The Greek Questions (10-14)

What is the sheep-escaper?

It is one of the small plants that grow close to the

ground, whose shoots the grazing animals attack, cutting off the tops and injuring them and so spoiling the growth. But when these plants grow up and gain some size and escape injury from the flocks which graze upon them, then they are called sheep-escapers. The evidence for this is Aeschylus.[*]

Who are the Men repulsed by slings?

Men from Eretria used to inhabit the island of Corcyra. But Charicrates sailed thither from Corinth with an army and defeated them in war; so the Eretrians embarked in their ships and sailed back home. Their fellow-citizens, however, having learned of the matter before their arrival, barred their return to the country and prevented them from disembarking by showering upon them missiles from slings. Since the exiles were unable either to persuade or to overcome their fellow-citizens, who were numerous and inexorable, they sailed to Thrace and occupied a territory in which, according to tradition, Methon, the ancestor of Orpheus, had formerly lived. So the Eretrians named their city Methonê, but they were also named by their neighbours the Men repulsed by slings.

Who was Charilla among the Delphians?

The Delphians celebrate three festivals one after the other which occur every eight[*] years, the first of which they call Septerion, the second Heroïs, and the third Charilla.

Now the Septerion seems to be a representation of Apollo’s fight with the Python and the flight to Tempê and pursuit that followed the battle.[*] Some indeed

affirm that Apollo fled because he desired purification as a consequence of the slaughter he had done, others that he was following the wounded Python as he fled along the road which we now call the Sacred Way, and was only a little late for the monster’s death; for he overtook him when he had just died from the effects of the wound and had been buried by his son, whose name, as they say, was Aix. The Septerion, then, is a representation of these matters or certain matters of a similar nature.[*]

The greater part of the Heroïs has a secret import which the Thyiads[*] know; but from the portions of the rites that are performed in public one might conjecture that it represents the evocation of Semele.

The story of Charilla which they relate is somewhat as follows: A famine following a drought oppressed the Delphians, and they came to the palace of their king with their wives and children and made supplication. The king gave portions of barley and legumes to the more notable citizens, for there was not enough for all. But when an orphaned girl, who was still but a small child, approached him and importuned him, he struck her with his sandal and cast the sandal in her face. But, although the girl was poverty-stricken and without protectors, she was not ignoble in character; and when she had withdrawn, she took off her girdle and hanged herself. As the famine increased and diseases also were added thereto, the prophetic priestess gave an oracle to the king that he must appease Charilla, the maiden who had slain herself. Accordingly, when they had discovered with some difficulty that this was the name of the child who had been struck, they performed a certain sacrificial rite combined with purification,

which even now they continue to perform every eight years. For the king sits in state and gives a portion of barley-meal and legumes to everyone, alien and citizen alike, and a doll-like image of Charilla is brought thither. When, accordingly, all have received a portion, the king strikes the image with his sandal. The leader of the Thyiads picks up the image and bears it to a certain place which is full of chasms; there they tie a rope round the neck of the image and bury it in the place where they buried Charilla after she had hanged herself.

What is the beggar’s meat among the Aenianians?

There have been several migrations of the Aenianians. For first, when they inhabited the region about the Dotian plain, they were expelled by the Lapiths to Aethicia.[*] From there they proceeded to take possession of the region of Molossia about the river Auas, from which they received the name Parauaei. After this they took possession of Cirrha. There, when they had stoned to death Oenoclus,[*] their king, at the command of the god, they descended to the country about the Inachus, which was inhabited by Inachians and Achaeans. Since an oracle had declared that if the Inachians gave away any part of their country, they should lose it all, and that if the Aenianians received any part of the land from willing givers, they should gain possession of it, Temon, a notable man among the Aenianians, donned rags and wallet and came to the Inachians in the guise of a beggar. In scorn and mockery their king gave him a clod of earth, which Temon accepted,

placed within his wallet, and was evidently satisfied with the gift; for he straightway withdrew without asking for anything more. The Inachian elders were astonished, but, recalling the oracle, they went to the king and told him not to make light of the fellow nor to let him get away. Temon, then, perceiving their intent, hastened his flight and made his escape after vowing a hecatomb to Apollo.

After this affair the two kings engaged in single combat, and Phemius, king of the Aenianians, observing the Inachian king, Hyperochus, advancing to meet him accompanied by a dog, said that Hyperochus was acting unfairly in bringing on a second combatant. But while Hyperochus was driving off the dog and had his back turned, Phemius hit him with a stone and killed him. The Aenianians gained possession of the country, driving out the Inachians together with the Achaeans, and they revere that stone as sacred, and sacrifice to it and cover it round about with the fat of the sacrificial victim; and whenever they pay the hecatomb to Apollo, they sacrifice a bull to Zeus; and they set aside a select portion of the flesh for the descendants of Temon, and this they call the beggar’s meat.

Who are the Coliadae among the inhabitants of Ithaca and what is the phagilos?

After the slaughter of the suitors the relatives of the dead men rose up against Odysseus; but Neoptolemus was sent for by both parties to act as arbiter.[*] He adjudged that Odysseus should depart from the country and be exiled for homicide from Cephallenia, Zacynthus, and Ithaca; and that the

companions and the relatives of the suitors should recompense Odysseus each year for the injuries which they had done to his estate. Odysseus accordingly departed to Italy; but the recompense he formally transferred to his son, and ordered the inhabitants of Ithaca to pay it to him. The recompense consisted of barley, wine, honeycombs, olive-oil, salt, and beasts for sacrifice that were older than phagiloi; according to Aristotle’s[*] statement, a lamb is a phagilos. Now Telemachus bestowed freedom upon Eumaeus and his associates, and incorporated them among the citizens; and the clan of the Coliadae is descended from Eumaeus, and that of the Bucolidae from Philoetius.[*]