prophets carefully collected. After she had been a certain time upon the tripod, she was re-conducted to her cell, where she generally continued many days, to recover from her fatigue; and as Lucan says, a sudden death was often either the reward or punishment of her enthusiasm.* "Numinis aut pœna est mors immatura recepti, The prophets had poets under them, who made the oracles into verses, which were often bad enough, and gave occasion to say, it was very surprising that Apollo, who presided over the choir of the muses, should inspire his prophetess no better. But Plutarch informs us, that the god did not compose 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 connexion, and coming only by starts, to use that expression, from the bottom of her stomach, or rather 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 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, obscurity, and convertibility, to use that expression, so that one answer would agree with several various, and sometimes directly opposite events. By the help of this artifice, the demons, 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 Delphos upon the success of that war, and was answered, that by passing the river Haly's, 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 in the right. As much may be said upon the same god's answer to Pyrrhus: Aio te, acida, Romanos vincere posse. I repeat it in Latin, because the equivocality, which equally implies, that Pyrrhus could conquer the Romans, or 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 Delphos replied, that he was causing a tortoise and a lamb to be dressed in a vessel of brass, which was really so. The empe ror Trajan made a similar trial of the god at Heliopolis, by sending him a letter sealed up, to which he demanded an answer. The oracle made no other tions of fury and madness; or, according to Isa. xliv. 25, "that frustrateth the tokens of the liar, and maketh diviner's mad. Instead of which, the prophets of the true God constantly give the divine answers in an equal and calm tone of voice, and with a noble tranquillity of behaviour. Another distinguishing mark is, the demons giving their oracles in secret places, by-ways, and in the obscurity of caves; whereas God gave his in open day, and before all the world: "I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth," Isa. xlv. 19. "I have not spoken in secret from the beginning," Isa. xlviii. 16. So that God did not permit the devil to imitate his oracles, without imposing such conditions upon him, as might distinguish between the true and false inspiration. * Lib. v. † Εγγαστρίμυθος. Quod si aliquis dixerit multa ab idolis esse prædicta; hoc sciendum, quod semper mendacium Junxe rint veritati, et sic sententias temperarint, ut, seu boni sen mali quid accidissit, utrumque possit intelligi. Hieronym. in cap. xlii. Isaiæ. He cites the two examples of Croesus and Pyrrhus. Macrob. 1. i. Saturnal. c. xxiii. One method of consulting the oracle was by sealed letters, which were laid upon the altar of the god unopened. 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 demons can transfer themselves almost in an instant from place to place, made it not impossible for them to give the two related answers, and seem to foretell in one country what they had seen in another; this is Tertullian's opinion.* 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 demons 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 demons, or only to the malignity and imposture of men. Vandale, a Dutch physician, has maintained the latter and Monsieur Fontenelle, when a young man, adopted that opinion, in the per suasion, to use his own words, that it was indifferent, as to the truth of Chris tianity, 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 Stratsburg, has refuted them both in a very solid treatise, wherein he demonstrates invincibly, with the unanimous authority of the fathers, that demons 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 the holy doctors, absurdly endeavours to efface the high idea which all true believers have 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 every age, maintain and attest, that the devil was the author of idolatry in general, and of oracles in particular. This opinion does not prevent 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 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 dressed 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 walls of wood.t 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 that the Pythia philipized, 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 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, the cessation of oracles, a second point in the dispute. Mr. Vandale, to oppose with some advantage a truth so glorious to Jesus Christ, the subverter of idolatry, had falsified * Omnis spiritus ales. Hoc et angeli et dæmones. Igitur momento ubique sunt: totus orbis illis locus unus est: quid ubi geratur tam facile sciunt, quam enuntiant. Velocitas divinitas creditur, quia substantia ignoratur. Cæterum testudinem decoqui cum carnibus pecudis Pythius eo modo renunciavit, quo supsa diximus. Momento apud Lydiam fuerat.-Tertul. in Apolog. † Plut. in Demosth. p. 854. 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 all they allege is, that oracles did not cease till 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, 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 the sign of the cross.† 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, among 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 among the Carthaginians, fathers and mothers more cruel than wild beasts, inhumanly giving up their children, and annually depopulating their cities, by destroying the most florid of their youth, in obedience to the bloody dictates of their oracles and false gods. The victims 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 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 Delphos, 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 Delphos, and the immense riches amassed in it, through the superstitious credulity of nations and monarchs. The temple of Delphos having been burnt about the fifty-eighth Olympiad, the Amphyctions, those celebrated judges of Greece, took upon themselves the care of rebuilding it.§. They agreed with an architect for 300 talents, which amounts to 900,000 livres. The cities of Greece were to furnish that sum. The inhabitants of Delphos were taxed a fourth part of it, and collected contributions in all parts, even in foreign nations, for that purpose. Amasis, at that time king of Egypt, and the Grecian inhabitants of his country, contributed considerable sums towards it. The Alcmeonidæ, a potent family of Athens, were charged with the conduct of the building, and made it more mag *Tertull. in Apolog. † Lib. de Vera Sapient. c. xxvii. Tam barbaros, tam immanes fuisse homines, ut parricidium suum, id est tetrum atque execrabile humano generi facinus, sacrificium vocarent. Cum teneras atque innocentes animas, quæ maximæ est ætas parentibus dulcior, sine ullo respectu pietatis extinguerunt, immanitatemque omnium bestiarum, quæ tamen foetus suos amant, feritate superarent. O dementiam insanabilem! Quid illis isti dii amplius facere pos sent, si essent iratissimi, quam faciunt propitii? Cum suos cultores parricidiis inquinant, orbitatibus mactant, humanis sensibus spoliant.