The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians Part 4

These mysteries were divided into the less and the greater; of which the former served as a preparation for the latter. The less were solemnized in the month Anthesterion, which answers to our November; the great in the month Boedromion, which corresponds to August. Only Athenians were admitted to these mysteries; but of them, each s.e.x, age, and condition, had a right to be received. All strangers were absolutely excluded, so that Hercules, Castor, and Pollux, were obliged to be adopted as Athenians in order to their admission; which, however, extended only to the lesser mysteries. I shall consider princ.i.p.ally the great, which were celebrated at Eleusis.

Those who demanded to be initiated into them, were obliged, before their reception, to purify themselves in the lesser mysteries, by bathing in the river Ilissus, by saying certain prayers, offering sacrifices, and, above all, by living in strict continence during a certain interval of time prescribed them. That time was employed in instructing them in the principles and elements of the sacred doctrine of the great mysteries.

When the time for their initiation arrived, they were brought into the temple; and to inspire the greater reverence and terror, the ceremony was performed in the night. Wonderful things took place upon this occasion.

Visions were seen, and voices heard of an extraordinary kind. A sudden splendour dispelled the darkness of the place, and, disappearing immediately, added new horrors to the gloom. Apparitions, claps of thunder, earthquakes, heightened the terror and amazement; whilst the person to be admitted, overwhelmed with dread, and sweating through fear, heard, trembling, the mysterious volumes read to him, if in such a condition he was capable of hearing at all. These nocturnal rites gave birth to many disorders, which the severe law of silence, imposed on the persons initiated, prevented from coming to light, as St. Gregory n.a.z.ianzen observes.(65) What cannot superst.i.tion effect upon the mind of man, when once his imagination is heated? The president in this ceremony was called Hierophantes. He wore a peculiar habit, and was not permitted to marry. The first who served in this function, and whom Ceres herself instructed, was Eumolpus; from whom his successors were called Eumolpidae.

He had three colleagues; one who carried a torch;(66) another a herald,(67) whose office was to p.r.o.nounce certain mysterious words; and a third to attend at the altar.

Besides these officers, one of the princ.i.p.al magistrates of the city was appointed to take care that all the ceremonies of this feast were exactly observed. He was called the king,(68) and was one of the nine Archons. His business was to offer prayers and sacrifices. The people gave him four a.s.sistants,(69) one chosen from the family of the Eumolpidae, a second from that of the Ceryces, and the two last from two other families. He had besides ten other ministers to a.s.sist him in the discharge of his duty, and particularly in offering sacrifices, from whence they derived their name.(70)

The Athenians initiated their children of both s.e.xes very early into these mysteries, and would have thought it criminal to have let them die without such an advantage. It was their general opinion, that this ceremony was an engagement to lead a more virtuous and regular life; that it recommended them to the peculiar protection of the G.o.ddesses (Ceres and Proserpine,) to whose service they devoted themselves; and procured to them a more perfect and certain happiness in the other world: whilst, on the contrary, such as had not been initiated, besides the evils they had to apprehend in this life, were doomed, after their descent to the shades below, to wallow eternally in dirt, filth, and excrement. Diogenes the Cynic believed nothing of the matter,(71) and when his friends endeavoured to persuade him to avoid such a misfortune, by being initiated before his death-"What," said he, "shall Agesilaus and Epaminondas lie amongst mud and dung, whilst the vilest Athenians, because they have been initiated, possess the most distinguished places in the regions of the blessed?"

Socrates was not more credulous; he would not be initiated into these mysteries, which was perhaps one reason that rendered his religion suspected.

Without this qualification none were admitted to enter the temple of Ceres;(72) and Livy informs us of two Acarnanians, who, having followed the crowd into it upon one of the feast-days, although out of mistake and with no ill design, were both put to death without mercy. It was also a capital crime to divulge the secrets and mysteries of this feast. Upon this account Diagoras the Melian was proscribed, and had a reward set upon his head. It very nearly cost the poet aeschylus his life, for speaking too freely of it in some of his tragedies. The disgrace of Alcibiades proceeded from the same cause. Whoever had violated this secresy, was avoided as a wretch accursed and excommunicated.(73) Pausanias, in several pa.s.sages, wherein he mentions the temple of Eleusis, and the ceremonies practised there, stops short, and declares he cannot proceed, because he had been forbidden by a dream or vision.(74)

This feast, the most celebrated of profane antiquity, was of nine days'

continuance. It began the fifteenth of the month Boedromion. After some previous ceremonies and sacrifices on the first three days, upon the fourth in the evening began the procession of "the Basket;" which was laid upon an open chariot slowly drawn by oxen,(75) and followed by a long train of the Athenian women. They all carried mysterious baskets in their hands, filled with several things, which they took great care to conceal, and covered with a veil of purple. This ceremony represented the basket into which Proserpine put the flowers she was gathering when Pluto seized and carried her off.

