Ioannis Tzetzes, Histories or Chiliades

Ioannes Tzetzes, Histories or Chiliades, unedited translation by Ana Untila (Book I), Gary Berkowitz (II-IV), Konstantinos Ramiotis (V-VI), Vasiliki Dogani (VII-VIII), Jonathan Alexander (IX-X), Muhammad Syarif Fadhlurrahman (XI), and Nikolaos Giallousis (XII-XIII), with translation adjustments by Brady Kiesling affecting about 15 percent of the total . These translations are based on the 1826 Greek edition of Theophilus Kiesslingius (no known relation), downloadable at Google Books. The original translations are online at theoi.com, for non-commercial use, with attribution. This text has 1601 tagged references to 404 ancient places.
CTS URN: urn:cts:greekLit:tlg5030.tlg001; Wikidata ID: Q3624946; Trismegistos:     [Open Greek text in new tab]

§ i  Tzetzes wrote this personalized, idiosyncratic, bitter/playful manual of cultural references partly on Imbros, with limited access to books, in the mid-12th century CE. He offers here, often from memory, tantalizing snippets of authors and works now lost to us, along with scatological assaults on rival intellectuals in Constantinople. He is writing, however, about a very dim past indeed, and that encyclopedic memory betrays him often enough to make him horrendously unreliable as a guide to history.
The manuscript version in print is a collection of 668 numbered topoi or historiai from history, philology, rhetoric, and mythology, punctuated with autobiographical rants, condensed into 12759 lines of (mostly) 15-syllable political verse, a modernish meter that uses stress accents rather than syllable length.
Their purpose is to illuminate the literary and other allusions in a series of letters Tzetzes published. The first 141 “histories” gloss a relentless flow of learned references in the “epistolion” (little letter), 308 lines in verse cautioning rival grammarian Lachanas against ingratitude and triumphalism. Tzetzes included the epistolion at Book 4, lines 472-786. The remaining stories provide explanatory footnotes to a volume of 107 letters in prose addressed to various personalities of the day and not included in this text (see Leone 1972 for the Greek edition). Tzetzes was responding to numbered lists (pinakes) quoting brief phrases from the letters, in the order they appeared. These lists have many overlaps and duplications due to Tzetzes' reuse of favorite historical allusions (e.g. Croesus). To save paper and time, Tzetzes summarized and cross-referenced overlapping allusions, citing the list numbers (hyperlinked below). Finding himself with a blank page at the end of his last list, he threw in some dubious biographic details on Homer.
The misleading modern name “Chiliades” or “Thousands” is inspired by an early editor's arbitrary division of the text into thirteen 1000-line “books” that ignore the work's internal logic. The first few lines are a crude attempt to illustrate “political” meter in English.

Event Date: 2022 GR

§ 1.1  Book of History of Ioannis Tzetzes in Political Verses (called Alpha) [or] Historiai of Ioannes the Grammarian Tzetzes from the things referred to in one of his letters.
My dearest friend, you ask to learn both scholarship unerring
And all that history can teach from this one single letter;
Attention give, accordingly, first to the tale of Croesus.

Event Date: 1150 GR

§ 1.4  (T1) CONCERNING CROESUS
Croesus was Alyattes' son, the ruler of the Lydians,
Whose capital and palace were establishéd at Sardis;
By which the flowing Pactolus, the rain-fed golden river,
From Tmolus mountain washéd down a waterfall of gold dust.
[end metrical translation]
Croesus became richest in gold of all kings.
Living delicately in wealth and countless treasures.
Friendly to everybody, he was also generous.
As Pindar the son of Daiphantus reports,
When Alcmaeon came to see Croesus once

Event Date: 1150 GR

§ 1.10  He bid him take gold, as much as he could carry.
Alcmaeon dressed himself in a very wide-breasted robe
And the wide-soled boots of tragic actors.
He entered the treasury and filled them with gold,
Up to his hair, holding it with his teeth.
Alcmaeon couldn't walk - the gold weighed so much.
The sight moved Croesus to laughter.
He told him to take two times more in addition.
While this is what Pindar the lyric poet wrote somewhere,
The writer Herodotus, the son of Oxylus,

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§ 1.20  And Plutarch as well, describe Croesus
Sending to Delphi a thousand bricks of solid gold
To build a golden altar for Apollo.
Once he invited Solon, the lawmaker,
To Sardis, to spend time at his palace.
He showed him his treasures, and boasting over them he urged
That he account him blessed, renowned among the fortunate.
But Solon the philosopher, the law-giver,
Did not hold him blessed, and Croesus asked him:
“Where, Solon, do you know someone happier than I?”

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§ 1.30  He replied, indeed I do, the general Tellus
And Cleobis and Biton, the sons of Cydippe.
The first one, Tellus the general, after defeating his enemies
Was glorified by many for his brilliant victory;
He was fortunate to die the very evening of his victory.
The children of Cydippe, the priestess of Hera,
Because their mother was sick, yoked themselves like oxen
And brought their mother to the Heraion precinct.
Their mother prayed for the best for them.
Both of them died that night, meeting a most beautiful end.

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§ 1.40  “These ones I call happy, Croesus, and people like them
Who end their lives at a worthy end-point.
Your end is yet unknown; so I do not deem you fortunate.
No one should consider blessed a man whose end is not yet known”.
This is what Solon told the Lydian, prophetically.
For soon after Croesus was defeated in war
By Cyrus the Persian, the son of Cambyses and Mandane.
Fourteen whole days he was besieged,
And taken by storm, as a prisoner being dragged to the pyre.
“O Solon! Solon! Solon!” he shouted three times.

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§ 1.50  He was snatched away from the fire when Cyrus learned it.
While this is what Herodotus says, Xenophon claims
Croesus suffered nothing unpleasant from Cyrus,
But indeed he reverenced his magnanimity.
For he says that on becoming a prisoner Croesus said
Now I draw out my life more happily.
Xenophon also wrote beautifully about the battle.
He says Assyria borders on Media.
The son of the king of the Assyrians then
When celebrating a wedding, went off to go hunting in Media.

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§ 1.60  Since he had enough horsemen, he left off hunting
And began to plunder the borders of Media.
After Cyrus took counsel with his grandfather, they were defeated.
Whence a great war broke out between them.
When Astyages died, his son Cyaxares,
Cyrus' uncle, became king of all the Medes,
A stupid man given to soft-living and drink.
Endowed with the shadow and name of kingship,
While Cyrus was king in practice, and accepted the battle.
With the Medes, Persians and Susians under him.

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§ 1.70  Whose king was Abradatas, the husband of Pantheia,
And others, many, who obeyed him.
Accomplices and allies of the Assyrians came;
Artacamas, the king of great Phrygia;
Gabaeus, the general of Hellespontine Phrygia;
And king Aribaeus of all Cappadocia
And many other people of countless nations came,
Along with them Maragdus, the king of the Arabians,
And Croesus the Lydian, about whom we are speaking.
As soon as Cyrus entered the battle, he cut them down

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§ 1.80  And drove toward Sardis; On the second night
He sent up the Chaldaeans and destroyed the walls.
Ctesias the physician, the son of Ctesiochus,
Who had set out from Cnidus the Cyprian city;
Was detained by Artaxerxes as an ally of Cyrus.
He stayed among the Persians during seventeen years
And wrote twenty three books of Persika.
He says that Astyages, though overthrown by Cyrus,
Was made ruler of the Barcanians by the same man.

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§ 1.89  Oebares, Cyrus' great general, he says,
Planted wooden masks at Sardis
On very long poles, during the night,
So as to frighten the Lydians and seize the city.
After the capture of Croesus, he asserts,
Cyrus sent Petesacas to Astyages.
When he arrived he saw Amytis with Astyages.
Amytis was Astyages' daughter.
When she saw this chief eunuch, the wretched Petesacas,
She understood that he was plotting against Astyages.
She gouged his eyes out and flayed him alive;
She impaled him on a cross and left him as a feast for birds.
Now, my dearest, you have the whole story of Croesus.
Shall we now start the story of Midas as well.

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§ 1.102  (T2) CONCERNING MIDAS
Midas, the son of Gordias, was a king of the Phrygians,
Unnaturally fond of gold.
According to the myths, he made a bitter wish
That everything he held would be turned into gold.
But when even the food he ate turned to gold,
The wretch died hungry from a gilded famine.
Others, though, have written that he didn’t die.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.110  Instead, driving his chariot by the oracles an anchor held him.
He founded the Galatian city of Ankara at the Halys.
This way the famine and his destiny have been avoided.
This Midas is said to have had ass's ears.
But all this about Midas must be explained to you allegorically.
He worshipped gain and money; he was very greedy.
He shrank his stomach by selling what was edible
Just as Vespasian sold the horse dung
Although he was criticized greatly by his son Titus for this.
Whom he told, “Titus, my dearest son,
This gold from dung, sniff it, how does it smell?”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.120  Such a one was Midas, as already mentioned before,
For whom myths have been fashioned thus.
Later, having founded Ankara he got food from it.
They say, as I said, that he had ass's ears.
Meaning he was keen-eared, or else with very long ears
Or else that he had around him many spying listeners.
Donkeys, Aristotle says, have very sharp hearing.
There is a Phrygian village called “Ass’s Ears”.
It was settled by thieves. Midas conquered it

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§ 1.130  And thus fell under the myth that he had Ass’s Ears.
I found that the Ankara mentioned above, in Galatia,
Was built by Octavius Caesar of the Romans.
Having killed Deiotarus, the tetrarch of Galatia.
It was not from the iron anchor of Midas’ chariot
That Ankara was named this way, but because it lies
Between the two Asiatic and Pontic seas.

Event Date: -40 GR

§ 1.137  (T3) CONCERNING GYGES
According to some writers Gyges was a shepherd.
While he was shepherding he found a copper horse buried into the ground.
Inside this horse a dead man was lying, with a ring upon his finger.
This particular ring was taken by Gyges.
He found out it had the power, when the loop was turned,
To conceal its owner and make him reappear.
He killed Candaules and seized kingship of the Lydians.
Herodotus does not say he was a shepherd,
But says he was the son of Dascylus, Candaules’ squire.
Because Candaules loved his wife too much,
He secretly showed her nakedness to Gyges.
She was aware of it, said nothing, but sent for Gyges later

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.150  And told him “Make a choice:
Either kill Candaules or be killed by him.
I will not stand having been seen by two men.”
He killed Candaules and took his kingdom.
Gyges had with Candaules’ wife a son Ardys.
Whose son was Sadyattes, and the latter’s son was Alyattes.
Alyattes’ son was Croesus, who was defeated by Cyrus.
But I can tell your struggle and impatience
To learn the real meaning of Gyges’ story.
It has been said that the shepherd Gyges became a general.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.160  The proud copper horse was the kingdom,
or rather the palace. The corpse: Candaules’ wife,
Who sat in the palace inactive.
Gyges took her ring and showed it to the bodyguards,
And with them he stealthily killed Candaules.
After returning the ring to the wife
He manifested himself to everyone and took the kingdom.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.167  (T4) CONCERNING CODRUS
The king of Athens, Codrus, the son of Melanthus,
Brings his lineage until Erichthonius,
Drawing a royal series of countless kings.
Cecrops was the first king of Athens.
After him it was Cranaus, and the third one Amphictyon,
Whom Erichthonius deposed and reigned himself.
He was a son of Hephaestus and Athena daughter of Cranaus.
He had a son, Pandion, with Praxithea.
Pandion and Zeuxippe gave birth to Erechtheus,
Leaving aside Procne, Philomela and Butes.
Erechtheus has a son, Cecrops, from Praxithea.
Cecrops had Pandion from Metadousa .
From this Pandion Aegeus was born, the father of Theseus.

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§ 1.180  Acamas and Demophon were the children of Theseus.
Demophon fathered Oxyntes.
Oxyntes fathered Thymoetes, Thymoetes Melanthus.
From Melanthus came Codrus and, from Codrus, Neleus and Medon.
All these I mentioned were kings, as well as the following.
Some say the lineage was of this stock
Until Thymoetes, but Melanthus is not of this lineage.
For fighting in single combat with the Boeotian Xantheias
Thymoetes gave him the kingdom as a gift.
This Codrus was noble not only by lineage,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.190  But most noble of soul.
For once when the Laconians and Athenians were at war
An oracle was given to the Laconians, that they would be defeated greatly
If anyone killed the Athenian general.
Codrus learned this and dressed himself as a woodcutter.
He killed a Laconian with an axe and was killed in return.
Once the Laconians learned this, they left straightaway.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.197  (T5) CONCERNING MEGACLES
There have been two Megacles of Athenian lineage,
Both of them noble and of a good repute.
One of them, one hundred sixty two
Years ago, won three times the Olympic Games.
He was the son of the noble Coesyra.
The other Megacles was a Pythian games winner
Whose lineage reaches the wealthy Alcmaeon
Who was enriched, as already said, by Croesus.

Event Date: -600 GR

§ 1.205  (T6) CONCERNING ALCMAEON
Alcmaeon was a nobleman, very wealthy,
Whose sons killed the two sons of Peisistratus,
The tyrants of Athens, Hipparchus and Hippias.
And freed the city; one of them was Cleisthenes.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.209  (T7) CONCERNING THE SONS OF BOREAS
Boreas the Thracian kidnapped Oreithyia from Athens.
They had two sons, Zetes and Calais, excessively fine-haired.
Defeating even Absalom in the hair department.
And whom the mythographers said to fly, hair-wise.
As if uplifted and made proud by their hair.
They are said to have sailed with the other Argonauts
And to have driven the Harpies away from old man Phineus,
The birds snatching the food from his mouth.
Along with the Harpies, they say, the brothers died as well.
To me the truth seems to be allegorical as follows.
This old man, Phineus, blind due to old age,
had daughters Eraseia and Harpyreia.
They lived a very sluttish and stupid life.
And all his livelihood was consumed by them.
Poverty followed, and deadly famine.
Zetes and Calais snatched them away,
And they somehow dropped out of sight in those places.
Whence the stories about them slipped into myth.
Apollonius tells this story.

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§ 1.228  (T8) CONCERNING EUPHORBUS
According to Homer, Euphorbus was the son of Phrontis and Panthous.
But according to Orpheus, he was son of Abarbarea and Boucolion.
He had lovely braids among the delicate-haired.
He fought besides the Trojans for the sake of Helen.
He had his braid tied with much gold
And a bun with a grasshopper broach.

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§ 1.235  (T9) CONCERNING NARCISSUS
Narcissus, the Laconian, was a young hunter, a lover of the beautiful.
Once, during the summer seaoson he got thirsty after hunting.
He leaned upon the water and saw himself in the bloom of youth.
He fell in love with his own shadow, as if it were somebody else.
Yearning to clutch at it, he drew a damp destiny.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.239  (T10) CONCERNING NIREUS
Nireus was a Greek commander, a real beauty
The handsomest of the Greeks after Achilles.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.241  (T11) CONCERNING HYACINTHUS
Hyacinthus was the beautiful brother of Cynortus.
His father was Amyclas and Diomede his mother,
From a land of noblemen, the Laconian Amyclaeans.
Apollo and Zephyrus were rivals for the young boy’s love.
Once when Apollo was throwing the discus with Hyacinthus,
Zephyrus blew hard and diverted the discus.
Striking the beautiful youth on the head it killed him.
The earth, then, gave back a flower with his name.
Just as it had when pitying the beautiful Narcissus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.250  But the allegory of Narcissus is obvious to everybody,
That falling into the water the young man drowned.
As consolation in mourning, they exaggerate the beauty.
And say he fell into the water out of desire for his shadow.
The bit about the plants and trees is obvious,
Likewise of the stars and similar things.
The relatives of the dead, out of longing for them,
Named those things after them.
The rival lovers of Hyacinthus they point to
To emphasize the young man’s beauty,

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§ 1.260  As if the sun rejoiced, turning to the young man
And the breath of the winds was charmed by him.
So when he was killed, throwing the discus with some youth,
When the wind turned the discus at his head,
They wove a tale that Zephyrus, contending with the Sun,
Deprived Hyacinthus of life and the brilliant light-bringer.
This story Nicander wrote in his Theriaca.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.267  To ask me to write for you the actual words of the wise
Is inopportune, curious, and rather sinister.
You don’t want to learn these things as an essay of Tzetzes,
And be grateful to your benefactors,
But rather as a prodigy who has learned so many books.
I have this experience of another ingrate.
Hence, it's enough to write only the name for you;
Let the memory of all these things remain with me.
You know well in any case, that I know whole books
By heart and readily will tell them orally.
A better memorizer than Tzetzes
God has never revealed, before or living now.
Hence, accepting this gift I thank the Giver.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.280  And if I live a meager life, being first of my lineage;
This readily appears, according to Aeschylus.
I consider trivial all in people’s lives,
When I have chosen life in the background.
If there is someone else claiming to have such a memory,
Since I cannot bring up any of the above,
Please, let him come in front of us; we won’t avoid the fight,
Although we’ve had decided to lead our life at home,
Just like Scyrian Achilles, the disciple of Chiron,
Not like Konnas at crossroads and the doors of inns.

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§ 1.290  You know now our nature and our state of mind.
I’ve learned to interpret all the books of former writers
Even if they’re full of dust, in the shadows or forgotten.
As Solomon has said, we wail for everything humans have made.
I’ve seen the beauty of our world and the delights of life
Under the sun; all this is vanity.
But, oh! I have to learn all useful things from wise men.
Prepare your ears so you can listen to what I have to say.
I do not have a heart of iron; I am compassionate.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.299  In his Theriaca, Nicander writes about Hyacinthus.
“...Depilatory, and the seed of mournful Hyacinth,
For whom Phoebus wept, when he slew the boy unwilling,
Throwing beside the Amyclaean river,
Hyacinthus in the bloom of youth, when the mass smote his temple,
Rebounding from a rock, and crushed the inmost sheath.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.305  (T12) CONCERNING ORPHEUS
Orpheus was a Thracian, from Bisaltia the Odrysian homeland.
Son of Menippe, the daughter of Thamyris, and of Oeagrus,
Even if they call him, allegorically, the son of Calliope.
They say he charmed beasts and stones with his music.
As the poet Simonides wrote somewhere about him.
“Countless birds were flying over his head,
Even the fish stood upright from the blue water
To hear his beautiful songs.” These are the words of the myth.
To be precise, however, he charmed everyone with his music,
The gardeners, stone-workers, huntsmen
He caused them to neglect their work in order to follow him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.316  (T13) CONCERNING AMPHION
The lyre-singer Amphion, together with Zethus
Were sons of Zeus, as Homer says, with Antiope their mother.
According to other chronicles and the Antiochean
They were sons of Theoboon and the mother I mentioned.
As children of an unwed mother they were immediately cast out,
But when they grew up enough, they undertook the kingdom.
They honoured their father’s name and fortified the city of Thebes.
It has been said Amphion was gifted with the lyre
And was able to drag the stones for building with his songs.
The truth: Amphion sang, holding his lyre
While the workers were setting the stones in place.
As later Alexander would undermine them
With mournful flute-music, as Callisthenes writes.
For Ismenias played the flute while Thebes was being sacked.

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§ 1.330  (T14) CONCERNING THE SIRENS
About the Sirens, Homer, Lycophron, Euripides
And all the rest write that they charmed people with their music.
They destroy with their song, fulfilling every desire.
Only Odysseus managed to pass them, they say,
Wrapping the ears of his companions with wax
While he listened, suspended from the mast.
They say they are bird-shaped young women,
Leucosia, Ligeia and Parthenope,
Children of the river Achelous and Terpsichore
Others say of Melpomene, and give them other names.

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§ 1.340  Their allegorical meaning has been stated often.
Some say they are the Seirenides rocks
Which, well-pierced, produce music from the waves.
Plutarch the younger has said they were prostitutes.
All the rest assert they are pleasures that conquer people,
Those who do not shut their companions' ears with wax,
That is, close the five senses against them,
And lift their mind upward, just as I tell you.
They are children of Terpsichore and Melpomene, I say,
(Such things accompany both pleasures and prostitutes.)
And of Achelous the river, and winged,
As pleasures flow like unstable prostitutes,
So delight in them is brief and flies away.

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§ 1.350  (T15) CONCERNING MARSYAS
Marsyas the Phrygian, a philosopher, was the first to discover the flute.
He competed with the pipes against Apollo himself.
Defeated, he was hung on a pine-tree as a wineskin.
And the river still flows with the madness of the flute-player.
As is written in the Julianine accounts
And by Procopius of Caesarea and many others,
And before them, Nicander said the following in his epic verses.

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§ 1.360  “Often the pine makes moan on the spot
Where Phoebus stripped the skin from the limbs of Marsyas;
the tree, lamenting in the glens his far-famed fate,
Alone utters her passionate plaint unceasingly.” [Nicand. Alexipharmaca 301, tr. Gow/Scholfield]
Others say Athena invented flute-playing.
She was then rebuked by Marsyas the Satyr:
“The shape does not suit you; leave off the flute,
Take up arms and spare your cheeks”
She leaned over the water, and seeing her cheeks swollen,
Gave this art form to Marsyas.

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§ 1.370  He was the son of Hyagnis and teacher of Olympus.
Contending with the stronger, as they say, he was killed.
This contest was sung by Simonides in a hymn:
“He fitted dazzling gold about his shaggy temples
And back-tying leather straps to his eager mouth.”
But the Athena, Apollo needs allegorical explanation.
The art of flute-playing is a discovery of the intellect.
But cheek-swelling shames the appearance.
Hence flute-playing is unsuited for sensible men.
Nevertheless, the philosopher Marsyas I mentioned
Was proud of discovering it, and then going crazy
He drowned and carried up by the river he hung up on a pine.
He was seen under the sun as if a suicide.
Since Helios is very musical as well,
They asserted that they contended and, defeated, he was hanged.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.386  (T16) CONCERNING TERPANDER
Terpander was a citharode, Methymnaean by birth.
Once, when the Lacedaemonians were engaged in civil strife
An oracle prophesied they would reconcile
If Terpander from Methymna played his cithara to them.
And indeed, Terpander, played some tune on the kithara artfully
So they made peace immediately, as Diodorus writes,
Due to the harmony in the ode. Repenting
They wrapped arms about one another and kissed in tears.

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§ 1.393  (T17) CONCERNING ARION
Arion was a Methymnaean, likewise a citharode,
In the time of Croesus and of Periander.
He went off to Italy and around Sicily.
He won and acquired much wealth. He embarked on a Corinthian ship
From Tarentum, sailing for home.
When the sailors wanted to kill him for his money.
He asked if he could wear his musical garb and play

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§ 1.400  His death-song; he took up his lyre
(In cithara-singing there are seven modes in all).
When he began to singing the orthion mode delightfully,
A dolphin, enchanted, leapt up; Arion fell into the sea
And the dolphin carried him on its back to Taenaron.
When he arrived in Corinth, he told all this to Periander,
Who, skeptical, hid the man in prison.
When the sailors came, Periander investigated, found the story true,
And imposed the proper penalty for murderers.
The writer Herodotus has written down this story,
Along with him Oppian, most accurately.
The allegorical explanation, my child, here follows:
Being in danger, Arion struck up the Orthian mode.
Some Phoenician pirates in a dolphin-shaped ship
Took pity on him and took him to Taenaron.

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§ 1.416  (T18) CONCERNING THE GOLDEN LAMB OF ATREUS
Atreus and Thyestes were brothers along with several others,
All children of Pelops and Hippodamia.
Chrysippus was their illegitimate brother, born to Axioche.
They were jealous of him because their father honoured him disproportionately.
Following Hippodamia’s counsel, Atreus and Thyestes
Drowned him into a well. When Pelops found this out
He banished all his children from his sight.
The oracle said Laius had kidnapped him.
They settled in different places. Atreus and Thyestes
Settled in Triphylia of the Peloponnese.
Each of them claimed the kingship for themselves.
Atreus on legal grounds, since he was the elder.
Thyestes was stubborn, dismissive of laws.
In time they agreed that the one who would become king
Was he who could show a portent to the appointed judges.

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§ 1.430  In Atreus' flocks there was a golden lamb.
(Simonides says the lamb was purple.)
Atreus was about to show the lamb to the arbiters.
(According to Euripides, it was born on the advice of Hermes,
To bring harm and destruction on the descendants of Pelops
Since Pelops had killed Myrtilus, Hermes’ son, by treachery.
But Apollonius says Atreus had made a vow
To sacrifice to Artemis the fairest of his flock.
But when he saw the new-born, he smothered it and hid it away
Safely in a chest, given that it was a portent.)

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§ 1.440  Atreus was about to show it to the judges.
Thyestes, though, had been having an affair, defiling his brother's marriage-bed.
He took the lamb from Atreus’ wife, Aerope,
Showed it to the judges, and took the kingship.
The Light-bearer could not stand the unfortunate things that happened
So he drove his chariot from the west to the east,
And along with him went the Pleiades as well.
Atreus found out he had been deceived by his wife Aerope.
He made a dinner of the three children Thyestes had with a Naiad,
Aglaus, Orchomenus and Calaeus, after killing them.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.450  He showed him afterwards their legs and arms and drove him away from the country.
The Sun returned after the disgusting dinner.
The other son of Thyestes, Aegisthus, was living in the mountains, taking care of goats.
Thyestes had this son with his daughter Pelopia or Mnesiphane.
Aegisthus returns from the mountain and kills Atreus
And takes back the kingdom that was rightfully his father’s.
He sends Atreus’ sons, Agamemnon and Menelaus,
To Polypheides, the king of Sicyon, to raise them.
He sends them on, in turn, to the Aetolian Oeneus.
After a short time they are brought to Tyndareus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.460  They forced Thyestes seek refuge at Hera’s altar
And afterwards on oath to go and live in Cythereia.
They became husbands to the daughters of Tyndareus.
Agamemnon married Clytemnestra
After killing her husband Tantalus, the son of Thyestes,
And their newborn child; Menelaus married Helen.
The part about the Sun, actually happened, I think
With no need to allegorize it away.
Sheep bearing gold-colored fleece
Rheginus refers to Isigonus have painted them.
Know that Hermes is the planet [Mercury] and Artemis the moon.
What happened then was not seen as a good omen.
Myrtilus, the son of Hermes, a star born of him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.473  (T19) CONCERNING THE BULL OF MINOS
Minos was a son of Zeus son of Asterios.
All kings were from the beginning called Zeuses.
As the planet Zeus, in the degrees of Leo,
Marking the horoscope and well-placed for birthdays
Produces kings and crown-wearers.
After the death of Zeus of Asterios,
When Minos was not permitted to rule Crete after him

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.480  He said he would have the Cretan kingdom as gift of the gods.
That a strange sign from the sea would be revealed.
He vowed that, whatever it was, to sacrifice it to Poseidon.
Then a delightful bull appeared from the sea
And he straightaway possessed the kingdom of the Cretans.
He sacrificed a different bull to Poseidon
And sent the revealed bull to his cowherds;
Which bull his wife Pasiphae fell in love with
And had intercourse with it in Daedalus' contrivance,
And gave birth to Minotaur, a beast half man and half bull.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.490  Daedalus was the son of Eupalamus and Alcippe.
He was an Attic architect and and sculptor.
He threw from Attica’s Acropolis and killed
The son of his sister Perdix, whose name was Attalus.
For he, trained by his uncle Daedalus,
Invented the saw, using a serpent’s jaw
Sawing a small piece of wood. When his uncle saw that,
He envied the child’s genius, killed him,
And fled to Minos. There, with the slave Naucrate
He had a son, Icarus. Minos detained them

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.500  As accomplices in his wife's adultery.
He was about to kill them, having locked them in the dungeon.
They escaped from the dungeon
Putting on wings and flying through the air.
During his escape,Icarus fell into the sea.
From him the Icarian Sea takes its name.
Daedalus was saved in Caminus of Sicily.
Minos came looking for him in Sicily
But died at the hands of the daughters of Cocalus;
By pouring boiling hot water and cold immediately after.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.510  Now, the bull and the intercourse need my explication
And the Minotaur and the wings made by Daedalus
And how, they say, Daedalus’ sculptures could move.
As Euripides has said in his play Hecuba:
“I wish I could speak through my arms,
Through my hands and my hair and my walking
And through Daedalus’ crafting or some God’s”
And Plato, the master of comedy, has said:
“Every sculpture made by Daedalus must be seen
To move; that is a wise man”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.520  Minos, who was not permitted to be the ruler before,
Having consulted the seers, spoke to the Cretans.
He would be revealed a sign from the sea.
Commander Taurus showed up with his merchant ships
And Minos took the kingdom as if it were a god’s will.
It was this Taurus, the commander, not the bull,
With whom Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, committed adultery
In cooperation with Daedalus, who helped her
To be closed in the most guarded rooms,
The so-called wooden bull of Daedalus,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.530  Where she had a baby; since the child had two fathers,
Minos and Taurus, he was called Minotaur.
Know that the wings were the sails of cargo ships.
They fled by ship to Sicily.
Icarus shed his feathers by being drowned in a shipwreck.
Daedalus was saved in the house of Cocalus.
Daedalean statues are said to move for this reason:
Statues, in the years prior to Daedalus,
Were made without arms, legs or eyes.
Daedalus was the first one to make them with arms and legs
As well as fingers, eyelids and everything else.
That’s why they say his statues were capable of moving.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.542  (T20) CONCERNING CEPHALUS’ DOG
Procris, the daughter of Erechtheus and Praxithea,
Was the wife of Cephalus, Deioneus’ son.
She was bribed with a golden crown to sleep with Pteleon.
She fled to Minos after Cephalus discovered her.
Minos had secret intercourse with her
And gave her as a gift a true-flying javelin and a fast-running dog.
This dog could outrun and kill the swiftest beast.
She took these presents and returned to Cephalus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.550  He received the gifts and went hunting.
He let fly a javelin toward a beast, and killed her.
Judged by the Areopagus, he went into exile.
At that time the Teumessian Fox
Was bringing disaster to the children of Thebes.
Cephalus went with his dog to hunt the fox.
As they raced, Zeus turned sly fox and hound to stone.
This story has been written by Apollodorus.
While the wise Palaephatus, a really intelligent man,
Explains a slice of it, or part of a slice.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.560  He says there was a commander named Alopex [Fox]
Who was fighting against the Thebans along with other rebels,
Whom Cephalus killed having been called from Athens.
I, too, agree with this version of the story, but explain the whole allegorically.
Minos had sex with Procris secretly
And after that, he sent her on a fast trireme
Along with commander Cyn [Dog] and many gifts to reconcile with Cephalus.
Cephalus then sent this Cyn to Alopex
To fight him as an enemy. Fighting on horseback
They unhorsed one another and were killed by the rocks.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.570  Or else Alopex escaped with his ships
With Cyn in pursuit, and on the rocks
Their ships were cast up, and they expired.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.573  (T21) CONCERNING MEGACLES
The Megacles mentioned here was son of Coesyra,
The most noble of all women under the sun.
His horse won a third time at Olympia.
Olympia was a place near Triphylia
Where the river Alpheus is still flowing.
There Heracles had offered to Olympian Zeus
A splendid context from the spoils of Augeas.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.580  For which the crown for the victors was a shoot of wild olive.
This contest took place every fifty months.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.582  (T22) CONCERNING CIMON
Cimon, according to some writers, was son of Miltiades,
According to some others, though, he was the son of Tisagoras.
He had a son with Isodice named Callias [NOT].
Cimon had his sister Elpinice,
As Ptolemy later had his sister Berenice,
And before them Zeus had Hera, and now the Persians.
Callias was fined fifty talents
So that Cimon, his father, would suffer no harm
For his shameful wedding, his incest with his sister.
Those who have written about this are too many for me to count them.
For they are infinite, those who wrote about this,
The comic poets, the rhetoricians, Diodorus and others.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.594  (T23) CONCERNING ARISTOPATIRA
Aristopatira [Callipateira] was the daughter of Diagoras of Rhodes.
Diagoras along with his sons and grandsons,
Being all together seven, in just one day
Won in boxing and wrestling in the Olympic Games.
He among the men, his sons as ephebes,
And his grandchildren in the boys' competition. All wearing wreaths

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.600  They passed through the theater in splendid procession,
Damagetus and Dorieus along with Acusilaus,
Euclon and Pisirrothius along with Lelegetes.
They erected stelai for them at Olympia.
During the next Olympiad
Aristopatira came to watch the games.
There was a law that forbade women
From showing up and watching the Olympic Games.
The Hellanodicae didn’t allow her to enter and she replied to them:
“Why don’t you let me watch the contest?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.610  I am not like the other women.
You see, all seven of the winners,
That won in one day, are relatives of mine.
Diagoras is my father, and the other three are my brothers;
The children are my brothers’ sons,
Euclon and Pisirrothius along with Lelegetes.”
They then gave in to her words
And let her immediately enter and watch the games.
This story has been written by Pindar, the son of Daiphantus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.619  (T24) CONCERNING SIMONIDES’ VICTORIES
There was a Simonides from Samos, of Amorgus.
Our Simonides, though, is son of Leoprepes from Ceos.
He was poor but charming, he always won in contests
Just like Konnas, the Olympic victor in flute-playing.
Aristophanes has written in his comedies about Simonides’ poverty.
Aristides has written about the man’s gratitude.
The majority say, he once found an unburied dead body
And honoured him with funeral rites; he saw the dead man in his sleep
Who told him “don’t sail, don’t follow the sailors”
So he refused to leave with them.
All the others were lost in a shipwreck.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.630  Simonides wrote a thankful epigram
Upon the dead man’s tomb.
“Here lies the saviour of Simonides the Cean,
Who, though dead, did a favor to the living.”
This Simonides died in Sicily.
Upon his tomb, there is the following epigram:
Simonides, you who have fifty six victories
And tripods. You have fallen in the Sicilian plain.
The memory of Ceos misses you. Praise by the Greeks
Hereafter for your quick-witted soul.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.640  (T25) CONCERNING STESICHORUS
Stesichorus was a lyric poet and his daughters as well.
His homeland was Himera, a city of Sicily.
He was contemporaneous with Abaris and Pythagoras.
He was opposed to Astypalean Phalaris.
Phalaris was husband of Erythea and father of Paurolas,
He was, also, the son of Leodamas and king of Agrigento.
This Phalaris killed Perillos, the bronzeworker
From Attica; he burnt him in the bronze bull.
Perillos had manufactured this bull by himself,
He made small tubes into the bull’s nostrils.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.650  He even made a door on one side of the bull.
He gave this bull to Phalaris as a gift.
Phalaris welcomed this man with other gifts
And ordered this device to be devoted to the gods.
Then, the coppersmith that made him such a gift
Told him about the savage characteristics of the device:
“If you ever want, Phalaris, to punish anyone of your people,
You throw him inside this bull and set fire below it.
His groaning will look like the bull is groaning,
And you’ll feel pleasure when you’ll hear the sound through the bull’s nostrils as if it were a flute.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.660  Phalaris heard about this and felt disgusted by him
He said: “Bring it Perillos, you show it to us first,
You imitate the flute, present us your creation.”
While he was trying to imitate the sound of flute,
Phalaris closed the bull’s door and set it on fire.
Because he didn’t want to defile the work of bronze with the man’s death
He pulled him out half dead and threw him off the cliff.
Lucian the Syrian has written about this bull,
As well as Diodorus and Pindar and many others.
I have written to you this story
Based on the wise Phalaris’ letters.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.671  Stesichorus was an enemy to this Phalaris,
I think, because when he was going to Peloponnese by way of Pachynus
With Conon and Dropidas, they were seized by his men.
Phalaris killed Conon right away
While he honorably returned Dropidas to his homeland.
He had Stesichorus as a beloved friend,
For whom he paid ransom to the people of Tauromenium
One hundred talents; twelve years later,
When Stesichorus died, his daughters continued to write.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.680  Stesichorus’ daughters made hymns about Phalaris
And so that debt was over.
Here follows a song of Stesichorus:
“Oh Pallas, destroyer of cities, war-sustaining, pure creator,
Daughter of the Great Zeus, young maiden, unseen virgin.”
Similar is a song of Archilochus of Paros
With which he had won having sung it at the Olympic Games,
Singing only with his mouth for his tripe was cut.
They say even Pindar used to admire him.
Now hear this song of Archilochus:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.690  “Hurrah! Be glad, you, triumphant king Heracles,
Along with Iolaus, both of you true warriors.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.692  (T26) CONCERNING TYRTAEUS
Tyrtaeus was a Laconian commander and a great poet,
The songs he wrote were encouraging for war.
These songs were sung by the Laconians when they were joining war
They were performing the war dance according to Lycurgus’ laws.
Dio Chrysostom wrote about this, too.
“You, sons of glorious fathers of Sparta, who raises great men,
You hold the shield with your left hand and use the spear with courage,
Do not spare lives; it is not proper for Spartans.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.700  (T27) CONCERNING HANNIBAL
Hannibal, according to Diodorus and Dio
As well as according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
Was a commander of Sicily, the son of Hamilcar.
Hamilcar had conquered the entire Iberia
And the Iberians had plotted against him and killed him.
He, then, commanded all his army to leave
And join his sons and die for them.
He would have avoided the plague if he had left with the others.
His son Hannibal was only fifteen years old
And the other, Hasdrubal, only twelve; he went upon the hill,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.710  His head was seen by the Iberians.
All of them attacked him
The ones who left were lucky to be saved.
When he made sure his army was safe, he went back
And started to counter attack the Iberians.
The Iberians encircled him and fought him hard,
He let go of his weakened horse
And fell into the waters of the river Ebro.
He was hit by a javelin.
He was found neither drowned nor dead by the Iberians.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.720  Such was his strength; he was dragged by the waters.
Hannibal was a descendant of such a hero.
Along with his brother-in-law, he marshalled against Iberia
And plundered it entirely, to avenge his father’s death.
Meanwhile, the Ausonian Romans
Defeated in battle many times the Sicilians.
They made a strict law for themselves
Never to fall under their sword.
When Hannibal was twenty five years old,
Apart from the senators and the aristocrats,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.730  He caught the brightest and the smartest of the young men
About one hundred or maybe more; by plundering Iberia
He made a living and increased his army with young men.
Such a number was able to win hundreds of men.
He managed to run thousands and millions of men.
His army became huge and one of the most dreadful
The soldiers had followed him without money or gifts.
Such news travelled quickly to the Romans.
All of them were formed in order for the infantry and navy.
There must have been seventy seven thousands.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.740  He went to get ready the Sicilians, just like one rubs a pine.
The Sicilians begged Hannibal to stop
And not to utterly destroy the lands of Sicily.
He heard them talk and brag about themselves.
He did not sit and wait for the attack of the Romans.
He left alone from Sicily going forward to Italy
Going from above, passing through the Alps.
They were hard to pass through, but Hannibal cut into pieces the rocks
And six months later he confronted the Roman armies.
He killed many of them during a lot of battles.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.750  His brother Hasdrubal, who had stayed back to wait,
He too walked through the Alps.
It took him fifteen days to come next to Hannibal.
He brought with him a great army. When the Romans found out,
They attacked him secretly and managed to take him down.
They brought his head and threw it to Hannibal.
He lamented, as it was proper, his beloved brother
And later he marshalled against the Romans at Cannae.
The commanders of the Romans were Paullus and Terentius.
Cannae was a plain near Argyrippe.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.760  Argyrippe was a city built by Diomedes.
The city’s name means “a horse from Argos” in the language of the Greeks.
These plains used to be inhibited by the Daunians
And later by the Iapygians, and after them by the Salantians.
And nowadays we say the Calabrians live there.
They have been the borders between the Calabrians and the Longobards.
That dreadful war took place there.
When that terrible war broke out
A fearful earthquake happened; it set apart the mountains.
A storm took place where rocks were falling from the sky.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.770  The soldiers did not stop fighting but fearlessly continued.
At the end many men of the Romans fell down.
Then, the commander Hannibal sent back to Sicily
The rings of the Roman commanders and of the other glorious men
Which were worth many medimnoi and choenixes.
The first and noble women of the Romans,
They ran lamenting to the temples in Rome
And cut their hair as it was proper when grieving.
Later they were mixed with the slaves and the barbarians
Since the land of the Romans was deprived of men.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.780  They were afraid their roots would be vanished.
Then Rome itself had lost all of its men
Its gates were wide open, the people stood on the street
Ten were sitting before the gates,
They were lamenting for the disaster the poor city had suffered.
They were watching for the remaining people, so nobody would leave the city.
While such a misfortune was upon the great Rome
Hannibal neglected to destroy it completely.
He was so keen on victories and drinking and having good time
That he did not take notice of the Romans that gathered around Rome.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.790  Then, he left for the third time to marshal against Rome.
Suddenly, while the weather was nice, a terrifying hail started
And the darkness it produced changed Hannibal’s march.
Hannibal, then, was envied by the Sicilians.
While he was in need of food, they refused to supply him.
The one who earlier courageously won was now defeated by hunger.
He was also chased by the Roman Scipio
And he was actually to blame for the disaster of the Sicilians.
He died by taking poison somewhere in Bithynia
Near a village known by the name Libyssa.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.800  He expected to find death in Libyssa, his homeland.
There used to be an oracle about Hannibal’s death.
“The soil of Libyssa would cover Hannibal’s body.”
The later emperor of the Romans, Severus,
Who was a descendant of the Libyans, he put upon this man’s
Tomb a white piece of marble to honour the commander Hannibal.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.806  (T28) CONCERNING BUCEPHALUS
You already know Bucephalus’ story
For he was a furious horse; he devoured men.
He only listened to Alexander the Macedonian.
He earned the name Bucephalus as following:
He had a head of a bull marked on his thigh,
Not because he had a head of bull.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.812  (T29) CONCERNING THE HIMATION OF ANTISTHENES THE SYBARITE
Such was the himation of Antisthenes:
Made of souson, fifteen cubits long.
With animals and gods and Persian embroidery,
Picked out in pearls and valuable stones.
On one sleeve was depicted Antisthenes
And on the other Sybaris, his homeland.
Dionysius, who ruled Sybaris formerly,
For one hundred and twenty talents,
Sold it to the Carthaginians; I think Plutarch has written about this.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.821  (T30) CONCERNING CROESUS CROSSED THE HALYS WITHOUT GETTING WET
When Croesus was about to cross the Halys,
Thales dug a semicircle, crescent-shaped ditch
And rechanneled the flow of that river behind.
Thus, without having crossed it, he found himself on the other side.
Herodotus records this story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.826  (T31) CONCERNING THE BRIDGE MANDROCLES BUILT IN THE HELLESPONTINE BOSPORUS
Mandrocles the Samian was an architect
Who, when Darius was about to march against the Scythians,
Made a bridge of ships across the Hellespontine Bosporus.
Either near Damalis or near the Heraion.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 1.830  Darius disembarked countless soldiers in Europe.
Herodotus has mentioned this story as well.
There are two Bosporoi, and now learn where they are.
The Scythian or Cimmerian, through which Lake Maeotis
Mingles with the Euxine sea of Pontus.
The other Bosporus is our Thracian, the Hellespontian,
As we are accustomed to call it.
Learn now where it starts and how long it is.
It comes from the strait of Abydos
And until the bridge of Blachernae it is known as Hellespont,

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 1.840  It also includes the Bebrycian Sea
And the Thracian Heraclea, formerly known as Perinthus.
About this two parts of Bosporus
And the sea map of Hellespont no one has written,
As far as I know, among the many historians.
Well, you should know that Tzetzes has told only the truth so far,
He has been the most accurate of all the known historians;
He has written about everything up to the modern times.

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 1.848  (T32) CONCERNING XERXES
Now hear how Xerxes, the Persian, campaigned against Greece.
The former tyrant Hippias, the son of Pisistratus,
After being exiled by the Athenians, went as a suppliant to Darius
And convinced him to campaign against Athens.
As the Panathenaicus of Aristides writes.
According to Herodotus, though, it was Aristagoras
Who convinced the Athenians to sack Sardis.
At the beginning, Darius sent Mardonius to confront them;
But he suffered shipwreck around Athos and lost thousands of men.
Darius, then, removed him from this duty.
He sent to the Athenians demanding basket [?σπυρίδα], earth and water;
But they dumped the ambassadors in a well.

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 1.860  Then Darius sent Datis and Artaphernes,
His nephew, along with six hundred ships.
They conquered Naxos and Eretria, cities of Euboea.
Datis made an offering to Apollo at Delos,
Of three hundred talents of first-quality incense.
They encamped near Marathon.
Hippias the tyrant was accompanying them.
They were defeated by Miltiades and Stesileus
As well as by Callimachus and Cynegeirus.
Those who returned told the news to Darius.

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 1.870  He boiled over with anger and for three whole years,
Prepared his fleet and gathered a large army,
Already about to campaign against Greece.
But suddenly, in the fourth year, Darius passed away.
Xerxes, his son, took over the kingship
And the implacable war against Greece.
He had warships, battleships
Two thousand two hundred and seven.
Noncombatant rabble and armed fighters
They were all in all nearly five million.

Event Date: -480 GR

§ 1.880  Daily food for his whole army
Was four hundred talents, for basic rations.
So Xerxes was urging to attack Greece,
He even wanted to break into pieces the elements of nature.
He tried to imitate his father Darius in everything.
Just like when Darius wanted to attack the Scythians
And crossed the Damalite Bosporus to Europe,
Upon the bridge Mandrocles the Samian had built;
Likewise Xerxes commanded that the strait of Abydos be bridged.
When bridge from Sestus to Abydos collapsed,

Event Date: -480 GR

§ 1.890  He gave the sea two hundred lashes.
And hurled two pairs of iron foot-fetters
Into the sea as if binding a slave.
He ordered now two bridges instead of one.
Perpendicular to the current they filled cargo ships
Holding them with anchors to remain unmoving;
From the land of the one side to the opposite shore
They dragged frightful ropes over the cargo ships,
One on the ships' prows and the other on the stern.
A cubit-length of rope weighed three talents.

Event Date: -480 GR

§ 1.900  They were stretched tight from each shore,
They nailed on wooden trunks, like those in stables.
This way they fortified the ground; the ropes
On both sides they then made totally stable
So nobody would fall into the water from the sides.
As the two bridges were linked to each other
The trunks were dig deep into the ground of the bottom sea,
This way it was made a way of land; after doing this
Sweet bay and myrtle were sprinkled upon it.
This way the sea was turned to land with bridges,

Event Date: -480 GR

§ 1.910  Imitating his own father, Dareius.
He made Athos sea-girt with a deep canal,
So through that trench two triremes could sail.
Instead of where Mardonius was shipwrecked earlier,
And an army of 20.000 was destroyed by the waves.
For the trench of Athos, now the “Holy Mountain”,
Multitudes of folk came from Eleos
Their stern taskmaster the satrap Bubares,
And Artachaeus with him, five cubits tall.
When all was done, and near the Hellespont

Event Date: -480 GR

§ 1.920  A marble throne was built, a theater for Xerxes.
Once the work's completion was announced to him,
From Lydia he began to make his course.
In Celaenae of Phrygia, with all his army
Pythius the Lydian hosted him, who in the past to Dareius
Had given a climbing vine and plane-tree all of gold.
Just so then he made a gift to Xerxes,
Two thousand talents of unworked silver;
And darics of the best stamped gold
Four hundred myriads (4 million) in number.

Event Date: -480 GR

§ 1.930  Xerxes took nothing of this, but admired his stance.
He pushed on to the Hellespont and the bridge-making.
From the army’s horse stooping to drink,
The Maeander or Scamander dried up completely,
As later did the Peneios near Thessaly
And the Ilissos near Athens. But this was afterwards.
When Xerxes himself arrived in Hellespont,
He ascended that high throne;
When he saw all around an army more than flowers and leaves,
Almost equalling the grains of sea-sand,

Event Date: -480 GR

§ 1.940  At first he thought himself blessed by prosperity,
But then brought to mind the shortness of men's lives
And suddenly his eyes were full of tears.
His uncle Artabanus noticed and told him:
“You weep for mankind's short life;
Know, o king, that this short life
Seems very long to most, through the cruelty of life's disasters,
And their prayer is that it be shorter.”
Thus it was for Xerxes, and thus for Artabanos.
As they made their way toward the bridges

Event Date: -480 GR

§ 1.950  The army was crossing on an unvarying basis
Numbering seven whole days and nights.
Finally, Xerxes crossed over by chariot
with an advance guard of ten thousand picked men.
What all should I mention and describe in detail?
When the whole army had crossed to Europe,
Every river dried up; every tree was devoured;
The sun was hidden by Persian arrows;
Earth and sea shuddered and the nature of trees.
Leonidas the general with three hundred men,

Event Date: -480 GR

§ 1.960  Stood up against them near Artemision,
Killing a limitless host of barbarian magnates,
And two beloved brothers of the king,
So as to bring Xerxes himself down from his horse.
And fight the men in hand-to-hand battle.
But they were pressed tight together by a host of barbarians,
With the roads betrayed by some local man.
Either, as Diodorus the Sicilian reports,
General Leonidas along with his men
Fell on the barbarian camp during the night

Event Date: -480 GR

§ 1.970  And was cutting them all down until the sun's rays.
Or else he fell after being encircled by them.
This was the first taste of war for Xerxes and the barbarians.
He was defeated in a sea battle off Salamis
By two hundred and seventy ships
When he had, they say, two thousand cargo vessels,
And two hundred and seven very fast ones.
When the fleets joined battle
Xerxes went up to Aegaleos Mountain,
Which lies just opposite Salamis.

Event Date: -480 GR

§ 1.980  Sitting on a golden throne he watched the battle.
And secretaries stood by to write it down.
How bitter was the omen of the sea battle.
They were defeated by the fleet at Attica.
To their infantry as well storms were coming.
A little earlier they had defeated some old men of Athens,
Whom they burnt, the ones who had set up a wooden wall
Beside the fortress of Athens, deceived by oracles.
So as he was pressing again toward an infantry battle
He was watching himself worsted by the Athenians;

Event Date: -479 GR

§ 1.990  And their Greek allies much emboldened.
He heard they were about to destroy the bridges as well.
He left strategos Mardonius to take charge of the battle
Along with the Persian Masistius, him of the golden breastplate,
While he retreated in haste with part of his army,
Most of whom died of cold or hunger on the way.
From Strymon he embarked on a Phoenician ship
With the best of the Persians; then the sea roughened
And Xerxes ordered them to jump into the sea
(Which indeed they did, after reverencing him,
To lighten the ship and save the king).

Event Date: -479 GR

§ 2.1  Barely, after a myriad misfortunes, he crossed to Asia.
Those with Mardonius the Athenians killed,
And Masistius himself, who as I said before
Wore a golden, scaled breastplate,
On account of which a mighty battle broke out among the Greeks.
But Xerxes, after experiencing such a defeat,
Being in love with the wife of Masistius,
Lived with this woman, and reveled in the city of Sardis,
Inasmuch as he set up splendid large trophies

Event Date: -479 GR

§ 2.10  He who destroyed the splendid youth of Persis,
Such things even now many of the defeated do.
In the end, he came to his homeland Persis,
And announced suffering a complete disaster.
Aeschylus and Herodotus, Lysias, Aristides,
Diodorus and Plutarch report these things, along with others.

Event Date: -479 GR

§ 2.16  CHILIADES BOOK 2, TRANSLATED BY GARY BERKOWITZ
(T33) CONCERNING CLEOPATRA AND THE PHAROS
The kinswoman of Ptolemy, mistress Cleopatra,
The Egyptian, the wise and most lovely,
Persuasive and eloquent, pouring out the charms of the Sirens,
Charming, with her beauty, all people and the nature of beasts,

Event Date: -479 GR

§ 2.20  And particularly Gaius Julius, or Caesar,
And after him Antony, the brother-in-law of Octavian,
(On account of whom she was made captive, died from asps
And as a mummy was conveyed to Rome for a spectacle;
And her children paraded before Octavian,
The one called Helios, and the daughter Selene)
Cleopatra, along with the Cypriot architect Dexiphanes,
After making the sea of Alexandria into dry land
For about four stadia, or a little more,
She constructed the great tower of Pharos,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.30  To show a light of safety to cargo vessels in the waves.
Virgil mentions this Cleopatra,
And Lucian and Galen, and Plutarch with them,
And Diodorus, George the Chronicler, and others,
And lately John of Antioch after them.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.35  (T34) CONCERNING TRAJAN AND THE BRIDGING OF THE DANUBE
Trajan, who was neither an Italian nor even an Italiot
But an Iberian foreigner, a commander in Germania,
In the following manner became king of the Romans.
After the rule and suicide of Nero,
And Domitian’s slaughter by Stephanus,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.40  Nerva, an old man, entirely good in his manners,
Was hastily appoined by the Romans as their king.
He lasted a year and one third
Plus nine days, during which he was weak from old age,
Vomiting and disregarding all food;
But putting the welfare of the commonwealth ahead of fammily,
He dismissed all of his relatives, dismissed his friends.
And having convened the entire Senate of the Romans,
It was Trajan, then in Germany,
Whom he clearly proclaimed as emperor of Rome,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.50  Calling from the acropolis these words exactly:
“For the good fortune of the Senate and people of the Romans
And my own, I make Trajan emperor.”
And immediately, he sent a letter to Germania for Trajan,
“May the Danaans pay for my tears with your arrows.”
And upon coming to Rome as king, Trajan, son of Nerva,
Was loved as a good man by all the Romans together.
After doing many useful things for Roman cities,
And spending time around Rome,
He campaigned against Decebalus, the king of the Dacians,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.60  Who had rebelled, withholding tribute to the Romans,
Concealing treasures by the Sargetia River.
But having reached the Ister, Trajan immediately
Ferried the Romans with vessels across to the Dacians;
The other part of them was on the opposite shore.
Wherefore he made a bridge toward the landing point.
The setting of the bridge is more or less as follows:
There are twenty huge, solid square stones,
With a width of sixty feet, and with regard to the height, excepting the foundations,
Reaching one hundred and fifty feet.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.70  The stones stand one hundred and seventy feet
Apart from one another, and they are united by arches.
In this way Trajan bridged the Ister.
After putting all Dacia under the Romans
And founding cities in it, he turned back towards Rome,
Bringing the head of Decebalus with captives,
And for these things there was a victory celebration with all of the Romans
While this is how Trajan bridged the Ister,
Hadrian son of Hadrian Afer,
Though an in-law to Trajan through Trajan's sister,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.80  Destroyed the bridge once he received the kingdom of the Romans,
Lest it be a road for the Dacians against the Mysians.
He even killed Apollodorus the bridge maker,
Being of a nature to bear grudges despite being a philologist.
Dio Cassius has written this story,
And many other officials who wrote chronicles.
This bridge on the Danube
Is recorded by Philetaerius [or, his colleague] in the construction of harbours,
And maritime installations,
Theophilus, a proconsul, patrician, quaestor,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.90  And eparch of this reigning city [Constantinople],
Saying that Apollodorus bridged the Ister,
After framing a coffer for the initial foundations,
With a length of one hundred and twenty feet,
And eighty for the width. This is what men say.
They say that Trajan had the ears of a he-goat:
Which I myself have not found recorded in writings.
Either from being sexually attracted by hearing alone,
For the man was salacious after the manner of the goats,
And would intelligently pursue even such sexual mingling,
Or, by campaigning against enemies from inaccessible places,
And by only giving ear to enemies that meet Rome.
For a goat delights in cliffs and inaccessible places.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.102  (T35) CONCERNING ARCHIMEDES AND SOME OF HIS MACHINES
Wise Archimedes, the engineer,
Was a Syracusan by birth, an old geometrician,
Who though seventy-five years old,
Contrived many mechanical capabilities:
With the three-pulley machine, using his left hand only,
He hauled a 50 thousand medimnos trading vessel.
And when Marcellus, the Roman general,

Event Date: -225 GR

§ 2.110  Was attacking Syracuse by land and sea,
Archimedes hoisted up some of the ships
Suspending them along the Syracusan wall
And sent them to the bottom with all their crew.
When Marcellus removed his vessels a little bit,
The old man, in turn, made each of the Syracusans
Able to raise stones weighing a wagon-load,
And to sink the ships, each man launching his stone.
When Marcellus removed his ships to bow-shot distance,
The old man constructed some sort of six-angled mirror.

Event Date: -212 GR

§ 2.120  And in a space equal to the mirror
Set small fourfold mirrors,
Moved with plates and hinges;
Having set that in the sun's rays
Noonday, summery, wintry
With all the rays reflected into this,
Suddenly there was a fearsome firing of the ships,
Reducing them to ashes from a bow-shot away.
In this way, the old man defeated Marcellus with his machines.
And he spoke in Doric, the Syracusan language:

Event Date: -212 GR

§ 2.130  “Give me where to stand and my lever will move the whole earth.”
This man (according to Diodorus, when this city of Syracuse
Was altogether betrayed to Marcellus,
Or, according to Dio, when it was destroyed by the Romans,
As the citizens at that time were celebrating a night-festival to Artemis)
Died in such a manner by some Roman:
He was bent forward, drawing some mechanical diagram,
But some Roman standing near him dragged him in an attempt to take him prisoner.
And Archimedes, being then wholly engulfed in his diagram,
Not knowing who was dragging him down, said to that man:

Event Date: -212 GR

§ 2.140  “Stand away, o man, from my diagram.”
But as the Roman was dragging him, Archimedes twisted up, and, recognizing that he was Roman,
Shouted, “Someone, give me one of my mechanisms.”
But the Roman, excited, immediately kills him,
A decayed old man, divine in his works.
And Marcellus, immediately upon learning this, lamented,
And illustriously buried this man in the paternal tombs,
In the company of the best of the citizens and all of the Romans;
But the killer of Archimedes, I think Marcellus killed with an axe.
Dio and Diodorus write the story,

Event Date: -212 GR

§ 2.150  And with them, many men mention Archimedes:
Anthemius first, the writer of paradoxes,
Heron and Philo and Pappus and every writer on engineering,
From whom we can read about reflective ignition
And all other engineering knowledge,
Such as the lifting screw, pneumatics, and water-finding,
And from the books of old man Archimedes.

Event Date: -225 GR

§ 2.157  (T36) CONCERNING HERACLES [relying heavily on Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca])
Heracles, the son of Alcmene, Amphitryonides.
By one account was called Amphitryon’s son,
But in truth, he was the son of Zeus, a lord and astrologer.
I have said how they used to call all kings Zeuses.
This Zeus used to have sex with random women he met,
Whom they also call mortals, and had children with them.
That they used to call random women mortals,
And queens goddesses, Ptolemy also writes
In his Tetrabiblos, writing to Syrus:
“As many men as have Aphrodite in their nativity,
Are mingling with such divine and eminent destinies.”
And so that magician astrologer king
Had, from different women, countless children.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.170  When, Alcmena was at the point of childbirth by him,
About to bear her son Heracles,
Archippe was also pregnant then by Zeus
But with an incomplete, seven-month child, Eurystheus;
King Zeus, the great astrologer,
Only then had been deceived. For seeing the stars
All well situated, and in kingly places,
And knowing that Alcmene was pregnant for nine months,
And that it was then the time for the baby’s birth,
Not having looked ahead whether the baby would be born then,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.180  Or the one child held back, the other born unfinished,
Looking only at the natal stars,
Gods wise and ruling. This I proclaim (Zeus says):
“The son born today from a mortal woman,
Is going to take the sceptre of my kingdom
And rule over all those born to me and to mortal women.”
This is what he said, thinking that Heracles was being born.
But this child was large-bodied at birth,
Occupying all the space in the womb,
And they said Hera was holding back his birth,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.190  But rather since Iphicles was being born together with Heracles;
Alcmene, having a difficult delivery, after some days
Gave birth in the tenth month. But Archippe then
Gave birth to a seven-month baby under kingly stars.
Eurystheus, who ruled then over Heracles.
In this way I have explained the allegory more mathematically;
Now now I will speak more ethically in the manner of rhetors.
There was a certain Zeus, a king, childless with his lawful wife,
But having pregnant mistresses, Alcmene and Archippe.
Alcmene in her ninth month, the other in her seventh month.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.200  Seized by much love for Alcmena,
Knowing that Alcmene was about to give birth,
And Archippe had no prospect of giving birth,
Zeus wrote in his sworn testament, without naming names:
“Whichever son is born to me today, from whatever woman,
Let him have the royal sceptre and power.”
And thus, as I said before, when the births happened,
Eurystheus outran the months and held the sceptre,
Dragging Heracles into enduring slavery,
Ruling, by destiny, over the strongest man of all.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.210  Pontic Herodorus says in writing that Heracles
Had a height of four cubits and one foot.
I suppose everyone can shout out the man's feats of strength.
While still a small child having killed someone with a kithara,
He was sent to the cowherds by his father Amphitryon.
And while herding in Cithaeron at the age of eighteen,
He killed a lion that was devouring cows and wore the hide.
I, however, refuse to accept wild lions
In Thebes and Nemea and such places,
Unless, perhaps, driven mad out of some other places

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.220  As a monstrosity they erupted into the places referred to.
And Thestius, knowing that he killed the lion, entertained him as a guest.
He had fifty daughters with Megamede,
He made Heracles drunk and had all of his daughters sleep with him
During fifty nights, one night for each,
In order that they might conceive with him, and bear children.
Having done this, Heracles killedErginus
Who had made war upon Thebes; he made the Minyans pay tribute,
In return for which he received Megara from Creon.
Maddened and having burned Megara’s children with fire,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.230  Heracles by an oracle went to Mycenae, the city of Eurystheus,
And served him for twelve years, accomplishing the labours.
First, having shot the Nemean Lion, he strangled it with his hands,
And brought its hide to Mycenae for Eurystheus.
Terrified at Heracles’ irresistible power,
Eurystheus forbade his entrance into the city;
Instead, he bid Heracles to display all of his labours before the gates.
Second, Heracles killed the nine-headed Hydra of Lerna,
Nine warlord brothers sharing a single soul,
For whom general Carcinus (Crab) was an ally and friend.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.240  These men Heracles destroyed with trouble and violence.
For whenever one of this army was killed,
Two others would emerge from their stronghold.
Therefore Heracles was barely able to kill them,
When from the other side Iolaus set fire to the city;
Wherefore Eurystheus did not accept this Labour.
There is a truer Hydra in very ancient times,
Seven generations before Heracles,
The fifty-headed one, residing in Lerna.
When one head was cut off, two would sprout

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.250  Heracles, though not being present, destroyed it even then.
This though, is the heads of the sons of Aegyptus,
Which the Danaids threw into the water of Lerna,
One after another, each woman bearing the head of another man,
Having killed them at their father's advice.
Later, when Lynceus alone escaped with his life
And assembled a trial, all of the women — through just reason
(which I assert Heracles to be), and the glory of the land)—
Received the punishment befitting each of them.
The fifty-headed hydra is some wickedness,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.260  That arouses, frequently, many occasions for malice,
Which hydra Heracles, as Reason (logismos), killed with the help of Iolaus,
Who is the justice that gladdens well-meaning people.
But whereas these two were unadvantageous to Heracles,
The former was suitable to the offspring of Alcmene.
Third, Heracles held down with his feet the golden horned deer,
Which Taygete left sacred to Artemis,
Adorning its horns with gold and an inscription.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.268  Next, Heracles goes to the Erymanthian Boar.
As an incidental deed he killed all the centaurs.
For Pholus the centaur entertained Heracles,
Opening the common wine pithos of the Centaurs.
And they came and were ill-disposed toward Pholus,
Whence Heracles killed them with his bow.
The affairs of the Centaurs, though, I will explain allegorically in detail when necessary.
The boar was ruining Phocis in every way.
Having pursued it out of the thicket into deep snow,
Heracles bound it with slip-knots and brought it alive to Mycenae.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.278  Fifth, Heracles carried out the dung of the three thousand cows
That belonged to the lord of the Eleans, Augeas the Phorbantid
(Or the son of Poseidon, or of Helios according to others).
Having been promised that he could take a tenth of these animals,
He turned the river Alpheus against the pens,
And cleaned out the dung in a very short time.
When Augeas did not give what was promised,
Phyleus dared to speak against him: “how unjust you are, O father;”
He settled in Dulichium, ostracised by Augeas;
Having been deceived Heracles sacked Elis,
But later, and not in the time immediately after.
Nor didEurystheus accept the cleansing of the dung,
Saying that it was for a tenth of the cows and as a wage-payment.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.290  For the sixth labour, with a bronze rattle and his bow, Heracles killed birds,
Having shot them with feathered arrows in the Stymphalian Lake.
For the seventh labour, he overpowered the Cretan Bull and brought it back alive,
Whether this was the bull that ferried Europa across to Crete,
Or the one Poseidon brought from the sea,
Which grew excessively wild and was damaging Crete,
Eurystheus let the bull loose.
It went through Marathon, and was a bane to the people of Attica.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.299  Eighth, the man-slaying horses of Diomedes, King of the Bistonians and son of Cyrene and Ares,
Heracles brought them to the sea. As they ran in arms,
He killed all the men of Diomedes and Diomedes as well.
But Abderus, the son of Erinus and a friend of Heracles,
The horses tore in pieces, devouring him with their teeth.
Abderus was from Locrian Opus, and a guard of these horses;
Heracles, after he founded the city Abdera for him,
Brought the horses to Eurystheus;
Grazing at Olympus, they supplied meat for the beasts of prey.
For the ninth labour, Heracles ran after the girdle of Hippolyta

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.310  Since Admete, the daughter of Eurystheus, wanted it.
Crossing to the Amazons with one ship,
In the coasting voyage he sacked all of Bebrycia,
And gave it to Mysian Lycus, the son of Deipylus,
After defeating the brothers Amycus and Mygdon.
Lycus called the city Heraclea,
Honouring Heracles who granted him the country.
Heracles sailed to Themiscyra itself,
Defeated the Amazons and took the girdle.
In passing, he rescued Hesione from the sea monster.
Then, the guest-slaying sons of Proteus,
Tmolus and Telegonus, Heracles killed after wrestled them down.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.320  For the tenth labour, the purple cows of three-bodied Geryon,
Whether as master of three islands or a desire of three brothers—
For not now would I say that the “tripartite” aspect of the year is more natural
Geryon phaia, Heracles the sun,
And the rest of the things contributing to the accounts touching time.
But let me speak more like a rhetor, as I said:
Heracles led the red cows of this three-island-leader,
Or of the leader being of one soul with two other brothers,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.330  Out of Erytheia, an island of the Ocean,
Which now is called Gadeira, and was previously called Cotinousa,
By which Cotinousa the river Baetis flows.
Heracles led away those cows after killing the dog Orthrus,
And, indeed, Eurytion, the cowherd of Geryon,
And Geryon with them, who, in pursuing Heracles, was shot by his bow.
With the cows, Heracles was carried on the stream of Ocean,
And running out of Erytheia back to Europe,
To Tartessus, a notable city of Iberia,
He stood up the two Pillars, Alybe and Abinna.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.340  Driving the cows through Iberia into Libya,
Heracles killd Dercynus and Alebion, sons of Poseidon,
As they were trying to take away some of the cows. Then to Tyrrhenia;
A bull sailed from Rhegium to Sicily,
And left behind the name Italy for the country.
For the Tyrrhenians somehow call a bull italon.
Eryx, the son of Poseidon, seized this bull,
Mixed it in with herds of Ida for the herdsmen.
Heracles, having crossed to Sicily, wrestled down Eryx three times,
Killed him, and drive the cows together.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.350  Having crossed to the Ionian gulf of Dyrrhachium,
Heracles went with difficulty through Thrace to Eurystheus;
Eurystheus sacrificed all the cows to Hera,
With all of these labours accomplished by Heracles
In a month and eight years, and not more.
But as Eurystheus did not count the labours of the hydra and the boar,
He orders an eleventh labour for the future:
To bring from the Hesperides, from the Hyperboreans,
The golden apples of Hera, which Zeus for his marriage regarded
As the best marital gift concerning Hera.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.360  The guard of these apples was a sleepless dragon, the son of Typhon.
Heracles, travelling through Illyria,
And the mountain of Pyrenaeus, and the streams of Eridanus
(Which are in the Celtic land), makes an inroad into Libya.
Heracles even kills sixty-armed Antaeus by wrestling him;
For Heracles had the stature of four fore-arms and a foot,
As Pontic Herodorus says somewhere in writing.
He went to Egypt and killed Busiris,
A son of Poseidon and Lysianassa;
Passing by Arabia he killed the son of Tithonus,
Emathion; In the Caucasus, he shot with his bow
The eagle that was eating the liver of Prometheus;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.372  Heeding the counsels of Prometheus, Heracles approached the Hyperboreans
And took three apples (μῆλα) from Atlas.
Others say that Heracles received the apples from the nymphs,
After he killed the dragon, the guardian of the apples,
Who was actually a shepherd, while the apples (μῆλα) were his flocks,
Golden-skinned, grazing in the Hyperboreans' territory;
This is in the mountains of the Hyperboreans;
For now it is unsuitable to explain the allegory more naturally,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.380  Saying the nymphs were the seasons, the apples the stars,
The dragon the horizon and the nature of the waters,
Whence the stars, fresh-bathed, rise up shining,
As the golden Calliope of Homer has made clear,
But in this way, as we said, appropriately for rhetors.
On his return he put in at Thermydron harbour of Rhodes,
And having detached one bull from a wagon, he slaughtered and ate it;
The cowherd cursed him from the mountain above.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.388  So then, having brought the apples to Eurystheus
He accomplished the twelfth labour, bringing up Cerberus,
Who was the terrible fifty-headed dog of Hades,
Having three dog heads, the tail of a dragon,
And down the back, heads of other beasts of all sorts.
When Heracles was about to accomplish this labour,
He hastened to Eleusis and was initiated by Eumolpus;
He was led down through Taenaron to Hades himself.
He raised up Theseus, but brought down the cowherd of Hades,
Menoetius the son of Ceuthonymus,
Breaking his ribs in wrestling and crushing him.
He found Cerberus in the gates of Acheron.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.400  Covered only by his lion skin and breastplate,
Without the rest of his weapons, as Pluton said,
Heracles held him down from the neck, while being bitten by the tail,
And by the rest of the heads along its back,
And carried it through Troezen to Eurystheus.
He straightaway brought it down to Acheron and Hades.
This Hades was the king of the Molossians,
Having, also, a very large dog which he called Cerberus.
This Hades, even holding down Pirithous, together with Theseus,
On the one hand killed Pirithous, but was guarding Theseus.
Having come to Acheron, Heracles saved Theseus.
And the rest is very obvious, so why speak at length?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.412   Now then, after the aforementioned labours,
Eurytus, defeated with his five sons by Heracles in archery,
Did not give his daughter Iole to Heracles in marriage,
Lest somehow, having begotten children from this woman, he go mad and kill her,
As he did with his sons who were born to Megara.
And not much afterwards, when Eurytus was defrauded of horses by Autolycus,
He judged the crime to be the work of Heracles.
Iphitus, the son of Eurytus, went to Heracles,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.420  Who had just saved Alcestis and returned,
And demanded these animals from Heracles. He was taken aback:
Seized with madness again by the anger of Hera,
He threw him from the walls of Tiryns and killed him.
Since Neleus of Pylos did not wish to cleanse him,
He was cleansed instead by Deiphobus, but then falling ill again
He got a Delphic oracle, release from the disease,
If, after being sold, he should be a slave for three whole years
And provide the wage for his service to Eurytus.
And upon being sold, he was a slave to Lydian Omphale,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.430  The daughter of Iardanus and wife of Tmolus.
Also, while a slave there, he binds the Ephesian Cercopes,
And Syleus the Lydian, who were forcing strangers
To dig their vineyards as if they were slaves.
He killed Xenodice, Syleus' daughter,
And uprooted his vineyard.
Musaeus also recounts this story
In his work on Hero and Leander, writing these verses:
“But bring me, as your suppliant, and bedmate if you wish,
Whom Eros took for you by hunting, striking me with his arrows.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.440  As swift Hermes with wand of gold conveyed bold Heracles
To serve the Iardanian bride,
But Cypris sent me to you, and wise Hermes did not bring me.”
Having completed this time of service,
With six triremes Heracles sacked the city of the Trojans
And that of the Coans, and killed king Eurypylus,
The son of Poseidon and Astypalaea.
Then, at Phlegra, Heracles worked with the gods against the Giants.
They say kings are gods (we said this many times).
Heracles sacked Elis next, and killed Augeas,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.450  And Cteatus and Eurytus, sons of Actor, by treachery.
And he sacked Pylos, and wounded even Hades;
And gave the kingdom of the Laconians to Tyndareus
Having killed Hippocoon the ally of Neleus.
And going against Calydon he defeated Achelous,
And married Deianira, the daughter of Oeneus.
At the wedding-feast he killed Ennomus the son of Architeles,
And fled to Ceyx near Trachinia,
Near Evenus, Heracles shot Nessus,
Who wished to forcibly dishonour Deianira.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.460  This Nessus gave his blood to Deianira,
Telling her to use it to anoint Heracles’ chiton
When she should perceive him loving any girl.
Later, doing this very thing, Deianira killed Heracles.
But then, Heracles, travelling in Dryopis,
Slaughtered and ate a cow of Theiodamas.
He also sacked the country and killed Laogoras.
And Cycnus, the son of Ares and Pelopia,
Heracles destroyed while going through the Itonian land.
And while going into Trachis, he leads an army against Eurytus.

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§ 2.470  After plundering Oechalia, and even taking Iole,
Heracles came to anchor near to Cenaeum, the cape of Euboea,
And set up an altar of Zeus. About to sacrifice there,
Heracles sends his attendant Lichas to Deianira
To declare his arrival and victory.
Deianira, being suspicious of his desire for Iole,
And considering the words of Nessus as true,
Anointed some undergarment with the blood of Nessus
And sent Lichas with it to Heracles.
Having put it on, Heracles perished in an utterly bad manner.

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§ 2.480  For the blood of Nessus the Centaur, mixed together
From the poisons of the missiles from an arrow of the Hydra
Was something deadly from which none escape, bringing onto the things anointed with it
An immeasurable itching and a biting sensation, and blisters.
Wherefore that little amount destroyed Heracles
The man who cleansed all of the land and sea of evil.
All of the people brought up by accounts of the story
Almost recounted the things inside and outside.
But Quintus, I think, has written these labours

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§ 2.490  Cutting together with words, Quintus Smyrnaeus.
The words are in this way, which I will prevail to reveal:
“First in Nemea he destroyed the stout lion.
Secondly, in Lerna, he killed the Hydra with many necks.
For the third, moreover, in addition to those, he killed the Erymanthian Boar.
Fourth after these things, he caught the high-horned stag.
Fifth, he pursued the Stymphalian Birds.
Sixth, he fetched the radiant girdle of the Amazon.
Seventh, he cleaned much of the dung of Augeas.
Eighth, he drove the fire-breathing bull out of Crete.
Ninth, be brought the horses of Diomedes out of Thrace.

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§ 2.500  Tenth, he drove the Cattle of Geryon out of Erytheia.
Eleventh, he brought the dog Cerberus out of Hades.
And twelfth, he carried golden apples to Greece.
The thirteenth labour involved the daughters of Thestius.”
In this way, Quintus himself has written, having arranged among the labours
The false-thirteenth labour, this not existing one.
For you yourself have all of the labours written in,
And the bye-works of the labours. And why do I speak at length?

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§ 2.508  (T37) CONCERNING SAMSON
Samson was a son of Manoah, an Israelite judge,
Born in times and periods of captivity.
This man wished to take Enthamnatha for a wife.
As he was beginning then at some time to chat about marriage,
He killed a lion with bare hands, having met with it face to face.
A little later, he found honey from a honeycomb
In the mouth of the lion, the very lion which he himself destroyed.
And after eating the honey, he put forward a riddle, having contrived it at the wedding feast,
Saying “meat came out of the mouth of the one eating.”
Not having the power to know this riddle, they learned from the bride,
And they fine Samson the problem-contriver
Thirty robes together, and thirty pieces of fine cloth.

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§ 2.520  As Samson was greatly angry at the affair,
The father of the bride did not give her for marriage.
But Samson, taking three hundred foxes,
And from behind, kindling torches underneath their tails,
And then sending them away, set on fire every ear of corn of the people of the other tribe.
They, in turn, burn the house of the bride and those inside of it.
But when Samson struck together war upon them,
Every one of them, drawn up in battle order against the Judeans,
Were searching for Samson; and the Judeans, bound him
And gave him to the people of the other tribe. But Samson, having broke through the bonds,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.530  Killed a thousand of them with a jawbone of a donkey.
From there, he went to the city of Gaza to a prostitute.
And when the barbarians circled around the man,
In the middle of the night, having lifted the gates of the city on his shoulders
He ran out. Later, he loved Delilah,
And had her as a bed-fellow. The satraps of the barbarians, though,
Present one thousand one hundred pieces of gold to the woman
Who shaved Samson’s locks of hair while he was sleeping.
For the Samson just now spoken about, and Pterelaus and Nisus,
Men who acquired golden hairs on their heads to one result,

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§ 2.540  Had their strength in these hairs they. When shaved clean of these hairs
(The latter men by daughters—Nisus by Scylla,
Pterelaus by Comaetho—, and the former man by the Maenad),
Now weakened, they found vengeance from their enemies.
But the affairs of Pterelaus and Nisus I am running over.
After blinding Samson, who was already weakened in the above manner,
The people of the other tribe shut him in a terrible prison.
Some of them, moreover, were holding festivities and choral dances for the suffering of Sampson.
At last, they bring him out from the prison,
Desiring that he behave in a drunken and mocking manner.

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§ 2.550  But Samson, groaning deeply from his much-affected heart,
Shook down the pillars and the entire household,
And along with himself he also destroyed all of the barbarians together,
Who happened to be much more in number than those who were being destroyed previously,
Whom Samson destroyed while living and flourishing in the might of his strength.

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§ 2.555  (T38) CONCERNING POLYDAMAS OF SKOTOUSSA
This Polydamas was from the city of Skotoussa.
Known to devastate, with bare hands, lions as if they were lambs,
And with winged feet, to surpass swift-running chariots,
With his hand, he even resisted some collapsing cave.
Diodorus Siculus writes the story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.560  (T39) CONCERNING MILO THE WRESTLER
This Milo was an athlete from Croton,
Contemporaneous with that philosopher Pythagoras.
Six times Milo won the Olympic Games in wrestling.
At one time, while being a leader of war for the people of Croton
And, with his Olympic wreath springing forward in the front like Heracles,
With only ten divisions of ten thousand men of Croton,
Milo killed three hundred thousand men.
Diodorus writes even this story,
Along with Herodotus, and many other prose writers.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.569  (T40) CONCERNING AEGON, IDAS, LYNCEUS, HERACLES AND LYTIERTES
Aegon of Croton was a very strong boxer,
Who did not eat less than Idas and Lynceus,
But ate the same amount as Bouthoina and, in any event, Lytiertes;
For eighty loaves of newly kneaded wheat-bread
Aegon the pugilist himself has eaten up in Lacinion.
For the little biscuit is not a loaf, but call it dry stuff,
For a loaf is not any sort of dry stuff, but soft and fresh1.
Even when he was running in the mountains, Aegon was wont to overcome bulls with his feet
And, with his hands, to draw up their hoofs while they were still alive.
Carrying these bulls on his shoulders, he was gratifying
Friends, maidens and women, such as Amaryllis,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.580  As Theocritus relates, writing the words as so:
“And there, at east-facing Lacinion, where the pugilist
Aegon alone devoured eighty loaves,
He even carried a bull from a mountain, having grasped
It by the hoofs, and gave it to Amaryllis. And the women
Cried out loudly, and the cow-herd laughed aloud.”
The affairs of Idas and Lynceus happen to be clear beforehand
As even the affairs of Heracles which were related by me in this work.
For each of these men had eaten a fourth of a bull.
Idas, moreover, had eaten a half cut of a bull,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.590  While Heracles had one entire bull in Lindos,
And the bull of Theiodamas in Dryopis.
Now Lytiertes, being an illegitimate son of Midas,
Was emptying out a whole jar of wine by drinking it,
And munching on loaves of wheat bread, he ate the load carried by three donkeys,
As in the Daphne, Sosibius says with iambics:
“He was a counterfeit illegitimate son of that man.
Of what sort of a mother, the woman who brought him forth knows.
On the one hand, he eats loaves of wheat bread to the order of three whole pack-saddles.
Within a short day, he drinks at once

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.600  A ten-amphora jug, though calling it a one-amphora size;
And he works at light things for the loads that he eats”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.602  (T41) CONCERNING DAMOXENUS
Lucian the Syrian recalls the wrestler Damoxenus,
Saying that he happened to be the best among wrestlers,
In no way inferior to Milo and the other wrestlers.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.605  (T42) CONCERNING IPHICLUS
Iphiclus, a son of Phylacus, was the father of Protesilaus.
A man overleaping his peers in speed,
Iphiclus has been interpolated in the myths to run above ears of corn,
And, because of the lightness of his running, he did not break any of the husks;
Orpheus relates this story, saying somewhere:

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§ 2.610  “Nor was anyone swifter than vigorous Iphiclus,
Who even used to run on asphodel plants, nor still
Does he damage the fruit as he bears his light as air limbs upon a dried crop”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.613  (T43) CONCERNING EUPHEMUS
Euphemus was a son of Doris and Poseidon
(Or really, the son of Europa, daughter of Tityus; or the son of Mecionica,
Who was the daughter either of Orion or Eurotas),
And had, for a wife, Laonome, a sister of Heracles.
Euphemus was the lookout man of the Argo, as Pindar somewhere writes.
But Asclepiades says that from Poseidon, Euphemus
Had a gift, to travel on the sea without harm

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§ 2.620  (Just as even Orion), and as someone travels on land.
In this way, the more allegorical version is thinkable to you.
Both of these lookout men are also helmsmen.
Though they more than surpassed all of the people who were babbled about long ago,
They were never hurt by sea waves.
Whence they were elaborated upon in such making of myths.

