4
They were wont to employ sixty men chosen from the nobles, and appointed for life, as overseers and preliminary advisers in matters of the greatest importance. They were called the Forgetful Ones, one might conjecture, because they could not be held to account for their actions; unless, indeed, it was because they were men who remembered many things.On the lucus a non lucendo principle, as Halliday well suggests; or else ἀμ-μνήμονες, as van Herwerden supposes. He who asked them their opinions was the Dismisser.
5
Who are the good among the Arcadians and the Spartans?
5
When the Spartans had come to terms with the Tegeans, they made a treaty and set up in common a pillar by the Alpheius. On this, among other matters, was inscribed: The Messenians must be expelled from the country; it shall not be lawful to make men good. Cf. χρηστὲ χαῖρε on Greek tombstones. Aristotle,Frag. 592 (V. Rose); cf. 277 b-c, supra>. then, in explaining this, states that it means that no one shall be put to death because of assistance given to the Spartan party in Tegea.
6
Who is he that selects barley (krithologos) among the Opuntians?
6
For sacrifices of very ancient origin most of the Greeks used to employ barley, which the citizens offered as first-fruits of the harvest. Accordingly they called the officer who presided at the sacrifices and brought these first-fruits the Barley-selector. They had two priests: one appointed for sacrifices to the gods, the other for sacrifices to the spirits.
7
What were the floating clouds?
7
They used to call clouds floating which particularly threatened rain and were in constant motion, as Theophrastus has stated in the fourth book of his Meteorology. The passage reads thus: Since also these floating clouds and these compact clouds, which are immovable and very white in colour, exhibit a certain difference of substance which is filled neither with water nor with wind.
8
Who is the near-dweller (platioiketas) among the Boeotians?