The fifth day was called the day of "the Torches:" because at night the men and women ran about with them in imitation of Ceres, who having lighted a torch at the fire at mount aetna, wandered about from place to place in search of her daughter.

The sixth was the most famous day of all. It was called Iacchus, which is the same as Bacchus, the son of Jupiter and Ceres, whose statue was then brought out with great ceremony, crowned with myrtle, and holding a torch in its hand. The procession began at the Ceramicus, and pa.s.sing through the princ.i.p.al places of the city, continued to Eleusis. The way leading to it was called "the sacred way," and lay across a bridge over the river Cephisus. This procession was very numerous, and generally consisted of thirty thousand persons.(76) The temple of Eleusis, where it ended, was large enough to contain the whole of this mult.i.tude; and Strabo says, its extent was equal to that of the theatres, which every body knows were capable of holding a much greater number of people.(77) The whole way reechoed with the sound of trumpets, clarions, and other musical instruments. Hymns were sung in honour of the G.o.ddesses, accompanied with dancing, and other extraordinary marks of rejoicing. The route before mentioned, through the sacred way, and over the Cephisus, was the usual one: but after the Lacedaemonians, in the Peloponnesian war, had fortified Decelia, the Athenians were obliged to make their procession by sea, till Alcibiades reestablished the ancient custom.

The seventh day was solemnized by games, and the gymnastic combats, in which the victor was rewarded with a measure of barley; without doubt because it was at Eleusis the G.o.ddess first taught the method of raising that grain, and the use of it. The two following days were employed in some particular ceremonies, neither important nor remarkable.

During this festival it was prohibited, under very great penalties, to arrest any person whatsoever, in order to their being imprisoned, or to present any bill of complaint to the judges. It was regularly celebrated every fifth year, that is, after a revolution of four years: and history does not mention that it was ever interrupted, except upon the taking of Thebes by Alexander the Great.(78) The Athenians, who were then upon the point of celebrating the great mysteries, were so much affected with the ruin of that city, that they could not resolve, in so general an affliction, to solemnize a festival which breathed nothing but merriment and rejoicing. It was continued down to the time of the Christian emperors.(79) Valentinian would have abolished it, if Praetextatus, the proconsul of Greece, had not represented, in the most lively and affecting terms, the universal sorrow which the abrogation of that feast would occasion among the people; upon which it was suffered to subsist. It is supposed to have been finally suppressed by Theodosius the Great; as were all the rest of the Pagan solemnities.

Of Auguries, Oracles, &c.

Nothing is more frequently mentioned in ancient history, than oracles, auguries, and divinations. No war was made, or colony settled; nothing of consequence was undertaken, either public or private, without having first consulted the G.o.ds. This was a custom universally established amongst the Egyptian, a.s.syrian, Grecian, and Roman nations; which is no doubt a proof, as has been already observed, that it was derived from ancient tradition, and that it had its origin in the religion and wors.h.i.+p of the true G.o.d. It is not indeed to be questioned, but that G.o.d, before the deluge, did manifest his will to mankind in different methods, as he has since done to his people, sometimes in his own person and _viva voce_, sometimes by the ministry of angels or of prophets inspired by himself, and at other times by apparitions or in dreams. When the descendants of Noah dispersed themselves into different regions, they carried this tradition along with them, which was every where retained, though altered and corrupted by the darkness and ignorance of idolatry. None of the ancients have insisted more upon the necessity of consulting the G.o.ds on all occasions by auguries and oracles than Xenophon; and he founds that necessity, as I have more than once observed elsewhere, upon a principle deduced from the most refined reason and discernment. He represents, in several places, that man of himself is very frequently ignorant of what is advantageous or pernicious to him; that, far from being capable of penetrating the future, the present itself escapes him; so narrow and short-sighted is he in all his views, that the slightest obstacles can frustrate his greatest designs; that the Divinity alone, to whom all ages are present, can impart a certain knowledge of the future to him: that no other being has power to facilitate the success of his enterprises; and that it is reasonable to believe he will enlighten and protect those, who adore him with the purest affection, who invoke him at all times with greatest constancy and fidelity, and consult him with most sincerity and integrity.

