I learnt a very strange thing that happened to the Liparaeans in a war with the Etruscans. For the Liparaeans were bidden by the Pythian priestess to engage the Etruscans with the fewest possible ships. So they put out against the Etruscans with five triremes. Their enemies, refusing to admit that their seamanship was unequal to that of the Liparaeans, went out to meet them with an equal number of ships. These the Liparaeans captured, as they did a second five that came out against them, overcoming too a third squadron of five, and likewise a fourth. So they dedicated at Delphi images of Apollo equal in number to the ships that they had captured.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. W.H.S. Jones (Translator), H.A. Ormerod (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1918-1935.
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