1 Earliest Rome

J. D I V I N A T I O N A N D D I V I N E R S
way Alexander first contrived his oracular god; in a later passage (56). Lucian
claims that he himself visited the oracle and played a part in exposing
Alexander as a charlatan.
See further: Robert (1980) 393-421; Jones (1986) 133-48*; Branham
(1989) 181-210.
Lucian, Alexander of Abonouteichos 13—15
When the time came to start, he thought up an ingenious trick. They were just digging
out the foundations of the new temple , and water had collected there,
either from nearby springs or from rain; so he went do wit tttere at night and hid a goose's
egg previously blown, with a new-born snake placed inside it; he buried the egg deep in
the mud and then he went back up again. In the morning he ran out into the market­
place, naked apart from the golden cloth tied round his loins, carrying his sickle and
shaking his wild locks like a frenzied devotee of Magna Mater. 1
He climbed up on to a
high altar and addressed the people, congratulating them because they were just on the
point of receiving the god visible into their presence. Those who were there - and in fact
almost the whole city had turned up, even women, old men and children - marvelled,
prayed and did obeisance. He uttered some meaningless noises, rather like Hebrew or
Phoenician, which abashed all the people who had no idea what he was talking about
except that he mixed in the words 'Apollo and Asklepios'.
(14) Then he ran off at top speed down to the site of the new temple. He went down
to the excavation and into the improvised fountain-head of the oracle. He entered the
water, sang hymns in a loud voice to Asklepios and Apollo inviting them to appear in the
city for its good fortune. He asked for and was given a saucer and slipped it neatly under
the ground and then together with some mud and water brought up the egg in which he
had hidden the god. (He had scaled the joint with wax and white lead). He took the egg
in his hands and said he was holding Asklepios. The people gazed to see what would
happen next, having already been staggered by the discovery of the egg in the water. But
when he broke the egg and took the little snake into the hollow of his hand, where the
crowd could see it moving and wriggling round his fingers, they all shouted out, greeted
the god, blessed the city and each one statted to sate himself with prayers for treasures,
for wealth, for health and all other blessings. Then he shot off again at high speed, back
to his house carrying the new-born Asklepios, in fact the twice-born, when other people
are only born once' , and with a mother who was not Coronis, 2
by Zeus, nor even a crow, but a goose. And the whole city followed him home full of
religious enthusiasm and crazed with hopes.
(15) Then he stayed at home for a few days hoping for what did actually happen, that
is that, as the news spread, the Paphlagonians would come rushing in. When the city was
simply packed with people all lacking any of the brains and sense of normal grain-eating
human beings, differing from the beasts only in their appearance, he took his place on a
couch in a certain room dressed like a god and with the Asklepios he had brought from
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