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The mode of their execution is the following: a waggon is loaded with
brushwood, and oxen are harnessed to it; the soothsayers, with their
feet tied together, their hands bound behind their backs, and their
mouths gagged, are thrust into the midst of the brushwood; finally the
wood is set alight, and the oxen, being startled, are made to rush
off with the waggon. It often happens that the oxen and the
soothsayers are both consumed together, but sometimes the pole of the
waggon is burnt through, and the oxen escape with a scorching.
Diviners - lying diviners, they call them - are burnt in the way
described, for other causes besides the one here spoken of. When the
king puts one of them to death, he takes care not to let any of his
sons survive: all the male offspring are slain with the father, only
the females being allowed to live.
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