Book 8: Urania

Chapter 1

1These, then, were the Greeks appointed to the fleet: the Athenians furnished 127 ships; and the Plataeans, though wholly without experience of the sea, manned the ships in company with the Athenians out of courage and eagerness. The Corinthians furnished 40 ships, the Megarians 20.

2The Chalcidians manned 20 more, the Athenians providing the ships for them; the Aeginetans 18, the Sicyonians 12, the Lacedaemonians 10, the Epidaurians 8, the Eretrians 7, the Troezenians 5, the Styreans 2, and the Ceans 2 ships and 2 penteconters; and the Opuntian Locrians came to their aid besides, bringing 7 penteconters.

Chapter 2

1These, then, were the men who served in the campaign at Artemisium; and it has been told me also how many ships each people supplied. The number of ships gathered at Artemisium, not counting the penteconters, was 271.

2The Spartans supplied the commander who held the greatest power, Eurybiades son of Eurycleides; for the allies said that unless a Lacedaemonian led them, they would not follow Athenian commanders but would break up the force that was to be.

Chapter 3

1For at the very outset—before they even sent to Sicily to seek an alliance—there had arisen a proposal to give the command at sea to the Athenians. But when the allies objected, the Athenians gave way, having made it a matter of high moment that Hellas survive, and knowing that if they fell out over the leadership, Hellas would be lost; and their thinking was sound. For strife among men of one mind is as much worse than war as war is worse than peace.

2Knowing this, then, they did not stand in the way but yielded—as later time made plain—for as long as they were sorely needed. For when they had driven back the Persian and were waging the contest no longer for their own country but for his, they took the insolence of Pausanias for their pretext and stripped the Lacedaemonians of the leadership. But that happened afterward.

Chapter 4

1Now when these Greeks had come to Artemisium and saw many ships riding at anchor at Aphetae and everything brimming with soldiery, and when the affairs of the foreigners were turning out beyond their expectation and beyond what they themselves had supposed, they fell into fear and took counsel of flight from Artemisium inward into Greece.

2The Euboeans, learning that this was what they were debating, begged Eurybiades to remain a short while, until they could themselves send their children and household slaves away. When they could not persuade him, they turned to the Athenian commander and won Themistocles over for a wage of 30 talents, on condition that the fleet stay and fight the battle in front of Euboea.

Chapter 5

1Themistocles made the Greeks stay as follows: of this money he gave Eurybiades a share, 5 talents, presenting it as a gift from himself. When Eurybiades would not be persuaded—for Adeimantus son of Ocytus, the Corinthian commander, alone was eager to sail away from Artemisium and not remain—Themistocles came to him, swore an oath, and said:

2"You will not abandon us—for I will give you greater gifts than the king of the Medes would ever send you for deserting the allies." Proclaiming this openly as he spoke, he sent 3 talents of silver aboard Adeimantus' ship;

3and so they were all persuaded by the gifts, and the Euboeans had won their favor, and Themistocles himself turned a profit, keeping the rest of the money without anyone's knowing—only those who took shares in it knew that the money had come from the Athenians for this business.

Chapter 6

1So they stayed in Euboea and fought at sea, and this is how it came about. When the foreigners arrived at Aphetae in mid-morning—having learned even before that a few Greek ships lay at anchor at Artemisium, and now seeing them for themselves—they were eager to fall upon them, if by any means they might take them.

2For this reason it did not seem good to them to sail straight at the Greeks: lest the Greeks, seeing them bearing down, start into flight, and night catch the runaways; then, to be sure, the Greeks would have made their escape—while their thinking was that not one should get away, no, not so much as a man carrying fire.

Chapter 7

1To meet this they contrived as follows: detaching 200 ships from their whole fleet, they sent them round beyond Sciathos, so that the enemy should not see them as they sailed around Euboea, past Caphereus and around Geraestus, to the Euripus; their plan was to close the Greeks in—those coming by that way to fence off the road at their backs, while they themselves pressed on them from in front.

2Having so resolved, they sent off the ships appointed for it; and they themselves did not mean to attack the Greeks that day, nor before the signal should appear to them from the ships sailing around, that they had come. These, then, they sent round; the rest of the ships they counted out at Aphetae.

Chapter 8

1During this time, while they were counting out their ships, there was in that camp a man of Scione, Scyllias, the best diver among the men of that day, who in the shipwreck off Pelion had saved much of the Persians' treasure for them and gathered much for himself besides. This Scyllias had had it in mind even before to desert to the Greeks, but no chance had offered until then.

2In what manner he reached the Greeks after this I cannot say for certain; I marvel whether what is told is true—for it is said that he dived into the sea at Aphetae and did not come up again until he came to Artemisium, having crossed some 80 stades through the sea.

3Other tales are told of this man besides, like to fictions; but what befell him afterward is true. On this point let my judgment stand: that he came to Artemisium by boat. On his arrival he immediately signaled to the commanders how the shipwreck had happened, and about the ships that had been sent around Euboea.

Chapter 9

1When the Greeks heard this, they took counsel among themselves; and of the many things said, the view that prevailed was to remain where they were and encamp for that day, and then, midnight once past, to set out and meet the ships sailing around. After this, since no one was sailing against them, they waited for the late afternoon of that day and themselves sailed back against the foreigners, wishing to make trial of their own skill in battle and in the stroke through the enemy's line.

Chapter 10

1The other soldiers of Xerxes and their commanders, seeing them coming with so few ships, judged that the Greeks had gone clean mad, and brought out their own ships as well, expecting to take them with ease—and they hoped with great reason, seeing the Greek ships so few and their own many times more numerous and better sailers. Scorning them on this account, they circled round to enclose them in the middle.

2Those Ionians who were well disposed to the Greeks—serving in the campaign against their will—took it sorely to heart, seeing them so surrounded and knowing that none of them would ever return home: so feeble did the cause of the Greeks appear to them.

3But those who took delight in what was happening made a contest of it, which should first take an Athenian ship and win gifts from the king; for the Athenians had the greatest name throughout the camps.

Chapter 11

1At the signal the Greeks first, turning their prows against the foreigners, drew their sterns together into the middle; and at the second signal, though they were caught in so narrow a space, and that at the very mouth of the bay, they fell to the work.

2There they took 30 ships of the foreigners, and Philaon son of Chersis with them, brother of Gorgus king of the Salaminians, a man of standing in the army. The first of the Greeks to take an enemy ship was an Athenian, Lycomedes son of Aeschraeus, and he received the prize of valor.

3Night coming on parted a battle in which the two sides had fought with unequal success. The Greeks sailed away to Artemisium, the foreigners to Aphetae, having fought far otherwise than anyone expected. In this battle Antidorus the Lemnian, alone of the Greeks serving with the king, deserted to the Greeks; and for this deed the Athenians gave him a plot of land in Salamis.

Chapter 12

1When night came—it was midsummer of the season—rain fell without measure through all the night, and hard thunder crashed from Pelion; and the dead and the wreckage drifted down to Aphetae, wound about the prows of the ships and fouled the blades of the oars.

2The soldiers encamped there, hearing all this, sank into terror, expecting to perish utterly amid the evils they had come to. For before they could so much as draw breath from the shipwreck and the storm that had burst on Pelion, a bitter sea battle had overtaken them; and out of the battle came driving rain, and strong streams hurling into the sea, and hard thunder.

Chapter 13

1Such was that night for these men; but for those appointed to sail around Euboea the same night, night as it was, was far more savage still—in such measure as they were driven upon the open sea—and in the end it proved thankless for them. For as they sailed, storm and rain came down upon them off the Hollows of Euboea, and borne on the wind, not knowing where they were carried, they were flung upon the rocks. All this the god brought to pass, so that the Persian force should be made equal with the Greek and not remain very much greater.

Chapter 14

1Those men, then, were destroyed about the Hollows of Euboea. The foreigners at Aphetae, when day dawned gladly upon them, held their ships quiet, and it contented them—as men fated to fare ill—to keep still for the present. To the Greeks there came reinforcement: 53 Athenian ships.

2These, arriving, made them strong again, and with them came a report, that all the foreigners sailing around Euboea had perished in the storm. So the Greeks, watching for the same hour, sailed out and fell upon the Cilician ships; and having destroyed them, when evening came, they sailed back to Artemisium.

Chapter 15

1On the third day the commanders of the foreigners, counting it a grievous thing that ships so few should be harrying them thus, and fearing what would come to them from Xerxes, waited no longer for the Greeks to begin the battle, but cheering on their crews, brought out their ships at midday. It fell out that these sea battles were fought on the very days of the land battles at Thermopylae.

2For those at sea the whole contest was for the Euripus, as for those with Leonidas it was to guard the way in. The one side urged one another on not to let the foreigners into Greece; the other, how they might destroy the Greek force and win the passage. When Xerxes' men had formed up and were bearing down, the Greeks held quietly at Artemisium; and the foreigners, forming their ships into the shape of a crescent, circled about, meaning to enclose them.

Chapter 16

1From there the Greeks sailed out to meet them, and the fleets closed. In this battle the two sides proved very nearly equal.

2For Xerxes' host, by its bigness and its multitude, fell foul of itself, the ships thrown into confusion and fouling one another; all the same they held firm and did not yield: they counted it a dreadful thing to be put to flight by so few ships.

3Many Greek ships were destroyed, and many men; but far more ships and men of the foreigners; and so, fighting thus, the two sides drew apart.

Chapter 17

1In this battle the Egyptians among Xerxes' soldiers bore away the honor, doing other great deeds and taking five Greek ships with their crews. On the Greek side that day the Athenians fought best, and of the Athenians Cleinias son of Alcibiades, who served at his own charges with 200 men and a ship of his own.

Chapter 18

1When they parted, each side gladly made for harbor. The Greeks, released from the battle, kept possession of the dead and the wrecks—but they had come off roughly handled, the Athenians not least, half their ships holed; and now they were minded to flee inward into Greece.

Chapter 19

1Themistocles had it in mind that if the Ionian stock and the Carian could be torn away from the foreigner, the Greeks might prove too much for all the rest; and as the Euboeans were driving their flocks down to the sea, he gathered the commanders and told them he believed he had a device in hand by which he might hope to draw away from the king the best of his allies.

2So much he laid bare; but for the news that had come to their ears, he said the course must be this: to sacrifice the Euboean sheep, as many as each man wished—it was better the army should have them than the enemy; and he advised each commander to give his own men orders in advance to light fires; and as for the moment of leaving, he himself would see to it, so that they should come safe into Greece. This pleased them to do, and lighting fires on the spot they turned to the sheep.

Chapter 20

1For the Euboeans had misread the oracle of Bacis, taking it to say nothing at all; they had carried nothing of their goods out of the land, and nothing had been brought in to them—and now the war was coming upon them. So they had worked their own utter ruin.

2For of these matters the oracle of Bacis runs thus: "Mark, when a man of foreign tongue casts upon the sea a yoke of reed, / the many-milking goats of Euboea shall be far away." These verses they made no use of; and so, amid the ills then upon them and the ills still to be looked for, calamity found them at its worst.

Chapter 21

1While they were busy with this, there arrived the scout from Trachis. For the watch at Artemisium was kept by Polyas, an Anticyran by birth, to whom the duty was assigned; and he had a thirty-oared boat ready, so that if the fleets came to grips he might signal to those at Thermopylae; and in just the same way Abronichus son of Lysicles, an Athenian, was posted with Leonidas, ready to bring word to those at Artemisium in a thirty-oared boat, if anything should befall the land army first.

2This Abronichus, then, arriving, announced to them what had befallen Leonidas and his army. When they learned it, they delayed their departure no longer, but made off each in the order assigned them—the Corinthians first, the Athenians last.

Chapter 22

1Themistocles, choosing out the Athenian ships that sailed best, went round among the watering places, cutting letters into the stones. These the Ionians, coming up to Artemisium the next day, found and read. The letters said this: "Men of Ionia, you do not do what is right, warring against your fathers and making Hellas a slave.

2Come over to us, best of all; or if that is not possible for you, then even now withdraw from our midst, both you yourselves, and urge the Carians to do the same. If neither of these can be, but you are bound by a necessity too great to break, then at least, when we come to blows, play the coward of set purpose, remembering that you were born of us, and that the hatred against the foreigner began, at the first, from you toward us."

3Themistocles wrote this, as it seems to me, with both outcomes in view: that either, escaping the king's notice, he might by these letters make the Ionians change sides and come over to him; or that, once it was carried to Xerxes and they were denounced, he might make the Ionians distrusted and keep them out of the sea battles.

Chapter 23

1This was what Themistocles wrote. Straightway after this there came by boat to the foreigners a man of Histiaea, bringing word of the Greeks' flight from Artemisium. They, in their disbelief, held the messenger under guard and sent swift ships ahead to spy out the truth; and when these reported that things were so, the whole army came sailing in a body upon Artemisium just as the sun scattered its rays. They halted in that place until midday; from that point they sailed for Histiaea, and arriving, took the city of the Histiaeans, and overran all the coastlands of the district of Ellopia and of the land of Histiaeotis.

Chapter 24

1While this was doing, Xerxes, having made his arrangements about the dead, sent a herald to the fleet; and this is what he had prepared beforehand: of the dead of his own army at Thermopylae—for they were even 20,000—he left about 1,000 where they lay, and the rest he buried in trenches he had dug, strewing leaves over them and heaping earth upon them, so that they should not be seen by the fleet.

2When the herald had crossed over to Histiaea, he gathered the whole camp in assembly and spoke as follows: "Men, allies, King Xerxes gives leave to any of you who wish to leave your place in the ranks and come to see how he fights against the witless of mankind, who hoped to overmatch the king's power."

Chapter 25

1Once this proclamation was made, nothing afterward grew scarcer than boats, so many wanted to see the sight. Crossing over, they passed among the dead and gazed their fill; and all knew that the men lying there were Lacedaemonians and Thespians, for they saw the helots too.

2Nor did Xerxes' doing this to his own dead escape the visitors—for it was laughable indeed: 1,000 of the dead lay in plain sight, while 4,000 lay fallen in heaps, gathered all together into one place.

3That day they gave themselves over to the spectacle; on the next day those of the fleet sailed back to Histiaea to their ships, and those about Xerxes made ready for the road.

Chapter 26

1There came to them, moreover, a few deserters from Arcadia, men in need of a livelihood and wanting to be doing something. The Persians led these into the king's presence and questioned them about the Greeks, what they were doing; and one man asked them this before all the rest.

2They answered that the Greeks were keeping the Olympic festival and watching a contest of gymnastics and horsemanship. He then asked what the prize was, set for the sake of which they strove; and they said the olive crown that is given. At this Tigranes son of Artabanus spoke the noblest judgment that could be spoken, and paid for it with a charge of cowardice before the king.

3For when he learned that the prize was a crown and not money, he could not endure to keep silent, but said before them all: "Ah, Mardonius, against what kind of men have you led us to fight—men who make their contest not for money but for manly excellence!" So much for that man.

Chapter 27

1In the interval, as soon as the wound at Thermopylae had been dealt, the Thessalians at once sent a herald to the Phocians—for they had ever held anger against them, and now, after this latest blow, the keenest.

2For they themselves, the Thessalians, and their allies had invaded Phocis with their whole army not many years before this march of the king, and had been beaten by the Phocians and severely handled.

3For when the Phocians, taking with them the seer Tellias of Elis, had been shut up on Parnassus, this Tellias contrived for them the following: he whitened with plaster 600 of the best Phocian men, both themselves and their armor, and fell upon the Thessalians by night, having told them beforehand to kill any man they saw not whitened.

4The first outposts of the Thessalians, seeing these, took fright, supposing them some other portent; and after the outposts the whole army took fright likewise—so that the Phocians won possession of 4,000 dead men and shields; of the shields they dedicated half at Abae and half at Delphi.

5And with the tithe of the money from this battle were made the great statues that stand about the tripod in front of the temple at Delphi, and others like them dedicated at Abae.

Chapter 28

1This, then, is what the Phocians did to the Thessalian foot when the Thessalians came to besiege them; but when their horse invaded the country they ruined the land past remedy. For in the pass, the one at Hyampolis, the Phocians dug a great trench, laid empty amphorae in it, heaped earth on top and made it like the rest of the ground, and so awaited the Thessalians as they rode in. These, hoping to fall upon the Phocians and seize them, plunged in upon the amphorae; there the horses' legs were ruined.

Chapter 29

1Holding their anger for both these things, the Thessalians sent a herald and proclaimed as follows: "Phocians, now at last be persuaded better than to quarrel that you are anything like us."

2"For before this, among the Greeks, so long as that suited us, we were ever held of more account than you; and now by the foreigner we have such power that it lies with us to strip you of your land and sell you for slaves. Yet we, having it all in our hands, bear no grudge: let there be paid us in place of it 50 talents of silver, and we pledge ourselves to turn aside what is coming upon your country."

Chapter 30

1This the Thessalians proposed. For the Phocians alone of the people of that country did not side with the Medes—on no other ground, as I find when I reckon it up, but because of their hatred of the Thessalians;

2for had the Thessalians stood for the Greeks' cause, then, as it seems to me, the Phocians would have sided with the Medes. When the Thessalians made this proposal, the Phocians said they would give no money, and that they too might side with the Medes together with the Thessalians if the Thessalians so preferred; but that they would not of their own will be traitors to Hellas.

Chapter 31

1When this answer was brought back, the Thessalians, so enraged against the Phocians, became guides to the foreigner on the road. From Trachinia they invaded Doris; for a narrow strip of the land of Doris runs down that way, about 30 stades in breadth at most, lying between the land of Malis and that of Phocis—and it was Dryopis in the ancient days. This land is the mother country of the Dorians in Peloponnese. This land of Doris, then, the foreigners spared when they invaded it, for it was siding with the Medes and it did not seem good to the Thessalians to harm it.

Chapter 32

1When they had invaded Phocis out of Doris, they did not take the Phocians themselves; for some of the Phocians had climbed to the heights of Parnassus. Now the top of Parnassus can also receive a great company, and there is a peak of it rising sheer above the city of Neon; Tithorea is its name; to this the Phocians carried their goods and climbed themselves.

2But the greater number of them got away to the Ozolian Locrians, to the city of Amphissa, settled above the Crisaean plain. The foreigners overran all the land of Phocis, for the Thessalians so led the army; and whatever they came upon they burned and cut down, casting fire into the cities and into the temples.

Chapter 33

1Marching this way along the river Cephisus they made havoc of everything, burning in turn the city of Drymus, and Charadra, and Erochus, and Tethronium, and Amphicaea, and Neon, and Pedieis, and Tritea, and Elateia, and Hyampolis, and Parapotamii, and Abae—where there was a temple of Apollo, richly furnished with treasures and many offerings; it was then, as now, a place of oracle. This temple they plundered and set on fire; and pursuing some of the Phocians toward the mountains they caught them, and some of the women they ravished in the multitude.

Chapter 34

1Passing by Parapotamii the foreigners came to Panopeus; and there the army, beginning to be divided, was split. The greatest and strongest part of it, marching with Xerxes himself against Athens, invaded Boeotia, the land of the Orchomenians. And the whole multitude of the Boeotians sided with the Medes; their cities were kept safe by Macedonian men set over them, sent out by Alexander; and they kept them safe in this way, plainly wishing to show Xerxes that the Boeotians were of the Medes' mind.

Chapter 35

1This way, then, those foreigners turned; others of them, having commanders of their own, made ready for the sacred place at Delphi, keeping Parnassus on their right. And whatever of Phocis these too came upon, all of it they ravaged; for they burned the city of the Panopeans, and of the Daulians, and of the Aeolidaeans.

2They marched this way, split off from the rest of the army, for this reason: that, having plundered the sacred place at Delphi, they might deliver the money to King Xerxes. And Xerxes, as I learn, knew all that was in the sanctuary worth the telling better than what he left in the houses—for it was often talked of, and above all the offerings of Croesus son of Alyattes.

Chapter 36

1The Delphians, learning this, fell into every kind of terror; and standing in great dread they consulted the oracle about the sacred money, whether to bury it in the ground or carry it out to another country. But the god would not let them move it, saying that he was able himself to guard his own.

2The Delphians, hearing this, took thought for themselves. Their children and their women they sent across to Achaea; most of the men climbed the peaks of Parnassus and carried their goods into the Corycian cave; others went down to Amphissa in Locris. So all the Delphians left the city, except 60 men and the prophet.

Chapter 37

1And when the foreigners were close at hand and the sacred place was past all hope, then the prophet, whose name was Aceratus, saw lying before the temple the arms carried out from within the sanctuary—arms it was not lawful for any man to touch.

2He was on his way to tell the Delphians present of the portent; but the foreigners, hurrying on to the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia, met with portents still greater than the first. For it is a wonder past all reckoning that weapons of war should appear of themselves lying out before the temple; but what befell after this, second in the order of things, was of all the portents the most worthy of wonder.

3For when the foreigners were coming up to the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia, then thunderbolts from the sky fell upon them, and from Parnassus two peaks, broken away, came hurtling down upon them with a great crashing and cast many of them to the ground; and from the sanctuary of Pronaia there arose a cry and a battle-shout.

Chapter 38

1When all this came upon them together, terror fell upon the foreigners. The Delphians, learning that they were in flight, came down upon them and killed a good number; and those who got clear fled straight toward Boeotia. These foreigners who made their way home, as I learn, said that besides all this they had seen other things divine: two hoplites, bigger than the stature of men, following hard after them, slaying and pursuing.

Chapter 39

1These two, the Delphians say, are homegrown heroes, Phylacus and Autonous, whose sacred precincts lie about the sanctuary—that of Phylacus close by the road beyond the sanctuary of Pronaia, that of Autonous beside the Castalian spring under the Hyampeian peak.

2And the stones fallen from Parnassus were still in my day lying whole, in the precinct of Athena Pronaia, where they dropped amid the foreigners as they came borne down. So, then, did these men win their deliverance from the sacred place.

Chapter 40

1The Greek fleet, at the Athenians' entreaty, sailed down from Artemisium and put in at Salamis. This is why the Athenians begged them to put in at Salamis: that they themselves might carry out their children and their women from Attica, and might also take counsel on what they had to do; for they were about to deliberate on the news they had heard, cheated of what they had reckoned.

2For they had supposed they would find the Peloponnesians in full force in Boeotia, standing against the foreigner; nothing of the kind they found; and they learned that these were walling the Isthmus, holding Peloponnese of the highest value and keeping it under guard, and letting all the rest go. Learning this, then, they begged them to put in at Salamis.

Chapter 41

1The others, then, put in at Salamis, and the Athenians went to their own country. On their arrival they made a proclamation, that every Athenian should save his children and his household slaves as he best could. Thereupon most sent them away to Troezen, some to Aegina, some to Salamis.

2They were eager to get them away, both because they wished to obey the oracle, and not least for this reason too: the Athenians say that a great snake, the guardian of the acropolis, keeps house in the temple; and not only do they say this, but they set out offerings for it every month as though it existed; and the monthly offerings are a honey-cake.

3Now this honey-cake, which had always before been consumed, was then left untouched. When the priestess made this known, the Athenians left the city all the more eagerly, as though the goddess too had forsaken the acropolis. And when everything was carried out, they sailed to the camp.

Chapter 42

1When those from Artemisium had put in at Salamis, the rest of the Greek fleet came flocking in too, hearing of it, out of Troezen; for it had been appointed to gather at Pogon, the harbor of the Troezenians. And there were gathered together far more ships than had fought at Artemisium, and from more cities.

2The admiral was the same as at Artemisium, Eurybiades son of Eurycleides, a Spartan man, though not of the royal house; but the Athenians furnished by far the most ships, and the best sailers.

Chapter 43

1These served in the fleet: from Peloponnese the Lacedaemonians furnished 16 ships, the Corinthians the same company they had manned at Artemisium; the Sicyonians furnished 15 ships, the Epidaurians 10, the Troezenians 5, the Hermioneans 3—all these, except the Hermioneans, being of Dorian and Macedonian stock, come up last of all from Erineus and Pindus and the Dryopian land. The Hermioneans are Dryopians, driven up out of the land now called Doris by Heracles and the Malians.

Chapter 44

1These, then, were the Peloponnesians who served; and of those from the mainland beyond: the Athenians furnished 180 ships, alone of all in this; for at Salamis the Plataeans did not fight alongside the Athenians, and for this reason: when the Greeks were withdrawing from Artemisium and came about Chalcis, the Plataeans landed on the far side, in the land of Boeotia, and turned to carrying away their household slaves; and so, busy with getting these to safety, they were left behind.

2The Athenians, in the time when the land now called Hellas was held by the Pelasgians, were themselves Pelasgians, named Craneans; under King Cecrops they were called Cecropidae; when Erechtheus received the kingship they were renamed Athenians; and when Ion son of Xuthus became commander of the Athenians, they were called after him Ionians.

Chapter 45

1The Megarians furnished the same company as at Artemisium; the Ambraciots came to help with 7 ships, the Leucadians with 3, these being of Dorian stock from Corinth.

Chapter 46

1Of the islanders the Aeginetans furnished 30. They had other ships manned besides, but with these they guarded their own land, and with the 30 that sailed best they fought at Salamis. The Aeginetans are Dorians from Epidaurus,

2and the island had before this the name Oenone. After the Aeginetans came the Chalcidians, furnishing the 20 they had at Artemisium, and the Eretrians their 7; these are Ionians. After them the Ceans, furnishing the same, a nation of Ionian stock from Athens.

3The Naxians furnished 4: sent by their own citizens to the Medes like the rest of the islanders, they paid no heed to their orders but came to the Greeks, urged on by Democritus, a man of the townsfolk of proved worth and trierarch at that time. The Naxians are Ionians, sprung from Athens.

4The Styreans furnished the same ships as at Artemisium, and the Cythnians 1 ship and 1 penteconter, these two alike being Dryopians. And the Serifians and Siphnians and Melians served; these alone of the islanders did not give earth and water to the foreigner.

Chapter 47

1All these, dwelling inside the line of the Thesprotians and the river Acheron, served in the fleet; for the Thesprotians border on the land of the Ambraciots and Leucadians, who came from the farthest countries to serve. Of those who dwell beyond these the Crotoniats alone came to Hellas' aid in her danger, with 1 ship, of which was leader Phayllus, a man thrice victor at the Pythian games; the Crotoniats are of Achaean stock.

Chapter 48

1The others, then, furnished triremes and served; but the Melians and Siphnians and Serifians furnished penteconters: the Melians, of stock from Lacedaemon, 2; the Siphnians and Serifians, Ionians from Athens, 1 each. And the whole number of the ships, apart from the penteconters, was 378.

Chapter 49

1When the commanders from the cities I named had come together at Salamis, they took counsel, Eurybiades putting it to them that whoever wished should declare his opinion in what place of the lands they held it seemed the fittest to fight the sea battle; for Attica was already given up, and he laid the rest before them.

2Most of the opinions spoken fell in together upon this: to sail to the Isthmus and fight the battle in front of Peloponnese, arguing as follows: that if they were beaten in the battle at sea, being at Salamis they would be besieged on an island, where no help of any kind would appear for them; but at the Isthmus they would make their way through to their own people.

Chapter 50

1While the commanders from Peloponnese were speaking so, there came up an Athenian man bringing word that the foreigner had come into Attica and was burning all of it.

2For the army that had turned through Boeotia with Xerxes, after burning the city of the Thespians—they themselves having gone off to Peloponnese—and that of the Plataeans likewise, had come to Athens and was making havoc of everything there. It burned Thespiae and Plataea, learning from the Thebans that they did not side with the Medes.

Chapter 51

1From the crossing of the Hellespont, where the foreigners began their march—having spent 1 month there in crossing into Europe—they came into Attica in 3 other months, Calliades being archon of the Athenians.

2They took the city empty; and they found a few Athenians in the temple, wardens of the treasury and men in poverty, who had fenced the acropolis with doors and timbers and held out against those coming on; partly because want of means had kept them from withdrawing to Salamis, and partly because they thought they had solved for themselves the oracle the Pythia gave them, that the wooden wall would remain unharmed—and that this was the refuge meant in the oracle, and not the ships.

Chapter 52

1The Persians seated themselves on the hill over against the acropolis, which the Athenians call the Areopagus, and besieged them in this manner: wrapping tow about their arrows, they shot them at the barricade afire. There the Athenians besieged still held out, though come to the last of their evil and the barricade given up;

2nor would they accept the terms of agreement offered in speech by the Pisistratidae, but defending themselves they contrived other devices besides, and rolled down stones upon the foreigners as they came up to the gates, so that for a long while Xerxes was held fast in perplexity, unable to take them.

Chapter 53

1But with time a way through appeared for the foreigners; for it was fated in the oracle that all Attica on the mainland should fall to the Persians. Before the acropolis there stood, behind the gates and the climbing road, a place which no one guarded, nor would any man have believed someone could come up by it—and here some of them climbed, by the sanctuary of Aglaurus, daughter of Cecrops, sheer though the ground was.

2When the Athenians saw them upon the acropolis, some threw themselves down from the wall and were destroyed, and some fled into the inner room of the temple. The Persians who had climbed up turned first to the gates; these they opened and butchered the suppliants; and when all were laid low, they plundered the sanctuary and set fire to the whole acropolis.

Chapter 54

1Having taken Athens utterly, Xerxes sent a horseman to Susa to carry to Artabanus word of the success that had come to him. And on the second day after the herald was sent, he gathered the Athenian exiles who followed him and bade them go up to the acropolis and sacrifice there after their own fashion; whether he was commanded to this by a vision seen in a dream, or whether the thought came to him because he had burned the sanctuary. The Athenian exiles did what was ordered.

Chapter 55

1And why I called these things to mind, I will tell. There is in this acropolis a temple of Erechtheus, who is said to be earth-born, in which there are an olive tree and a sea, which the Athenians say Poseidon and Athena set as witnesses when they contended for the land. Now this olive tree was caught by the burning of the sanctuary along with everything else; but on the second day after the burning, the Athenians bidden by the king to sacrifice, when they went up to the sanctuary, saw a shoot of about a cubit's length running up from the stump. These men made this known.

Chapter 56

1When the Greeks at Salamis heard what had befallen the acropolis of the Athenians, they fell into such tumult that some of the commanders did not even wait for the matter proposed to be put to the vote, but dropped into their ships and hoisted sails as if to flee; and of those who remained behind, the vote stood confirmed to fight before the Isthmus. Night was falling, and they broke off the council and boarded their ships.

Chapter 57

1Then, as Themistocles came to his ship, Mnesiphilus, an Athenian, asked him what had been resolved. Learning from him that it had been resolved to bring the ships up to the Isthmus and fight the battle before Peloponnese, he said:

2"Then, if they sail the ships away from Salamis, you will fight your battle at sea for no fatherland at all: each man will turn to his own city, and neither will Eurybiades be able to hold them, nor any other man, against the scattering of the force. And Hellas will be lost through their folly. But if there is any device, go and try to break up what has been resolved, if by any chance you can bring Eurybiades round to change his mind and stay here."

Chapter 58

1This counsel pleased Themistocles greatly; and without answering a word to it he went to Eurybiades' ship. On coming aboard he said he wished to join with him in a matter common to them both; and Eurybiades bade him board and speak, if he had anything to say.

2Then Themistocles, sitting beside him, repeated to him everything he had heard from Mnesiphilus, making it his own, and adding much else, until he prevailed on him to leave the ship and gather the commanders into council.

Chapter 59

1And when they had gathered, before Eurybiades could put forward the matter for which he had gathered the commanders, Themistocles spoke at great length and in great need; and as he spoke, the Corinthian commander Adeimantus son of Ocytus said: "Themistocles, in the games those who start before the signal are whipped." Themistocles answered: "But those who are left behind are not crowned."

Chapter 60

1For the moment he answered the Corinthian gently; but to Eurybiades he said none of the things said before—that when they sailed away from Salamis they would run away, each man for himself; for with the allies present he would not endure anyone to accuse them. He took hold of another argument, speaking as follows.

Chapter 60A

1"Now it lies with you to save Hellas, if you will be persuaded by me to fight the battle here, staying where we are, and not be driven by these men's talk to haul the ships up to the Isthmus. Weigh each course as you hear it. If you join battle at the Isthmus, you will fight on the open sea, which is the least profitable thing for us, having ships that are heavier and fewer in number; and you will lose Salamis and Megara and Aegina, even if all else goes well. With their fleet their land army will follow too, and so you will yourself lead them on to Peloponnese, and you will put all Hellas in danger.

Chapter 60B

1"But if you do as I say, you will find these goods in it: first, joining battle in a narrow place with a few ships against many, we shall win a great victory, if the issue of the war falls out as is likely—for to fight in a narrow sea is to our advantage, in open water to theirs. Second, Salamis survives, in which our children and our women are lodged. And there is this too in it, the very thing of which you most complain: staying here, you will fight the battle no less in front of Peloponnese than at the Isthmus, and you will not—unless you are ill-advised—lead them on to Peloponnese.

Chapter 60C

1"And if what I hope for comes to pass and we conquer with our ships, then the foreigners will not come at you to the Isthmus, nor advance beyond Attica, but will go away in no order at all; and we shall have the gain of Megara and Aegina and Salamis surviving, in which it is oracled to us that we shall get the better of our enemies. Men who take counsel with reason get for the most part what is likely; but for those who take counsel without reason the god is not willing to bend even to human judgment."

Chapter 61

1As Themistocles spoke, again the Corinthian Adeimantus bore down on him, bidding him keep silent who had no country, and not letting Eurybiades put the vote for a man without a city: he said that Themistocles must first show him his city before he joined in giving opinions; and he said this because Athens had been taken and was held.

2Then Themistocles said many evil things of him and of the Corinthians, and made it plain by argument that they had a city and a land greater than those men's, so long as 200 ships of theirs were manned; for there was no place of the Greeks that could drive them off, if they came against it.

Chapter 62

1Signifying this by his words he turned upon Eurybiades, speaking now more earnestly: "If you stay here and stay, you will prove a good man; but if not, you will overthrow Hellas; for upon the ships hangs the whole of the war. Be persuaded by me."

2"But if you do not do this, we will take up our households as we are and go away to Siris in Italy, which has been ours from ancient days, and the oracles say we must found it; and you, bereft of allies such as we are, will remember my words."

Chapter 63

1At Themistocles' words Eurybiades changed his mind; and as it seems to me, he changed it chiefly out of fear of the Athenians, lest they leave him if he brought the ships to the Isthmus; for if the Athenians went away, the rest were no longer fit to give battle. So he chose this opinion: to stay where they were and fight the battle at sea.

