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The Locust Plagues of Mount Sipylus

Mount Sipylus and its surroundings as viewed from Google Maps is seen to be covered with succulent vegetation.

If I were strategic advisor to a locust plague, I would urge it to steer well clear of Mount Sipylus. And should the locusts choose to disregard my counsel, you say? In that case I would call their attention to these words of the 2nd century travel log writer Pausanias [1]:

I myself know that locusts have been destroyed three times in the past on Mount Sipylus, and not in the same way. Once a gale arose and swept them away; on another occasion violent heat came on after rain and destroyed them; the third time sudden cold caught them and they died.

The locusts, once confronted with the knowledge that their brethren had been thrice exterminated on the mountain, would no doubt go swarming off to ravage the vegetation in another territory. Having made plain the perils of Mount Sipylus, I would summarily collect my fee and get the fuck out of there on the double.

References

[1] Pausanias Description of Greece translated by William Henry Samuel Jones and Henry Ardene Ormerod (1918), Harvard University Press, Book I, Chapter 24, Section 8. Read this passage about the locust plagues near Mount Sipylus at The Perseus Project.

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