Sec. XVI. Indeed tyrants themselves, who must know all things, are made unpopular by no class more than by their spies[634] and talebearers. Darius in his youth, when he mistrusted his own powers, and suspected and feared everybody, was the first who employed spies; and the Dionysiuses introduced them at Syracuse: but in a revolution they were the first that the Syracusans took and tortured to death. Indeed informers are of the same tribe and family as curious people. However informers only investigate wicked acts or plots, but curious people pry into and publish abroad the involuntary misfortunes of their neighbours. And it is said that impious people first got their name from curiosity, for it seems there was a mighty famine at Athens, and those people that had wheat not producing it, but grinding it stealthily by night in their houses, some of their neighbours went about and noticed the noise of the mills grinding, and so they got their name.[635] This also is the origin of the well-known Greek word for informer, (Sycophant, _quasi_ Fig-informer), for when the people were forbidden to export figs, those who informed against those who did were called Fig-informers. It is well worth the while of curious people to give their attention to this, that they may be ashamed of having any similarity or connection in habit with a class of people so universally hated and disliked as informers. [608] Jeremy Taylor has largely borrowed from this Treatise in his "Holy Living," chap. ii. Sec. v. Of Modesty. [609] Chaeronea in Boeotia. [610] Lines from some comic poet, no doubt. [611] "Oeconomicus," cap. viii. [612] The mother of Oedipus, better known as "Jocasta." [613] Homer, "Odyssey," xi. 278. Epicaste hung herself. [614] "[Greek: oikisko] corrigit Valekenarius ad Herodot. p. 557."--_Wyttenbach._ [615] Aristophanes, "Equites," 79. [616] Sophocles, Fragm. 713. The lines are quoted more fully by our author in his "Lives," p. 911. There are there four preceding lines that compare human life to the moon's changes. [617] AEschylus, "Supplices," 937. [618] All three being eminent doctors. [619] "Intelligo Charondam."--_Xylander._ [620] Plutarch wants to show that curiosity and adultery are really the same vice in principle. Hence his imagery here. Jeremy Taylor has very beautifully dealt with this passage, "Holy Living," chap. ii. Sec. v. I cannot pretend to his felicity of language. Thus Plutarch makes adultery mere curiosity, and curiosity a sort of adultery in regard to secrets. A profoundly ethical and moral view. Compare Sec. ix. [621] Compare Lucian's [Greek: echeglottia], after [Greek: echecheiria] (_armistice_), _Lexiph_. 9. [622] See the story in Homer, "Iliad," vi. 155 sq. [623] Or self-control. [624] Literally, some woman _shut up_, or _enclosed_.