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H. is slow to believe, though not to record, anything which seemed to him to contradict the laws of nature (cf. iii. 116, iv. 25, and especially iv. 42. 4, and in general Introd. § 32).

σφι, ‘before them.’ The goddesses were no doubt represented kneeling, and the story is an aetiological myth to explain this (cf. chs. 87, 88; ii. 131). The true explanation (Welcker, Frazer) is that they were goddesses of child-birth. So Latona brought forth Apollo and Artemis kneeling on the soft meadow (Hymn Apollo, 116 f.). In this posture were represented Auge at Tegea (Paus. viii. 48. 7), and the Di Nixi (Festus, pp. 174-7) brought to Rome after the defeat of Antiochus or the sack of Corinth. Marble groups of the kind have been found at Myconus and near Sparta.

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