being shown by the entrails that the crossing would be unlucky, he said that he praised the river for not betraying its citizens; but that not even so would the Argives get off safe.
The invasion of Argolis.
210.After this, having returned and having offered a bull to the sea, he took his army on shipboard to the territory of the Argives. On ascertaining this, the Argives hasten to the sea intending to bring help to their friends. Then they opposed their camp to that of the Lacedaemonians, leaving no great interval in the middle between them. They then did not fear an open fight, but lest they should be conquered by craft; for the priestess of Apollo had uttered an oracle in these words: ‘When a victorious female shall rout a male, and shall gloriously bring honour among the Argives; then shall she make many of the Argive women to lament, and the serpent, with its winding folds shall perish.’
Turning the tables.
211.Accordingly they formed the plan of using the enemy’s herald; and this (plan) they so carried out, that, as often as the Spartan herald had given out any signal, the Aigives also did that very thing. And when Cleomenes ascertained that they were in the habit of doing the same thing as his own herald had proclaimed, he gave orders to his men that whenever the herald should have given the signal for breakfast, they should take their arms and attack the Argives. And the Lacedaemonians did this. For while the Argives, according to the command of the herald, were taking their breakfast, having suddenly attacked them, they slew a great number, and besieging many others who had fled to the grove of Argos, they kept them there.
Broken faith.
212.Then Cleomenes did as follows. When he had ascertained from certain deserters which of the Argives they were who were shut up in the sacred grove, he sent a herald and called them one by one by name, asserting that he would receive a price for their ransom. Now among the Peloponnesians there is a fixed price for ransom, (namely) two minae to be paid for
