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Question 38. Who amongst the Boeotians were the
Ψολόεις, and who the ᾿Ολεῖαι?
Solution. They say that Minos's daughters—Leucippe, Arsinoe, and Alcathoe—falling mad, had a greedy
appetite for man's flesh, and accordingly cast lots for their
children. Whereupon it fell to Leucippe's lot to produce
her son Hippasus to be cut in pieces. The husbands of
these women, that were clothed in coarse apparel by
reason of sorrow and grief, were called Psoloeis, the
women 'Ολεῖαι that is ὀλοαί (destructive). And to this day
the Orchomenians call their posterity so. And it is so
ordered that, in the yearly feast called Agrionia, there is
a flight and pursuit of them by the priest of Bacchus,
with a drawn sword in his hand. It is lawful for him to
slay any of them that he takes, and Zoilus a priest of
our time slew one. This thing proved unlucky to them;
for Zoilus, sickening upon a wound that he got, wasted
away for a long time and died; whereupon the Orchomenians, falling under public accusations and condemnations, removed the priesthood from their family, and made
choice of the best man in the whole multitude.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 2.
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