noises. These the priests took down, and then told the customer that the noises meant so-and-so! When business was brisk they worked two Pythias, turn and turn about (or, as they say at sea, watch and watch), and kept a third all cocked and primed in case of accident, besides; for this gas sometimes gave the priestess (literally) fits, which killed her in a few days.
Other oracles gave answers in many various ways. The priest quietly wrote down whatever answer he chose; or inspected the insides of a slaughtered beast, and said that the bowels meant this and that. At Telmessus the inquirer peeped into a well, where he must see a picture in the water which was his answer; at any rate, if this wouldn’t do he got none. This plan was evidently based on the idea that “truth is at the bottom of a well.” At Dodona, they hung brass pots on the trees and translated the banging these made when the wind blew them together. At Pheræ, you whispered your question in the ear of the image of Mercury, and then shutting your ears until you got out of the market-place, the first remark you heard from anybody was the answer, and you might make the best of it. At Pluto’s oracle at Charæ, the priest took a dream, and in the morning told you what he chose. In the cave of Trophonius, after various terrifying performances, they pulled you through a hole the wrong way of the feathers, and then back again, and then stuck you upon a seat, and made you write down your own oracle, being what you had seen, which would, I imagine, usually be “the elephant.”
And so-forth, and so on. Humbug ad libitum!
Like some of the more celebrated modern fortune-tellers, the managers of the oracles were frequently shrewd fellows, and could often pick up the materials of a very smart and judicious answer from the appearance of the customer and his question. Very often the answer was sheer nonsense. It was, in fact, believed by many that as a rule you couldn’t tell what the response meant until after it was fulfilled, when you were expected to see it. In many cases the answers were ingeniously arranged, so as to mean either a good or evil result, one of which was pretty likely.
Thus, one of the oracles answered a general who asked after the fate of his campaign as follows: (the ancients, remember, using no punctuation marks) “Thou shalt go thou shalt return never in war shalt thou perish.” The point becomes visible when you first make a pause before “never,” and then after it.
On a similar occasion, the Delphic oracle told Croesus that if he crossed the River Halys he would overthrow a great empire. This empire he chose to understand as that of Cyrus, whom he was going to fight. It came out the other way, and it was his own empire that was overthrown. The immense wisdom of the oracle, however, was tremendously respected in consequence!
Pyrrhus, of Epirus, on setting off against the Romans, received equal satisfaction, the Pythia telling him (in Latin) what amounted to this:
“I say that you Pyrrhus the Romans are able to conquer!”
Pyrrhus took it as he wished it, but found himself sadly thimble-rigged, the little joker being under the wrong cup. The Romans beat him, and most wofully too.
Trajan was advised to consult the oracle at Heliopolis, about his intended expedition against the Parthians. The custom was to send your query in a letter; so Trajan sent a blank note in an envelope. The god (very naturally) sent back a blank note in reply, which was thought wonderfully smart; and so the imperial dupe sent again, a square question:
“Shall I finish this war and get safe back to Rome?”
The Heliopolitan humbug replied by sending a piece of an old grape-vine cut into pieces, which meant either: “You will cut them up,” or “They will cut you up;” and Trajan, like the little boy at the peep-show who asked: “which is Lord Wellington and which is the Emperor Napoleon?” had paid his penny and might take his choice.
Sometimes the oracles were quite jocular. A man asked one of them how to get rich? The oracle said: “Own all there is between Sicyon and Corinth.” Which places are some fifteen miles apart.
Another fellow asked how he should cure his gout? The oracle coolly said: “Drink nothing but cold water!”
The Delphic oracle, and some of the others, used for a long time to give their answers in verses. At last, however, irreverent critics of the period made so much fun of the peculiarly miserable style of this poetry, that the poor oracle gave it up and came down to plain prose. Every once in a while some energetic and cunning man, of skeptical character, insisted on having just such an answer as he wanted. It was well known that Philip of Macedon bought what responses he wished at Delphi. Anybody with plenty of money, who would quietly “see” the priests, could have such a response as he chose. Or, if he was a bull-headed, hard-fisted, fighting-man, of irreligious but energetic mind, the priests gave him what he wished, out of fear. When Themistocles wanted to encourage the Greeks against the Persians, he “fixed” Delphi by bribes. When Alexander the Great came to consult the same oracle, the Pythia was disinclined to perform. But Alexander rather roughly gave her to understand that she must, and she did. The Greek and Roman oracles finally all gave out not far from the time of Christ’s coming, having gradually become more or less disreputable for many years.
All the heathen nations, as I have said, had their oracles too. The heathen Scandinavians had a famous one at Upsal. The Getae, in Scythia, had one. The Druids had them; so did the Mexican priests. The Egyptian and Syrian divinities had them; in short, oracles were quite as necessary as mysteries, and continue so in heathen religions. The only exception, I believe, is in Mohammedanism, whose votaries save themselves any trouble about the future by their thorough fatalism. They believe so fully and vividly that everything is immovably predestinated, being at the same time perfectly sure of heaven at last, that they quietly receive everything as it comes, and don’t take the least trouble to find out how it is coming.
The Sibyls were women, supposed to be inspired by some divinity, who prophesied of the future. Some say there was but one; some two, three, four, or ten. All sorts of obscure stories are told about the time and place of their activity. There was the Persian or Chaldean, who is said to have foretold with many details the coming and career of Christ; the Lybian, the Delphic, the Cumæan, much honored by the Romans, and half a dozen more. Then there was Mantho, the daughter of Tiresias, who was sent from Thebes to Delphi in a bag, seven hundred and twenty years before the destruction of Troy. These ladies lived in caves, and among them are said to have composed the Sibylline books, which contained the mysteries of religion, were carefully kept out of sight at Rome, and finally came into the hands of the Emperor Constantine. They were burned, one story has it, about fifty years after his death. But there are some Sibylline books extant, which, however, are among the most transparent of humbugs, for they are full of all sorts of extracts and statements from the Old and New Testaments. I do not believe there ever were any Sibyls. If there were any, they were probably ill-natured and desperate old maids, who turned so sour-tempered that their friends had to drive them off to live by themselves, and who, under these circumstances, went to work and wrote books.
I must crowd in here a word or two about the Auguries and the Augurs. These gentlemen were a sort of Roman priests, who were accustomed to foretell future events, decide on coming good or bad fortune, whether it would do to go on with the elections, to begin any enterprise or not, etc., by means of various signs. These were thunder; the way any birds happened to fly; the way that the sacred chickens ate; the appearance of the entrails of beasts sacrificed, etc., etc. These augurs were, for a long time, much respected in Rome, but, at last, the more thoughtful people lost their belief in them, and they became so ridiculous that Cicero, who was himself one of them, said he could not see how one augur could look another in the face without laughing.
It is humiliating to reflect how long and how extensively such barefaced and monstrous humbugs as these have maintained unquestioned authority over almost the whole race of man. Nor has humanity, by any means, escaped from such debasing slavery now; for millions and millions of men still believe and practice forms and ceremonies even more absurd, if possible, than the Mysteries, Oracles, and Auguries.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
MODERN