The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [162]
17. These envoys addressed their countrymen as follows: ‘Fellow Greeks, it behoves you to guard the pass of Olympus;
18. ‘For thus will Thessaly be kept safe, as well as the rest of Greece. We are quite ready to take our share in this work;
19. ‘But you must send us a strong force: otherwise we will have to make terms with the Persians.
20. ‘We ought not to be left, exposed as we are in front of all the rest of Greece, to die in your defence alone and unassisted.
21. ‘If you do not choose to send us aid, you cannot force us to resist the enemy;
22. ‘For there is no force so strong as inability. We shall therefore do our best to secure our own safety.’
23. Seeing the force of this argument, the Greeks resolved to send a body of infantry to Thessaly by sea, to defend the pass of Olympus.
24. Accordingly a force was collected, which passed up the Euripus, and disembarked at Alus, on the coast of Achaea.
25. They occupied the defile of Tempe, which leads from Lower Macedonia into Thessaly along the course of the Peneus, having the range of Olympus on the one hand and Ossa on the other.
26. The Greek force amounted to ten thousand heavy-armed men, who were joined by the Thessalian cavalry.
27. The commanders were, for the Lacedaemonians, Evaenetus, the son of Carenus, who had been chosen out of the Polemarchs;
28. And for the Athenians, Themistocles, the son of Neocles.
29. The force did not however maintain its station for more than a few days, because envoys came from Alexander, the son of Amyntas, the Macedonian,
30. And counselled them to leave Tempe, telling them that if they remained in the pass they would be trodden underfoot by the invading army,
31. Whose numbers they recounted, and likewise the multitude of their ships.
32. Also they warned that the Persians might enter by another pass, leading from Upper Macedonia into Thessaly through the territory of the Perrhaebi, and by the town of Gonnus;
33. The pass by which soon afterwards the army of Xerxes indeed made its entrance. The Greeks therefore went back to their ships and sailed away to the Isthmus of Corinth.
Chapter 65
1. On their return to the Isthmus the Greeks considered where they should take their stand.
2. The opinion that prevailed was that they should guard the pass of Thermopylae,
3. For Thermopylae was narrower than the Thessalian defile, and at the same time nearer to them.
4. Of the hidden pathway over the mountain, by which the Greeks who later fell at Thermopylae were intercepted, they had no knowledge,
5. Until, on their arrival there, it was shown to them by the Trachinians.
6. At the same time it was resolved that the fleet should proceed to Artemisium, in the region of Histiaeotis,
7. For, as those places are near to one another, it would be easy for the fleet and army to hold communication.
8. These places seemed to the Greeks fit for their purpose, because in the narrow pass of Thermopylae the barbarians could make no use of their vast numbers, nor of their cavalry.
9. And when news reached them of the Persians being in Pieria, immediately they left the Isthmus,
10. And proceeded, some on foot to Thermopylae, others by sea to Artemisium, making all speed.
11. The fleet of Xerxes now departed from Therma; and ten of the swiftest ships ventured to stretch across directly for Sciathus,
12. At which place there were three Greek ships keeping a lookout, one a ship of Troezen, another of Egina, and the third from Athens.
13. The Greek sailors no sooner saw the barbarians approaching in the distance than they all hurriedly took to sail.
14. The barbarians at once pursued, and the Troezenian ship, which was commanded by Prexinus, fell into their hands.
15. The Eginetan trireme, under its captain Asonides, gave the Persians much trouble,
16. One of the marines, Pythes, the son of Ischenous, distinguishing himself beyond all the others who fought that day.
17. After the ship was taken this