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Testing the Oracle? on the Experience of (Multiple) Oracular Consultations

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Testing the Oracle? on the Experience of (Multiple) Oracular Consultations 2 Testing the Oracle? On the Experience of (Multiple) Oracular Consultations Esther Eidinow 1. The Kroisos Problem I will begin with one of the most well-known and often quoted oracle stories: the consultation of Delphi by King Kroisos of Lydia. The story begins with Kroisos sending ambassadors to consult multiple oracles. This is the infam- ous test of the oracles, during which Kroisos asks a question to which he already knows the answer, in order to find out where he should make his crucial enquiry.¹ In the end, two oracles give the correct answer: Delphi and the oracle of Amphiaraos at Oropos, but Delphi receives the majority of attention in the ensuing narrative.² Once he knows which institutions to trust, Kroisos sets out to win the favour of these oracles. Importantly, and as Herodotos makes clear, these two oracular inquiries are linked—the test is only the precursor to his famous inquiry: ‘Shall Kroisos send an army against the Persians: and shall he take to himself any allied host?’³ The answer tells him he will destroy a mighty empire; it turns out, in fact, to be his. Captured by the Persians, the Lydian king is almost immolated on a pyre by King Kyros of the Persians, but is saved, at the last moment, when he cries out to Apollo for help.⁴ The story is clearly one that has evolved over time and through traditions. As Roland Crahay observed, the oracles that Kroisos tests (Delphi, Abai in Phokis, Dodona, and the oracles of Amphiaraos and Trophonios) were those ¹ Testing the oracle: the Greek term used by Herodotos is peirōmenos (1.46.3). ² Hdt. 1.46.3–47.1–3. ³ That the test is the precursor to the main inquiry is made clear by Herodotos’ description of Kroisos’ decision-making process at 1.46.2. The translation here is from Godley 2004. ⁴ Hdt. 1.86–7. Esther Eidinow, Testing the Oracle? On the Experience of (Multiple) Oracular Consultations In: Ancient Divination and Experience. Edited by: Lindsay G. Driediger-Murphy and Esther Eidinow, Oxford University Press (2019). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198844549.003.0002 ? 45 that were important in the time of Herodotos not Kroisos: this is not a historical account.⁵ Rather, it may be meant to provide its audience with some kind of instruction: from a variety of perspectives, and focusing on a number of particular aspects of the story, modern commentators have sug- gested that one of its lessons may have been how and why one should not consult an oracle in the manner of the Lydian king. In drawing this conclu- sion, some draw attention to Kroisos’ general attitude towards Delphi, arguing (as an example) that, ‘Motivated by the arrogance of his usurped wealth, [Kroisos] thought he could own the sanctuary of the god with his benefactions and he acquired the acquiescence of the oracle’.⁶ Others focus more specific- ally on Kroisos’ test of the oracles. It has been argued that this not only illuminates the arrogant flaw in his character, but also marks him as either foreign and/or somehow irreligious: Herodotos is providing his readers with a clear example of not only how one should not interact with an oracle, but also how one should not behave in interactions with the divine more generally.⁷ However, another approach interprets the story differently. Where some have argued that Kroisos’ signal failure to learn—from the instruction of Solon, from the experiences that follow—is a marker of his arrogance, others have observed how the text draws attention to the difficulties of absorbing that learning.⁸ For example, Chris Pelling has argued: ‘Learning from experience, one’s own or others’, is a most delicate business, and commu- nicating that learning is more difficult still: this scene may also suggest the limitations that attend any project of grasping and communicating insight, the limitations within which Herodotos’ own text and readers, no less than his characters, have to operate.’⁹ Matthew Christ has observed that those ⁵ Crahay 1956: 195. ⁶ Gagné 2013: 337. Bonnechere (2010: 116) states that ‘Kroisos’ story is now considered an isolated example of hubris’. ⁷ Klees (1965: 46–9 and 95–8), followed by Kirchberg (1965: 17 n. 4) argues that this is a barbarian practice; see also Price 1985: 152. Kindt (2006: 39) claims that it illustrates his ‘wrong assumptions about his place in the world in relation to the gods’. Parker (1985: 78) suggests that it is the ‘precise enquiry about the present’ that would ‘seem as irregular to an African as it did to Greeks. Normal questions relate to a limited and conventional range of problems.’ Bonnechere (2010: 123 n. 32) argues that the problem is the way in which the question is asked (and alludes in the main text to the initial ‘pseudo-question’), not the number of oracles of which it is asked. Dobson (1979: 350 n. 2) states ‘it was considered unethical and certainly undiplomatic by the Greeks to consult more than one Oracle’; she describes it as a ‘sacrilegious prank’. Cf. also Visser 2000: 23, who sees the King as treating Apollo like a powerful mortal, rather than a god. In this volume, Driediger-Murphy considers the ways in which scholars have emphasized orthopraxy in Roman divinatory practices. ⁸ See Gagné 2013: 337; he cites Pelling 2006 as evidence for his argument that Kroisos fails to learn, but does not discuss Pelling’s larger argument. ⁹ Pelling 2006: 146. 46 who condemn Kroisos for non-Greek behaviour are making an assumption that Herodotos is always disapproving of barbarian nomoi—an assumption which, he argues, should not be taken for granted.¹⁰ As for irreligiosity: it may be the case that Herodotos was telling a version of the story that differed from other contemporary versions, which emphasized the piety of Kroisos; nevertheless, in the story, Kroisos is not explicitly charged with irreligiosity or impiety, not even by the god Apollo himself.¹¹ Indeed, these charges of irreligiosity or foreignness do not occur in an ancient re-telling of the episode by Xenophon in his Kyropaidia—although modern scholars have suggested that this discussion ‘makes it explicit that any such testing would naturally offend a god’.¹² In that text, as voiced by Kroisos himself, the reason why his actions were offensive to the god lies in the lack of trust between gentlemen (kaloi k’agathoi) that such a test reveals. Moreover, this is not depicted as causing the god to inflict punishment, but only as a way of disrupting bonds of philia: ἀλλὰ καὶἄνθρωποι καλοὶ κἀγαθοί, ἐπειδὰνγνῶσιν ἀπιστούμενοι, οὐ φιλοῦσι τοὺς ἀπιστοῦντας.¹³ Although Herodotos’ version seems to have influenced Xenophon’s account, what emerges here is a distillation of Xenophon’s own.¹⁴ In general, the novellas within the Kyropaidia have been worked up or invented by Xeno- phon in order to reinforce the themes of his work. As this then suggests, the agenda of this particular story must be considered within the broader themes of the work. The philia between ‘gentlemen’, to which Kroisos alludes, is a quality that plays a significant role in the Kyropaidia;in ¹⁰ Christ 1994: 190–1 (cf. Klees 1965: esp. 16–49 and 63–8). Moreover, see Pelling 2006 on the ambiguous foreignness of Lydia (142: ‘on the cusp between East and West’). Christ (1994: 190) observes that Greeks consult the same oracles about the same question, even if they do not consult different oracles; this chapter will develop that observation. ¹¹ Other versions of the story, which emphasize Kroisos’ piety, are evidenced by Bacchylides Ode 3 and the ‘Myson amphora’ ARV² 238.1. These are well discussed in Flower 1991, who draws attention to the possibility of numerous traditions and particularly to the role of Delphi (see also Segal 1971; Crane 1996). Pelling (2006: 156 n. 58) observes that there is evidence that Bacchylides may have known a range of versions. That Bacchylides was the source for Her- odotos is debated (e.g. see Fehling 1989: 207 and Maehler 2004: 79–83). ¹² Pelling 2006: 161 n. 74. It is worth noting here also that Kroisos’ inquiry does not break the bounds of Sokrates’ overview (as presented by Xenophon in the Memorabilia 1.1.9) of the topics on which it is right to consult an oracle: it is difficult to see how the question of whether an oracle is genuine could be answered without asking an oracle. ¹³ Xen. Cyr. 7.2.17–18. ‘But indeed, gentlemen, when they discover they are not trusted, they do not befriend those who distrust them.’ ¹⁴ As Gera 1993: 272; nevertheless she takes the test as ‘surely meant to contribute to the Herodotean picture of Kroisos as an arrogant and hubristic man who is bound to fall’. Her analysis conflates ‘attempts to tamper with the divine’ with testing it; thus, for example, she regards as equivalent the warnings of Amasis to Polykrates (3.40–3 and 7.15–18) and Artaba- nus’ attempts to help Xerxes, when these episodes comprise a warning, and an attempt to find out more, respectively. ? 47 particular, it is used by Kyros as a force for manipulation of other people.¹⁵ Albeit the account here is about a relationship between mortal and god, the implications of this story concern the ways in which a king’s behaviour might be used, more or less effectively, to acquire and exercise influence. This brief examination suggests that, with regard to the accounts of Herodotos and Xenophon, and other versions of such tales, caution is needed before we take any one of these stories as a direct reflection of attitudes, or activities, relating to everyday oracular practice. This is not to say that there might not have been some contemporaries, of either Herodo- tos or Xenophon, who agreed with the Kroisos of Xenophon’s account; others may have disagreed.
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