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§ 2.626  (T44) CONCERNING PROTEUS
Proteus, a son of Phoenician Phoenice and Poseidon,
Living around Pharos, within what is now Alexandria,
Used to change, with his magical powers, into all things,
Into fire, water, into a dragon, a tree, into every form,
As Homer made clear, writing in the Odyssey.
Lucian, however, says that Proteus was a dancer
And simply imitated, with his dances, the forms of all things.
I say, though, that Proteus was a lecanomancer,
Foreshadowing all things through lecanomancy,
Whatever someone should wish to learn and about whatever someone should ask,
About trees, people and fire, waters and beasts,
Whether a natural philosopher, saying the forms of all things,
Or the most clever rhetorician, having written in ways befitting
Stones, beasts and the rest. But rather more as I said,
I think the man was a lecanomancer and a magician.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.641  (T45) CONCERNING PERICLYMENUS
Periclymenus, the son of Neleus and Polymede,
Was a brother of Nestor, that Nestor of Pylos.
Periclymenus possesses from Poseidon, his grandfather, this gift,
To change himself into every form of whatever living things he should wish.
Struck by a spear of Heracles, who at one time was waging war against Pylos,
Periclymenus was destroyed, though he had already turned into a fly.
The more allegorical account is in such a manner:
From the soul of Poseidon, who is fitting,
Periclymenus imitated all beasts in the wars,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.650  The quickness of leopards, the great strength of lions,
And the nature of a fly, which is hard to dissuade and full of a longing for bloodshed.
Wherefore even Homer speaks as he delineates the man:
“Both Nestor and Chromius and arrogant Periclymenus.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.654  (T46) CONCERNING THETIS
They say that Thetis, in fleeing the company of Peleus,
Turned herself into fire, into water, and into the nature of beasts;
And continually still changing into the shape of a cuttlefish,
Peleus has her held down, with whom he was yoked in marriage.
Now here is the more allegorical version: not deeming Peleus worthy,
Thetis turned herself to fall down upon fire, and down upon water,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.660  And to be meat for beasts in inaccessible mountains.
Finally, Peleus has her held her down either while she was hiding herself in darkness,
Like a cuttlefish, hidden by the thick, dark juice of the black ink,
Or even while fleeing from that man beside the sea,
As Euripides has written this in his Andromache.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.665  (T47) CONCERNING MESTRA
Mestra was the daughter of Erysichthon Aethon,
A man of Thessalian birth, who was immeasurably hungry
Because he had foolishly cut down the grove of Demeter.
Mestra, in changing into all living things
And every remaining form, and then in selling herself,
Used to provide victuals to her father, taking away his hunger,
As Lycophron somewhere says this very mythically:
“The courtesan fox, who assumed all forms,
And who, with gains made by day,
Used to heal the peaking ravenous hunger of her father
Aethon, a man who was cleaving the ground with foreign ploughshares.”
These verses are rather mythic; it must be interpreted allegorically:
Erysichthon has sold and consumed his farmland.
Wasted by need and guilt-related hunger,
He was trying to live by prostituting his daughter,
with the result that one man gave money, another perhaps a sheep-skin,
Another gave either hares, birds, geese, or swans,
And the rest gave from the rest of their options, so that I do not weave words.
And I think even Palaephatus teaches it in this way,
Though he does not recount the cutting down of the grove of Demeter,
Which we said is a selling of possessions.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.686  (T48) CONCERNING CASTOR AND POLYDEUCES
They write that Castor and Polydeuces, the sons of Tyndareus,
By an act of Zeus, both happened (or rather just Polydeuces)
—against Lynceus and Idas, the sons of Aphareus,
And for Phoebe and Hilaeira, the daughters of Leucippus
To join in a strongly contested battle, to determine who can have them.
The courses of the battle were around Taygetus.
Lynceus, who turned out as the most sharp sighted of all people,
Upon seeing Castor and Polydeuces in a hollow of the oak tree,
Kills Castor with his spear, and Polydeuces kills Lynceus,
Though Idas kills Polydeuces, and a thunderbolt kills Idas.
Now the father of Polydeuces, Zeus the astrologer,
Marked out the deceased sons in the stars
And has called Castor and Polydeuces the Twins.
Day by day, they say, these two are both living and dying.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.700  For in this way the stars of the Twins rise.
But others even alter the story a little,
Saying that Polydeuces did not die in battle,
But, for the hereafter, seeks after this gift from Zeus:
Both to be dead and to live with his kinsman Castor,
As somewhere even Pindar says. What, exactly, he relates, I do not know.
For there are sections of words, and they flee my memory.
But the truer account is as I have already said to you before.
Lycophron relates the story, and Euripides,
Simply all of the poets along with Apollodorus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.710  Even, in addition to them, Stasinus, who writes the words in this way,
Speaking in heroic words: “And straightaway Lynceus
Went to Taygetus, trusting in his swift feet;
Upon going up to the very top, he was looking through the entire island
Of Tantalid Pelops. Quickly, the mighty hero beheld,
With his terrible eyes, both of them inside a hollow oak tree,
Horse-taming Castor, and prize-bearing Polydeuces.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.717  (T49) CONCERNING AETHALIDES
Aethalides, the son of Hermes, was a clever rhetorician,
Always writing in books, one account being mournful and of funeral orations,
And another account of joyful things.
And according to Democritus himself along with Heraclitus,
Aethalides, crying and laughing at the same time over the unstable nature of life,
Was said to be both dead and alive always, day by day.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.723  (T50) CONCERNING ARISTEAS
Aristeas was a son of Caystrobius,
Of Proconnesus by race, being of those noble in race and of the foremost families.
Aristeas, having slipped into a smith’s shop, dies and falls down dead.
The smith, after immediately closing that shop,
Relates the terrible thing of Aristeas to his kinsmen.
All of them, running with lamentations to the smith’s shop
And opening it up, found nothing, neither a dead nor a living man.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.730  Aristeas, having appeared again after seven years,
Writes an epic poem called The Arimaspea.
Even again he disappears for a second time and dies.
And after two hundred forty years
It was in the time of Herodotus, and again Aristeas reappeared,
Just as Herodotus says; but if it is true, I do not know.
And who made an acquaintance with Aristeas, or who lived so long,
So that in later times he could say: “Herodotus, in your times,
This man is Aristeas of Proconnesus,
Who was dead for a long time, but has presently reappeared again”?
To me, it seems to be downright silly talk and a frigid story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.741  (T51) CONCERNING THESEUS
Theseus was a son of Attic Aegeus and Aethra,
But they used to say that when Theseus was manly, he was a boy of Poseidon;
For they say that all high spirited men together, and all manly
Sons and friends, are lovers of Poseidon.
Theseus once agreed with his friend Pirithous
To seize from Zeus, that is, Zeus the king,
Some girl, and marry her; and at some time, having gone
To a place within the land of the Molossians, whose king was Hades,
Of whom the wife was Demeter, and the daughter was called Kore,

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§ 2.750  (For the Molossians call all attractive females girls),
And the dog was a threefold Cerberus, causing a shudder from its size;
During the night, they made their attempt to take Hades’ daughter.
But soon they were detained, and Pirithous was eaten
By threefold Cerberus the dog, while Theseus is held fast in a prison.
And as Heracles at some time came to even Hades,
Ordered by Eurystheus to carry away the dog,
He also immediately freed Theseus from his bonds;
Wherefore they said that the latter man ran back from Hades.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.759  (T52) CONCERNING PROTESILAUS
This Protesilaus was a son of Iphiclus;
Having left his wife Laodamia, recently a bride,
He is campaigning with the rest of the Greeks against the Trojans.
But having leaped before everyone, he dies first of all.
Now the mythographers say that when Protesilaus was in the bloom of youth,
The girl Persephone had compassion as she saw
Him lamenting his deprivation of Laodamia.
She even asks Pluto to let this man live again,
And he has Protesilaus, who has fled Hades, sent to his wife.
Myths assert these things; but other details of the story
In the following manner, somehow, some people relate as being very real:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.770  That the above mentioned wife of Protesilaus,
After learning of the misfortune and death of her husband,
Makes a wooden image of Protesilaus’ shape,
And had it lie with her because of her desire for him,
Not at all enduring to conceal his absence;
But others said that during the night, an image of Protesilaus was always seen
By his wife, wherefore these stories of wooden images were formed.
But I know that Laodamia, upon learning Protesilaus’ fate,
Immediately donned her bridal mantle
And, with a radiant face, put a dagger into her heart.

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§ 2.780  She died with her good and newly married husband,
Just as Evadne, having recently become the wife of Capaneus,
Threw herself into the funeral-pyre because of the desire for her husband.
Lucian and Philostratus write this story,
And some others relate it, both poets and young men.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.785  (T53) CONCERNING ALCESTIS
Alcestis, a child of Pelias and Anaxibia
In her marriage to Admetus, the son of Pheres and Periclymene,
Bore Eumelus and Perimela.
At some time, when Alcestis’ husband Admetus was about to die,
Apollo asked the Fates for this favour,
That Admetus, upon giving someone to die instead of himself,
Rejoice in the presence of the living who were most friendly.
And when the Fates nodded their assent, Admetus looks at everyone,
If in some way someone might consent to die instead of him.
But when everyone rejected him (saying that Admetus should die),
Namely, his father and old mother and entire band of friends,
Alcestis herself eagerly undertook her end on account of him,
And is dying and is covered completely, and would rise again,
For Heracles, running out to the horses of Diomedes,
Is being entertained in the house of the grieving Admetus.

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§ 2.800  But in no way reporting his misfortune to his friend
Admetus feasted him most splendidly in some house.
But Admetus himself, with mighty grief and misfortunes and lamentations
Was accomplishing the bearing out of the woman’s dead body.
And Heracles, learning the whole thing from some house-slave,
Exceedingly and excessively in wonder at the friendship for the man,
And having compassion for someone deprived of such a woman,
Striking his knee mightily he spoke away from the heart:
“O heart having endured many things and my hand,
Show now what sort of son, I beg you, Tirynthian

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§ 2.810  Alcmena, daughter of Electryon, brought forth to Zeus.
For it is necessary for me to save the recently dead woman.”
Saying such things to himself, Heracles proceeds secretly to the tomb,
And holding down Hades, who came for the blood,
He did not let go until Hades provided Alcestis to him.
Taking her and turning back, Heracles went again to Admetus.
And while Admetus was weeping, wailing, and beating his chest,
Heracles presented Alcestis still covered in robes,
Saying, “Admetus, guard this woman for me;
For I was holding her as a victory prize for a contest.”

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§ 2.820  And when Admetus lamented more and did not cease,
Alcestis removes the coverings and reveals herself. And Admetus, recognizing her with difficulty,
With sacrifices began to honour the hero (Heracles) as a god.
These details are rather mythical; it must be interpreted allegorically:
Acting with her sisters, Alcestis, after she killed her father
Unwillingly because of the deceits of Medea, flees to Admetus.
To whom she is even joined in lawful marriage, though she was away from her race.
But her brother Acastus was demanding her (to Admetus’ disadvantage)
So that he could exact vengeance for the murder of his father.
But when Admetus did not give her up, Acastus detained him

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§ 2.830  After marching against Pherae with a multitudinous army.
And as Admetus was about to be killed by him,
Alcestis gave herself up, so that Admetus was released.
And Admetus started to lament the misfortune and suffering of the woman.
But Heracles, upon appearing, brings the woman back to him,
Having saved her from death and the hands of Acastus.
This allegorical interpretation, my child (it seems to me),
Happens, I think, to belong to Palaephatus the Stoic,
Being something very good and not unsound, just as, for the most part, he writes.
At any rate, this seems to be of another writer, and that up to this point this does not happen to be mine.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.840  For neither do I want alien works to be made my own,
Nor do I want to be made pretty with feathers, by which the myth depicts
That jackdaw with alien, motley plumage.

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§ 2.843  (T54) CONCERNING EURYDICE
Eurydice was the wife of Orpheus.
They say that this woman died after being bitten by a snake,
But was brought back to the light again from the nether regions
When Orpheus charmed Hades and Kore with muse-works.
But here is the more allegorical account: either Eurydice, struck by pain,
And swooning from a terrible disease around the heart
(As even both hands react when meet with the bite of dragons),

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§ 2.850  Was delighted by Orpheus, who drew out her suffering with his musical skill;
Or Eurydice herself, actually bitten by a snake
And running the risk of dying, through the enchantments which Orpheus knows,
And through his shrewdness and music and much learning
(As previously David did to that evil spirit of Saul),
Was made to live by him; wherefore these things were related.
But that Orpheus was able to treat such things,
He himself says in the Lithica, writing the epic verses in such a way:
“But whoever of men a wise heart orders”
(so that somewhat fittingly I may say the greatest number of things last),

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§ 2.860  “If he should wish to know, he will learn both as many
Secret things as men contrive in their breasts,
And as many things as air-wanderers have screeched among themselves,
Shouting an unutterable song to people,
Eagles, rapid interpreters of great Zeus.
Such a man will know both how to stop on the ground the whistling of the coming dragon,
And to check the poison of creeping snakes.”
In this way, Orpheus used to understand every single treatment.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 2.868  (T55 CONCERNING THALES, PYTHAGORAS, ANAXAGORAS AND EMPEDOCLES (STORIES 55-58)
Accept the group of four stories as one.
Thales, a wise Milesian, one of the heptad of wise men,
Being a pupil of Assyrian Pherecydes,
Was the first to discover eclipses and cycles of the moon,
Living in the times of Lydian Croesus, a man rich in gold,
To whom he even foretold that there would be a lunar eclipse.
When that event happened, Thales brought everyone then into amazement;
For an eclipse of the moon was still not experienced.
Some said that Thales was the discoverer of what I said;
But others attach those things to Endymion:
Wherefore they said that the Moon was in love with the man.
Others, instead of “Endymion,” name “the Arcadians,”

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 2.880  Wherefore some even called those people “before the Moon.”
Some people, moreover, said that the Arcadians were “before the moon” as though they were insolent.
For among certain groups, “to treat with insolence” is called “to be before the moon.”
Meanwhile, most people attach those things to Thales,
As they attach both to Meton, a son of Pausanias, the terms of twelve years,
And the nineteens [year cycles] of the moon,
And to Ptolemy after Meton and to some quantity of others,
Although before everyone Orpheus wrote all of these things.

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 2.888  [T56] Pythagoras was the son of Mnesarchus the Samian.
Not only did he himself foreknow everything well, But also, for those wanting to know things about to happen
He left behind various books of prognostication.

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 2.892  [T57] Clazomenian Anaxagoras, in turn,
Foretold that stones would be brought down from the sky;
In Aegospotamoi (this was a city of Thrace)
It happened in a later time, as Anaxagoras was not mistaken.
And he even put an end to rainstorms and the force of winds,
Just as all the wise men, of whom I was speaking now.

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 2.898  [T58] And Empedocles, more than all of the others,
Wherefore they called him “wind-blocker”,
As he had already once stopped a violent blast of wind.
Empedocles was the son of Melito, Agrigentine by birth,
A pupil of Pythagoras and later of Telauges
(Telauges the son of Theano and Pythagoras).
That Empedocles was competent to do such things,
Learn more clearly hearing these verses of his:
“As many remedies as there are, a defence against evils and old age,
You will learn, since for you alone I will accomplish all of these things.
And you will stop the strength of untiring winds, which upon the land
Arising, ruin the plough lands with their blasts,

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 2.910  And again, if you should wish, you will bring in avenging blows,
And you will establish a timely drought out of a dark rain storm
For people, and you will also establish, out of a summer drought
Floods that nourish trees, and the things in the upper air will set themselves on the ground.
And you will bring out of Hades the strength of a ruined man.”
Even these things we had said about Empedocles.
Now since above we spoke about the heptad of wise men,
Let everyone learn them who is wanting to learn:
Solon, Thales, Periander and Pittacus and Chilon
And Bias and Cleobulus, the wisest seven.

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 2.920  (T59) CONCERNING LAIUS
Laius was a philosopher in the times of Antiochus;
Both an initiator and a mystic and a wonder-worker,
When a great plague held down Antioch,
Having chiselled in a rock the face of Charon and set it in the city,
Laius expelled the great disease of the Antiochenes.

Event Date: -250 GR

§ 2.925  (T60) CONCERNING APOLLONIUS OF TYANA
Apollonius himself, living in the times of Nero,
Of Tyana, entirely wise, foreknowing all things,
At Antioch, yes, truly, even at Byzantium, makes it so that
Gnats and other such things not slip in.
And from long ago and for all of time, upon carving marble storks,

Event Date: 50 GR

§ 2.930  Apollonius drove out of Byzantium the real storks,
Who were throwing dead snakes in the cisterns of the Byzantines,
And with the poison, were killing in masses the people who were drinking.
For once, a barbarian nation was driving against the Byzantines
When the leader of the Byzantines was abroad,
And the barbarians attacked the city in masses.
A woman, being the wife of a man who prevailed over sensible people,
Somehow throwing snakes in dark jugs,
Gave them to all of the citizens of her fatherland
To sling from the wall onto the army of barbarians.

Event Date: 50 GR

§ 2.940  As this is happening, destruction falls on the barbarians,
As if then, the snakes were waging war against them.
When, in the future, the barbarians turned towards their fatherlands,
The snakes waged war against the Byzantines,
Killing many of them with poison shedding bites.
Then, some army of storks drives back the snakes.
But when the storks were throwing the snakes into the very cisterns,
And were making even more destruction for the Byzantines,
Upon arranging the marble storks which I mentioned in a row,
Apollonius himself drives away the real ones.

Event Date: 50 GR

§ 2.950  This man spoke in advance also of an earthquake for the city of Antioch,
Even about Nero himself, the tyrant, he spoke in advance.
The events happen after a little while, something great and something not great.
Both at one time, when Nero was drinking at a table,
A thunderbolt poured out of the sky and seized the cup from his hand,
But in no way was there harm for that tyrant.
And at another time, in turn, arrested with other astrologers,
Apollonius spoke to Domitian, who said that he would kill him:
“You will not kill me, since not to you am I destined.”
What is more, having had his large beard cut off,

Event Date: 50 GR

§ 2.960  Apollonius was thrown in prison, about to be killed;
But with one turn of the scale, he appeared in the vicinity of Dicaearchia.
Then, standing near Ephesus, a city of Ionia,
While Domitian, the tyrant at that time, was being killed in Rome,
As if near that place and looking at all of these things,
Apollonius was shouting often, “strike the sinful man, strike him”.
But when it happened that the tyrant resisted for a little while,
And the enemy was about to attack, Stephan, in turn, was turning pale,
Until some second man, having come to be a helper,
Was encouraging Stephan, and they kill Domitian.

Event Date: 50 GR

§ 2.970  I know countless things of this man Apollonius,
Predictions and wonders, and I can recount all of them at length;
Wherefore I am stopping here my account about this man.
These things that belong to our fathers and a multitude of chronologies they write:
Philostratus and Maximus together and Moeragenes,
And another very, very large multitude, whom I do not have the strength to recount.
It is ill-timed, child, both to investigate something that will cause you needless trouble
(Even clear things lie in some little books),
And to cut fresh into my leaves of paper uselessly in this way.

Event Date: 50 GR

§ 2.980  (T61) CONCERNING DEMOCRITUS
Abderan Democritus, the son of Hegesistratus,
Was a pupil of Leucippus, who, in turn, was the pupil of Melissus.
As truly being a philosopher who knew all things well,
Democritus always used to laugh at the uselessness of life.
Now the people of Abdera, opined that Democritus was melancholic.
Upon sending gifts worth ten talents to Hippocrates,
They were beseeching that Democritus be healed by the Coan physician.
And the physician, though he was on a sea voyage, and without the things he needed,
Returned back to see Democritus himself.
As Hippocrates himself was healed more than he healed Democritus,
He was even granting thanks to all of the people of Abdera,

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 2.990  Since he knew such a wise man on account of them.
This Democritus, then, having been an entirely wise man,
Did countless other wonders, they say,
And even checked Hades for three whole days
By entertaining him with hot blasts from loaves of wheat bread.
Many men say the things pertaining to Democritus, even Coan Hippocrates.
And some writer of epigrams writes the instance of Hades:
“And was anyone wise like this? Who accomplished such a deed,
As all-learned Democritus revealed?
The man who held death, present in his house, for three days,
And entertained him with hot blasts from loaves of wheat bread.”

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 3.1  CHILIADES BOOK 3, TRANSLATED BY GARY BERKOWITZ
(T62) CONCERNING TRITAECHMES, THE SON OF ARTABAZES
The whole story of Tritaechmes [Tritantaechmes] at length
You have, lying precisely in the little letter:
“In so far as the Babylonian son of Artabazes
That high-minded Tritaechmes, used to pride himself in
Extraordinary cattle-keeping, and income of money.
For he had grazing horses, apart from all of the other animals,
Being counted at sixteen thousand,
Eight hundred stallions apart from the ones used in wars,
Dogs hardly able to be maintained in four districts,
A day’s income from the rest of the districts
Constituting a whole artabas full of golden coins.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.12  (T63) CONCERNING ERICHTHONIUS
Let Homer himself now recount the story of Erichthonius:
“Moreover, cloud-gathering Zeus begot Dardanus first;
And Dardanus founded Dardania, when sacred Ilium not yet
Had been built as a city in the plain, a city of articulate people;
But they were still living at the foot of Ida with its many springs.
Dardanus, moreover, begot a son, king Erichthonius;
His three thousand horses used to graze throughout the meadow-land,
All female, and foals were under many of them.
Even the North Wind loved them as they were grazing.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.21  (T64) CONCERNING JOB
Job was an Ausite man and foremost among prophets,
God-fearing, truthful, just, without blame,
Having large fields and much property,
Both camels and cattle, both oxen and donkeys,
Five hundred roaming donkeys, only females,
And five hundred yoked pairs of ploughing oxen,
And seven thousand cattle within a herd
And three thousand camels, and many other animals with them,
As the book of this man Job teaches all of these things.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.30  (T65) CONCERNING PYTHIUS THE LYDIAN
You also have the entire story of Pythius
Lying narrowly in the little letter of mine; writen extensively
I omitted to say this before, but I said it in other places.
The day’s feeding for the entire army of Xerxes
Cost four hundred talents for those being fed inexpensively.
But Pythius, entertaining Xerxes, then, with the whole army
Illustriously feasted all of them at the most splendid tables.
The things that he gave to Darius, and later to Xerxes,
The little letter has, written at length.

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 3.39  (T66) CONCERNING HERACLIUS
Chosroes was lord of the Persians in the times of Heraclius.
In his palaces around Persia,
He had the sky fabricated on the roofs,
Out of which thunder and lightning bolts and rain storms, all contrived,
Used to burst forth to the amazement of ambassadors who were being feasted.
Now Heraclius, in seven seasons of wars with the Persians,
Digging into and kindling and burning the entirety of Persia,
Also burned down that fire-bearing sky
Together with the entirety of Chosroes’ palaces which I spoke of;
And Heraclius quenched the fire of the Persians, which was reverential,
A fire that on the one hand first came up out of a lightning bolt because of Perseus long ago,

Event Date: 500 GR

§ 3.50  With firebrands always succeeding that illumination,
And with fires that were continuous, flame coloured, large, and very violent,
A fire that was being guarded carefully until that time,
When it was quenched by Heraclius, a great grief to the Persians.
The chroniclers say these things, and along with them Pisida.
Pisida himself even related, somewhere, that sky,
Writing In Templum with iambic verses, of which I will pass over the majority.
But I would like to say some of the verses from there, so that there can be plunder for you:
“And to what end do you use machines
To rain dew on the very sky of Chosroes

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.60  Old contemporary Syracusan, land measurer,
Who draws up the earth with the three-pulley machine,
Shouting, ‘Where should I go and shake the land?’
Let him draw aside the unshaken boundaries,
Less than a woman with his well-mechanized machines.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.65  (T67) CONCERNING PTOLEMY
The Chian Theocritus writes that Ptolemy,
The son of Ptolemy (the son of Lagus) and Berenice,
Happened to be king, at the same time, of
Thirty-three thousand four hundred and eighteen cities.
And what is more, learn, from here, even the words, according to what is stated:

Event Date: -250 GR

§ 3.70  “He rules over many lands, and many seas.
There are both countless infinities and countless nations of men.
Three hundred cities have been subdued,
Then three thousand in addition to thirty thousand
And six, and among them thirty three.
Of them all, proud Ptolemy is king.

Event Date: -250 GR

§ 3.76  (T68) CONCERNING GAIUS JULIUS CAESAR
Gaius Julius Caesar, the Roman,
Within a span of twenty years being at the prime of his lifetime,
Increased the boundaries of Rome and the sceptre of the Romans
Upon enslaving the barbarians as far as even the islands of the British.
Wherefore Julius was called divine by the Romans,
Having gained this fine surname from his deeds.
The Diodoruses and Dios and others in addition say these things.

Event Date: -50 GR

§ 3.83  (T69) CONCERNING SESOSTRIS
That Sesostris, king of the Assyrians,
With the name Sesoosis according to Diodorus,
Being a monarch of the Assyrians, ruled the entire earth.
Yoking the kings to his chariot,
And being drawn by them, just as other men are drawn by horses,
Sesostris was called both ruler of the world and divine by the people of that time.
Once, one of the yoked kings restrained Sesostris’ vanity,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.90  Using riddles to show by example the lack of cohesion in fortune.
For although he himself was drawing the chariot, he was seeing the tracks made by the wheels.
And as he was looking in this way, he slowed the progress of the chariot.
And when Sesostris said to this man,
“Why are you working adversely in the face of the road, man? Say it quickly!”
That man, looking at the turning around of the wheels, says, “I am not running.” 1
Sesostris, therefore, knowing what that man was revealing,
Draws in his arrogance, and loosens the kings from the yoke.
And, within the remainder of his reign, to everyone he was both mild and moderate.
Ctesias and Herodotus, Diodorus and Dio,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.100  And Callisthenes with them, as well as Simocatus and others
Recall the story narrowly, but some also recall it loosely.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.102  (T70) CONCERNING CATO
Drawing his roots from Italian sons of Aeneas,
The Ausonian Romans, this renowned Cato
Was a very distinguished consul and a general of the Romans,
Bringing home both triumphs and countless trophies.
This man rears his own son well for everything,
He himself teaching accurately and putting all things in his son’s mind,
As much as will be beneficial towards the soul, towards the state,
Towards strength, towards courage, and towards every graceful movement.

Event Date: -200 GR

§ 3.110  Cato was his son’s teacher in subjects
Greek and Roman, and, simply, in every form of rearing,
Although he also owned countless slaves who were scholars,
Among them even Salonius, a man who was renowned in letters.
For he did not think his son was worthy of being insulted by slaves,
Though when being taught by them he was even struck many times.
Nor was Cato willing to have any large debt to them;
And with good reason, for how truly is the teaching of letters a great thing;
And Cato himself, as I said, was a teacher of letters,
Of running, of wrestling and boxing, and of the discus and the double pipe,

Event Date: -200 GR

§ 3.120  Of exercises, horsemanship, and every type of armed fighting.
Cato used to teach his son to endure burning heat and freezing cold,
And to carry himself across great flooding rivers;
To cling to all good things, to hate all paltry things;
Being a guard of the child as far as even where words were concerned.
For in this way Cato was guarding him, as if he was a priestly virgin daughter,
A priestess honoured with awe, a Vestal virgin,
So that never yet did the child speak a paltry word,
Nor did any member of Cato’s staff, be they free or enslaved,
When this child was present, speak any shameful word.

Event Date: -200 GR

§ 3.130  In this way Cato was rearing his son decently in all things,
So that later, the general Paulus, in a state of wonder,
Made him the son-in-law for his daughter Tertia.
For when the entire army of the Romans was put to flight,
Cato’s son, with sword unsheathed, continued to cut down the barbarians.
But when, from continuous sword fighting, his blade fell,
He did not choose to flee with the rest of the Romans,
But first started to earnestly entreat some of his friends,
So that, after they turned around with him, he could find his sword.
And what is more, powerlessly driving with them against the barbarians,

Event Date: -200 GR

§ 3.140  He made victory doubtful for the Romans;
But he did not stop searching for the blade before
He found it in the middle of countless corpses.
Wherefore he has even become son-in-law, as we said, of Paulus.
The above story pertains to the son of Cato. Now there were two Catos,
Both philosophers and generals of the Romans.
But the above Cato was the elder, in the times of Antiochus
(The man who held the kingdom after Alexander).
The other Cato, the younger, who took his own life,
Giving his wife to his friend Hortensius,

Event Date: -200 GR

§ 3.150  Was a brother of Capito and friend of Pompaedius.
Even more philosophical than the first Cato,
The younger Cato lived in the times of Caesar and Sulla the tyrant,
Having a son (yes, even this Cato), but not rearing him in the same way.
Plutarch, Dionysius, Diodorus and Dio
Write the details of the Catos and of the Scipios.
Just as that Cato the Elder,
Even my father was a teacher of all things for me,
Making me ready for teachers at small intervals.
Within one day of my father’s teaching, an issue about letters

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.160  Used to lift me up and push me forward more
Than a month’s time of the other teachers; but in an incomparable way
Through his words making me grow, after the fashion of the Aloadae,
A living fire, fortifying me, towering me over my adversaries,
Making me a Bellerophon, a winged-horse horseman,
Or a winged Perseus, slayer of Gorgons,
Free of woodland savages and monsters that turn things into earth,
Of leaders, of reputation, of prerogative, and of love of money,
Things that constrain all people who are not free.
So my father rears me, as Cato reared his son.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.170  But if anyone even wants to understand what sort of man Cato was,
Let him look at me, an animate painting of Cato
And wise Palamedes, the son of Nauplius.
For they were both of good stature, with respect to their age,
Lean, grey eyed, of pale complexion, with hair red and thick,
Just as I am in all things. But if Palamedes
Should never be made angry, so let the accounts show it;
He had only this difference in comparison with us,
Being the same as me in all things pertaining to body and soul,
As to even acquire dry hair like us.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.180  This dryness had met with both of us because of a lack of washing;
For we have hair that is beautiful and delicate by nature,
But Cato differed from us in not being made angry,
If up to this time the accounts of the prose writers are not untrue.
For such combinations are both hot and cold.
From us, at any rate, as we said, he differed in this,
By being both most loving of gain and thrifty;
But in all other things we happen to resemble one another,
In terms of the body, as I revealed, and in terms of things most pertaining to the soul.
It belongs to me, more than the man Cato,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.190  To not be overpowered by money, and I am attended by a fire breathing spirit
For just things, just as the spirit that used to attend the younger Cato.
Indeed, for the younger Cato, having been acquainted
With Sulla the tyrant, came to his house
With Sarpedon, his entirely wise pedagogue.
When Cato saw the heads of illustrious men being carried out,
And the men carrying those heads lamenting quietly,
He spoke to his pedagogue: “How is it that someone does not kill this man?”
And when the pedagogue said, “They are all scared of him,”
Cato said: “Therefore, let some sword be given to me,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.200  And I will deliver the fatherland of cruel tyrants.”
Even for me there is some such a spirit for just things,
And a great zeal for the sun, burning my heart,
As even I now would kill priests for their dishonour,
If it had been possible for me, looking at such misdeeds:
At leading-priests willingly being slaves to the leaders
(Both living as captives in ways that love gain,
And tyrannically making secular slaves),
And again, at dishonourable priests, or, indeed, even at deacons
(Destroyed together by dishonourable deeds, just as if by gangrene),

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.210  And at the Cretan abomination, whose absolute ugliness
(Utterly tearing, with a fleshy crowbar, all of the floor marble up from
The very house) gives to the noble man
Both every other most beautiful thing and a countless amount of money,
So that the impure man and the polluted man
Alienate from the sufferings of the night-battle
Their leading priesthood, which is compensation for those sufferings.
For the Goth in Gothia acts as their mediator,
Although he is full of an ill odour, and has never read more than thirty pages,
The one-eyed Cyclops, or rather, a man without eyes,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.220  Who, being blind like Aman, makes all things blind.
For when justice is made blind, all things are blinded at the same time.
And how straightly would the affairs regarding a city be managed,
Where the blind man is a guide for those seeing?
As the man who has never read more than thirty pages is for the entire assembly,
Drawing and guiding and dragging it where he wishes,
So once Orion, being blind, acted with regard to Cedalion.
But, O highest power looking at all things,
Send vivid lightning bolts, kindle and set on fire,
And do not anywhere overlook divine things being insulted,
Especially sacred leaders being bought by impure men,
As if the impure men coexist as their helpers.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.232  (T71-T73)CONCERNING CATO, SOLON AND THEODORUS (STORIES 71-73)
How Cato reared his son, I was just now saying.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.233  [T72] Solon, I was saying in the beginning, spoke these things to Croesus:
“Do not pride yourself in wealth and money and the rest;
The end, which distinguishes lives, is still unclear.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.236  [T73] Now the physician Theodorus, sent by Maurice,
Made a friend of Chaganus, who was of the Romans by race.
Theodorus told the story of Sesostris, which I spoke of,
And through it, the unclear and changeable nature of fortune,
Mmost wisely alluding and persuading him,
Theodorus brought that man over to friendship and a treaty.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.242  (T74) CONCERNING HECUBA
The story of Hecuba is very clear to all,
That being queen of the Trojans and wife of Priam,
She becomes a captive to the Greeks and a slave.
Seeing many misfortunes even after being taken,
In the end she is even stoned to death, while dogs are rabid over her fate.
Wherefore she cursed the Greeks with curses due to murderers;
For this very reason, they formed the myth that she had become a dog.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.249  (T75) CONCERNING POLYMESTOR
Polymestor was king of all of the Thracians,
Whom the strong flowing Hellespont used to shut within.
Now being a disaffected friend, when Troy was destroyed,
Polymestor killed Polydorus, the son of Hecuba.
Since, according to Pindar, no one does anything without being observed,
The great eye of justice, not overlooking the defilement,
Reveals the sinister deed to Hecuba by way of dreams.
And she, doing something sinister in return, summons Polymestor
Together with his children, his descendants, whom she kills with the help of Trojan women.
Hecuba blinds Polymestor, using weaving shuttles to deprive him of his eyes.
Euripides uses tragedy to write both these events.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.260  (T76) CONCERNING AJAX THE SON OF TELAMON
Ajax was the son of Telamon and Eriboea,
The husband of Lysidice and the father of Philius,
And the father of Eurysaces by the captive woman
Tecmessa, the daughter of Teuthras. Ajax (the tower of the Greeks,
Sensible, understanding, numbering among those who were firmly established,
Correcting and causing everyone to understand just by the sight of him)
Was deprived of the arms of Achilles because of an unjust decision.
Boiling over in his heart, Ajax was utterly deprived of his wits,
And thinking they were animals, he slaughtered Greek people.
In the end, recovering just a little and recognizing the symptoms of madness,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.270  Ajax himself becomes murderer for himself.
Sophocles, the son of Sophilus, writes the events concerning Ajax.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.272  (T77-T88 CONCERNING AGAMEMNON, DIOMEDES, IDOMENEUS, AMPHIARAUS, PELEUS, THESEUS, THE SONS OF CLEOPATRA, THE SON OF PERSEUS THE MACEDONIAN, THE MISFORTUNES OF MAURICE, PHOCAS THE MOST HONOURABLE KING, GELIMER THE MAURETANIAN AND BELISARIUS THE GENERAL
The nameless, storyless story of these people
Is rather both abounding in names and abounding in stories,
But when told jointly, the story seems to belong to the nameless variety.
For after Polymestor with Ajax and Hecuba,
You would find other countless numbers of people who changed in life;
Passing over the majority of which, let us run over just a few.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.278  Agamemnon turned out as king of all Greeks.
After the erection of the trophies for Troy, and his return to his fatherland
(As though Clytemnestra, his wife, was being adulterous),
Agamemnon is killed, along with a certain number of the best of men, near the table,
By the contrivances of Aegisthus and his deceitful wife Clytemnestra.
Seven years later, Agamemnon’s son Orestes would kill these murderers,
Who had possession of his paternal sceptre.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.280  [T78] And Diomedes has drunk a drink of adultery:
For after the erection of trophies for Troy and the exercise of manly virtues,
Diomedes puts off going through life with his wife Aegialeia
And the adulterer Cometes, and instead flees to Daunia.
And there, doing things in a heroic manner that resulted in many trophies
He was fortunate to have a foreign tomb, a man foreign to his own fatherland.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.291  [T79] Idomeneus, that king of the Cretans,
When he himself returned to Crete from Troy
Found many misfortunes in his own house:
His wife, Meda, and daughter Cleisithera
Slaughtered in the temple at the hands of his foster child
Leucus, the son of Talos, murder-polluted Leucus);
He fled somewhere far, fled the island of Crete,
Pursued by the powerful Leucus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.299  [T80] I pass in silence over Amphiaraus and the old man Peleus, The former, in gold-crazed Thebes, dead from his wife,
In a mad after gold city, from his own wife Eriphyle;
[T81] And moderate Peleus, great, once, with trophies,
But later ruined by sharp allotments of bad luck.
For in trembling old age, he lamented much for
The eminent man among heroes, Achilles, his famous son,
Destroyed treacherously by Paris in Troy.
After a little while Peleus cried to the goddess in her own person
That even Achilles’ cub was cut into pieces
In Delphi by the hands and swords and tricks of Orestes.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.310  [T82] I omit Aegeus’ once-blessed son Theseus,
Later very unfortunate, as his son was killed;
[T83] I am leaving out all of the people written in the parchments of the tragic poets.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.313  (T83 and T84) CONCERNING THE CAPTIVITY OF THE CHILDREN OF CLEOPATRA AND THE SON OF PERSEUS
I omit describing the children of Cleopatra,
And the son of Perseus (I mean of Perseus the Macedonian),
How, brought up nobly with sceptres and the purple
They see Rome with the bad luck of captives.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.316  (T85) CONCERNING THE DESTRUCTION OF MAURICE, AND THOSE DEAREST TO HIM
I omit declaiming tragically on the misfortunes of Maurice,
How (with wife and children) by Phocas, who as acting as tyrant,
He was extirpated root and branch in the midst of a chariot race.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.320  [T86] I omit telling how Phocas was destroyed,
And all those people the chroniclers and tragic poets celebrate.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.322  [T87] Gelimer was a king of the Mauretanian nations,
Who, defeated by Belisarius and all of his strength,
For a considerable number of days with wife and children
Was hiding in the mountains, hunting after deliverance.
But as hunger was unbearably squeezing them,
And a tear was trying to pour forth from the eyes like a fountain,
Gelimer writes some sort of passionate letter to Belisarius:
“Send me, Belisarius, a harp, a sponge, and a loaf of bread,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.330  The former, so that I can represent in tragedy my heavy misfortune,
A sponge, as I am wiping away the floods of tears,
And a loaf of bread, as I would observe even the mere sight of it;
For already, much time flowed past me being without food.
For the spindle of the Fates constrained me to this,
To prevail completely over all of the heaviest of misfortunes.”
Gelimer, brought as a captive to the city of Constantine
And standing at the hippodrome with the prisoners,
Said “Vanity of vanities all.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.339  CONCERNING BELISARIUS THE GENERAL (T88
This Belisarius, the great general,
Being a commander in Justinian times,
Having spread victories into every quadrant of the world,
Later blinded by jealousy (O unstable fortune!),
Holding a wooden drinking cup, he used to shout to be heard by a mile,
“Give an obol to Belisarius the commander,
Whom fortune magnified, and jealousy makes quite blind.”
Some of the chroniclers say that Belisarius was not blinded,
But, from those having civic rights, became utterly deprived of those rights,
And, in turn, came into a restoration of his former magnificence.

Event Date: 500 GR

§ 3.349  CONCERNING DARIUS WHOM ALEXANDER DEFEATED, REGULUS THE ROMAN, AND XANTHIPPUS THE SPARTIATE (STORIES 89-91)
The nameless story of the ancients is as follows:
Darius the later, being king of Persia,
Whom Macedonian Alexander the Great defeated,
Died at the hands of Bessus and Ariobarzanes,
Persian men, whom the Macedonian killed by crucifixion.
This was the end for Darius the Persian,
In return for the honour he had previously, in return for his kingdom.
For Marcus Regulus, the Roman commander
Seized by the Sicels, learn what sort of end he had:
Cutting off the lids of the eyes with a knife,
They left the eyes of that man open.

Event Date: -325 GR

§ 3.360  Then shutting him in a small, very narrow hut,
And maddening a wild beastly elephant,
They were moving this animal against him, so that it pulled him down and scraped him.
Being pursued in this way, the great general
Exhaled his life in an end that was made miserable.
Xanthippus the Spartiate also dies at the hands of the Sicels.
For around the Sicel city of Lilybaeum
War raged between Romans and Sicels,
Lasting about twenty four years
The Sicilians, defeated many times in the battles

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.370  By the Romans, were trying to hand over the city into slavery.
Now the Romans did not in any way believe that this attempt to surrender was real,
But told the Sicilians to go out of the city naked;
Meanwhile, the Spartiate Xanthippus, coming from Sparta
With one hundred soldiers (or alone, according to some,
And according to others having fifty soldiers),
Sailed in toward the Sicels, though they were shut in,
And through an interpreter had many conversations with them.
He finally emboldened them against the enemies; and joining in battle
He, together with the Sicels, cut down the entire army of the Romans.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.380  From the beneficiaries, Xanthippus received compensation
That was worthy and appropriate for the Sicels’ evil nature:
For these scum put Xanthippus on rotten ship,
And sank it in the swirling currents of the Adriatic,
Begrudging the hero and his bravery.
This story and that of Regulus are related by
Diodorus Siculus; and the story of Darius is written
By Callisthenes the prose writer, along with many others.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.388  (T92) CONCERNING THE WOODEN CORPSE
The prose writer Herodotus, the son of Oxyles,
Records that at the meals of the Egyptians this was performed:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.390  A household slave, bringing around a wooden corpse at the meals,
Enlightens all of those reclining in this way, somehow,
Shouting, “It is necessary to eat and drink while looking at this.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.393  (T93) CONCERNING THE DRUNKENNESS OF THE LACONIAN HOUSEHOLD SLAVES
The Laconians, making their household slaves drunk
And introducing them to their own children,
Even though the slaves were ridiculous from unmixed wine and drunkenness,
Used to turn their children away from everything unseemly and base.
To say precisely the prose writer for this story,
Whether it is Herodotus, Plutarch, or another, I do not know.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.339  (T94) CONCERNING DARIUS THE FATHER OF XERXES
In a loose manner, the content of a letter diagrams
The entire story of Darius clearly for you.
About Darius, the father of Xerxes, let this letter say to you:
“For Darius, the king, going to Babylon,
Being a shield-bearer, not a king, in those times,
Received a gift from Syloson, a flame coloured upper-garment
(Syloson was a brother of Polycrates of Samos).
When afterwards, he was in possession of the kingdom,
The barbarian Darius was not forgetful of the gift.
But after an investigation, he makes Syloson the king of Samos,
Saying, ‘Darius never forgets favours.’”
The prose writer Herodotus writes the story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.411  (T95) CONCERNING BELESYS THE BABYLONIAN AND ARSACES THE MEDE AND THE TAKING DOWN OF SARDANAPALUS THE ASSYRIAN
Belesys was Babylonian in race,
A man wise and understanding, quick to decide what needed to be done.
This man, seeing that Sardanapalus was like a woman,
Sumptuously, carelessly, and light-heartedly incapacitated,
Ruling the empire of the Assyrians in a totally bad way
(Indeed, for shut inside his palace
He was seen only by eunuchs and concubines,
Working in wool, having himself shaved and made up with rouge,
Both refining his voice by imitation of the woman,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.420  And wearing the clothing that women also wear,
Happening, aside from his manly sex, to be a whole woman.
Once within the year, from on high as a god, to everyone
He used to hold out, from a lofty tower, the loose sleeve,
Before which kings and all great men used to prostate themselves,
But all of the other things in the remaining times of the year were steered
By the orders of eunuchs, whether there was a war or something else),
Looking at such things, Belesys did not endure the insolence.
Fashioning together sayings of oracles and prophecy,
He was rousing Arsaces the Mede for insurrection.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.430  And in the first assault, they were defeated immediately;
But in the second assault, Sardanapalus, learning
That the Nile was overflowing (for this was an omen),
Takes refuge in the palace and sets it on fire,
Burning up, together, himself and the concubines and the treasuries.
Arsaces, marching in with Belesys,
Held the kingdom with a clear victory;
Wherefore the power of the Assyrians fell to the Medes.
Arsaces even gives a gift to his accomplice Belesys,
Even the very gift which Belesys asked for: the ashes of everything that was burned.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.440  Belesys,—receiving the ashes to the disadvantage of Arsaces, who was needy,
(For Arsaces had it merely stripped of its treasuries, the kingdom stripped of its treasuries)—
According to some, is only said to have been denounced,
As if after receiving all of the money with crafty intent
He gives nothing to Arsaces, who had no benefit from the money;
And according to others, Belesys is also said to be punished by that man.
But as he won his case, Arsaces acquitted him, saying
That Belesys helped him more than the deeds over which he grieved him.
Diodorus Siculus writes the story
And with him even other story writers.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.450  Diodorus Siculus even writes the epigram of Sardanapalus,
Which is, by nature, written in Assyrian,
Also translated into Greek, it reveals these words:
“Knowing well that you are mortal, bless your soul,
Delighting in festivities, there is not any profit for you when you are dead.
Indeed, for I am ashes, though I was king of great Ninus,
I have these delights, as many as I ate and I revelled in and, amid love,
I felt. But the majority of things, even those happy things, have been left behind.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.458  (T96) CONCERNING HISTIAEUS THE MILESIAN
This Histiaeus was Milesian by race.
Together with Darius the Persian—marching against the Scythians
With seven hundred thousand fighting men within the army,
And six hundred ships, and all according to what is appropriate,
When he even crossed the Bosporus, having bridged it
By the hands of Mandrocles, the Samian architect—
(Since everyone was subject to the kingdom of the Persians),
They were marching out (with Darius, mentioned above):
Both this Histiaeus and Coes the son of Orexander,
A man most trustworthy in all things, from Mitylene with respect to race,
And Attic Miltiades, a man clever in deliberations,
And Byzantine Ariston, not a lesser man than Miltiades;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.470  When, therefore, Darius already arrived, both facing the Danube,
And he crossed this by a bridge, facing the Scythians,
He immediately gave the command to dismantle that bridge.
But Coes, the son of Orexander, was not allowing this, saying:
“Look, king Darius, even good fortunes are ill-omened,
Lest somehow flight, un-hoped for by us, should fall to the Scythians,
Even we should fill the Danube with the Persian camp.”
After Coes said these things, Darius, allowing the bridge to remain,
Promises gifts to that man for his judgement,
Whenever they should withdraw back to Persia;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.480  But Darius himself, attacking Scythia, is defeated mightily.
The Scythians, leaving him in the middle of Scythia,
Marched to the bridge and arrived at the area by the Danube,
Which the above-mentioned Greek men were guarding,
Whom the Scythians said should run away after they had dismantled the bridge:
For as there was no cause for a battle between Greeks and Scythians,
The Greeks should allow Darius to make amends to the Scythians.
Among the Greeks, Miltiades, persuaded by the Scythians, said
It would be good to dismantle the bridge, and to allow the Persians
To be utterly extirpated by the Scythians in the land of the Scythians.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.490  But Histiaeus, giving heed to his relationship with the Persian race,
Was standing aloof, at that time, from the judgement of Miltiades.
Although, while the Scythians are standing near, he begins to dismantle the bridge.
As the length of travel by the Persians who where riding back was somewhat short,
Histiaeus gave heed to their crossing over the bridge.
And Darius, having fled in the middle of the night, defeated,
Marched towards the bridge, and speaks to Artachaees,
A man five fore-arms tall, but stentorian in his voice;
And Artachaees, shouting most loudly from the other bank of the Danube
Shrieked at Histiaeus, and everyone crosses.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.500  Wherefore Darius gives gifts to the men:
Coes, on account of his former advice,
He made, from being a private man, into the tyrant of Mitylene;
To Histiaeus, he gives the privilege of founding Myrcinus.
Indeed, for they asked to receive these things from Darius.
Now the Persian Megabyzus, upon returning from Paionia,
Finds Darius in Sardis and persuades him
To restrain Histiaeus from founding the city of Myrcinus
(Myrcinus, a city that used to be called Hedonus).
Darius, accordingly, summons Histiaeus back,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.510  And brings him away with him to the land of Susa.
But Histiaeus is longing for his fatherland:
Taking a household slave, from one of those who were trustworthy, and shaving his head,
Both writing tattooed letters on it, and allowing him to grow his hair long again,
Histiaeus sends him to Miletus, to Aristagoras himself,
Who was both a son-in-law and cousin of Histiaeus.
Aristagoras himself, both shaving the household slave,
And reading the letters, started to make the Greek cities,
According to their power, hateful to Darius.
At last, Aristagoras persuaded the people of Attica to destroy Sardis.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.520  Learning of this, Darius was very angry.
Now some satrap of the Persians speaks in such a manner to Darius:
Histiaeus stitched this shoe,
And Aristagoras put on the very thing that was stitched;” 5
That is, Histiaeus gave the proposal,
And in the end, Aristagoras accomplished it.
As all of the remaining things were therefore confounded in this way,
Histiaeus himself is sent by Darius
For a joint attack of the cities that were thrown into confusion.
Indeed, for in this way, that man deceived Darius.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.530  Having caused more confusion to the cities that were never at rest,
And seeming to wander past both Persia and the land of the Susans,
Histiaeus subsequently reconciled himself with his friends in his fatherland.
After a little while, in the plane of Caicus, within the land of the Mysians,
Harpagus takes Histiaeus captive and brings him to Artaphernes,
The brother of Darius and a subordinate governor at Sardis.
And there, these men subsequently crucify Histiaeus;
His head they send to Susa for Darius.
Upon seeing it, Darius cried immeasurably,
Boiled over in rage against the men who crucified Histiaeus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.540  At last, having cried excessively, Darius tells the Persians
To wash that head and bury it with honours,
On the grounds that he was very much a benefactor of the Persians.
Herodotus, the son of Oxyles, writes the story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.544  (T97) CONCERNING DEMOCEDES THE PHYSICIAN OF CROTON
Democedes was a physician from Croton,
Being a son-in-law of that Milo the nobleman.
Democedes, along with Polycrates, the king of Samos,
Went into Persia, to the Persian Oroetes.
When Oroetes killed Polycrates by crucifying him,
Democedes became a captive dressed in rags.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.550  Once Darius suffered a rupture while hunting,
And for the Persian physicians he was incurable.
When Democedes cured him with his skill,
Darius sent him to his own wives
And concubines, announcing clearly
That he was the saviour of Darius’ soul.
The women competed in showering him with gifts,
Pouring gold over him from golden goblets,
So that his attendant, a man called Sciton,
By collecting the fallen gold, became wealthy.
Herodotus writes this story also.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.561  (T98) CONCERNING CYRUS THE SON OF MANDANE AND CAMBYSES
Persian Cyrus, the son of Cambyses and Mandane
(As Xenophon, the son of Gryllus, writes in the Cyropaedia),
Was in physique: most ripe, in beauty: prominent,
In soul: most philanthropic and one of those who are fond of myths,
Pleasant and ambidextrous and one of those who make great gifts.
In judgements: a judge, a model for a direct trial,
Whole, most moderate, a summit of all good things.
This Cyrus, at one time joining a war against the Assyrians,
With both his grandfather Astyages and maternal uncle Cyaxares,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.570  (For reasons which I spoke of previously), when the battle broke out,
Though still a young man, what deeds did he demonstrate!
For having mightily defeated the Assyrians
(And before them, also Croesus the Lydian),
As one who was judicious, he would deal with everyone philanthropically
(See how many men he compensated with what sort of honours and gifts),
To some, owing compensations for a small good deed,
But to most, making the beginning of a king’s thanks,
Even thanking those people from whom thanks did not fall to him,
Because they ask for the gifts that they receive from him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.580  For to begin with, to Cyaxares, the king and his uncle...
(Because Cyaxares entrusted the entire generalship to Cyrus,
While he himself was getting drunk with his tentmates),
Cyrus said that of the things taken in the battle against the Assyrians
To select all the best and send it to Cyaxares.
Laughing, the Medes said to Cyrus,
“It is necessary to send him women, beautiful women, Cyrus.”
Cyrus therefore said, “Choose women,
And if some other thing seems good to you and Cyaxares.”
So many luxury good and countless sums of money,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.590  Enough to satisfy the most insatiable soul,
He sent to Cyaxares in return for the generalship.
But when things were chosen even for Cyrus by the army,
Both the most beautiful of the tents and music making women,
And Pantheia of Susa, the wife of Abradatas,
Who surpasses, in her beauty, all of the women throughout Asia,
And in her judicious ways, all women, as many as the morning star sees.
Bestowing thanks on the army on account of the gifts,
“With pleasure,” Cyrus said, “I receive the things given by you,
But the one among you who has need for these things will use them.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.600  But some Mede, a lover of music, upon hearing this, had said:
“If you should give one of these music-making women to me, O Cyrus,
It will seem sweeter to me to march than to stay at home.”
And Cyrus said, “I am giving her, thanking you,
That you sought out gifts, as opposed to you thanking me on the grounds that you are receiving gifts.
In this way, I am thirsty to give thanks to those needing to receive.”
And to this man, who is asking, he gives the music-making woman,
While the tent and Pantheia, a wife of Abradatas,
He gave to Araspas, a Median general, to guard her.
But when he said, “Have you even seen, O Cyrus, the woman?”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.610  “By Zeus,” Cyrus said, “I have in no way seen her.”
Being such a man, Cyrus compensated all men in these ways.
Now Gobryas the Assyrian, as a man coming to Cyrus
And needing that he help, as he was being bitterly wronged,
Cyrus neither sent away as an enemy, nor as one of the Assyrians
(But he reduced all of the Assyrians to utter slavery),
Because Gobryas’ son, after killing a lion and a bear,
Was mortally impaled by the son of the Assyrian king
(Because the Assyrian king wanted to have young Gobryas’ son for his daughter),
For, though striking the beasts first, the Assyrian king’s son did not kill them.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.620  And Gadatas (another young man in the prime of life,
Much more like a king than the son of Gobryas)
While drinking with the Assyrian king’s son, was castrated by him
Because the concubine of the king’s son praised the young man
And blessed the woman about to marry him.
The king’s son said it was on the grounds that Gadatas tried to seduce the concubine.
In these ways, Cyrus was good not just to those asking,
Nor did he pay back thanks just to those initiating thanks.
But he was thankful to everyone, and more to those dear to him:
But when he gave gifts even to the latter, he was expecting to receive.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.630  Cyrus spoke to Croesus, always at the same time relating these things:
“I, making my friends wealthy, Croesus,
Believe I have acquired them as treasures and guards.”
And again, adorning his friends with illustrious clothes
And urging them to do the same to their friends;
Cyrus himself was never adorned in such a way.
So someone said to him, “Will you ever adorn yourself?”
He says, “You suppose that though adorning all of you, I am not adorning myself.
If, then, I should be able to do much good to you, my friends,
Whatever sort of garment I have, in this I will look good.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.640  And why do I say to you that Cyrus remembered thanks?
Some Persian common custom is against thankless people,
Strongly rectifying and punishing all of those who are able
To return thanks, and are not giving it.
Indeed, for they think that thankless people are most unholy
To their fatherland and to their ancestors and to God.
Xenophon writes the story of Cyrus, but that of the Persian custom
Ctesias and Herodotus write.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.648  (T99) CONCERNING ABRADATAS THE GENERAL AND KING OF THE SUSANS
Abradatas, a general, the king of the Susans,
The husband of Pantheia, who was mentioned a little before this,
Was being an ally to the Assyrians against Cyrus.
But when, along with his wife, the camp of the Assyrians
Was taken by the army of Cyrus,
Abradatas himself was still serving as an ambassador to the king of the Bactrians,
So that the Bactrian king might send out an army allied with the Assyrians.
For, to the king of the Bactrians, Abradatas was known and a friend.
Now when Araspas, who was guarding Pantheia
In the army of Cyrus, fell into love for her,
He was advancing upon something more forceful and towards intercourse;
But the woman revealed all of these things to Cyrus,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.660  As Araspas was about to be dead from shame;
Secretly having sent for him, Cyrus speaks to him:
“The time now is at hand, beloved Araspas,
That you become a spy in the army of the enemy
(For without any eyewitness, of course, the suspicion appears to be),
Alleging as a pretext this clear reason,
That the entire armament is striking you with slanderous words.
Without further ado, taking those trustworthy to you, advance to those opposing us,
And, once you perceive everything being done by them, return again.”
In this way, by the deliberations of Cyrus, the general Araspas,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.670  In the exact word, becomes numbered among the spies,
But in the apparent word, he was fastening upon all the appearance of flight.
From there, Cyrus began to imitate someone grieving,
As though submitting to the loss of such a commander.
In these times, then, Pantheia reveals these things to Cyrus:
“I know, O king Cyrus, what happened to you on account of me.
But be relieved a little from the pain presently holding you:
A much more trustworthy slave than Araspas,
And a more noble friend, I know well, I will join with you.”
In this way, the woman spoke; and at that very time she writes

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.680  To Abradatas, her husband, the whole affair of Cyrus.
And he, practically at once, and not delaying,
Comes with two thousand riders, choice men.
Immediately, he is sent to Pantheia by Cyrus.
And the holiness and judiciousness of Cyrus,
And as many things as were achieved by him, she narrates to Abradatas.
And he says, “What shall we do, woman, that is worthy of Cyrus
And such beneficence towards us from him?”
“That you” (she said) “become the same to this man,
As that man is concerning you;” these were the words of Pantheia.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.690  Now Abradatas goes at once to Cyrus,
And, in thanks, takes hold of his right hand.
But seeing Cyrus making very great haste
About his scythed chariots and equipped horses,
Abradatas, being thankful to that man, began to hasten towards these things.
And from his own cavalry, a hundred chariots
He at once marshalled together, joining them fittingly with Cyrus’ cavalry.
And he himself, as if about to lead those chariots,
Was fittingly equipping himself on his own chariot.
The chariot was four poled from eight horses.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.700  And from her most beautiful feminine adornment,
Pantheia then made for Abradatas
A breastplate and armlets, both golden,
And a helmet set with precious stones, something flashing much grace.
Now when Cyrus was actually near the enemy,
Araspas came to him with his household slaves
(The man whom Cyrus recently sent out beforehand as an eyewitness of the enemy),
And Araspas relates the entire view of the enemy to this man.
For together with Croesus, Araspas was marshalling together their whole army.
On the next day, after offering sacrifices, Cyrus

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.710  Was marshalling together the army for the onslaught of war,
Having given to Araspas the right horn,
The left to Hystaspas, who had half
Of the riders of the race of Persians, riders applauded in battles,
Cyrus ordered the rest of the commanders-of-ten-thousand to do the other things.
Abradatas was being the leader of machines and chariots,
Daduchus: baggage carriers, covered carriages: Carduchus.
Of infantry, Artaozus and Artagersas were being leaders.
Pharnuchus, and, together with that man, Asiadatas
Were leaders-of-ten-thousand of choice riders.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.720  The entire plane was flashing with brazen fire then
As the army was equipping itself for an outbreak of war,
The equipment of Cyrus was shining even more than mirrors.
Pantheia herself was equipping Abradatas by hand,
And she was inciting him for war, secretly shedding a tear.
But Abradatas, being well worth seeing even previously,
Adorned with such equipment was shining out even more.
Now the reins-holder, taking the reins from him
(He was good looking), ascended at once to the chariot.
On this chariot, Pantheia orders all of those standing by

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.730  To advance from there, and says to Abradatas:
“I swear, Abradatas, I tell you, by your and my friendship,
That more would I want to be buried in the earth with you,
A man appearing good and clever in battle,
Than to live full of shame with a man being shamed.”
Pantheia said these things; and in wonder, Abradatas,
Touching her head, said while looking to the sky:
Zeus, grant that I appear as a man worthy of Pantheia,
And a friend worthy of Cyrus, who has honoured us.”
Saying these things under the door of the chariot’s board,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.740  He at once ascended onto his chariot.
As, after Abradatas ascended, the rein-holder shut in the board,
Pantheia did not know how she could still embrace him.
But kissing the board, she sends forth that man.
The chariot was advancing from there, and that woman began to follow along,
Until, upon turning around and seeing her, Abradatas said:
“Have courage and farewell, Pantheia, and now go back!”
From there, as the horrible war broke out,
Cyrus was advancing on horseback (as thunder broke out),
Having acquired, on his right, the cavalry leader Chrysantas,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.750  And on his left, Arisbas and the body of infantry.
When they collided simultaneously (both riders and heavily armed men,
Bowmen, both pelta bearers and the scythe bearing chariots),
Abradatas was bloodying his horses with his goad
While driving towards the war, and was inciting his friends.
And breaking out against the face of the Egyptians,
Abradatas himself, together with his people, were crushing and rubbing together those men.
In that indescribable instance of circumstance,
As the wheels were leaping out from under the heaping up of corpses,
Abradatas fell, together with many others.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.760  And these men died there, chopped up,
Though seeming to have been brave; but victorious Cyrus,
Both driving against Sardis, and destroying it,
Questioned on the next day some of those standing by:
“Regularly coming to us lately,
How now is Abradatas not to be seen?” Some attendant says:
“O master, he is not living, he has died in the battle,
Throwing his chariot on the army of Egyptians.
And now his wife, taking up the corpse,
And setting it upon the covered carriage, in which she herself was going,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.770  Is said to convey it here to you, Cyrus,
Towards the river Pactolus which flows by this place.
They assert that his eunuchs and attendants
Are digging a tomb for the dead man in a ridge;
But they are saying that the woman, having adorned the man,
Is sitting down on the ground upon the earth, a sight worthy of lamentation,
Holding down the head of that man on her lap.”
When Cyrus heard these things, striking his thigh he at once
Mounted his horse, and with one thousand riders
Rode to the suffering. And having come there first,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.780  Crying and weeping much, he spoke to the woman:
“Even you will not be destitute, but I will honour you,
Both on account of your judiciousness and the rest of your goodness,
And I will marry you also to a man to whom you wish to be married.
Only reveal to me someone to whom you wish to be married.”
And Pantheia says to him, “Have courage, O Cyrus,
I will not conceal from you whom I wish to go to.”
After speaking, Cyrus departed, pitying the woman,
For what sort of man she was being deprived of; and again, pitying the man,
For what sort of woman, whom, abandoning, he will no longer look at.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.790  Now she (telling the eunuchs to stand just a little bit away,
So that she could weep for her husband, as it was something that she wished for,
But ordering her nurse both to remain there beside her,
And, when the nurse should see her dead together with Abradatas,
To help in covering them and to conceal them with one garment)
Lays hands on herself, taking up a sword;
And she dies, having set her head on the chest of her husband.
But the nurse, bawling as she concealed them completely,
Even killed herself in her grief for her masters,
And three eunuchs with her, all by their own hands

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.800  Measured out their lives in their longing for their mistress,
In the very place in which they saw that terrible suffering.
And Cyrus, upon learning of this misfortune and arriving there,
Both adoring the little woman and lamenting in excess,
Buried them with shrouds that were fitting,
Sacrifices, statues, and a proper precinct.
A Story, WHICH, NARRATING ALL BARBARIANS GENERALLY, ENCOMPASSES AN ANTHILL OF STORIES. BUT WE, PASSING OVER THE UNTIMELY LENGTH OF THE NARRATIVE, WILL SPEAK BRIEFLY. CONCERNING LYCUS THE MYSIAN, A SON OF DEIPYLUS, AND THE NAME OF THRACIAN HERACLEA, ALSO CALLED PERINTHUS (T100)
With one ship, Heracles (sailing to the Amazons
So that he might bring the girdle of Hippolyta to Admete),
In the coasting voyage destroys all of Bebrycia together,
And gives the land to Mysian Lycus, the son of Deipylus,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.810  But only after Heracles was victorious over the brothers Mygdon and Amycus.
Lycus calls the city of these people Heraclea
(Thracian Perinthus, long ago called Mygdonia),
Honouring Heracles, the one who cheerfully gave the place.
Apollodorus says this story;
And in the little book about islands, cities, and peoples,
Stephanus of Byzantium does not write about this,
But he does write about the Heraclea in Pontus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.818  (T101) CONCERNING HORATIUS COCLES
Horatius Cocles was Roman in race.
This man (when the army of the Romans at one time was put to flight,
As there was danger that enemies would seize Rome)
Alone stood against everyone together on a wooden bridge,
While Marcus Minucius was cutting it behind him.
And when it is cut, Cocles crosses the Tiber
Having saved himself and Rome by the cutting of the bridge.
In his swimming, he was hit by a spear of the enemy;
To Cocles the Senate granted land on account of his bravery,
As much as he could plough driving his cattle during a day;
He was called Cocles in the tongue of the Romans,
Since he lost one eye in a previous battle.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.830  CONCERNING MARCUS MANLIUS AND ABOUT GEESE, A STORY ALSO COMPLETE BY ITSELF (STORIES T102-T111)
Now Marcus Manlius (when Rome was plundered
By Gauls, at the time when Brennus was ruling them,
As the Gauls were about to take the Capitoline,
Secretly going up to the acropolis at night)
He awoke, since there was a loud shouting of the geese
There, he saw the enemy creeping up.
Even driving away some of the Gauls with a shield, and killing others with his sword,
He thrust all of them away and rescues the Romans;
Wherefore they have named him Capitolinus,
And honoring geese they make them doorkeeper,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.840  Guards in the Palatine on account of the guarding then,
Just as previously the Greeks in Athens called
A wall Pelargikon (stork) and a mountain range Geraneian) (crane) on account of such animals.
This Marcus Manlius, also called Capitolinus
(Once falling under accusation of tyranny,
And about to be destroyed by the vote of all of the judges),
Was saved because the judges were looking straight at the Capitoline,
Where he had performed his famous act of bravery,
Until his accuser, perceiving the causes,
Transferred the assembly to another courthouse,
From which the Capitoline was not visible,
To be a reminder of his trophies.
Then they killed him. But even so, in turn,
The people of Rome wore black for a year,
Paying back manly virtue
And goodness in inimitable ways.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.856  I am leaving out the story of the brave Marcus Coriolanus,
And with this Marcus also Marcus Corvinus,
One of whom, Coriolanus, sacked a city alone,
The name of which was Coriolanum, and burning this city
(Although the whole entire army of the Romans was put to flight),
Took the name Coriolanus. But it would be a long story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.862  Marcus Corvinus was surnamed Corvinus,
Since at one time, fighting in single combat with some barbarian,
He had a wild raven assisting him in the battle,
Flying at the eyes of that barbarian,
Until Marcus killed him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.862  I am leaving out Curtius and the Lacus Curtius,
He who fell, on behalf of the Romans, together with his horse into the Lacus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.869  I am leaving out Kalandos, and Nonnus, and Eidus with him,
Whose benefaction was written onto the days.
For in the times of Antoninus, when the Romans were defeated
And shut up in old Rome itself,
And everyone was in danger of being destroyed by famine,
These men were feeding the people of Rome at their own expense,
Kalandos for eighteen days per month,
Nonnus for eight days, and Eidus for four.
Hesychius the Illustrious, Plutarch, Dio,
And Dionysius together write all of these things.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.879  [T110] I am passing over the kindness of Battus towards the Cyrenians,
And their bringing the silphium plant to him,
And the recompense of this man, in turn, towards the Cyrenians
When, in a mark of a coin, he carved them
Presenting the silphium plant for the sake of his honour.
Pindar the lyric poet somewhere writes this story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.885   [T111] I am leaving out a description of Meroitic Candace,
About whom Callisthenes writes that she detained Alexander,
And, after giving him extraordinary gifts, sent him away,
Because he made her sons friends to one another,
Throwing off their mutual animosity.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.890  I omit to add a myriad Greeks and barbarians
Who were mindful of benefactions, as I am fleeing the length of the narratives.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.892  (T112) CONCERNING OSYMANDYAS, THE SON OF OSYMANDANEUS, KING OF THE ASSYRIANS
The whole story of Osymandyas
Is contained in the little letter, written in this way:
Osymandyas, the great king of the Syrians,
Used to have a wild lion, a comrade in wars,
Because Osymandyas raised him, he was mindful of the favour.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.897  (T113) CONCERNING A SNAKE OF PTOLEMY
Not only was this Ptolemy fond of learning,
But he was even a seeker of everything good, and fond of spectacles,
Always seeking to look at rather strange kinds of animals,
Even bathing with gifts the people bringing him those animals.
Wherefore even those hunting used to hunt for rather strange animals.
Now finding even a snake, very long in length,
Thirty-five cubits long, they hunt in such a way:
Observing the lair of the beast and even the feeding
(And when it is setting out from the lair for both feeding and drinking),
When it has withdrawn from the lair for both feeding and drinking,
The hunters, after making a net of thick ropes that closes itself,
Ropes that are even tightened from afar by very large cords,
Set it at the foot of the lair of the above-mentioned beast.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.910  And previously, pursuing the beast heedlessly,
Two or so of the hunters were eaten by it.
But as the munificence of Ptolemy was prevailing,
Standing prepared, they hunt for it again.
For as it was hurrying for drinking, the hunters (anointing the lair with fencing,
And setting the rope net, which we mentioned)
Both on horseback and on foot together, with a clash of the shields,
Were turning the snake away from its irrigation and towards the location of its lair.
The hunters were not standing aloof from afar, so that it would not (fleeing in safety
And beholding the fenced in lair) hurry away.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.920  But they were not following near its side, lest even they be eaten up;
But with a small distance of separation, bewildering the beast,
They were earnestly driving it, in flight, to the lair.
It was raising its neck higher than those on horseback,
And was crushing together with its movement the woodland found at its side;
It was rubbing fire out of its eyes, with hissings it was thundering.
But by the hunters’ earnest pursuits, it falls in the net,
And tightened together, the net was raised high with large beams.
But the snake was cutting up that line with its teeth,
Sending out a very furious fire by the rubbing of its teeth.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.930  Therefore, hardly bringing this beast at that time to Ptolemy,
From a lack of grain that was extraordinary and an abstention from food
They tamed the snake so much, it being so much in length,
That later, wherever foods were set,
Upon being called, it went forth to feed on them.
And even obeying in every way the tame-animal keeper,
It was easily led by the words and the voice of that man,
So that once, when ambassadors were coming to Ptolemy,
The snake, upon being called, went forth to the amazement of those looking.
Diodorus wrote this story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.940  Aelian says that Onesicritus relates,
That Aposisares the Indian reared two snakes,
One being one hundred forty cubits in length,
And the other, eighty cubits, not beyond these.
These snakes Alexander the Great set his heart upon seeing.
Now ordering the army to pass through slowly
(As the Indian instructed him and said in advance,
Lest in some way they make the snakes wild with their advance),
Alexander saw that the snakes’ eyes were equal in size
To a Macedonian circular shield, from one of those shields that were well rounded.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.950  CONCERNING THE DOG OF NICOMEDES, IT HAS TEN STORIES INSTEAD OF ONE (T115 7)
The son of Zipoetes, that Nicomedes,
The founder of Nicomedia, the father of Prusias...
(Prusias who had all of his teeth in the form of one bone,
Just as Aeschylus, in his writings, says about the daughters of Phorcys,
And Herodotus, about Leon, a king of Sardis,
Julius, in turn, that Pyrrhus the Epirote
Had this bone, imprinted with outlines of teeth;
The Chian, Ion, says that even Heracles
Had a set of teeth in three rows that was completely unbroken;
As Scylla did as well, according to Homer in the Odyssey.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.960  Many include even the crocodile, and some even sea-monsters;
Aristotle wrote that Timarchus, the father
Of Cyprian Nicocles, had, for teeth, a set in two rows).
This father of that one-toothed Prusias
(Prusias, the founder of the city of Prusa beside Olympus),
Nicomedes, mentioned above, used to have the largest dog,
Being from the race of Molossians, very loyal to that man.
This dog, once, when the queen, wife of Nicomedes,
And mother of Prusias, Zielas and Lysandra,
Ditizela by name, from the race of Phrygians,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.970  Was frolicking with the king, he thought she was an enemy,
And tore with his bite her right shoulder,
Crushing her flesh and bones with his teeth.
She, dying in the arms of the king,
Was buried most magnificently, in Nicomedia,
In a tomb of stone, but gilded.
This tomb was extant even up to the time of Theophilus.
But in the times of Michael, a son of Theophilus,
Some grave robbers, breaking it open,
Found the corpse of this woman preserved,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.980  Wrapped completely in a garment made of gold.
Taking this garment, and putting it in fire and crucible,
They extracted 113 litras of gold.
These are the details about both the death and the tomb of the woman.
Now the dog, banished from the king’s sight
Both from affection for him and grief for the woman,
Is said by many to have expired.
Arrian writes the story in his Bithynica.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.988  (T116) CONCERNING THE HORSE OF ARTYBIUS THE PERSIAN
The details about Artybius are found
In the little letter, written in the narrative, word by word, in this way:
Artybius the Persian, having brought up the horse,
Had it both joining him in war and helping him.
But when Artybius sailed away to Cyprus
And waged a fight with Cyprian Onesilus,
As Artybius fell before Onesilus,
The horse, seeing his master fallen,
Standing straight up began to fight with Onesilus,
Striking the man’s shield with his front feet,
He would have killed the king of Cyprus,
Had not the shield-bearers cut off his feet with scythes.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 3.1000  4.1 CHILIADES BOOK 4, TRANSLATED BY GARY BERKOWITZ
CONCERNING THE LOVE OF A DOLPHIN (T117)
[1000] Oppian tells of a dolphin that, for some Lesbian youth,
[ 1] Falls into inexpressible love, as the youth is synchronizing his singing to him,
How the dolphin carries the youth, as a reins-holder, on its back,
And in every way obeys that youth when he is ordering him,
And carries others on its back, if the youth should order it,
And has inexpressible affection towards the young man himself,
He both folds himself around him and fawns upon him with its tail.
But when the youth was travelling on the destined path,
Even the dolphin was made utterly unseen from the places there.
And about a young Libyan herdsman, Oppian writes this very thing,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.10  And Aelian relates things somewhat like these things,
Except he wrote that the young man was a Iassian,
And immensely worn out after gymnastic school
(He says), that young man, riding on the dolphin,
But being heavy, falls from the back of the beast,
And its spine pierced his belly,
And killed the boy. Now the dolphin, recognizing the suffering
From the motionless weight and streams of blood,
Caught up by the curving waves,
Flung himself to land with the dear youth.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.20  There both of them expiring, ended their life.
In the times of the second Ptolemy
He says such a love also occurred in Alexandria
And in Dicaearchia, a city of Italy.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.24  ABOUT ARION THE METHYMNAEAN
About Arion you have the story behind you,
Being number seventeen, and turning, take a look.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.26  (T118) CONCERNING THE WEEPING OF THE HORSES OF ACHILLES
Patroclus was a charioteer, the friend of Achilles,
And from one of those who were kinsmen by blood, being older in age.
Wearing all of the equipment of Achilles,
Mounting both the chariot and horses of that man,
As Achilles, Patroclus was crushing in pieces the army of the Trojans.
But happening to be recognized by them as not Achilles, but Patroclus,
Struck by Apollo himself, and secondly, by Euphorbus,
Thirdly, by Hector, he abandoned his life.
“Now the horses of Aeacides, being away from combat,
Were weeping (when first they learned of the reins-holder
Fallen in the dust by man-slaying Hector
On the ground), letting their heads fall, and for them, tears
That were hot flowed to the ground, down from the eyes of the snivelling horses,
With longing for the reins-holder, and their thick flowing hair was being stained,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.40  As it was streaming downwards from the junction beside the yoke for both of them.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.41  CONCERNING THE SHARED SYMPATHY OF ANIMALS
To tell of the shared sympathy of animals
To other animals, and to one another, what telling will suffice?
Speaking, therefore, very little and of things that are few in number,
We will abstain from the magnitude and from long-telling.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.45  (T119) CONCERNING THE MUTUAL LOVE OF JACKDAWS AND STARLINGS
Jackdaws love each other, and the whole genus of starlings ,
So, if you pour olive oil into some little dish,
By means of their own reflection, you will catch jackdaws,
Revealing other reflection-loving Laconian Narcissuses.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.49  (T120) CONCERNING CRANES AND GEESE
Cranes also love one another, travelling in flocks,
And, when winter comes, setting out towards Egypt,
Cranes make an acute triangular flight within these times,
So that in this way, they can cut through the air rather easily.
And they have both protectors and rear-leaders during their advances.
At any rate, whenever they are about to hasten away towards Egypt,
As they are coming towards the Hebrus, the Thracian river,
First, they flock together in rows and in troops,
And the crane older than all of those there
Hastening around in a rather circular manner and observing the army,
Falling straight down lies dead. Having buried him, the other cranes

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.60  Undertake the flight and passage towards Egypt,
Helping one another from eagles and the rest of the obstacles.
Even the genera of geese do entirely the same thing as them.
Now the cranes, beginning to make their passage,
Have the older crane serving as a pilot for them.
But when this crane grows quite weary at what hastens forward after him,
Even they, successively, in stages, make the forward flight.
But on land, flying down at the time of the evening,
The greater number goes to sleep, but a few protect them.
The manner of protecting for them is as such:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.70  The protectors within those times stand on one foot,
Each holding a stone with the suspended foot,
So that, if they drop asleep over it, and the stone has fallen,
They might come to wakefulness, having perception of it.
In this way, the protecting is for them, only in a reciprocal manner.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.75  (T121) CONCERNING DEER AND WOLVES
Even deer watch over a mutually loving sharing.
At any rate, when passing across water, setting their heads
One near to another, they swim. But when the guide is weary,
A different deer serves as a pilot after it, while the first acts as a rear-leader,
And then the rest, successively, marshalled together in rhythm.
But wolves, passing across the streams of rivers,
Hold the tails of one another by the mouth,
So that they might not be diverted by the eddies of water.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.83  (T122) CONCERNING ELEPHANTS
For other reasons, even elephants belong to the mutually loving,
Not wholly abandoning one another in the midst of misfortunes.
For when fleeing hunters, first they do not scatter,
But the strong and young ones move along in a circular manner,
Bringing within the circle elders and mothers,
And everyone unweaned, and the childish genus.
They give up food, in the first place, to the older elephants,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.90  When their own fathers are old, they feed them;
Passing across waters, the males thrust
The young to the upper area with their trunks;
The mothers carry those not yet weaned
Either with their trunks or their double teeth.
If ever they go through deep and hard to get out of ditches,
The one stronger and bigger in bigness than all of them,
Standing in the middle, just as a bridge, transports them all.
And they, then, bringing many branches to the ditch,
Rescue the elephant that was providing passage across.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.100  But when newborn elephants fall completely in the deep ditches…
Those falling perish together, killing the babies...
Even far from their fatherland, being carried by those lamenting.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.103  (T123) CONCERNING LIONS, EAGLES, DOLPHINS, WILD HERDS, STORKS, AND PELICANS
When they are old, lions, eagles, dolphins,
Wild herds, the kind of storks,
And pelicans, are fed by their own offspring,
Which also help them both in walking and in flying,
And in swimming, with regard to the fish-like, as, for instance, the dolphin and seal.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.108  (T124) CONCERNING MARES
Mares, having mercy for the orphans among the foals,
Suckle and feed them with their own.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.110  (T125) CONCERNING BEES
Bees are ruled by kings and are managed in an orderly manner.
Whenever their king will initiate flying,
Everyone follows in clusters, having obeyed him.
And while this bee is living, the hive is managed well,
But when he is dead, it hastens away, and is thoroughly confounded.
If, therefore, an old king exists for the hive of these bees,
Mounted on other bees, he is carried away.
But if the king is young and vigorous, he sends himself forth from the hive,
Ordering everyone to undertake their own jobs:
Some of them to carry water, and those ones to collect flowers,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.120  Another group to house build, and others to do other things.
First, they house build the kings’ houses,
Which are rising up over all with regard to both height and width.
Near the king, they make houses for the old bees,
And successively even the remaining homes, fitting together.
And when it is necessary for the king to leave these homes,
As an army they proceed, with both a booming and a clamour.
But when the time for sleep should call the king to fall asleep,
Some flautist re-echoes, and the hive keeps quiet.
For some, it is even the job to carry the dead out of the hive,
And to do other things held to belong to the noblest sympathy.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.131  (T126) CONCERNING LAND MICE, PARROTFISH, ANTHIAE, THE GLAUCUS, THE SEA DOG, THE DOGFISH, DOLPHINS, THE SEAL, THE LAND DOG, AND THE PIG
Even land mice have sympathy for one another.
For when one of them has fallen in the water, giving its tail,
Another of them pulls it up, and saves it from danger.
Even parrotfish do this when falling into traps.
And Anthiae, following anthiae that were seized
By hooks, make every attempt to cut the hook.
But if not strong enough to cut in because of the lack of strength of their teeth,
Lying on it, they weigh down the seized anthias,
So that, by both the surface pressure and their weight...

