11.2.4Then, dividing his army, he sent in advance a sufficient number of men both to bridge the Hellespont and to dig a canal through Athos note at the neck of the Cherronesus, in this way not only making the passage safe and short for his forces but also hoping by the magnitude of his exploits to strike the Greeks with terror before his arrival. Now the men who had been sent to make ready these works completed them with dispatch, because so many labourers co-operated in the task.
11.2.5And the Greeks, when they learned of the great size of the Persian armaments, dispatched ten thousand hoplites into Thessaly to seize the passes of Tempe; Synetus note commanded the Lacedaemonians and Themistocles the Athenians. These commanders dispatched ambassadors to the states and asked them to send soldiers to join in the common defence of the passes; for they eagerly desired that all the Greek states should each have a share in the defence and make common cause in the war against the Persians.
11.2.6But since the larger number of the Thessalians and other Greeks who dwelt near the passes had given the water and earth to the envoys of Xerxes when they arrived, the two generals despaired of the defence at Tempe and returned to their own soil.
ch. 3
11.3.1And now it will be useful to distinguish those Greeks who chose the side of the barbarians, in order that, incurring our censure here, their example may, by the obloquy visited upon them, deter for the future any who may become traitors to the common freedom.
11.3.2The Aenianians, Dolopians, Melians, note Perrhaebians, and Magnetans took the side of the barbarians even while the defending force was still at Tempe, and after its departure the Achaeans of Phthia, Locrians, Thessalians, and the majority of the Boeotians went over to the barbarians.
11.3.3But the Greeks who were meeting in congress at the Isthmus note voted to make the Greeks who voluntarily chose the cause of the Persians pay a tithe to the gods, when they should be successful in the war, and to send ambassadors to those Greeks who were neutral to urge them to join in the struggle for the common freedom.
11.3.4Of the latter, some joined the alliance without reservation, while others postponed any decision for a considerable time, clinging to their own safety alone and anxiously waiting for the outcome of the war; the Argives, however, sending ambassadors to the common congress, promised to join the alliance if the congress would give them a share in the command.
11.3.5To them the representatives declared plainly that, if they thought it a more terrible thing to have a Greek as general than a barbarian as master, they would do well to remain neutral, but if they were ambitious to secure the leadership of the Greeks, they should, it was stated, first have accomplished deeds deserving of this leadership and then strive for such an honour. After these events, when the ambassadors sent by Xerxes came to Greece and demanded both earth and water, all note the states manifested in their replies the zeal they felt for the common freedom.
11.3.6When Xerxes learned that the Hellespont had been bridged and the canal note had been dug through Athos, he left Sardis and made his way toward the Hellespont; and when he had arrived at Abydus, he led his army over the bridge into Europe. And as he advanced through Thrace, he added to his forces many soldiers from both the Thracians and neighbouring Greeks.
11.3.7When he arrived at the city called Doriscus, he ordered his fleet to come there, and so both arms of his forces were gathered into one place. And he held there also the enumeration of the entire army, and the number of his land forces was over eight hundred thousand men, while the sum total of his ships of war exceeded twelve hundred, of which three hundred and twenty were Greek, the Greeks providing the complement of men and the king supplying the vessels. All the remaining ships were listed as barbarian; and of these the Egyptians supplied two hundred, the Phoenicians three hundred, the Cilicians eighty, the Pamphylians forty, the Lycians the same number, also the Carians eighty, and the Cyprians one hundred and fifty.
11.3.8Of the Greeks the Dorians who dwelt off Caria, together with the Rhodians and Coans, sent forty ships, the Ionians, together with the Chians and Samians, one hundred, the Aeolians, together with the Lesbians and Tenedans, forty, the peoples of the region of the Hellespont, together with those who dwelt along the shores of the Pontus, eighty, and the inhabitants of the islands fifty; for the king had won over to his side the islands lying within the Cyanean Rocks note and Triopium and Sunium.
