A City Destroyed by Silence

The city of Amyclae, of the Morea, near Sparta, is said to have been destroyed by silence, under the following circumstances:--

The Amyclaeans, had often been panic-stricken by the report that an enemy was coming, hence they passed a law that no one should spread such a report. The result was that when the Spartans were really moving on Amyclae no one dared give the alarm, and so they made an easy conquest of the city. (See the commentators on Virgil.)