Praeparatio Evangelica 5 part 3/4

'What then? Did not the Athenians, having killed Androgeos, and being visited with plague on account of it, say that they repented? Or, if they did not say so, was it not fitting for you to say, "Repent," rather than: "There shall be an end of plague and famine, if you allot by lot your own bodies, male and female, to Minos, sending them off across the divine sea, as recompense for your unjust deeds—thus shall the god be gracious"?'

'For I pass over the fact that you were indignant at the death of Androgeos alone at Athens, while you sleep through the deaths of so many others, everywhere and always. And yet you knew that Minos at that time held mastery of the sea, and was very powerful, and all Greece courted him; and that he was, for this very reason, most just, and a good lawgiver, and seemed to Homer to be the intimate companion of great Zeus, and after death a judge in Hades—and it was on this account that you exacted these penalties on his behalf.'

'But I omit none of this concerning you: that, letting the actual murderers go free, you commanded innocent and blameless people to be sent to their deaths—and this in favor of a man whom you yourselves were about to proclaim a universal judge of mankind, though he himself did not even know how to judge rightly in this very case. And yet how many, you gods, would you justly owe to send to the Athenians in place of these maidens—those whom you unjustly had put to death because of Androgeos!'

This same writer, taking up the story concerning the Heraclidae, examines how many persons Apollo, through the ambiguity of his oracles, has caused to die, and calls him to account, speaking as follows:

Since I have somehow come to mention this story, come, let me go through what is fitting concerning the narrative of the Heraclidae. For these men, once setting out to invade the Peloponnese by way of the Isthmus, met with failure. Aristomachus, then, the son of Aridaeus—since Aridaeus had died during the invasion—comes to inquire of you concerning the route; for he was eager to know, just as his father had been before him.

You tell him: 'The gods show you victory by way of the narrow passage.' And he, having set out to make the attempt by way of the Isthmus, ends his life in battle. His son Temenos, ill-starred, came third from an ill-starred line; and you enjoin upon him the very same things you enjoined upon Aristomachus his father. And he replied: 'But that man too, having obeyed you, perished in the invasion.'

And you said: 'I do not mean the narrow land, but the broad-bosomed one'—since it was awkward to say outright 'by sea.' And that man went by sea, having created the impression that he was advancing by land, and he encamped midway between Nauatos and Typaios; and he shoots down with a javelin Carnus, a horseman of Phylas' line, an Aetolian—doing well, it seems to me. And when, soon after, a plague broke out nearby and Aristodemus died, they withdrew again; and Temenos, coming to you, complained of the failure, and was told that he had thereby incurred a penalty for the divine messenger, and heard also that poem composed in connection with the vow to Apollo Carneius, which through the oracle says: 'Having slain our messenger, you have incurred a penalty.'

What then does Temenos say? 'What must I do? And how might I propitiate you?' 'Pray to Apollo Carneius to fulfill his due honor.' O most polluted and most shameless of prophets! Did you not know, then, that the one who heard 'narrow' would miss the narrow passage? Yet knowing this no less, you gave the oracle regardless, and then you sit back and watch him fail!

But the 'narrow passage' is deliberately ambiguous, so that if he should win, you might seem to be the cause of the victory, while if he should be defeated, you would in no way be the cause of the defeat, and you would still have an escape to 'the broad-bosomed one.' But the man went by way of 'the broad-bosomed one,' and still failed. Again an escape has been contrived: the dead messenger Carnus.

And yet how is it, most excellent sir, that you, so solicitous for Carnus, allowed others to bear his sacred office, but not himself? And though it was necessary to preserve him, seeing that he held the office of Carnus, you yourself overlooked him and let him perish; and having let him die, you then inflicted a Homeric plague upon the host, and prescribed prayers on account of the plague.

But if praying accomplished nothing, you would have devised some other remedy through your own sophistry, and you would never have ceased—they asking, and you contriving your sophistries—so that whether they win or lose, you remain undetected in your wrongdoing. For their passion and their desire are sufficient to delude them, so that even if they were slaughtered a thousand times over, it would not make them disbelieve you.

