"Your own poems," says he, "grave, indeed, and philosophic in matter, are, in power and grace and finish, much more after the model of Homer and Hesiod than of the Pythia;" and he gives concise expression to the two opposing mental attitudes in which questions of this kind are universally approached. "Some will maintain that the oracles are fine poems because they are the god's, others that they cannot be the god's because they are not fine poems." Serapion emphatically reasserts the former of these two views, maintaining that "our eyes and our ears are diseased. We have become accustomed, by long indulgence in luxury and effeminacy, to regard sweetness as identical with beauty."[1] Theon[2] is the exponent of a compromise not unknown in modern discussions on the "Inspiration of the Scriptures"—"Since these verses are inferior to those of Homer, it cannot be maintained that the god is their author. He supplies the primary inspiration to the prophetess, who gives expression thereto in accordance with her natural aptitude and capacity. He only suggests the images, and makes the light of the future shine in her soul." The conversation then turns upon certain events which had accompanied, or been preceded by, portents and wonders happening to statues and
- [Footnote: the company discuss the interesting question why we take pleasure
in a dramatic representation of passions whose exhibition in real life would shock and distress us. At another time he appears, together with Plutarch and a few other friends, at a dinner given by Ammonius, then Strategos at Athens for the third time, and explains, upon principles of Epicurean Science (Symposiacs, 720 F), why sounds are more audible at night than by day.]