Of Auguries.

What a reproach is it to human reason, that so luminous a principle should have given birth to the absurd reasonings, and wretched notions, in favour of the science of augurs and soothsayers, and been the occasion of espousing, with blind devotion, the most ridiculous puerilities: should have made the most important affairs of state depend upon a bird's happening to sing upon the right or left hand; upon the greediness of chickens in pecking their grain; the inspection of the entrails of beasts; the liver's being entire and in good condition, which, according to them, did sometimes entirely disappear, without leaving any trace or mark of its having ever subsisted! To these superst.i.tious observances may be added, accidental rencounters, words spoken by chance, and afterwards turned into good or bad presages; forebodings, prodigies, monsters, eclipses, comets; every extraordinary phenomenon, every unforeseen accident, with an infinity of chimeras of the like nature.

Whence could it happen, that so many great men, ill.u.s.trious generals, able politicians, and even learned philosophers, have actually given into such absurd imaginations? Plutarch, in particular, so estimable in other respects, is to be pitied for his servile observance of the senseless customs of the Pagan idolatry, and his ridiculous credulity in dreams, signs, and prodigies. He tells us in his works, that he abstained a great while from eating eggs, upon account of a dream, with which he has not thought fit to make us further acquainted.(80)

The wisest of the Pagans knew well how to appreciate the art of divination, and often spoke of it to each other, and even in public, with the utmost contempt, and in a manner best adapted to expose its absurdity.

The grave censor Cato was of opinion, that one soothsayer could not look at another without laughing. Hannibal was amazed at the simplicity of Prusias, whom he had advised to give battle, upon his being diverted from it by the inspection of the entrails of a victim. "What," said he, "have you more confidence in the liver of a beast, than in so old and experienced a captain as I am?" Marcellus, who had been five times consul, and was augur, said, that he had discovered a method of not being put to a stand by the sinister flight of birds, which was, to keep himself close shut up in his litter.

Cicero explains himself upon the subject of auguries without ambiguity or reserve. n.o.body was more capable of speaking pertinently upon it than himself, (as M. Morin observes in his dissertation upon the same subject.) As he was adopted into the college of augurs, he had made himself acquainted with their most abstruse secrets, and had all possible opportunity of informing himself fully in their science. That he did so, sufficiently appears from the two books he has left us upon divination, in which, it may be said, he has exhausted the subject. In the second, wherein he refutes his brother Quintus, who had espoused the cause of the augurs, he combats and defeats his false reasonings with a force, and at the same time with so refined and delicate a raillery, as leaves us nothing to wish; and he demonstrates by proofs, each more convincing than the other, the falsity, contrariety, and impossibility of that art. But what is very surprising, in the midst of all his arguments, he takes occasion to blame the generals and magistrates, who on important conjunctures had contemned the prognostics; and maintains, that the use of them, as great an abuse as it was in his own opinion, ought nevertheless to be respected, out of regard to religion, and the prejudices of the people.(81)

All that I have hitherto said tends to prove, that Paganism was divided into two sects, almost equally enemies of religion; the one by their superst.i.tious and blind regard for auguries, the other by their irreligious contempt and derision of them.

The principle of the first, founded on one side upon the ignorance and weakness of man in the affairs of life, and on the other upon the prescience of the Divinity and his almighty providence, was true; but the consequence deduced from it in favour of auguries, false and absurd. They ought to have proved that it was certain, that the Divinity himself had established these external signs to denote his intentions, and that he had obliged himself to a punctual conformity to them upon all occasions: but they had nothing of this in their system. These auguries and divinations therefore were the effect and invention of the ignorance, rashness, curiosity, and blind pa.s.sions of man, who presumed to interrogate G.o.d, and to oblige him to give answers upon every idle imagination and unjust enterprise.

The others, who gave no real credit to any thing enjoined by the science of augury, did not fail, however, to observe its trivial ceremonies through policy, in order the better to subject the minds of the people to themselves, and to reconcile them to their own purposes, by the a.s.sistance of superst.i.tion: but by their contempt for auguries, and their inward conviction of their falsity, they were led into a disbelief of the Divine Providence, and to despise religion itself; conceiving it inseparable from the numerous absurdities of this kind, which rendered it ridiculous, and consequently unworthy a man of sense.

