de Sententiis,” the whole matter has become clear. Aristotle relates the following tradition. In the first Messenian war, the Locrians furnished the Spartans with auxiliaries, and all their men capable of bearing arms had taken the field. During their absence, their wives and daughters led a licentious life with their servants; and from fear of their returning masters, the servants with their concubines emigrated. Timaeus in saying that this story sounds fabulous, made easy game of Aristotle, if he supposed that Aristotle believed it to be true; but I would undertake to answer for it that Aristotle did not give the story as a real historical tradition, but that he mentioned it only as a legend of the Locrians. He no doubt asserted that the Italian Locrians were not a colony of the Greek Locrians, and that, if they were Locrians, they were so only through the women. Timaeus might easily have investigated the matter; but his object was only to find fault with Aristotle. But such disgraceful conduct always receives its punishment in due time, and Polybius has prepared it for him. If here, as everywhere else, we put aside the mythical story, we find that the foundation of the Locrian state in Italy belongs to the period of the decay of the constitution of the _gentes_, when in various places illegitimate marriages between the ancient families and the δῆμος gave rise to a mixed race, which became dangerous to the aristocracy, and was, therefore, obliged to emigrate. The same fact forms the basis of the story about Phalanthus and the Parthenii.