1. Homer, Iliad, 7.44-7.53 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)
| 7.44. /to do battle with him man to man in dread combat. So shall the bronze-greaved Achaeans have indignation and rouse some one to do battle in single combat against goodly Hector. So he spake, and the goddess, flashing-eyed Athene, failed not to hearken. And Helenus, the dear son of Priam, understood in spirit 7.45. /this plan that had found pleasure with the gods in council; and he came and stood by Hector's side, and spake to him, saying:Hector, son of Priam, peer of Zeus in counsel, wouldst thou now in anywise hearken unto me? for I am thy brother. Make the Trojans to sit down, and all the Achaeans 7.46. /this plan that had found pleasure with the gods in council; and he came and stood by Hector's side, and spake to him, saying:Hector, son of Priam, peer of Zeus in counsel, wouldst thou now in anywise hearken unto me? for I am thy brother. Make the Trojans to sit down, and all the Achaeans 7.47. /this plan that had found pleasure with the gods in council; and he came and stood by Hector's side, and spake to him, saying:Hector, son of Priam, peer of Zeus in counsel, wouldst thou now in anywise hearken unto me? for I am thy brother. Make the Trojans to sit down, and all the Achaeans 7.48. /this plan that had found pleasure with the gods in council; and he came and stood by Hector's side, and spake to him, saying:Hector, son of Priam, peer of Zeus in counsel, wouldst thou now in anywise hearken unto me? for I am thy brother. Make the Trojans to sit down, and all the Achaeans 7.49. /this plan that had found pleasure with the gods in council; and he came and stood by Hector's side, and spake to him, saying:Hector, son of Priam, peer of Zeus in counsel, wouldst thou now in anywise hearken unto me? for I am thy brother. Make the Trojans to sit down, and all the Achaeans 7.50. /and do thou challenge whoso is best of the Achaeans to do battle with thee man to man in dread combat. Not yet is it thy fate to die and meet thy doom; for thus have I heard the voice of the gods that are for ever. So spake he and Hector rejoiced greatly when he heard his words; 7.51. /and do thou challenge whoso is best of the Achaeans to do battle with thee man to man in dread combat. Not yet is it thy fate to die and meet thy doom; for thus have I heard the voice of the gods that are for ever. So spake he and Hector rejoiced greatly when he heard his words; 7.52. /and do thou challenge whoso is best of the Achaeans to do battle with thee man to man in dread combat. Not yet is it thy fate to die and meet thy doom; for thus have I heard the voice of the gods that are for ever. So spake he and Hector rejoiced greatly when he heard his words; 7.53. /and do thou challenge whoso is best of the Achaeans to do battle with thee man to man in dread combat. Not yet is it thy fate to die and meet thy doom; for thus have I heard the voice of the gods that are for ever. So spake he and Hector rejoiced greatly when he heard his words; |
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5. Herodotus, Histories, 1.55, 2.18, 2.61-2.63, 7.33, 9.33-9.35, 9.69, 9.93-9.95 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1.55. After his gifts to the Delphians, Croesus made a third inquiry of the oracle, for he wanted to use it to the full, having received true answers from it; and the question which he asked was whether his sovereignty would be of long duration. To this the Pythian priestess answered as follows: , quote type="oracle" l met="dact"“When the Medes have a mule as king, /l lJust then, tender-footed Lydian, by the stone-strewn Hermus /l lFlee and do not stay, and do not be ashamed to be a coward.” /l /quote 2.18. The response of oracle of Ammon in fact bears witness to my opinion, that Egypt is of such an extent as I have argued; I learned this by inquiry after my judgment was already formed about Egypt . ,The men of the cities of Marea and Apis, in the part of Egypt bordering on Libya, believing themselves to be Libyans and not Egyptians, and disliking the injunction of the religious law that forbade them to eat cows' meat, sent to Ammon saying that they had no part of or lot with Egypt : for they lived (they said) outside the Delta and did not consent to the ways of its people, and they wished to be allowed to eat all foods. ,But the god forbade them: all the land, he said, watered by the Nile in its course was Egypt, and all who lived lower down than the city Elephantine and drank the river's water were Egyptians. Such was the oracle given to them. 2.61. This is what they do there; I have already described how they keep the feast of Isis at Busiris. There, after the sacrifice, all the men and women lament, in countless numbers; but it is not pious for me to say who it is for whom they lament. ,Carians who live in Egypt do even more than this, inasmuch as they cut their foreheads with knives; and by this they show that they are foreigners and not Egyptians. 2.62. When they assemble at Saïs on the night of the sacrifice, they keep lamps burning outside around their houses. These lamps are saucers full of salt and oil on which the wick floats, and they burn all night. This is called the Feast of Lamps. ,Egyptians who do not come to this are mindful on the night of sacrifice to keep their own lamps burning, and so they are alight not only at Saïs but throughout Egypt . A sacred tale is told showing why this night is lit up thus and honored. 