On Providence 40

¹There are some who have been punished not obscurely but conspicuously for sacrilegious robbery, a numerous body which it would be superfluous labour to name in full. It will suffice to let one case stand as an example of them all. The historians who have described the sacred war in Phocis state that whereas there was a law enacted that the temple robber should be thrown from a precipice or drowned in the sea, or burnt alive, three persons who robbed the temple at Delphi, Philomelus, Onomarchus and Phaÿllus, had these punishments distributed between them. The first fell over a rugged and stony crag and as a piece of rock broke off he was killed both from the fall from the height and from the weight of the stone. In the case of the second the horse on which he was riding got out of control and rushed down to the sea and under the onrush of the tide both rider and horse sank in the deep gulf. As for Phaÿllus, there are two versions of his story, one that he wasted away in consumption, the other that he perished in the flame which consumed the temple at Abae.