1. Homer, Odyssey, 15.248 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)
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2. Herodotus, Histories, 4.94-4.96 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 4.94. Their belief in their immortality is as follows: they believe that they do not die, but that one who perishes goes to the deity Salmoxis, or Gebeleïzis, as some of them call him. ,Once every five years they choose one of their people by lot and send him as a messenger to Salmoxis, with instructions to report their needs; and this is how they send him: three lances are held by designated men; others seize the messenger to Salmoxis by his hands and feet, and swing and toss him up on to the spear-points. ,If he is killed by the toss, they believe that the god regards them with favor; but if he is not killed, they blame the messenger himself, considering him a bad man, and send another messenger in place of him. It is while the man still lives that they give him the message. ,Furthermore, when there is thunder and lightning these same Thracians shoot arrows skyward as a threat to the god, believing in no other god but their own. 4.95. I understand from the Greeks who live beside the Hellespont and Pontus, that this Salmoxis was a man who was once a slave in Samos, his master being Pythagoras son of Mnesarchus; ,then, after being freed and gaining great wealth, he returned to his own country. Now the Thracians were a poor and backward people, but this Salmoxis knew Ionian ways and a more advanced way of life than the Thracian; for he had consorted with Greeks, and moreover with one of the greatest Greek teachers, Pythagoras; ,therefore he made a hall, where he entertained and fed the leaders among his countrymen, and taught them that neither he nor his guests nor any of their descendants would ever die, but that they would go to a place where they would live forever and have all good things. ,While he was doing as I have said and teaching this doctrine, he was meanwhile making an underground chamber. When this was finished, he vanished from the sight of the Thracians, and went down into the underground chamber, where he lived for three years, ,while the Thracians wished him back and mourned him for dead; then in the fourth year he appeared to the Thracians, and thus they came to believe what Salmoxis had told them. Such is the Greek story about him. 4.96. Now I neither disbelieve nor entirely believe the tale about Salmoxis and his underground chamber; but I think that he lived many years before Pythagoras; ,and as to whether there was a man called Salmoxis or this is some deity native to the Getae, let the question be dismissed. |
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3. Plato, Charmides, 156d (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
| 156d. Then I, on hearing his approval, regained my courage; and little by little I began to muster up my confidence again, and my spirit began to rekindle. So I said,—Such, then, Charmides, is the nature of this charm. I learnt it on campaign over there, from one of the Thracian physicians of Zalmoxis, who are said even to make one immortal. This Thracian said that the Greeks were right in advising as I told you just now: but Zalmoxis, he said |
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4. Thucydides, The History of The Peloponnesian War, 2.68 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
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5. Lycophron, Alexandra, 800, 799 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
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6. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 13.82 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 13.82. 1. Now the sacred buildings which they constructed, and especially the temple of Zeus, bear witness to the grand manner of the men of that day. of the other sacred buildings some have been burned and others completely destroyed because of the many times the city has been taken in war, but the completion of the temple of Zeus, which was ready to receive its roof, was prevented by the war; and after the war, since the city had been completely destroyed, never in the subsequent years did the Acragantini find themselves able to finish their buildings.,2. The temple has a length of three hundred and forty feet, a width of sixty, and a height of one hundred and twenty not including the foundation. And being as it is the largest temple in Sicily, it may not unreasonably be compared, so far as magnitude of its substructure is concerned, with the temples outside of Sicily; for even though, as it turned out, the design could not be carried out, the scale of the undertaking at any rate is clear.,3. And though all other men build their temples either with walls forming the sides or with rows of columns, thrown enclosing their sanctuaries, this temple combines both these plans; for the columns were built in with the walls, the part extending outside the temple being rounded and that within square; and the circumference of the outer part of the column which extends from the wall is twenty feet and the body of a man may be contained in the fluting, while that of the inner part is twelve feet.,4. The porticoes were of enormous size and height, and in the east pediment they portrayed The Battle between the Gods and the Giants which