με γαλουργίαις στρατεῦσαι ἐπὶ Πέρσας διανοεῖται, αὐξῆσαι τὴν ἀρχὴν εἰς μέγα 5.20.10 τῇ τοῦ θεοῦ συμμαχίᾳ προμηθούμενος. τί οὖν ὁ θαυμάσιος χρησμῳδός; αὐτὸς ἐκεῖνος ὁ ἐν ∆ελφοῖς, ὁ Πύθιος, ὁ φίλιος τὸν ἱκέτην, τὸν εὐσεβῆ, τὸν πρόσφυγα οὐχ ὅπως τῆς ἀλλοτρίας τυχεῖν ἀρχῆς, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῆς οἰκείας ἐκπεσεῖν παρασκευάζει, οὔ τι ἑκών, ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ, ἀγνοίᾳ δὲ μᾶλλον τοῦ ἀποβησομένου· μὴ γὰρ τὸ μέλλον εἰδὼς ὁ θεός, ἐπεὶ μὴ θεὸς ἦν μηδέ τις ἀνθρώπου κρείττων δύναμις, ἐπὶ θάτερα σοφιστικῶς τὸν χρησμὸν ἡρμόσατο καὶ μονονουχὶ φήσας· Κροῖσος Ἅλυν [ποταμὸν] διαβὰς μεγάλην ἀρχὴν καταλύσει, τὴν ἐκ προγόνων διαδοχῆς εἰς τὸν εὐσεβῆ κατελθοῦσαν τῆς Λυδίας ἀρχήν, μεγάλην οὖσαν καὶ πολυχρόνιον, καταστρέφει, τῆς ἄγαν περὶ αὐτὸν σπουδῆς τοῦτον ἀποδοὺς τῷ θεοφιλεῖ τὸν καρπόν.» Ἐπὶ τούτοις ὁ συγγραφεὺς οἷα οὐκ ἀλόγως διαγανακτεῖ ἄκουε· 5.21.1 καʹ. ΩΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΩΙ ΚΡΟΙΣΩΙ ΤΗΣ ΟΙΚΕΙΑΣ ΑΡΧΗΣ ΕΚΠΕΣΕΙΝ ∆Ι' ΑΜΦΙΒΟΛΙΑΣ

ΧΡΗΣΜΟΥ ΚΑΤΕΣΤΗ ΑΙΤΙΟΣ «Ἔοικας δὴ ὡς ἀληθῶς τὰ μὲν ὅσα ψάμμου ἄξιά ἐστιν εἰδέναι, καλὸν δὲ μηδὲν εἰδέναι. τὸ γοῦν ὀσμὴν ἐς φρένας σὰς ἐλθεῖν «κραταιρίνοιο χελώνης ἑψομένης» ψάμμου ἄξιον ἐπίστημά ἐστιν, οὐκ ἀληθὲς μὲν ὂν οὐδ' αὐτό, ἀλλὰ προσεοικός γε ὅμως τῷ ἀλαζόνι καὶ ἀναιδεῖ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς κενοῖς εἰδήμασι τὴν ὀφρὺν ἐπαίροντι καὶ τὸ Λύδιον ἀνδράποδον τὸν Κροῖσον πείθοντι μὴ καταφρονεῖν 5.21.2 αὐτοῦ. ὃς μετ' ὀλίγον ἐπὶ τῇ πείρᾳ ἤμελλεν ἀνερωτᾶν σε εἰ στρατεύοι ἐπὶ Πέρσας, καὶ σύμβουλον ποιεῖσθαι ὑπὲρ τῆς αὑτοῦ μανίας καὶ πλεονεξίας. ᾧ οὐκ ὤκνησας εἰπεῖν ὅτι Ἅλυν διαβὰς μεγάλην ἀρχὴν καταλύσει. 