We need not then wonder at the tale of the
people of Kaunus, who, when a ship pursued by pirates was making for
their harbour at first refused to admit it, but afterwards enquired
whether any on board knew the plays of Euripides; and on hearing that
they did, allowed them to enter the harbour and save themselves.
XXX. At Athens the news of the catastrophe was at first disbelieved,
because of the unsatisfactory way in which it reached the city. A
stranger, it is said, disembarked at Peiraeus, went into a barber's
shop, and began to converse about what had happened as upon a theme
which must be uppermost in every man's mind. The astonished barber,
hearing for the first time such fearful tidings, ran up to Athens to
communicate it to the archons, and to the public in the market-place.
All were shocked and astonished at hearing this, and the archons
immediately convoked the public assembly, and brought the barber
before it. When he was asked to explain from whom he had heard this
intelligence, as he could give no satisfactory account, he was
regarded as a disturber of the public tranquillity by fabricating idle
tales, and was even put to the torture. Soon, however, men arrived who
confirmed his tale, and described all the details of the catastrophe
as far as they had witnessed them. Then at last the countrymen of
Nikias believed, after his death, what he had so often foretold to
them during his life.
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