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On his arrival at Alus in Achaea, his guides, wishing to inform him
of everything, told him the tale known to the dwellers in those parts
concerning the temple of the Laphystian Jupiter - how that Athamas
the son of Aeolus took counsel with Ino and plotted the death of
Phrixus; and how that afterwards the Achaeans, warned by an oracle,
laid a forfeit upon his posterity, forbidding the eldest of the race
ever to enter into the court-house (which they call the people's
house), and keeping watch themselves to see the law obeyed. If one
comes within the doors, he can never go out again except to be
sacrificed. Further, they told him how that many persons, when on
the point of being slain, are seized with such fear that they flee away
and take refuge in some other country; and that these, if they come
back long afterwards, and are found to be the persons who entered the
court-house, are led forth covered with chaplets, and in a grand
procession, and are sacrificed. This forfeit is paid by the
descendants of Cytissorus the son of Phrixus, because, when the
Achaeans, in obedience to an oracle, made Athamas the son of Aeolus
their sin-offering, and were about to slay him, Cytissorus came from
Aea in Colchis and rescued Athamus; by which deed he brought the
anger of the god upon his own posterity. Xerxes, therefore, having
heard this story, when he reached the grove of the god, avoided it,
and commanded his army to do the like. He also paid the same respect
to the house and precinct of the descendants of Athamas.
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