The passage is used in the Pseudo-Platonic Menexenus 240 C (cf. Laws 698 D) in describing the fall of Eretria. In fact, this ‘netting’ of the population would be as impossible in the mountains and clefts of the smaller islands as in Euboea. Indeed, the flourishing condition of these regions soon after shows that these severities have been exaggerated. M. Polo, i. ch. 18 (Yule, ii. 98), speaks of the Caraonas (apparently a Tartar tribe in Persia) riding abreast so as to catch every living thing outside the fortified towns and villages. A similar method was tried in Tasmania in 1850, but without much success. Cf. N. Ling Roth, Aborigines of Tasmania, p. 2, for this modern instance.
