Persian fleet had fled from Salamis, openly revolted from the barbarians; as also did the other inhabitants of Pallene. 127. Artabazus, therefore, besieged Potidea. And as he suspected that the Olynthians intended to revolt from the king, he also besieged their city. The Bottiæans then held it, who had been driven from the bay of Therma by the Macedonians. When he had besieged and taken them, having taken them out to a marsh, he slaughtered them, and gave the city to Critobulus of Torone to govern, and to the Chalcidian race: thus the Chalcidians became possessed of Olynthus. 128. Artabazus, having taken this city, applied himself vigorously to the siege of Potidea; and, as he was earnestly engaged with it, Timoxenus, general of the Scionæans, treated with him for the betrayal of the city: in what way at first I am unable to say, for it is not reported; at last, however, the following plan was adopted. When either Timoxenus had written a letter and wished to send it to Artabazus, or Artabazus to Timoxenus, having rolled it round the butt-end of an arrow, and put the feathers over the letter, they shot the arrow to a spot agreed upon. But Timoxenus was detected in attempting to betray Potidea. For Artabazus, when endeavouring to shoot to the spot agreed upon, missed the right spot and wounded one of the Potideans on the shoulder; a crowd ran round the wounded man, as is usual in time of war; they having immediately drawn out the arrow, when they perceived the letter, carried it to the generals; and an allied force of the other Pallenians was also present. When the generals had read the letter, and discovered the author of the treachery, they determined not to impeach Timoxenus of treason, for the sake of the city of the Scionæans, lest the Scionæans should ever after be accounted traitors. In this manner, then, he was detected. 129. After three months had been spent by Artabazus in the siege, there happened a great ebb of the sea, which lasted for a long time. The barbarians, seeing a passage that might be forded, marched across towards Pallene; and when they had performed two parts of their journey, and three still remained, which they must have passed over to be within Pallene, a strong flood-tide of the sea came on them, such as was never seen before, as the inhabitants say, though floods are frequent. Those, then, that did not know how to swim, perished, and those that did know

how, the Potideans, sailing upon them in boats, put to death. The Potidæans say, that the cause of this flux and inundation, and of the Persian disaster, was this, that these very Persians who were destroyed by the sea, had committed impieties at the temple of Neptune, and the statue which stands in the suburbs; and in saying this was the cause, they appear to me to speak correctly. The survivors Artabazus led to Thessaly, to join Mardonius. Such, then, was the fate of those troops that had escorted the king.

130. The naval force of Xerxes, that survived when it reached Asia in its flight from Salamis, and had transported the king and his army from the Chersonese to Abydos, wintered at Cyme. And at the first appearance of spring, it assembled early at Samos; and some of the ships had wintered there. Most of the marines were Persians and Medes, and their generals came on board, Mardontes, son of Bagæus, and Artayntes, son of Artachæus; and Ithamitres, nephew of the latter, shared the command with them, Artayntes himself having associated him with them. As they had sustained a severe blow, they did not advance farther to the westward, nor did any one compel them; but remaining, they kept watch over Ionia lest it should revolt, having three hundred ships, including those of Ionia. Neither did they expect that the Greeks would come to Ionia, but thought they would be content to guard their own territory; inferring this, because they had not pursued them in their flight from Salamis, but had readily retired. By sea therefore they despaired of success, but on land they imagined that Mardonius would be decidedly superior. While they were at Samos, they at the same time consulted together whether they could do the enemy any damage, and listened anxiously for news of how the affairs of Mardonius would succeed. 131. The approach of spring, and Mardonius being in Thessaly, aroused the Grecians. Their land-forces were not yet assembled; but their fleet arrived at Ægina, in number one hundred and ten ships. Their leader and admiral was Leotychides, son of Menares, son of Agesilaus, son of Hippocratides, son of Leotychides, son of Anaxilaus, son of Archidamus, son of Anaxandrides, son of Theopompus, son of Nicander, son of Charillus, son of Eunomus, son of Polydectes, son of Prytanis, son of Euryphon, son of Procles, son of Aristodemus, son of Aristomachus, son of

Cleodæus, son of Hyllus, son of Hercules: he was of the second branch of the royal family. All these, except the two mentioned first after Leotychides, were kings of Sparta. Xanthippus, son of Ariphron, commanded the Athenians. 132. When all these ships were assembled at Ægina, ambassadors from the Ionians arrived at the encampment of the Greeks; who a short time before had gone to Sparta, and entreated the Lacedæmonians to liberate Ionia ; and among them was Herodotus, son of Basilides. These, who were originally seven in number, having conspired together, formed a plan of putting Strattis, the tyrant of Chios, to death; but as they were detected in their plot, one of the accomplices having given information of the attempt, thereupon the rest, being six, withdrew from Chios and went to Sparta, and at the present time to Ægina, beseeching the Greeks to sail down to Ionia; they with difficulty prevailed on them to advance as far as Delos. For all beyond that was dreaded by the Greeks, who were unacquainted with those countries, and thought all parts were full of troops; Samos, they were convinced in their imaginations, was as far distant as the columns of Hercules. Thus it fell out, that at the same time the barbarians durst not sail farther westward than Samos; nor the Greeks, though the Chians besought them, further eastward than Delos. Thus fear protected the midway between them.

