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These same men, if we may believe the Athenians, during their stay
at Delphi persuaded the Pythoness by a bribe to tell the Spartans,
whenever any of them came to consult the oracle, either on their own
private affairs or on the business of the state, that they must free
Athens. So the Lacedaemonians, when they found no answer ever
returned to them but this, sent at last Anchimolius, the son of
Aster - a man of note among their citizens - at the head of an army
against Athens, with orders to drive out the Pisistratidae, albeit
they were bound to them by the closest ties of friendship. For they
esteemed the things of heaven more highly than the things of men. The
troops went by sea and were conveyed in transports. Anchimolius
brought them to an anchorage at Phalerum; and there the men
disembarked. But the Pisistratidae, who had previous knowledge of
their intentions, had sent to Thessaly, between which country and
Athens there was an alliance, with a request for aid. The
Thessalians, in reply to their entreaties, sent them by a public vote
1000 horsemen, under the command of their king, Cineas, who was
a Coniaean. When this help came, the Pisistratidae laid their plan
accordingly: they cleared the whole plain about Phalerum so as to make
it fit for the movements of cavalry, and then charged the enemy's camp
with their horse, which fell with such fury upon the Lacedaemonians as
to kill numbers, among the rest Anchimolius, the general, and to
drive the remainder to their ships. Such was the fate of the first
army sent from Lacedaemon, and the tomb of Anchimolius may be seen to
this day in Attica; it is at Alopecae (Foxtown), near the temple
of Hercules in Cynosargos.
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