Parallela minora

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals, Vol. 5. Goodwin, William W., editor; Oswald, John, translator. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company; Cambridge: Press of John Wilson and Son, 1874.

While the Carthaginians were treating an alliance with the Sicilians against the Romans, the Roman general Metellus was observed to omit sacrificing only to Vesta, who revenged herself upon him by sending a cross wind to the navy. But Caius Julius, a soothsayer, being consulted in the matter, gave answer, that this obstacle would

be removed upon the general’s sacrificing his daughter so that he was forced to produce his daughter Metella for a sacrifice. But Vesta had compassion for her, and so sent her away to Lamusium, substituting a heifer in her stead, and made a priestess of her to the dragon that is worshipped in that place.—So Pythocles, in the Third Book of his Italian History.

Something like this happened to Iphigenia in Aulis, a city of Boeotia.—See Meryllus, in the First Book of his Boeotic History.

Brennus, a king of the Gauls, after the wasting of Asia, came to Ephesus, and there fell in love with a country girl, who promised him that for such a certain reward in bracelets and other curiosities of value he should have the use of her body, and that she would further undertake to deliver up Ephesus into his hands. Brennus ordered his soldiers to throw all the gold they had into the lap of this avaricious wretch, which they did, till she perished under the weight of it.—Clitophon in the First Book of his Gallican History.

Tarpeia, a virgin that was well born, and had the keeping of the Capitol in the war betwixt the Sabines and the Romans, passed a promise unto Tatius, that she would open him a passage into the Tarpeian Mount, provided that he would give her all the jewels that the Sabines wore, for a reward. The Sabines hearing this crushed her to death— Aristides’s Milesius, in his Italic History.