Chapter XXIII. That by Their Darkness and Obscurity They Concealed Their Own Ignorance

[OENOMAUS] ‘But since my business was now so forward, and I wanted only a man to act as a stranger’s guide to wisdom, and he was difficult to find, I requested thee also to point out such an one:

“On Eupelians and Achaeans obligation he will lay, And, if true, for his conjecture shall receive no little pay.”

‘What sayest thou? If I was desirous of becoming a sculptor or painter, and was seeking for teachers, was it sufficient for me to hear Ἔν τε τοῖσιν Εὐπέλευσιν, or rather should I not have said that the speaker was mad?

‘This, however, thou art perhaps not able to understand, for the characters of mankind are very obscure: but whither I had better travel from Colophon is no longer a matter so unintelligible to the god:

“When a man large stones projecteth from a widely-whirling sling, With the blows he slays grass-eating geese unutterably great.”

‘Now who will interpret for me what in the world is meant by these “grass-eating geese unutterably great”? Or the “widely-whirling sling”? Will Amphilochus, or the god of Dodona, or wilt thou at Delphi, if I should come thither? Wilt thou not go and hang thyself with thy “widely-whirling sling,” and take thy unintelligible verses with thee? ‘

But now, after such censures as these, it is time to observe again from the beginning how the same author confutes the most ancient oracular responses, those at Delphi, which are held forsooth in the very highest admiration in the histories of Greece.

‘Vast was the Persian host in arms against the Athenians, nor was there any other hope of safety for them, except the god only. So they, not knowing who he was, invoked him as the helper of their forefathers. This was the Apollo at Delphi. What therefore did this wonderful deity do? Did he fight in defence of his friends? Did he remember the “libations and burnt offerings,” and the customary honours which they paid to him in sacrificing their hecatombs? Not at all. But what said he? That they should flee, and provide a wooden wall for their flight: thus indicating the navy, by means of which alone he said that they could be saved when their city was burned. O mighty help of a god!

‘Then he pretends forsooth to foretell a siege not only of the other buildings in the city, but also of the very temples consecrated to the gods. But this was what all might expect from the invasion of the enemy, apart from any oracle.’

Very naturally therefore the writer again makes sport of this delusion of the Greeks, and censures it in the following words: