The mention of the Temple of Ammon naturally leads Plutarch to raise the question of the present silence of that famous oracle.[294] Demetrius diverts this particular topic into a general inquiry respecting the comparative failure of oracles all the world over.[295] Bœotia, for example, once so renowned in this respect, suffers from an almost total drought of oracular inspiration. While Demetrius is speaking, the party—Demetrius, Cleombrotus, Ammonius, and Plutarch—had walked from the shrine towards the “doors of the Hall of the Cnidians,[296] and,” proceeds Plutarch, “entering therein we came upon our friends sitting down and waiting for us.” Demetrius playfully suggests that their listless attitude and idle expression do not indicate attention to any important subject of discussion; but Heracleon of Megara retorts sharply upon the grammarian that people who try to solve trifling questions of grammar and philology naturally contract their brows and contort their features;[297] but there are subjects of importance which people discuss with their eyebrows composed in their natural way. “Such,” amiably replies Cleombrotus, “such is the subject we now propose to discuss;” and, the two groups having joined company, he proceeds to explain the topic to his hearers. His observations excite the cynic Didymus, surnamed Planetiades, in a remarkable manner.[298] Striking his cynic’s staff upon the ground, he inveighs against the wickedness of the times, and wonders that the Divine Providence has not gathered up its oracles on every side and taken its departure long ago, like the Aidos and Nemesis of Hesiod. “I would suggest for your discussion the question why some god has not repeated the feat of Hercules and shattered the tripod, filled to overflowing, as it has been, with disgraceful and atheistical requests. Some of us have questioned the god as if he were a sophist, anxious to show off his rhetorical skill. Some of us have appealed to him about riches and treasures; some about legacies; some about unlawful marriages. Surely Pythagoras was utterly wrong when he said that men were at their best when approaching the gods. Do we not expose, naked and unashamed, to the eyes of the god such vices and diseases of the soul as we should shun mentioning even in the presence of an old and experienced man?”[299] He was going to add more, when Heracleon twitched his cloak, “but I,” writes Plutarch, “being on more familiar terms with him than were the others, said to him, ‘My dear Planetiades, cease your efforts to provoke a god who is really amiable and gentle, and who has been, as Pindar says, “Adjudged exceeding mild to mortal men.”