350 Albert S. Cook, 



Dodwell, Class, and Topog. Tour through Greece (London, 1819) 

 1. 195, reports a tradition of the Castriotes to the effect that, at 

 the birth of Christ, a priest of Apollo, who was sacrificing' near 

 DeliDhi, suddenly stopped, and declared that the son of a god was 

 at that moment born whose power would equal that of Apollo, 

 but that the Delphian god would ultimately triumph over the new- 

 born divinity. The words were scarcely finished when the rock 

 was rent in two by a clap of thunder, and the priest consumed to 

 ashes by a flash of lightning; cf. 1. 178. 



Modern writers on the oracles refer for proof of their cessation 

 about this time to Lucan 5. 69-70, 102-5, 111 ff., 131 ff.; Juve- 

 nal 6. 553-6; Strabo 7. 7. 9, p. 327; 9. 3. 4, p. 418: Cicero, De 

 Div. 1. 19; 2. 57. See Rhein. Mtis. 51. 377; Homolle, in Bull, de 

 Corr. Hellcn. 20 (1896). 705, 709, 717-8, 721, 728-30. 



For a bibliography of Renaissance writers on oracles, see G. Wolff, 

 Porphyrii de Philosophia ex Oraculis haurienda, Berlin, 1856, 

 pp. 229 ff. 



The oracles are dumb. Cf. Giles Fletcher, Christ's Victory: 



The angels caroled loud their song of peace ; 



The cursed oracles were stricken dumb ; 



To see their Shepherd the poor shepherds press. 



Also De Mornay, A VVorke concerning the Truenesse of Christian 

 Religion [translated by Sir Philip Sidney and Arthur Golding], 3d 

 ed., London, 1604, p. 552 : ' Also Celsus the Epicure saith, that the 

 Oracles of Claros, Delphos, and Dodon were stricken dumb.' Add 

 Drummond, The Miserable Estate of the World 13—14 [Muses' Lib- 

 rary 2. 7) : 



When, pitying man, God of a virgin's womb 

 Was born, and those false deities struck dvimb. 



Cf. Spenser, Shep. Cal., May, Gloss, and Sir Thomas Browne, 

 Vulgar Errors 7. 12 [Works, ed. Wilkin, 3. 330-1). 



For Milton's opinion of these oracles, see P.R. 430 ff., esp. 457—9. 



173. hideous hum. See Prudentius, Apoth. 477 (note on 172), 

 and add Lucan 5. 104, 149, 152-3, 192, 218; Juvenal 10. 289; 

 Ovid, Met. 203, 327-8: 7. 251. 



175. arched roof. Of the cave. Cf. Virgil, J^n. 6. 77-8: 'in 

 antro bacchatur vates ' ; 6. 99 : ' antroque remugit.' 



deceiving. Cf. P.R. 1. 430 ff. Lactantius, Div. Inst. 2. 16: 

 ' They [daemons] especially deceive in the case of oracles , the 

 juggleries of which the profane cannot distinguish from the truth.' 

 For the view that daemons were the mediators of oracles, cf. 