It is fitting to append to these the matters concerning Croesus. This man reigned over Lydia, having received the rule that had come down to him from ancient forebears; and then, hoping to accomplish something more than his ancestors, he resolved to be pious toward the gods, and, having made trial of them all, he preferred the Apollo at Delphi above the rest; and thereafter, adorning the temple with mixing-bowls and golden bricks and a countless multitude of offerings, he made it in a short time the wealthiest temple anywhere on earth, omitting nothing, in his magnanimity, that was needed even for its sacrifices.

Since, then, he had already advanced so much credit to the god, Croesus the Lydian, quite reasonably emboldened by the magnificent acts of his piety, resolves to march against the Persians, planning to enlarge his empire greatly through the alliance of the god.

What then does this marvelous oracle-giver do? That very Pythian Apollo at Delphi, the 'friendly' one, arranges that the suppliant, the pious one, the refugee, should not merely fail to obtain another's empire, but should fall even from his own—not willingly, it seems to me, but rather through ignorance of the outcome (for it was not that the god, knowing the future, fitted the oracle sophistically toward the one side rather than the other—since he was no god at all, nor was there any power in him greater than man's). And, all but saying outright, 'Croesus, having crossed the Halys, will destroy a great empire,' he destroys the great, long-standing empire that had come down by succession from his ancestors to this pious man—the empire of Lydia—thus rendering to this god-beloved man the fruit of his excessive zeal on the god's behalf. Concerning this, hear how not unreasonably the writer voices his indignation:

You seem, in truth, to know only such things as are worth no more than sand, but nothing that is truly good to know. To have the scent of a hard-shelled tortoise being boiled come to your mind is indeed knowledge worth a grain of sand—not even true in itself, but nevertheless well-suited to one who is boastful and shameless and lifts his brow over empty knowledge, and who persuades the Lydian slave Croesus not to despise him.

who, a short time later, on the strength of that trial, was about to ask you whether he should march against the Persians, and to make you his counselor in his own madness and greed. To him you did not hesitate to say that, 'having crossed the Halys, he would destroy a great empire.'

This much, indeed, is admirable: that it made no difference to you whether he should suffer some absurd fate, being puffed up by an ambiguous oracle to attack another's empire, nor whether there might be some harsh critics who—when they ought rather to praise you for having broken the neck of a madman—would instead reproach you for not having uttered an evenly-balanced statement, so that the Lydian might have hesitated and taken counsel. But 'to destroy' can only be understood by the Greeks in one particular sense—not the loss of one's own empire, but the acquisition of another's.

For Cyrus—half-Mede or half-Persian, or, on his mother's side from royal stock, but on his father's side from a commoner's, a kind of 'mule,' as the riddle has it—hints indeed at a deceptive muse, but also at a mantic art devoid of true divination, if the seer did not know that Croesus would fail to understand the riddle.

But if he was jesting, not out of ignorance, but out of wantonness and wickedness—alas, what sort of playthings these divine games are! But if not even this is so, but rather that things were bound to turn out this way, then this is the most unholy of all sophistical arguments. For what good is it, if things were bound to turn out this way, that you, wretched one, sit at Delphi chanting empty and vain things? What use are you to us? And why do we madmen come rushing to you from every corner of the earth? And why do you reek of sacrificial smoke?

Such is the frank speech of Oenomaus—an exposure of sorcerers not free from cynic bitterness. For he holds that the oracles admired among all the Greeks belong not even to a daemon, let alone a god, but are the wanderings and contrivances of sorcerous men, devised for the deception of the multitude. And since we have once made mention of him, nothing prevents us from hearing further refutations of his as well—and first, indeed, that one in which he himself says he was deceived by the Clarian Apollo, writing as follows:

But indeed we too had to have our share in the comedy, and not put on airs as though we had not fallen into the common madness—and to relate the bargain which we ourselves also once struck concerning wisdom, coming from Asia, O Clarian, at your hands: 'There is, in the land of Trachis, a garden of Heracles, possessing all things in bloom, plucked by everyone the whole day long, yet never diminished, and it is forever laden with an unfailing store of waters.'

Then I—poor fool that I was—having heard this, was myself also puffed up by Heracles, and, dreaming of some Hesiodic toil on account of the flourishing garden of Heracles at Trachis, and again of an easy life on account of that flourishing garden.

Then when I asked whether the gods cooperate with me, one from the crowd says—swearing by the very gods who cooperate—that he had certainly heard from you this very thing, that it had been given to a certain Callistratus, a Pontic merchant.

