Quaestiones Graecae

Plutarch

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

Question 15. What is the wooden dog among the Locrians?

Solution. Locrus was the son of Fuscius, the son of Amphictyon. Of him and Cabya came Locrus, with whom his father falling into contention, and gathering after him a great number of citizens, consulted the oracle about transplanting a colony. The oracle told him that there he should build a city, where he should happen to be bit by a wooden dog. He, wafting over the sea unto the next shore, trod upon a cynosbatus (a sweet brier), and being sorely pained with the prick, he spent many days there; in which time considering the nature of the country, he built Physcus and Hyantheia, and other towns which the

Ozolian Locrians inhabited. Some say that the Locrians were called Ozolians (strong-scented people) from Nessus —others again from Python the serpent—cast up there by the surf of the sea, and putrefying upon the shore. And some say that the men wore pelts and ram-goat skins, living for the most part among the herds of goats, and therefore were strong-scented. Others contrariwise say that the country brought forth many flowers, and that this name was from their sweet odor; among them that assert this is Archytas the Amphissean, who hath wrote thus:

Macyna crowned with vines fragrant and sweet.

Question 16. What manner of thing is that among the Megarians called ἀφάβρωμα?

Solution. Nisus, of whom Nisaea had its name, in the time of his reign married Abrota of Boeotia, the daughter of Onchestus and sister of Megareus, a woman (as it seems) excelling in prudence and singularly modest. When she died, the Megarians cordially lamented her; and Nisus, willing to perpetuate her memory and renown, gave command that the Megarian women should dress in apparel like unto that which she wore, and that dress they called for her sake aphabroma. And verily it is manifest that the oracle countenanced the veneration of this woman; for when the Megarian women would often have altered their garments, the oracle prohibited it.