The Panathenea.

This feast was celebrated at Athens in honour of Minerva, the tutelary goddess of that city, to which she gave her name,54 as well as to the feast of which we are speaking. Its institution [pg xxix] was ancient, and it was called at first the Athenea; but after Theseus had united the several towns of Attica into one city, it took the name of Panathenea. These feasts were of two kinds, the great and the less, which were solemnized with almost the same ceremonies; the less annually, and the great upon the expiration of every fourth year.

In these feasts were exhibited racing, the gymnastic combats, and the contentions for the prizes of music and poetry. Ten commissaries, elected from the ten tribes, presided on this occasion, to regulate the forms, and distribute the rewards to the victors. This festival continued several days.

In the morning of the first day a race was run on foot, in which each of the runners carried a lighted torch in his hand, which they exchanged continually with each other without interrupting their race. They started from the Ceramicus, one of the suburbs of Athens, and crossed the whole city. The first that came to the goal, without having put out his torch, carried the prize. In the afternoon they ran the same course on horseback.

The gymnastic or athletic combats followed the races. The place for that exercise was upon the banks of the Ilissus, a small river, which runs through Athens, and empties itself into the sea at the PirÆus.

Pericles first instituted the prize of music. In this dispute were sung the praises of Harmodius and Aristogiton who, at the expense of their lives, delivered Athens from the tyranny of the PisistratidÆ; to which was afterwards added the eulogium of Thrasybulus, who expelled the thirty tyrants. The prize was warmly disputed, not only amongst the musicians, but still more so amongst the poets; and it was highly glorious to be declared victor in this contest. Æschylus is reported to have died with grief upon seeing the prize adjudged to Sophocles, who was much younger than himself.

These exercises were followed by a general procession, wherein was carried, with great pomp and ceremony, a sail, embroidered with gold, on which were curiously delineated the warlike actions of Pallas against the Titans and Giants. This sail was affixed to a vessel which bore the name of the goddess. The vessel, equipped with sails, and with a thousand oars, was conducted from the Ceramicus to the temple of Eleusis, not by horses or beasts of draught, but by machines concealed in the bottom of it, which put the oars in motion, and made the vessel glide along.

The march was solemn and majestic. At the head of it were old men, who carried olive-branches in their hands, [pg xxx] ?a???f????, and these were chosen for the symmetry of their shape, and the vigour of their complexion. Athenian matrons, of great age, also accompanied them in the same equipage.

The grown and robust men formed the second class. They were armed at all points, and had bucklers and lances. After them came the strangers that inhabited Athens, carrying mattocks, instruments proper for tillage. Next followed the Athenian women of the same age, attended by the foreigners of their own sex, carrying vessels in their hands for the drawing of water.

The third class was composed of the young persons of both sexes, selected from the best families in the city. The young men wore vests, with crowns upon their heads, and sang a peculiar hymn in honour of the goddess. The maids carried baskets, ?a??f????, in which were placed the sacred utensils proper to the ceremony, covered with veils to keep them from the sight of the spectators. The person, to whose care those sacred things were intrusted, was bound to observe a strict continence for several days before he touched them, or distributed them to the Athenian virgins;55 or rather, as Demosthenes says, his whole life and conduct ought to have been a perfect model of virtue and purity. It was a high honour for a young woman to be chosen for so noble and august an office, and an insupportable affront to be deemed unworthy of it. We shall see that Hipparchus offered this indignity to the sister of Harmodius, which extremely incensed the conspirators against the PisistratidÆ. These Athenian virgins were followed by the foreign young women, who carried umbrellas and seats for them.

The children of both sexes closed the pomp of the procession.

In this august ceremony, the ?a??d?? were appointed to sing certain verses of Homer; a manifest proof of the estimation in which the works of that poet were held, even with regard to religion. Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus, first introduced that custom.

I have observed elsewhere,56 that in the gymnastic games of this feast a herald proclaimed, that the people of Athens had conferred a crown of gold upon the celebrated physician Hippocrates, in gratitude for the signal services which he had rendered the state during the pestilence.

In this festival the people of Athens put themselves, and the whole republic, under the protection of Minerva, the tutelary [pg xxxi] goddess of their city, and implored of her all kind of prosperity. From the time of the battle of Marathon, in these public acts of worship, express mention was made of the PlatÆans, and they were joined in all things with the people of Athens.

Feasts of Bacchus.

The worship of Bacchus had been brought out of Egypt to Athens, where several feasts had been established in honour of that god; two particularly more remarkable than all the rest, called the great and the less feasts of Bacchus. The latter were a kind of preparation for the former, and were celebrated in the open field about autumn. They were named Lenea, from a Greek word57 that signifies a wine-press. The great feasts were commonly called Dionysia, from one of the names of that god,58 and were solemnized in the spring within the city.

