No More Learning

Leave Delphi for a
while, and transport yourselves in spirit to Agrigentum: behold the
preparations of my enemies: listen to their threats; and say, what is
your counsel? Shall I sit quietly on the brink of destruction, exercising
clemency and long-suffering as heretofore? bare my throat to the sword?
see my nearest and dearest slaughtered before my eyes? What would this be
but sheer imbecility? Shall I not rather bear myself like a man of
spirit, give the rein to my rational indignation, avenge my injuries upon
the conspirators, and use my present power with a view to my future
security? This, I know, would have been your advice.

'Now observe my procedure. I sent for the guilty persons, heard their
defence, produced my evidence, established every point beyond a doubt;
and when they themselves admitted the truth of the accusation, I punished
them; for I took it ill, not that they had plotted against my life, but
that on their account I was compelled to abandon my original policy. From
that day to this, I have consulted my own safety by punishing conspiracy
as often as it has shown itself.

'And men call me cruel! They do not stop to ask who was the aggressor;
they condemn what they think the cruelty of my vengeance, but pass
lightly over the provocation, and the nature of the crime. It is as if a
man were to see a temple-robber hurled from the rock at Delphi, and,
without reflecting how the transgressor had stolen into your temple by
night, torn down the votive-offerings, and laid hands upon the graven
image of the God, were to exclaim against the inhumanity of persons who,
calling themselves Greeks and holy men, could yet find it in them to
inflict this awful punishment upon their fellow Greek, and that within
sight of the holy place;--for the rock, as I am told, is not far from the
city. Surely you would laugh to scorn such an accusation as this; and
your _cruel_ treatment of the impious would be universally applauded.

'But so it is: the public does not inquire into the character of a ruler,
into the justice or injustice of his conduct; the mere name of tyranny
ensures men's hatred; the tyrant might be an Aeacus, a Minos, a
Rhadamanthus,--they would be none the less eager for his destruction;
their thoughts ever run on those tyrants who have been bad rulers, and
the good, because they bear the same name, are held in the like
detestation. I have heard that many of your tyrants in Greece have been
wise men, who, labouring under that opprobrious title, have yet given
proofs of benevolence and humanity, and whose pithy maxims are even now
stored up in your temple among the treasures of the God.

'Observe, moreover, the prominence given to punishment by all
constitutional legislators; they know that when the fear of punishment is
wanting, nothing else is of avail. And this is doubly so with us who are
tyrants; whose power is based upon compulsion; who live in the midst of
enmity and treachery. The bugbear terrors of the law would never serve
our turn. Rebellion is a many-headed Hydra: we cut off one guilty head,
two others grow in its place. Yet we must harden our hearts, smite them
off as they grow, and--like lolaus--sear the wounds; thus only shall we
hold our own. The man who has once become involved in such a strife as
this must play the part that he has undertaken; to show mercy would be
fatal. Do you suppose that any man was ever so brutal, so inhuman, as to
rejoice in torture and groans and bloodshed for their own sake, when
there was no occasion for punishment? Many is the time that I have wept
while others suffered beneath the lash, and groaned in spirit over the
hard fate that subjected me to a torment more fierce and more abiding
than theirs. For to the man who is benevolent by nature, and harsh only
by compulsion, it is more painful to inflict punishment than it would be
to undergo it.

'Now I will speak my mind frankly. If I had to choose between punishing
innocent men, and facing death myself, believe me, I should have no
hesitation in accepting the latter alternative. But if I am asked,
whether I had rather die an undeserved death than give their deserts to
those who plotted against my life, I answer no; and once more, Delphians,
I appeal to you: which is better--to die when I deserve not death, or to
spare my enemies who deserve not mercy? [Footnote: Apparently the speaker
intended to repeat the last pair of alternatives in different words:
instead of which, he gives us one of those alternatives twice over.
Lucian's tautologic genius fails him for once. ] No man surely can be such
a fool that he would not rather live than preserve his enemies by his
death. Yet in spite of this how many have I spared who were palpably
convicted of conspiring against me; such were Acanthus, Timocrates, and
his brother Leogoras, all of whom I saved out of regard for our former
intercourse.

'If you would learn more of me, apply to any of the strangers who have
visited Agrigentum; and see what account they give of the treatment they
received, and of my hospitality to all who land on my coasts. My
messengers are waiting for them in every port, to inquire after their
names and cities, that they may not go away without receiving due honour
at my hands. Some--the wisest of the Greeks--have come expressly to visit
me, so far are they from avoiding intercourse with me. It was but lately
that I received a visit from the sage Pythagoras. The account that he had
heard of me was belied by his experience; and on taking his departure he
expressed admiration of my justice, and deplored the circumstances which
made severity a duty. Now is it likely that one who is so benevolent to
strangers should deal unjustly with his fellow citizens? is it not to be
supposed that the provocation has been unusually great?

'So much then in defence of my own conduct; I have spoken the words of
truth and justice, and would persuade myself that I have merited your
approbation rather than your resentment. And now I must explain to you
the origin of my present offering, and the manner in which it came into
my hands. For it was by no instructions of mine that the statuary made
this bull: far be it from me to aspire to the possession of such works of
art! A countryman of my own, one Perilaus, an admirable artist, but a man
of evil disposition, had so far mistaken my character as to think that he
could win my regard by the invention of a new form of torture; the love
of torture, he thought, was my ruling passion. He it was who made the
bull and brought it to me. I no sooner set eyes on this beautiful and
exquisite piece of workmanship, which lacked only movement and sound to
complete the illusion, than I exclaimed: "Here is an offering fit for the
God of Delphi: to him I must send it. " "And what will you say," rejoined
Perilaus, who stood by, "when you see the ingenious mechanism within it,
and learn the purpose it is designed to serve? " He opened the back of the
animal, and continued: "When you are minded to punish any one, shut him
up in this receptacle, apply these pipes to the nostrils of the bull, and
order a fire to be kindled beneath. The occupant will shriek and roar in
unremitting agony; and his cries will come to you through the pipes as
the tenderest, most pathetic, most melodious of bellowings. Your victim
will be punished, and you will enjoy the music. "

'His words revolted me. I loathed the thought of such ingenious cruelty,
and resolved to punish the artificer in kind. "If this is anything more
than an empty boast, Perilaus," I said to him, "if your art can really
produce this effect, get inside yourself, and pretend to roar; and we
will see whether the pipes will make such music as you describe. " He
consented; and when he was inside I closed the aperture, and ordered a
fire to be kindled. "Receive," I cried, "the due reward of your wondrous
art: let the music-master be the first to play. " Thus did his ingenuity
meet with its deserts. But lest the offering should be polluted by his
death, I caused him to be removed while he was yet alive, and his body to
be flung dishonoured from the cliffs. The bull, after due purification, I
sent as an offering to your God, with an inscription upon it, setting
forth all the circumstances; the names of the donor and of the artist,
the evil design of the latter, and the righteous sentence which condemned
him to illustrate by his own agonized shrieks the efficacy of his musical
device.

