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In a well-known narrative the ancient Greek historian Herodotos relates how, on three successive occasions, King Kroisos of Lydia questioned the god Apollon at his oracle at Delphi. If we set aside the historian's excurses and elaborations, the gist of the narrative is as follows:
Kroisos wanted to test several oracles in Greece and elsewhere. So he dispatched messengers to different oracular sites with instructions to ask, exactly one hundred days later, what it was that he, Kroisos, was doing at that moment. At Delphi Apollon responded through his priestess as follows:
"I know the number of the sands and the measures of the sea;
I understand the mute and I hear the voiceless.
A smell has come to my senses, a smell of a hard-shelled tortoise
Being boiled in bronze together with lamb flesh;
Bronze lies beneath, and bronze sits on top."
When Kroisos learned the god's answer, he deemed the Delphic oracle to be a true oracle, for he had been boiling a mixture of tortoise and lamb meat in a bronze cauldron at the time of the consultation.
Sending messengers with rich gifts to Delphi, the king inquired a second time. He asked whether he should make war on the Persians, and whether he should ally himself with another army. Through his oracle Apollon declared that if Kroisos made war on the Persians he would destroy a mighty empire; as for an alliance, he was advised to find out who were the most powerful of the Greek peoples and make them his allies. Kroisos, very pleased and expecting that he would destroy the Persian empire, sent more gifts, this time to the citizens of Delphi.
Kroisos now questioned Apollon a third time, asking if his monarchy would last a long time. The priestess replied:
"Delicate-footed Lydian, when a mule becomes king of the Medes,
Then flee by the stoney stream of the Hermus
And don't be ashamed to be a coward."
Kroisos was now most delighted of all, for he expected that a mule would never become king of the Medes1.
Herodotos goes on to report that Kroisos, having formed an alliance with me Spartans, attacked Persia and, being utterly defeated, was taken captive by the Persian king, Kyros. Thereupon Kroisos sent...