By river sources and in grassy meads.‘[[146]]
XII. Then Cleombrotus: ‘I hear of this from many, and now I see the Stoic “Conflagration”, which already spreads over the verses of Heraclitus and Orpheus, catching those of Hesiod |416| too! I have no patience with this “World-Conflagration”, and then the impossibility of the thing! When one can remember the periods, as it is easiest to do with the crow and the hind, one sees how exaggeration passes in. The year has within itself the beginning and the end
Of all things which the circling seasons bear,
And parent earth,[[147]]
so there is nothing against usage in calling it an “age of man”. You allow yourselves, I believe, that Hesiod means human life by “the age”. Is it not so?’ Demetrius agreed. ‘Well, |B| but this is also clear,’ said Cleombrotus, ‘that the same words are often used for the measure and the things measured, as pint, quart, gallon, bushel. As then we call unity a number, being the smallest measure of number and its origin, so he has called our first measure of human life by the same word as the thing measured—“an age”. The numbers which the others invent have none of the clarity or distinctness usual in numbers. As to the nine thousand seven hundred and twenty, it has come about by taking the sum of the first four numbers, starting with |C| unity, and multiplying it by four, or four by ten.[[148]] Thus we get forty in either way, which, when five times multiplied [triangle-wise][[149]] by three, gave the number proposed. But about these matters there need be no difference between us and Demetrius. Whether the time be longer or shorter, determinate or not, in which the soul of a daemon shifts and the life of a demigod, the point will have been proved, before any judge he chooses, on the evidence of wise and ancient witnesses, that there are certain natures on the borderland between Gods and men, subject to mortal affections and enforced changes, who may rightly receive our worship according to the custom of our fathers, and be thought of as daemons and called so.
XIII. ‘Xenocrates, the companion of Plato, used triangles |D| in illustration of the doctrine; he compared the equilateral to a divine nature, the scalene to a mortal, and the isosceles to a daemonic; the first equal in all relations, the second unequal in all, the third equal in some, unequal in others, like the daemonic nature with its mortal passions and divine power. Nature has put forward images, which our sense can perceive, visible likenesses; the sun and the stars standing for Gods, flashes and comets and meteors for mortal men, an image which Euripides[[150]] drew in the lines: |E|
In all his bloom, like to a falling star
His light was quenched, his spirit passed, to air.
But there is a being which is mixed, and really an imitation of the daemons, the moon. Men, seeing her circumference so much in accord with that order of beings, the manifest wanings and waxings and phases which she undergoes, have called her, some an earthlike star, others an Olympian earth, others “the portion of Hecate”, who belongs at once to heaven and earth. As, then, if one were to remove the lower air, withdrawing all |F| between earth and moon, an empty unconnected space would be left, and the unity and continuity of the whole dissolved, even so those who refuse to leave us the daemons break off all intercourse and mutual dealing between Gods and men, by removing that order in Nature which could “interpret”, in Plato’s[[151]] words, and “minister”, or else they compel us to mingle all things into one mass, forcing the God into human passions and business, and drawing him down to our needs, |417| as Thessalian witches are said to draw the moon. Only their imposture found credit with women, when Aglaonice the daughter of Hegetor, who knew her astronomy, chose an eclipse of the moon, and then pretended to do magic and draw her down. But as for us, let us never listen when we are told that there are prophecies with no divine agency, or rites and orgiastic services which the Gods do not heed; nor on the other hand suppose that the God is in and out and present there, taking part in the business. Let us leave all this to those |B| rightful ministers of the Gods, their ushers or clerks. Let us hold that there are daemons who watch the performance of rites, and inspire the mysteries, while others go about to avenge crimes of insolence and pride, and to others Hesiod[[152]] has given a venerable name,
of wealth