[81] Mueller's Dorians, vol. i. [82] Probably chosen in rotation from the different cities. [83] Even the bieromnemons (or deputies intrusted with religious cares) must have been as a class very inferior in ability to the pylagorae; for the first were chosen by lot, the last by careful selection. And thus we learn, in effect, that while the hieromnemon had the higher grade of dignity, the pylagoras did the greater share of business. [84] Milton, Hist. of Eng., book i. [85] No man of rank among the old northern pirates was deemed honourable if not a pirate, gloriam sibi acquirens, as the Vatzdaela hath it. [86] Most probably more than one prince. Greece has three well accredited pretenders to the name and attributes even of the Grecian Hercules. [87] Herodotus marks the difference between the Egyptian and Grecian deity, and speaks of a temple erected by the Phoenicians to Hercules, when they built Thasus, five hundred years before the son of Amphitryon was known to the Greeks. The historian commends such of the Greeks as erected two temples to the divinity of that name, worshipping in the one as to a god, but in the other observing only the rites as to a hero.-B. ii., c. 13, 14. [88] Plot. in Vit. Thes.--Apollod., l. 3. This story is often borrowed by the Spanish romance-writers, to whom Plutarch was a copious fountain of legendary fable. [89] Plut. in Vit. Thes. [90] Mr. Mueller's ingenious supposition, that the tribute was in fact a religious ceremony, and that the voyage of Theseus had originally no other meaning than the landings at Naxos and Delos, is certainly credible, but not a whit more so than, and certainly not so simple as, the ancient accounts in Plutarch; as with mythological, so with historical legends, it is better to take the plain and popular interpretation whenever it seems conformable to the manners of the times, than to construe the story by newly-invented allegories. It is very singular that that is the plan which every writer on the early chronicles of France and England would adopt,--and yet which so few writers agree to*****[three illegible words in the print copy]***** the obscure records of the Greeks. [91] Plutarch cites Clidemus in support of another version of the tale, somewhat less probable, viz., that, by the death of Minos and his son Deucalion, Ariadne became possessed of the throne, and that she remitted the tribute. [92] Thucydides, b. ii., c. 15. [93] But many Athenians preferred to a much later age the custom of living without the walls--scattered over the country.--(Thucyd., lib. ii., 15.) We must suppose it was with them as with the moderns--the rich and the great generally preferred the capital, but there were many exceptions. [94] For other instances in which the same word is employed by Homer, see Clinton's Fast Hell., vol. i., introduction, ix. [95] Paus., l. i., c. 19; l. ii., c. 18.