chains in which he had been bound to the pile, with a message asking if that was the way in which Apollo treated his faithful votaries. In the reply he was reminded that Apollo had saved his life, and was told that he had not been careful enough in his interpretation of the oracle, and that it had been impossible any longer to avert the doom which rested on him as the fifth in descent from an ancestor who had incurred the divine wrath by the murder of his master and the usurpation of his throne. With one exception--the encouragement which it gave on certain rare occasions to human sacrifice--the general influence of the oracle was salutary, from a social and political as well as an ethical point of view. On the walls of the temple were inscribed some of the sayings of the wise men of Greece, such as “Know thyself,” “Nothing to excess.” The oracle did much for the protection of rights where no legal sanction was available. It checked blood-feuds, and gave its sanction to the purification and pardon of those who had committed homicide under extenuating circumstances. It could even dispense with ritual observance altogether where there was no real guilt. For example, to a good man who had slain his friend in defending him against robbers, and had fled to the sanctuary in great distress of mind, its answer was: “Thou didst slay thy friend striving to save his life; go hence, thou art purer than thou wert before.” It confirmed the sanctity of oaths. Herodotus gives a striking instance of its high standard of morality when, in answer to an inquirer who asked whether by repudiating his oath he might claim a large sum of money which had been deposited with him, the prophetess declared that to tempt the god as he had done and to commit the crime was the same thing, and that the divine judgment would descend on him and on his house. For “there is a nameless son of Perjury, who has neither hands nor feet; he pursues swiftly, until he seizes and destroys the whole race and all the house.” It also rendered good service, as many inscriptions show, in connection with the emancipation of slaves, whose deposits it took care of, until a sufficient sum was available for the purchase of their freedom from their masters, who were interdicted from making any further claim upon their services. Besides the light and leading which the oracle afforded to some of the early lawgivers of Greece, and the wise counsels which it gave on questions of peace or war, it was specially useful in advising cities on all projects of colonisation. [Illustration: DELPHI, THE CASTALIAN GORGE AND SPRING The scarped vertical face of rock, which may be seen above the figure of the shepherd, shows the recently excavated site of the Place for the Lustration of Pilgrims, to which the water of the Castalian spring was carried by an artificial channel in the rock. The masonry to the left of the drawing is part of a modern reservoir.]