4.163.2
The priestess gave him this answer:
“For the lifetimes of four Battuses and four Arcesilauses, eight generations of men, Loxias grants to your house the kingship of Cyrene; more than this he advises you not even to try.
4.163.3
But you, return to your country and live there in peace. But if you find the oven full of amphora, do not bake the amphora, but let them go unscathed. And if you bake them in the oven, do not go into the tidal place; for if you do, then you shall be killed yourself, and also the bull that is fairest of the herd.”
This was the oracle given by the priestess to Arcesilaus.
ch. 164
4.164.1
But he returned to Cyrene with the men from Samos, and having made himself master of it he forgot the oracle, and demanded justice upon his enemies for his banishment.
4.164.2
Some of these left the country altogether; others, Arcesilaus seized and sent away to Cyprus to be killed there. These were carried off their course to Cnidus, where the Cnidians saved them and sent them to Thera. Others of the Cyrenaeans fled for refuge into a great tower that belonged to one Aglomachus, a private man, and Arcesilaus piled wood around it and burnt them there.
4.164.3
Then, perceiving too late that this was the meaning of the Delphic oracle which forbade him to bake the amphora if he found them in the oven, he deliberately refrained from going into the city of the Cyrenaeans, fearing the death prophesied and supposing the tidal place to be Cyrene.
4.164.4
Now he had a wife who was a relation of his, a daughter of Alazir king of the Barcaeans, and Arcesilaus went to Alazir; but men of Barce and some of the exiles from Cyrene were aware of him and killed him as he walked in the town, and Alazir his father-in-law too. So Arcesilaus whether with or without meaning to missed the meaning of the oracle and fulfilled his destiny.
ch. 165
4.165.1
While Arcesilaus was living at Barce, accomplishing his own destruction, his mother Pheretime held her son's prerogative at Cyrene, where she administered all his business and sat with others in council.
4.165.2
But when she learned of her son's death at Barce, she made her escape to Egypt, trusting to the good service which Arcesilaus had done Cambyses the son of Cyrus; for this was the Arcesilaus who gave Cyrene to Cambyses and agreed to pay tribute.
4.165.3
So, on her arrival in Egypt, Pheretime supplicated Aryandes, asking that he avenge her, on the plea that her son had been killed for allying himself with the Medes.
ch. 166
4.166.1
This Aryandes had been appointed viceroy of Egypt by Cambyses; at a later day, he was put to death for making himself equal to Darius. For, learning and seeing that Darius desired to leave a memorial of himself such as no king ever had, Aryandes imitated him, until he got his reward;
4.166.2
for Darius had coined money out of gold refined to an extreme purity, note and Aryandes, then ruling Egypt, made a similar silver coinage; and now there is no silver money so pure as is the Aryandic. But when Darius heard that Aryandes was doing so, he put him to death, not on this charge but as a rebel.
