Orationes 25

309. I happened to be staying at Hadriani, the god having sent me; and there were then many and continual distresses, for it was not possible for me either to be nourished or to keep down whatever I tasted, but it straightway gathered with much fire and tore at my throat and cut off my breath, and fiery convulsions rose up into my head. And 310. when I tried to vomit, it would not come up, but there was a single drop in place of a great surge, on account of being held fast and bringing on choking, and only with difficulty, and after much commotion and much despair, would I be rid of it, and not without blood, but the whole passage was lacerated and remained like another wound. And the weariness and the whole weakness of the body and the purging were in proportion to what was happening. And none of my friends nor of my usual companions was present, but each was abroad in a different place, except that one happened to be staying at the waters at the time—the one whom I had earlier dreamed, as I lay alone on the road, my horse having fallen on which I was sitting, telling me that this too had befallen from destiny, that I should be left alone. This, then, had happened earlier at Pergamum, a little before my departure; but then, while I was in distress at Hadriani, I remember such a dream as this coming to me. I seemed to be carried on a raft in the Egyptian sea, alone, and to be on the very edge of the raft, the side toward the land; and while I was at a loss, my foster-father Zosimus appeared holding a horse on the land, and somehow I got out and gladly took hold of the horse. And this was so. And I seemed also, passing through Alexandria, to see schools of children; and they were reading and singing these verses, chanting them in accompaniment most sweetly: "And many he drew up from death as it gazed upon them, men who had already set their feet upon the very lightning-gates 311. of Hades." And these are from my own verses, almost the first that I composed for the god. So I marvelled how they had already made their way into Egypt, and I rejoiced exceedingly that I happened to have caught my own things being sung.

And the chief points of the dreams are such. When day came—for there happened to be a horse at hand for me—I mount at once, and the horse which no single man would have thought could hold out as far as the first stage, I drive at full gallop, and I become easier while it is still running, and much of the weight from the upper parts departed and some strength, such as one may have in such conditions, was gathered, and again there were hopes. And there came to me also by night the voice of someone saying, "You have been cured," and that too in the very midst of the most hopeless straits. In what manner, then, I was brought back safe to Pergamum again, and what regimen I next followed, I must of necessity pass over, because of the multitude both of the accounts and of the matters. I went out on another journey to the waters at the height of summer, and it had been foretold that I should return immediately after bathing, having pounded cinnamon and sprinkled it around the neck. These two stages together I accomplished, two hundred and forty stades, the heat being marvellous, and I bore the thirst more easily than one might who walks home from a bath. Again he sends me, having ordered me to drink cold water, and I drank the whole. And let these things stand at this much for the present. As for what befell at Lebedos: I was sent from a confinement in which I had been lying at the Soteria, he himself having ordered this too, so worn out that I could not even hold out on the couch at home. And the physician Satyrus was at Pergamum at this time, a sophist, as was said, not of the ignoble. He, coming to me as I lay, and touching both the chest and the hypochondria, when, as the talk went on, he heard how many bloodlettings I had had, bade me hold off the blood and not undo the body. "And I," he said, "will give you a poultice, very light and simple, which you are to put on the stomach and the hypochondria, and you will know how much it will help." This he advised; and I said that I was not master to do with the blood either thus or otherwise, but that, so long as the god ordered me to draw it off, I should obey both willingly and unwillingly—rather, never unwillingly; but I did not refuse Satyrus' gift, but kept it, having taken it; and it was, after all, no horn of Amaltheia. When I am brought to Lebedos, having survived very unexpectedly and gladly, this already seemed to be all gain. But I needed much help, and I had recourse to the waters scarcely and sparingly. It seemed best to me, then, to put Satyrus' drug on the stomach and the chest, as Satyrus had directed, supposing that in any case nothing great would result outside the treatment that came from the god. At once, then, the first application would not admit me, but seemed too cold; 312. nevertheless it seemed best to me to endure and to submit to the drug, in case in time it might accomplish something. And so the chest is chilled with a terrible chill, and a cough comes on, frequent and strong, and I was held by distress, and the god signifies that it is consumption. And on the next day my temples and the whole circle of my face were drawn tight, and my jaws were locked together, and there was uproar if ever there was.

