obtained much valuable advice, he assisted indirectly in exalting the reputation of Solon himself, whose career of constitutional reform was now fast approaching. He remained long enough at Athens to restore completely a more comfortable tone of religious feeling, and then departed, carrying with him universal gratitude and admiration, but refusing all other reward, except a branch from the sacred olive-tree in the acropolis.[149] His life is said to have been prolonged to the unusual period of one hundred and fifty-four years, according to a statement which was current during the time of his younger contemporary Xenophanês of Kolophon;[150] and the Kretans even ventured to affirm that he lived three hundred years. They extolled him not merely as a sage and a spiritual purifier, but also as a poet,—very long compositions on religious and mythical subjects being ascribed to him; according to some accounts, they even worshipped him as a god. Both Plato and Cicero considered Epimenidês in the same light in which he was regarded by his contemporaries, as a prophet divinely inspired, and foretelling the future under fits of temporary ecstasy: but according to Aristotle, Epimenidês himself professed to have received from the gods no higher gift than that of divining the unknown phenomena of the past.[151] [143] Lobeck, Aglaophamus, ii, p. 313; Hoeckh, Kreta, iii, 2, p. 252. [144] The statements respecting Epimenidês are collected and discussed in the treatise of Heinrich, Epimenides aus Kreta. Leipsic, 1801. [145] Diogen. Laërt. i, 114, 115. [146] Plutarch, Solon, c. 12; Diogen. Laërt. i, 109-115; Pliny, H. N. vii, 52. θεοφιλὴς καὶ σοφὸς περὶ τὰ θεῖα τὴν ἐνθουσιαστικὴν καὶ ~τελεστικὴν σοφίαν~, etc. Maxim. Tyrius, xxxviii, 3, δεινὸς τὰ θεῖα, οὐ μαθὼν ἀλλ᾽ ὕπνον αὐτῷ διηγεῖτο μακρὸν καὶ ὄνειρον διδάσκαλον. Ἰατρόμαντις, Æschyl. Supplic. 277; Καθαρτὴς, Iamblichus, Vit. Pythagor. c. 28. Plutarch (Sept. Sapient. Conviv. p. 157) treats Epimenidês simply as having lived up to the precepts of the Orphic life, or vegetable diet: to this circumstance, I presume, Plato (Legg. iii, p. 677) must be understood to refer, though it is not very clear. See the Fragment of the lost _Krêtes_ of Euripides, p. 98, ed. Dindorf. Karmanor of Tarrha in Krete had purified Apollo himself for the slaughter of Pytho (Pausan. ii, 30, 3). [147] Plutarch, De Musicâ, pp. 1134-1146; Pausanias, i, 14, 3.