186. Greek Superstition.—In many cases, naturally, piety runs off into crass superstition. The gods, everybody knows, frequently make known future events by various signs. He who can understand these signs will be able to adjust his life accordingly and enjoy great prosperity. Most educated men take a sensible view of “omens,” and do not let them influence their conduct absurdly. Some, however, act otherwise. There is, for instance, Laches, one of the greatest at Prodicus’s feast. He lives in a realm of mingled hopes and fears, although he is wealthy and well-educated.[*] He is all the time worried about dreams, and paying out money to the sharp and wily “seer” (who counts him his best client) for “interpretations.” If a weasel crosses his path he will not walk onward until somebody else has gone before him, or until he has thrown three stones across the road. He is all the time worrying about the significance of sudden noises, meteors, thunder; especially he is disturbed when he sees birds flying in groups or towards unlucky quarters of the heavens.[+] Laches, however, is not merely religious—although he is always asking “which god shall I invoke now?” or “what are the omens for the success of this enterprise?” His own associates mock him as being superstitious, and say they never trouble themselves about omens save in real emergencies. Still it is “bad luck” for any of them to stumble over a threshold, to meet a hare suddenly, or especially to find a snake (the companion of the dead) hidden in the house.
[*] See Theophratus’s character, “The Superstitious Man.”
[+] The birds of clearest omen were the great birds of prey—hawks, “Apollo’s swift messengers,” and eagles, “the birds of Zeus.” It was a good omen if the birds flew from left to right, a bad omen if in the reverse direction.
187. Consulting Omens.—Laches’s friends, however, all regularly consult the omens when they have any important enterprise on hand—a voyage, a large business venture, a marriage treaty, etc. There are several ways, not expensive; the interpreters are not priests, only low-born fellows as a rule, whose fees are trifling. You can find out about the future by casting meal upon the altar fire and noticing how it is burned, by watching how chickens pick up consecrated grain,[*] by observing how the sacrificial smoke curls upward, etc. The best way, however, is to examine the entrails of the victim after a sacrifice. Here everything depends on the shape, size, etc., of the various organs, especially of the liver, bladder, spleen, and lungs, and really expert judgment by an experienced and high-priced seer is desirable. The man who is assured by a reliable seer, “the livers are large and in fine color,” will go on his trading voyage with a confident heart.
[*] A very convenient way,—for it was a good sign if the chickens ate eagerly and one could always get a fair omen by keeping the fowls hungry a few hours ere “putting the question”!
188. The Great Oracles.—Assuredly there is a better way still to read the future; at least so Greeks of earlier ages have believed. Go to one of the great oracles, whereof that of Apollo at Delphi is the supreme, but not the unique, example. Ask your question in set form from the attendant priests, not failing to offer an elaborate sacrifice and to bestow all the “gifts” (golden tripods, mixing bowls, shields, etc.) your means will allow. Then (at Delphi) wait silent and awe-stricken while the lady Pythia, habited as a young girl, takes her seat on a tripod over a deep cleft in the rock, whence issues an intoxicating vapor. She inhales the gas, sways to and fro in an ecstasy, and now, duly “inspired,” answers in a somewhat wild manner the queries which the priest will put in behalf of the supplicants. Her incoherent words are very hard to understand, but the priest duly “interprets” them, i.e. gives them to the suppliant in the form of hexameter verses. Sometimes the meaning of these verses is perfectly clear. Very often they are truly “Delphic,” with a most dubious meaning—as in that oft-quoted instance, when the Pythia told Crœsus if he went to war with Cyrus, “he would destroy a mighty monarchy,” and lo, he destroyed his own!
Besides Delphi, there are numerous lesser oracles, each with its distinctive method of “revelation.” But there is none, at least of consequence, within Attica, while a journey to Delphi is a serious and highly expensive undertaking. And as a matter of fact Delphi has partially lost credit in Athens. In the great Persian War Delphi unpatriotically “medized”—gave oracles friendly to Xerxes and utterly discouraging to the patriot cause. Then after this conviction of false prophesy, the oracle fell, for most of the time, into the hands of Sparta, and was obviously very willing to “reveal” things only in the Lacedæmonian interest. Hellenes generally and the Spartans in particular have still much esteem for the utterances of the Pythia, but Athenians are not now very partial to her. Soon will come the seizure of Delphi by the Phœnicians and the still further discrediting of this once great oracle.
189. Greek Sacrifices.—The two chief elements of Greek worship, however, are not consideration of the future, but sacrificial and prayer. Sacrifices in their simple form, as we have seen, take place continually, before every routine act. They become more formal when the proposed action is really important, or when the suppliant wishes to give thanks for some boon, or, at rarer intervals, to desire purification from some offense. There is no need of a priest for the simpler sacrifices. The father of the family can pour out the libation, can burn the food upon the altar, can utter the prayer for all his house; but in the greater sacrifices a priest is desirable, not as a sacred intermediary betwixt god and man, but as an expert to advise the worshipper what are the competent rites, and to keep him from ignorantly angering heaven by unhappy words and actions.[*]
[*] There were almost no hereditary priesthoods in Attica (outside the Emolpidæ connected with the mystical cult of Eleusis). Almost anybody of good character could qualify as a priest with due training, and there was little of the sacrosanct about the usual priestly office.
Let us witness a sacrifice of this more formal kind, and while doing so we can tread upon the spot we have seemed in a manner to shun during our wanderings through Athens, the famous and holy Acropolis.