Having heard this reply, Crœsus adored the god of Delphi, and owned the oracle had spoken truth; for he was on that day employed in _boiling together a lamb and a tortoise_ in a _cauldron of brass_, which had a cover of the same metal. He next sent, enjoining his ambassadors to inquire whether he should undertake a war against the Persians? The oracle returned answer, “If Crœsus passes the Halys, he will put an end to a vast empire.” Not failing to interpret this as favourable to his project, he again sent to inquire, “If he should long enjoy the kingdom?” The answer was, “That he should till a mule reigned over the Medes.” Deeming this impossible, he concluded that he and his posterity should hold the kingdom _for ever_. But the oracle afterwards declared that by “a _mule_” was meant _Cyrus_, whose parents were of different nations--his father a Persian, and mother a Mede. By which _mule_, says a facetious writer, the good man Crœsus was thus made an _ass_! That the priests, however, used much deception in the business, and that this deception did not escape the notice of the learned men of the time, is evident from the charge which Demosthenes had brought against the _Pythia_, of her being accustomed to _Philippise_, or conform her notes to the tune of the Macedonian emperor. The knowledge of this circumstance made the prudent at all times distrust their suggestions, whilst the rabble, without gainsay, acquiesced as blindly in the belief of their infallibility. But it was not only as to the meaning of the word _Pheelea_ that the Greeks were unapprised, they knew not the import of their own name _Pelargi_![534] It is compounded of this same term _pheelea_, an _augur_ or a _diviner_; and _argh_, the symbolic _boat_, or yoni! And, mind you, that this was the great difference between the Pelargi--which is but another name for Pish-de-danaans--and the Tuath-de-danaans, that the latter venerated the _male_ organ of energy, and the former the _female_; therefore in no country occupied by the former do you meet with _Round Towers_, though you invariably encounter those _traces_ of _art_, which prove their descent from _one common origin_. As presiding over the _diviners_ of the _symbolical boat_, Jupiter was called _Pelargicus_.[535] _Agyeus_ was another term in their religious vocabulary, as applied to Apollo, of which the Greeks knew not the source. They could not, indeed, well mistake, that it was derived immediately from αγυια, _via_; but that did not expound the fact, and they were still in ignorance of its proper import. It is merely a translation of our _Rudh-a-vohir_, that is, _Apollo-of-the high-roads_, not, what the Greeks understood it, as _stationary_ thereon, but, on the contrary, as _itinerant_; and to whom _Venus the stranger_ corresponded on the other side; the especial province of both being to ensure the comforts of _hospitality_, of _protection_, and of _love_, to all emigrants and all travellers.