Chapter XXXVIII (3)

All the Greek cities, which Xerxes had passed by, obeyed his orders with sufficient readiness, and probably few doubted the ultimate success of so prodigious an armament. But the inhabitants of Akanthus had been eminent for their zeal and exertions in the cutting of the canal, and had probably made considerable profits during the operation; Xerxes now repaid their zeal by contracting with them the tie of hospitality, accompanied with praise and presents; though he does not seem to have exempted them from the charge of maintaining the army while in their territory. He here separated himself from his fleet, which was directed to sail through the canal of Athos, to double the two southwestern capes of the Chalkidic peninsula, to enter the Thermaic gulf, and to await his arrival at Therma. The fleet in its course gathered additional troops from the Greek towns in the two peninsulas of Sithonia and Pallênê, as well as on the eastern side of the Thermaic gulf, in the region called Krusis, or Krossæa, on the continental side of the isthmus of Pallênê. These Greek towns were numerous, but of little individual importance. Near Therma (Salonichi) in Mygdonia, in the interior of the gulf and eastward of the mouth of the Axius, the fleet awaited the arrival of Xerxes by land from Akanthus. He seems to have had a difficult march, and to have taken a route considerably inland, through Pæonia and Krestônia,—a wild, woody, and untrodden country, where his baggage-camels were set upon by lions, and where there were also wild bulls, of prodigious size and fierceness: at length he rejoined his fleet at Therma, and stretched his army throughout Mygdonia, the ancient Pieria, and Bottiæis, as far as the mouth of the Haliakmôn.[71]

[71] Herodot. vii, 122-127.

Respecting the name Pieria, and the geography of these regions,
see the previous volume, vol. iv, ch. xxv. p. 14.

Xerxes had now arrived within sight of Mount Olympus, the northern boundary of what was properly called Hellas; after a march through nothing but subject territory, with magazines laid up beforehand for the subsistence of his army, with additional contingents levied in his course, and probably with Thracian volunteers joining him in the hopes of plunder. The road along which he had marched was still shown with solemn reverence by the Thracians, and protected both from intruders and from tillage, even in the days of Herodotus.[72] The Macedonian princes, the last of his western tributaries, in whose territory he now found himself,—together with the Thessalian Aleuadæ,—undertook to conduct him farther. Nor did the task as yet appear difficult: what steps the Greeks were taking to oppose him, shall be related in the coming chapter.

[72] Herodot. vii, 116.