310 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



these cannot be satisfactorily answered at the present day. The fol- 

 lowing facts, however, seem to bear upon this point. 



When Xerxes was on his way to Greece, some Greek spies were 

 sent to Sardis, the capital of Lydia, to observe the movements of his 

 army.* This simple incident implies either that a Greek could not be 

 easily distinguished from an Asian, and therefore the Greek spies ran 

 no risk of being detected by their features; or that many Greeks 

 might easily be taken for Lydians, Phrygians, Mysians, Carians, and 

 so forth. Had there been any marked difference between the Greeks 

 and the nations of Asia Minor, these men would not have ventured 

 upon such an undertaking. It may be said, however, that the Persians 

 might have taken them for lonians, in which case they would not have 

 molested them, since the Asiatic lonians at that time were compelled 

 to side with the great king. 



Again, when the Greek army under Xenophon were deliberating, in 

 the vicinity of Babylon, about their return to Greece, a Lydian spy in 

 the employ of the Persians, calling himself ApoUonides, and speaking 

 the Boiotic dialect, endeavored to persuade the Greeks to surrender to 

 the king. Most of the commanders, it would seem, took him for a 

 Greek, and told him that he was a disgrace to Greece for proposing 

 such a cowardly measure. " I warrant you he is not a Greek," ex- 

 claimed Agasias; "he is a Lydian, for his ears are boi'ed"; — which 

 implies that the Lydians were in the habit of weai'ing ear-rings, a 

 practice discountenanced by the Greeks.f 



During the most flourishing period of Athens, supposititious children 

 were not uncommon ; the Athenian matrons sometimes exchanging 

 babes with their female slaves, if the infant of the slave was a boy, 

 and that of the mistress a girl. Occasionally the lady would buy a 

 newly born child from some slave, and make her husband believe that 

 she was its true mother, and he its true father.J Now the slaves of 



* Her. 7, 145 seq. 



f Xen. Anab. 3, 1, 26 (17) seq. Compare Dion Chrysostom. Or. 32, 

 p. 654, ear-rings worn by Lydian and Phrygian girls and boys. 



J Eur. Ale. 647 OIk tjctO' ap 6p6u>s rovhe crmfxaTos TraTrjp, OvS' fj rsKeiv 

 (f)d(TKOV(Ta Koi KeKkrjpevrj Mrjrrip pH eriKTe ' 8ov\iov S' d(f>' aiparos Matrroi yvvaiKos 

 (Trjs inte^\i]dr)v \d6pa. ArisT. Tbcsin. 570 OiS' as crii, Trjs BovXtjs TeKovcrrjs 

 appev fira aavTrj Toii6 iyre/SaXou, to aov 8e Qvyajpiov naprJKas avrfi. 508 

 Ertpav 8' e'ywfi', rj (f)aaKfv u)8iv€iv yvvrj Ae;^ rjpfpas, eas ewpiaro 7rai8iov. 



