Home › In Greece and Italy › In Greece and Italy: Dionysius

In Greece and Italy: Dionysius

A swarm of bees did not always portend evil, however, for Cicero in his "Essay on Divination" tells the following of Dionysius, King of Syracuse : "It was by this kind of conjectural divination that the fortune of the tyrant Dionysius was announced a little before the commencement of his reign; for when he was travelling through the territory of Leontini he dismounted and drove his horse into a river; but the horse was carried away by the current, and Dionysius, not being able with all his efforts to extricate him, departed, as Philistus reports, lamenting his loss. Some time afterwards, as he was journeying further down the river, he suddenly heard a neighing, and to his great joy found his horse in very comfortable condition, with a swarm of bees hanging on his mane. And this prodigy intimates the event which took place a few days after this, when Dionysius was called to the throne."

Bees foretold to King Latinus the coming of Æneas to Italy and his settlement there, as Virgil relates : - In Greece and Italy "In the centre of the palace, within the deep recesses of the inner court, stood a laurel, with sacred locks, and for many years preserved with awe; which King Latinus having discovered when he was raising the first towers of his palace, was said to have consecrated to Phœbus, and from it to have given the name of Laurentines to the inhabitants. On the high summit of this tree thick-clustering bees, strange to hear, wafted athwart the liquid sky with a great humming noise, planted themselves; and, having linked their feet together by a mutual hold, the swarm hung in a surprising manner from the leafy bough. Forthwith, the prophet said, we behold a foreign hero hither advancing, and an army making towards the same parts where the bees alight, from the same parts whence they came, and bearing sway in the lofty palace."

In Lycophron's "Cassandra," Cassandra, daughter of Priam and Hecuba, having received the gift of prophecy from Apollo, repeatedly foretold calamities that were to befall Troy, "for then nor foss, nor earthy mound, Nor bars, nor bolts, nor massy walls, though flanked With beetling towers, and rough with palisades, Aught shall avail; but (thick as clustering bees, When sulphurous steams ascend, and sudden flames Invade their populous cells) down from the banks, Heaps upon heaps, the dying swarms shall roll, And temper foreign furrows with their gore!"