29
"Theagenes, as I have been told by one of my friends, recently said that the Sibyl had made a prediction about all this; in fact, he quoted the verses from memory: But when the time shall come that Proteus, noblest of Cynics, Kindleth fire in the precinct of Zeus, our Lord of the Thunder, Leapeth into the flame, and cometh to lofty Olympus, Then do I bid all alike who eat the fruit of the ploughland Honour to pay unto him that walketh abroad in the night-time, Greatest of spirits, thronéd with Heracles and Hephaestus.
30
“That is what Theagenes alleges he heard from the Sibyl. But I will quote him one of the oracles of Bacis dealing with these matters.Lucian gives the Cynic a Roland for his Oliver. Bacis was a title rather than a name, and in early Greece prophets who bore it were little less numerous than the Sibyls. Naturally it was a convenient tag for a spurious oracle, whether composed with fraudulent intention or, as often in Aristophanes, for fun. Bacis expresses himself as follows, with a very excellent moral: Nay, when the time shall come that a Cynic with names that are many Leaps into roaring flame, soul-stirred by a passion for glory, Then it is meet that the others, the jackals that follow his footsteps, Mimic the latter end of the wolf that has taken departure. But if a dastard among them shall shun the might of Hephaestus, Let him be pelted with stones forthwith by all the Achaeans, Learning, the frigid fool, to abjure all fiery speeches, He that has laden his wallet with gold by the taking of usance; Thrice five talents he owns in the lovely city of Patras. Iliad, XIV, 1. What do you think, gentlemen? That Bacis is a worse soothsayer than the Sibyl? It is high time, then, for these wondrous followers of Proteus to look about for a place in which to aerify themselves—for that is the name they give to cremation.”Below (§ 33), Proteus speaks of being “ commingled with the ether.”
