Chapter XXII. How They Used to Mislead Inquirers by Deluding Them Through the Responses

[OENOMAUS] ‘BUT forsooth I too must take some part in the comedy, and not pride myself on not having fallen into the common derangement; and I must tell of the bargain in wisdom, which I myself imported out of Asia, from thee, O Clarian god:

“In the land of Trachis lieth Thy fair garden, Heracles, Where all flowers for ever blooming, Laden with perpetual dews, Culled all day, yet ne’er diminish.” [1]

‘Then I myself also, impotent fool that I was, became elated by the “Heracles,” and the “garden of Heracles in its bloom,” dreaming of a certain Hesiodic “sweat” because of the name Trachis, and on the other hand of an “easy” life because of the blooming garden.

‘Then, on my inquiring further whether the gods were inclined to help me, some one of the multitude, swearing by the very gods that were to help, said that he certainly had heard that this very answer had been given from thee to one Callistratus, a merchant of Pontus.

‘When I heard this, what, thinkest thou, was my indignation, at being forsooth robbed by him of my “virtue”? But although dissatisfied I nevertheless began to inquire whether the merchant also had been at all flattered by the “Heracles.” So then it appeared that he also was in some trouble, and was bent upon gain, and expecting from his gain some pleasant kind of life.

‘So as it appeared that the merchant was no better treated than myself, I would no longer accept the oracle, nor the “Heracles,” but disdained to share the same treatment, when I saw the troubles that were actually present and the pleasures that existed only in hope.

‘However, it appeared that none went without his share in the oracle, neither robber nor soldier, neither lover nor mistress, neither flatterer, nor rhetorician, nor sycophant. For of what each man desired, the trouble came first, while the joy was only expected.’

Having made these statements, he immediately adds, how after a second and third inquiry he found that the wonderful prophets knew nothing, but were concealing their own ignorance simply by the obscurity of their ambiguous language. So he speaks as follows: