Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
32.
_What is the reason that in the moneth of May, they use at Rome to cast over their woodden bridge into the river_, _certaine images of men, which they call_ Argeos? IS it in memoriall of the Barbarians who sometimes inhabited these parts, and did so by the Greeks, murdering them in that maner as many of them as they could take? But _Hercules_ who was highly esteemed among them for his vertue, abolished this cruell fashion of killing of strangers, and taught them this custome to counterfet their auncient superstitions, and to fling these images in stead of them: now in old time our ancestors used to name all Greeks of what countrey soever they were, _Argeos_: unlesse haply a man would say, that the Arcadians reputing the Argives to be their enemies, for that they were their neighbour borderers, such as fled with _Evander_ out of _Arcadia_, and came to inhabit these quarters, reteined still the old hatred and ranckor, which time out of minde had taken root, and beene setled in their hearts against the said Argives.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.