ORACLE (from the Latin oraculum, and that from os, or-is, a mouth). Oracle( was the Roman name used to denote the place where answers were supposed to be given by any of the divinities to those who consulted them respecting the future. Sometimes also it was used to signify the response which was delivered, and sometimes the deity from whom this response was imagined to proceed. Its primary and proper signification indeed is that of a response. Cicero (' Topic., 20) says that oracula were so called "quad inert in his Deorum Oratio.' Those who were sent to consult them were sometimes called oratores, (Livy, v. 15.) Oracular responses were called ehresmi (xpvgruol) or ortaateia (puerle) by the Greeks • the name manteion (uavreiov) was also often given to the oracular or the seat of the oracle.
Curiosity regarding futurity, and the desire to penetrate its my.. tens, are dispositions which exert a powerful control over the minds of men in every stage of society ; among nations that have made little advancement in civilisation and intelligence, they operate with peculiar force; and in these dispositions, combined with tho belief that the gods hail both the ability and the inclination to afford the knowledge so eagerly longed after, tho oracles of the pagan world had their origin Of them) oracles the most famous were those of Greece, and among them that which had claims to the highest antiquity was the oracle of Zeus at Dodona [Donosa, in 0E00. Div.] But the most celebrate: built the Grecian oracles was that of Apollo, at Delphi, a cit built or the slopes of Parnassus in Phocis. (Demon, in Geoo. Dry. Beside the oracles of Zeus and Apollo at Dodona and Delp , that o Trophonius, near Lebadela in liceetin, may be mentioned, as havirn been held in high estimation. There were many other oracles ii Greece, but of less repute.
Among the other most noted oracles of antiquity were that o Zeus Ammon in the desert of Libya, that of the Bmnehldre li Ionia, of Pella in Macedonia, of Sinope in PapIdegonia, of the head o Orpheus at Lesbos, 8:c. Most of the heathen deities, and even
demigods and heroes, had oracles of their own. There were ale, current In Greece numerous so.called prophecies, the productions o individuals who were probably supposed to speak under a divin nfluence. Such were those of Basis and 31usntur, in which the battle Pf Salamis was predicted, and that of Lysietratnts, an Athenian. Herod., viii. 96.) But those productions are perhaps more appro rriately considered under the head of PROPHECY, though Herodotue (pi/ie. to them the same name (gpecats) as to the responses from )elphi and other oracular places. As to the Sibylline oracles, see Though the Romano had various modes of ascertaining the will if the deities, it does not appear that oracles like those of Delphi or Dodona were ever established among them ; and we find that the oracles of Greece, and particularly the far-famed oracle of Delphi, sere consulted by them on many important occasions. (Livy, v. 15 ; mil. 57, &c.) Among the Jews, the Uritri and Thummim, which by an extra ordinary brightness made known the will of Jehovah, bore a striking to the heathen oracles; and the oracle of 13athool, or iaughter of the voice, which was originated after the death of Malachi, (vas completely identical with them.
The modes in which oracular responses were delivered were very various. At Dodona they issued from the hollow of an oak ; at Delphi they were delivered by the Pythia ; and at the oracle of Ammon they were pronounced by the priests. At Memphis a favourable or unfavour able answer was understood to be returned, according as Apia received or rejected what was presented to him. (APIs.] Sometimes the reply was given by letter ; and sometimes the required information could be obtained only by casting lots—the lots being dice with certain characters engraved on them, the meaning of which was ascertained by referring to an explanatory table. Dreams, visions, and voices also announced the will of the divinities.