1. Hebrew Bible, Isaiah, 65.4 (8th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 65.4. הַיֹּשְׁבִים בַּקְּבָרִים וּבַנְּצוּרִים יָלִינוּ הָאֹכְלִים בְּשַׂר הַחֲזִיר ופרק [וּמְרַק] פִּגֻּלִים כְּלֵיהֶם׃ | 65.4. That sit among the graves, and lodge in the vaults; that eat swine’s flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels;" |
|
2. Homer, Odyssey, 10.522-10.525, 11.23-11.43, 11.97-11.99 (8th cent. BCE - 7th cent. BCE)
|
3. Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 105-130, 104 (6th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 104. κύριός εἰμι θροεῖν ὅδιον κράτος αἴσιον ἀνδρῶν | 104. Empowered am I to sing |
|
4. Aristophanes, The Rich Man, 671-672, 669 (5th cent. BCE - 4th cent. BCE)
| 669. ἡμῖν παρήγγειλεν καθεύδειν τοῦ θεοῦ | |
|
5. Herodotus, Histories, 8.134 (5th cent. BCE - 5th cent. BCE)
| 8.134. This man Mys is known to have gone to Lebadea and to have bribed a man of the country to go down into the cave of Trophonius and to have gone to the place of divination at Abae in Phocis. He went first to Thebes where he inquired of Ismenian Apollo (sacrifice is there the way of divination, as at Olympia), and moreover he bribed one who was no Theban but a stranger to lie down to sleep in the shrine of Amphiaraus. ,No Theban may seek a prophecy there, for Amphiaraus bade them by an oracle to choose which of the two they wanted and forgo the other, and take him either for their prophet or for their ally. They chose that he should be their ally. Therefore no Theban may lie down to sleep in that place. |
|
6. Lycophron, Alexandra, 1048-1055, 1047 (4th cent. BCE - 3rd cent. BCE)
|
7. Diodorus Siculus, Historical Library, 17.17.3 (1st cent. BCE - 1st cent. BCE)
| 17.17.3. He visited the tombs of the heroes Achilles, Ajax, and the rest and honoured them with offerings and other appropriate marks of respect, and then proceeded to make an accurate count of his accompanying forces. There were found to be, of infantry, twelve thousand Macedonians, seven thousand allies, and five thousand mercenaries, all of whom were under the command of Parmenion. |
|
8. Ovid, Fasti, 4.654, 4.659, 4.663 (1st cent. BCE - missingth cent. CE)
| 4.654. Both the fleeces were spread on the hard soil. 4.659. Dressed in rough clothes he lay down on fresh fleeces 4.663. Faunus appeared, and pressing the fleece with a hard hoof |
|
9. Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, 7.26.2 (1st cent. CE - missingth cent. CE)
| 7.26.2. λέγουσι δὲ αἱ ἐφημερίδες αἱ βασίλειοι ἐν τοῦ Σαράπιδος τῷ ἱερῷ Πείθωνά τε ἐγκοιμηθέντα καὶ Ἄτταλον καὶ Δημοφῶντα καὶ Πευκέσταν, πρὸς δὲ Κλεομένην τε καὶ Μενίδαν καὶ Σέλευκον, ἐπερωτᾶν τὸν θεὸν εἰ λῷον καὶ ἄμεινον Ἀλεξάνδρῳ εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν τοῦ θεοῦ κομισθέντα καὶ ἱκετεύσαντα θεραπεύεσθαι πρὸς τοῦ θεοῦ· καὶ γενέσθαι φήμην τινὰ ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ μὴ κομίζεσθαι εἰς τὸ ἱερόν, ἀλλὰ αὐτοῦ μένοντι ἔσεσθαι ἄμεινον. | |
|
10. Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities, 11.327 (1st cent. CE - 1st cent. CE)
| 11.327. whereupon God warned him in a dream, which came upon him after he had offered sacrifice, that he should take courage, and adorn the city, and open the gates; that the rest should appear in white garments, but that he and the priests should meet the king in the habits proper to their order, without the dread of any ill consequences, which the providence of God would prevent. |
|
11. Plutarch, Aristides, 21.2 (1st cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
|
12. Heliodorus, Ethiopian Story, 1.28.1, 3.1.5 (2nd cent. CE - 4th cent. CE)
|
13. Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.4.4, 1.34.4-1.34.5, 2.10.1, 2.11.7, 2.27.2 (2nd cent. CE - 2nd cent. CE)
| 1.4.4. So they tried to save Greece in the way described, but the Gauls, now south of the Gates, cared not at all to capture the other towns, but were very eager to sack Delphi and the treasures of the god. They were opposed by the Delphians themselves and the Phocians of the cities around Parnassus ; a force of Aetolians also joined the defenders, for the Aetolians at this time were pre-eminent for their vigorous activity. When the forces engaged, not only were thunderbolts and rocks broken off from Parnassus hurled against the Gauls, but terrible shapes as armed warriors haunted the foreigners. They say that two of them, Hyperochus and Amadocus, came from the Hyperboreans, and that the third was Pyrrhus son of Achilles. Because of this help in battle the Delphians sacrifice to Pyrrhus as to a hero, although formerly they held even his tomb in dishonor, as being that of an enemy. 1.34.4. The Oropians have near the temple a spring, which they call the Spring of Amphiaraus; they neither sacrifice into it nor are wont to use it for purifications or for lustral water. But when a man has been cured of a disease through a response the custom is to throw silver and coined gold into the spring, for by this way they say that Amphiaraus rose up after he had become a god. Iophon the Cnossian, a guide, produced responses in hexameter verse, saying that Amphiaraus gave them to the Argives who were sent against Thebes . These verses unrestrainedly appealed to popular taste. Except those whom they say Apollo inspired of old none of the seers uttered oracles, but they were good at explaining dreams and interpreting the flights of birds and the entrails of victims. 