2»d S, No 88„ Sbpt. 12. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



201 



LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1857. 



AMBIQOOUS PEOPEB NAMES IN PBOPHECIES. 



It is a remark of Aristotle that diviners are in 

 the habit of resorting to vague and generic ex- 

 pressions, in order to increase the chances in 

 favour of their prediction agreeing with the event. 

 In some cases, however, a precise prophecy has 

 been verified, not by the event coinciding with 

 the prognostic as it was understood, but by an 

 unforeseen ambiguity in a proper name. Predic- 

 tions of this class seem to be confined to the de- 

 signation of the place where some eminent person 

 is doomed to die. 



The best known instances of prophecies of this 

 sort, which occur in antiquity, are those of Cam- 

 byses and of Alexander, king of Epirus. Accord- 

 ing to Herodotus (iii. 64.), an oracle in the city 

 of Buto had declared to Cambyses, that he would 

 end his life in Ecbatana, which he understood to 

 refer to the celebrated Ecbatana in Media, but 

 he in fact died in an obscure town of Syria so 

 called. Alexander, king of Epirus, had in like 

 manner received an oracular warning to beware 

 of the town Pandosia and the river Acheron ; by 

 which he believed the town and river so named, 

 in his own dominions, to be intended. In fact, 

 however, he met his death by treachery, near a 

 town and river so called in Lucania, during his 

 expedition to Italy. (Livy, viii. 24.) 



Other similar stories occur in ancient history. 

 Thus we hear that the poet Ilesiod had been in- 

 formed by an oracle that he would be slain in a 

 grove of the Nemean Jupiter. He understood 

 this prediction to refer to the celebrated Nemea 

 in the Peloponnesus ; but being at CEneon, a 

 town of the Locri Ozolaj, in which there was a 

 temple of the Nemean Jupiter, he was slain by 

 Amphiphanes and Ganyctor, the sons of Phegeus, 

 on the ground that he had seduced their sister 

 Ctimene. His murderers threw his body into the 

 sea; but it was afterwards brought back by a 

 dolphin. They attempted to escape in a ship; 

 but the vengeance of the gods pursued them, and 

 they were wrecked and drowned (Thuc, iii. 96. 

 Biogr. Gr., p. 48., edit. Westermann). Another 

 account represented Hesiod as having been killed 

 by the two brothers at night, by mistake for the 

 real seducer of their sister (Suid. in 'Htn'oSos). ■ 



According to Plutarch (Flam., 20.), there was 

 an old projjhecy concerning the place of Hanni- 

 bal's death in the following verse : 



' Ai^vo-o-a Kpvipei ^w\os 'AvvCpov Seixas." 



This was understood to mean that he would 

 end his days in Libya : it was however unex- 

 pectedly verified by his death at a village in 



Bithynia named Libyssa. Pausanias relates the 

 same story, and says that the prediction came 

 from the oracle of Jupiter Aramon (viii. 11. 11.). 

 The tomb of Hannibal existed at Libvssa in later 

 times : Pliny, N. H., y. 43., Amnjian' Marcellin., 

 xxii. 9. 3. 



Anna Comnena, in her Alexiad (vi. 6.), tells 

 the following strange story with respect to the 

 death of Robert Guiscard. She says that beinw 

 at Ather, a promontory of Cephallenia, he wal 

 seized with a fever. He asked for water, and as 

 his companions set out in search of it, one of the 

 natives pointed out to them the island of Ithaca, 

 and stated that there formerly stood in it a large 

 city called Jerusalem, now in ruins, where there 

 is a perpetual spring of clear water. When 

 Robert heard these words, he perceived that his 

 end was near ; for it had been long before pro- 

 phesied to him that he would conquer everything 

 as far as Ather, and that thence he would repair 

 to Jerusalem, and meet his fate. In six days he 

 died. Anna Comnena was born in 1083, and 

 Robert Guiscard died in 1085, two years after- 

 wards (Gibbon, c. 56.). Nothing appears to be 

 known of a promontory named Ather in Cephal- 

 lenia, or of a city named Jerusalem in the little 

 island of Ithaca. The distance of Ithaca from 

 Cephallenia is undoubtedly small ,• but it seems 

 strange that the companions of Robert Guiscard 

 should be unable to procure him a cup of water 

 to assuage his thirst, without crossing the sea. 

 Want of water is indeed declared by Col. Leake 

 to be the great defect of the island. He states 

 that "there is not a single constantly flowing 

 stream : the sources are neither numerous nor 

 plentiful, and many of them fail entirely in dry 

 summers, thereby creating a great distress ;" and 

 the anecdote may allude to this state of things. 

 The prophecy that Robert would conquer every- 

 thing as far as Ather is quite unintelligible. 



Examples of predictions said to have been 

 similarly verified by a casual coincidence of name 

 occur likewise in modern history. Ricordano 

 Malispini, in his Storia Fiorentina (c. 139.), states 

 that the Emperor Frederic II., in the year 1250, 

 fell sick in the town of Firenzuola, in Apulia, and 

 was there murdered by his bastard son Manfred, 

 who smothered him with a pillow. He was un- 

 able (says Malispini) to prevent the fulfilment of 

 the prophecy which declared that he was to die 

 at Firenze (Florence). In vain he abstained from 

 entering the towns of Florence or Faenza ; he 

 was deceived by the lying words of the Evil one. 

 This account is repeated by G. Villani (vi. 41.). 

 It may be observed that Ricordano Malispini 

 brings down his history only to the year 1282, and 

 appears to have died before the year 1300. He 

 was, therefore, probably contemporary with the 

 death of Frederic II. (See Benci's Preface to the 

 History of Malispini, ed. Livorno, 1830.) 



