who have lived in freedom and in the enjoyment of most excellent laws should be slaves permanently; but as for yourself, do not you go wandering about at random, but come and visit me, for here there is no supreme ruler to be formidable to you; but if while you are wandering about any of the friends of Pisistratus should fall in with you, I fear you might suffer some misfortune.
He then wrote thus:—
X. But Demetrius says that some writers report that he used to receive food from the nymphs and keep it in a bullock’s hoof; and that eating it in small quantities he never required any evacuations, and was never seen eating. And Timæus mentions him in his second book.
XI. Some authors say also that the Cretans sacrifice to him as a god, for they say that he was the wisest of men: and accordingly, that when he saw the port of Munychia,15 at Athens, he said that the Athenians did not know how many evils that place would bring upon them: since, if they did, they would tear it to pieces with their teeth; and he said this a long time before the event to which he alluded. It is said also, that he at first called himself Æacus; and that he foretold to the Lacedæmonians the defeat which they should suffer from the Arcadians; and that he pretended that he had lived several times. But Theopompus, in his Strange Stories, says that when he was building the temple of the Nymphs, a voice burst forth from heaven;—“Oh! Epimenides, build this temple, not for the Nymphs but for Jupiter.” He also foretold to the Cretans the defeat of the Lacedæmonians by the Arcadians, as has been said before. And, indeed, they were beaten at Orchomenos.
XII. He pretended also, that he grew old rapidly, in the same number of days as he had been years asleep; at least, so Theopompus