5.21.3 ἐκεῖνο μέντοι εὖ, ὅτι σοι οὐδὲν ἔμελεν εἴ τι ἄτοπον πείσεται ὑπ' ἀμφιβόλου χρησμοῦ ἐπαρθεὶς ἐπ' ἀλλοτρίαν ἀρχήν, οὐδ' εἰ πικροί τινες ἄνθρωποι καὶ κακοήθεις, δέον ἐπαινεῖν σε ἐπὶ τῷ τραχηλίσαι μαινόμενον ἄνθρωπον, καὶ προσεγκαλοῖεν ὡς οὐδὲ ἰσόρροπον φωνὴν ἀφέντα, ἵν' ὀκνήσειεν καὶ βουλεύσαιτο ὁ Λυδός· ἀλλὰ «καταλῦσαι» καθ' ἕνα τρόπον ἔστιν νοεῖσθαι πρὸς τῶν Ἑλλήνων, οὐ τὸ τῆς οἰκείας ἀρχῆς ἐκπεσεῖν, ἀλλ' αὖ τὴν ἀλλοτρίαν περιποιήσασθαι. 5.21.4 ὁ μὲν γὰρ Ἡμίμηδος ἢ Ἡμιπέρσης Κῦρος, ἢ ὁ μητρόθεν μὲν ἐκ τυραννικοῦ, πατρόθεν δὲ ἐξ ἰδιωτικοῦ γένους ἡμίονος ὢν ἐν τῷ αἰνίγματι, παρεμφαίνει μὲν τὴν ἔκτυφον μοῦσαν, ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν ἄμαντιν μαντικήν, εἴπερ οὐκ ᾔδει μὴ οὐ 5.21.5 συνήσοντα τοῦ αἰνίγματος ὁ μάντις. εἰ δ' οὐχ ὑπ' ἀγνοίας, ἀλλ' ὑπὸ τρυφῆς καὶ πονηρίας ἔπαιζεν, βαβαὶ οἷα τὰ θεῖα παίγνιά ἐστιν. εἰ δὲ οὐδὲ τοῦτο, ἀλλ' ὅτι ἐχρῆν οὕτως γενέσθαι, ἀνιερώτατος μὲν οὗτος λόγων σοφιστικῶν· τί δὲ ὅλως, εἰ οὕτως ἐχρῆν γενέσθαι, σὺ ὁ δύστηνος ἐν ∆ελφοῖς καθέζῃ τὰ κενὰ καὶ μάταια ᾄδων; τί δὲ σοῦ ὄφελος ἡμῖν; τί δὲ μαινόμεθα οἱ πανταχόθεν τῆς γῆς ἐπὶ σὲ διώκοντες; τί δὲ σὺ κνηφιᾷς;» 5.21.6 Τοιαῦτα τῆς Οἰνομάου παρρησίας τὰ τῆς τῶν Γοήτων φώρας, κυνικῆς 5.21.6 οὐκ ἀπηλλαγμένα πικρίας. οὐδὲ γὰρ δαίμονος, μὴ ὅτι θεοῦ, τοὺς παρὰ τοῖς Πανέλλησι θαυμαζομένους χρησμοὺς εἶναι βούλεται, γοήτων δὲ ἀνδρῶν πλάνας καὶ σοφίσματα ἐπὶ ἀπάτῃ τῶν πολλῶν ἐσκευωρημένα· ὧν ἐπείπερ ἅπαξ ἐμνήσθημεν, οὐδὲν ἂν γένοιτο ἐμποδὼν τοῦ καὶ ἑτέρων ἐλέγχων ἐπακοῦσαι, καὶ πρώτου γε δι' οὗ καί φησιν αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ ὑπὸ τοῦ Κλαρίου Ἀπόλλωνος ἠπατῆσθαι, γράφων ὧδε· 5.22.1 κβʹ. ΩΣ ΠΛΑΝΩΣΙ ∆ΙΑ ΤΩΝ ΧΡΗΣΜΩΝ ΠΑΙΖΟΝΤΕΣ ΤΟΥΣ ΕΡΩΤΩΝΤΑΣ