Chapter 64

1So then, having skirmished in words about Salamis, when it pleased Eurybiades, they made ready where they were as men about to fight. And day was coming, and with the rising sun there was an earthquake both on land and on sea.

2It was resolved to pray to the gods and to call the Aeacids to their aid as allies. And when it was resolved, they did so: having prayed to all the gods, they called Ajax and Telamon from Salamis itself, and for Aeacus and the other Aeacids they sent a ship to Aegina.

Chapter 65

1Dicaios son of Theocydes, an Athenian, an exile and become a man of account among the Medes at this time, said that when the land of Attica was being ravaged by the foot army of Xerxes, it being empty of Athenians, he chanced to be with Demaratus the Lacedaemonian in the Thriasian plain, and saw a cloud of dust moving from Eleusis, as of about 30,000 men; and they marveled what men it might come from; and straightaway they heard a cry, and the cry seemed to them to be the mystic Iacchus.

2And Demaratus, knowing nothing of the rites done at Eleusis, asked him what this voice might be that spoke. He said: "Demaratus, it cannot be but that some great harm will befall the king's army; for this is perfectly clear, Attica being empty, that the voice is divine, and comes from Eleusis to bring help to the Athenians and their allies.

3"And if it swoop down on Peloponnese, there is danger for the king himself and for the army on the mainland; but if it turn upon the ships that lie at Salamis, the king is in danger of losing his fleet.

4"And the Athenians hold this feast every year for the Mother and the Maiden; and whoever wishes of them, and of the other Greeks besides, is initiated; and the voice you hear is the cry of Iacchus they lift at this feast." To this Demaratus said: "Be silent, and tell this story to no one else;

5"for if these words are carried to the king, you will lose your head, and neither I nor any other man alive will be able to save you; but keep still, and as for this army, the gods will see to it."

6Such was his counsel; and out of the dust and the cry there arose a cloud, lifted high and borne toward Salamis, upon the camp of the Greeks. So they understood that the fleet of Xerxes was to be destroyed. This Dicaios son of Theocydes told, calling on Demaratus and others as witnesses.

Chapter 66

1Those appointed to the fleet of Xerxes, when they had seen at Trachis the wound dealt to the Lacedaemonians, crossed over from there into Histiaea; staying 3 days, they sailed through the Euripus, and in 3 days more came to Phalerum. As it seems to me, they came against Athens in no smaller number, by land and with their ships, than they had come to Sepias and to Thermopylae;

2for I will set against those who perished of them in the storm and at Thermopylae and in the sea battles at Artemisium these who at that time had not yet followed the king—the Malians and Dorians and Locrians and Boeotians, following in full force except the Thespians and Plataeans, and further the Carystians and Andrians and Tenians and all the rest of the islanders, except the 5 cities whose names I remembered before. For as the Persian advanced deeper into Hellas, by so much the more nations followed him.

Chapter 67

1So when all these had come to Athens, except the Parians (the Parians had been left behind at Cythnos, watching to see how the war would end), and the rest had come to Phalerum, Xerxes himself went down to the ships, wanting to mix with the men and learn the opinions of those who were sailing on.

2And when he had come and taken his seat, there came before him, summoned, the tyrants and captains of their own nations from the ships, and they sat each in the order of honor the king had given: first the Sidonian king, after him the Tyrian, and then the rest. And as they sat row upon row in order, Xerxes sent Mardonius and questioned each man, making trial whether he would fight the battle by sea.

Chapter 68

1And when Mardonius went round questioning, beginning with the Sidonian, all the others gave one and the same opinion, bidding him fight the battle by sea; and Artemisia said this:

Chapter 68A

1"Tell the king, Mardonius, that I, who was not the worst in the sea fights off Euboea, nor did the least there, say this: Master, it is right that I declare my true opinion, what I find to be best for your affairs. And this is what I say: spare your ships, and do not fight the battle by sea. For your men are so much better on the sea than their men as men are better than women.

2"And why must you needs run the risk of sea battles? You have not got Athens, the thing for whose sake you set out to campaign; but you have the rest of Hellas. No one stands in your way; and those who stood against you met the end they deserved.

Chapter 68B

1"And as for how I think the affairs of your enemies will end, I will tell you: if you are not eager to fight a battle by sea, but keep your ships here, whether staying by the land or advancing into Peloponnese, you will easily, master, come to the goal you have in mind.

2"For the Greeks are not able to hold out against you for any long time, but you will scatter them, and they will flee each man to his own city; for they have no food on this island, as I learn, and it is not likely that those of them who have come from there will sit still, if you drive your foot army against Peloponnese, nor will they care to fight a battle in front of Athens.

Chapter 68C

1"But if you are eager to fight at once by sea, I fear that the fleet, being worsted, may do harm to the land army besides. And consider this too, O king, and lay it in your mind: the good among men are wont to make bad slaves, and the bad make good slaves. You, being the best of all men, have for slaves bad ones—those who are reckoned among your allies, Egyptians and Cyprians and Cilicians and Pamphylians, who are of no use at all."

Chapter 69

1When she said this to Mardonius, those who were well disposed to her made great sorrow over her words, thinking she would suffer some evil from the king because she forbade the sea battle; but those who envied and begrudged her, because she was set in the first rank of all the allies, rejoiced at her answer, expecting her to be destroyed.

2But when the opinions were carried up to Xerxes, he was greatly pleased with the opinion of Artemisia; and though he had judged her a woman of mark even before, he praised her now far more; all the same he gave orders to follow the view of the greater number: for at Euboea they had played the coward, as though he were not present, but now he made ready himself to watch the sea fight.

Chapter 70

1And when the order was given to sail up, they brought their ships up to Salamis and marshaled them quietly in their stations. But that day did not serve them to fight the battle; night came on; and they made ready for the day after.

2But the Greeks were held by fear and dread, and not least those from Peloponnese; they were afraid because they were sitting at Salamis to fight the battle over the Athenians' land, and if they were beaten, caught on an island, they would be besieged, leaving their own country unguarded; for the foot army of the foreigners was marching that very night toward Peloponnese.

Chapter 71

1And yet everything that could be done had been contrived, that the foreigners should not break in by land. For as soon as the Peloponnesians learned that those with Leonidas had perished at Thermopylae, they ran together from their cities to the Isthmus and encamped there, and their commander was Cleombrotus son of Anaxandrides, brother of Leonidas.

2Encamped at the Isthmus and breaking up the Scironian road, they afterwards, as seemed good to them in council, built a wall across the Isthmus. And since they were many myriads in number and every man was at work, the work went forward; for stones and bricks and timber and baskets full of sand were brought up, and those who had come up to help worked without any pause, neither by night nor by day.

Chapter 72

1Those who had come up to the Isthmus in full force were these Greeks: the Lacedaemonians and all the Arcadians and the Eleans and the Corinthians and Epidaurians and Phliasians and Troezenians and Hermioneans. These were they who had come up, fearing for Hellas in her danger; for the other Peloponnesians it mattered nothing. And the Olympian and Carnean festivals were already past.

Chapter 73

1Seven nations dwell in Peloponnese. Of these two are aboriginal, settled in the land where they dwell now and dwelt in of old: the Arcadians and the Cynurians. And one nation, the Achaean, never left Peloponnese, but left its own land, and dwells in the land of another.

2The remaining four of the seven nations are immigrants: the Dorians and the Aetolians and the Dryopians and the Lemnians. Of the Dorians there are many cities and cities of repute; of the Aetolians Elis alone; of the Dryopians Hermione and Asine, the one toward Cardamyle in Laconia; of the Lemnians all the Paroreatae.

3The Cynurians, aboriginal, seem to be the only Ionians among them; but they have been made Dorian by the rule of the Argives and by time, being Orneatae and the dwellers round about. Of these seven nations, then, the remaining cities, except those I have named, went over to the middle side—and if one may say it freely, to the side that had sided with the Medes.

Chapter 74

1Those at the Isthmus threw themselves into this toil as men run the whole course of a race at a single stretch, with no hope left that the ships would ever be ready; those at Salamis, for all they heard of it, were still afraid—fearing not so much for themselves as for the Peloponnese.

2For a while man whispered his grievance to man, marveling at Eurybiades' want of counsel; at last it burst into the open. An assembly gathered, and much was said to one effect or another: some held that they must sail away for the Peloponnese and stake everything on that country, not stay and fight in front of a land the spear had already won; the Athenians, Aeginetans, and Megarians urged that they stand where they were and defend themselves.

Chapter 75

1Then Themistocles, finding his opinion outvoted by the Peloponnesians, slipped out of the council unobserved; once out, he sent a man by boat to the camp of the Medes, with orders to deliver a certain message. The man's name was Sicinnus; he was a slave of the household and tutor to Themistocles' children. Later, after these events, Themistocles made him a citizen of Thespiae—the Thespiaeans were then enrolling citizens—and enriched him with money.

2Arriving in the boat, he said this to the generals of the foreigners: "Themistocles, the Athenian general, has sent me in secret from the other Greeks (for he happens to favor the king's cause and to wish your success more than the success of the Greeks) to tell you that the Greeks, panic-stricken, are planning flight, and that this very moment offers you the finest work of all your deeds, if only you do not let them slip away."

3"For they are not of one mind with one another and will not withstand you; you will see them fighting among themselves, those who side with you and those who do not."

Chapter 76

1He, having given this message, made off; and the report came to the foreigners as credible. First they landed a great number of Persians on the islet of Psyttaleia, which lies between Salamis and the mainland; then, when midnight had come, they moved up the wing on the west, wheeling it round toward Salamis, and those stationed about Keos and Cynosura moved up as well, and with their ships they held the whole strait as far as Munychia.

2It was for this that they brought up their ships: so that the Greeks should have no way left even to flee, but, caught fast within Salamis, pay the penalty for their contests at Artemisium. And it was for this that they landed Persians on the islet called Psyttaleia: that when the battle came, the men and the wreckage would drift there above all (the island lay in the very path of the battle that was to come), so that they might save some and destroy others.

3All this they did in silence, so that their enemies might not learn of it. So that night, without any sleep at all, they made ready for battle.

Chapter 77

1Of oracles I have no mind to argue that they are untrue, and I do not wish to try to refute those who speak of them plainly, having looked on deeds such as these. "But when they bridge with ships the sacred shore of Artemis of the golden sword and sea-girt Cynosura, mad with hope, / having sacked lustrous Athens, / then divine Justice shall quench violent Insatiability, son of Insolence, / that terrible ravening thing, who thought to swallow down all things."

2"For bronze shall grapple with bronze, and Ares shall crimson the sea with blood. / Then the far-seeing son of Cronus and lady Victory shall bring on Hellas' day of freedom." Against Bacis, who speaks so plainly, I dare neither to contradict the oracles myself nor to take contradiction from another.

Chapter 78

1Among the generals at Salamis there was much wrangling of words; they did not yet know that the foreigners were closing round them with their ships, and supposed them to lie drawn up where they had seen them that day, each in its own place.

Chapter 79

1While the generals were in session, Aristides son of Lysimachus crossed over from Aegina, an Athenian who had been ostracized by the people; from what I have learned of his character I hold him to have been the best and the most just man in Athens.

2This man stood before the council and called out Themistocles—though the two were not friends but rather the greatest of enemies; yet the greatness of the evils at hand made him set those grudges aside, for he wanted to speak with him. He had already heard that the men from the Peloponnese were eager to move the ships up to the Isthmus.

3When Themistocles came out, Aristides said this: "We must contend with one another, at other times too and at this moment above all, over which of us will do the greater good for the fatherland."

4"I tell you that for the Peloponnesians to talk of sailing away from here, whether at length or briefly, comes to the same thing: I say it as one who has seen with his own eyes that now neither the Corinthians nor Eurybiades himself could sail out even if they wished—we are hemmed round by our enemies in a ring. But go in and tell them this." He answered with the words that follow.

Chapter 80

1"What you urge is very good, and you bring good news; the very thing I wanted done, you have come to me having seen with your own eyes. Know then from me that what the Medes are doing is my doing; for it was needful, when the Greeks would not willingly take up their places for battle, to force them to it against their will. But since you come bearing good news, tell them yourself."

2"For if I said it myself, they would think I spoke from my own invention and would not be persuaded, since the foreigners are not doing these things. Go in yourself and tell them how it stands. And when you have told them: if they believe you, that is best of all; if they take it for untrue, it will be all one to us—for they will run away no more, if indeed we are hemmed in on every side, as you say."

Chapter 81

1Thereupon Aristides went in and said, declaring that he had come from Aegina and had barely slipped out past those who were pressing upon him: the whole Greek force, he said, was enclosed by the ships of Xerxes; and he urged them to make ready to defend themselves. Having said this he withdrew, and again there arose a disputing of words, for most of the generals would not believe what was reported.

Chapter 82

1While they were disbelieving this, a trireme came over from Tenos, a ship of men deserting, commanded by a man named Panaetius son of Sosimenes, and it brought the whole truth. It was for this deed that the Tenians were inscribed at Delphi on the tripod among those who destroyed the foreigner.

2With this ship that had deserted to Salamis, and with the Lemnian one that had deserted earlier at Artemisium, the Greek fleet was made up to three hundred and eighty ships; for it had then been two ships short of that number.

Chapter 83

1When the Tenians' words came to be believed by the Greeks, they made ready to fight. Dawn was breaking, and the marines having gathered in assembly, Themistocles came forward and addressed them, and his speech was the best of all that were made; his words everywhere set the better against the worse—all that is implanted in human nature and condition.

2Having urged them to choose the better of these things, and having rounded off his speech, he ordered them aboard their ships. And they went aboard, and the trireme from Aegina arrived, the one that had gone off to fetch the Aeacidae.

Chapter 84

1Then the Greeks brought up all their ships together, and the moment they did the foreigners fell upon them. The rest of the Greeks were backing water and pulling their ships toward the shore; but Ameinias of Pallene, an Athenian, drove out beyond the rest and charged. When the ships had grappled and could not get free of one another, the others came up to Ameinias' help, and so the fight began.

2The Athenians say this is how the battle began; the Aeginetans say the ship that had sailed off to fetch the Aeacidae to Aegina was the one that began it. This too is told: that a phantom of a woman appeared to them, and when it appeared, cried out so that the whole camp of the Greeks could hear, first rebuking them: "You men of wonder, how long will you yet keep backing water?"

Chapter 85

1Drawn up opposite the Athenians were the Phoenicians (they held the wing toward Eleusis and the west), and opposite the Lacedaemonians the Ionians, who held the wing toward the east and Piraeus. A few of these Ionians, on Themistocles' orders, were playing the coward on purpose; most were not.

2I could list the names of many trierarchs whose ships took Greek ships, but I will make use of none of them except Theomestor son of Androdamas and Phylacus son of Histiaeus, both Samians.

3I mention only these two for this reason: for this deed Theomestor was made tyrant of Samos, set up by the Persians, and Phylacus was enrolled among the king's benefactors and was given a great tract of land. The king's benefactors are called in Persian "orosangai."

Chapter 86

1So it went with those men. The mass of the ships at Salamis was broken to pieces, some destroyed by the Athenians and some by the Aeginetans. Since the Greeks fought with order and in formation, while the foreigners were no longer drawn up nor doing anything with intelligence, it was bound to fall out with them as it did. And yet on that day they were, and proved themselves, far better men than they had been off Euboea, every man of them eager and in dread of Xerxes, and each one fancied the king himself was watching him.

Chapter 87

1Of the rest I cannot say with any exactness how each man fought, foreigner or Greek; but of Artemisia this is what happened, and it raised her higher than ever in the king's favor.

2For when the king's affairs had fallen into the utmost confusion, at just that moment Artemisia's ship was being chased by an Attic ship; and since she had no way to escape—for friendly ships lay in front of her, and hers chanced to be nearest of all to the enemy—she resolved on the course I shall tell, and it turned out to her advantage. Chased by the Attic ship, she bore down and rammed a friendly ship, one of the men of Calynda, aboard of which was Damasithymus himself, king of the Calyndians, sailing with it.

3Whether some quarrel had ever arisen between her and him when they were still at the Hellespont I cannot say—neither whether she did this of set purpose, nor whether the Calyndian ship fell in her way by chance.

4When she rammed it and sank it, she used her good luck to work herself a double good. For the trierarch of the Attic ship, seeing her ram a ship of foreign men, supposed that Artemisia's ship was either Greek or else a deserter from the foreigners and fighting on his side; he turned away and fell upon others.

Chapter 88

1By this act it fell out that she escaped and was not destroyed; and it fell out further that, by this wicked deed, she won the highest credit with Xerxes.

2For it is said that the king, watching in wonder, learned which ship had done the ramming, and that one of those standing by said: "Master, do you see how well Artemisia fights, and how she has sunk an enemy ship?" And he asked whether it was truly Artemisia's doing, and they said it was, knowing her ship's emblem well; and they knew also that the ship she had destroyed was an enemy's.

3Everything else, as has been said, came together for her into good luck, and this too: no one survived out of the Calyndian ship to become her accuser. Xerxes is said to have answered what was reported to him: "My men have become women, and my women men." So they say Xerxes spoke.

Chapter 89

1In this struggle there lost his life the general Ariabignes son of Darius, brother of Xerxes, and with him many others, famous men, Persians and Medes and of the other allies too; and a few Greeks also died. For when their ships were destroyed, the Greeks, who knew how to swim, swam off across to Salamis, since they were not perishing in a contest of hands.

2Most of the foreigners perished in the sea, not knowing how to swim. And when the first ships turned to flight, that was the moment most were destroyed: for those stationed in the rear, trying to drive their ships forward, each wanting to win some deed of his own for the king, fell foul of their own ships in flight.

Chapter 90

1This too happened in the confusion. Some Phoenicians whose ships had been destroyed came before the king and accused the Ionians, saying that their ships had been lost through them, through their betrayal. And so it fell out that the Ionian generals were not destroyed, and the Phoenicians who slandered them received this payment:

2While they were still speaking, a Samothracian ship rammed an Attic ship. The Attic ship was going down, and an Aeginetan ship bore down upon it and sank the Samothracian vessel. But the Samothracians, being javelin men, shot the marines off the ship that had sunk them, then leapt aboard and seized it.

3This saved the Ionians: for when Xerxes saw that they had done some great deed, he turned upon the Phoenicians, in the height of his grief and accusing them all, and ordered their heads cut off, so that men who had shown themselves base might not slander men better than themselves.

4For whenever Xerxes, seated under the mountain opposite Salamis called Aigaleos, saw any man of his own performing some deed in the battle, he asked who had done it, and his scribes wrote down the trierarch's name with his father's name and his city. And a friend of his, Ariaramnes the Persian, threw in a word besides, being present at this misfortune of the Phoenicians. So things turned against the Phoenicians.

Chapter 91

1When the foreigners turned to flight and sailed out toward Phalerum, the Aeginetans, taking their stand in the strait, performed deeds worth the telling. For the Athenians in the confusion were breaking up the ships that stood against them and those that fled, while the Aeginetans took those that were sailing out; and whenever any escaped the Athenians, they went driving in upon the Aeginetans.

Chapter 92

1There the ship of Themistocles, chasing another, fell in with the ship of Polycritus son of Crius, an Aeginetan, which had rammed a Sidonian ship—the very one that had taken the Aeginetan ship keeping watch off Sciathos, aboard of which Pytheas son of Ischenous had sailed, whom the Persians carried about on their ship in wonder at his courage, cut down though he was. The Sidonian ship, bringing him round together with the Persians aboard, was captured, and so Pytheas came safe to Aegina.

2When Polycritus saw the Attic ship, he knew the commander's vessel by its emblem, and shouting out to Themistocles he mocked him, throwing up to him the medism—the siding with the Medes—that he had charged against the Aeginetans. Such were the words Polycritus flung at Themistocles along with his ram. The foreigners whose ships survived fled and came to Phalerum under the shelter of the land army.

Chapter 93

1In this battle the Aeginetans won the finest name among the Greeks, and after them the Athenians. Among men, Polycritus the Aeginetan, and of the Athenians Eumenes of Anagyrus and Ameinias of Pallene—the last being the man who chased Artemisia. Had he learned that she was aboard that ship, he would not have given over before he took her or was taken himself.

2For the Athenian trierarchs had promised him this, and a prize of ten thousand drachmas had been set besides for whoever should take her alive; for they held it a terrible thing that a woman should march against Athens. She, as was said before, escaped; the others whose ships survived were at Phalerum.

Chapter 94

1The Athenians say that Adeimantus the Corinthian general, at the very beginning of the battle, was so astounded and afraid beyond all others that he hoisted sail and fled away; and that when the Corinthians saw their commander's ship fleeing, they too fled the same way.

2And they say that as they fled, in the Salaminian country by the temple of Athena Sciras, there fell upon them, by some divine guiding, a herald whom no one had sent, and who was known to none of the men from the army there with the Corinthians. They take this to have been a thing from heaven. For when he had come near the ships, the men come with the herald said this:

3"Adeimantus, you have turned your ships away in flight, having betrayed the Greeks outright; but they are winning this very hour, and have overpowered their enemies, just as they prayed they might." And when Adeimantus would not believe it, they said again that they themselves were ready to be led away as hostages and die, if the Greeks did not prove the victors.

4So then he turned his ship about, he himself and the rest, and came to the camp when the work was already done. Such is the tale the Athenians tell of them; but the Corinthians themselves do not admit it: they hold that they stood in the front of the battle, and the rest of Greece bears them witness.

Chapter 95

1Aristides son of Lysimachus, the Athenian whom I mentioned a little before as a man of the highest worth, in the confusion that had come about at Salamis did as follows: taking with him many of the hoplites drawn up along the shore of the Salaminian country, Athenians by birth, he led them over to the island of Psyttaleia, and there they slew to a man the Persians on that islet.

Chapter 96

1When the sea-fight was broken off, the Greeks anchored at Salamis, towing in such of the wrecks as still chanced to lie there, and made ready for another battle, expecting the king to make use of his surviving ships again.

2But the west wind caught many of the wrecks and carried them to the shore of Attica called Colias; and so there was fulfilled all the rest of what Bacis and Musaeus had spoken about this sea-fight—and the wreckage driven ashore there brought to fulfillment what had been said many years before by Lysistratus, an Athenian dealer in oracles, in a prophecy all the Greeks had forgotten: "The women of Colias shall roast their food with oars." And it was to be when the king had gone.

Chapter 97

1When Xerxes learned what had happened, he feared that some Ionian might put it to the Greeks, or that the Greeks themselves might conceive, the plan of sailing to the Hellespont and breaking up the bridges, and that he, trapped in Europe, might be in danger of destruction; he was minded to flee. But wishing to be suspected neither by the Greeks nor by his own men, he tried to have a mole thrown out toward Salamis, and lashed together Phoenician cargo hulls, that they might serve in place of a bridge and a wall, and made ready for war as though he meant to fight another sea-battle.

2All the others, seeing him do these things, were well assured that he was prepared in every way to stay and make war; but none of this escaped Mardonius, who knew that man's thinking better than anyone.

Chapter 98

1Xerxes did all this, and at the same time he sent to Persia men to report the disaster that had befallen him. No mortal thing arrives faster than these messengers: so have the Persians devised it. They say that for as many days as the whole road takes, that many horses and men are set out, a horse and a man posted for each day's stage; and neither snowfall nor rain nor heat nor night holds any of them back from finishing the course set before him with the greatest speed.

2The first runner hands what was entrusted to him to the second, the second to the third, and from there the message passes on from one man to another along the line, just as among the Greeks they run the torch-race they hold in honor of Hephaestus. The Persians call this horse-running the angareion.

Chapter 99

1The first report to reach Susa, that Xerxes had Athens in his hands, so delighted the Persians who had been left behind that they strewed all the roads with myrtle and burned incense, and gave themselves up to sacrifices and pleasures.

2When the second report fell upon them it threw all into such confusion that they tore the tunics from their bodies, crying and wailing without restraint, and laid the blame on Mardonius. And the Persians did not lament so for the ships: they did all this out of fear for Xerxes himself.

Chapter 100

1So it went with the Persians all the while, until Xerxes himself arrived and put an end to it. Mardonius, seeing how deep a disaster the sea-fight had brought on Xerxes, and suspecting that he meant to flee from Athens, reasoned with himself that he would pay the penalty for having persuaded the king to march against Hellas; and that it were better to risk all and either conquer Greece or end his life nobly, a man staked upon great things—though the thought of conquering Greece weighed more with him. So, having reckoned all this, he put forward the following speech:

2"Master, do not grieve, nor take this thing that has happened for any great calamity. It is not on timber that everything we have hangs, but on men and horses. None of those men who think they have already done all against us, once he steps off his ships, will try to thrust you back—no, not on this mainland either; and those who did withstand us have paid the penalty."

3"If it please you, let us try the Peloponnese at once; if it please you to hold back, that too is yours to command. Do not be heavy of heart: the Greeks have no escape—no way to keep from becoming your slaves, after giving account for what they have done now and before. But do this above all; and if you are resolved, after all, to lead the army away yourself, I have another plan even from these."

4"Do not, King, let the Persians become a laughingstock to the Greeks: for nothing of these events has been made known in Persia, nor will you tell them where we proved ourselves base. If Phoenicians and Egyptians and Cyprians and Cilicians turned out base, that misfortune touches the Persians not at all."

5"So then, since it was not the Persians who were at fault, be guided by me: if it has been resolved that you will not remain, drive home to your own land leading away the greater part of the army; but it is for you to grant that I deliver Greece to you enslaved, choosing out for myself thirty myriads from the army."

Chapter 101

1When Xerxes heard this, he rejoiced and was cheered out of his distress, and he took counsel with Mardonius, saying he would return an answer as to which of these things he would do. As he deliberated with the Persians he had summoned, it seemed good to him to send also for Artemisia into his council, since before this she alone had shown that she understood what ought to be done.

2When Artemisia arrived, Xerxes dismissed the others, both the Persian counselors and the spearmen, and spoke as follows: "Mardonius bids me stay here and make trial of the Peloponnese, saying that the Persians and the land army bear no part of the blame for what happened, and that they will give him proof of it if he so desires."

3"So he either bids me do this, or offers, choosing out for himself thirty myriads from the army, to deliver Greece to me enslaved, while I am commanded to lead the rest of the army away to my own land."

4"You, then, advise me—you who counseled me well about the sea-fight that took place, not letting it be fought—advise me now too which of these I should do to meet with success, taking counsel well."

Chapter 102

1Thus he took counsel with her; she answered as follows: "King, it is hard for one who gives counsel to say what is best; but in the state our affairs have now reached, it seems to me you should yourself drive back homeward, and leave Mardonius here with those who are willing, if he is willing and undertakes to do it."

2"For if he brings to an end what he says he wants, and his plans go forward as he means them, the achievement, Master, is yours; for it is your slaves who wrought it. But if things fall out contrary to Mardonius' expectation, no great harm will come to you, with you safe and your house safe from all those affairs;"

3"for while you and your house remain, the Greeks will run many a contest, over and over, for their own sakes. But if Mardonius comes to grief, no account is made of it—nor do the Greeks win anything by winning, having destroyed only your slave; while you yourself, for whose sake the armada was gathered, will be going home, having burned Athens."

Chapter 103

1Xerxes was delighted with this counsel; for she chanced to be saying the very things he himself was thinking. For, as it seems to me, not even if all men and all women had counseled him to stay would he have stayed: so utterly had fear mastered him. He praised Artemisia, and sent her off to Ephesus, conducting his children; for some of the children who traveled with her were his bastards.

Chapter 104

1He sent with the children a guardian, Hermotimus, a Pedasan by birth, who stood second to none of the eunuchs about the king. [The Pedasans dwell above Halicarnassus; and among these Pedasans it is reported that this thing comes to pass: whenever some evil is about to befall within a fixed time all the neighbors of this city who dwell around it, then the priestess of Athena there grows a great beard. This has now happened to them twice.]

Chapter 105

1[Of these Pedasans, then, was this Hermotimus]—and upon him came the greatest requital for wrong endured of any man we know of. For he had been taken prisoner by enemies and put up for sale, and one Panionius, a man of Chios, bought him—a man who had made his living from deeds of the deepest unholiness: whenever he could get boys of beautiful form, he cut them and sold them in Sardis and Ephesus for great sums.

2For among the foreigners eunuchs are held the more precious, for their entire trustworthiness. Many others Panionius had cut in this way, making his living from the practice, and this man among them. Yet Hermotimus was not unfortunate in all things: he came from Sardis to the king among other gifts, and as time went on he was honored above all the eunuchs in Xerxes' sight.

Chapter 106

1When the king, being in Sardis, set the Persian army in motion against Athens, Hermotimus came down—for some business or other—into that part of Mysia which the Chians occupy and which is called Atarneus, and there he found Panionius.

2Recognizing him, he spoke to him many and friendly words: first recounting all the good things he himself enjoyed because of him, then promising in return what good he would do him if he brought his household to live there; and so Panionius, receiving his words gladly, brought his children and his wife.

3But once he had him together with his whole household, Hermotimus said this: "You, of all men now alive the one who has made his living most from the most unholy deeds—what harm did I ever do you, I myself or any of my forebears, or you or any of yours, that you made me nothing instead of a man? You thought the gods would not mark what you contrived then; but they, dealing by their just law, delivered you, doer of unholiness, into my hands, so that you cannot complain of the requital that is to come on you from me."

4When he had flung this reproach at him, he had the children brought into view and forced Panionius to cut off the organs of his own four sons. So compelled, he did it; and when it was done, his sons, compelled in turn, cut him. So then requital and Hermotimus closed around Panionius.

Chapter 107

1When Xerxes had let Artemisia lead the children away to Ephesus, he called Mardonius to him and told him to pick from the army whom he would, and to try to make his deeds match his words. So far things went that day; and in the night, at the king's command, the generals led the ships back from Phalerum toward the Hellespont, each as fast as he could, to guard the bridges for the king's crossing.

2As the foreigners sailed near Zoster—for slender headlands rise out of that mainland—they took them for ships and fled a long way; and when in time they learned that these were not ships but headlands, they gathered together again and went on.

Chapter 108

1When day came, the Greeks, seeing the land army holding its ground, supposed the ships too were still about Phalerum, and looked for a sea-battle; they made ready to defend themselves. But when they learned the ships were gone, it was resolved at once to pursue. They pursued as far as Andros without catching sight of Xerxes' fleet, and putting in at Andros took counsel there.

2Themistocles' judgment was that they should thread through the islands in pursuit of the ships and then sail straight for the Hellespont and break the bridges; but Eurybiades put the opposite view, saying that if they broke the bridges, that would work the greatest of all evils for Greece.

3"For if the Persian were compelled to stay in Europe, he would not try to keep quiet. If he kept quiet, there would be no advancing our cause, nor any clear end in sight; and his army would waste away with famine. But if he took the offensive and pressed his attack, everything in Europe would be open to him, city by city and nation by nation—either they would be taken, or they would come to terms before that—and he would always have for food each year's harvest of the Greeks."

4"But since he has been beaten in the sea-fight, the Persian will not, I think, stay in Europe; we should let him flee, then, and let him run home wherever his flight carries him; and the contest for his ruin can come afterward." The other generals of the Peloponnesians took up this view.

Chapter 109

1When Themistocles saw that he would not persuade the majority to sail for the Hellespont, he turned to the Athenians—for they grieved most of all to see the foreigners escaped, and were eager to sail for the Hellespont themselves, even alone, if the others would not—and said to them this:

2"I have myself been present on many occasions, and I have heard of many more, where men beaten and driven to necessity renewed the fight and took back their former misery. We have won a deliverance, for ourselves and for all Greece, and have thrust back so vast a cloud of men; let us not pursue men who are fleeing."

3"This is no work of ours, but of the gods and heroes, who begrudged one man's ruling over both Asia and Europe, a man unholy and wicked: one who treated sacred and common things alike, burning and overthrowing the images of the gods, who even scourged the sea and threw fetters into it."

4"But now it is well for us, staying on here in Greece, to look to ourselves and our households, and let every man rebuild his house and put his seed in the ground again, when we have utterly driven out the foreigner; and with the spring let us sail for the Hellespont and Ionia."

5He said this intending to lay up a store of favor with the Persian, so that if ever some mischance overtook him at the hands of the Athenians he might have a place of refuge. And this is what happened.

Chapter 110

1Themistocles spoke these words with a hidden meaning, and the Athenians were persuaded; for he had before this a name for wisdom, and he proved himself truly wise and of sound counsel, so that they were wholly ready to obey his word.

2When they had so resolved, Themistocles straightway sent off men with a boat, men he trusted to keep silence under every trial, to whom he gave the same orders to tell the king; among them was again his slave Sicinnus. When they came to Attica, the rest stayed by the boat, and Sicinnus went up to Xerxes and said this:

3"Themistocles son of Neocles has sent me, general of the Athenians and the best and wisest man of all the allies, to tell you that Themistocles the Athenian, wanting to do you service, has held back the Greeks, who were eager to pursue your ships and break the bridges of the Hellespont. Now you may go your way in perfect quiet." So they gave their message and sailed back.

Chapter 111

1The Greeks, once it was resolved neither to pursue the foreigners' ships farther nor sail for the Hellespont to break the passage, laid siege to Andros, meaning to take it.

2For the Andrians were the first of the islanders from whom Themistocles demanded money, and they refused to give it, though he pressed this argument: that the Athenians had come attended by two great gods, Persuasion and Necessity, and that for this reason the Andrians were bound under all necessity to pay. They made answer that in that case Athens might well be great and fortunate, since she was attended by such serviceable gods,

3whereas the Andrians were sunk to the depths of poverty, yet were never forsaken by two gods of their island, who loved to dwell there always—Poverty and Helplessness; possessed by such gods, the Andrians would give no money: the power of Athens could never be stronger than their helplessness.

Chapter 112

1Having made this answer and refused the money, they were besieged. Themistocles—for he never stopped overreaching—kept sending threats to the other islands by the same messengers and demanding money, using the very words he had used with the king: that if they did not give what he asked, he would bring the army of the Greeks upon them and take their islands by siege.

2Saying this he gathered great sums from the Carystians and the Parians, who had heard how Andros was being besieged because she had medized, and how Themistocles stood in the greatest favor of all the generals; frightened by this, they sent money. Whether others of the islanders gave too I cannot say; but I believe that some did besides these.

3Yet no worse came of it in the end to the Carystians; and the Parians, appeasing Themistocles with money, escaped his army. So Themistocles, starting out from Andros, was scraping money from the islanders without the other generals' knowledge.

