Kitap 8
8
Nor will I pass over in silence the men who prophesy from fish in Lycia, concerning whom Polycharmus speaks, in the second book of his Affairs of Lycia; writing in this manner:—For when they have come to the sea, at a place where there is on the shore a grove sacred to Apollo, and where there is an eddy on the sand, the persons who are consulting the oracle come, bringing with them two wooden spits, having each of them ten pieces of roast meat on them. And the priest sits down by the side of the grove in silence; but he who is consulting the oracle throws the spits into the eddy, and looks on to see what happens. And after he has put the spits in, then the eddy becomes full of salt water, and there comes up such an enormous quantity of fish of such a description that he is amazed at the sight, and is even, as it were, alarmed at the magnitude of it. And when the prophet enumerates the different species of fish, the person who is consulting the oracle in this manner receives the prophecy from the priest respecting the matters about which he has prayed for information. And there appear in the eddy orphi, and sea-grayling, and sometimes some sorts of whales, such as the phalkena, or pristis, and a great many other fish which are rarely seen, and strange to the sight.