1.34.5. My opinion is that Amphiaraus devoted him self most to the exposition of dreams. It is manifest that, when his divinity was established, it was a dream oracle that he set up. One who has come to consult Amphiaraus is wont first to purify himself. The mode of purification is to sacrifice to the god, and they sacrifice not only to him but also to all those whose names are on the altar. And when all these things have been first done, they sacrifice a ram, and, spreading the skin under them, go to sleep and await enlightenment in a dream. 2.10.1. In the gymnasium not far from the market-place is dedicated a stone Heracles made by Scopas. Flourished first half of fourth century B.C. There is also in another place a sanctuary of Heracles. The whole of the enclosure here they name Paedize; in the middle of the enclosure is the sanctuary, and in it is an old wooden figure carved by Laphaes the Phliasian. I will now describe the ritual at the festival. The story is that on coming to the Sicyonian land Phaestus found the people giving offerings to Heracles as to a hero. Phaestus then refused to do anything of the kind, but insisted on sacrificing to him as to a god. Even at the present day the Sicyonians, after slaying a lamb and burning the thighs upon the altar, eat some of the meat as part of a victim given to a god, while the rest they offer as to a hero. The first day of the festival in honor of Heracles they name . . . ; the second they call Heraclea . 2.11.7. There are images also of Alexanor and of Euamerion; to the former they give offerings as to a hero after the setting of the sun; to Euamerion, as being a god, they give burnt sacrifices. If I conjecture aright, the Pergamenes, in accordance with an oracle, call this Euamerion Telesphorus (Accomplisher) while the Epidaurians call him Acesis (Cure). There is also a wooden image of Coronis, but it has no fixed position anywhere in the temple. While to the god are being sacrificed a bull, a lamb, and a pig, they remove Coronis to the sanctuary of Athena and honor her there. The parts of the victims which they offer as a burnt sacrifice, and they are not content with cutting out the thighs, they burn on the ground, except the birds, which they burn on the altar. 2.27.2. The image of Asclepius is, in size, half as big as the Olympian Zeus at Athens, and is made of ivory and gold. An inscription tells us that the artist was Thrasymedes, a Parian, son of Arignotus. The god is sitting on a seat grasping a staff; the other hand he is holding above the head of the serpent; there is also a figure of a dog lying by his side. On the seat are wrought in relief the exploits of Argive heroes, that of Bellerophontes against the Chimaera, and Perseus, who has cut off the head of Medusa. Over against the temple is the place where the suppliants of the god sleep. |
|
14. Philostratus The Athenian, On Heroes, 53.11 (2nd cent. CE - missingth cent. CE)
|
15. Origen, Against Celsus, 3.34-3.35, 7.35 (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. 7.35. Seeking God, then, in this way, we have no need to visit the oracles of Trophonius, of Amphiaraus, and of Mopsus, to which Celsus would send us, assuring us that we would there see the gods in human form, appearing to us with all distinctness, and without illusion. For we know that these are demons, feeding on the blood, and smoke, and odour of victims, and shut up by their base desires in prisons, which the Greeks call temples of the gods, but which we know are only the dwellings of deceitful demons. To this Celsus maliciously adds, in regard to these gods which, according to him, are in human form, they do not show themselves for once, or at intervals, like him who has deceived men, but they are ever open to intercourse with those who desire it. From this remark, it would seem that Celsus supposes that the appearance of Christ to His disciples after His resurrection was like that of a spectre flitting before their eyes; whereas these gods, as he calls them, in human shape always present themselves to those who desire it. But how is it possible that a phantom which, as he describes it, flew past to deceive the beholders, could produce such effects after it had passed away, and could so turn the hearts of men as to lead them to regulate their actions according to the will of God, as in view of being hereafter judged by Him? And how could a phantom drive away demons, and show other indisputable evidences of power, and that not in any one place, like these so-called gods in human form, but making its divine power felt through the whole world, in drawing and congregating together all who are found disposed to lead a good and noble life? |
|
16. Epigraphy, Ig Ii2, 204
|
17. Strabo, Geography, 6.1.15, 16.2.35, 17.1.17