Chapter 113

1Xerxes' party waited a few days after the sea-fight, then drove out to Boeotia by the same road. It seemed to Mardonius right both to see the king on his way, and that the season of the year was past for making war: better to winter in Thessaly, and then, when spring came, to make trial of the Peloponnese.

2On arriving in Thessaly, Mardonius made his choice there: first all the Persians called the Immortals, except their commander Hydarnes (he said he would not leave the king); then of the other Persians the men in corselets and the thousand horse, and of the Medes and the Sacae and the Bactrians and the Indians, both the foot and the rest of the horse.

3These nations he chose whole; from the other allies he picked out a few here and there, judging by their appearance and by whether he knew of any good deed they had done. The largest single people he chose was the Persians, men who wore twisted necklaces and armlets; after them the Medes, who were no fewer in number than the Persians but weaker in strength. The whole came to thirty myriads, horsemen included.

Chapter 114

1In this time, while Mardonius was choosing his army and Xerxes was in Thessaly, an oracle came from Delphi to the Lacedaemonians, bidding them demand satisfaction of Xerxes for the murder of Leonidas and accept what he gave. The Spartans sent a herald with all speed; and finding the whole army still in Thessaly, he came into Xerxes' presence and said:

2"King of the Medes, the Lacedaemonians and the Heracleidae of Sparta demand satisfaction of you for murder, because you killed their king, who was defending Greece." Xerxes laughed and was silent a long while, with Mardonius standing by him as it happened; then pointing to this man he said: "Then this Mardonius here will give them the satisfaction that befits them."

Chapter 115

1So he received what was said and went his way. Xerxes left Mardonius in Thessaly and himself hastened toward the Hellespont, and reached the passage in forty-five days, leading away, one may say, not a single part of his army.

2Wherever they came on their march, and among whatever people, they seized that people's crops and ate them; and if they found no crops, they fed on the grass growing from the ground, peeling the bark off the trees and plucking the leaves, whether of the cultivated or the wild, and left nothing—all this for hunger.

3Then plague and dysentery seized the army and destroyed it on the road. Some of the sick men he left behind, giving charge to the cities where each stage of the march brought him—some in Thessaly, some in Siris of Paeonia, some in Macedonia—to care for them and feed them.

4There too he left behind the sacred chariot of Zeus, which he had brought when he drove against Greece, and never got it back on his return; for the Paeonians had given it to the Thracians, and when Xerxes demanded it, they said that the mares grazing had been carried off by the Thracians of the upper country, those who dwell about the springs of the Strymon.

Chapter 116

1There too the king of the Bisaltae, a Thracian of the Crestonian land, did a deed passing strange: he would not, he said, be Xerxes' slave with his own will, but went up into the mountain called Rhodope, and forbade his sons to march against Greece.

2Whether they failed to understand him, or in any case wanted to see the war, they marched with the Persian; and when they came back home, all six of them unhurt, their father dug out their eyes, for this reason.

Chapter 117

1These men got this wage. The Persians, marching out of Thrace, came to the passage and, in their haste, crossed the Hellespont by ship to Abydos; for they found the pontoon bridges no longer stretched across but broken up by the winter storms.

2There, being held up as they were, they found more food than they had chanced upon on the road, and gorging themselves without restraint, and changing their water besides, many of the army that survived died. The rest came with Xerxes to Sardis.

Chapter 118

1But there is also another story told: that when Xerxes, on his march from Athens, came to Eion on the Strymon, he traveled no farther on foot, but handed the army over to Hydarnes to lead to the Hellespont, while he himself went aboard a Phoenician ship and was carried across to Asia.

2As he sailed, a great storm wind, the Strymonian, caught the ship. The sea rose high, and the ship was heavy with passengers, many Persians standing on the deck, those who were being carried with Xerxes; then the king, fallen into fear, shouted to the helmsman and asked whether there was any escape for them.

3The man said: "Master, there is none—unless we can be rid of these many passengers." And Xerxes, they say, hearing this, said to the Persians: "It is on you now that my safety rests: let one of you show his care for his king."

4This he said, and they did obeisance and leapt into the sea; the ship, lightened so, came safe to Asia. And when Xerxes had stepped ashore as soon as might be, he did this: for having saved the king's life, he rewarded the helmsman with a golden crown; for having destroyed many Persians, he cut off his head.

Chapter 119

1This, however, is told as another story of Xerxes' return, and it is in no way credible to me—neither the story itself nor this misfortune of the Persians. For if the helmsman had really said this to Xerxes, among ten thousand possible plans I cannot find one that would not have let the king do this: to make the Persians on the deck—Persians, and the first men of Persia—go down into the hold, and, with an equal number of Phoenician rowers cast into the sea, to lighten the ship so. No: as I said before, Xerxes returned to Asia by land, with the rest of the army.

Chapter 120

1And this is a great piece of evidence: Xerxes in his retreat is seen to have come to Abdera, made a guest-friendship with the people there, and given them a golden scimitar and a tiara embroidered with gold. The Abderites themselves say—and I for my part do not believe them—that this was the first time he loosened his girdle after fleeing from Athens, he was in such distress. Abdera lies nearer the Hellespont than the Strymon and Eion, from where the story says he took ship.

Chapter 121

1The Greeks, when they found they could not take Andros, turned to Carystus, ravaged its country, and went away to Salamis. First they set aside first-fruits for the gods, among them three Phoenician triremes: one they dedicated at the Isthmus (it was still there in my day), one at Sunium, and one at Salamis itself, to Ajax.

2Then they divided the spoil and sent first-fruits to Delphi, and from these was made the statue holding in its hand the beak of a ship, twelve cubits tall; it stands in the same place as the golden Alexander the Macedonian.

Chapter 122

1Having sent the first-fruits to Delphi, the Greeks asked the god in common whether his take was full and pleasing. He answered that he had his due from all the other Greeks, but not from the Aeginetans; from them he demanded the prize of valor for the sea-fight at Salamis. When the Aeginetans heard this, they dedicated three golden stars, which stand on a bronze mast at the corner, nearest the mixing bowl of Croesus.

Chapter 123

1After the division of the spoil the Greeks sailed to the Isthmus, to give the prize of valor to the Greek who had proved most worthy in this war.

2When the generals had come and cast their votes at the altar of Poseidon, judging the first and the second man of all, each one set his vote for himself, each thinking himself the best; but for second place nearly all fell in together and judged Themistocles. So each of them had a single vote, while Themistocles far outstripped them all in second votes.

Chapter 124

1Because the Greeks would not judge the matter, out of envy, but each sailed off to his own country, still Themistocles was loudly acclaimed, and was held the wisest man of the Greeks by far, in all Greece.

2But though victorious he was not honored by those who fought the sea-battle at Salamis, he went straightway to Lacedaemon, wanting honor; and the Lacedaemonians received him well and honored him greatly. They gave Eurybiades a crown of olive as prize of valor, and to Themistocles a crown of olive for wisdom and cleverness; and they presented him with the chariot in Sparta that was finest.

3They praised him much, and when he departed they escorted him out of the country with three hundred picked Spartans, the men called the horsemen, as far as the borders of Tegea. He is the only man, of all we know, whom the Spartans ever escorted on his way.

Chapter 125

1When he came back from Lacedaemon to Athens, Timodemus of Aphidnae—one of Themistocles' enemies, but otherwise not a man of any mark—out of sheer envy fell upon him with reproaches, holding up his journey to Lacedaemon, and saying the honors he had from the Lacedaemonians were for Athens' sake, not his own.

2And when Timodemus would not stop saying these things, Themistocles answered: "That is how it is: no honors like these would ever have come to me from the Spartans if I had been a man of Belbina, nor would they have come to you, my friend, if you had been an Athenian." So far went that affair.

Chapter 126

1Artabazus son of Pharnaces, a man already of account among the Persians, and made more so still by what came after at Plataea, was escorting the king as far as the passage with the six myriads of troops Mardonius had chosen out for him.

2So while the king was now in Asia, and Artabazus was on his way back making his way through Pallene—Mardonius wintering about Thessaly and Macedonia and not yet hurrying him to come to the other camp—he held it not right, on falling in with the Potidaeans in revolt, not to enslave them.

3For the Potidaeans, once the king had driven past and the fleet had gone off in flight from Salamis, openly revolted from the foreigners; and so did the others who inhabit Pallene.

Chapter 127

1Here then Artabazus laid siege to Potidaea. Suspecting the Olynthians too of revolt from the king, he besieged that city as well; it was held by the Bottiaeans, who had left the Thermemean gulf when driven out by the Macedonians. When he had taken them by siege, he led them out to a lake and slaughtered them; the city he handed over to Critobulus of Torone to administer, and to the Chalcidian people; and so the Chalcidians got Olynthus.

Chapter 128

1Having taken that city, Artabazus pressed the siege of Potidaea hard. While he was besieging it in earnest, Timoxenus, general of the Scionaeans, plotted treachery with him—how it began I cannot say, for it is not told; but this is how it ended: whenever either Timoxenus wanted to send a letter to Artabazus, or Artabazus to Timoxenus, they wrapped it about the nock of an arrow, feathering over the letter, and shot it at a spot agreed on.

2Timoxenus' treachery with Potidaea was discovered in this way: Artabazus, shooting at the agreed spot, missed it and hit a Potidaean man in the shoulder. A crowd ran round the man who was struck—as happens in war—and pulling out the arrow at once, and discovering the letter, carried it to their generals. The allies of the other towns of Pallene were present too.

3The generals read the letter and learned the author of the treachery, but resolved not to bring Timoxenus to justice for betraying the city of the Scionaeans—so that the Scionaeans should not be regarded forever after as traitors.

Chapter 129

1So Timoxenus' plot was discovered in this fashion. Artabazus had now been three months besieging Potidaea when there came a great ebb of the sea, lasting a long time. Seeing the shallows left bare, the foreigners crossed over into Pallene.

2When two of their companies had made the crossing and three were still left—those who had crossed being now inside Pallene—there came a great flood tide of the sea, greater, as the people of the country say, than any of the many they had known before. Those who could not swim perished; and the Potidaeans, sailing out in boats, destroyed those who could.

3The Potidaeans say the cause of the ebb and of the flood tide, and of the Persians' disaster, was this: that these same Persians, the ones the sea destroyed, had profaned the temple of Poseidon and his image in the suburb; and in saying this was the cause I think they speak well. The survivors Artabazus led away to Thessaly to Mardonius. Such was the end of the men who had escorted the king.

Chapter 130

1The fleet of Xerxes that had escaped, when it came up to Asia fleeing from Salamis—after ferrying the king and his army across from the Chersonese to Abydos—wintered at Cyme; and when early spring broke, it gathered at Samos, where some of the ships had wintered too. Most of those aboard were Persians and Medes.

2Their generals were Mardontes son of Bagaeus and Artayntes son of Artachaees; and with these there joined them in command also Ithamitres, at the instance of Artayntes' nephew. Badly beaten as they had been, they did not venture farther west, and no one forced them, but sitting at Samos they kept watch on Ionia lest it revolt, having three hundred ships together with the Ionians.

3They did not expect the Greeks to come to Ionia at all, thinking it would be enough to guard their own—reasoning that the Greeks had not pursued them in their flight from Salamis but had been glad enough to see them go. Beaten at sea, they kept up their spirits with the thought that Mardonius would win by land by a wide margin.

4Sitting at Samos, they took counsel at once on what harm they might do the enemy, and at the same time kept their ears open for how Mardonius' affairs would fall out.

Chapter 131

1The coming of spring stirred the Greeks, and Mardonius being in Thessaly. The land army was not yet gathered, but the fleet came to Aegina, one hundred and ten ships.

2Their general and admiral was Leotychides, son of Menares, son of Hegesileus, son of Hippocratides, son of Leotychides, son of Anaxileus, son of Archidemus, son of Anaxander, son of Theopompus, son of Nicander, son of Charilaus, son of Eunomus, son of Polydectes, son of Prytanis, son of Euryphon, son of Procles, son of Aristodemus, son of Aristomachus, son of Cleodaeus, son of Hyllus, son of Heracles—of the other house of the kings.

3All of these except the first seven named after Leotychides were kings of Sparta. The Athenian general was Xanthippus son of Ariphron.

Chapter 132

1When all the ships had come to Aegina, messengers of the Ionians arrived at the camp of the Greeks—the same who, a little before this, had come to Sparta and begged the Lacedaemonians to free Ionia.

2Of these was one Herodotus son of Basileides. They had been at the first seven, members of a faction plotting the death of Strattis, tyrant of Chios; but when the plot came into the open through the discovery of it by one of their number, the remaining six got out of Chios, came to Sparta and now to Aegina, begging the Greeks to sail for Ionia; and the Greeks brought them on as far as Delos, and no farther with any ease.

3For everything beyond was terrifying to the Greeks: they had no experience of the country, which they thought to be everywhere full of the enemy's army, and they believed Samos lay as far from them as the Pillars of Heracles. And it so fell out that the foreigners dared not sail westward past Samos, out of fear, while the Greeks, though the Chians begged them, would not go eastward below Delos; so exactly did fear hold the middle ground between them.

Chapter 133

1The Greeks sailed to Delos; Mardonius wintered in Thessaly. Starting from there he sent out, to consult the oracles, a man European by birth, whose name was Mys, with orders to go to every oracle and try them all. What he wanted to learn from the oracles when he gave these orders I cannot say, for it is not told; I think myself he sent him about his present affairs and nothing else.

Chapter 134

1This Mys is seen to have come to Lebadeia, where he persuaded a man of the place, for pay, to go down to Trophonius, and to have come to Abae of the Phocaeans to the oracle there. And when he first came to Thebes, he consulted the Ismenian Apollo (there, as at Olympia, it is permitted to take oracles in the sanctuary itself); but for Amphiaraus he persuaded with money a foreigner, not a Theban, and had him lie down to the oracle.

2No Theban may take the oracle there, and for this reason: Amphiaraus, giving them oracles, bade them choose which of the two they would—to have him as a prophet or as an ally, abstaining from the other; and they chose to have him as an ally. For this reason no Theban may sleep the night in that place.

Chapter 135

1Then, the Thebans say, the greatest marvel of all took place: that this European Mys, after going his round of all the oracles, came also to the sacred precinct of Ptoos Apollo. This sanctuary is called the Ptoum, and it belongs to the Thebans; it stands above Lake Copais, close under the mountain nearest the city of Acraephia.

2When this Mys came into the sanctuary, there followed him three chosen men of the townsfolk, named by the community to write down what the oracle should say; and at once the prophet began to speak in a foreign tongue.

3The Thebans who followed stood amazed to hear a foreign tongue instead of Greek, and had no notion what to do with what lay before them; but Mys the European snatched from them the writing-tablet they carried, wrote on it what the prophet said, declared he was speaking in the Carian tongue, and went away to Thessaly.

Chapter 136

1When Mardonius had read what the oracles were saying, he next sent as envoy to Athens Alexander son of Amyntas, a Macedonian, partly because the Persians were bound to him by ties of kinship: Bubares, a Persian, had married Alexander's sister Gygaea, daughter of Amyntas, and by her was born that Amyntas in Asia, bearing the name of his grandfather on the mother's side, to whom the king of Phrygia gave the great city of Alabanda to hold; and partly because Mardonius had heard that Alexander was a guest-friend and benefactor of the Athenians, he sent him.

2For he thought this the surest way to win the Athenians over; and he knew well that they were very many and valiant, and that it was chiefly the Athenians who had brought about the misfortune that had befallen him at sea.

3With them gained over, he hoped to master the sea with ease—and it likely would have been so—and by land he believed himself far the stronger; so he reckoned the outcome would be his over the Greeks. It may be, too, that the oracles told him this beforehand, counseling him to make the Athenian his ally; trusting to these, he sent him.

Chapter 137

1In Alexander's line the seventh ancestor was Perdiccas, the man who won the kingship of the Macedonians, and this is how he won it. Three brothers, descendants of Temenus, fled from Argos to the Illyrians—Gauanes, Aeropus, and Perdiccas—and crossing over from Illyria into upper Macedonia they came to the city of Lebaea.

2There they served the king for wages: one tended his horses, another his oxen, and the youngest of the three, Perdiccas, the leaner sheep. The king's wife cooked their meals with her own hands; for in those days even the kingships of men were poor in money, not only the commons.

3Whenever she baked, the loaf for the hired boy Perdiccas swelled to twice its size. As this same thing kept happening, she told her husband; and as soon as he heard it there entered his mind that this was a portent and meant something great. So he called the hired men to him and proclaimed that they must depart from his land.

4They answered that it was only fair to receive their wages first and then go. When the king heard this talk of wages—the sun, meanwhile, was shining down into the house through the smoke-hole—he said, as though a god had struck him mad: "I pay you the wages you deserve from me; take the sun."

5Gauanes and Aeropus, the elder brothers, stood thunderstruck when they heard this; but the boy, who happened to have a knife, said, "We accept, king, what you give," and with the knife traced the sun on the floor of the house; and when he had drawn it, he scooped the sunlight into the fold of his garment three times, and so departed, he and those with him.

Chapter 138

1So they went away; but one of the king's councilors told him what a deed the boy had done, and how the youngest of the three had taken what was given with deliberate intent. The king heard this and saw through it, and sent horsemen after them to kill them. In that land there is a river to which the descendants of these men, sprung from Argos, sacrifice as to a savior;

2this river, as soon as the Temenidae had crossed it, ran so great that the horsemen could not get over. They, arriving in another part of Macedonia, settled beside the gardens said to be those of Midas son of Gordias, where roses grow of themselves, each bearing sixty petals and passing all others in scent.

3In those same gardens, so the Macedonians say, Silenus was caught. Above the gardens stands the mountain called Bermion, impassable in winter. Setting out from there, once they had won this land, they brought the rest of Macedonia under them too.

Chapter 139

1From this Perdiccas, then, Alexander was descended as follows: Alexander was the son of Amyntas, Amyntas of Alcetes, and the father of Alcetes was Aeropus; his father was Philip, Philip's was Argaeus, and Argaeus' was that Perdiccas who won the kingdom.

Chapter 140A

1So Alexander son of Amyntas was born. When he came to Athens, sent out by Mardonius, he spoke as follows: "Men of Athens, Mardonius says this to you. A message has come to me from the king, and this is what it says: 'To the Athenians I forgive all the wrongs they did me in time past.'

2'Now then, Mardonius, do this: give them back their land; and let them choose another beside it, whichever they wish, and dwell there under their own laws; and rebuild for them all the temples I burned, if they will agree to terms with me. When this offer reaches them, I am bound to carry it out unless the fault turns out to be yours.'

3'I say this to you: why do you rage, taking up war against the king? You will not get the better of him, nor are you able to hold out the whole time. You saw the multitude of Xerxes' campaign and its doings; you can learn too of the force I have with me now—so that even if you should overcome and defeat us, which no hope holds out to you if you are in your right minds, another many times greater will come in its place.'

4'Do not then choose, when you find yourselves before the king, to be stripped of your land and forever running for your own lives. Come to terms instead; and he offers you the fairest of terms to settle on, the king being on this march. Be free, making a battle-alliance with us, without deceit or trickery.'"

Chapter 140B

1"Such were the orders Mardonius gave me to deliver to you, Athenians. Of the goodwill I bear you I will say nothing—you would not be learning of it now for the first time. I urge you only to follow Mardonius."

2"For I see that you are not men who will go on making war against Xerxes forever. Had I seen this in you, I would never have come to you bearing these messages; for the king's power is more than a man's, and his hand reaches very far."

3"If you do not come to terms at once, though great things are offered to those willing to agree, I fear for you, who of all the allies dwell on the busiest of roads, who alone are ever being destroyed, and who hold a land picked out for war and lying between the hosts."

4"But obey; for these things are worth a great deal, if the great king himself is willing to become your friend, forgiving your offenses—you alone of all the Greeks."

Chapter 141

1This Alexander said. But the Lacedaemonians, learning that Alexander had come to Athens to bring the Athenians to terms with the foreigner, called to mind the oracles—how it was fated for them to be driven out of the Peloponnese along with the other Dorians by Medes and Athenians—and were in great fear that the Athenians might make terms with the Persian. At once it seemed best to them to send messengers.

2And indeed it fell out that both things happened at once: the Athenians had lingered on purpose, well knowing that when the Lacedaemonians learned that an envoy had come from the foreigner proposing terms, they would send messengers in haste. So what they did was deliberate, a way of showing the Lacedaemonians their own resolve.

Chapter 142

1When Alexander had finished speaking, the messengers from Sparta followed him and said: "The Lacedaemonians sent us to beg you to attempt nothing new against Greece, and to accept no terms from the foreigner."

2"That would be neither just nor fitting for any Greeks anywhere, and least of all for you, and for many reasons. You raised this war though we in no way wished it; the struggle began with your own quarrel, and now it has swept on into all of Greece."

3"And beyond all this, it would be unbearable for the Athenians to become the cause of slavery to the Greeks—you who have ever shown yourselves, from of old, the liberators of many peoples. We share in your affliction now, that you have lost two harvests and that your homes have been ruined for a long time."

4"In return for this, the Lacedaemonians and their allies pledge to feed your women and all the household slaves who are of no use in war, for as long as this war lasts. Do not let Alexander the Macedonian beguile you, smoothing over Mardonius' message."

5"He must do such things: a tyrant works hand in hand with a tyrant. But it is not for you, if you are in your right minds, who know that with foreigners there is nothing trustworthy nor true." So spoke the messengers.

Chapter 143

1The Athenians answered Alexander as follows: "We too know well that the power of the Mede is many times greater than ours, so there is no need to fling that at us as a reproach. But still, for love of freedom, we defend ourselves as well as we can. Do not try to persuade us to make terms with the foreigner—we will not be persuaded."

2"Now go and tell Mardonius that the Athenians say: so long as the sun keeps the course it runs now, we will never come to terms with Xerxes. Instead, trusting in the gods and the heroes as allies, we will come out against him and defend ourselves—he who burned houses and statues of gods and heroes with never a glance of reverence for them."

3"Do not come to the Athenians again with messages like these, and do not counsel us to do lawless things in the belief that you do us a service; for we would not have you suffer any ingratitude at Athenian hands, being our proxenos and friend."

Chapter 144

1This was their answer to Alexander; to the messengers from Sparta they said this: "That the Lacedaemonians feared we might make terms with the foreigner is very human—but it was a sorry thing in you, who knew the temper of the Athenians so well, to be afraid; for you knew that nowhere on earth is there gold enough, nor a land so far surpassing all others in beauty and worth, that we would take them and consent to enslave Greece by going over to the Mede.

2For many and great are the things that bar us from this, even if we wished it: first and greatest, the statues and houses of the gods, burned and thrown down, which we are bound to avenge to the uttermost rather than make terms with the doer of these deeds; and next, the Greek nation itself—of one blood and one speech, with common shrines and sacrifices of the gods and customs of like kind—the Athenians would do ill to become betrayers of all this.

3Know this, then, if you did not already know it: so long as a single Athenian is left alive, we will never, never come to terms with Xerxes. And yet we thank you for the care you have shown us, in foreseeing that our houses were so destroyed that you were ready to feed our household slaves.

4Your kindness is repaid in full; but we will endure as best we can, grieving you in nothing. Now, since things stand so, send out your army as fast as you may.

5For as we reckon, the foreigner will not be long before he comes invading our land: he will hear the news at once that we will do none of what he asked of us. Before he arrives in Attica, then, it is time for us to march to the aid of Boeotia." After the Athenians gave this answer, the messengers departed for Sparta.

Chapter 1

1These were the Greeks appointed to the fleet. The Athenians provided one hundred twenty-seven ships. The Plataeans had no experience at sea, but out of courage and eagerness they joined the Athenians in crewing the ships. The Corinthians provided forty ships, and the Megarians twenty.

2The Chalcidians manned twenty ships, with the Athenians providing the ships. The Aeginetans manned eighteen, the Sicyonians twelve, the Lacedaemonians ten, the Epidaurians eight, the Eretrians seven, the Troezenians five, and the Styreans two. The Ceans manned two ships and two fifty-oared ships. The Opuntian Locrians also helped them out with seven fifty-oared ships.

Chapter 2

1These, then, were the men who campaigned at Artemisium, and I have been told as well how many ships each people provided. The number of ships gathered at Artemisium, apart from the fifty-oared ships, was two hundred seventy-one.

2The Spartans provided the commander who held the greatest power, Eurybiades son of Euryclides. The allies said that if a Spartan did not lead, they would not follow Athenians as leaders. They would break up the force that was about to be gathered.

Chapter 3

1For at first, before they even sent to Sicily to ask for an alliance, the view had arisen that the fleet should be handed over to the Athenians. But the allies spoke against this, and the Athenians gave way. They thought it mattered greatly that Greece be saved. They knew that if they quarreled over the command, Greece would be destroyed. They judged rightly; for civil strife against a people of one mind is as much worse than war as war is worse than peace.

2They knew this, and so they did not oppose it but gave way, for as long as they badly needed the allies, as they showed later. For when they had driven back the Persian and were now holding the contest about his own land, they used the arrogance of Pausanias as a pretext and took the command away from the Lacedaemonians. But those things happened later.

Chapter 4

1Now when these Greeks who had come to Artemisium saw so many ships putting in at the Aphetae and the camp full of everything, and the foreigners' affairs turning out beyond what they had expected, or beyond what they themselves had supposed, they were terrified and began to plan flight from Artemisium inland into Greece.

2The Euboeans learned that they were planning this. They begged Eurybiades to stay a short time, until they themselves could move out their children and household slaves. They could not persuade him. So they turned to the Athenian commander Themistocles, and with a payment of thirty talents they persuaded him to stay and fight the sea battle in front of Euboea.

Chapter 5

1Themistocles made the Greeks stay in this way. He shared out five of those talents to Eurybiades, pretending he was giving them from his own money. This man still would not believe him. Adeimantus son of Ocytus, the Corinthian commander, alone was pulling the other way, saying that he would sail away from Artemisium and would not stay. So Themistocles spoke to him with an oath:

2"You will not leave us behind; for I will give you greater gifts than the king of the Medes would send you for deserting the allies." Even as he said this openly, he sent three talents of silver to Adeimantus' ship.

3So all these men were won over by the gifts, and the Euboeans got what they wanted, and Themistocles himself made a profit. He escaped notice while he kept the rest. But the men who took shares of that money knew that the money had come from the Athenians for this reason.

Chapter 6

1So they stayed in Euboea and fought a sea battle, and it came about this way. The foreigners arrived at the Aphetae in the early morning. They had learned even before that a few Greek ships lay moored at Artemisium, and now they saw them for themselves. They were eager to attack, in case they might capture them.

2For this reason it did not seem good to them to sail straight at the Greeks. They feared that the Greeks, seeing them coming, would start to flee, and dusk would catch them in flight, the very time when, as was claimed, they would get away. And by their account it was necessary that not even a man who could run carrying fire get away and survive.

Chapter 7

1So they contrived this. They drew off two hundred ships from all their ships and sent them around the outside of Sciathos, so that their enemies would not see them sailing around Euboea past Caphereus and around Geraestus into the Euripus. The plan was that those ships, coming that way and blocking the road behind the Greeks, would trap them, while the rest followed against them from in front.

2Having settled this plan, they sent off the ships chosen for it. They themselves did not intend to attack the Greeks that day, and not before the signal was going to reach them from the ships sailing around, that they had come. These ships they sent around. With the rest of the ships they formed up in order at the Aphetae.

Chapter 8

1During this time, while they were forming up their ships, there was in this camp a man named Scyllias of Scione, a diver, the best of the men of that time. In the shipwreck that happened off Pelion he had saved many of the Persians' goods, and he had also gathered much for himself. This Scyllias, it appears, had in mind even before this to go over to the Greeks, but until then no chance had offered him one.

2In what way he then got across to the Greeks I cannot say for certain, and I wonder whether the story told is true. It is said that he dived into the sea at the Aphetae and did not come up until he reached Artemisium, having gone through the sea a distance of about eighty stades at the most.

3Other things are also told about this man that are like lies, but the later stories about him are true. About this matter, let my judgment stand: that he came to Artemisium in a boat. When he arrived, he at once signaled to the commanders both that the shipwreck had happened and about the ships that had been sent around Euboea.

Chapter 9

1When the Greeks heard this, they held a debate among themselves. Many things were said, and the view that won that day was to stay where they were and camp, and then, at midnight, to set out and meet the ships sailing around. But after this, since no one was sailing against them, they waited until late in the day and then sailed out themselves against the foreigners. They wanted to test both their fighting and their breaking through the enemy line.

Chapter 10

1When the rest of Xerxes' soldiers and the commanders saw them sailing against them with few ships, they took it for sheer madness, and they brought their own ships out too. They expected to capture the Greeks easily. Their hope was very natural: they saw the Greeks' ships were few, while their own were many times more numerous and better sailed. In their contempt they circled around them, to enclose them in the middle.

2Those of the Ionians who were well disposed toward the Greeks were serving against their will, and they brought great grief on themselves. They saw the Greeks surrounded and knew that none of the Greeks would get back home. So weak the Greeks' situation seemed to them.

3For those who were pleased at what was happening, it became a contest, how each might be first to capture an Attic ship and win gifts from the king. Talk about the Athenians was loudest throughout the camps.

Chapter 11

1When the signal was given to the Greeks, first they turned bows-on toward the foreigners and drew their sterns together into the middle. Then, at the second signal, though caught in a narrow space and bow to bow, they held fast and fought.

2There they took thirty ships of the foreigners, and also Philaon son of Chersis, the brother of Gorgus king of the Salaminians, a man of much account in the camp. The first of the Greeks to take an enemy ship was an Athenian, Lycomedes son of Aeschraeus, and he received the prize for valor.

3Night came on and put an end to men still fighting hard with no slackening in this sea battle. The Greeks sailed back to Artemisium, the foreigners to the Aphetae. They had fought far beyond what anyone expected. In this sea battle Antidorus of Lemnos, the only Greek with the king, went over to the Greeks, and for this deed the Athenians gave him a place of land in Salamis.

Chapter 12

1When night had come, it was the middle of summer, rain poured without ceasing through the whole night, and hard thunder came down from Pelion. The corpses and the wrecks were carried to the Aphetae. They tangled around the prows of the ships and fouled the blades of the oars.

2The soldiers who were there and heard of this fell into fear. They expected to be destroyed outright, in such evils as they had come to. For before they could even catch their breath from the shipwreck and the storm off Pelion, a hard-fought sea battle fell upon them. After the sea battle came a violent rainstorm, strong currents rushing into the sea, and hard thunder.

Chapter 13

1For these men, then, the night was like that; but for those appointed to sail around Euboea, the very same night was much fiercer by far, because it fell on them while they were carried in the open sea. In the end it turned out thankless for them. For storm and high water came on them as they sailed off the Hollows of Euboea. Driven by the wind and not knowing where they were being carried, they were thrown onto the rocks. And all this was brought about by the god, so that the Persian side would be made equal to the Greek and not be much greater.

Chapter 14

1So these men perished off the Hollows of Euboea. But the foreigners at the Aphetae were glad when day broke. They held their ships quietly. Though they were going to fare badly, it served their turn to keep quiet for the present. To the Greeks there came as help fifty-three Attic ships.

2Their coming gave the Greeks new strength, and at the same time word arrived that all the foreigners who had been sailing around Euboea had been destroyed in the storm. So they waited for the same hour again, and sailing out they fell upon the Cilician ships. They destroyed these, and when evening came they sailed back to Artemisium.

Chapter 15

1On the third day the foreign commanders found it a terrible thing that their ships were being mauled by so few. They also feared what would come to them from Xerxes. So they no longer waited for the Greeks to begin the battle, but urging one another on, they brought their ships out at midday. It happened that these sea battles fell on the same days as the land battles at Thermopylae.

2For the men at sea the contest was about the Euripus, just as for those with Leonidas it was about guarding the entrance. The Greeks urged one another on not to let the foreigners into Greece; the foreigners, to destroy the Greek force and take the passage. When Xerxes' men, drawn up in order, sailed out, the Greeks held quietly at Artemisium. The foreigners made their ships into a crescent shape and circled around, so as to enclose them.

Chapter 16

1From there the Greeks sailed out again and joined battle. In this sea battle the two sides proved much alike.

2Xerxes' force, because of its size and numbers, kept falling foul of itself, the ships thrown into confusion and running into one another. All the same it held its ground and did not give way, for they counted it a terrible thing to be put to flight by a few ships.

3Many of the Greek ships were destroyed, and many men; but far more ships and men of the foreigners. Fighting like this, the two sides drew apart.

Chapter 17

1In this sea battle the Egyptians of Xerxes' soldiers won the highest honor. They performed other great deeds besides and took five Greek ships with their crews. Of the Greeks the Athenians won the highest honor that day, and among the Athenians Cleinias son of Alcibiades, who served at his own expense with two hundred men of his own and a ship of his own.

Chapter 18

1When they parted, both sides gladly hurried to harbor. The Greeks, once they were released from the sea battle, kept the corpses and the wrecks, though they had been roughly handled. The Athenians not least: half of their ships were crippled. So they planned to flee inland into Greece.

Chapter 19

1Themistocles took it into his mind that if the Ionian and Carian peoples broke away from the foreigner, they might well get the better of all the rest. The Euboeans were driving their sheep down to the sea. Themistocles gathered the commanders and told them that he believed he had a device by which he hoped to make the best of the king's allies break away.

2So much he laid open. And about what they must do next in the trouble they faced, he said this: sacrifice as many of the Euboean sheep as each man wanted; for it was better that the army have them than the enemy. He also urged them to give orders that each of their own men light fires. As for the time of leaving, he himself would see to it, so that they would get back to Greece in safety. This pleased them to do, and at once they lit fires and turned to the sheep.

Chapter 20

1For the Euboeans had made nothing of the oracle of Bacis, taking it as meaning nothing. They had carried out nothing and brought in nothing, though a war was coming upon them. So they had made their affairs fall into desperate straits.

2For about these things the oracle of Bacis runs thus: "Mark this: whenever the foreign-voiced one casts the papyrus yoke into the sea, / the much-bleating goats of Euboea must be kept far away." These lines they did not use at all. So, in the troubles then upon them and those still to come, they had to face disaster at its worst.

