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The temple of Athena of the Brazen House at Sparta was discovered to have been plundered, and an empty flask was found lying inside. The large crowd which had quickly formed was quite at a loss, when one of the bystanders said, If you wish, I shall tell you what occurs to me about that flask. I think that the robbers, before undertaking so dangerous a task, drank hemlock and brought along wine, so that, if they should escape detection, by drinking the unmixed wine they might quench the poison and rid themselves of its evil effects,Cf.Moralia, 61 b, 653 a. and so might get away safely; but if they should be caught, that they might die an easy and painless death from the poison before they should be put to the torture. When he had said this, the explanation appeared so very complicated and subtle that it did not seem to come from fancy, but from knowledge; and the people surrounded him and questioned him one after another, Who are you? Who knows you? How did you come to know this? and at last he was put through so thorough an examination that he confessed to being one of the robbers.