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.140  It might become far from the beast, with the hook cut.
The glaucus, the dog, and the dogfish, being sea fish,
When dread comes upon their offspring:
The glaucus and the dogfish hide together their offspring in the mouth,
But the dog hides its offspring in the belly again,
And again, births them when the fear passes by.
Now the dolphin and the seal, when their newborn are taken,
Are taken together with them and end their lives at the same time.
Even when mothers are taken, their newborns are seized.
And this happens even for wild herds.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.150  Now the land dog honours its first offspring.
And the first-born of a pig drinks from the first udder,
And successively even the rest, according to their own standing.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.153  (T127) CONCERNING ANIMALS BURYING ANIMALS OF THE SAME KIND
The dolphin, the elephant, the swallow, bees, and the ant, together,
Bury corpses when it pertains to the dead of the same genus as them.
Bears and mice with them, and with these even flies,
And the hawk throws dust even on an unburied person.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.157  (T128) CONCERNING THE DOG OF ERIGONE
They say that Erigone, a child of Icarius,
Had a very loyal dog, which was raised up with her.
But when Dionysus found wine for people,
As Icarius provided it to Athenian farmers,
These men, drinking it for the very first time and completely absorbed with drunkenness,
Killed Icarius since they thought he drugged them.
When, then, the child did not found her father upon seeking for him,
The dog pointed him out, as he was investigating for this girl;
When she died later, the dog died with her.
The earlier stories about animals are written
By Aelian and Oppian, together with Leonidas,
And with them, Timotheus, the grammarian of Gaza,
Who, in previous times, was coincident with king Anastasius.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.170  But this story of Icarius with Erigone
Was also written by Aelian, along with several others.
Even Orpheus mentions this story, writing in his Georgica:
“The starry girl is the best with regard to all things,
Even with regard to seeds, and favourable to plants, and in throwing
All shoots in ditches, and with regard to the fruits that they gather for themselves.
But avoid vines, since the daughter of Icarius
Before all hates vats and bitter vines,
Soliciting as many baneful things, by the will of Dionysus,
As the coastal people contrived, overpowered by dreadful drunkenness,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.180  Who slew her and Icarius with rough staffs,
Faltering by gifts of mad dancing Bacchus.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.182  (T129) CONCERNING THE DOG OF XANTHIPPUS
Attic Xanthippus, the father of Pericles,
Used to have a good and very useful dog, which was raised by him.
So when Xerxes was about to march against Athens,
The Attic men were ferrying little women, children,
And everything whatsoever that was very good, to Salamis.
Now at that time, there used to be sympathy that belonged to even tame animals,
Which both hastened on the sea with their masters,
And mooed mournfully with a very lamentable voice.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.190  At that time, even this above-mentioned dog of Xanthippus,
Seeing its mistress departed on the vessel,
And throwing himself on the water, was swimming nearby,
Until, after fainting from the length of the voyage, he dies.
Whom Xanthippus deemed worthy even of a burial there.
Now the painter from life, Polygnotus or Micon, painted this
In the Stoa Poikile due to kind-heartedness.
Aelian and Plutarch, along with others, write this.
Even Asclepiades speaks in this way, word by word, telling
“What they call a tomb of even a dog that was ill fated.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.200  (T130) CONCERNING THE DOG OF SILANION THE ROMAN
The little letter has the entire story,
It does not have the name of Silanion written.
The paragraph is written as follows:
“Both the dog of Xanthippus and that of some Roman
A man who was a great general, someone who fell in batle
Was lying as a corpse, for dogs, beasts, and birds.
Only his dog, being more loyal than all,
Endured for many days, protecting the man,
And hiding the disgrace of that hero,
Until the generals of the Romans, coming later,
Lifting up the man and covered him in his ancestral tomb.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.211  (T131) CONCERNING THE DOG OF PYRRHUS THE EPIROTAN AND OF ANOTHER SIMILAR
The king Pyrrhus the Epirotan once found
A corpse lying unburied and a dog standing beside it.
And at once, he ordered the person to be buried,
But taking the dog, he kept it in the palace,
As it was kind and gentle to all people.
But when the dog at some time saw counted in the rosters
The person who killed its master,
He did not stop barking and scratching at this man,
Until Pyrrhus, in his investigations, learned all that he could,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.220  And punished this man with crucifixion.
Some chronicler writes that something very similar,
Happened a few years before us.
Some rogue, he says, who buried a corpse;
The affair was brought to the city prefect.
After a revelation by a dog,
The perpetrator was crucified and died.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.227  [T132?] Since we mentioned dogs affectionate to people,
Now of Calvus, Anacreon, Eupolis, Darius,
And Lysimachus with them, and the hunter Nicias,
And the Athenian bitch, and the cowherd Daphnis,
And the rest: let us say all things to you most clearly.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.232  Of Calvus, a general of the Romans, slain in civil war
No one was able to cut off his head
Until they killed his dog, which was standing beside him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.235  For Teian Anacreon, going to Teos
With a household-slave and a dog to buy necessities,
When the household-slave left the road to relieve himself,
The little dog accompanied him there,
But when, indeed, gripped by forgetfulness, he left the purse,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.240  The little dog sat down and started to protect it.
And when the people returned to the same place from Teos, unsuccessfully,
The little dog got off the purse,
And having revealed the entrusted item, he at once expired,
Since he had stayed there many days without food.
Augeias, a Molossian hound, belonged to Eupolis.
He killed with his bite Ephialtes, a slave of Eupolis,
Whom he saw stealing its master’s plays.
This dog, later, in Aegina, when Eupolis was dead,
Died from longing for that man, waiting there without food.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.250  For Darius the Later, killed by Bessus,
A dog like that of Silanion stayed beside the tomb.
And a dog died with Lysimachus the king.
Now when Nicias fell into an charcoal kiln,
His dogs first stood and howled;
But when no one understood the matter from the howling,
Gently biting those present by their clothes,
The dogs dragged them to the kiln, thereby revealing the calamity.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.258  A bitch in Athens once revealed temple-robbers,
Going, with its barking, as far as the looters’ house,
Which dog they voted be fed at public expense.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.261  With Daphnis, a cowherd of Syracuse,
Five dogs died together, after crying first.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.263  Now for Polus, a tragic actor, very ancient,
And Mentor, their dog was cremated together with them .
And his dog was buried together with Theodorus, the pre-eminent harpist.
Gelon the Syracusan, was shouting during his sleep
(For he thought, in his dreams, that he was struck by lightning),
His dog perceived how extremely upset he was,
And did not stop barking until it awakened him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.270  Once a wolf saved this man from death.
For, when he was sitting against a school while still a boy,
A wolf, coming to him, took away his writing-tablet.
But as he ran towards the wolf himself and the writing-tablet,
The school, shaken by earthquake, collapsed to its foundations,
And killed all of the children with the teacher.
The prose writers proclaim the number of the children
(Timaeus, Dionysius, the Diodoruses, and Dio),
As more than one hundred. But I do not know the precise figure.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.279  (T133) CONCERNING THE DOGS WHO SAVED ORPHEUS
Orpheus, the son of Menippe and Oeagrus, his father,
Still a youth and desiring to hunt birds,
Went to a mountain ridge, were there was a large serpent.
Then, as Orpheus was focused on hunting birds,
The serpent attacked him, wrapping him its many coils.
Now his dogs, being tame, came running at his shout,
Attacked the beast, and killed it,
They rescued Orpheus because of their affection towards him,
As Orpheus himself, in the Lithica, somewhere writes this.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.288  (T134) CONCERNING EAGLES THAT DIED TOGETHER WITH THEIR MASTERS
Phylarchus tells how a young man, catching an eagle,
Raised it, and the eagle was accustomed to stay beside him,
So that even once, when the young man was sick, the eagle treated him,
And skilfully tended to the sick man, with very intense eagerness;
But when the young man died and was carried to a pyre,
The eagle was following along with the bringing out of his body.
And when the young man was cremated by fire, even the eagle was cremated with him.
Now an eagle, raised with even a woman, dies with her,
Abstaining from food because of longing for her and ending its life in that way.
Even for Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, there was
An eagle similar to the eagles mentioned above, though this one rejoiced in hearing
If ever some Pyrrhus the Epirote should address it.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.300  Even this eagle, when Pyrrhus is dead, dies with him
From an abstention from food and from hunger, and because of longing for that man.
Some eagle rescued even a reaper from death,
Because the reaper himself kept it safe from a serpent,
Cutting up the coil of the beast with his scythe.
Indeed, for of the reapers there, being sixteen in number,
This reaper, sent to draw water, when he brought the water,
Mixing it from an earthen jar for all, was distributing the wine.
But when, after mixing it, even he himself was about to drink this,
That eagle, flying down with a whistling sound, broke his cup into pieces,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.310  After it saw a snake vomit, as it seems, in the vessel.
But the reaper, turning as if vexed at the eagle’s compensation,
After he saw the other people dying, understood the cause.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.313  (T135) CONCERNING SERPENTS LOVING AND PAYING COMPENSATION
The little letter has the story of a serpent,
Written in these words:
“Some boy in Patrae, having bought a small serpent
Raised it; which, when it became very large, ran away.
But when, at some time, the young man was seized by robbers,
And shouted out, the serpent leapt forth against the plunderers,
Whom it even turns to flight, and saves the young man.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.320  Now this same thing happened to an Arcadian lad.
And in the land of the Judeans, during the times of Herod,
A serpent, very, very large, was sleeping with a girl.
And when she was abroad, the serpent went away, looking for her continually
Until it found her, in this way being affectionate beyond measure.
Even some young hunting Thessalian, Aleuas,
Who had hair in the bloom of youth, and was himself in the bloom of youth even in form,
A very large serpent was in love with; it used to kiss both Aleuas,
And his very beautiful gold coloured hair.
And a serpent was an avenger for Pindus, who was slaughtered by his brothers.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.330  Now learn who Pindus was and from what family origin he sprung:
Lycaon was a king of Emathia,
Whose son, with respect to the calling, was Macedon (from whom Macedonia got its name).
Pindus, a son of Macedon, was in the bloom of youth and high-minded,
And a consummate hunter, always hunting in thickets.
Where, indeed, some serpent was in love with his manliness and beauty.
When, then, three brothers of this man killed him with a sword,
The serpent, in recompense, killed them in return.
The mountain, from the calling of Macedon’s son, was named Pindus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.339  Horned snakes even distinguish children of the Libyans,
Whether they are of spurious parentage or of pure descent,
Just as the Rhine does for the children of the Celts, and the touchstone does for gold,
And the sparkling of the sun does for the chicks of eagles.
Even newborns among crocodiles are distinguished by hunting (right at once,
Either a fly or even a locust) at once, upon being born.
For of the Libyans, a particular Libyan, who are called Psylli,
If ever they are under suspicion about the work resulting in children,
They close in a little box horned snakes and the baby.
If, then, it is of pure descent, it is watched over untouched;
But if it is of an adulterous bed and a licentious couch,
It knows the torturous destruction of their teeth.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.351  (T136) CONCERNING THE TREES OF GERYON
Geryon was a king of Erytheia,
As we wrote previously with the labours of Heracles,
Who raised great herds of splendid cows.
When, shooting him with his bow, Heracles killed that man,
Two blooming trees, sprouting well, planted
With his blood, are dropping down around his tomb.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.357  (T137) CONCERNING THE POPLARS OF PHAETHON
For Helios, diverse are both the wives and children:
From Perse the daughter of Oceanus: Aeetes and Circe;
From Clymene daughter of Oceanus: Phaethon. But not this Phaethon.
And from Rhodos the daughter of Poseidon: Cercaphus and Triopes;
And Augeas from Iphiboe; from Crete, Pasiphae;
From Neaera, Phaethusa together with Lampetia;
And from Prote, the daughter of Neleus: Phaethon and the Heliades,
Five beautiful daughters, whose names you will learn:
Aegle, Lampetie, Phaethusa in addition,
Hemithea with them, together with Dioxippe.
The mythographers, then, say that this Phaethon,
Taking his father’s vehicle, wanted to drive the chariot.
But being ineffective with horses and inexperienced in chariot-driving,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.370  He was thrown from the chariot and died in the streams of Eridanus.
Now his sisters, the Heliades, lamenting,
Became poplars at the edge of Eridanus.
But their tears turned into amber,
Which flows from poplars even up until this time.
Now this nonsense are the words of mythographers;
Something more allegorical, more in the manner of an orator,
In this way, must be understood by you clearly and more factually.
Phaethon, some son of King Helios, driving the chariot,
Was drawn into the said river annd drowned.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.380  And his female relatives mourned for him passionately.
But since amber-bearing trees are present there,
They fabricated the story that his sisters became poplars,
And that their tears flow forth as amber.
These facts, stated more in the manner of an orator, in this way, were allegorical.
But Plutarch has solved it in this way, more naturally:
Writing that a sphere of fire was hurled down upon the Celtic country,
And, having fallen, was quenched in the streams of Eridanus.
How great the swarm of foreign people who mention the story!

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.389  (T138) CONCERNING THE BRONZE COWS IN MOUNT ATABYRIUM
The little letter writes even about these, a follows:
“And why do I tell you about plants? There is a Rhodian mountain
Called Atabyrium, that used to have bronze cows.
Which sent out a mooing when harm was coming to Rhodes.”
Pindar and Callimachus write the story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.393  (T139) CONCERNING THE COMMOTION OF THE TOMBS OF CADMUS AND HARMONIA
The little letter writes even this, telling in this way,
“Now for the Illyrians, the tombs of Cadmus and Harmonia
(When some evil and harm arises for the Illyrians)
Used to rattle together a clatter, rolling about with one another,
As if they were feeling pain at the misfortunes and harms.”
Dionysius writes this story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.400  (T140) CONCERNING MAGNESIA, CHRYSOPOLIS AND THE REST
Magnessa, a stone that is black, heavy, very jagged,
Profitable, advantageous, and very, very useful...
Orpheus, in the Lithica, wrote about its powers,
And with him even many other reasonable people.
This stone draws iron back to itself,
As gold does for quicksilver, and amber for chaff.
If, then, you should wish for magnesia not to draw back iron,
Anoint it by rubbing garlic. But if you wish it to draw again,
Rub it with filings of the desired iron.
But when wanting gold to oxidize, anoint it with the saliva of a dog;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.410  To purify it of the oxidation again, rub it with gold dust.
These are the facts about magnetes and of things of such a sort.
Now they call a certain kind of grass chrysopolis;
When pure gold is scattered on the leaves,
Chrysopolis receives it and is stained, deeply dyed.
But if the gold is counterfeit, the leaves do not absorb it.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.416  (T141) CONCERNING NIOBE, TURNED TO ROCK IN SIPYLUS
Niobe, a child of Tantalus and Euryanassa,
Moreover, the wife of Amphion, and a mother with twelve children,
Just as Homer says, but according to others, a mother of more;
Indeed, for some say that they are fourteen in number:
Sipylus, Agenor, Phaedimus, Ismenus,
Eupinytus, Tantalus, Damasichthon,
Neaera, and Cleodoxa with Astyoche,
Phaetha, Pelopia, Ogyges, and Chloris...
Leto, resenting Niobe (since Niobe was exulting in her children,
And was contending with Leto about being blessed in childbearing),
Gives orders to Apollo and Artemis, her own children,
And they slaughter all of them on the same day:
Apollo with regard to the males, who were hunting on Cithaeron,
And Artemis with regard to the girls, who were sitting down in a house.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.430  But Zeus, then, made into stones all of the people.
And unburied, they were lying down for nine days;
Whom the gods buried on the tenth day.
And Niobe, also turned to stone, was lamenting over them.
These refinements are little myths. But the truth is such:
Niobe was living daintily, was boasting because of her children,
Was thinking she was loftier than and superior to the ether,
Was comparing both herself and her children to the sky,
And was assigning the superiority to both herself and her children,
Saying these things to herself and striding with delusion:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.440  “The sky possesses two large lights,
But I possess so many who are living, chatting, and animated;
Am I not superior to the sky and ether?”
Now the ill-fated woman says such things, living daintily because of her children.
But some avenging fate marches against her,
And on the same day, all of her children die from a plague.
Now they were saying that Apollo and Artemis killed them.
For these things depend on the sun and the moon.
For plague-like things take place from heat and moisture.
Now they said that Niobe was a stone in tears,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.450  Because, being without feeling as a result of every suffering,
She was feeling very keenly, but for tear-shedding only.
And you will regard, in my way, the people at that time as stones
(Those said to be turned into stone by the misfortune taking place at that time)
Whether, in any event, both inhuman and hard-hearted,
They neither ran up to the dead bodies, nor took care of them.
Now gods, that is, kings, buried them on the tenth day:
Whether since even kings attend to suffering,
Or you should regard people, since they are hard, as my stones,
Regard my gods at that time as the elements,
Burying the children of Niobe in such a manner:
Earthquakes, thunder, and breaking of the sea that have happened,
Persuaded unbending people to bury the dead.
Now some say that Niobe was of stone in tears:
Stone was carved with skill, so that it supposedly shed tears.
This is even more than my purposes.
But those people are saying that the stone is contrived.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.467  (TE1) Receive the little letter after the stories.
AN EPISTLE TO SIR JOHN LACHANAS, GRAMMARIAN, UNDER-ARCHON OF THE ZABAREION
(Now this letter partakes of three forms of rhetoric.
The juridical form, which reproaches him; the consultative, which gives advice; and the panegyrical form, which both praises and blames.)

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.472  To Lachanas the Zabareian: for indeed, on these things you pride yourself
As Croesus for his treasures, and Midas for his gold;
As Gyges by turning his ring again;
As Codrus, Megacles, and Alcmaeon for their lineage;
As the Boreads for their hair (Euphorbus likewise);
As Narcissus, Nireus, and Hyacinth for beauty;
As Orpheus for music, Amphion for the lyre,
The Sirens for singing; for pipes, Marsyas;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.480  For singing to the cithara, Terpander, and Arion even more;
For the golden lamb, Atreus; for the cow, Minos;
For the hunting-dog Cephalus;
For horse-rearing, the Athenians Megacles and Cimon,
Who buried their horses after they died,
Since alone among horses they were victorious three times in the Olympic games;
As Aristopatira for Olympic victories,
Simonides for fifty-five victories,
Stesichorus for songs; for hymns Tyrtaeus;
For the battle at Cannae, general Hannibal;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.490  For Bucephalus, Alexander the Great;
Having purchased it for thirteen talents,
Thessalian Philonicus gave it to Philip;
Or like Antisthenes the Sybarite
Who took great pride in his himation,
Which was valued on the far side of one hundred talents;
Or Darius, who crossed the Halys without getting wet
By the devices of wise Thales, with a crescent-shaped ditch,
And our Bosporus, bridged by the help of Mandrocles;
Or the son of Darius, Xerxes, who boasted

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.500  By a deep canal, of making Athos an island,
And dry-landing the Hellespont by a double bridge-work;
Or Cleopatra, making Pharos a peninsula
With the help of Dexiphanes, the wise man who started out from Cnidus;
Or Trajan, bridging the Ister with marble
With the clever architect Apollodorus;
Or that old wise Archimedes,
Who burned with mirror-devices the vessels of Marcellus;
Or, for strength, Heracles, Sampson, and Polydamas.
This Skotoussaean athlete greatly prided himself,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.510  On destroying lions with his bare hands as if they were lambs,
And on foot being victorious over swift-running chariots,
And propping up with his hand a cave that was collapsing.
I am leaving out Milo and Aegon, together with Damaxenus;
And Iphiclus proud of his speed,
Running above the wheat-stalks, and not breaking the ears;
And Euphemus, walking on the sea,
Like a way-faring farmer, walking across the land;
And in the past, again, exulting in their transformations,
Proteus, Periclymenus, Thetis and Mestra;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.520  And, by both dying and living, Castor, Polydeuces,
Aethalides (the son of Hermes), also Aristeas
(Aristeas the wise, son of Caystrobius),
Along with Theseus, Protesilaus, Alcestis, and Eurydice;
And by stopping rain storms and droughts, and by foreknowing all things,
Thales and Pythagoras, along with Anaxagoras;
And Empedocles, son of Meliton, the wind-stopper;
And Laius, halting the plague in the times of Antiochus,
Apollonius, who said things it would take me too long to report;
And before them, Democritus, that all-learned one,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.530  Who with only the heated exhalations of bread,
For three days entertained Hades, feeding him with this;
Or the Babylonian son of Artabazes...
That haughty Tritaechmes who prided himself
On extravagant stock-rearing, and in money income .
For he had grazing horses, apart from all of the other animals,
Counted at sixteen thousand,
Eight hundred stallions apart from the war-horses,
Dogs four villages could barely keep fed,
The daily income from the rest of the villages

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.540  Filling a whole artabas full of golden coins.
If you should wish, compare the Erichthoniuses to him,
And Job, rank him somewhere much lower;
And place the Lydian Pythius more than Job.
And rather than Erichthonius, rank him with Tritaechmes;
For this Pythius previously gave to Darius
Both a vine and a plane tree, both of gold;
And latterly hosted Xerxes with his whole army;
Donating two thousand talents of silver,
And of stamped gold coins,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.550  Four hundred myriads minus seven thousand.
So if all these people vaunted themselves in the ways I said),
Chosroes for the artificial sky;
Ptolemy, as king of infinite cities;
Gaius Julius, as far as Britannia
Advancing the boundaries of Rome; and that Sesostris,
For being called world-ruling god by the Assyrians.
So that, telling even the rest, I do not make length of telling...
I suppose that you, exulting in your Lachanas-name,
And for being validated in the register of the Zabareion)

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.560  Judge us unworthy of a written greeting,
Although by this you are in no way harming free people,
People wealthy-in-soul, if poor in things,
Who consider everything human as empty words:
Thrones, states, office, precedence.
For as Cato reared his son in all things,
So my father raised us in words, deeds,
And all things moderately and decently,
Teaching me to despise, rather more than the rest,
Wealth, delusions, office, and precedence.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.570  For when my fifteenth year was running near,
Watching the newness and unsteadiness of my age,
He put me on the couch with him, exhorting me in everything needed,
In the same way as Cato to his son, Solon to Croesus,
And the physician Theodorus to that Chaganus,
Telling how Sesostris yoked the kings,
And how one king, eyeing the tracks made by the wheels, saying “I am not running,”
Made that great Sesostris moderate.
About those men, my father used to advise always at night,
Telling to me the people's beginnings, and the reversals of their lives,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.580  Hecuba, Polymestor, Ajax, the rest of them,
Gelimer, Belisarius, and as many men of old;
Even showing, from new things, how many men, always with frequency,
Previously had property, as he used to say, that was great,
But then, were carrying vessels and doing other paltry things.
Showing these men to me, he ordered me to see life such as it is,
Not to see life according to the Egyptians, from a wooden corpse,
Nor, to see life according to the Laconians, making household-slaves drunk;
And forming myths, he was telling them so that they contributed to this.
In this way, every night, at that time, was advice for me,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.590  But by day was the teacher of lessons
With moderate blows, and more for one being undisciplined.
And practically, he was filling, then, the advices for me.
For whenever there was need for a bath,
He would order the slaves to put the bedclothes-sack
On the farthest couch, and for the rest of the people to run by,
Although our bathing room happened to be near...
I am leaving aside telling all of the rest of his rearing methods.
Reared, in the way that I was saying, so that by no means do I suppose your life is good,
I do not, in any degree, feel pain at your lack of conversation.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.600  But I am distressed as I look down upon you harming yourself exceedingly.
Indeed, for you are eager to be supposedly more barbaric than barbarians,
More unreasoning than the unreasoning, though being valued by reason,
More without perception than those... those without perception,
By not being mindful, never at all, of the bonds of friendship.
For Darius, the barbarian, going to Babylon
Being a shield-bearer, not a king, in those times,
And receiving from Syloson a gift, a flame coloured upper-garment,
When afterwards, he was in possession of the kingdom,
The barbarian Darius was not unmindful of the gift.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.610  But after an investigation, he makes Syloson the king of Samos,
Saying, “Darius is never unmindful of favours.”
I am leaving alone the act of telling of Belesys himself, Arsaces,
And as much as Xerxes did concerning Histiaeus;
Democedes the physician and Darius I am leaving alone,
By how many gifts, exceedingly beyond measure, he compensated him.
I am leaving alone good Cyrus (the one in Xenophon),
Abradatas the general, and all of the other barbarians,
The very ones who remembered thanks for a good deed.
I am changing the telling to the natures of the unreasoning.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.620  Osymandyas, the great king of the Syrians,
Used to have a wild lion, a comrade in wars,
Because Osymandyas raised him, he was mindful of the favour.
Ptolemy used to have a snake, thirty-five fore-arms long,
Submitting to the words and the voice of that man.
Now another king, in turn, used to have the largest dog,
That once tore apart that man’s bed-partner,
While she was playing with the king, considering her an enemy.
And Artybius the Persian, having brought up the horse,
Used to have it both waging war with him and helping him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.630  But when Artybius sailed away to Cyprus
And waged combat with Cyprian Onesilus,
As Artybius fell before Onesilus,
The horse, seeing his master fallen,
Standing straight up began to engage in combat with Onesilus;
And striking the man’s shield with his front feet,
He almost would have killed the king of Cyprus,
If the shield-bearers did not cut his feet with scythes.
You have learned from Oppian about the longing of the dolphin
For the Aeolian youth, for the Libyan herdsman,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.640  And, I was telling, in turn, for Arion the Methymnaean.
You know about the wailing of the horses of Achilles,
That were bewailing Patroclus, fallen in combat.
Now the shared sympathy of animals for one another
I am both leaving alone telling how it is unsound, and I am running by it.
You know the longing of the dog of Erigone, I think,
Of the dog of Xanthippus and that of some Roman,
(A man who was a great general, someone who, fallen in battle
Was lying a corpse for dogs, beasts, and birds)...
For the whole army of the Romans had turned to flight,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.650  Only his dog, being more loyal than all,
Enduring many days, protected the man,
And was concealing the dishonour of that hero,
Until the generals of the Romans, coming later,
Took up the man and buried him in his ancestral tomb.
Another man, again, travelling with a dog,
A very few years before our time,
Was killed by a brigand. But the dog stayed by him,
Until some salesman from the city buried him.
The dog moved with this salesman to the city.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.660  Now being with him at the inn, the dog was tame to all,
Appeasing and fawning upon all people.
But when the bloodstained murderer came to the inn,
The dog, like a person, inspired with just outrage,
He was bringing upon him both implacable barking and biting,
Until the innkeeper himself and all of those present,
Marveling, questioned him with reliable torture.
Learning that he was the man's murderer,
They brought the noble dog to the City Prefect
And that accursed man died of crucifiction.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.670  I skip over the dogs that rescued Orpheus
And killed the serpent proceeding against him.
I omit the dogs that rescued me many times
From my father’s blows and battle with other children,
Who joined once in battle against a Venetian [partisan of the Blue faction],
For my sake, and fell with him from the skylight.
I don't mention the eagle that mourned a youth
And that was cremated with him in the deadly fire.
I omit all these cases, obvious to all,
From which we always regard the unreasoning animals beside us.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.680  Some boy in Patrae, having bought a small serpent
Raised it; after it became very large, it escaped.
But when the young man was seized by brigands,
When he shouted out, the serpent leapt forth against the brigands;
Whom it turned to flight, and saved the young man.
So do not yourself outdo even a serpent in lack of affection.
And why do I tell about animated things? The trees of Geryon
The man who was killed by Heracles,
From the blood, drooping down around his tomb.
I omit describing the poplars of Phaethon
Pouring amber-bearing tears in the Eridanus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.691  There was previously, a fig-tree beside us, well-fruited;
Which had acquired the name, Fig-tree of the accountant;
For only that man used to eat from it,
And I a few, through covert theft.
When that accountant suddenly died,
At once, that very day, the plant grew cold,
Letting its leaves hang down trembling and shrivelled,
And all of us were amazed at what happened.
But we marveled more learning the whole episode:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.700  It split apart the next day, from crown to root,
And utterly withered, a wonder new and strange.
I swear by the truth, the bright-light light-bringer,
That I have been false neither in other serious things, nor in this.
And why do I speak of plants? There is a Rhodian mountain
Atabyrion its name, that once had bronze cows.
That emitted mooing when harm approached Rhodes.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.708  Now for the Illyrians, the tombs of Cadmus and Harmonia
(When some evil and harm arises for the Illyrians)
Used to rattle together a clatter, rolling about with one another,
As if they were feeling pain at the misfortunes and harms.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.711  And why do I teach you about these small and narrow things?
Also magnetite, how it loves iron in friendship?
And the plant chrysopolis, loving pure gold?
And the rest of the rest, so that I do not write in vain:
Both Niobe, who was turned to rock, and the monument of Memnon.
You have such extraordinary things, happening with frequency,
As, among landmarks, we eye monuments that are falling down,
Thrones, couches, and the rest of the things that are broken by accident.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.720  So lest you seem to me more lacking in affection than even these,
Nor falsely-exulting in some small glory life,
So be affectionate with everyone, well-spoken to everyone,
Humble, gentle, and wholly full of friendship,
Even if you should be winged like Daedalus, like Icarus,
And aspire to touch heaven’s rim with your hands.
Indeed, what is the small glory of a wretched life?
Indeed, even if someone avoids the riptide of fortune,
Still, the innkeeper Death, destroys all things,
And hides them in the depth of oblivion and amnesia,
Only a lifetime of friendship protects virtues.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.730  Timotheus, that general, used to be fortunate,
Over-wealthy and over-luxurious, afterwards poor and hungry.
And Bellerophon was raised to the sky by Pegasus,
Later, the Aleion plain held the blind man.
Dionysius was a tyrant of Syracuse, later a scribe.
Perseus was previously for you a king, then for me a captive.
There are also Phyton, Psammitichus, Croesus, Gelias,
And over-wealthy Timon, later a ditch-digger.
Moderate Ajax was understanding, but later out of his senses.
Thersites, previously intact, was later a corpse, a laugh.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.740  Tullius Servius, a tattooed household-slave,
Was later a king of Rome. O the turns of fortune!
Hannibal, the great general of the whole of Carthage,
Victorious over the generals Paulus and Terentius,
Then cutting down the Roman race,
But later an escapee, dead from drinking poison.
Before Hannibal, there was also Themistocles, drinking bull’s blood.
Eumenes was a wagoner, but was greatly glorified.
Demetrius Phalereus, great and honoured,
But later, in Corinth, an honorless secretary.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.750  Why do I chat to you about the majority of things, things of those who are rather ancient?
Belisarius was blinded after his generalship.
Holding a wooden drinking cup, he used to shout at the Milestone,
“Give an obol to field-marshall Belisarius,
Whom Fortune glorified, but envy blinded.”
In this way, the entirety of the life of people is being turned aside,
Rolling up and down, like a sphere, unstably,
And if it should not have a change issuing from unstable fortune,
Well, in any event, through death it goes down to nothing later.
For where is Alexander, that Macedonian,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.760  Who previously led into slavery the entire land of the barbarians?
And where is good Scipio, where is Gaius Caesar?
Where is the ruler of the world Sesostris, the king yoking kings,
Even being drawn from them, just as other men are drawn by horses?
Where is renowned Babylon? And where, even, is the city of Troy?
Where now, are the formerly wise? Where is the ancient beauty?
And where is the might of Perseus, where is the speed of Heracles?
Where is the sensibility of Palamedes? Where are all ancient things?
All things together are cold dust, ashes, and decay.
Wherefore, there is need for those being moderate to be sensitive of things pertaining to people,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.770  And neither to exult in the cold vanities of life,
Nor to ignobly wail from the losses of things,
But there is need for them to consider everything smoke, to be measured in all things,
To lament for those, both known and strangers, who are dying,
And often to say the Pindaric line to themselves:
“So what is someone? And what is not someone? A person is a dream of a shadow.”
The poor man and rich, we are all dying together;
But this thing I said to you, a fitting reproach,
And advocating what is suitable, repressing vanity,
With words possibly astringent, but beneficial.
But now, with witticisms, let me drive away sullenness.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.781  OF THE SAME JOHN TZETZES, OTHER STORIES AND HISTORICAL WORDS OF THIS LETTER
Stories (of other letters of ours, and of telling),
And phrases (but newer, of course, than stories),
Anyone who wishes may hear in a very clear arrangement.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.784  (TE1.1 E1) [from letter 1] HISTORICAL WORD A: CONCERNING EPIPHYLLIS
Epiphyllis (On-a-leaf) is a very small cluster
That is able to conceal itself on a chance leaf.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.786  (TE1.2) CONCERNING BEKESELENOI
The Bekeselenoi being one history
Two exist and learn for me subtly and precisely.
Psammitichus, that king of the Egyptians
(As Phrygians and Egyptians were once being judged
Concerning antiquity, something hard to document,
Who first came into existence, the Egyptians or Phrygians),
Decided most cleverly; and learn the decision.
Taking two little babies straightaway at birth,
And taking every care for them,
He gave them over to trustworthy bodyguards to guard,
Urging the mothers to suckle them
Voicelessly, with all of their attention, and urging them on to withdraw gradually,
And even to lock the babies’ room at once.
In this way, then, it was being done. And after the third year,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.800  When the bodyguards of the king came,
The little babies run forward and were demanding bekos from them.
Upon learning this, the king, after assembling the entire people,
Asked if, amid anyone, “Is bekos anything?”
Learning that bread was called bekos amid Phrygians,
He decided that Phrygians were more ancient than everyone,
Since the babies spoke a language without instruction and by nature.
This is the half of this story,
Of the Phrygians and Egyptians, but the other is of Arcadians;
Upon hearing it from me, write it now in the tablets of your sense.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.810  Some say, as I was saying, that the races of the Arcadians
Are more first-born, in reference to times, than the moon,
Wherefore, as if, of course, the Arcadians are senseless, they call them “before the moon.”
But others, as if the Arcadians are insolent, they call them “before the moon.”
For “to treat with insolence” is called “to be before the moon” by the Arcadians.
But I count these men among those before the moon,
Since the first to discover the cycles of the moon
And the waxing and waning it undergoes during the month,
Was Hermes, great among the Hellenes, of the Arcadians by birth;
And because, always the first day of the new moon,
They roasted acorns on the fire and ate them.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.821  You have the whole story of the Bekeselenoi people,
A story simple and twofold, and a type of proverb,
Being told in a well-aimed manner to the senseless and foolish.
But since, just now, I spoke to you of Hermes, great among the Hellenes,
So that you do not consider him the one called Trismegistos,
Hear everything and learn clearly and precisely:
Egyptian Hermes is called Trismegistos,
Who, being contemporary with Osiris, Noah, and Dionysus,
Discovered both reverence for god and types of letters,
And adorned life with all arts and crafts.
But the Arcadian, around two thousand years later,
Discovered many things in use among the Greeks.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.833  (TE1.3) CONCERNING THE BLITOMAMMAN
Previously, they used to call all fools blitomammans,
From blitos, a worthless plant;
And mamman, which is how babies say bread.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.836  (TE1.4) CONCERNING MELITIDES AND OTHER FOOLS
The fools of old were countless in number,
But three exceeded all the rest (incomparably),
Melitides, Coroebus, and with them, Margites.
Of these, Melitides, yoked in a lawful marriage,
Since he was not going to bed with his wife,
Was being questioned by some, why he didn't have union with her.
“Do you think me a fool, that I would do this,
And be dragged into a lawsuit by her mother?”
Such a man was sensible Melitides.
Now Coroebus used to count the hollows of the waves.
But as a clever counter, he used to count up to three,
Losing count, as though it were a great quantity,
He would make another beginning, wisely counting out,
“One, two, three,” he used to say, throughout the day.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.850  Just as the son of the Country-folk, that most-wise man,
The one who on account of the the tax-collectors abuses),
Wanting to have a helper, they brought him to Constantinople,
So that he could be taught to speak against the abuse of the tax-collectors.
Now being extremely clever, by giving a quantity of money,
He learned A and B, and even C;
His fellow tribesmen received him in honor,
And brought him back to their fatherland and country;
As clever refutation of tax-collectors' harshness.
When the tax collector said many and various things,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.860  He being loud-voiced even for a barbarian,
Kept crying out, “Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.”
The buffalos mooed, delighting in that man,
Our man interrupts him with wise words.
As this man knew alpha, beta, gamma,
So Coroebus used to count one, two, and three,
And made another beginning of the counting.
You have my Coroebus. Now hear about Margites,
About whom old Homer wrote heroic-iambs.
This man, being old and sensible (truly mind and senses),
Asked who had been pregnant with him as a baby,
And gave birth to him, his father or his mother?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.872  (TE1.5) CONCERNING MAMMAKYTHOS
Mammakythos (blockhead) means the same as blitomamman,
Or your infant, who hides together both teat and bread;
For, clearly, “Infant, you must hide your mamman.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.875  (TE1.6) CONCERNING ACCO
Acco was a foolish woman who, holding a mirror
And seeing the refection of herself in the mirror,
Supposing it was another woman, addressed it in a friendly manner.
But why do I tell you about Acco? A few days previously,
Some attendant at the house of Cotertzes Pantechnes,
Saw a large mirror and, suddenly, his own reflection,
And shouted to it: “Did you see my lord?”
And needing to run off to the toilet,
He tried to give his master's cape to that reflection.
Since it didn't answer, he said, “you are conceited,
Since you do not even answer me.” A number of people was this,
And said to this man, “What are you doing?” They are still laughing even now.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.887  (TE1.7) CONCERNING GRY
Gry is the dirt of the fingernail and the voice of the pig.
And gryte is a small vessel made of clay,
Like the small crucibles of goldsmiths,
And the drinking-troughs of goldfinches.
So then, gry wants to mean anything very small.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.892  (TE1.8) CONCERNING THE COMPANIONSHIP OF PIRITHOUS WITH THESEUS
Ixion’s son Pirithous (being the leader over the Lapiths,
Being prominent with manliness, youth, and might),
When he heard the babbling of the words of Theseus
(Wanting to receive an experience of the excellence of Theseus’ might),
Drove away Theseusoxen that were feeding themselves at Marathon.
Now Theseus, hearing of and not enduring this, at once
Has mounted his horse and is driving against him.
But as the one observed the other, astounded,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.900  They throw their arms around one another and become among those who are most friendly,
When Pirithous said that this was made into a starting-point
Of a friendship and of a very great acquaintance.
“For there was need for us, being such, even to be friends.
But respecting the driving away of oxen: punishment, whatever you should say,
I am ready to receive, unless, in a manner of friendship,
You consider this thing from me to have been well contrived.”
Now in this way, from out of such a manner, they were joined together,
So that even to Hades they both went down, on account of Kore,
So that they might seize her (since Theseus loves her,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.910  And Hades has power over the Molossians), being a girl in the bloom of youth.
Hades, who has held them down, already binds Theseus,
And takes out Pirithous through Cerberus, a very large dog,
Since he knows that that man is also a seizer of his daughter,
But Theseus is a collaborator in a friendly manner.
Later, going to this Hades as a friend, Heracles
Delivers Theseus from the enclosure and the bonds.
You know, now, the allegory of Hades, of Kore,
And of Theseus’ bringing back of the dog Cerberus.
Now Demeter’s girl, whom Hades seized,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.920  Is another allegory, and I said it is in Hesiod.
But telling even who says each story,
Among both popular and common writers (unless, perhaps, among the rare writers),
Both uses up my pages and makes more fatigue.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.924  (TE1.9) CONCERNING THE SENDING AWAY OF ANACHARSIS, A FRIEND OF BOUNTIFUL SOLON
Scythian Anacharsis, one of the wise,
Went to the house of Solon in Athens,
And asked Solon to make a friendship with him.
But Solon sent him away saying:
“Make your friends on going to your homeland;”
Anacharsis said: “So you, O Solon,
Being in your homeland, make friendship with me.”
And Solon admired this and accordingly becomes a friend to this man.
Plutarch writes the story in his Parallel Lives.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.933  [TE1.10] Topos 10 in this series is missing.]

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.933  (TE1.11) CONCERNING THE CUMAEAN ASS
In Cumae, an ass, larger than other asses,
Put on the skin of a lion and was causing great fear.
But when its voice showed the cowardly ass to all,
It is brought, being chopped up by both clubs and sticks,
As if into a slavery proper for lion-like asses.
Just as, somewhere, Aesop writes in his fables of a weasel,
Who asked the gods to be changed into a woman;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.940  And that, as a bride sitting in her bridal chamber,
She showed her weasel, not womanly nature.
For when a mouse appeared there, she left the chamber,
And in the hunt for that prey,
She showed herself to all as a weasel, not a woman.
And likewise, Aesop reports: “Someone seeing a monkey
About to be lost in a shipwreck, thinking it a person,
Gave it his hand and saved it from the sea’s waves.
But when he asked, ‘Whence do you come?’ He heard “Athenian“,
So he asked again if it knew Piraeus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.950  (Now this Piraeus is the Attic harbour)
Now the monkey said it knew him well
And all of his children, and his wife and friends;
Annoyed, he pushed it away and the monkey drowned.”
Lucian writes somewhere in his own words:
Some reputable person adorned a monkey with splendid human clothing,
So most people thought it was human.
But a clever spectator threw a nut inside,
And established that it was a monkey and not a person,
Since it gathered up the nuts by tearing its tunic.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.960  (TE1.12) CONCERNING THE COVERT BOW-SHOOTING OF PARIS
Paris Alexander, in the epics of Homer,
Is reported—secretly standing on the tomb of Ilus
(Now this Ilus was one son of Tros)—
To shoot with his bow Diomedes at the flat of the foot,
But not after the face, just as a noble man.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.965  (TE1.13) CONCERNING RHESUS, ACCORDING TO EURIPIDES
Euripides reports that Rhesus, in the drama Rhesus,
Learned about the generals of the Hellenes while investigating
Who was first of them, second, and third according to manliness.
And that, about the deceits of Odysseus: having listened,
But belittling them, Rhesus spoke the very things that, in rows of verse, Euripides tells:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.970  “Not one man, good in soul, deems it worthy, covertly,
To kill the enemy, except for when going after the mouth.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.972  (TE1.14) CONCERNING “FOR I HAVE NOT SHIVERED AT COMBAT NOR AT THE DIN OF HORSES”
Homer, in book seven, reports that Hector,
Being about to join a single-combat with Ajax,
As Ajax was mouthing exceedingly and resoundingly,
Homer reports Hector telling to this man: “Son of Telamon, Ajax,
Do not in any way make trial of me, as though I were a feeble child,
Or a woman who does not know warlike deeds.
But I know well both combats and man-killing.”
And successively, Homer reports Hector telling these things,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.980  Until: “For I have not shivered at combat, nor at the din of horses.”
And even still further; but it must be stopped already.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.982  (TE1.15) CONCERNING “FOR I WISH NOT TO BE SUPPOSED BEST, BUT TO BE BEST”
The son of Euphorion, the tragic poet Aeschylus,
In a drama, which is being told as The Seven Against Thebes,
Reports that Eteocles, the king of Thebes,
Was cross-questioning about seven Argive generals:
“Who, at which gate of Thebes, will rattle together the combat?”
And some messenger tells the callings of the Argives,
But against each of the Argives, he marshals a Theban,
Telling proper praises to each of those who were there,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.990  As one man will be marshalled against the so-and-so of the Argives,
And (when colliding, as I suppose) will not be a seller of combat,
But will appear esteemed against the enemy;
And again, it is for another man from among them, he says, as it is for this man:
“The mind, yes, is unboastful, but the hand beholds the activity.
For it wishes not to be supposed best, but to be best.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.996  (TE1.16) CONCERNING ACHILLES AMONG THE VIRGIN DAUGHTERS OF LYCOMEDES
The more recent of the race of poets form these things,
— One of whom is Tryphiodorus (both Lycophron and others) —
That Thetis (knowing, from oracles and divinations,
That Achilles, the beloved son of her,
Would exist for a short time, if he should sail against the Trojans,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 4.1002  [5.1] And sending him to the virgin daughter of Lycomedes) was hiding him,
Wearing, as they say, womanly clothing.
Even Lycophron, in the Alexandra, tells in this way:
“And a female robe around the body he will endure
To don, beside the beams, touching the rattling of the shuttle.”
Now the more recent poets form these things about Achilles,
But I allegorized them in the book for the Augusta.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.9  CHILIADES BOOK 5, TRANSLATED BY KONSTANTINOS RAMIOTIS
CONCERNING THE SHOUT OF THE TROJANS AND THE SILENCE OF THE GREEKS (TE1.17)
Homer, praising the battle formation of the Greeks
And mocking the Trojans for theirs,
Sings this verse in the third book of the Iliad:
“The Trojans went forth clanging and roaring like birds”.
But he speaks thus of the Greeks:
“But the Achaeans marched forward in silence
Ready in their hearts to protect one another”.
And similar verses you’ll find in this passage.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.17  (TE1.18) CONCERNING THE VERSE: “BUT I COMMAND YOU TO LEAVE AND GO BACK TO THE CROWD”
Thus spoke Achilles to Aeneas in the nineteenth book of the Iliad
For the following reason:
Aeneas came out to challenge Achilles in combat
And the latter said not a few words to him:
“Should you even consider taking me back to Priam as a spoil of war,
Bear this in mind, kill me you can not, Aeneas;
So go back and mix with the crowd and do not dare fight me”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.24  (TE1.19) CONCERNING THE PHRASE: “BUT THE CHILDREN OF THE UNFORTUNATE ONES”
And Homer tells us in the seventh book of the Iliad
That Diomedes spoke thus to Glaucus, fixing his gaze on him
(This Glaucus was Hippolochus’ son, Bellerephon’s grandson
And he wore the whole armament of the latter.
He was the one to go out and fight Diomedes,
Since cowardice had conquered the rest of the Trojans):
“Who are you, grandest of men? Are you some god,
Or maybe a wizard or a sage or an enchanter,
Or some elemental of one of the four kinds that exist,
Namely fire, wind, water, iron or stone?
For against such forces I wish not to wage a war”.
And Lycurgus came to be hated by all the gods, when he drove Dionysus away,
And he died by an axe at the hands of the Bacchants, short-lived and blinded by great Zeus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.40  Learn the allegory behind this -for who will leave without benefit
from one of Tzetzes’ stories?:
This Lycurgus, as they say, did not live long;
You see he went against natural order and powers beyond him.
He was king of Thrace and imposed upon the Thracians the notion
That one should not plant vines.
And every vine he chopped down with an axe
Or put on fire or pulled out from the root.
Every vine owner and producer of wine fled to the outer boarders
And there he kept cultivating vines.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.50  In the end, Lycurgus totally lost his mind,
And blindness took hold of him by the will of Zeus, as the myths tell.
The mind can both see and listen, according to Epicharmus.
Every other part is blind altogether, when the mind is absent.
So, he lost his mind due to his abstinence from wine
And stopped sleeping, became totally dry
And him many such things plagued because of not drinking.
Then it dawned on him to cut the vines
So he was led to a fast death by the community.
And Diomedes said the following words to Glaucus:
“If you are a man made of stone or iron or if you are some kind of wizard,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.60  In no way would I desire a fight against such a man.”
Lycurgus, the one we just mentioned,
By losing his mind and cutting down the vine trees,
Made his days counted, for he was murdered by the people
Or by the very nature he went against after losing his mind.
If you happen to be a mere bread- eating man like me,
Dare challenge me in battle and you will meet your doom.
It is only the fools’ children who put up a fight against me.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.69  (TE1.20) CONCERNING THE MOLIONIDS
The Molionids were among the lords of the Elians
And about them informs Homer through old Nestor’s mouth;
“And so, they slew the Molionids,
Who were sons of Actorion and Molione.”
But they were in fact more ancient than Nestor thinks,
These two thieves, Passalus and Aclemon.
And the name “Molionids” is inaccurate,
At least for those who are thorough when writing history.
For they were the sons of Memnonid’s widow
And by displaying what they had stolen and by demonstrating the benefits to be gained from murder,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.80  They even scorned their own mother, who told them:
“You have not yet crossed paths with a man of real might.”
So, one time, when Heracles was weary and had fallen asleep,
They sneaked up on him and began searching his sack.
So, he seized them and tied up their feet
And hanged them on his shoulders,
The one from the front side, the other hanging down his back.
And so he carried on his journey.
As they were hanging about, facing each other,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.90  They saw Heracles’ hairy buttocks and genitalia
Covered as they were in thick black hair, which reminded them of their mother.
And they right away burst into laughter, lots of loud laughter.
And when Heracles learned who they were, he set them free.
This gave birth to the famous saying.
But which historian described this story in detail I know not.
Sure it was Lycophron, who says that Alexander Paris
Was at the bottom of the list of cowardly men.
Theologus and thousands of others have also written about these things.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.100  (TE1.21) CONCERNING CACUS
This man, Cacus, was a thief and a cunning one at that.
He was active in those places where Rome now lies.
As Heracles was passing by with Geryon’s cows,
Cacus stole many of them and led them backwards into his cave-lair.
In this way, should one see the tracks the cows had left,
One would think they were exiting the cave instead of entering.
But Heracles was not tricked and so, he recaptured the cows
And he slew Cacus on the spot.
Dio and Dionysius have already told about Cacus in their work
And so have many others who have written about Rome.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.111  (TE1.22) CONCERNING THE CENTAUR ASBOLUS
Heracles, serving Eurystheus for twelve years,
Happened to carry out side tasks apart from his twelve labours.
One of those tasks concerned Asbolus.
So listen now and learn the story in detail:
The centaur Pholus offers Heracles hospitality-
From this Pholus takes Pholoe, the mountain, its name-
And, offering Heracles wine to drink,
He opened a jar of the centaur’s wine.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.120  The smell from the wine spread through the air,
Signaling Asbolus’ call towards all centaurs to come and fight Heracles.
Even Chiron came against his will and he took an arrow in the knee.
And Elatus he pierced with his bow in the arm
And he fell on his knees and he killed him with ease.
In that manner, using his bow, Heracles slew most of the centaurs.
But Asbolus, the one responsible for the battle,
Him he crucified and beneath he wrote an appropriate epigram-

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.130  For this man, Heracles, was wise indeed,
An astrologer and poet, philosopher and sage,
A doctor as well and much more than that,
Whatever it is that Orpheus and others tell of him.
This epigram is to be found in one of the letters:
Asbolus, fearless of both god and men,
Hangs now from a thick and juicy pine-tree,
Great meal to the insatiable crows”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.138  (TE1.23) CONCERNING ONE OF DIONYSIUS’ VERSES: “EVEN THE STUPIDEST OF MEN MOCK THEM”
This man, Dionysius, who was Hermocrates’ son,
Was tyrant of the Sicilians and by him was Plato three times sold.
As some writers fond of lies have written,
When he was asked where the best bronze is to be found, he replied
And said to him that it is that from which the statues of Harmodius and Aristogeiton in Athens are made.
For they were revered in this manner due to their being tyrant-killers.
They killed Hipparchus, son of Pisistratus.
That was the first pretext that caused Plato to be sold as slave.
The second one, not lesser to the first,
Is that Dionysius was defeated by Plato at composing oratory

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§ 5.150  And so the former sold him.
But this one is also false; listen now to Tzetzes and know the truth!
At that time there was a man, Philoxenus,
A dithyrambic poet -you’ll learn who he was-,
Who deserved to be sold as a slave.
But even though he behaved offensively against Dionysius,
The latter never sold him as a slave.
Only once was he sent to the quarry
But Dionysius soon pulled him out.
And it was for this reason that he got put there in the first place:

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§ 5.160  Dionysius had written a tragic play
Which was to be celebrated on the Athenian stage.
That play he gave to Philoxenus and said:
“Make this a worthy tragedy, Philoxenus!
And should you find any faults therein, erase them in a meaningful manner”.
And he erased the whole play, first line to last.
So, how many times was he supposed to be sold then?
Well, Dionysius sent him only once to the quarry
And withdrew him almost immediately.
But how could someone who held others to be wiser than him

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§ 5.170  And gave them his own scripts to correct
Not sell them as slaves, when they openly mocked him,
How could he have sold Plato for beating him in oratory composition?
For it is not true; in fact it is one of the most hideous lies.
You see, Plato was caught plotting against him
(By motivating Dionysius’ nephew, Dion, to take the sceptre).
So, the wise Plato was three times sold but not once put to death.
That man, Dionysius, had presented many tragic plays in Athens,
Winning second and third positions,
With a play though called Hector’s Ransom
He won first place, beating everyone in Athens.
In that play, which was written against Plato
And which was more so a comedy than tragedy,
I believe he started out with this verse:
“Even the stupidest of men mock them”.

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§ 5.186  So now you are holding the historiai of the first letter;
You’ll find they are twenty three in number.
Now, having written dozens of letters at first,
Let us judge how many of them need to be written out
And then let us copy their stories.
And after the first letter we must write
the text of the second one and third and the rest.
The stories are five hundred minus four,
While twenty preceded these lines and here three more
Becoming five hundred and ten plus nine more.
And another hundred and forty-one
Hold the first rank at the gates of the book.
So, this book consists of a group of stories
six hundred sixty stories, no more no less.

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§ 5.200  The ones some plundered from the palaces,
Their places are empty. But write, if you discover them somewhere.
The stories from the beginning of this second letter, until the end of the hundred and seven letters.)

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§ 5.203  CONCERNING ATLAS: THE FIRST Story (TE2.1 E2)
Atlas from Libya, as the children of the Egyptians say
And especially those that follow Sophis the Chronographer,
In the time of Osiris and Dionysus and Noah
When Hermes Trismegistos, founder of the art of writing,
Hermes together with Prometheus and Heracles and Typhon,
Who were all Egyptians; forget about the Greek counterparts.
When Osiris- Dionysus, whom one might also call Noah,
Was in the land of Nyssa, a fertile land of the Arabian plains,

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§ 5.210  And then again in the Indian land of Nysa, he found viticulture.
And then on the Armenian mountain of Luvar,
As the Chaldeans and many generations of Armenians say,
This man found viticulture,
Cultivation of plants and agriculture and many things of necessity
And, setting out to teach them to mankind,
He left Hermes to his wife as a consultant,
The Hermes who had found all things needed for human life,
And to him he gave Prometheus as an assistant

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§ 5.220  And Bousiris to guard the land of Phoenice;
Antaeus he made general of Libya
With an army and farmers and groups of dancing women
And he marched through India to Asia,
Proving himself to be a benefactor of art wherever he went.
So, when he left, Typhon, his brother,
Turned against his brothers and put together an army,
Hoping to seize thus the throne and become a tyrant.
But all this was perceived by Hermes and Heracles

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§ 5.230  And, so, he fled from the land of Egypt to Cilicia
With few supporters and money resources.
He waged war against Osiris, who was his relative
And won the first time.
But Osiris Dionysus defeated Typhon eventually,
After Hermes managed to persuade his troops to turn against him.
From these facts did the mythographers make up the story
That Typhon cut off the chord from Zeus’ bow
And defeated Zeus gloriously after hiding it in a leather sack.

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§ 5.240  But Hermes stole it and returned it to Zeus
Who gained the upper hand and defeated Typhon.
This seems more realistic when detached from rhetorical allegory,
For Osiris is now said to have been a king
(And people of old used to address every king as Zeus)
And Typhon his brother, that was his name.
And you should know that the name Zeus
Also signified the cosmic order and mild weather,
Which, being altered by typhoons and storms and violent winds,

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§ 5.250  Caused this confusions of terms in times ancient
Had it not been for the fire and light of Hermes,
Which dispersed the confusion of elements,
A new order of things would have taken hold.
So, know that Zeus represents the mind under the lenses of allegory,
For the mind is defeated by typhus, which cuts off its central chord
Until Hermes, who reflects reasoning, restores it to its original state.
But since I have taken up the task of narrating these things in a truthful manner,
When Osiris-Dionysus defeated Typhon,
He threw him and his first commanders in prison

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§ 5.260  And against Bousiris of Phoenice and Antaeus the Libyan
He sent Heracles.
So Heracles, marching against the Libyan land,
Slew the sixty-cubit Antaeus,
Fighting him outside the land he occupied.
For he knew not how to win in places unfamiliar to him.
Hence they fabricated the story that the earth was Antaeus’ mother,
Claiming she raised him up to fight when he fell.
So, Heracles killed him in the Libyan land,
Where he also learned the art of astronomy by Atlas,

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§ 5.270  Its very creator.
That’s why they say that Atlas bears the sky on his back
And Heracles relieved him of the task by carrying it himself.
Such are the narrations of the Egyptians regarding Atlas.
But the Greeks, jealous of the Egyptian story,
Add another Atlas to the picture,
Irrelevant to Heracles, son of Alcmena
Or Atlas the descendant of Iapetus.
He lived four generations before Pelops came to be
And so he is much later than the first Atlas,
As both Jews and Greek tell in their stories:

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§ 5.280  Namely forty six generations
And from Heracles only two or three generations apart.
But the art of star divination that Atlas possessed
And that Heracles the Egyptian later learned,
They ascribe to Heracles the son of Alcmena
And Atlas the Libyan.
The wise Homer, describing things more naturally,
Named the movement of the celestial sphere between the two poles
Atlas.
And during the first part of this celestial movement,
Heracles, who represents the sun, circles around the sphere.

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§ 5.290  (TE2.2) CONCERNING THE SAYING ABOUT THE “WELL-MASKED PRETEXT”
Know that these phrases are of exotic nature
And they have a feeling of decency and grandeur as well
And make speech seem of more elevated style.
And instead of using a form related, he says:
“Use no alluring pretext against me”.
And though this second word is one hard to the ear,
It smooths and softens the phrase,
As if though one had used the first one.

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§ 5.300  “Use no alluring pretext against me”.
“And don’t tinker with nothingness, you’ll just be talking in vain”.
This is a hard word and one that embellishes speech as well.
Not like Lycophron, who chose smooth words, namely chords and playing the phorminx.
These words said Lycophron to Alexander:
“You should not have Helen by means of the chord-drumming guitarists”.

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§ 5.309  (TE2.3) CONCERNING AUTOMATIC AND IN THE MANNER OF THE HOMERIC MENELAUS
Homer somewhere near the end of the second book
Presents Agamemnon calling the best of the Achaeans
To sacrifice to Zeus with the following words:
“Call forth the best of the Achaean elders,
Nestor first and king Idomeneus
And then the two Ajaxes and the son of Tydeus
And a sixth man, Odysseus, equal to Zeus in cunning.
And the eloquent Menelaus came on his own initiative”.

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§ 5.317  (TE2.4) CONCERNING THE LACONIC BREVITY OF SPEECH
It is Homer who first describes the brevity of the Laconians,
When he speaks thus of Lacon, a contemporary of Menelaus
In the third book of the Iliad:
“But as they were weaving words and crafting arguments,
Menelaus would talk fast, saying not too many but pleasant things,
For he is not one to chatter
And not one to speak falsely, although he is younger in age”.
It is Homer, thus, who first described this brevity of the Laconians
And historians have also written about it,
Of how the Laconians received a long letter once, that contained the following words:
“If you do not abide by this and that

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§ 5.330  We will put together an army, prepare the cavalry
And cross the river Evrotas with ease.
With numerous and dense troops we will engage you in combat
And in the blink of a moment we will devastate Sparta and Laconia
And turn it into grazing fields among many other calamities we’ll bring upon you.”
Six letters were barely enough for all these threats.
The Laconians replied with only a “yes” in paper
And they sent it back.

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§ 5.338  (TE2.5) CONCERNING SOLON, HOW HE DID NOT COME TO ADMIRE CROESUS, WHEN THEY MET
In our narration regarding Croesus we talked about Solon-
This is the first of all stories found herein-.
But then again we shall refer to the things we must
And the things we omitted, for they were not considered necessary.
Draco was the first to set written laws for the Athenians,
Merciless, imposing the penalty of death for all crimes, even for stealing a cabbage.
So, Demades, who was a very handsome orator
But even more impressive when performing,
Received great reputation through the following words:
“It seems, O Judges, that Draco, the law-writer
Has written these laws with blood and not with ink.”

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§ 5.350  Seven years after Draco’s legal institutions
Solon became the second legislator for the people of Attica.
But Thales, who was Solon’s friend and who lived his life
Without legal constraints,
Never expressed his objection. But when Solon was writing the laws,
He said to him: “It is useless things that you are struggling with, Solon.
Laws are like the webs of a spider;
They can capture all things weak and small
But can be easily broken by the strong ones”.
Solon then decided to leave Athens for ten years,

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§ 5.360  And leave his legislation to be tested,
Should the Athenians decide to follow it.
And so, he came to Miletus, Thales’ homeland.
Thales made known to one of the Milesians
That someone from Athens was now among them.
Solon asked him whether some novel incident had occurred
And he replied that a young man had died soon after his father left.
The city bid the young lad a last farewell.
When Solon asked whether it was Solon’s son,
Thales replied that it was his indeed.

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§ 5.370  Solon began to weep and tear his hair off
But Thales burst in laughter and embraced the man,
Confessing: “It is all a trick of mine, so stop crying, Solon!
What has deprived me of marriage and having children
The very same things now befell you, O great Solon!”
This is what happened to Solon in Miletus.
And once he found himself in Sardeis, in Lydia,
When Croesus had invited him, as we’ve already told,
And showed him the treasures for which he boasted greatly,
So that Solon would consider him the happiest of men.

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§ 5.380  But when Solon did not at all praise him as a happy man,
He was bluntly dismissed, as we’ve described.
When Aesop saw him in this state, he said:
“O philosopher Solon, to the kings must one tell
What they want to hear or otherwise keep silent”.
And he replied: “O Aesop, to the kings must one say the truth
Or otherwise not say a word.”

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§ 5.387  (TE2.6) CONCERNING THE BIRD PHOENIX
The Phoenix is a bird unique,
More beautiful than the peacock and bigger in size
And with golden plumage, a wonderful and exotic sight.
It builds its nest of delightful smell on trees
And when it dies is born again as a worm from that tree
And then is nourished by the sun and turns into a Phoenix once again.
He then migrates to Egypt and dies in Ethiopia,
As Philostratus tells us in his Life of Apollonius.
Chaeremon, the Egyptian sage-priest,
Has made clear in his teachings of the arcane and sacral matters
That the Phoenix dies at the age of seven thousand and six years
In the land of the Egyptians.

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§ 5.399  (TE2.7) CONCERNING THE UNICORN
The unicorn is a scent loving animal
And has a horn on its forehead.
They hunt it down by luring it with nice odours.
They dress up one of the most handsome young lads as a woman
And smear him with the most wondrous perfumes.
They place him just outside the beast’s lair
And then hide. When the wind blows
It draws the beast out.
The young man opens his arms wide
And the splendid odour emanates; he then embraces the animal.
While it is stunned by the scent,
The hunters emerge and cut off its horn,
Which induces resistance to poison
And the beast then runs off half-horned.

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§ 5.412  (TE2.8) CONCERNING THE BIRDS THAT ARE ALSO CALLED HARPIES
Ictinus is a type of bird that we also call Harpy,
One that steals the baby birds from roosters.
The say that it only drinks rain water
Whenever rainfalls are frequent.
Now you shall learn the difference between ictinus and ictis,
For they are not the same bird, as some might think.
Ictinus is the bird I’ve just described
But ictis is a four-legged wildcat that preys on birds.

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§ 5.422  (TE2.9) CONCERNING HOW LIONS NEVER TOUCH A CORPSE
Lions are predators and, just like eagles,
They never feast on dead bodies.
And what living thing they catch and eat,
That they will not touch later on, should they leave it aside.
The same goes for eagles; and they say
That foul odour is the cause for their repulsion
And loss of taste.
So, they never eat the leftovers of their food.

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§ 5.430  But I think their issue is that both animals are kings and arrogant as such,
The eagle among birds and the lion among predators.
Don’t make me tell you about those eagles or lions
That are either jailers or jailed; I know not.
But I think they wouldn’t eat a dead animal
But rather just the viscera or the placenta.
There was a lion in the time of Apollonius,
Which, he said, carried the soul of Amasis.
Should you hear one of Homer’s verses

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§ 5.440  “As a lion he was pleased leaning over the corpse”
Don’t think, as some idiots do, that the body is really dead
Or that Homer is unfamiliar with the nature of lions.
Know that what he has in mind is a living body with blood still in its veins.

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§ 5.444  (TE2.10) CONCERNING THE PUNISHMENT OF TANTALUS
Tantalus was the child of Pluto and king Tmolus,
Tmolus who ruled Lydia.
From him the Lydian mountain Tmolus took its name
And over these Lydians would later on king Croesus reign.
I have no clue why Sophocles thinks he is of Phrygian origin,
When he says that Pelops is a Phrygian barbarian of old.

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§ 5.450  But if Tmolus fathered Tantalus in Lydia
And Tantalus then Pelops, how is it then that they be called Phrygians, O Sophocles?
But although Tantalus, as I’ve said, is Tmolus’ son,
The Greeks think of him as a son of Zeus, king that he is.
For the Greeks used to call all kings “Zeus”.
The Lydians and the Ionians of Ephesus
Called all their kings Palmys, in the same manner.
Learn now the story regarding the punishment of Tantalus.
Tantalus was both a high priest and a physicist
And he was stripped of his priesthood of the gods

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§ 5.460  For disclosing the mysteries to the uninitiated,
The sun not crystal or fire or even red-hot metal
But maybe a stone, with an ambiguous opinion.
That’s why the myths say that Tantalus formerly
Used to dine among the gods, sat at their table,
And used to steal ambrosia and nectar
And give them to aged mortals, as Pindar narrates.
He was banished from this honour and the common table of the gods
And came to the quickly-doomed race of men.

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§ 5.470  Others say that an unbridled tongue got him cast out,
As Euripides tells the myth of Tantalus,
Because he disclosed the secrets of the gods to men,
One of those being ambrosia and nectar,
And the secret discourses of the gods spoken to humans.
For this he was banished from the gods' conversation.
Disclosing the mysteries, they say, to the uninitiated,
An act for which he lost his priestly office,
And with such myths the ancients fashioned their stories.
The physics discussion regarding the sun,
How he hesitantly supposed it to be a stone in the sky,

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§ 5.480  They say was what brought about Tantalus's method of punishment:
Cast out by the gods and suspended in the air,
Staring at the stone hanging above his head.
This, they say, was his punishment when still alive.
In this educative manner, overawing living men
That they not practice unseemly and illegal things in life,
They shaped the myth, that Tantalus for his contempt of the laws,
Here suffered such punishment
While when he died he found other heavy penalties.
He thirsted and hungered with such a hunger and thirst:
He stood in the middle of a lake that lapped at his lips
With apple-trees and pomegranates, pears and other trees,

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§ 5.490  All laden with fruit.
But should he want to drink, it would all dry up in an instant
And if hungry he wanted an apple or pomegranate,
The wind would blow them away towards the shady clouds.
So there you have both sets of Tantalus’ punishments,
The ones he suffered while still alive, which are explained allegorically,
And the ones in Hades, which are false but very effective
To deter the wicked from causing harm when alive.

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§ 5.500  (TE2.11) CONCERNING WHY EROS HAS A BOW, WINGS, AND A TORCH
The painters paint Eros as a beautiful young boy;
As an archer, and also a torchbearer
And winged, holding a dolphin and vegetation.
By painting wings, vegetation, the dolphin
They indicate his mastery on air, land, and sea.
And when they paint him as an archer and torch-bearer
It means he wounds and kindles fire in lovers' hearts.
They paint him young and handsome,
Since loving and being loved is appropriate to young nature,
And rather more appropriate for a young and beautiful girl.

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§ 5.510  (TE2.12) CONCERNING UNJUST FATE ACCORDING TO JOSEPHUS
In the book concerning the taking of Jerusalem
The splendid Josephus, the Jewish historian,
Openly declared fate to be unjust
Causing things to happen always confusedly,
So that by rulers and by kings
The bastards are honored more than decent people.
But even dogs and deer and sometimes even bears,
Domestic cats and thousands of other beasts
Used to serve people once.
Pyrrhus honoured the eagle and Nicomedes the dog

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§ 5.520  And Perseus the deer and the bear among others.
Thousands of others honoured many other beasts
Like the domestic cat, the mouse-eating kind,
As did our emperor’s, Monomachus’, wife,
Who called her cat Mehlebe.
They say that one time, when that animal got stuck on a rooftop,
The wife of Augustus said to the senate:
“O lords, my dear Mehlebe got stuck on the edge of a roof”.
They blushed from shame and could not but laugh;
They said to each other with a faint smile on their faces:

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§ 5.530  “Do you see how our empress’ beloved Mehlebe suffers?”
That cat of the kingly throne used to eat all kinds of foods every day
In golden containers; not a thing would be missing.
It had its own slaves for shopping, preparing its meals,
Carrying his basket around, making bread
And all kinds of servants,
As the richest among men usually do.
This in the time of Mehlebe; for now we have some doggy
That moves around in the empress’ embrace

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§ 5.540  And enjoys the same food and all the aforementioned.
And how can he but eat from silver plates, not plates from gold,
Since there are people out there who have no bread to eat?
So, for all these reasons that excellent Hebrew historian
Names fate cruel; he is justified for doing so.

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§ 5.545  (TE2.13) THE OLD WORDS CHEIROMACTRON AND MAGDALIA
Cheiromactron is a linen used on the table
To clean the hands of dirt.
The remains of this dirt that have been washed off,
Remains of dough, cheese, meat and fish
That are then thrown to the dogs or pigs,
Are called magdalia.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.550  (TE2.14) ON THE OLD TRADITION OF THOSE THAT WERE STILL ALIVE TO SAY THREE TIMES OUT LOUD THE NAME OF THE ONE THAT HAD DIED ABROAD, HOPING TO GET BACK TO THEIR HOMELAND
In days of yore, the relatives of those that had died abroad
Called thrice their names,
As Homer tells us in the third book of the Iliad.
This they did as a sign of remembrance of their affection
And so that one might weep along, should he hear the exclamations.

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§ 5.555  (TE2.15) CONCERNING THE OLD ROMAN TRADITION OF NOT GOING TO WARS UNDECLARED BUT ANNOUNCING THEM BEFOREHAND BY THROWING A SPEAR ON THE GROUND AND STARTING THUS THE WAR
The Roman and Latin nations would never march to a war undeclared
But they would throw a spear before the foreign land
To openly declare their enmity.
Then would the war begin against that foreign nation.
That’s what Diodorus says, who writes of all things Roman.
This is an old war practice.
Now it has ceased, I think, to exist.
They just throw a rooster into the land against which they are waging war.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.564  (TE2.16) CONCERNING THE REASONS FOR WHICH THEY ARE CALLED AUSONES AND THEIR LAND’S EXTENT
Ausonia takes its name from the Ausonians,
Who in turn take theirs from Ausonus, son of Odysseus, according to some.
For Odysseus had Telegonus and Ausonus and Casiphone
With the legendary Circe,
As every truth-respecting historian writes.
Listen now to Tzetzes, who calls them all moronic.
For how could Odysseus have all three children in a year?
One every four months? Or does the womb spit them forth all at once?
Well, that’s the way horned goats are born in the land of Libya
And in Italy men are born after spending four months in the womb.
So, from Ausonus, who was born after four months,
Takes Ausonia its name, as they say.
Others, however, say that it was from an older Ausonus,
Son of Italus, king of the land.
But bear in mind that one should use the name Ausones
Only for the Aurugians,
Who lived along the coast, next to the Volscians and the Campanians.
They then spread out to all parts of Italy.

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§ 5.583  (TE2.17) CONCERNING HOW JOHN TZETZES IS AN IBERIAN FROM HIS MOTHER’S SIDE BUT PURE GREEK FROM THE SIDE OF HIS FATHER
The mother of John Tzetzes’ mother,
The historian and writer,
Was of Massagetian bloodline, from the area of Abasgis.
The Iberians and the Abasgi and the Alans are all one nation.
The Iberians hold first position among them and second come
The Abasgi; the Alans are last among the three.

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§ 5.590  Along with lady Mariam the Abasgian
Whom many wrongly hold to be an Alan,
She came to the megalopolis as a blood relative
And was taken under her wing
Just like our own Aspae was by Catae.
She begot Constantine the Great, famous ruler,
Great Droungarios and Sebastos throughout his life,
Father of the legendary logothete.
After the death of his reputable wife
He fathered Tzetzes’ grandmother

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§ 5.600  From one of his respectable wife’s consorts,
Namely the concubine of Iasitus
And her he elevated to the same rank as his,
The only one she was to receive such honour.
Her mother became the queen,
The renowned Eudocia,
From whom three more generations originated.
Her husband was a great field owner
Who held abundant land of the state in his possession.
After he died, she would still say his name as if he was alive.

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§ 5.610  He had three daughters and one of them, Eudocia, was Tzetzes’ mother.
So now you know that Tzetzes is an Iberian from his mother.
His father was Michael, who trained him
In oratory and politics just like Cato did with his own son.
This Michael was John Tzetzes’ son,
Who was an illiterate man
And many a time hosted he wise men in his manor of five floors
With the accompaniment of music and luxuries that surpass even the celebrations of matrimony.

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§ 5.620  And the father of this last one was a scion of Byzantium
Who, dead, still now lies intact in his grave,
In the so-called Monastery of Euphrosyne,
He is named Polites by the nuns there
Not knowing who he is, the one they call citizen.
Ask these nuns about the wonders he has achieved.
So Tzetzes is an Iberian from his mother’s side.
But from her father and his own father
He is of pure Greek origin.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.629  (TE2.18) CONCERNING THE PHAESTIAN EPIMEDES' PROPHECY REGARDING MUNICHIA, A LOCATION IN ATHENS
Epimenides was a Phaestian from Phaestos in Crete,
When he came to Athens, he saw Munichia,
Which is a location near the Athenian port,
And realizing that it would bring trouble upon the Athenians
He spoke prophetically and his words sounded as follows:
“If the Athenians knew how many troubles
Munichia will inflict upon them,
They would crush it with their teeth and eat it like bread.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.637  (TE2.19) CONCERNING CECROPS
Cecrops was the the first to be king of Attica
And the first to be called double-born,
Either because was as tall as two men,

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§ 5.640  Or as fluent in both the Egyptian and the Greek tongue,
Or as having the lower body of a dragon but the upper parts of a man.
Demosthenes maybe wanted to allegorize,
But he was born to speak as a lawyer, not an allegorizer.
The Cecropids say that Cecrops
Had the power of a dragon and the intelligence of man.
But Tzetzes, who is more prudent, believes that when that man was king,
He defeated the barbarian tribes in combat
And they were so much benefited by his mercy
That they became attached to him and desired no separation.

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§ 5.650  And for another reason they call Cecrops double-born.
In ancient times the women of Greece would not marry their men legally
But like beasts they would respond to every man’s desire.
Hence, the children were single-born,
Knowing only who their mother was, their father they knew not.
So, after the great cataclysm in the city of Sais in Egypt,
(the name Sais means Athena in the Egyptian tongue)
Cecrops came to Athens

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.660  And gave the city its name after Sais.
And among the many things he did for the Greeks
He established laws for women to engage in legal matrimony
And the children came to know their fathers as well,
Whereas it was only their mother that they knew before.
So, Cecrops got to be called double-born for these institutions of his.
He was the first Athenian king
And from him are all the Athenians now called Cecropids.
Then reigned Cranaus and Amphictyon was the third ruler,
Whom Erichthonius dethroned and became himself king;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.670  He was Hephaestus’ and Athena’s, Cranaus’ daughter’s, son.
Pandion was son of Praxithea and Erichthonius.
With Zeuxippe Pandion fathered Erechtheus
And then Philomela, Procne and Boutis.
Then Erechtheus and Praxithea fathered Cecrops.
Pandion was son of the latter and of Metadiousa
And from Pandion and Peleia Aigeus was born.
He had daughters from Autocthe
And a bastard son, Theseus, from Aethra.
Acamas and Demophon are Theseus’ and Phaedra’s sons.
After Erechtheus, father of the second Cecrops,
Was the appellation “Erecthids” instilled upon the Athenians.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.682  (TE2.20) CONCERNING THE FACT THAT LEPREION IS A LOCATION, BUT LEPREOS IS THE DESIGNATION FOR THE LEPER
Lepreion is a place in Triphylia,
And they say that lepers sprang forth out of stones there
And the whole area was soon polluted with leprosy.
Lepers are now called leprous men (lepreios),
After losing the iota;
Just like the word it should have a diphthong.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.690  The words that end in –aios follow the ou– declension and always have a diphthong.
So, there we have adjectives like antaius and tauraius
And lepraius belongs to this category as well.
Remember now that all these need a diphthong.
And the words ending in -eas
Belong to the a- declension and take the gravis,
Like anteas and taureas and lepreas.
These things seem clear, why should one further describe them?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.699  (TE2.21) CONCERNING THE MEANINGS OF THE WORDS TITANUS AND SCIRRUS
Sceiron, written with a diphthong, was a thief in Megara,
Who kicked to death the men who washed his feet.
But scirrus is the name of a type of wound,
Also called scirron or scirroma.
Scirrus you may now know as the adhesive plaster,
Which is what I’ve set out to describe here.
Know that titanus is a flaming stone,
The one mentioned in legends, it cannot be extinguished.
This stone which comes from grinded rocks is called pulver
And harena is the name of sand in Latin.
These has Tzetzes now mentioned for those that take interest in such things

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.710  And for those that immerse themselves in books about engineering,
Which are useful for the human life.
For when a term is lacking, the usefulness cannot be distinguished.
So, please, accept this part as a small extension to my writing of histories,
A small personal pain and contribution.
If you don’t, it is of no use,
For Tzetzes would then be writing for ignorant and small-minded people.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.717  (TE2.22) CONCERNING THE WORD MORMOLYCEION
They say that once upon a time there were three Gorgons,
Stheno, Euryale and Medusa.
To all three of them there was just one eye that granted vision.
All three of them had wings and hairy dragon-like foils
And the fierceness of their gaze turned all that looked at them to stone.
They also call them Mormolyceias and Mormones,
As Aristophanes says somewhere; “brave like a Mormo”.
But Tzetzes believes that mormolyceion means night
And Mormo means darkness.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.726  (TE2.23) CONCERNING THE WORD CATHARMA
Catharma meant the pharmakos in times of old.
If an earthquake menaced the city
Or famine or pestilence or some other calamity,
They led the ugliest man of all to sacrifice,
To purify and heal the city.
They made him stand in a place suited for the sacrifice
And they gave him cheese and bread
And after they whipped him seven times, hitting his penis,
Using branches of leeks and fig trees,
They then burnt him on those branches of wild trees
And scattered his ashes to the air and sea
And in this manner did the purging take place,
As Lycophron mentions somewhere regarding the Locrians
Something like this, but I don't know the exact verse:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.740  “After he has burnt the branches of the wild trees,
Hephaestus throws the ashes into the sea
from atop Traron hills”.
And Hipponax describes this ritual perfectly, saying:
“It purifies the city when they whip him with branches”.
And they say that he has written elsewhere in the first of his iambic poems:
“With branches like the ones they use on the pharmakoi (purification victims)”.
And such things are to be found, as they say, in other passages as well.
“We must treat him as a pharmakos.

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§ 5.750  We should provide him with dry figs and bread
And that kind of cheese pharmakoi eat.”
From days of yore they are used to waiting their fate with open mouths
And they hold branches from trees, just like the victims of purification.
And he also says somewhere else in the same iambic poem:
“The dry hunger hits,
So the pharmakos is taken and whipped seven times”.
These are the things concerning the sacrifice of the pharmakos.
But the medicine maker (pharmakourgos), the user of medicine (pharmakeus) and the pharmakos
They all have different meanings:
The first one designates the maker and seller of medicine;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.760  The second the one who uses drugs for healing;
And the third one indicates the man used to purge the city.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.762  (TE2.24) CONCERNING THE APPLE OF ERIS
The ones that have ripped off the Homeric Muse
And turned it into a compilation of petty stories
Say that all gods attended the wedding of Peleus and Thetis
And that Eris was the only one left uninvited.
She is, thus, filled with poisonous wrath and great anger,
Just like the Old Women of Fate, who wreath with venomous songs.
Eris was disappointed from this error
And on an apple she wrote “let the most beautiful hold it”.