Chapter 21

1While they were doing these things, the spy from Trachis arrived. At Artemisium there was a spy named Polyas, an Anticyrean by birth. To him this duty was assigned, and he kept a boat ready, in case the fleet should come to grips, to signal to the men at Thermopylae. In just the same way Abronichus son of Lysicles, an Athenian, was ready at Leonidas' side with a thirty-oared ship, to report to the men at Artemisium if anything should happen to the land army first.

2This Abronichus came to them and signaled what had happened about Leonidas and his army. When they learned this, they no longer put off their departure, but made off as each had been assigned: the Corinthians first, the Athenians last.

Chapter 22

1Themistocles picked out the best-sailing Athenian ships and went along the watering places, cutting letters into the stones. The Ionians, coming to Artemisium the next day, read these. The letters said this: "Men of Ionia, you do not act justly, campaigning against your fathers and bringing Greece into slavery.

2"But above all, come over to us; or if you cannot do that, then even now withdraw from the line, both you yourselves, and urge the Carians to do the same as you. If neither of these can be done, but you are bound by a necessity too great to break away, then in the battle, when we close, act badly on purpose, remembering that you were born of us and that the hatred against the foreigner came from you to us from the beginning."

3Themistocles wrote this, as it seems to me, with both outcomes in mind: either the letters might escape the king's notice, and he might make the Ionians change sides and come over to him; or, once the thing was brought to light and he was denounced to Xerxes, he might make the Ionians untrustworthy and keep them out of the sea battles.

Chapter 23

1Themistocles wrote these things. But soon after this a man of Histiaea came to the foreigners in a boat, bringing word of the flight of the Greeks from Artemisium. In their disbelief they held the messenger under guard and sent off fast ships to look ahead. When these reported how things were, the whole fleet sailed for Artemisium at sunrise. They waited at that place until midday, and from then on they sailed to Histiaea. On arriving they took the city of the Histiaeans, and they overran all the coastlands of the district of Elaopia and of the land of Histiaeotis.

Chapter 24

1While these things were being done there, Xerxes made his preparations about the dead and sent a herald to the fleet. He had first made these preparations: of his own dead at Thermopylae, and there were two myriads of them, he left about a thousand, and digging trenches he buried the rest, throwing leaves over them and heaping earth on top, so that they would not be seen by the fleet.

2When the herald had crossed over to Histiaea, he gathered an assembly of the whole camp and said this: "Men who are allies, King Xerxes grants this to any of you who wish: leave your post, come, and see how he fights against the foolish of men, who hoped to overcome the king's power."

Chapter 25

1When this was proclaimed, after that nothing was harder to come by than boats, so many wanted to see. Those who crossed over walked among the dead and looked. All who saw knew that the dead lying there were all Lacedaemonians and Thespians, for they saw the helots too.

2Nor did it escape the notice of those who crossed over what Xerxes had done with his own dead; for it was in fact laughable. Of his own dead a thousand could be seen lying there, while four thousand dead, all of them slaughtered, lay heaped together in one place.

3That day they turned to sightseeing. The next day those sailed back to Histiaea to the ships, and those about Xerxes made ready to set out on the road.

Chapter 26

1A few deserters came to them, men from Arcadia, in need of a living and wanting to find work. When the Persians brought these men before the king, they asked them what the Greeks were doing. One man above all was the one who asked them this.

2The deserters told him that the Greeks were holding the Olympic games and watching a contest of athletics and horse racing. Then he asked what prize was set for them, for which they competed. They said it was the olive wreath given to the winner. Then Tigranes son of Artabanus spoke a most noble thought, and for it he paid the penalty of cowardice before the king.

3For when he learned that the prize was a wreath and not money, he could not endure keeping silent, and he said before all these words: "Good heavens, Mardonius, against what kind of men have you brought us to fight, men who hold their contest not for money but for courage!" So much for the words of this man.

Chapter 27

1In the time between these events, as soon as the blow at Thermopylae had been struck, the Thessalians at once sent a herald to the Phocians. They had always borne anger against them, and since the last blow it was all the greater.

2For when the Thessalians themselves and their allies had invaded the Phocians with their whole army, not many years before this campaign of the king, they had been beaten by the Phocians and roughly handled.

3For when the Phocians were shut up on Mount Parnassus, with the seer Tellias of Elis among them, this Tellias devised this trick for them. He coated six hundred of the best Phocian men with white plaster, both the men themselves and their armor, and by night he fell upon the Thessalians. He had told them beforehand to kill any man they saw who was not white-plastered.

4The first Thessalian guards, when they saw these men, were afraid, thinking it some other portent; and after the guards the whole army was afraid too. So the Phocians won mastery of four thousand dead men and shields. They dedicated half the shields at Abae and half at Delphi.

5The tithe of the money from this battle was the great statues that stand around the tripod in front of the temple at Delphi, and others like them set up at Abae.

Chapter 28

1So much, then, the Phocians did to the Thessalian land force that was besieging them. But when the Thessalian cavalry invaded their country, they crippled it beyond repair. For at the entrance, which is by Hyampolis, they dug a great trench, placed empty jars in it, heaped earth on top, and made the spot look like the rest of the ground. Then they waited for the Thessalians to come in. The Thessalians charged in, hoping to snatch at the Phocians, and their horses fell into the jars. There the horses' legs were ruined.

Chapter 29

1The Thessalians nursed anger over both these things, and they sent a herald who proclaimed this: "Phocians, now at last admit that you are not our equals."

2"For formerly, in the affairs of the Greeks, as long as that suited us, we always stood higher than you. Now we have such power with the foreigner that it lies in our hands to strip you of your land and have you sold as slaves. Yet we, holding all the power, bear no grudge. Let there be given to us fifty talents of silver instead, and we promise to turn aside the invasion that is coming upon your land."

Chapter 30

1This was the offer the Thessalians made them. For the Phocians alone of the peoples of this region did not take the Persian side. I find no other reason for this, when I weigh the matter, than their hatred of the Thessalians.

2If the Thessalians had taken the Greek side, then in my opinion the Phocians would have taken the Persian side. When the Thessalians made this offer, the Phocians said they would give no money. They said it was open to the Thessalians to join the Persians themselves, if they wished; but that they themselves would not willingly be traitors to Greece.

Chapter 31

1When these words were reported, the Thessalians, now very angry with the Phocians, became guides for the foreigner on the road. From Trachinia they invaded Doris. For there is a narrow entrance into the country of Doris on that side, about thirty stades wide at the most, lying between the country of Malis and the country of Phocis, which in ancient times was called Dryopis. This country is the mother country of the Dorians in the Peloponnese. This land of Doris, then, the foreigners did not ravage when they invaded it; for it had taken the Persian side, and the Thessalians bore it no grudge.

Chapter 32

1When they invaded from Doris into Phocis, they did not catch the Phocians themselves. Some of the Phocians climbed to the peaks of Parnassus. The summit of Parnassus can also hold a crowd; it lies above the city of Neon, and its name is Tithorea. To this place the Phocians carried up their goods and climbed with them.

2The greater number of the Phocians carried out their goods to the Ozolian Locrians, to the city of Amphissa, which is settled above the Crisaean plain. The foreigners overran the whole country of Phocis, for the Thessalians led the army that way. Everything they caught they burned and cut down, and they threw fire into the cities and into the temples.

Chapter 33

1For as they marched that way along the Cephisus river they devoured everything. They burned the city of Drymus, and Charadra, and Erochus, and Tethronium, and Amphicaea, and Neon, and Pedieis, and Tritaea, and Elateia, and Hyampolis, and Parapotamii, and Abae. At Abae there was a rich temple of Apollo, furnished with treasuries and many offerings; it was an oracle-place then, and it still is now. This temple they plundered and set on fire. Chasing some of the Phocians, they caught some of them by the mountains, and they violated some of the women, in the crush of their great numbers.

Chapter 34

1Passing by Parapotamii, the foreigners came to Panopeus. From there the army already divided and split apart. The largest and strongest part of the army, marching with Xerxes himself, invaded Boeotia on its way to Athens, into the land of the Orchomenians. The whole body of the Boeotians had taken the Persian side. Their cities were kept safe by Macedonian men set in charge over them, sent by Alexander. They kept them safe in this way, plainly wanting to show Xerxes that the Boeotians took the Medes' side.

Chapter 35

1So those of the foreigners turned that way. But others of them, under their commanders, set out for the temple at Delphi, keeping Parnassus on their right. Whatever of Phocis they caught, all of it they plundered; for they burned the city of the Panopeans, and Daulis, and Aeolidae.

2They marched that way, split off from the rest of the army, for this reason: so that, after plundering the temple at Delphi, they might hand the money over to King Xerxes. Xerxes knew, as I learn, all the things in the temple worth mentioning better than he knew the things he left in houses; for he heard of them often, and most of all of the offerings of Croesus son of Alyattes.

Chapter 36

1The Delphians, hearing this, fell into complete terror. Standing in great fear, they asked the god about the sacred money, whether they should bury it in the ground or carry it out to another country. The god did not let them move it. He said that he himself was able to guard what was his.

2Hearing this, the Delphians took thought for themselves. They sent their children and their women across to Achaea. Most of the men climbed the peaks of Parnassus and were taken up into the Corycian cave, and others slipped away to Amphissa in Locris. So all the Delphians left the city, except sixty men and the prophet.

Chapter 37

1When the foreigners coming against them were close and the temple was coming into view, at that moment the prophet, whose name was Aceratus, saw weapons laid out in front of the temple. They had been carried out of the inner shrine by the god, and it was not lawful for any man to touch them.

2He went off to tell this wonder to the Delphians who were there. But the foreigners, hurrying on to the temple of Pronaean Athena, met with a wonder even greater than the first. It is indeed a great wonder that weapons of war should appear of their own accord, laid out in front of the temple. But what came after it was of all the portents the most worthy of wonder.

3For when the foreigners were coming up to the temple of Pronaean Athena, thunderbolts fell on them from the sky. From Parnassus two peaks broke off and came rushing down on them with a great crash, and they threw down many of them. And from the temple of Pronaia there came a shout and a battle cry.

Chapter 38

1When all these things came together, terror fell upon the foreigners. The Delphians learned that they were running away, came down on them, and killed a good number. The survivors fled straight toward Boeotia. These foreigners who got back said, as I learn, that they had seen other divine things as well: two armed men taller than human nature followed them, killing and pursuing.

Chapter 39

1The Delphians say that these two are home-grown heroes, Phylacus and Autonous, whose sacred grounds lie by the temple: the sacred ground of Phylacus by the road itself, above the temple of Pronaia, and that of Autonous near the Castalian spring, under the Hyampeian peak.

2The stones that fell from Parnassus were still lying whole in my day, in the sacred ground of Pronaean Athena, where they had landed as they came down through the foreigners. That, then, is how these men were driven away from the temple.

Chapter 40

1The Greek fleet, at the Athenians' request, brought its ships in to Salamis from Artemisium. The Athenians asked them to moor at Salamis so that they themselves could move their children and their women out of Attica, and also so that they could take counsel about what they must do. For they were about to hold a council on the things that had happened, since they had been proved wrong in their judgment.

2They had expected to find the Peloponnesians gathered in full force in Boeotia, standing against the foreigner. They found nothing of the kind. They learned that the Peloponnesians were walling the Isthmus, thinking it of the greatest worth to keep the Peloponnese safe and guarded, and to let the rest go. Learning this, they asked the fleet to moor at Salamis.

Chapter 41

1The others, then, moored at Salamis, but the Athenians at their own shore. When they arrived, they made a proclamation: that every Athenian who could should save his children and his household slaves. Then most of them sent these away to Troezen, some to Aegina, and some to Salamis.

2They were in a hurry to move them out both because they wanted to serve the oracle and for this other reason, not the least. The Athenians say that a great snake lives in the temple as guardian of the acropolis. They say this, and they really do set out monthly offerings for it as if it were there. The monthly offering is a honey cake.

3This honey cake had always been eaten in the time before, but then it was left untouched. When the priestess made this known, the Athenians left the city all the more eagerly, because the god too had left the acropolis. When everything had been moved out, they sailed to the camp.

Chapter 42

1When those from Artemisium brought their ships to Salamis, the rest of the Greek fleet gathered there as well, having heard of it, from Troezen. It had been announced beforehand that they were to gather at Pogon, the harbor of the Troezenians. Many more ships were gathered than had fought at Artemisium, and they came from more cities.

2The admiral was the same man as at Artemisium, Eurybiades son of Euryclides, a Spartan, though not of the royal house. The Athenians provided far the most ships, and the best sailing ones.

Chapter 43

1These are the peoples who served. From the Peloponnese, the Lacedaemonians provided sixteen ships, and the Corinthians provided the same number as at Artemisium. The Sicyonians provided fifteen ships, the Epidaurians ten, the Troezenians five, and the Hermionians three. These peoples, except the Hermionians, are of Dorian and Macedonian stock, having come last from Erineus and Pindus and the Dryopid country. The Hermionians are Dryopians, driven out by Heracles and the Malians from the country now called Doris.

Chapter 44

1These, then, were the Peloponnesians who served. Of those from the mainland beyond, the Athenians alone provided one hundred eighty ships, more than all the rest put together. The Plataeans did not fight by ship beside the Athenians at Salamis, for this reason: when the Greeks were leaving Artemisium and came by Chalcis, the Plataeans landed on the shore of Boeotia and set about carrying away their household slaves. So they were left behind, saving their people.

2The Athenians, in the time when the Pelasgians held the land now called Greece, were Pelasgians, called Cranai. Under King Cecrops they were called Cecropidae. When Erechtheus received the rule, they were renamed Athenians. And when Ion son of Xuthus became commander of the Athenians, they were called Ionians after him.

Chapter 45

1The Megarians provided the same number as at Artemisium. The Ambraciots helped out with seven ships, and the Leucadians with three. These peoples are of Dorian stock, from Corinth.

Chapter 46

1Of the islanders, the Aeginetans provided thirty ships. They had other ships manned as well, but with those they guarded their own land; with thirty, the best sailing ones, they fought at Salamis. The Aeginetans are Dorians from Epidaurus.

2That island was earlier named Oenone. After the Aeginetans came the Chalcidians, providing the twenty ships they had at Artemisium, and the Eretrians the seven. These are Ionians. After them the Ceans provided the same as at Artemisium; they are a people of Ionian stock, from Athens.

3The Naxians provided four ships. Their townspeople had sent them off toward the Medes, like the other islanders; but they disregarded their orders and came to the Greeks, urged on by Democritus, a man of the town of good standing, who was then serving as trierarch. The Naxians are Ionians, descended from Athens.

4The Styreans provided the same ships as at Artemisium, and the Cythnians one ship and a pentekonter; both these peoples together are Dryopians. The Seriphians, the Siphnians, and the Melians also served. For these alone of the islanders did not give earth and water to the foreigner.

Chapter 47

1All these, the peoples living inside the Thesprotians and the river Acheron, served. For the Thesprotians border on the Ambraciots and the Leucadians, who came to help from the farthest lands. Of the peoples living outside these, the Crotoniats alone helped Greece in her danger, with one ship. Its commander was Phayllus, a man who had three times won the Pythian games. The Crotoniats are of Achaean stock.

Chapter 48

1The others served providing triremes. The Melians and the Siphnians and the Seriphians provided pentekonters. The Melians, being of Lacedaemon stock, provided two; the Siphnians and the Seriphians, being Ionians from Athens, provided one each. The whole number of ships, apart from the pentekonters, came to three hundred seventy-eight.

Chapter 49

1When the commanders from the said cities had gathered at Salamis, they took counsel. Eurybiades put it to them that anyone who wished should declare his view of the place where they thought it most suitable to fight the sea battle, among the lands they themselves held power over. For Attica was already given up, and he put the question about the rest.

2The opinions of most of the speakers came together on sailing to the Isthmus and fighting in front of the Peloponnese. They gave this reason: if they were beaten in the sea battle while at Salamis, they would be besieged on an island, where no vengeance could come to them; but at the Isthmus they would escape to their own men.

Chapter 50

1While the commanders from the Peloponnese were saying these things, an Athenian man arrived, bringing word that the foreigner had come into Attica and was burning all of it with fire.

2For the force that had turned through Boeotia with Xerxes had burned the city of the Thespians, its people having gone off to the Peloponnese, and likewise the city of the Plataeans. Then it had come to Athens and was laying waste all those places. Xerxes burned Thespiae and Plataea because he had learned from the Thebans that they had not taken the Persian side.

Chapter 51

1From the crossing of the Hellespont, where the foreigners had begun their march, after spending one month there while they crossed into Europe, they reached Attica in three more months. Calliades was archon over the Athenians.

2They took the city empty. They found a few Athenians in the temple: treasurers of the temple and poor men. They had fenced the acropolis with doors and timbers and defended themselves against the attackers. They had not gone off to Salamis partly because of the weakness of their means of living, and partly because they themselves thought they had worked out the meaning of the oracle the Pythia had given them, that the wooden wall would be safe. This very place, they believed, was the refuge meant by the oracle, and not the ships.

Chapter 52

1The Persians sat down on the hill facing the acropolis, the one the Athenians call the Hill of Ares. They besieged them in this manner: they wrapped tow around their arrows, set it alight, and shot at the fence. Even so, the Athenians under siege kept defending themselves, though driven to the last of their hardships and though the fence had been given away.

2They would not accept even the offers of the Pisistratidae about terms of surrender. Defending themselves, they contrived other devices as well. When the foreigners came up to the gates, they pushed boulders down on them. So Xerxes was held in helplessness for a long time, not able to take them.

Chapter 53

1In time, then, a way out of their difficulty appeared for the foreigners; for it was fated by the oracle that all of mainland Attica should come under the Persians. In front of the acropolis, and behind the gates and the path up, no one stood guard, nor would anyone have believed that men could climb up there. By that path, at the sanctuary of Aglaurus, daughter of Cecrops, some Persians climbed, though the ground was sheer.

2When the Athenians on the acropolis saw that they had climbed up, some of them threw themselves off the wall and were destroyed, and others fled into the great temple. The Persians who had climbed up first turned to the gates. They opened them and butchered the suppliants. When all lay dead, they plundered the temple and set the whole acropolis on fire.

Chapter 54

1Xerxes, having taken Athens completely, sent a mounted messenger to Susa, to tell Artabanus of the success he had. From the sending of the herald, on the second day he gathered the Athenian exiles who followed him, and he ordered them to go up on the acropolis and sacrifice at the temples after their own manner. This he commanded whether he had seen some vision in a dream, or whether a thought came to him over burning the temples. The Athenian exiles did what was ordered.

Chapter 55

1Now I will tell why I mentioned these things. In this acropolis is a temple of Erechtheus, who is said to be earth-born, and in it there are an olive tree and a sea. The Athenians say these are witnesses that Poseidon and Athena set down when they contended for the land. This olive tree was caught by the fire with the rest of the temple when the foreigners burned it. But on the second day after the burning, when the Athenians whom the king ordered to sacrifice went up to the temple, they saw a shoot about a cubit long run up from the stump. These men made this known.

Chapter 56

1The Greeks at Salamis, when word was brought to them of what had happened to the Athenian acropolis, fell into such confusion that some of the commanders did not even wait for the matter set before them to be put to the vote. They rushed onto their ships and hoisted sails as if to flee. For those who stayed behind, it was voted to fight by ship in front of the Isthmus. Night came, and the council broke up, and the commanders went aboard their ships.

Chapter 57

1Then, when Themistocles came to his ship, Mnesiphilus, an Athenian, asked him what they had resolved on. When he learned from him that it had been decided to bring the ships to the Isthmus and to fight in front of the Peloponnese, he said:

2"Then, if they sail the ships away from Salamis, you will fight a sea battle for no fatherland at all. Each of them will turn to his own city, and neither Eurybiades nor any other man will be able to hold them so that the fleet is not scattered. And Greece will be destroyed by bad counsel. But if there is any device, go and try to break up the decision, if by any chance you can talk Eurybiades into changing his plan, so that he stays here."

Chapter 58

1This advice pleased Themistocles greatly, and without answering anything to it he went to the ship of Eurybiades. Coming there, he said he wanted to take counsel with him on a matter of common concern. Eurybiades told him to come aboard and say what he had to say.

2Thereupon Themistocles sat down beside him and related all the things he had heard from Mnesiphilus, making them his own, and he added many others, until he persuaded him to come out of his ship, gather the commanders, and bring them to the council.

Chapter 59

1When they were gathered, before Eurybiades could put forward the matter for which he had gathered the commanders, Themistocles spoke at great length, in his great need. While he spoke, the Corinthian commander Adeimantus son of Ocytus said: "Themistocles, in the games those who start too early are whipped." Themistocles answered him: "But those left behind are not crowned."

Chapter 60

1Then he answered the Corinthian mildly. But to Eurybiades he said nothing of the things said before, namely that when they sailed away from Salamis they would run away. With the allies present, it did not befit him to accuse anyone. He took hold of another line of speech, saying this:

Chapter 60A

1"It is now in your power to save Greece, if you believe me and fight the sea battle here, staying where we are, and do not carry the ships away to the Isthmus when you follow the words of these men. Weigh the two, hearing both. Fighting by the Isthmus, you will fight in the open sea, and that is least to our advantage, we having heavier ships and fewer in number. And you give up Salamis and Megara and Aegina, even if we succeed in everything else. Their land army will follow their fleet, and so you will yourself lead them to the Peloponnese, and you will bring all Greece into danger."

Chapter 60B

1"But if you do what I say, you will find these good things in it. First, by joining battle in a narrow space, with few ships against many, if the war turn out as is natural, we shall win a great victory; for to fight in a narrow space is to our advantage, and in open water to theirs. Second, Salamis is saved, in which our children and our women lie. And there is this in it too, which is the greatest point: staying here just the same, you will fight as much in front of the Peloponnese as at the Isthmus, and you will not, if you have good sense, bring them to the Peloponnese."

Chapter 60C

1"But if what I hope comes to pass and we win with our ships, the foreigners will not come to the Isthmus against you, nor will they advance farther than Attica. They will go off in disorder, and we shall gain in this, that Megara and Aegina and Salamis are kept safe, where for us too there is the oracle that we shall get the better of our enemies. When men plan with good reason, things generally go as they wish. When men plan without good reason, the god does not consent to join their human plans."

Chapter 61

1While Themistocles said this, again the Corinthian Adeimantus broke in. He told him to be silent, since he had no fatherland, and he did not let Eurybiades put the vote to a man without a city. He said that Themistocles must show he had a city before he took part in giving opinions. He brought this up because Athens had been taken and was held.

2Then Themistocles said many and evil things to him and the Corinthians, and he made clear in words that they themselves had a city and a land greater than those, so long as they had two hundred ships manned; for nowhere could the Greeks drive them off if they came against them.

Chapter 62

1Having said this, he crossed over to Eurybiades, speaking words turned rather to him: "If you stay here, you will be a good man; if not, you will overthrow Greece; for the ships carry all our war. But believe me."

2"If you do not do this, we will take up our households as we are and go to Siris in Italy, which has been ours from ancient times, and the oracles say we must found it. And you, bereft of such allies, will remember my words."

Chapter 63

1While Themistocles said this, Eurybiades changed his mind. It seems to me that he changed chiefly from fear of the Athenians, lest they leave him if he brought the ships to the Isthmus. For if the Athenians left, the rest would no longer be worth fighting with. He chose this plan: that staying there they fight by sea.

Chapter 64

1So then, having skirmished in words about Salamis, when it pleased Eurybiades, they made ready there to fight. Day came, and with the rising sun there was an earthquake both on land and at sea.

2They resolved to pray to the gods and to call the sons of Aeacus to their aid. When they resolved this, they did it. Praying to all the gods, they called Ajax and Telamon from Salamis itself, and they sent a ship to Aegina for Ajax and the other sons of Aeacus.

Chapter 65

1Diceus son of Theocydes, an Athenian, an exile and at that time in good standing with the Medes, said this: when the land of Attica was being cut down by Xerxes' land army, and was empty of Athenians, he happened to be with Demaratus the Lacedaemonian in the Thriasian plain. He saw a dust cloud coming from Eleusis, as of about thirty thousand men, and they wondered whose men it could be. Then suddenly they heard a voice, and it seemed to Diceus that the voice was the mystic Iacchus.

2Demaratus did not know the rites done at Eleusis, and he asked him what this crying voice was. Diceus said: "Demaratus, it cannot be but that some great harm will come to the king's army. For these things are plain: with Attica empty, the voice is divine, and it goes from Eleusis to bring help to the Athenians and their allies."

3"And if it comes down on the Peloponnese, there will be danger for the king himself and for the army on the mainland. But if it turns on the ships at Salamis, the king will be in danger of losing his fleet."

4The Athenians hold this feast every year for the Mother and the Maiden. Whoever wishes among them and among the other Greeks is initiated into it; and the voice you heard is the cry "Iacche" which they raise at this feast. To these things Demaratus said:

5"Be silent, and tell this speech to no one else; for if these words are brought to the king, you will lose your head, and neither I nor any other man will be able to save you. But keep quiet; about this army the gods will take care."

6This advice he gave; and from the dust and the voice there came a cloud, and carried up into the air it went toward Salamis, to the camp of the Greeks. So they understood that the fleet of Xerxes was about to be destroyed. This Diceus son of Theocydes said, calling Demaratus and other witnesses.

Chapter 66

1Those appointed to Xerxes' fleet, when they had seen the Laconian blow from Trachis, crossed to Histiaea. Waiting three days, they sailed through the Euripus, and in three more days they were at Phalerum. As it seems to me, they came into Athens, both by land and arriving with their ships, in no smaller number than they had come to Sepias and to Thermopylae.

2For I will set against those destroyed by the storm, and those at Thermopylae, and the sea battles at Artemisium, these who then had not yet followed the king: the Malians and the Dorians and the Locrians and the Boeotians, following with their whole force except the Thespians and the Plataeans; and also the Carystians and the Andrians and the Tenians and all the other islanders, except the five cities whose names I mentioned before. For as the Persian advanced farther into Greece, that much more did peoples follow him.

Chapter 67

1So when all these had come to Athens, except the Parians, who had been left behind at Cythnos, watching how the war would turn out, the rest came to Phalerum. There Xerxes himself went down to the ships, wishing to meet with them and learn the opinions of those who were to sail out.

2When he came and took his seat, the tyrants and commanders of their peoples from the ships were summoned, and they sat in the order of honor the king had given to each: first the king of the Sidonians, next the Tyrian, then the others. When they sat in this order, Xerxes sent Mardonius and questioned each one, testing them, whether they should fight a sea battle.

Chapter 68

1When Mardonius went around asking, beginning with the Sidonian, all the others gave the same opinion, urging that a sea battle be fought. But Artemisia said this:

Chapter 68A

1"Tell the king this from me, Mardonius: I, who did worst in the sea battles off Euboea, and won least approval, say this. Master, it is right that I lay before you my true opinion, what I hold to be best for your affairs. And this is what I say: spare your ships, and do not fight a sea battle. For your men are as much better at sea than theirs as men are than women."

2"Why is it altogether needful for you to run risks in sea battles? You have not Athens, the thing for which you set out on this campaign; but you have the rest of Greece. No one stands in your way. Those who stood against you have met their end as was fitting for them."

Chapter 68B

1"And I will tell you how I think the affairs of your enemies will turn out. If you are not eager to fight a sea battle, but keep your ships here, staying near the land, or even advance into the Peloponnese, master, you will easily accomplish what you came intending."

2"For the Greeks cannot hold out against you for long, but you will scatter them, and they will flee each to his own city. For they have no food on this island, as I learn. Nor is it likely, if you drive your land army against the Peloponnese, that those of them who came from there will stay quiet; nor will they care to fight a sea battle in front of Athens."

Chapter 68C

1"But if you are eager to fight at once, I fear that the fleet, being beaten, will do harm to the land army too. And, king, lay this also in your mind: bad men are glad to become slaves of good men, and good men of bad men. You, being the best of all men, have bad slaves: those said to be in the rank of your allies, Egyptians and Cyprians and Cilicians and Pamphylians, and of them there is no use."

Chapter 69

1When she said this to Mardonius, those who were well disposed toward Artemisia grieved at her words, thinking she would suffer some evil from the king, because she did not let a sea battle be fought. Those who envied and resented her, because she was honored in the first rank of all the allies, were glad at her answer, expecting her to be destroyed.

2When the opinions were brought to Xerxes, he was very pleased with the opinion of Artemisia; and because he judged her to be in earnest even before, he praised her much more then. All the same, he ordered that the majority be followed. His judgment was this: that in front of Euboea they had played the coward because he was not present, but now he himself made ready to watch them fight.

Chapter 70

1When the order was given to sail up, they brought their ships out toward Salamis and formed up quietly, as they were drawn up. That day did not serve them to fight a sea battle, for night came on. They made ready for the next day.

2But the Greeks were held by fear and dread, not least those from the Peloponnese. They dreaded that they were sitting at Salamis, about to fight a sea battle over the land of the Athenians. If they were beaten, they would be caught on an island and besieged, having left their own land unguarded. And the land army of the foreigners was marching that very night toward the Peloponnese.

Chapter 71

1And yet they had contrived every means so that the foreigners should not invade by land. For as soon as the Peloponnesians learned that those with Leonidas had died at Thermopylae, they ran together from their cities to the Isthmus and settled there. Their commander was Cleombrotus son of Anaxandrides, brother of Leonidas.

2Settling at the Isthmus, they cut through the Scironian road; and after that, as it seemed good to them in counsel, they built a wall across the Isthmus. Since they were many myriads and every man was working, the work went forward. Stones and bricks and timber and baskets full of sand were carried up, and the helpers who had come never stopped working, neither by night nor by day.

Chapter 72

1Those who came to the Isthmus in full force were these Greeks: the Lacedaemonians and all the Arcadians and the Eleans and the Corinthians and the Epidaurians and the Phliasians and the Troezenians and the Hermionians. These were the ones who came, and they feared greatly for Greece in her danger. The other Peloponnesians cared nothing. The Olympic games and the Carneia had already gone by.

Chapter 73

1Seven peoples dwell in the Peloponnese. Of these, two are native, settled in the land now and long ago: the Arcadians and the Cynurians. One people, the Achaean, never left the Peloponnese, though it left its own land and dwells in another people's land.

2The remaining four peoples of the seven are immigrants: the Dorians and the Aetolians and the Dryopians and the Lemnians. The Dorians have many famous cities. Of the Aetolians, Elis alone. Of the Dryopians, Hermione and Asine, near Cardamyle in Laconia. Of the Lemnians, all the Paroreatae.

3The Cynurians, being natives, seem to be the only Ionians among them; but they were made Dorians by the rule of the Argives and by time. These are the Orneatae and their neighbors. Of these seven peoples, then, the remaining cities, except those I have listed, took the Persian side; and, if it is right to say it freely, they took it from being cowed.

Chapter 74

1The men at the Isthmus were holding on in that struggle, since by now they were running a race for everything and had no hope of getting any help from the ships. The men at Salamis heard about all this and were afraid, though they feared not so much for themselves as for the Peloponnese.

2For a while each man stood by another and spoke quietly, amazed at how badly Eurybiades was advised. In the end it all broke out into the open. A meeting was held, and the same points were made over and over. Some said that they should sail away to the Peloponnese and risk the fight there, and not stay and fight in front of land that could be taken by spear. The Athenians, the Aeginetans, and the Megarians said they should stay where they were and defend themselves.

Chapter 75

1Now when Themistocles was beaten in the vote by the Peloponnesians, he slipped out of the meeting without being noticed. Once outside, he sent a man to the Persian camp by boat, telling him what he had to say. The man's name was Sicinnus. He was a servant and the tutor of Themistocles' children. Later, after these events, Themistocles made him a citizen of Thespiae, since the Thespians took in new citizens, and also made him rich with money.

2When he arrived by boat, he said this to the foreign generals: "The general of the Athenians sent me in secret from the other Greeks—'for he favors the king and wants your side to come out on top rather than the side of the Greeks'—to tell you that the Greeks are planning to run away because they are afraid. Now you have the chance to win the finest victory of all, if you do not let them get away."

3"For they are not of one mind with each other, and they will not stand against you. You will see them fighting against each other at sea, those who favor your side and those who do not."

Chapter 76

1After he had given them this message, he went away out of sight. When the news that had been brought seemed trustworthy to them, first they landed many of the Persians on the little island called Psyttaleia, which lies between Salamis and the mainland. Then, when it was midnight, they brought out the wing at the west end and circled around toward Salamis. The ships stationed near Ceos and Cynosura came out too, and they held the whole strait with their ships as far as Munychia.

2They brought the ships out for these reasons: so that the Greeks would have no chance to escape at all, but would be trapped in Salamis and pay the price for their struggles at Artemisium. They landed the Persians on the little island called Psyttaleia for this reason: when a sea battle happened, the men and the wreckage would be carried there most of all, since the island lay in the channel where the sea battle was going to be, so that they could save some of the men and kill the rest.

3They did this in silence, so that the enemy would not find out. So all through the night the Persians made their preparations without sleeping at all.

Chapter 77

1I cannot argue that oracles are not true, since I do not want to try to disprove people who speak so plainly, when I look at events like these. "But when they bridge the holy headland of golden-sworded Artemis with ships, and sea-feeding Cynosura, in their mad hope, after sacking shining Athens, bright Justice will put out the strong boy, the son of outrage, terrible and raging, who thinks he will drink everything dry."

2"For bronze will be mixed with bronze, and Ares will redden the sea with blood. Then the day of freedom for Greece the far-seeing son of Cronus brings, and honored Victory." Since Bacis speaks of such things and speaks so plainly, I do not myself dare to speak against his oracles, and I do not accept such arguments from anyone else.

Chapter 78

1The generals at Salamis had a lot of hard words with each other. They did not yet know that the foreigners were surrounding them with their ships. They had seen them drawn up as they were during the day, so they thought the fleet was still sitting in the same place.

Chapter 79

1While the generals were in session, Aristides the son of Lysimachus crossed over from Aegina. He was an Athenian, but the people had ostracized him. From what I have learned of his character, I think that he was the best and most just man in Athens.

2This man went up to the council and called Themistocles out. Themistocles was not his friend but his worst enemy. Yet because of the size of the troubles they were in he forgot about that and called him out, wanting to talk with him. He had heard beforehand that the men from the Peloponnese were hurrying to take the ships away to the Isthmus.

3When Themistocles came out to him, Aristides said this: "At any other time we should be rivals, and even now we should be rivals over which of us will do more good for our country."

