"Whene'er a mule shall mount upon the Median throne,
Then, and not till then, shall great Crœsus fear to lose his own."
Crœsus's feeling of security.
This answer pleased the king quite as much as the former one had done. The allusion to the contingency of a mule's reigning in Media he very naturally regarded as only a rhetorical and mystical mode of expressing an utter impossibility. Crœsus considered himself and the continuance of his power as perfectly secure. He was fully confirmed in his determination to organize his expedition without any delay, and to proceed immediately to the proper measures for obtaining the Grecian alliance and aid which the oracle had recommended. The plans which he formed, and the events which resulted, will be described in subsequent chapters.
Nature of the oracles.
Means by which the credit of the oracles was sustained.
In respect to these Grecian oracles, it is proper here to state, that there has been much discussion among scholars on the question how they were enabled to maintain, for so long a period, so extended a credit among a people as intellectual and well informed as the Greeks. It was doubtless by means of a variety of contrivances and influences that this end was attained. There is a natural love of the marvelous among the humbler classes in all countries, which leads them to be very ready to believe in what is mystic and supernatural; and they accordingly exaggerate and color such real incidents as occur under any strange or remarkable circumstances, and invest any unusual phenomena which they witness with a miraculous or supernatural interest. The cave at Delphi might really have emitted gases which would produce quite striking effects upon those who inhaled them; and how easy it would be for those who witnessed these effects to imagine that some divine and miraculous powers must exist in the aërial current which produced them. The priests and priestesses, who inhabited the temples in which these oracles were contained, had, of course, a strong interest in keeping up the belief of their reality in the minds of the community; so were, in fact, all the inhabitants of the cities which sprung up around them. They derived their support from the visitors who frequented these places, and they contrived various ways for drawing contributions, both of money and gifts, from all who came. In one case there was a sacred stream near an oracle, where persons, on permission from the priests, were allowed to bathe. After the bathing, they were expected to throw pieces of money into the stream. What afterward, in such cases, became of the money, it is not difficult to imagine.
Whether the priests were impostors.
Nor is it necessary to suppose that all these priests and priestesses were impostors. Having been trained up from infancy to believe that the inspirations were real, they would continue to look upon them as such all their lives. Even at the present day we shall all, if we closely scrutinize our mental habits, find ourselves continuing to take for granted, in our maturer years, what we inconsiderately imbibed or were erroneously taught in infancy, and that, often, in cases where the most obvious dictates of reason, or even the plain testimony of our senses, might show us that our notions are false. The priests and priestesses, therefore, who imposed on the rest of mankind, may have been as honestly and as deep in the delusion themselves as any of their dupes.
Answers of the oracles.
The answers of the oracles were generally vague and indefinite, and susceptible of almost any interpretation, according to the result. Whenever the event corresponded with the prediction, or could be made to correspond with it by the ingenuity of the commentators, the story of the coincidence would, of course, be every where spread abroad, becoming more striking and more exact at each repetition. Where there was a failure, it would not be direct and absolute, on account of the vagueness and indefiniteness of the response, and there would therefore be no interest felt in hearing or in circulating the story. The cases, thus, which would tend to establish the truth of the oracle, would be universally known and remembered, while those of a contrary bearing would be speedily forgotten.
Collusion between the priests and those who consulted the oracle.