82 • Ernest Heinrich Klotsche 



We hold : no reasoning shall cast them down, — 

 No, though of subtlest wit our wisdom spring, etc." 



We cannot, however, unreservedly accept the seer as the spokes- 

 man of the opinion of the poet, who, as appears from passages in 

 other plays, had no great love for prophets and soothsayers ; and 

 even a play of such a religious character as the " Bacchse " con- 

 tains a strong invective against the diviners : The taunts of venal- 

 ity which Euripides in vv. 255 ff. allows to be flung at Teiresias 

 by Pentheus, — taunts which remain unanswered by the seer, may 

 well make us hesitate in accepting the prophet as the exponent of 

 the poet's own opinion in vv. 200 ff. Pentheus severely attacks 

 Teiresias : 



Bacch. 255-57: 



(jv ravr' eiretaas, Teipeaia- t6v8' av t?eXets 

 Tov daifjiov' avd^pcoiroiffcv ei(x4>epcov vkov 

 (TKOweiv irrepUTOvs Kafxirvpoiv p.i(T-&ovs <t>epeiv. 



" Thou didst, Teiresias, draw him to this : 

 'Tis thou wouldst foist this new God upon men 

 For augury and divination's wage ! " 



The service of a new God was pretty sure to bring with it some 

 new profits from the credulous, especially as Dionysus was an 

 oracular God. The function of the soothsayer seems to have been 

 held in small repute among the contemporaries of Euripides, and 

 passages like these (see also Hipp. 1059; Ion 374-8; Hel. 744-57; 

 El. 400; Phoen. 772; I. A. 520; and Frgm. 793) reflect the feeling 

 of the day. Such censure of false prophets, so common in Euripi- 

 des, is doubtless due to the conduct of the mendicant soothsayers 

 and jugglers of the time. 

 For formula of oath see^ 



Bacch. 534-35: 



€TL val rav ^orpvcjiSr] 

 Alovvctov xo-P'-v olvas. 



"... I swear by the full-clustered 

 Grace of the vine Dionysian." 



The Greeks usually called a divinity to witness that was connected 

 with the subject of discourse. 



136 



