through the dead bodies and looked
at them: and every one supposed that those who were lying there were all
Lacedemonians or Thespians, though the Helots also were among those that
they saw: however, they who had passed over did not fail to perceive
that Xerxes had done that which I mentioned about the bodies of his own
dead; for in truth it was a thing to cause laughter even: on the one
side there were seen a thousand dead bodies lying, while the others
lay all gathered together in the same place, four thousand 17 of them.
During this day then they busied themselves with looking, and on the day
after this they sailed back to the ships at Histaia, while Xerxes and
his army set forth upon their march.

26. There had come also to them a few deserters from Arcadia, men in
want of livelihood and desiring to be employed. These the Persians
brought into the king's presence and inquired about the Hellenes, what
they were doing; and one man it was who asked them this for all the
rest. They told them that the Hellenes were keeping the Olympic festival
and were looking on at a contest of athletics and horsemanship. He then
inquired again, what was the prize proposed to them, for the sake of
which they contended; and they told them of the wreath of olive which is
given. Then Tigranes 18 the son of Artabanos uttered a thought which
was most noble, though thereby he incurred from the king the reproach
of cowardice: for hearing that the prize was a wreath and not money, he
could not endure to keep silence, but in the presence of all he spoke
these words: "Ah! Mardonios, what kind of men are these against whom
thou hast brought us to fight, who make their contest not for money but
for honour!" Thus was it spoken by this man.

27. In the meantime, so soon as the disaster at Thermopylai had come
about, the Thessalians sent a herald forthwith to the Phokians, against
whom they had a grudge always, but especially because of the latest
disaster which they had suffered: for when both the Thessalians
themselves and their allies had invaded the Phokian land not many
years before this expedition of the king, they had been defeated by the
Phokians and handled by them roughly. For the Phokians had been shut up
in Mount Parnassos having with them a soothsayer, Tellias the Eleian;
and this Tellias contrived for them a device of the following kind:--he
took six hundred men, the best of the Phokians, and whitened them over
with chalk, both themselv