7. “So much, then, on this point. And do you not think certain of the Greeks have done wisely in adopting the Egyptian law that forbids the execution of a woman condemned to death during pregnancy, until after her delivery?” “Most assuredly,” they said. “If then,” said I, “a person is big, not with a child, but with a deed or a secret project which he may in the course of time bring into the world and put into execution, or if he might disclose some hidden crime, or be the author of some judicious counsel or the discoverer of some useful invention, would it not be better to await a seasonable time for removing him (than to do it prematurely)? To me at least it seems so,” I said. “And to us also,” replied Patrocleas. “Very good,” said I. “Now consider that if Dionysius had been punished at the beginning of his usurped power, no Greek would have settled in Sicily, though it had been laid waste by the Carthaginians; nor would Greeks have settled in Apollonia or in Anaktorium or in the peninsula of Leukadia, if Periander had not received his punishment a long time after (his accession to power). And I believe also that the day of reckoning for Kasander was postponed in order that Thebes might be rebuilt. Of the mercenaries that had assisted in plundering the temple here the greater part accompanied Timoleon on an expedition to Sicily where they conquered the Carthaginians and overthrew the tyrants; then the miserable wretches died a miserable death. There is no doubt that the Deity sometimes employs certain men after the manner of public executioners, to be the avengers of other villains, then destroys them as I think He does most tyrants. For just as the gall of the hyena and the beestings (or rennet) of the seal and other parts of repulsive animals have a property that is useful for the cure of diseases, so God inflicts on some persons who need a drastic remedy and chastisement, a stern and hard tyrant; nor does He release them from their grievous and melancholy state until He has cured their disease and purified them. Such a medicine was Phalaris to the Akragantines, and to the Romans, Marius. To the Sikyonians also the god declared explicitly that their city needed a scourge for taking away from the Kleonians the boy Teletias, crowned in the Pythian games, as their own fellow-citizen, and putting him to death. So, sure enough, when Orthagoras had become tyrant of Sikyon, and after him Myron and Kleisthenes, he and his successors made an end of their lasciviousness; the Kleonians, however, not receiving such curative treatment, sank into insignificance. You know that Homer somewhere says, ‘From him, a far baser father, was born a son better in all manner of excellence’; yet that son of Kopreus performed no brilliant or even noteworthy exploit. But the descendants of Sisyphus and of Autolycus and of Phlegyas were conspicuous for the deeds and virtues of great kings. Pericles of