18 



meet with success, you must be guilty of 

 some impious action/' The deputies sus- 

 pecting that she prevaricated with them in 

 order to serve their enemies, from whom 

 she was descended, resolved to fulfil the 

 decree of the oracle; and therefore seized 

 the priestess and burnt her alive, alleging, 

 that this act was justifiable in whatever light 

 it was considered ; that if she intended to 

 deceive them, it was fit she should be pu- 

 nished for the deceit ; or, if she was sincere, 

 they had only literally fulfilled the sense of 

 the oracle. 



On Mount Lycaeus, in Arcadia, v r as a 

 temple of Jupiter with a fountain : when 

 rain was wanted, it was thought that it 

 would be obtained of the god by throwing 

 in the fountain a branch of the oak-tree. 



Socrates swore by the oak, perhaps because 

 this tree was consecrated to Jupiter. 



There was an oak near Priene, a city of 

 Ionia, near which a thousand Samians were 

 killed by the Priennians. From thence came 

 the custom that the women of Priene had to 

 swear by the darkness of the oak, because they 

 had lost, in this place, their fathers, their hus- 

 bands, and their sons. 



The veneration that the ancients had for 

 the oak, gave rise to the Greek and Latin 



