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χρηστήριον. It is odd that Cambyses should pay attention to an Egyptian oracle; but the whole story of ‘the fiends which palter with us in a double sense’, is clearly invented, cf. Shakespeare, 2 Henry IV, IV. 5 (ad fin.) (following Holinshed):— “It hath been prophesied to me many years
I should not die but in Jerusalem,
Which vainly I supposed the Holy Land.
But bear me to that chamber, there I'll lie;
In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.

A similar story is told of Julian the Apostate.

ἄρα is emphatic, ‘as is now proved’; cf. iv. 64. 3 et pass.

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