Oracles at Delphi no longer Given in Verse

”What cause, then,” said Diogenianus, “do you think there has been for the color of the bronze here?” And Theon said, “When, of the primary and most natural things, both those that are to be and those that are—fire, earth, air, and water—nothing else approaches or associates with the bronze except the air alone, it is clear that it has been affected by this and through this, which is always present and in contact with it, has acquired the difference which it possesses; or, as the comic poet says, ‘This you knew before Theognis was born,’ or do you desire to learn what nature the air has and what power it uses through its touch to coat the bronze?” And when Diogenianus said yes, he said, “For I too desire it, my boy. Let us then seek together, and first, if you please, for what reason of all liquids oil most of all fills the bronze with rust; for surely the rust itself is not rubbed against the bronze, since the oil approaches it pure and undefiled.” “By no means,” said the young man, “but another cause for this seems to me to exist; for falling upon what is thin, pure, and transparent, the rust is most conspicuous, whereas in other liquids it is hidden.” And Theon said, “Well done, my boy, and beautifully spoken; but consider, if you will, also the cause stated by Aristotle.” “Indeed, I wish to,” he said. “He says, then, that in the case of other liquids, the rust entering passes through imperceptibly and is dispersed, their pores being uneven and loose; but by the density of oil it is contained and remains accumulated. If we too, then, are able to hypothesize something of this sort, we shall not be altogether without a spell and a consolation for our difficulty.”

When, therefore, we urged him and agreed, he said that the air in Delphi, being dense and continuous and having tension because of the reflection and resistance from the mountains, is moreover thin and biting, as is witnessed somehow also by its effect on the digestion of food; entering, therefore, by its thinness and cutting the bronze, it scrapes out much earthy rust from it, but on the other hand, it contains and presses this in again, as its density does not allow dispersion; and the rust that remains underneath, because of its abundance, blossoms out and takes on a luster and a polish on the surface. When we accepted this, the stranger said that the other hypothesis was sufficient for the argument. “For the thinness,” he said, “will seem to be opposed to the alleged density of the air, and it is not necessarily assumed; for the bronze itself, growing old by itself, breathes out and releases the rust, which the density, containing and condensing it, makes conspicuous because of its abundance.” But Theon, taking up the conversation, said, “What, stranger, prevents the same thing from being both thin and dense, just like garments of silk and fine linen, of which Homer also said, ‘From the closely-woven linen wet oil drips,’ indicating the precision and thinness of the weave by the fact that the oil does not remain but runs off and slips away, since the thinness and density do not let it through? Moreover, one might use the thinness of the air not only for the scraping out of the rust, but it also seems to make the color itself more pleasing and brighter blue, by mixing light and luster with the dark blue.”