Page:History of Greece Vol IV.djvu/64

46 HISTORY OF GREECE. body of emigrants joined him on this promise ; the period seem- ingly being favorable to it, since the Ionian cities had not long before become subject to Persia, and were discontented with the yoke. But before he conducted this numerous band against his native city, he thought proper to ask the advice of the Delphian oracle. Success in the undertaking was promised to him, but moderation and mercy after success was emphatically enjoined, on pain of losing his life ; and the Battiad race was declared by the god to be destined to rule at Kyrene for eight generations, but no longer, as far as four princes named Battus and four named Arkesilaus. 1 "More than such eight generations (said the Pythia), Apollo forbids the Battiads even to aim at." This oracle was doubtless told to Herodotus by Kyrenaean informants when he visited their city after the final deposition of the Bat- tiad princes, which took place in the person of the fourth Arke- silaus, between 460-450 B.C. ; the invasion of Kyrene by Ar- kesilaus the Third, sixth prince of the Battiad race, to which the oracle professed to refer, having occurred about 530 B.C. The words placed in the mouth of the priestess doubtless date from the later of these two periods, and afford a specimen of the way in which pretended prophecies are not only made up by antedating after-knowledge, but are also so contrived as to serve a present purpose. For the distinct prohibition of the god, " not even to aim at a longer lineage than eight Battiad princes," seems plainly intended to deter the partisans of the dethroned family from endeavoring to reinstate them. Arkesilaus the Third, to whom this prophecy purports to have been addressed, returned with his mother Pheretime and his army of new colonists to Kyrene. He was strong enough to carry all before him, to expel some of his chief opponents and seize upon others, whom he sent to Cypress to be destroyed ; though the vessels were driven out of their course by storms to the peninsula of Knidus, where the inhabitants rescued the prisoners and sent them to Thera. Other Kyrenaeans, opposed to the Battiads, took refuge in a lofty private tower, the piopertr 1 Herodot. iv, 163. 'Eni pev reaaepar Burroif, KM ' iiiol vfuv Aoi')?r ftaaifavuv Kvpr/vijf nteov nivroi TOVTOV