1. Homer, Iliad, 9.553-9.564 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)
| 9.553. /Now so long as Meleager, dear to Ares, warred, so long went it ill with the Curetes, nor might they abide without their wall, for all they were very many. But when wrath entered into Meleager, wrath that maketh the heart to swell in the breasts also of others, even though they be wise 9.554. /Now so long as Meleager, dear to Ares, warred, so long went it ill with the Curetes, nor might they abide without their wall, for all they were very many. But when wrath entered into Meleager, wrath that maketh the heart to swell in the breasts also of others, even though they be wise 9.555. /he then, wroth at heart against his dear mother Althaea, abode beside his wedded wife, the fair Cleopatra, daughter of Marpessa of the fair ankles, child of Evenus, and of Idas that was mightiest of men that were then upon the face of earth; who also took his bow to face the king 9.556. /he then, wroth at heart against his dear mother Althaea, abode beside his wedded wife, the fair Cleopatra, daughter of Marpessa of the fair ankles, child of Evenus, and of Idas that was mightiest of men that were then upon the face of earth; who also took his bow to face the king 9.557. /he then, wroth at heart against his dear mother Althaea, abode beside his wedded wife, the fair Cleopatra, daughter of Marpessa of the fair ankles, child of Evenus, and of Idas that was mightiest of men that were then upon the face of earth; who also took his bow to face the king 9.558. /he then, wroth at heart against his dear mother Althaea, abode beside his wedded wife, the fair Cleopatra, daughter of Marpessa of the fair ankles, child of Evenus, and of Idas that was mightiest of men that were then upon the face of earth; who also took his bow to face the king 9.559. /he then, wroth at heart against his dear mother Althaea, abode beside his wedded wife, the fair Cleopatra, daughter of Marpessa of the fair ankles, child of Evenus, and of Idas that was mightiest of men that were then upon the face of earth; who also took his bow to face the king 9.560. /Phoebus Apollo for the sake of the fair-ankled maid. Her of old in their halls had her father and honoured mother called Halcyone by name, for that the mother herself in a plight even as that of the halcyon-bird of many sorrows, wept because Apollo that worketh afar had snatched her child away. 9.561. /Phoebus Apollo for the sake of the fair-ankled maid. Her of old in their halls had her father and honoured mother called Halcyone by name, for that the mother herself in a plight even as that of the halcyon-bird of many sorrows, wept because Apollo that worketh afar had snatched her child away. 9.562. /Phoebus Apollo for the sake of the fair-ankled maid. Her of old in their halls had her father and honoured mother called Halcyone by name, for that the mother herself in a plight even as that of the halcyon-bird of many sorrows, wept because Apollo that worketh afar had snatched her child away. 9.563. /Phoebus Apollo for the sake of the fair-ankled maid. Her of old in their halls had her father and honoured mother called Halcyone by name, for that the mother herself in a plight even as that of the halcyon-bird of many sorrows, wept because Apollo that worketh afar had snatched her child away. 9.564. /Phoebus Apollo for the sake of the fair-ankled maid. Her of old in their halls had her father and honoured mother called Halcyone by name, for that the mother herself in a plight even as that of the halcyon-bird of many sorrows, wept because Apollo that worketh afar had snatched her child away. |
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2. Euripides, Trojan Women, 42, 41 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
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3. Herodotus, Histories, 1.182, 2.51 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 1.182. These same Chaldaeans say (though I do not believe them) that the god himself is accustomed to visit the shrine and rest on the couch, as in Thebes of Egypt, as the Egyptians say ,(for there too a woman sleeps in the temple of Theban Zeus, and neither the Egyptian nor the Babylonian woman, it is said, has intercourse with men), and as does the prophetess of the god at Patara in Lycia, whenever she is appointed; for there is not always a place of divination there; but when she is appointed she is shut up in the temple during the night. 2.51. These customs, then, and others besides, which I shall indicate, were taken by the Greeks from the Egyptians. It was not so with the ithyphallic images of Hermes; the production of these came from the Pelasgians, from whom the Athenians were the first Greeks to take it, and then handed it on to others. ,For the Athenians were then already counted as Greeks when the Pelasgians came to live in the land with them and thereby began to be considered as Greeks. Whoever has been initiated into the rites of the Cabeiri, which the Samothracians learned from the Pelasgians and now practice, understands what my meaning is. ,Samothrace was formerly inhabited by those Pelasgians who came to live among the Athenians, and it is from them that the Samothracians take their rites. ,The Athenians, then, were the first Greeks to make ithyphallic images of Hermes, and they did this because the Pelasgians taught them. The Pelasgians told a certain sacred tale about this, which is set forth in the Samothracian mysteries. |
