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pretends to foretell the things supposedly dedicated to the gods. But this, even without an oracle, was to be expected by all from the enemy's attack.» The writer, acting reasonably, again mocks, exposing the Hellenic deceit in these words: 5.24.1 24.

THAT BEING UNABLE TO HELP AT ALL IN THE MISFORTUNES OF WARS, THEY DEVISED AND DECEIVED THE REFUGEES THROUGH AMBIGUOUS ORACLES

«But perhaps such things are of a voluntary mischief, but one ought rather to bring forward for judgment those things concerning the Athenians. And so let the things concerning the Athenians be told: O wretched ones, why do you sit? Flee the city to the ends of the earth; for neither the head remains firm nor the body, neither hands nor feet below; for fire and swift Ares shall destroy it, driving a Syrian-born chariot; and he shall destroy many towers here and cast them down; and he shall give many temples of the immortals to raging fire; who somewhere now stand streaming with sweat, quivering with fear. 5.24.2 Behold for you the oracle to the Athenians; is there anything prophetic in it? For would you so trust it, by Zeus <Zeus>, one might say, but if you add what is said further to them as they ask for help, it will be known. Behold, let it be added: Pallas is not able to appease Olympian Zeus, beseeching him with many words. To you I will speak this word again, making it like adamant: While the others are being taken beforehand, a wooden wall to Tritogeneia does wide-seeing Zeus grant alone to be unsacked for the sake of the maiden Pallas; and do not wait for the cavalry and infantry coming, but turn your back; for someday yet you will stand against him. O divine Salamis, you shall destroy the children of women either when Demeter is scattered or when she is gathered. 5.24.3 Your Zeus is worthy of Zeus, O son of Zeus, and Athena is worthy of Athena, O brother of Athena; and this earnestness and counter-earnestness befit the father and the daughter, or rather the gods; and this Olympian, who is too weak to destroy this one city, unless he brought that countless army against it from Susa, was some great one indeed, and holding the sovereignty of the universe and persuasive at the same time, moving so many nations from Asia to Europe, but being unable to overthrow one city in Europe. 5.24.4 And you, at once daring and yet reckless for nothing, will you not lament? Men would have said, on whose behalf Pallas is not able to appease Olympian Zeus; Or was Zeus not angry with the men, but with the stones and the timbers, and then you were saving the men, while he was burning the buildings with imported fire? For he had no thunderbolt at that time. 5.24.5 Or are we not rather daring and reckless, not permitting you to trifle so? How is it, O seer, that you knew that divine Salamis will destroy the children of women, but you no longer knew whether when Demeter is scattered or when she is gathered? And how did you not know this, that one might say the 'children of women' are both their own and also the enemy's, having perceived the evil artifice? 5.24.6 But one must await the outcome; for one of these things must turn out. For 'divine Salamis' would not have been unsuitable even for the defeated, being so invoked for pity; and the impending naval battle, 'either when Demeter is scattered or when she is gathered,' has been plastered over with poetic solemnity, so that the oracle might be undetectable in its sophistry and it might not be immediately obvious that a naval battle does not take place in winter. 5.24.7 And now the tragedy is not obscure nor the gods wheeled in, the one supplicating, the other not being moved; useful for the future and for the unexpected turn of the war, the one for those being saved, the other for those being destroyed. For if they should be saved, behold the prayers of Pallas have been foretold, being sufficient to bend the wrath of Zeus; and if not, this too is not unprepared for by the seer; for Pallas is not able

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τῶν τοῖς θεοῖς ἀφιερωμένων δῆθεν προλέγειν προσποιεῖται. τοῦτο δὲ καὶ δίχα χρησμοῦ τοῖς πᾶσιν ἐκ τῆς τῶν πολεμίων ἐφόδου προσδοκᾶν ἦν.» Εἰκότα δῆτα ποιῶν ὁ συγγραφεὺς διαπαίζει πάλιν τὴν Ἑλληνικὴν ἀπάτην ἐξελέγχων ἐν τούτοις· 5.24.1 κδʹ.

