The Greeks, after consultation on the subject, decided that it would be best for them to defend Thessaly, and to take their stand, accordingly, at the Straits of Olympus. They immediately put a large force on board their fleet, armed and equipped for the expedition. This was at the time when Xerxes was just about crossing the Hellespont. The fleet sailed from the port of Athens, passed up through the narrow strait called Euripus, lying between the island of Euboea and the main land, and finally landed at a favorable point of disembarkation, south of Thessaly. From this point the forces marched to the northward until they reached the Peneus, and then established themselves at the narrowest part of the passage between the mountains, strengthened their position there as much as possible, and awaited the coming of the enemy. The amount of the force was ten thousand men.
They had not been here many days before a messenger came to them from the King of Macedon, which country, it will be seen, lies immediately north of Thessaly, earnestly dissuading them from attempting to make a stand at the Vale of Tempe. Xerxes was coming on, he said, with an immense and overwhelming force, one against which it would be utterly impossible for them to make good their defense at such a point as that. It would be far better for them to fall back to Thermopylæ, which, being a narrower and more rugged pass, could be more easily defended.
Besides this, the messenger said that it was possible for Xerxes to enter Thessaly without going through the Vale of Tempe at all. The country between Thessaly and Macedon was mountainous, but it was not impassable, and Xerxes would very probably come by that way. The only security, therefore, for the Greeks, would be to fall back and intrench themselves at Thermopylæ. Nor was there any time to be lost. Xerxes was crossing the Hellespont, and the whole country was full of excitement and terror.
The Greeks determined to act on this advice. They broke up their encampment at the Olympic Straits, and, retreating to the southward, established themselves at Thermopylæ, to await there the coming of the conqueror. The people of Thessaly then surrendered to Xerxes as soon as they received his summons.
Xerxes, from his encampment at Therma, where we left him at the close of the last chapter, saw the peaks of Olympus and Ossa in the southern horizon. They were distant perhaps fifty miles from where he stood. He inquired about them, and was told that the River Peneus flowed between them to the sea, and that through the same defile there lay the main entrance to Thessaly. He had previously determined to march his army round the other way, as the King of Macedon had suggested, but he said that he should like to see this defile. So he ordered a swift Sidonian galley to be prepared, and, taking with him suitable guides, and a fleet of other vessels in attendance on his galley, he sailed to the mouth of the Peneus, and, entering that river, he ascended it until he came to the defile.
Seen from any of the lower elevations which projected from the bases of the mountains at the head of this defile, Thessaly lay spread out before the eye as one vast valley-level, verdant, fertile, and bounded by distant groups and ranges of mountains, which formed a blue and beautiful horizon on every side. Through the midst of this scene of rural loveliness the Peneus, with its countless branches, gracefully meandered, gathering the water from every part of the valley, and then pouring it forth in a deep and calm current through the gap in the mountains at the observer's feet. Xerxes asked his guides if it would be possible to find any other place where the waters of the Peneus could be conducted to the sea. They replied that it would not be, for the valley was bounded on every side by ranges of mountainous land.
"Then," said Xerxes, "the Thessalians were wise in submitting at once to my summons; for, if they had not done so, I would have raised a vast embankment across the valley here, and thus stopped the river, turned their country into a lake, and drowned them all."
CHAPTER VIII. THE ADVANCE OF XERXES INTO GREECE.
B.C. 480
Advance of the army.-Sailing of the fleet.-Sciathus.-Euboea.-Straits of Artemisium and Euripus.-Attica.-Saronic Gulf.-Island of Salamis.-Excitement of the country.-Signals.-Sentinels.-Movement of the fleet.-The ten reconnoitering galleys.-Guard-ships captured.-Barbarous ceremony.-A heroic Greek.-One crew escape.-The alarm spread.-Return of the Persian galleys.-The monument of stones.-Progress of the fleet.-The fleet anchors in a bay.-A coming storm.-The storm rages.-Destruction of many vessels.-Plunder of the wrecks.-Scyllias, the famous diver.-Dissensions in the Greek fleet.-Jealousy of the Athenians.-Situation of the Athenians.-Eurybiades appointed commander.-Debates in the Greek council.-Dismay of the Euboeans.-The Greek leaders bribed.-Precautions of the Persians.-Designs of the Persians discovered.-The Greeks decide to give battle.-Euripus and Artemisium.-Advance of the Greeks.-The battle.-A stormy night.-Scene of terror.-A calm after the storm.-Terror of the Euboeans.-Their plans.-The Greeks retire.-Inscription on the rocks.-The commanders of the Persian fleet summoned to Thermopylæ.
From Therma-the last of the great stations at which the Persian army halted before its final descent upon Greece-the army commenced its march, and the fleet set sail, nearly at the same time, which was early in the summer. The army advanced slowly, meeting with the usual difficulties and delays, but without encountering any special or extraordinary occurrences, until, after having passed through Macedon into Thessaly, and through Thessaly to the northern frontier of Phocis, they began to approach the Straits of Thermopylæ. What took place at Thermopylæ will be made the subject of the next chapter. The movements of the fleet are to be narrated in this.
In order distinctly to understand these movements, it is necessary that the reader should first have a clear conception of the geographical conformation of the coasts and seas along which the path of the expedition lay. By referring to the map of Greece, we shall see that the course which the fleet would naturally take from Therma to the southeastward, along the coast, was unobstructed and clear for about a hundred miles. We then come to a group of four islands, extending in a range at right angles to the coast. The only one of these islands with which we have particularly to do in this history is the innermost of them, which was named Sciathus. Opposite to these islands the line of the coast, having passed around the point of a mountainous and rocky promontory called Magnesia, turns suddenly to the westward, and runs in that direction for about thirty miles, when it again turns to the southward and eastward as before. In the sort of corner thus cut off by the deflection of the coast lies the long island of Euboea, which may be considered, in fact, as almost a continuation of the continent, as it is a part of the same conformation of country, and is separated from the main land only by submerged valleys on the north and on the east. Into these sunken valleys the sea of course flows, forming straits or channels. The one on the north was, in ancient times, called Artemisium, and the one on the west, at its narrowest point, Euripus. All these islands and coasts were high and picturesque. They were also, in the days of Xerxes, densely populated, and adorned profusely with temples, citadels, and towns.
On passing the southernmost extremity of the island of Euboea, and turning to the westward, we come to a promontory of the main land, which constituted Attica, and in the middle of which the city of Athens was situated. Beyond this is a capacious gulf, called the Saronian Gulf. It lies between Attica and the Peloponnesus. In the middle of the Saronian Gulf lies the island of Ægina, and in the northern part of it the island of Salamis. The progress of the Persian fleet was from Therma down the coast to Sciathus, thence along the shores of Euboea to its southern point, and so round into the Saronian Gulf to the island of Salamis. The distance of this voyage was perhaps two hundred and fifty miles. In accomplishing it the fleet encountered many dangers, and met with a variety of incidents and events, which we shall now proceed to describe.