The next morning an earthquake occurred at sunrise; upon which it was resolved to implore the favour and protection of Æacus,[51] and the heroes descended from him, whose assistance, according to Grecian superstition, was especially to be depended on in those seas, where they had reigned, and where they were peculiarly worshipped. They paid their vows on the spot to Ajax and Telamon, in their native Salamis, and sent a vessel to offer the same tribute to the other heroes of the family at Ægina; and the appeal was believed, or at least fabled, to have been answered. One Dicæus, an Athenian exile high in the Persian service, asserted that one day, when he was in the Thriasian plain, which stretched from Eleusis northward, in company with Demaratus, the banished king of Sparta, who followed in Xerxes’ train, and was much consulted by the monarch throughout this war, they saw a cloud of dust, such as might be raised by the trampling of 30,000 men, advance from Eleusis. As they were wondering what this might be, they heard a noise, which seemed to him to be the song which the initiated[52] sang in praise of the mystic Iacchus. Dicæus then assured his companion that some great evil was about to befall the Persians; for the gods were manifestly quitting Eleusis on the desolation of Attica to proceed to the assistance of the Greeks, and if they should direct their course towards Peloponnesus, the blow would fall on the land army; if towards Salamis, then Xerxes would run great risk of losing his fleet. Demaratus wisely counselled him to keep silent, or his head might be in no less danger than the Persian marine; and presently the dust rose into a cloud, which was borne off in the direction of Salamis![53]