290 HISTORICAL TALES.

Thebans want it; let us anticipate them and take
back our own.”

His words took fire. A strong force was raised,
the town and temple were attacked, and both, being
practically undefended, were quickly captured. Pho-
cis had regained her own, for Delphi had been taken
from her during an older “Sacred War.”

Philomelus now announced that the temple and
its oracles would not be meddled with. Its treasures
would be safe. Visitors would be free to come and
go. He would give any security that Greece re-
quired that the wealth of Apollo should be safe and
all go on as before. But he fortified the town, and
invited mercenary soldiers till he had an army of
five thousand men. As for the priestess of Apollo,
from whose lips the oracles came, he demanded that
she should continue to be inspired as before, and
should give an oracle in his favor. The priestess
refused; whereupon he seized her and sought to
drag her to the holy tripod on which she was accus-
tomed to sit. The woman, scared by his violence,
cried out, “ You may do what you choose!”

Philomelus at once proclaimed this as an oracle in
his favor, and published it widely. And it is inter-
esting to learn that many of the superstitious Greeks
took his word for it. He certainly took the word of
the priestess,—for he did what he chose.

War at once began. Many of the Greek states
rose at the call of the contemned Amphictyonic
Council. The Phocians were in imminent peril.
They were far from strong enough for the war they
had invoked. Mercenary troops—“ soldiers of for-