106 MELPOMENE.

the goddess Venus. They take also the leaves t
lime-tree, which dividing into three parts, they tw
round their rmgers; they then unbind it, and ezei
the art to which they pretend.

LXVIII. Whenever the Scythian monarch naps'
to be indisposed, he sends for three of the most i
brated of these diviners. When the Scythians da
to use the most solemn kind of oath, they sweat
the king's throne; these diviners, therefore, maksj
scruple of affirming, that such or such individual, p<
ing him out by name, has forsworn himself by the r
throne. Immediately the person thus marked oi
seized, and informed that by their art of divinati
which is infallible, he has been indirectly the i
of the king's illness, by having violated the
which we have mentioned. If the accused not d
denies the charge, but expresses himself enragei
the imputation, the king convokes a double nun
of diviners, who, examining into the mode which]
been pursued in criminating him, decide according
If he be found guilty, he immediately loses his ha
and the three diviners who were first consulted, m
his effects. If these last diviners acquit the accn
others are at hand, of whom if the greater nun
absolve him, the first diviners are put to death.

LXIX. The manner in which they are execute]
this:—some oxen are yoked to a wagon filled I
faggots, in the midst of which, with their feet
their hands fastened behind, and their mouths gag
these diviners are placed; fire is then set to the w3
and the oxen are terrified to make them run viola
away. It sometimes happens that the oxen
selves are burned; and often when the wagon is <
sumed, the oxen escape severely scorched. Th
the method by which, for the above-mentio
similar offences, they put to death those whom t
call false diviners.

LXX. Of those whom the king condemns to (
he constantly destroys the male children, leavir
females unmolested. Whenever the Scythians f
alliances, they observe these ceremonies:—a
earthen vessel is filled with wine; into this is |