The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [164]
16. Estimating very conservatively the camp attendants and the corn-bark and other freight-ship crews at an equal number, yields a figure of five million, two hundred and eighty-three thousand, two hundred and twenty as the total number of men brought by Xerxes, the son of Darius, as far as Sepias and Thermopylae.
17. And to this still must be added the vast number of women who followed the camp to grind the corn, and also the many concubines, and the eunuchs;
18. Nor can the baggage horses and other sumpter beasts, nor the Indian hounds which followed the army, be calculated, by reason of their multitude.
19. It is no surprise that the water of the rivers was found too scant for the army in some instances;
20. Rather it is a marvel how the provisions did not fail, when the numbers were so great.
21. For if each man consumed no more than a choenix of corn a day, there must have been used daily by the army one hundred and ten thousand, three hundred and forty medimni,
22. And this without counting what was eaten by the women, the eunuchs, the sumpter beasts and the hounds.
23. Among all this multitude of men there was not one who deserved more than Xerxes himself to wield so vast a power.
Chapter 67
1. When Xerxes’ fleet reached the strip of coast between the city of Casthanaea and Cape Sepias, the ships of the first row were moored to the land, while the remainder swung at anchor further off.
2. The beach extended only a little way, so that the majority of ships had to anchor offshore, row upon row, eight deep.
3. In this manner they passed the night. But at dawn calm and stillness gave place to a raging sea,
4. And a violent storm, driven by a strong gale from the east – a wind which the people in those parts call Hellespontias.
5. Those who perceived the wind rising, and were so moored as to allow of it, forestalled the tempest by dragging their ships up the beach, thereby saving themselves and their vessels.
6. But the ships which the storm caught out at sea were driven ashore, some near the place called Ipni, at the foot of Pelion; others on the beach itself;
7. Others again on the rocks about Cape Sepias; while a portion were dashed to pieces near the cities of Meliboea and Casthanaea. There was no resisting the tempest.
8. Those who put the loss of the Persian fleet in this storm at its lowest say that four hundred ships were destroyed, a countless multitude of men died, and a vast treasure was engulfed.
9. Ameinocles, the son of Cretines, a Magnesian, who farmed land near Cape Sepias, found the wreck of these vessels a source of great gain to him;
10. Many gold and silver drinking-cups were cast up long afterwards by the surf, which he gathered;
11. While treasure-boxes too, and golden articles of all kinds and beyond count, came into his possession.
12. Ameinocles grew to be a man of great wealth in this way; but in other respects things did not go over-well with him:
13. He too, like other men, had his own grief – the calamity of losing his offspring.
14. As for the number of the provision craft and other merchant ships which perished, it was beyond count.
15. Such was the loss that the commanders of the sea force, fearing lest in their shattered condition the Thessalians would attack,
16. Raised a high barricade around their station out of the wreck of the vessels cast ashore.
17. The storm lasted three days, and at last ceased on the fourth day.
18. The scouts left by the Greeks about the highlands of Euboea hastened down from their stations on the second day of the storm,
19. And acquainted their countrymen with what had befallen the Persian fleet.
20. These no sooner heard what had happened than they sailed back with all speed to Artemisium, expecting to find very few ships left to oppose them.
21. Meanwhile the Persians, when the wind lulled and the sea grew smooth, drew their ships down to the water, and proceeded to coast along the mainland.
22. Having rounded the extreme point of Magnesia, they sailed straight into the bay that runs up to Pagasae.
23. Fifteen of the