-Lactant. 1. i. c. 21. Herod. I. ii. c. 180, & l, v. c. 62 About $197,260 nificent, 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 Delphos 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, vessels, 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, to upwards of 254 talents, that is, about 762,000 French livres ; † and perhaps those of silver to as much. Most of these presents were existing in the time of Herodotus. Diodorus Siculus, adding chose of other princes to them, makes their amount ten thousand talents, or thirty millions of livres. § Among the statues of gold, consecrated by Croesus in the temple of Delphos, was placed that of a female baker; || the occasion of which was this; Alyattus, Croesus' 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 Delphos. But may we conclude that a person of so mean a condition could 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 surprising, that such immense riches should tempt the avarice of mankind, and expose Delphos 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 a hundred years after, the Phoceans, near neighbours of Delphos, 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 Delphos, if we may believe historians, sometimes defended this temple by surprising prodigies; and at others, either from impotence or confusion, suffered himself to be plundered. When Nero made this temple, so famous throughout the universe, a visit, and found in it five hundred 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. Those who would be more particularly informed concerning the oracles and riches of the temple of Delphos, may consult some dissertations upon this subject printed in the memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres, of which I have made good use, according to my custom. OF THE GAMES AND COMBATS. GAMES and combats made a part of the religion, and had a share in almost all the festivals of the ancients; and for that reason, it is proper to treat of them in this place. Whether we consider their origin, or the design of their institution, we shall not be surprised at their being so much practised in the best governed states. Hercules, Theseus, Castor, and Pollux, and the greatest heroes of antiquity, were not only the institutors or restorers of them, but thought it glorious to Herod, 1. i. c. 50, 51. About $140,970. Diod. 1. xvi. P1 453 ¶ Vol. III. share in the exercise of them, and meritorious to succeed therein. The sub duers of monsters, and of the common enemies of mankind, thought it no disgrace to them to aspire to the victories in these combats; nor that the new wreaths, with which their brows were encircled on the solemnization of these games, took any lustre from those they had before acquired. Hence the most famous poets made these combats the subject of their verses; the beauty of whose poetry, while it immortalized themselves, seemed to promise an eternity of fame to those whose victories it so divinely celebrated. Hence arose that uncommon ardour which animated all Greece to imitate the ancient heroes, and, like them, to signalize themselves in the public combats. A reason more solid, which results from the nature of these combats, and of the people who used them, may be given for their prevalence. The Greeks, by nature warlike, and equally intent upon forming the bodies and minds of their youth, introduced these exercises, and annexed honours to them, in order to prepare the younger sort for the profession of arms, to confirm their health, to render them stronger and more robust, to inure them to fatigues, and to make them intrepid in close fight, in which, the use of fire-arms being then unknown, the strength of body generally decided the victory, These athletic exercises supplied the place of those in use among our nobility, as dancing, fencing, riding the great horse, &c.; but they did not confine themselves to a graceful mien, nor to the beauties of a shape and face; they were for joining strength to the charms of person. It is true, these exercises, so illustrious by their founders, and so useful in the ends at first proposed from them, introduced public masters, who taught them to young persons, and, practising them with success, made public show and ostentation of their skill. This sort of men applied themselves solely to the practice of this art, and, carrying it to an excess, they formed it into a kind of science, by the addition of rules and refinements, often challenging each other out of a vain emulation, till at length they degenerated into a profession of people, who, without any other employment of merit, exhibited themselves as a sight for the diversion of the public. Our dancing-masters are not unlike them in this respect, whose natural and original designation was to teach youth a graceful manner of walking, and a good address; but now we see them mount the stage, and perform ballets in the garb of comedians, capering, jumping, skipping, and making a variety of strange unnatural motions. We shall see, in the sequel, what opinion the ancients had of their professed combatants and wrestling masters. There were four kinds of games solemnized in Greece. The Olympic, so called from Olympia, otherwise Pisa, a town of Elis in Peloponnesus, near which they were celebrated after the expiration of every four years, in honour of Jupiter Olympius. The Pythic, sacred to Apollo Pythius,* so called from the serpent Python killed by him; they were celebrated at Delphos every four years. The Nemaan, which took their name from Nemæ, a city and forest of Peloponnesus, and were either instituted or restored by Hercu les, after he had slain the lion of the Nemean forest. They were solemnized every two years. And lastly, the Isthmian, celebrated upon the isthmus of Corinth, every four years, in honour of Neptune. Theseus was the restore of them, and they continued even after the ruin of Corinth. That persons might be present at these public sports with greater quiet and security, there was a general suspension of arms, and cessation of hostilities, throughout all Greece, during the time of their celebration. In these games, which were solemnized with incredible magnificence, and drew together a prodigious concourse of spectators from all parts, a simple wreath was all the reward of the victors. In the Olympic games it was composed of wild olive; in the Pythic, of laurel; in the Nemean, of green parsley; and in the Isthmian, of the same herb dried. The institutors of these • Several reasons are given for this name. † Apium. Paus, l. ii. p. 38. |