are some differences in this case, friend, the temple-visitors are not
two, so that if one has not got the booty the other has, but many; and
the identity of the missing object is also uncertain; it may be cup, or
bowl, or garland; every priest gives a different description of it; they
do not agree even about the material; bronze, say these, silver, say
those--anything from gold to tin. So there is nothing for it but to strip
the visitors, if you want to find it; even if you discover a gold cup on
the first man, you must go on to the others.

_Her_. What for?

_Ly_. Because it is not certain that the thing was a cup. And even if that
is generally admitted, they do not all agree that it was gold; and if it
is well known that a gold cup is missing, and you find a gold cup on your
first man, even so you are not quit of searching the others; it is not
clear that this is _the_ sacred cup; do you suppose there is only one gold
cup in the world?

_Her_. No, indeed.

_Ly_. So you will have to go the round, and then collect all your finds
together and decide which of them is most likely to be divine property.

For the source of all the difficulty is this: every one who is stripped
has something or other on him, one a bowl, one a cup, one a garland,
which again may be bronze, gold, or silver; but whether the one he has is
the sacred one, is not yet clear. It is absolutely impossible to know
which man to accuse of sacrilege; even if all the objects were similar,
it would be uncertain who had robbed the God; for such things may be
private property too. Our perplexity, of course, is simply due to the