Herodotus tells a second Delphic consultation the same way. Before the Persian invasion of 480 BCE, Athenian envoys asked Delphi what to do and first received an unconditional prophecy of disaster, grim enough that they asked again as suppliants for something better. The second answer promised that a wall of wood would protect Athens and its children. Some Athenians took this literally, as the wooden stockade once built on the Acropolis; Themistocles argued it meant the fleet, and persuaded the city to trust its ships. The Greek navy went on to win the battle of Salamis in the strait beside Athens.
In both stories the oracle's words turn out to be accurate only once read correctly, and the burden of correct reading falls entirely on the person who asked. Herodotus is not, on the modern scholarly reading, presenting Delphi as fraudulent; elsewhere in the Histories he treats the sanctuary and its authority as genuine. The pattern instead serves his recurring theme that confidence built on a single, incompletely questioned prophecy precedes a fall, Croesus's over-confidence chief among his examples. Most historians read the Croesus exchange, including the god's own self-justifying reply after the fact, as a literary and moralising construction rather than a verbatim transcript of what was said at Delphi, though the practice of oracular consultation there, and its real influence on the decisions of kings and cities, is independently well attested.
Sources HistoriesHerodotus with The Delphic Oracle: Its Responses and OperationsJoseph Fontenrose