7.117.1
While Xerxes was at Acanthus, it happened that Artachaees, overseer of the digging of the canal, died of an illness. He was high in Xerxes' favor, an Achaemenid by lineage, and the tallest man in Persia, lacking four finger-breadths of five royal cubits note in stature, and his voice was the loudest on earth. For this reason Xerxes mourned him greatly and gave him a funeral and burial of great pomp, and the whole army poured libations on his tomb.
7.117.2
The Acanthians hold Artachaees a hero, and sacrifice to him, calling upon his name. This they do at the command of an oracle.
ch. 118
7.118.1
King Xerxes, then, mourned for the death of Artachaees. But the Greeks who received Xerxes' army and entertained the king himself were brought to such a degree of misery, that they were driven from house and home. Witness the case of the Thasians, who received and feasted Xerxes' army on behalf of their towns on the mainland; Antipatrus son of Orgeus, as notable a man as any of his townsmen, chosen by them for this task, rendered them an account of four hundred silver talents expended on the dinner.
ch. 119
7.119.1
Similar accounts were returned by the officers in the other towns. Now the dinner, about which a great deal of fuss had been made and for the preparation of which orders had been given long ago, proceeded as I will tell.
7.119.2
As soon as the townsmen had word from the herald's proclamation, they divided corn among themselves in their cities and all of them for many months ground it to wheat and barley meal; moreover, they fed the finest beasts that money could buy, and kept landfowl and waterfowl in cages and ponds, for the entertaining of the army. They also made gold and silver cups and bowls and all manner of service for the table.
7.119.3
These things were provided for the king himself and those that ate with him. For the rest of the army they provided only food. At the coming of the army, there was always a tent ready for Xerxes to take his rest in, while the men camped out in the open air.
7.119.4
When the hour came for dinner, the real trouble for the hosts began. When they had eaten their fill and passed the night there, the army tore down the tent on the next day and marched off with all the movables, leaving nothing but carrying all with them.
ch. 120
7.120.1
It was then that a very apt saying was uttered by one Megacreon of Abdera. He advised his townsmen, men and women alike, to gather at their temples, and there in all humility to entreat the gods to defend them in the future from half of every threatened ill. They should also, he said, thank the gods heartily for their previous show of favor, for it was Xerxes' custom to take a meal only once a day. Otherwise they would have been commanded to furnish a breakfast similar to the dinner.
7.120.2
The people of Abdera would then have had no choice but to flee before Xerxes' coming, or to perish most miserably if they awaited him.
ch. 121
7.121.1
So the townsmen, oppressed as they were, nevertheless did as they were commanded. Upon leaving Acanthus, Xerxes sent his ships on their course away from him, giving orders to his generals that the fleet should await him at Therma, the town on the Thermaic gulf which gives the gulf its name, for this, he learned, was his shortest way.
7.121.2
The order of the army's march, from Doriscus to Acanthus, had been such as I will show. Dividing his entire land army into three parts, Xerxes appointed one of them to march beside his fleet along the coast.
7.121.3
Mardonius and Masistes were the generals of this segment, while another third of the army marched, as appointed, further inland under Tritantaechmes and Gergis. The third part, with which Xerxes himself went, marched between the two, and its generals were Smerdomenes and Megabyzus.
ch. 122
7.122.1
Now when the fleet had left Xerxes, it sailed through the Athos canal which reached to the gulf in which are located the towns of Assa, Pilorus, Singus, and Sarte. The fleet took on board troops from all these cities and then headed for the Thermaic gulf. Then rounding Ampelus, the headland of Torone, it passed the Greek towns of Torone, Galepsus, Sermyle, Mecyberna, and Olynthus, all of which gave them ships and men.