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§ 5.770  She then threw the apple from a rooftop in the middle of the wedding ceremony
Causing great confusion and the destructive war between Greeks and Trojans.
So, the proverbial phrase “Apple of Eris” came to be.
But in fact this story has an allegorical meaning.
Homer in his divine verses first made clear that it symbolizes destruction,
And I took hold of that idea and included it in my compilation of allegories.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.777  (TE2.25) CONCERNING THE FACT THAT OSMYLUS IS A KIND OF FISH BUT OSMILUS REFERS TO THE SMELLY MAN
Osmylus is a kind of fish that looks like the octopus
It lives in both land and sea and feeds on olives and figs.
But osmilus, written with an iota, means the smelly man
And is formed just like the name Zoilus and Troilus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.781  (TE2.26) CONCERNING THE GRAMMARIAN, HERMES AND OSIRIS OF EGYPT
Hermes Trismegistos, as they say, who was an Egyptian by birth,
Was the first to discover the art of writing.
The Hebrews believe that it was Seth who did so.
But it was this Hermes Trismegistos, the one I have just mentioned,
Who discovered writing and many other skills that were necessary;
He was a modern man and had the position of a secretary of state,
An overseer over all matters concerning the kingdom
Of the Egyptian king, who is called Osiris;
This has the meaning of all-observing in their tongue.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.790  For the Indians it was Dionysus, king of Nyssa
And for the Hebrews it was Noah,
While the Lydians say the same things about Attalus.
The Greeks gave him the name Dionysus,
Even though they knew he had lived in ancient times
And did not correlate him with Dionysus the filthy son of Semele.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.796  (TE2.27) CONCERNING BELESYS THE BABYLONIAN AND ARSACES THE MEDE
There was a man with the name of Belesys, a Babylonian,
Of a keen mind he was, a wise and decent man.
He crafted a prophecy of divine character
And persuaded Arsaces the Mede to capture the throne,- The Assyrian throne I mean-
Defeating the effeminate Sardanapalus in battle.
You can find this story in detail;
It is the ninetieth fifth in my collection.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.804  (TE2.28) CONCERNING PALAMEDES, SON OF NAUPLIUS
It is said that Palamedes, son of Nauplius and Clymene,
Was the one to invent writing for the Greeks,
Which at the beginning included eleven letters.
The remaining eight were added later by Simonides,
Like eta and omega, the ones we call long vowels.
Epicharmus then added double consonants, zeta, ksi and psi,
And Cadmus the Milesian the three aspirate ones
Theta, phi and chi.
But the original eleven I shall not hide from you
That it was not Palamedes who created or Phoenix
Or Cadmus or Hermes the Arcadian,
Who all lived in the same era.
They existed before the time of Cadmus
And, so, I quote a prophecy that he received:
“Speak forth descendant of Agenor, Cadmus,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.820  Wake up in the early morning and go visit holy Pythia,
Wearing your fine tunic and holding a sacrificial goat in your hands.”
The rest of the oracle, which I know by heart,
I should not recite here and waste paper.
Although I know that script goes way back,
Back to the Greeks and not the Egyptians,
I’ll let myself be persuaded by these moronic buffoons
And ascribe its invention to Cadmus or Palamedes,
For I do not want to outmatch the idiots in all ways possible.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.829  (TE2.29 E6) CONCERNING SISYPHUS THE COAN
Sisyphus, they say, was Teucer’s Coan secretary
And he wrote the Iliad way before Homer
Marching along with Teucer and witnessing the whole war.
And Homer then rewrote it at length.
These I found written in a certain John Meleles, chronicler. [Tz. misremembers his own letter (6), in which he writes that Teucrus was Phalaris's secretary, not Sisyphus Teucrus'.]

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.834  (TE2.30 E6) CONCERNING DICTYS THE CRETAN
The same chronicler writes that Dictys
Followed Idomeneus and wrote down everything regarding the battle.
And Homer, as I’ve said, reworked it later on.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.837  (TE2.31 E6) CONCERNING TEUCRUS, PHALARIS’ OFFICER
This Teucrus was Phalaris’ secretary
Responsible for managing all the affairs
Of Phalaris, who was called a tyrant,
But was in his deeds a second Aristides the Just.
Perillos, the copper-maker from Attica,
Made a bronze bull which functioned thus:
He had put a door on the side of the bull
And fashioned little pipes for its nostrils,
So that, anyone placed in the bronze bull
With a fire set under, would suffer great pain
And the cry of the sufferer would pipe through the nostrils.
He brought the bull to Phalaris as a gift
And the latter wanted to send it to Delphi.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.850  But the giver prevented him from sending it to the god,
Saying he would punish men with the bull,
While taking pleasure in the flute music through the punishment,
Phalaris threw him first into the bull.
Then dragged him out half-dead and cast him on the rocks.
That’s what he did to Perillos, the bronze-worker.
To the doctor Polycleitus from Messene
Who cured him when he was ill, he gave
Plenty of money and gold and silverwork,
As well as slaves and female servants and much more.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.860  He also wrote to Teucrus to assign him a yearly salary
Of equal amount to that of a taxiarch.
And even though he had given that much, he wrote in the assignment
That it was not enough.
And he asked that it should be made known to others
That Phalaris has nothing to give to reciprocate medical treatment,
By which he was healed;
Such were his actions towards Polycleitus.
But when someone accused Polycleitus of being a traitor
Phalaris not only did not heed the man
But angrily drafted a letter of heavy content:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.870  “Polycleitus the doctor, whom you call a traitor,
Cured my disease, an incurable disease.
Now, if you abide by that and embrace silence,
Bravo to you, for you will have wisely done so. If not, bear to my words:
Doctors cure diseases and death cures stupidity.”
To his son, Paurolas, he wrote:
“Should you desire to take the axiom of the tyrant, know that it is burdensome, son, and harder in maintaining than giving it up.”
He also wrote that he must be respectful to his mother, Erytheia.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.880  And he also asks from him not to request money,
So that he can give them to his friends:
“I hear, son, that you are in need of money to give your friends
But are shy to ask. Well, don’t be.
By the gods, son, I believe that if you so act,
You will be receiving less and giving more.”
He also wrote a letter to Peristhenes, who was responsible for some affairs of the state,
To send him Ariphanes and Eubulus,
Men that had plotted against him.
But, when these men escaped,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.890  He sent to Phalaris their wives instead.
And Phalaris had them stand before him
And inquired whether they knew of the plot their husbands had designed.
After he received their response,
That they were planning to murder him themselves, he replied:
“Why? What has been done to you?”
And they responded thus:
“It was not us who suffered but our homeland;
Should we not have protected it in every way we could?”
To Peristhenes, whom I’ve mentioned before, he wrote in a second letter:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.900  “I spared them for their honesty. For when they were asked why they were planning to kill me,
They said that it was for the sake of their homeland.
So, cause no harm to these noble women
And give back what has been taken from them.”
When one of Phalaris’ friends died,
Leaving back his beautiful wife and a child,
Phalaris sent Teucrus to her and told him:
“Love this dead man’s wife, for whose sake she might become a single mother,
And if she refuses to marry you on the premise of lack of money,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.910  Take these five talents and give them to her.
Write in the letter that this sum of money has been given by her husband
To Phalaris to cover the expenses of the young daughter’s dowry.
Give these to her, as if were part of her deceased husband’s will
And give her a silver ring as well as maids
And proceed with the wedding.
And I make you swear to the gods to give them with the same eagerness
You would feel, should you be on the receiving side.”
And to friends he gave abundantly, as he believed he would be rewarded manifold.
And he thought that even those that declared not to have friends

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.920  Needed one, even though they did not say so.
He burnt some evil men in the bronze bull
And held a long grudge against someone
Who had poisoned his concubine, Paurolas’ mother.
To all others he behaved like Aristides the Just.
Stesichorus, having been captured as an enemy, was once led to him.
I think he was heading to the Peloponnese through Pachynos
With Dropis and Conon and some other men.
And Phalaris had Conon killed instantly
And Dropis was spared and sent back home.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.930  He was a dear friend to Stesichorus.
So, he wanted to compose songs of praise for Phalaris
But the latter bade him not write such things, saying:
“If you want to write about me, write about my manners,
How I came to be a tyrant and of my fatherland”.
Twelve years after Stesichorus’ death
Phalaris handed a reward of a hundred talents to the Tauromenians
And wrote to his daughters that they should greatly praise their father with songs.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.940  Such were the deeds of Phalaris the tyrant.
But the noble rulers not only didn’t give us dowry,
While they gave any gifts to humble people,
But like the Harpies did to Phineus,
So they also stole the very food from our mouths
And they take our writings as their own,
Which is our only source of a living.
Just like Erisichthon I raise these girls

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.950  So that they do not become whores
And nothing hinders me at all.
Pythagoras spent six months with Phalaris,
Who, as we’ve said, had the title of the tyrant,
But was very unpleasant to live with.
Who could narrate these things in detail?
But I shall write of that man’s death as well.
Once upon a time a hawk was chasing thousands of birds.
When Phalaris saw this, he said to everyone present:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.960  If only one of them was to turn around and fight the hawk,
Soon all of the weaker ones would follow.
When an old man that was there listened to this,
He grabbed a stone and hurled it against Phalaris;
And some say he died on the spot,
While others believe that he was taken prisoner
And was made wear a heavy garment;
So he slaved away this bitter and miserable life.
To this man was Teucrus, as we’ve already mentioned,
An officer responsible for all things concerning the state.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.970  CONCERNING ARCHIMEDES, OF WHOM I’VE WRITTEN IN THE 35TH Story (TE2.32 E6)
This man of great wisdom, Archimedes of Syracuse,
Was Hieron’s advisor, friend, officer and engineer.
In the thirtieth fifth story shall you find the matters concerning him
All written out in great length.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.975  (TE2.33) CONCERNING THE SCRIBES OF DARIUS AND XERXES, THE PERSIAN KINGS
Information about Darius and Xerxes
You shall find in the thirty first story
And in the one right after it.
Turn the pages back and learn about them.
But I must now address the matters concerning their scribes.
The two kings would watch over the battles they fought from their thrones
And their scribes would write down the events of every battle.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.982  (TE2.34) CONCERNING CEPHALUS
The orator Cephalus was father of the orator Lysias,
From Thourioi, an Italian city.
A rich nobleman he was, the saviour of the Athenians.
During the reign of the thirty tyrants, before Euclides’s time,
Some Athenians took over the Piraeus
And fought against the Thirty
To relieve themselves of the yoke of tyranny.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.990  Cephalus gave them eight hundred shields
And sponsored their victory over the tyrants.
Later they fined him thousands of drachmas
Saying he had proposed an inadmissible decree.
Well, he said: “The penalty of death would be more preferable.
For what reason did I save them from the Tyrants in the first place?”
That man was the noblest and most just of all orators
And had never received an accusation during his lifetime.
But Aristophon was the exact opposite of Cephalus
And would always be accused but then defeat his prosecutors.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 5.1000  (TE2.35) CONCERNING CTESIPHON, NOT THE CITY
Ctesiphon happens to be a city in Persia.
[6.1]Not of that do we speak but of Ctesiphon the orator,
Who proposed that Demosthenes be given the golden crown,
The one for whom Aeschines wrote his work Against Ctesiphon.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.4  CHILIADES BOOK 6, TRANSLATED BY KONSTANTINOS RAMIOTIS
CONCERNING TIMARCHUS (TE2.36)
Timarchus son of Arizelus was an orator, and a lewd man.
He was a friend to Demosthenes and greatly honoured.
Through his mouth he uttered filthy words against Dionysius,
It spat forth mud of unmentionable obscenities,
Such that not even some whore would utter in a brothel!
To the noblest of men, Aeschines, did he speak –

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§ 6.10  Whom lines of men indecorous call immodest and immoral,
Distorting thus the truth of things –
In some brothel, dear Aeschines, did your mother, as they say,
Herself to a hero give.
She raised you to be a real man, among other things.
But of Demades speaks she ill, waffles and gossips;
He calls Philip an adulterer
But unlike them was Demades a lover of peace
Speaking thus: I do not summon the cowardly, like Demosthenes did,

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§ 6.20  Lashing my whip on the face of war and going the way of peace,
A coward I become, of peace a lover.
I do not go by the clashes of battle and the roars of war,
To such feats I hold no aspiration.
Listen to me, O men, when I speak of peace,
Not to a man mingling with crowds, doing so in vain.
For war makes things go up and down
And fathers bury their own sons, the elderly their guardians!
If only did the Thebans have their own Demades,
A city living still they ‘d be, Demosthenes.

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§ 6.30  But teeming now it is with men and empty fields,
Even the enemy will shed tears, should he pass by.
Upon Demades so dirtily spoke pure-mouthed Dionysius.
And so he considered peace as superior to war.
Again with fake courtesy he speaks to Neaira,
That she did the work of three-hole filling
And spits forth mud-talk of her other misdeeds,
Ones that to Dionysius seemed like mere perfumes.
The term they call “work of three piercings”

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§ 6.40  The one Lysias introduced with elegance and eloquence,
That one he stole and turned into an accusation.
For Antiope, said Lysias, is a whore
For having made love from two cavities
And openly he took this a step further,
Saying that Neaira managed all three.
That son of Arizelus, Timarchus, a lewd man,
The friend of the decent-mouthed Demosthenes
Together with delegates and orators of the Athenians
And seven more ambassadors of Athenian origin

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.50  -All these had the approval of the city of Athens-
Took Aeschines to court, accusing him of forming an embassy unapproved.
Even Synteus would as a prosecutor beat them in court,
But Aeschines had the last word;
First he shut down Timarchus, showing what a lascivious man he was,
A friend of Misgolaus, the paedophile
And a friend of Pitollakus, the bird-lover.
After he proved Timarchus to be an indecent man,
He proved the fallacy of the Athenians
And led Timarchus to death by suicide.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.60  Thus did Aeschines do upon Timarchus.
And Demosthenes he presented as an open-mouthed greedy wolf, but in vain.
And so, he went to trial and emerged victorious,
Even though it was just Eubulus that stood at his side.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.64  (TE2.37) CONCERNING DEMOSTHENES AND OTHERS
From oblivion have I now recovered the matters concerning Demosthenes,
From which a hundred you shall hear from Tzetzes, if you wish so.
So for the rest of them, should you just ask,
For Tzetzes doesn’t hold back, although a disease torments him,
A shortness of breath so terrible it suffocates him.
But from fountains hidden will he gush streams of knowledge forward:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.70  So, listen once more about Demosthenes.
Demosthenes was a strategist, son of Alcisthenus,
He loved wine and vineyards he held dear.
Demosthenes the orator was Demosthenes’ son,
A freeman from Paiania and from a Scythian mother.
But hear this: the father of the orator’s mother was someone named Glykon,
Who betrayed the city of Nymphaeon of Pontus to the enemy
And sentenced was he to death but fled to the Bosporus,

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§ 6.80  Where the enemy hands him gifts, the so called “gardens”
And weds one of the rich Scythian women.
She bestows him with two daughters, whom he sent to Athens.
From them the one became the mother of Demosthenes
And the other married some Athenian man.
So, Demosthenes, the orator, was, as we’ve told, a Scythian.
Listen to what we briefly have to say about his morals and character:
Chlanidas, a man most prominent who dressed in a female manner,
Dragging his gown on the ground would shout in a loud voice.
He walked around scratching his head

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.90  And then he began advocating and speaking publicly,
Moving his hand incessantly. He was indeed cunning,
Like almost every orator.
In Hyperides’ speech Against the Criminals
Aristogeiton speaks thus, as they say:
“Such damned beasts they are, such scamps!”,
Pointing to Demosthenes and Lycurgus.
He tells of how Diopethes from Sounio sold Demosthenes to Lycurgus as slave
After the naval battle that went down in Hellespont.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.100  But they refused to pay him
And dragged him instead to court.
And he would have lost his life, poor fellow,
Had it not been for Callicles and Demeas, who stood at his side.
Again of Timarchus he speaks and Demosthenes:
Send Timarchus as delegate, O men,
If you are out of your minds and have no moral principles!
Send Timarchus, who has an effeminate body
And does hateful deeds.
To Lycurgus he is no friend, but he is one to Demosthenes.

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§ 6.110  The rest think of him as filthy and although Lycurgus despises him,
Demosthenes holds him dear. I omit the rest.
And Demades says he will destroy Demosthenes,
That petty silver-tongued man,
A flatterer and seducer,
Whose words cause pain and who wails and causes disturbances
And turmoil and angst and tens of thousands of troubles,
Shedding fake tears.
Again, turning against the Halonesians, he says:
For such a small island with such petty resources

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§ 6.120  Are you willing to stand against Philip, O men?
Because of a man that steers the crowd and delivers speeches of rebellious nature?
Because of a man with effeminate manners,
Who acts like a woman, who dresses in extravagant clothes,
Who, carrying along his garment and shouting out loud,
Accuses as cowards and unmanly the consultants of good conduct?
And then, scratching his head and moving around excessively,
As if he wished to take over the assembly with sheer words
And make the land of Greece tremble and muzzle everyone,
- But they know of him and of his motherland -

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§ 6.130  Of his status and roots he boasts
And puckers his eyebrows, just like Critias,
One of the Thirty Tyrants, himself no son of a dagger-crafter,
Atrocious and brutal, deceptive and seductive,
An orator not of their kin, a foreigner, a Scythian,
Who, despite being a sword maker’s son from a Scythian mother,
Moans and shouts and disturbs all Greece.
Aeschines accuses Timarchus of keeping company with hetaerae
Or rather of being prostituted; and he speaks of Demosthenes
Elegant garments and soft tunics

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§ 6.140  As being clear signs of his hollow nature
And of none of his body parts being unavailable to sale,
Not even that from which speech gushes forth, so deceitful is his tongue.
That cunning stutterer Demosthenes, of whom I speak, sly and tricky and shrewd.
And in some other place is written that he bursts into tears,
Even when those around him laugh.
That prick inflicts pain to the whole city.
And apart from that he committed adultery with Cnesion’s wife,
Need one say more on this?
And then, they say in some other work, Demosthenes rose

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§ 6.150  And spoke rubbing his head, such was his habit.
Which writer could ever mention all that is said regarding Demosthenes?
Demosthenes calls himself a man of riches,
Having acquired a fortune of sixty two thousand four hundred drachmas.
But elsewhere they say otherwise: if I were rich,
There’ d be no need of making public praises,
Or if I had harvesters and child nurses and private workers.
And it is also said that his very own father
Let his mother as a concubine to Therippides in his will.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.160  “They accused my father of being a foreigner among other things”, he said.
When his mother died, he pleaded to the Athenians,
To bury her in their ancestral graves.
Now, having covered most facts, I have to tell of how he died.
There was someone named Harpalus, a commander under Alexander,
Who was a military general in Phoenice and a financial steward,
Who, after having embezzled money, took off to Athens,
And gives a great quantity of money to his friend, Demosthenes.
When Alexander wrote of these to the Athenians,
And asked for both Harpalus and Demosthenes to be turned in,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.170  Demosthenes instantly took off for Calauria
An island lying in the proximity of the Troezenian land
And found shelter in Poseidon’s temple.
When Alexander died, Antipater and Cassander became leaders of the Macedonians,
So Demosthenes and the rest of the orators came to be punished.
As Argias from Boura was sent to kill orators everywhere in Greece,
The Athenians asked only for Demades to be spared
And the rest had their tongues cut off,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.180  Being, thus, put to trial according to the Athenian vote and law.
When Demosthenes was in Calauria,
Argias reached this island
And tried to draw Demosthenes out of that temple
But he, having drunk the poison from his bullet ring,
Surrendered to death.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.186  (TE2.38) CONCERNING PYTHO OF BYZANTIUM, WHOM I THINK DEMOSTHENES SCORNS EVEN IN HADES
Python of Byzantium was a secretary and orator and advisor to Philip the Great,
Whom Demosthenes fears, when he sees him even in Hades
As Aeschines tells, Demosthenes said
That he would put a full leash on Philip’s mouth,
So he took off for the court of Philip and came across Python
And astonished he was by the oratory skills of that Byzantine man;
Thrice he lost his voice, thrice did he regain it
And thrice did he forget what he had set off to say.
And so, he merely muttered and out came an obscure and weak introductory speech.
But Aeschines listened to Demosthenes, for he was true to the cause,
It was clear that this Python was fluent in his speech,
And he did not boast of victory.
So, now you’ve learned who this Python of Byzantium was.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.201  (TE2.39) CONCERNING CLUSINUS, THE SECRETARY OF PORSENNA, KING OF THE TYRRHENIANS, WHOM MOCIUS THE ROMAN KILLED, JUST LIKE HE KILLED PORSENNA
Lartas Porsenna or Clara Porsenna marched against Rome, great was his army.
Some Roman, Mocius, who was a brave soldier,
Dressed like a Tyrrhenian, bearing their weapons and garments,
And sets off as a spy against the Tyrrhenians, in order to kill Porsenna.
As the secretary was during that time sitting next to the king,
A secretary going by the name of Clusinus in the Tyrrhenian tongue,
Maucius killed him, not knowing which one of them was the king.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.210  Porsenna seized him and interrogated him:
“Why did you do this, what’s your motive?”
“I am no Tyrrhenian“, he replied, “I am a Roman,
And three hundred others just like me are seeking to kill you”,
-This was a lie-. And when they put his right hand in the fire,
He kept staring at Porsenna, as if this was happening to someone else.
And Porsenna said to him: “Why do you stare at me with that empty look?”
And Mocius replied: “Because I erred
And killed another man whom I thought to be you.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.220  And when Porsenna said, “You will become my ally”,
Mocius replied: “Of course, if you are a Roman by birth.”
Porsenna admired the virtue of that man,
Made truce with the Romans and put, thus, a stop to the war.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.224  (TE2.40) CONCERNING DIONYSIUS, WHO WAS TYRANT IN SICILY AND THEN A SECRETARY IN CORINTH AND WHO REGAINED HIS CROWN
(This story is told in the many-historied first letter. Some soldiers in the palace found many little books of my essays
In a cell of one of my interlocutors when he died, they sold them; one for four copper coins, another
For six and so on. While I was looking for them, I learned the following regarding the king’s court):

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.233  This Dionysius, the first one with that name,
Was a private scribe, son of Thermocrates.
But he came to be in debt that he managed to pay off
And then turned with murderous treachery against his superiors
And, doubling the soldiers’ salary, he took the throne for himself.
He did plenty of harm.
But when his life was threatened, he fled to Corinth,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.240  Where he began teaching in the middle of the street
And spent his time in brothels, quarrelling with the most vulgar of men,
Always arguing and uttering uncountable blasphemies,
So that he seemed a mad man to the ones who saw him.
Then, not relying on the numbers of men,
He found an ideal time and,
Allying himself with friends, regained the kingship.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.247  (TE2.41) CONCERNING PERSEUS, SON OF THE MACEDONIAN KING, WHO HAS CAPTURED AND BECAME A PERSONAL ADVISOR TO A MAN OF LATIUM WHO WAS NOT A KING
Perseus, a lover of money, king of the Macedonians,
Fell into demise with his allies, because of matters concerning money.
As he was carried off a slave to Rome,
He was thrown in a dark cage to die, as if he were a pig.
His son, whose name, I think, was Alexander,
Becomes secretary for some Latin man.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.253  (TE2.42) CONCERNING SOMNA AND ELOACEIM, SCRIBES OF EZEKIEL, KING OF JERUSALEM
Ezekiel was the king of Jerusalem.
He had two scribes, Somna and Eloaceim.
He revolted and did not pay the tribute due
To the Assyrian king, the one they had agreed on,
Which comprised of three hundred golden talents
And three hundred silver ones.
The Assyrian king, who went by the name of Senachereim,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.260  On the fourteenth year of Ezekiel’s reign
Went and laid siege on the cities of Judea.
And to Jerusalem, in a demonstration of high power,
He sends Tharthan and Rafi and Rapsaces as delegates
To take the tribute that had been withheld.
For that reason Eloaceim, the treasure warden,
And Somna and Ioas were with him,
Opened his mouth with blasphemy to the sky
And named Egypt, a withered and broken staff, as one of their allies.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.270  From them murdered the messenger thousands during the night
A hundred and five and eighty more
As this kingly book of mine teaches.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.273  (TE2.43) CONCERNING DIOPHANTES, SECRETARY OF HEROD THE KING
Diophantes was a secretary to Herod
And he could imitate any handwriting
Just like Titus, the once king of the Romans.
He lost his life caught forging a letter,
While Titus died after eating a sea rabbit.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.279  (TE2.44) CONCERNING THE SECRETARIES OF QUEEN CLEOPATRA
The beautiful and wise Cleopatra,
Superior to all others,
Had Charmiune and Taera to take care of her hair and nails. What proves that?
See how Tzetzes now, who is an Ismailite,
Will tell you of these in their language.
In the Hebrew and Syrian language
Charmi means vine and Uno means dove
According to the Ismailites, the descendants of Agar.
And Taera, methinks, means dove.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.290  These women were responsible for the queen’s hair and nails.
She had tens of thousands of others that served her
As engineers and doctors and secretaries, orators and advisors
And [Sostratus son of] Dexiphanes himself, an engineer from Cnidus,
Adept at making the most efficient of concoctions.
He managed to turn four stadiums of sea into land,
And raised a light house in the city of Alexandria itself,
A beacon for salvation to those travelling by night.
She acquired Dexiphanes as an engineer, the Ephesian doctors
Soranus and Rufus to gladden and embellish her face,
And take care of her matters of female nature and her medical needs.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.303  (TE2.45) CONCERNING PHILOSTRATUS THE ORATOR, WHO SERVED QUEEN JULIA AS A SECRETARY
Flavius Philostratus, who I think was an orator from Tyre,
(The one from Attica was someone else). This Tyrian was,
As he himself writes in his books,
One of the orators and secretaries in the service of Julia, the powerful queen,
Who, they say, was wife to no king.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.309  (TE2.46) CONCERNING SOME OTHER ANONYMOUS SECRETARIES
To Cato the prior, but not to the second
A certain Salonius rendered service as secretary in his writings
But Cato did not hand him his son to learn oratory
So that he would not incur a great debt to him.
He himself raised the child through acts and words
And when the mother of Cato’s child died,
Cato made a match with Salonius’ daughter,
saying to him: “Have you married off your own child?”
He answered: “I shall not, without consulting you first.
Cato said, I have found an irreproachable son in law for you.
If you do not hate me for my old age, Let me marry your daughter”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.320  When the son said to Cato his begettor,
“Have I somehow annoyed you so you are marrying again?”
“By no means”, answered Cato, “would I marry again
to beget other children at your expense.” To this man, as we have said, the first Cato,
Salonius was secretary, and Sarpedon to the second.
These were both secretaries and philosophers.
I omit Brutus and his secretary
And Julian's Himerius
And Themistius of Theodosius
And all the rest of the rest, not wanting to be prolix.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.331  (TE2.47) CONCERNING LEMPHO, WHICH IS ALSO CALLED CORYZA, AND THE FACT THAT FISH HAVE NO VOICE, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF SCARUS AND CASTORIS
Coryza and snot and mucus and lemphic liquid are all the same thing to me.
The lembus happens to be a kind of ship –and there are many kinds:
Siege ships, military ships, horse carriers, ships with three rows,
Rowboats and long ships and transport ships and tow ships
And many others, needless to say, it would be burdensome.
All fish are voiceless, except for the scarus and castorides.
Scarus sends of a rambling voice equal to speech
And ruminates, just like sheep.
And castorides wails. If someone listens to it,
He departs early from this tormenting life.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.342  (TE2.48) CONCERNING BATTUS, THE KING OF CYRENE AND SILPHIUM
Battus was from the island of Thera and then he built Cyrene.
Aristotle himself says that he was called Battus because of his distorted voice.
Wanting to improve his voice he came to the oracle,
With the desire to correct his mumbling.
The god turned to him and said:
Battus, you came to inquire about your voice,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.350  But Phoebus the god sends you off to Libya, abundant in sheep, to found a city.”
Thus, he sets off from Thera right away,
He comes to Libya and builds the city of Cyrene.
After that he became a great benefactor to the Cyreneans;
They gave him the plant silphium as a gift.
Synesius tells me that this silphium is a kind of cabbage.
And everyone says that this plant is of great value
And one that is hard to find
And that its stem is to be found in the Pythian oracle
Where it is taken care of and flourishes and shoots sprouts.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.360  If it is cultivated, it leaves the country of its origin.
And the silphium is of two kinds:
One that the mules eat and the other that is highly praised,
The one the Cyreneans offered to Battus for his benefaction.
And Battus, as a reward to this, stamped new coins
And on them he depicted the Cyreneans bearing this plant.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.367  (TE2.49) CONCERNING ANDOCIDES, WHOM LYSIAS MENTIONS AS HAVING SUED HIS FATHER
Leogoras was Andocides’, the orator’s, father.
He was betrayed by his own son but won the trial
And begged the judges to let him marry a woman,
So that he may have children that are rightfully his.
Because Andocides had been adopted by Leogoras,
For he had paid for him, since he was childless.
And his own niece he sold to the king of the Cyprians in exchange for wheat;
That child of Aristides; and she was still a young girl.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.376  (TE2.50) CONCERNING DEMOSTHENES, WHO TOOK HIS NEPHEW, DEMOMELES, TO TRIAL, AS AESCHINES TELLS US
Demosthenes took his nephew to trial.
His nephew was Demomeles, thus tells Aeschines.
Cousins are they by habit called the sons of brothers
And Adelphides to a brother his own brother’s children
The ones that are called nephews in everyday speech.
The sons of cousins you may call mere cousins, just like the others.
They are, however, cousins of second grade
And they call second nephews the children of such cousins,
The sons of daughters and the sons of sons
They call second sons.
But look at me trying to cram all these information in one place.
If I, Tzetzes, write these histories expansively,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.390  “Many squads would lack a wine-pourer”; (Il. 2.128)
Many stories would be omitted from the text
From those added in the addendum to the list
And this book would not suffice for stories written at length,
But not even written narrowly, I fear. For so far, where I am writing now,
I should, having calculated from the size of the book
Be writing the seventy third story.
But now I am writing the fiftieth. Therefore, I have to keep them short,
So every story of the addendum to the list
I can include in the present book.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.400  If anyone sees the histories here as too brief,
And says Tzetzes is bad and feeble at history.
“But the Dardanian and Trojans will not be convinced
Nor will the wives of the brave shield-carrying Trojans,
They whose robust husbands he threw in the dust.” (Il. 8.155).
The poets and authors, orators and writers of legal speeches,
Historians, chroniclers and all kinds of specialists,
With whose books in hand I wrote down my thoughts, so without books
Which are now filling up this work of mine.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.410  (TE2.51) CONCERNING PARMENION AND NICANOR
Parmenion was badmouthing Nicanor to Philip,
Saying: “He is scornful of you, O king!”
As Philip was investigating the cause of this defamation,
He found that it was lack of money and, so, he sent him money.
And then he asked for money again, as someone told Philip.
So Philip turned and told him:
“We are the lords of those that are responsible
For uttering defamatory words or praises against us.”
Tyrtameus Theophrastus, I think, said
That even though Plato was once called Aristocles,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.420  He was given the name Plato, which means wide, by Socrates, due to his size.
Likewise, Tyrtamus, because of his magnificent speeches
Was later called Theophrastus, which means “having divine speech”
By Aristotle, his wise master.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.424  (TE2.52) CONCERNING THE CHILDREN OF HEROD, AS MENTIONED BY JOSEPHUS
Herod the crown-bearer had three children
And he himself was son of Antipater and Cypris Or maybe an Arab.
By a Judaean commoner called Doris
He had Antipater, a cunning man.
With Mariamne, the daughter of Alexander, he had a son Aristobulus;
Herod took her as his wife when already King.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.430  Alexander was born after Aristobulus.
This Antipater, son of Doris,
Slandered Mariamne’s sons to Herod
And Alexander would have almost died,
Were it not for his father in law, Glaphyra’s father,
Whose name was Archelaus, king of the Cappadocians,
Who, taking mercy on his son in law and his daughter
And riding on one horse after another, travelling, thus, fast,
Reached Herod and asked:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.440  Is this petty man still alive? Does he still see the light of the sun?
O by the king’s reason, fatherly care and deterrence of evil
I choose to separate him from my daughter,
Because I do not want this parricide to be my son in law.
So he acted with a cunning mind he said
And not succumbing to his emotions of anger
He manipulated as much as his powers permitted him. For he was an adept orator.
Regarding that matter which angered him, Herod asked
That the man be separated from his daughter.
Herod’s son and son in law of that Archelaus

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.450  Found then unexpected salvation
And Archelaus himself had even more unexpectedly good fortune,
For he saved his son in law from death and acquired gifts as well.
Seventy golden talents and a throne made with precious stones and other such things,
He hands to Archelaus and all around him upon their arrival.
And the whole fellowship of Herod gave them gifts as well,
Because Archelaus managed to keep his son-in-law.
Glad as he was, he turned to Herod and said:
“Take care, o King, for this accusations might be false,
They might be schemes against this child”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.460  And then Diophantus was put to death,
Because he had made a forgery, so as to seem that it was Alexander who had written the letter.
Apart from his sons Herod had a daughter,
Whom he had wedded to his brother, Pheroras,
And he had given three hundred talents for her dowry.
But he discarded these and fell in love with a slave woman.
Do not go about having such relationships with slaves!
Take these four as a perfect example of mingling with slaves:
Aristotle, Plato, Menelaus and Pheroras,
The last two were brothers of kings and the former two philosophers.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.470  (TE2.53) CONCERNING XERMODIGESTUS, WHOM DIODORUS MENTIONS
This Xermodigestus, as Diodorus narrates,
I think, was a most faithful friend to Audoleon, king of the Paeonians.
He betrayed the location of a treasure to Lysimachus or some other Thracian king.
“But it is tormenting to me every god to describe”.
But you know of what matters I speak.
To the lord of Thrace he disclosed the location of the treasures,
The ones lying under the Sargentian river,
The ones he himself had hidden along with the captives,
Changing the course of the river and then burying them deep down.
Then he rearranged the river flow and slew the captives.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.481  (TE2.54) CONCERNING CANDAULUS’ WIFE, WHO BETRAYED HER HUSBAND
Nyssia was Myrtillus’, Candaulus’ son’s, wife.
The name Candaulus means “dog strainer” in the Lydian tongue.
When Candaulus showed her naked to Gyges,
He persuaded him to kill her husband.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.485  (TE2.55) CONCERNING LAETUS AND ECLECTUS, WHOM HERODIAN MENTIONS IN HIS CHRONICLES
Laetus was first general in Commodus’ army
And Eclectus was a military associate to him
Who, also happened to commit adultery with Laetus’ concubine, Marcia.
As the first day of the year was upon them,
(Which happens to be a great celebration,
Where the Romans exchange gifts)
Commodus decided to organize a parade

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.490  But one that started in front of the arena and not the palace.
But it was Marcia that hindered him
Together with Eclectus and Laetus. He (Herodian) says that they were sentenced to death
Marcia, the concubine, and they as well.
Under his bed he hid the death sentence.
But a young boy that loved Commodus,
Philocommodus was his name, came across the map while playing.
Maria was holding him, kissing him, when she saw the map
And, knowing that Commodus was too powerful, she plots a scheme against him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.500  She makes a poison by herself and handles it to him to drink
And while Commodus was vomiting, Narcissus strangles him-
He was a strong young lad and so he killed Commodus-
Who had held the throne for thirteen years.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.504  (TE2.56) CONCERNING PHAEDRA AND HIPPOLYTUS, WHOM EURIPIDES AND OTHERS MENTION
The story of Phaedra and Hippolytus is one known to all.
How Phaedra loved him deeply, although he was her son
But he rejected her, so she accused him falsely
To Theseus, his father, and, thus, he died a shameful death.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.508  (TE2.57) CONCERNING HELENUS, WHO BETRAYED TROY THROUGH HIS DIVINATIONS
Helenus, son of Priam, was a seer.
He, knowing that Troy would be conquered,
Came to the Greeks alone and disclosed his prophecy to them.
As Orpheus first and Euripides after him said,
It was by jealousy towards his own relative Deiphobus
That Helenus came to commit this treachery.
And Sophocles tells of how Odysseus chased him away,
Saying that he didn’t really want the Greeks to capture Troy.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.516  (TE2.58) CONCERNING WHAT THE CHALCIDEAN POET SAYS ABOUT ANTENOR
Lycophron says that it was Antenor who betrayed Troy:
“Twice did his hands feel the belly of the horse”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.518  (T59) CONCERNING WHAT THE AUTHOR FROM CHAIRONEIA TELLS ABOUT VINDICIUS
In the Parallel Lives Plutarch tells
Of Titus and Valerius and Collatinus’ sons,
How they sacrificed a man in a muddy drench
And swore an oath to eat his guts,
So that they could reign over the city of Rome.
But a slave, Vindicius, who had hidden himself somewhere nearby,
Reveals this scheme to Collatinus and Brutus.
Brutus confirmed the fact and slew his sons with an axe,
And in a similar manner had Collatinus judged his own sons.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.27  (TE2.60) CONCERNING WHAT COCCEIANUS WRITES ABOUT CORIOLANUS
Cassius Dio and thousands of others
Of those that wrote down the history of the Romans
Tell the story of Marcus Coriolanus.
This Marcus, who was also formerly called Gnaeus,
Was later named Coriolanus due to the facts that follow:
Rome laid siege against the city of Coriolanum
And everyone found shelter in it,
It was only him that turned against it and burned it,
When he found an opening in its defences.
And when the bright flames rose up high,
He rode his horse and threw himself against the barbarian enemies,
The ones that had in the past made the Romans fall back and flee.
Well, when they turned around and saw the fire that burned the city,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.540  They thought they were under attack and fled to all directions.
And he saved the Romans and took over the city,
Which, as we’ve said before, had the name of Coriolanum.
So he also took that honorary name of Coriolanus, apart from the ones he already had, Marcus and Gnaeus.
What jealousy holds in stock for people of good demeanour,
That after some time bring only harm to a man’s reasoning!
For he was taken over by his over-righteous soul
And left his homeland, mother, wife
And comes to the citizens of Coriolanum, who accept him as one of their own.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.550  They took battle positions against the Romans
And were it not for the fact that, after the war broke out,
His mother and wife ran hitherto and tore apart their garments
And stood there naked-
Veturnia and Velumnia were their names-
And so caused the battle against the Romans to seize,
Rome would not have learned to honour its benefactors.
But being held back by the pleas of his mother and wife
He put a stop to the war against the Romans.
So he, leaving the city of Coriolanum and the Romans alone,
Fled to another land, his heart full of sorrow.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.561  (TE2.61) CONCERNING WHAT THE AUTHOR FROM ANTIOCH WRITES ABOUT AGAVE, WHO BETRAYED HER OWN SON AND CAUSED HIS DEATH
Cadmus had five children from Harmony,
Polydorus was one of them and four of them were daughters:
Ino, Semele, Agave and Autonoe among them.
Labdacus, son of Polydorus from Nycteis,
Learchus Melicertes, son of Io and Athamas
And Pentheus was the son of Echion and Agave.
Autonoe and Aristaeus had a son
The one that found how to cultivate crops, Actaeon his name was.
He, hunting on Cithaeron, was eaten by dogs.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.570  From Zeus and Semele Dionysus was born,
Who, running off to Thebes accompanied by flutes and groups of dancers,
Made acts of wonder, but Pentheus captured him.
He cut his shackles and on the mountain stayed in company of the Bacchants,
To whom also belonged the mother of Pentheus.
So, Pentheus, wanting to spy on them,
Went to Cithaeron and climbed a pine-tree.
But they spotted him and thought he was a bull
And so they tore him apart, limb by limb, his mother first.
Then, realizing what she did, she grieves deeply.

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§ 6.580  So does Euripides describe the story of the Bacchants
And John the Chronicler seeks to interpret them in realistic terms.
Pentheus and Labdacus, but more so Pentheus,
Seeing that the rest of Cadmus’ grandsons had died,
Actaeon by his very dogs,
Learchus and Melicertes by their parents,
Aspired to seize the sceptre and the throne.
But when he heard of Dionysus, Cadmus’ bastard
How he might oppose his aspirations, he takes him captive.
He came to free him, then, listening to his mother’s pleas
And Dionysus slew him.
Thus did they make the myth that t’ was his mother that killed him.
But I, as I told above, see this as a betrayal.

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§ 6.592  (TE2.62) “YOU THINK I AM MARGITES?”
In the second list, fourth story
You'll find the story of Margites with an epigram
Regarding Melitides and other imbeciles.
This Margites was an old man of most tender nature,
Inquired as to whether it was his mother or his father that bore him in the womb.
Homer dedicated a book to this Margites.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.600  (TE2.63) CONCERNING THE STONE NIOBE WHO SHED TEARS IN SIPYLUM
Niobe turned into stone on the Lydian mountain of Sipylum
On the day her children died
And grieved, as the myths tell us.
This story you should find,
If you go a hundred and forty one stories back;
It is plain and lacking in detail, for the reasons I mentioned.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.607  (TE2.64) CONCERNING THE COLUMN OF MEMNON IN THE THEBES OF EGYPT
Memnon was the son of Tithonus, brother to Priam,
Who, coming from Ethiopia, allied himself to Troy
And died in battle by Achilles’ hand.
He was taken back to his fatherland and there was buried.
In his honour was a column raised, made of reddish stone,
That sent forth a joyful melody during the day,
As if it rejoiced by the presence of his mother.
And by night it produced a mournful sound.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.614  (TE2.65) CONCERNING THE PROPHECIES REGARDING THE IRON STONE
According to Orpheus, if someone were to wash the iron stone in the eternal fountains and then ask questions to it,
He would receive an answer regarding all things
In the sublime voice of a child.
Then it turn would cold, as if it was dead.
Through such divinations, they say, did Helenus predict the fall of Troy.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.621  (TE2.66) CONCERNING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE MAGNESIAN STONE, WHICH IS ALSO CALLED HERACLEAN, AND THE IRON STONE
The magnesian stone attracts iron
And is similar to it in shape and matter and other traits.
We’ve told before of how it draws the power of the iron;
Now we shall narrate other things.
Someone, hiding this stone under a woman’s bedsheets,
May ask her and she would tell you of her every sin
Or roll down fast from the bed and fall to your feet.
But if she is sinless, if she is chaste,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.630  She will reach out to your neck and hang her arms around you.
I also know for sure that to him who asks it unveils everything
Men and women do when lying together.
Two brothers possessed that stone
And managed to turn an enmity into friendship.
And the one who has the stone can draw attention through his words
And the stone itself fulfils the wishes of its holders.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.639  (TE2.67) CONCERNING LIQUID SILVER
Everyone says that mercury loves gold.
The ones wanting to steal mercury from the river banks
Make ditches far away from the river
And then they send forth a rider dressed with a Golden Fleece
And fall back as fast as possible.
The mercury then chases him and falls into the ditches
And they come, bearing no gold on them, to pick it up.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.646  (TE2.68) CONCERNING OTHER STONES I WILL NOT SAY MUCH
Some precious stone draws all other stones to it
Even gold or some stone from the deeps,
Just as the magnesian stone can attract iron,
So does the one called berenicean
And it can draw grain seeds to it,
Being itself a kind of tree spore.
I shall not keep on talking about amber, which looks like copper.
The rest of such properties regarding stones and metals I leave untold.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.655  (TE2.69) CONCERNING THE RIGIDITY OF SOPHOCLES, SOPHILUS' SON
Sophocles the tragedian, who was Sophilus’ son,
In his play Ajax, apart from the whip-bearer,
He brings Ajax, son of Telamon,
To Eurysaces, his son from Tecmessa,
Saying: “Lack of clear thought is no dangerous evil.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.660  (TE2.70) PROVERB “YOU WOUNDED ME, YOU CURE ME”
When the Greeks set off with their ships to fight the Trojans,
They anchored in Mysia near the Caecus
And when Telephus joined battle they were shaken up.
This Telephus was the son of Heracles’ and Auge.
When Achilles wounded him on the thigh,
Telephus then came to him and was healed.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.667  (TE2.71 E6) CONCERNING THE VOICE THAT MARCUS CEDICIUS HEARD FROM THE SKIES
Somewhere in the Parallel Lives, Plutarch the Chaeronean writes
That when Camillus was consul of the Romans
They ostracized to the land of the Ardeatae.
Someone called Marcus Cedicius, who, coming from the fields,
Heard a voice from the sky that said:
“O you, Marcus Cedicius, tell the Roman people
That because of your injustice, you will receive the Gauls”.
After a short time, this prophecy was realized;
For Brennus, the Gaulish lord, sacked Rome.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.675  (TE2.72 E7) CONCERNING THE CITY OF MEDIA
Medea, daughter of Aeetes, has an eta and the diphthong in her name;
Media, land of the Medeans, an eta and an iota,
And takes its name after Medus, son of Medeia.
The city of Mideia has an iota and the diphthong;
Midas, lover of gold, built it.
The cities have their diphthong, the lands an iota.
So, Media is the land but Medeia the city.
In a similar manner, Italy is called the land of the Calabrians
And of the Longibarbs as well.
But Attaleia happens to be a city in Pamphylia.
So Media is the land but Mideia the city,
The one built by this lover of gold, as they tell,
Coming to be king through great toil,
Just like Saul and David and Tullius Servius,
Like Leo and Basilius, the great Macedonian king, and others.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.690  This Midas was a chariot driver
And he took the cows and plough and went out to plow the field.
But the Phrygians seized him and made him king.
For they had lost their king and had made a compromise
To make the first man they stumbled upon king.
And he was the first one they came by and the state prospered greatly
Under him, the founder of the city of Mideia.
The one you must write with iota and a diphthong.
Meidias is a proper name, of the man that hit Demosthenes,
Written with a diphthong. and then iota, meaning the one that smiles or laughs.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.700  (TE2.73) CONCERNING THE TERMS DIAULUS, STADION AND SIMILAR THINGS
Before, they named stadion the track to be run carrying weapons,
And the course was flat, no ups and down whatsoever. This is what’s known as stadion.
But diaulus is a double track, with one single bend.
Dolichus is a seven-road track with three turns
And no weapons are to be carried.
Tetrorus was a course with twelve rounds.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.708  (TE2.74) CONCERNING THE LOTUS
There is the wild herb they call lotus,
But also a tree, as Diodorus tells us,
In Gadeira and Egypt, one that bears seeds like beans,
From which they make bread.
Herodotus also mentions this lotus of which I speak.
Some people say that lotus is some reed-like plant on the Nile.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.714  (TE2.75 E8) CONCERNING THE SIRENS
The Sirens, who lured everyone with their songs, were three in number,
Leucosia, Ligeia and Parthenope.
Others say they were Aglaopheme and Aglaonoe
And the third one was Thelxiepeia.
They were the daughters of the river Achelous and Terpsichore, the Muse.
You’ll find more about the latter in the stories mentioned above,
Namely in the fourteenth story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.720  (TE2.76 E8) CONCERNING POLYDAMNEIA’S REMEDIES
Homer says that Polydamneia the Egyptian
Was wife of Thonus, king of Egypt.
These two welcomed Menelaus and Helen in Egypt,
When they were carried there by violent winds,
And they gave them noteworthy gifts-
Thon to Menelaus and queen Polydamneia to Helen.
She gave her a drug that drives sad memories away,
One to pour and drink in wine and immediately become oblivious of grieves
And shed no tear, were he to attend the executions

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.730  Of his father or brother or even his dear son.
I have already told of Helen’s seductive speech,
Which, when accompanied by wine,
Makes one forget his sorrows, like in the Odyssey.
So, Egypt acquired those remedies
Of past pains, remedies of unbearable sorrows.
And so I hear of the Ethiops,
Who do not suffer from wounds or cuts or burns or other mishaps
And who can withstand every pain with ease,
As if these were happening to someone else, with the help, methinks, of some such remedy.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.739  (TE2.77) CONCERNING ODYSSEUS, WHO THOUGHT OF SMOKE EMANATING FROM HIS HOMELAND AS SUPERIOR TO THE GREATEST OF BLESSINGS, IMMORTALITY
Homer tells of Odysseus in the Odyssey,
Of how Calypso offered him the gift of immortality,
Were he to stay and live with her together,
But he refused and chose the mortal path,
As long as he could only see the smoke of Ithaca.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.744  (TE2.78) CONCERNING HOW TIMIDITY LEADS TO UNHAPPINESS, BUT COURAGE TO HAPPINESS
Hesiod, deterring his brother from procrastination,
Said to Perses: “Do not be timid, brother,
So that you do not become poor and unhappy.
It is bravery and courage that lead to happiness and riches”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.748  (TE2.79) CONCERNING HOW TO TRAIN YOURSELF THROUGH PREPARATION
Know that the lawyer’s art is called rhetoric,
The one Hermogenes’ handbook names sophistry.
This handbook of new knowledge on rhetoric
Is a five-fold book, divided in five chapters:
One on preparation, another on discourse, one on finding a topic,
One on ideas and the last one on rhetoric expertise.
In the first he teaches how to write
The stages of preparation, fourteen in number.
In the discourse part he teaches all discourse styles
And in how many and which parts is each of them divided.
In the third chapter he teaches how to find ideas
Regarding the introduction, presentation, main part and conclusion,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.760  How to counter the opponent’s arguments and how to present one’s own
As well as in how many and which ways this should be done.
Presenting and countering arguments, what one may call oratorical battles,
This is what he teaches.
In the chapter regarding the topic he presents the seven categories:
Precision and length, beauty and speed,
Moral and sincerity and eloquence.
Precision, length and moral he names general topics, for they consist of others,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.770  The rest are called specific.
But the wise Hermogenes, puts sincerity and moral together,
And thus he makes the seven six.
And each one of the specific ideas
Consists of eight integral parts, now you shall learn what they are:
Concept and method, words and patterns,
Punctuation, composition, pausing and rhythm.
Know, thus, that an idea is the quality of a speech
That mostly regards people, necessary for matters of discussion.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.780  And there are also other types, most similar to legal speeches,
Public advice is one of them, the other laudatory speeches.
In some no conclusion is reached and others are ambiguous,
And few go beyond the truth. So, you have learned
What powers these ideas have, the purpose of their teaching.
Regarding the methods of oratory mastery
They teach matters noteworthy, matters unworthy or ambiguous,
Matters that reach beyond what’s true
And how each one of them ought be taught.
So he, after having peed in the bath,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.790  Wishing to teach those things to the rest of the orators
And stealing everyone from which he had once benefited;
Regarding Style it was Phoebammon and Minucianus who helped him
And in topic finding Dionysius, among not few others,
And although he made promises everywhere he went
To teach these matters,
Those promises he then broke.
So some prosperous people reached an agreement with him
And ended up giving him thirty five talents
Ploughs and a windmill and a big oven.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.800  So he came upon such things by scheming and plotting
And it was by help of others as well not different from him.
So Tzetzes shall draw you the picture of these matters
With brevity, as he has not much paper available.
So learn now the method of oratorical expertise
And learn how in every technical or other part of oratory
You may insert an introduction and how it should look like
And how long should it be
And where should one prepare the crowd for matters to follow
And where should he present them

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.810  Where should he put forth his arguments and where not
And where should one place his conclusion and where not
So should he approach every part in matters of composition and length
What matters should he put forward in each and every one of them
And all else comprises the eight parts,
Concept and method, words and patterns,
Punctuation, composition, pausing and rhythm
And writing as skilfully as possible,
Even when it comes to petty matters
Or matters that are ambiguous or seem unreal.
Such is the power of technical knowledge.
So may Hermogenes and his wise sources with him
Write or speak about these things, which come naturally to them.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.822  (TE2.80E9) CONCERNING NOAH’S ARK
The facts regarding Noah and his ark are facts well known,
How he placed every clean and unclean animal in the ark,
To be the seed of all future species.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.825  (TE2.81) CONCERNING THE FLIGHT OF THE CROW AND THE DOVE FROM THE ARK
When the levels of that cataclysmic water came down
He first let a crow from the ark into the air,
Wanting to know whether the disaster had not stopped,
Should it return.
But the crow flew away and did not return,
It took on feeding on the corpses of those that had perished.
So, Noah then let a dove fly away from the ark
And the dove grabbed a branch from an olive tree and came back.
This was a clear sign that the levels of the water had dropped.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.834  (TE2.82) CONCERNING PROMETHEUS
Hesiod says in his Works and Days
That Zeus once wanted to send an evil upon men
And that Prometheus told his brother, Epimetheus,
That he should not accept anything sent from Zeus.
So Epimetheus came to realize how terrible it is
Not to listen to good counsels, after disregarding this advice.
So these things that I had formerly found in Hesiod I now present as allegories,
How Prometheus is the foreseeing mind
And how Epimetheus is the one that learns from the consequences of bad decisions.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.843  [TE2.83]) ... Eden means “comfortable”, Eden the warm... [passage lost]

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.843  (TE2.84 E11) CONCERNING PHILOPOEMEN, SON OF CRAUGIS
This story is to be found in the epistolion (small letter).
Philopoemen was Craugis’ [Krausis in ms] son, king of Greece
And he had a hideous appearance.
Upon receiving an invitation from someone also belonging to the nobility,
He went ahead of the time scheduled
But the one that had invited him was not there.
His wife thought him to be a beggar because of his appearance
And like to a servant ordered him to cut wood.
He, being very obedient as a man, carried out the order.
When the nobleman came and saw the whole thing
He shouted: “What is going on? This is Philopoemen!
What else could this be than the price I pay for my ugly form?”
So now you also have this story in your arsenal.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.858  (TE2.85) CONCERNING THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD PAROINIA
Learn what a jeering is and what is paroinia
And the games of latage and cottabus and eōlocrasia.
Jeering (propēlakismos), according to some ignorant fools, has that name
Because the men joke around by covering themselves in clay (pēlos).
But Tzetzes says that they all take their name from wine.
For wine is also called pēlos and kapēlos is derived from this word.
And Tryphiodorus also agrees with Tzetzes, when he says:
“The earth scented with well poured wine (pēlos)”.
They say that the act of jeering took its name from harvesting the pelos [wine lees],
Which the comedian smeared on their faces
And mocked everyone in Athens.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.870  So jeering is the sheer act of hybris and comedy
While paroinia is hybris and chattering.
How latage and cottabus and eolocrasia came to take their names
Listen now carefully and learn:
A certain Tragillus Suetinus (Suetonius Tranquillus, in his work regarding the games of the Greeks,
Tells of many games as well as dinner habits.
One of the symposium habits is eolocrasia
Another is cottabus and so is latage.
Young people partying in designated places
Around evening, placed pitchers and cups

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.880  And, in demonstration of manly courage, each drank down his own.
The one not managing to drink his pitcherful
Would be carried about at dawn, while the others would laugh.
This is eolocrasia. Now you shall learn what cottabus is.
In the symposium there were a scale and small bowls.
Those bowls had small man-like statues in the middle
Which were then called manes,
So the attenders of the symposium would fill their mouths with wine
Which is the meaning of lataks and latage, liquid and pouring
And they threw the liquid into each basin,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.890  Which means that they spew it out and emptied their mouths.
This act and the whole thing is called cottabus.
If the rod followed the course of the spat wine
And landed on the head of the statue,
The one who carried out the feat deemed as most adept to the rest of the attenders.
If he did not succeed, he would receive tons of laughter,
As if he was a sick and weak man.
So, the hybris and scorn that derives from such games
Is called propēlakismos and paroinia
Latagē, cottabus and eōlokrasia.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.900  (TE2.86 E12) CONCERNING A VERSE FROM PINDAR
Pindar, they say, wanted to prove that the story regarding Pelops eating his child was in fact a lie.
I do not think of the gods as gluttons
But some liars make up and spread thousands of lies.
But those things times proves to be utterly true and not falsifiable.
“Let the days to follow be the direst proof”,
Is what Pindar said. It is not what I said, though.
But I pointed out that, should you not do the right thing,
The effects of our infliction upon you will become apparent with time.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.910  (TE2.87 E12) CONCERNING METAMELEIA, EPIMETHEUS’ DAUGHTER
The mind that foresees things is that of Prometheus;
It can look ahead before the event occurs.
But the one looking back at what has already happened,
That one is Epimetheus, whose daughter we now mention,
Metameleia, her name meaning regret of what has occurred.
Those that do not plan ahead, will only feel sorrow,
When calamity strikes.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.917  (TE2.88 E13) CONCERNING HELICON
Helicon and Cithaeron are mountains in Boeotia,
That derive the names from two brothers,
Who killed each other just like Oedipus’ sons,
As Lysimachus of Cyrene has written.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.921  (TE2.89) CONCERNING THE MUSES
They say that the Muses are Zeus’ and Mnemosyne’s children
And that it is them that come bearing gifts to the poets,
Gifts of poetic form and content,
Just like Hermes does when it comes to oratory and prose speech.
But this is nothing more than an allegory
For the Muses are called thus, because it’s knowledge that they seek
And wisdom.
So it is Zeus, the great and all-knowing mind that gives birth to these Muses, masking normal speech in poetic form.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.931  (TE2.90) CONCERNING PIERIA
Pieria is a mountain in Boeotia
But also a city that was built by Pierus,
Who was brother to Methone and father of Linus.
This Pieria later changed its name to Lyngus.
According to Melisseus in his book on Delphi
It was Aeropus, son of Hemathion the one who first reigned in it.
And truly, Pieria is a mountain like Helicon
And a town, as I have already said.
They say that the Muses were born in Pieria

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.940  And praise their father with dances on the mountain of Helicon.
An allegorical explanation: See Pieria as the instrument of reason
Where knowledge is born, and Helicon is books, all condensed
Instilling inspiration through their creators.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.945  (TE2.91) CONCERNING LEIBETHRION
Leibethrion is a mountain as well as a city
In the Odrysseian land of the Thracians, where Orpheus resided.
This man writes in one of his books:
“Go on, Muse of Leibethrion, sing to me old tales in verse”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.949  (TE2.92) CONCERNING YOUR HAVING BECOME LIKE THE BARBARIANS AFTER SPENDING MANY YEARS LIVING AMONG THEM
Euripides in his work Orestes tells
Of how Menelaus tries to defend Orestes
And how Tyndareus responds enraged to Menelaus:
“You have most certainly become a barbarian yourself, after living so long among them.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.953  (TE2.93) CONCERNING ATTIC HONEY FROM HYMETTUS
Hymettus, the Athenian mountain produces honey most superb;
I shall now state what makes it stand out.
No fly sits on Hymettian honey,
Because the bees make wax from thyme
So the fly, settling, leaves in anger (θύμωι) at the thyme.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.959  (TE2.94) CONCERNING THE THESSALIAN CHEIRON, HALF MAN HALF BEAST, TEACHER OF HEROES
Cheiron, who was the teacher of many great men,
From Asclepius to Jason and then Achilles himself,
The old storytellers describe as half man and half horse,
Man down to the navel and horse thereunder.
And thus also writes the emperor Julian in heroic meter: that the horse breaks wind for the man.
He, backed by his equine parts
Taught his students the arts of hunting and archery
And medicine and herbalism and many others.
But here is the truth: Cheiron was a philosopher

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.970  And, being one of the first to teach the art of horsemanship,
He fell victim to becoming a myth himself
And came to be known as the horseman teaching herbalism and other skills.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.973  (TE2.95) CONCERNING MT. PELION
Pelion is a mountain of Thessaly,
Close to Magnesia, which is now called Petra.
Who first made this observation I know not
But it is on Pelion that Cheiron had his lair.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.977  (TE2.96) CONCERNING THE STORY OF JASON
Jason was son of Aeson, son of Critheus
And three candidates we have for his mother:
Roio and Alcimede and Polymele;
The first a daughter of Staphylus, the others of Autolycus.
When Pelias murdered all the descendants of Aeolus,
An oracle foretold that he would die by the hand of one of them
And when Jason was born right thereafter
They present him as being dead, fearing Pelias,
(Jason’s grandfather Critheus, of the Aeolian bloodline)
And place him in a box as dead and hand him over to Cheiron.
And he, having been nurtured and instructed by Cheiron, of whom we spoke above,
Becomes the most glorious revenger of the massacre of the Aeolids.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.989  (TE2.97) CONCERNING THE STORY OF ASCLEPIUS
Asclepius, son of Coronis and Apollo,
Learned the art of medicine from Cheiron
And took the name of Asclepius, though he was formerly called Hepius,
Because he healed Asclen, tyrant of Epidaurus,
Or because he did not let men whither (skellesthai) and die.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.994  (TE2.98) CONCERNING ACHILLES
Achilles was son of Peleus and Thetis,
Not the sea nymph but a mortal woman
And daughter of Cheiron, the philosopher,
Whom we described above as being the teacher of many heroes.
He was instructed in hunting and archery and medicine and many arts
By his very own grandfather.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 6.1000  [7.1] BOOK 7, TRANSLATED BY VASILIKI DOGANI
(TE2.99) CONCERNING THE LAPITHS AND THE CENTAURS
[1000] The Lapiths, of the Thessalian race, Dryas, Pirithous,
[1] Caeneus and Exadius, Polyphemus and others,
Compounded a fierce war against the Centaurs.
For the Centaurs, after having been invited as friends, along with the Lapiths,
To the wedding feast of Pirithous, son of Ixion,
(Eurytion was the leader of the Centaurs),
And having become very drunk, abducted the bride from the bridal chamber.
Therefore, the Lapiths killed many of the Centaurs,
And they even cruelly mutilated Eurytion,
Cutting off his nose and lips, genitals and arms.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.10  Now who the Centaurs were, Palaephatus says.
By that time, people had not yet mounted horses;
While wild bulls were wasting the country of the Thessalians,
Some of the mighty youths, after mounting horses,
Started hurling javelins at the bulls; some people saw these men
Hurling javelins at the bulls (taurus) and they named them “Centaurs”.
And catching them from afar, they assumed that they were half-human and half-horse.
Likewise, we shall address them Kentotauros and not “Centaurs”.
O Palaephatus, the wisest of all! That is the story according to Palaephatus.
The Theban lament (I am telling you of Pindar)

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.20  Suggests that the Centaurs were half-horse and half-man,
This is how it relates it in such a complex lyric metre:
“And since Ixion had intercourse with Nephele,
He begot an ungraceful and arrogant offspring,
Who mated with the Magnesian mares in Pelion,
And from them, a horde was born, which resembled both their parents,
Like their mother below, like their father above.”
Did you hear how even Pindar has mythically related the story?
He talked of an offspring, who was born of a misty cloud,
And begot the Centaurs after mating with the mares.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.30  But it did not happen like that, Pindar; now, learn it from Tzetzes.
Ixion, after being purified of his father-in-law’s murder
By Zeus (this way the kings were once invited),
Lusted after Zeus’ wife, queen Hera.
After she told these things to her husband, he (Zeus) became suspicious
And wanting to find out the real truth,
After adorning the maidservant, named Nephele,
Around evening he persuaded her to sleep with that man.
Thus, Ixion, after having intercourse with Nephele instead of Hera,
And not with some watery and misty cloud,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.40  Begot a son, Imbrus, whom people were calling “Centaur“,
In other words, a servant’s child; the servants are most assuredly considered to be clouds,
Since Ixion pricked Nephele,
To speak inappropriately, and so from them this one was born.
This Imbrus, who mingled with the mares of Magnesia,
In other words, he was feeding the horses in the land of Thessaly,
Begets sons, skilled in horse-riding because of their growing up together with the horses,
Wherefore they told that their mothers were horses, too.
So Tzetzes writes, o Pindar, about the Centaurs.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.49  (TE2.100) CONCERNING CLEITARCHUS’ WRITING ON THE TENTHREDO
This Cleitarchus writes on the tenthredo,
Which is some kind of sawfly looking like a bee,
As if he wrote either on the Nemean lion,
Or that fire-breathing Cretan Bull,
Or the Erymanthian and the Calydonian Boars,
Or one of the grandest and biggest animals,
And as he writes about it, he speaks in a sublime and arrogant manner:
“It dwells the mountains, it flies in the hollows of oaks”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.57  (TE2.101) CONCERNING THE NEMEAN LION
Nemea is some land assigned (by lot) to Argos,
For having pastures in great abundance it was called Nemea.
An invulnerable lion was ruining utterly this land,
Heracles shooting this lion with the bow and without damaging it altogether,
And in like manner, smashing his club in its wound,
Afterwards destroyed it, by catching it barehanded.
Later, having ripped the lion's skin with its nails,
He wore it as non-ferrous armour in battle.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.65  (TE2.102) CONCERNING THE CALYDONIAN BOAR
Oeneus, ruling over the Aetolian and Calydonian lands,
Neglected Artemis in the offerings of the first fruits to the gods.
She then sent the boar from the Oetaean hills:
“Which did much harm haunting the orchard of Oeneus.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.71  Of the many huntsmen who gathered there, Atalanta was the first to shoot the boar with her bow.
But then Meleager hurled and killed it with his pig-killer.
Each one of his teeth was more than a cubit long.
Soterichus and Homer and myriads of others
Have recorded this Calydonian boar.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.75  (TE2.103) CONCERNING THE PROVERB “HE WHO LOVES IS BLINDED BY THE BELOVED”
All the beloved ones seem to be pleasant to those who love them;
For, in this way the proverb has said wisely.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.78  (TE2.104 E13) CONCERNING THE PINDARIC MAXIM “NOR DOES HOT WATER SO RELAX THE LIMBS AS PRAISE”
In the baths, hot water softens the limbs,
It even makes loose and smooth the limbs of the exhausted ones.
However, the praises soothe people more than the hot water does;
Wherefore Pindar has spoken in this way.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.81  (TE2.105) CONCERNING TORTOISE’S COMPETING AGAINST THE HARE
The writer of fables Aesop, by relating in his fables
That the tortoise won the race against the hare,
Pushes dullards toward hard work, and discourages the clever from dozing.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.84  (TE2.106) CONCERNING MARSYAS
Marsyas, a Phrygian flute-player, challenges Apollo;
After having been defeated by the god, he was turned into a wineskin hanging from a pine tree.
Before, I wrote the entire story at length.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.87  (TE2.107) CONCERNING SALMONEUS, WHO IMPERSONATED THE THUNDERER ZEUS
Emigrating from Thessaly to Eleia, Salmoneus
Founded a city and he called himself Zeus,
And he acted profanely, by casting torches (in the air) as if they were lightnings,
And dragging dried hides with kettles at his chariot,
Pretending to make thunder, so he was thunderstruck by Zeus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.92  (TE2.108) CONCERNING THAMYRIS, WHO CHALLENGED THE MUSES
Thamyris, very handsome and outstanding for his beauty,
Was a musician and singer; he competed against the Muses,
And was defeated and blinded; this is the myth.
Now, here is the more allegorical version; he was a noble poet,
Who wrote a Cosmogony in five thousand verses.
Since he was a braggart, he thought that his intelligence was superior to everyone else’s.
And after his writings vanished,
They said that it happened because he was challenging the Muses in music.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.100  “They in their wrath maimed him; they
Took from him his wondrous singing and made him forget his lyre playing”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.102  (TE2.109) CONCERNING THE HOMERIC PROVERB “OTHERS CARE FOR THINGS LIKE THESE, THE LYRE AND THE SONG”
In the Odyssey Homer introduces grieving
Telemachus watching the suitors living luxuriously
And amusing themselves with singing and making poetry,
And he introduces himself saying this verse:
“Others care for things like these, the lyre and the songs”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.108  (TE2.110) CONCERNING THE LIVING ONE, WHO IS HELD BACK UPON THE BROAD SEA
In the Odyssey Proteus says to Menelaus,
How Locrian Ajax has utterly perished in the sea,
And how Agamemnon was saved only to be killed by Aegisthus.
As for Odysseus, he says this verse:
“One man is still alive, held back upon the broad sea”.
I rewrote this passage in rhetorical style,
It suits me now to say “world” and not “sea”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.114  (TE2.111) CONCERNING HERACLES, THE AVERTER OF EVIL
Heracles the son of Alcmene, being a benefactor of the people,
Moved from one place to another eradicating evil,
By eliminatings beasts, tyrants and robbers and roadway difficulties,
And every other misfortune of life.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.118  (TE2.112) CONCERNING THE DRINKING GAME COTTABOS
We have recently explained exactly and thoroughly,
What the propelakismos and the paroenia,
The latage and the cottabos and the eolokrasia mean.
This is the eighty-fifth story.
And turning about, behold it and you shall learn exactly the entire story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.123  (TE2.113) CONCERNING WHO THE PALAMNAIOI WERE
The Telchines were some of the envious daemons,
Antaeus, Megalesius, Ormenus and Lycus,
What is more Nikon and Mimon and others along with them.
These men were draining the earth by pouring the water of the Styx onto it,
Seeking to stop men’s crops from developing.
These men are called Alastores and Palamnaioi.
For supervising the ceaseless wanderings of people,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.130  They have been named Alastores, a most suitable name.
For pouring the water of Styx with their palms and hands,
In order to make the fields infertile and destroy them, they have been named Palamnaioi.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.133  (TE2.114) CONCERNING THE INQUIRERS (PEUTHENES), THE SPIES (KATASKOPOI) AND THE HERALDS (PROKERUKES)
Now, note that the inquirers (peuthenes) are the spies,
As many of them as they send to the enemy camp,
To examine and report upon what the enemies want, what they say, what they do;
As many of them as they send to talk about the matters of war,
Regarding when and where and by which means they are about to make war,
They have called heralds (prokerykes); they, in turn, call messengers (aggeloi)
Those, who bear messages from one encampment to another;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.140  As for them, whom they send for matters of treaties, drink-offerings and peace,
They call these men ambassadors (presbeis).

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.142  (TE2.115) WHAT IS A PROBOLOS
Problis, probletes, probolos are called a sea rock,
And every piece that projects and protrudes
Bending into the sea, as some promontory,
And every waterfront and every rocky shore.
We also call the towers and the city walls,
And everything that provides with protection and the front lines of the foremost fighters (promachus),
And those who speak in others’ defence,
“Protrusions” (probolos), speaking in a rather figurative and improper sense.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.150  A protrusion (probolos) is a rock jutting into the sea, as I stated.
The rock that rests on the surface of the sea, hidden by the waves,
Against which vessels are dashed, as they strike on,
Is called reef, sunken rock, or ladder (schala) by common men.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.154  (TE2.116 E15) CONCERNING THE PYTHAGOREAN SILENCE
Pythagoras considered silence and the control of one’s tongue
The peak of all philosophy.
Wherefore he was teaching the initiates the end of the entire philosophy
And how to hold silence for five years,
Which was attainable only by few most suitable initiates.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.159  (TE2.117) CONCERNING CILICIA
The sons of Belus were Ninus, Agenor and Phoenix,
Aegyptus, Danaus and Phineus along with them.
Others consider Agenor to be brother to Belus.
As for me, Tzetzes, I believe that from Belus were descended (two men under the same name)
Agenor, the brother, and Agenor, the son.
As for that Agenor, who desires Antiope, daughter of Belus,
I rather think that he is Belus' brother; Cadmus, Cilix and Phoenix,
After whom are named Cilicia and Phoenicia.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.167  (TE2.118) CONCERNING ANTIOCH
As Pausanias writes on the foundation of Antioch,
Antioch was founded by Seleucus Nicator,
According to some, as the namesake of his own father Antiochus,
According to Lucian, as the namesake of his son Antiochus,
The one, whom they called Soter, whose wife was Stratonice,
The one, who was diagnosed by Erasistratus, just from his pulse,
To be in love with his own stepmother.
Seleucus founds this city of Antioch,
As well as seventy-four other cities.
But as for those, who foolishly claim that Antiochus founded this one,
Attaeus and Perittas, as well as Anaxicrates
Shall refute them most wisely and will expose them to be absurd,
Along with them Asclepiodorus, who happened to be a fellow-slave,
Those men, whom at that time Seleucus made the supervisors of the constructions.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.181  (TE2.119) CONCERNING THE CYRENAIC SILPHIUM
We have already spoken about the Cyrenaic silphium
In the one hundred-tenth story of the previous ones.
And in the forty-eighth story, in turn, of this very sequence,
The latter was presented much better than the former,
By explaining how the Cyreneans brought it to Battus,
And how he engraved it on coins.
There are three species of silphium, the sisgoudon and the tilis,
As well as the one that is renowned and respective and celebrated among all people,
The one, which avoids cultivated grounds and prospers rather in the desert lands,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.190  As it happens with the caper, according to some of the experts.
Silphium has a stalk like that of ferula,
As for its leaf, they call it maspeton, being similar to celery.
It delivers a broad fruit and two varieties of juice,
One from the stalk, which is called “stalk-juice”, and one from the root, which is called “root-juice”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.195  (TE2.120) CONCERNING THE HOOP OF THE RING OF GYGES
Candaules showed to Gyges his own wife naked;
The one, who, after having invited Gyges privately,
Gives him her ring, so that he kills
Her husband, Candaules, after his having informed secretly the bodyguards.
After this had happened, he stealthily killed Candaules
And upon returning the ring to the woman,
He made himself visible to everyone and he took the kingdom.
This is the third story of the first sequence.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.203  (TE2.121) CONCERNING THE RING OF POLYCRATES
Polycrates, the ruler of Samos, was successful,
At that time the Samians were under the rule of the Egyptians.
Amasis, being afraid of the great success of this man,
Wrote to him: “Polycrates, the one most precious possession in your life,
The one thing that it would most grieve your soul to lose,
This particular you should throw away in any way you like,
If you wish not to tempt my wrath”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.210  So then Polycrates got very frightened,
The one precious emerald ring he had,
Crafted by the engraver of gems,
Theodorus of Samos, son of Telecles,
He casts in the middle of the sea, after having embarked in a ship,
Grieving deeply for the loss of that very ring.
But on the fifth day someone caught a splendid fish,
And sent it to Polycrates, as a worthy gift for him,
Inside it was found the ring, of which I spoke before.
Amasis, after hearing this very thing, told the men standing by:
“The one assisted by the god, whoever man could hurt?”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.221  (TE2.122) CONCERNING THE GOLDEN BRICKS OF CROESUS
Croesus sent to Delphi a thousand bricks, all made of pure gold,
To build a golden altar in honour of Apollo.
You hold the story, the first one among all the others, at length.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.224  (TE2.123) CONCERNING MIDAS
Midas of Phrygia, fond of gold, was the son of Gordias,
This man, although being a peasant ploughman, took the kingdom.
This is the second story in line among the first ones,
Which gives an allegorical interpretation of this man’s food, that was made out of gold.
In this very sequence you will clearly find out,
How he, although being a ploughman, took the kingdom,
Of the origins of the city name Mideia
I speak in the story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.231  (TE2.124) CONCERNING “HOW THE HALF IS MORE THAN THE WHOLE”
Hesiod, dissuading his brother from idleness,
And from allowing the judges to delight in injustice,
Says clearly that the race of judges is unfair,
And that it knows not precisely from where one has to obtain profit,
Neither does it know by how much more is the half than the whole,
In other words, the smallest part of justice,
The one that indeed prevails over many unjust men.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.239  (TE2.125) CONCERNING “YOU THE BEST OF PROPHETS, AND YET DECEIVED FOR SO LONG”
Sophocles, the tragic poet, in his tragedy Electra,
Introduces Orestes killing his mother by contrivance.
Since even Aegisthus fell into his trap,
After realizing that it is really Orestes the one who is speaking to him,
He said: “It cannot be otherwise; this must be Orestes,
Son of Agamemnon, who was feigned dead, the one who is now speaking to me”.
This being so, therefore Orestes spoke these words to him:
“You the best of prophets, and yet deceived;
Now surely you have learnt and understood these things
Just before you fall into the utmost and fatal misfortunes”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.249  (TE2.126) CONCERNING CHARITONYMUS OR IOANNES
In the Hebrew language the iao stands for the unseen,
The name Ionas means dove, and the name Ioannes means grace.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.251  (TE2.127) CONCERNING THE LYDIAN STONE, ALSO CALLED TOUCHSTONE
Around the lands of Lydia, where the city of Sardis is located,
And around the city of both Ionia and Ephesus,
Smooth and extremely glittering and black in the edges stones,
Similar to the small pebbles with which the girls are playing,
Have been found in small and medium sizes, and some of them even as large as they can be held in the hand.
These are called touchstones, touchstones for the gold,
In other words assessment and testing and trial.
When gold is rubbed on these stones its value is determined,
Whether it is pure gold, or an alloy of gold or just gold of medium quality.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.260  And after them, they have named basanos the punishments,
And the words that are employed to disprove, the oaths and all the rest.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.262  (TE2.128) CONCERNING WHEREFORE PROPETES IS CALLED
Some of the naturally more developed nestling birds,
Before they grow the plumage of the swift-winged birds sufficiently,
Upon putting themselves in motion to fly, as if they were vigilant,
Suffer a terrible fall, after landing on the ground.
These are equally called propetas and propeteis.
They are called ortalichus as well, for trying eagerly to move quickly.
Of these, everyone who is loquacious or does not say anything properly,
Is called a propetes; Even if some people in a random way,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.270  The one who speaks anything but the right words,
Call a propeten, what is more it is fitting to call that one
Over-bold and uttermost disrespectful and ignorant of order.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.273  (TE2.129) CONCERNING TIMON THE MISANTHROPE
Timon, son of Echecratides, was an Athenian by race,
He was extremely rich and he relieved everyone who was in want.
After his running out of his wealth and money,
Because not even one had mercy on him,
Having conceived hatred of the course of human life,
And taking a leather coat and a fork, he became a peasant and a labourer.
By digging the ground, he found a treasure in the fields.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.280  And since the rumours of this case were quickly spread,
Making known to everyone that Timon became rich again,
Yet again, everyone was gathering around him pretending to be his friends,
By striking his fork, he was driving the unjust men away saying:
“Now Timon is your friend, O unfair men, now you all recognize him,
The one who was considered benefactor when rich, but despised when poor,
O, you most unfair men, begone from this place”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.287  (TE2.130) CONCERNING THE XENELASIA OF THE LACONIANS
The Athenians had a law for accepting the influx of foreigners,
Wherefore everyone called them filoxenoi,
Whereas the Laconians had a law for the expulsion of foreigners.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.290  (TE2.131) CONCERNING THE CYCLOPES WHO HAD A MUTUAL HATRED AND WERE INCOMPATIBLE
The Cyclopes, the former inhabitants of Sicily,
Were scattered, having their own habitations,
And without having intercourse with one another.
But each of them was the master of his own wife and children,
And no foreigner could slip between them,
They were even incompatible with each other and hated one another,
Their population was sparse and they dreaded foreigners,
Lest they sail against them and take over their land.
For they were yet unacquainted with building trading vessels.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.299  (TE2.132) CONCERNING THE SERVILII CAESARES
Servilius was a consul and Caesar of the Romans,
With an orator's license and in a rhetorical manner,
I said that Serblias was descended from the Servilii.
Just as someone else might want to call him Serbian Elias.
This is the way of the double-tongued rhetor,
To use facts and names and everything else
For both praise and blame, according to his interest.

