and Laches, often called upon him by name, and often on friends and comrades of [Sidenote: E] his own who had fled with him by way of Parnes, and been slain by our cavalry; they had disobeyed the Sign of Socrates, he said, in turning from the battle by a different way instead of following his lead. This, I think, Simmias too must have heard.’ ‘Often,’ said Simmias, ‘and from many persons. For there was no little noise at Athens about the Sign of Socrates in consequence.’ XII. ‘Well, then, Simmias,’ said Pheidolaus, ‘are we to allow Galaxidorus in his jesting way to bring down this great fact of divination to sneezings and cries, which plenty of common [Sidenote: F] ignorant persons apply to trifles in mere sport, whereas, when grave dangers overtake them, or more serious business, we may quote Euripides:[35] _These follies have a truce when steel is near_‘? Galaxidorus said: ‘I am quite ready to listen to Simmias on this subject, Pheidolaus, if he has himself heard Socrates speak about it, and to join you in believing; but as for all that you and Polymnis have mentioned, it is not hard to refute it. For as in medicine a throb or a pimple is a small matter, but is the indication of what is not small; and as to a pilot the cry of a bird from the open sea, or the scudding of a thin film of cloud, [Sidenote: 582] signifies wind and rougher seas, so to a prophetic soul a sneeze or a voice is nothing great in itself, but is the sign of a great conjuncture. There is no art in which it is thought contemptible to forecast great things by small, many things through few. Suppose a man ignorant of the meaning of letters were to see a few insignificant-looking characters, and to refuse to believe that one who knew grammar could, by their help, repeat the story of great wars between old-world peoples, and foundings of cities, and what kings did or suffered, and then were to say [Sidenote: B] that a voice, or something like a voice, revealed and repeated each of these things to that historian, a pleasant laugh would come over your face, my friend, at the ignorance of that man. Now, consider, may it not be so with us? In our ignorance of the meaning of different things by which the prophetic art hits the coming event, are we simple enough to rebel if a man of intellect uses them to reveal something not yet evident, and says, moreover, that a Divine Sign, not a sneeze or a voice, directs him to the facts? For now I turn to you, Polymnis, who wonder that Socrates, a man who did so very much to make Philosophy human by simplicity and absence of cant, should [Sidenote: C] have named his Sign, not a sneeze or a voice, but, in full tragic phrase, his Divine Sign. I, on the contrary, should be surprised if a man so excellent in Dialectic and mastery of terms had said that the sneeze and not the Divine Sign gave him the intimation. As if a man were to say that he had been wounded “by