DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.13851#0247
Ob' THE RELIGION OF GREECE.
225
Ohh to be this ; that he first reduced some, of the barbarous nations to a
sense of religion and virtue : whence it is added in the same place, that
he taught them iixzietfovw, xai S-vtfius- iXot^cV justice and propitiatory sacri*
flees. However that be, it is probable, that at first oaths were only used
upon weighty and momentous occasions, yet in process of time they came
to be applied to every trivial matter, and in common discourse, which
has given occasion to the distinction of oaths into that, which was called
"O ^syecs, and used only on solemn and weighty accounts ; and thatw hich
they termed 'O (ju^oc, which was taken in things of the smallest moment,
and was sometimes used merely as an expletive to fill up a sentence, and
make a round and emphatical period. Some there are that tell us, the
US'/us ogxos, was that wherein the gods, (juxgoj, that wherein creatures were
called to witness ; but the falsity of this distinction doth evidently appear
by a great many instances, whereof I shall only mention one, viz. that of the
Arcadians, amongst whom the most sacred and inviolable oath was taken,
by the water of a fountain called Styx, near :>onacris, a city, as Hero-
dotus (I), or, according to others, a mountain in Arcadia ; upon which
account it was, that Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian, to secure the fidelity
of the Arcadians, had a design to carry the principal men among them to
Nonacris, and there to make them swear by this fountain, though they
had taken another oath before, as my author (2) hath related. It will
not be wholly impertinent in this place to mention the great oath of the
gods by the Stygian lake ; for Jupiter, as Hesiod (3) reports,
Autmv fj.h y£f> htiKi Bscev f/Ayctv ijutfjizv&l ofucov,
Ordain'd this lake a solemn oath should be
To all the gods.—--—-
Which is the reason wby some derive the word o«cos, an oath, from orcus,
hell. This oath was invented by Jupiter, and prescribed by him to the
rest of the gods, in honour of Styx j because she. with her sons, came the
first of all the gods, to his assistance in the war against the giants ; or, for
that her daughter Victoria was favourable to him, saith Hesiod ; or, be-
cause he had quenched his thirst with her waters in the fight. If any
god swore falsely by these waters, he was debarred the use of nectar,
and deprived of his divinity for an hundred years ; these others reduce
to nine, but Servius, out of Orpheus, enlargeth them to nine thousand.
The god that was thought more especially fo preside over oaths, was
Jupiter ; though all the gods seem to have been concerned in them, for
it was usual to swear by them all, or any of them ; and of any perjured
person they spoke in general, that he had offended the gods, of which
there are innumerable instances ; but they were thought chiefly and
more peculiarly to belong to Jupiter's care ; and though perhaps this
may not appear (as some think it doth) from the word jus-jurandum,
which they will have to be so called q Jcv/sjurandum, yet it will suffi-
ciently be proved by the plain testimony of the poet, that saith (4),
————Znvtl fi", if spKov
©vsctok vafA-idii viiOfjtig-etl-
And Jove, that over human oaths presides.
The gods, by whom Solon commanded the Athenians chiefly to swear in
(l)Eratp. (2) Loc. citato. (3) Tkeogoaia. <4> Euripid. Medea;, v. llJj.
29
225
Ohh to be this ; that he first reduced some, of the barbarous nations to a
sense of religion and virtue : whence it is added in the same place, that
he taught them iixzietfovw, xai S-vtfius- iXot^cV justice and propitiatory sacri*
flees. However that be, it is probable, that at first oaths were only used
upon weighty and momentous occasions, yet in process of time they came
to be applied to every trivial matter, and in common discourse, which
has given occasion to the distinction of oaths into that, which was called
"O ^syecs, and used only on solemn and weighty accounts ; and thatw hich
they termed 'O (ju^oc, which was taken in things of the smallest moment,
and was sometimes used merely as an expletive to fill up a sentence, and
make a round and emphatical period. Some there are that tell us, the
US'/us ogxos, was that wherein the gods, (juxgoj, that wherein creatures were
called to witness ; but the falsity of this distinction doth evidently appear
by a great many instances, whereof I shall only mention one, viz. that of the
Arcadians, amongst whom the most sacred and inviolable oath was taken,
by the water of a fountain called Styx, near :>onacris, a city, as Hero-
dotus (I), or, according to others, a mountain in Arcadia ; upon which
account it was, that Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian, to secure the fidelity
of the Arcadians, had a design to carry the principal men among them to
Nonacris, and there to make them swear by this fountain, though they
had taken another oath before, as my author (2) hath related. It will
not be wholly impertinent in this place to mention the great oath of the
gods by the Stygian lake ; for Jupiter, as Hesiod (3) reports,
Autmv fj.h y£f> htiKi Bscev f/Ayctv ijutfjizv&l ofucov,
Ordain'd this lake a solemn oath should be
To all the gods.—--—-
Which is the reason wby some derive the word o«cos, an oath, from orcus,
hell. This oath was invented by Jupiter, and prescribed by him to the
rest of the gods, in honour of Styx j because she. with her sons, came the
first of all the gods, to his assistance in the war against the giants ; or, for
that her daughter Victoria was favourable to him, saith Hesiod ; or, be-
cause he had quenched his thirst with her waters in the fight. If any
god swore falsely by these waters, he was debarred the use of nectar,
and deprived of his divinity for an hundred years ; these others reduce
to nine, but Servius, out of Orpheus, enlargeth them to nine thousand.
The god that was thought more especially fo preside over oaths, was
Jupiter ; though all the gods seem to have been concerned in them, for
it was usual to swear by them all, or any of them ; and of any perjured
person they spoke in general, that he had offended the gods, of which
there are innumerable instances ; but they were thought chiefly and
more peculiarly to belong to Jupiter's care ; and though perhaps this
may not appear (as some think it doth) from the word jus-jurandum,
which they will have to be so called q Jcv/sjurandum, yet it will suffi-
ciently be proved by the plain testimony of the poet, that saith (4),
————Znvtl fi", if spKov
©vsctok vafA-idii viiOfjtig-etl-
And Jove, that over human oaths presides.
The gods, by whom Solon commanded the Athenians chiefly to swear in
(l)Eratp. (2) Loc. citato. (3) Tkeogoaia. <4> Euripid. Medea;, v. llJj.
29