THE AVENGERS OF IBYCUS. 
339 
The mute but eloquent testimony which the cranes bore in the matter 
of the assassination of Ibycus also contributed greatly to their popularity. 
The story runs that Ibycus was a lyric poet who had many enemies, and 
that the latter killed him one day when he was musing in the fields. It 
happened that a flock of cranes passed above the scene of murder. The 
victim, calling these birds to bear witness to the crime of the assassins, 
exclaimed to them, "Be ye my avengers !" Though the murder made 
much noise, its perpetrators remained unknown, until, one fine evening, 
two strangers who were walking in the public place* of Corinth, on 
perceiving in the air a company of cranes, allowed the imprudent ex- 
clamation to escape them, "Behold the avengers of Ibycus !" Hearing 
the well-known name, the bystanders were aroused ; and the mysterious 
expression was repeated by a thousand mouths. The crowd surrounded 
the two friends ; the magistrate ordered their arrest, and questioned 
them with so much closeness and intelligence that eventually they con- 
fessed their guilt. The phrase, a! 'J/3okov jepavoi, became proverbial.-f- 
The wars of the Cranes and the Pygmies had also a reasonable 
amount of popularity in the old days. They have been immortalized 
by Homer : — 
" As when the cranes, 
Flying the wintry storms, send forth on high 
Their dissonant clamours, while o'er the ocean stream 
They steer their course, and on their pinions bear 
Battle and death to the Pygmaean race." 
According to Aristotle, the Pygmies were located near the sources 
of the Nile, and thither the cranes migrated annually to take posses- 
sion of their fields. Both Pliny and Aristotle have endeavoured to 
explain the fable, but not very satisfactorily. It may be conjectured, 
perhaps, that the Pygmies, those little men, two feet in stature, who 
lived in caverns, were really monkeys, on whom the cranes levied 
black-mail when they fell in with them on their return from pillaging 
the stores of the farmers. We may add that recent travellers have 
discovered in Equatorial Africa a race of men below the average 
stature, some account of whom, travelling as far as Greece, and gain- 
ing embellishments on the way, may have suggested the poetic fiction. 
* Some say the theatre. t This legend has been finely treated by Schiller. 
