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.

Mars is said to have begotten Meleager upon Althaea.—Euripides, in his Meleager.

Septimius Marcellus took to wife one Sylvia, and a great lover of hunting he was. Mars put himself in the habit

of a shepherd, whored the new wife and got her with child; which being done, he told her who he was, and gave her a spear, telling her that the fate of the child she went withal was wrapped up in the fate of that spear. . . .

Septimius slew Tuscinus; but Mamercus, in his sacrificing to the Gods for a fruitful season, omitted only Ceres, who in revenge sent a wild boar into his grounds. Whereupon getting a knot of huntsmen together, he killed him, and delivered the head and skin to his sweetheart; but Scymbrates and Muthias, the maid’s uncles, took them away from her. Mamercus in a rage killed them upon it, and the mother burned the spear.—Menyllus, in the Third Book of his Italian History.

When Telamon, the son of Aeacus and Endeis, came to Euboea, he debauched Periboea the daughter of Alcathous, and fled away by night. The father understanding this, and suspecting the villany to be done by some of the citizens, he delivered his daughter to one of the guards to be thrown into the sea. But the soldier, in compassion to the woman, rather sold her, and she was carried away by sea to the island of Salamis, where Telamon bought her, and had by her Ajax.—Aretades Cnidius, in his Second Book of Islands.

Lucius Troscius had by Patris a daughter called Florentia, who, being corrupted by Calpurnius a Roman, was delivered by her father to a soldier, with a charge to throw her in the sea and drown her. The man had compassion of her, and rather sold her. And when good fortune brought the ship to Italy, Calpurnius bought her, and had Contruscus by her. . . .