Note 3 — Chapter I · A WRONG
Reading edition
Philip, King of Macedonia, who by this time was very nearly master of Greece, had, it was said, consulted the Delphic oracle as to his plans, and had received from the priestess an answer which may be thus Englished:—
“Craft may be baffled, force may fail, The silver spear shall still prevail.”
To the king himself a witticism of similar import was attributed: “I have never found,” he said, “a citadel impregnable, into which I could send an ass laden with silver.”