AFFAIRS OF SPARTA. 47 eacred obligation of restoring a deposit : i they justified the re- fusal in part by saying that the deposit had been lodged by the two kings jointly, and could not be surrendered to one of them alone: but they probably recollected that the hostages were placed less as a deposit than as a security against ^ginetan hos- tility, — which security they were not disposed to forego. Leotychides having been obliged to retire without success, the ^ginetans resolved to adopt measures of retaliation for them- selves : they waited for the period of a solemn festival celebrated every fifth year at Sunium, on which occasion a ship pecu- liarly equipped and carrying some of the leading Athenians as Theors, or sacred envoys, sailed thither from Athens. This ship they found means to capture, and carried all on board prisoners to -^gina. Whether an exchange took place, or whether the prisoners and hostages on both sides were put to death, we do not know ; but the consequence of their proceeding was an active and decided war between Athens and ^gina,^ beginning seem- ingly about 488 or 487 B.C., and lasting until 481 B.C., the year preceding the invasion of Xerxes. An -^ginetan citizen named Nikodromus took advantage of this war to further a plot against the government of the island : having been before, as he thought, unjustly banished, he now organized a revolt of the people against the ruling oligarchy, concerting with the Athenians a simultaneous invasion in support of his plan. Accordingly, on the appointed day he rose with his ' Herodot. vi, 85 : compare vi, 49-73, and the preceding volume of this history, c. xxxvi, pp. 437-441.
- Herodot. vi, 87, 88.
Instead of ^v yup 6/j toIol ' A^ijvaioicn n ev rripric inl "Zovviu (vi, 87), I follow the reading proposed by Schomann and sanctioned by Boeckh — irevTETTipic. It is hardly conceivable that the Athenians at that time should have had any ships with five banks of oars (nevri^pijc): moreover, apart from this objection, the word nevrr/prig makes considerable embar- rassment in the sentence ; see BoGckh, Urkunden iiber das Attische See- wesen, chap, vii, pp. 75, 76. The elder Dionysius of Syracuse is said to have been the first Greek who constructed nevrripeig or quinquereme ships (Diodor. xiv, 40, 41). There were many distinct pentaeterides, or solemnities celebrated every fifth year, included am.ong the religious customs of Athens : see Aristotele* n.o'kiT. Fragm. xxvii, ed. Neumann ; Pollux, viii, 107.
