Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
_Solution._ The Samians and Prienians waging war with each other,
as at other times they sufficiently injured each other, so at a certain
great fight the Prienians slew a thousand of the Samians. Seven years
after, fighting with the Milesians at the said oak, they lost all
the principal and chief of their citizens together, at the time when
Bias the Wise (who was sent ambassador from Priene to Samos) was
famous. This grievous and sad calamity befalling the women, there was
established an execration and oath—to be taken about matters of the
greatest concern—by “the Darkness at the Oak,” because their children,
fathers, and husbands were there slain.
_Question 21._ Who were they among the Cretans called Κατακαῦται?
_Solution._ They say that the Tyrrhenians took away by force from
Brauron the daughters and wives of the Athenians, at the time when
they inhabited Lemnos and Imbros; from whence being driven they came
to Laconia, and fell into a commixture with that people, even so far
as to beget children on the native women. Thus, by reason of jealousy
and calumnies, they were again constrained to leave Laconia, and with
their wives and children to waft over into Crete, having Pollis and
his brother their governors. There waging war with the inhabitants
of Crete, they were fain to permit many of them that were slain in
battle to lie unburied; in that at first they had no leisure, by reason
of the war and peril they were in, and afterwards they shunned the
touching of the dead corpses, being corrupted by time and putrefied.
Therefore Pollis contrived to bestow certain dignities, privileges, and
immunities, some on the priests of the Gods, and some on the buriers
of the dead, consecrating their honors to the infernal Deities, that
they should remain perpetual to them. Then he divided to his brother a
share by lot. The first he named priests, the others _catacautae_
(burners). But as to the government, each of them managed it apart,
and had, among other tranquillities, an immunity from those injurious
practices which other Cretans were wont to exercise towards one another
privily; for they neither wronged them, nor filched or robbed any thing
from them.
_Question 22._ What was the Sepulchre of the Boys at Chalcedon?
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