'And now, men of Delphi, you will be doing me no more than justice, if
you join my ambassadors in making sacrifice on my behalf, and set up the
bull in a conspicuous part of the temple; that all men may know what is
my attitude towards evil-doers, and in what manner I chastise their
inordinate craving after wickedness. Herein is a sufficient indication of
my character: Perilaus punished, the bull consecrated, not reserved for
the bellowings of other victims. The first and last melody that issued
from those pipes was wrung from their artificer; that one experiment
made, the harsh, inhuman notes are silenced for ever. So much for the
present offering, which will be followed by many others, so soon as the
God vouchsafes me a respite from my work of chastisement. '

Such was the message of Phalaris; and his statement is in strict
accordance with the facts. You may safely accept our testimony, as we are
acquainted with the circumstances, and can have no object in deceiving
you on the present occasion. Must entreaty be added? Then on behalf of
one whose character has been misrepresented, and whose severities were
forced upon him against his will, we implore you,--we who are
Agrigentines, Greeks like yourselves and of Dorian origin--to accept his
offer of friendship, and not to thwart his benevolent intentions towards
your community and the individuals of which it is composed. Take the bull
into your keeping; consecrate it; and offer up your prayers on behalf of
Agrigentum and of Phalaris. Suffer us not to have come hither in vain:
repulse not our master with scorn: nor deprive the God of an offering
whose intrinsic beauty is only equalled by its righteous associations.




PHALARIS, II


Men of Delphi: I stand in no public relation to the city of Agrigentum,
in no private relation to its ruler; I am bound to him neither by
gratitude for past favours, nor by the prospect of future friendship: but
I have heard the just and temperate plea advanced by his emissaries, and
I rise to advocate the claims of religion, the interests of our
community, the duties of the priesthood; I charge you, thwart not the
pious intention of a mighty prince, nor deprive the God of an offering
which in the intention of the donor is already his, and which is destined
to serve as an eternal threefold record,--of the sculptor's art, of
inventive cruelty, and of righteous retribution. To me it seems that only
to have raised this question, only to have halted between acceptance and
rejection, is in itself an offence against Heaven; nay, a glaring
impiety. For what is this but a sacrilege more heinous than that of the
temple-robber, who does but plunder those sacred things to which you
would even deny consecration? I implore you,--your fellow priest, your
partner in good report (if so it may be), or in evil (should that now
befall us), implores you: close not the temple-doors upon the devout
worshipper; suffer us not to be known to the world as men who examine
jealously into the offerings that are brought, and subject the donor to
the narrow scrutiny of a court, and to the hazard of a vote. For who
would not be deterred at the thought that the God accepts no offering
without the previous sanction of his priests?

Already Apollo has declared his true opinion. Had he hated Phalaris, or
scorned his gift, it had been easy for him to sink the gift and the ship
that bore it in mid-ocean; instead, we learn that he vouchsafed them a
calm passage and a safe arrival at Cirrha. Clearly the monarch's piety is
acceptable in his sight. It behoves you to confirm his decision, and to
add this bull to the glories of the temple. Strange indeed, if the sender
of so magnificent a gift is to meet with rejection at the temple-door,
and his piety to be rewarded with the judgement that his offering is
unclean.

My opponent tells a harrowing tale of butchery and violence, of plunder
and abduction; it is much that he does not call himself an eyewitness
thereof; we might suppose that he was but newly arrived from Agrigentum,
did we not know that his travels have never carried him on board ship. In
matters of this kind, it is not advisable to place much reliance even on
the assertions of the supposed victims; there is no knowing how far they
are speaking the truth;--as to bringing allegations ourselves, when we
know nothing of the facts, that is out of the question. Granting even
that something of the kind _did_ happen, it happened in Sicily: we
are at Delphi; we are not called upon to interfere. Do we propose to
abandon the temple for the law-court? Are we, whose office it is to
sacrifice, and minister to the God, and receive his offerings,--are we to
sit here debating whether certain cities on the other side of the Ionian
sea are well or ill governed? Let other men's affairs be as they may, it
is our business, as I take it, to know our own: our past history, our
present situation, our best interests. We need not wait for Homer to
inform us that we inhabit a land of crags, and are tillers of a rocky
soil; our eyes tell us that; if we depended on our soil, we must go
hungry all our days. Apollo; his temple; his oracle; his worshippers; his
sacrifices;--these are the fields of the Delphians, these their revenues,
their wealth, their maintenance. I can speak the truth here. It is as the
poets say: we sow not, we plough not, yet all things grow for our use;
for a God is our husbandman, and gives us not the good things of Greece
only; all that Phrygia, all that Lydia, all that Persia, Assyria,
Phoenicia, Italy, and the far North can yield,--all comes to Delphi. We
live in prosperity and plenty; in the esteem of mankind we are second to
none but the God himself. So it was in the beginning: so it is now: and
so may it ever be!

But who has ever heard before of our putting an offering to the vote, or
hindering men from paying sacrifice? No one; and herein, as I maintain,
is the secret of our temple's greatness, and of the abundant wealth of
its offerings. Then let us have no innovations now, no new-fangled
institutions, no inquiries into the origin and nature and nationality and
pedigree of a gift; let us take what is brought to us, and set it in the
store-chamber without more ado. In this way we shall best serve both the
God and his worshippers. I think it would be well if, before you
deliberate further on the question before you, you would consider how
great and how various are the issues involved. There is the God, his
temple, his sacrifices and offerings, the ancient customs and ordinances,
the reputation of the oracle; again, our city as a whole, our common
interests, and those of every individual Delphian among us; lastly--and I
know not what consideration could seem of more vital importance to a
well-judging mind--, our own credit or discredit with the world at large.