ΟΤΙ ΜΗ∆ΕΝ ∆ΥΝΑΜΕΝΟΙ ΒΟΗΘΕΙΝ ΕΝ ΤΑΙΣ ΤΩΝ ΠΟΛΕΜΩΝ ΣΥΜΦΟΡΑΙΣ ∆Ι' ΑΜΦΙΒΟΛΩΝ ΧΡΗΣΜΩΝ ΕΣΟΦΙΖΟΝΤΟ ΚΑΙ ΗΠΑΤΩΝ

ΤΟΥΣ ΠΡΟΣΦΥΓΑΣ «Ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν τοιαῦτα ἴσως ἐθελοκάκου τινός ἐστιν, ἐκεῖνα δὲ δεῖ μᾶλλον εἰς τὴν κρίσιν προάγειν τὰ πρὸς Ἀθηναίους. καὶ δὴ λεγέσθω τὰ πρὸς Ἀθηναίους· ὦ μέλεοι, τί κάθησθε; πόλιν φύγετ' ἔσχατα γαίης· οὔτε γὰρ ἡ κεφαλὴ μένει ἔμπεδος οὔτε τὸ σῶμα, οὐ χέρες οὐδὲ πόδες νέατοι· κατὰ γάρ μιν ἐρείψει πῦρ τε καὶ ὀξὺς Ἄρης, συριηγενὲς ἅρμα διώκων· πολλὰ δὲ τῇδ' ἀπολεῖ πυργώματα καὶ κατερείψει· πολλοὺς δ' ἀθανάτων νηοὺς μαλερῷ πυρὶ δώσει· οἵ που νῦν ἱδρῶτι ῥεούμενοι ἑστήκασιν, δείματι παλλόμενοι. 5.24.2 ἰδοὺ δή σοι τὸ πρὸς Ἀθηναίους λόγιον· ἦ πού τι μαντικὸν ἔνεστιν; σὺ γὰρ οὕτως ἐθάρρεις αὐτῷ νὴ ∆ία <∆ιί>, φαίη τις ἄν, εἰ δὲ προσθείης ἃ δεομένων βοηθεῖν αὐτοῖς ἐπιλέγεται, γνωσθήσεται. ἰδοὺ δὴ προσκείσθω· οὐ δύναται Παλλὰς ∆ί' Ὀλύμπιον ἐξιλάσασθαι, λισσομένη πολλοῖσι λόγοις. σοὶ δὲ τόδ' αὖτις ἔπος ἐρέω, ἀδάμαντι πελάσσας· τῶν ἄλλων προαλισκομένων τεῖχος Τριτογενεῖ ξύλινον διδοῖ εὐρύοπα Ζεὺς μοῦνον ἀπόρθητον τελέθειν διὰ Παλλάδα κούρην· μηδὲ σύ γ' ἱπποσύνην τε μένειν καὶ πεζὸν ἰόντα, νῶτον ἐπιστρέψας· ἔτι τοί ποτε κἀντίος ἔσται. ὦ θείη Σαλαμίς, ἀπολεῖς δὲ σὺ τέκνα γυναικῶν ἤ που σκιδναμένης ∆ημήτερος ἢ συνιούσης. 5.24.3 ἄξιός τέ σοι ὁ Ζεὺς τοῦ ∆ιός, ὦ υἱὲ τοῦ ∆ιός, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ Ἀθηνᾶ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς, ὦ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς ἀδελφέ· ἥ τε σπουδὴ αὕτη καὶ ἡ ἀντισπουδία ἐπιπρέπει τῷ πατρὶ καὶ τῇ θυγατρί, μᾶλλον δὲ τοῖς θεοῖς· ὅ τε Ὀλύμπιος οὗτος ὁ τὴν μίαν ταύτην ἐξελεῖν πόλιν ἀσθενῶν, εἰ μὴ ἀπὸ Σούσων ἐπαγάγοι αὐτῇ τὸν ἄπειρον ἐκεῖνον