15
The people of Elis being highly indignant over this affair, the holy women devoted to Dionysus, whom they call the Sixteen, taking suppliant branches and fillets from those sacred to the god, went to meet Aristotimus close by the market-place. His bodyguard made way out of respect, and the priestesses silently halted, first of all reverently holding out their suppliant branches. But when it became clear that they were petitioning in behalf of the women, and trying by intreaty to mollify his anger, he, greatly exasperated with his guards, screamed out that they had permitted the priestesses to come into his presence, and he made them drive these from the market-place by pushing or striking one or another, and he fined each woman four hundred pounds.