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That the vengeance should fall on ambassadors was natural enough since the offence had been committed against ambassadors, but that it should fall on the sons of the very men who had taken the guilt of the community on themselves, but had not been allowed to expiate it, was a striking fulfilment of the law that the children must suffer for the sins of the fathers (Ezekiel, ch. xviii; St. John ix. 2, 3), and that the divine Nemesis, which had apparently slept, must in the end manifest itself against the guilty race; cf. vi. 86 and Introduction, § 36.

ὃς εἶλε. The feat was the more remarkable as Aneristus had only a merchantman. Halieis was a small port on the southern point of the Argolic Acte, in the territory of Hermione, opposite the island now called Spetzia. Its capture must have occurred after the destruction of Tiryns by Argos (after 468 B.C., cf. vi. 83. 2), as τοὺς ἐκ Τίρυνθος would naturally refer to refugees from the fallen city, and in 468 an Olympic victor is still styled Τιρύνθιος (Ox. Pap. ii, pp. 89 and 93 n.), and before the second year of the Peloponnesian war, when Halieis was allied with Sparta (Thuc. ii. 56) and Aneristus was seized and put to death (inf.). Presumably it would fall in the years when Athens and Argos were allied against Sparta, 461-50 B.C.

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