Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Herodotus has the Spartan king Leotychidas tell the Athenians the story of Glaucus son of Epicydes. A Milesian once deposited a great sum with Glaucus, trusting Spartan fame for justice, under tokens for reclaim. Long after, the Milesian’s sons came with the tokens and asked for the money. Glaucus pretended ignorance and went to Delphi to ask whether he might seize the deposit by oath. The Pythia answered that Glaucus might gain present profit by swearing falsely, but that Oath had a nameless child who would destroy the perjurer’s house; she recited verse on the usefulness of honesty. Glaucus begged forgiveness; the priestess said to tempt the god and to do the deed were alike. He restored the money—but no descendant of Glaucus remained in Sparta: his hearth was utterly uprooted. The logos teaches that merely consulting Delphi about perjury dooms a line. Catalogue it as a Herodotean Delphic moral myth, distinct from Croesus’s tests of oracles and from Spartan festival aetiologies.