BOOK VIII. XXI. 59-xxn. 6i 



equally remarkable story about a panther, which out 

 of desire for human aid lay in the middle of a road, 

 where the father of a certain student of philosophy 

 named PhiHnus suddenly came in sight of it. The 

 man, so the story goes, began to retreat, but the 

 animal roUed over on its back, obviously trying to 

 cajole him, and tormented by sorrow that was intel- 

 hgible even in a panther : she had a Htter of cubs 

 that had fallen into a pit some distance away. The 

 first result of his compassion therefore was not to be 

 frightened, and the next to give her his attention ; 

 and he foUowed where she drew him by lightly 

 touching his clothes with her claws, and when he 

 understood the cause of her grief and at the same 

 time the recompense due for his own security, he 

 got the cubs out of the pit ; and the panther with her 

 young escorted him right to the edge of the desert, 

 guiding him with gestures of dehght that made it 

 quite clear that she was expressing gratitude and 

 not reckoning on any recompense, which is rare even 

 in a human being. 



XXII. These stories give credibihty to Demo- Gratuudeoj 

 critus also, who tells a tale of Thoas in Arcadia 

 being saved by a snake. Wlien a boy he had fed it 

 and made a great pet of it, and his parent being 

 afraid of the snake's nature and size had taken it 

 away into an uninhabited region, where it recognized 

 Thoas's voice and came to his rescue when he was 

 entrapped by an ambush of brigands. For as to the 

 reports about infants when they had been exposed 

 being fed by the milk of wild animals, as well as 

 those about our founders being nursed by a she-wolf, 

 I deem it more reasonable for them to be credited to 

 the grandeur of their destinies than to the nature 

 of the wild animals. 



47 



