Ammon

However, after his vision, as we are told, Philip sent Chaeron of Megalopolis to Delphi, by whom an oracle was brought him from Apollo, who bade him sacrifice to Ammon and hold that god in greatest reverence, but told him he was to lose that one of his eyes which he had applied to the chink in the door when he espied the god, in the form of a serpent, sharing the couch of his wife.

Then he brought them together and reconciled them, taking an oath by Ammon and the rest of the gods that he loved them most of all men;

and it is by the blood of Macedonians, and by these wounds, that thou art become so great as to disown Philip and make thyself son to Ammon.

So the Athenians, in their annoyance at this result, and at a loss for some means of finding a deliverance from the trouble they were in, took counsel together and decided that the best thing they could do was to send and inquire of Ammon;

But the gods are not to be won by bribes, and so they despise all these things, as Ammon and the holy prophet say.

Thus saith Ammon to the Athenians:

By Ammon, our special divinity, that is a good hit, Socrates;

Some say that Pasiphaë was one of the daughters of Atlas, and the mother of Ammon by Zeus, and some that Cassandra the daughter of Priam died at Thalamae, and was called Pasiphaë because she declared her oracles to all.

But Cimon, while he was projecting vast conflicts and holding his naval forces in the vicinity of Cyprus, sent men to the shrine of Ammon to get oracular answer from the god to some secret question.

No one knows what they were sent to ask, nor did the god vouchsafe them any response, but as soon as the enquirers drew nigh, he bade them depart, saying that Cimon himself was already with him.

wherefore he raised the siege, declaring that the god had commanded it, and ordered the Aphytaeans to sacrifice to Ammon, and was eager to make a journey into Libya and propitiate the god.

Well, then, Ephorus tells us that after an attempt to corrupt the Pythian priestess, and after a second failure to persuade the priestesses of Dodona by means of Pherecles, he went up to the temple of Ammon and had a conference with that god’s interpreters there, at which he offered them much money, but that they took this ill, and sent certain messengers to Sparta to denounce him;

But a few days afterwards, on meeting the magistrates, he said that he was obliged to go up to the temple of Ammon and sacrifice to the god the sacrifices which he had vowed before his battles.

To his delight also certain envoys who had been sent to the shrine of Ammon came back with an oracle declaring that the Athenians would capture all the Syracusans;

Come now, take from your own store what the Egyptians relate, and Alexander sets in order, and his mother reads, concerning the time of Osiris, when Ammon comes to him out of Libya, rich in sheep.

Him the god Ammon got by forced embrace upon a Libyan nymph;