Still, religious or superstitious motives were not always absent. They were particularly to the fore in the numerous cases where the extent and importance of the world of Heroes were added to on the recommendation of the Delphic oracle. Ever since the Delphic priesthood had risen from its obscure beginnings to a recognized position as the supreme authority in all questions of spiritual right, the opinion of the oracle had been sought on all occurrences that seemed to have any connexion with the unseen world. Especially in the case of prolonged drought or infertility of the soil, or when pestilential sicknesses had attacked a part of the country, was the oracle {129} requested to state the origin of the misfortune. In many cases the answer of the oracle would be that the origin of the evil lay in the anger of a Hero who was to be placated by sacrifice and the foundation of a permanent worship; or it would command that the plague should be averted by the recovery of the bones of a Hero from a foreign land, which should then be preserved at home and be the object of an official cult.[72\4] Innumerable cults had their origin in this way, nor do the examples all belong to a half-legendary past. When pestilence and dearth broke out in the island of Cyprus after the death of Kimon, the oracle bade the inhabitants of Kition "not to slight" Kimon, but to regard him as a "higher" being, i.e. do him honour as a Hero.[73\4] So, too, when some one possessed by special religious scruples inquired the cause of a strange vision that he had had, or of the remarkable appearance of the body of one lately dead,[74\4] the oracle would often trace the matter to the action of a Hero who must forthwith be given an official cult. When a serious undertaking lay before a state, whether it was the invasion of a foreign land or a decisive battle in war, the oracle would bid the inquirers first placate the Heroes of the country that was to be attacked or where the battle was to be fought.[75\4] Sometimes the oracle of its own accord, without being applied to, commanded the honours of a Hero to be paid to a dead man.[76\4]