A RETROSPECTIVE GLANCE 



of such petty superstitions he would never have con- 

 quered Asia. We know how he compelled the oracle 

 at Delphi to yield to his wishes ; how he cut the Gordian 

 knot; how he made his dominating personality felt 

 at the temple of Ammon in Egypt. We know, in a 

 word, that he yielded to superstitions only in so far as 

 they served his purpose. Left to his own devices, he 

 would not have consulted an oracle at the banks of the 

 Hyphasis; or, consulting, would have forced from the 

 oracle a favorable answer. But his subordinates were 

 mutinous and he had no choice. Suffice it for our 

 present purpose that the oracle was consulted, and 

 that its answer turned the conqueror back. 



One or two instances from Roman history may com- 

 plete the picture. Passing over all those mythical 

 narratives which virtually constitute the early history 

 of Rome, as preserved to us by such historians as 

 Livy and Dionysius, we find so logical an historian as 

 Tacitus recording a miraculous achievement of Ves- 

 pasian without adverse comment. "During the 

 months when Vespasian was waiting at Alexandria for 

 the periodical season of the summer winds, and a 

 safe navigation, many miracles occurred by which the 

 favor of Heaven and a sort of bias in the powers above 

 towards Vespasian were manifested." Tacitus then 

 describes in detail the cure of various maladies by the 

 emperor, and relates that the emperor on visiting a 

 temple was met there, in the spirit, by a prominent 

 Egyptian who was proved to be at the same time some 

 eighty miles distant from Alexandria. 



It must be admitted that Tacitus, in relating that 

 Vespasian caused the blind to see and the lame to walk, 



295 



