Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 2.54.4 · 2.54.4
What the god told the Spartans
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μνήμη δὲ ἐγένετο καὶ τοῦ Λακεδαιμονίων χρηστηρίου τοῖς εἰδόσιν, ὅτε ἐπερωτῶσιν αὐτοῖς τὸν θεὸν εἰ χρὴ πολεμεῖν ἀνεῖλε κατὰ κράτος πολεμοῦσι νίκην ἔσεσθαι, καὶ αὐτὸς ἔφη ξυλλήψεσθαι.
The oracle given to the Spartans was also remembered by those who knew of it. When they asked the god whether they should go to war, he answered that if they fought with all their might victory would be theirs, and he said that he himself would take their side.
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The setting
Those who knew the Spartan oracle recalled it too: the god had said Sparta would win if it fought with all its strength, and that he would take its side.
A note on this passage
The oracle is introduced with the same noun as the verse before it, mnēmē, "memory," so the two stories belong together as things people recalled once the sickness began. The Spartan answer is told in indirect speech: the verb aneile is the standard word for a god giving an oracular reply, and its object is a future infinitive, esesthai, "would be." The condition sits in the dative participle polemousi, "to them if they fought," and the phrase kata kratos means "with strength," that is, with full force.
The last clause is autos ephē xyllēpsesthai, "he himself said he would lend a hand." The verb syllambanō means to take hold together with someone, to join in and help, and autos makes the god the helper. Thucydides writes xyl- where later Greek writes syl-, which is his usual spelling. So the Spartan oracle promised both victory and divine assistance, and the next sentence will say how the Athenians compared that promise with what was happening.
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