History of the Peloponnesian War

Now those who were besieged with Cylon were in a wretched condition for want of food and water. Cylon therefore and his brother made their escape, but when the rest were pressed hard, and some were even dying of famine, they seated themselves as suppliants on the altar of the Acropolis.

And those of the Athenians who had been commissioned to keep guard, when they saw them dying in the temple, raised them up on condition of doing them no harm, and led them away and killed them; while some who were seated before the Awful Goddesses [*]( A title of the Furies peculiarly given to them at Athens, according to Pausanias as that of εὐμένιδες was at Sicyon—each 'per euphemismum.') they despatched on the altars at the side entrance. And from this both they and their descendants after them were called accursed of, and offenders against, the goddess.

The Athenians therefore expelled these accursed ones, and Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian also expelled them subsequently, in conjunction with some Athenian partisans, both driving out the living, and taking up and casting out the bones of the dead. They returned, however, afterwards, and their descendants are still in the city.

This pollution then the Lacedaemonians ordered them to drive out; principally, as they professed, to avenge the honour of the gods; but really, because they know that Pericles, the son of Xanthippus, was connected with it on his mother's side, and thought that if he were banished, their business with the Athenians would more easily succeed.

They did not, however, so much hope that he would be treated in that way, as that it would cause a prejudice against him in the city; from an idea that the war would in part be occasioned by his misfortune.

For being the most powerful man of his time, and taking the lead in the government, he opposed the Lacedaemonians in every thing, and would not let the Athenians make concessions, but instigated them to hostilities.

The Athenians also, in return, commanded the Lacedaemonians to drive out the pollution of Taenarus. For the Lacedaemonians having formerly raised up some suppliants of the Helots from the temple of Neptune at Taenarus, led them away and slew them: and for this they think they were themselves also visited with the great earthquake at Sparta.

They likewise ordered them to drive out the curse of Minerva of the Brazen-House; which was of the following kind.

When Pausanias the Lacedaemonian, after being sent for by the Spartans for the first time from his command in the Hellespont, and brought to trial, was acquitted by them as not guilty, he was not sent out again in a public capacity; but in a private capacity, of his own accord, he took a trireme of Hermione, without the authority of the Lacedaemonians, and came to the Hellespont; nominally, to join in the war of the Greeks; but really, to carry out his measures with the king; which he had undertaken, in the first instance, from a desire of sovereignty over Greece.