excelled in size and beauty, and in the west The Capture of Troy, in which each one of the heroes may be seen portrayed in a manner appropriate to his rôle.,5. There was at that time also an artificial pool outside the city, seven stades in circumference and twenty cubits deep; into this they brought water and ingeniously contrived to produce a multitude of fish of every variety for their public feastings, and with the fish swans spent their time and a vast multitude of every other kind of bird, so that the pool was an object of great delight to gaze upon.,6. And witness to the luxury of the inhabitants is also the extravagant cost of the monuments which they erected, some adorned with sculptured race-horses and others with the pet birds kept by girls and boys in their homes, monuments which Timaeus says he had seen extant even in his own lifetime.,7. And in the Olympiad previous to the one we are discussing, namely, the Ninety-second, when Exaenetus of Acragas won the "stadion," he was conducted into the city in a chariot and in the procession there were, not to speak of the other things, three hundred chariots belonging to citizens of Acragas.,8. Speaking generally, they led from youth onward a manner of life which was luxurious, wearing as they did exceedingly delicate clothing and gold ornaments and, besides, using strigils and oil-flasks made of silver and even of gold. |
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7. Strabo, Geography, 3.1.9, 7.3.5, 12.3.11, 14.5.16, 16.2.39 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 3.1.9. Next after [Cadiz ] is the port of Menestheus, and the estuary near to Asta and Nebrissa. These estuaries are valleys filled by the sea during its flood-tides, up which you may sail into the interior, and to the cities built on them, in the same way as you sail up a river. Immediately after are the two outlets of the Baetis. The island embraced by these mouths has a coast of a hundred stadia, or rather more according to others. Hereabouts is the Oracle of Menestheus, and the tower of Caepio, built upon a rock and washed on all sides by the sea. This is an admirable work, resembling the Pharos, and constructed for the safety of vessels. For the mud carried out by the river forms shallows, and sunken rocks are also scattered before it, so that a beacon was greatly needed. Thence sailing up the river is the city of Ebura and the sanctuary of Phosphorus, which they call Lux Dubia. You then pass up the other estuaries; and after these the river Ana, which has also two mouths, up either of which you may sail. Lastly, beyond is the Sacred Promontory, distant from Gadeira less than 2000 stadia. Some say that from the Sacred Promontory to the mouth of the Ana there are 60 miles; thence to the mouth of the Baetis 100; and from this latter place to Gadeira 70. 7.3.5. In fact, it is said that a certain man of the Getae, Zamolxis by name, had been a slave to Pythagoras, and had learned some things about the heavenly bodies from him, as also certain other things from the Egyptians, for in his wanderings he had gone even as far as Egypt; and when he came on back to his home-land he was eagerly courted by the rulers and the people of the tribe, because he could make predictions from the celestial signs; and at last he persuaded the king to take him as a partner in the government, on the ground that he was competent to report the will of the gods; and although at the outset he was only made a priest of the god who was most honored in their country, yet afterwards he was even addressed as god, and having taken possession of a certain cavernous place that was inaccessible to anyone else he spent his life there, only rarely meeting with any people outside except the king and his own attendants; and the king cooperated with him, because he saw that the people paid much more attention to himself than before, in the belief that the decrees which he promulgated were in accordance with the counsel of the gods. This custom persisted even down to our own time, because some man of that character was always to be found, who, though in fact only a counsellor to the king, was called god among the Getae. And the people took up the notion that the mountain was sacred and they so call it, but its name is Cogaeonum, like that of the river which flows past it. So, too, at the time when Byrebistas, against whom already the Deified Caesar had prepared to make an expedition, was reigning over the Getae, the office in question was held by Decaeneus, and somehow or other the Pythagorean doctrine of abstention from eating any living thing still survived as taught by Zamolxis. 