* * * * *
[22.] [232] 
And Ephorus, or Demophilus, his son, in the thirtieth book of his Histories, 
speaking of the temple of Delphi, says, "But Onomarchus and Phayllus and Phalaecus not only carried off all the treasures of the god, but at last their wives carried off also the ornaments of Eriphyle, which Alcmaeon consecrated at Delphi by the command of the god, and also the necklace of Helen, which had been given by Menelaus. For the god had given each of them oracles: he had said to Alcmaeon, when he asked him how he could be cured of his madness -
You ask a precious gift, relief from madness;
Give me a precious gift yourself; the chain
With which your mother buried, steeds and all,
Your sire, her husband, brave Amphiaraus.
And he replied to Menelaus, who consulted him as to how he might avenge himself on Paris -
Bring me the golden ornament of the neck
Of your false wife; which Aphrodite once did give
A welcome gift to Helen; and then Paris
Shall glut your direst vengeance by his fall.
[233]And it so fell out that a violent quarrel arose among the women about these ornaments - which should take which. And when they had drawn lots for the choice, the one of them, who was very ugly and stern, got Eriphyle's necklace, but the one who was conspicuous for beauty and wanton got the ornaments of Helen; and she, being in love with a young man of Epirus, went away with him, but the other contrived to put her husband to death."
[23.] But the divine Platon, and Lycurgus the Lacedamonian, not only forbade all costly ornaments to be introduced into their model states, but they would not permit even silver or gold to be brought into them, 
thinking that of the products of mines, iron and copper were sufficient, and banishing the other metals as injurious to those states which were in good order. But Zenon the Stoic, thinking everything unimportant except the legitimate and honest use of the precious metals, forbade either wishing for or denouncing them; but still he recommended chiefly the use of those which were more commonly accessible and less superfluous; 
in order that men, having the dispositions of their minds formed so as neither to fear nor to admire anything which is not honourable on the one hand or discreditable on the other, should use only what is natural as much as possible, and yet should not fear what is of an opposite character, but abstain from such in obedience to reason and not to fear. For nature has not banished any of the above-mentioned things out of the world, but has made subterranean veins of these metals, the working of which is very laborious and difficult in order that they who desire such things may arrive at the acquisition after toil and suffering; and that not only those men themselves who work in the mines, but those also who collect what has been extracted from the mines, may acquire this much wished for opulence at the expense of countless labours.
Therefore a little of these metals lies on the surface just to serve as a sample of the rest which is beneath, since in the remotest corners of the earth also there are rivers bearing down gold-dust in their waters; and women and men destitute of bodily strength scratching among the sand, detach these particles from the sand, and then they wash them and bring them to the smelting-pot, as my countryman Poseidonius says [ Fr_48 ] is done among the Helvetii, and among others of the Celtic tribes. And the mountains which used formerly to be called the Rhipaean mountains, and which were subsequently named the Olbian (as if happy), and which are now called the Alps, (they are mountains in Gaul,) when once the woods upon them had caught fire spontaneously, ran with liquid silver. The greater quantity of this metal, however, is found by mining operations carried on at a great depth, and attended by great hardship, according to the statement of Demetrius Phalereus, in consequence of the desire of avarice to draw Pluto himself out of the recesses of the earth; and, accordingly, he says facetiously that - "Men having often abandoned what was visible for the sake of what was uncertain, have not got what they expected, and have lost what they had, being unfortunate by an enigmatical sort of calamity."
[24.] But the Lacedaemonians being forbidden by their national institutions from introducing gold or silver into Sparta, as the same Poseidonius relates, or from possessing any in private, did possess it nevertheless, but then they deposited it among their neighbours the Arcadians. But subsequently the Arcadians became enemies to them instead of friends, as they had been; picking a quarrel with them with the express view of seizing on this deposit without being called to account for it, by reason of the enmity now subsisting. Therefore it is said that the gold and silver which had formerly been at Lacedaemon was consecrated at Delphi to Apollo; and that when Lysander brought gold publicly into the city he was the cause of many evils to the state by so doing. [234] And it is said that Gylippus, who liberated the Syracusans, was put to death by starvation, having been condemned by the ephors, because he had embezzled some of the money sent to Sparta by Lysander. But that which had been devoted to the god and been granted to the people as a public ornament and public property, it was not decent for any mortal to treat with contempt.
[25.] That tribe of Gauls which is called the Scordistae, does not introduce gold into their country either, but still they are not the less ready to plunder the territories of their neighbours, and to commit injustice; # and that nation is a remnant of the Gauls who formed the army of Brennus when he made his expedition against the temple of Delphi. And a certain Bathanattus, acting as their leader, settled them as a colony in the districts around the Ister, from whom they call the road by which they returned the Bathanattan road, and even to this day they call his posterity the Bathanatti. And these men shun gold, and do not introduce it into their territories, as a thing on account of which they have suffered many calamities; but they do use silver, and for the sake of that they commit the most enormous atrocities. Although the proper course would be, not to banish the whole class of the thing of which they were formerly plundered, but the impiety which could perpetrate such a sacrilege. And even if they did not introduce silver into their country, still they would commit excesses in the pursuit of copper and iron; and even if they had not these things, still they would continue to rage in war against other nations for the sake of meat and drink, and other necessaries.
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