In each of these feasts the public were entertained with games, shows, and dramatic representations, which were attended with a vast concourse of people, and exceeding magnificence, as will be seen hereafter: at the same time the poets disputed the prize of poetry, submitting to the judgment of arbitrators, expressly chosen for that purpose, their pieces, whether tragic or comic, which were then represented before the people.

These feasts continued many days. Those who were initiated, mimicked whatever the poets had thought fit to feign of the god Bacchus. They covered themselves with the skins of wild beasts, carried a thyrsus in their hands, a kind of pike with ivy-leaves twisted round it; had drums, horns, pipes, and other instruments calculated to make a great noise; and wore upon their heads wreaths of ivy and vine-branches, and of other trees sacred to Bacchus. Some represented Silenus, some Pan, others the Satyrs, all drest in suitable masquerade. Many of them were mounted on asses; others dragged goats59 along for sacrifices. Men and women, ridiculously dressed in this manner, appeared night and day in public; and imitating drunkenness, and dancing with the most indecent gestures, ran in throngs about the mountains and forests, screaming and howling furiously; the women especially seemed more outrageous than the men; and, quite out of their senses, in their furious60 transports invoked the god, whose feast they celebrated, [pg xxxii] with loud cries; e??? ????e, or ? ?a??e, or ??a??e, or ?? ????e.

This troop of Bacchanalians was followed by the virgins of the noblest families in the city, who were called ?a??f????, from carrying baskets on their heads, covered with vine leaves and ivy.

To these ceremonies others were added, obscene to the last excess, and worthy of the god who chose to be honoured in such a manner. The spectators gave into the prevailing humour, and were seized with the same frantic spirit. Nothing was seen but dancing, drunkenness, debauchery, and all that the most abandoned licentiousness can conceive of gross and abominable. And this an entire people, reputed the wisest of all Greece, not only suffered, but admired and practised. I say an entire people; for Plato, speaking of the Bacchanalia, says in direct terms, that he had seen the whole city of Athens drunk at once.61

Livy informs us,62 that this licentiousness of the Bacchanalia having secretly crept into Rome, the most horrid disorders were committed there under cover of the night, and the inviolable secresy which all persons, who were initiated into these impure and abominable mysteries, were obliged, under the most horrid imprecations, to observe. The senate, being apprized of the affair, put a stop to those sacrilegious feasts by the most severe penalties; and first banished the practisers of them from Rome, and afterwards from Italy. These examples inform us, how far a mistaken sense of religion, that covers the greatest crimes with the sacred name of the Divinity, is capable of misleading the mind of man.63

The Feast of Eleusis.

There is nothing in all Pagan antiquity more celebrated than the feast of Ceres Eleusina. The ceremonies of this festival were called, by way of eminence, “the mysteries,” from being, according to Pausanias, as much above all others, as the gods are above men. Their origin and institution are attributed to Ceres herself, who, in the reign of Erechtheus, coming to Eleusis, a small town of Attica, in search of her daughter Proserpine, whom Pluto had carried away, and finding the [pg xxxiii] country afflicted with a famine, invented corn as a remedy for that evil, with which she rewarded the inhabitants. She not only taught them the use of corn, but instructed them in the principles of probity, charity, civility, and humanity;64 from whence her mysteries were called Tes?f???a, and Initia. To these first happy lessons fabulous antiquity ascribed the courtesy, politeness, and urbanity, so remarkable amongst the Athenians.

These mysteries were divided into the less and the greater; of which the former served as a preparation for the latter. The less were solemnized in the month Anthesterion, which answers to our November; the great in the month BoËdromion, which corresponds to August. Only Athenians were admitted to these mysteries; but of them, each sex, age, and condition, had a right to be received. All strangers were absolutely excluded, so that Hercules, Castor, and Pollux, were obliged to be adopted as Athenians in order to their admission; which, however, extended only to the lesser mysteries. I shall consider principally the great, which were celebrated at Eleusis.

Those who demanded to be initiated into them, were obliged, before their reception, to purify themselves in the lesser mysteries, by bathing in the river Ilissus, by saying certain prayers, offering sacrifices, and, above all, by living in strict continence during a certain interval of time prescribed them. That time was employed in instructing them in the principles and elements of the sacred doctrine of the great mysteries.

