Following this a silence ensued, and again the
guides began to deliver their harangues. A certain
oracle in verse was recited (I think it concerned the
kingdom of Aegon the Argive1, whereupon Diogenianus said that he had often wondered at the
barrenness and cheapness of the hexameter lines in
which the oracles are pronounced. ‘Yet the god is
Leader of the Muses, and it is right and fair that he
should take no less interest in what is called elegance
of diction than in the sweetness of sound that is
concerned with tunes and songs, and that his utterances should surpass Hesiod and Homer in the
excellence of their versification. Yet we observe
that most of the oracles are full of metrical and verbal
errors and barren diction.’
Sarapion, the poet who was present from Athens,
said, ‘Then do we believe these verses to be the
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god's, and yet dare to say that in beauty they fall
short of the verses of Homer and Hesiod ? Shall we
not treat them as if they were the best and fairest
of poetic compositions, and correct our own judgement, prepossessed as it is as the result of unfortunate
habituation ?’
At this point Boëthus2 the mathematician entered
into the conversation. (You know that the man is
already changing his allegiance in the direction of
Epicureanism.) Said he, ‘Do you happen to have
heard the story of Pauson the painter ?’
3
‘No,’ said Sarapion, ‘I have not.’
‘Well, it is really worth hearing. It seems that
he had received a commission to paint a horse rolling,
and painted it galloping. His patron was indignant,
whereupon Pauson laughed and turned the canvas
upside down, and, when the lower part became the
upper, the horse now appeared to be not galloping,
but rolling. Bion says that this happens to some
arguments when they are inverted. So some people
will say of the oracles also, not that they are
excellently made because they are the god's, but
that they are not the god's because they are poorly
made ! The first of these is in the realm of the
unknown ; but that the verses conveying the oracles
are carelessly wrought is, of course, perfectly clear to
you, my dear Sarapion, for you are competent to
judge. You write poems in a philosophic and restrained style, but in force and grace and diction they
bear more resemblance to the poems of Homer and
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Hesiod than to the verses put forth by the prophetic
priestess.’