2.63. When the people go to Heliopolis and Buto, they offer sacrifice only. At Papremis sacrifice is offered and rites performed just as elsewhere; but when the sun is setting, a few of the priests hover about the image, while most of them go and stand in the entrance to the temple with clubs of wood in their hands; others, more than a thousand men fulfilling vows, who also carry wooden clubs, stand in a mass opposite. ,The image of the god, in a little gilded wooden shrine, they carry away on the day before this to another sacred building. The few who are left with the image draw a four-wheeled wagon conveying the shrine and the image that is in the shrine; the others stand in the space before the doors and do not let them enter, while the vow-keepers, taking the side of the god, strike them, who defend themselves. ,A fierce fight with clubs breaks out there, and they are hit on their heads, and many, I expect, even die from their wounds; although the Egyptians said that nobody dies. ,The natives say that they made this assembly a custom from the following incident: the mother of Ares lived in this temple; Ares had been raised apart from her and came, when he grew up, wishing to visit his mother; but as her attendants kept him out and would not let him pass, never having seen him before, Ares brought men from another town, manhandled the attendants, and went in to his mother. From this, they say, this hitting for Ares became a custom in the festival. 7.33. After this he prepared to march to Abydos; meanwhile his men were bridging the Hellespont from Asia to Europe. On the Chersonese, which is on the Hellespont, between the city of Sestus and Madytus there is a broad headland running out into the sea opposite Abydos. It was here that not long afterwards the Athenians, when Xanthippus son of Ariphron was their general, took Artayctes, a Persian and the governor of Sestus, and crucified him alive; he had been in the habit of bringing women right into the temple of Protesilaus at Elaeus and doing impious deeds there. 9.33. On the second day after they had all been arrayed according to their nations and their battalions, both armies offered sacrifice. It was Tisamenus who sacrificed for the Greeks, for he was with their army as a diviner; he was an Elean by birth, a Clytiad of the Iamid clan, and the Lacedaemonians gave him the freedom of their city. ,This they did, for when Tisamenus was inquiring of the oracle at Delphi concerning offspring, the priestess prophesied to him that he should win five great victories. Not understanding that oracle, he engaged in bodily exercise, thinking that he would then be able to win in similar sports. When he had trained himself for the Five Contests, he came within one wrestling bout of winning the Olympic prize, in a match with Hieronymus of Andros. ,The Lacedaemonians, however, perceived that the oracle given to Tisamenus spoke of the lists not of sport but of war, and they attempted to bribe Tisamenus to be a leader in their wars jointly with their kings of Heracles' line. ,When he saw that the Spartans set great store by his friendship, he set his price higher, and made it known to them that he would do what they wanted only in exchange for the gift of full citizenship and all of the citizen's rights. ,Hearing that, the Spartans at first were angry and completely abandoned their request; but when the dreadful menace of this Persian host hung over them, they consented and granted his demand. When he saw their purpose changed, he said that he would not be content with that alone; his brother Hegias too must be made a Spartan on the same terms as himself. 9.34. By so saying he imitated Melampus, in so far as one may compare demands for kingship with those for citizenship. For when the women of Argos had gone mad, and the Argives wanted him to come from Pylos and heal them of that madness, Melampus demanded half of their kingship for his wages. ,This the Argives would not put up with and departed. When, however, the madness spread among their women, they promised what Melampus demanded and were ready to give it to him. Thereupon, seeing their purpose changed, he demanded yet more and said that he would not do their will except if they gave a third of their kingship to his brother Bias; now driven into dire straits, the Argives consented to that also. 9.35. The Spartans too were so eagerly desirous of winning Tisamenus that they granted everything that he demanded. When they had granted him this also, Tisamenus of Elis, now a Spartan, engaged in divination for them and aided them to win five very great victories. No one on earth save Tisamenus and his brother ever became citizens of Sparta. ,Now the five victories were these: one, the first, this victory at Plataea; next, that which was won at Tegea over the Tegeans and Argives; after that, over all the Arcadians save the Mantineans at Dipaea; next, over the Messenians at Ithome; lastly, the victory at Tanagra over the Athenians and Argives, which was the last won of the five victories. 9.69. So the Greeks, now having the upper hand, followed Xerxes' men, pursuing and slaying. During this steadily growing rout there came a message to the rest of the Greeks, who were by the temple of Hera and had stayed out of the fighting, that there had been a battle and that Pausanias' men were victorious. When they heard this, they set forth in no ordered array, those who were with the Corinthians keeping to the spurs of the mountain and the hill country, by the road that led upward straight to the temple of Demeter, and those who were with the Megarians and Philasians taking the most level route over the plain. ,However, when the Megarians and Philasians had come near the enemy, the Theban horsemen (whose captain was Asopodorus son of Timander) caught sight of them approaching in haste and disorder, and rode at them; in this attack they trampled six hundred of them, and pursued and drove the rest to Cithaeron. 