Question 40. Who is Eunostus, the hero of Tanagra;
and what is the reason that women may not enter into his
grove?
[p. 284]
Solution. Eunostus was the son of Elieus who came
of Cephisus and Scias, but they say received his name
from Eunosta, the nymph that brought him up. This
man was honest and just, and no less temperate and austere. They say that Ochna his niece fell in love with
him, who was one of the daughters of Colonus; and when
he perceived that she tempted him to lie with her, manifesting his indignation he went and accused her to her
brethren. But she had cried Whore first and provoked
her brethren, Echimus, Leon, and Bucolus, to kill Eunostus, by her false suggestion that he would have forced
her; wherefore these laid wait for the young man and
slew him, upon which Elieus secured them. Now Ochna
growing penitent and full of terror, as well to discharge
the grief she had for her beloved as out of commiseration
towards her brethren, confesses the whole truth to Elicus,
and he declares it to Colonus, who condemned them.
Whereupon Ochna's brethren fled, but she broke her neck
from some high place, as Myrtis the Anthedonian poetess
hath told us. Therefore he kept the tomb and grove of
Eunostus from the access and approach of women, insomuch that upon earthquakes, droughts, and other portents
that often there happened, the Tanagrians made diligent
search whether any woman had not by stealth got nigh to
that place. And there are some (of whom Clidamus, a
man of great fame, is one) who report that Eunostus met
them as he was going to the sea to wash himself because
a woman had entered into his grove. Diocles also, in his
Treatise concerning Shrines, relates the edict of the Tana
grins upon the things that Clidamus declared.
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