3. In this narrative taken from Herodotus there still remains one contradiction, viz., that if the Greeks did not assemble till after they had refused earth and water (as appears from VII. 138. cf. 145.), the Argives had no longer any option whether they would join the league or not. Likewise the dismission of the Greek envoys would fall too late in the unfavourable season for sailing, and there would scarcely be time for the messages to the oracles (c. 148, 169.), and the other proceedings. It is therefore probable that this congress was formed _before_ the arrival of the Persian envoys, which was late in 481 B.C.: and Diodorus seems to be correct in stating that of the nations some gave earth and water, while the Persian army was in the valley of Tempe, and others after its departure (XI. 3.); and therefore none till early in 480 B.C.: previously the ambassadors were probably in the north; Herodotus in VII. 138. appears to mean only the ambassadors of Darius. With this the following statements agree, which he adds in VII. 172. “_As soon as_ the Thessalians had heard that the Persians wished to invade Europe”—which they must have known in the winter of 481-80 B.C.—“they sent envoys to the Isthmus.” Ἐν δὲ τῷ Ἰσθμῷ (_i.e._, in the village which had grown up about the temple of Neptune), ἔσαν ἁλισμένοι πρόβουλοι (plenipotentiaries, VI. 7.) τῆς Ἑλλάδος, ἀραιρημένοι ἀπὸ τῶν πολίων τῶν τὰ ἀμείνω φρονεουσέων περὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα. Now this assembly, while the Persian king was at Abydos, and therefore very early in 480 B.C., sent the army to Tempe, which soon returned (VII. 173.), and indeed returned to the Isthmus, which must therefore have been the head-quarters of the allied army. When it returned, the congress was still sitting at the Isthmus.(2160) This synedrion or assembly (which is again mentioned in this place by Diodorus XI. 4.) now resolved to defend the passes of Thermopylæ and Artemisium: and when the intelligence arrived that the Persians were in Pieria, διαλυθέντες ἐκ τοῦ Ἰσθμοῦ (_i.e._, departing from the Isthmus) ἐστρατεύοντο αὐτῶν οἱ μὲν ἐς Θερμοπύλας πεζῇ, ἄλλοι δὲ κατὰ θάλασσαν ἐπ᾽ Ἀρτεμίσιον. But that the Isthmus was still the place in which the congress sat, is evident from the fact, that Sandoces, Aridolis, and Penthylus, who fell into the hands of the Greeks before the battle of Artemisium, were sent thither (VII. 195.). At this time indeed the Peloponnesians were celebrating the Olympiad, and the Spartans the Carnea, at their respective homes,(2161) after which, as had been previously arranged, they were to take the field with all their forces (πανδημεὶ, VII. 206. VIII. 26.). Nevertheless, the decree that the ships which came too late for Artemisium should assemble in the Trœzenian Pogon (VIII. 42.), as well as the other, that the Isthmus should be fortified (VIII. 40, 71.), which measure was not thought of before the battle of Thermopylæ, must have been passed in this interval. Diodorus (XI.