Dio Chrysostom, On Servants 4

"But how about you? Have you no fear, lest, when the god says one thing, you may understand another? 

"As, for instance, the story of the famous Laïus,⁠ the man who became the lover of Chrysippus;⁠ when he had gone to Delphi, he asked the god how he might have issue. The god bade him 'not to beget, or, having begotten, to expose.' And Laïus was so foolish as to misunderstand both commands of the god,⁠ for he begot a son and did not rear him. 

"Afterwards both he and all his house were destroyed, all because he had undertaken to 'make use of' Apollo when he lacked the ability. For if he had not received that oracle, he would not have exposed Oedipus, and the latter, having been reared at home, would not have slain Laïus, for he would have known that he was his son. 

"Then you have heard the story about Croesus,⁠ the Lydian, who, imagining that he was most faithfully carrying out the behests of the god, crossed the river Halys,⁠ lost his empire, was bound in chains himself, and barely escaped being burned alive. 

"Or do you, pray, think that you are wiser than Croesus, a man of such wealth, who ruled over so many people and had met Solon and a great many other wise men? 

"As for Orestes,⁠ I presume you see him also in tragic performances inveighing against the god in his fits of madness, and accusing him as though he had counseled him to slay his mother. But do not imagine that Apollo ever ordered those that consult him to commit any dreadful or disgraceful act. 

"It is as I said: although men are incapable of 'using' the god, they go ahead, try, and then blame him and not themselves. 

"You, then, if you follow my advice, will take heed and aim first to know yourself; afterwards, having found wisdom, you will then, if it be your pleasure, consult the Oracle.  For I am persuaded that you will have no need of consulting oracles if you have intelligence. 

"Why just consider! If the god bids you to read and write correctly when you have no knowledge of letters, you will not be able to do so; but if you know your letters, you will read and write well enough, even without any command from the god. 

"In the same way, if he advises you to do anything else when you do not know how, you will not be in a condition to obey. You will not be able to live properly, either, if you do not know how, even though you importune Apollo day after day and he gives you all his time. But if possessed of intelligence, you will know of yourself what you ought to do and how to go about it.

"There is one thing, however, that I forgot to say about Oedipus: he did not go to Delphi to consult the Oracle, but fell in with Teiresias⁠ and suffered great calamities from that seer's divination on account of his own ignorance. 

"For he knew that he had consorted with his own mother and that he had children by her; and subsequently, when perhaps he should have concealed this or made it legal in Thebes, in the first place he let everybody know the fact and then became greatly wrought up, lifted up his voice and complained that he was father and brother at once of the same children, and husband and son of the same woman. 

"But domestic fowls do not object to such relation­ships, nor dogs, nor any ass, nor do the Persians, although they pass for the aristocracy of Asia. And in addition to all this, Oedipus blinded himself and then wandered about blind, as though he could not wander while still keeping his sight."

The other on hearing this replied, "You, Diogenes, make Oedipus out to be the greatest dullard in the world; but the Greeks believe that, though he was not a fortunate man, he was the most sagacious of all men. At any rate they say that he alone solved the Sphinx's⁠ riddle." 

At this Diogenes broke into a laugh and said, "He solve the Sphinx's riddle! Have you not heard that the Sphinx prompted him to give the answer 'man'? As to the meaning of 'man,' however, he neither expressed himself nor knew, but when he said the word 'man' he thought he was answering the question. 

"It was just as if one were asked, 'What is Socrates?' and should give no other answer than the word 'Socrates.' 

"I have heard someone say that the Sphinx stands for stupidity; that this, accordingly, proved the ruin of the Boeotians in the past just as it does now,⁠ their stupidity preventing their knowing anything, such utter dullards they are; and that while the others had an inkling of their ignorance, Oedipus, who thought that he was very wise and had escaped the Sphinx, and who had made the other Thebans believe all this, perished most miserably. 

"For any man who in spite of his ignorance deludes himself with the belief that he is wise is in a much sorrier plight than anyone else. And such is the tribe of sophists."