9.93. There is at Apollonia a certain flock sacred to the Sun, which in the daytime is pastured beside the river Chon, which flows from the mountain called Lacmon through the lands of Apollonia and empties into the sea by the harbor of Oricum. By night, those townsmen who are most notable for wealth or lineage are chosen to watch it, each man serving for a year, for the people of Apollonia set great store by this flock, being so taught by a certain oracle. It is kept in a cave far distant from the town. ,Now at the time of which I speak, Evenius was the chosen watchman. But one night he fell asleep, and wolves, coming past his guard into the cave, killed about sixty of the flock. When Evenius was aware of it, he held his peace and told no man, intending to restore what was lost by buying others. ,This matter was not, however, hidden from the people of Apollonia, and when it came to their knowledge they brought him to judgment and condemned him to lose his eyesight for sleeping at his watch. So they blinded Evenius, but from the day of their so doing their flocks bore no offspring, nor did their land yield fruit as before. ,Furthermore, a declaration was given to them at Dodona and Delphi, when they inquired of the prophets what might be the cause of their present ill: the gods told them by their prophets that they had done unjustly in blinding Evenius, the guardian of the sacred flock, “for we ourselves” (they said) “sent those wolves, and we will not cease from avenging him until you make him such restitution for what you did as he himself chooses and approves; when that is fully done, we ourselves will give Evenius such a gift as will make many men consider him happy.” 9.94. This was the oracle given to the people of Apollonia. They kept it secret and charged certain of their townsmen to carry the business through; they acted as I will now show. Coming and sitting down by Evenius at the place where he sat, they spoke of other matters, till at last they fell to commiserating his misfortune. Guiding the conversation in this way, they asked him what compensation he would choose, if the people of Apollonia should promise to requite him for what they had done. ,He, knowing nothing of the oracle, said he would choose for a gift the lands of certain named townsmen whom he thought to have the two fairest estates in Apollonia, and a house besides which he knew to be the fairest in the town; let him (he said) have possession of these, and he would lay aside his anger, and be satisfied with that by way of restitution. ,So he said this, and those who were sitting beside him said in reply: “Evenius, the people of Apollonia hereby make you that restitution for the loss of your sight, obeying the oracle given to them.” At that he was very angry, for he learned through this the whole story and saw that they had cheated him. They did, however, buy from the possessors and give him what he had chosen, and from that day he had a natural gift of divination, through which he won fame. 9.95. Deiphonus, the son of this Evenius, had been brought by the Corinthians, and was the army's prophet. But I have heard it said before now, that Deiphonus was not the son of Evenius, but made a wrongful use of that name and worked for wages up and down Hellas. |
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10. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 3.4.6, 3.11.5, 5.13.11, 5.15.10, 10.9.7 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 3.4.6. It may well be too that the wrath of heroes and the wrath of gods united together to punish Cleomenes since it is a fact that for a personal wrong Protesilaus, a hero not a whit more illustrious than Argus, punished at Elaeus Artayctes, a Persian; while the Megarians never succeeded in propitiating the deities at Eleusis for having encroached upon the sacred land. As to the tampering with the oracle, we know of nobody, with the exception of Cleomenes, who has had the audacity even to attempt it. 3.11.5. At the altar of Augustus they show a bronze statue of Agias. This Agias, they say, by divining for Lysander captured the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami with the exception of ten ships of war. 405 B.C. These made their escape to Cyprus ; all the rest the Lacedaemonians captured along with their crews. Agias was a son of Agelochus, a son of Tisamenus. 5.13.11. Every year the soothsayers, keeping carefully to the nineteenth day of the month Elaphius, End of March and the beginning of April. bring the ash from the town-hall, and making it into a paste with the water of the Alpheius they daub the altar therewith. But never may the ash be made into paste with other water, and for this reason the Alpheius is thought to be of all rivers the dearest to Olympic Zeus. There is also an altar at Didyma of the Milesians, which Heracles the Theban is said by the Milesians to have made from the blood of the victims. But in later times the blood of the sacrifices has not made the altar excessively large. 5.15.10. Each month the Eleans sacrifice once on all the altars I have enumerated. They sacrifice in an ancient manner; for they burn on the altars incense with wheat which has been kneaded with honey, placing also on the altars twigs of olive, and using wine for a libation. Only to the Nymphs and the Mistresses are they not wont to pour wine in libation, nor do they pour it on the altar common to all the gods. The care of the sacrifices is given to a priest, holding office for one month, to soothsayers and libation-bearers, and also to a guide, a flute-player and the woodman. 10.9.7. Opposite these are offerings of the Lacedaemonians from spoils of the Athenians: the Dioscuri, Zeus, Apollo, Artemis, and beside these Poseidon, Lysander, son of Aristocritus, represented as being crowned by Poseidon, Agias, soothsayer to Lysander on the occasion of his victory, and Hermon, who steered his flag-ship. |
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