8.27.2
Now a few years before the king's expedition, the Thessalians and their allies had invaded Phocis with their whole army but had been worsted and roughly handled by the Phocians.
8.27.3
When the Phocians were besieged on Parnassus, they had with them the diviner Tellias of Elis; Tellias devised a stratagem for them: he covered six hundred of the bravest Phocians with gypsum, themselves and their armor, and led them to attack the Thessalians by night, bidding them slay whomever they should see not whitened.
8.27.4
The Thessalian sentinels were the first to see these men and to flee for fear, supposing falsely that it was something supernatural, and after the sentinels the whole army fled as well. The Phocians made themselves masters of four thousand dead, and their shields, of which they dedicated half at Abae and the rest at Delphi.
8.27.5
A tithe of what they won in that fight went to the making of the great statues that stand around the tripod in front of the shrine at Delphi, and there are others like them dedicated at Abae.
ch. 28
8.28.1
This is what the besieged Phocians did with the Thessalian footsoldiers. When the Thessalian horsemen rode into their country, the Phocians did them mortal harm; they dug a great pit in the pass near Hyampolis and put empty jars inside it. They then covered it with earth till all was like the rest of the ground and awaited the onset of the Thessalians. These rode on intending to sweep the Phocians before them, and fell in among the jars, whereby their horses' legs were broken.
ch. 29
8.29.1
These two deeds had never been forgiven by the Thessalians, and now they sent a herald with this message: “Men of Phocis, it is time now that you confess yourselves to be no match for us.
8.29.2
We were even formerly preferred to you by the Greeks, as long as we were on their side, and now we bear such weight with the foreigner that it lies in our power to have you deprived of your lands and to have you enslaved. Nevertheless, although we could easily do these things, we bear you no ill-will for the past. Pay us fifty talents of silver for what you did, and we promise to turn aside what threatens your land.”
ch. 30
8.30.1
This was the Thessalians' offer. The Phocians alone of all that region would not take the Persians' side, and that for no other reason (if I argue correctly) than their hatred of the Thessalians.
8.30.2
Had the Thessalians aided the Greek side, then the Phocians would certainly have stood for the Persians. They replied to the offer of the Thessalians that they would give no money; they could do as the Thessalians did and take the Persian part, if for any cause they so wished, but they would not willingly betray the cause of Hellas.
ch. 31
8.31.1
When this answer was returned to them, the Thessalians in their wrath against the Phocians began to guide the barbarian on his march. From the lands of Trachis they broke into Doris; there is a narrow tongue of Dorian land stretching that way, about thirty furlongs wide, between the Malian territory and the Phocian, which in old time was Dryopian. This region is the motherland of the Dorians of the Peloponnese. To this Dorian territory the barbarians did no harm at their invasion, for the people took the Persian side, and the Thessalians would not have them harmed.