When the time for their initiation arrived, they were brought into the temple; and to inspire the greater reverence and terror, the ceremony was performed in the night. Wonderful things took place upon this occasion. Visions were seen, and voices heard of an extraordinary kind. A sudden splendour dispelled the darkness of the place, and, disappearing immediately, added new horrors to the gloom. Apparitions, claps of thunder, earthquakes, heightened the terror and amazement; whilst the person to be admitted, overwhelmed with dread, and sweating through fear, heard, trembling, the mysterious volumes read to him, if in such a condition he was capable of hearing at all. These nocturnal rites gave birth to many [pg xxxiv] disorders, which the severe law of silence, imposed on the persons initiated, prevented from coming to light, as St. Gregory Nazianzen observes.65 What cannot superstition effect upon the mind of man, when once his imagination is heated? The president in this ceremony was called Hierophantes. He wore a peculiar habit, and was not permitted to marry. The first who served in this function, and whom Ceres herself instructed, was Eumolpus; from whom his successors were called EumolpidÆ. He had three colleagues; one who carried a torch;66 another a herald,67 whose office was to pronounce certain mysterious words; and a third to attend at the altar.

Besides these officers, one of the principal magistrates of the city was appointed to take care that all the ceremonies of this feast were exactly observed. He was called the king,68 and was one of the nine Archons. His business was to offer prayers and sacrifices. The people gave him four assistants,69 one chosen from the family of the EumolpidÆ, a second from that of the Ceryces, and the two last from two other families. He had besides ten other ministers to assist him in the discharge of his duty, and particularly in offering sacrifices, from whence they derived their name.70

The Athenians initiated their children of both sexes very early into these mysteries, and would have thought it criminal to have let them die without such an advantage. It was their general opinion, that this ceremony was an engagement to lead a more virtuous and regular life; that it recommended them to the peculiar protection of the goddesses (Ceres and Proserpine,) to whose service they devoted themselves; and procured to them a more perfect and certain happiness in the other world: whilst, on the contrary, such as had not been initiated, besides the evils they had to apprehend in this life, were doomed, after their descent to the shades below, to wallow eternally in dirt, filth, and excrement. Diogenes the Cynic believed nothing of the matter,71 and when his friends endeavoured to persuade him to avoid such a misfortune, by being initiated before his death—“What,” said he, “shall Agesilaus and Epaminondas lie amongst mud and dung, whilst the vilest Athenians, because they have been initiated, possess the most distinguished places in the regions of the blessed?” Socrates was not more credulous; he would not be initiated into these mysteries, which was perhaps one reason that rendered his religion suspected.

[pg xxxv]

Without this qualification none were admitted to enter the temple of Ceres;72 and Livy informs us of two Acarnanians, who, having followed the crowd into it upon one of the feast-days, although out of mistake and with no ill design, were both put to death without mercy. It was also a capital crime to divulge the secrets and mysteries of this feast. Upon this account Diagoras the Melian was proscribed, and had a reward set upon his head. It very nearly cost the poet Æschylus his life, for speaking too freely of it in some of his tragedies. The disgrace of Alcibiades proceeded from the same cause. Whoever had violated this secresy, was avoided as a wretch accursed and excommunicated.73 Pausanias, in several passages, wherein he mentions the temple of Eleusis, and the ceremonies practised there, stops short, and declares he cannot proceed, because he had been forbidden by a dream or vision.74

This feast, the most celebrated of profane antiquity, was of nine days' continuance. It began the fifteenth of the month BoËdromion. After some previous ceremonies and sacrifices on the first three days, upon the fourth in the evening began the procession of “the Basket;” which was laid upon an open chariot slowly drawn by oxen,75 and followed by a long train of the Athenian women. They all carried mysterious baskets in their hands, filled with several things, which they took great care to conceal, and covered with a veil of purple. This ceremony represented the basket into which Proserpine put the flowers she was gathering when Pluto seized and carried her off.

The fifth day was called the day of “the Torches:” because at night the men and women ran about with them in imitation of Ceres, who having lighted a torch at the fire at mount Ætna, wandered about from place to place in search of her daughter.

[pg xxxvi]

The sixth was the most famous day of all. It was called Iacchus, which is the same as Bacchus, the son of Jupiter and Ceres, whose statue was then brought out with great ceremony, crowned with myrtle, and holding a torch in its hand. The procession began at the Ceramicus, and passing through the principal places of the city, continued to Eleusis. The way leading to it was called “the sacred way,” and lay across a bridge over the river Cephisus. This procession was very numerous, and generally consisted of thirty thousand persons.76 The temple of Eleusis, where it ended, was large enough to contain the whole of this multitude; and Strabo says, its extent was equal to that of the theatres, which every body knows were capable of holding a much greater number of people.77 The whole way reechoed with the sound of trumpets, clarions, and other musical instruments. Hymns were sung in honour of the goddesses, accompanied with dancing, and other extraordinary marks of rejoicing. The route before mentioned, through the sacred way, and over the Cephisus, was the usual one: but after the LacedÆmonians, in the Peloponnesian war, had fortified Decelia, the Athenians were obliged to make their procession by sea, till Alcibiades reestablished the ancient custom.

