Instead of ἦν γὰρ δὴ τοῖσι Ἀθηναίοισι ~πεντήρης~ ἐπὶ Σουνίῳ (vi, 87), I follow the reading proposed by Schömann and sanctioned by Boëckh—~πεντετηρίς~. It is hardly conceivable that the Athenians at that time should have had any ships with five banks of oars (πεντήρης): moreover, apart from this objection, the word πεντήρης makes considerable embarrassment in the sentence; see Boëckh, Urkunden über das Attische Seewesen, chap. vii, pp. 75, 76. The elder Dionysius of Syracuse is said to have been the first Greek who constructed πεντήρεις or quinquereme ships (Diodor. xiv, 40, 41). There were many distinct pentaëterides, or solemnities celebrated every fifth year, included among the religious customs of Athens: see Aristoteles, Πολιτ. Fragm. xxvii, ed. Neumann; Pollux, viii, 107. An Æginetan 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the appointed day he rose with his partisans in arms and took possession of the Old Town,—a strong post which had been superseded in course of time by the more modern city on the sea-shore, less protected though more convenient.[78] But no Athenians appeared, and without them he was unable to maintain his footing: he was obliged to make his escape from the island after witnessing the complete defeat of his partisans,—a large body of whom, seven hundred in number, fell into the hands of the government, and were led out for execution. One man alone among these prisoners burst his chains, fled to the sanctuary of Dêmêtêr Thesmophorus, and was fortunate enough to seize the handle of the door before he was overtaken. In spite of every effort to drag him away by force, he clung to it with convulsive grasp: his pursuers did not venture to put him to death in such a position, but they severed the hands from the body and then executed him, leaving the hands still hanging to and grasping[79] the door-handle, where they seem to have long remained without being taken off. Destruction of the seven hundred prisoners does not seem to have drawn down upon the Æginetan oligarchy either vengeance from the gods or censure from their contemporaries; but the violation of sanctuary, in the case of that one unfortunate man whose hands were cut off, was a crime which the goddess Dêmêtêr never forgave. More than fifty years afterwards, in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, the Æginetans, having been previously conquered by Athens, were finally expelled from their island: such expulsion was the divine judgment upon them for this ancient impiety, which half a century of continued expiatory sacrifice had not been sufficient to wipe out.[80] [78] See Thucyd. i, 8.