“Nam Magus ex matre et gnato gignatur oportet,
Si vera est Persarum impia religio.”
Epig. lxxxiii. 3, seq. Pope Alexander VI. and the Emperor Shah Jehan have, in modern times, been accused of similar crimes. Bayle, Dict. Hist. et Crit. Art. Alexandre VI. and Bernier, Voyages, t. i. On the prohibited degrees of consanguinity, see Sepulveda, de Ritu Nupt. et Dispens. i. § 20, where he says, that the Pope could authorize all unions, save those between parents and children. “Et ideo hodiè non ligant, nisi quatenus ab ecclesia sunt assumptæ; ac propterea Papa dispensare potest cum omnibus personis, nisi cum matre et patre, ut matrimonium contrahant.” Card. Cajetan. ap. Sepulved. ub. sup.
[16]. Alcibiades. Athen. xii. 48. xiii. 34. Lysias, fr. p. 640.
[17]. Sch. Aristoph. Nub. 1353.
[18]. Corn. Nep. Vit. Cim. i. Plut. Cim. § 4, where we find this lady accused of an amour with the painter Polygnotos, who introduced her portrait among the Trojan ladies in the Stoa Pœcile.
[19]. Deipnosophist. xiii. 56. Muretus, Var. Lect. vii. i. discusses the question, but without throwing much new light upon it.—Andocides cont. Alcibiad. § 9, assigns Cimon’s amour with Elpinice as the cause of his banishment. We find, however, Archeptolis, son of Themistocles, marrying his half-sister Mnesiptolema. Plut. Themistocl. § 32.
[20]. Meurs. Themis Attica. i. 14. Philo. De Leg. Spec. ii. Eurip. Orest. 545. sqq.
[21]. Cf. Herod. v. 39. Pausan. iii. 3, 9.
[22]. Censor. de Die Natal. 14.