As The Temple At Paphos
Possessed An Oracle, These Strange Holes, Which Go
Through The Entire Stone, May Have Been Connected
With It.
This at least was the opinion of Dr.
Friederichs when he came to pay me a visit at
Paphos.
"From this spot, if a person stand upon this huge
perforated stone, he can produce a clear and fine echo
of a phrase of three or four words, pronounced in a
hollow tone of voice."
It is quite possible that the tricks of acoustics may have been
practised by the priests who officiated at oracular shrines, which would
have awed the ignorant multitude; as in sacred groves a tree might have
been made to speak by the simple contrivance of a man concealed within
the hollow stem, which to outward appearance would have been considered
solid. The devices of priestcraft to bring grist to their mill are not
yet obsolete, as will be seen in many of the monasteries of Cyprus.
All the grandeur of ancient days was now represented by the heaps of
stones and the rock caverns which mark the site of Paphos. What became
of Venus after her appearance upon this shore may be left to the
imagination; why she is represented by the exceedingly plain women of
modern Cyprus surpasses the imagination. Perhaps the immorality
connected with the ancient worship of the goddess of beauty and of love
invoked a curse upon the descendants in the shape of "baggy trousers,
high boots, and ugliness:" to which dirt has been a painful addition.
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