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4. Thucydides, The History of The Peloponnesian War, 6.27 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
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5. Lycophron, Alexandra, 1279 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
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6. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 16.26.6 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 16.26.6. It is said that in ancient times virgins delivered the oracles because virgins have their natural innocence intact and are in the same case as Artemis; for indeed virgins were alleged to be well suited to guard the secrecy of disclosures made by oracles. In more recent times, however, people say that Echecrates the Thessalian, having arrived at the shrine and beheld the virgin who uttered the oracle, became enamoured of her because of her beauty, carried her away with him and violated her; and that the Delphians because of this deplorable occurrence passed a law that in future a virgin should no longer prophesy but that an elderly woman of fifty should declare the oracles and that she should be dressed in the costume of a virgin, as a sort of reminder of the prophetess of olden times. Such are the details of the legend regarding the discovery of the oracle; and now we shall turn to the activities of olden times. |
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7. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 14.129-14.153 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
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8. Philo of Alexandria, On The Contemplative Life, 66-70, 72, 78-79, 81, 83-89, 64 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. CE)
| 64. But since the entertainments of the greatest celebrity are full of such trifling and folly, bearing conviction in themselves, if any one should think fit not to regard vague opinion and the character which has been commonly handed down concerning them as feasts which have gone off with the most eminent success, I will oppose to them the entertainments of those persons who have devoted their whole life and themselves to the knowledge and contemplation of the affairs of nature in accordance with the most sacred admonitions and precepts of the prophet Moses. |
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9. Vergil, Aeneis, 3.443-3.445, 6.42-6.45 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 3.443. “I live, 't is true. I lengthen out my days 3.444. through many a desperate strait. But O, believe 3.445. that what thine eyes behold is vision true. 6.42. 0 Icarus, in such well-graven scene 6.43. How proud thy place should be! but grief forbade: 6.44. Twice in pure gold a father's fingers strove 6.45. To shape thy fall, and twice they strove in vain. |
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10. Artemidorus, Oneirocritica, 2.37 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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11. Plutarch, On The Obsolescence of Oracles, 51 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 51. Whenever, then, the imaginative and prophetic faculty is in a state of proper adjustment for attempering itself to the spirit as to a drug, inspiration in those who foretell the future is bound to come; and whenever the conditions are not thus, it is bound not to come, or when it does come to be misleading, abnormal, and confusing, as we know in the case of the priestess who died not so long ago. As it happened, a deputation from abroad had arrhed to consult the oracle. The victim, it is said, remained unmoved and unaffected in any way by the first libations; but the priests, in their eagerness to please, went far beyond their wonted usage, and only after the victim had been subjected to a deluge and nearly drowned did it at last give in. What, then, was the result touching the priestess? She went down into the oracle unwillingly, they say, and halfheartedly; and at her first responses it was at once plain from the harshness of her voice that she was not responding properly; she was like a labouring ship and was filled with a mighty and baleful spirit. Finally she became hysterical and with a frightful shriek rushed towards the exit and threw herself down, with the result that not only the members of the deputation fled, but also the oracle-interpreter Nicander and those holy men that were present. However, after a little, they went in and took her up, still conscious; and she lived on for a few days. It is for these reasons that they guard the chastity of the priestess, and keep her life free from all association and contact with strangers, and take the omens before the