History of the Peloponnesian War

Thucydides

Thucydides. The English works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Hobbes, Thomas. translator. London: John Bohn, 1843.

The same winter also the Athenians hallowed the isle of Delos, by the admonition indeed of a certain oracle. For Pisistratus also, the tyrant, hallowed the same before; not all, but only so much as was within the prospect of the temple. But now they hallowed it all over in this manner.

They took away all sepulchres whatsoever of such as had died there before, and for the future made an edict that none should be suffered to die nor any woman to bring forth child in the island; but [when they were near the time, either of the one or the other] they should be carried over into Rheneia. This Rheneia is so little a way distant from Delos that Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, who was once of great power by sea and had the dominion of the other islands, when he won Rheneia dedicated the same to Apollo of Delos, tying it unto Delos with a chain.