12.3.11. Then one comes to Sinope itself, which is fifty stadia distant from Armene; it is the most noteworthy of the cities in that part of the world. This city was founded by the Milesians; and, having built a naval station, it reigned over the sea inside the Cyaneae, and shared with the Greeks in many struggles even outside the Cyaneae; and, although it was independent for a long time, it could not eventually preserve its freedom, but was captured by siege, and was first enslaved by Pharnaces and afterwards by his successors down to Eupator and to the Romans who overthrew Eupator. Eupator was both born and reared at Sinope; and he accorded it especial honor and treated it as the metropolis of his kingdom. Sinope is beautifully equipped both by nature and by human foresight, for it is situated on the neck of a peninsula, and has on either side of the isthmus harbors and roadsteads and wonderful pelamydes-fisheries, of which I have already made mention, saying that the Sinopeans get the second catch and the Byzantians the third. Furthermore, the peninsula is protected all round by ridgy shores, which have hollowed-out places in them, rock-cavities, as it were, which the people call choenicides; these are filled with water when the sea rises, and therefore the place is hard to approach, not only because of this, but also because the whole surface of the rock is prickly and impassable for bare feet. Higher up, however, and above the city, the ground is fertile and adorned with diversified market-gardens; and especially the suburbs of the city. The city itself is beautifully walled, and is also splendidly adorned with gymnasium and marked place and colonnades. But although it was such a city, still it was twice captured, first by Pharnaces, who unexpectedly attacked it all of a sudden, and later by Lucullus and by the tyrant who was garrisoned within it, being besieged both inside and outside at the same time; for, since Bacchides, who had been set up by the king as commander of the garrison, was always suspecting treason from the people inside, and was causing many outrages and murders, he made the people, who were unable either nobly to defend themselves or to submit by compromise, lose all heart for either course. At any rate, the city was captured; and though Lucullus kept intact the rest of the city's adornments, he took away the globe of Billarus and the work of Sthenis, the statue of Autolycus, whom they regarded as founder of their city and honored as god. The city had also an oracle of Autolycus. He is thought to have been one of those who went on the voyage with Jason and to have taken possession of this place. Then later the Milesians, seeing the natural advantages of the place and the weakness of its inhabitants, appropriated it to themselves and sent forth colonists to it. But at present it has received also a colony of Romans; and a part of the city and the territory belong to these. It is three thousand five hundred stadia distant from the Hieron, two thousand from Heracleia, and seven hundred from Carambis. It has produced excellent men: among the philosophers, Diogenes the Cynic and Timotheus Patrion; among the poets, Diphilus the comic poet; and, among the historians, Baton, who wrote the work entitled The Persica. 14.5.16. After the Cydnus River one comes to the Pyramus River, which flows from Cataonia, a river which I have mentioned before. According to Artemidorus, the distance thence to Soli in a straight voyage is five hundred stadia. Near by, also, is Mallos, situated on a height, founded by Amphilochus and Mopsus, the latter the son of Apollo and Manto, concerning whom many myths are told. And indeed I, too, have mentioned them in my account of Calchas and of the quarrel between Calchas and Mopsus about their powers of divination. For some writers transfer this quarrel, Sophocles, for example, to Cilicia, which he, following the custom of tragic poets, calls Pamphylia, just as he calls Lycia Caria and Troy and Lydia Phrygia. And Sophocles, among others, tells us that Calchas died there. But, according to the myth, the contest concerned, not only the power of divination, but also the sovereignty; for they say that Mopsus and Amphilochus went from Troy and founded Mallos, and that Amphilochus then went away to Argos, and, being dissatisfied with affairs there, returned to Mallos, but that, being excluded from a share in the government there, he fought a duel with Mopsus, and that both fell in the duel and were buried in places that were not in sight of one another. And today their tombs are to be seen in the neighborhood of Magarsa near the Pyramus River. This was the birthplace of Crates the grammarian, of whom Panaetius is said to have been a pupil. 16.2.39. What truth there may be in these things I cannot say; they have at least been regarded and believed as true by mankind. Hence prophets received so much honour as to be thought worthy even of thrones, because they were supposed to communicate ordices and precepts from the gods, both during their lifetime and after their death; as for example Teiresias, to whom alone Proserpine gave wisdom and understanding after death: the others flit about as shadows.Such were Amphiaraus, Trophonius, Orpheus, and Musaeus: in former times there was Zamolxis, a Pythagorean, who was accounted a god among the Getae; and in our time, Decaeneus, the diviner of Byrebistas. Among the Bosporani, there was Achaicarus; among the Indians, were the Gymnosophists; among the Persians, the Magi and Necyomanteis, and besides these the Lecanomanteis and Hydromanteis; among the Assyrians, were the Chaldaeans; and among the Romans, the Tyrrhenian diviners of dreams.Such was Moses and his successors; their beginning was good, but they degenerated. |
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8. Pliny The Elder, Natural History, 7.152, 8.184-8.186 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