στρατόν, μέγας τις ἄρα ἦν καὶ τὴν τοῦ παντὸς κυρίαν ἔχων καὶ πιθανὸς ἅμα, ἐκ μὲν τῆς Ἀσίας εἰς τὴν Εὐρώπην κινῶν ἔθνη τοσαῦτα, ἐν δὲ τῇ Εὐρώπῃ μίαν πόλιν 5.24.4 ἀνατρέψαι ἀδύνατος ὤν. καὶ σὺ δέ, ὁ τολμηρὸς ἅμα καὶ ἐπὶ τῷ μηδενὶ ῥιψοκίνδυνος, οὐκ οἰμώξεις; εἶπον ἂν ἄνθρωποι, ὑπὲρ ὧν ἡ Παλλὰς οὐ δύναται ∆ί' Ὀλύμπιον ἐξιλάσασθαι· ἢ οὐ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐμήνιεν ὁ Ζεύς, ἀλλὰ τοῖς λίθοις καὶ τοῖς ξύλοις κἄπειτα σὺ μὲν τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἔσῳζες, ὁ δὲ τὰ οἰκοδομήματα ἐνεπίμπρα ἐπακτῷ πυρί; οὐ γὰρ ἦν αὐτῷ κεραυνὸς τηνικαῦτα. 5.24.5 ἢ μή τι μᾶλλον ἡμεῖς τολμηροί τε ἐσμὲν καὶ ῥιψοκίνδυνοι, οὐκ ἐπιτρέποντες ὑμῖν οὕτω φληναφᾶν; πῶς δέ, ὦ μάντι, ὅτι μὲν ἡ θείη Σαλαμὶς ἀπολεῖ τέκνα γυναικῶν ᾔδεις, πότερα δὲ σκιδναμένης ∆ημήτερος ἢ συνιούσης οὐκέτ' ᾔδεις; πῶς δὲ οὐδὲ τοῦτο ᾔδεις, ὅτι τὰ τέκνα τῶν γυναικῶν εἴποι μὲν ἄν τις εἶναι καὶ τὰ οἰκεῖα, εἴποι δ' ἂν καὶ τὰ πολέμια, αἰσθόμενος τοῦ κακοτεχνήματος; 5.24.6 περιμένειν δὲ δεῖ τὸ ἀποβησόμενον· ἓν γὰρ δεῖ τι τούτων ἀποβήσεσθαι. ἡ γάρ τοι Σαλαμὶς ἡ θείη οὐδὲ ἡττωμένων ἀφήρμοσεν ἄν, ὡς εἰς οἶκτον οὕτως ἐπι φωνουμένη· ἥ τε μέλλουσα τῶν νηῶν μάχη, ἤτοι που σκιδναμένης ∆ημήτερος ἢ συνιούσης, καταπέπλασται τῇ ποιητικῇ σεμνολογίᾳ, ἵνα γένηται μάντευμα ἀφώρατον τῷ σοφισμῷ καὶ μὴ εὐθὺς καταφανὲς ᾖ, ὅτι ἐν χειμῶνι μάχη ναυτικὴ 5.24.7 οὐ συνίσταται. ἤδη δὲ οὐδὲ ἡ τραγῳδία ἀφανὴς οὐδὲ οἱ θεοὶ ἐπεισκυκλούμενοι, ὁ μὲν ἱκετεύων, ὁ δὲ οὐ κατακαμπτόμενος· χρήσιμοι τῷ μέλλοντι καὶ τῇ τοῦ πολέμου παραδόξῳ ῥοπῇ, ὁ μὲν σῳζομένοις, ὁ δ' ἀπολλυμένοις. εἴτε γὰρ σῴζοιντο, ἰδοὺ αἱ τῆς Παλλάδος λιταὶ προμεμήνυνται, ἱκαναὶ οὖσαι κάμψαι τὴν τοῦ ∆ιὸς ὀργήν· εἴτε καὶ μή, οὐδὲ τοῦτο τῷ μάντει ἀκατάσκευον· οὐ γὰρ δύναται Παλλὰς