GREECE-RELIGION.

Treasures of gold and silver and sculpture and painting were cast in profusion into the divine thesaurus, until the shrine became rich beyond estimate. In times of turbulence and war the eyes of the irreligious were cast longingly towards the accumulated treasures in the house of Apollo, and more than once the profane hand of expediency was laid upon them.

The Delphic responses were obtained through the lips of a priestess called the PYTHIA. She was chosen from the women of Delphi, and was especially consecrated to her sacred office. Once every month she purified herself by fasting and ablutions. She chewed laurel leaves, bathed in and drank from the Castalian spring. Then she went into that part of the temple where the fissure in the native rock still gave forth its vapor. She seated herself on the tripod, and was soon intoxicated with the gas. Then she fell down in a swoon. She uttered wild exclamations in her delirium, and these were caught up by the attending priests and wrought into oracular-generally ambiguous-responses to the inquiries which had been propounded. As a rule the answers were rendered in hexameter verse, but in later times the priests, grown less careful, gave back the reply in prose.

In these conditions were laid the foundations of the priestly lore which was cultivated at Delphi. It was the business of the college to know the actual state of affairs, not only in Greece, but, as far as practicable, in all the surrounding nations. By such information the priests could know, and did know, beforehand the kind of inquiries which would arise out of the political and social conditions of the country. They accordingly busied themselves in framing and answering supposititious questions, and in this line of work acquired not a little skill. In the ordinary affairs of politics and war they were very well prepared to give intelligent advice, or even to predict with approximate certainty the natural course of events. When, however, it came to the actual domain of prophecy and to matters of which the priest could know no more than another, he had necessary recourse to fraud, and this he found in the construction of ambiguous responses- couplets which could be made to read both ways in the light of the denouement. Thus Croesus was told that if he crossed the Halys he would destroy a great