the priestess; and the oracle declared that Demaratus was not of the royal blood. In this case, the fraud was found out; the priestess was deposed; and when Cleomenes died mad, men said that this was the hand of Apollo. When the Persians were about to invade Greece, the Delphic oracle took the line of advising the Greeks to submit. The Athenians sent to ask what they should do, and the oracle said, "Fly to the ends of the earth." The Athenians protested that they would not leave the temple until they got a more comfortable answer. Hereupon an influential Delphian advised them to assume the garb of suppliants; and this time Apollo told them to trust to their wooden walls. Herodotus mentions between seventy and eighty oracles (I believe) of one sort or another, and less than half of these contain predictions. The predictions usually belong to one of two classes; first, those obviously founded on secret information or on a shrewd guess; and, secondly, those in which the oracle had absolutely no ideas on the subject, and took refuge in vagueness.
Any one who reads the column of Answers to Correspondents in a prudently conducted journal will recognise the principal types of oracle. In truth, the Delphic oracle bore a strong resemblance to a serious newspaper managed by a cautious editorial committee with no principles in particular. In editing an oracle, it was then, as it still is, of primary importance not to make bad mistakes. The Delphian editors were not infallible; but, when a blunder had
