3
Just then a servant made his way to us and said, Periander bids you, and Thales too, to take your friend here with you and inspect something which has just now been brought to him, to determine whether its birth is of no import whatever, or whether it is a sign and portent; at any rate, he himself seemed to be greatly agitated, feeling that it was a pollution and blot upon his solemn festival. With these words he conducted us to one of the rooms off the garden. Here a youth, a herdsman apparently, beardless as yet, and not bad-looking withal, unfolded a piece of leather, and showed us a newly-born creature which he asserted was the offspring of a mare. Its upper parts as far as the neck and arms were of human form, and the sound of its crying was just like that of newly-born infants, but the rest of its body was that of a horse. Neiloxenus merely exclaimed, God save us, and turned his face away; but Thales fixed his gaze upon the youth for a long time, and then, with a smile (for he was in the habit of joking with me about my profession), said, No doubt, Diocles, you are minded to set in operation your ritual of atonement, and to trouble the gods who deliver us from evil, since you must feel that something terrible and momentous has befallen?
3
Why not? said I, since this thing is a sign of strife and discord, Thales, and I fear that it may go so far as to affect even marriage and offspring, because, even before we have made full atonement for the first fault that moved the goddess to wrath, she plainly shows us, as you see, that there is a second.
