-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Lake [Andrew.Lake--channelpoint.com]
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 12:48 PM
To: '<Address Masked>'
Subject: AR Trivia - Damon and Pythias


I don't know if all of you know this, but the name of the Damon and
Pythias store comes from an old Roman legend. The following is quoted from
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/valmax-damon.html :

"Damon and Phythias, initiates in the Pythagorean mysteries, contracted so
faithful a friendship towards each other, that when Dionysius of Syracuse
intended to execute one of them, and he had obtained permission from the
tyrant to return home and arrange his affairs before his death, the other
did not hesitate to give himself up as a pledge of his friend's return. [For
the two men lived together, and had their possessions in common.] He whose
neck had been in danger was now free; and he who might have lived in safety
was now in danger of death. So everybody, and especially Dionysius, were
wondering what would be the upshot of this novel and dubious affair. At
last, then the day fixed was close at hand, and he had not returned, every
one condemned the one who stood security, for his stupidity and rashness.
But he insisted that he had nothing to fear in the matter of his friend's
constancy. And indeed at the same moment and the hour fixed by Dionysius, he
who had received leave, returned. The tyrant, admiring the courage of both,
remitted the sentence which had so tried their loyalty, and asked them
besides to receive him in the bonds of their friendship, saying that he
would make his third place in their affection agreeable by his utmost
goodwill and effort. Such indeed are the powers of friendship: to breed
contempt of death, to overcome the sweet desire of life, to humanize
cruelty, to turn hate into love, to compensate punishment by largess; to
which powers almost as much veneration is due as to the cult of the immortal
gods. For if with these rests the public safety, on those does private
happiness depend; and as the temples are the sacred domiciles of these, so
of those are the loyal hearts of men as it were the shrines consecrated by
some holy spirit."

Andrew Lake