story is told, that the Athenians invoked Boreas, in obedience to an oracle, another response having come to them, "that they should call their son-in-law to their assistance." But Boreas, according to the account of the Greeks, married a woman of Attica, Orithyia, daughter to Erectheus. On account of this marriage, the Athenians, as the report goes, conjecturing that Boreas was their son-in-law, and having stationed their fleet at Chalcis of Euboea, when they saw the storm increasing, or even before, offered sacrifices to and invoked Boreas and Orithyia, praying that they would assist them, and destroy the ships of the barbarians, as they had done before at Mount Athos. Whether, indeed, the north wind in consequence of this fell upon the barbarians as they rode at anchor, I cannot undertake to say; however, the Athenians say, that Boreas, having assisted them before, then also produced this effect; and on their return they erected a temple to Boreas near the river Ilissus. 190. In this disaster those who give the lowest account say, that not fewer than four hundred ships perished, and innumerable lives, and an infinite quantity of treasure; so that this wreck of the fleet proved a source of great profit to Aminocles, son of Cretinus, a Magnesian, who possessed land about Sepias; he some time afterwards picked up many golden cups that had been driven ashore, and many silver ones; he also found treasures belonging to the Persians, and gained an unspeakable quantity of other golden articles. He then, though in other respects unfortunate, became very rich by what he found; for a sad calamity, which occasioned the death of his son,8 gave him great affliction. 191. The provision ships and other vessels destroyed were beyond number; so that the commanders of the naval force, fearing lest the Thessalians should attack them in their shattered condition, threw up a high rampart from the wrecks; for the storm lasted three days. But at length the Magi, having sacrificed victims, and endeavoured to charm the winds by incantations, and moreover, having offered sacrifices to Thetis and the Nereids, laid the storm on the fourth day; or perhaps it abated of its own accord. They sacrificed to Thetis, having heard from the Ionians the story that she had been carried off from this country by Peleus, and that all the coast of Sepias

8 IIaidopóvos, is by others understood to imply "that he killed his own son." I have followed Baehr.

Accordingly the

belonged to her and the other Nereids. wind was lulled on the fourth day. 192. The scouts on the heights of Euboea, running down on the second day after the storm first began, acquainted the Greeks with all that had occurred with respect to the wreck of the fleet. They, when they heard it, having offered up vows and poured out libations to Neptune the Deliverer, immediately hastened back to Artemisium; hoping that there would be only some few ships to oppose them. Thus they coming there a second time took up their station at Artemisium; and from that time to the present have given to Neptune the surname of the Deliverer.

193. The barbarians, when the wind had lulled, and the waves had subsided, having hauled down their ships, sailed along the continent; and having doubled the promontory of Magnesia, stood directly into the bay leading to Pagasa. There is a spot in this bay of Magnesia, where it is said Hercules was abandoned by Jason and his companions, when he had been sent from the Argo for water, as they were sailing to Asia in Colchis, for the golden fleece; for from thence they purposed to put out to sea, after they had taken in water from this circumstance the name of Aphetæ was given to the place. In this place, then, the fleet of Xerxes took up its moorings. 194. Fifteen of these ships happened to be driven out to sea some time after the rest, and somehow saw the ships of the Greeks at Artemisium; the barbarians thought that they were their own, and sailing on fell in among their enemies. They were commanded by Sandoces, son of Thaumasius, governor of Cyme, of Æolia. He, being one of the royal judges, had been formerly condemned by king Darius, who had detected him in the following offence, to be crucified. Sandoces gave an unjust sentence, for a bribe. But while he was actually hanging on the cross, Darius, considering with himself, found that the services he had done to the royal family were greater than his faults; Darius therefore, having discovered this, and perceiving that he himself had acted with more expedition than wisdom, released him. Having thus escaped being put to death by Darius, he survived; but now, sailing down among the Grecians, he was not to escape a second time. For when the Greeks saw them sailing towards them, perceiving the mistake they had committed, they bore down upon them and easily took them. 195. In one of these,

Aridolis, tyrant of the Alabandians, in Caria, was taken; and in another, the Paphian commander, Penthylus, son of Demonous. He brought twelve ships from Paphos ; but having lost eleven in the storm that took place off Sepias, he was taken with the one that escaped, as he was sailing to Artemisium. The Grecians, having learnt by inquiry what they wished to know respecting the forces of Xerxes, sent these men away bound to the isthmus of the Corinthians.

