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As Cleombrotus made no reply and did not look up, Demetrius said, There is no need to make any inquiries nor to raise any questions about the state of affairs there, when we see the evanescence of the oracles here, or rather the total disappearance of all but one or two; but we should deliberate the reason wrhy they have become so utterly weak. What need to speak of others, when in Boeotia, which in former times spoke with many tongues because of its oracles, the oracles have now failed completely, even as if they were streams of flowing water, and a great drought in prophecy has overspread the land? For nowhere now except in the neighbourhood of Lebadeia has Boeotia aught to offer to those who would draw from the well-spring of prophecy. As for the rest, silence has come upon some and utter desolation upon others. And yet at the time of the Persian Wars many had gained a high repute, that of Ptoan Apollo no less than that of Amphiaraüs; Mys, as it seems, made trial of both.The mss. show several lacunae and corruptions here; the general sense must be restored from Herodotus, viii. 133-135. For some unexplained reason Plutarch in his Life of Aristeides, chap. xix. (330 c) and Pausanias, ix. 23, lay this scene at the oracle of Trophonius at Lebadeia. The prophetic priest of this oracle, accustomed in former times to use the Aeolic dialect, on that occasion took the side of the barbarians and gave forth an oracle such that no one else of those present comprehended it, but only Mys himself, since it is quite clear from the inspired language then used by the prophetic priest that it is not for barbarians ever to receive a word in the Greek tongue subservient to their command. Cf.Life of Themistocles, chap. vi. (114 d); Life of Cato the Elder, chap. xxiii. (350 c).
