23
Calpurnius Crassus, a famous man bearing arms with Regulus, was sent to the Massyllians to attack the castle of Garaetius, being a very strong place. He was taken in the enterprise, and designed for a sacrifice to Saturn; but Bisaltia, the king’s daughter, out of a passionate kindness to Calpurnius, betrayed her father. Calpurnius left her, and after his departure Bisaltia cut her own throat.—Hesianax’s Third Book of African History.
24
When Priam found that Troy was given for lost, he sent his young son Polydore into Thrace with a vast sum of gold, and put all into the hands of Polymestor his kinsman. So soon as Troy was taken, Polymestor killed the child, and took the gold to himself. Hecuba, being driven upon that quarter, overreached Polymestor by craft, under pretence of giving him a great treasure, at which time she, with the assistance of her fellow-prisoners, tore out his eyes with her nails.—Euripides the Tragedian.
24
When Hannibal was ravaging the country of Campania, Lucius Thymbris deposited his son Rustius, with a vast sum of money, in the hands of Valerius Gestius his kinsman; who upon intelligence that the enemy carried all before him, out of pure avarice and without any regard to humanity or justice, killed the child. It so fell out that Thymbris, as he was walking about the fields, found the dead body of his son; whereupon he called his kinsman under pretence of a treasure that he would show him. He took his opportunity, put out his eyes, and crucified him. —Aristides’s Third Book of his Italic History.
25
Aeacus had two sons by Psamathe, Phocus and Telamon, the former better beloved than the other. Telamon one day took out his brother a hunting; and a boar presenting himself, he threw his lance in pretence at the boar, but in truth at his brother, whom he hated, and so killed him; for which his father banished him.—Dorotheus’s First Book of Transformations.
