I
At Haliartus, in Boeotia, there was a girl of remarkable beauty, named Aristocleia, the daughter
of Theophanes. She was wooed by Strato of Orchomenus and Callisthenes of Haliartus. Strato was
the richer and was rather the more violently in love
with the maiden ; for he had seen her in Lebadeia
bathing at the fountain called Hercynê in preparation for carrying a basket
1 in a sacred procession
in honour of Zeus the King. But Callisthenes had
the advantage, for he was a blood-relation of the girl.
Theophanes was much perplexed about the matter,
for he was afraid of Strato, who excelled nearly all
the Boeotians in wealth and in family connexions,
and he wished to submit the choice to Trophonius
2
but Strato had been persuaded by the maiden's
servants that she was more inclined towards him,
so he asked that the choice be left to the bride-to-be
herself. But when Theophanes in the presence of
everyone asked the maiden, and she chose Callisthenes, it was plain at once that Strato found the
[p. 7]
slight hard to bear. But he let two days go by and
came to Theophanes and Callisthenes asking that
the friendship between him and them be preserved,
even though he had been deprived of the marriage
by some jealous divinity. And they approved of
what he said, so that they even invited him to the
wedding-feast. But before he came he got ready
a crowd of his friends and a considerable number
of servants, who were scattered among the others
present and were not noticed ; but when the girl
went, according to the ancestral custom, to the spring
called Cissoessa to make the preliminary sacrifice
to the nymphs, then his men who were in ambush
all rushed out at once and seized her. Strato
also had hold of the maiden ; and naturally Callisthenes and his supporters in turn took hold of her and
held on until, although they did not know it at the
time, she died in their hands as they pulled against
each other. Callisthenes immediately disappeared,
whether by committing suicide or by going away
as an exile from Boeotia ; at any rate nobody could
tell what had happened to him. But Strato slew
himself in sight of all upon the body of the maiden.
