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Why is it that it is forbidden to slave-women to
set foot in the shrine of Matuta, and why do the
women bring in one slave-woman only and slap her
on the head and beat her?1
Is the beating of this slave but a symbol of the
prohibition, and do they prevent the others from
entering because of the legend? For Ino2 is said
to have become madly jealous of a slave-woman on
her husband's account, and to have vented her
madness on her son. The Greeks relate that the
slave was an Aetolian by birth and that her name
was Antiphera. Wherefore also in my native town,
Chaeroneia, the temple-guardian stands before the
precinct of Leucothea and, taking a whip in his hand,
makes proclamation : ‘Let no slave enter, nor any
Aetolian, man or woman !’
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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