4"But I tell you that it makes no difference whether the Peloponnesians say much or little about sailing away from here. For I tell you as an eyewitness that now not even the Corinthians and Eurybiades himself will be able to sail out, even if they want to, because we are surrounded by the enemy all the way around. But go in and tell them this." And he answered with these words.

Chapter 80

1"Your advice is very good and your news is welcome. You have come and seen for yourself the very thing I wanted to happen. Learn from me what the Medes are doing. It had to be done, since the Greeks were unwilling to go into battle, to make them fight against their will. But since you have come with good news, tell them yourself."

2"For if I say these things myself, I will seem to be making them up, and I will not convince them, since the foreigners are not doing this. But go in yourself and tell them how things stand. When you have told them, if they believe you, this is the best outcome of all. If they do not find it trustworthy, it will be the same for us. For they will not get away any more, if we are surrounded on every side, as you say."

Chapter 81

1Then Aristides went in and spoke, saying that he had come from Aegina and had barely managed to sail out past the ships that were blockading them, because the whole Greek force was surrounded by the ships of Xerxes. He urged them to get ready to defend themselves. After saying this he stepped back. There was again a clash of arguments, because most of the generals did not believe the report.

Chapter 82

1While these men were in doubt, a trireme of Tenian men came over to desert. It was commanded by a man named Panaetius the son of Sosimenes, and this ship brought the whole truth. Because of this deed the Tenians were inscribed on the tripod at Delphi among those who defeated the foreigner.

2With this ship that deserted to Salamis, and with the Lemnian ship that had come over earlier at Artemisium, the Greek fleet was filled out to three hundred and eighty ships. Up to that point the count had been short by two ships.

Chapter 83

1When the words of the Tenians were now believed by the Greeks, they got ready to fight a sea battle. Dawn was breaking, and they held a gathering of the fighters, and Themistocles addressed them. His speech was the best of them all. Every word of it set the better choices against the worse ones, whatever lies within a person's nature and circumstances.

2He urged them to choose the better of these things, and when he had finished his speech, he told them to get on the ships. They did so. Then the trireme from Aegina arrived, the one that had gone on the voyage to the Aeacids.

Chapter 84

1Then the Greeks brought out all their ships. As they were putting out, the foreigners attacked them right away. The other Greeks backed water and ran their ships up on the shore. But Ameinias of Pallene, an Athenian, put out and rammed a ship. His ship got locked with the other one and they could not break free, so the rest joined the battle to help Ameinias.

2The Athenians say that this is how the sea battle began. The Aeginetans say that the ship which had gone on the voyage to the Aeacids, over to Aegina, was the one that began it. This is told as well: an apparition of a woman appeared to them, and once she appeared she called out so that the whole Greek force heard her, first reproaching them with these words: "You strange men, how much longer will you keep backing water?"

Chapter 85

1The Phoenicians were drawn up opposite the Athenians, since they held the wing toward Eleusis and the west. Opposite the Lacedaemonians were the Ionians. They held the side toward the east and the Piraeus. Yet a few of them fought badly on purpose, following the instructions of Themistocles, while most of them did not.

2I could list the names of many trierarchs who captured Greek ships, but I will use none of them except Theomestor the son of Androdamas and Phylacus the son of Histiaeus, both of them Samians.

3I remember only these men for this reason: Theomestor, because of this deed, became tyrant of Samos when the Persians set him up; and Phylacus was written down as a benefactor of the king and was given a great deal of land. The benefactors of the king are called orosagges in Persian.

Chapter 86

1That is how things stood around that part of the battle. Most of the ships were being destroyed off Salamis, some by Athenians and some by Aeginetans. Since the Greeks fought in order and in formation, while the foreigners were no longer in any order and did nothing with sense, the outcome was bound to be what it was. And yet on this day they were far better than they had been at Euboea, each man eager and afraid of Xerxes, and each one thinking that the king was watching him.

Chapter 87

1I cannot say for certain how each group of foreigners or of Greeks fought. But this is what happened in Artemisia's case, and it made her stand even higher in the king's favor.

2When the king's affairs fell into great confusion, at that moment Artemisia's ship was being chased by an Athenian ship. She could not get away, because there were friendly ships in front of hers, and her ship happened to be the one closest to the enemy. She decided to do the following, and doing it turned out well for her. As the Athenian ship chased her, she charged and rammed a friendly ship with Calyndian men on board, along with their king Damasithymus.

3Whether she had had some quarrel with him while they were still at the Hellespont, I cannot say, and I cannot say either whether she did this on purpose or whether the Calyndian ship simply happened to come in her way.

4When she had rammed it and sunk it, she had good luck and did herself two good turns at once. For when the captain of the Athenian ship saw her ramming a ship with foreign men on board, he decided that Artemisia's ship was either Greek or had deserted from the foreigners and was fighting on their side. So he turned away and went after other ships.

Chapter 88

1One good thing happened to her this way: she escaped and was not destroyed. Another was that even though she had done something bad, this was exactly what made her most highly regarded by Xerxes.

2It is said that the king was watching and saw her ship ramming another, and one of the men with him said, "Master, do you see how well Artemisia is fighting, and how she has sunk an enemy ship?" He asked whether the deed was really Artemisia's, and they said that it was, since they knew the mark on her ship clearly. They thought that the ship that had been destroyed was an enemy ship.

3Everything else too turned out in her favor, as I have said, and the fact that no one from the Calyndian ship survived to be a witness against her. Xerxes is said to have replied to what they told him: "My men have become women, and my women men." That is what they say Xerxes said.

Chapter 89

1In this struggle Ariabignes the son of Darius died, a commander and a brother of Xerxes. So did many other famous Persians, Medes, and other allies, and a few Greeks as well. Since the Greeks knew how to swim, when their ships were destroyed and they were not killed in close fighting, they swam over to Salamis.

2Most of the foreigners died in the sea because they could not swim. When the first ships turned to flee, most were destroyed. The ships stationed behind tried to sail past those in front, wanting to show the king some deed of their own, and they crashed into their own ships as they fled.

Chapter 90

1This too happened in the confusion. Some of the Phoenicians whose ships had been lost came to the king and accused the Ionians, saying that the ships were lost because of them, since they had betrayed. It turned out this way: the Ionian commanders were not killed, and the Phoenicians who accused them got the following reward.

2While they were still saying this, a Samothracian ship rammed an Athenian ship. The Athenian ship was sinking, and an Aeginetan ship coming up sank the Samothracian ship. The Samothracians are good javelin throwers. They threw javelins at the men on board the ship that had sunk theirs and knocked them overboard, then they boarded it and took it.

3This is what saved the Ionians. When Xerxes saw that they had done a great deed, he turned against the Phoenicians, since he was beyond angry and blamed everyone, and he ordered their heads cut off, so that men who had shown themselves to be cowards would not slander better men.

4For whenever Xerxes saw one of his own men doing some deed in the sea battle, as he sat under the mountain opposite Salamis called Aegaleos, he would ask who had done it, and the scribes wrote down the trierarch with his father's name and his city. On top of this, Ariaramnes, a Persian who was a friend of the king and was present at this trouble of the Phoenicians, added something too. That is how it went with the Phoenicians.

Chapter 91

1When the foreigners turned to flee and sailed out toward Phalerum, the Aeginetans took their stand in the strait and did deeds worth talking about. The Athenians in the confusion destroyed both the ships that stood up to them and the ships that were fleeing, while the Aeginetans destroyed the ones sailing out. Whenever any got past the Athenians, they were carried right into the Aeginetans.

Chapter 92

1Here the ship of Themistocles, chasing a ship, met up with the ship of Polycritus the son of Crius, an Aeginetan, which had rammed a Sidonian ship. That was the very ship that had captured the Aeginetan ship on guard off Sciathos, on which sailed Pytheus the son of Ischenous. The Persians had cut him to pieces and kept him on the ship, marveling at his courage. That Sidonian ship, carrying Pytheus along with the Persians, was captured, and so Pytheus was saved and came to Aegina.

2When Polycritus saw the Athenian ship, he knew it from the flag on the flagship. He shouted at Themistocles and mocked him, taunting him with the Aeginetans' siding with the Persians. This is what Polycritus threw at Themistocles after ramming the ship. The foreigners whose ships survived got away and came to Phalerum under the protection of the land army.

Chapter 93

1In this sea battle the Aeginetans won the most glory among the Greeks, and after them the Athenians. Among the men the best were Polycritus of Aegina and, of the Athenians, Eumenes of Anagyrus and Ameinias of Pallene, the one who chased Artemisia. If he had known that Artemisia was sailing on that ship, he would not have stopped before he either captured her or been captured himself.

2The Athenian trierarchs had been ordered to go after her, and a prize of ten thousand drachmas was offered to whoever took her alive, because they thought it a terrible thing that a woman had campaigned against Athens. She got away, as I said before. The others whose ships survived were at Phalerum.

Chapter 94

1The Athenians say that Adeimantus, the Corinthian general, right at the beginning, when the ships were joining battle, was panic-stricken and greatly afraid. He hoisted his sails and fled. When the Corinthians saw the flagship fleeing, they left in the same way.

2As they fled off Salamis near the temple of Athena Sciras, a light boat came to meet them, sent by the gods. No one was seen to have sent it, and nothing from the army was known to them, the Corinthians. This is how they figure that the thing was divine. When the boat came close to the ships, the men on board said this:

3"Adeimantus, you turned the ships around and set off to run, betraying the Greeks. But the Greeks are winning, as much as they prayed for, over their enemies." When he did not believe them, they said again that they themselves were ready to be taken as hostages and die, if it did not turn out that the Greeks were winning.

4So he turned the ship around, and he and the rest came to the camp after the work was done. This is the story the Athenians tell about these men. The Corinthians do not agree, but say that they were among the first in the sea battle, and the rest of Greece bears them out.

Chapter 95

1Aristides the son of Lysimachus, the Athenian, whom I mentioned a little before this as the best of men—this is what he did in the confusion that happened at Salamis. He took over many of the hoplites who had been drawn up along the shore of Salamis, Athenians by birth, and landed them on the island of Psyttaleia. There they killed all the Persians on that little island.

Chapter 96

1When the sea battle was over, the Greeks towed to Salamis whatever wreckage was still lying there, and they were ready for another sea battle, expecting the king to use his remaining ships.

2Much of the wreckage was picked up by the west wind and carried to the Attic shore called Colias. So every oracle about this sea battle that had been spoken by Bacis and Musaeus came true, and so did the saying spoken many years before this to Lysistratus, an Athenian man who gave oracles, which all the Greeks had overlooked: "The women of Colias will cook with oars." This was going to happen after the king was driven off.

Chapter 97

1When Xerxes learned of the disaster that had happened, he was afraid that one of the Ionians might suggest to the Greeks, or that the Greeks might think of it themselves, to sail to the Hellespont and break up the bridges. Then he would be cut off in Europe and risk being destroyed. So he planned to run away. But he did not want either the Greeks or his own men to see any sign of this. He tried to build a causeway out to Salamis, and he tied Phoenician cargo boats together so that they would serve as both a bridge and a wall. He also got ready for war, as if he were going to fight another sea battle.

2All the others who saw him doing these things were firmly convinced that he had made every preparation and was going to stay and fight. But none of this escaped Mardonius, since he knew Xerxes' mind better than anyone else.

Chapter 98

1While Xerxes was doing these things, he also sent a messenger to Persia to report the disaster that had come upon them. Of all things that live, nothing arrives faster than these messengers. The Persians have found this system for themselves. They say that for however many days the whole journey takes, that many horses and men are posted at one-day intervals, with a horse and a man assigned to each day's stretch. Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor night keeps them from finishing the course set before them as fast as they can.

2The first runner hands his orders to the second, the second to the third, and after that the message is passed on from one man to another. It works like the torch race that the Greeks hold in honor of Hephaestus. The Persians call this running of the horses the angareion.

Chapter 99

1When the first news reached Susa, that Xerxes held Athens, it delighted the Persians who had been left behind so much that they spread myrtle on all the roads, burned incense, and gave themselves up to sacrifices and celebrations.

2But when the second message arrived, it threw them into such confusion that they all tore their clothes and cried out endlessly in grief, putting the blame on Mardonius. The Persians did this not so much because they were upset about the ships as because they were afraid for Xerxes himself.

Chapter 100

1This is how things went with the Persians during all the time in between, until Xerxes himself arrived and put a stop to it. Mardonius saw that Xerxes took the sea battle as a great disaster, and he suspected that Xerxes was planning to run away from Athens. He thought it over and realized that he would pay the penalty for persuading the king to march against Greece. He decided it was better to take the risk again: either to conquer Greece, or to end his own life nobly after staking everything on great prizes. Still, his judgment leaned toward conquering Greece. With this in mind, he put forward the following proposal.

2"My lord, do not grieve, and do not treat what has happened as any great disaster. What carries the day for us is not a contest of wood but of men and horses. Not one of those people who now think they have won everything will come down from their ships and try to stand against you, and no one on this mainland will either. Those who did stand against us have paid the price."

3"So if it seems good to you, let us attack the Peloponnese at once. If you think it better to wait, that can be done too. Do not lose heart. There is no way out for the Greeks: they must give an account for what they have done now and before, and become your slaves. This is the best course. But if you have decided to march away and lead the army home, I have another plan for you even so."

4"Do not let the Persians, my king, become a laughingstock to the Greeks. Nothing on the Persian side has gone wrong. You cannot say that we were bad soldiers anywhere. If the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Cypriots and Cilicians were bad, that disaster has nothing to do with the Persians."

5"So now, since the Persians are not to blame, listen to me. If you have decided not to stay, march back to your own country and take most of the army with you. I will hand Greece over to you, already enslaved, once I have picked thirty myriads from the army."

Chapter 101

1When Xerxes heard this, he was glad and pleased despite all his troubles. He talked it over with Mardonius and said he would give his answer about which of the two he would do. As he was deliberating with the Persian advisers he had called in, he decided to send for Artemisia as well to give her opinion, because earlier she had been the only one who showed she understood what should be done.

2When Artemisia arrived, Xerxes sent everyone else away, both the Persian advisers and the bodyguards, and said this: "Mardonius urges me to stay where I am and try my luck against the Peloponnese. He says that the Persians and the army on land share none of the blame for the disaster, and that they can prove this if they are given the chance."

3"So he either urges me to do this, or he himself is willing to pick thirty myriads from the army and hand Greece over to me already enslaved, and he tells me to march back to my own country with the rest of the army."

4"So give me your advice. You gave good advice about the sea battle that was fought, when you told me not to fight it. Now tell me which of these two things to do, so that I make the right choice."

Chapter 102

1He asked her this, and she said: "My king, it is hard for someone giving advice to hit on the very best answer. But given how things stand now, I think you should march back home yourself, and leave Mardonius here with whatever troops he wants, if he is willing and promises to carry this through."

2"First, if he conquers what he says he wants to conquer and things go the way he plans, the achievement is yours, my lord, because it was your slaves who did it. Second, if things turn out against Mardonius' plan, it will be no great disaster, since you and your own house will still be safe,"

3"for if you and your house survive, the Greeks will have many battles to fight, many times over, among themselves. If Mardonius comes to harm, it does not matter at all. Even if the Greeks win, they win nothing, since they have only destroyed one of your slaves. You will march away after burning Athens, having achieved the aims for which you made the expedition."

Chapter 103

1Xerxes was delighted with her advice, because she happened to be saying exactly what he had in mind himself. For even if everyone, men and women alike, had urged him to stay, he would not have stayed, in my opinion. That is how terrified he was. He praised Artemisia and sent her off to Ephesus in charge of his children, for he had some illegitimate sons with him.

Chapter 104

1He sent along with his children a guard named Hermotimus, who came from Pedasus and held the highest standing of all the eunuchs at the king's court. [The people of Pedasus live above Halicarnassus. In this Pedasus the following thing is said to happen: whenever something terrible is about to happen to all the people who live around that city, the priestess of Athena there grows a large beard. This has happened to them twice already.]

Chapter 105

1[This Hermotimus was one of those people of Pedasus,] and he got the fullest revenge for a wrong done to him of any man we know. He had been captured by enemies and was being sold when he was bought by Panionius, a man from Chios, who made his living from the most unholy deeds. Whenever he got hold of boys who were good-looking, he castrated them and took them off to sell in Sardis and Ephesus for large sums.

2Among the foreigners eunuchs are more highly regarded than other men, because they are completely trustworthy. Panionius castrated many others besides, since this was how he made his living, and Hermotimus as well. But Hermotimus was not unlucky in everything. He came from Sardis to the king as one of a gift of other presents, and as time went on he was honored above all the eunuchs at Xerxes' court.

Chapter 106

1While the king was at Sardis and set the Persian army in motion against Athens, Hermotimus went down into Mysia on some business, to the land the Chians occupy, which is called Atarneus. There he found Panionius.

2When he recognized him, Hermotimus spoke to him many friendly words. First he listed all the good things he enjoyed thanks to Panionius. Then he promised to do him many good turns in return if he brought his household and settled there. Panionius gladly accepted these words and brought his children and his wife.

3Once he had taken in the whole family, Hermotimus said this: "You, the man of all men who has built your life on the most unholy deeds—what wrong did I do to you, or any of my ancestors to any of yours, that you made me, who was a man, into nothing? You thought then that you could hide from the gods what you were plotting. But they saw you commit unholy acts. Applying their just rule, they brought you into my hands, so that you will have no complaint against the punishment you will get from me."

4After he had thrown these reproaches at him, Panionius' four children were brought into his sight, and he was forced to cut off their private parts. Under force he did it. Then, once he had done this, his children were forced to cut off his own private parts. That is how retribution and Hermotimus caught up with Panionius.

Chapter 107

1After Xerxes had entrusted the children to Artemisia to take to Ephesus, he called for Mardonius and told him to pick whatever men he wanted from the army, and to try to make his deeds match his words. That is as far as that day went. During the night, on the king's orders, the commanders took the ships back from Phalerum to the Hellespont as fast as each could sail, so that they could guard the pontoons for the king's crossing.

2When the foreigners were sailing near Zoster—thin headlands of this mainland run out there—they took them for ships and fled a long way. In time they realized that these were headlands and not ships, so they gathered together again and went on their way.

Chapter 108

1When day came, the Greeks saw that the army on land was staying where it was, and they expected that the ships too were still around Phalerum. They thought there would be another sea battle, and they got ready to defend themselves. When they learned that the ships had gone, they decided at once to give chase. They did not sight Xerxes' fleet as they pursued it as far as Andros. When they reached Andros, they took counsel.

2Themistocles proposed that they should turn aside through the islands, pursue the ships, and then sail straight to the Hellespont to break up the bridges. Eurybiades took the opposite view. He said that if they broke up the pontoons, that would cause Greece the greatest disaster of all.

3For if the Persian were forced to stay in Europe, he would try not to keep still. If he keeps still, none of his plans can advance and there will be no way for him to get his army home; his army will be destroyed by hunger. But if he takes action and gets to work, everything in Europe could come over to him, city by city and people by people, either by being conquered or by coming to terms before that happens. And they would always have the yearly harvest of the Greeks for food.

4But in fact, he thought, since the Persian was beaten in the sea battle, he would not stay in Europe. So they should let him run away until he came in flight to his own country. After that, he urged, the struggle should be over that country. The other Peloponnesian commanders also held to this view.

Chapter 109

1When Themistocles saw that he would not persuade the majority to sail to the Hellespont, he turned to the Athenians (they were the ones most bitter at the enemy's escape, and they were ready to sail to the Hellespont on their own, if the others did not want to) and said this to them:

2"I myself have been present at events like this many times, and I have heard of many more: men driven into a corner, defeated, who fought back and recovered from their earlier disaster. But we—since we have saved ourselves and Greece, a great prize, by pushing back such a cloud of men—let us not chase men who are running away.

3We did not bring this about; the gods and heroes did. They refused to let one man, a godless and reckless one, be king of both Asia and Europe. He treated sacred and private things alike, burning and tearing down the images of the gods. He even whipped the sea and threw fetters into it.

4But things are going well for us now as they are. For the moment, let us stay in Greece and look after ourselves and our households. Let each man rebuild his home and take care of his sowing, now that we have driven the foreigner out completely. Then in the spring let us sail to the Hellespont and Ionia."

5He said this because he planned to build up credit with the Persian, so that if some misfortune ever came to him from the Athenians, he would have a way out. And that is exactly what happened.

Chapter 110

1Themistocles strung them along with these words, and the Athenians obeyed him. Since he had already been judged a wise man and had proved himself truly wise and a good adviser, they were completely ready to do as he said.

2Once he had won them over, right away Themistocles sent off men with a boat, men he trusted to keep silent under any kind of torture, to tell the king what he had instructed. His servant Sicinnus was among them again. When they reached Attica, the others stayed by the boat, and Sicinnus went up to Xerxes and said this:

3"Themistocles son of Neocles sent me. He is the general of the Athenians and the best and wisest man of all the allies. He has sent me to tell you that Themistocles the Athenian, who wishes to serve you, stopped the Greeks from pursuing the ships and from breaking up the bridges at the Hellespont. So now you can go on your way in complete peace." When they had delivered this message, they sailed back.

Chapter 111

1The Greeks, once they had decided neither to chase the foreigners' ships any further nor to sail to the Hellespont to break up the crossing, laid siege to Andros, wanting to take it.

2The Andrians were the first of the islanders to refuse when Themistocles asked them for money. He put this argument to them: the Athenians had come with two great gods on their side, Persuasion and Force, so the Andrians really had to give the money. They answered that it made sense that Athens was great and prosperous, since it had come with such good gods to help it,

3while the Andrians had very little land, poor to the highest degree, and two useless gods never left their island but always stayed there, Poverty and Helplessness. Since the Andrians had these gods, they would not give money; the power of the Athenians would never be stronger than their own powerlessness.

Chapter 112

1This was their answer, and since they did not give the money they were placed under siege. Themistocles never stopped working for his own gain. He sent threatening messages to the other islands and demanded money through the same messengers he had used with the king, saying that if they did not pay what he asked, he would bring the Greek army against them and take them by siege.

2With these demands he collected great sums from the people of Carystus and Paros. They had heard that Andros was being besieged because it had sided with the Medes, and that Themistocles held the highest reputation among the commanders. Frightened by this, they sent money. Whether any other islanders also paid, I cannot say. I think some others did pay as well, and not only these.

3And yet paying did not save the people of Carystus from this trouble. The people of Paros, however, appeased Themistocles with money and got away from the army. So Themistocles, operating from Andros, collected money from the islanders in secret, without the other commanders knowing.

Chapter 113

1Xerxes and his men waited a few days after the sea battle and then set out for Boeotia by the same road. Mardonius thought it best to send the king on ahead, and also that it was the wrong time of year for war. It would be better to spend the winter in Thessaly and then, at the beginning of spring, to try the Peloponnese.

2When they reached Thessaly, Mardonius began to pick his troops. First he chose all the Persians called the Immortals, except for their commander Hydarnes, who said he would not leave the king. Then, from the rest of the Persians, he chose the men in body armor and the thousand horsemen; and the Medes, the Sacae, the Bactrians and the Indians, both infantry and the rest of the cavalry.

3He took these peoples in full. From the rest of the allies he picked men a few at a time, choosing by their looks and by whether he knew a man had done something good. The one people he chose in the largest numbers was the Persians, the men who wear gold necklaces and bracelets. After them came the Medes, who were no fewer than the Persians but less strong. So the whole force came to thirty myriads, including the cavalry.

Chapter 114

1During this time, while Mardonius was sorting out the army and Xerxes was still in Thessaly, an oracle had come from Delphi to the Lacedaemonians, telling them to demand that Xerxes pay the penalty for the killing of Leonidas and to accept whatever he offered for it. The Spartans sent a herald as fast as they could. He found the whole army still in Thessaly. Coming into Xerxes' presence, he said this:

2"King of the Medes, the Lacedaemonians and the descendants of Heracles from Sparta demand that you pay the penalty for murder, because you killed their king while he was defending Greece." Xerxes laughed and stayed silent for a long time. Then, since Mardonius happened to be standing near him, he pointed at him and said: "Then this Mardonius here will give them the penalty that fits them."

Chapter 115

1He took the message and went off. Xerxes left Mardonius in Thessaly and himself marched fast to the Hellespont, and he reached the crossing place in forty-five days, taking along no part of the army to speak of.

2Wherever they traveled and among whatever people they came, they seized those people's crops and ate them. If they found no crops, they ate the grass that grew up from the ground, stripped the bark off the trees and plucked the leaves, both of the tame kinds and of the wild, and they left nothing. They did this because they were starving.

3Plague and dysentery also seized the army and destroyed it on the road. Those of the men who were sick he left behind, ordering the cities wherever he came to look after them and feed them—some in Thessaly, some in Siris in Paeonia, and some in Macedonia.

4There too he left behind the sacred chariot of Zeus, which he had left there when he drove against Greece, and on his way back he did not get it back. The Paeonians had given it to the Thracians, and when Xerxes demanded it back they said that the mares had been carried off while they were grazing by the Thracians of the interior, who live around the sources of the Strymon.

Chapter 116

1There the king of the Bisaltians, a Thracian from the Crestonian land, did a remarkable deed. He said that he would not willingly serve Xerxes, but went off up into the mountain of Rhodope, and he forbade his sons to campaign against Greece.

2They paid no attention, or else they simply felt like seeing the war, and campaigned along with the Persian. When they came back safe and sound, all six of them, their father dug out their eyes for this reason.

Chapter 117

1These men got this as their reward. The Persians traveled out of Thrace and reached the crossing place; in their hurry they crossed the Hellespont to Abydos in the ships, because they found the rafts no longer stretched in place but broken up by storms.

2There they settled down and got more food than they had on the road, and they stuffed themselves with no restraint and kept changing their drinking water, so many of the army that was left died. The rest arrived at Sardis together with Xerxes.

Chapter 118

1There is also this other story told: that when Xerxes withdrew from Athens and came to Eion on the Strymon, he no longer used the road from there, but handed the army over to Hydarnes to lead to the Hellespont, while he himself boarded a Phoenician ship and sailed to Asia.

2As he sailed, a strong wind from the Strymon caught him, with heavy seas. Since the ship was loaded, he was tossed about all the more, and there were many of the Persians who sailed with him on the deck. In his fear the king called out to the helmsman and asked him whether there was any way for them to be saved.

3The helmsman said, "Master, there is none, unless some of these many passengers are got rid of." Xerxes is said to have heard this and said, "Persian men, now let one of you show that he cares for the king. For my safety lies in your hands."

4He said this; the men bowed to him and leapt into the sea, and the ship, lightened in this way, reached Asia safely. As soon as Xerxes got onto land he did this: because the helmsman had saved the king's life, he rewarded him with a golden crown, but because he had killed many Persians, he cut off his head.

Chapter 119

1This is another story told about Xerxes' return, and I find it quite unbelievable, both in general and in this claim about the fate of the Persians. For if those words were really spoken by the helmsman to Xerxes, out of ten thousand opinions I have not a single one against the view that the king would have done something like this: he would have made the Persians on the deck go down into the hull, though they were Persians and the leading Persians at that, and since the rowers were Phoenicians, he would have thrown overboard a number of them equal to the Persians. But he, as I have said before, made his way back to Asia by road along with the rest of the army.

Chapter 120

1Here is another strong proof. On his way back Xerxes evidently came to Abdera, and he made a guest-friendship agreement with the people there and gave them gifts, a golden akinakes and a gold-spangled tiara. And as the Abderites themselves say—though I do not find them at all believable—he first unbuckled his belt when he was fleeing back from Athens, feeling that he was safe. Abdera lies nearer to the Hellespont than to the Strymon and Eion, where they say he boarded the ship.

Chapter 121

1The Greeks could not take Andros, so they turned to Carystus, ravaged the territory there, and then left for Salamis. First, then, they set aside first fruits for the gods, among other things three Phoenician triremes: one was to be set up at the Isthmus, and it was still there in my time; one at Sunium; and one to Ajax, right there at Salamis.

2After this they divided up the plunder, and they sent the first fruits to Delphi. From them was made a statue holding the figurehead of a ship in its hand, twelve cubits in height. It stands in the same place as the golden statue of Alexander of Macedon.

Chapter 122

1The Greeks sent the first fruits to Delphi and asked the god in common whether he had received the first fruits in full and found them acceptable. He said that he had received them from the other Greeks, but not from the Aeginetans, and he demanded from them the prize of valor for the sea battle at Salamis. When the Aeginetans learned of this, they dedicated golden stars, three of them, standing on a bronze mast at the corner, closest to the mixing bowl of Croesus.

Chapter 123

1After the division of the plunder, the Greeks sailed to the Isthmus to give the prize of valor to the man among the Greeks who had proved himself most worthy in this war.

2When the generals arrived and cast their votes at the altar of Poseidon, judging the first and the second best out of all of them, every one of them voted for himself, since each man thought that he had done best, while most of them came together on Themistocles for second place. So they fell out with one another, and Themistocles came far ahead in second place.

Chapter 124

1The Greeks were unwilling to settle this, out of jealousy, and each of them sailed off home without a decision. Even so, Themistocles was proclaimed and famous throughout all Greece as by far the wisest of the Greeks.

2Because he won the vote but got no honor from the men who fought at Salamis, he went to Lacedaemon right after this, wanting to be honored. The Lacedaemonians received him well and honored him greatly. As a prize of valor they gave Eurybiades a crown of olive, and to Themistocles, for wisdom and skill, a crown of olive as well. They also gave him a chariot, the finest one in Sparta.

3After giving him much praise, they sent him off on his way with three hundred picked Spartans, the men who are called the Knights, as far as the borders of Tegea. He is the only one of all the people we know about whom the Spartans ever sent on his way like this.

Chapter 125

1When he came from Lacedaemon to Athens, Timodemus of Aphidna, who was one of the enemies of Themistocles but otherwise not a man of note, railed at Themistocles in a jealous rage, throwing in his face the trip to Lacedaemon and claiming that he held the honors from the Lacedaemonians because of Athens and not because of himself.

2When Timodemus would not stop saying these things, Themistocles said, "This is how it is. If I had been a man of Belbina, the Spartans would not have honored me like this, and if you were an Athenian, my good man, they would not have honored you either." That is as far as this went.

Chapter 126

1Artabazus son of Pharnaces, a man of standing among the Persians before, and even more so after the events at Plataea, held sixty thousand troops of the army that Mardonius had picked out, and he escorted the king as far as the crossing.

2When the king was in Asia and Artabazus was marching back and had reached Pallene, since Mardonius was wintering around Thessaly and Macedonia and there was nothing yet pressing him to come to the main army, he did not think it right to come upon the Potidaeans in revolt and not enslave them.

3For the Potidaeans had openly broken away from the foreigners as soon as the king had passed by and the Persian fleet had fled from Salamis, and so had the others who hold Pallene.

Chapter 127

1Then Artabazus laid siege to Potidaea. Suspecting that the people of Olynthus were also rebelling against the king, he besieged that place too. It was held by Bottiaeans who had been driven out of the Thermaic gulf by the Macedonians. When he took it by siege, he led the people out to a lake and cut them down, and he handed the city over to Critobulus of Torone to govern, along with the Chalcidian race, and this is how the Chalcidians came to hold Olynthus.

Chapter 128

1After taking that place, Artabazus pressed hard on Potidaea. As he pressed on eagerly, Timoxenus, the general of the Scionaeans, agreed to betray the place to him. In what way it started I cannot say—for no story is told—but the end of it was this. Whenever Timoxenus wanted to write a letter and send it to Artabazus, or Artabazus wanted to write one and send it to Timoxenus, they wrapped the letter around an arrow by the notch and put feathers on it, and shot it to an agreed place.

2Timoxenus was found out in his betrayal of Potidaea. Artabazus shot at the agreed place, missed it, and hit a Potidaean man in the shoulder. A crowd ran around the man who was hit, as tends to happen in war, and at once they took the arrow; when they learned about the letter, they carried it to the generals. There was also an allied force of the other Palleneans there.

3When the generals had read the letter and found out who was responsible for the betrayal, they decided not to expose Timoxenus for the betrayal, for the sake of the city of the Scionaeans, so that the Scionaeans would not be thought to be traitors forever after.

Chapter 129

1That is how he was found out. When Artabazus had been besieging for three months, there was a great ebb of the sea that lasted a long time. The foreigners saw that a stretch of dry ground had appeared and walked over to Pallene.

2When they had covered two parts of the way and three were still left, the parts they had to cross to be safe inside Pallene, a great flood of the sea came on, greater, as the local people say, than any of the many times it happens. Those of them who could not swim were destroyed, and the Potidaeans sailed out in boats and killed those who could swim.

3The Potidaeans say that the cause of the ebb and of the flood and of the Persian disaster was this: these Persians, the very ones who were destroyed by the sea, had sinned against the temple and the image of Poseidon in the suburb. And in my opinion the reason they give is a good one. Artabazus led the survivors off to Thessaly, to Mardonius. That is what happened to the men who had escorted the king.

Chapter 130

1The fleet of Xerxes that had survived fled from Salamis and reached Asia, and after it had ferried the king and the army across from the Chersonese to Abydos, it wintered at Cyme. When spring came early in the year, the ships gathered at Samos, and some of them had wintered there. Most of the men on board were Persians and Medes.

2Their commanders were Mardontes son of Bagaeus and Artayntes son of Artachaees, and Ithamitres also shared the command with them, the nephew of Artayntes, whom he had taken as his partner. Since they had been badly beaten, they did not advance any further west, and no one forced them to. They sat at Samos and kept watch that Ionia should not revolt, having three hundred ships including the Ionian ones.

3Nor did they expect the Greeks to come to Ionia at all; they thought it would be enough for them to guard their own territory, judging by the fact that the Greeks had not pursued them when they fled from Salamis but were glad to be off. So at sea they were beaten in spirit, but on land they thought Mardonius would win by a wide margin.

4While they were at Samos, they both worked out whether they could do any harm to the enemy and kept listening for news of how Mardonius' affairs would fall out.

Chapter 131

1The coming of spring stirred the Greeks, and so did Mardonius, who was in Thessaly. The land army had not gathered yet, but the fleet arrived at Aegina, one hundred and ten ships in number.

2The general and admiral was Leotychides son of Menares, son of Hegesilaus, son of Hippocratides, son of Leotychides, son of Anaxilaus, son of Archidamus, son of Anaxandrides, son of Theopompus, son of Nicander, son of Charilaus, son of Eunomus, son of Polydectes, son of Prytanis, son of Euryphon, son of Procles, son of Aristodemus, son of Aristomachus, son of Cleodaeus, son of Hyllus, son of Heracles; he was of the other house of the kings.