I say, then, we have to deal not with Phalaris, not with a single tyrant,
not with this bull, not with so much weight of bronze,--but with every
king and prince who frequents our temple at this day; with gold and
silver and all the precious offerings that should pour in upon the God;
that God whose interests claim our first attention. Say, why should we
change the old-established usage in regard to offerings? What fault have
we to find with the ancient custom, that we should propose innovations?
Never yet, from the day when Delphi was first inhabited, and Apollo
prophesied, and the tripod gave utterance, and the priestess was
inspired, never yet have the bringers of gifts been subjected to
scrutiny. And shall they now? Consider how the ancient custom, which
granted free access to all men, has filled the temple with treasures; how
all men have brought their offerings, and how some have impoverished
themselves to enrich the God. My mind misgives me that, when you have
assumed the censorship of offerings, you will lack employment: men may
refuse to submit themselves to your court; they may think it is enough to
spend their money, without having to undergo the risk of a rejection for
their pains. Would life be worth living, to the man who should be judged
unworthy to offer sacrifice?




ALEXANDER THE ORACLE-MONGER


You, my dear Celsus, possibly suppose yourself to be laying upon me quite
a trifling task: _Write me down in a book and send me the life and
adventures, the tricks and frauds, of the impostor Alexander of
Abonutichus_. In fact, however, it would take as long to do this in
full detail as to reduce to writing the achievements of Alexander of
Macedon; the one is among villains what the other is among heroes.
Nevertheless, if you will promise to read with indulgence, and fill up
the gaps in my tale from your imagination, I will essay the task. I may
not cleanse that Augean stable completely, but I will do my best, and
fetch you out a few loads as samples of the unspeakable filth that three
thousand oxen could produce in many years.

I confess to being a little ashamed both on your account and my own.
There are you asking that the memory of an arch-scoundrel should be
perpetuated in writing; here am I going seriously into an investigation
of this sort--the doings of a person whose deserts entitled him not to be
read about by the cultivated, but to be torn to pieces in the
amphitheatre by apes or foxes, with a vast audience looking on. Well,
well, if any one does cast reflections of that sort upon us, we shall at
least have a precedent to plead. Arrian himself, disciple of Epictetus,
distinguished Roman, and product of lifelong culture as he was, had just
our experience, and shall make our defence. He condescended, that is, to
put on record the life of the robber Tilliborus. The robber we propose to
immortalize was of a far more pestilent kind, following his profession
not in the forests and mountains, but in cities; _he_ was not content to
overrun a Mysia or an Ida; _his_ booty came not from a few scantily
populated districts of Asia; one may say that the scene of his
depredations was the whole Roman Empire.

I will begin with a picture of the man himself, as lifelike (though I am
not great at description) as I can make it with nothing better than
words. In person--not to forget that part of him--he was a fine handsome
man with a real touch of divinity about him, white-skinned, moderately
bearded; he wore besides his own hair artificial additions which matched
it so cunningly that they were not generally detected. His eyes were
piercing, and suggested inspiration, his voice at once sweet and
sonorous. In fact there was no fault to be found with him in these
respects.

So much for externals. As for his mind and spirit--well, if all the kind
Gods who avert disaster will grant a prayer, it shall be that they bring
me not within reach of such a one as he; sooner will I face my bitterest
enemies, my country's foes. In understanding, resource, acuteness, he was
far above other men; curiosity, receptiveness, memory, scientific
ability--all these were his in overflowing measure. But he used them for
the worst purposes. Endowed with all these instruments of good, he very
soon reached a proud pre-eminence among all who have been famous for
evil; the Cercopes, Eurybatus, Phrynondas, Aristodemus, Sostratus--all
thrown into the shade. In a letter to his father-in-law Rutilianus, which
puts his own pretensions in a truly modest light, he compares himself to
Pythagoras. Well, I should not like to offend the wise, the divine
Pythagoras; but if he had been Alexander's contemporary, I am quite sure
he would have been a mere child to him. Now by all that is admirable, do
not take that for an insult to Pythagoras, nor suppose I would draw a
parallel between their achievements. What I mean is: if any one would
make a collection of all the vilest and most damaging slanders ever
vented against Pythagoras--things whose truth I would not accept for a
moment--, the sum of them would not come within measurable distance of
Alexander's cleverness. You are to set your imagination to work and
conceive a temperament curiously compounded of falsehood, trickery,
perjury, cunning; it is versatile, audacious, adventurous, yet dogged in
execution; it is plausible enough to inspire confidence; it can assume
the mask of virtue, and seem to eschew what it most desires. I suppose no
one ever left him after a first interview without the impression that
this was the best and kindest of men, ay, and the simplest and most
unsophisticated. Add to all this a certain greatness in his objects; he
never made a small plan; his ideas were always large.

While in the bloom of his youthful beauty, which we may assume to have
been great both from its later remains and from the report of those who
saw it, he traded quite shamelessly upon it. Among his other patrons was
one of the charlatans who deal in magic and mystic incantations; they
will smooth your course of love, confound your enemies, find you
treasure, or secure you an inheritance. This person was struck with the
lad's natural qualifications for apprenticeship to his trade, and finding
him as much attracted by rascality as attractive in appearance, gave him
a regular training as accomplice, satellite, and attendant. His own
ostensible profession was medicine, and his knowledge included, like that
of Thoon the Egyptian's wife,

Many a virtuous herb, and many a bane;

to all which inheritance our friend succeeded. This teacher and lover of
his was a native of Tyana, an associate of the great Apollonius, and
acquainted with all his heroics. And now you know the atmosphere in which
Alexander lived.

By the time his beard had come, the Tyanean was dead, and he found
himself in straits; for the personal attractions which might once have
been a resource were diminished. He now formed great designs, which he
imparted to a Byzantine chronicler of the strolling competitive order, a
man of still worse character than himself, called, I believe, Cocconas.
The pair went about living on occult pretensions, shearing 'fat-heads,'
as they describe ordinary people in the native Magian lingo. Among these
they got hold of a rich Macedonian woman; her youth was past, but not her
desire for admiration; they got sufficient supplies out of her, and
accompanied her from Bithynia to Macedonia. She came from Pella, which
had been a flourishing place under the Macedonian kingdom, but has now a
poor and much reduced population.