oracle, thinking that it is clear to the god when she has the temperament and disposition suitable to submit to the inspiration without harm to herself. The power of the spirit does not affect all persons nor the same persons always in the same way, but it only supplies an enkindling and an inception, as has been said, for them that are in a proper state to be affected and to undergo the change. The power comes from the gods and demigods, but, for all that, it is not unfailing nor imperishable nor ageless, lasting into that infinite time by which all things between earth and moon become wearied out, according to our reasoning. And there are some who assert that the things above the moon also do not. abide, but give out as they confront the everlasting and infinite, and undergo continual transmutations and rebirths. 51. Whenever, then, the imaginative and prophetic faculty is in a state of proper adjustment for attempering itself to the spirit as to a drug, inspiration in those who foretell the future is bound to come; and whenever the conditions are not thus, it is bound not to come, or when it does come to be misleading, abnormal, and confusing, as we know in the case of the priestess who died not so long ago. As it happened, a deputation from abroad had arrived to consult the oracle. The victim, it is said, remained unmoved and unaffected in any way by the first libations; but the priests, in their eagerness to please, went far beyond their wonted usage, and only after the victim had been subjected to a deluge and nearly drowned did it at last give in. What, then, was the result touching the priestess? She went down into the oracle unwillingly, they say, and half-heartedly; and at her first responses it was at once plain from the harshness of her voice that she was not responding properly; she was like a labouring ship and was filled with a mighty and baleful spirit. Finally she became hysterical and with a frightful shriek rushed towards the exit and threw herself down, with the result that not only the members of the deputation fled, but also the oracle-interpreter Nicander and those holy men that were present. However, after a little, they went in and took her up, still conscious; and she lived on for a few days. "It is for these reasons that they guard the chastity of the priestess, and keep her life free from all association and contact with strangers, and take the omens before the oracle, thinking that it is clear to the god when she has the temperament and disposition suitable to submit to the inspiration without harm to herself. The power of the spirit does not affect all persons nor the same persons always in the same way, but it only supplies an enkindling and an inception, as has been said, for them that are in a proper state to be affected and to undergo the change. The power comes from the gods and demigods, but, for all that, it is not unfailing nor imperishable nor ageless, lasting into that infinite time by which all things between earth and moon become wearied out, according to our reasoning. And there are some who assert that the things above the moon also do not abide, but give out as they confront the everlasting and infinite, and undergo continual transmutations and rebirths. |
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12. Plutarch, Demetrius, 23.5 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
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13. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 62.18.3 (2nd cent. CE - 3rd cent. CE)
| 62.18.3. There was no curse that the populace did not invoke upon Nero, though they did not mention his name, but simply cursed in general terms those who had set the city on fire. And they were disturbed above all by recalling the oracle which once in the time of Tiberius had been on everybody's lips. It ran thus: "Thrice three hundred years having run their course of fulfilment, Rome by the strife of her people shall perish. |
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14. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.19.1-1.19.2, 1.24.3, 2.3.4, 2.10.7, 2.24.1, 4.33.3, 7.22.2, 7.22.4, 7.27.1, 8.31.7, 8.32.1, 8.32.4, 8.39.6, 8.48.6, 10.12.1-10.12.3, 10.12.7-10.12.9 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 1.19.1. Close to the temple of Olympian Zeus is a statue of the Pythian Apollo. There is further a sanctuary of Apollo surnamed Delphinius. The story has it that when the temple was finished with the exception of the roof Theseus arrived in the city, a stranger as yet to everybody. When he came to the temple of the Delphinian, wearing a tunic that reached to his feet and with his hair neatly plaited, those who were building the roof mockingly inquired what a marriageable virgin was doing wandering about by herself. The only answer that Theseus made was to loose, it is said, the oxen from the cart hard by, and to throw them higher than the roof of the temple they were building. 