It seems that in constructing the treasury they contrived to have a stone so placed that it could be taken away from the outside of the building at any time, and thus offer an entrance to the vaults. No one of course had any knowledge of this secret entrance but themselves. In consequence, after the building was finished, and it was used for the purpose for which it was intended, these two covetous brothers carried away from time to time goodly portions of the treasure as it was deposited. The king soon heard that there was a leak in his treasury, and that he was losing money rapidly. He was naturally annoyed and much perplexed when he found that the locks and seals of his treasure house remained intact and uninjured. He thereupon set a trap to catch the thief. Just what kind of a trap it was is not explained, but after some little time Agamedes was caught, and Trophonius, finding his brother ensnared, cut off his head, to save his own, doubtless, and prevent the discovery of his association in the robbery. This very unfraternal act of Trophonius was not allowed to go unpunished, however, and Apollo, or some other god, caused him to be swallowed up in the grove of Lebadea. Pausanias further states that Erginus, the father of Agamedes, was known as the “Protector of Labor,” that Trophonius was called the “Nourisher,” and that Agamedes had the reputation of being the “Very Prudent One.” There can be no doubt about Agamedes’s prudence, such as it was. Trophonius, it appears, had a still further career after his death, as an oracle, conducting his business from the spot where he was swallowed up in Lebadea. He was especially prophetic in matters relating to futurity. Those desiring to consult him were conducted to a cavern, and furnished with a ladder, by means of which they could descend into it. They were then given the information for which they were in quest, either by means of their eyes, or their ears, or such of their senses as the occasion seemed best to suggest. Some say that one of these visitors, after having gone into the cave, and being treated in this way by the oracle, returned never to smile again; but Pausanias contradicts the story. There is another belief in regard to these architects which must be simply alluded to. It is that Agamedes and Trophonius were deities of the Pelasgian times; that Trophonius was a giver of food from the bosom of the earth, and for that reason was worshipped in a cavern, and that Agamedes was not the wretched thief of Pausanias, but, on the contrary, a very generous character, who gave liberally from underground granaries. A parallel to the story of the robbery of the treasury of Hyrieus by Agamedes and Trophonius is told by Herodotus in respect to the two sons of the builder of the treasury of the Egyptian king Rhampsinitus. These two young men, it seems, were also caught, while pilfering, in a trap, described with great circumstantiality by the “Father of History.” CHAPTER III.