3All of these became kings of Sparta, except for the seven listed first after Leotychides. The Athenian general was Xanthippus son of Arriphron.

Chapter 132

1When all the ships came to Aegina, messengers from the Ionians arrived at the Greek camp. These were men who had come to Sparta a little before this and asked the Lacedaemonians to set Ionia free.

2Herodotus son of Basileides was one of them. They had banded together and were plotting the death of Strattis, the tyrant of Chios, being seven in the first place. When the plot became obvious, because one of those in it let the attempt out, the remaining six got away out of Chios and came to Sparta and then to Aegina as well, asking the Greeks to sail to Ionia. The Greeks got them to move forward only as far as Delos.

3Everything beyond that was dangerous for the Greeks, who had no experience of those regions, and everything seemed full of troops; they believed that Samos was as far off as the Pillars of Heracles. It so happened that the foreigners, out of fear, did not dare to sail further west than Samos, while the Greeks, though the Chians wanted it, would not go further east than Delos. So fear held the ground in between them.

Chapter 133

1The Greeks sailed to Delos, while Mardonius was wintering in Thessaly. Setting out from there, he sent a man of European race named Mys to the oracles, instructing him to visit them all and consult every one he could. What he wanted to find out from the oracles when he gave these orders I cannot say—for no story is told—but I think he sent him to ask about the situation at hand and about nothing else.

Chapter 134

1This Mys is known to have come to Lebadea and, by paying one of the local men, to have gone down to Trophonius; and he came to Abae in Phocis, to the oracle. When he came first to Thebes, he consulted Apollo Ismenius—for there one can seek an oracle from the victims, just as at Olympia—and he also paid a foreigner, not a Theban, and had him sleep at the shrine of Amphiaraus.

2No Theban is allowed to seek an oracle there, for this reason. Amphiaraus ordered them through an oracle to choose which of these two they wanted: to use him as a seer or to use him as an ally, giving up the other. They chose him to be their ally. That is why no Theban is allowed to go down and sleep there.

Chapter 135

1At that time the Thebans say that a thing I find most surprising happened. The European Mys, who was going around all the oracles, also came to the sanctuary of Apollo Ptoos. This shrine is called Ptoos, and it belongs to the Thebans; it lies above the Copaic lake, on a mountain very near the city of Acraephia.

2When this man called Mys entered the shrine, three chosen men of the townspeople followed him from the community, to write down whatever the god was going to say, and at once the prophet began to give his oracle in a foreign tongue.

3The Thebans who followed were amazed to hear a foreign language instead of Greek, and they did not know what to make of what was happening. But the European Mys snatched from them the tablet they carried and wrote on it what the prophet said. He declared that the god was giving the oracle in the Carian tongue. When he had written it down, he left and went back to Thessaly.

Chapter 136

1After Mardonius had read what the oracles were saying, he sent a messenger to Athens, Alexander son of Amyntas, a Macedonian, partly because the Persians were connected to him by marriage. Bubares, a Persian, had married Gygaea, Alexander's sister and the daughter of Amyntas, and she had borne him a son, Amyntas, who was in Asia and bore his mother's father's name; the king had given him the great city of Alabanda in Phrygia to hold. And Mardonius sent him also because he had learned that Alexander was a guest-friend and benefactor of Athens.

2For he thought that this was above all how he would win the Athenians over. He heard that they were a large population and brave, and he knew that it was mainly the Athenians who had brought about the disasters that happened to the Persians at sea.

3If they joined him, he hoped he would easily control the sea—which would indeed have been the case—and he thought he was far stronger on land. In this way he reckoned that his position would be superior to that of the Greeks. And perhaps these oracles were also telling him this in advance, advising him to make the Athenian his ally. It was in obedience to them that he sent.

Chapter 137

1Perdiccas, the seventh ancestor of this Alexander, won the tyranny of the Macedonians in this way. Three brothers, descendants of Temenus, fled from Argos to the Illyrians: Gauanes, Aeropus, and Perdiccas. From Illyria they crossed over into upper Macedonia and came to the city of Lebaea.

2There they served the king for pay as hired workers. One of them tended the horses, another the cattle, and Perdiccas, the youngest of them, the small sheep. The king's wife herself cooked their food. For in early times even the ruling houses of men were weak in money, and not only the common people.

3Whenever she baked, the loaf of the boy servant Perdiccas became twice its own size. Since the same thing happened every time, she told her husband. When he heard it, it came to him at once that this was a portent and meant something great. He called the hired men and told them to leave his land.

4They said it would be fair for them to leave only after they had received their pay. Then the king heard this talk of pay. The sun was shining down into the house through the smoke hole. He spoke as if a god had struck him and said: "I give you the pay you deserve. Take the sun."

5Gauanes and Aeropus, the older two, stood stunned when they heard this. But the boy happened to have a knife. He said: "We accept, king, what you give." Then he traced a circle with the knife around the sunlight on the floor of the house, and when he had traced it, he scooped the sunlight up into his lap three times, and he and those with him left.

Chapter 138

1So they went away. But one of the king's counselors told him what a great thing the boy had done, and how the youngest had taken what was given on purpose, meaning something by it. When the king heard this, he took the point at once and sent riders after them to kill them. There is a river in that land, and the descendants of these men from Argos sacrifice to it as their savior.

2Once the Temenids had crossed it, the river ran so high that the riders could not get across. The brothers came to another land of Macedonia and settled near the gardens said to belong to Midas son of Gordias. Roses grow there of their own accord, each with sixty petals, and they smell sweeter than all other roses.

3The Macedonians say that Silenus was caught in these gardens too. Above the gardens lies a mountain called Bermion, which no one can cross in winter. The brothers made their start from there, and once they had won that land, they subdued the rest of Macedonia as well.

Chapter 139

1Alexander was descended from this Perdiccas as follows: Alexander was the son of Amyntas, and Amyntas the son of Alcetas; Alcetas' father was Aeropus; his son was Philip; Philip's son was Argaeus; and his son was Perdiccas, who won the rule.

Chapter 140A

1That, then, was how Alexander son of Amyntas had come to be. When he arrived in Athens, sent by Mardonius, he said this: "Men of Athens, Mardonius says this: a message has come to me from the king, and it says: 'I forgive the Athenians all the wrongs done to me through those men.

2'And now, Mardonius, do this: give them back their land; and let them choose another in addition to it, whichever land they want, living under their own laws; and rebuild for them all the temples — everything I burned — if they are willing to come to terms with me. Once these words have been delivered, I am bound to do all this, unless the fault turns out to be yours.'

3"But I say this to you: why are you mad enough to take up war against the king? You could never escape him, and you cannot hold out against him forever. You have seen the size of Xerxes' campaign and what it did. And you can learn about the force that is now with me. So even if you escaped us and won — and you have no hope of that, if you think clearly — another force many times larger would come.

4"Do not then choose, by coming out to face the king, to lose your land and to run for your lives forever. No: make an end of it. He will give you the best chance to end it, since he is coming this way. Be free, if you will make a treaty of arms with us, without deceit or trickery.

Chapter 140B

1"Mardonius told me to say these things to you, Athenians. But I will say nothing about the goodwill I hold toward you, for you would not be learning of it now for the first time. My strong plea to you is this: obey Mardonius.

2"For I see that you will not be able to make war on Xerxes forever. If I saw that resolve in you, I would never have come to you carrying these words at all. The king's power is more than human, and his hand reaches very far.

3"If you do not agree at once, when terms worth a great deal are held out to you, then I fear for you. You live right on the line of march, more than all the other allies; you are always the only ones destroyed; and you have won yourselves a land that stands out and lies on the border.

4"But obey. These terms are worth a great deal to you, if the great king is willing to forgive the wrongs, for you alone of the Greeks, and become your friend.

Chapter 141

1That is what Alexander said. But the Lacedaemonians, when they learned that Alexander had come to Athens to bring the Athenians to terms with the foreigner, remembered the oracles — that it was fated for them to be driven out of the Peloponnese together with the other Dorians by the Medes and the Athenians. They feared very much that the Athenians would make terms with the Persian, and at once they decided to send messengers.

2And it happened that both parties arrived at the same time. The Athenians had let the matter drag on and delayed, because they knew well that the Lacedaemonians would learn that a messenger had come from the foreigner with terms, and that once they learned it, they would send messengers in a hurry. So the Athenians did this on purpose, to show the Lacedaemonians what their own judgment was.

Chapter 142

1When Alexander stopped speaking, the messengers from Sparta took their turn and said: "The Lacedaemonians sent us to beg you: do nothing new in the matter of Greece, and do not accept words from the foreigner.

2"That would be neither right nor fitting for any of the other Greeks anywhere — and least of all for you, and for many reasons. You raised this war when we did not want it at all. The contest began over your land at first, but now it has spread to all of Greece.

3"Besides, it could never be borne that you Athenians should become the cause of slavery for the Greeks through all this — you, who from early times have always been seen to free many people. Still, we share your pain in your hardships: both because you have now been robbed of your crops twice, and because your homes have been ruined for a long time now.

4"In return for this, the Lacedaemonians and their allies promise you: we will feed your women and all the people in your households who are of no use in war, for as long as this war lasts. And do not let Alexander the Macedonian smooth Mardonius' speech over for you.

5"He must do that: being a tyrant, he works together with a tyrant. But you must not do it, if you judge well — you know that nothing with foreigners is faithful and nothing true." That is what the messengers said.

Chapter 143

1The Athenians answered Alexander as follows: "We know this well ourselves too: the Mede's power is many times ours, so there is no need to throw that in our faces. But still, longing for freedom, we defend ourselves in whatever way we can. As for making terms with the foreigner — do not try to persuade us, and we will not be persuaded.

2"Now go back and tell Mardonius what the Athenians say: as long as the sun keeps to the same path it travels now, so long we will never make terms with Xerxes. But we will come out against him and fight back, trusting in the gods and the heroes as allies — he burned the houses and the statues without ever seeing them.

3"And in the future, do not come to the Athenians carrying words like these, and do not advise us to do things against the gods' law while you think you are doing us a favor. For we do not want you, being a guest-friend and a friend, to suffer anything ungracious at the hands of the Athenians."

Chapter 144

1This was their answer to Alexander; and to the messengers from Sparta they said this: "That you Lacedaemonians asked us not to make terms with the foreigner was very human of you. But it was shameful that you showed fear, since you knew well the spirit of the Athenians: there is not so much gold anywhere on earth, nor a land so far beyond others in beauty and worth, that, taking them, we would be willing to take the Medes' side and enslave Greece.

2"There are many great things that stop us from doing this, even if we wanted to. First and greatest are the statues and houses of the gods, burned and torn down; we must avenge them to the utmost rather than make terms with the man who did these things. And next: we are Greek, of one blood and one language, with shared shrines and sacrifices of the gods and customs of like kind. For the Athenians to become traitors to these would not be right.

3"So know it now, if you did not happen to know it before: as long as even one Athenian is left, we will never make terms with Xerxes. But we thank you for the care you had for us, in that you foresaw that our houses had been so destroyed that you were willing to feed our household servants.

4"Your kindness to us is now paid in full. But we will press our plea as best we can, without causing you any pain. Now then, since things stand so, send out your army as fast as you can.

5"For as we figure it, the foreigner will not stay away long before he invades our land; he will learn as fast as possible the message that we will do none of the things he asked of us. So before he comes into Attica, it is time for us to march out in aid of Boeotia." When the Athenians had answered in this way, the messengers left for Sparta.

Chapter 1

1The Greeks appointed to serve in the fleet were these: the Athenians furnished a hundred and twenty-seven ships; the Plataeans manned these ships with the Athenians, not that they had any knowledge of seamanship, but because of mere valor and zeal. The Corinthians furnished forty ships and the Megarians twenty;

2the Chalcidians manned twenty, the Athenians furnishing the ships; the Aeginetans eighteen, the Sicyonians twelve, the Lacedaemonians ten, the Epidaurians eight, the Eretrians seven, the Troezenians five, the Styrians two, and the Ceans two, and two fifty-oared barks; the Opuntian Locrians brought seven fifty-oared barks to their aid.

Chapter 2

1These are the forces which came to Artemisium for battle, and I have now shown how they individually furnished the whole sum. The number of ships mustered at Artemisium was two hundred and seventy-one, besides the fifty-oared barks.

2The Spartans, however, provided the admiral who had the chief command, Eurybiades, son of Euryclides, for the allies said that if the Laconian were not their leader, they would rather make an end of the fleet that was assembling than be led by the Athenians.

Chapter 3

1In the first days, before the sending to Sicily for alliance, there had been talk of entrusting the command at sea to the Athenians. However, when the allies resisted, the Athenians waived their claim, considering the safety of Hellas of prime importance and seeing that if they quarrelled over the leadership, Hellas must perish. In this they judged rightly, for civil strife is as much worse than united war as war is worse than peace.

2Knowing that, they gave ground and waived their claim, but only so long as they had great need of the others. This is clear, for when they had driven the Persian back and the battle was no longer for their territory but for his, they made a pretext of Pausanias' highhandedness and took the command away from the Lacedaemonians. All that, however, took place later.

Chapter 4

1But now, the Greeks who had at last come to Artemisium saw a multitude of ships launched at Aphetae and forces everywhere, and contrary to all expectation, the barbarian was shown to be in much different shape than they had supposed. They accordingly lost heart and began to deliberate about flight from Artemisium homewards into Hellas.

2Then the Euboeans, noticing that they were making such plans, entreated Eurybiades to wait a little while, till they themselves had removed their children and households. When they could not prevail with him, they tried another way and gave Themistocles, the Athenian admiral, a bribe of thirty talents on the condition that the Greek fleet should remain there and fight, when they fought, to defend Euboea.

Chapter 5

1This was the way in which Themistocles made the Greeks stay where they were: he gave Eurybiades for his share five talents of that money, as though he were making the present of his own money. When Eurybiades had been won over in this way, none of the rest was inclined to resist save Adimantus, son of Ocytus, the Corinthian admiral, who said that he would not remain but sail away from Artemisium; to him Themistocles, adding an oath, said:

2“No, you of all men will not desert us, for I will give you a greater gift than the king of the Medes would send you for deserting your allies.” With that he sent three talents of silver to Adimantus ship.

3These two, then, were won over by gifts, the Euboeans got what they wanted, and Themistocles himself was the gainer. No one knew that he had kept the rest of the money, and those who had received a part of it supposed that it had been sent for that purpose by the Athenians.

Chapter 6

1So the Greeks remained in Euboea and fought there; this came about as I will now reveal. Having arrived at Aphetae in the early part of the afternoon, the barbarians saw for themselves the few Greek ships that they had already heard were stationed off Artemisium, and they were eager to attack so that they might take them.

2They were not prepared to make a head-on attack since they feared that the Greeks would see them coming and turn to flee with night close upon them as they fled; it was their belief that the Greeks would save themselves by flight, and they did not want even so much as a firebearer to be saved.

Chapter 7

1Taking these things into consideration, they devised the following plan; separating two hundred ships from the whole number, they sent them to cruise outside Sciathus so that the enemies might not see them sailing round Euboea and by way of Caphereus round Geraestus to the Euripus so that they might catch the Greeks between them, the one part holding that course and barring the retreat, and they themselves attacking in front.

2Upon making these plans they sent the appointed ships on their way, intending not to make an attack upon the Greeks either on that day or before the signal should be seen, whereby the ships that sailed round were to declare their coming. So they sent those ships to sail round, and set about counting the rest at Aphetae.

Chapter 8

1Now when they were engaged in this count, there was in the fleet one Scyllias, a man of Scione; he was the best diver of the time, and in the shipwreck at Pelion he had saved for the Persians much of their possessions and gotten much for himself in addition; this Scyllias had before now, it would seem, intended to desert to the Greeks, but he never had had so fair an occasion as now.

2By what means he did at last make his way to the Greeks, I cannot with exactness say. If the story is true, it is marvellous indeed, for it is said that he dove into the sea at Aphetae and never rose to the surface till he came to Artemisium, thus passing underneath the sea for about eighty furlongs.

3There are many tales about this man, some similar to lies and some true, but as regards the present business it is my opinion that he came to Artemisium in a boat. After arriving, he straightway told the admirals the story of the shipwreck, and of the ships that had been sent round Euboea.

Chapter 9

1Hearing that, the Greeks took counsel together; there was much talk, but the opinion prevailed that they should remain and encamp where they were for that day, and then, after midnight, to put to sea and meet the ships which were sailing around. Presently, however, meeting with no opposition, they waited for the late afternoon of the day and themselves advanced their ships against the barbarian, desiring to put to the proof his fashion of fighting and the art of breaking the line.

Chapter 10

1When Xerxes' men and their generals saw the Greeks bearing down on them with but a few ships, they thought that they were definitely mad and put out to sea themselves, thinking that they would win an easy victory; this expectation was very reasonable, since they saw that the Greek ships so few while their own were many times more numerous and more seaworthy. With this assurance, they hemmed in the Greeks in their midst.

2Now all the Ionians who were friendly to the Greeks came unwillingly to the war and were distressed to see the Greeks surrounded. They supposed that not one of them would return home, so powerless did the Greeks seem to them to be.

3Those who were glad about the business, however, vied each with each that he might be the first to take an Attic ship and receive gifts from the king, for it was the Athenians of whom there was most talk in the fleet.

Chapter 11

1But the Greeks, when the signal was given them, first drew the sterns of their ships together, their prows turned towards the foreigners; then at the second signal they put their hands to the work, despite the fact that they were hemmed in within a narrow space and were fighting face-to-face.

2There they took thirty of the foreigners ships as well as the brother of Gorgus king of Salamis, Philaon son of Chersis, a man of note in the fleet. The first Greek to take an enemy ship was an Athenian, Lycomedes, son of Aeschraeus, and he it was who received the prize for valor.

3They fought that sea-fight with doubtful issue, and nightfall ended the battle; the Greeks sailed back to Artemisium, and the barbarians to Aphetae, after faring far below their hopes in the fight. In that battle Antidorus of Lemnos, the only one of the Greeks siding with the Persian, deserted to the Greeks, and for that the Athenians gave him land in Salamis.

Chapter 12

1When darkness came on, the season being then midsummer, there was abundance of rain all through the night and violent thunderings from Pelion. The dead and the wrecks were driven towards Aphetae, where they were entangled with the ships' prows and jumbled the blades of the oars.

2The ships crews who were there were dismayed by the noise of this, and considering their present bad state, expected utter destruction; for before they had recovered from the shipwreck and the storm off Pelion, they next endured a stubborn sea-fight, and after the sea-fight, rushing rain and mighty torrents pouring seaward and violent thunderings.

Chapter 13

1This is how the night dealt with them. To those who were appointed to sail round Euboea, however, that same night was still more cruel since it caught them on the open sea. Their end was a terrible one, for when the storm and the rain came on them in their course off the Hollows of Euboea, they were driven by the wind in an unknown direction and were driven onto the rocks. All this was done by the god so that the Persian power might be more equally matched with the Greek, and not much greater than it.

Chapter 14

1These men, then, perished at the Hollows of Euboea. As for the barbarians at Aphetae, when to their great comfort the day dawned, they kept their ships unmoved, being in their evil plight well content to do nothing for the moment. Now fifty-three Attic ships came to aid the Greeks,

2who were encouraged both by the ships coming and by the news that the barbarians sailing round Euboea had all perished in the recent storm. They waited then for the same hour as before, and fell upon certain Cilician ships when they put to sea. After destroying these when night fell, they sailed back to Artemisium.

Chapter 15

1On the third day, however, the barbarian admirals, finding it hard to bear that so few ships should do them hurt and fearing Xerxes' anger, waited no longer for the Greeks to begin the fight, but gave the word and put out to sea about midday. So it came to pass that these sea-battles were fought on the same days as the land-battles at Thermopylae;

2the seamen's whole endeavor was to hold the Euripus while Leonidas' men strove to guard the passage; the Greeks were ordered to give the barbarian no entry into Hellas, and the Persians to destroy the Greek host and win the strait.

Chapter 16

1So when Xerxes' men ordered their battle and advanced, the Greeks remained in their station off Artemisium, and the barbarians made a half circle of their ships striving to encircle and enclose them. At that the Greeks charged and joined battle. In that sea-fight both had equal success.

2Xerxes' fleet did itself harm by its numbers and size. The ships were thrown into confusion and ran foul of each other; nevertheless they held fast and did not yield, for they could not bear to be put to flight by a few ships.

3Many were the Greek ships and men that perished there, and far more yet of the foreigners' ships and men; this is how they fought until they drew off and parted from each other.

Chapter 17

1In that sea-fight of all Xerxes' fighters the Egyptians conducted themselves with the greatest valor; besides other great feats of arms which they achieved, they took five Greek ships together with their crews. As regards the Greeks, it was the Athenians who bore themselves best on that day, and of the Athenians Clinias son of Alcibiades. He brought to the war two hundred men and a ship of his own, all at his own expense.

Chapter 18

1So they parted, and each hurried gladly to his own place of anchorage. When the Greeks had withdrawn and come out of the battle, they were left in possession of the dead and the wrecks. They had, however, had a rough time of it themselves, chiefly the Athenians, half of whose ships had suffered some damage. Now their counsel was to flee to the inner waters of Hellas

Chapter 19

1Themistocles thought that if the Ionian and Carian nations were removed from the forces of the barbarians, the Greeks might be strong enough to prevail over the rest. Now it was the custom of the Euboeans to drive their flocks down to the sea there. Gathering the admirals together, he told them that he thought he had a device whereby he hoped to draw away the best of the king's allies.

2So much he revealed for the moment, but merely advised them to let everyone slay as many from the Euboean flocks as he wanted; it was better that the fleet should have them, than the enemy. Moreover, he counselled them each to order his men to light a fire; as for the time of their departure from that place, he would see to it that they would return to Hellas unscathed. All this they agreed to do and immediately lit fires and set upon the flocks.

Chapter 20

1Now the Euboeans had neglected the oracle of Bacis, believing it to be empty of meaning, and neither by carrying away nor by bringing in anything had they shown that they feared an enemy's coming. In so doing they were the cause of their own destruction,

2for Bacis' oracle concerning this matter runs as follows When a strange-tongued man casts a yoke of papyrus on the waves, Then take care to keep bleating goats far from the coasts of Euboea To these verses the Euboeans gave no heed; but in the evils then present and soon to come they suffered the greatest calamity.

Chapter 21

1While the Greeks were doing as I have said, there came to them their lookout from Trachis. There was a scout at Artemisium, one Polyas, a native of Anticyra, who was charged (and had a rowing boat standing ready for it), if the fleet should suffer a reverse to declare it to the men at Thermopylae. Similarly, if any ill should befall the land army, Abronichus son of Lysicles, an Athenian, was with Leonidas, ready for his part to bring the news in a thirty-oared bark to the Greeks at Artemisium.

2So this Abronichus came and declared to them the fate of Leonidas and his army. When the Greeks learned this, they no longer delayed their departure but went their ways in their appointed order, the Corinthians first and last of all the Athenians.

Chapter 22

1Themistocles, however, picked out the seaworthiest Athenian ships and made his way to the places where drinking water could be found. Here he engraved on the rocks words which the Ionians read on the next day when they came to Artemisium. This was what the writing said: “Men of Ionia, you do wrongly to fight against the land of your fathers and bring slavery upon Hellas.

2It would best for you to join yourselves to us, but if that should be impossible for you, then at least now withdraw from the war, and entreat the Carians to do the same as you. If neither of these things may be and you are fast bound by such constraint that you cannot rebel, yet we ask you not to use your full strength in the day of battle. Remember that you are our sons and that our quarrel with the barbarian was of your making in the beginning.”

3To my thinking Themistocles wrote this with a double intent, namely that if the king knew nothing of the writing, it might induce the Ionians to change sides and join with the Greeks, while if the writing were maliciously reported to Xerxes, he might thereby be led to mistrust the Ionians and keep them out of the sea-fights.

Chapter 23

1Such was Themistocles' writing. Immediately after this there came to the barbarians a man of Histiaea in a boat, telling them of the flight of the Greeks from Artemisium. Not believing this, they kept the bringer of the news in confinement and sent swift ships to spy out the matter. When the crews of these brought word of the truth, the whole armada sailed all together to Artemisium at the crack of dawn. Here they waited till midday and then sailed to Histiaea. Upon their arrival they took possession of the Histiaeans' city and overran all the villages on the seaboard of the Ellopian region, which is a district belonging to Histiaea.

Chapter 24

1While they were there, Xerxes sent a herald to the fleet. Before sending him, Xerxes had made the following preparations: of all his own soldiers who had fallen at Thermopylae (that is, as many as twenty thousand) he left about a thousand, and the rest he buried in trenches, which he covered with leaves and heaped earth so that the men of the fleet might not see them.

2When the herald had crossed over to Histiaea, he assembled all the men of the fleet and said: “Men of our allies, King Xerxes permits any one of you who should so desire to leave his place and come to see how he fights against those foolish men who thought they could overcome the king's power.”

Chapter 25

1After this proclamation, there was nothing so hard to get as a boat, so many were they who wanted to see this. They crossed over and went about viewing the dead. All of them supposed that the fallen Greeks were all Lacedaemonians and Thespians, though helots were also there for them to see.

2For all that, however, those who crossed over were not deceived by what Xerxes had done with his own dead, for the thing was truly ridiculous; of the Persians a thousand lay dead before their eyes, but the Greeks lay all together assembled in one place, to the number of four thousand.

3All that day they spent in observation, and on the next the shipmen returned to their fleet at Histiaea while Xerxes' army set forth on its march.

Chapter 26

1There had come to them a few deserters, men of Arcadia, lacking a livelihood and desirous to find some service. Bringing these men into the king's presence, the Persians inquired of them what the Greeks were doing, there being one who put this question in the name of all.

2When the Arcadians told them that the Greeks were holding the Olympic festival and viewing sports and horseraces, the Persian asked what was the prize offered, for which they contended. They told him of the crown of olive that was given to the victor. Then Tigranes son of Artabanus uttered a most noble saying (but the king deemed him a coward for it);

3when he heard that the prize was not money but a crown, he could not hold his peace, but cried, “Good heavens, Mardonius, what kind of men are these that you have pitted us against? It is not for money they contend but for glory of achievement!” Such was Tigranes' saying.

Chapter 27

1In the meantime, immediately after the misfortune at Thermopylae, the Thessalians sent a herald to the Phocians, because they bore an old grudge against them and still more because of their latest disaster.

2Now a few years before the king's expedition, the Thessalians and their allies had invaded Phocis with their whole army but had been worsted and roughly handled by the Phocians.

3When the Phocians were besieged on Parnassus, they had with them the diviner Tellias of Elis; Tellias devised a stratagem for them: he covered six hundred of the bravest Phocians with gypsum, themselves and their armor, and led them to attack the Thessalians by night, bidding them slay whomever they should see not whitened.

4The Thessalian sentinels were the first to see these men and to flee for fear, supposing falsely that it was something supernatural, and after the sentinels the whole army fled as well. The Phocians made themselves masters of four thousand dead, and their shields, of which they dedicated half at Abae and the rest at Delphi.

5A tithe of what they won in that fight went to the making of the great statues that stand around the tripod in front of the shrine at Delphi, and there are others like them dedicated at Abae.

Chapter 28

1This is what the besieged Phocians did with the Thessalian footsoldiers. When the Thessalian horsemen rode into their country, the Phocians did them mortal harm; they dug a great pit in the pass near Hyampolis and put empty jars inside it. They then covered it with earth till all was like the rest of the ground and awaited the onset of the Thessalians. These rode on intending to sweep the Phocians before them, and fell in among the jars, whereby their horses' legs were broken.

Chapter 29

1These two deeds had never been forgiven by the Thessalians, and now they sent a herald with this message: “Men of Phocis, it is time now that you confess yourselves to be no match for us.

2We were even formerly preferred to you by the Greeks, as long as we were on their side, and now we bear such weight with the foreigner that it lies in our power to have you deprived of your lands and to have you enslaved. Nevertheless, although we could easily do these things, we bear you no ill-will for the past. Pay us fifty talents of silver for what you did, and we promise to turn aside what threatens your land.”

Chapter 30

1This was the Thessalians' offer. The Phocians alone of all that region would not take the Persians' side, and that for no other reason (if I argue correctly) than their hatred of the Thessalians.

2Had the Thessalians aided the Greek side, then the Phocians would certainly have stood for the Persians. They replied to the offer of the Thessalians that they would give no money; they could do as the Thessalians did and take the Persian part, if for any cause they so wished, but they would not willingly betray the cause of Hellas.

Chapter 31

1When this answer was returned to them, the Thessalians in their wrath against the Phocians began to guide the barbarian on his march. From the lands of Trachis they broke into Doris; there is a narrow tongue of Dorian land stretching that way, about thirty furlongs wide, between the Malian territory and the Phocian, which in old time was Dryopian. This region is the motherland of the Dorians of the Peloponnese. To this Dorian territory the barbarians did no harm at their invasion, for the people took the Persian side, and the Thessalians would not have them harmed.

Chapter 32

1When they entered Phocis from Doris, they could not take the Phocians themselves, for some of the Phocians ascended to the heights of Parnassus. The peak of Parnassus called Tithorea, which rises by itself near the town Neon, has room enough for a multitude of people. It was there that they carried their goods and themselves ascended to it,

2but most of them made their way out of the country to the Ozolian Locrians, where the town of Amphissa lies above the Crisaean plain. The barbarians, while the Thessalians so guided their army, overran the whole of Phocis. All that came within their power they laid waste to and burnt, setting fire to towns and temples.

Chapter 33

1Marching this way down the river Cephisus, they ravaged everything that lay in their way, burning the towns of Drymus, Charadra, Erochus, Tethronium, Amphicaea, Neon, Pediea, Tritea, Elatea, Hyampolis, Parapotamii, and Abae, where there was a richly endowed temple of Apollo, provided with wealth of treasure and offerings. There was also then as now a place of divination at this place. This temple, too, they plundered and burnt, and they pursued and caught some of the Phocians near the mountains. Certain women too perished because of the multitude of their violators.

Chapter 34

1Passing Parapotamii, the foreigners came to Panopea. There their army parted into two companies. The greater and stronger part of the host marched with Xerxes himself towards Athens and broke into the territory of Orchomenus in Boeotia. Now the whole population of Boeotia took the Persian side, and men of Macedonia sent by Alexander safeguarded their towns, each in his appointed place; the reason of the safeguarding was that Xerxes should see that the Boeotians were on the Persian side.

Chapter 35

1So this part of the barbarian army marched as I have said, and others set forth with guides for the temple at Delphi, keeping Parnassus on their right. These, too, laid waste to every part of Phocis which they occupied, burning the towns of the Panopeans and Daulii and Aeolidae.

2The purpose of their parting from the rest of the army and marching this way was that they might plunder the temple at Delphi and lay its wealth before Xerxes, who (as I have been told) had better knowledge of the most notable possessions in the temple than of what he had left in his own palace, chiefly the offerings of Croesus son of Alyattes; so many had always spoken of them.

Chapter 36

1When the Delphians learned all this, they were very much afraid, and in their great fear they inquired of the oracle whether they should bury the sacred treasure in the ground or take it away to another country. The god told them to move nothing, saying that he was able to protect what belonged to him.

2Upon hearing that, the Delphians took thought for themselves. They sent their children and women overseas to Achaia. Most of the men went up to the peaks of Parnassus and carried their goods into the Corycian cave, but some escaped to Amphissa in Locris. In short, all the Delphians left the town save sixty men and the prophet.

Chapter 37

1Now when the barbarians drew near and could see the temple, the prophet, whose name was Aceratus, saw certain sacred arms, which no man might touch without sacrilege, brought out of the chamber within and laid before the shrine.

2So he went to tell the Delphians of this miracle, but when the barbarians came with all speed near to the temple of Athena Pronaea, they were visited by miracles yet greater than the aforesaid. Marvellous indeed it is, that weapons of war should of their own motion appear lying outside in front of the shrine, but the visitation which followed was more wondrous than anything else ever seen.

3When the barbarians were near to the temple of Athena Pronaea, they were struck by thunderbolts from the sky, and two peaks broken off from Parnassus came rushing among them with a mighty noise and overwhelmed many of them. In addition to this a shout and a cry of triumph were heard from the temple of Athena.

Chapter 38

1All of this together struck panic into the barbarians, and the Delphians, perceiving that they fled, descended upon them and killed a great number. The survivors fled straight to Boeotia. Those of the barbarians who returned said (as I have been told) that they had seen other divine signs besides what I have just described: two men-at-arms of stature greater than human,they said, had come after them, slaying and pursuing.

Chapter 39

1These two, say the Delphians, were the native heroes Phylacus and Autonous, whose precincts are near the temple, Phylacus' by the road itself above the shrine of Athena Pronaea, and Autonous' near the Castalian spring, under the Hyarapean Peak.

2The rocks that fell from Parnassus were yet to be seen in my day, lying in the precinct of Athena Pronaea, from where their descent through the foreigners' ranks had hurled them. Such, then, was the manner of those men's departure from the temple.

Chapter 40

1At the request of the Athenians, the fleet of the Hellenes came from Artemisium and put in at Salamis. The Athenians requested them to put in at Salamis so that they take their children and women out of Attica and also take counsel what they should do. They had been disappointed in their plans, so they were going to hold a council about the current state of affairs.

2They expected to find the entire population of the Peloponnese in Boeotia awaiting the barbarian, but they found no such thing. They learned that they were fortifying the Isthmus instead and considered the defense of the Peloponnese the most important thing, disregarding all the rest. When the Athenians learned this, they asked the fleet to put in at Salamis.

Chapter 41

1While the others put in at Salamis, the Athenians landed in their own country. When they arrived, they made a proclamation that every Athenian should save his children and servants as he best could. Thereupon most of them sent the members of their households to Troezen, and some to Aegina and Salamis.

2They were anxious to get everything out safely because they wished to obey the oracle, and also not least because of this: the Athenians say that a great snake lives in the sacred precinct guarding the acropolis. They say this and even put out monthly offerings for it as if it really existed. The monthly offering is a honey-cake.

3In all the time before this the honey-cake had been consumed, but this time it was untouched. When the priestess interpreted the significance of this, the Athenians were all the more eager to abandon the city since the goddess had deserted the acropolis. When they had removed everything to safety, they returned to the camp.