1.19.2. Concerning the district called The Gardens, and the temple of Aphrodite, there is no story that is told by them, nor yet about the Aphrodite which stands near the temple. Now the shape of it is square, like that of the Hermae, and the inscription declares that the Heavenly Aphrodite is the oldest of those called Fates. But the statue of Aphrodite in the Gardens is the work of Alcamenes, and one of the most note worthy things in Athens . 1.24.3. I have already stated that the Athenians are far more devoted to religion than other men. They were the first to surname Athena Ergane (Worker); they were the first to set up limbless Hermae, and the temple of their goddess is shared by the Spirit of Good men. Those who prefer artistic workmanship to mere antiquity may look at the following: a man wearing a helmet, by Cleoetas, whose nails the artist has made of silver, and an image of Earth beseeching Zeus to rain upon her; perhaps the Athenians them selves needed showers, or may be all the Greeks had been plagued with a drought. There also are set up Timotheus the son of Conon and Conon himself; Procne too, who has already made up her mind about the boy, and Itys as well—a group dedicated by Alcamenes. Athena is represented displaying the olive plant, and Poseidon the wave 2.3.4. Proceeding on the direct road to Lechaeum we see a bronze image of a seated Hermes. By him stands a ram, for Hermes is the god who is thought most to care for and to increase flocks, as Homer puts it in the Iliad :— Son was he of Phorbas, the dearest of Trojans to Hermes, Rich in flocks, for the god vouchsafed him wealth in abundance. Hom. Il. 14.490 The story told at the mysteries of the Mother about Hermes and the ram I know but do not relate. After the image of Hermes come Poseidon, Leucothea, and Palaemon on a dolphin. 2.10.7. Ascending from here to the gymnasium you see in the right a sanctuary of Artemis Pheraea. It is said that the wooden image was brought from Pherae. This gymnasium was built for the Sicyonians by Cleinias, and they still train the youths here. White marble images are here, an Artemis wrought only to the waist, and a Heracles whose lower parts are similar to the square Hermae. 2.24.1. The citadel they call Larisa, after the daughter of Pelasgus. After her were also named two of the cities in Thessaly, the one by the sea and the one on the Peneus. As you go up the citadel you come to the sanctuary of Hera of the Height, and also a temple of Apollo, which is said to have been first built by Pythaeus when he came from Delphi . The present image is a bronze standing figure called Apollo Deiradiotes, because this place, too, is called Deiras (Ridge). Oracular responses are still given here, and the oracle acts in the following way. There is a woman who prophesies, being debarred from intercourse with a man. Every month a lamb is sacrificed at night, and the woman, after tasting the blood, becomes inspired by the god. 4.33.3. At the Arcadian gate leading to Megalopolis is a Herm of Attic style; for the square form of Herm is Athenian, and the rest adopted it thence. After a descent of thirty stades from the gate is the watercourse of Balyra. The river is said to have got its name from Thamyris throwing (ballein) his lyre away here after his blinding. He was the son of Philammon and the nymph Argiope, who once dwelt on Parnassus, but settled among the Odrysae when pregt, for Philammon refused to take her into his house. Thamyris is called an Odrysian and Thracian on these grounds. The watercourses Leucasia and Amphitos unite to form one stream. 7.22.2. The market-place of Pharae is of wide extent after the ancient fashion, and in the middle of it is an image of Hermes, made of stone and bearded. Standing right on the earth, it is of square shape, and of no great size. On it is an inscription, saying that it was dedicated by Simylus the Messenian. It is called Hermes of the Market, and by it is established an oracle. In front of the image is placed a hearth, which also is of stone, and to the hearth bronze lamps are fastened with lead. 7.22.4. There is a similar method of divination practised at the sanctuary of Apis in Egypt . At Pharae there is also a water sacred to Hermes. The name of the spring is Hermes' stream, and the fish in it are not caught, being considered sacred to the god. Quite close to the image stand square stones, about thirty in number. These the people of Pharae adore, calling each by the name of some god. At a more remote period all the Greeks alike worshipped uncarved stones instead of images of the gods. 7.27.1. The city of Pellene is on a hill which rises to a sharp peak at its summit. This part then is precipitous, and therefore uninhabited, but on the lower slopes they have built their city, which is not continuous, but divided into two parts by the peak that rises up between. As you go to Pellene there is, by the roadside, an image of Hermes, who, in spite of his surname of Crafty, is ready to fulfill the prayers of men. He is of square shape and bearded, and on his head is carved a cap. 8.31.7. In a building stand statues also, those of Callignotus, Mentas, Sosigenes and Polus. These men are said to have been the first to establish at Megalopolis the mysteries of the Great Goddesses, and the ritual acts are a copy of those at Eleusis . Within the enclosure of the goddesses are the following images, which all have a square shape: Hermes, surnamed Agetor, Apollo, Athena, Poseidon, Sun too, surnamed Saviour, and Heracles. There has also been built for them a [sanctuary] of vast size, and here they celebrate the mysteries in honor of the goddesses. 