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In Phocis were more than twenty states independent of the general Phocian government, but united in a congress held at stated times on the road between Daulis and Delphi. Phocis contained also the city of Crissa, with its harbour and the surrounding territory inhabited by a fierce and piratical population, and the sacred city of Delphi, on the southwest of Parnassus.
In fact, the evidences on behalf of Delphi as a princely house, that had indeed partaken in the decaying fortunes of Greece, but naturally was all the prouder from the irritating contrast of her great remembrances, are so plentifully dispersed through books, that the fathers must have been willingly duped.
Besides, there was an agreeable air of mystery about it: we thought of Delphi, and Eleusis, and Samothrace: we should discover that Truth which the dim eyes of worldly men and women were unable to see, and the day of disclosure would be the day of Triumph. In one sense we were truly Arcadians: no suspicion of impropriety, I verily believe, entered any of our minds.
And what noble figures on those front seats; Pericles, with Aspasia beside him, and all his friends Anaxagoras the sage, Phidias the sculptor, and many another immortal artist; and somewhere among the free citizens, perhaps beside his father Sophroniscus the sculptor, a short, square, pug- nosed boy of ten years old, looking at it all with strange eyes "who will be one day," so said the Pythoness at Delphi, "the wisest man in Greece" sage, metaphysician, humorist, warrior, patriot, martyr for his name is Socrates.
He was very much incensed at the oracle at Delphi for having deceived him by its false responses and predictions, and thus led him into the terrible snare into which he had fallen.
He must have made, therefore, by each course of lectures, a thousand minae, or £ 3335:6:8. A thousand minae, accordingly, is said by Plutarch, in another place, to have been his didactron, or usual price of teaching. Many other eminent teachers in those times appear to have acquired great fortunes. Georgias made a present to the temple of Delphi of his own statue in solid gold.
It was situated in a beautiful spot at the head of the Adonis river, a sacred stream fabled to run with blood once a year, at the festival which commemorated the self-mutilation of the Nature-god Adonis. Aphaca was a sort of Delphi, a collection of temples rather than a town.
Before proceeding to attack the city they consulted the oracle at Delphi the most remarkable oracle of the ancient world, of which the poet LU'CAN thus writes: The listening god, still ready with replies, To none his aid or oracle denies; Yet wise, and righteous ever, scorns to hear The fool's fond wishes, or the guilty's prayer; Though vainly in repeated vows they trust, None e'er find grace before him but the just.
This vessel was also of very essential service in the conflict itself which ensued; and the Greeks were so grateful to Parætius and to his comrades for the adventurous courage which they displayed in coming over under such circumstances, in such a night, to espouse the cause and to share the dangers of their countrymen, that after the battle they caused all their names to be engraved upon a sacred tripod, made in the most costly manner for the purpose, and then sent the tripod to be deposited at the oracle of Delphi, where it long remained a monument of this example of Delian patriotism and fidelity.
Accordingly, since Etruscan soothsayers were only employed for public prodigies, terrified at this so to say private apparition, he determined to send to the oracle of Delphi, the most celebrated in the world; and not venturing to intrust the responses of the oracle to any other person, he despatched his two sons to Greece through lands unknown at that time, and yet more unknown seas.
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