And when I had relaxed a little, it comes into my mind to consult the god at Colophon, both about the present matters and about the whole weakness. Colophon is not far from Lebedos, and the sacred night happened to be at hand. This being resolved, I send Zosimus. And when the night had come on, to Zosimus this oracle comes that referred to me:

"Asclepius shall heal you of your sickness and cure you, honouring the famed town of Telephus, not far from the streams of the Caicus."

And to me, on the same night, these things came, as far as I can recall the chief points. I seemed to be at my father's hearth, and on the wall where the images of the gods stand there were inscriptions such as these: "So-and-so, saved from the uttermost perils, thank-offerings to all the gods"; and there appeared traces of the sacrifices. And this very vision was for me the beginning of the continual sacrifices, not so much because I looked toward the dream, but because at once such were the things that came from the gods, and at the same time my mind was so disposed. From Lebedos, then, we withdrew with cheerfulness, when it seemed best to the god, and I enjoyed an ease worth telling of. And what I said about the consumption the god afterward signified to the temple-warden, as the warden of Asclepius himself related to me, having heard nothing of it from me beforehand; for he said that he heard the god saying that he had taken away both my consumption and catarrh, but was healing the stomach. And to Neritus too, one of my foster-fathers, about the same time, he displayed marvellous things. For I think the god seemed to say to him, having come together with Telesphorus, looking toward me, that this man's bones must be taken out and sinews put in, for the existing ones had given out; and that he himself was in every anxiety and distress, hearing 313. these things about me, but that the god said, consoling and instructing him, that one must not cut out the bones straight off nor cut away the existing sinews, but that there must be, as it were, a certain alteration of the existing parts; so much and so strange was the setting-right that was needed. And he gives a cure for Neritus to tell me: three times a day to use saltless olive oil; and from then on I did so, and on trial it benefited me toward the better. And these other things befell me at my father's hearth, at the very height of winter and at the same time of the disease. I was lying at lunch, and there came on strong and terrible pains of the head, and my face was drawn tight, and my lips were locked together, and there was great distress. And, contracted as I was, I darted into the little room where I slept, and I lie down somehow, and a great and violent fire comes on; and I could not breathe, but there was wailing of my mother and nurse and the other servants, and Zosimus too was thrown into confusion, and somehow I nodded to the greater number to go out, and I set myself in array for what would come. And after this it was sunset, or even further on, and a convulsion comes on upon the fever, neither to be told nor such as one could even imagine; rather my body was drawn in every direction, and my knees were carried up toward my head and struck against it, and my hands it was not possible to hold down, but they fell upon my neck and face; and my chest was thrust outward and my back was drawn back behind, like a sail bellied out by the wind. And no part of the body was at rest nor differed even a little from its natural state, but the motion was at its utmost and the wracking of the pains unspeakable, neither letting me keep silence and, against my voice, meeting it still more greatly.

