he best soldiers.

=Omens.=--In return for so much homage, so many festivals and
offerings, the Greeks expected no small amount of service from their
gods. The gods protected their worshippers, gave them health, riches,
victory. They preserved them from the evils that menaced them, sending
signs which men interpreted. These are called Omens. "When a city,"
says Herodotus,[57] "is about to suffer some great misfortune, this is
usually anticipated by signs. The people of Chios had omens of their
defeat: of a band of one hundred youths sent to Delphi but two
returned; the others had died of the plague. About the same time the
roof of a school of the city fell on the children who were learning to
read; but one escaped of the one hundred and twenty. Such were the
anticipating signs sent them by the deity."

The Greeks regarded as supernatural signs, dreams, the flight of birds
in the heavens, the entrails of animals sacrificed--in a word,
everything that they saw, from the tremblings of the earth and
eclipses to a simple sneeze. In the expedition to Sicily, Nicias, the
general of the Athenians, at the moment of embarking his army for the
retreat, was arrested by an eclipse of the moon; the gods, thought he,
had sent this prodigy to warn the Athenians not to continue their
enterprise. And so Nicias waited; he waited twenty-seven days offering
sacrifices to appease the gods. During this inactivity the enemy
closed the port, destroyed the fleet, and exterminated his army. The
Athenians on learning this news found but one thing with which to
reproach Nicias: he should have known that for an army in retreat the
eclipse of the moon was a favorable sign. During the retreat of the
Ten Thousand, Xenophon, the general, making an address to his
soldiers, uttered this sentiment: "With the help of the gods we have
the surest hope that we shall save ourselves with glory." At this
point a soldier sneezed. At once all adored the god who had sent this
omen. "Since at the very instant when we are deliberating concerning
our safety," exclaimed Xenophon, "Zeus the savior has sent us an omen,
let us with one consent offer sacrifices to him."[58]

=The Oracles.=--Often the god replies to the faithful who consult him
not by a mute sign, but by the mouth of an inspired person. The
faithful enter the sanctuary of the god seeking responses and counsel.
These are Oracles.

There were oracles in many places in Greece and Asia. The most noted
were