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The
seventh day was solemnized by games, and the gymnastic combats,
in
which
the victor was rewarded with a measure of barley; without doubt
because
it was at Eleusis the goddess first taught the method of raising
that
grain, and the use of it. The two following days were employed in
some
particular ceremonies, neither important nor remarkable.
During
this festival it was prohibited, under very great penalties, to
arrest
any person whatsoever, in order to their being imprisoned, or to
present
any bill of complaint to the judges. It was regularly celebrated
every
fifth year, that is, after a revolution of four years: and
history
does
not mention that it was ever interrupted, except upon the taking
of
Thebes
by Alexander the Great.(78) The Athenians, who were then upon the
point
of celebrating the great mysteries, were so much affected with
the
ruin
of that city, that they could not resolve, in so general an
affliction,
to solemnize a festival which breathed nothing but merriment
and
rejoicing. It was continued down to the time of the Christian
emperors.(79)
Valentinian would have abolished it, if Prætextatus, the
proconsul
of Greece, had not represented, in the most lively and affecting
terms,
the universal sorrow which the abrogation of that feast would
occasion
among the people; upon which it was suffered to subsist. It is
supposed
to have been finally suppressed by Theodosius the Great; as were
all
the rest of the Pagan solemnities.
Of
Auguries, Oracles, &c.
Nothing
is more frequently mentioned in ancient history, than oracles,
auguries,
and divinations. No war was made, or colony settled; nothing of
consequence
was undertaken, either public or private, without having first
consulted
the gods. This was a custom universally established amongst the
Egyptian,
Assyrian, Grecian, and Roman nations; which is no doubt a proof,
as
has been already observed, that it was derived from ancient
tradition,
and
that it had its origin in the religion and worship of the true God.
It
is
not indeed to be questioned, but that God, before the deluge, did
manifest
his will to mankind in different methods, as he has since done to
his
people, sometimes in his own person and _vivá voce_, sometimes by
the
ministry
of angels or of prophets inspired by himself, and at other times
by
apparitions or in dreams. When the descendants of Noah dispersed
themselves
into different regions, they carried this tradition along with
them,
which was every where retained, though altered and corrupted by
the
darkness
and ignorance of idolatry. None of the ancients have insisted
more
upon the necessity of consulting the gods on all occasions by
auguries
and oracles than Xenophon; and he founds that necessity, as I
have
more than once observed elsewhere, upon a principle deduced from
the
most
refined reason and discernment. He represents, in several places,
that
man of himself is very frequently ignorant of what is advantageous
or
pernicious
to him; that, far from being capable of penetrating the future,
the
present itself escapes him; so narrow and short-sighted is he in
all
his
views, that the slightest obstacles can frustrate his greatest
designs;
that the Divinity alone, to whom all ages are present, can impart
a
certain knowledge of the future to him: that no other being has power
to
facilitate
the success of his enterprises; and that it is reasonable to
believe
he will enlighten and protect those, who adore him with the
purest
affection,
who invoke him at all times with greatest constancy and
fidelity,
and consult him with most sincerity and integrity.
Of
Auguries.
What
a reproach is it to human reason, that so luminous a principle
should
have
given birth to the absurd reasonings, and wretched notions, in
favour
of
the science of augurs and soothsayers, and been the occasion of
espousing,
with blind devotion, the most ridiculous puerilities: should
have
made the most important affairs of state depend upon a bird’s
happening
to sing upon the right or left hand; upon the greediness of
chickens
in pecking their grain; the inspection of the entrails of beasts;
the
liver’s being entire and in good condition, which, according to
them,
did
sometimes entirely disappear, without leaving any trace or mark of
its
having
ever subsisted! To these superstitious observances may be added,
accidental
rencounters, words spoken by chance, and afterwards turned into
good
or bad presages; forebodings, prodigies, monsters, eclipses,
comets;
every
extraordinary phenomenon, every unforeseen accident, with an
infinity
of chimeras of the like nature.
Whence
could it happen, that so many great men, illustrious generals,
able
politicians,
and even learned philosophers, have actually given into such
absurd
imaginations? Plutarch, in particular, so estimable in other
respects,
is to be pitied for his servile observance of the senseless
customs
of the Pagan idolatry, and his ridiculous credulity in dreams,
signs,
and prodigies. He tells us in his works, that he abstained a
great
while
from eating eggs, upon account of a dream, with which he has not
thought
fit to make us further acquainted.(80)
The
wisest of the Pagans knew well how to appreciate the art of
divination,
and often spoke of it to each other, and even in public, with
the
utmost contempt, and in a manner best adapted to expose its
absurdity.
