‘It was only in after-ages, when the size of men was greatly decreased, that the bodies of those heroes, if they happened to be discovered, were, as was natural, admired and exactly measured. Such a thing happened in Laconia, where the body of Orestes was discovered, and found to be of length seven cubits, that is, ten feet and a half. The story is most pleasantly told by Herodotus, and is to this effect: The Lacedemonians were engaged in a war with the Tegeatae, a people of Arcadia, in which they were unsuccessful. They consulted the oracle at Delphi, what they should do in order to be more successful. The oracle answered ‘That they must bring to Sparta the bones of Orestes, the son of Agamemnon.’ But these bones they could not find, and therefore they sent again to the oracle to inquire where Orestes lay buried. The god answered in hexameter verse, but so obscurely and enigmatically that they could not understand what he meant. They went about inquiring everywhere for the bones of Orestes, till at last a wise man among them, called by Herodotus _Liches_, found them out, partly by good fortune, and partly by good understanding; for, happening to come one day to a smith’s shop in the country of the Tegeatae, with whom at that time there was a truce and intercourse betwixt the two nations, he looked at the operations of the smith, and seemed to admire them very much; which the smith observing, stopped his work, and, “Stranger,” says he, “you that seem to admire so much the working of iron would have wondered much more if you had seen what I saw lately; for, as I was digging for a well in this court here, I fell upon a coffin that was seven cubits long; but _believing that there never were at any time bigger men than the present_, I opened the coffin, and found there a dead body as long as the coffin, which having measured I again buried.” Hearing this, the Spartan conjectured that the words of the oracle would apply to a smith’s shop, and to the operations there performed; but taking care not to make this discovery to the smith, he prevailed on him, with much difficulty, to give him a lease of the court; which having obtained, he opened the coffin, and carried the bones to Sparta. After which, says our author, the Spartans were upon every occasion superior in fight to the Tegeatae.’—_Ancient Metaphysics_, vol. iii. p. 146.