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The inhabitants of Priene recount that Bias1 ransomed from robbers some maidens of distinguished families of Messenia and reared them in honour, as if they were his own daughters. And after some time, when their kinsfolk came in search of them, he gave the maidens over to them, asking for neither the cost of their rearing nor the price of their ransom, but on the contrary giving them many presents from his own possessions. The maidens, therefore, loved him as a father, both because they had lived in his home and because he had done so much for them, so that, even when they had departed together with their own families to their native land, they did not forget the kindness they had received in a foreign country.

1 Of Priene, and another of the Seven Wise Men.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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Priene (Turkey) (2)
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