Book XI. ch. 17.
Homer was not rash in his line,
Terrible are the gods when they manifest themselves.
For the dragon, while sacred and to be worshipped, has within himself something still more of the divine nature of which it is better to remain in ignorance.
Indeed, a dragon received divine honours in a certain tower in Melita in Egypt. He had his priests and ministers, his table and bowl. Every day they filled the bowl with flour kneaded with honey, and went away; returning on the following day, they found the bowl empty.
Upon one occasion, a man of illustrious birth, who entertained an intense desire of seeing the dragon, having entered alone, and placed the food, went out; and when the dragon commenced to feed at the table, he opened suddenly and noisily the doors, which according to custom he had closed.
The dragon indignantly left; but he who had desired to see him, to his own destruction, being seized with an affliction of the mind, and having confessed his crime, presently lost his speech, and shortly after died.
Book XII. ch. 39.
When Halia, the daughter of Sybasis, had entered the grove of Diana in Phrygia, a certain sacred dragon of large size appeared and copulated with her; whence the Ophiogenæ deduce the origin of their race.
Book XV. ch. 21.—Concerning the Indian Dragon.