Prophecy, according to the ideas of the ancients, is the announcement of fate (of μοῖρα, αἶσα). Now fate was considered to be the right order of things, the established physical and moral harmony of the world, in which every thing occupies the place fitted for its capacities and function. Fate therefore coincides with supreme Justice (Θέμις); which notion Hesiod expressed by saying that Zeus married Themis, who produced to him the Fates. The pious, religious mind could not separate Zeus and Destiny: Fate was the will and thought of the highest of the gods. A man whose actions agreed with this established harmony, and who followed the appointed course of things, acted _justly_ (κατ᾽ αἶσαν, ἐναίσιμα); the violent and arrogant man endeavoured at least to break through the laws of Fate. Now it was this right order of events which the ancient oracles were supposed to proclaim; and hence they were called θέμιστες, ordinances or laws of _justice_.(1399) They were not imagined to be derived from a foreknowledge of futurity; but merely to declare that which, according to the necessary course of events, must come to pass. It cannot indeed fail to surprise us that the oracle was delivered by a woman in a state of ecstasy, and not as the result of serious reflection. But do we not find in the earlier period of Grecian philosophy (especially in the Ionic school) every new and profound discovery appearing as the work of sudden illumination and ecstasy, and indeed often accompanied with miraculous circumstances? And would not the mind in that age have naturally been raised to such an excited and rapturous state, when, endeavouring to escape from the narrow bounds of daily life, it recognised in the general course of events the influence of the gods? The means adopted to promote this inspiration, the vapour of the chasm, the chewing of the laurel-leaves, the drinking of the water of the well, are of the most innocent description. We do not however mean to deny that these ceremonies soon became an unmeaning form, the oracle being made subservient to political purposes. The custom of a woman giving utterance to the decrees of the god originated partly from the peculiar estimation in which women were held by the Dorians, and partly from the natural tendency of the female sex (so often remarked by the ancients) to fits of ecstasy. Prophetesses were elsewhere also frequently connected with temples of Apollo; as, for instance, Manto, during the fabulous age, with the Ismenian and Clarian temples, and Cassandra with that of Thymbra, whose nature was nearly allied to that of the sibyls, who likewise were always connected with temples of the same god. As to the manner in which the responses of the Pythian priestess were delivered, Heracleitus of Ephesus says, that “_the god, whose oracle is at Delphi, neither utters nor conceals any thing, but gives signs_;”(1400) which at least serves to contradict the common idea of the designed ambiguity of this oracle.