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1 This story is not otherwise told in this connection, but is of a type which is located in northern Iran. Onesicritus (Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, no. 134, F 5; Strabo 11.11.3) told that the Bactrians and Sogdians threw out their sick and elderly to be devoured by dogs, but that Alexander stopped the practice. Plutarch twice refers to this institution. In Plut. De Fortuna aut Virtute Alexandri 1.5.328c, he says that Sogdians kill their parents, while the Scythians eat them. In Plut. Can Vice Cause Unhappiness? 3.499d, he reports that the dead were devoured by dogs among the Hyrcanians, and by birds among the Bactrians (also Cicero Disp. Tusc 1.45.108). For other instances cp. Strabo 11.11.3; 8; Strabo 15.1.56; 62.
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