102 Ulisse Aldrovandi

The Scythians used the human skulls of their deceased as drinking cups during banquets as a mark of honor; and their King, as Alexander ab Alexandro writes, would cut off the ear of the person he held in the highest esteem. The Tartars hang certain idols made of wool and silk, shaped in human form, on both sides of their tents to serve as guardians of their livestock; due to the scarcity of wood, they maintain their fires with dried ox dung. The Turks have a law written in their Quran that forbids anyone, under penalty of death, from disputing their law, and they observe Friday with as much religious devotion as the Jews observe the Sabbath.

In Greece (to speak of European peoples), three laws were enacted against women by Cecrops to appease Neptune, after Minerva had been preferred by their votes: namely, that women should never enter the Senate, that none of them should claim a maternal name for themselves, and that no one should call them Athenians, but rather Attics.

Among the Lacedaemonians, it was decreed that unmarried girls should not appear in public with their faces veiled, whereas married women were not to leave the house unless their faces were covered by bandages. Furthermore, whenever a Lacedaemonian delivered a serious speech, he spoke in a pleasant, brief manner, full of substance; thus it later became a proverb that it was easier for men to philosophize than to imitate Laconic speech.

The Cretans practiced the Pyrrhic dance in their public gymnasiums, which involved contortions of the body to better evade blows and weapons. Some Thracians, during thunder and lightning, would shoot arrows into the sky to challenge the God, believing there was no other god besides their own. Since each man took several wives, upon the husband's death, a judge would choose the one who had been most beloved by him while he lived; she would then be sacrificed and buried alongside her spouse, while the other wives mourned this as a great misfortune. Formerly in Constantinople, according to Isidore, a custom prevailed where on the day the Imperial Crown was first placed upon the Emperor's head, a stonemason would approach him with three types of marble and say:

"Choose from these stones, most August Caesar, from which you wish me to build your tomb."

In Ruthenia, which is called Royal Muscovy, there is a square stone in the forum; if anyone stands upon it and cannot be pulled away by any force, he gains leadership of the city, and consequently, the citizens fight over this quite frequently. The Muscovite people, called *Moscoviti* by the Italians, today wear a certain wooden cross decorated with various icons of saints hanging from their necks; we present here its true likeness, drawn from both sides.