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9. Plutarch, On Isis And Osiris, 43 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 43. They think that the risings of the Nile have some relation to the illuminations of the moon; for the greatest rising, Besides the famous ancient Nilometer at Elephantinê, others have been found at Philae, Edfu, and Esna. in the neighbourhood of Elephantinê, is twenty-eight cubits, which is the number of its illuminations that form the measure of each of its monthly cycles; the rising in the neighbourhood of Mendes and Xoïs, which is the least, is six cubits, corresponding to the first quarter. The mean rising, in the neighbourhood of Memphis, when it is normal, is fourteen cubits, corresponding to the full moon. The Apis, they say, is the animate image of Osiris, Cf. 359and 362 c, supra . and he comes into being when a fructifying light thrusts forth from the moon and falls upon a cow in her breeding-season. Cf. Moralia, 718 b, and Aelian, De Natura Animalium, xi. 10. Wherefore there are many things in the Apis that resemble features of the moon, his bright parts being darkened by the shadowy. Moreover, at the time of the new moon in the month of Pharnenoth they celebrate a festival to which they give the name of Osiris’s coming to the Moon, and this marks the beginning of the spring. Thus they make the power of Osiris to be fixed in the Moon, and say that Isis, since she is generation, is associated with him. For this reason they also call the Moon the mother of the world, and they think that she has a nature both male and female, as she is receptive and made pregt by the Sun, but she herself in turn emits and disseminates into the air generative principles. For, as they believe, the destructive activity of Typhon does not always prevail, but oftentimes is overpowered by such generation and put in bonds, and then at a later time is again released and contends against Horus, Cf. 358 d, supra . who is the terrestrial universe; and this is never completely exempt either from dissolution or from generation. 43. They think that the risings of the Nile have some relation to the illuminations of the moon; for the greatest rising, in the neighbourhood of Elephantinê, is twenty-eight cubits, which is the number of its illuminations that form the measure of each of its monthly cycles; the rising in the neighbourhood of Mendes and Xoïs, which is the least, is six cubits, corresponding to the first quarter. The mean rising, in the neighbourhood of Memphis, when it is normal, is fourteen cubits, corresponding to the full moon. The Apis, they say, is the animate image of Osiris, and he comes into being when a fructifying light thrusts forth from the moon and falls upon a cow in her breeding-season. Wherefore there are many things in the Apis that resemble features of the moon, his bright parts being darkened by the shadowy. Moreover, at the time of the new moon in the month of Phamenoth they celebrate a festival to which they give the name of "Osiris's coming to the Moon," and this marks the beginning of the spring. Thus they make the power of Osiris to be fixed in the Moon, and say that Isis, since she is generation, is associated with him. For this reason they also call the Moon the mother of the world, and they think that she has a nature both male and female, as she is receptive and made pregt by the Sun, but she herself in turn emits and disseminates into the air generative principles. For, as they believe, the destructive activity of Typhon does not always prevail, but oftentimes is overpowered by such generation and put in bonds, and then at a later time is again released and contends against Horus, who is the terrestrial universe; and this is never completely exempt either from dissolution or from generation. |
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10. Plutarch, Lucullus, 23.3, 23.6 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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11. Plutarch, Romulus, 28 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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12. Tacitus, Histories, 4.83-4.84 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 4.83. The origin of this god has not yet been generally treated by our authors: the Egyptian priests tell the following story, that when King Ptolemy, the first of the Macedonians to put the power of Egypt on a firm foundation, was giving the new city of Alexandria walls, temples, and religious rites, there appeared to him in his sleep a vision of a young man of extraordinary beauty and of more than human stature, who warned him to send his most faithful friends to Pontus and bring his statue hither; the vision said that this act would be a happy thing for the kingdom and that the city that received the god would be great and famous: after these words the youth seemed to be carried to heaven in a blaze of fire. Ptolemy, moved by this miraculous omen, disclosed this nocturnal vision to the Egyptian priests, whose business it is to interpret such things. When they proved to know little of Pontus and foreign countries, he questioned Timotheus, an Athenian of the clan of the Eumolpidae, whom he had called from Eleusis to preside over the sacred rites, and asked him what this religion was and what the divinity meant. Timotheus learned by questioning men who had travelled to Pontus that there was a city there called Sinope, and that not far from it there was a temple of Jupiter Dis, long famous among the natives: for there sits beside the god a female figure which most