133. The Greeks, then, sailed to Delos, and Mardonius was in winter-quarters about Thessaly. When preparing to set out from thence, he sent a man, a native of Europus, whose name was Mys, to consult the oracles, with orders to go every where and consult all that it was possible for him to inquire of. What he wished to learn from the oracles when he gave these orders, I am unable to say, for it is not related; I am of opinion, however, that he sent to inquire about the affairs then depending, and not about any others. 134. This Mys clearly appears to have arrived at Lebadea, and having persuaded a native of the place by a bribe, descended into the cave of Trophonius; and arrived also at the oracle of Abæ of the Phocians; moreover, as soon as he arrived at Thebes, he first of all consulted the Ismenian Apollo, and it is there the custom, as in Olympia, to consult the oracle by means of victims; and next, having persuaded some stranger, not a Theban, by money, he caused him to sleep in the temple of Amphiaraus. For none of the

Thebans are permitted to consult there, for the following reason: Amphiaraus, communicating with them by means of oracles, bade them choose whichever they would of these two things, to have him either for their prophet, or their ally, abstaining from the other: they chose to have him for their ally: for this reason therefore no Theban is allowed to sleep there. 135. The following, to me very strange circumstance, is related by the Theban to have happened: that this Mys, of Europus, in going round to all the oracles, came also to the precinct of the Ptoan Apollo; this temple is called Ptoan, but belongs to the Thebans, and is situate above the lake Copais, at the foot of a mountain, very near the city of Acræphia: that when this man, called Mys, arrived at this temple, three citizens, chosen by the public, accompanied him for the purpose of writing down what the oracle should pronounce: and forthwith the priestess gave an answer in a foreign tongue; and that those Thebans who accompanied him stood amazed at hearing a foreign language instead of Greek, and knew not what to do on the present occasion; but that Mys suddenly snatching from them the tablet which they brought, wrote on it the words spoken by the prophet; and said that he had given an answer in the Carian tongue; and after he had written it down he departed for Thessaly.

136. Mardonius having read the answers of the oracles, afterwards sent Alexander, son of Amyntas, a Macedonian, as an ambassador to Athens; as well because the Persians were related to him, (for Bubares, a Persian, had married Alexander's sister Gygæa, daughter of Amyntas, by whom he had the Amyntas in Asia, who took his name from his maternal grandfather: to him Alabanda, a large city of Phrygia, had been given by the king to govern,) as because he had been informed that Alexander was a friend and benefactor of the Athenians; Mardonius therefore sent him. For in this way he thought he should best be able to gain over the Athenians, having heard that they were a numerous and valiant people; and besides, he knew that the Athenians had been the principal cause of the late disaster of the Persians at sea. If these were won over, he hoped that he should easily become master at sea, which indeed would have been the case; and on land he imagined that he was much superior: thus he calculated that his power would get the upper hand of the Grecian. Per

haps also the oracles had given him this warning, advising him to make Athens his ally; accordingly, relying on them, he sent.

137. The seventh ancestor of this Alexander was Perdiccas, who obtained the sovereignty of the Macedonians in the following manner. Gauanes, Aëropus, and Perdiccas, three brothers, of the descendants of Temenus, fled from Argos to the Illyrians, and crossing over from the Illyrians into the upper Macedonia, they arrived at the city of Lebæa; there they entered into the king's service for wages. One of them had the care of his horses; another, of his oxen; and the youngest of them, Perdiccas, of the lesser cattle. Formerly, even monarchs were poor in wealth, and not only the people; so that the wife of the king used herself to cook their food. Whenever the bread of the hireling lad Perdiccas was baked, it became twice as large as at first: and when this always happened, she told it to her own husband. It immediately occurred to him, when he heard it, that it was a prodigy, and boded something of importance. Having therefore summoned the hirelings, he commanded them to depart out of his territories. They answered, that they were entitled to receive their wages, and then they would go. Thereupon the king, hearing about wages, as the rays of the sun reached into the house down the chimney, said, being deprived of his senses by the deity: "I give you this, as your wages equal to your services;" pointing to the sun. Gauanes and Aëropus, the elder, stood amazed when they heard this. But the lad, for he happened to have a knife, saying thus, "We accept thy offer, O king," traced a circle on the floor of the house round the sun's rays, and having so traced the circle, and having drawn the sun's rays three times on his bosom, departed, and the others with him. 138. They accordingly went away; but one of those who were sitting by him, informed the king what the lad had done, and how the youngest of them accepted the offer with some design. He, on hearing this, being in a rage, despatched after them some horsemen to kill them. In this country is a river, to which the descendants of these men from Argos sacrifice as their deliverer. It, when the Temenidæ had crossed over, swelled to such a height, that the horsemen were unable to cross it. They, then, coming to another district of Macedonia, settled near the gardens that are said to