The seventh day was solemnized by games, and the gymnastic combats, in which the victor was rewarded with a measure of barley; without doubt because it was at Eleusis the goddess first taught the method of raising that grain, and the use of it. The two following days were employed in some particular ceremonies, neither important nor remarkable.

During this festival it was prohibited, under very great penalties, to arrest any person whatsoever, in order to their being imprisoned, or to present any bill of complaint to the judges. It was regularly celebrated every fifth year, that is, after a revolution of four years: and history does not mention that it was ever interrupted, except upon the taking of Thebes by Alexander the Great.78 The Athenians, who were then upon the point of celebrating the great mysteries, were so much affected with the ruin of that city, that they could not resolve, in so general an affliction, to solemnize a festival which breathed nothing but merriment and rejoicing. It was continued down to the time of the Christian emperors.79 Valentinian would have abolished it, if PrÆtextatus, the proconsul of Greece, had not represented, in the most lively and affecting terms, the universal sorrow which the abrogation of that feast would [pg xxxvii] occasion among the people; upon which it was suffered to subsist. It is supposed to have been finally suppressed by Theodosius the Great; as were all the rest of the Pagan solemnities.

Of Auguries.

What a reproach is it to human reason, that so luminous a [pg xxxviii] principle should have given birth to the absurd reasonings, and wretched notions, in favour of the science of augurs and soothsayers, and been the occasion of espousing, with blind devotion, the most ridiculous puerilities: should have made the most important affairs of state depend upon a bird's happening to sing upon the right or left hand; upon the greediness of chickens in pecking their grain; the inspection of the entrails of beasts; the liver's being entire and in good condition, which, according to them, did sometimes entirely disappear, without leaving any trace or mark of its having ever subsisted! To these superstitious observances may be added, accidental rencounters, words spoken by chance, and afterwards turned into good or bad presages; forebodings, prodigies, monsters, eclipses, comets; every extraordinary phenomenon, every unforeseen accident, with an infinity of chimeras of the like nature.

Whence could it happen, that so many great men, illustrious generals, able politicians, and even learned philosophers, have actually given into such absurd imaginations? Plutarch, in particular, so estimable in other respects, is to be pitied for his servile observance of the senseless customs of the Pagan idolatry, and his ridiculous credulity in dreams, signs, and prodigies. He tells us in his works, that he abstained a great while from eating eggs, upon account of a dream, with which he has not thought fit to make us further acquainted.80

The wisest of the Pagans knew well how to appreciate the art of divination, and often spoke of it to each other, and even in public, with the utmost contempt, and in a manner best adapted to expose its absurdity. The grave censor Cato was of opinion, that one soothsayer could not look at another without laughing. Hannibal was amazed at the simplicity of Prusias, whom he had advised to give battle, upon his being diverted from it by the inspection of the entrails of a victim. “What,” said he, “have you more confidence in the liver of a beast, than in so old and experienced a captain as I am?” Marcellus, who had been five times consul, and was augur, said, that he had discovered a method of not being put to a stand by the sinister flight of birds, which was, to keep himself close shut up in his litter.

Cicero explains himself upon the subject of auguries without ambiguity or reserve. Nobody was more capable of speaking pertinently upon it than himself, (as M. Morin observes in his dissertation upon the same subject.) As he was adopted into the college of augurs, he had made himself acquainted with their [pg xxxix] most abstruse secrets, and had all possible opportunity of informing himself fully in their science. That he did so, sufficiently appears from the two books he has left us upon divination, in which, it may be said, he has exhausted the subject. In the second, wherein he refutes his brother Quintus, who had espoused the cause of the augurs, he combats and defeats his false reasonings with a force, and at the same time with so refined and delicate a raillery, as leaves us nothing to wish; and he demonstrates by proofs, each more convincing than the other, the falsity, contrariety, and impossibility of that art. But what is very surprising, in the midst of all his arguments, he takes occasion to blame the generals and magistrates, who on important conjunctures had contemned the prognostics; and maintains, that the use of them, as great an abuse as it was in his own opinion, ought nevertheless to be respected, out of regard to religion, and the prejudices of the people.81

All that I have hitherto said tends to prove, that Paganism was divided into two sects, almost equally enemies of religion; the one by their superstitious and blind regard for auguries, the other by their irreligious contempt and derision of them.

The principle of the first, founded on one side upon the ignorance and weakness of man in the affairs of life, and on the other upon the prescience of the Divinity and his almighty providence, was true; but the consequence deduced from it in favour of auguries, false and absurd. They ought to have proved that it was certain, that the Divinity himself had established these external signs to denote his intentions, and that he had obliged himself to a punctual conformity to them upon all occasions: but they had nothing of this in their system. These auguries and divinations therefore were the effect and invention of the ignorance, rashness, curiosity, and blind passions of man, who presumed to interrogate God, and to oblige him to give answers upon every idle imagination and unjust enterprise.