So when I heard this, how do you think I was indignant, as though being robbed of my own virtue by him? But nevertheless, though vexed, I examined the merchant, whether he too had been warmed by Heracles; and indeed he too appeared to be toiling at some labor, and to desire gain, and to expect from the gain some pleasant life.

But when the merchant appeared to be made equal to me, I no longer accepted the oracle, nor Heracles, but I disdained to share the same things with him, looking both to their present labors and to the stalls that exist only in hope.

But neither did the robber appear to be without a share in the oracle, nor the soldier, nor the man in love, nor the woman in love, nor the flatterer, nor the orator, nor the sycophant. For to each, as he desires, it seems that labor leads the way, while joy is expected to follow.

Having set forth these things, he immediately adds that, having asked a second and a third time, he came to know that these 'wonderful' oracles knew nothing, but concealed their own ignorance only by the darkness of obscurity. He says, then:

Since my trading affairs were already under way, and I needed a man to guide me, as a host, toward wisdom, and such a man seemed hard to find, I begged you to become a revealer of this also: 'Among the lowly and among the Achaeans a debt shall be laid up, and what has been determined shall not be small.'

What do you say? If I desired to become a sculptor or a painter and sought teachers, would it have sufficed for me to hear 'among the lowly ones'? Would I not have said that the one saying this was mad?

But perhaps you are not able to think this through, for human character has much obscurity in it. But when it comes to where it would be better for me to travel from Colophon, it is no longer so obscure to the god: 'A man, hurling a stone from a whirled sling, slays innumerable grass-devouring geese with his casts.' But who will explain to me what these innumerable grass-devouring geese mean at all? And who will explain the whirled sling? Amphilochus, or the Dodonaean, or you—if I should come to Delphi, will you not go off and hang yourself with the whirled sling, along with your unintelligible poem?

But since these things have thus been refuted, it is time to consider again, from the beginning, how the same man exposes the most ancient oracles at Delphi, precisely those most admired in Greek histories.

Great was the Persian army arrayed against the Athenians, and they had no other hope of salvation than the god alone; and not knowing who this protector was, they called upon their ancestral helper—this was the Apollo at Delphi.

What then did this wonderful god do? Did he fight on behalf of his own people? Did he remember the libations and the savor of sacrifice and the things they were accustomed to perform for him, offering hecatombs? Not at all. But what does he say? To flee—and to flee after preparing a wooden wall, thus indicating the fleet, by which alone he says they would be saved, while the city was being burned.

Oh what great help from a god! Then he pretends, forsooth, to foretell the siege not only of the other buildings throughout the city but also of those very buildings consecrated to the gods. Yet this was something everyone could expect from the enemy's onslaught even without an oracle. Doing what is fitting, the writer again mocks, exposing the Greek deception in these things.

But perhaps such things belong to someone merely maliciously disposed; rather, those things must be brought forward for judgment which were said to the Athenians. Let then the oracle to the Athenians be recounted: 'O wretched ones, why do you sit here? Flee the city to the ends of the earth! For neither the head remains steadfast, nor the body, nor the hands, nor the feet below; for fire will lay it in ruins, and keen Ares driving a Syrian-born chariot. And it will destroy many towers here and cast them down, and will give many temples of the immortals to raging fire—temples which even now, perhaps, stand streaming with sweat, quaking with terror.'

Behold now the oracle given to the Athenians—is there perhaps something prophetic in it, by Zeus, one might say, since you had such confidence in it? But if you should add what is further said when they beg for help, it will become clear. Behold, let this be added: 'Pallas is not able to propitiate Olympian Zeus, though beseeching him with many words... but I will speak to you this word again, having made it as firm as adamant: for while all else is being taken... Zeus who sees far grants that a wooden wall alone shall remain unravaged for Tritogeneia, which shall benefit you and your children. Do not you wait for the horsemen and the footmen coming on, but turn your back and withdraw; yet a time will come when you shall again face them. O divine Salamis, you shall destroy the children of women, either when Demeter's grain is scattered, or when it is being gathered.'

Your Zeus is worthy of Zeus, O son of Zeus; and your Athena, too, is worthy of Athena, O brother of Athena! This zeal and this counter-zeal befit the father and the daughter—or rather, they befit the gods: this Olympian, weak enough to destroy this single city, unless he brought against it that boundless army from Susa—he was, forsooth, some great one, ruler of the whole universe, and persuasive too: moving so many nations out of Asia into Europe, while in Europe he was unable to overturn a single city!

