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Elsewhere in Greece, as people learned the seriousness of the danger hanging over the Thebans, they were distressed at their expected disaster but had no heart to help them, feeling that the city by precipitate and ill-considered action had consigned itself to evident annihilation. [2] In Thebes itself, however, men accepted their risk willingly and with good courage, but they were puzzled by certain sayings of prophets and portents of the gods.

First there was the light spider's web in the temple of Demeter which was observed to have spread itself out to the size of an himation, and which all about shone iridescent like a rainbow in the sky. [3] About this, the oracle at Delphi gave them the response:“ The gods to mortals all have sent this sign;
To the Boeotians first, and to their neighbours.
”The ancestral oracle of Thebes itself had given this response:“ The woven web is bane to one, to one a boon.
” [4]

This sign had occurred three months before Alexander's descent on the city, but at the very moment of the king's arrival the statues in the market place were seen to burst into perspiration and be covered with great drops of moisture. More than this, people reported to the city officials that the marsh at Onchestus was emitting a sound very like a bellow, while at Dirce a bloody ripple ran along the surface of the water. [5] Finally, travellers coming from Delphi told how the temple which the Thebans had dedicated from the Phocian spoils was observed to have blood-stains on its roof.1

Those who made a business of interpreting such portents stated that the spider web signified the departure of the gods from the city, its iridescence meant a storm of mixed troubles, the sweating of the statues was the sign of an overwhelming catastrophe, and the appearance of blood in many places foretold a vast slaughter throughout the city. [6] They pointed out that the gods were clearly predicting disaster for the city and recommended that the outcome of the war should not be risked upon the battlefield, but that a safer solution should be sought for in conversations.

Still the Thebans' spirits were not daunted. On the contrary they were so carried away with enthusiasm that they reminded one another of the victory at Leuctra and of the other battles where their own fighting qualities had won unhoped for victories to the astonishment of the Greek world. They indulged their nobility of spirit bravely rather than wisely, and plunged headlong into the total destruction of their country.

1 The naos at Delphi was the great temple of Apollo which was under construction in the period 360-330 B.C. The epigraphical record is assembled by E. Bourguet in the Fouilles de Delphes, 3.5 (1932). Much was done in 346 in the archonship of Damoxenus, "when peace was established," and there were Theban naopoioi in that year, along with many others. The Thebans had taken a hand in plundering the Phocians after Philip's victory, and the Phocians were obligated to make annual payments to restore what they had borrowed from the sanctuary (Book 16.60.2). But there is otherwise no suggestion that Phocian funds were applied to the temple construction, and it is quite certain that the Thebans themselves did not build or rebuild or dedicate the temple of Apollo.

Diodorus Siculus. Diodorus of Sicily in Twelve Volumes with an English Translation by C. H. Oldfather. Vol. 4-8. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, Ltd. 1989.

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