Kitap 3
11.11
There is also Hermes of the Market-place carrying Dionysus as a child, besides the old Courts of the Ephors, as they are called, in which are the tombs of Epimenides the Cretan and of Aphareus the son of Perieres. As to Epimenides, I think the Lacedaemonian story is more probable than the Argive. Here, where the Fates are, the Lacedaemonians also have a sanctuary of Hestia. There is also Zeus Hospitable and Athena Hospitable.
12.1
As you go from the market-place by the road they name the Aphetaid Road, you come to the so-called Booneta.That is, Office of the Ox-buyer's. But my narrative must first explain why the road has this name.
12.2
It is said that Icarius proposed a foot-race for the wooers of Penelope; that Odysseus won is plain, but they say that the competitors were let go (aphethenai) for the race along the Aphetaid Road. In my opinion, Icarius was imitating Danaus when he held the running-race. For Danaus contrived the following plan to solve the difficulty about his daughters. Nobody would take a wife from among them because of their pollution so Danaus sent round a notice that he would give away his daughters without bride-gifts, and that each suitor could choose the one whose beauty pleased him most. A few men came, among whom he held a foot-race the first comer was allowed to choose before all the others, after him the second, and so on to the last. The daughters that were left had to wait until other suitors arrived and competed in another foot-race.
12.3
On this road the Lacedaemonians have, as I have already said, what is called the Booneta, which once was the house of their king Polydorus. When he died, they bought it from his widow, paying the price in oxen. For at that time there was as yet neither silver nor gold coinage, but they still bartered in the old way with oxen, slaves, and uncoined silver and gold.
