Oracles at Delphi no longer Given in Verse

​While Sarapion was attempting to say something about these matters, the stranger said: “It is pleasant indeed to listen to such words, but for me it is necessary to demand the fulfillment of the first promise concerning the cause which has caused the Pythia to cease from delivering her oracles in verses and other measures. Therefore, if you please, let us postpone the remainder of our sightseeing and, sitting down here, listen to these matters. For this is the argument that most of all opposes the belief in the oracle, as being one of two things: either that the Pythia does not approach the place where the divine presence is, or that the spirit (pneuma) has been completely extinguished and its power has failed.” So, having gone around, we sat down upon the southern steps of the temple, looking towards the sanctuary of Earth and the water, so that Boethus immediately said that the place itself also joins with the stranger in raising the difficulty. For there was a sanctuary of the Muses here around the outflow of the stream, whence they used to use this water for their libations, as Simonides says: ”Where the pure water of the fair-haired Muses is drawn from beneath for hand-washings.” And Simonides, speaking again with a little more elaboration, addresses Clio: “Guardian of pure hand-washings,” he says, “much-entreated, thin, without golden robe, fragrant, having received the lovely water from ambrosial depths.” Therefore Eudoxus did not rightly believe those who asserted that this water is called the water of Styx. And they established the Muses as assessors of the prophetic art and its guardians beside the stream and the sanctuary of Earth, whose oracle is said to have been because of the chanting of prophecies in measures and melodies. And some say that here also the heroic measure was first heard: ”Bring feathers, ye birds, and wax, ye bees,” at the time when, having become inadequate for the god, it lost its solemnity.

​Sarapion said: “These remarks, Boethus, are more reasonable and more cultured. For we must not fight against the god, nor destroy, along with the art of prophecy, providence and the divine, but rather seek solutions for those things which seem to be contradictory, and not abandon our pious and ancestral faith.” “You speak rightly, excellent Sarapion,” I said. “For neither did we condemn philosophy as being entirely destroyed and corrupted because, whereas formerly the philosophers put forth their doctrines and discourses in poetry—such as Orpheus, Hesiodos, Parmenides, Xenophanes, Empedocles, and Thales—later they ceased and have ceased using measures, except for you; but through you, poetic art again descends into philosophy, giving a high and noble encouragement to the young. Nor did Aristarchus, Timocharis, Aristyllus, and Hipparchus make astronomy less esteemed by writing in prose, whereas formerly Eudoxus, Hesiodos, and Thales wrote in measures—if indeed Thales, to tell the truth, composed the astronomy which is attributed to him. And Pindar confesses that he is at a loss concerning the style of melody which was neglected in his own day, and wonders at it. For it is nothing terrible or strange to seek the causes of such changes; but to destroy the arts and powers if anything in them is moved and altered, is not just.”