Greek Questions (13-15)

Question 13. What is the beggars’ meat among the Aenianes?

Solution. Many have been the removes of the Aenianes. First they inhabited the plain of Dotion; thence they were expelled by the Lapithae to the Aethices; from thence they betook themselves to a region of Molossia about the Aous, where they were called Paravaeans; afterward they took possession of Cirrha; they had no sooner landed at Cirrha (Apollo so commanding their king Oenoclus) but they went down to the country bordering on the river Inachus, inhabited by the Inachians and Achaeans. There was an oracle given to the latter, that they would lose all their country if they should part with any of it,—and to the Aenianes, that they would hold it if they should take it of such as freely resigned it. Temo, a noted man among the Aenianes, putting on rags and a scrip, like a beggar, addressed himself to the Inachians; the king, in a way of reproach and scorn, gave him a clod of earth. He receives it and puts it up into his scrip, and absconds himself, making much of his dole; for he presently forsakes the country, begging no more. The old men wondering at this, the oracle came fresh to their remembrance; and going to the king, they told him that he ought not to slight this man, nor suffer him to escape. Temo well perceiving their designs, hastens his flight, and as he fled, vowed a hecatomb to Apollo. Upon this occasion the kings fought hand to hand; and when Phemius, the king of the Aenianes, saw Hyperochus, the king of the Inachians, charging him with a dog at his heels, he said he dealt not fairly to bring a second with him to fight him; whereupon Hyperochus going to drive away the dog, and turning himself about in order to throw a stone at the dog, Phemius slays him. Thus the Aenianes possessed themselves of that region, expelling the Inachians and Achaeans; but they reverence that stone as sacred, and sacrifice to it,

wrapping it in the fat of the victim. And when they offer a hecatomb to Apollo, they sacrifice an ox to Jupiter, a choice part of which they distribute to Temo’s posterity, and call it the beggars’ flesh.

Question 14. Who were the Coliads among the Ithacans? And what was a φάγιλος?

Solution. After the slaughter of the suitors, some near related to the deceased made head against Ulysses. Neoptolemus, being introduced by both parties as an arbitrator, determined that Ulysses should remove and hasten out of Cephalenia, Zacynthus, and Ithaca, because of the blood that he had shed there; but that the friends and relations of the suitors should pay a yearly mulct to Ulysses, for the wrong done to his family. Ulysses therefore passed over into Italy; the mulct he devoted to his son, and commanded the Ithacans to pay it. The mulct was meal, wine, honey-combs, oil, salt, and for victims the better grown of the phagili. Aristotle saith phagilus was a lamb. And Telemachus, setting Eumaeus and his people at liberty, placed them among the citizens; and the family of the Coliads is descended from Eumaeus, and that of the Bucolians from Philoetius.

Question 15. What is the wooden dog among the Locrians?

Solution. Locrus was the son of Fuscius, the son of Amphictyon. Of him and Cabya came Locrus, with whom his father falling into contention, and gathering after him a great number of citizens, consulted the oracle about transplanting a colony. The oracle told him that there he should build a city, where he should happen to be bit by a wooden dog. He, wafting over the sea unto the next shore, trod upon a cynosbatus (a sweet brier), and being sorely pained with the prick, he spent many days there; in which time considering the nature of the country, he built Physcus and Hyantheia, and other towns which the

Ozolian Locrians inhabited. Some say that the Locrians were called Ozolians (strong-scented people) from Nessus —others again from Python the serpent—cast up there by the surf of the sea, and putrefying upon the shore. And some say that the men wore pelts and ram-goat skins, living for the most part among the herds of goats, and therefore were strong-scented. Others contrariwise say that the country brought forth many flowers, and that this name was from their sweet odor; among them that assert this is Archytas the Amphissean, who hath wrote thus:

Macyna crowned with vines fragrant and sweet.