And you too, at once bold and yet recklessly daring for nothing—do you not lament? Men would say: 'On whose behalf is it that Pallas is not able to propitiate Olympian Zeus?' Or was Zeus not angry at men but at stones and timbers, so that you were saving the men, while he was burning down the buildings with imported fire? For he had no thunderbolt at that time, it seems.

Or are we not rather the bold and reckless ones, in not permitting you to babble on like this? How is it, O prophet, that you knew that divine Salamis would destroy the children of women, but no longer knew whether it would be when Demeter's grain is scattered or when it is being gathered? And how did you not know even this—that 'the children of the women' might be said to mean one's own countrymen, and might also be said to mean the enemy's—as one perceives your ill contrivance?

We must wait for the outcome, for one of these must indeed come to pass. For 'divine Salamis' would not have been out of place even applied to the defeated, being invoked thus as if for lamentation. And the coming battle of the ships, whether when Demeter's grain is scattered or when it is being gathered, has been plastered over with poetic solemnity, so that the prophecy might be made undetectable by this sophistry, and might not be immediately obvious—namely, that a naval battle is not fought in winter.

Nor is the theatrical device now hidden either, nor the gods wheeled onto the stage—one beseeching, the other not bending—useful for whatever the future might bring and the unpredictable turn of the war, the one for those being saved, the other for those being destroyed. For whether they should be saved, behold, the entreaties of Pallas have been foretold, being sufficient to bend the wrath of Zeus; or whether not, this too is not unprepared for by the prophet: 'for Pallas cannot propitiate Zeus.' The craftsman blended the oracle to fit either of the ambiguous fortunes, so that Zeus, on the one hand, might be seen as accomplishing his own purpose, and on the other, as not disregarding his daughter's petition.

As for the towers—that many would be destroyed—if the enemy had advanced with mere fennel-stalks and not with iron and fire, this might perhaps have been a lie, since even with fennel-stalks such a multitude would surely have accomplished something. 'But I,' he says, 'discovered the wooden wall, the only thing unravaged.' That, at least, is a piece of advice, not a prophecy—not unlike: 'Flee, and do not remain, and do not be ashamed to be a coward.'

At any rate, the man who solved that riddle was no worse than you at perceiving it—namely, that the city of the Athenians was the pretext for the Persian's expedition, and that the whole campaign was directed against this city first and foremost. Since even I, though no prophet, perceiving this, would have bidden even the Athenian—not only the Lydian—to flee, turning his back; for again one day he will face them; for much cavalry and infantry is coming on.

And that it should be by ships and not by land—for it would have been ridiculous, given that they had a fleet and dwelt by the sea, not to save themselves by loading everything up wholesale, together with whatever provisions they had, and handing over the land to whoever wanted it.

These, then, are the things said to the Athenians. But very weak and laughable are those said to the Lacedaemonians. For, he says, either the whole city will be besieged, or it will mourn a king who has perished. This is something that anyone at all could have conjectured to be entirely likely—that either this or that would happen.

But surely it was not the mark of a god's prophecy thus to waver in ignorance of the future, when he ought rather to have come to their aid and appeared in season as savior of the Greeks, and rather to have procured for the Greeks, as for his own dear friends, victory over their enemies and the barbarians; and if he was not able to do this, at least to grant that they should not suffer, nor be captured. But he does not even do this, nor does he even know how the calamities of defeat would be averted from them. Hear, therefore, what the refutation says about these things.

'But,' you will say, 'it was not necessary to give the Lacedaemonians the same advice.' True. For you did not know, O sophist, whither the affairs of Sparta would go, as you did know those of Attica. You were afraid, then, that you might bid them to flee, and then they would flee, while the enemy did not even come.

Since, then, it was necessary to say something, you spoke thus to the Lacedaemonians: 'To you, O dwellers of spacious Sparta, either your great and far-famed city shall be sacked by the men of Perseus' line, or, if not, the land of Lacedaemon shall mourn a king perished, of the stock of Heracles.'

Again, the most unprophetic of conjunctions—'or.' But let us leave it be, lest, by pouncing twice on the same point against you, we seem both tiresome and at a loss for anything else; let us examine what remains.