The others, who gave no real credit to any thing enjoined by the science of augury, did not fail, however, to observe its trivial ceremonies through policy, in order the better to subject the minds of the people to themselves, and to reconcile them to their own purposes, by the assistance of superstition: but by [pg xl] their contempt for auguries, and their inward conviction of their falsity, they were led into a disbelief of the Divine Providence, and to despise religion itself; conceiving it inseparable from the numerous absurdities of this kind, which rendered it ridiculous, and consequently unworthy a man of sense.

Both the one and the other behaved in this manner, because, having mistaken the Creator, and abused the light of nature, which might have taught them to know and to adore him, they were deservedly abandoned to their own darkness, and to a reprobate mind; and, if we had not been enlightened by the true religion, we, even at this day, should give ourselves up to the same superstitions.

Of Oracles

No country was ever richer in, or more productive of oracles, than Greece. I shall confine myself to those which were the most noted.

The oracle of Dodona, a city of the Molossians, in Epirus, was much celebrated; where Jupiter gave answers either by vocal oaks,82 or doves, which had also their language, or by resounding basins of brass, or by the mouths of priests and priestesses.

The oracle of Trophonius in Boeotia, though he was nothing more than a hero, was in great reputation.83 After many preliminary ceremonies, as washing in the river, offering sacrifices, drinking a water called Lethe, from its quality of making people forget every thing, the votaries went down into his cave, by small ladders, through a very narrow passage. At the bottom was another little cavern, the entrance of which was also exceeding small. There they lay down upon the ground, with a certain composition of honey in each hand, which they were indispensably obliged to carry with them. Their feet were placed within the opening of the little cave; which was no sooner done, than they perceived themselves borne into it with great force and velocity. Futurity was there revealed to them; but not to all in the same manner. Some saw, others heard, wonders. From thence they returned quite stupified, and out of their senses, and were placed in the chair [pg xli] of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory; not without great need of her assistance to recover their remembrance, after their great fatigue, of what they had seen and heard; admitting they had seen or heard any thing at all. Pausanias, who had consulted that oracle himself, and gone through all these ceremonies, has left a most ample description of it; to which Plutarch adds some particular circumstances,84 which I omit, to avoid a tedious prolixity.

The temple and oracle of the BranchidÆ, in the neighbourhood of Miletus, so called from Branchus, the son of Apollo, was very ancient, and in great esteem with all the Ionians and Dorians of Asia.85 Xerxes, in his return from Greece, burnt this temple, after the priests had delivered its treasures to him. That prince, in return, granted them an establishment in the remotest parts of Asia, to secure them against the vengeance of the Greeks. After the war was over, the Milesians reestablished that temple with a magnificence which, according to Strabo, surpassed that of all the other temples of Greece. When Alexander the Great had overthrown Darius, he utterly destroyed the city where the priests BranchidÆ had settled, of which their descendants were at that time in actual possession, punishing in the children the sacrilegious perfidy of their fathers.

Tacitus relates something very singular, though not very probable, of the oracle of Claros, a town of Ionia, in Asia Minor, near Colophon.86 “Germanicus,” says he, “went to consult Apollo at Claros. It is not a woman that gives the answers there, as at Delphi, but a man, chosen out of certain families, and almost always of Miletus. It is sufficient to let him know the number and names of those who come to consult him. After which he retires into a cave, and having drunk of the waters of a spring within it, he delivers answers in verse upon what the persons have in their thoughts, though he is often ignorant, and knows nothing of composing in measure. It is said, that he foretold to Germanicus his sudden death, but in dark and ambiguous terms, according to the custom of oracles.”

I omit a great number of other oracles, to proceed to the most famous of them all. It is very obvious that I mean the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. He was worshipped there under the name of the Pythian, a title derived from the serpent Python, which he had killed, or from a Greek word, that signifies to inquire, p???s?a?, because people came thither to consult [pg xlii] him. From thence the Delphic priestess was called Pythia, and the games there celebrated, the Pythian games.

Delphi was an ancient city of Phocis in Achaia. It stood upon the declivity, and about the middle, of the mountain Parnassus, built upon a small extent of even ground, and surrounded with precipices, that fortified it without the help of art.

Diodorus says,87 that there was a cavity upon Parnassus, from whence an exhalation rose, which made the goats dance and skip about, and intoxicated the brain. A shepherd having approached it, out of a desire to know the causes of so extraordinary an effect, was immediately seized with violent agitations of body, and pronounced words, which, without doubt, he did not understand himself; but which, however, foretold futurity. Others made the same experiment, and it was soon rumoured throughout the neighbouring countries. The cavity was no longer approached without reverence. The exhalation was concluded to have something divine in it. A priestess was appointed for the reception of its effects, and a tripod placed upon the vent, called by the Latins Cortina, perhaps from the skin88 that covered it. From thence she gave her oracles. The city of Delphi rose insensibly round about this cave; and a temple was erected, which, at length, became very magnificent. The reputation of this oracle almost effaced, or at least very much exceeded, that of all others.

