metals; its coffers were loaded with coins and ingots; the sacrifices of wealthy suppliants and the copious offerings in kind of the country people provided superabundantly for the daily maintenance of the temple servitors; while a rich endowment in land maintained the dignity of its guardians, and of the officiating priest.  The latter reverend personage was no less eminent for prudence than for piety; on which account the Gods had rewarded him with extreme obesity.  At length he died, whether of excess in meat or in drink is not agreed among historians.

[Footnote:  Pseudomantis, cap. 19-21.]

The guardians of the temple met to choose a successor, and, naturally desirous that the sanctity of the oracle should suffer no abatement, elected a young priest of goodly presence and ascetic life; the humblest, purest, most fervent, and most ingenuous of the sons of men.  So rare a choice might well be expected to be accompanied by some extraordinary manifestation, and, in fact, a prodigy took place which filled the sacred authorities with dismay.  The responses of the oracle ceased suddenly and altogether.  No revelation was vouchsafed to the pontiff in his slumbers; no access of prophetic fury constrained him to disclose the secrets of the future; no voice rang from the shrine; and the unanswered epistles of the suppliants lay a hopeless encumbrance on the great altar.  As a natural consequence they speedily ceased to arrive; the influx of offerings into the treasury terminated along with them; the temple-courts were bare of worshippers; and the only victims whose blood smoked within them were those slain by the priest himself, in the hope of appeasing the displeasure of Apollo.  The modest hierophant took all the blame upon his own shoulders; he did not doubt that he had excited the Deity’s wrath by some mysterious but heinous pollution; and was confirmed in this opinion by the unanimous verdict of all whom he approached.

One day as he sat sadly in the temple, absorbed in painful meditation, and pondering how he might best relieve himself of his sacred functions, he was startled by the now unwonted sound of a footstep, and, looking up, espied an ancient woman.  Her appearance was rather venerable than prepossessing.  He recognised her as one of the inferior ministers of the temple.

“Reverend mother,” he addressed her, “doubtless thou comest to mingle with mine thy supplications to the Deity, that it may please him to indicate the cause, and the remedy of his wrath.”

“No, son,” returned the venerable personage, “I propose to occasion no such needless trouble to Apollo, or any other Divinity.  I hold within mine own hand the power of reviving the splendour of this forsaken sanctuary, and for such consideration as thou wilt thyself pronounce equitable, I am minded to impart the same unto thee.”  And as the astonished priest made no answer, she continued: 

“My price is one hundred pieces of gold.”