Souls therefore, all possessed of this power, which is innate but dim and hardly manifest, nevertheless oftentimes disclose its flower and radiance in dreams, and some in the hour of death, Cf. Plato, Apology , 39 b. when the body becomes cleansed of all impurities and attains a temperament adapted to this end, a temperament through which the reasoning and thinking faculty of the souls is relaxed and released from their present state as they range amid the irrational and imaginative realms of the future. It is not true, as Euripides Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 674, Euripides, no. 973; cf. Moralia , 399 a, supra . says, that The best of seers is he that guesses well; no, the best of seers is the intelligent man, following the guidance of that in his soul which possesses sense and which, with the help of reasonable probability, leads him on his way. But that which foretells the future, like a tablet without writing, is both irrational and indeterminate in itself, but receptive of impressions and presentiments through what may be done to it, and inconsequently grasps at the future when it is farthest withdrawn from the present. Its withdrawal is brought about by a temperament and disposition of the body as it is subjected to a change which we call inspiration. Often the body of itself alone attains this disposition. Moreover the earth sends forth for men streams of many other potencies, some of them producing derangements, diseases, or deaths; others helpful, benignant, and beneficial, as is plain from the experience of persons who have come upon them. But the prophetic current and breath is most divine and holy, whether it issue by itself through the air or come in the company of running waters; for when it is instilled into the body, it creates in souls an unaccustomed and unusual temperament, the peculiarity of which it is hard to describe with exactness, but analogy offers many comparisons. It is likely that by warmth and diffusion it opens up certain passages through which impressions of the future are transmitted, just as wine, when its fumes rise to the head, reveals many unusual movements and also words stored away and unperceived. For Bacchic rout And frenzied mind contain much prophecy, according to Euripides, Bacchae , 298. when the soul becomes hot and fiery, and throw’s aside the caution that human intelligence lays upon it, and thus often diverts and extinguishes the inspiration. At the same time one might assert, not without reason, that a dryness engendered with the heat subtilizes the spirit of prophecy and renders it ethereal and pure; for this is the dry soul, as Heracleitus has it. A dry soul is best (and/or wisest) is the dictum of Heracleitus, which is often quoted; see Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker , i. p. 100, Heracleitus, no. b 118; Cf. also Moralia , 995 e, and Life of Romulus , chap. xxviii. (36 a). Moisture not only dulls sight and hearing, but when it touches mirrors and combines with air, it takes away their brightness and sheen. Cf. Plutarch, Moralia , 736 a-b. But again the very opposite of this may not be impossible: that by a sort of chilling and compacting of the spirit of inspiration the prophetic element in the soul, as when steel is dipped in cold water, is rendered tense and keen. And further, just as tin when alloyed with copper, which is loose and porous in texture, binds it together and compacts it, Cf. Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium , ii. 8 (747 a 34). and at the same time makes it brighter and cleaner, even so there is nothing to prevent the prophetic vapour, which contains some affinity and relationship to souls, from filling up the vacant spaces and cementing all together by fitting itself in. For one thing has affinity and adaptability for one thing, another for another, just as the bean Cf. H. Blümner, Gewerbe und Künste bei Griechen und Römern (Leipzig, 1875), i. 236. seems to further the dyeing of purple and sodium carbonate Ibid. 238. that of scarlet, when mixed with the dye; All in the linen is blended the splendour of glorious scarlet, as Empedocles Cf. Diels, Frag. der Vorsokratiker , i. p. 255, Empedocles, no. b 93. has said. But regarding the Cydnus and the sacred sword of Apollo in Tarsus we used to hear you say, my dear Demetrius, that the Cydnus will cleanse no steel but that, and no other water will cleanse that sword. There is a similar phenomenon at Olympia, where they pile the ashes against the altar and make them adhere all around by pouring on them water from the Alpheius; but, although they have tried the waters of other rivers, there is none with which they can make the ashes cohere and stay fixed in their place. It is not, therefore, anything to excite amazement if, although the earth sends up many streams, it is only such as these that dispose souls to inspiration and impressions of the future. Certainly the voice of legend also is in accord with my statement; for