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of this, but lead yourself. For it is beautiful, but for us impassable and fearsome.” To these things he adds, saying: 5.29.1 27. THAT THEY DID NOT MAKE THEIR ORACLES ABOUT SERIOUS MATTERS

“But you are ready to speak even about marriage: Take the dark-maned colt of horse-pasturing Argos; 5.29.2 and about children: Eetion, no one honors you, though you are very honored; Labda is pregnant, and she will bear a rolling stone of destruction; 5.29.3 and about a colony: go forth to the golden men, a nation of many peoples, carrying bronze on your shoulders, and iron in your hands; 5.29.4 and about empty glory: of all the earth the Pelasgian soil is best; Thracian horses, Lacedaemonian women, and the men who drink the water of fair Arethusa. 5.29.5 And you seem to me to be no better than those called portent-gazers, nor indeed than the other vagabond priests and sophists. But I am not at all surprised at them, if they bend their necks for pay, but at you, the god of men, if they bend their necks for pay. 5.29.6 Then that Socrates gave neither answer to the one who asked whether he should marry or not, but that he would regret both. And to the one desiring children, he said he would not be doing well, who, having neglected to try to figure out how, if he should have children, he might treat them best, took no account of this, 5.29.7 but only considered how he might get them. And of another who had decided to go abroad because things were bad at home, he said he was not deliberating correctly; for he will depart leaving his homeland there, but taking his ignorance with him, which will make him displeased with things there just as with things here. And not only when he was asked, but also going uninvited to such gatherings. 5.30.1 28.

THAT THEY GAVE COUNSEL ON WHAT SHOULD BE DONE WITH COMMON AND HUMAN REASONINGS

For twenty days before the dog-star and twenty after, in a shady house use Dionysus as a doctor, for the Athenians troubled by the heat; this is medical, but not prophetic. 5.30.2 Erginus, son of Clymenus, of the line of Presbon, you have come late seeking offspring; but nevertheless, on the old plow-beam set a new crow-bar; for an old man to live with a young woman, if he desires children, this too is not the work of a prophet, but of one who understands nature. But desire drives the foolish mad. 5.31.1 29.

THAT THEY ALSO GAVE MUCH ADVICE UNPHILOSOPHICALLY

Wherefore I advise you to take a fennel-stalk to them, if you cannot persuade them to learn something worthy of the divine school instead of their contemptible questions, or to say to Antiochus of Paros, who lost his property in political nonsense and came to you out of grief: Antiochus, go to Thasos and inhabit the glorious island; who would have been more benefited had he heard this: Antiochus, come to your senses and do not grieve in poverty. 5.31.2 Or to the Cretans who came: Inhabitants of Phaestus and Tarrha and well-watered Dium, I bid you piously perform the Pythian purification of Phoebus, so that you may inhabit Crete, revering happiness and Zeus, not by ancestral laws. 5.31.3 for whom it would have been better to hear this: inhabitants of nonsense and madness and much delusion besides, I bid you piously perform a purification of your own nonsense, so that you may inhabit wisdom, revering happiness not with ancestral laws, but with divine ones; so that you may not need purification more than Crete, imagining some Orphic or Epimenidean purifications. 5.32.1 30.

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ταύτης, ἀλλ' αὐτὸς ἡγοῦ. καλὴ μὲν γάρ, ἀλλ' ἄπορος ἡμῖν καὶ φοβερά.» Τούτοις προστίθησι λέγων· 5.29.1 κζʹ. ΟΤΙ ΟΥ ΠΕΡΙ ΣΠΟΥ∆ΑΙΩΝ ΠΡΑΓΜΑΤΩΝ ΤΟΥΣ ΧΡΗΣΜΟΥΣ ΕΠΟΙΟΥΝΤΟ

