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The Persians left behind by King Darius in Europe, who had
Megabazus for their general, reduced, before any other Hellespontine
state, the people of Perinthus, who had no mind to become subjects of
the king. Now the Perinthians had ere this been roughly handled by
another nation, the Paeonians. For the Paeonians from about the
Strymon were once bidden by an oracle to make war upon the
Perinthians, and if these latter, when the camps faced one another,
challenged them by name to fight, then to venture on a battle, but if
otherwise, not to make the hazard. The Paeonians followed the
advice. Now the men of Perinthus drew out to meet them in the skirts
of their city; and a threefold single combat was fought on challenge
given. Man to man, and horse to horse, and dog to dog, was the
strife waged; and the Perinthians, winners of two combats out of the
three, in their joy had raised the paean; when the Paeonians struck
by the thought that this was what the oracle had meant, passed the word
one to another, saying, "Now of a surety has the oracle been
fulfilled for us; now our work begins." Then the Paeonians set upon
the Perinthians in the midst of their paean, and defeated them
utterly, leaving but few of them alive.
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