ON THE ‘E’ AT DELPHI
I. A day or two ago, dear Serapion, I met with some |384 D| rather good lines, addressed, Dicaearchus thinks, to Archelaus by Euripides:[[51]]
No gifts, my wealthy friend, from humble me;
You’ll think me fool, or think I did but beg.
He who out of his narrow store offers trifles to men of great possessions, confers no favour; no one believes that he gives something for nothing, and he gets credit for a jealous and ungenerous temper. Now surely as money presents fall far |E| below those of literature and learning, so there is beauty in giving these, and beauty in claiming a return in kind. At any rate, I am sending to you, and so to my friends down there, some of our Pythian Dialogues, as a sort of first-fruits; and, in doing so, confess that I expect others from you, and more and better ones, since you enjoy a great city and abundant leisure, with many books and discussions of every sort. Well then, our kind Apollo, in the oracles which he gives his consultants, seems to |F| solve the problems of life and to find a remedy, while problems of the intellect he actually suggests and propounds to the born love of wisdom in the soul, thus implanting an appetite which leads to truth. Among many other instances, this is made clear as to the consecration of the letter ‘E’. We may well guess that it was not by chance, or by lot, that, alone among |385| the letters, it received pre-eminence in the God’s house, and took rank as a sacred offering and a show object. No, the officials of the God in early times, when they came to speculate, either saw in it a special and extraordinary virtue, or found it a symbol for something else of serious importance, and so adopted it. I had often myself avoided the question and quietly declined it when raised in the school. However, I was lately surprised by my sons in earnest discussion with certain strangers, who were just starting from Delphi; it was not decent to put them off with excuses, they were so anxious to receive some |B| account. We sat down near the temple, and I began to raise questions with myself, and to put others to them; and the place, and what they said, reminded me of a discussion which we heard a long time ago from Ammonius and others, at the time of Nero’s visit, when the same problem had been started here in the same way.
II. That the God is no less philosopher than he is prophet appeared to all to come out directly from the exposition which Ammonius gave us of each of his names. He is ‘Pythian’ (The Inquirer) to those who are beginning to learn and to inquire; ‘Delian’ (The Clear One) and ‘Phanaean’ to those who are already getting something clear and a glimmering of |C| the truth; ‘Ismenian’ (The Knowing) to those who possess the knowledge; ‘Leschenorian’ (God of Discourse) when they are in active enjoyment of dialectical and philosophic intercourse. ‘Now since’, he continued, ‘Philosophy embraces inquiry, wonder, and doubt, it seems natural that most of the things relating to the God should have been hidden away in riddles, and should require some account of their purpose, and an explanation of cause. For instance, in the case of the undying fire, why the only woods used here are pine for burning and laurel for fumigation; again, why two Fates are here installed, whereas their number is everywhere else taken as three; why no woman is allowed to approach the place of the oracles; questions about the tripod, and the rest. These problems, |D| when suggested to persons not altogether wanting in reason and soul, lure them on, and challenge them to inquire, to listen, and to discuss. Look again at those inscriptions, KNOW THYSELF and NOTHING TOO MUCH; how many philosophic inquiries have they provoked! What a multitude of arguments has sprung up out of each, as from a seed! Not one of them I think is more fruitful in this way than the subject of our present inquiry.’
III. When Ammonius had said this, my brother Lamprias spoke: ‘After all, the account which we have heard of the matter is simple enough and quite short. They say that the famous Wise Men, also called by some “Sophists”, were |E| properly only five, Chilon, Thales, Solon, Bias, and Pittacus. But Cleobulus, tyrant of Lindos, and, later on, Periander of Corinth, men with no wisdom or virtue in them, but forcing public opinion by influence, friends, and favours, thrust themselves into the list of the wise, and disseminated through Greece maxims and sayings resembling the utterances of the five. Then the five were vexed, but did not choose to expose the imposture, or to have an open quarrel on the matter of title, and to fight it out with such powerful persons. They met here |F| by themselves; and after discussing the matter, dedicated the letter which is fifth in the alphabet, and also as a numeral signifies five, thus making their own protest before the God, that they were five, discarding and rejecting the seventh and the sixth, as having no part or lot with themselves. That this account is not beside the mark may be recognized by any one who has heard the officials of the temple naming the golden “E” as that of Livia the wife of Caesar, the brazen one as that |386| of the Athenians, whereas the original and oldest letter, which is of wood, is to this day called that “Of the Wise Men”, as having been the offering of all in common, not of anyone of them.’
IV. Ammonius gave a quiet smile; he had a suspicion that Lamprias had been giving us a view of his own, making up history and legend at discretion. Some one else said that it was like the nonsense which they had heard from the Chaldaean stranger a day or so before; that there were seven letters which were vowels, seven stars that have an independent motion and |B| are unattached to the heavens; moreover that ‘E’ is the second vowel from the beginning, and the sun the second planet, after the moon, and that all Greeks, or nearly all, identify Apollo with the sun.
‘But all that’, he said, ‘is pernicious nonsense. Lamprias, however, has, probably without knowing it, made a move[[52]] which stirs up all who have to do with the temple against his view. What he told us was unknown to any of the Delphians; they used to give the regular guides’ account, that neither the appearance nor the sound of the letter has any significance, but only the name.’
|C| V. ‘No, the Delphic Officials’, said Nicander the priest, speaking for them, ‘believe that it is a vehicle, a form assumed by the petition addressed to the God; it has a leading place in the questions of those who consult him, and inquire, If they shall conquer; If they shall marry; If it is advisable to sail; If to farm; If to travel. The God in his wisdom would bow out the dialecticians when they think that nothing practical comes of the “If” part with its clause attached; he admits as practical, in his sense of the word, all questions so attached. Then, since it is our personal concern to question him as prophet, but |D| a general concern to pray to him as God, they hold that the letter embraces the virtue of prayer no less than that of inquiry; “O, If I might!” says every one who prays, as Archilochus,[[53]]