196. Accordingly, the naval force of the barbarians, with the exception of the fifteen ships which, I have mentioned, Sandoces commanded, arrived at Aphetæ. But Xerxes and the land-forces, marching through Thessaly and Achaia, had entered on the third day into the territories of the Mælians. In Thessaly he had made a match with his own horses, for the purpose of trying the Thessalian cavalry, having heard that it was the best of all Greece; and on that occasion the Grecian horses proved very inferior. Of the rivers in Thessaly, the Onochonus alone did not supply a sufficient stream for the army to drink; but of the rivers that flow in Achaia, even the largest of them, the Epidanus, scarcely held out. 197. When Xerxes arrived at Alos in Achaia, the guides, wishing to tell every thing, related to him the tradition of the country, concerning the temple of Laphystian Jupiter; how Athamas, son of Æolus, conspiring with Ino, planned the death of Phryxus; and then, how the Achæans, in obedience to an oracle, imposed the following penalty on his descendants. Whoever is the eldest person of this race, having ordered him to be excluded from the prytaneum, they themselves keep watch; the Achæans call the prytaneum, Leitum; and if he should enter, he cannot possibly go out again except in order to be sacrificed: and how moreover many of those who were on the point of being sacrificed, through fear, went away and fled the country; but in process of time having returned back again, if they were taken, entering the prytaneum, they related, how such an one being covered with sacred fillets, is sacrificed, and how conducted with great pomp. The descendants of Cytissorus, son of Phryxus, are liable to this punishment; because when the Achaians, in obedience to an oracle, were about to make an expiation for their country by the sacrifice of Athamas, son of Eolus, Cytissorus, arriving from Aia of Colchis, rescued him, and having done so, drew down the anger of the gods

upon his descendants. Xerxes having heard this, when he came to the grove, both abstained from entering it himself, and commanded all the army to do the same; and he showed the same respect to the dwelling of the descendants of Athamas as he did to the sacred precinct.

198. These things occurred in Thessaly and in Achaia. From these countries Xerxes advanced to Malis, near a bay of the sea in which an ebb and flow takes place every day. About this bay lies a plain country, in one part wide, and in the other very narrow, and around it high and impassable mountains, called the Trachinian rocks, enclose the whole Malian territory. The first city in the bay, as one comes from Achaia, is Anticyra, by which the river Sperchius, flowing from the country of the Enianes, falls into the sea: and from thence about twenty stades is another river, to which the name of Dyras is given, which, it is said, rose up to assist Hercules when he was burning. From this, at a distance of another twenty stades, is another river, which is called Melas. 199. The city of Trachis is distant five stades from this river Melas; and in this part where Trachis is built, is the widest space of all this country, from the mountains to the sea; for there are twenty-two thousand plethra of plain. In this mountain, which encloses the Trachinian territory, there is a ravine to the south of Trachis, and through the ravine the river Asopus flows, by the base of the mountain. 200. To the south of the Asopus is another river, the Phoenix, not large, which, flowing from these mountains, falls into the Asopus. At the river Phoenix it is the narrowest; for only a single carriage-road has been constructed there. From the river Phoenix it is fifteen stades to Thermopyla; and between the river Phoenix and Thermopyla is a village, the name of which is Anthela, by which the Asopus flowing, falls into the sea: the country about it is wide, and in it is situated a temple of Ceres Amphictyonis, and there are the seats of the Amphictyons, and a temple of Amphictyon himself. 201. King Xerxes, then, encamped in the Trachinian territory of Malis, and the Greeks in the pass. This spot is called by most of the Greeks, Thermopylæ, but by the inhabitants and neighbours, Pylæ. Both parties, then, encamped in these places. The one was in possession of all the parts towards the north, as far as Trachis; and the others, of the parts

which stretch towards the south and meridian, on this continent.

202. The following were the Greeks who awaited the Persian in this position. Of Spartans three hundred heavy-armed men; of Tegeans and Mantineans one thousand, half of each; from Orchomenus in Arcadia one hundred and twenty; and from the rest of Arcadia one thousand, there were so many Arcadians; from Corinth four hundred; from Phlius two hundred men, and from Mycenae eighty. These came from Peloponnesus. From Boeotia, of Thespians seven hundred, and of Thebans four hundred. 203. In addition to these, the Opuntian Locrians, being invited, came with all their forces, and a thousand Phocians. For the Greeks themselves had invited them, representing by their ambassadors that "they had arrived as forerunners of the others, and that the rest of the allies might be daily expected; that the sea was protected by them, being guarded by the Athenians, the Æginetæ, and others, who were appointed to the naval service; and that they had nothing to fear, for that it was not a god who invaded Greece, but a man; and that there never was, and never would be, any mortal who had not evil mixed with his prosperity from his very birth; and to the greatest of them the greatest reverses happen. That it must, therefore, needs be, that he who is marching against us, being a mortal, will be disappointed in his expectation." They, having heard this, marched with assistance to Trachis. 204. These nations had separate generals for their several cities; but the one most admired, and who commanded the whole army, was a Lacedæmonian, Leonidas, son of Anaxandrides, son of Leon, son of Eurycratides, son of Anaxander, son of Eurycrates, son of Polydorus, son of Alcamenes, son of Teleclus, son of Archelaus, son of Agesilaus, son of Doryssus, son of Leobotes, son of Echestratus, son of Agis, son of Eurysthenes, son of Aristodemus, son of Aristomachus, son of Cleodæus, son of Hyllus, son of Hercules; who had unexpectedly succeeded to the throne of Sparta. 205. For as he had two elder brothers, Cleomenes and Dorieus, he was far from any thought of the kingdom. However, Cleomenes having died without male issue, and Dorieus being no longer alive, having ended his days in Sicily, the kingdom thus devolved upon 9 B. V. chap. 42-45.

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