call Proserpina. But Ptolemy, although prone to superstitious fears after the nature of kings, when he once more felt secure, being more eager for pleasures than religious rites, began gradually to neglect the matter and to turn his attention to other things, until the same vision, now more terrible and insistent, threatened ruin upon the king himself and his kingdom unless his orders were carried out. Then Ptolemy directed that ambassadors and gifts should be despatched to King Scydrothemis â he ruled over the people of Sinope at that time â and when the embassy was about to sail he instructed them to visit Pythian Apollo. The ambassadors found the sea favourable; and the answer of the oracle was not uncertain: Apollo bade them go on and bring back the image of his father, but leave that of his sister. 4.84. When the ambassadors reached Sinope, they delivered the gifts, requests, and messages of their king to Scydrothemis. He was all uncertainty, now fearing the god and again being terrified by the threats and opposition of his people; often he was tempted by the gifts and promises of the ambassadors. In the meantime three years passed during which Ptolemy did not lessen his zeal or his appeals; he increased the dignity of his ambassadors, the number of his ships, and the quantity of gold offered. Then a terrifying vision appeared to Scydrothemis, warning him not to hinder longer the purposes of the god: as he still hesitated, various disasters, diseases, and the evident anger of the gods, growing heavier from day to day, beset the king. He called an assembly of his people and made known to them the god's orders, the visions that had appeared to him and to Ptolemy, and the misfortunes that were multiplying upon them: the people opposed their king; they were jealous of Egypt, afraid for themselves, and so gathered about the temple of the god. At this point the tale becomes stranger, for tradition says that the god himself, voluntarily embarking on the fleet that was lying on the shore, miraculously crossed the wide stretch of sea and reached Alexandria in two days. A temple, befitting the size of the city, was erected in the quarter called Rhacotis; there had previously been on that spot an ancient shrine dedicated to Serapis and Isis. Such is the most popular account of the origin and arrival of the god. Yet I am not unaware that there are some who maintain that the god was brought from Seleucia in Syria in the reign of Ptolemy III; still others claim that the same Ptolemy introduced the god, but that the place from which he came was Memphis, once a famous city and the bulwark of ancient Egypt. Many regard the god himself as identical with Aesculapius, because he cures the sick; some as Osiris, the oldest god among these peoples; still more identify him with Jupiter as the supreme lord of all things; the majority, however, arguing from the attributes of the god that are seen on his statue or from their own conjectures, hold him to be Father Dis. |
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13. Aelian, Nature of Animals, 11.1 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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14. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation To The Greeks, 4.48.4-4.48.6, 4.49.1 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
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15. Lucian, Alexander The False Prophet, 19 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 19. And now, at last, the object to which all this had led up, the giving of oracular answers to all applicants, could be attained. The cue was taken from Amphilochus in Cilicia[1]. After the death and disappearance at Thebes of his father Amphiaraus[2], Amphilochus, driven from his home, made his way to Cilicia[3], and there did not at all badly by prophesying to the Cilicians at the rate of three pence an oracle. After taking this cue[4], Alexander proclaimed that on a stated day the God would give answers to all comers. Each person was to write down his wish and the object of his curiosity, fasten the packet with thread and seal it with wax, clay, or other such substance. He would receive these, and enter the holy place (by this time the temple was complete, and the scene all ready), whither the givers should be summoned in order by a herald and an acolyte; he would learn the God’s mind upon each, and return the packets with their seals intact and the answers attached, the God being ready to give a definite answer to any question that might be put. [1] Amphilochus in Cilicia | Succeeded his father Amphiaraus in the business of divination by dreams, for which both the oracles were famous.28); Cilicia is a province in southern Anatolia near Mesopotamia. [2] Amphiaraus | A legendary king of Argos, famously known as a seer and oracle. [3] Cilicia | Southern edge of Anatolia. [4] After taking this cue | Gr. Το ενδοσιμον λαζων. Updated English text to Franklin's language. An allusion to music when one finger takes up the words from another, as in catches.29) |
