And during the reign of Archidamus, the son of Agesilaus, the Phocians seized the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Offers of mercenary aid came privately to the Thebans to fight against the Phocians, and publicly from the Lacedæmonians and Athenians, the latter remembering the old kindnesses they had received from the Phocians, and the Lacedæmonians under pretext of friendship, but really as I think in hostility to the Thebans. And Theopompus, the son of Damasistratus, said that Archidamus also had a share of the money at Delphi, and that also Dinichas, his wife, had received a bribe from the authorities of the Phocians, and that all this made Archidamus more willing to bring the Phocians aid. I do not praise receiving sacred money, and assisting men who made havoc of the most famous of oracles. But this much I can praise. The Phocians intended to kill all the young men at Delphi, and to sell the women and children into slavery, and to raze the city to its foundations: all this Archidamus successfully deprecated. And he afterwards crossed over into Italy, to assist the people of Tarentum in a war with their barbarian neighbours: and he was slain there by the barbarians, and his dead body failed to find a tomb through the wrath of Apollo. And Agis, the elder son of this Archidamus, met his death fighting against the Macedonians and Antipater. During the reign of Eudamidas the younger one the Lacedæmonians enjoyed peace. All about his son Agis, and his grandson Eurydamidas, I have already related in my account of Sicyonia. Next to the Hermæ[32] is a place full of oak trees, and the name of it Scotitas (_dark place_) was not derived from the thickness of the foliage, but from Zeus surnamed Scotitas, whose temple is about 10 stades as you turn off the road to the left. And when you have returned to the road, and gone forward a little, and turned again to the left, there is a statue and trophy of Hercules: Hercules erected the trophy it is said after killing Hippocoon and his sons. And a third turn from the high road to the right leads to Caryæ and the temple of Artemis. For Caryæ is sacred to Artemis and the Nymphs, and there is a statue of Artemis of Caryæ in the open air, and here the Lacedæmonian maidens have a festival every year, and hold their national dances. And as you return to the high road and go straight on you come to the ruins of Sellasia, which place (as I have mentioned before) the Achæans reduced to slavery, when they had conquered in battle the Lacedæmonians and their king Cleomenes the son of Leonidas. And at Thornax, which you next come to, is a statue of Pythæan Apollo, very similar to the one at Amyclæ, which I shall describe when I come to Amyclæ. But the one at Amyclæ is more famous than the Lacedæmonian one, for the gold which Crœsus the Lydian sent to Pythæan Apollo was used to adorn it. CHAPTER XI.