The authorities at Delphi seem to have read the coming invasion in the light of a tremendous punitive expedition against Athens, a revenge for Marathon and Sardes. ◆H. vii. 138.◆ It has already been shown on the evidence of Herodotus that these were the declared reasons of the expedition. Believing this to be the case, it required no great imaginative powers with respect to the future to foretell the destruction of Attica. Hence the first of the two celebrated oracles which caused the Athenian delegates such natural alarm. The Athenians are told to fly to the ends of the earth, and the utter destruction of their Greek home is foretold. It was to Athens alone that such advice was given. Athens was the object of the expedition, so Delphi thought; and if the object were removed, the invasion might never take place. In any case, if it did take place, it was possible that its object might be regarded as attained if Attica and Athens were laid waste; and therefore it was necessary, in consistency with this view, to discourage the interference of the Greek States in the matter. ◆H. vii 148.◆ This is the reason for the advice given to Argos and to the Cretans. ◆H. vii. 169.◆ If other States interfered the devastation might spread to the whole of Greece. It is quite conceivable that Delphi regarded this as being, under the circumstances, the most patriotic policy which could be advocated. The removal of the cause of offence would go far towards expiating the offence itself. Such a course of action was in a way parallel to that demanded by one Greek State from another in a case of sacrilegious pollution. Two questions now arise. In the first place, at what period in the development of affairs prior to the invasion was this oracular response delivered to the Athenians? Secondly, what interval elapsed between it and the second? The first question hardly admits of an answer. The wording of the oracle affords but a slender and uncertain clue; and that, such as it is, is contained in the latter half of it. The answer, as given in Herodotus, is in twelve lines of verse. ◆H. vii. 140.◆ Of these the first six refer to Athens alone. The last six, however, extend the threat of destruction to other States of Greece. And yet the inhabitants of those States are not advised to fly their land; the exhortation to flight is addressed to Athens alone. If these words were dictated by circumstances existent at the time they were spoken, they can only be of the nature of a threat addressed to the other powers of Greece; and, if so, they were probably uttered either during the expedition to Tempe, or immediately after it, and were a warning of what would happen to those who tried to resist the invader. A further possibility is that the last six lines appeared in a revised version of the original, made after the event.