Histories

Herodotus

Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).

for when the Scythians will swear their mightiest oath, it is by the king's hearth that they are accustomed to swear. Immediately, the man whom they allege to have sworn falsely is seized and brought in, and when he comes the diviners accuse him, saying that their divination shows him to have sworn falsely by the king's hearth, and that this is the cause of the king's sickness; and the man vehemently denies that he has sworn falsely.