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[2] He brought them all up to be brave in arms and fiery, and he whetted them for this from their very birth. It is said, for instance, that when he was asked by one of them, who was still a boy, to whom he would leave his kingdom, he replied: ‘To that one of you who keeps his sword the sharpest.’ This, however, meant nothing less than the famous curse of Oedipus in the tragedy;1 that ‘with whetted sword,’ and not by lot, the brothers should ‘divide the house.’ So savage and ferocious is the nature of rapacity.

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