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What follows I know to have happened to the Metapontines of Italy,
three hundred and forty years after the second disappearance of
Aristeas, as I collect by comparing the accounts given me at
Proconnesus and Metapontum. Aristeas then, as the Metapontines
affirm, appeared to them in their own country, and ordered them to set
up an altar in honour of Apollo, and to place near it a statue to be
called that of Aristeas the Proconnesian. "Apollo," he told
them, "had come to their country once, though he had visited no other
Italiots; and he had been with Apollo at the time, not however in
his present form, but in the shape of a crow." Having said so much,
he vanished. Then the Metapontines, as they relate, sent to
Delphi, and inquired of the god in what light they were to regard the
appearance of this ghost of a man. The Pythoness, in reply, bade
them attend to what the spectre said, "for so it would go best with
them." Thus advised, they did as they had been directed: and there
is now a statue bearing the name of Aristeas, close by the image of
Apollo in the market-place of Metapontum, with bay-trees standing
around it. But enough has been said concerning Aristeas.
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