Note 89 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
Plutarch, Lycurgus, 6. The document, being in prose and not ambiguous, bears no resemblance to the genuine utterances of the Delphic priestess; and therefore I think not only that it is not an oracle really delivered to Lycurgus but also that it was not composed while the oracle of Delphi was active and the character of its utterances well known: that is to say, before 450 B.C. or 400 B.C. I imagine it to be the work of some antiquarian, who knew the Doric dialect extremely well: such a man might no doubt be found at Alexandria during or after the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus B.C. 285-247: for Alexandria was then the home of all sorts of learning, and was the place in which, about the year 270 B.C., Theocritus the greatest of the Doric poets wrote the best of his Idylls.