5. Homer was Blind Melesigenes. He was so called because he was supposed to have been born on the borders of the river Meles.
6. The Delphic Oracle pronounced Socrates “the wisest of mankind.”
7. The monk Planudes is apparently relieved of the imputation concerning the authorship of the biography of Æsop ascribed to him, by the discovery at Florence of a manuscript of this life that was in existence a century before Planudes’s time.
8. Some of the reasons for supposing that this biography is a falsifying one are as follows: His being represented as a monster of ugliness and deformity, was doubtless intended to heighten his wit by contrast. In Plutarch’s _Convivium_ Æsop is a guest, and there are many jests on his original servile condition, but none on his appearance, and a delicacy on such points does not usually restrain ancient writers. The Athenians erected a noble statue in honor of Æsop, which they doubtless would not have done had he been deformed. Pliny states that Æsop was the _Contubernalis_ of Rhodopis, his fellow slave, whose extraordinary beauty passed into a proverb.
9. The hecatomb was strictly the sacrifice of a hundred oxen. All hecatombs were sacred. This sacrifice is said to have been particularly observed by the Lacedæmonians when they possessed a hundred cities. The sacrifices were subsequently reduced in number, and goats and lambs substituted for oxen.
10. The ceremony of taking a prisoner by the girdle in token that he is to suffer death was, ancient writers state, a custom among the Persians. After the trial was over, instead of formally pronouncing sentence upon the accused, all the members of the tribunal arose from their seats and, turning their heads away from the prisoner, took hold of his girdle, the highest in command taking hold first. Even the relatives, if any were in the tribunal, went through the same ceremony. Those in rank below the accused continued to bow before him, notwithstanding his condemnation.
11. The scythed chariots of the Persians had two wheels with knives fastened to each axle, extending obliquely outward. They were ordinary wooden chariots, with a platform large enough for two to stand on, resting on the axles without springs. Each chariot was drawn by four horses abreast. Later, long spikes were placed in the ends of the poles, and the back parts of the chariot were armed with several rows of sharp knives. The horses were driven by a charioteer, whose duty it was to manage his steeds, and with a shield ward off the missiles of the enemy, while his chief stood behind and with his sword endeavored to hew down those who escaped the scythes.