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It mostly happens that there is some warning when great misfortunes are
about to befall a state or nation; and so it was in this instance, for
the Chians had previously had some strange tokens sent to them. A
choir of a hundred of their youths had been despatched to Delphi; and
of these only two had returned; the remaining ninety-eight having been
carried off by a pestilence. Likewise, about the same time, and very
shortly before the sea-fight, the roof of a school-house had fallen
in upon a number of their boys, who were at lessons; and out of a
hundred and twenty children there was but one left alive. Such were
the signs which God sent to warn them. It was very shortly afterwards
that the sea-fight happened, which brought the city down upon its
knees; and after the sea-fight came the attack of Histiaeus and his
Lesbians, to whom the Chians, weakened as they were, furnished an
easy conquest.
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