Sainte-Croix, Recherches sur les Mystères du Paganisme, Paris, 1765. Translated into German, with valuable observations, by C. G. Lenz; Gotha, 1790.
of the oracles:
10. The influence of religion, through the medium of oracles, especially those of Dodona and Delphi, was not less powerful. The two latter, with that of Olympia, were perhaps, originally ancient settlements of priests, such as have been already alluded to. The necessity of consulting these sanctuaries naturally led men to regard the oracles as the common property of the nation, to which every one should have access; it followed therefore as an inevitable consequence, that the direction of affairs in which all were engaged, depended principally on those oracles.
A. Van Dalen, De Oraculis veterum Ethnicorum Dissertationes6. Amstel. 1700. A very valuable work. A comprehensive dissertation on the subject, however, is still wanting: a portion of it is treated of in
J. Groddek, De Oraculorum veterum, quæ in Herodoti libris continentur, natura, commentatio; Gotting. 1786.
of the religious festivals:
11. It happened with Greece as with other countries; the tender plant of civilization grew up under the shelter of the sanctuary. There the festivals were celebrated, and there the people assembled; and there various tribes, who had hitherto been strangers to one another, met in peace, and conversed on their common interests. Hence arose spontaneously the first idea of a law of nations, and those connections which led to its development. Among these connections, that of the Amphictyons at Delphi was the most important, and continued the longest: it is probable that it did not assume its complete form till a later period; yet it appears in early times to have adopted the principle, that none of the cities belonging to the league should be destroyed by the others.
† Fr. Wilh. Tittmann, Upon the Amphictyonic League; 1812. A dissertation which gained the prize of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin.
of navigation:
12. To religion must likewise be added navigation, and the consequent intercourse which brought the nation into contact with strangers, and prepared it to receive civilization. It cannot be denied that the navigators continued long to be mere pirates; but as Minos of Crete cleared the about 1400 sea of freebooters, the want of another state of things must have been felt long before.