By contrast, at the bottom end of the divination scale languished itinerant
diviners, interpreters of oracle collections gathered under the name of the great
seers of the past, such as Musaeus, Orpheus, or Bakis, the content of which
evolved to meet the needs of each age (Bowden 2003; Sordi 1993). Aristophanes,
Euripides, and Sophocles, as well as Thucydides, Plato, and the Cynic Diogenes, not
to mention Artemidorus, the expert in the interpretation of dreams, all alike reviled
them, which is proof enough of their success with the masses. Since they needed to
live by their craft, they often found themselves with conflicting interests.
Between these two extremes fell a myriad of local divinatory institutions – Boeotia
alone had more than ten of them – as well as publicly recognized diviners in the
service of the city or of armies (e.g.,IGi^3 1147, lines 128–9, ca. 460 BC). Divinatory
rituals were essential prior to combat. The city of Athens awarded a crown to the
diviner Cleobulus, the uncle of Aeschines, for his services during the campaign
against Chilon (Aeschines,On the Embassy78;Bull. 1958, 217 [Robert]). When
he was on campaign Xenophon, a witness representative of many learned Greeks,
accepted the significance of signs, whatever they were, without raising an eyebrow
(e.g.,Cyropaedia 1.6.1–4), and often sacrificed to obtain omens (but he also
denounced a diviner who acted to his own advantage:Anabasis5.6.16–34).
From the time of Homer (Odyssey2.181–2) Greek thought was divided between
unshakeable faith in divination and developing skepticism. In criticizing Calchas
and Helenus, who should have seen things that they had not, and in rejecting
certain types of divination, the messenger of Euripides’Helen(744–57; cf.Electra
399–400) is representative of a trend (his ideas recur at Thucydides 8.1, where the
crowd reproach the diviners for their misleading advice after the Sicilian disaster):
‘‘Reason,’’ he concludes, ‘‘is a better diviner, as is soundness of judgment.’’
Euripides is difficult to use, because the prophecies that are most heavily criticized
in his works come to pass against all expectation (Iphigenia in Tauris570–5). But
the lively debates that divided the Greek elites emerge clearly from an inscription
dedicated to the dead of the battle of Coronea, shortly after 446 BC: the Athenian
general appears to have acted in spite of an unfavorable sign, thereby demonstrating
the authenticity of oracles, for all that some held them in disdain (Hansen 1983:5).
This curious mixture of unshakeable faith and skepticism could often be found
within the same individual. Once the principle of divination had been accepted,
one tried to limit the possibilities of abuse or error. As with Croesus in the legend,
the Greeks posed their questions in such a form as to reduce ambiguous factors to
the minimum. Xenophon asked at Delphi not whether he should join Cyrus’
expedition, but to which gods he should sacrifice to make a success of it (Anabasis
3.1.4–7). The Corcyreans asked at Dodona what gods they should worship in
order to maintain harmony (Parke 1967:260, nos. 2–3). The response to this kind
of question is never false. The prophet-interpreters could perhaps shape the god’s
responses, but the consultants acted in the same way, by presenting their question
in the form of an indirect inquiry: ‘‘Cleoutas asks Zeus and Dione if it is profitable
and advantageous for him to rear sheep’’ (Syll.^3 1165).
Both sides, unawares, refined a system of consultation that justified the truth-
fulness of oracles whilst allaying people’s anxiety. Thus, the responses to a ques-
tion of the type according to which one wishes ‘‘to knowwhetherone should
cultivate the land’’ will be 100 percent valid, because one will never know what148 Pierre Bonnechere