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Then indeed it was that Themistocles, despairing of bringing the multitude over to his views by any human reasonings, set up machinery, as it were, to introduce the gods to them as a theatrical manager would for a tragedy, and brought to bear upon them signs from heaven and oracles. As a sign from heaven he took the behavior of the serpent, which is held to have disappeared about that time from the sacred enclosure on the Acropolis. When the priests found that the daily offerings made to it were left whole and untouched, they proclaimed to the multitude,—Themistocles putting the story into their mouths,—that the goddess had abandoned her city and was showing them their way to the sea.

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load focus Greek (Bernadotte Perrin, 1914)
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