In the course of the year 481 B.C. (Olymp. 74. 3/4) Xerxes set out from his residence at Susa (Herod. VII. 20), found the great army assembled in Cappadocia, and marched to Sardis, from which town he sent ambassadors to the Greek cities (ib. 32). Having wintered here, the army marched in the spring of 480 B.C. (Olymp. 74. 4) to Abydos;(2157) when it had reached the passes of Pieria, the Persian envoys returned (ib. 131). Soon after this they met at Thermopylæ the Greek forces, which had set out before the 75th Olympiad and the Carnean games, about June 480 B.C. Battles of Thermopylæ and Artemisium in μέσον θέρος (VIII. 12.) both perhaps a short time before the Olympic festival (VIII. 26). Conquest of Attica, four months after the beginning of the διάβασις τοῦ Ἑλλησπόντου (VIII. 51). Battle of Salamis, a little after the time of the Ιακχος, after the εἰκὰς of Boëdromion Olymp. 75. 1., as the Etesian winds were either blowing or had ceased to blow (they last from the summer solstice to the rising of the dog-star), VII. 168. Mardonius winters in Thessaly and Macedonia, the Persian fleet at Cume and Samos. Battle of Platæa on the 26th or 27th of Panemus (Metagitnion), Olymp. 75. 2. 479 B.C. at the same time as that of Mycale. The year ends with the taking of Sestos. 2. The Greeks certainly received early intelligence of the preparations in Persia (VII. 138), even if the story related by Herodotus (VII. 239.) about the secret message of Demaratus is not true. They either refused or gave earth and water to the envoys late in the year 481 B.C. (VII. 138.). The states which refused to submit held a congress;(2158) and they are now called by Herodotus, “the Greeks allied against the Persians,” (οἱ συνωμόται Ἑλλήνων ἐπὶ τῷ Πέρσῃ, VII. 148.). This assembly of course was formed by deputies from the different cities: the manner of its formation may be inferred from the place at which it sat; and it will be shown presently that it first assembled at Corinth, which city belonged to the Peloponnesian confederacy. It appears therefore that Sparta must have convened an assembly at Corinth, to which the extra-Peloponnesian states, which had refused earth and water, sent envoys. This congress first put an end to the internal dissensions of Greece (VII. 145.), in which good service Chileus of Tegea and Themistocles are said to have earned the gratitude of their countrymen (Plutarch Themist. 6.). Secondly, when they heard that Xerxes was at Sardis, they despatched spies thither, and at the same time envoys to Argos, Sicily, Corcyra, and Crete. (VII. 145. 199.) The envoys are stated by Herodotus to have been sent by the Lacedæmonians and their allies.(2159) They also made a vow to decimate to the Delphian God all those Greeks who had unnecessarily given earth and water to the Persians (VII. 132.); the persons who made this vow are called by Diodorus XI. 3. “the Greeks assembled in congress at the Isthmus,” οἱ ἐν Ἰσθμῷ συνεδρεύοντες τῶν Ἑλλήνων.