| #### CHAPTER 89 |

| #### #### Such then was the origin of the feud which existed between the Eginetans and the Athenians. Hence, when the Thebans made their application for succour, the Eginetans, calling to mind the matter of images, gladly lent their aid to the Boeotians. They ravaged all the sea-coast of Attica; and the Athenians were about to attack them in return, when they were stopped by the oracle of Delphi, which bade them wait till thirty years had passed from the time that the Eginetans did the wrong, and in the thirty-first year, having first set apart a precinct for Aeacus, then to begin the war. "So should they succeed to their wish," the oracle said; "but if they went to war at once, though they would still conquer the island in the end, yet they must go through much suffering and much exertion before taking it." On receiving this warning the Athenians set apart a precinct for Aeacus - the same which still remains dedicated to him in their market-place - but they could not hear with any patience of waiting thirty years, after they had suffered such grievous wrong at the hands of the Eginetans. ####  |