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κίβδηλος: properly of false coin; used by H. especially of oracles (cf. 75. 2; v. 91. 2). There is a double meaning in the ‘juggling’ oracle (cf. Macbeth, v. 8. 19-20: ‘And be these juggling fiends no more believed That palter with us in a double sense’); ὀρχήσασθαι might be referred either to the ‘dance’ of triumph or to ὄρχος, a ‘row of vines’, and so to slave labour. Again the land might be ‘measured’ (διαμετρήσασθαι) by the Lacedaemonians as conquerors or as captives.

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