After Nomion had explained his wishes more definitely and some of the Elders of the Cychrean nation had spoken, both parties agreed to conclude peace and form an alliance for twenty years.
Lyrcus, with an impatient gesture, said:
“Then I can close my forge and break my weapons.”
Nomion smiled.
“You don’t mean that, Lyrcus,” he replied, “for what man is mad enough to prefer war to peace? Is not war like a tempest or an earthquake? It turns everything upside down. In peace the sons bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons.”
To strengthen the compact a lamb was offered to Zeus, to the sun, and to the earth—to Zeus and the sun a white wether for the glittering masculine divinity, but to the earth a black ewe-lamb as if to a female deity that acted in secret. During the offerings prayers were addressed not only to the three gods, but to the rivers and to the deities of the nether world who avenge perjury.
Finally there was a foaming mixture prepared from Cychrean and Pelasgian wine, and during the libation an invocation was solemnly repeated.
“Oh, Zeus! oh, Sun, oh Earth!... If any one dares to violate this compact, let his brains and his children’s brains be poured out on the ground like this wine.”
Thus they sought to secure peace.
After the sacrifices were finished, several voices shouted: