Histories

While the Aeginetans were laying waste to the seaboard of Attica [23.5,38.83] (department), Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Attica, the Athenians were setting out to march against them, but an oracle from Delphi [22.5167,38.4917] (Perseus) Delphi came to them bidding them to restrain themselves for thirty years after the wrongdoing of the Aeginetans, and in the thirty-first to mark out a precinct for Aeacus and begin the war with +Aegina [23.433,37.75] (inhabited place), Aegina, Attica, Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Aegina. In this way their purpose would prosper. If, however, they sent an army against their enemies straightaway, they would indeed subdue them in the end but would in the meantime both suffer and do many things.

When the Athenians heard this reported to them, they marked out for Aeacus that precinct which is now set in their marketplace, but they could not stomach the order that they must hold their hand for thirty years, seeing that the Aeginetans had dealt them a foul blow.

As they were making ready for vengeance, a matter which took its rise in Sparta [22.416,37.83] (inhabited place), Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece, Europe Lacedaemon hindered them, for when the Lacedaemonians learned of the plot of the Alcmaeonids with the Pythian priestess[*](Cp. Hdt. 5.63.) and of her plot against themselves and the Pisistratidae, they were very angry for two reasons, namely that they had driven their own guests and friends from the country they dwelt in, and that the Athenians showed them no gratitude for their doing so.