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διζημένων τὸ μαντήιον, ‘seeking for the meaning of the oracle’; cf. i. 71. 1 ἁμαρτὼν τοῦ χρησμοῦ, and iv. 133. 1 τὰ δῶρα εἴκαζον, viii. 51. 2 δοκέοντες ἐξευρηκέναι τὸ μαντήιον: cf. also iii. 22. 2.

συνεστηκυῖαι, ‘opposed’ as combatants; cf. i. 208. 1; iv. 132. 2.

ῥηχῷ: probably ‘palisade’; cf. the gloss φραγμός. Pausanias (ii. 32. 10) says the Troezenians gave the name to the wild olive; the name of the tree might be transferred to a fence made of it; cf. ‘oak’ in Oxford. Others (L. & S.) take it as ‘thorn-hedge’, the ancient equivalent of modern wire-entanglements.


ἔσφαλλε, ‘perplexed’; the same idea reappears with a different metaphor in συνεχέοντο, confundebantur. The soothsayers interpreted the last two verses of a naval defeat at Salamis; how then could salvation be found in the fleet, how could that be the wooden wall which was to escape destruction?

χρησμολόγοι: cf. ch. 6. 3 n. It was the official interpreters who clung to the letter of the oracle; cf. ch. 143. 3.

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