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16. Lucian, Slander, 17 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 17. At Alexander's court there was no more fatal imputation than that of refusing worship and adoration to Hephaestion. Alexander had been so fond of him that to appoint him a God after his death was, for such a worker of marvels, nothing out of the way. The various cities at once built temples to him, holy ground was consecrated, altars, offerings and festivals instituted to this new divinity; if a man would be believed, he must swear by Hephaestion. For smiling at these proceedings, or showing the slightest lack of reverence, the penalty was death. The flatterers cherished, fanned, and put the bellows to this childish fancy of Alexander's; they had visions and manifestations of Hephaestion to relate; they invented cures and attributed oracles to him; they did not stop short of doing sacrifice to this God of Help and Protection. Alexander was delighted, and ended by believing in it all; it gratified his vanity to think that he was now not only a God's son, but a God maker. It would be interesting to know how many of his friends in those days found that what the new divinity did for them was to supply a charge of irreverence on which they might be dismissed and deprived of the King's favour. |
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17. Lucian, The Syrian Goddess, 37, 36 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 36. I have much to say about his works, and I will tell what is most worthy of admiration. First I will speak of the oracle. There are many oracles among the Greeks, and many, too, among the Egyptians, and again in Libya and in Asia there are many too. But these speak not, save by the mouth of priests and prophets: this one is moved by its own impulse, and carries out the divining process to the very end. The manner of his divination is the following: When he is desirous of uttering an oracle, he first stirs in his seat, and the priests straightway raise him up. Should they fail to raise him up, he sweats, and moves more violently than ever. When they approach him and bear him up, he drives them round in a circle, and leaps on one after another. At last the high priest confronts him, and questions him on every subject. The god, if he disapproves of any action proposed, retreats into the background; if, however, he happens to approve it, he drives his bearers forward as if they were horses. It is thus that they gather the oracles, and they undertake nothing public or private without this preliminary. This god, too, speaks about the symbol, and points out when it is the due season for the expedition of which I spoke in connexion therewith. |
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18. Lucian, Parliament of The Gods, 13, 16, 8, 11 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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19. Lucian, The Lover of Lies, 38 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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20. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.34.2-1.34.3, 2.20.5, 3.15.8, 5.17.7, 6.5.7, 6.9.8, 6.11.2-6.11.9, 7.17.13-7.17.14, 9.39, 10.10.4 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 1.34.2. Legend says that when Amphiaraus was exiled from Thebes the earth opened and swallowed both him and his chariot. Only they say that the incident did not happen here, the place called the Chariot being on the road from Thebes to Chalcis . The divinity of Amphiaraus was first established among the Oropians, from whom afterwards all the Greeks received the cult. I can enumerate other men also born at this time who are worshipped among the Greeks as gods; some even have cities dedicated to them, such as Eleus in Chersonnesus dedicated to Protesilaus, and Lebadea of the Boeotians dedicated to Trophonius. The Oropians have both a temple and a white marble statue of Amphiaraus. 1.34.3. The altar shows parts. One part is to Heracles, Zeus, and Apollo Healer, another is given up to heroes and to wives of heroes, the third is to Hestia and Hermes and Amphiaraus and the children of Amphilochus. But Alcmaeon, because of his treatment of Eriphyle, is honored neither in the temple of Amphiaraus nor yet with Amphilochus. The fourth portion of the altar is to Aphrodite and Panacea, and further to Iaso, Health and Athena Healer. The fifth is dedicated to the nymphs and to Pan, and to the rivers Achelous and Cephisus. The Athenians too have an altar to Amphilochus in the city, and there is at Mallus in Cilicia an oracle of his which is the most trustworthy of my day. 2.20.5. A little farther on is a sanctuary of the Seasons. On coming back from here you see statues of Polyneices, the son of Oedipus, and of all the chieftains who with him were killed in battle at the wall of Thebes . These men Aeschylus has reduced to the number of seven only, although there were more chiefs than this in the expedition, from Argos, from Messene, with some even from Arcadia . But the Argives have adopted the number seven from the drama of Aeschylus, and near to their statues are the statues of those who took Thebes : Aegialeus, son of Adrastus; Promachus, son of Parthenopaeus, son of Talaus; Polydorus, son of Hippomedon; Thersander; Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, the sons of Amphiaraus; Diomedes, and Sthenelus. Among their company were also Euryalus, son of Mecisteus, and Adrastus and Timeas, sons of Polyneices. 