Event Date: -1 GR

§ 7.307  (TE2.133) CONCERNING AEACUS, FOR WHOM ZEUS CHANGED THE ANTS INTO HUMAN BEINGS
According to the mythographers, Zeus, after having intercourse with Aegina,
Begot Aeacus on the island of Aegina.
Who, having grown up, was agitated for being alone in the island.
Zeus, taking pity on his solitude,
Changed the ants which populated the island into human beings.
The mythical details were such as these, now here is the allegory:
As Theagenes wrote about Aegina;
Previously, Aegina had a sparse population,
The inhabitants of that island did not even know how to build trading vessels.
And being scared of the violent attacks by the pirates and everyone else,
They were hiding in underground caves just as the ants.
After Aeacus developed shipping for them,
And because he transferred the people and joined them in colonizing,
Just as Triakon did after Aeacus’ death,
And made them live without fear out of the caves,
He was said to have turned the ants into men.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.322  (TE2.134) CONCERNING THE FLOOD OF DEUCALION, FOR WHOM ZEUS TURNED THE STONES INTO HUMAN BEINGS
Once the flood in the time of Deucalion was over,
After stepping out of the ark and landing on the land of Parnassus,
Deucalion, was asking for a new race of people by offering sacrifices to Zeus,
Deucalion himself, by throwing stones onto the earth under Zeus' command,
Along with his wife Pyrrha created the new human kind.
All the stones which Deucalion threw became men,
And all the stones which Pyrrha threw, in turn, became women.
They say these details mythically, but the truth is as follows:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.330  After their coming out of the ark, both men and women
And each one of them, on the one hand the men, by piling up
Stones on one side, were setting up an altar of Zeus Phryxios,
On the other hand, each one of the women along with Pyrrha
Were setting up another altar on their side, for having escaped the flood.
And because there were as many stones as the people who were carrying them,
The stones, carried by women, were as many as the women, whereas the stones carried by men were as many as them,
They said, by interpreting inversely the quantity of the multitude,
That the stones turned into as many people
As the stones that Pyrrha and Deucalion threw onto the earth,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.340  Whereas, they ought to have said it in this way: there were as many stones
As the number of the women along with Pyrrha,
And equally, as many of them as the number of the men along with Deucalion.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.343  (TE2.135) CONCERNING PRIAM, WHO BEGOT MANY CHILDREN
Priam, just as Homer writes in the Iliad,
Begot fifty children, nineteen of them
By his own wife, Queen Hecuba.
He begot the rest of them by concubines, as even he himself says:
“Nineteen children were born to me from a single mother's womb,
The rest by other women in the palace”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.348  (TE2.136) CONCERNING DANAUS AND AEGYPTUS
From Poseidon and Libya are descended the twin sons,
Belus himself and equally Agenor.
Of whom, Agenor becomes the ruler of Phoenike,
Whereas Belus staying in Egypt, his own country,
Begets Aegyptus and Danaus by Achiroe, the daughter of Nilus.
This Belus, after settling Danaus in Libya,
And Aegyptus in Arabia, settling himself among the Assyrians,
Was the first to be honoured with the titles of god and lord.
For both the Assyrians and the Persians deify their rulers,
As even Aeschylus recounts it in his drama The Persians.
Willing to address Atossa as both the consort of the king,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.360  And mother of another king, equally, he spoke in this way:
“You were the consort of the Persians' god, and of another god the mother”.
In this way Belus, arriving in the land of the Assyrians,
Was called a ruler and a god, according to the Assyrian custom.
Aegyptus and Danaus, the sons of Belus,
Aegyptus fathers fifty sons,
Danaus, in turn, fathers fifty daughters,
By several women, by one single woman according to others.
Hippostratus says that Aegyptus has begotten only by Eurryroe,
The daughter of Nilus, fifty sons;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.370  As well as Danaus has begotten all his daughters,
By Europa, the daughter of Nilus, of whom I have spoken.
Up to this time, the sons of noble Argyphe and Aegyptus,
Lynceus along with Proteus, who also got married to brides,
Lynceus to Hypermnestra, Proteus to Gorgophone,
The brides, whom Danaus has begotten by Elephantis,
And Amymone along with them, with whom Poseidon had intercourse.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.377  (TE2.137) CONCERNING THE CHILDREN OF NIOBE AND AMPHION
Niobe and Amphion had twelve children,
As Homer clearly taught in the Iliad:
“Six daughters, six young sons”.
According to others, they had fourteen children.
You have at length the entire story behind you.
The story, which relates in an exact manner the names of the children,
And interprets allegorically the story of weeping Niobe, who turned into stone,
And every other detail that it is fitting to be interpreted allegorically.
This same story lies in the first series,
Being the one hundred and forty first in line.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.387  (TE2.138) CONCERNING “HOW THE HORSES OF XERXES’ ARMY DRIED UP THE RIVERS BY LEANING OVER TO DRINK WATER”
Xerxes the Persian, with an innumerable army,
Campaigning against Greece and the Athenians,
Violates nature having the same boasting of Persia as his father’s,
By turning the sea into land, turning the mountains into sea,
Not having counted his army, upon measuring its food,
After having the sun hidden by the Persian arrows,
And causing the rivers dried up by watering his horses,
And having done so many barbarian things that caused a great deal of impression,
Despite having been defeated most splendidly with great disgrace,
He goes back to his homeland of Persia,
Having his delightful youth of Persia wasted in Greece.
You have the entire story in the previous series,
Written by me at length, being the thirty second in line.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.400  (TE2.139) CONCERNING THEBES BEING DESTROYED BY ALEXANDER AND THEIR RECONSTRUCTION BY ALEXANDER HIMSELF FOR THE SAKE OF AN ATHLETE
It is not reported by many, and it is well known to a few,
That Darius, that emperor of the Persians,
Having heard that Alexander was about to campaign against the Persians,
Honoured Demosthenes with a lot of money,
In order to employ him in Greece.
He (Demosthenes) unfortunately rouses the Thebans against Alexander,
Wherefore Alexander, being angry, destroys utterly Thebes,
To the accompaniment of the flute player Isminias’ lamenting music.
For Isminias was playing on the flute, while the Thebes were being destroyed,
Just as they were being built before by the sounds of Amphion’s lyre.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.410  In such a piteous way Alexander sacked Thebes,
And burnt every house down save one, the house of Pindar,
Saying: “Set not on fire the roof of Pindar, the poet”.
For Pindar praised his ancestor, Alexander I.
He seems to insinuate that Demosthenes was the alleged
Reason for Alexander’s destroying Thebes,
By which he writes, directing the words against Aeschines himself:
“He, who now laments over the Thebans”.
In this way Thebes was destroyed by Alexander,
An oracle is being given to the surviving Thebans

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.420  Concerning the reconstruction of the city in this way saying in verse:
Hermes, Alcides and the boxer Polydeuces,
These three, contending with each other, shall rebuild the city of Thebes”.
And what is more, the oracle was finally fulfilled in such a way.
Alexander was glad to attend the gymnastic games,
Cleitomachus of Thebes, having prevailed over everyone in wrestling,
Came to Alexander to be crowned.
The king asked him who he was and whence he came.
And he had said both, his father’s name and his own.
“I have no city, he said, king Alexander”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.430  After even being victorious in the pancratium, the second contest,
He came to receive the crown from Alexander,
And after having been asked who he was, he said again in the same way;
Both his father’s name and his own, he yet said that he had no city,
Alexander, having been aware of his being a Theban, and feeling gloomy not within due limits,
Although he was very angry with the Thebans,
And thinking that it was unfair for such a man to be without a city,
Said: “If you win, even in boxing, the third contest,
I will rebuild Thebes for you, I will present your fatherland to you as a gift”
After that event had happened, and after he had been most splendidly victorious even in boxing,
Alexander rebuilt the city of Thebes anew. [nb: Thebes rebuilt under Cassander after A's death.]

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.441  (TE2.140) CONCERNING THE RECONSTRUCTION OF STAGIRA, A CITY OF OLYNTHUS, FOR ARISTOTLE’S SAKE, IN THE TIME OF PHILIP AND ALEXANDER
Stagira was one of the cities of Olynthus,
This was the birthplace of the philosopher Aristotle.
So Philip demolished it, for being hostile towards him, along with others;
But later Aristotle makes a request of Alexander,
And they rebuilt the city anew for his sake.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.446  (TE2.141) CONCERNING PTOLEMY, THE TRENCHING OF NILE AND ITS CHANNELLING
Nekos son of Psammitichus trenched the Nile before,
As far as the Red Sea, four days' travel in length,
Wide enough for two triremes to pass easily abreast.
In digging it, twelve myriads perished.
Because some persons said the level of the Red Sea was higher
Than that of Egypt, he ceased his digging,
Lest it ever suddenly overflow Egypt.
Afterwards Darius, the king of Persia,
Completed that channel of Nekos,
And later, Ptolemy had one mouth of the Nile,
Which takes its name Ptolemaic from him,
Dug to the sea, closing it ingeniously,
And opening yet again, at vast expense.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.459  (TE2.142) CONCERNING PANDION AND TEREUS AND PROCNE
The king of Athens named Pandion
Had male children and two daughters,
Procne and Philomela; he married Procne
To Tereus, a man of Thracian stock.
He took his wife and carried her off to Thrace.
Since Procne was longing for her sister Philomela,
Tereus went to Athens and took her,
Meaning to bring her to his wife.
After having unlawful intercourse with her, he cut out her tongue.
She used the embroidery on her loom as a mouth,
And revealed everything in detail to her sister.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.470  Procne, after slaughtering Itys, her son by Tereus,
Cooked him and served him to Tereus.
He, from the hands and the head and extremities
Clearly understood what he had just eaten. The gods turned them all
Into birds, Procne into a nightingale,
While they changed Philomela into a swallow,
And Thracian Tereus also to a bird. a hoopoe.
While Procne mourns her son Itys,
Philomela says: “Tereus took my tongue”;
Pou pou (where, where?) is what Tereus says, searching for them.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.480  (TE2.143) CONCERNING CONCEPT AND MERE CONCEPT AND ANTIPODES AND PLATO'S IDEAS
The terms Mind (nous), Calculation (logismos), Thought (dianoia), Concept (epinoia),
And Mere Concept (psile epinoia) differ considerably from each other.
Mere Concept (psile epinoia) is an opinion (doxa) from calculation (logismos),
Errant and untrue, completely baseless,
Like believing in Oxgoatbullpeople,
Or any other such unnatural and strange thing
That cannot exist or come into being.
Concept (epinoia) is opinion (dokesis), opining that the existing thing exists,
And sometimes too the non-existent, but capable of coming to be,
Such as conceiving a sitting man in a state of standing.

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§ 7.490  Thought (dianoia) is the touchstone of inward thought (logos endiathetos),
Test and touchstone and in-depth inquiry.
Calculation (logismos) is the school (palaestra) and knowledge through discourse (logos);
Mind (nous) is divine and subtle, knowing all prior to logos.
A few, very few men partake of Mind (nous),
As Iamblicho-Porphyry and every wise man says.
Whence tell me that Mind pertains to God and angels.
Divine natures mentalize everything, directly
Not making inquiries in the school (palaestra) of calculation (logismos),
While we humans, being made of matter,

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§ 7.500  And needing judgement of calculation (logismos) to come to know,
Misspeak when we call calculation (to logizesthai) mentalizing (noein),
For Mind (nous) pertains in no way to humans but only to the divine,
Even if we say very incorrectly, have a Mind.

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§ 7.504  Know well, then, these things according to Tzetzes,
Whom so many vilify for this,
Such scumbags (katharmata) supposedly philosophizers,
Abortions, brainless, hammerheads,
Having read ten or twelve books only,
Learning them through countless strokes of an ox-goad,
Mentalizing in no sense from self-subsisting things.
Such abortions of nature, a bastard monstrosity
And not more erudite than Tzetzes,
But say they were more brilliant, the very wisest
And alone, by themselves, strong enough to mentalize all,
They say Tzetzes has spoken badly of these.
For they say that all people have Mind (nous),
But not that they all have Calculation (logismos), as Tzetzes maintains.

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§ 7.518  But you wise scumbags, listen to me again.
We say that Mind (nous) properly pertains only to divine nature,
To god, the angels and such like,
As Xenophanes wrote this and Parmenides as well.
Empedocles, in the third book of his Physics, explaining
The essence of god, in this verse:
God is not this something, not this and this,
“But Brain (phren), sacred and ineffable only,
Darting through the whole universe with swift thoughts”.

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§ 7.528  So we speak properly of Mind (nous) pertaining to divine beings;
And are misusing Mentalize (noein) when referring to humans.
What we wise men call Meaning (noema), to Mentalize,
Is knowledge (gnosis) deriving from calculation (logismos), accessible to humans.
For in people resides Calculation, from which we have knowledge of things,
But not Mind; for, if people had Mind,
They would mentalize everything by themselves, prior to hearing.
But now, although we have heard and reckoned so many things,
We barely come to know, late, what we we need to learn.

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§ 7.536  Now from this, my all-wise vilifiers,
Absorb what we say; If man had Mind,
No one would have ever have said it, no wise and ingenious,
Or intelligent, or sensible and ingenious man.
Iamblicho-Porphyry and every other wise man says,
That a few, very few men partake of Mind (nous),
And all-wise Plato says in the Timaeus
We must say that every man partakes of logos,
But of Mind (nous) only the gods and some very restricted class of men partake,
Namely the professed foreknowers and prophets.
The ones who foretold the things to come, without hearing of them.
Such as Pythagoras and Anaxagoras,
Empedocles, Democritus, and countless other wise men,
And Phaenno the Epirus as well as Sibylla,

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§ 7.550  Phaenno many years ago foretold some things,
Which came to pass a little before the times we live in;
Regarding how the Persians would conquer the emperor of the Romans
And bring him into subjection by enslaving him,
And how his own people and nobles would dethrone him,
And how the Persians would occupy the entire Bithynia,
And how the Scythians would fight against the Roman race,
Speaking this verse through gaping mouth:
“O king of Thrace, you shall leave your city, among the sheep
You shall rear a great lion, crooked-clawed and terrible,

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§ 7.560  Who shall plunder the treasures of your country,
And take the land without toil, I say to you,
Not long shall you enjoy your royal honours,
But shall fall from your throne, which is surrounded by such dogs”.
These were the brief utterances of Phaenno; Sibylla foretold,
Even if it was not understood until the outcome,
Regarding Cyprus and Antioch,
And how now Lebounios shall arrive on Cyprus.
Regarding Cyprus and Antioch as follows:
“Alas, alas, miserable Cyprus, and a great wave will cover you,

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§ 7.570  Wretched Antioch, you shall be ruined by their spears”.
These were the prophecies regarding Cyprus and Antioch.
Regarding the arrival of Cilix on Cyprus,
The Sibylla, the wisest of all women, in this way says in verse:
“In time to come, broad-flowing Pyramus
By pushing his banks, shall reach sacred Cyprus”.
For such men, Iamblichus, Porphyry and others
Said that it is possible to partake of Mind (nous),
Inasmuch as they only understand and foretell everything,
Without reckoning or even hearing of something.

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§ 7.580  Because of them, they said that a few men partake of Mind (nous).
But, I do not precisely credit these men with Mind.
For either by having heard of something, or by lessons learnt,
Or by having even reasoned so on account of some spectacles,
They said as much as each of them could, and afterwards they departed.
Mind (nous) immediately comprehends everything and it truly acknowledges,
Without any lesson or reckoning or sight,
So, I do not call these men ingenious and perceptive.
Therefore, let the outcasts hit me even with stones
Concerning these matters of Mind and reasoning and the others.

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§ 7.590  We must speak of the antipodes and of the ideas.
The all-wise philosophers concerning the antipodes
Skilfully teach a wise scientific proposition,
That the lowest point of the earth is opposite to our side,
While our north side is the highest point of the earth.
So, it happens that those men, who walk their own paths,
Are considered to walk with their feet opposite (antipodes) to ours.
Such wise things they say; things which I am not able to comprehend
Differently than what old Demonax has previously explained.
For that man teaching a philosopher such things,

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§ 7.600  Grabbed him by the hand and led him to a lake and after showing him the shadows,
He said: “Are you speaking about antipodes such as these?”
I believe that the antipodes happen to be such as these.
And the things concerning the antipodes happen to be such as these.
They say that there are three beliefs (doxa) pertaining to the ideas (idees).
For Antisthenes calls these ideas rather than mere thoughts (psilai ennoiai)
By saying: “We see the man as well as the horse,
But neither horseness, nor manness do I see”.
But, Antisthenes, neither do I, Tzetzes, see now
Where there is manness, not even in the patriarchs;

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§ 7.610  For they are more indiscernible than the indiscernible quicksilver.
They say that Antisthenes these things declare.
They say that Plato regards the ideas (idees) as,
The substantial and real and existing forms,
Which are like seals untouched and archetypal
For the ox, the man and the rest; by looking at them, the divine being
Forms equally the ox, the man and the rest.
They say that Aristotle regards the ideas (idees) as
The god’s previous conception (proennoema) of the entire creation.
For example, if someone is about to make a bed and before he starts working on it,

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§ 7.620  First, he comprehends via reasoning and he perceives beforehand,
What sort and what type of bed is going to be made.
They say that, regarding the ideas, these are the opinions
Of Antisthenes, Plato and Aristotle.
I rather noticed Plato in the Timaeus,
Saying that these ideas (idees) happen to be the intelligence of the creator,
Since, he at this very place and elsewhere speaks of
Substantial beings and seals of such kind.
But, as many people speak, therefore now have I spoken.

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§ 7.629  (TE2.144) CONCERNING WHETHER THERE IS ANYTHING MORE MISAPPREHENDED THAN THESE
There is a book by Scylax of Caryanda
That writes about men who live around the Indian land,
Whom they call the Skiapods and the Panotiis;
Of whom, the Skiapods have extremely wide feet,
After dropping to the ground at noontime,
And by stretching out their feet above them, they make shade for themselves;
The Panotiis, on the other hand, have large ears,
Which they use to cover themselves like parasols.
This same Scylax also writes countless other things
Regarding the One-eyed men and the men with ears large enough to sleep in,
And countless other outlandish marvels.

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§ 7.640  He tells of these things as if they were true and not fabricated.
But since I am ignorant of these things, I consider them to be lies.
That they really are true is attested by the fact that countless others claim
To have seen such things and other marvels even more incredible in their lifetime,
Ctesias and Iambulus, Isigonus, Rheginus,
Alexander, Sotion and Agathosthenes,
Antigonus and Eudoxus, Hippostratus, countless others,
Including Protagoras himself and even Ptolemy,
And Acestorides himself and other prose-writers,
Some of whom I am personally familiar with and others I am not.

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§ 7.650  Among those men, whose writings in complex metres I am personally familiar with,
Are Zenothemis, Pherenicus along with Philostephanus,
And, in turn, there are countless others whom I am not familiar with.
For regarding the Libyan snakes an anonymous
Narrative relates in prose rather than verse,
While Posidippus says in verse, that inside their heads
There are some stones called the snake-stones,
Which happen to be self-carved, of which in one particular
He says you could discern a chariot that had been engraved somehow on its own,
So that the engraved form could not be observed until it was stamped with wax.

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§ 7.660  Now hear the verses of Posidippus:
“It was not a river resounding on its banks,
But the well-bearded head of a snake that once held this stone,
Patched with white; and the chariot engraved upon it
Was carved by the vision of Lynceus
Like a white mark on a nail; For after having been formed
The chariot is seen, but on the surface you could not see any protrusions.
Wherefore a great marvel results from the labour, how the stone worker
While gazing intently did not damage his eyes.”
Posidippus related these things and numerous others.

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§ 7.670  And Philostephanus relates numerous other details,
Regarding even the lake in Sicilian land, which casts ashore its bathers.
“In the land of Trinacria Sicily
A lake, albeit small, has a stream,
With so strong a flow, the very flow, which, if you step into it
Unwisely, thrusts you back on its dry sand”.
And Pherenicus says about the Hyperboreans,
Just as Zenothemis as well as Aristeas,
Aristeas the wise man, son of Kaystrobios,
Whose few verses I am familiar with,

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§ 7.680  And even Herodotus recalls them. I will quote the verses by Pherenicus:
“Regarding the Hyperboreans, who dwell in the extremities of the earth,
Under the protection of the temple of Apollo, lacking the experience of war”.
And Zenothemis relates these things in his Periplous:
“Bordering the Arimaspi, a big tribe
Of the Scythian Issedones, dwells beside the streams of the river”.
Now Aristeas says in his Arimaspea:
“The Issedones, exulting in their long flowing hair,
He also says that there are men dwelling farther up and neighbouring them
Up above Boreas, and that they are many and very noble warriors,

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§ 7.690  Rich in horses, possessing many herds of sheep and many herds of cattle.
Each has a single eye in the middle of his elegant forehead,
They are shaggy with hairs, the strongest of all men”.
Now, concerning the Half-dogs and Dog-heads,
Simmias in his Apollo, in this way writes in verse:
“I went above the rich land of the remote Hyperboreans,
With whom the hero king Perseus once feasted,
There dwell the Massagetae, the mounters upon swift horses,
Relying on their quick-striking bows,
And then I came round the wondrous stream of ever-flowing

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§ 7.700  Campasus, which pours its water into the divine, immortal sea.
From there, I went to islands fenced with all-green olive trees,
And covered with tall-leaved reeds.
There I noticed a race of giant Half-dogs,
Above their well-twisted shoulders the head of a dog
Have been grown grisly with very strong jaws.
They issue howls as if they were dogs, but they are not at all,
Ignorant of the articulate voice of other human beings”.
Regarding the Half-dog men Simmias relates these things.
In the Hyperborean and cold lands Tzetzes

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§ 7.710  Persistently insists that such things do not exist.
In the land of the Ethiopians, in India and Egypt,
And in equally warm lands, he says that there are such creatures as these.
Even Ctesias claims that among the Indians there are such things as
The amber-producing trees and the Dog-headed men,
He says that they are very just and live by hunting.
In like manner Hierocles in his Philistores relates:
“Speaking in a consequential manner, we saw a country very dry,
And burnt up by the sun, and round about this land we saw men
Naked and homeless near the desert,

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§ 7.720  Of whom some shaded their faces with their ears,
While others shaded the rest of their bodies, by stretching out their feet above them”.
These details even Strabo recalls, as well as the No-headed,
The Ten-headed and the Four-hands-and-feet men.
Hierocles relates things, which I have never seen.
These things Hierocles related; Iambulus, in turn,
Says of the round animals in the islands of the Ethiopians,
And the double-tongued men who could with one turn of the scale
Converse with two different people.
These things and numerous others Iambulus relates.

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§ 7.730  Uranius somewhere in the third book of his Arabica says,
That there is a sacred grove of reeds in Arabia,
In these reeds they bury only the kings,
As well as their wives, brothers and sons,
But not any other; the burial is as follows:
They make hollow one joint of these reeds we mentioned,
They place the dead inside it and anoint it with myrrh,
Without cutting off the reed, and let it grow again.
If anyone considers the reeds of the Arabsto be a marvel,
Then Tzetzes says: when Ctesias writes about the Indian reeds,

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§ 7.740  Two fathoms wide, who would believe him?
Whose one single joint makes two merchant vessels?
Those who say about the more unusual fennels,
And the scorpions and the gudgeon fish, and the two-cubit fish
Even up to three cubits, if not longer,
And the oysters in Calpe, the city of Iberia,
Whose shell was equal to four cotyle,
And about all the other even stranger things,
Which, if Tzetzes were to insert them in this book,
The book would not have room even for these things alone,

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§ 7.750  And for the histories he would need more books,
Likewise if he were to write about these things at length.
For reasons of space he squeezes the histories,
So the book will hold everything on the list.
Therefore in order to speak briefly about Apollodorus,
And how it is that Tzetzes considers these things false,
Henceforth we would condense the remaining stories,
So we might manage to write all these here,
As many as are written in the list.

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§ 7.759  Everyone writes about the things we mentioned above as if they were genuine.
Apollodorus, in the second book of his catalogue,
Having like Tzetzes a soul that searches for confirmed truth,
Supposes the monsters to be fictitious, writing as follows:
“The Half-dogs, the Long-skulls and the Pygmies, are a fiction,
Likewise the Web-feet and the Chest-eyed,
And the Dog-heads and One-eyeds,
And mythical the Strap-feet and Strap-legs,
As well as the Monotoketes, the Noseless and the Mouthless,
And the Backwards-toed and the Non-laughers”.

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§ 7.769  (TE2.145) CONCERNING THE BREAD OBELIAS
I called obelias a bread here
Dirty, cheap, probably made from bran.
Julius Polydeuces, writing to Commodus,
Somewhere such he gives this name to such sort of bread,
Calling obelias the bread made from parched barley.
Somewhere else again he says, obeliai breads,
Which the spit-bearers brought to Dionysus,
Made of a medimnos or two or even three,
Impaled on spits (obeloi), whence they got their name.

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§ 7.778  (TE2.146) CONCERNING THE EFFEMINATE SARDANAPALUS
Sardanapalus was the son of Anakyndaraxes,
He ruled the Assyrians, almost the ruler of the world.
Little did the power of this sovereignty interest him.
He built Tarsus and Anchiale in one day.
His entire life was spent in self-indulgence, including sweet-oil unguents,
Flutes and carousals and songs, the music of every instrument,
Variant clothing and endless baths.
He shaved, smeared himself with seaweed, like women,
And dressed himself in women's clothes;
Closing himself up with beautiful women, he luxuriated.
He was given up wholly to luxury and voluptuousness, soft and female, his genitals aside,
His own kingdom was administered by the eunuchs.

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§ 7.790  The voluptuousness of the man is clearly demonstrated to you
By an epigram, inscribed on that man’s tomb.
You have both the epigram and the entire story
Lying at length among the first stories,
Being the ninety fifth in order including that one.

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§ 7.795  (TE2.147) CONCERNING THE DICTUM OF SOLOMON, “VANITY OF VANITIES”
Solomon, having realized the uncertainty of human life,
Said: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity”.
The lyric poet, Pindar, in turn, says somewhere:
“What is someone? What is nobody? Man is the dream of a shadow.”
“The poor man and the rich, we are all dying together.”
The emperor Marcus, says somewhere about man,
That he is a mucus, a slight sore, a friction of the nerves.
He himself, maintaining the mortality of his soul,
Says that even the soul is an exhalation from blood.
Of the soul, which can be destroyed and does not remain, he speaks in such a way:
“If souls continue to exist, in other words, if they remain incorruptible,
How does the air contain them from eternity?”

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§ 7.807  (TE2.148) CONCERNING “JUST AS GALEN TEACHES ABOUT THE ANGRY AND RAVING MEN”
The raving, and the melancholy-mad men
Galen, the physician, advises people to avoid
Encouraging the pursuit of tranquillity and all kinds of solitude.

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§ 7.810  (TE2.149) CONCERNING “DEVOURING HIS OWN SOUL AND SHUNNING THE PATHS OF MEN”
Hipponus the Corinthian, the son of Glaucus, who was the son of Sisyphus,
Killed his own brother, whose name was this:
Either Deliades, or Peiren or Alkimenes,
Or Belleron, who was the ruler of the Corinthians,
And hence he received this name “Bellerophon“,
And he came to Proetus in Argos to be purified.
Anteia and/or Stheneboea, Proetus’ wife,
Fell in love with him but was not able to seduce him,
She told her husband, Proetus, that she was violated by this man.
Since Proetus was the table-mate and purifier of this man,

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§ 7.820  He avoided murdering him with his own hands;
After writing down on a folded tablet (for there was no paper yet)
The entire story, to this Bellerophon
He gave the message to be delivered to Lycia on his behalf,
To his father-in-law, Iobates, in order for him to kill Bellerophon.
Bellerophon, on coming to Iobates,
Was entertained as a guest at the table for nine days.
Iobates, after seeing the letter on the tenth day,
Could not kill him either, having already feasted with him.
He sent him to kill the fire-breathing Chimaera,

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§ 7.830  So that the youth would be killed in combat with it.
They say that Chimaera was a three-headed beast,
Lion, goat in the middle and snake in the tail.
The youth mounted Pegasus, the winged horse,
In other words, after having boarded a trireme, whose sails were like wings,
(The people round the Adriatic also call their ships horses)
And having a fleet of other triremes, joined battle,
And he first achieved victory over the Solymi,
Or the Mylii or Mylassites, according to others.
Tzetzes says that the Solymi are the Hebrews,

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§ 7.840  Whom Homer depicts as ruthless as a lion.
With a second fleet, he vanquished the Amazons,
Whom, as haunting precipices and mountain-dwelling,
Homer says to have been the second head,
The goat of the Chimera; for the third head,
Now learn about the tail-serpent,
The malicious plot against the youth.
Iobates hoped Bellerophon would be killed
Either in battle with the Hebrews, or with the Amazons,
But not only did he not die, but also he gained the victory,

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§ 7.850  Iobates set Lycian men in ambush to kill him.
But after Bellerophon dealt even with these bald-heads,
Iobates gave him as bridegroom to his daughter Philonoe.
She then gave birth to Isandrus, Laodameia and Hippolochus.
Now hear about his ascent to the sky with his horse,
And how he was thrown off Pegasus’ back
And how he wandered blind over the Aleian plain of Cilicia.
Now you will have the allegorical interpretation of every detail by Tzetzes, clearly and thoroughly.
The man was exalted through his victories, he had high thoughts in his mind,
Because of the victories he achieved with his triremes and the fleet,

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§ 7.860  And his other victories, as it happens to many people.
Because of this man’s thinking in this way on account of the victories, of which I had spoken,
Out of envy of the wicked daemons, Telchines, Erinnyes,
A fortune ill and malignant, the fortune of the misanthropic,
Compensated for the previous good luck of his,
And this fortune killed his son in the battle with the Hebrews,
This man’s son, Isandrus; his daughter, in turn,
Was cut down untimely by swift disease;
(Which the poet calls the archery of Artemis;
They say sudden deaths are caused by Helius and Selene.)

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§ 7.870  So having been in this way deprived of his eyes, his children,
(For fathers deem their children to be superior to the light of the eyes)
Or having been deprived even of his mind out of sorrow for his children
(For the mind, according to Epicharmus, both sees and hears)
Round the Aleian plain of Cilicia
He was passing his days alone in the desert,
“Devouring his own soul and shunning the paths of men,”
Being distressed and avoiding the gatherings of people.
For every sorrowing man and traumatized,
And lunatic, as Hippocrates writes,
Becomes misanthropic and keeps far from people,
Considering their fellows to be a different species.

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§ 7.882  (TE2.150) CONCERNING “THE MISANTHROPIC ACCORDING TO HIPPOCRATES”
I wrote this, having anticipated this one which has just been written;
Assuredly every sorrowful man and all the maniacs,
And all raving people, as Hippocrates writes,
Become misanthropic and live far from people,
Considering their fellows to be a different species.

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§ 7.887  (TE2.151) THAT THERSITES’ NAME WAS RECORDED IN EPIC POETRY FOR INSULTING THE HEROES
Thersites of the Greek contigent was the son of Agrius and Dia,
He came from a noble family and Aetolia was his fatherland,
He was a first cousin to Meleager,
And to Tydeus, the father of Diomedes himself;
He was peak-headed, cross-eyed, crippled, hunchbacked and bald-headed,
Because he had fallen from a high hill against the rocks,
Pursued by the Calydonian boar during the hung;
This man was recorded in epic poetry for insulting the heroes.
Not for his lineage, nor for his deeds
Did Homer record him, but for his insults toward the heroes.
In this way his insults made the man famous.

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§ 7.898  (TE2.152) WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MONSTROSITY (TERAS), SIGN (SEMEION), EVIDENCE (TEKMERION), SYMBOL (SYMBOLON) AND LIKELIHOOD (EIKOS)
Now hear about the differences between monstrosity (teras) and sign (semeion),
And evidence (tekmerion), as well as, symbol (symbolon),
Likelihood (eikos) and parable (parabole) and paradigm (paradeigma).
Now learn to call a teras everything that is unnatural,
As, for example, someone who has six fingers, or three feet or even three hands,
And everything which is alien to the most natural order.
The thing which may appear out of place and out of time on the whole,
Sign (semeion) you should call; Like a rose in the winter,
Like some strange beast which dwells out of its natural environment.
Now, learn to call properly evidence (tekmerion)
This one which assumes something that is unseen out of something visible;
For example, when you see smoke from afar, you assume it comes from a house.

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§ 7.910  The one which was done after careful consideration, and rather in times of war,
For example, once a dog’s skin is raised on the spear,
It is a signal for fighting the enemies, and anything such as this,
Symbol (symbolon) you should call altogether, and likewise Judas’ speech:
“The man I kiss is the one, arrest him.”
Likelihood (eikos) is a reflection resulting from appropriate reasoning.
For instance, when you say, if a certain one walks during the night,
Either thievish or meretricious wrongdoings he pursues.
Now, here is the difference between the parable (parabole) and the paradigm (paradeigma);
Parable (parabole) is the likeness of the middle terms in an argument;

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§ 7.920  For example, just like the heavy rain waters the dry ground,
So do the sayings to the souls; or, as the winter chills,
The same does sadness to the souls; and all things of such nature.
On the other hand, the paradigm (paradeigma) derives from things that have already been done;
Look at the one who discourses on god, watch the one who speaks of gold,
We hear about Homer, what sort of person was Demosthenes,
And all the things of that nature, from where one must take an example.

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§ 7.927  (TE2.153) CONCERNING “EVEN IF MORE EXCELLENT IN LINEAGE”
For Thersites was the son of Agrius and Dia,
A descendant of Aetolian kings.

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§ 7.929  (TE2.154) CONCERNING HOW PHEIDIAS, AFTER HAVING MADE THE STATUE OF ZEUS AND NEMESIS AT RHAMNOUS, INSCRIBED ON IT: ‘THIS IS THE STATUE OF AGORACRITUS OF PAROS’”
Pheidias, the legendary Attic sculptor,
Who had been a student of Geladas of Argos,
Wanted to please his lover Agoracritus,
A man not gifted in sculpture.
After making the agalma beautifully, with Pheidian skill -
The statue of Nemesis and Zeus at Rhamnous -
He inscribed it with an ascription to that man:
“This is the statue of Agoracritus of Paros”.
Xenophon did the same thing regarding the Anabasis of Cyrus;
For he ascribed a name to the work to please his beloved:
“There is indeed the book Cyrus' Anabasis,
This is the book of Themistogenes the Syracusan“;
Although later it came to be called the book of Xenophon
So Plato, the philosopher, under the name of his friends
Wrote his Dialogues, and so did countless others.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.944  (TE2.155) CONCERNING “PROFITING FROM PERSONAL GRIEF, ACCORDING TO HIPPOCRATES”
This is the Coan physician, the great Hippocrates,
His father was Herakleidas, his mother Phainarete,
Descended from Asclepius, he was the seventeenth in line.
After the sack of Troy, on the opposite coast of Rhodes,
Podalirius, son of Asclepius,
Begot Hippolochus, who begot Sostratus,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.950  Sostratus begot Dardanus, Dardanus begot Krisamis, Krisamis begot Kleomyttades,
Whose son, Theodorus, begot another Sostratus,
And from this Sostratus was born Krisamis II,
From Krisamis II, in turn, was born Theodorus II.
From this Theodorus came Sostratus III,
Who begot Nebrus, who begot Gnosidicus, from whom Hippocrates was born.
To this Hippocrates I, son of Gnosidicus,
Was born Herakleidas; he and Phainarete
Were the parents of the great Hippocrates, also called the second;
He was taught the medical art by his father Herakleidas,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.960  And by Herodicus of Selybria;
Gorgias of Leontinoi taught him rhetoric,
And after them, that man Democritus taught him philosophy.
Hippocrates, having been appointed keeper of the library in Cos,
Burnt the ancient books of medicine
And the library. Having to flee from there for this reason,
He lived among the Edonians, in Greece and Thessaly,
Being a contemporary of Artaxerxes and Perdikkas.
Hippocrates sons’ were Thessalus and Dracon;
He taught them and Praxagoras the Coan and others

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 7.970  The medical art. He wrote
Fifty three books. And then he died,
Being one hundred and four years old.
After he died, he was buried between Larissa and Gyrton.
Note that there are seven Hippocrates;
The first, son of Gnosidicus, the second, son of Heraclides,
The next, son of Thessalus, the son of Dracon, the two sons of Thymbraeus,
And the seventh Hippocrates, the son of Praxianax.
There were seven Hippocrates. But this one
Was depicted covering his own head with his cloak.

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 7.980  They say there are four reasons for this:
Either because he had a pain in the head, or because he travelled abroad,
Or because he wanted to show that this is the organ of reasoning
Or how it is proper to cover one’s head during a surgery.
That is what the man did and in this way he is depicted.
Some mistakenly call the man an Empiric.
Soranus of Ephesus is my source for what I have said about Hippocrates.
This very Hippocrates, the physician, son of Heracleidas, the Coan,
Proved and he spoke in maxims, that the race of physicians
Shall reap their own sorries from other people’s misfortunes.

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 7.990  (TE2.156) CONCERNING THE SACK OF MILETUS IN THE PLAY OF PHRYNICHUS
In the time of Darius, the father of Xerxes the Great,
The Persians sacked Miletus because of Histiaeus,
And established the Milesians in Ampe, a city of Erythraea,
However, for them did not mourn the race of the Sybarites,
For whom the Milesians showed great lamentation before,
And all the youths at once had their heads shorn,
When Sybaris was taken by the Crotoniates.
Phrynichus the Athenian, made the sack of Miletus,
Being a tragedian, the subject of his tragedy,
So that the whole theatre fell to weeping and wore black clothes,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.1000  He was fined a thousand drachmas by the Athenians,
[1] Who also made an order, that nobody should perform that play.
The sack of Miletus was foretold by an oracle before:
“Then, Miletus, contriver of ill deeds,
For many shall you become a feast and a glorious prize;
Your wives shall wash the feet of many long-haired men;
And others shall care for our temple at Didyma.”
Herodotus, the son of Oxylus, writes the story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 7.1000  8.7 BOOK 8, TRANSLATED BY VASILIKI DOGANI
(TE2.157) CONCERNING ORPHEUS WHO CHARMED EVERYTHING
Orpheus was a Thracian, of the Odrysian tribe, who lived near Bisaltia.
He was the son of Menippe, the daughter of Thamyris, and Oeagrus.
Speaking allegorically, they say that he was the son of Calliope.
This is the twelfth story in line among the former ones.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.12  (TE2.158) CONCERNING “MENELAUS WEPT AND SO HELEN OF ARGOS WEPT”
In the Odyssey, Homer introduces the son of Odysseus,
Along with the son of Nestor, visiting Menelaus,
In order to gain information about Odysseus.
As the memory of Odysseus sneaks upon them,
It makes everyone weep, Menelaus, Helen,
Telemachus himself and the son of Nestor.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.18  (TE2.159) CONCERNING THE PROVERB “WHEN SOMEONE ASKS FOR BUCKETS, AND WE DENY HIM THE SHOVELS”
In their proverbs, Didymus and Tarrhaeus write:
“I was asking for shovels, and they denied me the buckets”
This is a fitting proverb that is used,
When someone receives something other than that which was asked,
Or when he gives something else instead of that which he was asked for.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.23  (TE2.160) CONCERNING THE PARASITE WHO WAS LATE FOR DINNER
Libanius writes somewhere about a gluttonous parasite
Who being invited to brunch and wishing to arrive there quickly,
took a race-horse.
But when riding his horse he arrived at a place resembling a stadium,
And there was a post in the shape of the turning-post of a racecourse,
The horse thinking mistakenly that it was a hippodrome,
Was wheeling around the post until evening,
And the parasite was carried away by the horse against his will.
And around evening, fasting, having fallen he was carried away.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.30  (TE2.161) CONCERNING THE SAYING “MANY PEOPLE COMMIT WRONG, BUT NOT EVEN ONE IS BEING WRONGED”
The saying: “Many people commit wrong, but no one is being wronged”,
Is attributed to Socrates by Plato’s writings.
This is an old Hesiodic proverbial saying.
For Hesiod says in Works and Days:
“He harms himself, who does harm to another.
And the evil plan is most harmful to the planner.”
Such is the meaning of the proverbs that we quoted;
Many people live unrighteous lives, snatching up as many things as possible,
But the soul of someone, who is wronged, is not being harmed.
The paradoxical proverb of Hesiod
Says that the one who is being wronged is not being wronged at all;
But rather the one who commits wrong is being greatly wronged,
Doing wrong to his own soul by acting unjustly.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.45  (TE2.162) CONCERNING THE FEEDING OF THE MULTITUDE BY THE SAVIOUR WITH FIVE LOAVES OF BREAD
From the Gospel, this becomes manifest to everyone,
That our Lord fed with five loaves of bread
So great a multitude of people, and twelve baskets
Were shown full of the crumbs of this bread.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.49  (TE2.163) CONCERNING “WHEN A CUCKOO CRIES”
The cuckoo is a bird similar to a falcon;
When the winter is over, it starts to cuckoo.
It delights all people, for it heralds the spring.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.52  (TE2.164) CONCERNING THE “WEEKS” OF DANIEL
Foretelling the incarnation of the Saviour
Daniel spoke prophetically saying that,
The seventy weeks period of time shall come to pass
For the Jewish people, and it shall cause the sacrifice to cease;
Now truly, upon the appearance of Christ after the passing
Of four hundred and ninety years,
The legal sacrifices of the Jewish people shall come to an end,
And the preaching of the New Testament shall prosper.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.60  (TE2.165) CONCERNING “SPEAKING MANY FALSE THINGS AS THOUGH THEY WERE TRUE”
In the Odyssey, when Odysseus, according to Homer’s words,
Disguised as a poor beggar was asked by Penelope
What manner of man Odysseus was, and if he truly caught sight of him,
Among the many things he said was this;
“Know that he speaks many falsehoods that resemble the truth.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.65  (TE2.166) CONCERNING THE ONE MORE TALKATIVE THAN THE CICADAS, AND THE MYTHICAL STORY OF THE CICADAS
The cicada, drunk with the sun's rays
Becomes talkative and fond of singing; and if someone catches it,
It rather becomes more loquacious; wherefore the proverb
Says that it will seem to you that a cicada clings to its wings.
In this way the cicada becomes a songster in the rays of the sun;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.70  But if cold weather arrives, it remains silent and ceases its chirping songs.
However, all female cicadas stay forever mute,
As a lesson in self-control for women, even if it does not persuade them.
Wherefore Homer also, acknowledging the loquacity of cicadas,
Compared them with the Trojan elders,
Who poured out words, when speaking in public, like thick snowflakes.
But the bull-headed say, fabricating stories,
That Homer compared the men to cicadas,
Because their relative Tithonus, having grown old
Was turned into a cicada by Hemera,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.80  This happen to be a foolish myth that needs to be interpreted allegorically.
Tithonus was the beloved of Hemera you should understand it in this way:
That he was long-lived and he was truly loved deeply
During the days of his life and for a long period of time.
But when he grew very old and like new-born babies
Was put in a cradle to sleep,
Meaning to say that he be renewed as a baby:
Since cicadas themselves are renewed like the snakes;
For while the cicada chirps, it splits open, and another young cicada emerges;
They said that when Tithonus grew old Hemera
Turned him into a cicada; that is to say, after a long time
Tithonus was once again revived anew.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.92  (TE2.167) CONCERNING THE SPEECHLESSNESS OF THE SERIPHIAN FROGS
While every terrestrial frog is mute,
The aquatic ones, which Aratus calls tadpoles
And noisy, are voiced, excepting only those from Seriphos.
For in that place even the aquatic frogs are mute,
Due to the fact that the water there is extremely cold.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.95  (TE2.168) CONCERNING “FOR HARMONIDES BY FAR MORE YOU, RHETOR, OR THE RHETOR THAT PHERECLUS”
Homer called Phereclus, a builder by craft
Who fitted together ships and thrones and everything else,
Harmonides, supposedly a patronymic.
But since rhetors also have the ability to fit words together,
As a rhetor Homer called Harmonides.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.100  (TE2.169) CONCERNING PARODY AND PASTING
In his book On Method of Forceful Style
Hermogenes teaches you the technique of pasting as well as the parodic imitation,
Saying that both of them sweeten speeches.
Now learn what is pasting and what is parody.
If you take from somewhere else and mix it with your own words,
Whether prose or metrical, this is called pasting.
For example, regarding the ravished maiden I speak in this way:
You ask, Judges, what this man has committed?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.110  “He ravished a maiden and tamed her against her will.” [Oppian, Hal. 1.390]
This is pasting, but not parody.
For I have quoted the verse of Oppian without altering it.
If, quoting someone's verse or prose,
I alter some words, then while this is also pasting,
It is also parody, because it changed.
Such as, what we quoted before:
“A solitary maiden he tamed against her will.”
And what is most wittily mentioned in the Homerocentra:
“On the left side, he had Paul, on the other he was kicking Peter.”
Now you have learnt what pasting is and what is parody.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.121  Paragrammatism is very close to parody,
Even if Hermogenes didn't mention it;
I am of the opinion that this too is parody.
Understand parody as the alteration of an entire word,
And paragrammatism as the alteration of a single letter;
For example, if we say kolax instead of korax,
We just substitute the letter rho for the letter lambda.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.130  Now that you have learned what is pasting and what is parody,
And the nature of paragrammatism with them,
I will tell you how the rhetor will parody the words of others
And glue them into his speech so they seem his own.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.132  (TE2.170) CONCERNING THE THE HEALING WATER DRUNK BY ANOTHER FOR SNAKEBITE VICTIMS
If someone, bitten by a snake, drinks in silence water,
After having soaked in water the dark handle of a knife,
Before the biting snake tastes the water,
He survives unharmed the damaging venom.
Should someone else bears a message to some person saying the following words:
“A certain one bitten by a snake lies at a distance
And he did not have the strength to come here”,
The messenger drinks of the water of which we spoke,
And the diseased one gets the remedy from afar.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.141  (TE2.171) CONCERNING TYPHON
Typhon is also one of the hundred-headed daemons,
They say that he even battled Zeus once.
But now it is any violent wind, of a fiery nature,
Tearing up trees by their roots and breaking them off.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.145  (TE2.172) CONCERNING “FOR A LONG TIME I STAYED SPEECHLESS HEARING THE WORDS”
In Iliad Homer, after the death of Patroclus,
Introduces Antilochus being ignorant of that event.
And after Menelaus told him of the misfortune,
Hearing his words, he stayed for a long time speechless,
And his eyes filled with tears.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.150  (TE2.173) CONCERNING THE COMPASSION OF CRASSUS THE ROMAN
Crassus the Roman was prone to pity in his manners.
He kept a moray eel in a fish pond,
And while it was alive, he adorned it with a collar set in precious stones.
The moray eel responded to his voice.
When it died, he buried it, mourning immoderately.
When Dometius mocked him for weeping,
Saying, O foolish one, weeping for an eel?”
“But I, Dometius, he said, am weeping for the fish,
I am weeping for the moray eel, a living being least kin to me,
But you did not weep even when you were burying your three wives.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.160  (TE2.174) CONCERNING A HISTORICAL WORD, THE MEANING OF THE CENEBRIA
Cenebria, in the proper sense of the word, are called the dead animals,
Which are useless as a food source and of no benefit,
Because they are not proper for food and they are worthless;
But now the ones which are slaughtered and used for food
I called cenebria, in a misuse of language.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.165  (TE2.175) CONCERNING “BUT WHAT COULD I DO? GOD BRINGS ALL THINGS TO PASS”
After Briseis has been taken away from Achilles,
The very woman who is also called Hippodamia,
This hero Achilles withdrew from the battle.
But as the Greeks were being defeated by the Trojans and killed,
Patroclus, after taking the armour of Achilles,
Went forth to battle; and having killed not a few men,
Finally, he was killed by Hector;
Inevitably thereafter Achilles and Agamemnon
Accused one another for many things out of enmity,
Thereafter one of them says even this:
“But what could I do? God brings all things to pass.
Ate, the eldest of Zeus’ daughters, who deludes all.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.177  (TE2.176) CONCERNING “QUICK TO COME IS ONE’S SATIETY OF CHILLING SORROW”
Homer says that satiety of lament comes quickly.
Now, whom he introduces saying that and in which book,
Either in the Iliad or in the Odyssey,
I know not exactly; But yet, these are the words of Homer.
For although Tzetzes is without books, although he even writes impromptu,
All these very things you see, and faster that fast,
As if he transcribed these things from some books, having them in front of him,
But still he composes every writing in the most accurate way.
So he becomes unbearable to all those who write falsehoods.
And if there is someone who doubts the hastiness and the improvised writings,
And the fact that all these things are being written down without any books,
Let he move directly towards us and learn from our labour,
And let him not become ignorant, learning exactly through experience.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.190  Death becomes intelligible to Tzetzes, by transcribing.
He scarcely does this thing because he is deeply annoyed.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.192  (TE2.177) CONCERNING THE DEATH, SUCH AS WHICH YOU KNOW THAT SOLON ADMIRES
This is the first story in the first section,
Relating how Croesus the Lydian had asked Solon,
Whether he knew a man happier in life than he,
And how Solon did not bless him at all,
Instead he considered blessed Tellus and Cleobis and Biton together with them,
Whose lives came to an end fulfilling a useful cause.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.198  (TE2.178) CONCERNING THE MUCUS EARWAX
Slime, mucus, mucous discharge, discharge of liquid waste, mucous fluid,
Cypselos and cypsele, all these indicate the dirt secreted in the ears.
The beehives are also called cypselae.
But there is also the city of Cypsela, which took its name after some Cypselus,
Or because there are many beehives in that place.
And this is how Cypselus was given that name;
Being the son of Eetion, and, I think, of Labda,
His mother concealed him in a chest (cypsele),
Lest the Bacchiads should murder him. For they were searching for him.
Cypsele was indeed a spiral vessel.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.208  (TE2.179) CONCERNING “THOUGH CUTTING OUR HAIR IS A TRIBUTE TO THE SAD DEAD” AND CONCERNING “BUT, THAT THE SPIRIT OF MAN SHOULD COME AGAIN, NEITHER, ETC.”
Homer introduces Pisistratus, the son of Nestor,
Saying to Menelaus, who was weeping at dinner time,
While reminding them of the manners of Odysseus;
“Though, Menelaus, it is a tribute paid to the ones who died, when we weep,
And at the same time, cut off our hair; But, I take no delight,
In tears while eating, so cease weeping.”
Homer says these words in the book of the Odyssey.
In turn, in the ninth book of the Iliad
Achilles scaring the ambassadors away says these:
That Agamemnon would not persuade him at all,
Not even if he offered him gifts more numerous than the grains of sand and dust.
For everything may be carried off as booty, and everything may be acquired,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.220  “But, that the spirit of man can be brought back again, neither by raiding,
Nor by winning, when once it has passed the barrier of his teeth.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.222  (TE2.180) CONCERNING “BUT WHEN THE DUST HAS DRAWN UP THE BLOOD OF A MAN, ONCE HE IS DEAD, THERE IS NO RETURN TO LIFE”
Aeschylus, as Homer, believing in the mortality of the soul,
Considers the soul to be an exhalation from blood,
As Marcus the emperor in later times;
Aeschylus, thinking that the soul is mortal according to Homer,
Even the words of Homer translates into iambic verses.
For exactly these words that Homer says, as I said above,
“But, that the spirit of man can be brought back again, neither by raiding,
Nor by winning, when once it has passed the barrier of his teeth.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.230  Writing in iambic verses Aeschylus himself says in this way:
“But when the dust has drawn up the blood of a man,
Once he is dead, there is no return to life.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.233  (TE2.181) CONCERNING SOCRATES WHO SAYS: “I WILL FIND A PLACE MUCH BETTER THAN THIS ONE HERE”
Socrates the philosopher was about to drink the hemlock,
Because the Athenians thought he was impious, and he was imprisoned,
And forced to buy even the hemlock,
(O respite from misfortune!) so as to expire by drinking it,
Because they were saying that he could not acquire hemlock at public expense,
When some men approached him in prison,
Some of them to encourage him and others to lament,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.240  That very man was most nobly philosophizing,
And he much preferred death to life,
Saying that he would find there a place better than this one here.
And truly even among the Greeks and the most impious men
Who live there he imagined there were punishments,
And rewards for both the good and the bad ones who live here.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.246  (TE2.182) CONCERNING THE WORDS WHICH THE SPECTRE OF PATROCLUS SAYS TO ACHILLES: “NOT WHILE I WAS ALIVE WERE YOU UNMINDFUL OF ME, BUT NOW THAT I AM DEAD”
In the Iliad Homer introduces the spectre of Patroclus,
Due to the fact that he was still lying unburied in the tents,
Urging Achilles himself to bury him,
And uttering this very idea, which Homer relates
In heroic verses saying in this way the following:
“Not while I was alive were you unmindful of me, but now that I am dead;
Bury me as quickly as may be, that I may pass through the gates of Hades.
Far do the souls keep me off, the phantoms of men that have done with toils.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.254  (TE2.183) CONCERNING THE RIVER ILISSOS
Ilissos is a river of Attica,
From where they say Boreas carried off Oreithyia.
While thus is Ilissos a river, as I said;
But now I have named the mouth of one of my friends Ilissos.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.258  (TE2.184) CONCERNING THE DODECACRUNOS (OF TWELVE SPRINGS) MOUTH
Callirhoe happens to be a fountain in Athens,
The one which was also formerly called Enneacrunos (of nine spouts);
But I have called the mouth, dodecacrunos (of twelve spouts),
Just as it was called long before our time, in ages past,
About him Cratinus the comic poet has written somewhere:
“Lord Apollo, fountains of flowing words
The springs plash, the twelve-spouted mouth,
Ilissos in his throat; what can I say?”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.266  (TE2.185) CONCERNING THE ATTIC FOUNTAIN CALLIRHOE
Of the mouth of twelve springs and Callirhoe,
I spoke to you beforehand, writing shorthand, as you know;
And without my knowing if the story concerning Callirhoe lies further below,
So you already have this story pre-written.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.270  (TE2.186) WHAT LARINOS IS
Note that everything big is call larinon;
From the name of a herdsman called Larinus,
Who was of largest frame and he was also a huge eater;
And some very large cows are named Larinian after him;
In this way the big one is called larinon, either due to its size,
Or due to being quite enough and quite big to satiate even Larinus.
I also call this due to the food of the gulls (laros),
In other words, because it is able to fill even the big mouth of a gull.
For larus is a bird that swallows whole fish.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.279  (TE2.187) CONCERNING “AS PYTHAGORAS PROVED ME SILENT”
Pythagoras, the hallmark of the ends of philosophy,
That is to observe silence for five years, was teaching the initiates.
This one was once asked, how long is the human lifespan?
Proving the finite duration of lifespan, revealing that it is short, he concealed it.
So did I write a letter to a friend which I have not sent;
Istrian stock fish, as it seems, my good friend,
As Pythagoras, you proved us silent.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.286  (TE2.188) CONCERNING THE MIGRATION OF THE SUN TOWARDS THE SOUTH POLE AND THE TROPIC OF CAPRICORN
They say there are five poles of the celestial sphere,
The Arctic and North Pole, which is always above the horizon,
The Antarctic, the South, which lies hidden,
The Zodiac and along with it the two Tropics,
The summer and winter Tropic.
But others do not call these poles but circles,
And they say there are eleven circles;
The five aforementioned ones and the Horizon,
The Milky Way together with them and over and above them all
The Meridian, the Equator and the two Colures.
But others of the all-wise race call them differently.
During the time the sun moves towards the South Pole,
And reaches the Tropic of Capricorn,
It is winter season. And on the contrary,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.300  When it moves towards the North Pole and the Tropic of Cancer,
It is summer season; But now I must stop.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.302  (TE2.189) CONCERNING THE TRIBON, THE PERITIARA AND THE COMMON PERIBOLAIA
Tribon is what the worn cloak of the philosophers was called;
But the black garment improperly
I called tribonion, the garment of the priests.
Tiara was a head covering of the Persians.
In later times, our people, who were awarded with a crown upon being victorious,
Had their own heads crowned with tiaras, that is to say typhas,
Such as this one which that equestrian statue
Of Justinian wears standing on the top of the column.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.310  I even spoke to you of the tiara; Now, the peritiara,
Is the proper head ornament for citizens.
In turn, I call common peribolaia
All the ornamental garments, both white and dyed ones.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.314  (TE2.190) CONCERNING “TO MOST MORTALS THE HAVEN OF FRIENDSHIP IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED”
Euripides often celebrates friendship,
Contrariwise he disapproves, immoderately, of unfriendliness,
In the Orestes and the Phoenician Women and the other tragedies,
“To many people the institution of friendship, he says, proves faithless.
And it is a good thing to be prosperous - the unfortunate are friendless.”
Ten stories from 191 until 200.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.319  (TE2.191) CONCERNING POLYKLEITOS
Polykleitos of Argos was a sculptor as well as a painter,
Many images did he paint and many statues did he make.
But two among the rest of his works were superior to the other,
A painted image, I say, and a statue;
Of which, the image was considered exemplary of the art of painting,
And the statue, in turn, exemplary of the art of sculpture.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.325  (TE2.192) CONCERNING PHIDIAS
Phidias was a pupil of Geladas of Argos,
Who fashioned the statue of Heracles at Melite of Attica.
This Phidias was of Athenian lineage,
Bronze-working and stone-cutting and wood-carving his statues.
It would take long to speak of his handiwork,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.330  The ivory Athena in Athens,
The hammered gold Zeus at Olympia,
The bronze Athena and likewise the Hera,
That “Anthelios” Apollo,
And the Heracles carrying out the dung of Augeas,
And countless other examples of his handiwork;
Some of which were destroyed, others melted down,
Others the casualties of time
But some still stand, in the Circus and the Forum,
And the head of Apollo in the Palace itself.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.340  (TE2.193) CONCERNING ALCAMENES
Alcamenes the bronze-worker was by lineage an islander,
A contemporary of Phidias and his rival
As a result of which Phidias risked his life and nearly died.
Alcamenes produced well-shaped statues,
Although he was unskilled in optics and geometry,
But he frequented the agoras and spent his time there,
And he had worshippers and lovers and followers.
Phidias, on the contrary, being in accordance with the rules of optics and geometry,
And being a perfectly accurate artist in sculpture,
And making everything fitting for the place, the times, the persons,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.350  Striving for decorum more than the others,
According to Tzetzes he hated the agora,
And had art as his only worshipper and lover.
And when on one occasion the Athenian demos wanted
Two statues of Athena to be made,
Which were to be erected upon lofty pedestals,
Both of them created works, at the Demos's demand.
Alcamenes made the figure of the virgin goddess
Both delicate and womanly.
Phidias, on the other hand, as an optical specialist and geometer,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.360  And considering that the whole shape would seem much smaller in proportion to the height of the appointed place,
Formed the statue with the lips wide open,
And its nostrils distended,
And all the rest in acccordance with the height of the columns.
And so Alcamenes’ statue seemed to be better than that of Phidias.
Phidias came close to being pelted with stoned.
But, as soon as the statues were erected and raised up on their columns,
The work of Phidias proved the nobility of his art,
And thereafter Phidias was on everyone’s lips;
The work of Alcamenes was ridiculed and Alcamenes himself was laughed at.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.370  (TE2.194) CONCERNING MYRON
Myron was a bronze-worker, whose works were many,
But his most famous work even until our time,
Is the one which once stood on the Acropolis of Athens,
The bronze statue of a young cow with her breasts swollen.
The story goes that a live calf went bellowing up to suckle it.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.375  (TE2.195) CONCERNING PRAXITELES
Praxiteles worked statues in stone.
He made many other works, but one of his most famous
Was the statue at Cnidus, the naked Aphrodite.
In white royal marble, also called Pentelic,
Many people fell madly in love with it,
And among these Macareus from Perinthus, who in his frantic desire
Wishing to set fire to the temple since his passion was not calming down,
Heard during his sleep the goddess saying the words of Homer:
“No blame on the Trojans and strong-greaved Achaeans,
Who for the sake of this woman have long suffered pains.”
Therefore he had the Cnidian prostitute Ischas from the goddess.
Ptolemy writes this to Tertylla,
If by any chance you know Ptolemy Hephaestion.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.388  (TE2.196) CONCERNING ZEUXIS
Zeuxis was a painter, from Ephesus I think,
He painted countless pictures,
In Ephesus there is a picture of Menelaus,
Pouring out libations for his brother, soaked in tears.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.392  (TE2.197) CONCERNING APELLES
Apelles was also a painter, a native of Ephesus,
And a contemporary of Ptolemy; we must not omit the other details.
How he was slandered by the painter Antiphilus
And how he painted a picture illustrating this slander,
A very artful one; while many others have mentioned this incident,
Lucian the rhetor writes about it extensively.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.388  (TE2.198) CONCERNING PARRHASIUS
This Parrhasius was also a painter from Ephesus,
Having skilfully painted many other paintings,
And among them, Megabyzus in the land of Ephesus,
Alexander the Great, the son of Philip, admired this painting,
And Zeuxis' Menelaus Pouring Libations, of which we have spoken,
And the painting of Timanthes illustrating the Death of Palamedes,
“His soul was confounded and a great noise.”
Aeschrion wrote these words in the Ephemerides.
This Aeschrion was a Mitylenaean by birth,
Who wrote both epic and iambics and ever so many others.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.408  (TE2.199) CONCERNING STASICRATES
Stasicrates was a bronze-worker and a native of Bithynia.
He lived at the time of Alexander the Great.
He modelled statues that were supercilious and swollen with vanity,
But not representing the features of those he portrayed.
And he said to Alexander: “I will model a statue of you,
Moving the earth and the sea, like Xerxes before you”.
Alexander wanted no such statue,
But one modelled in his own likeness.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.416  (TE2.200) CONCERNING LYSIPPOS
And this Lysippos was a man who modelled bronze.
He was from Sicyon, near Corinth,
A contemporary of Alexander, son of Philip,
Making statues with utmost likeness of the ones he portrayed.
Alexander rejoiced in his sculpture.
For he portrayed Alexander even with his neck bent on one side,
As if he looked up with his face to the sky, and he portrayed everything exactly,
Like the kind of man that Alexander of Macedon was,
So that the viewers behold Alexander instead of the monument,
In this monument an epigrammatist inscribed:
“The bronze statue seems to proclaim, looking at Zeus:
I place the earth under my sway, you, Zeus, keep Olympus.”
This Sicyonian sculptor, Lysippos,
When Alexander saw time slipping away,
And was vehemently disheartened,
Most skilfully made him an effigy of Time,
Cautioning everyone not to let time slip by,
He depicted Time deaf, balding behind, wing-footed mounted on a ball,
And offering a knife to someone behind him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.435  (TE2.201) CONCERNING YOUR LITTLE FROGS WITH THE SWOLLEN JAW
Aristophanes wrote about frogs in his play,
In which he mocks the outcasts, the foolishly wise men,
Who compare themselves with the ancient men of native mother-wit,
For having young lovers, bawlers, untimely crying out loudly,
Those men who gain great glory not from reasoning and judgement,
But from the inconsiderate voices they utter after the manner of the lake frogs.
In this way now I called the lovers little frogs.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.442  (TE2.202) CONCERNING AUTOLYCUS’ THEFTS
Autolycus was a son of Hermes, the father of Laertes,
Thus the grandfather of Odysseus, but being extremely poor,
He was gifted by Hermes with the art of stealing,
So that to excel in thievery that Egyptian thief,
And that Babylonian thief, whom Herodotus writes about,
And Eurybatus, who is being talked about a lot by the Greeks,
And Agamedes himself together with Trophonius,
And so as to surpass the very nature of the quicksilver and every thief.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.450  For whenever he stole, he replaced the stolen goods and returned one thing for another.
So the receivers thought they were getting their own things back again,
Not that they have been deceived by him and were receiving different things,
He would steal a very good horse and give back a scabby ass,
And made it seem he had returned the former;
And when he conveyed away a young girl to be his bride, he gave back again
Either a Silenus or a Satyr, some weakened little old man,
Flat-nosed, toothless and bald, runny-nosed, one of the ugly,
And her father thought of him as his daughter.
In his satyr play Autolycus the whole story
About him Euripides has written accurately.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.461  (TE2.203) ACCORDING TO THE COMIC POET: “BITING MYSELF, BUT STILL LAUGHING”
Aristophanes fabricated in his play The Frogs a story,
That Dionysus unable to tolerate the unmusical poets
Was about to descend into Hades, to retrieve a poet,
A man among the ancient ones, who composed poems skilfully,
And not in the manner the outcasts of our times compose nonsense poems.
Being about to descend into Hades, he covers himself properly with garment,
So as the many dead in Hades would think of him as Heracles.
He even wears the lion skin and carries the club;
For these were the attributes of Heracles;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.470  But he even wears his regular most feminine clothing,
The yellow dress and the high boots; he comes before Heracles,
To ask him about the most reliable passage to Hades.
Heracles, upon seeing him wearing the double disguise,
The male attire suitable for Heracles,
And the feminine clothing which is suitable for him,
Laughs and although he was biting himself, he could not stop laughing.
So do I laugh at the fraud, in this way of these I have spoken.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.478  (TE2.204) CONCERNING LYCOPHRON OF CHALCIS
There were several men of the name of Lycophron,
Lycophron, the son of Mastor, as Homer somewhere writes,
And others, wise as well as foolish men, under the name Lycophron.
But this Lycophron was the son of Lycus, or Socles,
A contemporary of Ptolemy,
He composed many satyr plays, tragedies,
And a book, which he entitled Alexandra,
On which Tzetzes wrote an exegesis, and other plays.
Someone made a claim upon this exegesis,
And not the book saying that it has been explained at length by him;
But he interprets on the whole everything that is stated in this book,
And hides the book, and says to his disciples,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.490  That the very things which he interprets are the children of his own reasoning,
Reviling and attacking Tzetzes even in his absence,
Until many of the frequenters, in his cell
Entering stealthily, found the book,
And the interpreter was despised in this way,
Being distressed and especially at those who have received benefaction from him,
Therefore he was appointed the fate of a public enemy,
So that he was even treated spitefully by those who have received his kindness.
The ungrateful, licentious and thrice-sinful men
They have perceived, having no need of the tripods of the oracles.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.500  (TE2.205) CONCERNING THE BIRD OF ATHENA, THE OWL (GLAUX - ATHENE NOCTUA
Aesop introduces somewhere in his own fables
Zeus, intending to create a sovereign over the birds,
Announcing publicly the appointed day, on which he intended to do this.
And while all birds were bathing in river water,
The jackdaw, which was the most deformed of all the birds,
Adorning himself with the feathers discarded by all the other birds
Seemed to be the most beautiful of them all.
Had not the owl, recognizing its own feather,
snatched it away, and the rest similarly.
And the jackdaw was exposed for the jackdaw that it was from the beginning,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.510  The king of all birds in borrowed plumage.
This is the meaning and the moral of the fable,
Many strangers by stealing the work and collections of others
Think that they surpass those who are virtuous by nature and hard work.
That is the way the story goes; the jackdaw is,
According to Homer and Aratus, Babrias and the others,
The smaller crow which nests in the roof openings.
Simocatus and others together with him say in turn,
That jackdaw is the best-looking bird.
Wherefore I think that the details of the mythography were somehow fabricated,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.520  According to which the jackdaw was exceptionally deformed before, but taking the plumes of every bird,
It rendered itself the most beautiful of all the birds.
For it thinks it has the plumage of all the other birds.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.523  (TE2.206) YOU WHO PUT THE JACKDAW TO THE TEST
Now a reversal of stories has occurred, child;
In the story of the Owl the story of the jackdaw was written.
And note the sharpness of Tzetzes’ mind,
How he, without delay, upon seeing the second story after the first one,
Rapidly wove together for you the two storylines into one single story.
Because the story of the jackdaw was written in the story of the owl, child,
In the story of the jackdaw I will relate to you the story of the owl.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.530  The Owl is said to be the bird of Athena,
Therefore Athena had in her own shield
Painted on her breast plate both the owl and the Gorgon,
The Gorgon, signifying the dreadful spirit,
The Owl, signifying profound wisdom.
For wisdom discerns everything that is obscure and concealed,
Just as the owl sees in the dark night.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.537  (TE2.207) CONCERNING THE DRONES, WHICH HARVEST THE HONEY BELONGING TO ANOTHER
The drones are animals bred up with the kin of bees,
For at the same time along with the bees they even procreate.
They happen to be bigger than the bees and without stings,
And they serve the bees, by carrying them water.
They do not produce honey, as the bees.
And as they have large bodies, they eat a lot of honey.
Wherefore the bees in early winter
Kill them because they are afraid, lest they should die from lack of food,
When the heavy winter arrives, and there would be no available flowers,
Whence they would be able to gather their food and honey.
For the drones, as I said, devour a lot of honey.
Note that the drones happen to be of such kind altogether,
Consuming in this way the fruits of the bees’ labour and work.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.550  Whoever says something else writing about the drones,
He has been acquainted with neither the things concerning the bees, nor these concerning the drones.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.552  (TE2.208) CONCERNING “AGREE WITH THE LAD PROCLAIMING THAT HONEY IS ACQUIRED BY THE BEE’S LABOUR”
Learn that this happen to be an ironic figure of speech.
For who does not know that the honey is acquired by the bee’s labour?
In this way he has spoken employing clever rhetoric;
Agree with the one who says that the honey belongs to the bees,
Or, in other words, he says that our labours are deemed to be ours.
Even Philip once did this very thing to the Olynthians.
For when once Lasthenes had betrayed Olynthus to him,
And the rest of the traitors of their race,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.560  The Macedonians called them traitors.
As they were saying to Philip: “Do you hear, king,
How the Macedonians call us traitors?”
As the king wittily countered them,
Fittingly quoting from Aristophanes comedy;
The Macedonians, being ignorant, call a spade a spade;
That is to say, they call things what they are.
You are traitors, so that is what they call you.
Aristophanes says that in a comedy:
“I am rustic, I call a spade a spade.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.570  (TE2.209) CONCERNING THE PROVERB SAYING “EVEN THE STONES WILL CRY OUT”
We say this proverb for things that are excessively obvious.
It is called a hyperbole by the poets and rhetors.
For the stones, the wood, the metal and everything inanimate
Do not have naturally the ability to speak and utter voice.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.574  (TE2.210) CONCERNING THE INDIANS
The land of the Indians lies in the eastern parts of the earth,
Being the first to first partake in the sun’s rays;
It is the first to see the sun as it rises.
It is a big country, surrounded with water,
And watered by rivers, spice-producing,
Very full of metals and beasts of strange nature,
Blissful, heavily populated, bigger than all the other countries,
Shaped like the figure of a rhombus and a square.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.582  (TE2.211) CONCERNING THE PILLARS OF DIONYSUS
Near the mountain of Hemodon
Some people have set up pillars, the pillars of Dionysus,
And not those of Thebaeus and Zaboscuteles,
Just like some people think, people of both ancient and modern times;
I say these are the pillars of the Egyptian inventor of viticulture,
Noah, and Osiris, Deunyssus, Dionyssus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.588  (TE2.212) CONCERNING THE EASTERN OCEAN
The Ocean, according to poets, rhetors, philosophers,
Historians and geographers along with them,
Is regarded by some people as some sweet sea,
Which is also called by them Outer Sea,
As an island encircling the whole inhabited world,
And producing all the inner seas.
Some others think of Oceanus as a river encircling the inhabited world.
Ptolemy is the only one who does not say that the Oceanus encircles the whole world,
And that there is some place towards the South, which is not encircled.
Everyone says that, originated from this Oceanus, of which I have spoken,
The seas, the lakes, the rivers, the wells, the whole body of waters,
Rush out with violence and flow into our inhabited world.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.600  For out of the Zephyrus and on the West one flowing mouth of the Oceanus
Forms every sea, that is known to us,
The Hispanic, the Iberian, the Celtic, the Ausonian,
The Sicilian, the Cretan, the Aegean, the Pamphylian,
To speak simply, each one of our seas that you hear of,
And also the Euxine Sea, just as many people say.
The natural philosopher Strato, just as Strabo writes,
Says that the Euxine Sea was like a closed lake,
Originally, as the Gaderian Sea,
And the Sea of Rhegium, the one closest to Rome,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.610  And he says that the rivers and the earthquakes, that burst, formed a communication
Of this very Euxine Sea, of which I have spoken,
With the mouth of the Byzantium and the Propontis
And the Hellespont itself; the rest of the seas,
I am talking about the Gaderian Sea and the Sea of Rhegium,
Are formed in open orifices near them.
Out of the Zephyrus and on the West one mouth of the Oceanus,
Originated from Gadeira, forms all of our seas.
Another oceanic mouth on the northern part,
Flowing inside, formed the Hyrcanian Sea.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.620  In turn, two other mouths on the South
Formed a passage to the Persian Gulf and the Erythraean Sea.
In this way the inner Oceanus flowing through four mouths
Forms the four seas, of which I have just spoken.
There are different names for the outer parts.
For at the same time Hesperian Ocean is called,
And Atlantic Sea the part towards the West,
The one towards the North, the Saturnian and congealed one is dead.
Eastern Ocean and eastern Sea
Is called the one towards the land of the Indians and the sun-beams.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.630  The one towards the South and the southern parts
Both Persian and Erythraean Ocean,
Arabian is called and Sea of the Ethiopians.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.633  (TE2.213) CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF TAPROBANE
Taprobane is the biggest island of the Indians,
And more excellent than all the islands of the inhabited world.
On this island there are elephants and countless beasts
Of strange nature and strange and of monstrous shape,
And snakes that excel in the whole nature of snakes,
Eating the elephants employing the following artifices;
They coil around the legs of those beasts