Both the one and the other behaved in this manner, because, having mistaken the Creator, and abused the light of nature, which might have taught them to know and to adore him, they were deservedly abandoned to their own darkness, and to a reprobate mind; and, if we had not been enlightened by the true religion, we, even at this day, should give ourselves up to the same superst.i.tions.

Of Oracles

No country was ever richer in, or more productive of oracles, than Greece.

I shall confine myself to those which were the most noted.

The oracle of Dodona, a city of the Molossians, in Epirus, was much celebrated; where Jupiter gave answers either by vocal oaks,(82) or doves, which had also their language, or by resounding basins of bra.s.s, or by the mouths of priests and priestesses.

The oracle of Trophonius in Botia, though he was nothing more than a hero, was in great reputation.(83) After many preliminary ceremonies, as was.h.i.+ng in the river, offering sacrifices, drinking a water called Lethe, from its quality of making people forget every thing, the votaries went down into his cave, by small ladders, through a very narrow pa.s.sage. At the bottom was another little cavern, the entrance of which was also exceeding small. There they lay down upon the ground, with a certain composition of honey in each hand, which they were indispensably obliged to carry with them. Their feet were placed within the opening of the little cave; which was no sooner done, than they perceived themselves borne into it with great force and velocity. Futurity was there revealed to them; but not to all in the same manner. Some saw, others heard, wonders. From thence they returned quite stupified, and out of their senses, and were placed in the chair of Mnemosyne, the G.o.ddess of memory; not without great need of her a.s.sistance to recover their remembrance, after their great fatigue, of what they had seen and heard; admitting they had seen or heard any thing at all. Pausanias, who had consulted that oracle himself, and gone through all these ceremonies, has left a most ample description of it; to which Plutarch adds some particular circ.u.mstances,(84) which I omit, to avoid a tedious prolixity.

The temple and oracle of the Branchidae, in the neighbourhood of Miletus, so called from Branchus, the son of Apollo, was very ancient, and in great esteem with all the Ionians and Dorians of Asia.(85) Xerxes, in his return from Greece, burnt this temple, after the priests had delivered its treasures to him. That prince, in return, granted them an establishment in the remotest parts of Asia, to secure them against the vengeance of the Greeks. After the war was over, the Milesians reestablished that temple with a magnificence which, according to Strabo, surpa.s.sed that of all the other temples of Greece. When Alexander the Great had overthrown Darius, he utterly destroyed the city where the priests Branchidae had settled, of which their descendants were at that time in actual possession, punis.h.i.+ng in the children the sacrilegious perfidy of their fathers.

Tacitus relates something very singular, though not very probable, of the oracle of Claros, a town of Ionia, in Asia Minor, near Colophon.(86) "Germanicus," says he, "went to consult Apollo at Claros. It is not a woman that gives the answers there, as at Delphi, but a man, chosen out of certain families, and almost always of Miletus. It is sufficient to let him know the number and names of those who come to consult him. After which he retires into a cave, and having drunk of the waters of a spring within it, he delivers answers in verse upon what the persons have in their thoughts, though he is often ignorant, and knows nothing of composing in measure. It is said, that he foretold to Germanicus his sudden death, but in dark and ambiguous terms, according to the custom of oracles."

I omit a great number of other oracles, to proceed to the most famous of them all. It is very obvious that I mean the oracle of Apollo at Delphi.

He was wors.h.i.+pped there under the name of the Pythian, a t.i.tle derived from the serpent Python, which he had killed, or from a Greek word, that signifies to inquire, p???s?a?, because people came thither to consult him. From thence the Delphic priestess was called Pythia, and the games there celebrated, the Pythian games.

Delphi was an ancient city of Phocis in Achaia. It stood upon the declivity, and about the middle, of the mountain Parna.s.sus, built upon a small extent of even ground, and surrounded with precipices, that fortified it without the help of art.

Diodorus says,(87) that there was a cavity upon Parna.s.sus, from whence an exhalation rose, which made the goats dance and skip about, and intoxicated the brain. A shepherd having approached it, out of a desire to know the causes of so extraordinary an effect, was immediately seized with violent agitations of body, and p.r.o.nounced words, which, without doubt, he did not understand himself; but which, however, foretold futurity. Others made the same experiment, and it was soon rumoured throughout the neighbouring countries. The cavity was no longer approached without reverence. The exhalation was concluded to have something divine in it. A priestess was appointed for the reception of its effects, and a tripod placed upon the vent, called by the Latins Cortina, perhaps from the skin(88) that covered it. From thence she gave her oracles. The city of Delphi rose insensibly round about this cave; and a temple was erected, which, at length, became very magnificent. The reputation of this oracle almost effaced, or at least very much exceeded, that of all others.

At first a single Pythia sufficed to answer those who came to consult the oracle, as they did not yet amount to any great number: but in process of time, when it grew into universal repute, a second was appointed to mount the tripod alternately with the first, and a third chosen to succeed in case of death, or disease. There were other a.s.sistants besides these to attend the Pythia in the sanctuary, of whom the most considerable were called prophets;(89) it was their business to take care of the sacrifices, and to inspect them. To these the demands of the inquirers were delivered by word of mouth, or in writing; and they returned the answers, as we shall see in the sequel.

We must not confound the Pythia with the Sibyl of Delphi. The ancients represent the latter as a woman that roved from country to country, venting her predictions. She was at the same time the Sibyl of Delphi, Erythrae, Babylon, c.u.mae, and many other places, from her having resided in them all.

The Pythia could not prophesy till she was intoxicated by the exhalation from the sanctuary of Apollo. This miraculous vapour had not that effect at all times and upon all occasions. The G.o.d was not always in the inspiring humour. At first he imparted himself only once a year, but at length he was prevailed upon to visit the Pythia every month. All days were not proper, and upon some it was not permitted to consult the oracle.

These unfortunate days occasioned an oracle's being given to Alexander the Great worthy of remark. He went to Delphi to consult the G.o.d, at a time when the priestess pretended it was forbidden to ask him any questions, and would not enter the temple. Alexander, who was always warm and tenacious, took hold of her by the arm to force her into it, when she cried out, "Ah, my son, you are not to be resisted!" or, "My son, you are invincible!"(90) Upon which words he declared he would have no other oracle, and was contented with that he had received.

The Pythia, before she ascended the tripod, was a long time preparing for it by sacrifices, purifications, a fast of three days, and many other ceremonies. The G.o.d denoted his approach by the moving of a laurel, that stood before the gate of the temple, which shook also to its very foundations.

As soon as the divine vapour,(91) like a penetrating fire, had diffused itself through the entrails of the priestess, her hair stood upright upon her head, her looks grew wild, she foamed at the mouth, a sudden and violent trembling seized her whole body, with all the symptoms of distraction and frenzy.(92) She uttered, at intervals, some words almost inarticulate, which the prophets carefully collected, and arranged with a certain degree of order and connection. After she had been a certain time upon the tripod, she was reconducted to her cell, where she generally continued many days to recover from her fatigue; and, as Lucan says,(93) a sudden death was often either the reward or punishment of her enthusiasm:

Numinis aut pna est mors immatura recepti, Aut pretium.

The prophets had poets under them, who made the oracles into verses, which were often bad enough, and gave occasion to remark that, it was very surprising that Apollo, who presided over the choir of the muses, should inspire his priestess no better. But Plutarch informs us, that it was not the G.o.d who composed the verses of the oracle. He inflamed the Pythia's imagination, and kindled in her soul that living light, which unveiled all futurity to her. The words she uttered in the heat of her enthusiasm, having neither method nor connection, and coming only by starts, if that expression may be used, from the bottom of her stomach, or rather(94) from her belly, were collected with care by the prophets, who gave them afterwards to the poets to be turned into verse. These Apollo left to their own genius and natural talents; as we may suppose he did the Pythia when she herself composed verses, which, though not often, happened sometimes. The substance of the oracle was inspired by Apollo, the manner of expressing it was the priestess's own: the oracles were however often given in prose.

The general characteristics of oracles were ambiguity,(95) obscurity, and convertibility, (if I may use that expression,) so that one answer would agree with several various, and sometimes directly opposite, events. By the help of this artifice, the daemons, who of themselves are not capable of knowing futurity, concealed their ignorance, and amused the credulity of the Pagan world. When Crsus was upon the point of invading the Medes, he consulted the oracle of Delphi upon the success of that war, and was answered, that by pa.s.sing the river Halys, he would ruin a great empire.

What empire, his own, or that of his enemies? He was to guess that; but whatever the event might be, the oracle could not fail of being in the right. As much may be said upon the same G.o.d's answer to Pyrrhus:

Aio te, aeacida, Romanos vincere posse.