Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/405

 ARATUS. 397 For as soon as they entered the city, the common soldiers dispersed and went hither and thither into the houses, quarrelling and fighting with one another about the plunder; and the officers and commanders were runnincr about after the wives and daughters of the Pellenians, on whose heads they put their oavii helmets, to mark each man his prize, and prevent another from seizing it. And in this posture were they when news came that Aratus was ready to fall upon them. And in the mid.st of the consternation likely to ensue in the confusion they were in, before all of them heard of the danger, the outmost of them, engaging at the gates and in the suburbs with the Achteans, were akeady beaten and put to flight, and, as they came headlong back, filled with their panic those who were collecting and advanc- ing to their assistance. In this confusion, one of the captives, daughter of Epigethes, a citizen of repute, being extremely handsome and tall, happened to be sitting in the temple of Diana, placed there by the commander of the band of chosen menj who had taken her and put his crested helmet upon her. She, hearmg the noise, and running out to see what was the matter, stood in the temple gates, looking down from above upon those that fought, having the helmet ujDon her head ; in which posture she seemed to the citi- zens to be something more than human, and struck fear and dread into the enemy, who believed it to be a divine apparition ; so that they lost all courage to defend them- selves. But the Pellenians tell us that the image of Diana stands usually imtouched, and when the priestess happens at any time to remove it to some other place, nobody dares look upon it, but all turn their laces from it ; for not only is the sight of it terrible and hurtful to mankind, but it makes even the trees, by which it hap- pens to be carried, become barren and cast their fruit