Chap. 48.] T1TE MAN ORDERED TO BE WORSHIPPED. 1 99 



loss to say whether deservedly or not, died, leaving the son of 

 his own enemy his heir. 32 



CHAP. 47. (46.) MEN WHOM THE GODS HAVE PRONOUNCED TO BE 



THE MOST HAPPY. 



In reference to this point, two oracles of Delphi may come 

 under our consideration, which would appear to have been 

 pronounced as though in order to chastise the vanity of man. 

 These oracles were the following : by the first, Pedius was 

 pronounced to be the most happy of men, who had just before 

 fallen in defence of his country. 33 On the second occasion, 

 when it had been consulted by Gyges, at that time the most 

 powerful king in the world, it declared that Aglaiis of 

 Psophis 34 was a more happy man than himself. 35 This Aglaiis 

 was an old man, who lived in a poor petty nook of Arcadia, 

 and cultivated a small farm, though quite sufficient for the 

 supply of his yearly wants ; 36 he had never so much as left it, 

 and, as was quite evident from his mode of living, his desires 

 being of the most limited kind, he had experienced but an ex- 

 tremely small share of the miseries of life. 



CHAP. 48. (47.) THE MAN WHOM THE GODS ORDERED TO BE 

 WORSHIPPED DURING HIS LIFE-TIME ; A REMARKABLE FLASH OF 

 LIGHTNING. 



While still surviving, and in full possession of his senses, 

 by the command of the same oracle, and with the sanction of 

 .Jupiter, the supreme Father of the gods, Euthymus, 37 the 

 pugilist, who had always, with one exception, been victorious 

 in the Olympic games, was deified. He was a native of Locri, 



32 For Tiberius Nero, the father of Tiberius Caesar, took the side of 

 M. Antonius in the Civil War. B. 



33 We have no mention of Pedius, or Phedius, as he is named in some of 

 the MSS., in any of the ancient authors. A story of the same import is 

 related of Solon and Tellus, by Herodotus, B. i. c. 30, and by Plutarch. B. 



34 A town of Arcadia. See B. iv. c. 10. 



35 This is also related by Valerius Maximus, B. vii. c. 1. B. 



36 This is very similar to Virgil's beautiful description of the old man 

 Corycius, in the'Georgics, B. iv. 1. 125, et seq. 



37 We have some account of Euthymus in Pausanias, B. vi, and in 

 JElian, Var. Hist. B. viii. c. 18. B. 