At first a single Pythia sufficed to answer those who came to consult the oracle, as they did not yet amount to any great number: but in process of time, when it grew into universal repute, a second was appointed to mount the tripod alternately with the first, and a third chosen to succeed in case of death, or disease. There were other assistants besides these to attend the Pythia in the sanctuary, of whom the most considerable were called prophets;89 it was their business to take care of the sacrifices, and to inspect them. To these the demands of the inquirers were delivered by word of mouth, or in writing; and they returned the answers, as we shall see in the sequel.

We must not confound the Pythia with the Sibyl of Delphi. The ancients represent the latter as a woman that roved from country to country, venting her predictions. She was at the same time the Sibyl of Delphi, ErythrÆ, Babylon, CumÆ, and many other places, from her having resided in them all.

The Pythia could not prophesy till she was intoxicated by the exhalation from the sanctuary of Apollo. This miraculous [pg xliii] vapour had not that effect at all times and upon all occasions. The god was not always in the inspiring humour. At first he imparted himself only once a year, but at length he was prevailed upon to visit the Pythia every month. All days were not proper, and upon some it was not permitted to consult the oracle. These unfortunate days occasioned an oracle's being given to Alexander the Great worthy of remark. He went to Delphi to consult the god, at a time when the priestess pretended it was forbidden to ask him any questions, and would not enter the temple. Alexander, who was always warm and tenacious, took hold of her by the arm to force her into it, when she cried out, “Ah, my son, you are not to be resisted!” or, “My son, you are invincible!”90 Upon which words he declared he would have no other oracle, and was contented with that he had received.

The Pythia, before she ascended the tripod, was a long time preparing for it by sacrifices, purifications, a fast of three days, and many other ceremonies. The god denoted his approach by the moving of a laurel, that stood before the gate of the temple, which shook also to its very foundations.

As soon as the divine vapour,91 like a penetrating fire, had diffused itself through the entrails of the priestess, her hair stood upright upon her head, her looks grew wild, she foamed at the mouth, a sudden and violent trembling seized her whole body, with all the symptoms of distraction and frenzy.92 She uttered, at intervals, some words almost inarticulate, which the prophets carefully collected, and arranged with a certain degree [pg xliv] of order and connection. After she had been a certain time upon the tripod, she was reconducted to her cell, where she generally continued many days to recover from her fatigue; and, as Lucan says,93 a sudden death was often either the reward or punishment of her enthusiasm:

The prophets had poets under them, who made the oracles into verses, which were often bad enough, and gave occasion to remark that, it was very surprising that Apollo, who presided over the choir of the muses, should inspire his priestess no better. But Plutarch informs us, that it was not the god who composed the verses of the oracle. He inflamed the Pythia's imagination, and kindled in her soul that living light, which unveiled all futurity to her. The words she uttered in the heat of her enthusiasm, having neither method nor connection, and coming only by starts, if that expression may be used, from the bottom of her stomach, or rather94 from her belly, were collected with care by the prophets, who gave them afterwards to the poets to be turned into verse. These Apollo left to their own genius and natural talents; as we may suppose he did the Pythia when she herself composed verses, which, though not often, happened sometimes. The substance of the oracle was inspired by Apollo, the manner of expressing it was the priestess's own: the oracles were however often given in prose.

The general characteristics of oracles were ambiguity,95 obscurity, and convertibility, (if I may use that expression,) so that one answer would agree with several various, and sometimes directly opposite, events. By the help of this artifice, the dÆmons, who of themselves are not capable of knowing futurity, concealed their ignorance, and amused the credulity of the Pagan world. When Croesus was upon the point of invading the Medes, he consulted the oracle of Delphi upon the success of that war, and was answered, that by passing the river Halys, he would ruin a great empire. What empire, his own, or that of his enemies? He was to guess that; but whatever the event might be, the oracle could not fail of being [pg xlv] in the right. As much may be said upon the same god's answer to Pyrrhus:

I repeat it in Latin, because the equivocality, which equally implies, that Pyrrhus could conquer the Romans, and the Romans Pyrrhus, will not subsist in a translation. Under the cover of such ambiguities, the god eluded all difficulties, and was never in the wrong.