«Σὺ δὲ καὶ περὶ γάμου ἕτοιμος λέγειν· Ἄργεος ἱπποβότου πῶλον λάβε κυανοχαίτην· 5.29.2 καὶ περὶ παίδων· Ἠετίων, οὔ τίς σε τίει πολύτιτον ἐόντα· λάβδα κύει, τέξει δ' ὀλοοίτροχον· 5.29.3 περὶ δὲ ἀποικίας· στέλλ' ἐπὶ χρυσείους ἄνδρας πολυεθνέα λαόν, ὤμοις μὲν χαλκὸν προφέρων, χερσὶν δὲ σίδηρον· 5.29.4 περὶ δὲ κενῆς δόξης· γαίης μὲν πάσης τὸ Πελασγικὸν οὖδας ἄμεινον· ἵπποι Θρηίκιαι, Λακεδαιμόνιαι δὲ γυναῖκες, ἄνδρες θ' οἳ πίνουσιν ὕδωρ καλῆς Ἀρεθούσης. 5.29.5 καί μοι δοκεῖς οὐδὲν τῶν τερατοσκόπων καλουμένων κρείττων εἶναι, ἀλλ' οὐδὲ τῶν ἄλλων ἀγυρτῶν καὶ σοφιστῶν. ἀλλὰ τῶν μὲν ἔγωγε οὐδὲν ἐθαύμασα, εἰ μισθοῦ τραχηλίζουσιν, σοῦ δὲ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, εἰ μισθοῦ τρα 5.29.6 χηλίζονται. εἶθ' ὁ μὲν Σωκράτης ἐκεῖνος οὐδέτερον ἀπεκρίνατο πρὸς τὸν ἐρωτήσαντα, πότερα γαμήσῃ ἢ μή, ἀλλ' ὅτι μετανοήσει ἀμφότερα. πρὸς δὲ τὸν ἐπιθυμοῦντα παίδων οὐκ εὖ ἔφη αὐτὸν ποιήσειν, ὃς ἐάσας ἐπιχειρεῖν ὅπως, εἴ οἱ παῖδες γένοιντο, ἄριστα αὐτοῖς χρῷτο, τούτου μὲν οὐδένα λόγον ἐποιήσατο, 5.29.7 αὐτὸ δὲ μόνον ἐσκοπεῖτο, πῶς αὐτῷ γένοιντο. ἑτέρου δὲ ἀποδημεῖν ἐγνωκότος διὰ τὸ κακῶς ἔχειν οἴκοι οὐκ ἔφη ὀρθῶς αὐτὸν βουλεύεσθαι· τὴν μὲν γὰρ πατρίδα αὐτόθι ἀπολιπὼν ἄπεισιν, τὴν δὲ ἀμαθίαν μεθ' ἑαυτοῦ ἄγων, ἥτις αὐτὸν καὶ τοῖς ἐκεῖ δυσαρεστεῖν ποιήσει καθάπερ καὶ τοῖς ἐνθάδε. καὶ οὐχ ὁπότε ἠρωτᾶτο μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτόκλητος ἐπὶ τὰς τοιάσδε συνουσίας ἰών. 5.30.1 κηʹ.

ΟΤΙ ΚΟΙΝΟΙΣ ΚΑΙ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΙΝΟΙΣ ΛΟΓΙΣΜΟΙΣ ΤΑ ΠΡΑΚΤΕΑ ΣΥΝΕΒΟΥΛΕΥΟΝ

Εἴκοσι τὰς πρὸ κυνὸς καὶ εἴκοσι τὰς μετέπειτα οἴκῳ ἐνὶ σκιερῷ ∆ιονύσῳ χρῆσθαι ἰατρῷ Ἀθηναίοις ὑπὸ καύματος ἐνοχλουμένοις· ἰατρικόν, ἀλλ' οὐ μαντικόν. 5.30.2 Ἐργῖνε Κλυμένοιο πάϊ Πρεσβωνιάδαο, ὄψ' ἦλθες γενεὴν διζήμενος· ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔμπης ἱστοβοῆι γέροντι νέαν ποτίβαλλε κορώνην· γέροντι νέαν συνοικεῖν, εἰ παίδων ἐπιθυμεῖ, οὐ μάντεως οὐδὲ τοῦτο, ἀλλὰ φύσιν ἐπισταμένου. ἀλλ' ἡ ἐπιθυμία τοὺς βλᾶκας ἐξίστησιν. 5.31.1 κθʹ.

ΟΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΑΦΙΛΟΣΟΦΩΣ ΤΑ ΠΟΛΛΑ ΠΑΡΗΙΝΟΥΝ

∆ιόπερ σοι καὶ νάρθηκα παραινῶ ἐπ' αὐτοὺς λαμβάνειν, εἰ μὴ πείθοις μανθάνειν ἀντὶ τῶν καταπτύστων ἐρωτημάτων ἄξιόν τι τοῦ θείου φοιτητηρίου, ἢ Ἀντιόχῳ τῷ Παρίῳ ἀποβαλόντι τὴν οὐσίαν ἐν πολιτικῇ φλυαρίᾳ καὶ ὑπὸ λύπης ἥκοντι πρὸς σὲ λέγειν· Ἀντίοχ', εἰς Θάσον ἐλθὲ καὶ οἴκει εὐκλέα νῆσον· ὃς ἐκείνως ἂν μᾶλλον ὤνατο ἀκούσας· Ἀντίοχ', εἰς νοῦν ἐλθὲ καὶ ἐν πενίᾳ μὴ ὀδύρου. 5.31.2 ἢ τοῖς ἥκουσι Κρητῶν· Φαιστοῦ καὶ Τάρρας ναέται ∆ίου τε πολύρρου, Πυθῷον κέλομαι τελέειν Φοίβοιο καθαρμὸν εὐαγέοντας, ὅπως Κρήτην καταναιετάητε, ὄλβον μὴ πατρίοισι νόμοις καὶ Ζῆνα σέβοντες. 5.31.3 οἷς ἀκοῦσαι ἐκεῖνο κρεῖττον ἦν· λήρου καὶ μανίας ναέται πολλοῦ θ' ἅμα τύφου, οἰκεῖον τελέειν κέλομαι λήροιο καθαρμὸν εὐαγέοντας, ὅπως σοφίαν καταναιετάητε, ὄλβον μὴ πατρίοισι νόμοις, θείοις δὲ σέβοντες· ὡς μὴ μᾶλλον τῆς Κρήτης σὺ καθαρμοῦ προσδέῃ, Ὀρφικούς τινας ἢ Ἐπιμενιδείους καθαρμοὺς φανταζόμενος. 5.32.1 λʹ.