Hardly was the fleet mustered at Salamis, and the Athenian population removed, when Xerxes and his host overran the deserted country, his fleet occupying the roadstead of Phalêrum with the coast adjoining. His land-force had been put in motion under the guidance of the Thessalians, two or three days after the battle of Thermopylæ, and he was assured by some Arcadians who came to seek service, that the Peloponnesians were, even at that moment, occupied with the celebration of the Olympic games. “What prize does the victor receive?” he asked. Upon the reply made, that the prize was a wreath of the wild olive, Tritantæchmês, son of the monarch’s uncle Artabanus, is said to have burst forth, notwithstanding the displeasure both of the monarch himself and of the bystanders: “Heavens, Mardonius, what manner of men are these against whom thou hast brought us to fight! men who contend not for money, but for honor!”[225] Whether this be a remark really delivered, or a dramatic illustration imagined by some contemporary of Herodotus, it is not the less interesting as bringing to view a characteristic of Hellenic life, which contrasts not merely with the manners of contemporary Orientals, but even with those of the earlier Greeks themselves during the Homeric times. [225] Herodot. viii, 26. Παπαὶ, Μαρδόνιε, κοίους ἐπ’ ἄνδρας ἤγαγες μαχησομένους ἡμέας, οἳ οὐ περὶ χρημάτων τὸν ἀγῶνα ποιεῦνται, ἀλλὰ περὶ ἀρετῆς. Among all the various Greeks between Thermopylæ and the borders of Attica, there were none except the Phocians disposed to refuse submission: and they refused only because the paramount influence of their bitter enemies the Thessalians made them despair of obtaining favorable terms.[226] Nor would they even listen to a proposition of the Thessalians, who, boasting that it was in their power to guide as they pleased the terrors of the Persian host, offered to insure lenient treatment to the territory of Phocis, provided a sum of fifty talents were paid to them.[227] The proposition being indignantly refused, they conducted Xerxes through the little territory of Doris, which _medized_ and escaped plunder, into the upper valley of the Kephisus, among the towns of the inflexible Phocians. All of them were found deserted; the inhabitants having previously escaped either to the wide-spreading summit of Parnassus, called Tithorea, or even still farther, across that mountain into the territory of the Ozolian Lokrians. Ten or a dozen small Phocian towns, the most considerable of which were Elateia and Hyampolis, were sacked and destroyed by the invaders, nor was the holy temple and oracle of Apollo at Abæ better treated than the rest: all its treasures were pillaged, and it was then burnt. From Panopeus Xerxes detached a body of men to plunder Delphi, marching with his main army through Bœotia, in which country he found all the towns submissive and willing, except Thespiæ and Platæa: both were deserted by their citizens, and both were now burnt.