De Heroditi malignate

But I let pass the barbarian examples, since he has offered us plenty enough in the Grecian affairs. He says, that the Athenians and most other Ionians were so ashamed of that name that they wholly refused to be called Ionians; and that those who esteemed themselves the noblest among them, and who had set forth from the very Prytaneum of Athens, begat children on barbarian wives whose parents, husbands, and former children they had slain; that the women had therefore made a law among themselves, confirmed it by oath, and delivered it to be kept by their daughters, never to eat with their husbands, nor to call any of them by his name; and that the present Milesians are descended from these women. Having afterwards added that those are true Ionians who celebrate the feast called Apaturia; they all, says he, keep it except the

Ephesians and Colophonians.[*](Herod. I. 143-148.) In this manner does he deprive these two states of their nobility.