The prophets had poets under them, who made the oracles into verses, which were often bad enough, and gave occasion to remark that, it was very surprising that Apollo, who presided over the choir of the muses, should inspire his priestess no better. But Plutarch informs us, that it was not the god who composed the verses of the oracle. He inflamed the Pythia’s imagination, and kindled in her soul that living light, which unveiled all futurity to her. The words she uttered in the heat of her enthusiasm, having neither method nor connection, and coming only by starts, if that expression may be used, from the bottom of her stomach, or rather(94) from her belly, were collected with care by the prophets, who gave them afterwards to the poets to be turned into verse. These Apollo left to their own genius and natural talents; as we may suppose he did the Pythia when she herself composed verses, which, though not often, happened sometimes. The substance of the oracle was inspired by Apollo, the manner of expressing it was the priestess’s own: the oracles were however often given in prose. The general characteristics of oracles were ambiguity,(95) obscurity, and convertibility, (if I may use that expression,) so that one answer would agree with several various, and sometimes directly opposite, events. By the help of this artifice, the dæmons, who of themselves are not capable of knowing futurity, concealed their ignorance, and amused the credulity of the Pagan world. When Crœsus was upon the point of invading the Medes, he consulted the oracle of Delphi upon the success of that war, and was answered, that by passing the river Halys, he would ruin a great empire. What empire, his own, or that of his enemies? He was to guess that; but whatever the event might be, the oracle could not fail of being in the right. As much may be said upon the same god’s answer to Pyrrhus: Aio te, Æacida, Romanos vincere posse. I repeat it in Latin, because the equivocality, which equally implies, that Pyrrhus could conquer the Romans, and the Romans Pyrrhus, will not subsist in a translation. Under the cover of such ambiguities, the god eluded all difficulties, and was never in the wrong.