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All things were in confusion, and sadness possessed the whole community. Prodigies were perpetually seen; the spectres of the dead walked the streets; and terror universally prevailed. The sacrifices offered to the gods exhibited the most unfavourable symptoms. In this emergency the Athenian senate resolved to send for Epimenides to come to their relief. His reputation was great.
Diogenes Laertius, who wrote about the year 210, in his history of Epimenides, who is supposed to have flourished nearly six hundred years before Christ, relates of him the following story: that, being invited to Athens for the purpose, he delivered the city from a pestilence in this manner; "Taking several sheep, some black, others white, he had them up to the Areopagus, and then let them go where they would, and gave orders to those who followed them, wherever any of them should lie down, to sacrifice it to the god to whom it belonged; and so the plague ceased.
For it is most true, that a natural and secret hatred, and aversation towards society, in any man, hath somewhat of the savage beast; but it is most untrue, that it should have any character at all, of the divine nature; except it proceed, not out of a pleasure in solitude, but out of a love and desire to sequester a man's self, for a higher conversation: such as is found to have been falsely and feignedly in some of the heathen; as Epimenides the Candian, Numa the Roman, Empedocles the Sicilian, and Apollonius of Tyana; and truly and really, in divers of the ancient hermits and holy fathers of the church.
What may Epimenides have dreamt? What but subtleties of the Scotists: quiddities, formalities, etc.! Epimenides himself was reborn in Scotus, or rather, Epimenides was Scotus's prototype. For did not he, too, write theological books, in which he tied such syllogistic knots as he would never have been able to loosen?
He was so far Greek as not to think of lying as a quality to detract; he proudly makes Ulysses a "lord of lies." Perhaps nothing in Crete itself would have taught him better; if we may believe Epimenides and Saint Paul. On the other hand, he was a great-hearted and compassionate man; compassionate as Shakespeare was.
So Epimenides, Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Ostanes were regarded as magicians, while a similar suspicion attached to the 'purifications' of Empedocles, the 'demon' of Socrates and the 'good' of Plato. I congratulate myself therefore on being admitted to such distinguished company.
Epimenides did not scruple to preserve the mysterious reputation he obtained from this tale by fables equally audacious. He endeavoured to persuade the people that he was Aeacus, and that he frequently visited the earth: he was supposed to be fed by the nymphs was never seen to eat in public he assumed the attributes of prophecy and dying in extreme old age: was honoured by the Cretans as a god.
Epimenides, being much honored, and receiving from the city rich offers of large gifts and privileges, requested but one branch of the sacred olive, and, on that being granted, returned.
Epimenides was greatly honoured by the Athenians, and was offered large sums of money by them, and great privileges, but he refused them all, and only asked for a branch of the sacred olive-tree, which he received and went his way. XIII. When the troubles about Kylon were over, and the accursed men cast out of the country, the Athenians relapsed into their old dispute about the constitution.
When the time arrived for the departure of Epimenides, the Athenians would have presented him with a talent in reward of his services, but the philosopher refused the offer; he besought the Athenians to a firm alliance with his countrymen; accepted of no other remuneration than a branch of the sacred olive which adorned the citadel, and was supposed the primeval gift of Minerva, and returned to his native city, proving that a man in those days might be an impostor without seeking any other reward than the gratuitous honour of the profession.
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