Histories

Herodotus

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

The oracle was as follows:

  1. That man is fortunate who steps into my house,
  2. Cypselus, son of Eetion, the king of noble Corinth [22.9083,37.9083] (Perseus) Corinth,
  3. He himself and his children, but not the sons of his sons.
Such was the oracle. Cypselus, however, when he had gained the tyranny, conducted himself in this way: many of the Corinthians he drove into exile, many he deprived of their wealth, and by far the most he had killed.

After a reign of thirty years,[*](655 to 625.) he died in the height of prosperity, and was succeeded by his son Periander. Now Periander was to begin with milder than his father, but after he had held converse by messenger with Thrasybulus the tyrant of Miletus [27.3,37.5] (Perseus) Miletus, he became much more bloodthirsty than Cypselus.

He had sent a herald to Thrasybulus and inquired in what way he would best and most safely govern his city. Thrasybulus led the man who had come from Periander outside the town, and entered into a sown field. As he walked through the corn, continually asking why the messenger had come to him from Corinth [22.9083,37.9083] (Perseus) Corinth, he kept cutting off all the tallest ears of wheat which he could see, and throwing them away, until he had destroyed the best and richest part of the crop.