Histories

Herodotus

Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).

The priestess gave this answer to their question:

  1. Hated by your neighbors, dear to the immortals,
  2. Crouch with a lance in rest, like a warrior fenced in his armor,
  3. Guarding your head[*](That is, those with full citizenship, the nucleus of the population;sw=ma being the remainder.) from the blow, and the head will shelter the body.
This answer had already been uttered by the priestess when the envoys arrived in Argos [22.7333,37.6417] (Perseus) Argos and entered the council chamber to speak as they were charged.

Then the Argives answered to what had been said that they would do as was asked of them if they might first make a thirty years peace with Lacedaemonia and if the command of half the allied power were theirs. It was their right to have the full command, but they would nevertheless be content with half.

This, they say, was the answer of their council, although the oracle forbade them to make the alliance with the Greeks; furthermore, they, despite their fear of the oracle, were eager to secure a thirty years treaty so that their children might have time in those years to grow to be men. If there were to be no such treaty—so they reasoned—then, if after the evil that had befallen them the Persian should deal them yet another blow, it was to be feared that they would be at the Lacedaemonians' mercy.