served his
purpose. Left to his own devices, he would not have consulted an oracle
at the banks of the Hyphasis; or, consulting, would have forced from the
oracle a favorable answer. But his subordinates were mutinous and he
had no choice. Suffice it for our present purpose that the oracle was
consulted, and that its answer turned the conqueror back.

One or two instances from Roman history may complete the picture.
Passing over all those mythical narratives which virtually constitute
the early history of Rome, as preserved to us by such historians as Livy
and Dionysius, we find so logical an historian as Tacitus recording a
miraculous achievement of Vespasian without adverse comment. "During
the months when Vespasian was waiting at Alexandria for the periodical
season of the summer winds, and a safe navigation, many miracles
occurred by which the favor of Heaven and a sort of bias in the powers
above towards Vespasian were manifested." Tacitus then describes in
detail the cure of various maladies by the emperor, and relates that
the emperor on visiting a temple was met there, in the spirit, by a
prominent Egyptian who was proved to be at the same time some eighty
miles distant from Alexandria.

It must be admitted that Tacitus, in relating that Vespasian caused the
blind to see and the lame to walk, qualifies his narrative by asserting
that "persons who are present attest the truth of the transaction when
there is nothing to be gained by falsehood." Nor must we overlook the
fact that a similar belief in the power of royalty has persisted almost
to our own day. But no such savor of scepticism attaches to a narrative
which Dion Cassius gives us of an incident in the life of Marcus
Aurelius--an incident that has become famous as the episode of The
Thundering Legion. Xiphilinus has preserved the account of Dion, adding
certain picturesque interpretations of his own. The original narrative,
as cited, asserts that during one of the northern campaigns of Marcus
Aurelius, the emperor and his army were surrounded by the hostile Quadi,
who had every advantage of position and who presently ceased hostilities
in the hope that heat and thirst would deliver their adversaries into
their hands without the trouble of further fighting. "Now," says Dion,
"while the Romans, unable either to combat or to retreat, and reduced to
the last extremity by wounds, fatigue, heat, and thirst, were standing
helplessly at their posts, clouds sudden