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._ Now Poemander the father of Ephippus (whilst the
region of Tanagra was still inhabited by villagers), being besieged in
Stephon (a village so called) by the Achaeans because he refused to
aid them in the wars, left that country the same night, and fortified
Poemandria. Policrithus the architect coming in, disparaging his works
and making a ridicule of them, leaped over the ditch; Poemander,
falling into a rage, catched up a great stone suddenly to throw at
him, which had been hid there a great while, lying over some sacred
nocturnal relics. This Poemander hurling rashly slung, and missing
Policrithus, slew his own son Leucippus. He was then forced by law
to depart out of Boeotia and become a wandering and begging pilgrim;
neither was that easy for him to do, because of the incursions which
the Achaeans made into the region of Tanagra. Wherefore he sent
Ephippus his son to beg aid of Achilles. He by persuasion prevailed
with Achilles to come, with Tlepolemus the son of Hercules, and with
Peneleos the son of Hippalcmus, all of them their kindred. By these
Poemander was introduced into Chalcis, and was absolved by Elephenor
from the murder; he ascribed great honor to these men, and assigned
groves to each of them, of which this kept the name of Achilles’s Grove.
_Question 38._ Who amongst the Boeotians were the Ψολόεις, and who
the Ὀλεῖαι?
_Solution._ They say that Minos’s daughters—Leucippe, Arsinoe,
and Alcathoe—falling mad, had a greedy appetite for man’s flesh,
and accordingly cast lots for their children. Whereupon it fell to
Leucippe’s lot to produce her son Hippasus to be cut in pieces. The
husbands of these women, that were clothed in coarse apparel by reason
of sorrow and grief, were called Psoloeis, the women Ὀλεῖαι, that is
ὀλοαί (_destructive_). And to this day the Orchomenians call
their posterity so. And it is so ordered that, in the yearly feast
called Agrionia, there is a flight and pursuit of them by the priest
of Bacchus, with a drawn sword in his hand. It is lawful for him to
slay any of them that he takes, and Zoilus a priest of our time slew
one. This thing proved unlucky to them; for Zoilus, sickening upon a
wound that he got, wasted away for a long time and died; whereupon
the Orchomenians, falling under public accusations and condemnations,
removed the priesthood from their family, and made choice of the best
man in the whole multitude.
_Question 39._ Why do the Arcadians stone those that go willingly
into the Lycaeum, while those that go in ignorantly they carry forth to
Eleutherae?
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