1
THERE is an old story, friend Terentius Priscus, that heretofore eagles or swans, flying from the opposite bounds of the earth, met together where now stands the temple of Apollo Pythius, in the place now called the Navel; and that some while after, Epimenides the Phaestian, willing to satisfy his curiosity, enquired of the oracle of Apollo with regard to this story, but received such an answer as made him never a jot the wiser; upon which he said: No navel is there of the earth or sea: ’Tis known to Gods alone, if one there be. Thus fitly did the God chastise this bold enquirer into ancient traditions.
2
But in our time, not long before the celebration of the Pythian games during the magistracy of Callistratus, there were two holy men who, coming as it were from the two opposite ends of the world, met together at the city of Delphi. The one was Demetrius the grammarian, who came from England to return to Tarsus in Cilicia, where he was born; the other, Cleombrotus the Lacedaemonian, who had been long conversant in Egypt and the Troglodytic country, and had made several voyages, as well on the Red Sea as other parts,—not as a merchant, to get money, but to improve his knowledge and enrich his mind; for he had enough to live upon, and cared for no more And he was collecting history, as the material for philosophy, the end whereof (as he called it) is theology. He, having been lately at the temple and oracle of Jupiter Ammon, seemed not much to marvel at any thing he there saw; yet he mentioned to us one particular (which he said was told him by the priest of the temple) touching the lamp that is never extinguished and spendeth less every year than the former. Whence they conjectured an inequality of years, whereby each year was shorter than the preceding.
