Note 98 — Chapter III
Reading edition
de def. orac. 46-48, 435 A-437 A (referring to Phædo, 97 D). The curious mixture of metaphors, the double suggestion of krâsis, the parallel from music, and the ambiguity of tò enthousiastikòn (characteristic of the confusion of spiritual and material then prevalent) make a curious sentence in English. On the relation of dæmons to oracles, see also de facie in orbe lunæ, 30, 944 D; also Tertullian, de Anima, 46, who gives a lucid account of dæmons as the explanation of oracles, and Apol. 22—dæmons inhabiting the atmosphere have early knowledge of the weather, and by their incredible speed can pass miraculously quickly from one end of the earth to the other, and so bring information—strange, he adds (c. 25), that Cybele took a week to inform her priest of the death of Marcus Aurelius—o somniculosa diplomata! ("sleepy post").