3.15.8. In this fashion, and with such a belief have these cities set up the wooden images. In Sparta is a lounge called Painted, and by it hero-shrines of Cadmus the son of Agenor, and of his descendants Oeolycus, son of Theras, and Aegeus, son of Oeolycus. They are said to have been made by Maesis, Laeas and Europas, sons of Hyraeus, son of Aegeus. They made for Amphilochus too his hero-shrine, because their ancestor Tisamenus had for his mother Demonassa, the sister of Amphilochus. 5.17.7. Oenomaus is chasing Pelops, who is holding Hippodameia. Each of them has two horses, but those of Pelops have wings. Next is wrought the house of Amphiaraus, and baby Amphilochus is being carried by some old woman or other. In front of the house stands Eriphyle with the necklace, and by her are her daughters Eurydice and Demonassa, and the boy Alcmaeon naked. 6.5.7. Dareius, the bastard son of Artaxerxes, who with the support of the Persian common people put down Sogdius, the legitimate son of Artaxerxes, and ascended the throne in his stead, learning when he was king of the exploits of Pulydamas, sent messengers with the promise of gifts and persuaded him to come before his presence at Susa . There he challenged three of the Persians called Immortals to fight him—one against three— and killed them. of his exploits enumerated, some are represented on the pedestal of the statue at Olympia, and others are set forth in the inscription. 6.9.8. The response given by the Pythian priestess was, they say, as follows:— Last of heroes is Cleomedes of Astypalaea; Honor him with sacrifices as being no longer a mortal. So from this time have the Astypalaeans paid honors to Cleomedes as to a hero. 6.11.2. Not far from the kings mentioned stands a Thasian, Theagenes the son of Timosthenes. The Thasians say that Timosthenes was not the father of Theagenes, but a priest of the Thasian Heracles, a phantom of whom in the likeness of Timosthenes had intercourse with the mother of Theagenes. In his ninth year, they say, as he was going home from school, he was attracted by a bronze image of some god or other in the marketplace; so he caught up the image, placed it on one of his shoulders and carried it home. 6.11.3. The citizens were enraged at what he had done, but one of them, a respected man of advanced years, bade them not to kill the lad, and ordered him to carry the image from his home back again to the market-place. This he did, and at once became famous for his strength, his feat being noised abroad through-out Greece . 6.11.4. The achievements of Theagenes at the Olympian games have already—the most famous of them—been described Paus. 6.6.5 in my story, how he beat Euthymus the boxer, and how he was fined by the Eleans. On this occasion the pancratium, it is said, was for the first time on record won without a contest, the victor being Dromeus of Mantineia . At the Festival following this, Theagenes was the winner in the pancratium. 6.11.5. He also won three victories at Pytho . These were for boxing, while nine prizes at Nemea and ten at the Isthmus were won in some cases for the pancratium and in others for boxing. At Phthia in Thessaly he gave up training for boxing and the pancratium. He devoted himself to winning fame among the Greeks for his running also, and beat those who entered for the long race. His ambition was, I think, to rival Achilles by winning a prize for running in the fatherland of the swiftest of those who are called heroes. The total number of crowns that he won was one thousand four hundred. 6.11.6. When he departed this life, one of those who were his enemies while he lived came every night to the statue of Theagenes and flogged the bronze as though he were ill-treating Theagenes himself. The statue put an end to the outrage by falling on him, but the sons of the dead man prosecuted the statue for murder. So the Thasians dropped the statue to the bottom of the sea, adopting the principle of Draco, who, when he framed for the Athenians laws to deal with homicide, inflicted banishment even on lifeless things, should one of them fall and kill a man. 6.11.7. But in course of time, when the earth yielded no crop to the Thasians, they sent envoys to Delphi, and the god instructed them to receive back the exiles. At this command they received them back, but their restoration brought no remedy of the famine. So for the second time they went to the Pythian priestess, saying that although they had obeyed her instructions the wrath of the gods still abode with them. 6.11.8. Whereupon the Pythian priestess replied to them :— But you have forgotten your great Theagenes. And when they could not think of a contrivance to recover the statue of Theagenes, fishermen, they say, after putting out to sea for a catch of fish caught the statue in their net and brought it back to land. The Thasians set it up in its original position, and are wont to sacrifice to him as to a god. 6.11.9. There are many other places that I know of, both among Greeks and among barbarians, where images of Theagenes have been set up, who cures diseases and receives honors from the natives. The statue of Theagenes is in the Altis, being the work of Glaucias of Aegina . 7.17.13. These are the most popular forms of the legend of Attis. In the territory of Dyme is also the grave of Oebotas the runner. Although this Oebotas was the first Achaean to win an Olympic victory, he yet received from them no special prize. Wherefore Oebotas pronounced a curse that no Achaean in future should win an Olympic victory. There must have been some god who was careful that the curse of Oebotas should be fulfilled, but the Achaeans by sending to Delphi at last learned why it was that they had been failing to win the Olympic crown. 