There is here a breed of large serpents, so tame and gentle that women
make pets of them, children take them to bed, they will let you tread on
them, have no objection to being squeezed, and will draw milk from the
breast like infants. To these facts is probably to be referred the common
story about Olympias when she was with child of Alexander; it was
doubtless one of these that was her bed-fellow. Well, the two saw these
creatures, and bought the finest they could get for a few pence.

And from this point, as Thucydides might say, the war takes its
beginning. These ambitious scoundrels were quite devoid of scruples, and
they had now joined forces; it could not escape their penetration that
human life is under the absolute dominion of two mighty principles, fear
and hope, and that any one who can make these serve his ends may be sure
of a rapid fortune. They realized that, whether a man is most swayed by
the one or by the other, what he must most depend upon and desire is a
knowledge of futurity. So were to be explained the ancient wealth and
fame of Delphi, Delos, Clarus, Branchidae; it was at the bidding of the
two tyrants aforesaid that men thronged the temples, longed for fore-
knowledge, and to attain it sacrificed their hecatombs or dedicated their
golden ingots. All this they turned over and debated, and it issued in
the resolve to establish an oracle. If it were successful, they looked
for immediate wealth and prosperity; the result surpassed their most
sanguine expectations.

The next things to be settled were, first the theatre of operations, and
secondly the plan of campaign. Cocconas favoured Chalcedon, as a
mercantile centre convenient both for Thrace and Bithynia, and accessible
enough for the province of Asia, Galatia, and tribes still further east.
Alexander, on the other hand, preferred his native place, urging very
truly that an enterprise like theirs required congenial soil to give it a
start, in the shape of 'fat-heads' and simpletons; that was a fair
description, he said, of the Paphlagonians beyond Abonutichus; they were
mostly superstitious and well-to-do; one had only to go there with some
one to play the flute, the tambourine, or the cymbals, set the proverbial
mantic sieve [Footnote: I have no information on Coscinomancy or sieve-
divination. 'This kind of divination was generally practised to discover
thieves . . . They tied a thread to the sieve, by which it was upheld, then
prayed to the Gods to direct and assist them. After which they repeated
the names of the person suspected, and he at whose name the sieve whirled
round or moved was thought to have committed the fact' _Francklin's
Lucian. _] a-spinning, and there they would all be gaping as if he were
a God from heaven.

This difference of opinion did not last long, and Alexander prevailed.
Discovering, however, that a use might after all be made of Chalcedon,
they went there first, and in the temple of Apollo, the oldest in the
place, they buried some brazen tablets, on which was the statement that
very shortly Asclepius, with his father Apollo, would pay a visit to
Pontus, and take up his abode at Abonutichus. The discovery of the
tablets took place as arranged, and the news flew through Bithynia and
Pontus, first of all, naturally, to Abonutichus. The people of that place
at once resolved to raise a temple, and lost no time in digging the
foundations. Cocconas was now left at Chalcedon, engaged in composing
certain ambiguous crabbed oracles. He shortly afterwards died, I believe,
of a viper's bite.

Alexander meanwhile went on in advance; he had now grown his hair and
wore it in long curls; his doublet was white and purple striped, his
cloak pure white; he carried a scimetar in imitation of Perseus, from
whom he now claimed descent through his mother. The wretched
Paphlagonians, who knew perfectly well that his parentage was obscure and
mean on both sides, nevertheless gave credence to the oracle, which ran:

Lo, sprung from Perseus, and to Phoebus dear,
High Alexander, Podalirius' son!

Podalirius, it seems, was of so highly amorous a complexion that the
distance between Tricca and Paphlagonia was no bar to his union with
Alexander's mother. A Sibylline prophecy had also been found:

Hard by Sinope on the Euxine shore
Th' Italic age a fortress prophet sees.
To the first monad let thrice ten be added,
Five monads yet, and then a triple score:
Such the quaternion of th' alexic name.

[Footnote: In 1. 2 of the oracle, the Italic age is the Roman Empire; the
fortress prophet is one who belongs to a place ending in--tichus (fort).
11>> 3-5 mean: Take 1, 30, 5, 60 (the Greek symbols for which are the
letters of the alphabet A, L, E, X), and you will have four letters of
the name of your coming protector (alexic). ]

This heroic entry into his long-left home placed Alexander conspicuously
before the public; he affected madness, and frequently foamed at the
mouth--a manifestation easily produced by chewing the herb soap-wort,
used by dyers; but it brought him reverence and awe. The two had long ago
manufactured and fitted up a serpent's head of linen; they had given it a
more or less human expression, and painted it very like the real article;
by a contrivance of horsehair, the mouth could be opened and shut, and a
forked black serpent tongue protruded, working on the same system. The
serpent from Pella was also kept ready in the house, to be produced at
the right moment and take its part in the drama--the leading part,
indeed.

In the fullness of time, his plan took shape. He went one night to the
temple foundations, still in process of digging, and with standing water
in them which had collected from the rainfall or otherwise; here he
deposited a goose egg, into which, after blowing it, he had inserted some
new-born reptile. He made a resting-place deep down in the mud for this,
and departed. Early next morning he rushed into the market-place, naked
except for a gold-spangled loin-cloth; with nothing but this and his
scimetar, and shaking his long loose hair, like the fanatics who collect
money in the name of Cybele, he climbed on to a lofty altar and delivered
a harangue, felicitating the city upon the advent of the God now to bless
them with his presence. In a few minutes nearly the whole population was
on the spot, women, old men, and children included; all was awe, prayer,
and adoration. He uttered some unintelligible sounds, which might have
been Hebrew or Phoenician, but completed his victory over his audience,
who could make nothing of what he said, beyond the constant repetition of
the names Apollo and Asclepius.

