DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9840#0181
VII.]
TWO DIE FROM MERE GRIEF.
131
tion of the effect produced on them by this visit, will
best declare how heart-rending their grief must have
been. One of them never again raised up his head,
but pined and wasted, and died only nine days after
the fatal confirmation, by the evidence of his senses, of
his worst fears. The other lived twenty days, and then
he too died.
Maniilios, their companion, is still living, and tells
me, being at the same time surrounded by a numerous
group of his fellow-villagers, of this their visit. Every
one confirms his account in all its details, except that
one or two of the men maintain that the second death
took place eighteen and not twenty days after the visit.
I am fully satisfied that I have learnt the simple un-
adorned truth with respect to all these dreadful events.
When the Greeks were again masters of the village
of Melidhdni, and of the district of Mylopdtamo, they
considered whether they should cause all the dead bodies
in the cave to be interred in the usual way ; and they
thought that no nobler sepulchre could be built for
them than that of which they had obtained possession.
On this account they only caused the burial service to
be read over them where they lay.
The ill fate of these fugitives, as well as the name
of the Tallaean Hermes, equally carry us back to Talos,
and the probable sacrifice of human victims in fire, with
which the rites of the ancient religion of the island were
celebrated.
Mount Tallaeos, or Talaeos, as the word is written
in Hesychius7', may certainly well have been a supposed
station of Talos, the mythical man of brass, and guardian
of the island. According to Apollonius Rhodius71, when
the Argonauts approached Crete,
73 HESYCHIUS : TaXaios' o Zeus, ev Kpi/V;;.
74 Apollonius Rhodius, iv. 1638.
Tous Se TotXajs yaA-Keios, «7r6 (yriftapov crKoireXotv
piiyvip.evos Trerpas, elpye X®0VL '7re'Lafxa'T' dvaxj/at,
\iKTa'ii]v op/xoto Ka.Tepxop.evou's eivLwyi]V.
I 2
TWO DIE FROM MERE GRIEF.
131
tion of the effect produced on them by this visit, will
best declare how heart-rending their grief must have
been. One of them never again raised up his head,
but pined and wasted, and died only nine days after
the fatal confirmation, by the evidence of his senses, of
his worst fears. The other lived twenty days, and then
he too died.
Maniilios, their companion, is still living, and tells
me, being at the same time surrounded by a numerous
group of his fellow-villagers, of this their visit. Every
one confirms his account in all its details, except that
one or two of the men maintain that the second death
took place eighteen and not twenty days after the visit.
I am fully satisfied that I have learnt the simple un-
adorned truth with respect to all these dreadful events.
When the Greeks were again masters of the village
of Melidhdni, and of the district of Mylopdtamo, they
considered whether they should cause all the dead bodies
in the cave to be interred in the usual way ; and they
thought that no nobler sepulchre could be built for
them than that of which they had obtained possession.
On this account they only caused the burial service to
be read over them where they lay.
The ill fate of these fugitives, as well as the name
of the Tallaean Hermes, equally carry us back to Talos,
and the probable sacrifice of human victims in fire, with
which the rites of the ancient religion of the island were
celebrated.
Mount Tallaeos, or Talaeos, as the word is written
in Hesychius7', may certainly well have been a supposed
station of Talos, the mythical man of brass, and guardian
of the island. According to Apollonius Rhodius71, when
the Argonauts approached Crete,
73 HESYCHIUS : TaXaios' o Zeus, ev Kpi/V;;.
74 Apollonius Rhodius, iv. 1638.
Tous Se TotXajs yaA-Keios, «7r6 (yriftapov crKoireXotv
piiyvip.evos Trerpas, elpye X®0VL '7re'Lafxa'T' dvaxj/at,
\iKTa'ii]v op/xoto Ka.Tepxop.evou's eivLwyi]V.
I 2