7.128.2
He did exactly as he desired. He embarked on a Sidonian ship which he always used when he had some such business in hand, and hoisted his signal for the rest also to put out to sea, leaving his land army where it was. Great wonder took him when he came and viewed the mouth of the Peneus, and calling his guides, he asked them if it were possible to turn the river from its course and lead it into the sea by another way.
ch. 129
7.129.1
Thessaly, as tradition has it, was in old times a lake enclosed all round by high mountains. On its eastern side it is fenced in by the joining of the lower parts of the mountains Pelion and Ossa, to the north by Olympus, to the west by Pindus, towards the south and the southerly wind by Othrys. In the middle, then, of this ring of mountains, lies the vale of Thessaly.
7.129.2
A number of rivers pour into this vale, the most notable of which are Peneus, Apidanus, Onochonus, Enipeus, Pamisus. These five, while they flow towards their meeting place from the mountains which surround Thessaly, have their several names, until their waters all unite and issue into the sea by one narrow passage.
7.129.3
As soon as they are united, the name of the Peneus prevails, making the rest nameless. In ancient days, it is said, there was not yet this channel and outfall, but those rivers and the Boebean lake, note which was not yet named, had the same volume of water as now, and thereby turned all Thessaly into a sea.
7.129.4
Now the Thessalians say that Poseidon made the passage by which the Peneus flows. This is reasonable, for whoever believes that Poseidon is the shaker of the earth and that rifts made by earthquakes are the work of that god will conclude, upon seeing that passage, that it is of Poseidon's making. It was manifest to me that it must have been an earthquake which forced the mountains apart. note
ch. 130
7.130.1
Xerxes asked his guides if there were any other outlet for the Peneus into the sea, and they, with their full knowledge of the matter, answered him: “The river, O king, has no other way into the sea, but this alone. This is so because there is a ring of mountains around the whole of Thessaly.” Upon hearing this Xerxes said: “These Thessalians are wise men;
7.130.2
this, then, was the primary reason for their precaution long before note when they changed to a better mind, for they perceived that their country would be easily and speedily conquerable. It would only have been necessary to let the river out over their land by barring the channel with a dam and to turn it from its present bed so that the whole of Thessaly, with the exception of the mountains, might be under water.”
7.130.3
This he said with regard in particular to the sons of Aleues, the Thessalians who were the first Greeks to surrender themselves to the king. Xerxes supposed that when they offered him friendship they spoke for the whole of their nation. After delivering this speech and seeing what he had come to see, he sailed back to Therma.
ch. 131
7.131.1
Xerxes stayed for many days in the region of Pieria while a third part of his army was clearing a road over the Macedonian mountains so that the whole army might pass by that way to the Perrhaebian country. Now it was that the heralds who had been sent to Hellas to demand earth, some empty-handed, some bearing earth and water, returned.
