Greece -- History -- To 146 B.C.; History, Ancient
"Tegea there is, in Arcadian land, in a smooth place founded;
Where there do blow two blasts by strong compulsion together;
Stroke too there is and stroke in , and trouble on trouble.
There Agamemnon's son in the life-giving earth is reposing;
Him if thou bring with thee home, of Tegea thou shalt be master." 81
When the Lacedemonians had heard this they were none the less far from
finding it out, though they searched all places; until the time that
Lichas, one of those Spartans who are called "Well-doers," 82 discovered
it. Now the "Well-doers" are of the citizens the eldest who are passing
from the ranks of the "Horsemen," in each year five; and these are bound
during that year in which they pass out from the "Horsemen," to allow
themselves to be sent without ceasing to various places by the Spartan
State.
68. Lichas then, being one of these, discovered it in Tegea by means
both of fortune and ability. For as there were at that time dealings
under truce with the men of Tegea, he had come to a forge there and was
looking at iron being wrought; and he was in wonder as he saw that which
was being done. The smith therefore, perceiving that he marvelled at it,
ceased from his work and said: "Surely, thou stranger of Lacedemon, if
thou hadst seen that which I once saw, thou wouldst have marvelled much,
since now it falls out that thou dost marvel so greatly at the working
of this iron; for I, desiring in this enclosure to make a well, lighted
in my digging upon a coffin of seven cubits in length; and not believing
that ever there had been men larger than those of the present day,
I opened it, and I saw that the dead body was equal in length to the
coffin: then after I had measured it, I filled in the earth over it
again." He then thus told him of that which he had seen; and the other,
having thought upon that which was told, conjectured that this was
Orestes according to the saying of the Oracle, forming his conjecture
in the following manner:—whereas he saw that the smith had two pairs of
bellows, he concluded that these were the winds spoken of, and that the
anvil and the hammer were the stroke and the stroke in , and that the
iron which was being wrought was the trouble laid upon trouble, making
comparison by the thought that iron has been discovered for the evil of
mankind. Having thus conjectured he came back to Sparta and declared the
whole matter to the Lacedemonians; and they brought a charge against him
on a fictitious pretext and drove him out into exile. 83 So having come
to Tegea, he told the smith of his evil fortune and endeavoured to hire
from him the enclosure, but at first he would not allow him to have it:
at length however Lichas persuaded him and he took up his abode there;
and he dug up the grave and gathered together the bones and went with
them away to Sparta. From that time, whenever they made trial of one
another, the Lacedemonians had much the advantage in the war; and by now
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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