Sometimes he stirred the wonder of the silly by answers to persons who had neither brought nor sent questions, and in fact did not exist. Here is a specimen:
Who is't, thou askst, that with Calligenia
All secretly defiles thy nuptial bed?
The slave Protogenes, whom most thou trustest.
Him thou enjoyedst: he thy wife enjoys—
The fit return for that thine outrage done.
And know that baleful drugs for thee are brewed,
Lest thou or see or hear their evil deeds.
Close by the wall, at thy bed's head, make search.
Thy maid Calypso to their plot is privy.
The names and circumstantial details might stagger a Democritus, till a moment's thought showed him the despicable trick.
He often gave answers in Syriac or Celtic to barbarians who questioned him in their own tongue, though he had difficulty in finding compatriots of theirs in the city. In these cases there was a long interval between application and response, during which the packet might be securely opened at leisure, and somebody found capable of translating the question. The following is an answer given to a Scythian:
Morphi ebargulis for night
Chnenchicrank shall leave the light.
Another oracle to some one who neither came nor existed was in prose.
'Return the way thou earnest,' it ran; 'for he that sent thee hath this
day been slain by his neighbour Diocles, with aid of the robbers Magnus,
Celer, and Bubalus, who are taken and in chains.'
I must give you one or two of the answers that fell to my share. I asked whether Alexander was bald, and having sealed it publicly with great care, got a night oracle in reply:
Sabardalachu malach Attis was not he.
Another time I did up the same question—What was Homer's birthplace?—in two packets given in under different names. My servant misled him by saying, when asked what he came for, a cure for lung trouble; so the answer to one packet was:
Cytmide and foam of steed the liniment give.