All were looking to you in so great a danger, and you were both the revealer of the future to them and the counselor of what they ought to do. And they held you to be trustworthy, while you had persuaded yourself that they were fools, and that the prevailing crisis was sufficient to drive and drag the witless not only to the sophistries of Delphi and Dodona but also, by now, to bird-diviners and flour-diviners and ventriloquists.

At that time, trustworthy signs were not only the gods, but by now also weasels, and crows, and stumblings during sleep. It is surely not unclear, then, that they would rather have accepted either of the two outcomes than the other, nor the greater in place of the lesser—and that it would be the lesser thing for one man, the king, to fall in place of all the citizens.

If the city itself should fall, there was no escape even for him, the king; but if he himself should be posted elsewhere, perhaps something unexpected might happen. It remains, then, that those who reasoned thus should send the king to wage war, while they themselves, remaining at home, watched intently, outside of danger.

For the one who stood opposed with a few men against the boundless multitude, destruction was manifest; but Sparta had reprieves from fear and unexpected hopes. And no less was the sophistry undetectable, whether the city escaped or was captured.

Why, indeed? Because it was not said, by Zeus, that if the king should die, the city would be saved, but that either he alone would perish, or the whole city. And this is unaccountable either way—whether he alone should perish, or not alone. This is the fruit of arrogance and folly. But so much for this. It is not worth passing over also what he prophesied again to the Cnidians when they prayed and asked for the alliance that comes from the god.

The Cnidians also suffered something similar to this, when Harpagus campaigned against them. For, attempting to cut through the isthmus there and turn their city into an island, they at first held to the work, but when the labor met with resistance, being now exhausted, they consulted the oracle.

But you told them: 'Do not fortify or dig through the isthmus; for Zeus would have made it an island, if he had wished.' And the fools were persuaded and, turning back, handed themselves over to Harpagus. This is the trickery: since escape was not certain for those who dug, you stopped them from that; yet, while not bidding them to hold to the work, you announce their escape as though guaranteed.

To this you did not add that it would be better for them not to dig, but only that it did not seem good to Zeus that it should be an island. In the dissuasion, then, both possibilities were equally balanced, while in the persuasion the promise of escaping prevailed—wherein it was safe for the sophist to overturn his own words. And thus, having said nothing of what they had come for, you sent them away thinking they had heard something.

These things, I think, sufficiently expose the powerlessness both of those giving the oracles and of those consulting them, and show that nothing true or divinely inspired can be found in what is set forth.

And you would see the wicked disposition of character—whether of the evil demons or of the men who play-act the oracles—if you should learn how they incited those who consulted them to war against one another, when it was fitting for them to be arbiters of peace and friendship.

Thus at one time the god at Delphi incites the Lacedaemonians, as though they were his own kinsmen and friends, against the Messenians; and at another time again he gives an oracle to the Messenians against the Lacedaemonians, saying that these might again propitiate the demons through human sacrifice. Hear now also what concerns these matters.

Wisdom, being present alongside the art of divination, will judge such matters, and will not permit it to speak as chance dictates, since it has fastened the moorings of all things and taken the seat of honor; nor will it permit the vain Pythian god to give oracles either to these Messenians or to the Lacedaemonians concerning the Messenians and the land which the Messenians held, having overcome the Lacedaemonians by deceit: 'Phoebus does not bid you to pursue only the deeds of battle with your hand, but by deceit the people hold the land of Messenia; and by the same arts by which it began, someone shall be captured.'

Wisdom bids them rather to be mindful of peace, of contentment with little, and of self-sufficiency. But they, adorned as they were with the laws of Lycurgus, came, driven by insatiable greed and empty glory, to inquire—so that they might not seem to be worsted in battle by the Messenians—thinking themselves reared in laws of endurance.

But if they had truly been reared in this way, in laws of endurance, they would have endured with little, and would have had no need of battle, nor of weapons and the rest of their frenzied folly.

These, then, were given to the Lacedaemonians against the Messenians; but again, in turn, these were given to the Messenians against the Lacedaemonians—for you gave oracles not only to the Lacedaemonians against the Messenians, but also to the Messenians against the Lacedaemonians: 'The lot calls for a maiden of the line of Aepytus, whom you should give to the infernal deities, and so you would save Ithome.'

