“Her crimsoned girdle down was flung, The silver ewer beside her laid, Amid a tangled thicket, hung With canopy of brownest shade; When forth the glorious babe she brought, His soul instinct with heavenly thought. Sent by the golden-tressed god, Near her the Fates indulgent stood, With Eileithyia mild. One short sweet pang released the child, And Iamos sprang forth to light. A wail she uttered; left him then, Where on the ground he lay; When straight two dragons came, With eyes of azure flame, By will divine awaked out of their den; And with the bees’ unharmful venom they Fed him, and nursled through the night and day. The king meanwhile had come From stony Pytho driving, and at home Did of them all after the boy inquire Born of Evadne; for, he said, the sire Was Phœbos, and that he Should of earth’s prophets wisest be, And that his generation should not fail. Not to have seen or heard him they avouched, Now five days born. But he, on rushes couched, Was covered up in that wide brambly maze; His delicate body met With yellow and empurpled rays From many a violet: And hence his mother bade him claim For ever this undying name.” Footnote 359: Paus. ii. 6. 4.—Cf. Casaub. Diatrib. in Dion. Chrysost. ii. 469. Footnote 360: Aristot. Poet. xvi. 8. cum not. Herm. p. 156. Footnote 361: Arist. Poet. xvi. 3. Footnote 362: Olymp. vi. 39. sqq. Diss. I give the passage as it is elegantly translated by Mr. Cary. Generally, it would appear, illegitimate children were exposed in the neighbourhood of the Gymnasium, in the Cynosarges, because, as suggested by Suidas, Heracles, who was himself a bastard, had a temple there. On the subject of infanticide the Thebans,[363] as I have said, entertained juster sentiments than the rest of their countrymen. By their institutions it was made a capital crime; but because severe laws would not furnish the indigent with the means of supporting the children they were forbidden to kill, they by another enactment provided for their maintenance. If a poor man found himself unable to support an addition to his family, he was commanded to bear his children immediately from the birth, wrapped in swaddling-clothes, to the magistrates, who disposed of them for a small sum to wealthy people in want of children or servants: for, according to the Theban laws, they who undertook the charge of foundlings, if they may be so called, were entitled to their services in return for their nursing and education. Footnote 363: Ælian, Var. Hist. ii. 7.—Cf. Phil. Jud. de Legg. Special. p. 543.