He then set off at a run for the future temple. Arrived at the excavation
and the already completed sacred fount, he got down into the water,
chanted in a loud voice hymns to Asclepius and Apollo, and invited the
God to come, a welcome guest, to the city. He next demanded a bowl, and
when this was handed to him, had no difficulty in putting it down at the
right place and scooping up, besides water and mud, the egg in which the
God had been enclosed; the edges of the aperture had been joined with wax
and white lead. He took the egg in his hand and announced that here he
held Asclepius. The people, who had been sufficiently astonished by the
discovery of the egg in the water, were now all eyes for what was to
come. He broke it, and received in his hollowed palm the hardly developed
reptile; the crowd could see it stirring and winding about his fingers;
they raised a shout, hailed the God, blessed the city, and every mouth
was full of prayers--for treasure and wealth and health and all the other
good things that he might give. Our hero now departed homewards, still
running, with the new-born Asclepius in his hands--the twice-born, too,
whereas ordinary men can be born but once, and born moreover not of
Coronis [Footnote: Coronis was the mother of Asclepius; 'corone' is Greek
for a crow. ] nor even of her namesake the crow, but of a goose! After him
streamed the whole people, in all the madness of fanatic hopes.

He now kept the house for some days, in hopes that the Paphlagonians
would soon be drawn in crowds by the news. He was not disappointed; the
city was filled to overflowing with persons who had neither brains nor
individuality, who bore no resemblance to men that live by bread, and had
only their outward shape to distinguish them from sheep. In a small room
he took his seat, very imposingly attired, upon a couch. He took into his
bosom our Asclepius of Pella (a very fine and large one, as I observed),
wound its body round his neck, and let its tail hang down; there was
enough of this not only to fill his lap, but to trail on the ground also;
the patient creature's head he kept hidden in his armpit, showing the
linen head on one side of his beard exactly as if it belonged to the
visible body.

Picture to yourself a little chamber into which no very brilliant light
was admitted, with a crowd of people from all quarters, excited,
carefully worked up, all a-flutter with expectation. As they came in,
they might naturally find a miracle in the development of that little
crawling thing of a few days ago into this great, tame, human-looking
serpent. Then they had to get on at once towards the exit, being pressed
forward by the new arrivals before they could have a good look. An exit
had been specially made just opposite the entrance, for all the world
like the Macedonian device at Babylon when Alexander was ill; he was
_in extremis_, you remember, and the crowd round the palace were
eager to take their last look and give their last greeting. Our
scoundrel's exhibition, though, is said to have been given not once, but
many times, especially for the benefit of any wealthy new-comers.

And at this point, my dear Celsus, we may, if we will be candid, make
some allowance for these Paphlagonians and Pontics; the poor uneducated
'fat-heads' might well be taken in when they handled the serpent--a
privilege conceded to all who choose--and saw in that dim light its head
with the mouth that opened and shut.
It was an occasion for a Democritus,
nay, for an Epicurus or a Metrodorus, perhaps, a man whose intelligence
was steeled against such assaults by scepticism and insight, one who, if
he could not detect the precise imposture, would at any rate have been
perfectly certain that, though this escaped him, the whole thing was a
lie and an impossibility.

By degrees Bithynia, Galatia, Thrace, came flocking in, every one who had
been present doubtless reporting that he had beheld the birth of the God,
and had touched him after his marvellous development in size and in
expression. Next came pictures and models, bronze or silver images, and
the God acquired a name. By divine command, metrically expressed, he was
to be known as Glycon. For Alexander had delivered the line:

Glycon my name, man's light, son's son to Zeus.

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. After the death and disappearance at Thebes
of his father Amphiaraus, Amphilochus, driven from his home, made his way
to Cilicia, and there did not at all badly by prophesying to the
Cilicians at the rate of threepence an oracle. After this precedent,
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.

The trick here was one which would be seen through easily enough by a
person of your intelligence (or, if I may say so without violating
modesty, of my own), but which to the ordinary imbecile would have the
persuasiveness of what is marvellous and incredible. He contrived various
methods of undoing the seals, read the questions, answered them as seemed
good, and then folded, sealed, and returned them, to the great
astonishment of the recipients. And then it was, 'How could he possibly
know what I gave him carefully secured under a seal that defies
imitation, unless he were a true God, with a God's omniscience? '

Perhaps you will ask what these contrivances were; well, then--the
information may be useful another time. One of them was this. He would
heat a needle, melt with it the under part of the wax, lift the seal off,
and after reading warm the wax once more with the needle--both that below
the thread and that which formed the actual seal--and re-unite the two
without difficulty. Another method employed the substance called
collyrium; this is a preparation of Bruttian pitch, bitumen, pounded
glass, wax, and mastich. He kneaded the whole into collyrium, heated it,
placed it on the seal, previously moistened with his tongue, and so took
a mould. This soon hardened; he simply opened, read, replaced the wax,
and reproduced an excellent imitation of the original seal as from an
engraved stone. One more I will give you. Adding some gypsum to the glue
used in book-binding he produced a sort of wax, which was applied still
wet to the seal, and on being taken off solidified at once and provided a
matrix harder than horn, or even iron. There are plenty of other devices
for the purpose, to rehearse which would seem like airing one's
knowledge. Moreover, in your excellent pamphlets against the magians
(most useful and instructive reading they are) you have yourself
collected enough of them--many more than those I have mentioned.

So oracles and divine utterances were the order of the day, and much
shrewdness he displayed, eking out mechanical ingenuity with obscurity,
his answers to some being crabbed and ambiguous, and to others absolutely
unintelligible. He did however distribute warning and encouragement
according to his lights, and recommend treatments and diets; for he had,
as I originally stated, a wide and serviceable acquaintance with drugs;
he was particularly given to prescribing 'cytmides,' which were a salve
prepared from goat's fat, the name being of his own invention. For the
realization of ambitions, advancement, or successions, he took care never
to assign early dates; the formula was, 'All this shall come to pass when
it is my will, and when my prophet Alexander shall make prayer and
entreaty on your behalf. '

There was a fixed charge of a shilling the oracle. And, my friend, do not
suppose that this would not come to much; he made something like L3,000
_per annum_; people were insatiable--would take from ten to fifteen
oracles at a time. What he got he did not keep to himself, nor put it by
for the future; what with accomplices, attendants, inquiry agents, oracle
writers and keepers, amanuenses, seal-forgers, and interpreters, he had
now a host of claimants to satisfy.