| 6.1.15. Next in order comes Metapontium, which is one hundred and forty stadia from the naval station of Heracleia. It is said to have been founded by the Pylians who sailed from Troy with Nestor; and they so prospered from farming, it is said, that they dedicated a golden harvest at Delphi. And writers produce as a sign of its having been founded by the Pylians the sacrifice to the shades of the sons of Neleus. However, the city was wiped out by the Samnitae. According to Antiochus: Certain of the Achaeans were sent for by the Achaeans in Sybaris and resettled the place, then forsaken, but they were summoned only because of a hatred which the Achaeans who had been banished from Laconia had for the Tarantini, in order that the neighboring Tarantini might not pounce upon the place; there were two cities, but since, of the two, Metapontium was nearer to Taras, the newcomers were persuaded by the Sybarites to take Metapontium and hold it, for, if they held this, they would also hold the territory of Siris, whereas, if they turned to the territory of Siris, they would add Metapontium to the territory of the Tarantini, which latter was on the very flank of Metapontium; and when, later on, the Metapontians were at war with the Tarantini and the Oinotrians of the interior, a reconciliation was effected in regard to a portion of the land — that portion, indeed, which marked the boundary between the Italy of that time and Iapygia. Here, too, the fabulous accounts place Metapontus, and also Melanippe the prisoner and her son Boeotus. In the opinion of Antiochus, the city Metapontium was first called Metabum and later on its name was slightly altered, and further, Melanippe was brought, not to Metabus, but to Dius, as is proved by a hero-sanctuary of Metabus, and also by Asius the poet, when he says that Boeotus was brought forth in the halls of Dius by shapely Melanippe, meaning that Melanippe was brought to Dius, not to Metabus. But, as Ephorus says, the colonizer of Metapontium was Daulius, the tyrant of the Crisa which is near Delphi. And there is this further account, that the man who was sent by the Achaeans to help colonize it was Leucippus, and that after procuring the use of the place from the Tarantini for only a day and night he would not give it back, replying by day to those who asked it back that he had asked and taken it for the next night also, and by night that he had taken and asked it also for the next day. Next in order comes Taras and Iapygia; but before discussing them I shall, in accordance with my original purpose, give a general description of the islands that lie in front of Italy; for as from time to time I have named also the islands which neighbor upon the several tribes, so now, since I have traversed Oinotria from beginning to end, which alone the people of earlier times called Italy, it is right that I should preserve the same order in traversing Sicily and the islands round about it. 16.2.35. An Egyptian priest named Moses, who possessed a portion of the country called the Lower [Egypt] * * * *, being dissatisfied with the established institutions there, left it and came to Judaea with a large body of people who worshipped the Divinity. He declared and taught that the Egyptians and Africans entertained erroneous sentiments, in representing the Divinity under the likeness of wild beasts and cattle of the field; that the Greeks also were in error in making images of their gods after the human form. For God [said he] may be this one thing which encompasses us all, land and sea, which we call heaven, or the universe, or the nature of things. Who then of any understanding would venture to form an image of this Deity, resembling anything with which we are conversant? on the contrary, we ought not to carve any images, but to set apart some sacred ground and a shrine worthy of the Deity, and to worship Him without any similitude. He taught that those who made fortunate dreams were to be permitted to sleep in the temple, where they might dream both for themselves and others; that those who practised temperance and justice, and none else, might expect good, or some gift or sign from the God, from time to time. 17.1.17. Canobus is a city, distant by land from Alexandreia 120 stadia. It has its name from Canobus, the pilot of Menelaus, who died there. It contains the temple of Sarapis, held in great veneration, and celebrated for the cure of diseases; persons even of the highest rank confide in them, and sleep there themselves on their own account, or others for them. Some persons record the cures, and others the veracity of the oracles which are delivered there. But remarkable above everything else is the multitude of persons who resort to the public festivals, and come from Alexandreia by the canal. For day and night there are crowds of men and women in boats, singing and dancing, without restraint, and with the utmost licentiousness. Others, at Canobus itself, keep hostelries situated on the banks of the canal, which are well adapted for such kind of diversion and revelry. |
|
18. Vergil, Aeneis, 7.86-7.88
| 7.86. with interlacement of close-clinging feet 7.87. wung from the leafy bough. “Behold, there comes,” 7.88. the prophet cried, “a husband from afar! |
|
