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Why the Oracles Cease to Give Answers (17-18)

urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg092.perseus-eng4:17-18
Refs {'start': {'reference': '17', 'human_reference': 'Section 17'}, 'end': {'reference': '18', 'human_reference': 'Section 18'}}
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Whilst Heracleon was musing, and studying how to answer this, Cleombrotus went on, saying: It is not only Empedocles who affirms there are bad Daemons, but even Plato, Xenocrates, and Chrysippus; yea, and Democritus,

when he prayed he might meet with good spirits, which shows that he thought there were bad as well as good Daemons. And as to their mortality, I have heard it reported from a person that was neither fool nor knave, being Epitherses, the father of Aemilianus the orator, whom some of you have heard declaim. This Epitherses was my townsman and a school-master, who told me that, designing a voyage to Italy, he embarked himself on a vessel well laden both with goods and passengers. About the evening the vessel was becalmed about the Isles Echinades, whereupon their ship drove with the tide till it was carried near the Isles of Paxi; when immediately a voice was heard by most of the passengers (who were then awake, and taking a cup after supper) calling unto one Thamus, and that with so loud a voice as made all the company amazed; which Thamus was a mariner of Egypt, whose name was scarcely known in the ship. He returned no answer to the first calls; but at the third he replied, Here! here! I am the man. Then the voice said aloud to him, When you are arrived at Palodes, take care to make it known that the great God Pan is dead. Epitherses told us, this voice did much astonish all that heard it, and caused much arguing whether this voice was to be obeyed or slighted. Thamus, for his part, was resolved, if the wind permitted, to sail by the place without saying a word; but if the wind ceased and there ensued a calm, to speak and cry out as loud as he was able what he was enjoined. Being come to Palodes, there was no wind stirring, and the sea was as smooth as glass. Whereupon Thamus standing on the deck, with his face towards the land, uttered with a loud voice his message, saying, The great Pan is dead. He had no sooner said this, but they heard a dreadful noise, not only of one, but of several, who, to their thinking, groaned and lamented with a kind of astonishment. And there being many persons in the ship, an account of this
was soon spread over Rome, which made Tiberius the Emperor send for Thamus; and he seemed to give such heed to what he told him, that he earnestly enquired who this Pan was; and the learned men about him gave in their judgments, that it was the son of Mercury by Penelope. There were some then in the company who declared they had heard old Aemilianus say as much.

Demetrius then related, that about Britain there were many small and desolate islands, some of which were called the Isles of Daemons and Demi-gods; and that he himself, at the command of the Emperor, sailed to the nearest of those places for curiosity’s sake, where he found few inhabitants; but that they were all esteemed by the Britains as sacred and divine. Not long after he was arrived there, he said, the air and the weather were very foul and tempestuous, and there followed a terrible storm of wind and thunder; which at length ceasing, he says, the inhabitants told him that one of the Daemons or Demigods was deceased. For as a lamp, said he, while it is lighted, offends nobody with its scent, but when it is extinguished, it sends out such a scent as is nauseous to everybody; so these great souls, whilst they shine, are mild and gracious, without being troublesome to anybody; but when they draw to an end, they cause great storms and tempests, and not seldom infect the air with contagious distempers. They say farther, that Saturn is detained prisoner in one of those islands, and guarded by Briareus, being in a sound sleep (for that is the device to hold him captive), and that he has several of those Daemons for his valets and attendants.

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