12–14
CYNISCUS
On the whole, Zeus, it does no good to have foreknowledge of future events when people are completely unable to guard against them,—unless perhaps you maintain that a man who knows in advance that he is to die by an iron spear-head can escape death by shutting himself up? No, it is impossible, for Fate will take him out hunting and deliver him up to the spear-head, and Adrastus, throwing his weapon at the boar, will miss it and slay the son of Croesus, as if the javelin were sped at the lad by a powerful cast of the Fates.See Herodotus, 1, 34 ff.
Indeed, the oracle of Laius is really ridiculous: Sow not the birth-field in the gods’ despite, For if thou get’st, thy son will lay thee low. Euripides, Phoenissae, 18-19 It was superfluous, I take it, to caution against what was bound to be so in any event. Consequently after the oracle he sowed his seed and his son laid him low. I don’t see, therefore, on what ground you demand your fee for making prophecies.
I say nothing of the fact that you are accustomed to give most people perplexed and ambiguous responses, not making it at all clear whether the man who crosses the Halys will cause the loss of his own kingdom or that of Cyrus; for the oracle can be taken in either sense.It ran: If Croesus doth the Halys crossHe'll cause a mighty kingdom’s loss.
