I really pity your Apollo and the whole host of the Olympian gods, since the world has become possessed by the mad idea that the gods and daimons may be moved, or even compelled, by forms of prayer and sacrifices and magic arts, to grant to each worshiper the particular thing on which he may have set his covetous and changeable fancy." "And yet," exclaimed Melissa, "you yourself told me that you prayed for my mother when the leech saw no further hope.

Every one hopes for a miracle from the immortals when his own power has come to an end! Thousands think so.

And in our city the people have never been more religious than they are now.

The singer of the Ialemos at the feast of Adonis particularly praised us for it." "Because they have never been more fervently addicted to pleasure, and therefore have never more deeply dreaded the terrors of hades.

The great and splendid Zeus of the Greeks has been transformed into Serapis here, on the banks of the Nile, and has become a god of the nether world.