The result, however, of the Socratic influence is intended to be shown by the circumstance of Strepsiades subsequently swearing “by the mist!” and reproaching his son for taking oaths in the name of a deity of the outside world. Presently, on being importuned by a creditor for the return of twelve minæ lent for the purchase of a dapple-grey horse, he is ready to swear any number of oaths “by the gods” that he is innocent of the debt. His opinions have in the course of this short dialogue undergone alteration. He feels justified in ridding himself of his obligation to repay the loan by making use of declarations which the philosopher has argued are no longer of any consequence.
“And will you be willing to deny it upon oath of the gods?” screams the creditor.
“What gods?” asks Strepsiades.
“Jupiter, Mercury, and Neptune.”
“Yes, by Jupiter!” rejoins Strepsiades, “and would pay down, too, a three-obol piece besides to swear by them.”
It must have been a sorry spectacle to have beheld Socrates in the midst of an Athenian audience solemnly witnessing this masterpiece of buffoonery, and a still sadder one to those whose feeling was still enlisted upon the side of the moribund system of oath-taking.
One singular instance of whimsicality in the ancient practice of swearing must not be allowed to pass unnoticed. The Levantine merchants trading with the port of Rhodes had familiarized Athenian households with a most excellent description of cabbage. The herb was only to be found in its highest perfection upon the southern coasts of the Mediterranean. This Rhodian cabbage had a mellower flavour than that indigenous to the Troad, and was, moreover, prized by all Athenian topers as the surest antidote to the effects of drink. No supper-table would have been perfect without some preparation of this delicacy, and the gay revellers knew, or in any case imagined, that with this nostrum close at hand the choicest Chian or Lesbian vintages might safely be defied. Hence it was that the very name of so precious a vegetable came to be held in estimation, until it was customary to say that if it were permitted to blaspheme without offending the gods, it would be by mention of the Rhodian cabbage.[19] The lover in a fragment of the lost poet Ananius invokes it solemnly in evidence of his attachment, and there is found a suggestion in the iambics of Hipponax of the vegetable having even entered into the mythology—
“He, falling down, worshipped the seven-leaved cabbage,
To which, before she drank the poisoned draught,
Pandora brought a cake at Thargelia.”
This oath by the cabbage became in time the favourite expletive of Ionia, and having winged its way westwards, still lingers in the shape of the exclamation Cavolo! as a popular phrase of modern Italy.
Specific forms of swearing were in a great measure localised in the ancient world. As the Thebans swore by Osiris, the Ionians by the cabbage and the colewort, so also in Athens Minerva formed the staple of the national oaths. No Roman citizen was heard to swear by Castor. Why there should have been this denial upon the part of those who swore freely by Pollux is not easily explained. But while the Roman women were loud in the use of “Mecastor”—the affix me being supplied to adapt the name to swearing purposes, the men abjured that oath as scrupulously as the women in their turn ignored the expression “Mehercule.”[20] Hercules himself, so the story went, was known to swear but one oath in the whole course of his life. In recognition of such singular forbearance, the Roman children were instructed never to make light use of his sacred name. The prohibition, however, extended no farther than the four walls and curtilage of the dwelling, and they were free to make what use they liked of it out of doors.