Vitae philosophorum

Periander to Procles

The murder of my wife was unintentional; but yours is deliberate guilt when you set my son’s heart against me. Either therefore put an end to my son’s harsh treatment, or I will revenge myself

There is also a letter written to him by Thrasybulus, as follows:

Thrasybulus to Periander

I made no answer to your herald; but I took him into a cornfield, and with a staff smote and cut off the over-grown ears of corn, while he accompanied me. And if you ask him what he heard and what he saw, he will give his message. And this is what you must do if you want to strengthen your absolute rule: put to death those among the citizens who are pre-eminent, whether they are hostile to you or not. For to an absolute ruler even a friend is an object of suspicion.

Anacharsis the Scythian was the son of Gnurus and brother of Caduidas, king of Scythia. His mother was a Greek, and for that reason he spoke both languages. He wrote on the institutions of the Greeks and the Scythians, dealing with simplicity of life and military matters, a poem of 800 lines. So outspoken was he that he furnished occasion for a proverb, To talk like a Scythian.

Sosicrates makes him come to Athens about the 47th Olympiad[*](591-588 B.C.) in the archonship of Eucrates. Hermippus relates that on his arrival at the house of Solon he told one of the servants to announce that Anacharsis had come and was desirous of seeing him and, if possible, of becoming his guest.

The

After a while Anacharsis returned to Scythia, where, owing to his enthusiasm for everything Greek, he was supposed to be subverting the national institutions, and was killed by his brother while they were out hunting together. When struck by the arrow he exclaimed, My reputation carried me safe through Greece, but the envy it excited at home has been my ruin. In some accounts it is said that he was slain while performing Greek rites.

Here is my own epitaph upon him[*](Anth. Pal. vii. 92.):