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.640  And eat them easily, after dropping them to the ground.
Many times the snakes themselves get killed together with those
Which fall on them and kill them with their weight.
In the heads of those snakes there are also stones,
Most highly valued, many of them being self-carved,
Bearing seals; that in one particular of them even a chariot
Engraved on its own you could discern, countless men say,
And Posidippus himself writes somewhere in verses.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.648  (TE2.214) CONCERNING THE INDIAN ISLAND WHICH IS CALLED GOLDEN
There is an Indian island which they call “golden”,
But others call it a peninsula, not an island.
The Hebrews call it Ophat in their own tongue.
It has gold, and all sorts of gemstones,
But it is much more filled with the green gemstone.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.653  (TE2.215) CONCERNING THE SIDE OF ZEPHYRUS
There are twelve winds, whose names are these:
Apeliotes, Eurus, Euronotos and Notos,
Libonotus, and then Lips, Zephyrus and Thrascias;
Some people call the wind Argestes instead of Thrascias;
And Aparctias and Boreas and Meses and Caecias.
You also need to know whence each of them blows, learn.
If you stand as looking towards the sunrise,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.660  With everything behind you being towards the west,
Note that Apeliotes blows from the sunrise itself,
Towards the land of India, and then Eurus itself blows,
Towards your right hand and the right side of India.
Following Euronotos, which blows from Persia,
And the Red Sea, that is also Arabia.
Notos over the Ethiopians themselves and the Egyptians,
I am talking about the eastern ones, blows.
Libonotos separates Libya and Egypt;
Lips lies after him towards western Libya.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.670  You are fully informed about the places on the right side of the earth towards Lips.
Zephyrus blows opposite to Apeliotes,
From Gadeira itself and the Iberian Spanish.
You recognized Zephyrus from the back side of your chine.
Now from the back and left-side parts
Move on in turn to the eastern parts of Thrascias.
Thrascias blows over the British and Tyrrhenian land,
The Romans and the Germans and countless others.
Following this very Thrascias, advancing towards the east
The Aparctias wind blows over Thule,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.680  Both of them bind close together the Latins and the Italians.
Following Aparctias, Boreas blows over the Scythians and the Euxine Sea,
Whereas over the Hyrcanians and the Colchians the wind Meses blows,
Caecias blows over the Hemodian mountains,
Which lie in the left-side places of India.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.685  (TE2.216) CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF GADEIRA
The island that is now called Gadeira
Was called in older times Cotinusa.
Write you the syllable ga of Gadeira as short but for me it is long.
The Greeks say that Gadeira is the neck of the earth;
For it looks like the neck of the earth; wherefore one has to write it with a long vowel.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.690  The Phoenician language calls stone-paved places gadara,
As the Hebrews call them gabatha.
The Phoenicians founded Carthage in the lands of Libya
And they also founded Gadeira, after coming from Phoenice.
There is also a city Gadara in the Phoenician land,
From which came the rhetor Apsines the Gadarean.
You have learnt that for the Greeks the word Gadeira has a long vowel,
As it derives from the words ge (earth) and deira (neck); but in the Phoenician language
(For gadeira, as we said, they call the stone-paved roads)
The vowel is short; for it does not derive its meaning from the word ge.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.700  But it just happens to start with the syllable ga.
Rather the word is barbarous, and for that reason it is written with a short vowel,
As Gaion, Garamantas, Gabala, Galaxian,
And every other word that starts with the syllable ga,
In the Greek language and the language of the barbarians,
Unless it has become alpha in the Doric manner,
As Gadeira and gapeda, garyein and words such as these.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.707  (TE2.217) CONCERNING THE RIVER BAETIS OF GADEIRA
Baetis is a river in the Baetic land of the Spanish.
For there happen to be three provinces of the Spanish,
The province of Hispania Baetica, Lusitania and Terraconensis.
Baetis and Bailon are rivers of Baetica,
And so the river Barbesolas and Portos and Magnos [ms. Mageth].
There are also cities called Barbesola and Baelon and Magnos,
And the city and mountain of Calpe, and also the pillar.
And together with them another city, Baesippo.
And the city of Cotinusa, and the island of Gadeira.
There is also the Marianus mountain. Who would tell you everything?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.717  (TE2.218) CONCERNING THE ISLES OF THE HESPERIDES AND THE BRITISH ISLES
The Brettanic isles lie towards the Thrascias wind;
The two biggest isles of them all are, Iuernia first
And Aloubia after it; these are before all the others.
There are also thirty other isles, called Orcades,
And Thule is the closest one to them, another very big island,
Lying closest towards the place where Aparctias blows.
The Hesperides are included among those thirty isles.
For they lie towards the western parts of Britain.
Dionysius speaks of only three cities.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.726  (TE2.219) TOWARDS THE BLASTS OF NOTOS AND TURNING TO GO SOUTHWARD
The position of the inhabited world looks like an omicron.
We divide the oikoumene into four parts,
East and West, North and South.
A wind blows from each of the four directions,
The Apeliotes wind blows from the East
Zephyrus from the West, Boreas from the North,
And Notos from the southern parts.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.733  (TE2.220) CONCERNING THE INHABITABLE AND UNINHABITABLE PARTS OF ETHIOPIA
Towards the southern part, from where Notos blows,
Towards your right hand, as you stand, just like I said,
First there is the stream of the southern Oceanus
And beyond that lies the uninhabitable part of Ethiopia.
Next after that in turn the inhabitable Ethiopia
And following that Egypt separated by the Nile
From the boundaries of Ethiopia; I call eastern parts,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.740  Both Ethiopia and Egypt in like manner.
For towards their eastern parts Notos blows.
Whereas Libonotos in turn separates in Libya
The western parts of Egypt and Ethiopia;
Whereas I call the western parts, the uninhabitable world.
For even according to Homer there are two separate lands of Ethiopia:
“The one where Hyperion sets, the other where he rises.”
He speaks of the inhabitable lands but not of the uninhabitable ones,
He in no way wants to delineate the tribes of the Ethiopians,
The Ostrich-eaters, the Apathoi (impassive), the Fish-eaters,
The Wood-eaters, and the rest, whose names are countless.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.751  (TE2.221) CONCERNING THE ARCTIC AND NORTHERN REGION
The place which lies towards the north part of the inhabited world
Arctic is called, due to its proximity
To the celestial pole, I speak of the Arctic one.
For in this Helice, Arctos (Ursa) and Cynosura
Were placed, lying along it,
Being always visible above the horizon, but not, as yet, sinking below it.
In this way the northern region of the inhabited world
Arctic, has been called from the Ursa constellations of the pole.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.759  (TE2.222) CONCERNING THE AGATHYRSI
The race of the Agathyrsi is a northern nation
Dwelling between the winds Aparctias and Boreas;
Much rejoicing in the Dionysian worship and fennel wands
The race has been called Agathyrsi, a name most suitable for it.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.764  (TE2.223) CONCERNING THE GELONI
Even the race of the Geloni is a northern nation, as the race of the Agathyrsi,
Dwelling in the middle of Aparctias and in the middle of Boreas,
Located in a more southerly region than the race of the Agathyrsi,
Inclining towards the Euxine Sea from Boreas.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.767  (TE2.224) CONCERNING THE MAEOTIAN SCYTHIANS AND THE CAUCASIAN SCYTHIANS
There are three tribes of the Scythians, learn their names:
The Maeotians and the Caucasians and the Oxiani.
Maeotis is a lake located nearest the North.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.770  Maeotis itself among the Greeks is rich according to its name,
As a mother and a midwife of all the fish populations,
As many of them as they move towards the Euxine Sea and towards us.
The very same lake is called Karmpaluk among the Scythians;
The Karmpaluk, translating it in the Greek language, means the city of fish;
For the Karm means the city in the Scythian language, whereas Paluk means the fish,
And pronouncing them quickly, they come to signify one single word, the Karmpaluk, Maeotis.
Towards the North is located the lake Karmpaluk, Maeotis;
Maeotians are called the Scythians who dwell near this lake.
The ones who dwell near the Scythian mountain of Caucasus,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.780  The one closest to Hyrcania, just where the Unni, Uzi dwell,
Where even the wind of Meses blows,
(I do not speak of Caucasus, the mountain of India)
Have been called in turn Scythians Caucasians.
Those who dwell beyond the sea of Hyrcania,
Beyond the wind of Meses towards the part of Caecias,
And Sugdiada itself, whose river is Oxus,
And Sacas and the extremities of the Indian mountains,
Those Scythians whom Herodotus call the eastern ones,
Are the Scythians Oxiani and the eastern Scythians.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.790  (TE2.225) CONCERNING THE EARTH AND THE SEA, THE STRONG-FLOWING OCEANUS HAS EMBRACED THEM WITH HIS WET ARMS
The Oceanus according to others encircles the inhabited world.
Whereas Ptolemy does not say that he encircles the entire world,
And that there is some place towards the South, which is not encircled.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.793  (TE2.226) CONCERNING THE THESSALIAN SOLDIER WHO CONCEALED HIMSELF AT THE COURT OF LYCOMEDES
As Achilles of Thessaly, from his homeland of Phthia,
Having just married the daughter of Lycomedes,
Whose name was Deidamia, from whom a son named Pyrrhus was born,
Spent time with her in the bridal chambers,
Some people fabricated the stories, that being afraid of Hector
Thetis hid him at the court of Lycomedes,
Dressing him up as a maiden in female attire,
Lest he should perish after sailing along with the Greek fleet.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.801  (TE2.227) CONCERNING “COMPARED WITH THE BEE DO NOT BECOME MORE UNGRATEFUL THAN THE DRONES”
Drones are animals bred up together with the bees,
They are very big and without stings, and carry them water.
In wintertime they get killed by the bees,
Lest the bees should die from lack of food.
For the drones having large bodies
Consume a lot of honey by eating it.
I said, do not become more ungrateful than the drones,
Seeing that devouring the honey, as I said, the drones,
Do not become ungrateful to the bees,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.810  Since they offer the service of carrying them water in return.
By interpreting the books which are fully related by us,
Not only you seem ungrateful to the benefactors,
But also you speak foolishly and secretly in a most indecent way against us.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.814  (TE2.228) CONCERNING, “LEST IN ANY WAY, JUST AS PINDAR SAYS, SHOULD WE TURN THE MUSE TO SILVER ACCORDING TO SIMONIDES, SHE SHOULD NO LONGER LOOK OUT FOR THE POOR”
The lyric poets in former times composed poems without pay.
Simonides was the first to compose poems at a wage.
For he made two chests,
He called the one the chest of gifts (in cash), the other of favours.
He put the money he received after composing poems in the chest,
Which he called the chest of gifts; finally it was filled;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.820  Whereas the chest of favours was empty.
So whenever someone asked him to compose a poem without pay,
He used to say, “there are two chests in my house,
One for gifts, the other for favours.
Whenever I open the chest of gifts, I find,
In it everything that might meet my needs;
But opening the chest of favours, I find it empty,
And I am not able to buy anything useful out of it.”
Speaking in this way he turned all of his writings into silver,
As both Anacreon himself and Callimachus say,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.830  And countless other notable men.
This Simonides did not compose praise songs for gods,
Avoiding composing for free; he composed praise poems for youths,
From whom he received much and quite sufficient gold.
When he was asked by some people, “why don’t you compose for gods,
But you compose praise poems for youths?”, Simonides replied:
“The youths are my gods, because from them I receive my payment.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.837  (TE2.229) CONCERNING “NOT EVEN THE ONE WHO COMES IN THE EVENING, ACCORDING TO CALLIMACHUS OF CYRENE, DO THEY LOVE”
That poet Callimachus of Cyrene,
Concerning someone who is unable to keep a friendship consistent,
But he vacillates and suddenly changes his mind,
Says these exact words, hear them and learn:
“At eventide they love, but at dawn they hate it.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.842  (TE2.230) CONCERNING THE AESOPIAN HOUND BITING THE HARE, PRETENDING TO KISS IT
Aesop the mythographer introduces the hare and the hound
Wanting to play with each other, joined together in friendship.
But because this kind of friendship is incompatible,
Between the breed of hounds which are fond of hunting and the species of hare,
He makes the hound, that seems to play with the hare,
Biting it all the time, as if it was kissing it.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.848  (TE2.231) CONCERNING THE HISTORICAL WORDS BOULUTOS AND GRAMMATEION AND GRAMMATION
Boulutos is the time when the land workers
Release the oxen from the plough and their labour,
And return to their homes toward evening.
You have learned which period of time the word boulutos indicates;
But now learn what the words grammation and grammateion mean;
Grammation is the letter, whereas grammateion is the writing tablet.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.854  (TE2.232) CONCERNING VOTING BY SHOW OF HANDS AND WHAT THE METHOD OF FORMER VOTING WAS
In former times, either a general or anyone else of the magistrates
If they were about to appoint, they were calling them by their names.
If the one proposed for election was approved by the Assembly of people,
Everyone raised their own right hands up to a height,
At once that one was elected to the magistracy.
Learn that that was the method of former voting.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.860  But if the one occupying the magistracy was not acceptable,
They either did not raise their hands at all or they raised them slightly.
And being considered unworthy of the magistracy he was eliminated by lot.
If the number of people who raised their hands
Was equal to the number of those who on the whole did not raise their hands,
They deliberated in turn many times on this matter.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.866  (TE2.233) CONCERNING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A SYNODOS AND A SYLLOGOS
Learn the difference between a synodos and a syllogos.
Synodos is the gathering of people from numerous cities,
Whereas syllogos is the meeting of people from a single city.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.869  (TE2.234) WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PARAPLEX, A MAENOMENOS, AN ONEIROPOLOS AND A ONEIROTTON
Paracope (delirium), mania (frenzy) and melagcholia (melancholy),
What is the difference between them, now learn clearly.
Paracope (delirium) and along with it paraplexia (madness),
Are some kind of mild derangement, as moderate fever.
Now I do not speak of the terms apoplexia and hemiplexia.
You have learnt what the paracope is and what the paraplexia.
Melancholia (melancholy) is the profound confusion of the mind,
Darkening the mind out of the black bile,
Rendering frivolous and faint-hearted those who suffer from it.
Mania (frenzy) is the total displacement of the mind,
Savage they are and hard to live with all those with whom they are in company,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.880  So they draw stones and swords and they strike any chance person.
And many times they even destroy the flesh of their own people.
That happens due to the yellow bile that boils over.
These are the differences of which I have now spoken
Between paracope (delirium), mania (frenzy) and melagcholia (melancholy).
Now learn about oneiropolein and oneirottein.
Oneirottein means having an emission of semen during sleep.
Whereas oneiropolein means either dreaming during sleep,
Or interpreting skilfully the dreams.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.889  (TE2.235) CONCERNING THE DERIVATION OF THE WORD TYREUONTES
The act of contriving by trickery and intrigue was named tyreuein after the Tyrrheni.
The word tyrannos (tyrant) got its name after them as well.
For the Tyrrheni are very violent and beast-like people,
Sacrificing people even as late as Hieron.
So contriving by trickery and intrigue was called tyreuein either after those,
Or after the milk, which we make into cheese,
Stirring and twisting up, curdling by rennet.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.896  (TE2.236) CONCERNING THE DERIVATION OF THE HISTORICAL WORD ATOPON
Atopon (strange), lacking argument construction and proof deduction.
We name topics the proofs and the exhibited arguments,
After the places where the hunters waiting hidden,
Destroy and kill the beasts with their bows.
Homer calls those places prodocas.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.901  (TE2.237) CONCERNING THE DERIVATION OF THE WORD SCAIOROUSIN (TO DEVISE MISCHIEVOUSLY)
Scaion (ill-omened) means anything left-sided and useless,
Ora is considered the concern that is to say the idle will
And anything evil and base is called scaioria (mischief) after that,
Or after the left-handed boxer, who prevails through cunning means.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.905  (TE2.238) CONCERNING THE ONE WHO DOES NOT EVEN DO THE WRONGDOERS WRONG
Charillus the Laconian was Lycurgus’ brother.
As he was commended for his goodness,
Some of the Laconians said: “how can he be good,
The one who does not even do the wrongdoers themselves wrong?”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.909  (TE2.239) WHAT CATHARMATA AND PHARMACOI MEAN, BUT THE WORDS PHARMACEIS AND PHARMACOPOLAI HAVE DIFFERENT MEANINGS
It is written in the twenty-third story
The twenty-third of this list here,
What pharmacos [purification victim] and pharmaceus mean, I will speak of it even now briefly.
Pharmacos is a catharma such as this:
After having burnt the ugliest of all men (just as I said before)
To purify the city from its biggest calamities,
They scattered his ashes almost all over the city.
So that is the catharma which they called before pharmacon.
The pharmaceus (poisoner) is the one who uses drugs to kill.
Call pharmacergates (apothecary) and pharmacopoles (druggist),
The one making drugs and the seller of drugs.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.920  (TE2.240) CONCERNING THE DRUGS AGAINST VENOMOUS BEASTS AND COMMON ANTIPATHY
The makers of antidotes against the venomous bites of beasts
The snakes and the vipers, the poisonous beasts,
Take and cut off their heads and tails,
Having prepared countless condiments, as it is appropriate,
Out of those they prepare the common antipathy (antidote) for everyone.
In this way, bad people and intriguers, it is proper
That we all cut them off and produce common antipathies against them.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.927  (TE2.241) CONCERNING THE INFATUATED AND MELANCHOLY MAD ONES
Being both infatuated and deranged
Is some kind of mild wandering of the mind, as I said.
Being a melancholy mad means to have the mind darkened by the black bile.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.930  (TE2.242) CONCERNING HOW MUCH CARE THE JACKDAWS BESTOWED ON THE REALM
[930] When some people are utterly and by all means free from care,
Say the proverb, the one of Tzetzes:
“For how do the jackdaws care for the realm?”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.933  (TE2.243) THE PROVERB THAT SAYS: “OR HOW DO THE EAGLES CARE FOR THE LAWS OF PLATO?”
Note that this is also a similar proverb,
Being of Tzetzes, even this one and others following that:
“For how do the eagles care for the doctrines of Plato
And his laws concerning the harlots, which are unlawful, unrighteous,
And they write that the women are at the disposal of everyone?”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.938  (TE2.244) THE PROVERB THAT SAYS: “AND THE NIGHTINGALES FOR THE RATIONAL CALCULATION OF ARISTOTLE”
Note also this proverb equal to the other:
“For how do the nightingales care for rational calculation?
Or for such sort of Aristotelian books?”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.941  (TE2.245) IF YOU WISH, ADD ALSO THIS PROVERB “AND OF CHRYSIPPOS”
Learn that this is also a proverb of Tzetzes,
Similar to the aforementioned proverbs:
“For how do the nightingales care for the rational calculation
Of both Aristotle and Chrysippus?”
Chrysippus was highly skilled in dialectic.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.947  (TE2.246) CONCERNING ARTAXERXES MACROCHEIR, OR TANUOXARCES ACCORDING TO THE PERSIAN APPELLATION
The Greeks gave Artaxerxes the surname Macrocheir (Long-Hand),
Since one of his hands was longer than the other.
The Persians call the Macrocheira Tanuoxarcen.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.949  (TE2.247) HOW HADRIANOUPOLIS IS CALLED AELIA
Hadrian was the son of Hadrian Afer,
After being married to Trajan’s sister, he became a brother-in-law of Trajan
And after Trajan’s death, he became an emperor,
He once marched against the Scythians and chased them
Around Hadrianoupolis, delighting in the pursuit,
The small town formerly called Orestias,
Which Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, had formerly built,
(For after having bathed there in the rivers he recovered from madness)
Seized the emperor Hadrian, of whom I have spoken,
Having both names, Hadrian and Aelius,
And he built it strengthening its beauty and power,
Calling the city of Hadrian, the Aelian city.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.961  (TE2.248) THE PROVERB THAT SAYS: “ABOVE GOLD AND TOPAZ”
In case of big gifts we say this proverb,
Which says: “Above gold and topaz”.
For gold is highly desired by people.
Gold brings everything into order, gold is the nerve of war,
Gold is bravery, prudence, intellect, the entire beauty of people.
And those made of gold are manifest in every human being.
Whereas the topaz is a gemstone of the leek-coloured ones,
Neither bright, nor radiant, as the rest of the gemstones,
It happens to be like the greenish seashells,
Like the extra garment of poor people, a leek-coloured garment worn for bathing.
Being leek-coloured, dyed scarlet, it shines as the air rises.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.972  (TE2.249) CONCERNING THE INSCRIPTION AT THE FRONT DOOR OF PLATO’S HOUSE “LET NO ONE IGNORANT OF GEOMETRY ENTER”
Plato had written at the front door of his house:
“Let no one ignorant of geometry enter my house.”
That is, let no one who is unjust come in here;
For geometry is fairness and justice.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.976  (TE2.250) CONCERNING A SICK MAN, WHO DEPARTED SECRETLY FROM HIS OWN HOUSE, BECAUSE A FRIEND, WHO CAME TO VISIT HIM, WAITED LINGERING AND DID NOT DEPART
Philogelos has written somewhere in his book:
“A friend came to visit a sick man.
As he did not arise or depart easily,
The sick man displeased rose from his bed,
And saying farewell to him he departed from his house.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.981  (TE2.251) CONCERNING THE EPICUREANS SAYING THAT THE HONEY IS THE TENTH PART OF AMBROSIA
There was a sect of Epicurean philosophers
That thought of pleasure as the end of philosophy.
Those praising pleasure and everything that is delightful,
Were saying that the honey was the tenth part of ambrosia.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.985  (TE2.252) AS HERODOTUS TELLS OF PROSPEROUS ARABIA
Herodotus, Diodorus, Ctesias, all the others,
Say that Arabia is prosperous,
Just like the most fragrant land of India,
Exhaling fragrances, as that land,
And its carved gems have a spicy scent.
People there feeling weakened because of the scents,
Some bones and horns and sweet-smelling substances,
Successively fumigate and they recover in turn.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 8.993  (TE2.253) CONCERNING THE GIFTS THAT ANTHONY GAVE CLEOPATRA
The daughter of Ptolemy Dionysius
And the kinswoman of Ptolemy, mistress Cleopatra,
Being wise and eloquent and most well proportioned,
Charming with her beauty all people and the nature of beasts,
After her father’s death, fell into dispute
With her own brother over the throne.
And when Caesar was staying in Egypt,
Julius Caesar, that Gaius,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.001  BOOK 9, TRANSLATED BY JONATHAN ALEXANDER
Himself was at that time the judge of their cause.
But her brother, Ptolemy himself,
Standing before the judgement seat of Caesar, was speaking of himself,
Whereas Cleopatra herself pleaded her case through advocates.
But as she was being defeated, wishing that the victory would incline to her side,
She has made known to Caesar: “Let it be known to you, Caesar,
That my advocates betray the case.
In my own person, Caesar,
I want to tell you, standing before your seat, everything I wish to convey”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.10  Having accepted that most readily Caesar
Approved it and after a splendid judgement seat was acquired,
Queen Cleopatra came towards it.
And first with the lightnings of her surpassing beauty
She subdues the whole assembly, all the judges,
But most of them all, she subdues Caesar.
As she together with the unutterable lightnings of her beauty
Set up speeches sweet as honey, skilled in pleading, eloquent,
Surpassing the speeches of Nestor, surpassing the songs of the swans,
Surpassing the widespread songs of the Sirens,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.20  Everyone was astonished and listened with uttermost silence.
What happens thereupon, who of the minded ones is ignorant?
First, she caught Caesar in the nets of love,
With Aphrodite’s flowers she kept him as a prisoner,
She enslaves the emperor, who enslaved the entire world,
She wins at trial, she won the contest for the throne.
After the death of Julius Caesar,
As Cleopatra was engaged in more fermenting situations,
Pulling away the Egyptians from Rome’s dominion,
Augustus Octavian, who held the sceptres of Rome,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.30  Being the nephew of Caesar Gaius Julius,
Being in no way able to bear the insurrection of the Egyptians,
His own sister, who was named Octavia,
Her husband Antony sends against the Egyptians,
To break the force of their onrush ending the rebellion.
When Cleopatra heard that Antony was marching
Against her in Egypt with a great army,
After making a picture that so much resembled her beauty,
Letters declaring her love to Antony
Sent to Antony; who fascinated by the shadow alone

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.40  Of her picture left his wife
And he becomes Cleopatra’s man and a part of the Egyptians
And together with them he was engaged in a war against the Romans.
And first he gives Cleopatra gifts,
The entire palm-bearing region of Jericho,
Where even the much-revered balsam-tree grows,
Which according to others was a plant and not a tree.
That palm-bearing region and countless countries
Antony bestows on Cleopatra because of his passion,
And the whole country of the Parthians, that was led in captivity

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.50  And the son of Tigranes together with other captives.
And many kings he slew for her sake.
Just as the crowned Malchus of the Arabians,
Although Octavian, unable to bear the insolence
His own sister, who was named Octavia,
Giving Agrippa as a husband instead of Antony,
Moving his armies both by land and sea,
Traversing the continent, arrived at Leucactas,
And he makes a great war on them
Both by land and sea, so that it is impossible to sail the sea,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.60  With neither the shipowners nor the oarsmen,
As it became solid from the innumerable infusions of blood,
In turn the land was turned into sea, but a red one,
By dragging the rivers that were full of blood.
For it happened that the war horses,
And the riders themselves in the sea of blood
Swim as far as their breasts; such was the size of murder.
And as the combat between them was still evenly balanced
Both on land and sea, and no one prevailed,
Caesar Octavian made the victory incline towards his side

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.70  With Roman military stratagems.
For he covered the hills with skins recently stripped from oxen,
And through them, because of their slippery nature,
He drew most wisely an innumerable multitude of ships
To the sea behind the fleet of the Egyptians,
He immediately put them to flight, as they were panic-stricken,
And Antony himself in a heroic manner
Who strongly resisted many men was killed in battle;
They took Cleopatra and her two children captives,
A male and a female child, named Helios and Selene.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.80  And Cleopatra committed suicide by the bites of the asps,
Because she did not want to be taken to Rome as a prisoner.
But although dead she was holding her crown,
So that it would not fall off her head after her death.
Caesar Octavian embalmed her body
And brought it back to his sister in Rome,
Making a big and glorious triumph and a parade,
Including Helios himself and Selene,
The children of Cleopatra herself, as we said before.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.88  (TE2.254) CONCERNING MANOAH’S VISION OF GOD AND WHAT HE SAID
Manoah lived with a barren wife
Their childlessness pained them greatly.
Then an angel appeared to his wife twice
In the field and said she would bear a child.
So she told Manoah, her bed-fellow
He sacrificed a kid and put it on a rock
The angel smote the rock with his staff
And a flame, rising from the rock, devoured the offering.
Then the flame itself ascended into heaven
And the angel with it.
Then Manoah said:
“We’ll die, oh woman, for God has appeared to us!”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.100  Thus spoke Manoah at the time of the appearance
But later the woman, bearing in her womb
Birthed Samson the great, whom every tongue hails.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.103  (TE2.255) CONCERNING HOW MOSES WAS BRIGHTENED BY HIS VISION OF GOD
After God conversed with Moses on Mount Sinai,
When he was going to deliver the divinely inscribed plates,
By speaking with God and his appearance
And by secret thunder, Moses’ face became divine
So much that no one was able to look at him directly.
Therefore only while covering his face with a curtain
Did Moses speak to the Hebrews. For if his face was bare
None of them was able to look directly at him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.111  (TE2.256) CONCERNING THE WISDOM OF THE PORPHYRY BIRD
The porphyry bird was exceedingly wise.
So much so that, if it saw even one whore, it would die immediately.
Aristotle, followed by Aelian and some others
Wrote about the deeds of the porphyry bird.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.115  (TE2.257) CONCERNING WHAT THE WORD AGEROCHOS MEANS
The word agerochos has three meanings:
Glorious, beggar, and also the one who commits the crime with them.
The first meaning signifies
The one who brings the spoils for the prize (geras)
The second from
Beggars who collect (ageiro) food and shelter for themselves.
The third from the related word ageroichon,
Which signifies the criminal, who brings the spoils to strife.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.122  (TE2.258) CONCERNING WHAT THE WORD SKYTALE MEANS, AND ITS ORIGINS
The word skytale has six meanings, all of which you should learn:
First, a skytos is used to bring out tears in schoolchildren,
While a skytale is a kind of fish: it is called that because
It resembles the school children’s skytos completely.
The third meaning is finger bones, which are also called skytalai.
The fourth, the square rod used by marble masons.
I suspect the schoolchildren call their punishment rod a skytale because
Of the rod used by the masons.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.130  The fifth meaning is any kind of rod, which can be called a skytalos or a skytales,
Whether because of the aforementioned mason’s rod
Or because of the verb skyzo, which means to be angry.
For a rod is used to end and resolve anger and wrath.
Now most of all the sixth meaning is worth hearing, that which the Spartans called a skytale,
So I believe I must give it a short explanation.
Whenever the Spartans wished to send a general or anyone else
A written, secret message,
They would first take the shortest rod they could find.
Then, they would take a piece of skin thin as a belt,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.140  And, stretching it across the whole surface of the rod,
They would write under it whatever they wished to convey.
The message would then be read by rolling away the skin.
However, it could not be completely read
If someone rolled away the entire skin.
Then the rod would be examined,
To see if the skin had been rolled and fitted to the rod.
Thus, as I said, the Spartans would roll away the rod,
And send the skin to whomever they wished with another,
And also the rod with great care.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.150  Then, the recipient, having received the rod and the skin,
Rolled the skin away and read, as I said earlier.
So now you well know what the Spartan skytale was,
A skin rolled onto a rod, bearing secret messages.
Finally, a seventh meaning of skytale is the force of Gyges’ sling before Gyges,
Which looked like a snake.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.156  (TE2.259) CONCERNING THE MOSELE MONASTERY
What is now the Monastery of Mosele used to be Mosele’s house,
Who, defeated on campaign by the Bulgars,
On the other side of the stream, trying to find a boat to flee on,
Falling weaponless into the sea, drowned to death.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.160  I only wonder how it could be that such a man,
Being god of the seas, could be made again a god by the sea,
Giving a new name as though eponymous.
For Mosele to the ancient Egyptians
Was equivalent to Poseidon, god of seas and waters.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.165  (TE2.260) CONCERNING A FABLE OF AESOP: “SHOT BY MY OWN FEATHERS!”
Aesop the storyteller recounts in his stories,
How an eagle, flying high, was suddenly shot by arrows.
When he saw that the arrows had eagle feathers,
“By my own wings,” he cried, “I have been thrown down!”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.169  (TE2.261) CONCERNING ISAAC, ESAU AND JACOB
Isaac, son of Jacob and Rebecca,
Had a son named Esau, and a second, Jacob.
Of which Esau was the hairy and red haired,
And spent his life with beasts and hunting them.
But Jacob was a stay at home,
Who, encountering Esau, returning from a hunt,
Made him the lentils which Esau desired, but not without trickery.
For he said: “Give me your firstborn’s right.”
He agreed, defeated by his hunger.
So he received lentils for his firstborn’s right.
This was the first “heeling” and deception

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.180  That Jacob used against his brother Esau.
For Jacob in Greek means “one who strikes with the heel”,
And Esau his twin came out first,
While behind him Jacob came, holding on to his heel.
Therefore he was called Jacob by the parents.
That was the first “heeling” by Jacob the “heeler”
Against his brother Esau, that of the firstborn’s right,
Which he took, giving in return the lentils.
Now learn from me of the greater and second “heeling”:
Isaac, blinded by his advanced years

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.190  And constrained by sickness, called to Esau:
“Firstborn child of mine, you whom I called Esau,
Go, hunt my favourite food for me to eat,
So that after I eat I may bless you, child.”
So Esau went out to hunt.
Rebecca, however, hated Esau,
But Jacob she loved as a mother will, so she said to him:
“Go out to the flocks and bring me a kid,
And I will make a meal for your father, and he will eat,
And he will give you your brother’s blessing, child.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.200  So he brought her the kid, and slaughtered it quickly.
His mother prepared it, all for eating.
With the kid’s skin she covered Jacob’s
Hands and neck, so that he would appear to be Esau.
So he took the food and brought it to his father,
And said: “Behold, father, I have fulfilled your desire.
So eat and bless me, fulfil your promises!”
But his father felt the neck,
As I said, covered with the kid’s skin,
So he spoke and said to him:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.210  “The voice is Jacob’s, but the hands Esau’s.”
Yet he blessed him then as though he were Esau.
When Esau returned later, after his hunt,
Crying and sweating about his blessing,
His father told him: “I’ve given the whole blessing
To your brother, because of your mother’s tricks.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.216  (TE2.262) CONCERNING HISTIAEUS AND ARISTAGORAS
Histiaeus was a Milesian who,
Due to his pure friendship with the Persians,
Fought together with Darius Xerxes’ father against the Scythians.
Therefore he received as a gift from Darius the right to build Myrkinos.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.220  (Myrkinos is what Hedonon used to be called).
But the Persian general Megabyzus, returning from Paeonia,
Convinced Darius not to allow Histiaeus to build Myrkinos,
But rather to take Histiaeus with him to Susa.
Later, because of desire for his homeland,
Histiaeus, in order to be sent there again by the Persians,
With the following ruse awakened terrible things:
He took a domestic slave and shaved his head,
And tattooed letters on it. Once the slave had regrown his hair,
Histiaeus sent him to Miletus to see Aristagoras,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.230  His son-in-law, and also Histiaeus’ nephew.
Aristagoras shaved the slave again and read his scalp as though it were papyrus,
Then convinced all the Greek cities to rebel against the Persian,
And the Athenians to destroy Sardis.
When Darius became very troubled by these events,
A certain Persian satrap, who was present, said to him:
“I have a certain divine instrument, which foretold all, saying:
Histiaeus sewed this shoe together,

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§ 9.240  But Aristagoras wore it.’”
That is: Histiaeus laid the foundation,
But Aristagoras executed the plan to fruition.
So Histaeius was sent from Darius’ court
Promising to make an agreement with the cities.
He passed slowly through the lands of Persia and Susa,
But afterwards, in his homeland, he took command of his friends.
If Histiaeus’ end you wish to know,
You have it lying flat in front of you in earlier histories
Down in the one hundred and ninetieth depth.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.249  (TE2.263) CONCERNING “BE LIKE SNAKES”, INTERPRETED DIFFERENTLY AS: TO BE NOBLE AND CULTURED, AND USE CLEVER METHODS, AS IT SEEMS TO ME
In the evangelists’ holy writings,
Christ in a certain place says both to his own disciples and to everyone:
“Be like snakes and have shrewdness,
But also as pure as doves for my sake.”
This he clarifies, and in that place means:
Guard your own head, as the snake does,
Who, plotted against and hit murderously,
Still at all times covers his own head.
Thus you too, apostles, being righteous always,
Still respect leaders even if they are of the unrighteous kind,
And guard your head for my sake, and our faith,
And do not deny God, even unto death itself.

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§ 9.260  “Be as pure as doves for my sake”
And again he clarifies and means the same thing:
For doves are said to be so pure and wise,
As it is said of Noah’s dove,
Who was released by him during the Flood,
And again returned to Noah’s Ark.
And any house, if there should be a dove in it,
The dove never ceases its service, unless it is false.
And it does not give birth in the house, but rather suffers the pains outside.
So Christ commands us to guard the holy things,

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§ 9.270  And their head, that is to say, our faith.
While I say one should watch one’s head with cultured speech,
With clever methods and rhetorical devices,
And watch our heads, our masters, and our lords,
And beware not to be robbed or cheated by the tricks
Of thieves and mockers of the holy,
Whom sinful men named saints, overreaching themselves
And who resemble them themselves.

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§ 9.278  (TE2.264) CONCERNING “DO NOT BE WISE ACCORDING TO YOURSELF”
Solomon said this, teaching mankind
Not to be self-willed and self-satisfied,
But rather to act by counsel of others. I have said this,
While writing a commentary on Homer for the Augusta,
Which also contains a translation in wagon-train verses,
First, little quartos in tiny letters,
Each of which had room for no more than
Eighty-eight verses with the margin (?),
For each of which I took twelve golden coins,
That is twelve golden nomismata, but of white gold.
Then, informed that the pages were packed densely a little,
By the Augusta's administrator,

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§ 9.290  I took a very large quarto to write in
As many as ten quartos, in three-column line arrangements.
Which seemed to equal ten times the simple one,
More or less, or perhaps not at all.
I accepted this; that man sent back nothing.
Write and write continuously, be alone and lonely,
And when you’re done, you may have whatever gifts.
To the same hard-minded man I wrote these writings.

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§ 9.298  (TE2.265) CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF THE WORD ALITERIOS
There once was a great famine in Athens,
So much that the most active would run around,
If somehow they heard the noise of an working mill.
They would charge in with ungovernable force,
And steal the barley-meal (alphita) and wheat-meal (alia) from the custodians.
Because of them, an evil-doer is called an aliterios.

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§ 9.304  (TE2.266) CONCERNING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PACHYS AND PACHES
Pachys, generally, bears the meaning of unintelligent,
While paches is applied to a fleshy or fat person.
But as I see it, as does Aristophanes,
Pachys means both unintelligent and fat,
For one who is paches is unintelligent as regards physical things.
For all inside, and many outside,
Say that the body is the prison and guardhouse of the soul.
If the body becomes thick and soft,
The eye is confined from seeing anything of the soul’s intelligence.
But if it is strong, the body does not confine thus,
Rather, it enjoys the inner radiance of intelligence,
Just as one enjoys the shining sun.
If the soul is confined from within, a crystalline prison fencing it around,
Or of perches, or skins, or something else of the sort.
So both the unintelligent and the fat
Are called pachys by me and by others.
Paches, on the other hand, was an Athenian general.

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§ 9.321  (TE2.267) CONCERNING “HE WHO DOES NOT ENTER THROUGH THE DOOR”, ELEGANTLY INTERPRETED
A door is the divine lesson from the Gospels,
Through which runs the way to the higher kingdom, for those who wish.
But he who does not enter through this door,
Is a thief and a bandit and of the ungodly ones.
He despoils the souls of the godly and consorts with daemons.
This door is in the more divine writings,
While I have elegantly interpreted the monastic rules
To be the door of the living, more precisely, in communal living.
I say that thieving fathers are those do not go through the door,

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§ 9.330  And also diggers, cloistered ones, one who drags beasts, and column-foundations.
All also who live outside the usual boundaries of life,
And those who live alone, except in desert places.

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§ 9.333  (TE2.268) CONCERNING “DRAGGING ALONG BEASTS LIKE ORPHEUS”
Orpheus was a Thracian, one of the Odryssians, whose homeland was Bisaltia,
Greatest of all musicians whom light has seen,
So much so that he charmed stones, beasts, growing things, and things of all natures,
With his music, and drew them behind him.
What came before, you may find in the twelfth of these Histories.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.338  (TE2.269) CONCERNING “DON’T RECEIVE IT, BUT SEND IT AWAY BEHIND”
This phrase is a rhetorical joining,
The joining being from a quote by Hesiod,
Said with my most clever method.
For in his work, he says that Pandora rejected something.
I, for my part, reject the thieving fathers’ two litra apples.
What is the parody and the joining?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.344  (TE2.270) CONCERNING A QUOTE FROM HESIOD, AN ELEGANT LOGICAL ORACLE BY TZETZES
Askraios said that nothing evil befell mortals,
Neither did any harm occur because of Pandora.
But I reject the thieving fathers’
Two and one litra apples, as has been said before,
No evil happened, when people die without apples,
Those who do not have litras, and an apple-father buy.
This is a logical and very much elegant oracle.
For an elegant, ever-shifty person will say:
Tzetzes made the thieving fathers’ litra apples
To turn away, so that no one lacking a litra may die without apples”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.355  (TE2.271) CONCERNING “I AM NOT A SOOTHSAYER OR ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS THE SIGNS OF BIRDS”
I poured out this quote, one of the more elegant which I’ve said,
Which lies in the letters I was previously reading,
And together with it also the soothsayer and the augur.
I went into church as they sang,
“The Lord will shatter the horns of sinners,
But the horns of the righteous will be lifted up on high.”
Then I quoted from the works of Hesiod:
“Now then I myself would not want to be righteous among men,
Nor my son neither; since evil never leaves
A righteous man alone, if indeed the more unjust a man, the more rights he will have.”
I said this then, oh lady’s governor,
Wishing, with the destruction of the unrighteous’ horns and height of those of the just,
To say it to you again.
If you grant the thieving fathers and sacrilegious litras
For one apple or pomegranate,

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§ 9.370  Then the same is said of men who write metaphrases of books,
And we should write a metaphrase a book of such length,
Then give them whatever you see fit.
I would not want to be, I say, a writer, nor any friend of mine,
If writers receive nothing, and with such toil,
While artisans get their litras with no toil at all, with apples to buy.
As for “I am not a soothsayer nor one who understands the signs of birds”,
Homer relates who said it, in his Odyssey.
I have said the same thing, writing to the Emperor.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.380  (TE2.272) CONCERNING “A CLOUD OF FLEAS OVER XERXES’ UNNUMBERED HOST”
This expedition is an army, this army forms a multitude.
Serving Darius’ son, Xerxes the Great,
Campaigning against the Athenians, and fighting against
All of Greece, and the multitude of fighting men numbers
About fifty myriads in all.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.385  (TE2.273) CONCERNING IXION’S WHEEL
Ixion son of Phlegyas, a Lapith by race,
Married and had for his bedmate Dia, Deioneus’ daughter,
Or, according to others, Eioneus’, omitting the delta.
He dug a pit, kindled a fire in it below,
And covered the pit from above, with malice.
Thus he destroyed his father-in-law, who was demanding bride-gifts of him.
Being the first kin-slayer, he went mad.
When he regained his sanity, he fled because of the murder,
And was cleansed of murder by Zeus.
He fell in love with Hera, and tried to rape her.
Hera, however, told Zeus about his audacity,
And Zeus, wishing to know the truth,
Made a cloud into an image of Hera and led it to Ixion.
He lay with the cloud resembling Hera,
And fathered a child named Centaurus, a misshapen man,

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§ 9.400  Who had sex with the Magnesian mares on Pelion,
And begot the horse-mixed Centaurs,
As Pindar and every mythographer has recorded.
Because of this audacity, Ixion in Hades
Is tortured, twisted on an iron wheel.
So go the myths of the ancients, to charm the souls of the young.
But a certain person decked out in allegories,
Palaephatus the philosopher, of the race of Stoics.
Said nothing worthy of account,
Except only in the Alcestis, even though

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.410  The rest of the story has gone by, Hera and Zeus,
The lying with the cloud, Centaurus and Centaurus’ naming
And the twisting on the wheel. He speaks about the Centaurs
Coldly, and even that barely, seeing as Palaephatus
Was a Stoic philosopher, and braggarts must
Attribute unworthiness to the ignorant eparch Tzetzes.
For he says that wild bulls near Thessaly
Would devour the country and spoil it.
Certain strong southern youths mounted horses
Ran down the bulls, and pierced them with spears.

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§ 9.420  Then some farmers saw them, and were amazed.
(For at that time there were no horse riders, but only chariots)
They ran, and said: “There are Centaurs to be seen in the land!”
When asked, what exactly these Centaurs were,
They answered: “Mortals mixed with horses, who pierce bulls!”.
This is Palaephatus’ version. But Tzetzes tells you,
The word is Kentotaur, not Centaur, because they pierced (kentein) the bulls (tauros).
He also says that horse riders were, in fact, known then.
For those Kentotaurs (Tzetzes says) you speak of, Palaephatus,
I believe were contemporaries of the great Greek army.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.430  And how could horse riders not have been known to the Greeks?
Horse riders and riding-horses were known then,
And even before the Greek army, horse riding was known.
So the Kentotaurs were contemporaries of the Greek army,
So listen, don’t doubt, Tzetzes doesn’t lie.
Ixion and Centaurus, and Centaurus’ children,
The third from Ixion, Centaurus’ children;
By Ixion, from his lawful wife,
was his son Perithous, whose son was Polypoetes,
Who fought alongside the Greeks. You knew, Palaephatus,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.440  That you were lying to me and speaking inaccurately.
Listen and learn everything clearly from Tzetzes.
You and any other crafty person, for this is not uncommon,
If you ever lie in your life, you will learn in Hades
Even if you’re an old man, or a philosopher, or even a Stoic, that:
Ixion burning his father-in-law
Is a truth, as is his flight from his homeland.
But Zeus did not conceive anything in his mind, nor in the air,
Nor was there such a gossipy Greek god,
Nor Uranus or Helios or Fate.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.450  Nor does the planet Zeus (Jupiter) mean something else.
Rather, understand that Zeus was a king.
For the ancients would call their kings “Zeus“,
After Bel, son of Zeus, king of Egypt,
And the planet Zeus, which they believed made kings.
For if the sun was in the fifth degree of Leo,
There Zeus would be found, all born then
Had the kingdom or the right to wear a crown.
Some king Zeus, therefore, cleansed Ixion,
Whose wife, Hera, that is, the queen,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.460  The cleansed man lusted after. But since she was virtuous,
She told her husband, who did not trust her,
So he dressed up a slave girl (aura) called Cloud as Hera,
And Ixion lay with her, and she bore a child Centaurus,
A very misshapen man, who received the name Imbros.
He came to be called “Centaurus” as a nickname, for this reason:
Not from pricking bulls (for that would require Kentotauros),
But because they called him Centaurus as offspring of a slave girl.
For by “pricking” the aura, that is, the slave girl,
He fathered the child who received the name Imbros.

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§ 9.470  (Let it not slip your mind that aura means a female slave).
For you’ve heard, Palaephatus, what Moses said:
How Pharoah's daughter went down to the river
And brought with her aurai and slave-girls.
But that is neither here nor there. The king I spoke of,
Punished Ixion by chaining him to an iron wheel,
And killed him for his impious deed.
But Imbros, son of Ixion and Cloud,
Who was nicknamed Centaurus, because he was a handmaid’s child,
He sent to take care of the horses in the places around Pelion.

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§ 9.480  He, in turn, stewarded the place, settled down, and married,
And had children not at all short, nor weak of body.
He mixed with Magnesian mares on Pelion,
And bred his children with them. Not, as Pindar claims,
In the shameful and unbecoming mating of beasts,
But rather by training them together with the horses.
He raised them to become a wondrous cavalry force,
They who brought Magnesian horses to Thessaly.
They are mentioned by the oracle, which said:
“Of all places of the earth Pelasgian Argos is the best,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.490  Of horses the Thessalians, of women the Spartans,
And of men those who drink the water of beautiful Arethusa.
But there are still greater, those who
Dwell between Tiryns and apple-full Arcadia,
The linen-cuirass wearing Argives, the sharp points of war.
You Aigians are neither third nor fourth,
Nor even twelfth, neither in words nor in numbers.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.497  (TE2.274) CONCERNING DEXIPPUS’ SCYTHICA
Dexippus the philosopher, an initiate of Iamblichus,
Wrote many and varied books.
I have encountered one of them, the one on categories.
He also wrote one called Scythica, which I still do not know,
And others, as I said. I, however, have read only the one.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.502  (TE2.275) CONCERNING THE SEMIRAMIAN WALLS
A certain Assyrian lady called Dorceto
Committed adultery out of lust for a young Syrian.
Becoming pregnant and fearing shame,
She got rid of the young Syrian; when the child was born,
She exposed it in the fields and threw herself
Into the bay of Myris, where she drowned.
The Syrian writings say she became a fish
Which is why Syrians don’t eat certain fish.
But now we must expand our story of Dorceto.
Dorceto’s abandoned infant in the fields
Was fed graciously with fresh cheese and milk by doves
Belonging to nearby shepherds.
When the shepherds saw the winged thieves
Plundering their milk and cheese both
They went with their flock-leader, Simmas by name,
Wondering and wishing to see why this was happening.
They saw a female infant in royal swaddling clothes,
Being given food by the birds, as I have said.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.520  Simmas took her and turned to go home,
Naming the infant Semiramis.
The girl grew up to be of exceeding beauty,
Until a certain accountant of King Ninus came
To inspect the herds of horses and other creatures,
Named Menoenis, as Diodorus writes.
When he saw Semiramis, being of inexpressible beauty,
With persuasion and entreaties and countless gifts
He got her as his bedmate, taking her from Simmas.
She was beautiful and sharp-witted by nature,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.530  And very inventive, and he had her as his counselor and right hand,
As well as soul and life, eye, heart, everything.
Prokandayles, commander of the forces to the ends of the kingdom,
Was with King Ninus, besieging Bactra,
But unable to take it.
He said to King Ninus: “O crown-bearing Ninus,
If only Semiramis was here, who is my consort,
You would have captured Bactra within a short time.”
So immediately he sent for the woman.
Before she embarked on such a long road

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.540  First she contrived a most finely-worked dress.
It was designed to keep away the heat and rain,
And it would easily recognize
Whether it happened to be worn by one of the male persuasion, or the female.
And this dress was extremely capable of doing
Anything one might wish to do.
Why so much? The city of the Bactrians fell easily
From the warlike ravine with the precipices
It was immediately taken, with all others fighting.
King Ninus, entranced by her beauty

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.550  First convinced her bed-fellow, the horn-bearer Menoinis
To give her to him as a gift.
The king offered him as a replacement in his bed
His own little daughter, who was called Sosana.
But since Menoinis was troubled by this offer, the king blinded him.
Then Menoinis, so unable to take his mind off his pain,
Strangled himself with a noose, and thus ended his life.
While Ninus fathered Ninyas on Semiramis,
And soon he died, leaving the kingdom
To Semiramis herself, and his son Ninyas.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.560  Then she built fabled Babylon,
With twenty myriads of workers.
She built the city in just one year
From baked bricks, not from stone.
Baked brick, mind you, is what we call besal.
For the building of Babylon was done with besal,
Using bitumen instead of asbestos.
The whole perimeter of Babylon,
Following Ctesias, was 360 stadia.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.570  However, according to Cleitarchus himself and companions of Alexander
And also according to Diodorus Siculus,
It was 365 stadia.
Cassius Dio, however, the Cocceian Latin writer,
Wrote that it was 400.
Herodotus, he who wrote nine “Muses“,
And Philostratus, in the Life of the Tyaneus,
Say the perimeter was 380 stadia.
The height of the walls, according to Ctesias, was fifty fathoms,
Other says fifty cubits. However, to Tzetzes,
Ctesias seems to have written more truly than the others,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.580  At least as far as Babylon is concerned.
For he describes it as being
360 stadia in perimeter,
While the others enlarge and exaggerate the city.
The one with the smallest number for the length,
Would not give a higher number for the height than necessary.
However, perhaps when Ctesias saw it,
The height of the towers was sixty fathoms,
And that of the walls, fifty.
Perhaps they had been trampled and lowered by wars and earthquakes.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.590  If so, then later on, when Cleitarchus and all of Alexander’s companions
They would have seen a height lesser than fathoms,
Having been reduced to cubits.
The width of Babylon’s wall was, according to some,
Enough for six chariots side by side. Others say three.
In the midst of Babylon flows the river Euphrates,
Which completes a flowing at midday.
On each side of the river Euphrates,
Palaces were built, of marvellous craftsmanship,
Having the river below them, and crowned with domes,

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§ 9.600  And a river crossing, which caused great wonder.
But of all of Semiramis’ Senate-worthy achievements,
Only one remnant of the wall remains,
Built of no more than one stadion.
Thus you have written for you all of Semiramis’ walls.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.605  (TE2.276) CONCERNING WHY SPARTA WAS UNWALLED
The ancient Spartans, the sons of Laconia,
Reasoned well, with wise thought:
That men are the guardians of walls, not walls of men.
While city walls are often taken,
They built their towers on weapons, bodies, and fighting,
So that no one could bravely slit open their walls.
There was a Spartan general once, who, when the others noticed
That the guards were allowed to go around without shields,
He answered, so that they would watch ever more wakefully,
Lest they be caught sleeping by a charge.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.615  (TE2.277) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “A COW WILL CRY AND A BULL WILL MOURN”
There is a phrase commonly used by Constantinopolitans,
That: “A cow will cry and a bull will mourn”.
It was formed by the following events and fears:
When uncounted hosts of Alamanni and others
Came against the very city of Constantine,
All feared sack and destruction,
And all were struck and terrified by dreams.
Then the wife of the Megaletairachos,
Frightened by those armies beyond,
And also by the tales of myth creators,
She formed in her soul things of fear.
She said she had dreamed of things told before,
How the city of Constantine first had a wall of bricks,
And the marketplace was around a cow, that is, the place was near a cow.
She also claimed to have seen an army and a great panoply,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.630  But next to the bull she saw a man sitting with a cithara,
Striking together his hands and lamenting with cries.
In seeing him, she revealed Tzetzes,
Believing the dream to be of the latter days.
The brick wall, however, signified the plentiful fruit of the earth,
And she said a most fortunate year would come to the city of Constantine.
Now all you present, you know the good fortune of that time.
She said the great panoply about the cow,
And the man holding a cithara next to the bull
Was the fulfilment of the much-quoted phrase,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.640  “A cow will cry and a bull will mourn”.
But not as they were sick, as one becomes sick due to fear,
But rather as befit all our citizens.
And listen, highly pious one, and teach others also,
Tzetzes (she said) teaches me so:
A female of cattle we call a cow,
Even though sometimes we also call the bull a cow,
But chiefly we call the male of cattle a bull.
This bull the Latins call an Italian,
While our cow was brought to the city of Constantine,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.650  Which was bred from the Roman Italian bull,
Full of all sorts of weapons, food, and armies,
She will cry out war against the enemy.
While the Italian bull, the Latin army,
Will also mourn because of the fear-induced paleness of the masses,
If he does not convince the mighty emperor with words.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.656  (TE2.278) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “WOE TO YOU, SEVEN HILLED ONE, BECAUSE YOU WILL NOT LAST A THOUSAND YEARS”
“Woe to you, seven hilled one, because you will not last a thousand years”,
Is another phrase used by Constantinopolitans,
Just as “A cow will cry and a bull will lament”.
As I have solved well and conveniently,
The dream dreamed by the wife of the Megaletairarchos.
“Woe to you, seven hilled one,” was among the obstacles.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.662  For one of the wise might have spoken to us,
“O Tzetzes, for eparch Kamateros you are unrhetoricked,
And most rustic of all in the city of Constantine,
More ignorant than the thieving, temple-robbing priests
The rhetors seem ethereal to the eparch,
How can you say that 'A cow will moo and a bull will mourn'
Are in the interests of the city of Constantine?
Isn’t there another oracle about the city of Constantine:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.670  'Woe to you, seven hilled one, because you will not last a thousand years'?”
So that no one will bring forth this as a defence,
I created a solution against the obstacle,
The solution being excellent and relevant then:
For, saying to the one who had dreamed,
That it was perfectly relevant to my mind and to the city,
That: “A cow will cry and a bull will lament”,
and: “Woe to you, seven hilled one, because you will not last a thousand years”.
Thus, I said, they were sick, not as they are sick themselves,
Not one part as an adverb, the Ouai in the lament,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.680  But there are two parts to the saying, first: the particle of denial Ou, and Ai (signifying woe)
Therefore, Constantinople, even if you do not last a thousand years,
But are destroyed within that millennium,
Yet there shall be no ai or lamentation for you, but joy.
So that you will be rebuilt ever the greater and shine ever the more,
And destroy well those who seek to destroy you.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.686  (TE2.279) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “ALWAYS OF VERY WARLIKE MEN THE WITS ARE WANDERING”
Generally, young soldiers tend to be more warlike,
Desiring battle more, because they bear arms.
In fact, all young men tend to be more warlike.
Homer, then, shows how stupid young men are,
Writing in the third book of his epic, the Iliad:
“Always of very warlike men the wits are wandering.”
On old men, however, he expresses the opposite opinion:
“Those who have an old man with them, are able to see
Both in front of them and behind, so much that they can see well from afar on both sides.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.695  (TE2.280) CONCERNING THESSALIAN TEMPE
It is Thessaly you should know, not Thessalonica,
As some think, and as I myself have said in jest,
But often, speaking to the ignorant, I was not jesting.
The land of Thessaly, to my mind,
Is comprised of Phthia and Pharsalia, Larissa and Trikkala,
Demetrias, Iolkos, Glaphyrai and Phoibe,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.700  And many other cities does Thessaly include.
Tempe, on the other hand, is the hollows and mountains of Thessaly,
Which is cut by the out-flowing river Peneios,
Which, brought to the middle, flows and pulls down.
The Peneios, the Onochonos, as well as the Sperchios and others,
And even the Salambria, among the local barbarians,
Are one river with many names.
Now you know all about Thessalian Tempe,
But I was joking when I spoke of Thessalonica.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.710  For most people have been barbarized by schedourgy [writing schedia],
Reading not at all the books of the ancients,
So as to know well places, countries, affairs
And extract treasures, the sayings of various sages.
To the labyrinthine twists of ignorant salesmen
Sordid, they give their sole attention.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.715  (TE2.281) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “SOLDIER ON, FRIENDS, AND STAY FOR A TIME”
Homer, in the second book of the Iliad
Has Odysseus speak to the crowd of Greeks,
And ask them to remain strong for another short while,
Until they capture the city of the Trojans.
He said that the capture of Troy was imminent,
And citing signs, the portents that had been prophesied to them.
And prophetically speaking as well as providing signs.
That is what Odysseus says to the Greek army in Homer,
While I say the same to one of my friends,
Wishing that he would persevere for a short time.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.726  (TE2.282) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “HE WHO DOES NOT THINK FOR HIMSELF, DOES NOT LISTEN TO ANYONE ELSE EITHER”
Hesiod the poet, writing to his brother Perses,
Says: “It is good to think for yourself what should be done.
It is, however, also good to listen to one who speaks on what needs to be done.
He who does not think for himself, does not learn from others either.
This is the least of forbidden things.”
This from Hesiod to his brother Perses.
I too use this quote from Hesiod,
Speaking to a friend and most fitting student.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.734  (TE2.283) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “GET THEE SWIFTLY AWAY FROM MY ISLAND, MOST SHAMEFUL OF CREATURES!”
Odysseus, pushed along by the winds to Aeolia,
(The island of Aeolia is off Rhegion in Italy)
Was deemed worthy of mercy and hospitality by Aeolus.
Then he took all the winds hidden in a sack,
While with the breath of only one of them he would reach his homeland.
Because of his careless violation of Aeolus’ command,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.740  While he was sleeping, before he could go home,
The Ithacans opened the sack of winds,
Thinking it was full of money.
The winds all blew Odysseus and turned him back to sea,
And again brought his ship to Aeolia.
Aeolus saw him, and rightfully incensed, said:
“Didn’t I bind all the winds,
And allowed you only one to bear you?
Tell me what reason you had for turning against us,
Unless it is that you were not listening to anything I’ve said.
Get thee, then, out of my island, you least of creatures.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.751  (TE2.284) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “HE WHO LEAVES THE PREPARED THINGS TO CHASE THE UNPREPARED IS A FOOL”
Who coined this phrase, I have sadly forgotten,
Whether it is from the Odyssey of Homer,
Or by some other poet. For it is as if I had hidden in my chest two books,
Or three or perhaps four, and some god is being difficult to me, the truth be told.
It appears, then, that I have forgotten whose words they are,
For golden wanded Hermes does not fight with forgetfulness.
For now, it is the most clear mind that coined the phrase,
You are a fool, I said to whoever wrote it,
Because you cut through the ready profits of your offices,
And persuaded by cold hopes you flee your homeland.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.762  (TE2.285) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “SHEPHERD, FIGHT AND WORK IN ORDER TO RECEIVE THE TWO WOMEN”
Jacob came from Judea to Mesopotamia,
To the house of Laban, his mother Rebecca’s brother.
He shepherded his flocks for seven years,
Married his daughter Leah,
Who suffered from ophthalmia, and was the elder in years,
And not Rachel, the younger and agreeable one.
Another seven years he worked besides the first seven,
And then married Rachel in a ceremony long in the making.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.770  If you wish to learn from the genealogy also, learn.
Abraham and Nachor were sons of Terah,
And Haran the eldest, who also died first of them,
Leaving a son, Lot, and a daughter, Melcha,
Whom her uncle Nachor married.
Both in the Syriac and in the Hebrew tongues,
Melcha means “queen”, and Malchos, “king”.
On Melcha her uncle fathered
Many others, and among them Bethuel.
Bethuel, in turn, fathered Laban and Rebecca,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.780  On whom Isaac fathered Esau and Jacob.
Jacob, having worked for fourteen years,
Had both Leah and Rachel, daughter of Laban,
And also Zelpha and Bilha, who were their handmaidens.
He mated with them, and thus brought forth the twelve patriarchs.
So now you know the story of the two women.
Andrew of Crete, in the Great Canon,
Claims that only “Shepherd” and “Work” must have been said,
“So that you can marry both my daughters,” and that the “fight” was added. However, I cannot see how one could say this:
For I do not know Jacob to have been a fighter,
Whereas I do know this of Leah, Rachel, Zilpha, and Bilha.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.792  (TE2.286) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “FOR YOU ARE NEITHER MADE OF WOOD NOR OF STONE”
The simplest ancients conceived that humans
Were made of wood and stone,
All who were of a human race earlier than theirs.
As Homer has Hector say this
To Achilles, not needing me to speak of the wood and stone,
Which maidens and young men say,
When maidens and the young converse.
The saying goes thus, if it is to be cited correctly:
“For there is nothing at all, whether of wood or of stone,
To those conversing,
As when a maid and a bachelor speak to one another.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.803  (TE2.287) CONCERNING THE SAYING OF THE ORACLE OF BACIS “O IDLE ONES, WHY ARE YOU STILL SITTING? FLEE THEN TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH”
When that Persian crown-bearer Xerxes
Came with a heavy fleet and untold foot soldiers,
Campaigning against Attica and all of Greece,
He made the Greeks fear, and changed the order of nature:
He turned the great and huge mount Athos into sea,
And with dual bridge-making the Hellespont into land.
Then the Greeks, greatly terrified,
Asked the oracle what would happen.
They heard the Oracle of Bacis’ reply:
“O useless ones, why are you still sitting? Flee then to the ends of the earth!”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.813  (TE2.288) CONCERNING THE SIBYL’S ORACLE “THE MEN WHO SETTLE THE SEAT OF BYZAS”
Some say this was an oracle of Sibyl,
Others, that of the Epirote Phaenno.
Another opinion is that it was that of Bacis near Byzantium.
I joined together parts of the two oracles,
Referring back to Byzantium for the student.
Of the two oracles, I said before that the oracle of Bacis
Had prophesied then to the Athenians and the Greeks:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.820  This is answer of the Sibyl, or perhaps of Phaenno,
(Because of Byzantium, it seems more likely to be the Sibyl’s).
It foretold about Diogenes and the Turks,
Now let us allow the rest to be said, and briefly speak:
“Verily then wolves will inhabit the land of Bithynia,
By the wisdom of Zeus, and evil will befall men,
The men who have the holy seat of Byzas as their abode.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.827  (TE2.289) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “A GIFT IN RETURN, EXCEPT LIKE THAT WHICH ABRAHAM ONCE BROUGHT”
We were learning about how Abraham brought his child to God as a gift,
And with fastidious noises set it down.
Then the student sent his own father
To bring us texts and a gift.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.831  (TE2.290) CONCERNING THE WORDS ECHPEYKES, MYOPS AND ASTRABE
Echpeykes, generally meaning woeful and bitter,
Received its name from the pine (peuke) tree.
For the pine, as Staphylus the Naucratite says,
Is woefully destroyed, once the top is cut down.
Echpeykes also means anything having a bitter pitch-like taste,
Such as the bitter taste of pitch itself, or that of sap.
So the chief echpeykes words are as I have said.
In rhetorical and clever speech, however, it can signify a sharp sweetness as well.
Once, I spoke, using this word, thus:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.840  “Let him seek an exchpeyke text and prepare it,
That is, a text which emphasizes the sending away of bitterness.”
A myops is an insect, a tiny creature,
Which brings great pain to nearby cows.
A myops is a diminutive creature, as I have just said, an insect.
It is also a sharp bronze point, which spurs horses to run,
Located in the horse’s heel, in the forward part.
Astrabe is a type of straight wood, used for chariot-boards,
On which the driver leans while driving.
The astrabe got its name from the ancients,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.850  Since it kept the board straight,
And the driver from falling off.
The more barbaric call it astrape (lightning),
And say it was closer to the wheels.
Others, more barbaric still of the wisest of people,
Say astrabe was the word for the chariot’s shape.
But you should call only the chariot-board’s straight wood astrabe.
Astrabe is also the seat, which, like the other astrabe
Helps the rider sit on the horse’s back.
This seems to me to be the usage of the word today.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.860  The seat is called astrabe and selma and sella,
And a horse-hedolion and aphedron and hedra
And ephestris and myriad other names.
Ephestris, by the way, happens to be a word for cloak.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.864  (TE2.291) CONCERNING THE ORACLE REGARDING “THESSALIAN HORSES”, ETC.
The oracular reply concerning the Thessalian horses,
Is mentioned by Maximus in his historical works,
Written down by Gregory the Great.
But the actual text is nowhere to be found, nor did Maximus cite even a fragment of the oracle.
But Theodoret, in his own book,
On Therapy for Greek Sufferings,
As I recall, mentions two lines of the text:
Mnaseas of Patara as well, in his writings, mentions it,
Saying that the Aigians in Achaea,
Having defeated the Aetolians in a naval battle,
Donated fifty of the captured enemy ships to the Pythian oracle,
And sent with them people to extol their victory, as well as to learn from the oracle,
“Who among the Greeks are the most manly and brave?”
And he says the Pythia answered with these words,
Which I previously spoke of in the story about Ixion,
Specifically, the part about the Thessalian horses.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.880  Originally, I thought I had no need to include the oracle here,
But now that I am convinced of it being appropriate,
Come now, listen to me say it again:
“Of all places on the earth Pelasgian Argos is the best,
In horses the Thessalians, in women the Spartans,
And among men those who drink the water of beautiful Arethusa.
But there are still better, those who
Dwell between Tiryns and apple-full Arcadia,
The linen-cuirass wearing Argives, the sharp points of war.
You Aigians are neither third nor fourth,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.890  Nor even twelfth, neither in words nor in numbers.”
What I have just said is exactly what the oracle did,
Mentioning how the Aigians inquired with the oracle.
Callimachus, however, in his own work,
Says it wasn’t the Aigians, but rather the Megarians.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.895  (TE2.292) CONCERNING THE CYRENEAN SILPHIUM
The story of Cyrenean silphium awaits you
In the first book, topos one hundred and two,
And also in the second one, chapter forty eight,
As well as chapter one hundred and nineteen.
So turn there, and read all about it.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.900  (TE2.293) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “QUICKER AND FASTER THAN CELER”
The Romans call fast people celeres,
Because of a certain Tyrrhenian named Celer, of whom I speak.
For they say that, when Romulus founded Rome,
Remus, his brother, mocking the construction,
Would often jump over the newly built moat.
While jumping one time, he fell and died in it.
Others say that Romulus killed him with a thrown spear,
Yet others that it was fast Tyrrhenian Celer,
Who killed him and immediately fled to Tyrrhenia.
Because of this, the Romans call any fast person Celer.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.910  But I, in my elegant and jocular speech,
Though I am slothful and slowest of all walking men,
Have now spoken faster than either Celer or Iphiclus.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.913  (TE2.294) CONCERNING IPHICLUS
Iphiclus was the son of Phylacus, and father of Protesilaus.
He exceeded all other men of his time in speed,
And it is written of him in stories, how he would run above the corn-fields,
In order not to break up the awns with sheer lightness of his run.
This is written in the first book,
In the forty second chapter.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.919  (TE2.295) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “CLEVER ODYSSEUS AND NESTOR”
Homer speaks of both clever Odysseus and Nestor in his epic.
About Odysseus, in the second book of the Iliad:
“And thus they would speak, each looking at the other:
O how many myriad great things Odysseus has done,
How many excellent plans has he conceived, helmeted in war.”
And Agamemnon has this to say about Nestor,
In various places, and not only in one:
“For these, Father Zeus, Athena, and Apollo,
Let these ten Achaeans be my counsellors,
So that by them the city of lordly Priam
Be quickly taken by our hands, and sacked.”
This is what the Iliad says about Nestor.
In the Odyssey, he is spoken of again:
“He will speak no lie, for he is very wise.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.934  (TE2.296) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “HAS A BETTER MEMORY THAN BOTH ISOCRATES THE ORATOR AND DEMETRIUS OF PHALERUM”
Isocrates was an orator, who also wrote on the art.
Also Theophrastus himself, and earlier Tyrtamus.
Even if I wrote Demetrius of Phaleron instead of Isocrates,
Still they both had much-storied memories in their lives.
For both lived
Over a hundred years, and wrote myriad texts.
One wrote of kingly things, arts and exhortations,
While Theophrastus wrote again on character,
And fell only one year short of centenarian status.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.943  (TE2.297) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “MOMOS SEE ALL BUT HIMSELF”
The storytellers say that the Momos and the Lamia
See things pertaining to others, but not those pertaining to themselves.
For the Momos has a double pouch in its shoulders,
And carries his own things in back of him,
And sees things not his own in front of him.
Thus far is written of the Momos. The Lamia, then,
While at home, covers its eyes in a vessel,
And sees nothing of its own. But when it goes out,
It finally uses it eyes, and sees all.
Lucian wrote all about the Lamia.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.953  (TE2.298) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “OUR WHALES”, PHALAINA HAVING SEVERAL MEANINGS
The phalaina (whale) is a fish of the seas, cetacean,
Which is called phalaina because it jumps (hallesthai) into the light (phos).
For when it comes out of the sea water,
It is warmed by the rays of the sun. So far about this phalaina.
There is also a little creature by the name of phalaina,
Which flies to lamps and dies from the flame.
From jumping into the light it too is called this.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.960  In my commentary on Lycophron
I also wrote once about this little creature.
There is another animal called phalaina,
Phalaina, psyche, psora, and also pyraustoumoros,
Which is commonly called a candle-extinguisher.
A certain buffalo-priest (boubalopapas) did not manage to smear it
To which blemish-spotter my little letter was written.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.967  (TE2.299) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “YOU THOUGHT YOUR WISE MEN WERE TELEPHUSES”
This buffalo-priest, Having scanned for blemishes,
What I wrote for the benefit of the young,
Himself wrote barbarously a supposed comedy,
To patriarch Stypes, which he expressed as babble,
Including that the patriarch’s brain was a Telephus.
My God, how barbaric and insensitive,
You’re denigrating my psyches and phalainas and suchlike,
Buffalo! buffalo-priest writing barbaric twaddle.
Aristophanes wrote in his comedies,
“Striking in anger he bashed out his Telephus.
There in a hideously obvious malapropism
He understood Telephus as a substitute for brain.
For Euripides made a drama Telephus,

Event Date: 1143 GR

§ 9.980  Which Aeschylus attacks as rotten.
Instead of brain, Telephus means this,
That the play Telephus was denigrated by him.
Where did the Patriarch write a play Telephus,
So as now to call you, barbarian, Telephus, like him,
And to think this mostly means brain?
That is worthy of a laugh, something for everyone,
Not the pyraustoumenoi and phalainas and psyches.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.988  (TE2.300) CONCERNING THE STREAMS OF THE NILE
The Egyptian river Nile flows out in seven mouths,
And waters the whole land with floods.
Thus it makes it fruitful and productive.
Now, I wrote of Neiloan streams in my letters,
When I should have written of Neiloian flows.
And with them Neilios, adding an iota
With the omega of Neiloion ejected.
Neileios is but the form of Neleos with a diphthong,
Just as Neleus and Neileus with a diphthong.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 9.997  (TE2.301) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “THE CHATTERING LANGUAGE OF CICADAS AND ATTIC”
Cicadas are chattering creatures,
Which in the heat of summer chatter all the more.
Even if someone were to try and stop these fliers,
They only become even more chattery and troublesome.
[1] Thus there is a proverb about chattery people:
“You appear to have quickly surpassed the cicadas.”
And as of chattering cicadas, thus of all chatterers:
The Athenians, like the cicadas, were highly verbose,
While the Spartans, quite the opposite, spoke as little as possible.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.6  BOOK 10, TRANSLATED BY JONATHAN ALEXANDER
(TE2.302) CONCERNING THE IDIOM: “OVERFLOWING EVEN THE OCEAN”
This phrase seems to me hyperbolic,
And not just hyperbolic, but not even a simple hyperbole.
For the Ocean surrounds the entire inhabited world,
Full of seas and lakes.
And who could possibly overflow it?
No one, unless you cited Homer, or the great Orpheus,
Or Phaenno, or the Sibyl, or someone of the sort.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.13  (TE2.303) PROVERB SAYING THE UNMENTIONABLE, THIS IS ALSO ALIEN (EKPHYLOS)
Unmentionable (apophras) is the hated, which everyone hates to say.
The ancients had unmentionable days,
In which setbacks and episodes had happened.
As for the Romans in olden times,
Who, when they went out to war and battle,
Lost three hundred of the Fabian clan.
Then they also closed the gate from which those men had left,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.20  And no longer counted that day with the other days.
Other peoples too, with other catastrophes,
Did not order those days with the rest.
They would speak of the days before them, and those after,
But those days themselves they would not count in naming the days.
Instead, they would say: “The third and after that,
The fifth, the sixth, and so on, and resume after that.
So they would not at all speak of the unmentionable days,
But rather speak of the day before or the day after.
Now you know why unmentionable days have this name.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.30  The word ekphylon or ekphyllon can be defined as:
Of another nation, a foreigner, an enemy, barbarian,
Or ekphylon meaning exiled, to be chased away.
For before, those who they wished to expel someone from the land,
Would write that person’s name on leaves (phylla) or ostraca.
Then they would deposit them in an agreed-upon place.
If the leaves or ostraca amounted to a thousand,
The man's exile would be carried out.
But if not, he would allowed to return home.
This process was called by men of old
Both ekphylophoresis and exostrakismos.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.41  (TE2.304) CONCERNING THE TYPHONIAN BREATH
Hundred-headed Typhon is a mythical daemon,
Whom Zeus is said to have turned to cinders with his lightning.
This is why any exceptionally strong wind is called a Typhon.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.44  (TE2.305) CONCERNING THE WORDS EPISKYNION AND EMBRONTETOS
The episkynion is the place of the eyebrows,
Which, if they are as low as the eyelids,
Give one an uncivilized and wild look.
This term owes its origin to the wildness of cubs (skymnoi) and beasts,
Or perhaps from the verb “tear” (skyzo).
Now the word embrontetos (thunder-struck) is chiefly applied to those who lose their senses
Because of the sound of extremely heavy thunder.
Also said, all incorrectly, is struck mad (ekpeplegmenos).

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.52  (TE2.306) CONCERNING THE HEIFER AND BASHAAN
The psalmist says this about Herodias:
“Now, O so great madness of the Maenad,
O you, proceeding out of the bitter heifer of Bashaan!”
He uses the word heifer from the prophet,
As once the Empress Eudocia did,
The very wise daughter of great Leon,
She who studied grammar with Hyperechius,
And was briefly an auditor of Orion as well,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.60  And some rhetoric and philosophy from others,
Said in her translation:
“Oaks of Basanitis, listen, as it is written:
I can't say exactly, either in Zacharia
Or the translation of Daniel.”
For, I have not yet had the chance
To see and read her eight-volume work or her other writings,
And to bless that golden Empress.
And the golden days that were thanks to her,
When such a lady, even in verse

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.70  Wrote most skilfully, not omitting even punctuation mark.
Now those who write the thirty six books of the ignorant beasts,
Which are barbaric and thrice-barbaric,
And they do not write anything with skill, nor even with the appearance of it.
They have been nurtured on the dung of Circe's artlessness.
Not only do they not wish to stop eating dung,
But even if some Odysseus brings the magic moly of Hermes,
Discourse and rules of art, which give order to life,
These men want to act with the skills of swine,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.80  So large the pig among them, so much the pig-filth,
Poured out against the one who wants to make them human!
They prefer, without effort, to dine on dung,
Rather than, with effort, feast, as the saying goes, on the the bread of angels.
But we have gotten off track with these pollutions.
Let us take up our story again and link up with it.
He who sang of the young cow of Basaan,
Was quoting from the prophets, as I said before.
Queen Eudocia, daughter of Leon,
Spoke of the trees of Basaan in verse

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.90  I have read her two little books in verse,
Both the one on Zacharia and likewise on Daniel.
And the Homerocentra she composed;
Both of which concern the heifer and of Basaan.
Now Hosea talked about those things himself, in his own words:
Israel has been driven mad, as a heifer is maddened.”
Also Ephraim, as a young cow, has been given over to strife.”
Also Amos (listen to him!), says:
“Heifers of Moab, on the mountain of Samaria!
Oppressing the hungry, trampling the destitute.”
Though according to some, Basaan is said to be a Scythian city.
On the heifer of Basaan, here you have it.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.102  (TE2.307) CONCERNING: “HOWLING LIONS, AND WOLVES NOT OF ARABIA”
Zephaniah said in his book:
“For her rulers are like howling lions,
And her judges as Arabian wolves.”
And the prophet Habakkuk said of the Chaldeans:
“For their horses leap higher than leopards,
Sharper even than the wolves of Arabia themselves.”
These prophecies appear to me
To have been taken from an abridgement of the book of prophets.
For who could lie and deceive them?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.111  (TE2.308) CONCERNING: “ON WHICH MAY NO DEW FALL, THAT IS, THE MOUNTAINS OF GILBOAH”
When battle was joined around the Gilboah mountains,
Saul was killed together with Jonathan.
When David heard, he lamented greatly.
He cursed the mountains with these words:
“On you, mountains of Gilboah, may no dew fall!”
As the book of Kings records of these events.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.117  (TE2.309) CONCERNING DATHAN AND ABIRAM
Dathan, Abiram, and Annan together with them
Arose to debate with Moses and Aaron.
Saying: “Are not all holy, and the Lord in all?
How dare you rule them? Are you not ruler of the Hebrews?
You brought us out of a land flowing with milk and honey,
And caused us to die in the desert!”
With those words they challenged Moses,
And the land split open, swallowing Dathan and Abiram,
With their tents and all their possessions.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.126  (TE2.310) CONCERNING: “DON’T SAY: ‘OVERLOOK THIS SIN OF THEIRS’”
The holy words of the Evangelists teach us,
That Christ prayed for those who crucified him,
Saying: “Father, forgive them this sin.”
As later did Stephen, for those who stoned him,
That is, Stephen the Deacon, the first martyr.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.131  (TE2.311) CONCERNING: “BUT I PRAY TO THE AVENGING SPIRITS”
I pray those prayers against whom I have cursed,
For them to be made thin, to scatter, to be led away into a waterless land.
May evil be brought against them, while I revel and play my flute,
And all good which I have cursed against them.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.134  (TE2.312) CONCERNING: “NAKED CAME I OUT OF MY MOTHER’S WOMB”
The famous Job, who suffered so many trials,
Thefts, loss of wealth and property,
And barbarian raids, and fire from heaven,
Said: “Naked came I out of my mother’s womb.”
And after his home had been knocked over by a violent wind,
And all his children killed on high,
“The Lord,” he said, “gave, and again he took away from me.
As it seemed good to the Lord, such has befallen me.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.143  (TE2.313) CONCERNING: “BETTER DAYS, JOB, WILL BEFALL YOU.”
After all those many trials, after the tests,
With which God tested the aforementioned Job,
With thefts, loss of wealth and property,
Destruction of home and murder of children,
And even unbearable leprosy, and poverty to finish it all off,
He gave him back his former, clean health,
And double the amount of children, houses, flocks, and the rest.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.150  (TE2.314) CONCERNING: “LEAVING THE UNDERWORLD OF THE DEAD AND THE GATES OF DARKNESS”
Polydorus, son of Hecuba and Priam,
Was killed by Polymestor, lord of the Thracians
Once Polymestor learned that the Greeks had sacked Troy.
He killed Polydorus and threw him into the nearby sea,
Although he had received ransom from Polydorus’ father to keep him alive.
Now when Hecuba was prisoner in the Chersonese,
(for the Greek army was there at the time),
Polydorus appeared in a dream to his mother Hecuba,
Telling her how Polymestor had killed him,
And told her a short version of the whole story.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.160  This story has been told in Euripides’ work:
“I have come, leaving the underworld of the dead and the gates of darkness”.
Because of this, we tell those who flee out of cowardly weakness,
That they will rise from the dead.
This we write to the ignorant, not to the lettered.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.165  (TE2.315) CONCERNING: “ARE THERE NO GRAVES IN EGYPT?”
When much of the Hebrew people died in the desert,
The survivors said, suffering much:
“Are there no graves in Egypt, Moses,
That you have brought us to the desert to kill us?”
Then, as it is written, of those complainers,
Fourteen thousands of men died at once.
Whether all the death befell the complainers,
Or whether some died, and then came the complaint,
Leading to the death of others, only God knows.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.174  (TE2.316) CONCERNING: “YOU RAN OUT BY THE BORDERS OF THESSALONICA AND THE PAEONIANS”
What is now the glorious city of Thessalonica,
Was a village, called Therme.
And even now the sea of Thessalonica
Is called the Thermaic Gulf, because of the warm village (Therme kome).
Cassander built the city, Phillip’s son-in-law,
Who named the city Thessalonike for his spouse,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.180  Since her name was Thessalonice, daughter of Philip.
He also built Cassandreia, naming it after himself.
Others say that Philip built Thessalonica,
Out of love for his daughter, whose name was, as we have just said, Thessalonice.
Yet others say he defeat the Thessalians in a war.
Now the Bulgarians are the Paeonians, don’t be fooled by those buffalos
Who think the Axios different from the Vardar,
And say it should be written “Axeios” with a diphthong,
As if they had never heard the Homeric verses:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.190  “But Pyraichmes led the crook-bowed Paeonians,
Whom he had mustered from far away, from the wide-flowing Axios.”
From Mount Pindos, and the area of Larissa,
And from Dyrrachium they used to hold sway,
Almost all the way to this city of Constantine.
Until the great emperor Basil,
Who completely crushed their throat,
And made them slaves to Roman power.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.198  (TE2.317) CONCERNING HERODOTUS LISTENING TO ENCOMIUMS
Herodotus says concerning Pigres and Mantyes,
Who were chieftains of the Paeonians, and most hateful of them,
That once they had taken control of the Paeonians,
They went to Sardis with their sister,
While Darius was also staying there.
(But I think it’s more likely that it was his son Xerxes).
Now they camped nearby, and sent their sister,
With a horse to carry back water and drink.
She loaded up the horse of whom I spoke with drink,
Filled up with water the vessel attached to it,
And put it on her head, and with her hand she carried it.
Then, holding the horse’s reins with her bent arm,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.210  She returned to her brothers’ tent.
All the Persians saw her, as well as their satrap,
And they marvelled at the young woman, and asked where she was from.
When her brothers felt it was the right time, they said:
“O Persians, and king of all Persia,
All Paeonian women are like this.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.216  (TE2.318) CONCERNING THE PYGOSTOLOS PAEONIAN WOMEN
Hesiod wrote to his brother Perses:
“Don’t let a pygostolos woman deceive your mind.”
Now the word pygostolos can be interpreted in two ways:
Either it comes from the decorations the woman puts on her arms
And legs, or from decorating the pygas, that is, the parts around a seat,
With wide fringes and belts.
And the Paeonian daughter were of this sort,
And even now, in their recent servitude,
Which the great and powerful Basil
Enslaved the entire Paeonian race.
For their women still decorate their behinds
With wide belts, tails, and many fringes.
Their legs are similarly decorated,
With bracelets of iron, copper, and crystal.
Sometimes they use little ankle bones,
And other such-like as bracelets,
To bind their legs with.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.234  (TE2.319) WHAT ARE, ACCORDING TO GOLDEN-TONGUED HOMER, PRIZE-WINNING AND STRONG, WHICH BRING IN THE PRIZES BY THE BUTTOCKS
Homer, in Book 9 of the Iliad, has Agamemnon
Trying to make amends to Achilles,
Bringing him many various gifts:
“Twenty smouldering cauldrons, and twelve strong horses,
Prize-winning, which bring the prize using their feet”
When Homer says strong (pegos), he means well fed,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.240  And says that they used their feet to win the prizes.
But I, jesting, say he meant buttocks (pygos),
So they used their behinds, not feet in order to win.
Now listen what you should call this form.
Changing pegos to pygos is my paragrammatism (letter substitution),
And that the horses used their bottoms, instead of feet.
Again, this form technically is parody,
Both of which make use of humor,
Knowing that it is a comedy,
As I, the most ignorant servant of the Augustus, write to you.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.250  (TE2.320) CONCERNING THE BONES WHICH EZEKIEL SAW
Long ago, the great prophet Ezekiel
Beheld a field full of dead men’s bones.
“O son of man” said a dreadful voice,
“Prophesy, if indeed these bones will live.”
Afterwards, the spirit of God descended upon them,
And bone was bound again to bone in harmony,
And flesh, skin, and living spirit was given
To those dry bones, and immediately they lived again.
And those latter-day people rose all,
Becoming very many, a great camp,
A sign of faith in the last resurrection, which we await.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.261  (TE2.321) CONCERNING THE CUMAEAN LION
An ass born in Cumae, which is larger than the other asses,
Even though it seems to be a lion, can be distinguished by its voice.
You’ll find this also in the twelfth volume.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.264  (TE2.322) CONCERNING THE JOURNEYS OF ALEXANDER AND LYSIPPOS’ STATUE
The story lies in a letter,
About which we will speak in a short while.
Alexander the Macedonian, the great king,
Was vexed at having spent more time than expected.
Then Lysippos the sculptor came,
And sculpted Time with wise forethought,
Light, bald in the back of his head, wing-footed.
In the front of the figure he put a dagger
Regarding everyone who saw it, warning them not to exceed their time.
This is also the twentieth story in the second volume,
Where you can learn more about this.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.275  (TE2.323) CONCERNING THE NONSENSE THAT THE STATUE OF TIME IS A STATUE OF LIFE AND NOT OF TIME
Very learned men, philosophers,
Who have learned with tiaras, practice, and high priesthood,
And have reached a not insignificant level of learning
Named it the stele of Life, twisting and corrupting things.
For they could not conceive of an image of Time,
Which, as I said, Lysippos made.
I, mocking their feverish foolishness,
Have already shown and guided in writing their foolishness,
Which they displayed earlier.
For also the Uzzite Job, in his eponymous book,
Said: “Who could put me once more in the preceding months and days?”
He was not speaking about his station and wealth in life,
For even he found a better life in the end.
But time gone by no one can reclaim.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.289  And Demosthenes calls him somewhere deaf and bald
As indeed Lysippos painted him
No one has appeared till now who could make an image of Life.
Now I would recommend to those writing lives
To write lives of great men, of thrones, kingdoms, praises,
And of storms of deep shadow, hiding and darkening all.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.295  (TE2.324) CONCERNING: “BUT EVEN GOD CANNOT CHANGE THINGS GONE BY”
God is all-powerful, but even He is not powerful enough
To do one thing: to render as to have never happened or gone by
Past time, and things already done.
God forbid that this should be,
What Sophocles and myriad others have written.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.300  (TE2.325) CONCERNING: “O PORTION OF THE GOLDEN RACE!”
Hesiod says in the Works and Days
“The first race of mortal men was golden,
Made by the immortals, whose homes are in Olympus.”
And Aratus, in the Phaenomena:
“So it was, when he who had nourished the golden race,
Now nourished one of silver, lesser, and not at all alike.”
The golden race was of men who had no mixing with evil at all.
Because of that race of gold we give the name men
To those who do something great in their lives.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.309  (TE2.326) THAT: “THE CORCYRAEAN PHAEACIANS WERE REPORTED TO BE THE GREATEST SAILORS OF ALL MEN”
The Corcyraean Phaeacians, in the Odyssey,
Are reported by Homer to be the greatest sailors of all men
For they bent their minds and hearts solely to the art of seacraft,
And all their cities, places and fields, seas and harbours
Stood alone, with no one captain.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.314  (TE2.327) CONCERNING: “OF THE PHAEACIAN WOMEN, SKILLED IN WEAVING, LIKE THE LEAVES OF THE TALL BLACK POPLAR”
Homer, in the Odyssey, as I have previously stated,
Declared that the Phaeacians were the greatest sailors of all men,
And he desired to show that their women were greater than all others
In the art of weaving.
As the Phaeacian men, he says, were best of all
In the governing of the ship and its captaining at sea,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.320  So the Phaeacian women were the greatest of all women
In the skill of weaving in the places of weaving.
To quote him: “They sit, like leaves of the tall black poplar,
Their kairosis linen watered by wet olive oil.”
Thus far of history. But it falls to me to interpret the word
So that you will not be foolish, as others have been.
Kairosis is the joining of the high linen,
The closeness, the putting together of thread and warp,
From which great closeness the best is composed,
As a web of shining bright light.
Such is the brightness and shining of the olive oil.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.332  (TE2.328) CONCERNING: “TO OUTDO THE MAEONIAN WOMEN’S WONDER-WORKING DYE”
Homer says, in Book 4 of the Iliad
That when Menelaus took Pandarus’ bowshot
And his thighs were painted with the flow of blood,
Homer declaims, jesting at the pain of others,
“As when a Maeonian or Kaeran woman uses red dye on ivory
To decorate the jaws of horses
But I should write everything to the last, in order to speak to satisfaction
(For neither do I trust those who simply quote off the tops of their heads):