And these things went on even into the middle of the night and beyond, not relaxing even a little; then it took something off the height, yet did not wholly cease. And there was a continual underlaying and wrapping of warm wool and every kind of fomentation, and scarcely thus do I get through. And before it was day, someone ran to call a physician. He came either on the next day or a day 314. later. And about noon, it seems to me, some attack came on again, and not long after there was a black discharge below. And as I sat upon the stool there comes on a terrible faintness and sweat and swooning. And the physician was thrown into confusion and thought it right to bring food; but the thing was not of that sort. And night comes on, such as in a surge and a tossing, and I fell asleep almost as far as a dream. And there comes to me a command to go to the hearth of my foster-fathers, and to do obeisance to the image of Zeus by which I was reared; and certain cries, I think, and the manner of the supplication were prescribed in detail. And there was no little snow and the going was altogether hard, and the little house was distant from the dwelling more than a stade. I mounted a horse and went, and did obeisance, and had no sooner returned than all those things were settled. And the affections above the neck, and the wrackings from the back, and the developing opisthotonus he then healed straightway in this manner, when he had healed the difficulty of breathing. He said it was a royal substance, and that I must take it from the woman. And somehow from these things there appeared a servant of the royal household by the temple and image of Telesphorus, clothed in white and girded, and at the doors, where Artemis is, he was going out, preceded by a herald, carrying to the king the rest of the substance. The dream, then, as far as I can dimly recall, was most like this. And when, coming into the temple, I am going about by the shrine of Telesphorus, the warden of Asclepius comes up, and, as he happened to be standing by the image, I tell him the vision that had come to me, and asked what the substance might be, or who might use it. And he, on hearing and marvelling, as was his way, said: "The search is not long nor a matter of much road, but I bring it to you from here; for it lies at the feet of Hygieia, this Tyche having just now placed it there, as soon as the temple was opened." And Tyche was a woman of distinction. And going into the shrine of Hygieia he brings the substance; and I anoint myself, as I happened to be standing. And the fragrance of the substance was marvellous, and its power at once manifest. For more quickly than I have told, the tension was relaxed. And asking the 315. warden afterward, I learned that it was a compound of three: the juice with which we anoint ourselves, and nard-perfume, and another of the costly perfumes—named, I think, after the leaf. And having prepared it, I used it thus for the rest, and all those things were relaxed. And Telesphorus too appeared by night, dancing round my neck, and a gleam shone on the opposite wall as from the sun.

About this time, at the same period, this too befell me, whether I was already vomiting in the evening or the vomitings had not yet come. A nut and a dried fig and a date, and at the same time a little bread with them, were needed for me to eat on rising from bed. And these I used from then on, in connection with the substance. And for the stomach and the hypochondria and the region about these he gives a poultice-drug, higher up, I think, than these. And he gives such a notion, setting it before me: I seemed to see Asclepiacus the physician come in to me and, examining me, apply a poultice, with the drug called dittany, and at the same time foretell that I should use it for thirty days. I used it, and the thirtieth night came, and I seemed to see Asclepiacus come again and take off the poultice. And some time later he compounded something of four ingredients and applied it, of which I remember two—pitch from wine and unwashed wool—but the two others, if the dreams appear, I shall fill in. And indeed about the name of the drug made from a wild beast I remember this. I happened to have eaten my whole meal, and to have left much of the day behind, but he ordered me to dine and, having risen, to drink of this drug; and this went on for five days in succession, in which I knew the physicians ordered the opposite—that, whenever one was about to drink, one should not dine—and this had hitherto been my custom. And again he bade me eat of this same drug along with bread, and I ate it by the sacred tripod, making this a kind of starting-point of safety. And there is, I think, a compound of Philo, another drug. Of this I could not even bear to smell before, but, the god having signified to use it and at the same time the hour at which I must, I not only drank it easily, but, having drunk it, was at once both pleasanter and easier. There would be countless other things to tell 316. concerning drugs, of which some he compounded himself, while of the common and ordinary ones he gave treatment for the body, as it chanced each time. And when the catarrhs were continual and the palate burning, and the uvula was inflamed, and the veins did not hold but were strained, I seemed to be reading some serious book, of which I could not tell the details—for again I shall say the same thing. For how, after so long an interval, especially when the keeping of the record has taken away the attention to memory? But toward the end of the book there was most of all such matter as this. And it was as though said about one of the competitors. "All these things, then, the god, having reckoned up and seeing the flux carried headlong, ordered him to drink water and to abstain from wine, if he had any need to win; which things," he said, "it is open to you too, imitating them, to be crowned, or to be crowned along with him." There it ended. Then beneath the discourse was written the inscription "lover of crowns" or "fond of winning crowns." How long a time, then, I bore the water-drinking I cannot say; but that I did so easily and readily, though always somehow before vexed at water and nauseated. And when this too had been performed, he releases me from the water and appoints a measure of wine, and the phrase was "a royal hemina"—it is plain that he meant a half-cotyle. I used this, and so it sufficed as before double had not sufficed; and sometimes, when I was sparing from fear lest it run short, there was even some over. Yet I did not set this aside for the next day, but from the start I had to be content with the measure. And when he had this trial too, he releases me now to drink at my own discretion, jesting somewhat thus: that those of men were foolish who, having abundance of what is sufficient, do not dare to use it freely. And the book itself seemed to be that of Antisthenes "On Use"; and it referred to wine, and there were attached certain tokens of Dionysus. And so, then, I was disposed by habit, so that 317. even when the god gave leave I differed but a little in drinking from the measure. And in a way I missed that former stewardship. There was a certain time, this, when I abstained from living creatures, except the cock, and from all vegetables, except wild ones and lettuce, and I abstained from all dainties. And once now he ordered me to use one altogether, and I used the cock—and this too was scarcely allowed me. And of these things some we got through with non-bathing and bloodlettings and clysters, others as each chanced. From fish, indeed, I abstained for six whole years; from pork, I do not know how much. And again, when he permitted, I used both. Then in turn I would be kept from some, and use others, as each suited each occasion. And indeed from fish-sauce he kept me altogether; for it was not salutary to the head, and least of all to the teeth. And he gave cures for the teeth. First it was to burn a lion's tooth and, having pounded it, use it as a dentifrice; second, to rinse with the juice—with this very substance; after these, pepper, and he added it for the sake of warmth; and upon all, Indian spikenard, this too a dentifrice.