He had begun sending emissaries abroad to make the shrine known in
foreign lands; his prophecies, discovery of runaways, conviction of
thieves and robbers, revelations of hidden treasure, cures of the sick,
restoration of the dead to life--all these were to be advertised. This
brought them running and crowding from all points of the compass; victims
bled, gifts were presented, and the prophet and disciple came off better
than the God; for had not the oracle spoken? --

Give what ye give to my attendant priest;
My care is not for gifts, but for my priest.

A time came when a number of sensible people began to shake off their
intoxication and combine against him, chief among them the numerous
Epicureans; in the cities, the imposture with all its theatrical
accessories began to be seen through. It was now that he resorted to a
measure of intimidation; he proclaimed that Pontus was overrun with
atheists and Christians, who presumed to spread the most scandalous
reports concerning him; he exhorted Pontus, as it valued the God's
favour, to stone these men. Touching Epicurus, he gave the following
response. An inquirer had asked how Epicurus fared in Hades, and was
told:

Of slime is his bed,
And his fetters of lead.

The prosperity of the oracle is perhaps not so wonderful, when one learns
what sensible, intelligent questions were in fashion with its votaries.
Well, it was war to the knife between him and Epicurus, and no wonder.
What fitter enemy for a charlatan who patronized miracles and hated
truth, than the thinker who had grasped the nature of things and was in
solitary possession of that truth? As for the Platonists, Stoics,
Pythagoreans, they were his good friends; he had no quarrel with them.
But the unmitigated Epicurus, as he used to call him, could not but be
hateful to him, treating all such pretensions as absurd and puerile.
Alexander consequently loathed Amastris beyond all the cities of Pontus,
knowing what a number of Lepidus's friends and others like-minded it
contained. He would not give oracles to Amastrians; when he once did, to
a senator's brother, he made himself ridiculous, neither hitting upon a
presentable oracle for himself, nor finding a deputy equal to the
occasion. The man had complained of colic, and what he meant to prescribe
was pig's foot dressed with mallow. The shape it took was:

In basin hallowed
Be pigments mallowed.

I have mentioned that the serpent was often exhibited by request; he was
not completely visible, but the tail and body were exposed, while the
head was concealed under the prophet's dress. By way of impressing the
people still more, he announced that he would induce the God to speak,
and give his responses without an intermediary. His simple device to this
end was a tube of cranes' windpipes, which he passed, with due regard to
its matching, through the artificial head, and, having an assistant
speaking into the end outside, whose voice issued through the linen
Asclepius, thus answered questions. These oracles were called
_autophones_, and were not vouchsafed casually to any one, but reserved
for officials, the rich, and the lavish.

It was an autophone which was given to Severian regarding the invasion of
Armenia. He encouraged him with these lines:

Armenia, Parthia, cowed by thy fierce spear,
To Rome, and Tiber's shining waves, thou com'st,
Thy brow with leaves and radiant gold encircled.

Then when the foolish Gaul took his advice and invaded, to the total
destruction of himself and his army by Othryades, the adviser expunged
that oracle from his archives and substituted the following:

Vex not th' Armenian land; it shall not thrive;
One in soft raiment clad shall from his bow
Launch death, and cut thee off from life and light.

For it was one of his happy thoughts to issue prophecies after the event
as antidotes to those premature utterances which had not gone right.
Frequently he promised recovery to a sick man before his death, and after
it was at no loss for second thoughts:

No longer seek to arrest thy fell disease;
Thy fate is manifest, inevitable.

Knowing the fame of Clarus, Didymus, and Mallus for sooth-saying much
like his own, he struck up an alliance with them, sending on many of his
clients to those places. So

Hie thee to Clarus now, and hear my sire.

And again,

Draw near to Branchidae and counsel take.

Or

Seek Mallus; be Amphilochus thy counsellor.

So things went within the borders of Ionia, Cilicia, Paphlagonia, and
Galatia. When the fame of the oracle travelled to Italy and entered Rome,
the only question was, who should be first; those who did not come in
person sent messages, the powerful and respected being the keenest of
all. First and foremost among these was Rutilianus; he was in most
respects an excellent person, and had filled many high offices in Rome;
but he suffered from religious mania, holding the most extraordinary
beliefs on that matter; show him a bit of stone smeared with unguents or
crowned with flowers, and he would incontinently fall down and worship,
and linger about it praying and asking for blessings. The reports about
our oracle nearly induced him to throw up the appointment he then held,
and fly to Abonutichus; he actually did send messenger upon messenger.
His envoys were ignorant servants, easily taken in. They came back having
really seen certain things, relating others which they probably thought
they had seen and heard, and yet others which they deliberately invented
to curry favour with their master. So they inflamed the poor old man and
drove him into confirmed madness.

He had a wide circle of influential friends, to whom he communicated the
news brought by his successive messengers, not without additional touches
of his own. All Rome was full of his tales; there was quite a commotion,
the gentlemen of the Court being much fluttered, and at once taking
measures to learn something of their own fate. The prophet gave all who
came a hearty welcome, gained their goodwill by hospitality and costly
gifts, and sent them off ready not merely to report his answers, but to
sing the praises of the God and invent miraculous tales of the shrine and
its guardian.

This triple rogue now hit upon an idea which would have been too clever
for the ordinary robber. Opening and reading the packets which reached
him, whenever he came upon an equivocal, compromising question, he
omitted to return the packet; the sender was to be under his thumb, bound
to his service by the terrifying recollection of the question he had
written down. You know the sort of things that wealthy and powerful
personages would be likely to ask. This blackmail brought him in a good
income.

I should like to quote you one or two of the answers given to Rutilianus.
He had a son by a former wife, just old enough for advanced teaching. The
father asked who should be his tutor, and was told,

Pythagoras, and the mighty battle-bard.

When the child died a few days after, the prophet was abashed, and quite
unable to account for this summary confutation. However, dear good
Rutilianus very soon restored the oracle's credit by discovering that
this was the very thing the God had foreshown; he had not directed him to
choose a living teacher; Pythagoras and Homer were long dead, and
doubtless the boy was now enjoying their instructions in Hades. Small
blame to Alexander if he had a taste for dealings with such specimens of
humanity as this.

Another of Rutilianus's questions was, Whose soul he had succeeded to,
and the answer:

First thou wast Peleus' son, and next Menander;
Then thine own self; next, a sunbeam shalt be;
And nine score annual rounds thy life shall measure.

At seventy, he died of melancholy, not waiting for the God to pay in
full.