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.340  “So were your blood stained strings, Menelaus,
Well made, with your shanks and ankles underneath.”
Now you, having heard of “Maeonian” and “Kaerean” women,
You should know and not be ignorant of who those are.
The Kareans were women of Caria,
And the Meonian, inhabitants of Lydia,
Which earlier were ruled by Sardis.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.347  (TE2.329) “THEY DECORATE ME WITH MILESIAN FLEECES, CERDICIAN WORK, MOVING ON THE RIGHT”
There is an old story about fleeces in Miletus:
Milesian wool is the best of all,
Though the Coraxian runs a close second.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.350  So when Themistocles fled from Athens to the Persians
(For he had been condemned by the Athenians
For being an insider in Persians circles and acquainted with Xerxes)
He received from Artaxerxes, the aforementioned Xerxes’ son,
Three cities as a gift:
Myra, Myous, and with them Miletus, of which I spoke.
Miletus he took for the fleeces, and the others for the wine and fish.
Others say that he was given five cities:
Myra, Myous, Miletus, Lampsacus, and Magnesia.
For wine, fish, fleeces, bread, and for footwear.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.360  Yet others say there were seven cities given to him,
The aforementioned ones, plus Palaeskepsa, and another one,
Please forgive us if it escapes me at the moment.
“I have a silver divinity which can predict anything”
Those who see me know and keep beyond me,
If we write from books, or with great care,
And if that book is not already written,
And if it would not be quicker to write something of the sort,
Even more if I have copied from some other book.
The fact that Miletus had such beautiful fleeces,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.370  Many others mention, as does Aristophanes,
When he has Dionysus in the Frogs
Speak thus to his servant Xanthias:
“It would be funny, if you, Xanthias the servant,
Were to recline on a bed made from a fleece of Miletian wool,
Screwing a dancing girl, while I, as if I was your servant,
Were to bring you a chamber pot to piss in.”
Many have spoken about the Milesian wool,
And about the Coraxian variety
Hipponax in his first iambic said in trochaic metre:
“Clad in a robe of Coraxian wool”
You should know that Coraxians are a nation of makers of fine cloth.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.382  (TE2.330) CONCERNING: “AND I BLAME THE ORACLE, BECAUSE IT DID NOT ATTRIBUTE THE FIRST RANK TO THEBES”
Above, I have cited the oracle, and now I will quote the beginning:
“Of all the earth Pelasgian Argos is best,
Of horses the Thracians, of women the Lacedaemonians.
But the men who drink the water of fair Arethusa.”
This story lies also in an earlier place of my stories,
You will find it first in the two hundred and ninetieth one .
Turning to which you will learn all accurately and in detail.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.389  (TE2.331) CONCERNING THE FLOWING OF THE ISMENUS RIVER
The Ismenus, the river of seven-gated Thebes,
And Dirce, the natural spring of its waters,
Gift the webs which are found in the Theban countryside,
With translucency, shining, and much smoothness.
But the artificial spring was made by working hands.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.394  (TE2.332) CONCERNING: “WHAT KIND OF THING AGAIN IS IT, NOT TO GROW GOLDEN-HELMED CORN, TO TAKE HOLD OF YOU AS WELL, THE SECOND ISMENUS?”
The stories tell us that Cadmus, that famous man of old,
Received an oracle instructing him to buy a cow from a farmer,
A man by the name of Pelagontos.
Because the cow was a sign of such and such things,
And was to be his guide on the road.
For wherever the cow might crouch down and fall,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.400  Cadmus was to slaughter it and sacrifice it on that very ground,
And to found a city, giving it whatever name he pleased.
So he obeyed the oracle, and slaughtered the cow,
Then sent two of his friends, whose names were as follows:
One was Deioleon, and the other, Seriphus.
Their mission was to bring water from the spring of Ares for the sacrifice.
But both were killed by the dragon which guarded the spring.
So Cadmus killed the dragon by stoning it,
And built only Cadmeia, not Thebes.
For Thebes outside the walls (of the Cadmeia) was first built

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.410  Later on, by famous Zethus, and Amphion of song.
That Thebes was destroyed still later by Alexander the Great,
With flutes, when the Ismenus river played.
Thebes was rebuilt by a certain athlete,
Whose name, however, escapes my memory.
But all that was later. For now, Cadmus,
After he built the Cadmeia, not Thebes,
Following the wise advice of Athena, or perhaps his own cleverness,
Sowed the teeth of the aforementioned dragon,
From which the golden-helmed warriors grew,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.420  And began fighting and warring amongst themselves.
Now the story which I have told briefly is to be expanded upon,
And now I must interpret allegorically the dragon and its teeth.
You should not listen to tales of ivory teeth,
Grounds made with secret grinders, or the Stoic physician Palaephatus
Account, but rather to Tzetzes’ wise one:
Dracon was a bandit leader, or a local chief.
He killed Deioleon and Seriphus,
So Cadmus killed him in revenge for his friends.
He took Dracon's teeth, his accomplices in robbery,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.430  His murdering chompers, which inflamed the people,
And “sowed” them, so to speak, dispersing them to various places:
Colchis, and other places, including Thebes itself,
And married into some of the more sensible families,
From which he grew a “corn-stalk of golden-helmed giants”,
That is, the inter-related golden-weaponed youth of Thebes,
Who, descended from a line and race of kings,
Fought for their homeland and people:
From which “seed of teeth” came these five:
Pelor, Udaeus, Chthonius, Echion, and Hyperenor.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.440  So I have told you the story and given you its allegorical interpretation.
All this so that you can learn, that the Greek alphabet
Was not invented by Palamedes, neither by Phoenix, nor by Cadmus,
As some of the more credulous ancients claimed,
As well as what Tzetzes has been accused of writing,
And of thinking that they made calculations and wrote down all.
For they did not write down anything, neither opinions nor facts.
Therefore, listen carefully to the beginning of the oracle that Cadmus received,
And use it to convince those credulous ones,
Who say that Cadmus invented writing.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.450  Say: O credulous ones, Tzetzes says these things now:
If Cadmus discovered writing and brought it to Greece,
Tell me, before he came anywhere near Greece,
How could this oracle have been uttered:
“Speak then the story of Agenor, oh Cadmus descendant,
And waking up at dawn, leave, and go to the divine Pythia,
Wearing these loose-fitting clothes”.
And the rest of the oracle, since it is already written
In so many letters on the columns of memory,
Tzetzes does not wish to repeat it here,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.460  Lest he fill up the scrolls with extraneous detail.
That would leave many tales in lack of a wine pourer
Many stories with broken promises of being written,
Robbed of their place on the writing-table,
If this book of scrolls be overfilled.
I think you and everyone else already know,
Judging from the other part of the oracle,
That even before Cadmus, the Greeks had letters and calculations.
If before Cadmus, that is, before there had been seven generations of Greeks,
And already very ancient before Palamedes’ time

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.470  And even before Phoenix, those of whom the credulous ones spoke
Although they deceived everyone into thinking that Tzetzes had written thus,
That misbegotten credulousness, made by evildoers thrice over,
Is a lie that to a thinking man is equal to death.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.474  (TE2.333) CONCERNING THE FLAME COLOURED CHLANIS GARMENT THAT SYLOSON GAVE DARIUS
When Darius was a hypaspist soldier, not yet king,
He received a gift from Syloson: a flame coloured chlanis.
Later, after he became king of Persia,
He made Syloson king of Samos.
You can find this story among my earlier ones,
Written in the ninety-fourth Topos.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.480  (TE2.334) CONCERNING: “WHEN MANY DECADES HAVE GONE”
Oppian, in his book on fishing,
Does not say that among fish, justice is administered by religious awe,
But rather that the stronger eat the offspring of the weaker.
Then he says: “This was on land too, not long ago,
When there was no justice at all, but wars and skirmishes.”
What he meant by this is that life, too, was just as harsh,
Until the Roman race took hold of the sceptre of rule,
And of the Romans, chiefly Severus and Antoninus.
Then he says to the gods, concerning both of them:
“May you draw them to me and straighten this stumbling-block,
When many decades have gone by.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.491  (TE2.335) CONCERNING THE PROVERB: “I RECEIVED PYRKAIA, ANEPHAISTON, AND AXYLON”
There was an Egyptian in Noah’s time, named Hephaestus,
Who was also called Noah, Dionysus, and Osiris.
He discovered fire, technology, and all that comes from fire.
The Greeks adopted this Hephaestus as one of their own,
With many other Egyptian names,
And claimed the Egyptian gods as their own,
Seeing as the Greek poets were educated in Egypt,
And taught this knowledge to the ancestors of Greece.
It is because of this Hephaestus’ discovery of it

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.500  That we call fire pyr, after its discoverer,
And for the same reason we call forest-fires enephaestoi and enxyloi.
There are other kinds of fires called enephastoi,
Such as wood-less (axyloi) fires, caused by lightning or hurricanes,
And the ignition of fire for mourning, and the seething of grief,
Are called pyrkaia, anephaiston, and axylon.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.506  (TE2.336) CONCERNING: “WHAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED”
The Greeks say, that when Patroclus fell to Hector in the war,
Nestor’s son Antilochus was tasked with informing Achilles
Of what had befallen his favourite.
When he reached Achilles, the poem has him say this:
“Woe is me! O warlike Achilles, breaker of horses,
Be informed from this message, of what should never have happened.
Patroclus lies dead. Now there is fighting around his
Stripped corpse. For now shining-helmed Hector has his armour.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.515  (TE2.337) CONCERNING: “AND GRACES OF MANIFOLD BEAUTY”
Hesiod, in the Theogony, says there are three Graces:
Aglaea and Thaleia, together with Euphrosyne.
I, on the other, say anything pleasurable is a Grace.
Musaeus, in his tale of Hero and Leander,
Speaks poetically about Hero’s beauty in these words:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.520  “From many parts did Graces flow. Now the ancients
Lied when they said that there are three Graces. For but one of Hero’s
Laughing eyes contained within it a hundred Graces.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.523  (TE2.338) CONCERNING THE CHALYBIAN IRON
The Chalybians are a people that lives near Trapezus.
They are said to have been the first to discover iron.
So now they call bronze Chalybon bronze as well,
As though the Chalybians had discovered that too.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.527  (TE2.339) CONCERNING: “AND IF IT WAS CREATED, ON WHAT DOES IT REST, DRIVEN TOWARDS IMMORTALITY”
There are four schools of thought among philosophers concerning the beginning of the world.
One says that it has no beginning, so this school teaches immortality of the world.
Another holds that it has a beginning and an end.
Yet another that it has no beginning, and yet has an end.
And the last that it was in fact created, but by the design of God,
And in the fullness of time will become infinite, and completely timeless.
This, I believe, is the position of Plato and Pythagoras.
But Meton, the astrologer, son of Pausanias,
Tells me it has both a beginning and an end.
He says that the end of the world will be
When the seven planets align,
And come into the constellation Aquarius, which is the home of Cronus.
He says that every long-lived person’s time
Will be counted over in this time,
When this alignment takes place,
And the end of the world comes.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.543  (TE2.340) CONCERNING THE WORD ANXINOUS. FOR INTELLECT (NOUS) AND THE CAPACITY OF REASONING DIFFER
Nouses and nous are attributed to God and the angels,
But no one usually attributes it to humans.
We call humans exephron (sensible) or anxinous (shrewd).
The most metaphorical we can get is nouneches (he who has nous).
For we never attribute nous to humans, not even to Plato.
I tell you that very few people indeed have nous.
For I’ve already proven this earlier, very clearly:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.550  Instead of saying logismon (capacity of reasoning), we often say nous.
For the logismon is the training-place of reasoning.
But the nous is refined and thinks faster than reasoning can reason.
But you will find this
In the one hundred forty third of my second histories,
To which you can turn, look, and learn all in detail.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.556  (TE2.341) TZETZES’ POVERTY, WHICH CALLS THIS LIFE A “FIELD OF WEEPING AND CHANCE, AN UNSTOPPABLE GLOBE MOVEMENT, ALWAYS TURNING, NO BETTER THAN A FEVER DREAM”
Consider, my child, Tzetzes’ poverty in reasoning.
For I call this life on Earth a field of weeping,
And chance, and an unstoppable movement of a globe,
And moreover wheeling about in motions of all kinds.
In addition, also “nothing” and feverish,
And I call it a field of weeping because,
It is full of pain, disaster, abuse, and tears.
And because it acts erratically and in contradictions,
I call it “chance”. For, just as in games of chance,
In different times it yields different results, so in life
In different times different events of all types may occur.
And I call it an ever-turning globe, because it cannot stay still,
For it always turns and cannot be tamed.
And again, I add the title of “no better than a fever dream”,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.570  Because in the darkness and smoke of life
There is empty glory in all places and all types of delusions,
Which none of us reckons of any account,
Since honour and glory and all fame in this life
Is smoke, and quickly dissolves into the air.
Gold is no more than pale clay, and woven robes are dust,
And one by one our ashes are scattered all.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.577  (TE2.342) THE PROVERB: “FOR YOU WERE NOT THE FIRST OR ALONE IN SUFFERING THAT WHICH YOU DID”
For those whose lot it is to suffer something first or alone,
There is exceedingly great pain. But pain shared with others is easier to bear.
The bitter terror of suffering alone, as well as that of suffering alone,
Is testified to by Sophocles, in these words:
“For suffering at home, with no one
To help, bears within it great pain. ”
Sophocles showed how bitter it is
To suffer alone. Democritus,
On the other hand, shows how within reason pain is when shared with another.
For he said that, when Darius mourned his wife,
And ordered a magus priest to raise her,
The priest said that if he could find
The names of three men with no sorrow,
He should write them on his wife’s tomb.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.590  Darius found none, so Democritus replied:
“O King Darius! In all eternity no one has been
Without sorrow in this life. So how is it
That you wish to live this life without sorrow?
Bear your sorrows with others, and you will bear them within reason.”
Which thing Darius did immediately,
And managed to limit his immeasurable pain.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.597  (TE2.343) TO THOSE WHO PRACTICE THE PHILOSOPHY OF BEING
There is a false and verbose philosophy,
Practised by monks, called the “Philosophy of Being”.
It is the study of death and the passing of the flesh,
And knowledge of what can truly be said to be.
It concerns itself also with the likeness of God, so far as it is possible for man,
And loves more than God and wisdom
(The craft of crafts and the science of sciences,
And, I dare say, a great music, a healer of souls),
As well as any other boundaries that may exist for philosophy.
Since for the other there is not one that fits the borders.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.607  (TE2.344) CONCERNING THE LYDIAN BASANOS STONE
The basanos is a Lydian stone used to judge gold,
Whether it is pure or adulterated, or something in between.
But you have this story already contained
In the one hundred twenty-seventh of my stories.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.611  (TE2.345) ALTHOUGH HOMER SPEAKS OF “WINGED WORDS”, HE IS STILL NOT THE ONLY ONE TO HAVE THOUGHT OF THIS
Homer speaks of “winged words”,
Because, perhaps, their sound is a percussion of air,
Similar to the way wings fly.
Or, perhaps, because they fly quickly.
For there is nothing faster or a better flier than a word.
“I will go to Gadeira, and even further on.”
In a split second, the words are out of my mouth,
How many days, on the other hand, would it take a bird to fly to Gadeira?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.619  (TE2.346) CONCERNING EPAMEINONDAS THE THEBAN GENERAL
Epameinondas, who was a Theban general,
Was the most incorruptible of all free souled men.
When someone once brought him money,
Not only did Epameinondas refuse, but said:
“Find a crook-footed cripple, or one driven out of his mind,
And such a bribe would befit him.
But it can never befit Epameinondas, general of the Thebans.”
This general once noticed a household soldier
Demanding gold from a prisoner.
He immediately expelled his own soldier,
And told him: “Give me my own shield back,
And as for you, go buy yourself a merchant’s stall.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.631  (TE2.347) CONCERNING CATO THE ROMAN
This Cato, who served as a Roman general,
Was a contemporary of Antiochus, successor of Alexander.
He was so humble and incorruptible,
That he used to work his lands himself with his household slaves,
And was often seen eating with them at the same table,
Chewing and drinking and doing other such things with them.
So much so, that he once became ill, and was told by his doctor,
That if he did not eat a thrush, he would never recover.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.640  So Cato asked where in the world he was supposed to get a thrush in summer.
He was told to go look for some in Lucullus’ gardens.
(For he was the proudest of all the Romans).
But Cato did not want to eat the thrush,
Making the famous quip which I will now relate:
“If Lucillus was not proud, Cato could not live?”
Now you know just how humble Cato was.
So now I will show you how incorruptible he was.
His fame reached even far Britain,
For which reason the British kings wished to meet him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.650  So they sent emissaries and boxes of gold to him.
But the emissaries could not identify Cato,
So they went around asking for someone to notify Cato of their arrival.
They found him boiling his own turnips,
So they thought he was a simple cook.
They asked him if he he could tell Cato they had arrived,
That they were emissaries from Britain come to meet him.
“If you’re looking for Cato,” he said, “that’s me.”
At first they thought he was joking,
But when they realized he was indeed Cato, they paid him the proper respect,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.660  And said: “Cato, general of the Romans, descendants of Aeneas,
The kings of Britain, wishing for your friendship,
Have sent you these golden boxes.”
He replied: “Do they wish for my friendship or my slavery?”
The emissaries answered: “Friendship.”, and he said: “Go away, and take this gold with you!
For only slavery can be bought with money, not friendship.
I can be their friend even without gifts.
Also, you British emissaries, if one is a general,
And yet cooks for himself, and is satisfied with turnips,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.670  Do you think he needs money and possessions?”
I have quoted Cato verbatim.
If you wish to turn this one story about Cato
Into two, turn to earlier scrolls,
And in the earlier stories you will find
This very story of Cato, and another one.
But the version given here differs from the one given there.
And if you wish, I can tell you
Ten similar stories of Cato and the rest.
For Tzetzes knows each book of histories
Accurately, not missing even a verse or two.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.682  (TE2.348) CONCERNING MEGISTIAS THE ACARNANIAN, THE SPARTAN SEER
Megistas was by race an Acarnanian,
But he served as a seer to the Spartans.
His first act was one night
He went out with some armed Spartans, well able to fight,
And whitened their equipment with chalk.
Thus clad, they entered Xerxes’ camp,
And caused great fear and much murder,
For the Persians thought the Spartans were an army of demons.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.690  This was Megistias’ first act in the Persian camp.
His second act was when Leonidas went out with thousands of Spartans
Intending to bring all the barbarians to heel.
They were, I think, in the neighbourhood of Euboean Artimesion,
When Megistias forbade all from going to fight,
“For as many of you go to fight at Artimesion
Will all die at the hands of the barbarians.”
But Leonidas heard this, and said:
“Go then, don’t attack with us,
You can be the remnant of Greece.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.700  So Leonidas went with only his three hundred
And killed many barbarians in the battle.
But in the end he too fell with the three hundred,
Overcome by the barbarians’ sheer numbers.
Megistias the renowned, too, was killed with them
When they saw that they were doomed to die.
For at the war council earlier,
When someone asked where they were going,
Leonidas spoke of going to battle,
But in fact intended to die for all Greece.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.710  (TE2.349) CONCERNING THE PROFESSION OF THE ASCLEPIADES
Asclepius, son of Apollo, is a doctor by profession,
Who learned medicine from Chiron the centaur.
His birth name was Hepius, but received the name Asclepius,
When he cured Ascles, the ruler of Epidaurus,
Who suffered an incurable ailment in his eyes.
Others say that Asclepius is called that
Because he does not allow men to scellesthai, that is, to die.
That word comes from sceleton, which means a dead man’s skin and bones.
As the greatest of doctors, he cures the most terrible diseases,
And even made some dead men to live again,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.720  Such as the sons of Tyndareus, Hippolytus, and some others.
Now Asclepiad is the name given literally
To those who trace their descent from the same clan
(Whether they are doctors or of some other profession),
As did Hippocrates, and myriad others.
But metaphorically, doctors are also called Asclepiades, because of their similar profession,
For example Nicomachus, Aristotle’s father.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.728  (TE2.350) CONCERNING THE SENATE OF THE EYE
The ancients called “eyes” those who were
Kings’ chief men, first in the assembly,
Such as Alpistus, son of Batanochus,
Whom Aeschylus called Xerxes’ “eye”. Also Pindar
Claims that when Adrastus beheld at Thebes
Seven hosts of dead men gathered,
And their generals lying on top of each host,
Then he saw Amphiaraus, who was not with the hosts,
For the earth had taken him and his chariot both.
He said: “I mourn Amphiaraus son of Oecles,
The ‘eye’ of the army which I command.”
Since both a seer and a brave fighter was called an ‘eye’.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.740  So far-seeing men were called ‘eyes’,
As well by the Persian kings were doers of good,
Seers, doctors, and delightful men thus named.
Now drawing even greater need,
They were fond of giving nicknames, but in Persian.
For doers of good are called orosangs by the Persians.
But we, drawing inspiration both from the Persians and the ancient Greeks,
Call anyone famous for something an “eye”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.748  (TE2.351) CONCERNING NECTAR
According to mythology ambrosia is a food of the gods,
Thus named because it is “a-brotos”, not for mortals to eat,
And the m was inserted in the middle, in the Aeolic fashion.
Now the drink of the gods is called nectar,
From ne the negative particle, and kto which means “to kill”,
So “nectar” is the drink of those who cannot be killed.
This, therefore, is the original meaning of nectar,
But we use it as a metaphor for anything sweet.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.756  (TE2.352) CONCERNING THE FOX WHICH CHEATED THE CROW OF A CHEESE
There is a story by Aesop, of a crow that was eating a cheese.
The fox wanted to take the cheese away from it,
So it said: “How wise you are, crow!
You’re big and beautiful and have what it takes
To be king of all the birds,
But all you lack is one song in order to become king.”
The crow answered this flattery
By opening his beak, and leaving the cheese.
So the fox got the cheese by devious tricks,
And left the crow to brag and craw.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.766  (TE2.353) WHO ENGLOTOGASTOR, NOSOGASTOR, CHEIROGASTOR, AND CHEIRONAX ARE
Anyone who speaks a language is called englotogastor,
If he is training his stomach (gaster) to speak,
Like others teach singing or musical instruments,
Or acting or flattery, or speaking wittily,
And indeed rhetoric in legal defence and suchlike arts,
Although most say that that rhetoric is the only way to give a defence.
You now have learned and know who englotgasters are.
Now a noogastor (metaphorically) is
Someone who arranges text with reason,
Into commentaries, verses, and poems, and teaches it (the mind or nous) with them.
A cheirogastor is also called a cheironax,
Which is someone who works with his hands
And can teach this work, like any manual labourer.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.780  I count writers with this sort.
We call anyone of this kind a cheirogastor,
Who has been educated with his hands. A cheironax, on the other hand,
Is one who owns his hands and nothing else.
For the word anax has three meanings, listen to them:
A god, a king, or an owner.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.786  (TE2.354) CONCERNING THE SILVER MUSE
All the early poets wrote for free,
The first to write for money being Simonides.
You’ll find this story told well
In the two hundred twenty-eighth story of the current list.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.790  (TE2.355) CONCERNING PLATO’S SALE OF HIS DIALOGUES TO SICILY
Plato sold his dialogues,
That is, the written versions, which he made himself,
In which were questions and answers,
To Dion and Dionysius,
As well as other interested parties from Sicily.
Nobody received them as a free gift,
Not even Dion, who was his benefactor.
Dion also bought a book by Philolaus the Pythagorean
From a group of impoverished widows.
For the Pythagoreans swore to give out books for free.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.800  So that no one should have to buy Pythagorean books.
But Dion appreciated Plato so much
He bought him the book from those women
For a hundred minas, not light on the scales.
This pleased Plato very much, since he wanted that book,
And inspired by them he wrote the Timaeus and his other works.
Dion bought some mimes as well, Sophron’s book.
Sophron was a wise man of Syracuse.
This too he gave to Plato who wanted them.
Inspired by these mimes, he wrote his philosophy in the form of dialogues,
As Timon in the Silloi seems to be describing.
So therefore, the very wise Plato received some favours from Dion
And did not give him his wise words for free.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.813  (TE2.356) CONCERNING PLATO’S COOKING PRACTICE
Plato the philosopher was wont to sit on the left
While eating off Sicilian tables,
According to his writings on cooking.
Sarabus, I believe, and Thearion,
And some others, were those from whom Plato
Learned and later perfected the art of cooking.
For there was nothing in which that wise man was inexperienced,
Including serving at the tables of rich and powerful men.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.822  (TE2.357) CONCERNING PLATO’S FLATTERY OF RULERS
That Plato used to flatter rich and powerful men
We have already noted. For when he came to Sicily
He sailed to visit Dion and Dionysius.
He lived with them, as one of their hired workers,
And occasionally said pleasing things to them
More than a free philosopher needs to.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.828  (TE2.358) CONCERNING PHILISTUS THE HISTORIAN AND PHILOXENUS, THE CYTHERIAN DITHYRAMBIC POET, BY WHOM PLATO WAS SURPASSEd
Philistus was a history writer,
Held in high esteem under Dionysius,
Since he was supposed to have lain with Dionysius’ mother.
He was also lame, and when the people rebelled
He was killed and dragged from the children,
Dragged by his lame foot in the middle of the city streets.
I think Timaeus the Sicilian wrote about this,
The son of Andromachus, nursing terrible envy,
As one Sicilian to another, as an inglorious man to a glorious one.
But this talk of Philistus is for later.
During his lifetime, he was highly honoured by Dionysius.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.839  Philoxenus then, the writer of dithyrambs,
Was a Cytheran by birth, free by nature.
Him too Dionysius loved much.
Once, Dionysius gave him a tragedy, a personal one,
Which he had written himself. It was earmarked for a great
Performance in Athens. Dionysius said to him: “Philoxenus,
Look at this tragedy, and if you find bad lines, cross them out.”
Philoxenus went over the play from start to finish,
And crossed it all out.
Dionysius sent him away to the quarries,
But immediately recalled him with a letter.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.850  Philoxenus wrote back in such a manner,
Writing repetitively around the issues,
Writing the same thing ten times and more,
Which was: “No worries, I don’t care”, and so on.
Now when he had just been brought back to Dionysius,
He heard Dionysius say something again.
Philoxenus refused to flatter Dionysius,
And said: “Take me back to the quarry!
Neither I nor Tzetzes practice flattery. ”
Then Plato and everyone came in a boat.
Plato was defeated both by Philistus and this Philoxenus,
Bringing Dionysius much for a second time.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.862  (TE2.359) HOW PLATO, CAUGHT SPEAKING OUT AGAINST A RULER, WAS GIVEN TO DION BUT SOLD TO POLIS
The philosophers say that Plato was sold by Dionysius
And given to Polis.
Some say that Dionysius asked Plato:
“Which type of bronze is the best, Plato?”
Plato answered: “Dionysius, the best of all bronze
Are the steles fashioned for Aristogeiton and Harmodius.”
This is the one silly falsehood that philosophers have.
Others say that he was defeated by Plato’s writings,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.870  And for this reason he was sold as a slave by Polis.
But this is the foolishness of truth-hating people.
For Plato was sold by a ship captain named Polis,
To whom he was either sold or given as a gift by Dionysius,
Because he was detected conspiring with Dion to gain the tyranny.
Now Dion was Dionysius’ anepsios (nephew/cousin),
And his wife’s brother. By anepsios,
He seems to mean cousins, which you do not commonly write.
Thus Plato was sold for his pursuit of tyranny.
However, if the ruler then had been new to power,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.880  Plato would never have been sold.
Instead, I believe, he would have been murdered ten thousand times over,
Since that is the custom of new rulers in Sicily.
Whether his punishment was to serve in Persian and Artaean galleys,
Or to suffer some more cruel fate,
He certainly came to know the seriousness of pursuing tyranny.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.886  (TE2.360) HOW THE AEGINETANS, IN THE LAESTRYGONIAN MANNER TOWARD INTERLOPERS IN THE HARBOR, ALMOST STONED PLATO BECAUSE OF THEIR HATRED FOR THE ATHENIANS
In the Odyssey, Homer says that Odysseus,
After six of his friends were devoured by the Cyclops:
Antiphus, Euryleon, Apheidas, Menetus,
As well as Cepheus and Stratius, with his six remaining friends,
Whose names were Amphidamas, Amphialus, Lykaon,
Antilochus and Alcimus, together with Eurylochus,
Blinded the Cyclops when he was drunk and asleep,
Then took many of his sheep and sailed away.
Then they came to the Laestrygonians, and beached their ships
On the shore, because the inhabitants were cannibals.
Odysseus then left his leading ship
Off the shore, while the other eleven
He beached on the shore.
He sent three men to spy out the country,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.900  Who its inhabitants were and what were their customs.
So the three men went, and chanced upon a girl carrying water.
She was the daughter of Antiphatus, ruler of the Laestrygonians.
She told them all about the country, and its ruler.
They followed her, and saw her mother,
Who was as tall as a mountain top, a sight which terrified them.
She was calling for Antiphatus to come from the agora.
Then the Laestrygonians, who are not like humans,
But rather giants, chased Odysseus’ men.
They fled as fast as they could back to their ships.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.910  The Laestrygonians threw olive-press stones that could crush a man at them.
Immediately a terrible din arose among the ships,
“Of men being annihilated and ships breaking.”
The Laestrygans’ attack was so fierce,
That they killed everyone on the eleven vessels.
While the massacre was going on on the shore,
Even though they saw that the Laestrygans murder to eat,
Odysseus cut his vessel’s cables,
And was saved by fleeing out to sea.
But the storied devouring of the Cyclops was actually human work,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.920  That is murder and slaying which they practised.
For the Sicilians were, in the far past, called Cyclopes,
When they were ignorant of sea-going vessels,
And would kill out of fear those strangers who arrived in their territory by ship,
Lest the strangers take over their country.
Therefore when Odysseus arrived in his ships,
They threatened him and killed them and his companions.
This is the devouring spoken of by the writers of stories.
Now this is how the Cyclops was blinded with a fire-brand:
The Sicilians intended to kill Odysseus by hemming him in.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.930  Odysseus gave the Cyclops money and got him drunk,
Which was an empty trick to kill them.
So he actually got them “drunk” on money,
And when it’s said that he and his friends blinded the Cyclops with a fire-brand and fled the island,
The fire meant is that of desire for Elpe, his daughter,
Who had attractive eyes. So they stole her
(since one of Odysseus’s men desired her)
And fled all, but not before she had woken the guards.
So it became clear to all in the area,
That Elpe, the Cyclops’ daughter, had been stolen.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.940  So when the Cyclopes attacked their neighbours the Laestrygonians,
The Laestrygonians, as I said, killed all of them,
Except for the one vessel, of which I spoke, Odysseus’.
They took away Elpe the Cyclops’ daughter,
And gave her back to him. This is what happened,
Even though Homer does not reveal this part of the story.
Now later, in the manner of Laestrygonians,
The Aeginetans ran down to the harbbors through hatred of the Athenians;
They almost stoned Plato to death.
For the Aeginetans were friends of the Megarians,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.950  Whom Pericles had shut out completely,
From all markets and ports in Athens.
This decree was written on a board and put up in the middle of the agora.
On it Pericles wrote the reason for the ban:
The Megarians had cut down the god’s Orgas,
(the orgas was a holy garden that was not to be touched).
This was the reason Pericles gave the Megarians.
I, Tzetzes, tell you, but you should investigate yourself:
Pericles lied, but now he unwillingly tells the truth:
Aspasia, who was a Megarian courtesan,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.960  Pericles had as his lawful wife.
Once, when she was walking around the suburbs,
With honour and a procession and many servants,
The Megarians knew, as before, that she was a goddess’ Orgas,
Of Aphrodite, that is, not of Athena,
So they laughingly recounted what she used to be.
If they had cut the Orgas, Pericles would have known,
And because of this, Pericles wrote that decree,
Because of which Plato almost died in Aegina.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.979  (TE2.361) HOW PLATO MEASURED THE SICILIAN CHARYBDIS THREE TIMES
Scylla and Charybdis are in Sicily.
But Scylla is made of promontories,
Terrible and awful with its reefs and rocks,
And sea creatures growing up everyone without measure.
Charybdis, on the other hand, is a terrible flowing stream,
Flowing and bubbling like a cauldron.
The Senon and Hadrian rivers are responsible
For this terrible flow, when they flow into the Ionian sea.
Other say that there are three seas, of which I will speak,
That make Charybdis so terrible, augmenting the flow:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.980  From the west comes the narrow Tyrrhenian,
And from the south the Sicilian, together with that of Crete.
The Cretan sea is the eastern part.
Then from the north the Hadrian river,
Which flows into the sea called Ionian,
Named for Ionos the Illyrian,
Who ruled that place and its inhabitants.
It is not, as some claim, named for Io daughter of Inachus.
For the Tyrrhenian is named for its narrowness,
Pushed by the wind from the others seas,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.990  With no rest, it whirls terribly,
Murmuring terribly like a fire-heated cauldron.
The wise Plato sailed it three times,
For he was thrice expelled from Sicily,
Due to the enmity he had earned with Dion and Dionysius.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 10.995  (TE2.362) HOW PLATO, SOLD BY POLIS TO THE PYTHAGOREAN ARCHYTAS THE TARENTINE, MADE USE OF HIS PYTHAGOREAN MASTER AND TEACHER
Archytas bought Plato the philosopher
From the sea-captain Polis, who was a Spartiate.
Archytas, too, was a philosopher, but of the Pythagorean school.
He taught his newly-acquired slave Pythagorean philosophy. For Plato had
In his possession, Philolaus the Pythagorean’s book,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.1  As well as the mime of Sophron the Syracusan,
Which he had bought previously from Dion.
Philolaus’ book cost him a hundred minas,
But I don’t know how much Sophron’s did, since I wasn’t there.
And Plato stole everything concerning the soul,
And myriad other things, from Philolaus,
And wrote the Timaeus and other dialogues,
While the dialogue format was miming Sophron’s mimes.
For Sophron’s writings are repetitive:
Consisting all of questions and answers in turn.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.11  CHILIADES BOOK 11, TRANSLATED BY MUHAMMAD SYARIF FADHLURRAHMAN
THE PROVERB WE MENTIONED BEFORE, “AT THIS SINGLE ANCHOR WE RIDE” (TE2.363)
The vessels in the seas and very much in the winter
Supported by many anchors and irons,
And just strong enough to flee the waves of winter
Yet just like a ship is moored on one anchor,
Brings much difficulty to be saved in the winter,
Having confidence on this single anchor of hope
And to be the anchor of hope does it mean for me
The one bigger than other anchors, the one for dire straits?
It is the last one to be deployed for the ship’s salvation.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.20  (TE2.364) “WE TAKE NOT GIFTS FROM ANYONE. FOR WE FEAR OF WRONGDOINGS AS GREAT AS THOSE WHOM NATURE HAS CORRUPTED AND STRIPPED OFF THEIR TRUE CONFORMATIONS”
Tzetzes is a taker of no gifts, by emulation of the ancients,
Of Epaminondas, of Cato, and of others of their kind,
Whether from rulers, common fellows, middle classes or lower,
Not wanting to take gifts, from givers of any amount whatsoever,
And thus in the greatest hunger, of the first among holders of glory
Of the one willing to bring allowance therefrom to slaves
To say of him as such to him; you would’ve found carers of the elderly,
And Tzetzes is not fit to live as one who tends the elderly.
For he feared his deeds are harmful like how nature mangled them,
Making them lame and blind, crooked and maimed,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.30  For he feared gifts looking like provision of necessities.
And yet by way of his own interpretation he does not take gold
But only food and drink, summer’s crops and the like.
And his own writings they wish to rewrite
And only just by a few bits and by some scrutiny
With enough gold he yielded to alter his works
As did Plato, his predecessor, to his dialogues.
But Plato indeed made his dialogues for sale
A flatterer and a butcher he is, and forces everything together
To him necessities be given, his books to purchase

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.40  For hundreds of mina and many more; like that of Philolaus
Dion did purchase from the latter and that of Sophron too.
Tzetzes indeed unwillingly accepted the gifts
For him prepared by Augusta. He felt that it’s burdensome.
He rejoiced toiling and writing, if only he got rewards,
From her singular venerable rulership. And one without salary
He, of all mankind, rejoices in receiving gifts.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.48  (TE2.365) HISTORICAL DICTION, WHAT AND WHENCE IS HOLIDAY
To me, holiday means relaxation and lack of work,
Of holding, retaining, and stopping by the hand
In movement of labour. Any day that holds this cessation
Is “choliday”, indeed holiday.
According to Aeolians and Ionians of the chi converted
Into writing the unaspirated kappa. For they are of the non-aspiraters
While seldom do the Attics read the aspirates unaspiratedly,
As like this and also others. And altogether are few,
As like hostel, but also any that are of good rhythm too.
For they more often change the non-aspirates into aspirates.
“Hequally”, not equally. And “shmooth” not smooth.
Thus they read with rough breathing, not with smooth harmony.
And they aspirate everything. So what have we discussed so far?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.60  Smooth are those possessing fleshless rumps.
Thus they pronounce all unaspirated like Attics do, as it seems,
Both hostel and holiday too
And those very few others also of good rhythm
According to Aeolians and Ionians, they read unaspirated.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.65  (TE2.366) CONCERNING THE BURN DOWN IN CROTON, PYTHAGORAS TOOK FLIGHT TO METAPONTUM, FAST OF FORTY DAYS IN EXILE, DIED IN THE TEMPLE OF THE MUSES
Pythagoras, the wise man of Samos was from the stock
Of Pythais of Samos indeed, seasonable beyond nature,
And son of Mnesarchus. Mnesarchus was
a follower of the art of ring carving.
This Pythagoras was indeed ripe for the goddess.

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§ 11.70  A contemporary also of King Polycrates of Samos,
Of The Pharaoh of Egypt, Ahmose by name,
And of the King of the Persians, Cyrus The Great,
Who fought and defeated Croesus, and destroyed Sardis.
Of their contemporaries was this Pythagoras born,
With Thales did he came down to Pherecydes of Syros,
Also the first of all who could be called “philosophers”.
And afraid of instructing Polycrates in Samos,
By what malicious blame was he charged, I keep it a secret,
Departing to Italy, thereto he came to teach.

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§ 11.80  Then, being hated by them, was set ablaze with firewood,
Indeed, in the city of Croton was the house of Milo,
Of Milo the wrestler, he of a household name.
With many of his students he was set ablaze together.
That is why some say that he was burned.
Some others say he was carried away from the blaze,
The hastier students took him away,
Lo, he let them spread to cast themselves as bridges over fire,
And across them for him escaping the fire.
Did he escape the fire in that manner as they claim? Maybe,

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§ 11.90  And fleeing to Metapontum, in the temple of the Muses,
And being hidden there, unable to eat bread,
After forty whole days, he passed away in hunger,
Having lived one hundred years, minus one year only.

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§ 11.94  (TE2.367) REGARDING PASICRATES (OR STASICRATES), THE BITHYNIAN SCULPTOR, WHO MADE THE EXCELLENT STATUE OF ALEXANDER
Stasicrates, the bronze worker, was a Bithynian by birth.
And you have the history on the present tablet,
The one hundred and ninety nine.

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§ 11.97  (TE2.368) THAT ALEXANDER THE GREAT HAD TWISTED NECK AND EYES OF DIFFERENT COLOURS
The great king Alexander Son of Philip,
Is reputed by all to have one eye blue
And the other one dark. In his very eyes.
He had a concave neck, it was also one-sided.
So as to contemplate the sky, to set his gaze upon it.
And Lysippos did depict him as that in bronze.
And Alexander took pleasure in his depiction,
In the false figure by Stasicrates, demented ones.
Because Alexander was in such form,
And the inscription shows, what it is,
“The bronze statue resembled the one saying, while gazing upon Zeus,
I lay the earth under me, Oh Zeus, you who have Olympus in possession.”

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§ 11.109  (TE2.369) HISTORY, WHICH SAID, WHETHER INVENTIONS OF ARGUMENTS ARE INDEED ORATORICAL INSTRUCTION
The book the rhetorical one, save those of the lecturing
Rhetors (advocating indeed sixty books)
Is a Pentabiblos indeed, it is divided in five
Into the pre-exercise, the issues, the inventions and,
Into the styles which itself is the fourth booklet
Into the one about method also, the fifth.
And indeed the pre-exercises according to Hermogenes
By number into twelve in quantity succeeds,
Refutation, confirmation, in one instruction,
Constructs both encomium and invective alike.
Hermogenes taught so. As Aphthonius did later,

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§ 11.120  Made the twelve into fourteen,
Refutation on its own, and confirmation on its own;
Likewise, encomium on its own as also the invective.
And not mentioning them collectively, as Hermogenes;
Whence from twelve he created fourteen.
And needing to show me the designated names of items;
Fable and narrative, and anecdote and also maxim,
Refutation, confirmation, or the commonplace,
Encomium and invective too, and comparison along with them.
Personification, description, theses and law introduction.

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§ 11.130  The book of pre-exercises does list these.
Indeed Hermogenes instructed to produce the fable
Sweet, plain and brief and persuasive in using them
Aphthonius indeed wrote about fable not just once,
That it becomes fitting for such topics,
But also handed down his fable of the “Ant and the Cicada”,
It is not at all a fable, but a kind of epicheirema,
At least from the analogy of the cicadas and ants.
Ah, the commentators say about this,
It is plain nonsense of non-rhetorical men.

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§ 11.140  You heard about the fable, how does this need writing?
Although Aphthonius allowed it according to both.
But six of these accompany the narrative;
Person, deed, time, place, manner and cause,
These are four virtues of narratives:
Clear, magnificent, brief and plausible.
The new among rhetors speak of Hellenism.
Not magnificence, according to rhetors past.
Although they do show exactly what I say, these styles.
Seven items in those same four are united.

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§ 11.150  Clarity, grandeur, beauty and rapidity
And with them also character, sincerity and force,
They form four virtues, those of the story.
Indeed the clear clarity, and the magnificent
Itself exhibits magnificence, rapidity does to brevity,
The character and sincerity do to the plausibility.
Lo, to have spoken of the four virtues of a story
To be produced, as I explained, using the five styles.
The beauty, this style together with force
Signify nothing else than the virtue of the story,

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§ 11.160  Clear, magnificent, brief and plausible,
And that beauty needs to have the force of the story
That is to say beautiful language, in rhetorical speech,
And with it, force indeed management,
Thus all reasonably to say, nothing is fruitless and in vain.
The anecdote and maxim in the topics eight
With these they are furnished, hear their names.
First with an encomiastic and paraphrastic,
Then with the rationale and from the opposite,
With analogy thereafter and with example,

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§ 11.170  And with testimony of the ancients, and brief epilogue.
Bring the older testimony of the ancients
Of those saying the anecdote, either indeed also the maxim,
Or indeed of the newer ones, and the much older ones.
Or if you were unable to bear a testimony of the ancients,
Consult the invoked manner according to tradition.
Indeed speaking about anecdote and about maxim with you.
Topics of refutation and of confirmation are also eight.
A charge of refutation of the person speaking,
And exhibition of the deed, the very thing you refuted.

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§ 11.180  The unclarity, the impossibility and the forcelessness, with these.
It is the anacoluthon and the impropriety in like manner,
And lastly the inexpediency. And by the opposite
of the refutation the same topics are;
Approval of the speaker and an exhibition of the deeds
Clarity, plausibility, and force together with these,
Acoluthon and propriety together with profitability.
Why do I enlarge on things already clear? Shall I waste my paper?
I must address the critical issues with an intelligible account.

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§ 11.190  The book of the sophist-rhetors, as we have said,
Is a pentabiblos, divided into five,
Into the pre-exercises, the issues, the inventions,
The styles and into the method of force along with them.
Indeed the book of pre-exercises teaches these,
Thus pre-exercises are four plus ten,
As too each of these needs to be written skilfully.
And the issues do teach thirteen issues.
First indeed the conjecture, secondly the definition,
And third the pragmatic, fourthly the counter-claim,
Counter-stance, counter-charge, transference, pardon,

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§ 11.200  Letter and spirit of the law, and also inference,
Conflict of laws, and then the legal ambiguity.
And the counter-plea along with them forms thirteen.
And then the topics of each is reckoned.
And you have the qualities of the booklet of issues.
Now learn of the booklet about inventions.
Indeed the booklet is portioned into four sections;
And indeed the first teaches thoroughly on introductions,
It set down the four kinds of introductions;
The one from the supposition of persons and deeds,

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§ 11.210  From supposition and from superfluity,
Out of season, the fourth. These are of the first portion.
The second portion of the booklet teaches,
Not to describe straight after the introduction,
(It deems and says that such a thing is unskilful)
And to employ a preparation, and with preliminary narration,
Then, they say, to proceed towards narration.

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§ 11.217  Tzetzes the unrhetoricked, the ignorant, in the eyes of the August
Eparch of the Kamateros line
Who proclaimed as rhetor in the palaces
With the blessings of the ethereal Daedalus
A gap-shoed cobbler, a wooden skewer,
A buffalo, ballocks-priest, clodpole, brothel-frequenter,
That pickle-jar, flaxen charcoal-basket, hermetic shape,
That twilight idol of a night demon.
Does not heaven groan and the wide earth itself?
Did tongues of ethereal fire not blaze up?
Did not the sea rise and sweep the earth with its swell?
Beholding a buffalo within the royal court,
A wandering reproach to our citadel?”

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§ 11.230  This unrhetoricked Tzetzeswhen the Eparch
Proclaimed as rhetor such a buffalo,
In the part about invention in the second volume
In the very words of Hermogenes , he teaches
Not to go to the narration directly after the introduction -
He says this is unartful, done by the unrhetoricked -
But to employ preparation, and prenarration,
And then to proceed towards narration, as he teaches.
The aforementioned Tzetzes is doubly opposed,
Saying, that the preparation and preliminary narration

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§ 11.240  Do not mean, as you say just now, “what has been done before”
But they say summarily what is about to be said,
You must surely speak of a kind of pre-confirmation.
But not, he says, it is ever appropriate nor skilful,
As you say, as did Hermogenes, to employ a preparation.
In some places indeed it is skilful to employ introductions,
With one, two, three or four, or many more;
Then again, somewhere else, not to employ even one;
And elsewhere yet it is natural for thee to be skilful, he says,
Not only indeed to employ, as you say, preliminary narration,
But also not to lay down narration all together;
As elsewhere it is fitting not to employ assemblies,
In others, again, it is fitting not to say an epilogue.

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§ 11.253  But the ignorant one already confused you for the Eparch,
The auditor of the ancients, whose book is in iambs,
Of reasonings, grammarians, rhetors, philosophers,
Metrical, historical, mechanical and others.
But just as another Achilles having wounded Telephus
He himself will cure thy confusions clear.

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§ 11.259   Pentabiblos, as we said, the bible of the rhetors,
And the first book teaches pre-exercises,
And teaches the part on issues, that we said before.
The part about inventions has four sections;
The first teaches introductions.
There are four kinds of introductions,
The one from the supposition of persons and deeds,
The one from the supposition and from superfluity,
Out of season, the fourth. These are of the first portion.
And yet the introduction, not as far as it needs elaborating.
The second portion of the booklet teaches,

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§ 11.270  Not to describe straight after the introduction,
It deems and says that such a thing is unskilful;
And to employ a preparation and with preliminary narration,
Then, they say, to proceed towards narration.
We came to trial examining them in breadth.
And it says a need to amplify the narration with its manners.
And it teaches thee the three manners of narrations,
Simple, confirmatory and elaborate,
As well as where to properly employ each of the three.
These are what the second section thereof teaches you.

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§ 11.280  The third section thereof is about inventions.
It teaches you introductions and dissolutions of topics,
Since your topics do need to be appositely introduced,
Unique, beautiful is the deed that you wish to achieve.
Even if you were to aptly introduce, it needs to be done as this:
First with epicheirema, and then with ergasia,
And thirdly, with enthymeme. And this is conclusion.
And with its epenthymeme, sometimes also with the plaston.
Indeed, it teaches to introduce your topics in such a manner.
Then again, to dissolve the topics of your opponent in suit,

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§ 11.290  First, I lay it down for you with these very same four,
With protasis and hypophora, with antiprotasis and dissolution.
Beside these four, he also said to employ a thesis,
Its arsis, not the thesis, says this stupid one to you;
Indeed, this is not a necessity, nor be elegant through anything.
And with the epicheirema, then with the ergasia,
Then with the enthymeme, this section concludes them.
And if you will, with enthymeme and plaston,
The third section of inventions, does he teach to you.
The fourth section thereof is about inventions,

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§ 11.300  It teaches fourteen schemes of the assemblies,
Tzetzes himself says it be according to hypothesis,
The very one mistakenly naming antitheton.
In it, he explains about method of shrewdness,
Talking about antitheton on one hand, as he mistook it here.
And Tzetzes is inclined to be such, proves to the wise ones.
But on the other hand, learn the fourteen schemes thereof.
Antitheton, period, pneuma and the acme too,
Tasis, dilemmaton, parechesis and cycle,
The epiphonema, the trope and solemnity of speech,

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§ 11.310  And then bad taste and covert allusion,
And he brings forward the final comparison of problems.
Now you have all four sections of inventions.
The book of styles is divided into two.
And the first, he says to you, seven styles in the following manner,
Clarity, grandeur, beauty and rapidity
And with the above: character, sincerity and force too,
He teaches that naturally there are three principal ones thereof
Clarity and grandeur along with character,
Saying to you that out of the rest of the styles, they are together;

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§ 11.320  That there are the remaining four thereof
The beauty, the rapidity, and the sincerity,
And the force itself, he says to you, is with the other three.
Thus the aforementioned, he says, they are the seven,
Then the forgetful one to say those seven things,
He gives in such a way six;
Styles of poetic clarity, indeed he says,
It is the lucidity along with the limpidity.
Again, there are six of grandeur, these are their names:
Solemnity and amplification, ruggedness and brilliance,

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§ 11.330  Along with them, the fifth is strength, the sixth is vehemence.
The poetic of character are four, these are their names:
Reasonability, simplicity, sincerity, gravity.
And yet the gravity can not unite by itself.
From the reasonability, it and simplicity
You should now see the truth, how it forms in the character,
And the seven thereof he said before, how they’re six now off one.
And then eight elements of styles of each,
Of the specifics, not of the principal, learn thou these, says he.
Thought, approach, diction, schemes, and also clauses,

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§ 11.340  Word order and cadence, and with them the rhythm too.
And in the first section of the styles he indeed teaches,
From the seven-six styles, around three and one,
About the clarity, magnificence and about the beauty.
In the second section too he says the four-three,
Vehemence, character, sincerity, and force with them.
The four styles of character he taught you.
He said, the first of them is sincerity.
In the second section he teaches about them.
And how a judicial oration should be,
And what sort is a panegyric, and which sort to advise.
And then he teaches types of sophisticated orations, he teaches,
And he finishes the book of styles for the rest.

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§ 11.350  In the booklet regarding method of force,
Writing not one worthy thing of method of force
Teaching five and thirty ways alone,
And other than them obscurely, as the first has,
Others falsely, unskilfully too, did Tzetzes teach.
Again elsewhere other rhetors, philosophers,
And pursuing the art of logic in whole superficially.

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§ 11.360  Certainly the whole book has been written by Tzetzes, he of logisms,
The unlearned one heralds to the august eparch.
Who is really the father, the most clever of the most clever ones,
Teaching all these, Hermogenes ceased writing,
And concluded the art of the rhetors,
In the booklet regarding method of force to you in it.

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§ 11.366  (TE2.370) CONCERNING THE ATTIC RIVER ILISSUS AND THE HONEY OF HYMETTUS
The Ilissos, as we said before, is a river,
Flowing in the area of Athens. Hymettus is a mountain,
On which there is honey, best of all honeys.
A characteristic of this Hymettian honey,
Is that flies do not touch upon it, nor settle thereon.
It is thought thyme is the cause for this.
Hymettus produces herbs, by the name of thyme,
From which the honey is produced by the local bees,
Wherefore flies flee, due to the pungency of thyme.

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§ 11.375  (TE2.371) CONCERNING THE GIFTS WHICH ANTHONY GAVE TO CLEOPATRA
You have this history most beauteously in its entirety,
Written by me in number two hundred fifty three.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.377  (TE2.372) CONCERNING THAT BY SWIFT ARES AND ATHENA, AND OURS THAT WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF BY FAIR MAIDENS
Two histories indeed, being written as if one,
And others elsewhere, being said thereof by me.
In the Iliad by Homer Aphrodite is told,
Wounded in the arm by Diomedes using a spear,
And telling Zeus of her wound in the battle.
And Zeus told her, keep away from those in battle,
“This is taken care of by the swift Ares and Athena.”
You already have one finished story.
Hear now this other one, by the one speaking to you.
The western Galatians, not the eastern ones,
Of Brennus their sovereign at the time,
Many myriads crossed over the Rhenus,
They ran over plundering all near Greece.

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§ 11.390  Now they made camp near the Delphic land,
Intending to plunder the temple of Apollo,
To the oracles of Delphi for fear of them
A prophetic response came down in iambic metre.
“This matter of ours will be taken care of, and by fair maidens.”
She mentioned fair maidens: Athena and Artemis.
Then from approved places and hard to reach places
Only the holy people were set against all at once
Killing many away from them, and many with the wounded ones
And they terribly wounded Brennus along with them.

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§ 11.400  The precise number of those wounded, I do not know
It was by as many as four hundred thousand,
Or really forty thousand alike.
Then Brennus saying that they butchered all at once
And along with the others him not to interfere with them,
Then he persuaded them to go onwards.
Going into Byzantium, and thence passed through
(Whence and where the location of Byzantium is said to be
From their ferrying across) the Galatians
by Cappadocia and again by the Halys River.

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§ 11.410  The one beyond them to the east is called Galatia,
Of those settling, they are there divided in three
Indeed as the oracle says, ours by fair maidens.
I myself saying, as I wrote this, fair maidens
As my thoughts, I skilfully craft the words thus.

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§ 11.415  (TE2.373) CONCERNING NECTAR AND THAT “I AM NO GOD TO YOU”
Two histories indeed they are,
Written as one, and others elsewhere,
How with equivalence the double-tripled.
And indeed the first about nectar is told to me.
The myths speak of ambrosia, food of the gods,
And nectar is their drink, these are made.
Wanting to show the gods unlike the mortals,
Not to get something perishable. They made as I said.
Food unlike that of mortals, like the ambrosia.
And nectar a drink, imperishable. For to slay is indeed kill.
Thus is the story regarding nectar.
Hear now the story of “who is no god to you”.
Homer presented Odysseus in Odyssey
Rag-wearing, poor, like a wandering beggar,
To come to Eumaeus into his hands.

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§ 11.430  And then he laid upon Telemachus out of Sparta
To come to Eumaeus into their hands.
And there to look down upon his father, Odysseus.
Old and poor and wearing rags too,
And to not know who he is and whether of the same land.
And then to Penelope his mother
Telemachus sent off Eumaeus to come,
Odysseus wanting to make himself known by Telemachus,
The rags took off a bit going out and away
And he put away his fabricated old age.

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§ 11.440  By Athena’s plaits, his rejuvenation!
Suddenly Telemachus seeing him changed
Astounded he first diverted his eyes,
Nay, what god has come down, that is, wise and magical.
And he shouted loud and clear thus speaking to him,
“Different to me, you seem younger than before.
Since, before you seemed old, poor and with worn-out clothes.
Now, from the gods, who reside in Olympus, that is from the stars.
Nay, a god, where you came, that is, wise and magical.”
Odysseus said to Telemachus refuting these:
“Not any god to you am I, whom, nay, you compared to the immortals.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.451  (TE2.374) CONCERNING THAT WE DO NOT HAVE A TWELVE-SPOUTED MOUTH, AS CRATINUS SAID
At Athens there was a nine-spouted fountain, Callirhoe;
The comedian Cratinus speaks of it:
“Lord Apollo of the flowing verses;
The springs plash; twelve-spouted mouth;
Ilissus in the throat; what would I say?”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.456  (TE2.375) CONCERNING LOGICAL OYSTERS AND PEARLS
In the Indian sea, in the island of Perimoude,
And the island of Elyra too, and other islands besides,
And in the clear and also shallow sea
The word is that oysters grow, that produce pearls.
They tell two stories on pearl-bearing:
Some say they are begotten from lightning,
Others, that they are hand-made.
And myself, the first time I hear pearls of lightning.
Some say, these oysters are the ones of pearls,
Opening its folds, staying open.
Lightning having struck the middle of those folds,
(The sea, I said, is shallow)
The pearl closing itself up at once down these oysters
And they say there is a king of those oysters,

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§ 11.470  And it produces the biggest and most beautiful pearl.
And the rest in order. So much for these ones.
Now learn about the crafted ones, the hand-made ones.
Holding an iron mold for rounding pearls
And a skewer, whoever hunts pearls,
Enters and places very near the oyster
The iron mold, and with the skewer pricks
The oyster, and a substance like ichor flow out of it.
And it, poured and moulded, hardens in the shape pearl
This is what is said by those who have written regarding pearls.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.480  I myself do not defend the physics explanation of lightning,
And again, I think the ones from ichor are very close to myth
I say that the sea over there is very clean
And makes the pebbles there silver-colored.
And the scalesof the pearl oysters
Are silver in colour, as is the colour of the pearls.
Any pebbles that fall inside the oysters,
Become more transparent by polishing from the shell
And take on lustre, and are called pearls.
And the best of all pearls are from India.

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§ 11.490  Extremely white and shining, and spherical.
Among the Britons and in other places
Sometimes yellowish, sometimes orangey, sometimes badly rounded.
And I know artificial pearls from pearl oysters.
Breaking up and dissolving small pearls by art
They cause other bigger ones to grow round. Enough about pearls.
Books, now, are what I now name as oysters of discourse.
At any rate, I think there are pearls in them, meaning their logos.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.498  (TE2.376) THE PROVERB THAT SAYS, WHAT SORT OF STONE THE ROCKS CREVICES OF WINTER TORRENTS AND SPRINGS THEREOF ARE KNOWN TO BRING FORTH
The Euphrates and Tigris and Indus and Sousos
The former being rivers of the Chaldeans, the others of India,
And other rivers of the different places,
And especially the rain-fed torrents and those flowing in winter,
In the crevices of the rocks which lie by them,
Produce translucent stones, precious ones,
Lychnites, amethysts, sapphires, hyacinths,
And every other kind of precious stones.
Thus, these stones sprout from river-rocks.
Other stones happen in the deepest gorge,
Very deep in depth, but also unreachable.
And extraordinary ones of precious stones lie in there.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.510  Since it is impossible to descend there,
Newly slaughtered, newly flayed living flesh nearby
There they throw down into the chasm of the stones.
Some stones are stuck together with flesh by the present heat.
The eagles at these places looking down upon the carcasses,
Spreading over them, carrying those up.
The stones drop down the rest of the carcasses,
At the top of the rocks and in the places there.
Those rock huntings finally watching the eagles
They bring the most beautiful hunt, there assembled.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.520  (TE2.377) CONCERNING ENCYCLICAL EDUCATION
Encyclical learning, the lyrics properly speaking,
And also properly the very first bearing this name
From the circle, the choir the lyric standing,
Being of fifty men, singing the melody.
Encyclical learning, the lyrics to be properly speaking,
Secondly, the encyclical learning is called
The cycle, the conclusion of all learning,
Grammar, rhetoric, philosophy itself,
And of the four arts under it laid,
Arithmetic, music and geometry

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§ 11.530  And traversing heaven of this astronomy.
General education, secondly, are all these.
As Porphyry wrote in the lives of philosophers,
And countless other men of those eloquent.
And now general grammatical education
I said, by excessive use, not in a word powerful.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.536  (TE2.378) PROVERB, WHICH SAYS, “AND WHETHER INDEED MY EYES WERE RUNNING PUMPKINS” ACCORDING TO THE COMEDIAN
They say the proverb, your eyes are running in pumpkins
And the visible for them is altogether unperceived.
Far from the blind ones with the biggest sore eyes
The proverb is said as a hyperbole.
Perhaps what is mucus is the same as pumpkins?
Aristophanes mentioned this in The Clouds;
Brings the speaking Socrates to Sidesteps,
Look to the image of ladies going to the clouds
He says to Socrates that they see not the first ones.
Then he says, indeed only just, nevertheless he sees them
And then nearer than the same phenomena
Again Socrates says to him, Strepsiades,
Unless bleary-eyed with pumpkins, already to me you behold them.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.549  (TE2.379) PROVERB, WHICH SAYS, THE TWISTS OF RAFT-BUILDING LABYRINTHS
The Athenian, Daedalus, for Minos in Crete
The arrangement, a fort much-convoluted, spiralling
And hard to get out of, he did build, a labyrinth by name.
In which is the Minotaur, the bull-man beast.
Many also confined within, they were disposed thither
Subjected to the Minotaur indeed, as it pleases him.
And to Euripides to him in the drama Theseus.
According to some others with hard to unravel turns.
And as Theseus with six other lads of the same age
And with seven maidens did send off to Crete
(Due to famine and plague arising in Athens,

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§ 11.560  Against the same that Androgeus Minos’ soldier
The Athenians slew in those place there,
Every year six of Athenians were sent to Crete
Seven maidens and seven lads with them
Thus they were to be eaten by the beast, suffering to cease)
And as Theseus was sent there with lads and maidens,
Ariadne, being Minos’ daughter,
Bearing Theseus’ love gives him a thread.
Theseus having tied his thread at the opening of the prison
Holding fast the other part with his own hands,

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§ 11.570  Going into the Labyrinth, he slays the Minotaur,
He runs out the gathering by the thread with the youths.
Such was the Labyrinth on Crete,
A much-convoluted fort, nautilus-like.
And I very elegantly, with the skill of orators,
Called the inventions of the schedographers “labyrinths”.

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§ 11.576  (TE2.380) CONCERNING “WRYNECKS” OF WORDS
Wryneck, the bird, the little grebe, moves its tail,
And we call it by the name little tail-wiggler,
It is a helper in love. It is much of use.
And since specifically its feathers by the tail
Give the greatest benefit, specifically bone,
Is inserted by the chest, the position lambdoid,
On the charioteers’ spur, the same by their heel.
And the neck of the animal gives benefits to all.
And the entire animal is entirely for love,
Stretched out by the feathers upon some wheel
And turned with and upon it in the name of love.
Exactly they knew this to be wryneck.
Others say the weapon, just as Lycophron does.
Some say harmonious harp, others say anything charming.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.590  Whence they say all, as Tzetzes teaches you,
Among the birds, the wryneck, they say, but I said not.
For it exerts magic as for love and stern-heartedness.

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§ 11.593  (TE2.381) CONCERNING GEOMETRY AND OPTICS
Geometry is useful for building machines,
For dragging, lifting weights
Launching stone-throwers and other siege machines,
And for setting fires with mirrors
And other engineering for saving cities.
Effective for bridges and harbour construction,
And for machines, which cause marveling in life,
As bronze, wood, iron and others
Drinking, moving, speaking, and other things,
And the measuring of nautical distances by machines,
And the earth by odometers and myriad other
Works of geometry begot the most ingenious of crafts.
Five forces are there, by which all things happen.
The wedge and the pulley, the lever and screw,
And with them the axle with wheel.
What need for me to describe heavy-draft tortoises,
Mining tortoises and weapon-bearing tortoises

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§ 11.610  And the light mantlets, called tortoises,
And every other machine of siege-warfare.
And the weight-hoisters, one-limbed stands,
Two-limbed and three-limbed too, and also four-limbed,
Launching machines like the stone-throwers,
And all catapults of missiles and crossbows,
And the rams battering the walls of the cities,
Ladders and cranes and siege towers on wheels,
And every other machine, what need to describe them?
And how to bridge the sea and how to bridge rivers,

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§ 11.620  And how the caissons and what their positioning
Necessary for the construction of harbours,
And the dredging and harbour breakwaters?
Geometry is the mother of all these and other things.
And optics completes geometry
With many and varied machines and with the art of painters
And arts of statues and portrait sculpture.
For there’s need to comprehend heights, lengths, weights,
To make instruments suitable to the height,
To the length and the weight likewise proportionately,

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§ 11.630  Both the shapes of paintings and of statues alike.
The proportionate height needs other tools,
And likewise the length and somewhat proportionate weight,
Longer for some, shorter for others,
Similarly in painting and sculpture.
For things positioned very near the ground
Must have the shapes proportionate in all respects,
But what needs to be raised up high
Needs the shapes modeled asymmetrically.
In order to to have symmetry up high,

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§ 11.640   For the height is wont to capture the perception.
If you should make the image proportionate for those below,
Then once standing high you would see it compressed .
But if you should shape the form disproportionately for those below,
Height, again, will show the image in proportion.
Thus geometry is useful for many things,
And optics, along with it, particularly for paintings.

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§ 11.648  (TE2.382) STORY THAT SAYS, BETTER ADVICE THAN WHAT ISOCRATES COMPOSED FOR DEMONICUS
Isocrates the rhetor was indeed an Athenian by birth,
A son he was of Theodorus, the crafty flute-maker,
Of the owner of slaves who are employed to make flutes.
This rhetor wrote a book, the art of rhetoric
And with other writings, and with the composition to this
He consulted with the three forms of oratory.
For he wrote lawyer-like words, not very succinct at all.
To Euagoras he wrote, king of the Cypriots
Praises and counsels too for Nicocles
Of the late Euagoras, he wrote to his child
Demonicus is the name, many exhortations.

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§ 11.660  And indeed he wrote panegyric words and still others,
And the greatest speech during the Panathenaean festival,
Aristides did not strip off the whole mind.
Isocrates is most vile of all mankind,
As not to interpret two students together,
To say to one from them, today I shall say to this,
And again tomorrow, I shall say to you something perilous.
And for some time, I know not how long, he wrote his books.
For Lysias says about him, for ten whole years.
To scarcely finish the speech at the Panathenaean.

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§ 11.670  The rhetor Alcidamas draws this in others.
Others say jointly. And this shows,
The Athenians are bound to fight a battle with Philip,
Being aware of the battle, to tell Isocrates of such,
To seal a message of agreement to Philip.
Of them initiating both battle and war,
And of going to treaty to him, Philip.
Not yet finishing it, he wrote to the Athenians:
“I being for this and indeed the writing of this,
You should first come to Philip to have peace.”

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§ 11.680  And Lysias with many rhetors of old
After a long time, they arranged the composition thereof.
For Lysias and the others alike said
I myself do not wish to organize hastily.
And Aristides, the rhetor from Smyrna said,
“We are not of vomited words, but of precise wording”.
Thus all those rhetors wrote for some time.
And Isocrates beat them all in slowness.
As therefore to say about him people among the handsome,
We knew a bald man, but again so large,
Insofar as the brain be seen in the baldness.
He seems to everyone sensible to be of those sufficiently foul.

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§ 11.692  (TE2.383) THE UPBRINGING THAT OF CATO THE ROMAN
How Cato educated his son in everything
He teaching precisely and advising about everything,
You have the entire history precisely in breadth
Laid into the seventieth topic in the first book.

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§ 11.696  (TE2.384) CONCERNING THAT, AND THE INFERIOR PRACTISING WORD
The inferior word is the weaker.
And many times the lying and not truthful word,
Indeed another is weaker in this respect, the craftsman rhetor,
Readily accepting this worse than the words,
Wanting to show the strength of the craftsmen rhetors,
Either prevailing over the holders the stronger ones than words,
The strong ones and truthful, or the well-matched
The weak and deceitful, proven by the strong ones.
They say discoverer of this one stronger than words
Those more unreflecting to become Plato
Refuting them in the brightly translucent word
Tzetzes, indeed shows Aristophanes over Plato
Consulting the weaker word more skilfully.
And Socrates, Plato’s teacher, finishing

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§ 11.710  Surely leads to anywhere created remembrance of his words,
Many other not just a few rhetors, philosophers,
As Protagoras the most wise found the inferior word.
And more moderately refutes those beguiling ones
Saying Homer over all, but quickly without a hint,
To become a father of this inferior word,
Of countless other wise and crafty lessons.
Shows you lower with regards to the inferior word
How in many places Homer consults the Iliad.

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§ 11.719  (TE2.385) PRAISE FOR A FLY OR FLEA
Michael Psellos, who composed an encomium for a flea,
Flourished a hundred years before our time.
He does this in emulation of Lucian the Syrian.
For Lucian wrote an encomium for a fly,
As later Synesius did an encomium for baldness.
Against them Dio Chrysostom of Prusa,
Much far more ancient than Synesius,
Rhetorically composed a reproach against baldness.
And others composed encomia and reproaches of different things;
As Plato wrote a reproach against the rhetors' art,
Calling it a false semblance of the body politic.

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§ 11.730  Most say that Plato created this,
Particularly the ones inflating the art of philosophy,
Stripping naked the worse argument that had been professed.
Tzetzes the most falsehood-loving of all men,
Who hates truth like death,
Calls and names these accounts nonsense.
He says Plato wrote this against the rhetors,
Brought along by envy. The core of Plato’s heart
Was inflamed by this; For Plato saw
The youth running from the philosophers' clubhouse
And their lectures completely empty,
Teaching lessons useless for life,
While the schools of the rhetors were filled with young men,
Teaching them useful life lessons.

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§ 11.744  Many have written such encomia and reproaches.
As Alcidamas wrote an encomium for death,
The Elaean, a contemporary of Isocrates.
And Tzetzes like Alcidamas the Elaean,
Wrote and writes and speaks on each occasion
Ten thousand encomia of death on behalf of all,
Having read many accounts of Alcidamas,
But not having encountered his actual encomium for death.

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§ 11.750  And others wrote encomia and reproaches of various things.
Aristophanes wrote an encomium of poverty,
And stronger than wealth he shows poverty to be,
And shows poverty behaving rather violently to Ploutos.
Homer before all rhetors, philosophers,
Praises Diomedes through the entire Iliad
And Odysseus with him in the Iliad,
And wrote a whole book as an encomium on him,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.760  He called it the Odyssey from him.
Great Ajax the bulwark of the Achaeans,
And Nestor the adviser, him the honeyed one;
Whose value to the army of the Hellenes
Even the dead souls of blockheads know.
Most skilful rhetor who every lived
He is silent or passes over with the cleverness of his account,
Saying one or two words alone for these,
Whose accounts would fill whole books.
For weakness demands much interpretation;

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§ 11.770  While the true and strong needs no ornamentation.
Hence on the former he expends superfluous words,
Saying with his words lavishes upon them.
“But for the son of Tydeus you would not know, which side he was on,
Whether it was with the Trojans he consorted, or with the Achaeans.
For he raged into the field, like a river in spate;” [Il. 5.79]
Of the kind to bring down bridges, fences, everything;
And how much he writes elsewhere about Odysseus,
What he says in two words he would say in books.
He kept silent about Ajax, declaring in a single verse,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.780  “This Ajax is enormous, the fence of the Achaeans.”
And from their deeds, again, in other words,
Somewhere indeed Diomedes, the river above mentioned,
Who bearing the bridges and defences with the currents,
He likens Hector to a man among the helpless,
Going back in the rear and encouraging the others,
Like a river, Hector seeming to boil and roar;
He portrays Ajax going in the middle of this,
By spear to kill Amphius, the son of Selagus,
There against Ajax the spears of the Trojans,

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§ 11.790  Fell thick like hail.
“Sharp and bright, his shield received many of them.”
Thus Diomedes says in his many words,
While with two words he depicted the great Ajax.
In all the books of the tales of Odysseus
With two words, again, he depicted Nestor.
First in book Alpha he says somewhere,
“Speech sweeter than honey flowed from the tongue.”
And in Beta in the king's prayer
Not praying for Odysseus or any of the others,
But to have ten Nestors as counsellors there,
So Troy would be speedily sacked with their counsel.
Thus he poured out many words in praise of the former
But for Ajax and Nestor with the very brief accounts
He defeated the long but forgotten accounts of those.

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§ 11.805  To praise such things - fleas, baldness, flies,
And to reproach rhetoric and praise deaths,
To praise povert showing it to be wealth,
And to praise Diomedes and Odysseus
Above the great Ajax and Nestor,

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§ 11.810  If Homer were to compare these skilfully,
And every word and praise in such fashion,
Writing things clearly contrary to the manifest,
The stock of philosophers says an inferior word
As Aristophanes shows with The Clouds,
To make fun with it. For he misleads Socrates, Strepsiades,
Saying with this, instructing my child the words,
“That is the stronger and that the inferior.”
Why yes, the stronger of words prevails over the inferior,
Therefore philosophers call this, inferior word.

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§ 11.820  And rhetors of eulogies on forms of problems
They say that there are four all together
The doubtful, incredible, probable along with the improbable;
Indeed improbable is an encomium for a prostitute and or drunkenness,
Probable is for solemnity and all kinds of excellence,
Doubtful, to praise the deed of those most average,
The very one who seems laudable to some, blameworthy to others;
Incredible eulogy to me seems to be of those beauteous,
The one beyond the assumption, expectation and judgement
Of everyone and still more, it is said to be,
As to praise poverty, death and baldness,
And everything of the fashion contrary to the others.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.832  (TE2.386) CONCERNING CLEITARCHUS’ WRITING REGARDING THE TENTHREDO
The tenthredo is a small animal resembling a bee.
Cleitarchus writes about the tenthredo,
You will find in the hundredth account of these.
And read, turning to the place thither.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.836  (TE2.387) CONCERNING PHIDIAS AND ALCAMENES
That regarding Phidias and that regarding Alcamenes
You will find in breadth turning back the writings
In the one hundredth and ninety third.

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§ 11.839  (TE2.388) CONCERNING SILKEN GARMENTS
The Seres and the Tocharians, nations near India,
Weave the most beautiful robes of all,
And much more revered by the ancients of years,
And the Iberians at eventide and Coraxians likewise,
Are weavers of wool into the most beautiful robes.
Now, much used, just as the commons, to say,
That from Thebes, from Serica, not mistakenly as others.

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§ 11.846  (TE2.389) THE PROVERB SAYING, AS PRACTISING THE ART OF HERMES IN THE HIGHEST
Different arts of Hermes, both words and schools
And commerce and the rest and theft along with these,
To say here whether theft is now the art of Hermes.

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§ 11.849  (TE2.390 E78) CONCERNING THE STAGIRIAN WISE MAN OR THE CHILD OF ARISTON
Aristotle the wise, the child of Nicomachus
From the city of Olynthian Stagira.
Plato the philosopher certainly Athenian by birth,
But according to some, Theban, from a district of Thebes,
A district bearing the name Cynocephalus,
Son he was of Ariston, and called Aristocles.
Due to being broad in the body
He took the name Plato instead of Aristocles;
Just as Theophrastus, after Plato,
Formerly called Tyrtamas, he then was called Theophrastus
Due to being the best at speaking and teaching.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.860  (TE2.391 E79) PROVERB, IF YOU TOOK A REBUKE FROM ME, AS THAT PHINEAS
The Book of Leviticus teaches it clearly,
When Israel undertook a war with the Moabites.
The Moabites were defeated, they did something like this.
Dressing female prostitutes in fine, elegant clothing,
In order to defeat the people of Israel by craft.
For, while they were having sex with the women
They were taken and killed, creating a great wreck.
Phineas was the son of Eleazar,
Eleazar the son of Aaron.
Seeing so great a destruction wrought upon the army,
Finding Zambri and Chasbi sleeping with a Moabite woman,
Piercing them with a spear he killed them,
And wrought victory again for the Israelites.

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§ 11.873  (TE2.392 E79) CONCERNING THAT “INDEED EARTH IS FULL OF WISE MEN, AND FULL ALSO IS THE SEA”
Hesiod said in the Works and Days,
“Indeed the earth is full of evils, but so is the sea”.
This according to rhetors is called a parody,
this, “Indeed the earth is full of wise men, but so is the sea.”
The poets call the form paragrammatism (letter substitution),
To be used by them for rhetorical cleverness.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.879  (TE2.393 E80) CONCERNING THE TAURO-CARVED OR IF YOU LIKE, RUS-CARVED,
The males of the race of cattle are called bulls.
The Tauroi are also a Scythian lineage, which has since disappeared.
More plainly I explained that the Tauri are called the Rus,
By saying Tauro-carved, or if you will, Rus-carved,
As if interpreting for you who are the Tauri.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.884  (TE2.394 E80) CONCERNING THE HANDIWORKS OF DAEDALUS
Daedalus, child of Eupalamus and Metiadousa,
Was an Attic architect and statue-maker,
What things he made, all the history thereof
You have as number nineteen of the earlier historiai.
It bears the title, About the Bull of Minos.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.889  (TE2.395 E80) CONCERNING TANTALUS STANDING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE POOL, DEPRIVED OF WATER
The entire history of Tantalus in detail
You shall see in number ten of the histories.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.891  (TE2.396, E80) CONCERNING, THE FOURTH NOT RHOS, BUT MYSIAN BY RACE
Know that the Mysian countries are two;
One is the Mysia near the Caicus and Olympus,
Know that the other Mysia (Moesia) is Hungary,
Which is near the Danube, I believe.
And Ptolemy wrote obscurely in his periegesis [Geography 3.9],
Which I translated into these iambic verses.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.897  [in iambic hexameter] Now, learn the boundaries of Upper Moesia.
Boundary on the west the Dalmatian peoples
From the diversion of the flows of the Savos river
As far as the ridges of Skardon.
A line that extends from the south
As far as this is the land of the Macedonians,
Beside Mount Orbelos indeed where the foot lies.
Boundary from the east the Thracian race
As far as the Cebrus river down the Moesian streams,
As far as Cebrus unites with the Danube.
Boundary from the north a portion of the Sava River
As far as their streams of the Danube.
Near the Cebrus dwells the Moesian race,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.910  And the Dardanians towards Macedonian land.
Singidunum is a Mysian city,
Very much near the streams of the Danube.
Tricornium towards the streams of the Moschios,
Dorticum along with Viminacium.
Orrea further from the Danube,
On which Endenis and some other cities.
Ulpianum with Arribantium,
Skoupoi and Naissos, are also cities of the Moesians.
Of the nation and boundaries of the Dardanians,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.920  While I have translated them, to say later.
Now I must write about Lower Moesia.
On the west the current of Cebrus flows.
A portion of Thrace is to the south,
Then from Cebrus and towards the foot of Mount Haemus,
And as far as the Pontic limit of Ermenum.
On the north the Danube, from the Cebrus
As far as the city of Axiopolis,
Where the name Danube becomes Ister,
And the Danubean streams far as the sea.

