The battle being ended, the Greeks got possession of the broken ships and of the dead bodies of the slain; but seeing that they had been roughly handled, the Athenians not less than the others—for the half of their ships had suffered damage—they purposed to depart. Then Themistocles, thinking that if he could divide the men of Ionia and the men of Caria from the barbarians, the Greeks could have the mastery of the rest, gathered together the commanders, while the Eubœans were driving down their sheep to the sea, and told them that he had conceived a device by which he could divide from the King the bravest of his allies. Also he said that they should kill as many as they would of the sheep of the Eubœans, for that it was better that they should have them than that they should fall into the hands of the barbarians; also he would have the camp-fire according to custom. “And I will take care,” he said, “that you shall get back to Greece without any damage.”
Now the people of Eubœa had paid no regard to the oracle of Bacis, making light of it altogether, and neither removing their goods from the island, nor yet putting them into their strong places. And the oracle was this:
And by this neglect they were brought to ruin.