3.5
But when Nicias conducted the festal embassy, he landed first on the neighboring island of Rheneia, with his choir, sacrificial victims, and other equipment. Then, with the bridge of boats which he had brought along with him from Athens, where it had been made to measure and signally adorned with gildings and dyed stuffs and garlands and tapestries, he spanned during the night the strait between Rheneia and Delos, which is not wide. At break of day he led his festal procession in honor of the god, and his choir arrayed in lavish splendor and singing as it marched, across the bridge to land.
3.6
After the sacrifices and the choral contests and the banquets were over, he erected the famous bronze palm-tree as a thank offering to the god, and consecrated to his service a tract of land which he bought at the price of ten thousand drachmas,About £40, or $2000, with four or five times the present purchasing power of money. the revenues from which the Delians were to expend in sacrificial banquets, at which many blessings should be invoked upon Nicias from the gods. This stipulation he actually had graven on the stone which he left in Delos to be as it were the sentry over his benefaction. The palm-tree, however, was torn away by the wind and fell against the colossal statue of the god which the Naxians erected, and overturned it.