For I do not accept the pretexts—that the victim was not pure, being of the line of Aepytus, and that this is why things remained unaccomplished for the Messenians. For you are the sort to cause such confusion. So much, then, for the matters of ancient history. But there are countless similar things to be observed even in our own times, from ancient time down to ourselves, with the rulers of each period sometimes rushing into unprofitable wars because of the counsel of oracles, sometimes being deceived by the obscurity of what was oracularly given, and at other times wandering astray from the deception inherent in the oracles themselves.

What need is there to say how, in the greatest calamities—whether in battles against enemies, or in dangers arising from bodily illnesses—they derived no benefit whatsoever from the help or the healing of the so-called gods?

Such, indeed, always and continually are the outcomes that befall them from the oracles, as also the record of ancient history establishes.

But since, among the oracles of the Pythian god most celebrated among the Greeks, there was one given to Lycurgus—to whom, as he approached, the Pythia proclaimed that famous saying: 'You come, O Lycurgus, to my rich temple, dear to Zeus and to all who possess the Olympian abodes; I am in doubt whether I shall pronounce you a god or a man—but I incline still more to think you a god, O Lycurgus; you come seeking good order, and I shall grant it to you'—and what follows upon these words: come, let us also examine what the aforementioned refutation observed concerning these. He writes as follows:

But you said that Tyrtaeus, who once came as a leader and guide, had come to you 'from hollow Lacedaemon, dear to Zeus and to all who hold the Olympian abodes,' and asked whether you would pronounce him a god or a man—but rather still more a god, because he had come to ask for good order.

And how is it that, if he was a god, he—the friend of Zeus and of all the Olympians—did not know a civic law? But since perhaps such things are indeed found not without a god, things which have been revealed to the most divine of men by the voice of the goddess, come, let us look at the divine voice, and what you taught Lycurgus: 'You come seeking good order; and I shall grant it to you.'

'Give it, then,' I would say; for you have never yet promised such a gift to anyone. So that, by oracles, you may keep your promises and oaths, and render just dealings to one another and to foreigners, honoring purely and reverently those born of old, showing regard for the Tyndaridae, and Menelaus and the other immortal heroes who dwell in divine Lacedaemon—thus indeed far-seeing Zeus would spare you.

O Apollo, what teaching and divine exhortation! And truly no long journey was needed for such things—not even from the Peloponnese to Delphi—no, not even all the way to the Hyperboreans themselves, from whom, according to another oracle of Asteria, they say the inhabitants and priests of fragrant Delos are said to have come.

It seems to me that this Lycurgus had had no nurse, and had never once sat as a companion of elders, from whom—and from whomever else he had—he might have heard finer and wiser things than these.

Perhaps, though, you will add something, if Lycurgus should press you to say something clear. 'If some should lead well, and others should follow'—I will no longer say that this belongs to the same session of learning, and I will require Lycurgus not to grow weary, if he could obtain from you some civic instruction and go back to Sparta with it.

'There are two roads, standing farthest apart from one another: the one leading to the honored house of freedom, the other to the fugitive dwelling of slavery for mortal men. And the former may be traversed through manliness and sacred concord—this is the path you must lead the people upon—while the latter is reached through hateful strife and craven ruin... this one is to be guarded against.'

Above all you bid us to be brave—this we have often heard even from cowards; and to be of one mind—this too, not only from the wise, but even from those very people who stir up faction. So we release you from this piece of exhortation.

And yet, being a prophet, you did not know that we had often received this same advice from many others, who neither ate of the laurel nor drank the water of Castalia, nor ever raised their eyebrow in pretense of wisdom.

Speak, then, of courage; speak of freedom; speak of concord—by what means these come to be present in a city; and do not bid us, who do not know, to lead the people along this path, but lead it yourself. For it is a beautiful path, but impassable and fearful for us. To these he adds, saying:

And you are also ready to speak concerning marriage: 'Take the foal of dark-maned Poseidon from horse-pasturing Argos.'

And concerning children: 'Eëtion, no one honors you though you are highly honored; Labda is pregnant, and shall bring forth a rolling stone.'

And concerning colonization: 'Send forth a many-tongued people against golden men, bearing bronze on your shoulders and iron in your hands.'

And concerning empty renown: 'Of all lands the Pelasgian soil is best; Thracian horses, and Lacedaemonian women, and men who drink the water of fair Arethusa.'