im to
go everywhere to consult, 102 wherever they 103 were permitted to make
trial of the Oracles. What he desired to find out from the Oracles when
he gave this charge, I am not able to say, for that is not reported; but
I conceive for my part that he sent to consult about his present affairs
and not about other things.

134. This Mys is known to have come to Lebadeia and to have persuaded
by payment of money one of the natives of the place to go down to
Trophonios, and also he came to the Oracle at Abai of the Phokians;
and moreover when he came for the first time to Thebes, he not only
consulted the Ismenian Apollo,--there one may consult just as at Olympia
with victims,--but also by payment he persuaded a stranger who was not
a Theban, and induced him to lie down to sleep in the temple of
Amphiaraos. In this temple no one of the Thebans is permitted to seek
divination, and that for the following reason:--Amphiaraos dealing by
oracles bade them choose which they would of these two things, either
to have him as a diviner or else as an ally in war, abstaining from the
other use; and they chose that he should be their ally in war: for this
reason it is not permitted to any of the Thebans to lie down to sleep in
that temple.

135. After this a thing which to me is a very great marvel is said by
the Thebans to have come to pass:--it seems that this man Mys of Europos,
as he journeyed round to all the Oracles, came also to the sacred
enclosure of the Ptoan Apollo. This temple is called "Ptoon," and
belongs to the Thebans, and it lies above the lake Copais at the foot of
the mountains, close to the town of Acraiphia. When the man called Mys
came to this temple with three men chosen from the citizens 104 in his
company, who were sent by the public authority to write down that which
the god should utter in his divination, forthwith it is said the prophet
105 of the god began to give the oracle in a Barbarian tongue; and while
those of the Thebans who accompanied him were full of wonder, hearing a
Barbarian instead of the Hellenic tongue, and did not know what to make
of the matter before them, it is said that the man of Europos, Mys,
snatched from them the tablet which they bore and wrote upon it that
which was being spoken by the prophet; and he said that the prophet was
giving his answer in the Carian tongue: and then when he had written it,
he went away and departed to Thessaly.

136. Mardonios having read that which th