History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Hobbes, Thomas. translator. London: John Bohn, 1843.

The Boeotians, when they had erected their trophy, taken away their own dead, rifled those of the enemy, and left a guard upon the place, returned back to Tanagra and there entered into consultation for an assault to be made on Delium.

In the meantime, a herald sent from the Athenians to require the bodies met with a herald by the way sent by the Boeotians, which turned him back by telling him he could get nothing done till himself was returned from the Athenians. This herald, when he came before the Athenians, delivered unto them what the Boeotians had given him in charge, namely, that they had done unjustly to transgress the universal law of the Grecians, being a constitution received by them all;

that the invader of another's country should abstain from all holy places in the same; that the Athenians had fortified Delium and dwelt in it, and done whatsoever else men use to do in places profane, and had drawn that water to the common use, which was unlawful for themselves to have touched, save only to wash their hands for the sacrifice;

that therefore the Boeotians, both in the behalf of the god and of themselves, invoking Apollo and all the interested spirits, did warn them to be gone and to remove their stuff out of the temple.