The
grave censor Cato was of opinion, that one soothsayer could not
look
at
another without laughing. Hannibal was amazed at the simplicity
of
Prusias,
whom he had advised to give battle, upon his being diverted from
it
by the inspection of the entrails of a victim. “What,” said he,
“have
you
more confidence in the liver of a beast, than in so old and
experienced
a captain as I am?” Marcellus, who had been five times consul,
and
was augur, said, that he had discovered a method of not being put to
a
stand
by the sinister flight of birds, which was, to keep himself close
shut
up in his litter.
Cicero
explains himself upon the subject of auguries without ambiguity
or
reserve.
Nobody was more capable of speaking pertinently upon it than
himself,
(as M. Morin observes in his dissertation upon the same subject.)
As
he was adopted into the college of augurs, he had made himself
acquainted
with their most abstruse secrets, and had all possible
opportunity
of informing himself fully in their science. That he did so,
sufficiently
appears from the two books he has left us upon divination, in
which,
it may be said, he has exhausted the subject. In the second,
wherein
he refutes his brother Quintus, who had espoused the cause of the
augurs,
he combats and defeats his false reasonings with a force, and at
the
same time with so refined and delicate a raillery, as leaves us
nothing
to wish; and he demonstrates by proofs, each more convincing than
the
other, the falsity, contrariety, and impossibility of that art.
But
what
is very surprising, in the midst of all his arguments, he takes
occasion
to blame the generals and magistrates, who on important
conjunctures
had contemned the prognostics; and maintains, that the use of
them,
as great an abuse as it was in his own opinion, ought
nevertheless
to
be respected, out of regard to religion, and the prejudices of
the
people.(81)
All
that I have hitherto said tends to prove, that Paganism was
divided
into
two sects, almost equally enemies of religion; the one by their
superstitious
and blind regard for auguries, the other by their
irreligious
contempt and derision of them.
The
principle of the first, founded on one side upon the ignorance
and
weakness
of man in the affairs of life, and on the other upon the
prescience
of the Divinity and his almighty providence, was true; but the
consequence
deduced from it in favour of auguries, false and absurd. They
ought
to have proved that it was certain, that the Divinity himself had
established
these external signs to denote his intentions, and that he had
obliged
himself to a punctual conformity to them upon all occasions: but
they
had nothing of this in their system. These auguries and
divinations
therefore
were the effect and invention of the ignorance, rashness,
curiosity,
and blind passions of man, who presumed to interrogate God, and
to
oblige him to give answers upon every idle imagination and unjust
enterprise.
The
others, who gave no real credit to any thing enjoined by the
science
of
augury, did not fail, however, to observe its trivial ceremonies
through
policy, in order the better to subject the minds of the people to
themselves,
and to reconcile them to their own purposes, by the assistance
of
superstition: but by their contempt for auguries, and their
inward
conviction
of their falsity, they were led into a disbelief of the Divine
Providence,
and to despise religion itself; conceiving it inseparable from
the
numerous absurdities of this kind, which rendered it ridiculous,
and
consequently
unworthy a man of sense.
Both
the one and the other behaved in this manner, because, having
mistaken
the Creator, and abused the light of nature, which might have
taught
them to know and to adore him, they were deservedly abandoned to
their
own darkness, and to a reprobate mind; and, if we had not been
enlightened
by the true religion, we, even at this day, should give
ourselves
up to the same superstitions.
Of
Oracles
No
country was ever richer in, or more productive of oracles, than
Greece.
I
shall confine myself to those which were the most noted.
The
oracle of Dodona, a city of the Molossians, in Epirus, was much
celebrated;
where Jupiter gave answers either by vocal oaks,(82) or doves,
which
had also their language, or by resounding basins of brass, or by
the
mouths
of priests and priestesses.
The
oracle of Trophonius in Bœotia, though he was nothing more than a
hero,
was in great reputation.(83) After many preliminary ceremonies,
as
washing
in the river, offering sacrifices, drinking a water called Lethe,
from
its quality of making people forget every thing, the votaries
went
down
into his cave, by small ladders, through a very narrow passage.