Chapter 42

1When those from Artemisium had put in at Salamis, the rest of the Hellenic fleet learned of this and streamed in from Troezen, for they had been commanded to assemble at Pogon, the harbor of Troezen. Many more ships assembled now than had fought at Artemisium, and from more cities.

2The admiral was the same as at Artemisium, Eurybiades son of Euryclides, a Spartan but not of royal descent. The ships provided by the Athenians were by far the most numerous and the most seaworthy.

Chapter 43

1The following took part in the war: from the Peloponnese, the Lacedaemonians provided sixteen ships; the Corinthians the same number as at Artemisium; the Sicyonians furnished fifteen ships, the Epidaurians ten, the Troezenians five, the Hermioneans three. All of these except the Hermioneans are Dorian and Macedonian and had last come from Erineus and Pindus and the Dryopian region. The Hermioneans are Dryopians, driven out of the country now called Doris by Herakles and the Malians.

Chapter 44

1These, then, were the Peloponnesians who took part in the war. From the mainland outside the Peloponnese came the following: the Athenians provided more than all the rest, one hundred and eighty ships. They provided these alone, since the Plataeans did not fight with the Athenians at Salamis for this reason: when the Hellenes departed from Artemisium and were off Chalcis, the Plataeans landed on the opposite shore of Boeotia and attended to the removal of their households. In bringing these to safety they were left behind.

2The Athenians, while the Pelasgians ruled what is now called Hellas, were Pelasgians, bearing the name of Cranai. When Cecrops was their king they were called Cecropidae, and when Erechtheus succeeded to the rule, they changed their name and became Athenians. When, however, Ion son of Xuthus was commander of the Athenian army, they were called after him Ionians.

Chapter 45

1The Megarians provided the same number as at Artemisium. The Ampraciots came to help with seven ships, and the Leucadians, who are Dorians from Corinth, with three.

Chapter 46

1Of the islanders, the Aeginetans provided thirty ships. They had other manned ships, but they guarded their own land with these and fought at Salamis with the thirty most seaworthy. The Aeginetans are Dorians from Epidaurus, and their island was formerly called Oenone.

2After the Aeginetans came the Chalcidians with their twenty ships from Artemisium, and the Eretrians with the same seven; these are Ionians. Next were the Ceans, Ionians from Athens, with the same ships as before.

3The Naxians provided four ships. They had been sent by their fellow citizens to the Persians, like the rest of the islanders, but they disregarded their orders and came to the Hellenes at the urging of Democritus, an esteemed man among the townsmen and at that time captain of a trireme. The Naxians are Ionians descended from Athens.

4The Styrians provided the same number of ships as at Artemisium, and the Cythnians one trireme and a fifty-oared boat; these are both Dryopians. The Seriphians, Siphnians, and Melians also took part, since they were the only islanders who had not given earth and water to the barbarian.

Chapter 47

1All these people who live this side of Thesprotia and the Acheron river took part in the war. The Thesprotians border on the Ampraciots and Leucadians, who were the ones who came from the most distant countries to take part in the war. The only ones living beyond these to help Hellas in its danger were the Crotonians, with one ship. Its captain was Phayllus, three times victor in the Pythian games. The Crotonians are Achaeans by birth.

Chapter 48

1All of these came to the war providing triremes, except the Melians and Siphnians and Seriphians, who brought fifty-oared boats. The Melians (who are of Lacedaemonian stock) provided two; the Siphnians and Seriphians, who are Ionians from Athens, one each. The total number of ships, besides the fifty-oared boats, was three hundred and seventy-eight.

Chapter 49

1When the generals from the aforementioned cities, met at Salamis, they held a council and Eurybiades proposed that whoever wanted to should give his opinion on what place under their control was most suitable for a sea battle. Attica was already lost, and he proposed that they consider the places which were left.

2The consensus of most of the speakers was to sail to the Isthmus and fight at sea for the Peloponnese, giving this reason: if they were defeated in the fight at Salamis they would be besieged on an island, where no help could come to them, but if they were at the Isthmus they could go ashore to their own lands.

Chapter 50

1While the generals from the Peloponnese considered this argument, an Athenian came with the message that the barbarians had reached Attica and were destroying all of it by fire.

2The army with Xerxes had made its way through Boeotia and burnt the city of the Thespians, who had abandoned it and gone to the Peloponnese, and Plataea likewise. Now the army had come to Athens and was devastating everything there. The army burnt Thespia and Plataea upon learning from the Thebans that they had not medized.

Chapter 51

1Since the crossing of the Hellespont, where the barbarians began their journey, they had spent one month there crossing into Europe and in three more months were in Attica, when Calliades was archon at Athens.

2When they took the town it was deserted, but in the sacred precinct they found a few Athenians, stewards of the sacred precinct and poor people, who defended themselves against the assault by fencing the acropolis with doors and logs. They had not withdrawn to Salamis not only because of poverty but also because they thought they had discovered the meaning of the oracle the Pythia had given, namely that the wooden wall would be impregnable. They believed that according to the oracle this, not the ships, was the refuge.

Chapter 52

1The Persians took up a position on the hill opposite the acropolis, which the Athenians call the Areopagus, and besieged them in this way: they wrapped arrows in tar and set them on fire, and then shot them at the barricade. Still the besieged Athenians defended themselves, although they had come to the utmost danger and their barricade had failed them.

2When the Pisistratids proposed terms of surrender, they would not listen but contrived defenses such as rolling down boulders onto the barbarians when they came near the gates. For a long time Xerxes was at a loss, unable to capture them.

Chapter 53

1In time a way out of their difficulties was revealed to the barbarians, since according to the oracle all the mainland of Attica had to become subject to the Persians. In front of the acropolis, and behind the gates and the ascent, was a place where no one was on guard, since no one thought any man could go up that way. Here some men climbed up, near the sacred precinct of Cecrops' daughter Aglaurus, although the place was a sheer cliff.

2When the Athenians saw that they had ascended to the acropolis, some threw themselves off the wall and were killed, and others fled into the chamber. The Persians who had come up first turned to the gates, opened them, and murdered the suppliants. When they had levelled everything, they plundered the sacred precinct and set fire to the entire acropolis.

Chapter 54

1So it was that Xerxes took complete possession of Athens, and he sent a horseman to Susa to announce his present success to Artabanus. On the day after the messenger was sent, he called together the Athenian exiles who accompanied him and asked them go up to the acropolis and perform sacrifices in their customary way, an order given because he had been inspired by a dream or because he felt remorse after burning the sacred precinct. The Athenian exiles did as they were commanded.

Chapter 55

1I will tell why I have mentioned this. In that acropolis is a shrine of Erechtheus, called the “Earthborn,” and in the shrine are an olive tree and a pool of salt water. The story among the Athenians is that they were set there by Poseidon and Athena as tokens when they contended for the land. It happened that the olive tree was burnt by the barbarians with the rest of the sacred precinct, but on the day after its burning, when the Athenians ordered by the king to sacrifice went up to the sacred precinct, they saw a shoot of about a cubit's length sprung from the stump, and they reported this.

Chapter 56

1When this business concerning the Athenian acropolis was announced to the Hellenes at Salamis, some of the Peloponnesian generals became so alarmed that they did not even wait for the proposed matter to be decided, but jumped into their ships and hoisted their sails for flight. Those left behind resolved that the fleet should fight for the Isthmus. Night fell, and they dissolved the assembly and boarded their ships.

Chapter 57

1When Themistocles returned to his ship, Mnesiphilus, an Athenian, asked him what had been decided. Learning from him that they had resolved to sail to the Isthmus and fight for the Peloponnese, he said,

2“If they depart from Salamis, you will no longer be fighting for one country. Each will make his way to his own city, and neither Eurybiades nor any other man will be able to keep them from disbanding the army. Hellas will be destroyed by bad planning. If there is any way at all that you could persuade Eurybiades to change his decision and remain here, go try to undo this resolution.”

Chapter 58

1This advice greatly pleased Themistocles. He made no answer and went to the ship of Eurybiades. When he arrived there, he said he wanted to talk with him on a matter of common interest, so Eurybiades bade him come aboard and say what he wanted.

2Themistocles sat next to him and told him all that he had heard from Mnesiphilus, pretending it was his own idea and adding many other things. Finally by his entreaty he persuaded him to disembark and gather the generals for a council of war.

Chapter 59

1When they were assembled and before Eurybiades had a chance to put forward the reason he had called the generals together, Themistocles spoke at length in accordance with the urgency of his request. While he was speaking, the Corinthian general Adeimantus son of Ocytus said, “Themistocles, at the games those who start before the signal are beaten with rods.” Themistocles said in justification, “Those left behind win no crown.”

Chapter 60

1He answered the Corinthian mildly and said to Eurybiades nothing of what he had said before, how if they put out from Salamis they would flee different ways, for it would be unbecoming for him to accuse the allies in their presence. Instead he relied on a different argument and said,

Chapter 60A

1“It is in your hands to save Hellas, if you will obey me and remain here to fight, and not obey the words of these others and move your ships back to the Isthmus. Compare each plan after you have heard. If you join battle at the Isthmus, you will fight in the open sea where it is least to our advantage, since our ships are heavier and fewer in number. You will also lose Salamis and Megara and Aegina, even if we succeed in all else. Their land army will accompany their fleet, and so you will lead them to the Peloponnese and risk all Hellas.

Chapter 60B

1But if you do what I say, you will find it useful in these ways: first, by engaging many ships with our few in the strait, we shall win a great victory, if the war turns out reasonably, for it is to our advantage to fight in a strait and to their advantage to fight in a wide area. Second, Salamis will survive, where we have carried our children and women to safety. It also has in it something you are very fond of: by remaining here you will be fighting for the Peloponnese just as much as at the Isthmus, and you will not lead them to the Peloponnese, if you exercise good judgment.

Chapter 60C

1If what I expect happens and we win the victory with our ships, you will not have the barbarians upon you at the Isthmus. They will advance no further than Attica and depart in no order, and we shall gain an advantage by the survival of Megara, Aegina, and Salamis, where it is prophesied that we will prevail against our enemies. Men usually succeed when they have reasonable plans. If their plans are unreasonable, the god does not wish to assent to human intentions.”

Chapter 61

1As Themistocles said this, Adeimantus the Corinthian attacked him again, advising that a man without a city should keep quiet and that Eurybiades should not ask the vote of a man without a city. He advised Themistocles to contribute his opinion when he provided a city—attacking him in this way because Athens was captured and occupied.

2This time Themistocles said many things against him and the Corinthians, declaring that so long as they had two hundred manned ships, the Athenians had both a city and a land greater than theirs, and that none of the Hellenes could repel them if they attacked.

Chapter 62

1Next he turned his argument to Eurybiades, saying more vehemently than before, “If you remain here, you will be an noble man. If not, you will ruin Hellas. All our strength for war is in our ships, so listen to me.

2If you do not do this, we will immediately gather up our households and travel to Siris in Italy, which has been ours since ancient times, and the prophecies say we must found a colony there. You will remember these words when you are without such allies.”

Chapter 63

1When Themistocles said this, Eurybiades changed his mind. I think he did so chiefly out of fear that the Athenians might desert them if they set sail for the Isthmus. If the Athenians left, the rest would be no match for the enemy, so he made the choice to remain there and fight.

Chapter 64

1After this skirmish of words, since Eurybiades had so resolved, the men at Salamis prepared to fight where they were. At sunrise on the next day there was an earthquake on land and sea,

2and they resolved to pray to the gods and summon the sons of Aeacus as allies. When they had so resolved, they did as follows: they prayed to all the gods, called Ajax and Telamon to come straight from Salamis, and sent a ship to Aegina for Aeacus and his sons.

Chapter 65

1Dicaeus son of Theocydes, an Athenian exile who had become important among the Medes, said that at the time when the land of Attica was being laid waste by Xerxes' army and there were no Athenians in the country, he was with Demaratus the Lacedaemonian on the Thriasian plain and saw advancing from Eleusis a cloud of dust as if raised by the feet of about thirty thousand men. They marvelled at what men might be raising such a cloud of dust and immediately heard a cry. The cry seemed to be the “Iacchus” of the mysteries,

2and when Demaratus, ignorant of the rites of Eleusis, asked him what was making this sound, Dicaeus said, “Demaratus, there is no way that some great disaster will not befall the king's army. Since Attica is deserted, it is obvious that this voice is divine and comes from Eleusis to help the Athenians and their allies.

3If it descends upon the Peloponnese, the king himself and his army on the mainland will be endangered. If, however, it turns towards the ships at Salamis, the king will be in danger of losing his fleet.

4Every year the Athenians observe this festival for the Mother and the Maiden, and any Athenian or other Hellene who wishes is initiated. The voice which you hear is the ‘Iacchus’ they cry at this festival.” To this Demaratus replied, “Keep silent and tell this to no one else.

5If these words of yours are reported to the king, you will lose your head, and neither I nor any other man will be able to save you, so be silent. The gods will see to the army.”

6Thus he advised, and after the dust and the cry came a cloud, which rose aloft and floated away towards Salamis to the camp of the Hellenes. In this way they understood that Xerxes' fleet was going to be destroyed. Dicaeus son of Theocydes used to say this, appealing to Demaratus and others as witnesses.

Chapter 66

1When those stationed with Xerxes' fleet had been to see the Laconian disaster at Thermopylae, they crossed over from Trachis to Histiaea, waited three days, and then sailed through the Euripus, and in three more days they were at Phalerum, the port of Athens. I think no less a number invaded Athens by land and sea than came to Sepias and Thermopylae.

2Those killed by the storm, at Thermopylae, and in the naval battles at Artemisium, I offset with those who did not yet follow the king: the Melians and Dorians and Locrians and the whole force of Boeotia except the Thespians and Plataeans; and the Carystians and Andrians and Teneans and all the rest of the islanders, except the five cities whose names I previously mentioned. The farther into Hellas the Persian advanced, the more nations followed him.

Chapter 67

1All these came to Athens except the Parians. The Parians stayed behind in Cythnus watching to see which way the war turned out. When the rest of them reached Phalerum, Xerxes himself went down to the ships, wishing to mix with the sailors and hear their opinions.

2He came and sat on his throne, and present at his summons were the tyrants of all the peoples and the company leaders from the fleet. They sat according to the honor which the king had granted each of them, first the king of Sidon, then the king of Tyre, then the rest. When they sat in order one after another, Xerxes sent Mardonius to test each by asking if they should fight at sea.

Chapter 68

1Mardonius went about questioning them, starting with the Sidonian, and all the others were unanimous, advising to fight at sea, but Artemisia said,

Chapter 68A

1“Tell the king, Mardonius, that I, who neither was most cowardly in the sea battles off Euboea nor performed the least feats of arms, say this: ‘Master, it is just for me to declare my real opinion, what I consider to be best for your cause. And I say to you this: spare your ships, and do not fight at sea. Their men are as much stronger than your men by sea as men are stronger than women.

2Why is it so necessary for you to risk everything by fighting at sea? Do you not possess Athens, for which you set out on this march, and do you not have the rest of Hellas? No one stands in your way. Those who opposed you have received what they deserved.

Chapter 68B

1I will tell you how I think the affairs of your enemies will turn out: If you do not hurry to fight at sea, but keep your ships here and stay near land, or even advance into the Peloponnese, then, my lord, you will easily accomplish what you had in mind on coming here.

2The Hellenes are not able to hold out against you for a long time, but you will scatter them, and they will each flee to their own cities. I have learned that they have no food on this island, and it is not likely, if you lead your army against the Peloponnese, that those of them who have come from there will sit still, nor will they care to fight at sea for Athens.

Chapter 68C

1But if you hurry to fight at sea immediately, I fear that your fleet if reduced to cowardice may also injure your army on land. In addition, my King, take this to heart: Good people's slaves tend to be base, and the slaves of the base tend to be good. You, who are best among men, have base slaves, who are accounted your allies, the Egyptians and Cyprians and Cilicians and Pamphylians, who are of no use at all.’”

Chapter 69

1When she said this to Mardonius, all who were well disposed towards Artemisia lamented her words, thinking she would suffer some ill from the king because she advised against fighting at sea. Those who were jealous and envied her, because she was given honor among the chief of all the allies, were glad at her answer, thinking she would be killed.

2But when the counsels were reported to Xerxes, he was greatly pleased by Artemisia's opinion. Even before this he had considered her of excellent character, and now he praised her much more highly. Still he ordered that the majority be obeyed, for he believed that at Euboea they had purposely fought badly because he was not there. This time he had made preparations to see the battle in person.

Chapter 70

1When the command to put out to sea was given, they set sail for Salamis and were calmly marshalled in line. There was not enough daylight left for them to fight, since night came on, so they made preparations for the next day.

2Fear and dread possessed the Hellenes, especially those from the Peloponnese. They were afraid because they were stationed in Salamis and were about to fight at sea on behalf of the land of the Athenians, and if they were defeated they would be trapped on an island and besieged, leaving their own land unguarded.

Chapter 71

1That very night the land army of the barbarians began marching to the Peloponnese. Yet every possible device had been used to prevent the barbarians from invading by the mainland. As soon as the Peloponnesians learned that Leonidas and his men at Thermopylae were dead, they ran together from their cities and took up their position at the Isthmus. Their general was Cleombrotus son of Anaxandrides, the brother of Leonidas.

2When they were in position at the Isthmus, they demolished the Scironian road and then, after resolving in council, built a wall across the Isthmus. Since there were many tens of thousands and everyone worked, the task was completed, as they brought in stones and bricks and logs and baskets full of sand. At no moment of the day or night did those who had marched out there rest from their work.

Chapter 72

1These were the Hellenes who marched out in a body to the Isthmus: the Lacedaemonians and all the Arcadians, the Eleans and Corinthians and Sicyonians and Epidaurians and Phliasians and Troezenians and Hermioneans. These were the ones who marched out and feared for Hellas in her peril. The rest of the Peloponnesians cared nothing, though the Olympian and Carnean festivals were now past.

Chapter 73

1Seven nations inhabit the Peloponnese. Two of these are aboriginal and are now settled in the land where they lived in the old days, the Arcadians and Cynurians. One nation, the Achaean, has never left the Peloponnese, but it has left its own country and inhabits another nation's land.

2The four remaining nations of the seven are immigrants, the Dorians and Aetolians and Dryopians and Lemnians. The Dorians have many famous cities, the Aetolians only Elis, the Dryopians Hermione and Asine near Laconian Cardamyle, the Lemnians all the Paroreatae.

3The Cynurians are aboriginal and seem to be the only Ionians, but they have been Dorianized by time and by Argive rule. They are the Orneatae and the perioikoi. All the remaining cities of these seven nations, except those I enumerated, stayed neutral. If I may speak freely, by staying neutral they medized.

Chapter 74

1Those at the Isthmus were involved in so great a labor, since all they had was at stake and they did not expect the ships to win distinction. Those at Salamis heard of their labors but still were full of dread, fearing not for themselves but for the Peloponnese.

2For a time each man talked quietly to his neighbor, wondering at Eurybiades' folly, but finally it came out into the open. They held an assembly and talked at length on the same matters as before: some said they must sail away to the Peloponnese and risk battle for that country, not stay and fight for a captured land; but the Athenians and Aeginetans and Megarians said they must stay and defend themselves.

Chapter 75

1When the Peloponnesians were outvoting him, Themistocles secretly left the assembly, and sent a man by boat to the Median fleet after ordering him what to say. His name was Sicinnus, and he was Themistocles' servant and his sons' attendant. Later Themistocles enrolled him as a Thespian, when the Thespians were adopting citizens, and made him wealthy with money.

2He now came by boat and said to the generals of the barbarians, “The Athenian general has sent me without the knowledge of the other Hellenes. He is on the king's side and prefers that your affairs prevail, not the Hellenes'. I am to tell you that the Hellenes are terrified and plan flight, and you can now perform the finest deed of all if you do not allow them to escape.

3They do not all have the same intent, and they will no longer oppose you. Instead you will see them fighting against themselves, those who are on your side against those who are not.” After indicating this to them he departed.

Chapter 76

1Finding the message credible, they first landed many of the Persians on the islet of Psyttalea, which lies between Salamis and the mainland. When it was midnight, they brought their western wing in a circle towards Salamis, and those stationed at Ceos and Cynosura also put out to sea, occupying all the passage as far as Munychia with their ships.

2They launched their ships in this way so that the Hellenes would have no escape: they would be trapped at Salamis and pay the penalty for the battles at Artemisium. The purpose of their landing Persians on the islet called Psyttalea was this: when the battle took place, it was chiefly there that the men and wrecks would be washed ashore, for the island lay in the path of the impending battle. The Persians would be able to save some of those who washed up and kill the others.

3They did this in silence for fear that their enemies hear, making their preparations at night without sleep.

Chapter 77

1I cannot say against oracles that they are not true, and I do not wish to try to discredit them when they speak plainly. Look at the following matter: When the sacred headland of golden-sworded Artemis and Cynosura by the sea they bridge with ships, After sacking shiny Athens in mad hope, Divine Justice will extinguish mighty Greed the son of Insolence Lusting terribly, thinking to devour all.

2Bronze will come together with bronze, and Ares Will redden the sea with blood. To Hellas the day of freedom Far-seeing Zeus and august Victory will bring. Considering this, I dare to say nothing against Bacis concerning oracles when he speaks so plainly, nor will I consent to it by others.

Chapter 78

1Among the generals at Salamis there was fierce argument. They did not yet know that the barbarians had encircled them with their ships, supposing them still marshalled in the place where they had seen them by day.

Chapter 79

1As the generals disputed, Aristides son of Lysimachus, an Athenian, crossed over from Aegina. Although he had been ostracized by the people, I, learning by inquiry of his character, have come to believe that he was the best and most just man in Athens.

2This man stood at the assembly and called Themistocles out, although he was no friend of his, but his bitter enemy. Because of the magnitude of the present ills, he deliberately forgot all that and called him out, wanting to talk to him. He had already heard that those from the Peloponnese were anxious to set sail for the Isthmus,

3so when Themistocles came out he said, “On all occasions and especially now our contention must be over which of us will do our country more good.

4I say that it is all the same for the Peloponnesians to speak much or little about sailing away from here, for I have seen with my own eyes that even if the Corinthians and Eurybiades himself wanted to, they would not be able to escape. We are encircled by the enemy. Go in and indicate this to them.”

Chapter 80

1Themistocles answered, “Your exhortation is most useful and you bring good news. You have come as an eyewitness of just what I wanted to happen. Know that I am the cause of what the Medes are doing. When the Hellenes would not willingly enter battle, it was necessary to force them against their will. Since you have come bringing good news, tell it to them yourself.

2If I say these things, they will think I invented it, and they will not believe that the barbarians are doing this. Go in yourself and let them know how it stands. It would be best if they believe you when you tell them, but if they find these things incredible it is all the same to us. They will not be able to run away, if indeed we are surrounded on all sides as you say.”

Chapter 81

1Aristides went in and told them, saying that he had come from Aegina and had barely made it past the blockade when he sailed out, since all the Hellenic camp was surrounded by Xerxes' ships. He advised them to prepare to defend themselves. He said this and left, and again a dispute arose among them. The majority of the generals did not believe the news.

Chapter 82

1While they were still held by disbelief, a trireme of Tenian deserters arrived, captained by Panaetius son of Sosimenes, which brought them the whole truth. For this deed the Tenians were engraved on the tripod at Delphi with those who had conquered the barbarian.

2With this ship that deserted at Salamis and the Lemnian which deserted earlier at Artemisium, the Hellenic fleet reached its full number of three hundred and eighty ships, for it had fallen short of the number by two ships.

Chapter 83

1When they found the words of the Tenians worthy of belief, the Hellenes prepared to fight at sea. As dawn glimmered, they held an assembly of the fighting men, and Themistocles gave the best address among the others. His entire speech involved comparing the better and lesser elements in human nature and the human condition.

2He concluded his speech by advising them to choose the better of these, then gave the command to mount the ships. Just as they embarked, the trireme which had gone after the sons of Aeacus arrived from Aegina.

Chapter 84

1Then the Hellenes set sail with all their ships, and as they were putting out to sea the barbarians immediately attacked them. The rest of the Hellenes began to back water and tried to beach their ships, but Ameinias of Pallene, an Athenian, charged and rammed a ship. When his ship became entangled and the crew could not free it, the others came to help Ameinias and joined battle.

2The Athenians say that the fighting at sea began this way, but the Aeginetans say that the ship which had been sent to Aegina after the sons of Aeacus was the one that started it. The story is also told that the phantom of a woman appeared to them, who cried commands loud enough for all the Hellenic fleet to hear, reproaching them first with, “Men possessed, how long will you still be backing water?”

Chapter 85

1The Phoenicians were marshalled against the Athenians, holding the western wing toward Eleusis. Against the Lacedaemonians were the Ionians, on the eastern wing toward Piraeus, and a few of them fought badly according to Themistocles' instructions, but the majority did not.

2I can list the names of many captains who captured Hellenic ships, but I will mention none except Theomestor son of Androdamas and Phylacus son of Histiaeus, both Samians.

3I mention only these because Theomestor was appointed tyrant of Samos by the Persians for this feat, and Phylacus was recorded as a benefactor of the king and granted much land. The king's benefactors are called “orosangae” in the Persian language.

Chapter 86

1Thus it was concerning them. But the majority of the ships at Salamis were sunk, some destroyed by the Athenians, some by the Aeginetans. Since the Hellenes fought in an orderly fashion by line, but the barbarians were no longer in position and did nothing with forethought, it was likely to turn out as it did. Yet they were brave that day, much more brave than they had been at Euboea, for they all showed zeal out of fear of Xerxes, each one thinking that the king was watching him.

Chapter 87

1I cannot say exactly how each of the other barbarians or Hellenes fought, but this is what happened to Artemisia, and it gave her still higher esteem with the king:

2When the king's side was all in commotion, at that time Artemisia's ship was pursued by a ship of Attica. She could not escape, for other allied ships were in front of her and hers was the nearest to the enemy. So she resolved to do something which did in fact benefit her: as she was pursued by the Attic ship, she charged and rammed an allied ship, with a Calyndian crew and Damasithymus himself, king of the Calyndians, aboard.

3I cannot say if she had some quarrel with him while they were still at the Hellespont, or whether she did this intentionally or if the ship of the Calyndians fell in her path by chance.

4But when she rammed and sank it, she had the luck of gaining two advantages. When the captain of the Attic ship saw her ram a ship with a barbarian crew, he decided that Artemisia's ship was either Hellenic or a deserter from the barbarians fighting for them, so he turned away to deal with others.

Chapter 88

1Thus she happened to escape and not be destroyed, and it also turned out that the harmful thing which she had done won her exceptional esteem from Xerxes.

2It is said that the king, as he watched the battle, saw her ship ram the other, and one of the bystanders said, “Master, do you see how well Artemisia contends in the contest and how she has sunk an enemy ship?” When he asked if the deed was truly Artemisia's, they affirmed it, knowing reliably the marking of her ship, and they supposed that the ruined ship was an enemy.

3As I have said, all this happened to bring her luck, and also that no one from the Calyndian ship survived to accuse her. It is said that Xerxes replied to what was told him, “My men have become women, and my women men.” They say this is what Xerxes said.

Chapter 89

1In this struggle the general Ariabignes died, son of Darius and the brother of Xerxes. Many other famous men of the Persians and Medes and other allies also died, but only a few Hellenes, since they knew how to swim. Those whose ships were sunk swam across to Salamis, unless they were killed in action,

2but many of the barbarians drowned in the sea since they did not know how to swim. Most of the ships were sunk when those in the front turned to flee, since those marshalled in the rear, as they tried to go forward with their ships so they too could display some feat to the king, ran afoul of their own side's ships in flight.

Chapter 90

1It also happened in this commotion that certain Phoenicians whose ships had been destroyed came to the king and accused the Ionians of treason, saying that it was by their doing that the ships had been lost. It turned out that the Ionian generals were not put to death, and those Phoenicians who slandered them were rewarded as I will show.

2While they were still speaking, a Samothracian ship rammed an Attic ship. The Attic ship sank and an Aeginetan ship bore down and sank the Samothracian ship, but the Samothracians, being javelin-throwers, by pelting them with missiles knocked the fighters off the ship that had sunk theirs and boarded and seized it.

3This saved the Ionians. In his deep vexation Xerxes blamed everyone. When he saw the Ionians performing this great feat, he turned to the Phoenicians and commanded that their heads be cut off, so that they who were base not slander men more noble.

4Whenever Xerxes, as he sat beneath the mountain opposite Salamis which is called Aegaleos, saw one of his own men achieve some feat in the battle, he inquired who did it, and his scribes wrote down the captain's name with his father and city of residence. The presence of Ariaramnes, a Persian and a friend of the Ionians, contributed still more to this calamity of the Phoenicians. Thus they dealt with the Phoenicians.

Chapter 91

1The barbarians were routed and tried to flee by sailing out to Phalerum, but the Aeginetans lay in wait for them in the strait and then performed deeds worth telling. The Athenians in the commotion destroyed those ships which either resisted or tried to flee, the Aeginetans those sailing out of the strait. Whoever escaped from the Athenians charged right into the Aeginetans.

Chapter 92

1The ships of Themistocles, as he was pursuing a ship, and of Polycritus son of Crius, an Aeginetan, then met. Polycritus had rammed a Sidonian ship, the one which had captured the Aeginetan ship that was on watch off Sciathus, and on it was Pytheas son of Ischenous, the one the Persians marvelled at when severely wounded and kept aboard their ship because of his virtue. This Sidonian ship carrying him with the Persians was now captured, so Pytheas came back safe to Aegina.

2When Polycritus saw the Attic ship, he recognized it by seeing the flagship's marking and shouted to Themistocles, mocking and reproaching him concerning the Medizing of the Aeginetans. After ramming an enemy ship, Polycritus hurled these insults at Themistocles. The barbarians whose ships were still intact fled and reached Phalerum under cover of the land army.

Chapter 93

1In this battle the Hellenes with the reputation as most courageous were the Aeginetans, then the Athenians. Among individuals they were Polycritus the Aeginetan and the Athenians Eumenes of Anagyrus and Aminias of Pallene, the one who pursued Artemisia. If he had known she was in that ship, he would not have stopped before either capturing it or being captured himself.

2Such were the orders given to the Athenian captains, and there was a prize offered of ten thousand drachmas to whoever took her alive, since they were indignant that a woman waged war against Athens. But she escaped, as I said earlier, and the others whose ships survived were also in Phalerum.

Chapter 94

1The Athenians say that when the ships joined battle, the Corinthian general Adeimantus, struck with bewilderment and terror, hoisted his sails and fled away. When the Corinthians saw their flagship fleeing, they departed in the same way,

2but when in their flight they were opposite the sacred precinct of Athena Sciras on Salamis, by divine guidance a boat encountered them. No one appeared to have sent it, and the Corinthians knew nothing about the affairs of the fleet when it approached. They reckon the affair to involve the gods because when the boat came near the ships, the people on the boat said,

3“Adeimantus, you have turned your ships to flight and betrayed the Hellenes, but they are overcoming their enemies to the fulfillment of their prayers for victory.” Adeimantus did not believe them when they said this, so they spoke again, saying that they could be taken as hostages and killed if the Hellenes were not seen to be victorious.

4So he and the others turned their ships around and came to the fleet, but it was all over. The Athenians spread this rumor about them, but the Corinthians do not agree at all, and they consider themselves to have been among the foremost in the battle. The rest of Hellas bears them witness.

Chapter 95

1Aristides son of Lysimachus, the Athenian whom I mentioned a little before this as a valiant man, did this in the commotion that arose at Salamis: taking many of the armed men who were arrayed along the shore of Salamis, he brought them across and landed them on the island of Psyttalea, and they slaughtered all the Persians who were on that islet.

Chapter 96

1When the battle was broken off, the Hellenes towed to Salamis as many of the wrecks as were still there and kept ready for another battle, supposing that the king could still make use of his surviving ships.

2A west wind had caught many of the wrecks and carried them to the shore in Attica called Colias. Thus not only was all the rest of the oracle fulfilled which Bacis and Musaeus had spoken about this battle, but also what had been said many years before this in an oracle by Lysistratus, an Athenian soothsayer, concerning the wrecks carried to shore there. Its meaning had eluded all the Hellenes: The Colian women will cook with oars. But this was to happen after the king had marched away.

Chapter 97

1When Xerxes understood the calamity which had taken place, he feared that some of the Ionians might advise the Hellenes, if they did not think of it themselves, to sail to the Hellespont and destroy the bridges. He would be trapped in Europe in danger of destruction, so he resolved on flight. He did not want to be detected either by the Hellenes or by his own men, so he attempted to build a dike across to Salamis, and joined together Phoenician cargo ships to be both a bridge and a wall, making preparations as if to fight another sea battle.

2All who saw him doing this confidently supposed that he fully intended to stay and fight there, but none of this eluded Mardonius, who had the most experience of the king's intentions. While doing all this, Xerxes sent a messenger to Persia to announce the disaster.

Chapter 98

1While Xerxes did thus, he sent a messenger to Persia with news of his present misfortune. Now there is nothing mortal that accomplishes a course more swiftly than do these messengers, by the Persians' skillful contrivance. It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day's journey. These are stopped neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.

2The first rider delivers his charge to the second, the second to the third, and thence it passes on from hand to hand, even as in the Greek torch-bearers' race in honor of Hephaestus. This riding-post is called in Persia, angareion.

Chapter 99

1When the first message came to Susa, saying that Xerxes had taken Athens, it gave such delight to the Persians who were left at home that they strewed all the roads with myrtle boughs and burnt incense and gave themselves up to sacrificial feasts and jollity.

2The second, however, coming on the heels of the first, so confounded them that they all tore their tunics, and cried and lamented without ceasing, holding Mardonius to blame; it was not so much in grief for their ships that they did this as because they feared for Xerxes himself.

Chapter 100

1Such was the plight of the Persians for all the time until the coming of Xerxes himself ended it. Mardonius, however, seeing that Xerxes was greatly distressed because of the sea-fight, and suspecting that he planned flight from Athens, thought that he would be punished for persuading the king to march against Hellas and that it was better for him to risk the chance of either subduing Hellas or dying honorably while engaged in a noble cause; yet his hope rather inclined to the subduing of Hellas. Taking all this into account, he made this proposal:

2“Sire, be not grieved nor greatly distressed because of what has befallen us. It is not on things of wood that the issue hangs for us, but on men and horses; furthermore, there is no one among these men, who thinks that he has now won a crowning victory and will disembark from his ship in an attempt to withstand you, no, nor anyone from this mainland. Those who have withstood us have paid the penalty.

