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The banishment of the guilty race did not, however, deliver the Athenians from their religious fears. A pestilential disease with which they were visited was regarded as an unerring sign of the divine wrath. Upon the advice of the Delphic oracle, they invited the celebrated Cretan prophet and sage, Epimenides, to visit Athens, and purify their city from pollution and sacrilege.
They abetted each other in amazement. They communicated to each other that modicum of light which they possessed. Methuselah bestowed information on Epimenides. The deaf man made the blind man acquainted with the course of things. They declared that the time which had elasped since Coblentz had not existed.
By performing certain sacrifices and expiatory acts, Epimenides succeeded in staying the plague. The civil dissensions however still continued.
"When I first saw the aged priest Epimenides," at Knossus in Crete, he was one hundred and fifty years old, and I remember that his age and sanctity filled me with a strange dread; but how far older, how far more sacred, is this hoary river, the ancient stream 'Aigyptos'!" Who would wish to avoid the power of his spells? Now, however, I beg you to give me the history of Rhodopis."
"Madame," answered the Academician, "we have examples of sleep, more or less prolonged, some of which I can relate to Your Majesty. Epimenides of Cnossos was born of the loves of a mortal and a nymph. While yet a child he was sent by Dosiades, his father, to watch the flocks in the mountains.
'Anacharsis has an epistle to Cræsus, to thank him for his invitation; and Periander one to all the wise men, to invite them to Corinth to him, after their return from Lydia. Epimenides has an epistle to Solon, to invite him to Crete, under the tyranny of Pisistratus. 'Epimenides often pretended that he rose from death to life.
This he takes into his mouth and chews, and eats neither dinner nor supper. This instance obliged the whole company to be a little while silent, until Thales in a jesting way replied, that Epimenides did very wisely, for hereby he saved the trouble and charge of grinding and boiling his meat, as Pittacus did.
According to others he put an end to the plague by the sacrifice of two human victims. The Athenian senate, full of gratitude to their benefactor, tendered him the gift of a talent. But Epimenides refused all compensation, and only required, as an acknowledgment of what he had done, that there should be perpetual peace between the Athenians and the people of Gnossus, his native city.
VII. With the departure of Epimenides, his spells appear to have ceased; new disputes and new factions arose; and, having no other crimes to expiate, the Athenians fell with one accord upon those of the government.
The nurse, moreover, told us that it urined at both bodies, and that the members of the other were nourished, sensible, and in the same plight with that she gave suck to, excepting that they were shorter and less. "Ut quum facts sunt, tum ad conjecturam aliqui interpretatione revocentur;" as 'tis said of Epimenides, that he always prophesied backward.
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