And these are among the things lately shown; from beef I was kept in this manner. An oracle seemed to have come forth to Zosimus, that he should live just so long as the cow in the field lived. And indeed he seemed to say to him: "Do you know, then, what the oracle means? It bids you abstain from beef." And Zosimus, it was said, near the chill from which he died, having tasted some beef from a sacrifice, was harmed. There was, then, as was likely, much precision and forethought, that I should not, even touching it with the tip of my finger, escape notice. And some time later the many frequent earthquakes happen in the governorship of Albus over Asia, and Mytilene was thrown down, almost all of it, and in many of the other cities much was shaken, and villages utterly perished, and the Ephesians and the Smyrnaeans ran to and fro toward one another in confusion, and the continuity both of the earthquakes and of the fears was marvellous. And partly they sent envoys to Claros and the oracle was fought over, partly, holding suppliant-boughs, they went round about the altars and the marketplaces and the parts encircling the cities, 318. no one daring to remain at home; and at the last they ceased even supplicating. While things were thus, the god bids me—I was then staying at Smyrna, or rather in the place before the city—to sacrifice an ox publicly to Zeus the Saviour. As I drew back and was suspicious, and feared that earlier prophecy, there came something of such a thought too: that I should not be sacrificing a female, and that there was no necessity to taste of it. But that which was clearest, and on which I took courage and sacrificed, was this. I seemed, as I stood by the very altar of Zeus in the marketplace and begged that he show a sign whether it were better to sacrifice, that a bright star darted across the marketplace, confirming the sacrifice. So, taking courage, I sacrificed. What followed, let him who is pleased to believe believe, and him who is not, farewell. For all those things ceased, and nothing further troubled us after that day, by the forethought and power of the gods, and by our necessary service. And no less marvellous than this, if not more so—for about the sixth or seventh day before the first shock he ordered me to send to the ancient hearth, which is by the temple of Olympian Zeus, both to perform the rites and to set up altars on the summit of the hill of Atys. And these had just been accomplished, and the earthquake, coming on, so touched all the rest of the intervening country as to leave none of the dwellings standing, save here and there some small ruin; but above Atys it did not advance, nor against our place Laneion, south of Atys, except so far as to be felt, but beyond it touched nothing. For indeed I came to such a pitch of confidence that, even when the earthquakes were most at their height, coming up from the hot waters into the city, having seen in dreams the people supplicating and in confusion, I was on the point of saying that there was no need to fear, for nothing grievous would come to pass; for I should not myself have been called, on these terms, into 319. the city. Then, that I might not seem to be some demagogue, I held back, but to those with me I solemnly protested, that I might have my acquittal, saying these very words.

