DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.7416#0067
57
were not, like the /Egyptian and Druidical, darkened by the gloom
of a jealous hierarchy, which was to be supported by inspiring
terror rather than by conciliating affection. Hence it was of old
observed, that the jEgyptian temples were filled with lamentations
and those of the Greeks with dances;' the sacrifices of the former
being chiefly expiatory, as appears from the imprecations on the
head of the victim and those of the latter almost always pro-
pitiatory or gratulatory.3 Wine, which was so much employed in
the sacred rites of the Greeks, was held in abomination by the
/Egyptians ; who gave way to none of those ecstatic raptures of
devotion; which produced Bacchanalian phrensy and oracular pro-
phecy ;4 but which also produced Greek poetry, the parent of all
that is sublime and elegant in the works of man. The poetry of
Delphi and Dodona does not seem, indeed, to have merited this
character: but the sacerdotal bards of the first ages appear to have
been the polishers and methodisers of that language, whose co-
piousness, harmony, and flexibility, afforded an adequate vehicle
for the unparalleled effusions of taste and genius, which fol-
lowed.
76. Oracles had great influence over the public counsels of the
different states of Greece and Asia during a long time ; and as they
were rarely consulted without a present, the most celebrated of
them acquired immense wealth. That of Delphi was so rich,
when plundered by the Phocians, that it enabled them to support
an army of twenty thousand mercenaries upon double pay during
nine years, besides supplying the great sums employed in bribing
iEgyptiaca numinum fana plena plangoribus, Graeca pleruraque choreis.
A.pul. de Genio. Socrat.
z Herodot. lib. ii. 39.
3 Expiatory sacrifices were occasionally performed by individuals,but seem
hot to have formed any part of the established worship among the Greeks;
hence we usually find them mentioned with contempt. See Plat.de Repub.
lib. ii. p. 595. fi. ed. Fic. 1G20.
4 Plutarch, de Is. et Osir. p. 353.
were not, like the /Egyptian and Druidical, darkened by the gloom
of a jealous hierarchy, which was to be supported by inspiring
terror rather than by conciliating affection. Hence it was of old
observed, that the jEgyptian temples were filled with lamentations
and those of the Greeks with dances;' the sacrifices of the former
being chiefly expiatory, as appears from the imprecations on the
head of the victim and those of the latter almost always pro-
pitiatory or gratulatory.3 Wine, which was so much employed in
the sacred rites of the Greeks, was held in abomination by the
/Egyptians ; who gave way to none of those ecstatic raptures of
devotion; which produced Bacchanalian phrensy and oracular pro-
phecy ;4 but which also produced Greek poetry, the parent of all
that is sublime and elegant in the works of man. The poetry of
Delphi and Dodona does not seem, indeed, to have merited this
character: but the sacerdotal bards of the first ages appear to have
been the polishers and methodisers of that language, whose co-
piousness, harmony, and flexibility, afforded an adequate vehicle
for the unparalleled effusions of taste and genius, which fol-
lowed.
76. Oracles had great influence over the public counsels of the
different states of Greece and Asia during a long time ; and as they
were rarely consulted without a present, the most celebrated of
them acquired immense wealth. That of Delphi was so rich,
when plundered by the Phocians, that it enabled them to support
an army of twenty thousand mercenaries upon double pay during
nine years, besides supplying the great sums employed in bribing
iEgyptiaca numinum fana plena plangoribus, Graeca pleruraque choreis.
A.pul. de Genio. Socrat.
z Herodot. lib. ii. 39.
3 Expiatory sacrifices were occasionally performed by individuals,but seem
hot to have formed any part of the established worship among the Greeks;
hence we usually find them mentioned with contempt. See Plat.de Repub.
lib. ii. p. 595. fi. ed. Fic. 1G20.
4 Plutarch, de Is. et Osir. p. 353.