chanced, they had not ships sufficient to fight with the Eginetans; so
while they were asking the Corinthians to lend them ships, during this
time their cause went to ruin. The Corinthians however, being at this
time exceedingly friendly with them, gave the Athenians twenty ships
at their request; and these they gave by selling them at five drachmas
apiece, for by the law it was not permitted to give them as a free
gift. Having taken these ships of which I speak and also their own,
the Athenians with seventy ships manned in all sailed to Egina, and
they were later by one day than the time agreed. 90. Nicodromos
meanwhile, as the Athenians did not come to his support at the proper
time, embarked in a ship and escaped from Egina, and with him also
went others of the Eginetans; and the Athenians gave them Sunion to
dwell in, starting from whence these men continued to plunder the
Eginetans who were in the island. 91. This happened afterwards: but at
the time of which we speak the well-to-do class among the Eginetans
prevailed over the men of the people, who had risen against them in
combination with Nicodromos, and then having got them into their power
they were bringing their prisoners forth to execution. From this there
came upon them a curse which they were not able to expiate by
sacrifice, though they devised against it all they could; but they
were driven forth from the island before the goddess became propitious
to them. For they had taken as prisoners seven hundred of the men of
the people and were bringing them forth to execution, when one of them
escaped from his bonds and fled for refuge to the entrance of the
temple of Demeter the Giver of Laws,[81] and he took hold of the latch
of the door and clung to it; and when they found that they could not
drag him from it by pulling him away, they cut off his hands and so
carried him off, and those hands remained clinging to the latch of the
door. 92. Thus did the Eginetans to one another: and when the
Athenians came, they fought against them with seventy ships, and being