The saintly givers; such their kingly trust.
Observe that to do so is kingly. For there are, as among men, so among daemons, degrees of excellence, and in some subsists still some slight, faint, almost excremental remnant of passion and absence of reason; in others this is strong and hard to do away, its traces and symbols being in many places preserved and sporadically found in sacrifices and rites and tales of wonder. |C|
XIV. ‘Now as to the mystic rites, in which the most evident and transparent indication may be had of the truth about daemons, “peace be upon my lips”, as Herodotus[[153]] says. Feasts and sacrifices, days sinister and gloomy, so to call them, when are meals of raw flesh, and rendings and fastings and beaten breasts, and in many places unholy spells over the sacrifices:
Whoopings wild, and cries of frenzy, necks together tossed in air,[[154]]
all these, I would say, belong to no God, but are modes of appeasement and soothing to avert bad daemons. The human sacrifices which used to be performed were neither asked for nor accepted by Gods, we cannot believe it; yet kings and |D| captains would not have endured to give up their own children by way of initiating the rites, or to cut their throats, without a purpose; it was to soothe and satisfy the heavy displeasure of beings cruel and hard to be moved, or in some cases their frantic low passions, worthy of tyrants, when bodily approach was impossible or not desired. As Hercules besieged the town of Oechalia for the sake of a maiden, so strong and violent daemons, requiring in vain a human soul still enveloped in the body, bring pestilences to cities and sterility of land, and stir up wars and seditions, until they succeed in getting that on which their affection is set. Some have fared otherwise; |E| thus in a long stay in Crete I came to know of an absurd festival observed there: the headless form of a man is shown, and you are told that this was Molus, father of Meriones, who assaulted a maiden and was found without a head.
XV. ‘Now all the crimes of violence, all the wanderings of Gods, all tales of hiding, banishment, servitude, which are |F| said or sung in myth or hymn, are adventures which happened not to Gods but to daemons, and are recorded to show their excellence or power; Aeschylus[[155]] was wrong when he wrote
Apollo pure, the God exil’d from heav’n,
and so was the Admetus in Sophocles[[156]] wrong:
Mine was the cock who called him to the mill.
Widest of the truth of all are the theologians of Delphi, who, thinking that a battle once took place here between the God and a serpent for the possession of the oracle, allow poets and speech-writers contending in the theatres to tell these stories, |418| expressly belying their own most sacred rites.’ Philippus, the historian, who chanced to be present, here expressed surprise, and asked: ‘What rites such competitors belied?’ ‘Those relating to the oracle,’ was the reply, ‘whereby the city, admitting to initiation those from here to Tempe has now banished all Greeks dwelling beyond Thermopylae.[[157]] For the booth set up afresh every nine years near the court of the temple is not like any den or serpent’s haunt, but is an imitation of the dwelling of a tyrant or king. And the assault made upon it in silence through what they call “Dolon’s Way”, by |B| which the Aeolidae bring the boy, both of whose parents are living, with lighted torches, put fire to the booth, overturn the table, and then flee through the gates of the temple without turning back; and lastly the wanderings of the boy and his servile offices, and the purification rites at Tempe, all convey a suspicion of some great crime of shocking audacity. For it is quite absurd, my friend, that Apollo, after killing a beast, should flee to the extremities of Greece in quest of purification, and then should pour libations there and do all which men do to |C| appease and soften the wrath of daemons (fiends and avengers as they are called, because they pursue the memories of old unforgotten stains). The story which I once heard about that flight and removal is strangely absurd and surprising; but if there be any truth in it, let us never believe that what passed about the oracle in these old times was any trifling or ordinary matter. However, fearing to seem to do what Empedocles describes: