CHAPTER 90

Accordingly they were making ready to take their revenge when a fresh stir on the part of the Lacedaemonians hindered their projects. These last had become aware of the truth - how that the Alcmaeonidae had practised on the Pythoness, and the Pythoness had schemed against themselves, and against the Pisistratidae; and the discovery was a double grief to them, for while they had driven their own sworn friends into exile, they found that they had not gained thereby a particle of good will from Athens. They were also moved by certain prophecies, which declared that many dire calamities should befall them at the hands of the Athenians. Of these in times past they had been ignorant; but now they had become acquainted with them by means of Cleomenes, who had brought them with him to Sparta, having found them in the Athenian citadel, where they had been left by the Pisistratidae when they were driven from Athens: they were in the temple, and Cleomenes having discovered them, carried them off.