Orationes 28
Orationes 28 Imperial Aelius Aristides Greek- In most matters, then, the god guided us in this way, signifying what I had to do and finding me obedient, if ever any man was obedient to a god. But in the second year after my withdrawal from the Aesepus, and the twelfth from the time when I first fell ill, many marvellous visions came to me, leading me to Epidaurus, the sacred city of the god. The very first of these was of the following kind. Someone, urging me to take courage, recounted a saying of Musonius. That man, he said, wishing to rouse a certain person who was sick and had given up hope, fastened upon him with words something like these: "Why do you linger? What are you looking for? Or will you wait until the god himself stands beside you and utters his voice? Cut away the part of your soul that is dead, and you shall come to know the god." Such, he said, were the words Musonius spoke. And besides these there were voices that said, "Save him for the city of the Athenians"; and this had the same force as if it had said, "for the Greeks"; and there were great predictions concerning affairs in Italy.