It must, however, be confessed, that sometimes the answer of the oracle was clear and circumstantial. I have related, in the history of Croesus, the stratagem he made use of to assure himself of the veracity of the oracle, which was, to demand of it, by his ambassador, what he was doing at a certain time prefixed. The oracle of Delphi replied, in verse, that he was causing a tortoise and a lamb to be drest in a vessel of brass, which was really the case. The emperor Trajan made a similar trial of the god at Heliopolis, by sending him a letter sealed up,96 to which he demanded an answer.97 The oracle made no other return, than to command a blank paper, well folded and sealed, to be delivered to him. Trajan, upon the receipt of it, was struck with amazement to see an answer so correspondent with his own letter, in which he knew he had written nothing. The wonderful facility with which dÆmons can transfer themselves almost in an instant from place to place, made it not impossible for them to give the two answers, which I have last mentioned, and to foretell in one country, what they had seen in another; this is Tertullian's opinion.98

Admitting it to be true, that some oracles have been followed precisely by the events foretold, we may believe that God, to punish the blind and sacrilegious credulity of the Pagans, has sometimes permitted the dÆmons to have a knowledge of things to come, and to foretell them distinctly enough. Which conduct of God, though very much above human comprehension, is frequently attested in the Holy Scriptures.

It has been questioned, whether the oracles, mentioned in profane history, should be ascribed to the operations of dÆmons, [pg xlvi] or only to the wickedness and imposture of men. Van dale, a Dutch physician, has maintained the latter opinion, and Monsieur Fontenelle, when a young man, adopted it, in the persuasion (to use his own words) that it was indifferent, as to the truth of Christianity, whether the oracles were the effect of the agency of spirits, or a series of impostures. Father Baltus, the Jesuit, professor of the Holy Scriptures in the university of Strasburgh, has refuted them both in a very solid treatise, wherein he demonstrates, invincibly, from the unanimous authority of the Fathers, that dÆmons were the real agents in the oracles. He attacks, with equal force and success, the rashness and presumption of the Anabaptist physician; who, calling in question the capacity and discernment of those holy doctors, secretly endeavoured to efface the high idea all true believers should entertain of those great leaders of the Church, and to depreciate their venerable authority, which is so great a difficulty to all who deviate from the principles of ancient tradition. Now, if that was ever certain and uniform in any thing, it is so in this point; for all the Fathers of the Church, and ecclesiastical writers of all ages, maintain, and attest, that the devil was the author of idolatry in general, and of oracles in particular.

This opinion does not hinder our believing that the priests and priestesses were frequently guilty of fraud and imposture in the answers of the oracles. For is not the devil the father and prince of lies? In the Grecian history, we have seen more than once the Delphic priestess suffer herself to be corrupted by presents. It was from that motive, she persuaded the LacedÆmonians to assist the people of Athens in the expulsion of the thirty tyrants; that she caused Demaratus to be divested of the royal dignity, to make way for Cleomenes; and drest up an oracle to support the imposture of Lysander, when he endeavoured to change the succession to the throne of Sparta. And I am apt to believe that Themistocles, who well knew the importance of acting against the Persians by sea, inspired the god with the answer he gave, “to defend themselves with wooden walls.” Demosthenes, convinced that the oracles were frequently suggested by passion or interest, and suspecting, with reason, that Philip had instructed them to speak in his favour, boldly declared,99 that the Pythia “philippized;” and bade the Athenians and Thebans remember that Pericles and Epaminondas, instead of listening to, and amusing themselves with, the frivolous answers of the oracle, those idle [pg xlvii] bugbears of the base and cowardly, consulted only reason in the choice and execution of their measures.

The same father Baltus examines, with equal success, a second point in dispute, namely, the cessation of oracles. Mr. Vandale, to oppose with some advantage a truth so glorious to Jesus Christ, the subverter of idolatry, had falsified the sense of the Fathers, by making them say, “that oracles ceased precisely at the moment of Christ's birth.” The learned apologist for the Fathers shows, that they all allege that oracles ceased after our Saviour's birth, and the preaching of his Gospel; not on a sudden, but in proportion as his salutary doctrines became known to mankind, and gained ground in the world. This unanimous opinion of the Fathers is confirmed by the unexceptionable evidence of great numbers of the Pagans, who agree with them as to the time when the oracles ceased.

What an honour to the Christian religion was this silence imposed upon the oracles by the victory of Jesus Christ! Every Christian had this power. Tertullian, in one of his Apologies,100 challenges the Pagans to make the experiment, and consents that a Christian should be put to death, if he did not oblige these givers of oracles to confess themselves devils. Lactantius informs us, that every Christian could silence them by only the sign of the cross.101 And all the world knows, that when Julian the Apostate was at Daphne, a suburb of Antioch, to consult Apollo, the god, notwithstanding all the sacrifices offered to him, continued mute, and only recovered his speech to answer those who inquired the cause of his silence, that they must ascribe it to the interment of certain bodies in the neighbourhood. Those were the bodies of Christian martyrs, amongst which was that of St. Babylas.

