The ancient representations of the Dioscuri are called by the Spartans beam-figures Cf. M. C. Waites, , xxiii., 1919, pp. 1 ff.: this passage is cited by Eustathius on , 1125. 60.: they consist of two parallel wooden beams joined by two other transverse beams placed across them; and this common and indivisible character of the offering appears entirely suitable to the brotherly love of these gods. In like manner do I also dedicate this treatise to you, Nigrinus and Quietus,The identity of Avidius Nigrinus and Avidius Quietus is not certainly established; see , i. pp. 189-190. a joint gift for you both who well deserve it. For as to the exhortations this essay contains, since you are already putting them into practice, you will seem to be giving your testimony in their favour rather than to be encouraged to perform them; and the pleasure you will take in acts which are right will make the perseverance of your judgement more firm, inasmuch as your acts will win approval before spectators, so to speak, who are honourable and devoted to virtue.

Now Aristarchus,Nauck, comparing Suidas, s.v. Theodectes, and Stephanus Byzantius, would correct Aristarchus to Aristandrus, the father of the tragic poet Theodectas of Phaselis. the father of Theodectes, by way of jeering at the crowd of sophists, used to say that in the old days there were barely seven Sophists, That is, the Seven Wise Men. Plutarch so uses σοφιστής (, 96 a, where all mss. but one read σοφιστοῦ; 857 f); so also Aristotle, Frag. 5 ed. V. Rose. Cf. the earlier usage of Herodotus, i. 29 (where Wells’s note is hopelessly wrong); ii. 49; iv. 95; Hippocrates, , 20. but that in his own day an equally large number of non-sophists could not easily be found. And according to my observation, brotherly love is as rare in our day as brotherly hatred was among the men of old; when instances of such hatred appeared, they were so amazing that the times made them known to all as warning examples in tragedies and other stage-performances; but all men of to-day, when they encounter brothers who are good to each other, wonder at them no less than at those famous sons of Molione,, 1083 c; Fraser’s note on Apollodorus, ii. 7. 2 (L.C.L. vol. i. p. 249). who, according to common belief, were born with their bodies grown together; and to use in common a fathers wealth and friends and slaves is considered as incredible and portentous as for one soul to make use of the hands and feet and eyes of two bodies.