Book 10
9.11
The Athenians refuse to confess that their defeat at Aegospotami was fairly inflicted, maintaining that they were betrayed by Tydeus and Adeimantus, their generals, who had been bribed, they say, with money by Lysander. As a proof of this assertion they quote the following oracle of the Sibyl:—And then on the Athenians will be laid grievous troublesBy Zeus the high-thunderer, whose might is the greatest,On the war-ships battle and fighting,As they are destroyed by treacherous tricks, through the baseness of the captains.The other evidence that they quote is taken from the oracles of Musaeus:—For on the Athenians comes a wild rainThrough the baseness of their leaders, but some consolation will there beFor the defeat; they shall not escape the notice of the city, but shall pay the penalty.
9.12
So much for this belief. The struggle for the district called ThyreaPausanias seems to refer to a battle in 548 B.C., but the date of the artist Antiphanes makes it more probable that the horse was dedicated to commemorate a later battle fought in 424 B.C. between the Lacedaemonians and the Argives548 or 424 B.C was also foretold by the Sibyl, who said that the battle would be drawn. But the Argives claimed that they had the better of the engagement, and sent to Delphi a bronze horse, supposed to be the wooden horse of Troy. It is the work of Antiphanes of Argos.
