Never was help more effective, or more opportune, than the destructive storm, presently to be recounted, on the coast of Magnesia, for which grateful thanks and annual solemnities were still rendered even in the time of Herodotus, at Athens as well as at Delphi.[149] [147] Herodot. vii, 184. μέχρι μὲν δὴ τούτου τοῦ χώρου καὶ τῶν Θερμοπυλέων, ἀπαθής τε κακῶν ἔην ὁ στρατὸς, καὶ πλῆθος ἔην τηνικαῦτα ἔτι τόσον, etc.—viii, 13. ἐποιέετο δὲ πᾶν ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, ὅκως ἂν ἐξισωθείη τῷ Ἑλληνικῷ τὸ Περσικὸν, μηδὲ πολλῷ πλέον εἴη. Compare viii, 109; and Diodor. xi, 13. [148] Herodot. vii, 178. Δελφοὶ δὲ δεξάμενοι τὸ μαντήϊον, πρῶτα μὲν, Ἑλλήνων τοῖσι βουλομένοισι εἶναι ἐλευθέροισι ἐξήγγειλαν τὰ χρησθέντα αὐτοῖσι· καί σφι δεινῶς καταῤῥωδέουσι τὸν βάρβαρον ἐξαγγείλαντες, χάριν ἀθάνατον κατέθεντο. [149] Herodot. vii, 189. The language of the historian in this chapter is remarkable: his incredulous reason rather gets the better of religious acquiescence. Clemens Alexandrinus, reciting this incident together, with some other miracles of Ækus, Aristæus, Empedoklês, etc., reproves his pagan opponents for their inconsistency, while believing these, in rejecting the miracles of Moses and the prophets (Stromat. vi, pp. 629, 630). Xerxes had halted on the Thermaic gulf for several days, employing a large portion of his numerous army in cutting down the woods and clearing the roads, on the pass over Olympus from upper Macedonia into Perrhæbia, which was recommended by his Macedonian allies as preferable to the defile of Tempê.[150] Not intending to march through the latter, he is said to have gone by sea to view it; and remarks are ascribed to him on the facility of blocking it up so as to convert all Thessaly into one vast lake.[151] His march from Therma through Macedonia, Perrhæbia, Thessaly, and Achæa Phthiôtis, into the territory of the Malians and the neighborhood of Thermopylæ, occupied eleven or twelve days:[152] the people through whose towns he passed had already made their submission, and the Thessalians especially were zealous in seconding his efforts. His numerous host was still farther swelled by the presence of these newly-submitted people, and by the Macedonian troops under Alexander; so that the river Onochônus in Thessaly, and even the Apidanus in Achæa Phthiôtis, would hardly suffice to supply it, but were drunk up, according to the information given to Herodotus. At Alus in Achæa, he condescended to listen to the gloomy legend connected with the temple of Zeus Laphysteus and the sacred grove of the Athamantid family: he respected and protected these sacred places,—an incident which shows that the sacrilege and destruction of temples imputed to him by the Greeks, though true in regard to Athens, Abæ, Milêtus, etc., was by no means universally exhibited, and is even found qualified by occasional instances of great respect for Grecian religious feeling.[153] Along the shore of the Malian gulf he at length came