BOOK VII. xxxi. ii9-xxx\^ 120 



Socrates, whom Pythian Apollo's oracle placed before 

 all other men. XXXII. Again, partnership with the 

 oracles was bestowed by mortals on the Spartan 

 Chilo, by canonizing in letters of gold at Delphi his 

 three precepts, which arethese: Knowthyself; Desire 

 nothing too mnch ; The comrade of debt and litigation 

 is miserii. Moreover when he expired from joy on 

 his son's being victorious at Olympia, the whole of 

 Greece followed in his funeral procession. 



XXXIII. The most famous instances of the gift and duiners. 

 of divination and so to speak communion with the 

 heavenly beings are, among women, the Sibyl, and 

 among men, Melampus in Greece and Marcius at 



Rome. 



XXXIV. Scipio Nasica was judged by the verdict ThenobUst 

 of the senate on oath to be once for all the noblest '"^"' 

 man since the foundation of time, although he was 



twice branded by the nation with defeat when a 

 candidate for office. At the end he was not per- 

 mitted to die in his native land, any more in truth 

 than the great Socrates, whom Apollo judged to be 

 the wisest of mankind, was allowed to die freed from 

 fetters. 



XXXV. The first case of a woman judged by the Thenobiest 

 vote of the matrons to be the most modest was woman. 

 Sulpicia," daughter of Paterculus and wife of Fulvius 

 Flaccus, who was elected from a previously chosen 



list of 100 to dedicate the image of Venus in ac- 

 cordance with the Sibylline books ; and on a second 

 occasion, by the test of relrgion, Claiidia,* when the 

 Mother of the Gods was brought to llome. 



woman could movo it. Claudia coming forward took hold of 

 the rope and at once pulled the vesael forward (Livy XXIX. 

 14, Ovid Fasli IV. 395). 



585 



