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Croesus and the turtle

by Eugenia Salza Prina Ricotti

One of the most faithful and frequent petitioner of the oracle of Delphi was Croesus. Erodotus tells us what happened the first time that the rich king of Lydia sent his heralds charged of precious gifts to this sanctuary. Clearly the king wanted to ascertain the oracle’s reliability and, to control her worthiness, he devised a plan and he ordered his messengers to keep close account of the date, the day and the exact hour in which the prophetess foretold the answer. Then he committed them to write down each of her words, whether they understood their meaning or not. On his side Croesus established that in those days during which most likely the Pythia would express the oracle, he would secretly put in act a certain number of actions out of the usual, and he would mark the exact time in which he was doing them. The rich king was sure that if the holy seer was really this, she would also tell them what was happening in the palace.
The messengers departed and after a long voyage, arrived to the temple, paid the “pelanos”, cut the throat of a goat and as everything went well, they were allowed to descend to the “manteyon” and hear the prophecy. Returned to Lydia they reported to the king what a certain day and at an exact hour the Pythia had told them
I am counting the grains of sand and measuring the extents of the oceans. Make attention when the dumbs will speak
and notice what the ones who are silent say.
What is the smell I am feeling? A turtle with its strong armor
Is plunged in a bronze cauldron and mixed with lamb meat;
Bronze under it and bronze over it.
Croesus was happy to hear it because in the same instant that the Pythia pronounced those words he was cooking a lamb and turtle soup in a big bronze cauldron covered by a bronze lid.
To understand the rest of the prophecy was surely more difficult, but at the end Croesus understood what it meant.


BIBLIOGRAPHY
Herodotos, Historiai, I. 47-48