How To Be An Agnostic
if the very triviality of that prediction emphasised the effort you
should go to when considering what the oracle says on matters
as serious as going to war. Had Croesus seen through his pride,
and heard not endorsement but different possibilities implicit in
the oracle’s words, he would have stared the unpredictability of
war in the face, and perhaps saved the lives of his people.
A similar lesson was missed by the Roman Appius. As civil war
was looming, at what we now know to be the end of the Roman
republic, he asked the oracle about his future. The Pythia said
he will ‘escape the awful threats of war’ and ‘stay at peace in
Euboea’. Appius took this to be consoling; he would not die and
so need not fear the horrors that internecine carnage brings.
But, again, had he allowed the words to sink in properly, he
would have detected an ambivalence. It might mean he avoided
the war. But it might also mean that he would die before war
broke out – which is exactly what happened. He thought he had
cheated death, but death cheated him, and brought him eternal
peace in Euboea.
Every part of the oracle experience, then, gave cause to pause
and reconsider. It represented not the sleep of reason but the
opposite, the call to wake reason up and discern. It began with
the effort of the journey to the shrine. Delphi was high in the
hills. Siwa, the oracle Alexander the Great consulted about his
parentage, was several days ride into the middle of the western
Egyptian desert. Then, there was the preparation and ritual,
coupled to the risk that the oracle might not speak. Finally, if the
oracle did oblige, what had been said had then to be resolved, for
the proper way to hear it was to dwell on its ambiguity and gen-
erate its meaning. As was the case with Socrates, being ambiva-
lent about an oracle was not to question its truth so much as to
struggle with its signifi cance. To take the oracle seriously was to
know yourself a little better. The experience was like a therapy
that could transform blind action – deluded or devoid of self-
knowledge – into wise action.
In some ways it did not even matter what the oracle said.
Oracles were not designed to issue laws or edicts. They gave