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§ 11.930  Again and once more, the eastern side of Moesia
Bounded it is by the shore stream
Five mouthed is Istrus, it flows to the sea.
Besides which, there was the Thracian mountain ranges.
Living in the west of Moesia
The tribes of Triballi. Two islands of Moesia
Are situated by that sea flow,
The Island of Achilles, Leuke, is one.
Borysthenes is the second island.
Beyond the Danube is the nation of the Goths,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.940  Indeed I said in my paraphrasis of Thracia.
For the rest the location of Thrace is to be defined.
Lower Moesia is to the north.
To the west is Upper Moesia,
And of the Macedonians the crag of Orbelus,
To the end of the mentioned mountain.
After, some of the verses you won't possess,
They are in this paraphrase.
Afterwards, to the south is the city of the Moesians
Anchialos, no obscure city.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.950  And I said it in the definition of the land of the Macedonians.
Now it behooves me to describe the borders of the Macedonians.
Boundary for them from the northerly portions
The Dalmatian side and a side again
Upper Mysian land along with Thrace.
The western position is the Adriatic sea,
From Dyrrachium as far as the Celydnus
Another again, but about the other Mysia.
Claudius writes this in a tangle,
And I with him in this translation.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.960  Of Parahellespontine Mysia
Which has acquired the name Small Mysia,
Towards the middle of the mainland, the city of Scepsis,
And the sacred city of Germe with it.
In the land of the Phrygians, part of which is the Troad, know the city
Ilium, which is inland.
Now learn the cities of Greater Mysia.
The first is Daguta, then the city of Apollo (Apollonia),
Located very near to the river Ryndacos,
Then the city of Trajan,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.970  Allyda and Prepenesus, and Pergamos.
Demes of the Mysians toward to the northern position,
Who inhabit the Olympian foothills.
The Grimenothurites [Trimenothouritai), again, to the west,
Whose city is Traianoupolis.
The Pentademitai towards the south,
Among whom the Mysoemmacedoces (Mysomakedones).
Such things he says tangled up in many places
Saying how the Mysians are nearest to the Dacians
By the banks of Istrus and Danubean flows,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.980  And thus he says, and such things he writes here.
In other places in his writing, he expresses it differently.
And I with him turn them into iambics,
Bending and twisting to reconcile opposites.
Understand that we call the Oungri (Hungarians) Mysians.
Having written so many and such books,
(Even if they were not transcribed in the manner he intends,
But lie as first drafts, all out of order)
To the senators I seemed, and to those
Dealing in speeches, not even worse than barbarians,
But worse than pigs, by which speeches they judged.
On their account, queen city of the cities,
Pitiably twice and thrice I sigh for you.
For I feared, I feared, lest somehow to the barbarians
You would be handed over as a captive and become barbarous,
For a donkey and a pig were distributed to you,
Those whom you honored, I did not understand how.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.997  From my iambic verses you had heard,
The races of Mysians from the works of Claudius,
And the cities thereof, even if he spoke confusedly.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 11.1000  Leave aside the young Geographer [Dionysius the Periegete, maybe].
[1] For he doesn't describe the characteristics of the Mysians;
Demes, cities, mountains, and flow of streams,
And everywhere he does this in his composition,
In saying one thing, he leaves out myriads.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.5  BOOK 12, TRANSLATED BY NIKOLAOS GIALLOUSIS
(TE2.397) ON THE FACT THAT GALEN LIVED NOT AT THE TIME OF THE SAVIOUR'S INCARNATION BUT MUCH LATER, IN THE TIME OF ANTONINUS CARACALLA. AND PROOF OF THIS FACT FROM THE THERIACA OF ANDROMACHUS ADDRESSED TO NERO
Galen the doctor, much talked of,
Originated from Pergamon, a town close to Troy.
He peaked at the times of Antoninus Caracalla.
He was the son of an architect and geometer,
I think named Nicon, but I cannot say for sure.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.10  Please don't let any of the blemish-spotters indict me.
For Tzetzes is not God, and he's writing without books,
And even so, as fast as the lightning he's attentive
Not to leave out a single name, a place, a dot or a tittle.
So Galen was the child of an architect father
And geometer. And his mentor
In the art of medicine was Pelops the doctor.
You now have the times of Galen clearly verified.
If you want to test these ventriloquists who foolishly
Maintain that Galen lived at the time of Christ,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.20  You may refer to Andromachus' epic lines found in the Theriaca
And show them talking nonsense, prove them wrong rigorously.
For Galen cites the verses of Andromachus
With Andromachus thus being prior to himself.
But Andromachus lived at the time of Nero,
Those times when Peter and Paul were martyred.
The verses very clearly establish the time,
So now listen and learn from me.
“Hear about the might of this pharmacist's strong remedy,
Caesar, donor of fearless freedom,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.30  Hear, Nero, for they contain cheerful tranquility.”
You learned that Andromachus lived by the time of Nero
And that Nero was more recent than Jesus.
Therefore you have learned that Galen came later than Nero
From remembering that the epics of Andromachus
Were written prior to Galen. So you can fill in the blanks.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.36  (TE2.398) CONCERNING PALAMEDES INVENTING THE ALPHABET. AND TZETZES’ PROOF THAT LETTERS EXISTED EVEN BEFORE PALAMEDES AND CADMUS
I have talked against the common belief which is alleged among all
That Palamedes invented the alphabet.
So everybody says that Palamedes invented it.
But not the whole twenty-four letters and marks,
But only sixteen of them; which exactly you alone will learn.
We will right away cite which are their names
And who were the ones that invented them.
They say that sixteen were introduced by Palamedes.
The three aspirated ones, theta, phi, and chi,
Are said to be invented by Cadmus from Miletus.
Not the Phoenician from Tyros by the same name, who lived in Thebes.
As for the inventor of the three doubles, zeta, xi and psi,
They claim it was Epicharmus from Syracuse.
The two prolonged ones eta and omega, are said to

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.50  Be established by Simonides,
Either that Samian of Amorgos,
Or the son of Leoprepes the Ceian, I don't know.
It seems to me they overlooked the fact that Simonides
Is name common among many people, not just one's.
Thus, the sixteen letters and marks
Were invented by Palamedes according to some.
The other eight by the three men I talked about,
Cadmus, Epicharmus and Simonides.
But the twenty four letters and marks

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.60  Conjoined together in one body first appeared -
I find first recognized by the Samians,
According to some grammarian named Callistratus,
Initially using sixteen of the letters
And then using overall nineteen elements,
And kept expanding the alphabet up to twenty-four.
Thus, for the invention of the letters others credit Palamedes,
Others that Phoenician mentor of Achilles,
And others cite other ones, but the most say Cadmus,
Being prior to all the rest, was the one to do it.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.70  I made these errors myself, persuaded by what was said,
Being myself occupied with other things and studies,
Thinking that they were the ancient technicians of writing
I did not conduct Tzetzes' unique investigations
In which always the truth emerges from chaos.
But in Tzetzes research it is now shown
That neither Palamedes was the one to invent the letters,
Nor Phoenix before him, not even Cadmus before them.
Because before Palamedes and Phoenix, Homer talks
About Proetus in the voice of Bellerophon

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.80  “To slay him he forbore, for his soul had awe of that;
But he sent him to Lycia, and gave him baneful tokens,
Graving in a folded tablet many signs and deadly,
And bade him show these to his own wife's father, that he might be slain.”
So you know that there were letters before Palamedes
And even before Phoenix, from the poems of Homer,
By the time of the Trojan War.
And from Bellerophon Hippolochus was born,
And from Hippolochus Glaucus, the friend of Diomedes.
Thus we proved them to be wrong, those who claim

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.90  Either Palamedes or Phoenix was the inventor of the alphabet.
All of you that claim that Cadmus invented the letters,
Learn now that you lie, Tzetzes says,
The uneducated and unknowing, the poor in words
Who is in no position to put people to the proof.
Neither those liars nor the truth-speaking ones
Even if he years ago happened to earn six thousand
And then six hundred and by the time less yet.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.100  About this Cadmus Tzetzes says
That he initially came to Greece from Phoenice
And consulted the oracle about his sister Europe
The oracle offered the following divination
That he will have Greek acquaintances and language.
And let's assume that I'll be lenient and forgive that.
The message to Cadmus was then given in the Phoenician language
And was then translated into Greek.
Then again you will be in error. There were divinations and letters
Even before Cadmus, and in Greek language, for that matter.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.110  But will the oracle's message itself fully expose the error?
So listen the oracular response that was given to Cadmus:
“Say the word Cadmus son of Agenor
Awake before dawn, leave the divine city of Pytho and come here
Wearing a worn-out mantle, with the hunting spear in your hands.”
And other things about the response, one needs to know,
And everything else one may want to learn about it.
If I am able to recite something by heart, I will definitely try,
But I'll not write everything, to spare the paper.
Thus we've shown them liars already with these glorious hints

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.120  All those talking about the originators of the letters
Palamedes, Phoenix, Cadmus and all the others.
About them I also spoke foolishly once, being persuaded,
As I am in everything else that I have not inquired
With flawless reasoning and in Tzetzes own way.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.125  (TE2.399) CONCERNING THE YEARS OF METON THE ASTRONOMER, THE SON OF PAUSANIAS
Meton was an Athenian, son of Pausanias.
He was alive during the 87th Olympiad;
An excellent astronomer performing above all others.
He was said to be the first among all other astronomers.
He wrote on everything, another source of misconceptions,
The Enneadecaeteris and other works.
What is said about him is also inaccurate.
Let's examine this first and then everything else.
Pay attention to the reproofs that Tzetzes presents
With which he has shown many times that they've erred.
He says that Atlas was the first to become an astronomer
Around the times of Osiris, Noah, Dionysus,
When also a Heracles, an Egyptian in origin, lived.
He learned the science of the stars from Atlas.
Let that be the same old Atlas

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.140  Who was among the Greeks, the Libyan astronomer
From whom the Greek Heracles acquired the knowledge.
Weren't they prior to Meton?
Haven't they both written on astronomy?
Even if forgive their not writing about these people,
The great Orpheus, who was contemporary with Heracles,
Wrote Ephemerides and Dodecaterides
And on other topics accurately, proves them wrong.
Orpheus begins the Ephemerides thus:
“You learned everything, prophetic Musaeus, but if your mood

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.150  Commands you to sing appropriately of the moon's naming
I tell you lightly, come back to your senses.”
And the beginning of Dodeceterides is like this:
“Hither I am now with my ears open to clear hearings
Attentive to all order assigned by God
To a single night, and to a single day, all the same”.
I will leave Orpheus aside, if they prefer,
But wasn't the wise Homer among the astrologers?
Hasn't he written in thousands of passages about these things,
Saying in verse the words I will now insert?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.160  “Therein he wrought the earth, therein the heavens therein the sea ...
And therein all the constellations wherewith heaven is crowned,
The Pleiades, and the Hyades and mighty Orion”.
Hesiod was prior to Homer, some say,
Contemporary according to some, or after, others say,
But according to our Tzetzes (by my slipper!)
A tad bit later, about four hundred years.
Hasn't he written a book about the stars, the beginning of which I don't know,
But in the middle of the book are these verses?
“There is Phaesyle, Coronis, and Cleeia with the beautiful wreath

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.170  And the charming Phaeo and Eudora with her flowing robe
The Nymphs the human tribe calls Hyades.”
And how much he writes on astronomy in his book of Days.
How come then Meton invent astronomy before them all?
Before the ancient Atlas, before the later Atlas,
Who came 46 generations later
While Atlas the earlier, the one prior to Heracles,
Was only three generations past him, how can they be concurrent?
And how can he also be seen as his mentor?
And Orpheus was contemporary with Heracles

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.180  A hundred years earlier than the Trojan War.
As Orpheus himself tells me in his Lithica
That he lived shortly after Helenus.
And Homer comes one generation later.
According to Dionysius, the circle-writer,
Homer is said to have lived at the time of the two campaigns
The Theban and that of the Greeks for the sake of Helen.
Diodorus is in accord with Dionysius,
And a myriad others, whom Tzetzes used to follow,
Until he heard what Orpheus said,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.190  That he lived a bit earlier than the war of Troy.
Apollodorus says that Homer lived
80 years after the Trojan War,
When the descent of the Heraclids occurred.
And from that descent until the first Olympiad
Is 328 years.
And during the eleventh Olympiad
Hesiod seems to have been in his prime,
374 years
Later than Homer, minus two months.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.200  Thus much was he posterior to Homer. And let Homer
Not being coeval to the two armies, the Theban and the Trojan,
But rather say he was concurrent to the Heraclids' descent.
If you locate Homer around these two events,
And add another one hundred and fifty years,
Then Hesiod should have lived even earlier.
Hearing that Hesiod was concurrent to Homer
I rather think of Homer the Phocaean the son of Euphron;
Or Homerus the Byzantine, the son of Andromachus,
The child of the two poets, Andromachus and Myro.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.210  By that much then is Hesiod posterior to Homer,
But prior to Meton in yearly cycles
Three hundred and sixteen, plus an octad of months.
How is it then possible for Meton, who lived later than all of them
To be considered the first to write on astronomy?
Everyone suggesting this speaks foolishly.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.216  He was the best of the astrologers
Making precise horoscopes, keeping records of the stars;
He said the following about the fulfillment of the Kosmos.
Brief is the time of a long-lived man,
To suffice for counting – if I should wish to count
In how many myriads of years the culmination will be reached.
Of this joyful, beautiful Kosmos,
It will in any case culminate when the heptad of planets
Arrives in the house of Aquarius, together with that of Saturn.
This is what Meton the son of Pausanias said.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.226  Some wise men made a proverb out of it,
Saying, In accordance with the years of Meton;
That is, briefly, since his time.
The uneducated scum, the stupid schedos-weavers,
Who barbarized the art of letters
Not attending to books, where all wealth lies
But feeding on the reeking dunghill as if it was nectar,
(Because swine don't want to eat the bread of angels)
But writing nonsense and enjoying their babbling.
My days pass pleasant and sweetly
Having decamped to Imbros, no “choo-choo-choo (?) nearby
And, friends, my five enemies are alive,:
As well sleep, and smoke; and other empty talk.
These uneducated scum, the dung-eaters,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.240  When asked by the children who study with them
What are the years of Meton and all,
Because they hate the diphthongs and the triphthongs
And the dichronic vowels and all grammar rules whatsoever,
As well as the reading of any book,
They answer the striplings
With whatever occurs to their barbarous soul; And they, misled,
Write the drivel of the barbarians in books,
Making in them the dunghills of Augeas,
Like the young goat did to the book from the archive.
So much for Meton and many others.
And though wise men can create confusion, it is short-lived.
From these barbarians sewers full of stench.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.252  But I now have written on Meton's cycle
And I have written in verse the history of the world,
In skilful iambic meter, even if I left it unfinished,
Seeing that people resent skill,
While loving barbarism. O, ultimate disaster.
Meanwhile we will conclude the iambs about Meton.
Diodorus and Ephoros and all those chroniclers
Who are better than the othe chroniclers
Regarding the antiquity of Greeks and barbarians
Were very hesitant about which was more ancient
But I have demonstrated precisely that the barbarians were earlier.
I address this verse to Diodorus:

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.264  The Greeks, in what I wrote, and the Trojan lineage
I have shown to have come after the barbarians.
Well then, Diodorus, tell me about these
That the Egyptians and Phoenicians were not barbarians,
Moving the accounts into conflicting years?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.269   I find myself in a tight spot,
In need of Archimedes' machines
And the wits of Psammitichus even more,
When deciding the Chaldean lineage,
Along side the origins of the Egyptians.
There is strife between them and civil war is launched
Regarding their antiquity in time.
And they call me in as judge, and I have to reckon.
When there is much difficulty, even violence
To speak the truth and think correctly;
For nothing of the clear evidence do they
Mention in fair-seeming plausibility;
They introduce the years of Meton
Years escaping the number of fingers;
As if he were the utmost authority in discourse on the stars,
Making horoscopes and recording the planets;
He said the whole cosmic structure will be destroyed
When the heptad of wandering stars
Into the house of cold, destructive Saturn,
Will run together into Aquarius.
Brief is the life of every man,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.290  Compared to the number of years they speak of.
Similarly now, about Egyptians and Chaldeans,
About any meaningful system of generations
That can be defended against criticism,
They invent uncountable years.
And they come up with estimations of their own choosing.
That was all we had to say about Meton's cycle.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.297  (TE2.400) CONCERNING HOW HIKETERIA IS DIFFERENT FROM IKESIA, LIKEWISE AITEIN FROM AITEISTHAI
Hiketeria is used when someone performs entreaties
Bearing a sacred image in his hands, or a bough or torch
Or even a paper with a written entreaty
While ikesia is simply a plea in words.
Aiteisthai and aitein differ in this way.
We say Aitein mostly in “asking” with an exchange,
In cases of things that aren't reciprocal, such as borrowing and lending.
But aiteisthai is used for reciprocal things.
We don't say aito a light, nor aitoumai the remainder.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.306  (TE2.401) CONCERNING THE WRETCHED HAPPY LIFE
There is nothing sad in a happy life
Since if there was anything sad, it would not be happy.
Instead of having - I do not want - a bittersweet life,
Let's say in our prayers, in rather incorrect language,
I don't want, happy, to take up a sad life.
Euripides also says in his drama Medea
“Let not my happy life become sad
Nor some wealth afflict my mind”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.313  (TE2.402) CONCERNING BASANOS AND COLOPHONIAN GOLD
Basanos is a black stone, a touchstone for gold;
Colophonian gold originates from an Asian mountain
For Colophon, at this mountain of Asia,
Excellent gold is found, better than any in Greece.
Hence colophon is used to imply anything that is the best of its kind.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.319  (TE2.403) CONCERNING PIRITHOUS AND THESEUS
The full story of Pirithous and Theseus
Was written for you before in greater length.
It is the eighth topos in the second list.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.322  (TE2.404) THE STORY ABOUT SILVER FROM ALYBE AND GOLD FROM INDIA, EGYPT AND ANTS, THREE STORIES IN ONE
Alybe is a town that produces excellent silver
As the golden Homer has said, in Boeotia
“From far away, Alybe, the birthplace of silver”
But Alybas is a name of Metapontum, a town in Italy.
And even if the Colophon gold bests all Greek ones
The Egyptian gold is even better
It is found not only in the form of sand and rubs
But also chunks of the size of peas.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.330  The Indian ant can bear all of them.
There are gold-finding ants, big like foxes
Which keep piles of gold in their pits
The Indians then take sacks and dromedary camels
Who have young foals which they abandon.
They lead the camel there alone
Travelling by night and repelling the griffins.
When they fill up their sacks and lead the camels back home
They leave, chased by said ants.
But the camels, who long to see their foals,
Run even more intensely and elude them.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.341  (TE2.405) PROVERB, NOT AT THE AGORA ON THE WOODEN TABLET
Before paper was invented, lawmakers
Used to write on matriciae, which are wooden planks
And suspend the planks in the middle of the agora
As the prefects now do for auctions.
Then Aristarchus the secretary of Ptolemy
First persuaded him to sent letters to Rome in paper.
And later the secretary of Attalus, supposedly inspired by this,
Came up with parchment sheets.

Event Date: -150 GR

§ 12.349  (TE2.406) CONCERNING “ON THE GOLDEN KYRBEIS OF THE SOUL”
Axons are square, and kyrbeis triangular.
The axons contained the laws pertaining to private citizen
While the kyrbeis held the laws pertaining to the public
Generalships, official and religious matters
And public things of this sort.
And while the axons were still made of wood
Kyrbeis were of bronze, rather than wood.
The Korybantes invented them, hence they are called kyrbeis.
As Theopompus wrote in his On Piety,
Or because they stand tall and look upwards.

Event Date: -500 GR

§ 12.359  (TE2.407) HOW THE HELLANODICAE BROKE THE OLYMPIC LAW ONLY FOR ARISTOPATIRA. AND WHO THE HELLANODICAE WERE
You have the full story of Aristopatira [Callipateira]
Written for you in length in my previous book of stories
You will find it in topos twenty three.
Now learn well who were the Hellanodicae
I think the Hellanodicae were the ones once arranging
The festivals of Olympia and the respective games.
The Olympic Games were a spectacle attended by all Greeks.
The supervisors of the decisions relevant to these games
Were all called Hellanodicae, as I said.
As Hellanodicae served men from Amphictyons
Aetolians above all and also Elians

Event Date: -400 GR

§ 12.370  There were Aetolians Hellanodicae such as
The great Heracles who was lifted above the humans
Left Oxylos the Aetolian to attend to the bookkeeping
Directing and judging everything about the game.
From this theAetolians are among the Hellanodicae.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.375  (TE2.408) HOW THE LACEDAEMONIANS BROKE THE RULE ABOUT “DROPPING ONE'S SHIELD” SOLELY FOR BRASIDAS SAKE
To execute those who throw away their shield or leave the ranks
Was the law among Lacedaemonians, I suppose of Lycurgus.
Hence a certain Damatris Who had fled the ranks,
Was killed with her own hands by his own mother.
Thus for him this epigraph was written
“Damatris who broke our laws was executed by his own mother
The Lacedaemonian by the Lacedaemonian”
So Laconian
law was to execute deserters
And shield-throwers. But in the case of Brasidas
The opposite happened, which I must relate.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.385  About Amphipolis or Sphacteria
The enemy had formed up on land
Brasidas then threatened the helmsman
To run his trireme up to half its length
On shore, and engage the enemy.
During the slashing swords and bloodletting
Because he fainted and fell on his side
His shield fell from his shoulder and slipped into the sea.
The Lacedaemonians not only they did not execute this man
But rewarded him with wreaths and prizes.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.395  (TE2.409) CONCERNING THE WINGED MYTHICAL MEN, DAEDALUS, PERSEUS, BOREAS, BELLEROPHON
The myth about Daedalus and Icarus
Says that they crafted wings and fled from Crete and Minos
And that Daedalus skilfully used the wings
And he arrived safe in Camiros a city in Sicily.
Icarus though did not use the wings well

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.400  And fell into the sea and died
Which is still hence called the Icarian sea.
That is what the myths say. But the truth is the following:
Daedalus having been disfavoured by Minos, not slightly
As the accomplice of Pasiphae, Minos’ wife,
In her love for general Taurus and intercourse with him,
They fled together with his son Icarus in ships.
In two ships, with sails like wings.
And because Daedalus had a fortunate voyage he reached Sicily,
But Icarus drowned from dizziness and shipwreck.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.410  They said that Daedalus flew skilfully
While Icarus did not handle the wings well
And fell and drowned into the sea, as I said.
Similarly they say Perseus was winged
For he too had a trireme with sails like wings.
And accomplished gloriously his labours
And they say he acquired the sandals of Hermes
Because he was quick-footed and quick with words.
And Pegasus was the horse of Bellerophon
Which the myths depict as bearing wings,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.420  With which he laboriously earned his trophies.
It was a trireme vessel, with sails for wings
And sailed through the waters that sprung from the sea.
But are you going to say, Tzetzes, how he did ascend to the sky
Whence he fell and became blind?
So hear about this and learn exactly what happened.
While he boasted because of the trophies and
And the other pleasures he gained, he was carried by the typhoon
Higher than the clouds in the sky.
But his luck changed and he went through bad times

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.430  And he fell down under due to cruel mishaps.
He was deprived by his two eyes, namely his beloved children.
For Isandrus was murdered at war with Solyme.
His daughter after she was given in marriage and while pregnant
Was hit by a disease who killed her. These were the fall of the steed.
Blindness stands for the loss of his children,
Or even the infatuation of the nerves due to his mourning.
That is why he wandered in the wilderness.
For it is the mind, according to Epicharmus, that sees and hears,
And all the rest is blind. So much about this issue.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.440  Finally the sons of Boreas the king of Thrace
Who took the names Zetes and Calais
It is said that they flew with their hair, that is their graceful curls
And boasting about them they were very uplifted.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.444  (TE2.410) CONCERNING LOOKING DOWN ON THE SUN'S SPHERE, PASSING BY MARS' AND DRIVING PAST JUPITER'S
They say that the heavenly spheres are eight, and the zones
The one that lacks stars and planets, and the seven of the planets,
Saturn, Jupiter and Mars, the Sun, Venus
Mercury and the moon, the lowest of all.
Thus the number of the spheres is eight.
Proclus the philosopher says they are nine, I think
Because he counts the Earth among the stars, as others do also.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.451  (TE2.411) CONCERNING PYTHAGORAS SPENDING FIVE MONTHS NEAR PHALARIS
Phalaris, that tyrant of Akragas
In Tzetzes opinion the “justest and wisest in existence”
Originated from Astypalea, a region of Samos
He was the son of Leodamas and husband of Erytheia
The father of somebody named Paurolas.
What happened to him, I have narrated elsewhere.
You will find everything documented in length
In this book, passage thirty one.
Everyone vainly thinks this Phalaris was bitter,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.460  But he shows this to be empty chatter.
As proof, for a five-month period
The great philosopher Pythagoras stayed with him
Who considered the days spent with him as few. <

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.464  (TE2.412) ON THE PROVERB, EPAMINONDAS PRIDING HIMSELF ON HIS VICTORIES IN LEUCTRA AND MANTINEIA
Epaminondas was a general of Thebes with great authority
Who was passionately mourned by the Thebans when he died.
Epaminondas, they say, you die, with you dies Thebes
Having left no living children, no breed from your own kin.
And with his dying words he responded
Thebans, I don't die childless, but blessed with children
Because I leave behind my two daughters
The victory at Leuctra and the one at Mantineia”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.471  (TE2.413) STORY ABOUT WHERE THE “STONE IN THE THROAT” COMES FROM. THE STONE THAT PAUSANIAS MOTHER CARRIED
After Pausanias was disgraced acquiring the Persian customs
And delivering to the Persians everything about Greece,
And being certain we would be executed for all these,
He sought asylum in the temple. Then everybody hesitated
On what is to be done with him. Take him out or not?
Pausanias mother lifted a rock
And placed it in the temple's door-way.
Laconians hearing that, walled up the temple.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.480  Pausanias, risking death by famine,
Gave up. He cut a short segment of a beam
From the roof and trying to get to a higher place he died.
Now because when one laughs alone at some stupidity
Pretends to put a stone in his mouth so that he makes no sound,
Tzetzes who hates all hypocrites and mischievous men
Says this stone stands for
The rock I just said Pausanias mother placed at the temple.
That is, his mouth should also be shut,
And thusly he should be left to live miserably.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.490  (TE2.414) “BUT IF YOU ARE NOT ASHAMED OF THE MORTAL BREEDS, THEN RESPECT THE EVER-TENDING FLAME OF THE SUN, WHICH WILL HAVE TO FEED THIS UNCOVERED BURDEN”
This is something that Sophocles somewhere says about Oedipus
After he had blinded himself with his own hands.
If the mankind is at all ashamed
Respect then the sun, and hide a man like him
And don't let him appear in plain sight
For he is a pollution for the nation and the homeland.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.496  (TE2.415) HOW XERXES WAS PLEASED WITH HIS UNCOUNTABLE ARMY AND HIS EYES FILLED WITH TEARS
This story you have in full length
In my first book passage thirty two.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.498  (TE2.416) ON THERAMENES' NATURE
Theramenes was a student of Euripides
Devious, knavish, and always switching sides,
Hence he was officially called cothornos.
Cothorn was a type of shoe
That could fit both in the right and the left feet,
Of both men and women, equally well.
He had authorities by the time of the thirty tyrants
From time to time he agitated them against the Athenians
And at times he did the same to Athenians against the tyrants,
Being at the same time a friend and foe to both sides.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.508  (TE2.417) CONCERNING WHY HE WHO IS BORN OF THE FOURTH MONTH SUFFERS OTHER PEOPLE'S TROUBLES
They say Heracles was born on the fourth month
And that is why he suffered so much in his life
Working the labours following the orders of Eurystheus
Hence a proverb was established
That is said with respect to other's troubles.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.513  (TE2.418) CONCERNING WHY OLD MEN SAY HE WHO HAS NO DEMON BUYS A LITTLE PIG
To the muse of the crossroads, some myth says
Someone, having no demon, he bought a pig.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.515  (TE2.419) CONCERNING THE LACONIANS BREVITY OF SPEECH AND HOW DID THEY COPY AIKA
About the Laconian briefness of speech and the word aika
I have written in the fourth story of this book.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.517  (TE2.420) CONCERNING EUROTAS THE RIVER, AND THE MILITARY UNIT LOCHOS AND THE CITY OF SPARTA
Eurotas is a river in the land of the Laconians
Named after an ancient Laconian
Lochos can stand for the ambush, for anything concealed
But also is a unit of men in the military
This lochos is also called a line and dekania
Consisting of eight or ten men
Which is the best arrangement and stronger than all other units.
Some units have up to twelve and sixteen men
When the number of the army is big enough.
Sparta finally can mean the rope, but also the city
The city of Sparta in the land of Argives.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.528  (TE2.421) ON SPEAKING CLEARLY, EVEN WITH FEW WORDS
Homer brings in Antenor in the third book
Talking to Menelaus about Helen.
Menelaus in truth spoke fluently, with few words,
But very clearly, seeing he was not a man of lengthy speech”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.532  (TE2.422) CONCERNING THE PHRASE “I THINK ABOUT THE SYMMORIA AND THE TRITTYS”
Phyle is a one-tenth fraction of a city
And in particular, the city of Athens. For it had ten tribes,
Initially, even though they later became sixteen and twelve
Aeschines writes that the tribe is the one-tenth.
Trittis was one-third of a tribe. And symmoria
Was the number of sixty bodies, and no more,
As Demosthenes writes somewhere talking about taxation-groups.
Hence one has to bring together twenty taxation-groups
Of which each one should have sixty bodies.
Try and find all the exact details on taxation-groups.
Thus this is the definition, strictly, of phyle, trittis and symmoria
But we now use trittis and symmoria
For smaller gatherings of people, more loosely.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.545  (TE2.423) ON DASHING OUT THE LAST DROPS OF WINE
What is propelakismos, and what paroinia,
Latage and cottabus, and eolokrasia,
I wrote in length before. You turn and find those
In this book, Topos eighty five.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.549  (TE2.424) CONCERNING THE STRICT MEANING OF ANEPSIOI
In the fiftieth topos of this book
You will find nephews and cousins
And hyidous, and hyionous and thygatridous
And even anepsiadous. And you will learn very clearly.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.553  (TE2.425) WHAT IS CRESPHYGETON
A crooked place of refugee, from where it is hard to tear one away
From the Cretan labyrinth was named cresphygeton.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.555  (TE2.426) CONCERNING THE CANON OF POLYCLEITOS
The canon of Polycleitos was written earlier
See Topos one hundred and ninety one.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.557  (TE2.427) CONCERNING THE STATUES OF PHIDIAS AND THE HORSE THAT MICON DREW
Right after the story of Polycleitos there is the one of Phidias
So we will now say the story of Micon instead of that.
Micon, or according to others Polygnotus, was a painter
Who has drawn a horse in the Stoa Poikile
But he has overdrawn the eyelashes on the lower eyelid
And just because of this he was disgraced among everyone.
All the rest was so accurately crafted
That not even Momos could find something to put his finger on.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.566  (TE2.428) ON THE GLORIOUS, BEAUTIFUL, CONCISE AND PLAUSIBLE
Four are the virtues of rhetorical speech, as it is being said
By Isocrates the orator and Alcidamas
And Theodectes together with Minucianus
And along with them Dionysius from Halicarnassus,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.570  Philostratus and a thousand other orators.
Clarity, concise magnificence, plausibility
Together with the beauty of the rhetorical figures.
Empedocles above all, the great philosopher
Says that obscurity bears black fruit,
And Sophocles somewhere says that anger has a black face.
But everybody says prudence has a gleaming face
And Aeschines somewhere says that obscurity is perishable.
They also say in this wise about Demosthenes
That he once held his head too high when given a speech to Philip

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.580  With an overly obscure and perishable prologue.
These are the virtues of speech according to the wise men
Clarity, magnificence, brevity and plausibility.
Leaving magnificence aside, Aphthonius says
Clarity, brevity, plausibility and Hellenism.
And Tzetzes says Hellenism and the strict usage of words
Are the instruments in the reserve of the clear speaker
No different from clarity, as he thinks.
And if other things were included, they were redundant
If clear things were included, that was adding Hellenism.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.590  (TE2.429) CONCERNING THE BUST OF HERMES AGORAEUS
Hermes was the son of Maia, but Hermes is also logos,
As well as every statue and a heap of stones.
Hermes is also the interpreter of languages or speeches.
Hermes is a market-place pattern (ἀγοραῖον προτύπωμα), or tar,
The tar goldsmiths use to stamp animal [figurines],
Putting silver or gold on top of it.
The foot of a couch is “hermis”, spelled with iota.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.597  (TE2.430) PROVERB “THE AMORGINE STATUE”
Amorge is, I think, the olive dregs
Orge for Ionians means both clay and tar.
Hence to knead clay is orgasai.
We will thus say that amorge is the olive-oil dregs.
On a joint there is orge or clay.
The unfermented oil is like clay, useful in fastening
As in the verb apto, amma (join, binding), from which derives ammorge
And it is written with a double mu, according to the general rule.
But among Ionians it is written with one mu and smooth breathing.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.606  (TE2.431) CONCERNING WHAT HERMES DEPOSITED IN A MUCH-LOVED CAVE
Orpheus in his Lithica somewhere says
Lauding wisdom, logos, and paying heed to books.
“He who is ordered by his conscious heart
To enter the beloved cave of Hermes
Where he has deposited all kinds of good things
Immediately providing many benefits to both,
And returns home avoiding tears and woe.”
Thus naming books as the cave of Hermes.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.614  (TE2.432) CONCERNING THE FARMER WHO OFFERED WATER TO ARTAXERXES IN HIS CUPPED HANDS
Artaxerxes the king of Persia when he came to authority
He toured through some farming fields.
The farmer there, because he was grateful to him
When he saw the king approaching
And having nothing available to welcome him
He cupped his hands and he drew off water
From a nearby river and brought it to him.
The king admiring the man's benevolence
He accepted it happily and drank with pleasure,
Even though he didn't need water, nor was thirsty at the time.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.624  (TE2.433) CONCERNING WHERE THE WORD ORRODEIN COMES FROM
The word orrodein means to be frightened
From the tail of the pigeon also called the os sacrum
Which trembles when the pigeon is held by fear
Either because the tail is the part of the body, also called taurus,
That tends to sweat when one is terrified
Or better, because of the terror of the horses
Which when they are afraid condense the tail between their legs.
Or from oro, to rush forward and deo, to bind
(Because one is paralysed when held back by fear)
Or even from oro, seeing, and deo.
(Because when terrified the vision is also paralysed).
The Aeolians, who tend to use smooth breathing and double rho in words
Similarly write this with smooth breathing and double rho.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.638  (TE2.434) WHO ARE THE ASCLEPIADAE, PER AETIUS
Asclepiadae are called in the strict sense
Those who descended from Asclepius
But now it refers more loosely to all doctors.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.640  (TE2.435) PROVERB JUMPING BEYOND THE SANDBOX, IN THE MANNER OF THE FABLED PHAYLLOS
A certain Phayllos from Croton, a pentathlete
Having won in wrestling and boxing, discus and running
And how did he meet the requirements of victory?
Now learn this verse on jumping and discus
“Six plus fifty feet jumped Phayllos
And threw the discus one hundred minus five”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.646  CONCERNING PERSEUS, THE SONS OF BOREAS AND BELLEROPHON, BEETLES AND SCARABS (the former have been written already, the latter not) (TE2.436)
First about Perseus, and Boreas' children
And Bellerophon I have written sufficiently.
Listen now about the scarabs and the beetles.
Greece was suffering due to the wars among Greeks
With the battles between the Athenians and the Laconians.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.651  Aristophanes who was a comic poet at the time
Was also a skilful orator. He saw Athenians
Were not persuaded at all by those advocating peace
But by the warlike and the loudest.
Being himself a passionate lover of peace
He let aside the effort to advise them openly,
Since they refused to comply, and tried another way.
Employing a skilful method, as he should
He sweetened the message with playful comedy

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.660  And he wrote on peace and many other things,
Lysistrata, Acharnians and other comedies,
All-wisely advising with efficient position
And similarly undertaking a very skilful declamation.
Instead of saying that it is not right to fight with our neighbours
Listen how he sweetens the message with fictions and words,
Alleviating the anger and most easily accomplishing everything:
He brings in the farmers frustrated by the perpetual wars
And yearning after their fields
The groves and the grapes and all the other fruit,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.670  Longing to find a way to make peace. And since this was not possible on earth
They considered to lead her down from the sky.
After they found a scarab, the dung-eating animal
They first put him in a stable, as if he was the new Pegasus.
They provided two servants to attend to it,
And they fattened it with human excrements,
Probably the most moist of toddlers and infants.
Then the scarab, having feasted like that
Flies up to the sky together with a servant
Who spotted, airborne, a man easing himself on the ground

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.680  “Watch out, man”, he shouts, “dig, hide them”
And rinse them with perfume, for the beetle will
Smell his favourite odour and he will lead down to them.
Having reached the skies he finds the din of battle
Threatening doom upon mankind, very seriously.
After they find a cave walled up with rocks
They dig into it and find Peace,
A beautiful maiden, young, and fattened
The servant seeing her bottom of good size
He overly admires her abundance of flesh,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.690  Supposedly to juxtapose Peace to the thinness of the battle
Thus having found her they led her back to earth.
Now you learned how skilfully he joked and excellently advised
The great comedian and orator, without openly advising,
That they should end the war and choose peace.
You will also find in every chapter of this book
What is natural, legitimate and right at the same time
Profitable and possible, glorious and effective.
And often times he achieves this in a single chapter.
Thus they become real rhetorical speeches, like Demosthenes'
Whose speeches about Olynthus appeal to the profitable
According to others the legitimate, and others yet the just
That he develops in two, three, four or more chapters.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.703  (TE2.437) ON DAEDALUSES AND ICARUSES
About Daedalus and Icarus you will find my account
Right here five pages back
Also in passage nineteen of my previous book
About Minos' bull which causes me to proclaim
I wrote back there all these about Minos in length.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.708  (TE2.438) CONCERNING THE EAGLES' OFFSPRING
The young of the eagles, just like the other vultures
Are born from eggs, which are conceived
By intercourse between male and female
And when the young are born the eagle trains them.
He makes them stand towards the sun beams
And if they look steadily towards the sun
He judges them to be his genuine breed, he keeps them and feeds them.
But if they don't he thrusts them out of the nest.
Then Phene, the compassionate vulture takes them and feeds them.
The crocodile does the same as the eagles.
I wrote about this in my iambic chronicles:
“He makes eggs and it seems as if he expects eagerly.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.720  As soon as their shell cracks
The beast judges the offspring
If immediately the young captures a bug
A mosquito, a fly, or something of the locust
He judges it not to be a bastard
And he feeds them to maintain his breed.
But if he sees that it is lazy and stands still
He kills it immediately, as he thinks it is bastard.”
The same holds for eagles and their eggs.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.729  (TE2.439) CONCERNING FEMALE VULTURES CONCEIVING WIND-EGGS
Gypai, the vultures, are said to reproduce inconsiderately
Having breasts and milk and all.
But I think, just as I consider the kin of tigers as all-masculine
I also think the kin of vultures all are females.
For five days they fly with their bottoms against the wind
And they conceive wind-eggs.
They give birth one hundred and twenty days later.
And another hundred and twenty yet, until they set
The young free from their shells.
Then, after another 120 days
They feed the offspring until it is ready to fly alone.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.740  You now know of vultures, the female conceiving wind-eggs.
If a vulture appears in a dream it stands for one year
As I explained to you in detail, following the Egyptians.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.743  (TE2.440) CONCERNING THEION – WITHOUT FIRE, AND WHAT ELSE IS CALLED THEION
Theion you should clearly think that it means sulphur
But it also means incense, thunder,
And everything bewildering, as well as the stars.
The soul and the angels are also called theion.
Now this is the reason incense is called theion:
It is thought to come and go as the immortals breathe.
And theion is also sulphur because it resembles thunder,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.750  As the thunder gives out an intense smell like sulphur's.
I had myself experienced the thunder's bitter smell.
I had no idea about it until recently.
What happened terrified me hilariously beyond reason.
I was heading towards Trajanoupolis
When I saw a thunderbolt heading towards my right side
I thought that I would lose my hair and my shoulder
I wasn't able to move my hand

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.760  And I neither could see anything in my right.
I was expecting my thunder-struck shoulder to fall off
And that I would die in a litle while.
I hardly survived the smell of the thunder.
The thunder finally missed my shoulder and hit a rock.
The smell that came out from the crack was such
That evading the hit I almost died from the smell.
There was a well-seated mule nearby
That was so terrified it broke free from its yoke.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.770  Thus the smell of thunders I bitterly have known.
Theion is also a name for the thunder
For it is considered divine fire, produced by the clouds collision
Not from woods, oil and the such.
Everything worth seeing and amazing is also called theion
And the stars from theo, to see
Or for theo, the one meaning to run
Thus the soul and the angels are called theion
Either from seeing, perceiving and knowing everything,
Or due to being ever-moving, from theo, to run.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.781  (TE2.441) STORY SAYING “IF HE WANTS TO CURE ME, NOBODY ELSE”
Homer presents the Cyclops in the Odyssey
Saying to Ulysses after he blinded him:
Ulysses, I am the son of Neptune,
If he wants to cure me, nobody else.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.785  (TE2.442) CONCERNING MOVING EVERY STICK AND STONE
After the war against Persians in Marathon
An oracular response was given to one of the Athenians
His name though has eluded my memory.
And the response was to move every stick and every stone.
He did exactly this, and moving around everything
He became very rich, finding the Medes' treasures.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.791  (TE2.443) PROVERB ABOUT THE GARMENTS OF THE SEA
Eima is a military garment of the navy
Which is called kavades from a Persian named Cavas
Enyalios is a military god
According to some, Ares himself, the child of Enyo or Hera.
For others, he is a son of Ares, for others yet, his assistant.
Arrianos though is somebody else, who was slain by Mars.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.798  (TE2.444) CONCERNING WHAT YPOULON IS, AND WHY IT IS CALLED SO, AND HOW MANY MEANINGS OULON HAS
Ypoulon is called the knavish and crooked
From the wound that externally seems to heal
But inside is full of reeking pain, devouring.
Oulon among the olden means four things:
Healthy, whole, disastrous and curly.
But Tzetzes has added another two to these old meanings.
The part of the body which we call oulon
And everything soft alike. He can also cite usage
Of its meaning as part of the body from Aeschylus.
And from Homer, the usage of “soft”:
“You sucked out from the gums the nutritious milk”.
“When she had filled it well with tunics, and cloaks to keep off the wind, and woollen rugs.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.809  (TE2.445) CONCERNING KERDALEON AND WHY IT IS CALLED SO
From kerdos, profit, stems kerdaleon, everything profitable
Or alternatively from the fox, which we also call kerdo,
Because it is the most knavish among the animals.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.812  (TE2.446) CONCERNING MEGAERA AND WHO IS SHE
Megaera is the ill-will and the malign influence
From a demon Megaera, which is most vicious.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.814  (TE2.447) CONCERNING VASKANIA, ERINYES, ALASTORES AND TELCHINES
You should consider all vaskania as damage inflicted through the eyes
Travelling with the light and the act of staring.
Because for many the eye is capable of causing harm.
Among the Greeks Erinyes were three demons
Tisiphone, Megaera and Alecto
And the etymologists say that they were named so
For dwelling inside the era
Or for concluding the ara that is the grudges;
Therefore the “ri” syllable should be spelled with eta
From the “eri” particle and nysso Tzetzes says,
For being always awake, or wakening others.
Then truly it should be Eridonyes and hence yet Erinnys
For being match-makers for quarrels, or nymphs of discord
Or rather for piercing the fleece and provoking strife
Hence the iota should also be lengthened.
From tiein, to punish, the phoneis, the murderers, stems Tisiphone

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.830  Megaera was called so due to viciously megairein
And Alecto for being aliktos in revenge.
Alastores are those supervising the sea and the damages
According to Tzetzes though, those who tame the damages in the seas
From teiro, toros, to tame, just as in fero, foros.
Telchines were some of the vicious demons
Aktaios, Megalesius, Ormenos and Lycos
Minon and with them Nicon, perhaps others as well.
Due to them having stings and being rough as the echinoid
Tzetzes derives their names teliochinous
That is “having a poisonous telos like an echinoid”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.841  (TE2.448) ABOUT THE SAYING “I AM KIMMERIAN AND SUNLESS”
The Kimmerians are a people according to some,
Living near Scythean Tauros and Maeotis lake
Who live without light and don't see the sun.
They live in darkness and in the dark night
For forty days. And their period of darkness
Is when the sun rises in Sagittarius,
When the sun rises in Cancer
They enjoy sunlight for another forty days.
But others speak all falsely about this.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.850  Homer places the Kimmerians near Italy
And says that they have darkness at all times
And this has caused outcry among the physicists.
But Cimerioi is a place and demos
Of some Italian people. Their residences
Are build in gorges and forested hollows
And thus the sunlight never reaches them.
There is supposedly a lake there as well, Siacha
Whither the leaves from the trees sink.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.859  (TE2.449) PROVERB “BUT, O PALAMNAEOS AND ALITIRIOS DEMON
Everyone who commits murder with his own palms and hands
Or works on and builds something, is called palamnaeos.
Now learn about the word alitirios.
Once a great famine had broken out in Athens
The more turbulent ones, snatchers,
Were observing carefully the sound of milling
In order to steal the alia and flour.
Hence we call evil ones alitirioi.
But Tzetzes, just as paustirios stems from παύω
He similarly says alitirios stems from alito.
That is, the one acting sinfully and unjustly.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.870  Daemon for some means the expert
Daêmon is a word for an expert, as we said
But daemon is every murderous and cutting person, according to Tzetzes.
This name in turn stems from daïzo.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.874  (TE2.450) CONCERNING THE AMAZONS, AND THE WOMEN OF THE SCYTHIANS AND SAUROMATES
The warlike nation of Amazons
Homer shall show me that was neglected by all scholars.
“Thirdly he slew the Amazons, women the peers of men”
And Scythian women in all occasions suffered together with their men
Both in their battles and their works and everything else,
And we could even say that all their works were achieved by women.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.880  Also the women of the Sauromatai I think
Were offspring of Scythians and Amazons,
As Dionysius also says in his Periegesis:
“They descendent from the attractiveness of the Amazons
Who mated with Sauromatian men”
The Sauromatai are then Scythians, who you will call perantadas.
I will omit writing that story in length
For I fear greatly, that the scarcity of paper
Will make as leave aside lots of stories,
Hence I judged it was better to mention all stories briefly,
Than to expand overly on a few stories
Thus we have to think that less is better.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.892  (TE2.451) ABOUT THE SACAE AND THE MASSAGETAE WOMEN
Now learn that the Sacae were a nation who invented the sakos
And their women fought alongside of their men
Ctesias said this, and a myriad others
“The women of the Sacae fight from horseback
And again, there was a Stryalios, a Median man,
Whom a Sacaean woman dropped off his horse”.
By Massagetas he means the Abasgi.
Their women also in the more recent years
Were anticipating the battles as much as their men
And learn this very well, and make no mistake,
That tthe Abasgi, Alani, Sacae, Dacians
The Rus, Sauromatae and Scythians proper,
Every people that lives near Boreas' blasts,
They are all called Scythians collectively.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.907  (TE2.452) ON SEMIRAMIS BEING CONSIDERED A MONSTER AMONG ASSYRIANS
The whole story of Semiramis
We wrote at two hundred and seventy five
Now we will talk about the Assyrians, Syrians and their lands
And how Semiramis waged wars.
All the Mesopotamians are called Assyrians
But Syrians are only those living between Casius and Lebanon.
Their cities are Antioch, Gaza, Elais
Marathos, Askalon, Tripolis and Iope,
Azotos and many others.
Now you know Assyrians, and among them Syrians as well.
But everybody calls Sinope [?] Assyria
As sharing a border with Syria, per some etymologists.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.920  And the land of the Assyrians they call Assyria
Together with Syria but not Coele Syria.
As for the way Semiramis conquered Bactra
You know from my extended account.
And how she used knavery to repel Staurobates
The Indian coronet-wearer, after she disguised oxen as elephants.
When he learned this from a deserter,
That she sewed together the skins of dark-coloured oxen
To create the images of elephants,
And that they had rigged them on camels,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.930  They counter-attacked hurling javelins
And wounded Semiramis in the arm with an opportune throw,
An event that changed the course of the battle,
and Semiramis was saved by the speed of her camel.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.933  (TE2.453) CONCERNING THE STORY OF THE HUNTRESS ATALANTA, AMONG GREEKS
Among the Greeks there have been two Atalantas
The first was an Arcadian, a hunter, the mother of Parthenopaeus.
The other frequented the wrestling schools and was a very fast runner.
She rivaled Peleus in wrestling,
And in racing her swift feet beat everyone.
She was beaten by Melanion, who threw golden apples,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.940  And she, while trying to gather them all, was thus defeated.
More likely she was seized with love for him,
What happened with Hero and Leander, as Musaeus wrote,
And she lost to Hippomedon, not as Musaeus says,
But as Theocritus writes in his verses,
So now listen to the epic verses of Theocritus:
Hippomenes when he wanted to marry this maiden
Taking apples into his hands, he started the race.
Atalanta as soon as she saw this, she was maddened, and she fell deeply in love.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.949  (TE2.454) THE MARVEL OF THE MYSIANS, BATTLING HIERA
I have told you already that there were two Mysias.
Now you will learn about those Mysians that reside by Olympus
Hiera was the wife of Telephus;
She fought in a chariot and all the other women with her.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.953  (TE2.455) AND ARTEMISIA OF CARIA, THE HALICARNASSIAN, WIFE OF MAUSOLUS
One Artemisia was from Halicarnassus
The consort of Mausolus the Carian, also his sister
Who fought on the side of Xerxes in the naval battle,
When the Persian fleet was giving way and she was on the run
She sank a Phoenician boat with all his crew by ramming.
The Athenians pursuing her saw that,
Thought she was an ally, and quit the chase

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.960  But Xerxes thought the ship was the enemy's
And learned that Artemisia was the one who sank it;
He shouted out from Mt. Aegaleo.
My men have become women in this battle.
While the women became men through their glorious deeds.
So you have this Artemisia, of Mausolus, as one.
The other was the wife of Hecatomnus.
Both were generals, and both valiant.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.968  (TE2.456) CONCERNING GENDER INNOVATION, AS XERXES THE BARBARIAN THOUGHT
You will find the whole history of Xerxes in length
In my first book passage thirty two.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.970  (TE2.457) CONCERNING HOW ARCHIMEDES WAS USEFUL WHILE ALIVE, AND THROUGH HIS WRITINGS IS STILL USEFUL
The story of Archimedes you will find at thirty five
Some people say Archimedes wrote one book
But I have read several books of his
Based on which Heron, Anthemius and every engineer
Wrote on hydraulics and pneumatics,
About all types of lifting-screws and ship's logs.
I have ready many books of this kind by Archimedes.
But when I hear people saying he wrote only one

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.980  I suffer, so I will recount what he himelf said.
Archimedes had a wife Thecla and a son Paulitzes
When he found an adulterer sleeping with Thecla
He was surprised with what he saw and wondered to himself.
Whether that man was himself or someone else.
Standing there thinking and talking to himself about this
“Behold, this is Paul, so the child exists.
And this is the child's mother, Thecla by name.
Here I am myself. But then who am I?”
I say what is in those books of Archimedes.
Behold, these children exist, the little “Pauls”!
And Thecla, their mother, that is the authorship of those texts.
And those saying that Archimedes only wrote one book
They are respectively me. Then who am I?
And what about the books I read? Did I dream about them?
I also judged that the texts had the Doric character
And every characteristic of Archimedes' writing.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.997  (TE2.458) CONCERNING CASTOR AND POLYDEUCES LIVING ON ALTERNATE DAYS
The story of Castor and Polydeuces
Can be found first at >forty eight .

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 12.997  13.1 BOOK 13 [12.1000]
CONCERNING HEROD'S DISEASE (TE2.459)
Herod, about whom we hear, the king of Judea,
The child-murderer and slaughterer of his own three children
[1] Was the son of an Arab woman, Cypris, and Antipater
Around the time of Caesar Augustus and venerable Cleopatra,
And around the time of Jesus' infancy.
Being the son, it is said, of a father rude and most villain,
He exceeded his own progenitor by means of knavish tricks
Ingratiating himself with all grand people by flattery.
After he rebuilt the city of the Samaritans,
In order to court favour with the glorious Caesar,
He named the city Sebaste instead of Samaria;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.10  And used to send to Cleopatra royal gifts.
When Anthony became husband to Cleopatra
And divorced Caesar's sister Octavia
And Anthony together with Cleopatra
Waged the great war against Caesar,
Herod, while sending letters, money and battleships
(The letters given to messengers were in two copies though,
Addressed to both Anthony and Augustus),
Said to the messengers and the carriers of money
“Wait a while and learn the outcome of the war,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.20  Then give the victor the letters and all the rest,
But hide well the letters addressed to the defeated.”
Oh, who could ever record even a fraction of Herod's wicked tricks?
But, held back by tens of diseases, he dies,
With furious high fever, itching skin,
With aches and seizures of the limbs,
With maggots growing in his rotting stomach,
Unable to breathe when lying down, the worst ailment I think,
By which he was overwhelmed, on top of all his other maladies.
Before his time was due he wanted to terminate his life,
Taking a knife in his hands, pretending he was to peel an apple,
He raised his right hand in order to kill himself.
His nephew, named I think Metroebos,
Grabbed the knife from his hands.
He then died a bitter death in insufferable pain.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.33  (TE2.460) THE STORY ABOUT “RIDING NOBLE STEEDS” IN HOMER, NOW RECOGNIZE AS SLOW STEEDS
Homer often describes Hades as riding noble horses.
Hades and death, of all chance events
Death's horses are of course notorious among all people
For they are the fastest. Who could ever evade them?
Listen also, if you want to, to Homer's original line:
“Thou shalt yield glory to me, and thy soul to Hades of the goodly steeds”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.41  (TE2.461) CONCERNING THE TRIUMPHANT RUNNING CHARIOT
This short letter contains everything
About the triumphant chariot seat. What one has to write again?
They smear the champion's body with cinnabar,
And red ochre and they make them stand on the chariot,
They put on their head a golden wreath
Imprinted with all he has achieved
And give him a laurel branch to hold,
They put armlets around his arm
And crown the excellent with crowns
Made of silver, citing their excellence.
A public servant stand behind them
On the chariot and holds the wreath
And whispering to their ears. Look also at the next one.
Everything on timely circumstances is to be found in this short letter.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.54  (TE2.462) THE PROVERB SAYING “I PROVED NO BETTER THAN PETER, I SUFFERED SOMETHING UNSEEMLY”
The foundation of the apostles, the lofty Peter
Had an unseemly incident first, during the crucifixion
Before the rooster's crow. Nothing else is to be said.
And again after the resurrection, a second time,
When he saw my Jesus walking on the water
After he threw himself into the sea, from the boat
Wrestled against the waves – of his hesitating heart.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.62  (TE2.463) CONCERNING “YOU MAN OF LITTLE FAITH, WHAT MADE YOU HESITATE?”, AND “LET'S PRETEND THAT IT IS WORTH TO STRIKE THREE INSTEAD OF ONE”
My Jesus when Peter was hesitating
When he had thrown himself into the waves of the sea
Had said, “Ye of little faith, what made you hesitate?”
I have also cited a small patch from Homer
So that we make it like it is certainly worthwhile.
And since I deviated from my writing enough,
I'll say the one about striking three in revenge of one.
Truly, when one of the leading men died
Three people appeared as your benefactors in his stead.
But Homer does not say this very story
He rather says a Greek, Deiphobus, boasted about killing him.
And when three Trojans also were killed
The great Ajax, or someone else he brings in beside
Saying about Deiphobus exactly the following:
Deiphobus, shall we now deem perchance that due requital hath been made—three men slain for one—seeing thou boasteth thus?”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.79  (TE2.464) THE SAYING ABOUT “NO HUMAN HEAD EMERGES ABOVE THE LIMBS”
Empedocles' exact words on what god is:
“No human head emerges above the limbs,
Nor a pair of branches comes out of its back
Nor legs, nor brisk knees, nor hairy genitals,
But it is only a sacred unutterable mind,
Rapidly attending to the troubles of the whole world”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.85  (TE2.465) CONCERNING THE ABDERITES' LOVE FOR DEMOCRITUS
Democritus of Abdera, son of Hegesestratus,
Student of Leucippus, the student of Melissus,
Was loved by the Abderites inexpressibly;
And what kind of person he was, we wrote before in length and proportionately,
In our first book, Topos sixty-one.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.90  (TE2.466) CONCERNING THE SALTED FISH OF THE OXIAN RIVER
Oxian fish to me means salted,
The ones barbarously and commonly called vergitika.
As for the residents of Sogdia, the Chazars and Chersones,
From the river Oxus which flows across their country
They are called Oxians, to speak in Ionic.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.95  (TE2.467) CONCERNING THE WORDS XERXES SAID ABOUT ARTEMISIA, “THE MEN BECAME WOMEN, AND THE WOMEN MEN”
In my previous history book passage thirty-two
You have the complete story of Xerxes at length.
The words he spoke about Artemisia
And which Artemisia he spoke them about,
In this book, Topos four hundred and fifty five.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.100  (TE2.468) CONCERNING NEILEUS AND A FIELD-DWELLER FROM MILETUS
Codrus had two children, Medon and Neileus.
Medon, by the oracle of two olive trees
That when rubbed against each other produced saliva,
Was advised to live in his own homeland.
When Neileus consulted the oracle about the colony
He heard: “Your daughter will choose the land”.
Immediately when he heard this, and because she was pretty insolent
He went to them after she dashed him, saying
They should lead towards Clarus or Miletus in Caria, a misery.
And they finally sailed to Miletus in Caria.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.110  He consults again the Carian oracles
And the response given to him said he should choose a land
Where someone will offer him a chunk of clay
Hearing that, Neileus, as Lycophron writes,
Knavishly cheated a local woman of age
And obtained subsidence from her pot, namely the pot's clay,
Claiming he was to engrave something for his ring.
Lycophron says that in this manner he obtained the clay.
Others say he asked a field dweller for bread,
Who, being ignorant of what Neileus was asking for,
Gave him a chunk of soil, or according to others, a stone.
Thus he took control of this land
And joined in stubborn battle with the Carians and Milesians.
But others say this happened to someone else,
And also in another country rather than in Miletocaria.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.125  (TE2.469) CONCERNING “FOR ONE HOUR YOU COULD NOT WATCH OVER WITH ME”
Around the time of the crucifixion and the Saviour's passion
When the Lord found the students asleep
He told them this to discourage them from being lazy;
“Even for one hour you could not watch over with me”;
Judas is sleepless though,
So that he turns Him in to the hands of the Jews to murder him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.131  (TE2.470) CONCERNING HOW AMASTRIS GOT ITS NAME
The place that in Homer is called Kromna is now Amastris
From the child Amastris, of Xanthos according to some,
According to others of Oxyathros, from some Persian's kin.
According to others yet, from the name of some Amazon girl.
The Homeric place Sinope is now called Kasos.

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§ 13.137  (TE2.471) THE STORY ABOUT WHO DIONYSIUS AND PHALARIS WERE
Two tyrants have ruled Sicily
Phalaris was earlier, around the time of Pythagoras
While Dionysius was concurrent with Plato.
Everyone thinks bitterly of these tyrants.
I will also support this opinion,
Such were these men, and I judge them to be such myself
You may find the distinct story of Phalaris
In passage thirty-one in this book of stories.
An epigraph which you may wish to find
Mentions Teucrus being a secretary of Phalaris.
The story of Dionysius can be found
In the second table, the very small one,
Where passages 3, 20, as well as the last one
About the verse of his, Dionysius.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.151  (TE2.472) CONCERNING THE TRAGIC AND THE MATTER
The paper showed the drama by the means of its words
Describing grievous disasters and sorrows
But it really shows these by its very fate
Because it fell in the waters of the river Thressa and being soaked
The littlest fraction of it could be read.

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§ 13.156  (TE2.473) THE STORY ABOUT THE FEMALE RIVER THRESSA BEING REALLY BARBARIC
Thressa is a river in the land of Thracians, which has a female name.
Indeed I called it Thressa, and it is a barbaric river,
Because it dismembered the paper and its content in the waters.
Similarly the Thressans had previously dismembered Orpheus
Because he was teaching the rituals they considered savage,
And threw his severed head in this very river
Together with his music, which attracted even beasts and stones,
And the river drags into the black sea.
The black sea that in called the sea of Mitylene.
The music, flowing along with Orpheus' head
And with its strings pluck by the piper winds
Sang a weeping tune, moving one to mourn.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.168  (TE2.474) SAYING ABOUT EASTERN BIRDS OF PREY. AND “THOSE RISING WILL GO TO THE MOUNTAIN WITH GODS, OR INTO THE WAVES OF A ROARING SEA”
Which are the birds of omen, and why are they called so,
This will be discussed first, and in order anything else.
Birds of omen in the strict sense are the vultures, which are all female
And gestate eggs alone, without male contribution
Eggs that are born this way are empty.
Thus mainly vultures are called birds of prey,
And – inappropriately – all other carrion birds.
Earlier augurs observed the birds' flights
Those at the right, that is from the dawn
And those from the east, which they call “weights”,
And listened to their voices and cries
And they predicted what turn things will take.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.180  Thus, if the birds were “right”, coming from the east
And emitting mixed and distinguished voices
They predicted that the outcome would be good.
But if they were coming from the west, making indistinguishable sounds
They would predict the result to be vicious.
This is merely one type of augury.
Now listen to another divination, of Roman origin:
They kept and tamed wild birds, a genre living on barley
And train them; so when the time was calling for a divination

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§ 13.190  They gave them barley to eat, and observed
Whether they would eat them with ease,
Or they would reject them, with wounds in their beaks.
And thus they predicted what was to come.
Another bird related augury of the people
Whose origin and name became known to all,
The victors, the defeated and everybody else,
I will explain it clearly for the ungracious ones:
After offering the barley to a domestic bird
They recite the alphabet from alpha and beta up to omega
On papers on which they place the seeds.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.200  Then they studied, for instance in case of war
Whether Greeks will prevail or some barbarian breed,
Whether Paul or Peter will earn the champion's wreath,
And whether someone will marry Maria or Zoe.
If, for example, the bird takes a seed from epsilon
And then from lambda, that showed the victor to be Greek
Note that this could be shown solely by the epsilon seed.
But if the bird touched the beta seed,
That would mean a barbarian victory.
Similarly to other definitions and things

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.210  These are omens in the strict sense
Hence all types of divination also, inappropriately,
Be it a presage, a sneeze, an incident among dogs, a howling,
And any of these things; who could ever enumerate them all?
On a mountain and in the waves of the loud-roaring sea
I mentioned above that his sorrows have gone
Since the paper detailing those was washed away
In the streams of the river they call Thressa
Those sagas, they say that Helen in Homer
Addressing Hector, in this way attacked his authority;

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.220  “O Brother of me that am a dog, a contriver of mischief and abhorred of all,
I would that on the day when first my mother gave me birth
An evil storm-wind had borne me away
To some mountain or to the wave of the loud-resounding sea”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.226  (TE2.475) CONCERNING COLLECTORS
Some people are called collectors, learn from me whence
At first really athletes, even those loving freedom
Competed for the wreath, not for prizes
And the wreath was their only prize for winning
Later they also entered the games for the prizes as well
And they dealt the prizes to the winners appropriately
Even in the case of one victor, as was Achilles to Patroclus.
And when cities, countries and municipals were destroyed
And these games I talked about in which the conqueror received a present
The athletes wanting to gain something from the games
Not only lilies and flowers and pasture wreaths.
When they won they ran across the gathering,
And received contributions from the crowd
And they took the name “collectors” for collecting from the crowd
Mustering and receiving gifts for winning

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.240  One or the other in the crowd would offer them something,
According to each one's capability and will
And they inappropriately are also called “collectors”.
These are in our times those that bear flags
As many as roam the land and beg
And those who at the beginning of January
At Christmas and the day of the Epiphany
They run from door to door and beg

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.250  With songs, refrains and laudatory speeches
And really deceitful but suitable causes
All these may be called literally minagyrtai
You will mostly come across flag-bearers of this type
And on the first of months, you'll see them running around
And begging to obtain all that they call for
You will appropriately use the word mhnagyrtai.
Old collectors, as Babrius writes
In his choliambic fables, not his iambic verse
And others among the old and new poets,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.260  Rigged a statuette of their goddess Rhea on a donkey
And then went round all villages and beg
Playing along enchantments and songs, whenever a new moon would rise.
Listen now to a choliambic by Babrius
“Gallic collectors managed to sell to the state
A rather ill-fated donkey.”
And little further on he recounts:
They used to go round about the village
And say about a field-dweller
“Doesn't he know that the white Attis was maimed?

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.270  Who will not be the first to bring pulse and grain
To offer to the holy drum of Rhea?”
Now you have learned I think the nature of collectors,
Since Tzetzes wrote about them with accuracy.

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§ 13.274  (TE2.476) CONCERNING CHORDEVEIN, MAGDALIA AND KYNOBORA. KINAVRA AND GRASUS ARE DIFFERENT THINGS, THEY DENOTE SMELLS
Chordevein is weaving sheep bowels
And kolofassa suppose it means cured meat
Magdalia means waste water of meat and fish
Also stocks of various kinds and other waste of this kind,
Like the ones they give to pigs and dogs to eat.
Kynobora can only be the food of dogs,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.280  Bones and something else, like slaughter-house blood.
Assume kinavra means the smell of goats
And grasos is the smell of humans around the armpit.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.283  (TE2.477) CONCERNING THERAMENES' APTITUDE AND ARCHIMEDES' MACHINES
The story of Theramenes I have already written
In this book passage four hundred and sixteen.
The story of Archimedes you have in my first book,
In passage thirty five.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.287  (TE2.478) SAYING HOW TO MAKE OUR OWN, BUT NOT OTHERS', PYRAMOUS, THE HONEY-CAKE
Pyramos evolved from the old honey cake
Having somehow a dressing of honey and grain,
Used as nowadays sesame is and so many other things.
Our pyramos I said you will prepare
Be it the belonging of a winner, the pleasure of victory
Be it the prize itself; because to the winners
Honey cakes were also given as prizes for their victory
As Aristophanes says, hence I also cited.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.295  (TE2.479) CONCERNING TRISALITROS, LOOPOS, PEOS, PODOKAKE, CHOENICES AND COLLARS
On sinners and avengers
I've written above. Now I have to write about other words.
Lŏopos as in the peel of onion is spelled with omikron
But lōpos the coat with the omega
Which also means the same now. Peos is the privy part,
Cuspoi and cloiopodes are also called clapoi
And everything harmful to the feet is called podokake.
As for the iron shackles for the feet, like Aristophanes
And others who call them similarly, are named after choenix
Together with anything revolving, such as the modium, gratings
And rings, and so on, they refer to as choenices.
Dioscorides says about weights and measures
A cotyla, that is three heminas are inside a choenix
That is the weight of two and a half librae
Because ten ounces of wine are in a hemina

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.310  Thus for Dioscorides the choenix is a measure of liquids
But Aristophanes elsewhere mentions a measure of grain
Saying that two choenices are 1/12 of a medimnus
“Yesterday a dealer passed me two counterfeited choenices”
Now you know about choenices. I now have to tell you about cloios
Every loop that constrains the neck
Is called a cloios, from breaking those raised by the whirlwind.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.317  (TE2.480) CONCERNING ATTACKING THE HONOURS, AND ON PLAKOUNTES, KARYKEIA, AND PEMMA
Agilatei is written with psili, and it means fiercely expel someone
But there is also a second with daseia
To set in motion burden and hatred against someone
And lead the way in attacking a saint
Hipponax writes thus, that the man who hates virtue
Leads in the bull-fight, while other watch.
Plakountes is the name of every potion based on sugar or honey
And pema is every formation based on bread,
it stems from pettw and it is written with one mu
But pemma is whatever is sent, stemming from pempo/pempso
It is written with a double mu, not with one.
Karyke is a type of food with lots of dressings.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.330  Hence any food loaded with dressings and sauces
Had the fortune of bearing the name of karyke.
Which Tzetzes to put it subtly, the illiterate, has not
As neither does he the honey, to explain it better,
But rather changeable meal from garlics.
As for the wise, and those taking chances and making machines
And thousands of other things, I have not even dreamt of,
And write and say thoughtless and confusedly
They are not ashamed at all. What a great shamelessness.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.339  (TE2.481) CONCERNING CATHARMA, POISON, POISONER AND PHARMACY
The complete story of catharma
Which we call farmakon, and about the farmaceus (poisoner/druggist) etc.
We wrote clearly and exactly
You will find it in twenty-third of the current work.
And at some other places we will leave aside.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.344  (TE2.482) SAYING ABOUT THE CHAIN OF EXCELLENT PETER, BUT SILENCING OUT SOMETHING, WHILE THE SHACKLES OF THIEVES ARE VALUED
The excellent Peter after he was bound with a chain
Was thrown into a prison vicious and gloomy
An angel untied him by night and saved Peter
This chain is sacred for all the believers in our nation
But noble women and some of the leaders
Estimate wooden shoes more than < thieves.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.350  (TE2.483) CONCERNING HOW THEY HAD NOT LIKE SPEECH NOR ONE LANGUAGE BUT THEIR TONGUES WERE MINGLED AND THEY WERE A FOLK SUMMONED FROM MANY THIEVES
These are patches from Homer, parodies
So Homer in his poems spoke about himself thusly
“They sacrificed to the gods that are forever, and one to the other”
But I say, they sacrifice to the thieves that are forever
Not in the sense that thieves share an immortal essence,
Rather than they appear at all times in one form or another.
And again Homer says in other places:
“For they had not all like speech or one language
But their tongues were mingled and they were a folk summoned from many lands”.
Me again I collected them in order to parody them:
For they had not like speech nor one language

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.360  But their tongues were mingled and they were a folk summoned from many thieves
The residents of the royal city of Constantine,
Not being of one tongue, nor of one nation,
Mixed languages abide, and men among the worst of thieves,
Cretan and Turks, Alanian, Rhodians and Chians
Simply from the universal nation, departed from all places,
All the worst thieves and adulterers
Are coronated as saints by the city of Constantine.
What a great hubris of inconsiderate men.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.370  (TE2.484) PROVERB SAYING “COME INDEED, COME QUICKLY, SO YOU THE THIRTEENTH LABOUR AT CONSTANTINE'S BIRTH AND GET A PRIZE HONEY CAKE”
My mind fixed on what is said here.
“You come too, you greatest of thieves, to Constantine's city
To become a saint, just as the other thieves.
So the thirteenth labour, as a little add-on.
The Labours of Heracles were twelve.
The atheist from Melos, Diagoras,
Once departing to an inn, and in need to cook some lentils
Was unable to find any wood, but found a Heracles,
A very artful wooden agalma.
After chopping it into small pieces with an axe,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.380  He threw it in the fire and told it:
“Twelve Labours you accomplished, Heracles,
Now go and accomplish this thirteenth labour,
And cook the lentils”. Thus Diagoras
Mentioned the thirteenth task, as an add-on.
And I too mentioned this thirteenth as an add-on.
An add-on, as I said, for all such thieves.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.387  (TE2.485) CONCERNING WHAT HAPPENED TO HIERO'S WIFE
Hiero was once king of Syracuse.
Hiero's breath stank, so they say.
When he heard this from some Syracusan,
Who said, “Hiero, your breath reeks beyond measure”,
Hiero reproached his wife,
For not having warned him at all of this.
She said “Hiero, I assumed all men's breath
Stinks like this, not only yours”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.395  (TE2.486) PROVERB, THE THESSALIAN IMITATES THAT THESSALIAN SON OF PELEUS
Thessalonice is another thing than Thessaly
Thessalonice is the city once named Therma
About which a good lesson can be found
In topos three hundred and sixteen of this book.
Thus Thessalonice is the city which Therma used to be.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.400  But Thessaly is a land to which many other cities belong
Larissa, Phthia, Pharsalos, Trikke, and many others.
Whither also Thettaloi live, like Achilles and others.
But those who made homeland of Thessalonice
And were registered in the manner we described here
Are called Thessalonikeis, not Thetalloi,
And that is what they call themselves, as they write themselves.
So, I say, what is the thing to be imitated?
That is to say, serve, do, take some action.
Achilles himself, this ancient Thettalos

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.410  Cut up his meat with his own hand
Just as Homer described, thus writing in the sagas.
“And Automedon held them for him, while goodly Achilles carved.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.413  (TE2.487) CONCERNING “BE APT WITH A SIEVE AND CLEANSE THE DIRTY GRAIN AT THE CHURCH”. AND ON STRAINING WITHOUT FILTERING OUT
Sieves are instruments for cleansing the grain.
But there is a sieve serving a function at the church
In which they lay towards the ground everyone non disciplined
And they cleanse the wounds from the dirt of indiscipline.
This before a while was what a servant
Not one of the commoners and unremarkable, neither the lower class.
I said, learn how to strain, but not filter out.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.420  Ethmos, sakelisterion, trygoipos, ulister
Are common instruments to cleanse the impurity of wines
But also used figuratively, for undisciplined people
To be sieved, I said, like the dirty grain,
Namely, receiving the treatment inside the sieve
That is, enclosing himself in the straining cloth.
Another figurative use involves the lees of wine.
I told you how to strain but not filter out.
That is to say is just a warning for you, not anything wiser
Thus I explained technically, by means of rigorous method

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.430  Sakellisai can be safely used to mean both
Purifying yourself and cleansing the wine
And is also used for emphasis and as a rhetoric figure,
Putting yourself in the prison of the straining-cloth.
But Ethmos, trygoipos, ulister
Are only said about the wine, and not about the lees.

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§ 13.436  (TE2.488) PROVERB, “AND IF IXION OPINES REGARDING BENEFACTORS, WHY ISN'T HE RAISED UP?”
The story of Ixion is twofold
And variously otherwise. Here, however, it is written twice,
In Topos ninety nine,
And two hundred and seventy three
Where the story is more extensive.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.441  (TE2.489) CONCERNING OSTRACISM AND FAMOSA
Now learn from me how ostracism took its name
And with it, leaf-throwing (το ἐφυλλοβόλησεν).
The Athenians, when about to banish someone
Did not banish him straightaway
But after they had arranged a specific day
And a thousand accusers had come forward,
Reckoning the number of people who spoke against him.
After writing his name on an ostrakon (potsherd)
They cast them at Cynosarges, a place in Athens
Where they used to expose bastard children in earlier times.
And there they cast the ostraka of exile.
So, if on the specified day a thousand were found,
He was sent into exile without sympathy.
If the ostraka fell short of a thousand
He could stay in his homeland, obtainingg forgiveness.
For this reason banishment was called ostracism,
Which Aristides the Just endured.
I write the following, knowing I am about to express something laughable.
While many were writing ostraka against Aristides

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.460  Some illiterate brute, to whom he had done no harm,
Who did not even know who Aristides was,
Came to Aristides holding up his ostrakon
And said “Write 'Aristides' for me here”.
So he, very kindly, wrote on the ostrakon.
So after the man cast it at Kynosarges
And was returning, Aristides asked him,
“I wonder what harm Aristides did to you.”
When he said that he had never laid eyes on him,
But everybody was writing it, so I told you to write him.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.470  A bystanders nodded and signalled him
That Aristides was the one he was talking to,
He said, “I will go and take back my ostrakon”.
Aristides prevented him from doing so,
And asked to sign another ostrakon
So that in exile he would be far from such people.
So while exile is called ostracism,
We also call it Leaf-expulsion (εκφυλλοφορησις)
In places where ostraka were not at hand
They wrote on leaves as they did on ostraka.

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§ 13.480  And did everything else just as I said about ostraka
But they did not cast them in Kynosarges
But in a place where the leaves could be sheltered and hidden.
Or else we use the word Leaf-expulsion for exile
Not from leaves and writing, what I just described
But from the trees shedding their leaves
In autumn weather, and the winds' blasts.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.487  Famousa, I think, means for the law-writers
The leaflets denouncing prominent people,
That are scattered secretly and by stealth in the agoras
Or inside temples, or in other places.
The laws punish the authors of such things.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.492  (TE2.490) PROVERB ABOUT NOT BEING STARTLED BY A MOUSE AND DIVERTING THE ONSLAUGHT
In Aesop's fables and Babrius’ verses;
A lion was sleeping, and a mouse running on his neck
Woke the startled lion from his sleep
When a fox laughed the lion responded
“I'm not startled by a mouse, but I divert the onslaught”.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.497  (TE2.491) PROVERB SAYING “IF THEY DARE TO DO THESE ON DRY WOOD”
Whether the wood is dry or green
The strength of my word is just the same, learn here why
Christ talks about this in the Gospels
Who named himself green wood thusly:
If they dared to do such things on green wood
What are they able to do on dry wood?
And he calls himself green wood
That is, a god who always lives and becomes again,
And then the dry wood that drifts away refers to the mortals
So if we take my word about the green wood,
Assume he means himself, the strong and wise,
Then by dry wood suppose he means the weaker ones
And if on the dry wood it lies, they dare such things

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.510  And the dry wood stands for us all.
And thus this does not clarify the writ at all
Because it means that to whom there is not a trace of accusations
That is to those refraining from acting foolishly
He will do something with wet wood, so that to restrain those traces.
With this I now fulfilled what I was aiming for
That is to respond with a dreadful thought to Demosthenes
Having made his judges think about these
As if they were themselves unjustly judged
And without thinking the trial would go otherwise
They hasten to punish him who talk foolishly against me
And run upon him thousand times faster than me.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.522  (TE2.492) HISTORICAL WORD, ON THE LITERAL MEANING OF SEIROMASTES
While many call the javelin seiromastes
As it means in the story of Phineas
Where he killed Zambres and Chasbes with one.
But chiefly it is an iron object in the customs house
Like a large skewer with which they strike the bags
To detect and seize smuggled goods.
So you know what a seiromastes is, in the strict sense.
The story of Phineas, which will suit you
Is at Topos three hundred and ninety one .

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.530  (TE2.493) CONCERNING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OLOPHYRSIS AND OLOLYGMOS
Olophyrmos is lamentation, whereas ololygmos is prayer
As Euripides, Homer and thousands of others
Provide me examples to support this
In the 72 Jewish translators
I suppose from forgottenness of the words, the pine “prayed”
Instead of “lamented”, and the mistake was established
And it became a common belief and a fixed rule
To use olophyresthai in place of ololyzein.
It is a great blessing from God, that they did not find
(Whether it was Athanasius' or someone else's)
That letter addressed to Julian
In which proupton was written instead of afanestatou
Instead of froudon he had written proupton, as far as I think
In my opinion due to his absent mind; that is why he imputes this to him,
Kassitauros, and writes about him the following;
“By God, this will prevent you from becoming my friend,
Being so illiterate that you write to me proupton
Instead of afanestaton. How did you ever come up with this?”
So as here the saint was inflicted by forgetfulness

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.550  And wrote manifest instead of most unseen, as I think
And many more, who could ever will say about all of them?
Thus the loud prayer was used instead of lamentation
And no commutation is possible on the laws of the most ignorant
And they say praying aloud meaning lament.
It is a great blessing from god indeed, that they did not also come up with
The manifest, of which we said, as the improper unseen;
Because if they also accepted this as a firm rule
The “manifest” would be called “unseen” by anyone.
And for every lover of rule and master of art's weights
It would be futile when hearing such abominations to say all this.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.561  ABOUT IOULOS (AND ALL IT MEANS. AND ABOUT OULOS (494)
Ioulos is a fish, but also a millipede
And the sprouting of beard hair
And ioulos is also the hymn but declined as feminine ,
As Eratosthenes teaches me well in Hermes;
“The hired female servant on a tall wreath
Sorting out the grain, sings beautiful hymns”.
So that's it about ioulos. And oulon denotes six things:
Healthy; intact; baneful; curly;
And additionally, soft; and a part of the mouth. I myself added these last two to the rest.
In Homer and Aeschylus there are twelve usages of these words.
The older ones used only the four.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.572  (TE2.495 E107) PROVERB, BEING SIMILAR TO SPRING FLOWERS, AS HOMER LIKENS EUPHORBUS
Euphorbus was a very handsome Trojan
Son of Panthous and Phrontis, as Homer tells me,
But Orpheus [in Lithica] says was a son of Bucolion and Abarbarea.
When he was killed by Menelaus
Homer tells me the following in his epic:
“And as a man reareth a lusty sapling of an olive
In a lonely place, where water welleth up abundantly—

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.580  A goodly sapling and a fair-growing; and the blasts
Of all the winds make it to quiver, and it burgeoneth out with white blossoms;
But suddenly cometh the wind with a mighty tempest,
And teareth it out of its trench, and layeth it low upon the earth;
Even in such wise did Menelaus, son of Atreus, slay Panthous' son,
Euphorbus of the good ashen spear, and spoiled him of his armour.”

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.586  (TE2.496 E107) HISTORICAL WORD, ON WHAT THEY THOUGHT BEST TO SING AT HYMENAIAN REVELRIES
A komos and drinking are symposia and pleasures.
Hymenaios is the wedding, but more appropriately the hymns at a wedding.
And it is called a hymenaios, as etymologists suggest
Either from breaking the virginal hymen
Or because it is some “new hymn”; both these are false.
For widows have no rupture of the hymen
So shouldn't get a Hymenaeus, according to them.
Again, if it were a “new hymn” as they tell me
You would write epsilon but not a diphthong.
Both these, as I said, are established as false.
Others say, with stronger arguments, and this is to be valued
It stems from hama naiein, the bridegroom and the bride dwelling together.
Others give accounts from history,
Some say Hymenaeus was an Argive,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.600  the son of Terpsichore, who disappeared from her bridal chamber;
Others say Hymenaeus was Attic, not Argive,
Who found some maidens kidnapped by villains
Whom he persuaded to marry the maidens with legitimate marriages.
Thereafter hymenaioi among the Greek nation
Used to be sung at the event of a wedding,
The former, to prevent disappearances in the chamber
The Attica ones, to wish a lawful marriage.
That is what Greeks were doing in the event of weddings.
Calling Hymenaeus that Attic And recognizing legitimacy in the weddings he celebrated.
Just as Greeks invoke him in weddings
The Latin nation invokes Talasius.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.614  [postscript, having reached the end of the list of requested glosses]
Now you have your debt paid off completely
Because we recounted all the stories in the lists
Even if I composed them excessively briefly, through fear
There wouldn't be space to include them in the book.
Since I have written them and there is still room on the paper
I should stand up an icon of my benefactors in words
So all those debts should appear as paid off,
Be it on some axones or kyrbeis.

Event Date: 1000 GR

§ 13.620  [LIFE OF HOMER]
The Homeric lineage I will post up here,
But very briefly, and only for this reason,
That you know who Homer's wife and children were.
Because the rest of it I have already written in the Empress' book
The key points of which I will set down here.
The all-wise Homer, the sea of logoi
Except being full of nectar rather than salt water,
Is said to have seven disputed homelands,
To be the scion of seven fathers, likewise disputed.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.630  Know you that Homer was a Smyrnaean
Son of Meles and Critheis
And leave aside the mythology about his birth.
Know Pornapides as Homer's teacher
His bedmate was called Eurydice,
The daughter of Pastor or Gnostor the Cymaean.
Seriphon and Theolaos were Homer's sons
His daughter was Arsiphone, who married Stasinus,
Stasinus who composed the Cypria,
Which some say was Homer's own work,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.640  Given to Stasinus as a dowry along with money.
Arctinus from Miletus was Homer's student,
And the poet also had a slave called Byccon,
Whom Tzetzes punning calls bikon and phlaskon (jar and flask)
Homer's books number thirteen.
His era coincides with two military campaigns
The Theban and Trojan, according to many others.
But Apollodorus the chronicler writes
That his time was eighty years after the Trojan War.
Hesiod was at his prime, as I have found in other authors,
During the eleventh Olympiad.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.650  Homer's end occurred in this way:
It was prophesied that he would die on being asked
A riddle he was unable to solve.
The man was poor, and blind due to old age,
(What sensible person would write that fictional nonsense)
He travelled the whole country of Greece
Reciting his poems, to an honorable welcome.
While being hosted in Arcadia under Creophilus
He went for a walk on the shore.

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.660  He said, “O Arcadian fishermen, what have we here?”
And they answered him, talking about lice,
What they caught they did not have, while what they had they had not caught.
He turned away distraught, not having gotten the joke.
He slipped on some clay and hit on a rock,
Breaking his right-hand ribs, and died on the third day.
Here you have, narrowly: the sea of nectar;
Wise Helicon, indeed the Muses themselves;
Apollo himself, moreover, the leader of the Muses;
The one above all else, great Homer,

Event Date: -1000 GR

§ 13.670  Whence he sprouted, and who he was, whom he brought forth,
His slave, his teacher, his student
His date and his books and where and how he died.
So let us now put a stop with this, make him the seal,
The seal and conclusion of this book of ours.
End of Ioannes Tzetzes' book of history, in political meter, called Alpha, the number of lines being 12759.

Event Date: -1000 GR
END
Event Date: 2017

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