they record that here the power hovering about this spot was first made manifest when a certain shepherd fell in by accident and later gave forth inspired utterances, which those who came into contact with him at first treated with disdain; but later, when what he had foretold came to pass, they were amazed. The most learned of the people of Delphi still preserve the tradition of his name, which they say was Coretas. But I incline most to the opinion that the soul acquires towards the prophetic spirit a close and intimate connexion of the sort that vision has towards light, which possesses similar properties. For, although the eye has the power of vision, there is no function for it to perform without light See 436 d, infra , and Plato, Republic , 508 a - 509 b. ; and so the prophetic power of the soul, like an eye, has need of something kindred to help to kindle it and stimulate it further. Hence many among earlier generations regarded Apollo and the Sun as one and the same god; but those who understood and respected fair and wise analogy conjectured that as body is to soul, vision to intellect, and light to truth, so is the power of the sun to the nature of Apollo; and they would make it appear that the sun is his offspring and progeny, being for ever born of him that is for ever. For the sun kindles and promotes and helps to keep in activity the power of vision in our perceptive senses, just as the god does for the power of prophecy in the soul. Those, however, who had reached the conclusion that the two are one and the same god very naturally dedicated the oracle to Apollo and Earth in common, thinking that the sun creates the disposition and temperament in the earth from which the prophet-inspiring vapours are wafted forth. As Hesiod, Theogony , 117. then, with a better understanding than some philosophers, spoke of the Earth itself as Of All the unshaken foundation, so we believe it to be everlasting and imperishable. But in the case of the powers associated with the earth it is reasonable that there should come to pass disappearances in one place and generation in another place, and elsewrhere shifting of location and, from some other source, changes in current, Cf. 432 e, supra . and that such cycles should complete many revolutions within it in the whole course of time, as we may judge from what happens before our eyes. For in the case of lakes and rivers, and even more frequently in hot springs, there have occurred disappearances and complete extinction in some places, and in others a stealing away, as it were, and sinking under ground A not uncommon phenomenon in Greece; cf. Moralia , 557 e. ; later they came back, appearing after a time in the same places or flowing out from below somewhere near. We know also of the exhaustion of mines, some of which have given out recently, as for example the silver mines of Attica and the copper ore in Euboea from which the cold-forged sword-blades used to be wrought, as Aeschylus Cf. Nauck, Trag. Graec. Frag. p. 107, Aeschylus, no. 356. The hardness and temper of cold-forged copper is well attested. has said, Euboean sword, self-sharpened, in his hand. And it is no long time since the rock in Euboea ceased to yield, among its other products, soft petrous filaments like yarn. An interesting early notice of the use of asbestos. I think some of you have seen towels, nets, and women’s head-coverings from there, which cannot be burned by fire; but if any become soiled by use, their owners throw them into a blazing fire and take them out bright and clear. To-day all this has disappeared, and there are scarcely any attenuated fibres or hairs, as it were, running through the mines. And yet the school of Aristotle Cf. Aristotle, Meteorologica , i. 3 (340 b 29); Cicero, De Divinatione , i. 19 (38); ii. 57 (117). would make it appear that exhalation is the author of all these changes that have taken place in the earth, and that things of this nature must of necessity follow with it in disappearing, changing their locality, and bursting forth once more in full vigour. Plainly the same sober opinion is to be held regarding the spirits that inspire prophecy; the power that they possess is not everlasting and ageless, but is subject to changes. For excessive rains most likely extinguish them, and they probably are dispersed by thunderbolts, and especially, when the earth is shaken beneath by an earthquake and suffers subsidence and ruinous confusion in its depths, the exhalations shift their site or find completely blind outlets, as in this place they say that there are still traces of that great earthquake which overthrew the city. And in Orchomenos they relate that a pestilence raged and many persons died of it, and the oracle of Teiresias become altogether obsolescent and even to this day remains idle and mute. And if a like fate has befallen those in Cilicia, as we have been told, there is nobody, Demetrius, who could give us more certain information than you.