slanders had not given earth and
water to the Barbarian.

47. These all who have been named dwelt inside the land of the
Thesprotians and the river Acheron; for the Thesprotians border upon the
land of the Amprakiots and Leucadians, and these were they who came from
the greatest distance to serve: but of those who dwell outside these
limits the men of Croton were the only people who came to the assistance
of Hellas in her danger; and these sent one ship, of whom the commander
was Phaylos, a man who had three times won victories at the Pythian
games. Now the men of Croton are by descent Achaians.

48. All the rest who served in the fleet furnished triremes, but the
Melians, Siphnian and Seriphians fifty-oared galleys: the Melians,
who are by descent from Lacedemon, furnished two, the Siphnians and
Seriphians, who are Ionians from Athens, each one. And the whole number
of the ships, apart from the fifty-oared galleys, was three hundred and
seventy-eight. 31

49. When the commanders had assembled at Salamis from the States
which have been mentioned, they began to deliberate, Eurybiades having
proposed that any one who desired it should declare his opinion as
to where he thought it most convenient to fight a sea-battle in those
regions of which they had command; for Attica had already been let go,
and he was now proposing the question about the other regions. And the
opinions of the speakers for the most part agreed that they should
sail to the Isthmus and there fight a sea-battle in defence of the
Peloponnese, arguing that if they should be defeated in the sea-battle,
supposing them to be at Salamis they would be blockaded in an island,
where no help would come to them, but at the Isthmus they would be able
to land where their own men were.

50. While the commanders from the Peloponnese argued thus, an Athenian
had come in reporting that the Barbarians were arrived in Attica and
that all the land was being laid waste with fire. For the army which
directed its march through Boeotia in company with Xerxes, after it had
burnt the city of the Thespians (the inhabitants having left it and gone
to the Peloponnese) and that of the Plataians likewise, had now come
to Athens and was laying waste everything in those regions. Now he had
burnt Thespiai 3101 and Plataia because he was informed by the Thebans
that these were not taking the side of the Medes.

51. So in three months from the crossing of the Hellespont, whence the
B