When this answer was reported to Periander, he determined to make a great sacrifice and offering, such as should at once appease the restless spirit. He invited, therefore, a general assembly of the women of Corinth to witness some spectacle in a temple, and when they were convened, he surrounded them with his guards, seized them, stripped them of most of their clothing, and then let them go free. The clothes thus taken were then all solemnly burned, as an expiatory offering, with invocations to the shade of Melissa. The account adds, that when this was done, a second messenger was dispatched to the oracle of the dead, and the spirit, now clothed and comfortable in its grave, answered the inquiry, informing Periander where the lost article might be found. The rude violence which Periander resorted to in this case seems not to have been dictated by any particular desire to insult or injure the women of Corinth, but was resorted to simply as the easiest and most convenient way of obtaining what he needed. He wanted a supply of valuable and costly female apparel, and the readiest mode of obtaining it was to bring together an assembly of females dressed for a public occasion, and then disrobe them. The case only shows to what an extreme and absolute supremacy the lofty and domineering spirit of ancient despotism attained. It ought, however, to be related, in justice to these abominable tyrants, that they often evinced feelings of commiseration and kindness; sometimes, in fact, in very singular ways. There was, for example, in one of the cities, a certain family that had obtained the ascendency over the rest of the people, and had held it for some time as an established aristocracy, taking care to preserve their rank and power from generation to generation, by intermarrying only with one another. At length, in one branch of the family, there grew up a young girl named Labda, who had been a cripple from her birth, and, on account of her deformity, none of the nobles would marry her. A man of obscure birth, however, one of the common people, at length took her for his wife. His name was Eetion. One day, Eetion went to Delphi to consult an oracle, and as he was entering the temple, the Pythian[J] called out to him, saying that a stone should proceed from Labda which should overwhelm tyrants and usurpers, and free the state. The nobles, when they heard of this, understood the prediction to mean that the destruction of their power was, in some way or other, to be effected by means of Labda's child, and they determined to prevent the fulfillment of the prophecy by destroying the babe itself so soon as it should be born. [Footnote J: For a full account of these oracles, see the history of Cyrus the Great.]