8.32.1. Such are the notable things on this site. The southern portion, on the other side of the river, can boast of the largest theater in all Greece, and in it is a spring which never fails. Not far from the theater are left foundations of the council house built for the Ten Thousand Arcadians, and called Thersilium after the man who dedicated it. Hard by is a house, belonging to-day to a private person, which originally was built for Alexander, the son of Philip. By the house is an image of Ammon, like the square images of Hermes, with a ram's horns on his head. 8.32.4. There is also in this district a hill to the east, and on it a temple of Artemis Huntress this too was dedicated by Aristodemus. To the right of the Huntress is a precinct. Here there is a sanctuary of Asclepius, with images of the god and of Health, and a little lower down there are gods, also of square shape, surnamed Workers, Athena Worker and Apollo, God of Streets. To Hermes, Heracles and Eileithyia are attached traditions from the poems of Homer: that Hermes is the minister of Zeus and leads the souls of the departed down to Hades, Hom. Od. 24.1, Hom. Od. 24.10, Hom. Od. 24.l00 . and that Heracles accomplished many difficult tasks; Hom. Il. 8.362 foll. Eileithyia, he says in the Iliad, cares for the pangs of women. Hom. Il. 16.187 and Hom. Il. 19.103 . 8.39.6. The image of Hermes in the gymnasium is like to one dressed in a cloak; but the statue does not end in feet, but in the square shape. A temple also of Dionysus is here, who by the inhabitants is surnamed Acratophorus, but the lower part of the image cannot be seen for laurel-leaves and ivy. As much of it as can be seen is painted . . . with cinnabar to shine. It is said to be found by the Iberians along with the gold. 8.48.6. There is also an altar of Zeus Teleius (Full-grown), with a square image, a shape of which the Arcadians seem to me to be exceedingly fond. There are also here tombs of Tegeates, the son of Lycaon, and of Maera, the wife of Tegeates. They say that Maera was a daughter of Atlas, and Homer makes mention of her in the passage Hom. Od. 11.326 where Odysseus tells to Alcinous his journey to Hades, and of those whose ghosts he beheld there. 10.12.1. There is a rock rising up above the ground. On it, say the Delphians, there stood and chanted the oracles a woman, by name Herophile and surnamed Sibyl. The former Sibyl I find was as ancient as any; the Greeks say that she was a daughter of Zeus by Lamia, daughter of Poseidon, that she was the first woman to chant oracles, and that the name Sibyl was given her by the Libyans. 10.12.2. Herophile was younger than she was, but nevertheless she too was clearly born before the Trojan war, as she foretold in her oracles that Helen would be brought up in Sparta to be the ruin of Asia and of Europe, and that for her sake the Greeks would capture Troy . The Delians remember also a hymn this woman composed to Apollo. In her poem she calls herself not only Herophile but also Artemis, and the wedded wife of Apollo, saying too sometimes that she is his sister, and sometimes that she is his daughter. 10.12.3. These statements she made in her poetry when in a frenzy and possessed by the god. Elsewhere in her oracles she states that her mother was an immortal, one of the nymphs of Ida, while her father was a human. These are the verses:— I am by birth half mortal, half divine; An immortal nymph was my mother, my father an eater of corn; On my mother's side of Idaean birth, but my fatherland was red Marpessus, sacred to the Mother, and the river Aidoneus. 10.12.7. The Erythraeans, who are more eager than any other Greeks to lay claim to Herophile, adduce as evidence a mountain called Mount Corycus with a cave in it, saying that Herophile was born in it, and that she was a daughter of Theodorus, a shepherd of the district, and of a nymph. They add that the surname Idaean was given to the nymph simply because the men of those days called idai places that were thickly wooded. The verse about Marpessus and the river Aidoneus is cut out of the oracles by the Erythraeans. 10.12.8. The next woman to give oracles in the same way, according to Hyperochus of Cumae, a historian, was called Demo, and came from Cumae in the territory of the Opici. The Cumaeans can point to no oracle given by this woman, but they show a small stone urn in a sanctuary of Apollo, in which they say are placed the bones of the Sibyl. 10.12.9. Later than Demo there grew up among the Hebrews above Palestine a woman who gave oracles and was named Sabbe. They say that the father of Sabbe was Berosus, and her mother Erymanthe. But some call her a Babylonian Sibyl, others an Egyptian. |
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