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196.
This is the equipment of their persons. I will now speak of their established customs. The wisest of these, in our judgment, is one which I have learned by inquiry is also a custom of the Eneti in Illyria. It is this: once a year in every village all the maidens as they attained marriageable age were collected and brought together into one place, with a crowd of men standing around.
[2]
Then a crier would display and offer them for sale one by one, first the fairest of all; and then, when she had fetched a great price, he put up for sale the next most attractive, selling all the maidens as lawful wives. Rich men of Assyria who desired to marry would outbid each other for the fairest; the ordinary people, who desired to marry and had no use for beauty, could take the ugly ones and money besides;
[3]
for when the crier had sold all the most attractive, he would put up the one that was least beautiful, or crippled, and offer her to whoever would take her to wife for the least amount, until she fell to one who promised to accept least; the money came from the sale of the attractive ones, who thus paid the dowry of the ugly and the crippled. But a man could not give his daughter in marriage to whomever he liked, nor could one that bought a girl take her away without giving security that he would in fact make her his wife.
[4]
And if the couple could not agree, it was a law that the money be returned. Men might also come from other villages to buy if they so desired.
[5]
This, then, was their best custom; but it does not continue at this time; they have invented a new one lately [so that the women not be wronged or taken to another city]; since the conquest of Babylon made them afflicted and poor, everyone of the people that lacks a livelihood prostitutes his daughters.
Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.
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References (40 total)
- Commentary references to this page
(1):
- Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Oedipus Tyrannus, 1-150
- Cross-references to this page
(7):
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 1.3.1
- Raphael Kühner, Bernhard Gerth, Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache, KG 3.2.4
- Harper's, Italia
- Harper's, Venetia
- Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ILLY´RICUM
- Basil L. Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek, The Particle ἄν
- Basil L. Gildersleeve, Syntax of Classical Greek, The Article
- Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page
(32):
- LSJ, Ἰλλυ^ριοί
- LSJ, δῆμος
- LSJ, ἄμορφ-ος
- LSJ, ἀνακηρ-ύσσω
- LSJ, ἀνίστημι
- LSJ, ἀπάγω
- LSJ, ἀποφέρω
- LSJ, αἰσχρός
- LSJ, διεξ-έρχομαι
- LSJ, ἐξευρ-ίσκω
- LSJ, ἐξωνέομαι
- LSJ, ἐγγυ-ητής
- LSJ, ἐκδίδωμι
- LSJ, ἐπίγα^μ-ος
- LSJ, εἰσάγω
- LSJ, εὑρίσκω
- LSJ, εὔμορφ-ος
- LSJ, εὐειδ-ής
- LSJ, ἵστημι
- LSJ, καλλιστ-εύω
- LSJ, καθίστημι
- LSJ, νεωστί
- LSJ, οἰκοφθορ-έω
- LSJ, πέριξ
- LSJ, πρία^μαι
- LSJ, πρόσκειμαι
- LSJ, πωλ-έω
- LSJ, σοφός
- LSJ, συμφέρω
- LSJ, συνοίκ-ησις
- LSJ, ὑφίστημι
- LSJ, ὡραῖος
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