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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: prospects of his recall. When at length their good disposition seemed
to him established, not only by his election as general, but by the
messages of invitation which he received in private from his friends,
he sailed home, and entered Piraeus on the very day of the festival of
the Plunteria,[3] when the statue of Athena is veiled and screened
from public gaze. This was a coincidence, as some thought, of evil
omen, and unpropitious alike to himself and the State, for no Athenian
would transact serious business on such a day.
[2] Gytheum, the port and arsenal of Sparta, situated near the head of
the Laconian Gulf (now Marathonisi).
[3] {ta Plunteria}, or feast of washings, held on the 25th of the
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