8.115.1
So the herald took that response and departed, but Xerxes left Mardonius in Thessaly. He himself journeyed with all speed to the Hellespont and came in forty-five days to the passage for crossing, bringing back with him as good as none (if one may say so) of his host.
8.115.2
Wherever and to whatever people they came, they seized and devoured its produce. If they found none, they would eat the grass of the field and strip the bark and pluck the leaves of the trees, garden and wild alike, leaving nothing—such was the degree of their starvation.
8.115.3
Moreover, pestilence and dysentery broke out among them on their way, from which they died. Some who were sick Xerxes left behind, charging the cities to which he came in his march to care for them and nourish them, some in Thessaly and some in Siris of Paeonia and in Macedonia.
8.115.4
In Siris he had left the sacred chariot of Zeus when he was marching to Hellas, but on his return he did not get it back again. The Paeonians had given it to the Thracians, and when Xerxes demanded it back, they said that the horses had been carried off from pasture by the Thracians of the hills who dwelt about the headwaters of the Strymon.
ch. 116
8.116.1
It was then that a monstrous deed was done by the Thracian king of the Bisaltae and the Crestonian country. He had refused to be of his own free will Xerxes' slave, and fled to the mountains called Rhodope. He forbade his sons to go with the army to Hellas,
8.116.2
but they took no account of that; they had always wanted to see the war, and they followed the Persians' march. For this reason, when all the six of them returned back scatheless, their father tore out their eyes.
ch. 117
8.117.1
This was their reward. Now the Persians, journeying through Thrace to the passage, made haste to cross to Abydos in their ships, for they found the bridges no longer made fast but broken by a storm. There their march halted, and more food was given them than on their way.
8.117.2
Then by reason of their immoderate gorging and the change of the water which they drank, many of the army that had survived died. The rest came with Xerxes to Sardis.
ch. 118
8.118.1
There is, however, another tale, which is this: when Xerxes came in his march from Athens to Eion on the Strymon, he travelled no farther than that by land, but committed his army to Hydarnes to be led to the Hellespont. He himself embarked and set sail for Asia in a Phoenician ship.
8.118.2
In the course of this voyage he was caught by a strong wind called the Strymonian, which lifted up the waves. This storm bearing the harder upon him by reason of the heavy load of the ship (for the Persians of his company who were on the deck were so many), the king grew afraid and cried to the ship's pilot asking him if there were any way of deliverance. To this the man said,
8.118.3
“Sire, there is none, if we do not rid ourselves of these many who are on board.” Hearing that, it is said, Xerxes said to the Persians, “Now it is for you to prove your concern for your king, for it seems that my deliverance rests with you.”
8.118.4
At this they bowed and leapt into the sea. The ship, now much lighter, came by these means safe to Asia. No sooner had Xerxes disembarked on land, than he made the pilot a gift of a golden crown for saving the king's life but cut off his head for being the death of many Persians.