At
the
bottom was another little cavern, the entrance of which was also
exceeding
small. There they lay down upon the ground, with a certain
composition
of honey in each hand, which they were indispensably obliged
to
carry with them. Their feet were placed within the opening of the
little
cave; which was no sooner done, than they perceived themselves
borne
into it with great force and velocity. Futurity was there
revealed
to
them; but not to all in the same manner. Some saw, others heard,
wonders.
From thence they returned quite stupified, and out of their
senses,
and were placed in the chair of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory;
not
without great need of her assistance to recover their
remembrance,
after
their great fatigue, of what they had seen and heard; admitting
they
had
seen or heard any thing at all. Pausanias, who had consulted that
oracle
himself, and gone through all these ceremonies, has left a most
ample
description of it; to which Plutarch adds some particular
circumstances,(84)
which I omit, to avoid a tedious prolixity.
The
temple and oracle of the Branchidæ, in the neighbourhood of
Miletus,
so
called from Branchus, the son of Apollo, was very ancient, and in
great
esteem
with all the Ionians and Dorians of Asia.(85) Xerxes, in his
return
from
Greece, burnt this temple, after the priests had delivered its
treasures
to him. That prince, in return, granted them an establishment in
the
remotest parts of Asia, to secure them against the vengeance of
the
Greeks.
After the war was over, the Milesians reestablished that temple
with
a magnificence which, according to Strabo, surpassed that of all
the
other
temples of Greece. When Alexander the Great had overthrown
Darius,
he
utterly destroyed the city where the priests Branchidæ had settled,
of
which
their descendants were at that time in actual possession,
punishing
in
the children the sacrilegious perfidy of their fathers.
Tacitus
relates something very singular, though not very probable, of the
oracle
of Claros, a town of Ionia, in Asia Minor, near Colophon.(86)
“Germanicus,”
says he, “went to consult Apollo at Claros. It is not a
woman
that gives the answers there, as at Delphi, but a man, chosen out
of
certain
families, and almost always of Miletus. It is sufficient to let
him
know the number and names of those who come to consult him. After
which
he retires into a cave, and having drunk of the waters of a
spring
within
it, he delivers answers in verse upon what the persons have in
their
thoughts, though he is often ignorant, and knows nothing of
composing
in measure. It is said, that he foretold to Germanicus his
sudden
death, but in dark and ambiguous terms, according to the custom
of
oracles.”
I
omit a great number of other oracles, to proceed to the most famous
of
them
all. It is very obvious that I mean the oracle of Apollo at
Delphi.
He
was worshipped there under the name of the Pythian, a title
derived
from
the serpent Python, which he had killed, or from a Greek word,
that
signifies
to inquire, πυθέσθαι,
because people came thither to consult
him.
From thence the Delphic priestess was called Pythia, and the
games
there
celebrated, the Pythian games.
Delphi
was an ancient city of Phocis in Achaia. It stood upon the
declivity,
and about the middle, of the mountain Parnassus, built upon a
small
extent of even ground, and surrounded with precipices, that
fortified
it without the help of art.
Diodorus
says,(87) that there was a cavity upon Parnassus, from whence an
exhalation
rose, which made the goats dance and skip about, and
intoxicated
the brain. A shepherd having approached it, out of a desire to
know
the causes of so extraordinary an effect, was immediately seized
with
violent
agitations of body, and pronounced words, which, without doubt,
he
did
not understand himself; but which, however, foretold futurity.
Others
made
the same experiment, and it was soon rumoured throughout the
neighbouring
countries. The cavity was no longer approached without
reverence.
The exhalation was concluded to have something divine in it. A
priestess
was appointed for the reception of its effects, and a tripod
placed
upon the vent, called by the Latins Cortina, perhaps from the
skin(88)
that covered it. From thence she gave her oracles. The city of
Delphi
rose insensibly round about this cave; and a temple was erected,
which,
at length, became very magnificent. The reputation of this oracle
almost
effaced, or at least very much exceeded, that of all others.
At
first a single Pythia sufficed to answer those who came to consult
the
oracle,
as they did not yet amount to any great number: but in process of
time,
when it grew into universal repute, a second was appointed to
mount
the
tripod alternately with the first, and a third chosen to succeed
in
case
of death, or disease. There were other assistants besides these
to
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