That was an autophone too. Another time Rutilianus consulted the oracle
on the choice of a wife. The answer was express:

Wed Alexander's daughter and Selene's.

He had long ago spread the report that the daughter he had had was by
Selene: she had once seen him asleep, and fallen in love, as is her way
with handsome sleepers. The sensible Rutilianus lost no time, but sent
for the maiden at once, celebrated the nuptials, a sexagenarian
bridegroom, and lived with her, propitiating his divine mother-in-law
with whole hecatombs, and reckoning himself now one of the heavenly
company.

His finger once in the Italian pie, Alexander devoted himself to getting
further. Sacred envoys were sent all over the Roman Empire, warning the
various cities to be on their guard against pestilence and
conflagrations, with the prophet's offers of security against them. One
oracle in particular, an autophone again, he distributed broadcast at a
time of pestilence. It was a single line:

Phoebus long-tressed the plague-cloud shall dispel.

This was everywhere to be seen written up on doors as a prophylactic. Its
effect was generally disappointing; for it somehow happened that the
protected houses were just the ones to be desolated. Not that I would
suggest for a moment that the line was their destruction; but,
accidentally no doubt, it did so fall out. Possibly common people put too
much confidence in the verse, and lived carelessly without troubling to
help the oracle against its foe; were there not the words fighting their
battle, and long-tressed Phoebus discharging his arrows at the pestilence?

In Rome itself he established an intelligence bureau well manned with his
accomplices. They sent him people's characters, forecasts of their
questions, and hints of their ambitions, so that he had his answers ready
before the messengers reached him.

It was with his eye on this Italian propaganda, too, that he took a
further step. This was the institution of mysteries, with hierophants and
torch-bearers complete. The ceremonies occupied three successive days. On
the first, proclamation was made on the Athenian model to this effect:
'If there be any atheist or Christian or Epicurean here spying upon our
rites, let him depart in haste; and let all such as have faith in the God
be initiated and all blessing attend them. ' He led the litany with,
'Christians, avaunt! ' and the crowd responded, 'Epicureans, avaunt! ' Then
was presented the child-bed of Leto and birth of Apollo, the bridal of
Coronis, Asclepius born. The second day, the epiphany and nativity of the
God Glycon.

On the third came the wedding of Podalirius and Alexander's mother; this
was called Torch-day, and torches were used. The finale was the loves of
Selene and Alexander, and the birth of Rutilianus's wife. The torch-
bearer and hierophant was Endymion-Alexander. He was discovered lying
asleep; to him from heaven, represented by the ceiling, enter as Selene
one Rutilia, a great beauty, and wife of one of the Imperial procurators.
She and Alexander were lovers off the stage too, and the wretched husband
had to look on at their public kissing and embracing; if there had not
been a good supply of torches, things might possibly have gone even
further. Shortly after, he reappeared amidst a profound hush, attired as
hierophant; in a loud voice he called, 'Hail, Glycon! ', whereto the
Eumolpidae and Ceryces of Paphlagonia, with their clod-hopping shoes and
their garlic breath, made sonorous response, 'Hail, Alexander! '

The torch ceremony with its ritual skippings often enabled him to bestow
a glimpse of his thigh, which was thus discovered to be of gold; it was
presumably enveloped in cloth of gold, which glittered in the lamp-light.
This gave rise to a debate between two wiseacres, whether the golden
thigh meant that he had inherited Pythagoras's soul, or merely that their
two souls were alike; the question was referred to Alexander himself, and
King Glycon relieved their perplexity with an oracle:

Waxes and wanes Pythagoras' soul: the seer's
Is from the mind of Zeus an emanation.
His Father sent him, virtuous men to aid,
And with his bolt one day shall call him home.

I will now give you a conversation between Glycon and one Sacerdos of
Tius; the intelligence of the latter you may gauge from his questions. I
read it inscribed in golden letters in Sacerdos's house at Tius. 'Tell
me, lord Glycon,' said he, 'who you are. ' 'The new Asclepius. ' 'Another,
different from the former one? Is that the meaning? ' 'That it is not
lawful for you to learn. ' 'And how many years will you sojourn and
prophesy among us? ' 'A thousand and three. ' 'And after that, whither will
you go? ' 'To Bactria; for the barbarians too must be blessed with my
presence. ' 'The other oracles, at Didymus and Clarus and Delphi, have
they still the spirit of your grandsire Apollo, or are the answers that
now come from them forgeries? ' 'That, too, desire not to know; it is not
lawful. ' 'What shall I be after this life? ' 'A camel; then a horse; then
a wise man, no less a prophet than Alexander. ' Such was the conversation.
There was added to it an oracle in verse, inspired by the fact that
Sacerdos was an associate of Lepidus:

Shun Lepidus; an evil fate awaits him.

As I have said, Alexander was much afraid of Epicurus, and the solvent
action of his logic on imposture.

On one occasion, indeed, an Epicurean got himself into great trouble by
daring to expose him before a great gathering. He came up and addressed
him in a loud voice. 'Alexander, it was you who induced So-and-so the
Paphlagonian to bring his slaves before the governor of Galatia, charged
with the murder of his son who was being educated in Alexandria. Well,
the young man is alive, and has come back, to find that the slaves had
been cast to the beasts by your machinations. ' What had happened was
this. The lad had sailed up the Nile, gone on to a Red Sea port, found a
vessel starting for India, and been persuaded to make the voyage. He
being long overdue, the unfortunate slaves supposed that he had either
perished in the Nile or fallen a victim to some of the pirates who
infested it at that time; so they came home to report his disappearance.
Then followed the oracle, the sentence, and finally the young man's
return with the story of his absence.

All this the Epicurean recounted. Alexander was much annoyed by the
exposure, and could not stomach so well deserved an affront; he directed
the company to stone the man, on pain of being involved in his impiety
and called Epicureans. However, when they set to work, a distinguished
Pontic called Demostratus, who was staying there, rescued him by
interposing his own body; the man had the narrowest possible escape from
being stoned to death--as he richly deserved to be; what business had he
to be the only sane man in a crowd of madmen, and needlessly make himself
the butt of Paphlagonian infatuation?

This was a special case; but it was the practice for the names of
applicants to be read out the day before answers were given; the herald
asked whether each was to receive his oracle; and sometimes the reply
came from within, To perdition! One so repulsed could get shelter, fire
or water, from no man; he must be driven from land to land as a
blasphemer, an atheist, and--lowest depth of all--an Epicurean.

In this connexion Alexander once made himself supremely ridiculous.
Coming across Epicurus's _Accepted Maxims_, the most admirable of
his books, as you know, with its terse presentment of his wise
conclusions, he brought it into the middle of the market-place, there
burned it on a fig-wood fire for the sins of its author, and cast its
ashes into the sea. He issued an oracle on the occasion:

The dotard's maxims to the flames be given.

The fellow had no conception of the blessings conferred by that book upon
its readers, of the peace, tranquillity, and independence of mind it
produces, of the protection it gives against terrors, phantoms, and
marvels, vain hopes and inordinate desires, of the judgement and candour
that it fosters, or of its true purging of the spirit, not with torches
and squills and such rubbish, but with right reason, truth, and
frankness.

Perhaps the greatest example of our rogue's audacity is what I now come
to. Having easy access to Palace and Court by Rutilianus's influence, he
sent an oracle just at the crisis of the German war, when M. Aurelius was
on the point of engaging the Marcomanni and Quadi. The oracle required
that two lions should be flung alive into the Danube, with quantities of
sacred herbs and magnificent sacrifices. I had better give the words:

To rolling Ister, swoln with Heaven's rain,
Of Cybelean thralls, those mountain beasts,
Fling ye a pair; therewith all flowers and herbs
Of savour sweet that Indian air doth breed.
Hence victory, and fame, and lovely peace.

These directions were precisely followed; the lions swam across to the
enemy's bank, where they were clubbed to death by the barbarians, who
took them for dogs or a new kind of wolves; and our forces immediately
after met with a severe defeat, losing some twenty thousand men in one
engagement. This was followed by the Aquileian incident, in the course of
which that city was nearly lost. In view of these results, Alexander
warmed up that stale Delphian defence of the Croesus oracle: the God had
foretold a victory, forsooth, but had not stated whether Romans or
barbarians should have it.

The constant increase in the number of visitors, the inadequacy of
accommodation in the city, and the difficulty of finding provisions for
consultants, led to his introducing what he called _night oracles_.
He received the packets, slept upon them, in his own phrase, and gave
answers which the God was supposed to send him in dreams. These were
generally not lucid, but ambiguous and confused, especially when he came
to packets sealed with exceptional care. He did not risk tampering with
these, but wrote down any words that came into his head, the results
obtained corresponding well enough to his conception of the oracular.
There were regular interpreters in attendance, who made considerable sums
out of the recipients by expounding and unriddling these oracles. This
office contributed to his revenue, the interpreters paying him L250 each.

Sometimes he stirred the wonder of the silly by answers to persons who
had neither brought nor sent questions, and in fact did not exist. Here
is a specimen:

Who is't, thou askst, that with Calligenia
All secretly defiles thy nuptial bed?
The slave Protogenes, whom most thou trustest.
Him thou enjoyedst: he thy wife enjoys--
The fit return for that thine outrage done.
And know that baleful drugs for thee are brewed,
Lest thou or see or hear their evil deeds.
Close by the wall, at thy bed's head, make search.
Thy maid Calypso to their plot is privy.

The names and circumstantial details might stagger a Democritus, till a
moment's thought showed him the despicable trick.

He often gave answers in Syriac or Celtic to barbarians who questioned
him in their own tongue, though he had difficulty in finding compatriots
of theirs in the city. In these cases there was a long interval between
application and response, during which the packet might be securely
opened at leisure, and somebody found capable of translating the
question. The following is an answer given to a Scythian:

Morphi ebargulis for night
Chnenchicrank shall leave the light.

Another oracle to some one who neither came nor existed was in prose.
'Return the way thou earnest,' it ran; 'for he that sent thee hath this
day been slain by his neighbour Diocles, with aid of the robbers Magnus,
Celer, and Bubalus, who are taken and in chains. '

I must give you one or two of the answers that fell to my share. I asked
whether Alexander was bald, and having sealed it publicly with great
care, got a night oracle in reply:

Sabardalachu malach Attis was not he.

Another time I did up the same question--What was Homer's birthplace? --in
two packets given in under different names. My servant misled him by
saying, when asked what he came for, a cure for lung trouble; so the
answer to one packet was:

Cytmide and foam of steed the liniment give.

As for the other packet, he got the information that the sender was
inquiring whether the land or the sea route to Italy was preferable. So
he answered, without much reference to Homer:

Fare not by sea; land-travel meets thy need.

I laid a good many traps of this kind for him; here is another. I asked
only one question, but wrote outside the packet in the usual form, So-
and-so's eight Queries, giving a fictitious name and sending the eight
shillings. Satisfied with the payment of the money and the inscription on
the packet, he gave me eight answers to my one question. This was, When
will Alexander's imposture be detected? The answers concerned nothing in
heaven or earth, but were all silly and meaningless together. He
afterwards found out about this, and also that I had tried to dissuade
Rutilianus both from the marriage and from putting any confidence in the
oracle; so he naturally conceived a violent dislike for me. When
Rutilianus once put a question to him about me, the answer was:

Night-haunts and foul debauch are all his joy.

It is true his dislike was quite justified. On a certain occasion I was
passing through Abonutichus, with a spearman and a pikeman whom my friend
the governor of Cappadocia had lent me as an escort on my way to the sea.
Ascertaining that I was the Lucian he knew of, he sent me a very polite
and hospitable invitation. I found him with a numerous company; by good
luck I had brought my escort. He gave me his hand to kiss according to
his usual custom. I took hold of it as if to kiss, but instead bestowed
on it a sound bite that must have come near disabling it. The company,
who were already offended at my calling him Alexander instead of Prophet,
were inclined to throttle and beat me for sacrilege. But he endured the
pain like a man, checked their violence, and assured them that he would
easily tame me, and illustrate Glycon's greatness in converting his
bitterest foes to friends. He then dismissed them all, and argued the
matter with me: he was perfectly aware of my advice to Rutilianus; why
had I treated him so, when I might have been preferred by him to great
influence in that quarter? By this time I had realized my dangerous
position, and was only too glad to welcome these advances; I presently
went my way in all friendship with him.