CHAPTER 57

The Samians who had fought against Polycrates, when they knew that the Lacedaemonians were about to forsake them, left Samos themselves, and sailed to Siphnos. They happened to be in want of money; and the Siphnians at that time were at the height of their greatness, no islanders having so much wealth as they. There were mines of gold and silver in their country, and of so rich a yield, that from a tithe of the ores the Siphnians furnished out a treasury at Delphi which was on a par with the grandest there. What the mines yielded was divided year by year among the citizens. At the time when they formed the treasury, the Siphnians consulted the oracle, and asked whether their good things would remain to them many years. The Pythoness made answer as follows:

When the Prytanies'seat shines white in the island of Siphnos,
White-browed all the forum-need then of a true seer's wisdom -
Danger will threat from a wooden host, and a herald in scarlet.

Now about this time the forum of the Siphnians and their townhall or prytaneum had been adorned with Parian marble.