Sketches of Imposture, Deception, and Credulity

by R. A. Davenport

This office appears not to have been very desirable. Either the emanation from the cavern, or some art of the managers, threw her into real convulsions. Priests, entitled prophets, led her to the sacred tripod, force being often necessary for the purpose, and held her on it, till her frenzy rose to whatever pitch was in their judgment most fit for the occasion. Some of the Pythonesses are said to have expired almost immediately after quitting the tripod, and even on it. The broken accents which the wretch uttered in her agony were collected and arranged by the prophets, and then promulgated as the answer of the god. Till a late period, they were always in verse. The priests had it always in their power to deny answers, delay them, or render them dubious or unintelligible, as they judged most advantageous for the credit of the oracle. But if princes or great men applied in a proper manner for the sanction of the god to any undertaking, they seldom failed to receive it in direct terms, provided the reputation of the oracle for truth was not liable to immediate danger from the event.

Theophrastus, bishop of Alexandria, showed the inhabitants of that town the hollow statue into which the former priests of the pagan oracle had privately crept whilst delivering their responses; and a modern traveller corroborates this fact, by a similar discovery made among the excavations at Pompeii. “In the temple of Isis,” says Dr. J. Johnson, “we see the identical spot where the priests concealed themselves, whilst delivering the oracles that were supposed to proceed from the mouth of the goddess. There were found the bones of the victims sacrificed; and in the refectory of the abstemious priests were discovered the remains of ham, fowls, eggs, fish, and bottles of wine. These jolly friars were carousing most merrily, and no doubt laughing heartily at the credulity of mankind, when Vesuvius poured out a libation on their heads which put an end to their mirth.”[2]

“To cut the Gordian knot” has long been proverbial for an independent and unexpected way of overcoming difficulties, however great. It took its rise from a circumstance related with some variations by several ancient authors, and with great simplicity by Arrian; it is the more a curiosity as coming from a man of his eminence in his enlightened age.

At a remote period, says he, a Phrygian yeoman, named Gordius, was holding his own plough on his own land, when an eagle perched on the yoke and remained whilst he continued his work. Wondering at a matter so apparently preternatural, he deemed it expedient to consult some person among those who had reputation for expounding indications of the divine will. In the neighbouring province of Pisidia the people of Telmissus had wide fame for that skill; it was supposed instinctive and hereditary in men and women of particular families. Going thither, as he approached the first village of the Telmissian territory, he saw a girl drawing water at a spring; and making some inquiry, which led to further conversation, he related the phenomenon. It happened that the girl was of a race of seers; she told him to return immediately home, and sacrifice to Jupiter the king. Satisfied so far, he remained anxious about the manner of performing the ceremony, so that it might be certainly acceptable to the deity; and the result was that he married the girl, and she accompanied him home.

Nothing important followed till a son of this match, named Midas, had attained manhood. The Phrygians then, distressed by violent civil dissensions, consulted an oracle for means to allay them. The answer was, “that a cart would bring them a king to relieve their troubles.” The assembly was already formed to receive official communication of the divine will, when Gordius and Midas arrived in their cart to attend it. Presently the notion arose and spread, that one of those in that cart must be the person intended by the oracle. Gordius was then advanced in years. Midas, who already had been extensively remarked for superior powers of both body and mind, was elected king of Phrygia. Tranquillity ensued among the people; and the cart, predesigned by heaven to bring a king the author of so much good, was, with its appendages, dedicated to the god, and placed in the citadel, where it was carefully preserved.

The yoke was fastened with a thong, formed of the bark of a cornel tree, so artificially that no eye could discover either end; and rumour was become popular of an oracle, which declared that whosoever loosened that thong would be lord of Asia. The extensive credit which this rumour had obtained, and the reported failure of the attempts of many great men, gave an importance to it. Alexander, in the progress of his campaign in Asia, arrived at Gordium, and of course visited the castle in which was preserved the Gordian knot. While, with many around, he was admiring it, the observation occurred that it being his purpose to become lord of Asia, he should, for the sake of popular opinion, have the credit of loosening the yoke. Some writers have reported that he cut the knot with his sword; but Aristobulus, who, as one of his generals, is likely to have been present, related that he wrested the pin from the beam, and so, taking off the yoke, said that was enough for him to be lord of Asia.

Thunder and lightning on the following night, says Arrian, confirmed the assertion that Alexander had effected what the oracle had declared was to be done only by one who should be lord of Asia. Accordingly on the morrow he performed a magnificent thanksgiving sacrifice, in acknowledgment of the favour of the gods, thus promised: a measure as full of policy as devotion.

In Cornwall are to be found enormous piles of stone, which bear the name of Ambrosian, Logan, or Rocking Stones. Structures of this kind, as they may, perhaps, reasonably be called, are of very great antiquity, being represented on medals of Tyre. They appear to have been composed of cones of rock let into the ground, with other stones adapted to their points, and so nicely balanced, that the wind could move them; and yet so ponderous, that no human force, unaided by machinery, could displace them. The figures of Apollo Didymus, on the Syrian coins, are placed sitting on the point of the cone, on which the more rude and primitive symbol of the Logan stone is found poised; and we are told, that the oracle of the god near Miletus existed before the emigration of the Ionian colonies, more than eleven hundred years before Christ.

Pliny, in his second book, relates that there was one to be seen at Harpasa in Asia, exactly answering the description of those found in Cornwall. “Lay one finger on it, and it will stir; but thrust against it with your whole body, and it will not move.” Hephæstion mentions the Gigonian stone, near the ocean, which may be moved with the stalk of an asphodel, but cannot be removed by any force. Several of these stones may be seen in the neighbourhood of Heliopolis, or Baalbeck, in Syria; and one in particular has been seen in motion by the force of the wind alone.