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What is it that is called in Prienê ‘the darkness
by the Oak’?
When the Samians and the Prienians were at war
with each other, on the other occasions they suffered
injuries and inflicted injuries to a moderate degree
only ; but when a great battle took place, the people
of Prienê slew one thousand Samians. Six years later
they engaged the Milesians at a place called the
Oak, and lost practically all the best and the foremost
of their citizens. At this time also the sage Bias was
sent on an embassy from Prienê to Samos and won
high repute. For the women of Prienê this was a
cruel experience and a pitiable calamity, and it
became established as a curse and an oath in the
most important matters to swear by ‘the darkness
by the Oak,’ because of the fact that there their
sons, their fathers, and their husbands had been
slaughtered.1
1 Cf. Aristotle, Frag. 576 (ed. V. Rose).
Plutarch. Moralia. with an English Translation by. Frank Cole Babbitt. Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1936. 4.
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