addressed him in these lines:
"'Much to be honoured art thou, yet none doth render thee honour. 81
Labda conceives, and a rolling rock will she bear, which shall ruin
Down on the heads of the kings, and with chastisement visit Corinthos.'
This answer given to Aetion was by some means reported to the
Bacchiadai, to whom the oracle which had come to Corinth before this was
not intelligible, an oracle which had reference to the same thing as
that of Aetion and said thus:
"'An eagle conceives in the rocks 82 and shall bear a ravening lion,
Strong and fierce to devour, who the knees of many shall loosen.
Ponder this well in your minds, I bid you, Corinthians, whose dwelling
Lies about fair Peirene's spring and in craggy Corinthos.' 83
(c) This oracle, I say, having come before to the Bacchiadai was
obscure; but afterwards when they heard that which had come to Aetion,
forthwith they understood the former also, that it was in accord with
that of Aetion; and understanding this one also they kept quiet,
desiring to destroy the offspring which should be born to Aetion. Then,
so soon as his wife bore a child, they sent ten of their own number to
the deme in which Aetion had his dwelling, to slay the child; and when
these had come to Petra and had passed into the court of Aetion's house,
they asked for the child; and Labda, not knowing anything of the purpose
for which they had come, and supposing them to be asking for the child
on account of friendly feeling towards its father, brought it and placed
it in the hands of one of them. Now they, it seems, had resolved by the
way that the first of them who received the child should dash it upon
the ground. However, when Labda brought and gave it, it happened by
divine providence that the child smiled at the man who had received it;
and when he perceived this, a feeling of compassion prevented him from
killing it, and having this compassion he delivered it to the next man,
and he to the third. Thus it passed through the hands of all the ten,
delivered from one to another, since none of them could bring himself to
destroy its life. So they gave the child back to its mother and went
out; and then standing by the doors they abused and found fault with one
another, laying blame especially on the one who had first received the
child, because he had not done according to that which had been
resolved; until at last after some time they determined again to enter
and all
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