Note 11 — BOOK V.
Reading edition
—Page 285, stanza lxxxii.
Woe on the helmet-crown of Dorian kings!
In moonless nights, every eighth year, the Spartan Ephors consulted the heavens; if there appeared the meteor, which we call the shooting-star, they adjudged their kings to have committed some offence against the gods, and suspended them from their office till acquitted by the Delphic oracle, or Olympian priests.—Plut. Agis, 11; Muller's Dorians, b. iii. c. 6.