The matters concerning the earthquakes, then, and how we began to sacrifice an ox to them, have been told. Once we were seeking a goose's egg, the god having given a sign during my residence at Pergamum, and it was nowhere to be found in the marketplace, but there was Milates from the citadel; to him those engaged in the search come at last, by chance and at the same time by information. And Milates tells them that he has an egg, but is keeping it for the sake of a cure; for the god had thus told him beforehand. "Then we are from there," said the searchers; and he, having done obeisance, gives it. But what I did with it when I had taken it I do not know, by reason of the multitude of years. And like to this was the matter of the geese from Isis, which happened at the very beginning of my weakness, about geese themselves. I was staying at the hot waters, and the goddess bids me sacrifice two geese to herself. I went to the city, having sent ahead those who should look into it, and having foretold that they should meet me at the temple of Isis having the geese. There were, then, no other geese that day, but two only. And to those who came to them and would buy, the keeper of the geese said that he could not sell them; for he had been told beforehand by Isis to keep them for Aristides, who would certainly come and sacrifice them. And when he learned the whole, he was thunderstruck, and, having done obeisance, gives them; and these things I learned at the very sacrifice. And there came also a light from Isis and other unspeakable things tending to salvation. And Sarapis too appeared on the same night, both himself and Asclepius, marvellous in beauty and magnitude and in a certain manner resembling one another. And when the calamity about Zosimus came—for what the god foretold and consoled me with when it was about to be I pass over—but when it came and I was grievously affected by the grief, Sarapis seemed to me, holding a kind of surgeon's knife, just as he sits in his posture, to cut round the parts about my face, beneath, somehow, 320. the very line of distinction, as though removing defilements and cleansing, and changing me into what was fitting. So that afterward too a vision comes to me from the gods below, that if I should let go this excessive grieving over the dead, it would conduce to my better. And much more awe-inspiring than these were the things shown later in time, in which there were the ladders that mark off what is above the earth and what is below, and the power of the god on either side, and other things bringing marvellous astonishment, and not perhaps to be told to all, so that I was glad that the tokens of Asclepius appeared. And the chief point was, concerning the power of the god, that even without vehicles and without bodies Sarapis was able to convey men wherever he wished. Such were the things of the initiation; and I rose up not easily to be recognized. And besides these a certain sacrifice was indicated, owed to Zeus and awaiting a prophecy, but rendered as belonging to Sarapis, and it was rendered also as to Zeus. And I can tell, too, that on the sacred days which the city of the Alexandrians keeps for the god, he often gave many signs to me, both on each one in turn, and as it again came round. And if I must relate something even more fearful: I had sacrificed to Isis and Sarapis in the temple of Isis—I mean this happened in Smyrna. As I was going out of the forecourt, two of the sacred geese came gliding up to me, and, passing in front, led the way so exactly along the very path on which I was about to walk that it was plain to me. And I took the matter to heart and said to my friends and those escorting me: "See, these too escort me, in the very chorus of friends"; and at the same time I spoke about the keenness and power of the god, how great it was, both in oracular reports and in tokens, and that often now upon my prayer the answer had come; "and now," I said, "he has sent these to us as guides of the road." Such things we discussed, and at the same time we watched what they would do; and we go on from the temple, I do not know how far, and I, displaying it to my friends, jest with the geese and say: "Your service to us, good sirs, is enough; go your way." I had no sooner spoken than, turning back, they departed.