Note 31 — Chapter I · LEGENDS RESPECTING THE GODS.
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The strongest evidences of this feeling are exhibited in Herodotus, iii. 48; viii. 105. See an example of this mutilation inflicted upon a youth named Adamas by the Thracian king Kotys, in Aristot. Polit. v. 8, 12, and the tale about the Corinthian Periander, Herod. iii. 48.
It is an instance of the habit, so frequent among the Attic tragedians, of ascribing Asiatic or Phrygian manners to the Trojans, when Sophoclês in his lost play Troilus (ap. Jul. Poll. x. 165) introduced one of the characters of his drama as having been castrated by order of Hecuba, Σκαλμῇ γὰρ ὄρχεις βασιλὶς ἐκτέμνουσ᾽ ἐμούς,—probably the Παιδαγωγὸς, or guardian and companion of the youthful Troilus. See Welcker, Griechisch. Tragöd. vol. i. p. 125.