"But now I come to you, Apollo, sacred guard of earth's true core, Whence first came frenzied, wild prophetic words.The author of these lines is unknown; umbilicus terrarum (ὀμφαλὸς γῆς), because it was supposed to be the centre of the earth. Chrysippus filled a whole volume with your oraclesCf. i. 3. 6, i. 19. 37, i. 50. 115. ; of these some, as I think, were false; some came true by chance, as happens very often even in ordinary speech; some were so intricate and obscure that their interpreter needs an interpreter and the oracles themselves must be referred back to the oracle; and some so equivocal that they require a dialectician to construe them. For example, when the following oracular response was made to Asia's richest king: When Croesus o'er the river Halys goes He will a mighty kingdom overthrow,In Greek Κροῖσος Ἅλυν διαβὰς μεγάλην ἀρχὴν καταλύσει. Croesus thought that he would overthrow his enemy's kingdom, whereas he overthrew his own.