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[70] Eteonicus the Spartan, Adimantus the Corinthian and the Aeginetan fleet intended, under cover of night, to seek safety for themselves.1 Our ancestors, though they were being deserted by all the Greeks, forcibly liberated themselves and the others too by making them assist at Salamis in the naval battle against the Persians, and so triumphed unaided over both enemy and ally, in a way appropriate to each, conferring a favor upon one and defeating the other in battle. A fit comparison indeed to make with the man who escapes from his country on a four days' voyage to Rhodes!

1 There are at least two mistakes in this account. (1) The Spartan general was Eurybiadas. (2) The Aeginetans supported the Athenians' policy, since a withdrawal to the isthmus of Corinth would have entailed the surrender of their island. See Hdt. 8.74. Even the Athenian claim that Adimantus wished, or as Herodotus (Hdt. 8.94) records it, actually attempted, to flee is now regarded as a misrepresentation of the fact that the Corinthians were dispatched before the battle to oppose the Egyptian ships which had blocked the western end of the bay.

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