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ἔσφαλλε, ‘perplexed’; the same idea reappears with a different metaphor in συνεχέοντο, confundebantur. The soothsayers interpreted the last two verses of a naval defeat at Salamis; how then could salvation be found in the fleet, how could that be the wooden wall which was to escape destruction?

χρησμολόγοι: cf. ch. 6. 3 n. It was the official interpreters who clung to the letter of the oracle; cf. ch. 143. 3.

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