This triumph of the Christian religion ought to give us a due sense of our obligations to Jesus Christ, and, at the same time, of the darkness to which all mankind were abandoned before his coming. We have seen amongst the Carthaginians, fathers and mothers, more cruel than wild beasts, inhumanly giving up their children, and annually depopulating their cities, by destroying the most vigorous of their youth, in obedience to the bloody dictates of their oracles and false gods.102 The victims [pg xlviii] were chosen without any regard to rank, sex, age, or condition. Such bloody executions were honoured with the name of sacrifices, and designed to make the gods propitious. “What greater evil,” cries Lactantius, “could they inflict in their most violent displeasure, than thus to deprive their adorers of all sense of humanity, to make them cut the throats of their own children, and pollute their sacrilegious hands with such execrable parricides?”

A thousand frauds and impostures, openly detected at Delphi, and every where else, had not opened men's eyes, nor in the least diminished the credit of the oracles; which subsisted upwards of two thousand years, and was carried to an inconceivable height, even in the minds of the greatest men, the most profound philosophers, the most powerful princes, and generally among the most civilized nations, and such as valued themselves most upon their wisdom and policy. The estimation they were in, may be judged from the magnificence of the temple of Delphi, and the immense riches amassed in it through the superstitious credulity of nations and monarchs.

The temple of Delphi having been burnt about the fifty-eighth Olympiad, the Amphictyons, those celebrated judges of Greece, took upon themselves the care of rebuilding it.103 They agreed with an architect for three hundred talents, which amounts to nine hundred thousand livres.104 The cities of Greece were to furnish that sum. The inhabitants of Delphi were taxed a fourth part of it, and collected contributions in all parts, even in foreign nations, for that service. Amasis, at that time king of Egypt, and the Grecian inhabitants of his country, contributed considerable sums towards it. The AlcmÆonidÆ, a potent family of Athens, took upon themselves the conduct of the building, and made it more magnificent, by considerable additions of their own, than had been proposed in the model.

Gyges, king of Lydia, and Croesus, one of his successors, enriched the temple of Delphi with an incredible number of presents. Many other princes, cities, and private persons, by their example, in a kind of emulation of each other, had heaped up in it tripods, vases, tables, shields, crowns, chariots, and statues of gold and silver of all sizes, equally infinite in number and value. The presents of gold which Croesus alone made to this temple, amounted, according to Herodotus,105 to upwards of 254 talents; that is, about 762,000 French livres;106 [pg xlix] and perhaps those of silver to as much. Most of these presents were in being in the time of Herodotus. Diodorus Siculus,107 adding those of other princes to them, makes their amount ten thousand talents, or thirty millions of livres.108

Amongst the statues of gold, consecrated by Croesus in the temple of Delphi, was placed that of his female baker, the occasion of which was this:109 Alyattes, Croesus's father, having married a second wife, by whom he had children, she laid a plan to get rid of her son-in-law, that the crown might descend to her own issue. For this purpose she engaged the female baker to put poison into a loaf, that was to be served at the young prince's table. The woman, who was struck with horror at the crime, (in which she ought to have had no part at all,) gave Croesus notice of it. The poisoned loaf was served to the queen's own children, and their death secured the crown to the lawful successor. When he ascended the throne, in gratitude to his benefactress, he erected a statue to her in the temple of Delphi. But, it may be said, could a person of so mean a condition deserve so great an honour? Plutarch answers in the affirmative; and with a much better title, he says, than many of the so-much-vaunted conquerors and heroes, who have acquired their fame only by murder and devastation.

It is not to be wondered at, that such immense riches should have tempted the avarice of mankind, and exposed Delphi to being frequently pillaged. Without mentioning more ancient times, Xerxes, who invaded Greece with a million of men, endeavoured to seize upon the spoils of this temple. Above an hundred years after, the Phoceans, near neighbours of Delphi, plundered it at several times. The same rich booty was the sole motive of the irruption of the Gauls into Greece under Brennus. The guardian god of Delphi, if we may believe historians, sometimes defended this temple by surprising prodigies; and at others, either from impotence or want of presence of mind, suffered himself to be plundered. When Nero made this temple, so famous throughout the universe, a visit, and found in it five hundred fine brass statues of illustrious men and gods to his liking, which had been consecrated to Apollo, (those of gold and silver having undoubtedly disappeared upon his approach,) he ordered them to be taken down, and shipping them on board his vessels, carried them with him to Rome.

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Those who are desirous of more particular information concerning the oracles and riches of the temple of Delphi, may consult some dissertations upon this subject, printed in the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres,110 of which I have made good use, according to my custom.