(), commonly found in the plural Palici, Παλικοί, were Sicilian daemons, twin sons of Zeus and the nymph
Thaleia, the daughter of Hephaestus. Sometimes they are called sons of Hephaestus by Aetna,
the daughter of Oceanus. Thaleia, from fear of Hera, desired to be swallowed up by the earth;
this was done, but in due time she sent forth from the earth twin boys, who were called
Παλικοὶ, from τοῦ πάλιν
ἱκέσθαι. They were worshipped in the neighbourhood of mount Aetna, near Palice;
and in the earliest times human sacrifices were offered to them. Their sanctuary was an asylum
for runaway slaves, and near it there gushed forth from the earth two sulphureous springs,
called Deilloi, or brothers of the Palici; at which solemn oaths were taken, the oaths being
written on tablets and thrown into one of the wells. If the tablet swam on the water, the oath
was considered to be true, but if it sank down, the oath was regarded as perjury, which was
believed to be punished instantaneously by blindness or death. (Steph. Byz. s.
v.Παλική; Aristot. Mir.
58; Diod. 11.89; Strab. vi.
p.275; Cic. De Nat. Deor. 3.22; Verg. A.
9.585, with the note of Servius; Ov. Met. 5.406; Macr. 5.19.)