The War on Lying Oracles

 Of all the ancient wars, the War on Lying Oracles is my favorite.

It was fought in Egypt by Amasis, a commoner who took over when King Apries, a megalomaniac, melted down. The Egyptians revolted, and Amasis, an unlikely Everyman in Herodotus’s telling, was put in charge.

Amasis was a man of dubious character. He liked to drink and be merry, and before his rise to the throne he funded the good times by theft and fraud.

Outraged citizens would drag him before various oracles. In those days, the gods decided cases in which it was one person’s word against another’s. Amasis won some and lost some. He appeared to be philosophical about it. Actually, he was taking notes.

He’d been guilty in all those cases. When he became king, Amasis cut off funding to all the oracles that had acquitted him. He did his best to rid the country of lying oracles.

• Sources and notes: Herodotus, The Histories, translated by Robin Waterfield; Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 165.