Greek Texts & Translations

not to attack Telemachus before they had inquired of Jupiter is as follows, If the Tomuri of great Jove approve, I myself will kill him, and I will order all to join in the deed; but if the god forbid it, I command to withhold.Odys. xvi. 403. For it is better, it is asserted, to write Tomuri ^note than The- Mistae, ^note because in no passage whatever are oracles called by the poet Themistae, this term being applied to decrees, ^note or statutes and rules of civil government; and the persons are called Tomuri, ^note which is the contracted form of Tomaruri, ^note or guardians of Tomarus.

In Homer, however, we must understand θέμιστες in a more simple sense, and, like βουλαί, by the figure Catachresis, as meaning commands and oracular injunctions as well as laws; for such is the import of this line: To listen to ^note the will of Jove, which comes forth from the lofty and verdant oak. 12

The first prophets were men, and this the poet perhaps indicates, for he calls the persons interpreters, ^note among whom the prophets ^note might be classed. In after-times three old women were appointed to this office, after even Dione had a common temple with Jupiter.

Suidas, in order to court the favour of the Thessalians by fabulous stories, says, that the temple was transported from Scotussa of the Thessalian Pelasgiotis, accompanied by a great multitude, chiefly of women, whose descendants are the present prophetesses, and that hence Jupiter had the epithet Pelasgic. Cineas relates what is still more fabulous * * * * * * * * * * [With the exception of the following Fragments, the rest of this book is lost.]