Plutarch Quaestiones Graecae 38

[38] Who are the Psoloeis and who the Oleiae among the Boeotians?

They relate that the daughters of Minyas, Leucippê and Arsinoê and Alcathoê, becoming insane, conceived a craving for human flesh, and drew lots for their children. ¹ The lot fell upon Leucippe to contribute her son Hippasus to be torn to pieces, and their husbands, who put on ill-favoured garments for very grief and sorrow, were called Grimy ( Psoloeis); but the Minyads themselves were called Oleiae, that is to say, Murderesses. And even to-day the people of Orchomenus give this name to the women descended from this family; and every year, at the festival of Agrionia, ² there takes place a flight and pursuit of them by the priest of Dionysus with sword in hand. Any one of them that he catches he may kill, and in my time the priest Zoïlus killed one of them. But this resulted in no benefit for the people of Orchomenus; but Zoïlus fell sick from some slight sore and, when the wound had festered for a long time, he died. The people of Orchomenus also found themselves involved in some suits for damages and adverse judgements; wherefore they transferred the priesthood from Zoïlus’s family and chose the best man from all the citizens to fili the office.

[38]

Question 38.

Who amongst the Boeotians were the Ψολόεις, and who the Ὀλεῖαι?

Solution.

They say that Minos’s daughters—Leucippe, Arsinoe, and Alcathoe—falling mad, had a greedy appetite for man’s flesh, and accordingly cast lots for their children. Whereupon it fell to Leucippe’s lot to produce her son Hippasus to be cut in pieces. The husbands of these women, that were clothed in coarse apparel by reason of sorrow and grief, were called Psoloeis, the women Ὀλεῖαι that is ὀλοαί ( destructive). And to this day the Orchomenians call their posterity so. And it is so ordered that, in the yearly feast called Agrionia, there is a flight and pursuit of them by the priest of Bacchus, with a drawn sword in his hand. It is lawful for him to slay any of them that he takes, and Zoilus a priest of our time slew one. This thing proved unlucky to them; for Zoilus, sickening upon a wound that he got, wasted away for a long time and died; whereupon the Orchomenians, falling under public accusations and condemnations, removed the priesthood from their family, and made choice of the best man in the whole multitude.