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Information as to the Veneti (distinguished as οἱ ἐν τῷ Ἀδρίῃ, v. 9. 2) must have reached H. in Italy.

ἐποιέετο. H. uses the past tense, as the custom was discontinuea (v. i.). Strabo (745), however [so too Nic. Dam. fr. 131, F. H. G. iii. 462; and Ael. V. H. iv. 1], uses the present, copying H. loosely. The Babylonian contracts speak of the sale of brides, but no trace is found of this fixed custom. For marriage by purchase cf. Westermarck, pp. 391-5.


συνοικήσι. They were sold ‘for marriage’, not for slavery.


ἀποφέρειν: i. e. the poorer classes of buyers might ‘return’ bride and dowry together.


The decay of prosperity in Babylon may well be partially the cause of the fact that the collection of 2,500 private contracts in the B. M. does not extend beyond the reign of Darius I (Meyer, iii. 81). For its supposed result here cf. the Lydian custom, 94. 1.

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    • Aelian, Varia Historia, 4.1
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