3If then you so desire, let us straightway attack the Peloponnese, or if it pleases you to wait, that also we can do. Do not be downcast, for the Greeks have no way of escaping guilt for their former and their later deeds and from becoming your slaves. It is best then that you should do as I have said, but if you have resolved to lead your army away, even then I have another plan.

4Do not, O king, make the Persians the laughing-stock of the Greeks, for if you have suffered harm, it is by no fault of the Persians. Nor can you say that we have anywhere done less than brave men should, and if Phoenicians and Egyptians and Cyprians and Cilicians have so done, it is not the Persians who have any part in this disaster.

5Therefore, since the Persians are in no way to blame, be guided by me; if you are resolved not to remain, march homewards with the greater part of your army. It is for me, however, to enslave and deliver Hellas to you with three hundred thousand of your host whom I will choose.”

Chapter 101

1When Xerxes heard that, he was as glad and joyful as a man in his situation might be and said to Mardonius that he would answer him after deliberating which of the two plans he would follow. When he consulted with those Persians whom he summoned, he resolved to send for Artemisia as well, because he saw that she alone at the former sitting had discerned what was best to do.

2When Artemisia came, Xerxes bade all others withdraw, both Persian councillors and guards, and said to her: “It is Mardonius' advice that I should follow here and attack the Peloponnese, for the Persians, he says, and the land army are not to blame for our disaster; of that they would willingly give proof.

3Therefore he advises me to do this, or else he offers to choose three hundred thousand men of the army and deliver Hellas to me enslaved, while I myself by his counsel march homeward with the rest of the host.

4Now I ask of you, seeing that you correctly advised me against the late sea-fight, counsel me as to which of these two things would be best for me to do.”

Chapter 102

1When she was asked for advice, she replied: “It is difficult, O king, to answer your plea for advice by saying that which is best, but in the present turn of affairs I think it best that you march back and that Mardonius, if he so wishes and promises to do as he says, be left here with those whom he desires.

2For if he subdues all that he offers to subdue and prospers in his design, the achievement, Sire, is yours since it will be your servants who have accomplished it. If, on the other hand, the issue is contrary to Mardonius' expectation, it is no great misfortune so long as you and all that household of yours are safe;

3for while you and the members of your household are safe, many a time will the Greeks have to fight for their lives. As for Mardonius, if any disaster befalls him, it is does not much matter, nor will any victory of the Greeks be a real victory when they have but slain your servant. As for you, you will be marching home after the burning of Athens, which thing was the whole purpose of your expedition.”

Chapter 103

1Artemisia's counsel pleased Xerxes, for it happened that she spoke what he himself had in mind. In truth, I think that he would not have remained even if all men and women had counselled him so to do—so panic-stricken was he. Having then thanked Artemisia, he sent her away to take his sons to Ephesus, for he had some bastard sons with him.

Chapter 104

1With these sons he sent Hermotimus as guardian. This man was by birth of Pedasa, and the most honored by Xerxes of all his eunuchs. The people of Pedasa dwell above Halicarnassus. The following thing happens among these people: when anything untoward is about to befall those who dwell about their city, the priestess of Athena then grows a great beard. This had already happened to them twice.

Chapter 105

1Hermotimus, who came from Pedasa, had achieved a fuller vengeance for wrong done to him than had any man whom we know. When he had been taken captive by enemies and put up for sale, he was bought by one Panionius of Chios, a man who had set himself to earn a livelihood out of most wicked practices. He would procure beautiful boys and castrate and take them to Sardis and Ephesus where he sold them for a great price,

2for the barbarians value eunuchs more than perfect men, by reason of the full trust that they have in them. Now among the many whom Panionius had castrated was Hermotimus, who was not entirely unfortunate; he was brought from Sardis together with other gifts to the king, and as time went on, he stood higher in Xerxes' favor than any other eunuch.

Chapter 106

1Now while the king was at Sardis and preparing to lead his Persian army against Athens, Hermotimus came for some business down to the part of Mysia which is inhabited by Chians and called Atarneus. There he found Panionius.

2Perceiving who he was, he held long and friendly converse with him, telling him that it was to him that he owed all this prosperity and promising that he would make him prosperous in return if he were to bring his household and dwell there. Panionius accepted his offer gladly, and brought his children and his wife.

3When Hermotimus had gotten the man and all his household into his power, he said to him: “Tell me, you who have made a livelihood out of the wickedest trade on earth, what harm had I or any of my forefathers done to you or yours, that you made me to be no man, but a thing of nought? You no doubt thought that the gods would have no knowledge of your former practices, but their just law has brought you for your wicked deeds into my hands. Now you will be well content with the fullness of that justice which I will execute upon you.”

4With these words of reproach, he brought Panionius' sons before him and compelled him to castrate all four of them—his own children; this Panionius was compelled to do. When he had done this, the sons were compelled to castrate their father in turn. This, then, was the way in which Panionius was overtaken by vengeance at the hands of Hermotimus.

Chapter 107

1Having given his sons to Artemisia's charge to be carried to Ephesus, Xerxes called Mardonius to him and bade him choose whom he would from the army, and make his words good so far as endeavor availed. That is as far as matters went on that day; in the night, however, the admirals, by the king's command, put out to sea from Phalerum and made for the Hellespont again with all speed to guard the bridges for the king's passage.

2When the barbarians came near to the “Girdle” in their course, they thought that certain little headlands, which here jut out from the mainland, were ships, and they fled for a long way. When they learned at last that they were no ships but headlands, they drew together and went on their way.

Chapter 108

1When it was day, the Greeks saw the land army abiding where it had been and supposed the ships also to be at Phalerum. Thinking also that there would be a sea-fight they prepared to defend themselves. When, however, they learned that the ships were gone, they straightway resolved on pursuit; so they pursued Xerxes' fleet as far as Andros, but failed to catch sight of it. When they came to Andros, they held a council there.

2Themistocles declared his opinion that they should hold their course through the islands, and having pursued the ships, should sail forthwith to the Hellespont to break the bridges. Eurybiades, on the other hand, offered a contrary opinion, saying that to break the bridges would be the greatest harm that they could do to Hellas.

3“For,” said he, “if the Persian is cut off and compelled to remain in Europe, he will attempt not to be inactive. This he will do because if he remains inactive, he can neither make his cause prosper nor find any way of return home, but his army will perish of hunger. If, on the other hand, he is enterprising and active, it may well be that every town and nation in Europe will join itself to him, by conquest or, before that, by compact. He will then live on whatever yearly fruits of the earth Hellas produces.

4But, as I think that the Persian will not remain in Europe after his defeat in the sea-fight, let us permit him to flee to his own country. Thereafter let it be that country and not ours which is at stake in the war.” With that opinion the rest of the Peloponnesian admirals also agreed.

Chapter 109

1When Themistocles perceived that he could not persuade the greater part of them to sail to the Hellespont, he turned to the Athenians (for they were the angriest at the Persians' escape, and they were minded to sail to the Hellespont even by themselves, if the rest would not) and addressed them as follows:

2“This I have often seen with my eyes and heard yet more often, namely that beaten men, when they be driven to bay, will rally and retrieve their former mishap. Therefore I say to you,—as it is to a fortunate chance that we owe ourselves and Hellas, and have driven away so mighty a band of enemies—let us not pursue men who flee,

3for it is not we who have won this victory, but the gods and the heroes, who deemed Asia and Europe too great a realm for one man to rule, and that a wicked man and an impious one who dealt alike with temples and bones, burning and overthrowing the images of the gods,—yes, and one who scourged the sea and threw fetters into it.

4But as it is well with us for the moment, let us abide now in Hellas and take thought for ourselves and our households. Let us build our houses again and be diligent in sowing, when we have driven the foreigner completely away. Then when the next spring comes, let us set sail for the Hellespont and Ionia.”

5This he said with intent to have something to his credit with the Persian, so that he might have a place of refuge if ever (as might chance) he should suffer anything at the hands of the Athenians—and just that did in fact happen.

Chapter 110

1Thus spoke Themistocles with intent to deceive, and the Athenians obeyed him; since he had always been esteemed wise and now had shown himself to be both wise and prudent, they were ready to obey whatever he said.

2Having won them over, Themistocles straightway sent men in a boat whom he could trust not to reveal under any question the message which he charged them to deliver to the king; one of these was his servant Sicinnus. When these men came to Attica, the rest remained with the boat, and Sicinnus went up to Xerxes;

3“Themistocles son of Neocles,” he said, “who is the Athenian general and of all the allies the worthiest and wisest, has sent me to tell you this: Themistocles the Athenian has out of his desire to do you a service stayed the Greeks when they wanted to pursue your ships and break the bridges of the Hellespont. Now he bids you go your way, none hindering you.” With that message, the men returned in their boat.

Chapter 111

1But the Greeks, now that they were no longer minded to pursue the barbarians' ships farther or sail to the Hellespont and break the way of passage, besieged Andros so that they might take it,

2for the men of that place, the first islanders of whom Themistocles demanded money, would not give it. When, however, Themistocles gave them to understand that the Athenians had come with two great gods to aid them, Persuasion and Necessity, and that the Andrians must therefore certainly give money, they said in response, “It is then but reasonable that Athens is great and prosperous, being blessed with serviceable gods.

3As for us Andrians, we are but blessed with a plentiful lack of land, and we have two unserviceable gods who never quit our island but want to dwell there forever, namely Poverty and Helplessness. Since we are in the hands of these gods, we will give no money; the power of Athens can never be stronger than our inability.”

Chapter 112

1It was for giving this answer and refusing to give what was asked of them that they were besieged. There was no end to Themistocles' avarice; using the same agents whom he had used with the king, he sent threatening messages to the other islands, demanding money and saying that if they would not give what he asked he would bring the Greek armada upon them and besiege and take their islands.

2Thereby he collected great sums from the Carystians and Parians, for these were informed that Andros was besieged for taking the Persian side and that Themistocles was of all the generals the most esteemed. This frightened them so much that they sent money. I suppose that there were other islanders too who gave and not these alone, but I cannot with certainty say.

3Nevertheless, the Carystians got no respite from misfortune by doing this. The Parians, however, propitiated Themistocles with money and so escaped the force. So Themistocles went away from Andros and took money from the islanders, unknown to the other generals.

Chapter 113

1Those who were with Xerxes waited for a few days after the sea-fight and then marched away to Boeotia by the road by which they had come. Mardonius wanted to give the king safe conduct and thought the time of year unseasonable for war; it was better, he thought, to winter in Thessaly, and then attack the Peloponnese in the spring.

2When they had arrived in Thessaly, Mardonius first chose all the Persians called Immortals, save only Hydarnes their general who said that he would not quit the king's person, and next, the Persian cuirassiers and the thousand horse and the Medes and Sacae and Bactrians and Indians, alike their infantrymen and the rest of the horsemen.

3These nations he chose in their entirety; of the rest of his allies he picked out a few from each people, the best men and those whom he knew to have done some good service. The Persians whom he chose (men who wore torques and bracelets) were more in number than those of any other nation and next to them the Medes; these indeed were as many as the Persians, but not such stout fighters. Thereby the whole number, together with the horsemen, grew to three hundred thousand men.

Chapter 114

1Now while Mardonius was choosing his army and Xerxes was in Thessaly, there came an oracle from Delphi to the Lacedaemonians, that they should demand justice of Xerxes for the slaying of Leonidas and take whatever he should offer them. The Spartans then sent a herald with all speed. He found the army yet undivided in Thessaly, came into Xerxes' presence, and spoke as follows:

2“The Lacedaemonians and the Heraclidae of Sparta demand of you, king of the Medes, that you pay the penalty for the death of their king, whom you killed while he defended Hellas.” At that Xerxes laughed, and after a long while, he pointed to Mardonius, who chanced to be standing by him and said, “Then here is Mardonius, who shall pay those you speak of such penalty as befits them.”

Chapter 115

1So the herald took that response and departed, but Xerxes left Mardonius in Thessaly. He himself journeyed with all speed to the Hellespont and came in forty-five days to the passage for crossing, bringing back with him as good as none (if one may say so) of his host.

2Wherever and to whatever people they came, they seized and devoured its produce. If they found none, they would eat the grass of the field and strip the bark and pluck the leaves of the trees, garden and wild alike, leaving nothing—such was the degree of their starvation.

3Moreover, pestilence and dysentery broke out among them on their way, from which they died. Some who were sick Xerxes left behind, charging the cities to which he came in his march to care for them and nourish them, some in Thessaly and some in Siris of Paeonia and in Macedonia.

4In Siris he had left the sacred chariot of Zeus when he was marching to Hellas, but on his return he did not get it back again. The Paeonians had given it to the Thracians, and when Xerxes demanded it back, they said that the horses had been carried off from pasture by the Thracians of the hills who dwelt about the headwaters of the Strymon.

Chapter 116

1It was then that a monstrous deed was done by the Thracian king of the Bisaltae and the Crestonian country. He had refused to be of his own free will Xerxes' slave, and fled to the mountains called Rhodope. He forbade his sons to go with the army to Hellas,

2but they took no account of that; they had always wanted to see the war, and they followed the Persians' march. For this reason, when all the six of them returned back scatheless, their father tore out their eyes.

Chapter 117

1This was their reward. Now the Persians, journeying through Thrace to the passage, made haste to cross to Abydos in their ships, for they found the bridges no longer made fast but broken by a storm. There their march halted, and more food was given them than on their way.

2Then by reason of their immoderate gorging and the change of the water which they drank, many of the army that had survived died. The rest came with Xerxes to Sardis.

Chapter 118

1There is, however, another tale, which is this: when Xerxes came in his march from Athens to Eion on the Strymon, he travelled no farther than that by land, but committed his army to Hydarnes to be led to the Hellespont. He himself embarked and set sail for Asia in a Phoenician ship.

2In the course of this voyage he was caught by a strong wind called the Strymonian, which lifted up the waves. This storm bearing the harder upon him by reason of the heavy load of the ship (for the Persians of his company who were on the deck were so many), the king grew afraid and cried to the ship's pilot asking him if there were any way of deliverance. To this the man said,

3“Sire, there is none, if we do not rid ourselves of these many who are on board.” Hearing that, it is said, Xerxes said to the Persians, “Now it is for you to prove your concern for your king, for it seems that my deliverance rests with you.”

4At this they bowed and leapt into the sea. The ship, now much lighter, came by these means safe to Asia. No sooner had Xerxes disembarked on land, than he made the pilot a gift of a golden crown for saving the king's life but cut off his head for being the death of many Persians.

Chapter 119

1This is the other tale of Xerxes' return; but I for my part believe neither the story of the Persians' fate nor any other part of it. For if indeed the pilot had spoken to Xerxes in this way, I think that there is not one in ten thousand who would not say that the king would have bidden the men on deck (who were Persians and of the best blood of Persia) descend into the ship's hold, and would have taken from the Phoenician rowers a number equal to the number of the Persians and cast them into the sea. No, the truth is that Xerxes did as I have already said, and returned to Asia with his army by road.

Chapter 120

1There is further proof of this, for it is known that when Xerxes came to Abdera in his return, he made a compact of friendship with its people and gave them a golden sword and a gilt tiara. As the people of Abdera say (but for my part I wholly disbelieve them), it was here that Xerxes in his flight back from Athens first loosed his girdle, as being here in safety. Now Abdera lies nearer to the Hellespont than the Strymon and Eion, where they say that he took ship.

Chapter 121

1As for the Greeks, not being able to take Andros, they went to Carystus. When they had laid it waste, they returned to Salamis. First of all they set apart for the gods, among other first-fruits, three Phoenician triremes, one to be dedicated at the Isthmus, where it was till my lifetime, the second at Sunium, and the third for Ajax at Salamis where they were.

2After that, they divided the spoils and sent the first-fruits of it to Delphi; of this was made a man's image twelve cubits high, holding in his hand the figurehead of a ship. This stood in the same place as the golden statue of Alexander the Macedonian.

Chapter 122

1Having sent the first-fruits to Delphi, the Greeks, in the name of the country generally, made inquiry of the god whether the first-fruits which he had received were of full measure and whether he was content. To this he said that he was content with what he had received from all other Greeks, but not from the Aeginetans. From these he demanded the victor's prize for the sea-fight of Salamis. When the Aeginetans learned that, they dedicated three golden stars which are set on a bronze mast, in the angle, nearest to Croesus' bowl.

Chapter 123

1After the division of the spoils, the Greeks sailed to the Isthmus, there to award the prize of excellence to him who had shown himself most worthy of it in that war.

2But when the admirals came and at the altar of Poseidon gave their votes to judge who was first and who second among them, each of them voted for himself, supposing himself to have done the best service. The greater part of them, however, united in giving the second place to Themistocles. So they each gained but one vote, while Themistocles far outstripped them in votes for the second place.

Chapter 124

1The Greeks were too jealous to assign the prize and sailed away each to his own place, leaving the matter undecided; nevertheless, Themistocles was lauded, and throughout all of Hellas was deemed the wisest man by far of the Greeks.

2However, because he had not received from those that fought at Salamis the honor due to his preeminence, he immediately afterwards went to Lacedaemon in order that he might receive honor there. The Lacedaemonians welcomed him and paid him high honor. They bestowed on Eurybiades a crown of olive as the reward of excellence and another such crown on Themistocles for his wisdom and cleverness. They also gave him the finest chariot in Sparta,

3and with many words of praise, they sent him home with the three hundred picked men of Sparta who are called Knights to escort him as far as the borders of Tegea. Themistocles was the only man of whom we know to whom the Spartans gave this escort.

Chapter 125

1But when Themistocles returned to Athens from Lacedaemon, Timodemus of Aphidnae, who was one of Themistocles' enemies but not a man of note, was crazed with envy and spoke bitterly to Themistocles of his visit to Lacedaemon, saying that the honors he had from the Lacedaemonians were paid him for Athens' sake and not for his own.

2This he kept saying until Themistocles replied, “This is the truth of the matter: if I had been a man of Belbina I would not have been honored in this way by the Spartans, nor would you, sir, for all you are a man of Athens.” Such was the end of that business.

Chapter 126

1Artabazus son of Pharnaces, who was already a notable man among the Persians and grew to be yet more so through the Plataean business, escorted the king as far as the passage with sixty thousand men of the army that Mardonius had chosen.

2Xerxes, then, was now in Asia, and when Artabazus came near Pallene in his return (for Mardonius was wintering in Thessaly and Macedonia and making no haste to come to the rest of his army), he thought it right that he should enslave the people of Potidaea, whom he found in revolt.

3When the king had marched away past the town and the Persian fleet had taken flight from Salamis, Potidaea had openly revolted from the barbarians and so too had the rest of the people of Pallene.

Chapter 127

1Thereupon Artabazus laid siege to Potidaea, and suspecting that Olynthus too was plotting revolt from the king, he laid siege to it also. This town was held by Bottiaeans who had been driven from the Thermaic gulf by the Macedonians. Having besieged and taken Olynthus, he brought these men to a lake and there cut their throats and delivered their city over to the charge of Critobulus of Torone and the Chalcidian people. It was in this way that the Chalcidians gained possession of Olynthus.

Chapter 128

1Having taken Olynthus, Artabazus dealt immediately with Potidaea, and his zeal was aided by Timoxenus the general of the Scionaeans, who agreed to betray the place to him. I do not know how the agreement was first made, since there is no information available about it. The result, however, was as I will now show. Whenever Timoxenus wrote a letter to be sent to Artabazus, or Artabazus to Timoxenus, they would wrap it around the shaft of an arrow at the notches, attach feathers to the letter, and shoot it to a place upon which they had agreed.

2Timoxenus' plot to betray Potidaea was, however, discovered, for Artabazus in shooting an arrow to the place agreed upon, missed it and hit the shoulder of a man of Potidaea. A throng gathered quickly around the man when he was struck (which is a thing that always happens in war), and they straightway took the arrow, found the letter, and carried it to their generals; the rest of their allies of Pallene were also there present.

3The generals read the letter and perceived who was the traitor, but they resolved for Scione's sake that they would not condemn Timoxenus with a charge of treason, for fear that the people of Scione should hereafter be called traitors.

Chapter 129

1This is how Timoxenus' treachery was brought to light. But when Artabazus had besieged Potidaea for three months, there was a great ebb-tide in the sea which lasted for a long while, and when the foreigners saw that the sea was turned to a marsh, they prepared to pass over it into Pallene.

2When they had made their way over two-fifths of it, however, and three yet remained to cross before they could be in Pallene, there came a great flood-tide, higher, as the people of the place say, than any one of the many that had been before. Some of them who did not know how to swim were drowned, and those who knew were slain by the Potidaeans, who came among them in boats.

3The Potidaeans say that the cause of the high sea and flood and the Persian disaster lay in the fact that those same Persians who now perished in the sea had profaned the temple and the image of Poseidon which was in the suburb of the city. I think that in saying that this was the cause they are correct. Those who escaped alive were led away by Artabazus to Mardonius in Thessaly. This is how the men who had been the king's escort fared.

Chapter 130

1All that was left of Xerxes' fleet, having in its flight from Salamis touched the coast of Asia and ferried the king and his army over from the Chersonese to Abydos, wintered at Cyme. Then early in the first dawn of spring they mustered at Samos, where some of the ships had wintered. The majority of their fighting men were Persians and Medes.

2Mardontes son of Bagaeus and Artayntes son of Artachaees came to be their admirals, and Artayntes chose also his own nephew Ithamitres to have a share in the command. But by reason of the heavy blow dealt them they went no further out to sea westwards, nor did anyone insist that they should so do. They did, however, lie off Samos keeping watch against a revolt in Ionia. The whole number of their ships, Ionian and other, was three hundred.

3In truth they did not expect that the Greeks would come to Ionia, but rather that they would be content to guard their own country. This they thought because the Greeks had not pursued them when they fled from Salamis, but had been glad to be quit of them. In regard to the sea, the Persians were at heart beaten men, but they supposed that on land Mardonius would easily prevail.

4So they were at Samos, and there planned to do what harm they could to their enemies and to listen in the interim for news of how Mardonius' affairs were proceeding.

Chapter 131

1As for the Greeks, the coming of spring and Mardonius' being in Thessaly moved them to action. They had not yet begun the mustering of their army, but their fleet, one hundred and ten ships, came to Aegina.

2Their general and admiral was Leutychides son of Menares, who traced his lineage from son to father through Hegesilaus, Hippocratides, Leutychides, Anaxilaus, Archidemus, Anaxandrides, Theopompus, Nicandrus, Charilaus, Eunomus, Polydectes, Prytanis, Euryphon, Procles, Aristodemus, Aristomachus, Cleodaeus, to Hyllus who was the son of Heracles. He was of the second royal house.

3All the aforesaid had been kings of Sparta, save the seven named first after Leutychides. The general of the Athenians was Xanthippus son of Ariphron.

Chapter 132

1When all the ships had arrived at Aegina, there came to the Greek quarters messengers from the Ionians, the same who a little while before that had gone to Sparta and entreated the Lacedaemonians to free Ionia.

2One of these was Herodotus the son of Basileides. These, who at first were seven, made a faction and conspired to slay Strattis, the tyrant of Chios, but when their conspiracy became known, one of the accomplices having revealed their enterprise, the six who remained got them secretly out of Chios, from where they went to Sparta and now to Aegina, entreating the Greeks to sail to Ionia.

3The Greeks took them as far as Delos, and that not readily, for they, having no knowledge of those parts and thinking that armed men were everywhere, feared all that lay beyond. They supposed too that Samos was no nearer to them than the Pillars of Heracles. So it happened that the barbarians were too disheartened to dare to sail farther west than Samos, while at the same time the Greeks dared to go at the Chians' request no farther east than Delos. It was fear which kept the middle space between them.

Chapter 133

1The Greeks, then, sailed to Delos, and Mardonius wintered in Thessaly. Having his headquarters there he sent a man of Europus called Mys to visit the places of divination, charging him to inquire of all the oracles which he could test. What it was that he desired to learn from the oracles when he gave this charge, I cannot say, for no one tells of it. I suppose that he sent to inquire concerning his present business, and that alone.

Chapter 134

1This man Mys is known to have gone to Lebadea and to have bribed a man of the country to go down into the cave of Trophonius and to have gone to the place of divination at Abae in Phocis. He went first to Thebes where he inquired of Ismenian Apollo (sacrifice is there the way of divination, as at Olympia), and moreover he bribed one who was no Theban but a stranger to lie down to sleep in the shrine of Amphiaraus.

2No Theban may seek a prophecy there, for Amphiaraus bade them by an oracle to choose which of the two they wanted and forgo the other, and take him either for their prophet or for their ally. They chose that he should be their ally. Therefore no Theban may lie down to sleep in that place.

Chapter 135

1But at this time there happened, as the Thebans say, a thing at which I marvel greatly. It would seem that this man Mys of Europus came in his wanderings among the places of divination to the precinct of Ptoan Apollo. This temple is called Ptoum, and belongs to the Thebans. It lies by a hill, above lake Copais, very near to the town Acraephia.

2When the man called Mys entered into this temple together with three men of the town who were chosen on the state's behalf to write down the oracles that should be given, straightway the diviner prophesied in a foreign tongue.

3The Thebans who followed him were astonished to hear a strange language instead of Greek and knew not what this present matter might be. Mys of Europus, however, snatched from them the tablet which they carried and wrote on it that which was spoken by the prophet, saying that the words of the oracle were Carian. After writing everything down, he went back to Thessaly.

Chapter 136

1Mardonius read whatever was said in the oracles, and presently he sent a messenger to Athens, Alexander, a Macedonian, son of Amyntas. Him he sent, partly because the Persians were akin to him; Bubares, a Persian, had taken to wife Gygaea Alexander's sister and Amyntas' daughter, who had borne to him that Amyntas of Asia who was called by the name of his mother's father, and to whom the king gave Alabanda a great city in Phrygia for his dwelling. Partly too he sent him because he learned that Alexander was a protector and benefactor to the Athenians.

2It was thus that he supposed he could best gain the Athenians for his allies, of whom he heard that they were a numerous and valiant people, and knew that they had been the chief authors of the calamities which had befallen the Persians at sea.

3If he gained their friendship he thought he would easily become master of the seas, as truly he would have been. On land he supposed himself to be by much the stronger, and he accordingly reckoned that thus he would have the upper hand of the Greeks. This chanced to be the prediction of the oracles which counseled him to make the Athenians his ally. It was in obedience to this that he sent his messenger.

Chapter 137

1This Alexander was seventh in descent from Perdiccas, who got for himself the tyranny of Macedonia in the way that I will show. Three brothers of the lineage of Temenus came as banished men from Argos to Illyria, Gauanes and Aeropus and Perdiccas; and from Illyria they crossed over into the highlands of Macedonia till they came to the town Lebaea.

2There they served for wages as thetes in the king's household, one tending horses and another oxen. Perdiccas, who was the youngest, tended the lesser flocks. Now the king's wife cooked their food for them, for in old times the ruling houses among men, and not the common people alone, were lacking in wealth.

3Whenever she baked bread, the loaf of the thete Perdiccas grew double in size. Seeing that this kept happening, she told her husband, and it seemed to him when be heard it that this was a portent signifying some great matter. So he sent for his thetes and bade them depart from his territory.

4They said it was only just that they should have their wages before they departed. When they spoke of wages, the king was moved to foolishness and said, “That is the wage you merit, and it is that I give you,” pointing to the sunlight that shone down the smoke vent into the house.

5Gauanes and Aeropus, who were the elder, stood astonished when they heard that, but the boy said, “We accept what you give, O king,” and with that he took a knife which he had with him and drew a line with it on the floor of the house round the sunlight. When he had done this, he three times gathered up the sunlight into the fold of his garment and went his way with his companions.

Chapter 138

1So they departed, but one of those who sat nearby declared to the king what this was that the boy had done and how it was of set purpose that the youngest of them had accepted the gift offered. When the king heard this, he was angered, and sent riders after them to slay them. There is, however, in that land a river, to which the descendants from Argos of these men offer sacrifice as their deliverer.

2This river, when the sons of Temenus had crossed it, rose in such flood that the riders could not cross. So the brothers came to another part of Macedonia and settled near the place called the garden of Midas son of Gordias, where roses grow of themselves, each bearing sixty blossoms and of surpassing fragrance.

3In this garden, according to the Macedonian story, Silenus was taken captive. Above it rises the mountain called Bermius, which none can ascend for the wintry cold. From there they issued forth when they had won that country and presently subdued also the rest of Macedonia.

Chapter 139

1From that Perdiccas Alexander was descended, being the son of Amyntas, who was the son of Alcetes; Alcetes' father was Aeropus, and his was Philippus; Philippus' father was Argaeus, and his again was Perdiccas, who won that lordship.

Chapter 140A

1Such was the lineage of Alexander son of Amyntas. When he came to Athens from Mardonius who had sent him, he spoke as follows: “This, Athenians, is what Mardonius says to you:—there is a message come to me from the king, saying, ‘I forgive the Athenians all the offenses which they have committed against me;

2and now, Mardonius, I bid you do this:—Give them back their territory and let them choose more for themselves besides, where ever they will, and dwell under their own laws. Rebuild all their temples which I burnt, if they will make a pact with me.’ This is the message, and I must obey it (says Mardonius), unless you take it upon yourselves to hinder me.

3This too I say to you:—Why are you so insane as to wage war against the king? You cannot overcome him, nor can you resist him forever. As for the multitude of Xerxes' army, what it did, you have seen, and you have heard of the power that I now have with me. Even if you overcome and conquer us (whereof, if you be in your right minds, you can have no hope), yet there will come another host many times as great as this.

4Be not then minded to match yourselves against the king, and thereby lose your land and always be yourselves in jeopardy, but make peace. This you can most honorably do since the king is that way inclined. Keep your freedom, and agree to be our brothers in arms in all faith and honesty.—

Chapter 140B

1This Athenians, is the message which Mardonius charges me to give you. For my own part I will say nothing of the goodwill that I have towards you, for it would not be the first that you have learned of that. But I entreat you to follow Mardonius' counsel.

2Well I see that you will not have power to wage war against Xerxes forever. If I saw such power in you, I would never have come to you with such language as this, for the king's might is greater than human, and his arm is long.

3If, therefore, you will not straightway agree with them, when the conditions which they offer you are so great, I fear what may befall you. For of all the allies you dwell most in the very path of the war, and you alone will never escape destruction, your country being marked out for a battlefield.

4No, rather follow his counsel, for it is not to be lightly regarded by you who are the only men in Hellas whose offenses the great king is ready to forgive and whose friend he would be.”

Chapter 141

1These were the words of Alexander. The Lacedaemonians, however, had heard that Alexander had come to Athens to bring the Athenians to an agreement with the barbarian. Remembering the oracles, how that they themselves with the rest of the Dorians must be driven out of the Peloponnese by the Medes and the Athenians, they were greatly afraid that the Athenians should agree with the Persian, and they straightway resolved that they would send envoys.

2Moreover, it so fell out for both that they made their entry at one and the same time, for the Athenians delayed and waited for them, being certain that the Lacedaemonians were going to hear that the messenger had come from the Persians for an agreement. They had heard that the Lacedaemonians would send their envoys with all speed. Therefore it was of set purpose that they did this in order that they might make their will known to the Lacedaemonians.

Chapter 142

1So when Alexander had made an end of speaking, the envoys from Sparta said, “We on our part have been sent by the Lacedaemonians to entreat you to do nothing harmful to Hellas and accept no offer from the barbarian.

2That would be unjust and dishonorable for any Greek, but for you most of all, on many counts; it was you who stirred up this war, by no desire of ours, and your territory was first the stake of that battle in which all Hellas is now engaged.

3Apart from that, it is unbearable that not all this alone but slavery too should be brought upon the Greeks by you Athenians, who have always been known as givers of freedom to many. Nevertheless, we grieve with you in your afflictions, seeing that you have lost two harvests and your substance has been for a long time wasted.

4In requital for this the Lacedaemonians and their allies declare that they will nourish your women and all of your household members who are unserviceable for war, so long as this war will last. Let not Alexander the Macedonian win you with his smooth-tongued praise of Mardonius' counsel. It is his business to follow that counsel,

5for as he is a tyrant so must he be the tyrant's fellow-worker; it is not your business, if you are men rightly minded, for you know that in foreigners there is no faith nor truth.” These are the words of the envoys.

Chapter 143

1But to Alexander the Athenians replied as follows: “We know of ourselves that the power of the Mede is many times greater than ours. There is no need to taunt us with that. Nevertheless in our zeal for freedom we will defend ourselves to the best of our ability. But as regards agreements with the barbarian, do not attempt to persuade us to enter into them, nor will we consent.

2Now carry this answer back to Mardonius from the Athenians, that as long as the sun holds the course by which he now goes, we will make no agreement with Xerxes. We will fight against him without ceasing, trusting in the aid of the gods and the heroes whom he has disregarded and burnt their houses and their adornments.

3Come no more to Athenians with such a plea, nor under the semblance of rendering us a service, counsel us to act wickedly. For we do not want those who are our friends and protectors to suffer any harm at Athenian hands.”

Chapter 144

1Such was their answer to Alexander, but to the Spartan envoys they said, “It was most human that the Lacedaemonians should fear our making an agreement with the barbarian. We think that it is an ignoble thing to be afraid, especially since we know the Athenian temper to be such that there is nowhere on earth such store of gold or such territory of surpassing fairness and excellence that the gift of it should win us to take the Persian part and enslave Hellas.

2For there are many great reasons why we should not do this, even if we so desired; first and foremost, the burning and destruction of the adornments and temples of our gods, whom we are constrained to avenge to the utmost rather than make pacts with the perpetrator of these things, and next the kinship of all Greeks in blood and speech, and the shrines of gods and the sacrifices that we have in common, and the likeness of our way of life, to all of which it would not befit the Athenians to be false.

3Know this now, if you knew it not before, that as long as one Athenian is left alive we will make no agreement with Xerxes. Nevertheless we thank you for your forethought concerning us, in that you have so provided for our wasted state that you offer to nourish our households.

4For your part, you have given us full measure of kindness, yet for ourselves, we will make shift to endure as best we may, and not be burdensome to you. But now, seeing that this is so, send your army with all speed,

5for as we guess, the barbarian will be upon us and invade our country in no long time as soon as the message comes to him that we will do nothing that he requires of us; therefore, before he comes into Attica, now is the time for us to march first into Boeotia.” At this reply of the Athenians the envoys returned back to Sparta.