time; which then, it seems, consisted chiefly in grave maxims, such as the poet Hesiod got his great fame by, in his book of Works and Days. And, indeed, among these is one that they ascribe to Pittheus,—
Unto a friend suffice
A stipulated price;[1]
which, also, Aristotle mentions. And Euripides, by calling Hippolytus "scholar of the holy Pittheus," shows the opinion that the world had of him.
Ægeus, being desirous of children, and consulting the oracle of Delphi, received the celebrated answer which forbade him the company of any woman before his return to Athens. But the oracle being so obscure as not to satisfy him that he was clearly forbid this, he went to Trœzen, and communicated to Pittheus the voice of the god, which was in this manner,—
Loose not the wine-skin foot, thou chief of men,
Until to Athens thou art come again.
Pittheus, therefore, taking advantage from the obscurity of the oracle, prevailed upon him, it is uncertain whether by persuasion or deceit, to lie with his daughter Æthra. Ægeus afterwards, knowing her whom he had lain with to be Pittheus's daughter, and suspecting her to be with child by him, left a sword and a pair of shoes, hiding them under a great stone that had a hollow in it exactly fitting them; and went away making her only
- ↑ In the Works and Days this proverb, as it now stands, certainly means, "Stipulate your price beforehand with your friend." "Even," adds the following line, "in a bargain with your brother, laugh, and call in a witness." Aristotle understood it to say, that no one can claim, in justice, more than the sum that had been first agreed upon. Before Hesiod, however, and perhaps originally in Hesiod, it may have simply been an injunction to pay a friend fairly and fully the price that at first was appointed.
