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and from sundry oracles reputed ancient he cited one saying that great fame would be won by the Athenians in Sicily. To his delight also certain envoys who had been se#it to the shrine of Ammon came back with an oracle declaring that the Athenians would capture all the Syracusans ; but utterances of opposite import the envoys concealed, for fear of using words of ill omen. For no signs could deter the people from the expedition, were they never so obvious and clear, such as, for instance, the mutilation of the “Hermae.” These statues were all disfigured in a single night, except one, called the Hermes of Andocides, a dedi- cation of the Aegeid tribe, standing in front of what was at that time the house of Andocides. Then there was the affair of the altar of the Twelve Gods. An unknown man leaped upon it all of a sudden, bestrode it, and then mutilated himself with a stone. At Delphi, moreover, there stood a Palladium, made of gold and set upon a bronze palm tree, a ded- ication of the city of Athens from the spoils of her valour in the Persian wars. Ravens alighted on this image and pecked it for many days together ; they also bit off the fruit of the palm-tree, which was of gold, and cast it down to the ground. The Atheni- ans, it is true, said that this whole story was an invention of the Delphians, at the instigation of the Syracusans ; but at any rate when a certain oracle bade them bring the priestess of Athena from Clazomenae, they sent and fetched the woman, and lo! her name was Peace. And this, as it seemed, was the advice which the divinity would give the city at that time, namely, to keep the peace. It was either because he feared such signs as these,