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He was kept informed of intended sallies by two slaves inside the town, who threw out leaden balls with words cut on them. He himself remained till the last. The gates were shut and he had to be drawn up by a rope over the wall. He had come to Greece with only 30,000 men, with no fleet, and little money. He was forced to plunder the shrines of Epidaurus, Olympia, and Delphi.
For these were some of the men who under Philomelus of Phokis and Onomarchus sacrilegiously took Delphi, and shared in the plunder of the temple. As all men loathed them and shrank from them as from men under a curse, they wandered about Peloponnesus until Timoleon, being unable to get any other soldiers, enlisted them in his service.
A temple was built over the spot, priests and priestesses were installed, a city began to rise, and in process of time Delphi became the most celebrated oracle in the world; and as the vast treasures which had been accumulated there consisted mainly of gifts and offerings consecrated to a divine and sacred service, they were all understood to be under divine protection.
They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will tax the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem.
Man alive, am I Phoebus Apollo, that I should know the answers to all the questions? I wish I could find the way to Delphi myself. But don't get the idea that you bore me with your confidences, old man. Did I say so? on the contrary, tell me all you can; it interests me extremely. I am thinking about these matters pathologically a good deal. A physician has to, of course.
Something was pressing on his breast, and he found that it was Apollo's gift. He had forgotten all about it. Delphi seemed beyond the moon, and his errand a child's dream. Then the King, for so he thought of the tall man, spoke "You have done us a service, Islander. The Persian is at our back and front, and there will be no escape for those who stay.
Those who escaped fled to the army in Boeotia. Thus the treasures of Delphi were miraculously preserved, not only from the plunder of the Persian, but also from the clutch of the Delphian citizens themselves, who had been especially anxious, in the first instance, to be permitted to deposite the treasures in a place of safety.
So it went on, being sent from one to another until it came to Thales a second time, and at last was sent from Miletus to Thebes and consecrated to Apollo Ismenius. As Theophrastus tells the story, the tripod was first sent to Bias at Priéne, and secondly to Thales at Miletus, and so on through all of the wise men until it again reached Bias, and was finally offered at Delphi.
After they had feasted and rested from their long voyage, they turned their faces toward Parnassus; and Apollo, playing sweeter music than men had ever heard, led the way; and the folk of Delphi, with choirs of boys and maidens, came to meet them, singing songs of victory as they helped the Cretans up the steep pathway to the temple in the cleft of the mountain.
Before the way to Delphi was stopped, they had asked the oracle what they were to do, and the answer had been, “Pallas had prayed for her city, but it was doomed; yet a wooden wall should save her people, and at Salamis should women be made childless, at seed-time or harvest.” Themistocles said the wooden walls meant the ships, and that the Athenians were all to sail away and leave the city.
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