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The Attribution Of The Oracle In Zosimus, New History 2. 37

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

H. W. Parke
H. W. Parke
Affiliation:
Durham
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Extract

Zosimus, after recording the foundation and immense growth of Constantinople, introduces a digression directed towards his purpose of justifying paganism against Christianity. ‘It has often indeed occurred to me to wonder how, when the city of the Byzantines has grown, so that no other can compare with it for prosperity and size, there was no prophecy delivered from the gods of our predecessors about its development to a better fortune. With this thought in mind I have turned over many volumes of histories and collections of oracles, and with difficulty I happened upon one oracle said to be of the Sibyl of Erythrae or of Phaennis of Epirus. (For she is said to have produced oracles when in a state of possession.) Nicomedes, the son of Prusias, put his confidence in this oracle, and interpreting it in an advantageous sense he took up war against his father, Prusias, at the persuasion of Attalus.’ Zosimus proceeds to quote twenty-one lines of hexameter verse, which have come down in a rather corrupt state, but of which the general sense is reasonably clear. They consist mainly of an obvious post eventum forecast of the Gallic invasion of Asia Minor in the third century B.C.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , December 1982 , pp. 441 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

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References

1 Photius, Bibl. n, p. 55 (Budé). For a discussion of the relations between Zosimus and Eunapius, see Zosime (Budé) Vol. I, xl-xlii and 109, note 49. W. E. Kaegi, Byzantium and the decline of Rome, pp. 137 ff. explains the line of Zosimus' argument here. For an earlier undertaking by Zosimus to cite appropriate oracles in connection with the decline of the empire, see 1. 58. 4.

2 Lactant., De Ira Dei 22.

3 Paus. 10. 13. 10 and 15. 2. Phaennis is also mentioned in Tzetzes, Chiliades 7. 548 ff., citing lines 1–6 of the oracle in Zosimus, and 9. 820 ff., citing lines 9–11. There is no ground to suppose that Tzetzes had any other source than Zosimus.

4 The Chaones were one of the three major tribes inhabiting Epirus. They had been dominant in the fifth century B.C., but in the fourth and third centuries the sovereignty over Epirus passed to the Molossi. However, the tribes seem to have survived as subordinate units (cf. N. G. L. Hammond, Epirus, p. 685). So Pausanias may be quite correct historically in describing Phaennis as the daughter of a king. But the prophecy of the defeat of the Gauls by Attalus I cannot have been produced before about 238/7 (E. Will, Histoire politique du monde hellénistique i, p. 267.)

5 For the invasion of the Gauls, W. Tarn, C A H. VII, p. 104. On Nicomedes I, Will, Histoire i, p. 219 and on Nicomedes II, id. II, p. 324 and 388.

6 Paschoud, Zosime (Budé) i, p. 240 refers to P.W. ii., 1128, 5–18 (J. Miller) for this legend as applied to Byzantium. The only ancient authority is Hesychius Milesius, FGrHist 390 F 1, § 12, writing in the sixth century A.D. For the lenient treatment of Ilion by the Gauls, we have the nearly contemporary evidence of Hegesianax, FGrHist 45 F 3 = Str. 13. 1. 27. He described the Gauls as having ‘gone up into the city (Ilion) ir need of a fort, but immediately abandoned it as it was unwalled’.

7 V. (the only ms.) reads:. Mendelssohn:. Paschoud prints Gilles’ text:, but seems to agree with Mendelssohn's theory of a new oracle starting here.

8 For Zeus as ‘my father’ in Pythian responses, e.g. Parke and Wormell, Delphic Oracle, 2, no. 154. 2; Leto as ‘mother’, id. no. 129. 2. For the Sibyl describing her own identity and her ancestry: Paus. 10. 12. 2 and 3. [D.Chr.] 37. 13, Clem. Al. Str. 139. 48 (Heraclides Ponticus, fr. 130, Wehrli). This last is peculiar in that the Sibyl identifies herself with Artemis. It was also known by Pausanias I.e. The Sibyl in the Sibylline Oracles frequently speaks in the first person and e.g. declares herself to be the daughter-in-law of Noah (1. 288). Aeschylus similarly makes Cassandra in the Agamemnon suffer hallucinations inspired by Apollo, but never lose her own personality.

9 Paschoud, op. cit. 240, citing P. W. 3, 1147, 8–19. Cf. also for references and comments F. Jacoby, FGrHist iiib, commentary, p. 186.

10 Ditt. Syll.3 550 and S.E.G. iv, 700. Dionysius of Byzantium (K. Müller, G.G.M. ii, p. 93, fr. 67) still refers to the oracle with praise as functioning (c. A.D. 250?).

11 Bean, George, JHS 74 (1964), 85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 See six instances in the Index Verborum, Parke and Wormell, Delphic Oracle ii, 256.