IS it in memoriall of the Barbarians who sometimes inhabited these parts, and did so by the Greeks, murdering them in that maner as many of them as they could take? But _Hercules_ who was highly esteemed among them for his vertue, abolished this cruell fashion of killing of strangers, and taught them this custome to counterfet their auncient superstitions, and to fling these images in stead of them: now in old time our ancestors used to name all Greeks of what countrey soever they were, _Argeos_: unlesse haply a man would say, that the Arcadians reputing the Argives to be their enemies, for that they were their neighbour borderers, such as fled with _Evander_ out of _Arcadia_, and came to inhabit these quarters, reteined still the old hatred and ranckor, which time out of minde had taken root, and beene setled in their hearts against the said Argives. 33. _What is the cause that the Romans in old time never went foorth out of their houses to supper, but they caried with them their yoong sonnes, even when they were but in their very infancie and childhood._ WAS not this for the very same reason that _Lycurgus_ instituted and ordeined, that yoong children should ordinarily be brought into their halles where they used to eat in publicke, called _Phiditia_, to the end that they might be inured and acquainted betimes, not to use the pleasures of eating and drinking immoderately, as brutish and ravenous beasts are wont to doe; considering that they had their elders to oversee them, yea, and to controll their demeanour: and in this regard haply also, that their fathers themselves should in their carriage be more sober, honest, and frugall, in the presence of their children: for looke where old folke are shamelesse, there it can not chuse but (as _Plato_ saith) children and youth will be most gracelesse and impudent. 34. _What might the reason be, that whereas all other Romans made their offerings, ceremonies, and sacrifices for the dead, in the moneth of February_: Decimus Brutus _as_ Cicero _saith, was wont to doe the same in the moneth of December: now this_ Brutus _was he who first invaded the countrey of_ Portugall, _and with an armie passed over the river of_ Lethe, _that is to say, oblivion_. MAY it not be, that as the most part of men used not to performe any such services for the dead, but toward the end of the moneth, and a little before the shutting in of the evening; even so it seemeth to carie good reason, to honour the dead at the end of the yeere; and you wot well that December was the last moneth of all the yeere. Or rather, it is because this was an honour exhibited to the deities terrestriall: and it seemeth that the proper season to reverence and worship these earthly gods, is when the fruits of the earth be fully gathered and laid up.