Exhortation to the Greeks 2.11

Do not, then, pry into godless sanctuaries, or into the mouths of chasms full of marvels, or the Thesprotian cauldron, or the Cirrhaean tripod, or the bronze gong of Dodona. Leave the old oak honored in the desert sands, and the oracle there, withered along with the oak itself, to the myths that have grown old. The Castalian spring has fallen silent, and so has the other spring, at Colophon; the other prophetic streams too have died, and, empty of their pretension, have at last, though late, been shown up as having dried up together with their own myths. Tell us of the useless oracles of the rest of that divination, or rather madness: the Clarian, the Pythian, the Didymaean, the oracles of Amphiaraus, of † Apollo, of Amphilochus; and, if you like, put in the same unholy company the readers of portents and the watchers of birds and the interpreters of dreams. Set beside the Pythian those who divine by flour and by barley, and the ventriloquists who are still honored by the many. Yes, let the sanctuaries of the Egyptians and the necromancies of the Etruscans be consigned to darkness. These are truly the mad schools of unbelieving men and the gambling dens of undiluted error. Partners in this sorcery are goats trained for divination, and ravens taught by men to give oracles to men.