[402] In this early phase of the Pythian festival, it is said to have been celebrated every eight years, marking what we should call an Octaetêris, and what the early Greeks called an Ennaetêris (Censorinus, De Die Natali, c. 18). This period is one of considerable importance in reference to the principle of the Grecian calendar, for ninety-nine lunar months coincide very nearly with eight solar years. The discovery of this coincidence is ascribed by Censorinus to Kleostratus of Tenedos, whose age is not directly known: he must be anterior to Meton, who discovered the cycle of nineteen solar years, but (I imagine) not much anterior. In spite of the authority of Ideler, it seems to me not proved, nor can I believe, that this octennial period with its solar and lunar coincidence was known to the Greeks in the earliest times of their mythical antiquity, or before the year 600 B. C. See Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie, vol. i. p. 366; vol. ii. p. 607. The practice of the Eleians to celebrate the Olympic games alternately after forty-nine and fifty lunar months, though attested for a later time by the Scholiast on Pindar, is not proved to be old. The fact that there were ancient octennial recurring festivals, does not establish a knowledge of the properties of the octaeteric or ennaeteric period: nor does it seem to me that the details of the Bœotian δαφνηφορíα, described in Proclus ap. Photium, sect. 239, are very ancient. See, on the old mythical Octaetêris, O. Müller, Orchomenos 218, seqq., and Krause, Die Pythien, Nemeen, und Isthmien, sect. 4, p. 22.
[403] See the argument of Cicero in favor of divination, in the first book of his valuable treatise De Divinatione. Chrysippus, and the ablest of the stoic philosophers, both set forth a plausible theory demonstrating, a priori, the probability of prophetic warnings deduced from the existence and attributes of the gods: if you deny altogether the occurrence of such warnings, so essential to the welfare of man, you must deny either the existence, or the foreknowledge, or the beneficence, of the gods (c. 38). Then the veracity of the Delphian oracle had been demonstrated in innumerable instances, of which Chrysippus had made a large collection: and upon what other supposition could the immense credit of the oracle be explained (c. 19)? “Collegit innumerabilia oracula Chrysippus, et nullum sine locuplete teste et auctore: quæ quia nota tibi sunt, relinquo. Defendo unum hoc: nunquam illud oraculum Delphis tam celebre clarumque fuisset, neque tantis donis refertum omnium populorum et regum, nisi omnis ætas oraculorum illorum veritatem esset experta.... Maneat id, quod negari non potest, nisi omnem historiam perverterimus, multis sæculis verax fuisse id oraculum.” Cicero admits that it had become less trustworthy in his time, and tries to explain this decline of prophetic power: compare Plutarch, De Defect. Oracul.
[404] Xenophon, Anabas. vii. 8, 20: Ὁ δὲ Ἀσιδάτης ἀκούσας, ὅτι πάλιν ἐπ᾽ αὐτὸν τεθυμένος εἴη ὁ Ξενοφὼν, ἐξαυλίζεται, etc. Xenoph. Hellen. iii. 2, 22: μὴ χρηστηριάζεσθαι τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐφ᾽ Ἑλλήνων πολέμῳ,—compare Iliad, vii. 450.
[405] Callimach. Hymn. Apoll. 55, with Spanheim’s note; Cicero, De Divinat. i. 1.
[406] See this point strikingly illustrated by Plato, Repub. v. pp. 470-471 (c. 16), and Isocrates, Panegyr. p. 102.
[407] Respecting the Arcadian Kynætha, see the remarkable observations of Polybius iv. 17-23.
[408] See above, vol. i. ch. vi. p. 126 of this History.
[409] For examples and evidences of these practices, see Herodot. ii. 162; the amputation of the nose and cars of Patarbêmis, by Apries, king of Egypt (Xenophon, Anab. i. 9-13). There were a large number of men deprived of hands, feet, or eyesight, in the satrapy of Cyrus the younger, who had inflicted all these severe punishments for the prevention of crime,—he did not (says Xenophon) suffer criminals to scoff at him (εἴα καταγελᾷν). The ἐκτομὴ was carried on at Sardis (Herodot. iii. 49),—500 παῖδες ἐκτόμιαι formed a portion of the yearly tribute paid by the Babylonians to the court of Susa (Herod. iii. 92). Selling of children for exportation by the Thracians (Herod. v. 6); there is some trace of this at Athens, prior to the Solonian legislation (Plutarch, Solôn, 23), arising probably out of the cruel state of the law between debtor and creditor. For the sacrifice of children to Kronus by the Carthaginians, in troubled times, (according to the language of Ennius, “Pœni soliti suos sacrificare puellos,”) Diodor. xx. 14; xiii. 86. Porphyr. de Abstinent. ii. 56: the practice is abundantly illustrated in Möver’s Die Religion der Phönizier, pp. 298-304.
Arrian blames Alexander for cutting off the nose and ears of the Satrap Bêssus, saying that it was an act altogether barbaric, (i. e. non-Hellenic,) (Exp. Al. iv. 7, 6.) About the σεβασμὸς θεοπρεπὴς περὶ τὸν βασιλέα in Asia, see Strabo, xi. p. 526.
[410] Thucyd. i. 6: Herodot. i. 10.