ped, he grew furious
beyond all restraint.

28. Presently Patricius and Hilarius were brought before the court, and
were ordered to enumerate the whole series of their actions: and as they
differed a little at the beginning of their statement, they were both
put to the torture, and presently the tripod which they had used was
brought in;[178] and they, being reduced now to the greatest extremity,
gave a true account of the whole affair from the very beginning. And
first Hilarius spoke as follows:--

29. "We did construct, most noble judges, under most unhappy auspices,
this little unfortunate tripod which you see, in the likeness of that at
Delphi, making it of laurel twigs: and having consecrated it with
imprecations of mysterious verses, and with many decorations and
repeated ceremonies, in all proper order, we at last moved it; and the
manner in which we moved it as often as we consulted it upon any secret
affair, was as follows:--

30. "It was placed in the middle of a building, carefully purified on
all sides by Arabian perfumes; and a plain round dish was placed upon
it, made of different metals. On the outer side of which the
four-and-twenty letters of the alphabet were engraved with great skill,
being separated from one another by distances measured with great
precision.

31. "Then a person clothed in linen garments, and shod with slippers of
linen, with a small linen cap on his head, bearing in his hand sprigs of
vervain as a plant of good omen, in set verses, propitiated the deity
who presides over foreknowledge, and thus took his station by this dish,
according to all the rules of the ceremony. Then over the tripod he
balanced a ring which he held suspended by a flaxen thread of extreme
fineness, and which had also been consecrated with mystic ceremonies.
And as this ring touched and bounded off from the different letters
which still preserved their distances distinct, he made with these
letters, by the order in which he touched them, verses in the heroic
metre, corresponding to the questions which we had asked; the verses
being also perfect in metre and rhythm; like the answers of the Pythia
which are so celebrated, or those given by the oracles of the Branchidae.

32. "Then, when we asked who should succeed the present emperor, since
it was said that it would be a person of universal accomplishments, the
ring bounded up, and touched the two syllables +THEO+; and then
as it added another letter, some o