The following inscription in stone purports to record the actual text of an agreement the people of Thera (modern Santorini) swore to when they were sending off a colony to Cyrene in Libya, circa 600 B C E (The stone was not inscribed with this text until the fourth century B C E , and some scholars doubt that it reproduces the text of the colonists' oath accurately) The Therans claim that they decided to send the colony not because they needed land or raw materials but because the god Apollo told them to through an oracle Participation in the expedition was not necessarily voluntary Members were drafted from every family, and those who refused to go were liable to execution

Since Apollo spontaneously told B[at]tos and the Therans to colonize Cyrene, it has been decided by the Therans to...