7.17.14. So they dedicated the statue of Oebotas at Olympia and honored him in other ways, and then Sostratus of Pellene won the footrace for boys. It is still to-day a custom for the Achaeans who are going to compete at Olympia to sacrifice to Oebotas as to a hero, and, if they are successful, to place a wreath on the statue of Oebotas at Olympia . 10.10.4. These are works of Hypatodorus and Aristogeiton, who made them, as the Argives themselves say, from the spoils of the victory which they and their Athenian allies won over the Lacedaemonians at Oenoe in Argive territory. 463-458 B.C From spoils of the same action, it seems to me, the Argives set up statues of those whom the Greeks call the Epigoni. For there stand statues of these also, Sthenelus, Alcmaeon, who I think was honored before Amphilochus on account of his age, Promachus also, Thersander, Aegialeus and Diomedes. Between Diomedes and Aegialeus is Euryalus. |
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21. Philostratus The Athenian, On Heroes, 15 (2nd cent. CE
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22. Tatian, Oration To The Greeks, 10 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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23. Origen, Against Celsus, 3.34-3.35 (3rd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 3.34. I am, however, of opinion that these individuals are the only instances with which Celsus was acquainted. And yet, that he might appear voluntarily to pass by other similar cases, he says, And one might name many others of the same kind. Let it be granted, then, that many such persons have existed who conferred no benefit upon the human race: what would each one of their acts be found to amount to in comparison with the work of Jesus, and the miracles related of Him, of which we have already spoken at considerable length? He next imagines that, in worshipping him who, as he says, was taken prisoner and put to death, we are acting like the Get who worship Zamolxis, and the Cilicians who worship Mopsus, and the Acarians who pay divine honours to Amphilochus, and like the Thebans who do the same to Amphiaraus, and the Lebadians to Trophonius. Now in these instances we shall prove that he has compared us to the foregoing without good grounds. For these different tribes erected temples and statues to those individuals above enumerated, whereas we have refrained from offering to the Divinity honour by any such means (seeing they are adapted rather to demons, which are somehow fixed in a certain place which they prefer to any other, or which take up their dwelling, as it were, after being removed (from one place to another) by certain rites and incantations), and are lost in reverential wonder at Jesus, who has recalled our minds from all sensible things, as being not only corruptible, but destined to corruption, and elevated them to honour the God who is over all with prayers and a righteous life, which we offer to Him as being intermediate between the nature of the uncreated and that of all created things, and who bestows upon us the benefits which come from the Father, and who as High Priest conveys our prayers to the supreme God. 3.35. But I should like, in answer to him who for some unknown reason advances such statements as the above, to make in a conversational way some such remarks as the following, which seem not inappropriate to him. Are then those persons whom you have mentioned nonentities, and is there no power in Lebadea connected with Trophonius, nor in Thebes with the temple of Amphiaraus, nor in Acaria with Amphilochus, nor in Cilicia with Mopsus? Or is there in such persons some being, either a demon, or a hero, or even a god, working works which are beyond the reach of man? For if he answer that there is nothing either demoniacal or divine about these individuals more than others, then let him at once make known his own opinion, as being that of an Epicurean, and of one who does not hold the same views with the Greeks, and who neither recognises demons nor worships gods as do the Greeks; and let it be shown that it was to no purpose that he adduced the instances previously enumerated (as if he believed them to be true), together with those which he adds in the following pages. But if he will assert that the persons spoken of are either demons, or heroes, or even gods, let him notice that he will establish by what he has admitted a result which he does not desire, viz., that Jesus also was some such being; for which reason, too, he was able to demonstrate to not a few that He had come down from God to visit the human race. And if he once admit this, see whether he will not be forced to confess that He is mightier than those individuals with whom he classed Him, seeing none of the latter forbids the offering of honour to the others; while He, having confidence in Himself, because He is more powerful than all those others, forbids them to be received as divine because they are wicked demons, who have taken possession of places on earth, through inability to rise to the purer and diviner region, whither the grossnesses of earth and its countless evils cannot reach. |
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