Thalia   

mines of gold and silver in their country, and of so rich a yield,
that from a tithe of the ores the Siphnians furnished out a treasury
at Delphi which was on a par with the grandest there. What the mines
yielded was divided year by year among the citizens. At the time
when they formed the treasury, the Siphnians consulted the oracle, and
asked whether their good things would remain to them many years. The
Pythoness made answer as follows:-

When the Prytanies'seat shines white in the island of Siphnos,
White-browed all the forum-need then of a true seer's wisdom-
Danger will threat from a wooden host, and a herald in scarlet.

Now about this time the forum of the Siphnians and their townhall or
prytaneum had been adorned with Parian marble.
The Siphnians, however, were unable to understand the oracle,
either at the time when it was given, or afterwards on the arrival
of the Samians. For these last no sooner came to anchor off the island
than they sent one of their vessels, with an ambassage on board, to
the city. All ships in these early times were painted with
vermilion; and this was what the Pythoness had meant when she told
them to beware of danger "from a wooden host, and a herald in
scarlet." So the ambassadors came ashore and besought the Siphnians to
lend them ten talents; but the Siphnians refused, whereupon the
Samians began to plunder their lands. Tidings of this reached the
Siphnians, who straightway sallied forth to save their crops; then a
battle was fought, in which the Siphnians suffered defeat, and many of
their number were cut off from the city by the Samians, after which
these latter forced the Siphnians to give them a hundred talents.
With this money they bought of the Hermionians the island of
Hydrea, off the coast of the Peloponnese, and this they gave in
trust to the Troezenians, to keep for them, while they themselves went
on to Crete, and founded the city of Cydonia. They had not meant, when
they set sail, to settle there, but only to drive out the
Zacynthians from the island. However they rested at Cydonia, where
they flourished greatly for five years. It was they who built the
various temples that may still be seen at that place, and among them
the fane of Dictyna. But in the sixth year they were attacked by the
Eginetans, who beat them in a sea-fight, and, with the help of the
Cretans, reduced them all to slavery. The beaks of their ships,
which carried the figure of a wild boar, they sawed off, and laid them
up in the temple of Minerva in Egina. The Eginetans took part
against the Samians on account of an ancient grudge, since the Samians
had first, when Amphicrates was king of Samos, made war on them and
done great harm to their island, suffering, however, much damage
also themselves. Such was the reason which moved the Eginetans to make
this attack.
I have dwelt the longer on the affairs of the Samians, because
three of the greatest works in all Greece were made by them. One is
a tunnel, under a hill one hundred and fifty fathoms high, carried
entirely through the base of the hill, with a mouth at either end. The
length of the cutting is seven furlongs- the height and width are each
eight feet. Along the whole course there is a second cutting, twenty
cubits deep and three feet broad, whereby water is brought, through
pipes, from an abundant source into the city. The architect of this
tunnel was Eupalinus, son of Naustrophus, a Megarian. Such is the
first of their great works; the second is a mole in the sea, which
goes all round the harbour, near twenty fathoms deep, and in length
above two furlongs. The third is a temple; the largest of all the
temples known to us, whereof Rhoecus, son of Phileus, a Samian, was
first architect. Because of these works I have dwelt the longer on the
affairs of Samos.
While Cambyses, son of Cyrus, after losing his senses, still
lingered in Egypt, two Magi, brothers, revolted against him. One of
them had been left in Persia by Cambyses as comptroller of his