[8\3: ~k~ 492 ff., ~psuchê=| chrêsome/nous Thêbai/ou Teiresi/ao, ma/ntêos alaou= tou= te phre/nes e/mpedoi/ eisin; tô=| kai\ tethnêô=ti no/on po/re Persepho/neia, oi/ô| pepnu=sthai; toi\ de\ skiai\ aï/sousin~. His ~phre/nes~ being undestroyed the most important and distinguishing feature of death is absent. His body, indeed, is destroyed and hence he is called ~tethnêô/s~ like all the other dwellers in Hades, though it is still difficult to see how the ~phre/nes~ could remain without a body. It is highly probable that the idea of the continued existence of the consciousness of the famous seer renowned in Theban legend was derived by the poet from a popular tradition according to which Teiresias still gave proof of the clearness of his wits by the oracles which he sent up from below the earth. In Orchomenos there was a ~chrêstê/rion Teiresi/ou~, Plu., _DO._ 44, p. 434 C (as Nitzsch, _Anm. Od._ iii, p. 151. also reminds us). If we may argue from the context in which Plutarch speaks of him, this must have been an earth-oracle, i.e. an _incubation-oracle_. There stories like those told at Thebes of Amphiaraos may have been related of Teiresias and his survival after death. Some such information the poet of {105} the Nekyia may then have transformed and made use of for his own purposes. Str. 762 not without good ground connects these verses about Teiresias with the stories of Amphiaraos and Trophonios.] [9\3: The ancient site of the Oracle of Amphiaraos was near Thebes at the place (Knopia where according to the epic story he sank into the earth. Paus. 9, 8, 3, Str. 404. Even at the time of the Persian war the envoy of Mardonios inquired of him there, near Thebes, as Hdt. viii, 134, unmistakably says. (That the oracle lay in Theban territory is shown also by the addition of the words, otherwise pointless, ~Thêbai/ôn oudeni\ e/xesti manteu/esthai autothi/~. A similar rule is found at the temple of Herakles in Erythrai which may be approached by Thracian women but not by Erythræan women [Paus. 7, 5, 7-8]; and in the same way the Lampsakenoi were excluded from the funeral games of Miltiades on the Chersonnese: Hdt. vi, 38.) Oropos also claimed to harbour Amphiaraos under its soil; Sch. Pi., _O._ vi, 18, 21-3; differently in Paus. 1, 34, 2-4. But the oracle must have been moved there afterwards--hardly before the end of the fifth century (~methidru/thê~, Str. 404); to suppose that it had always been confined to Oropos is contrary to all the traditional evidence.]