Greece -- History -- To 146 B.C.; History, Ancient
192. The storm then had ceased on the fourth day; and meanwhile the
day-watchers had run down from the heights of Euboea on the day after
the first storm began, and were keeping the Hellenes informed of all
that had happened as regards the shipwreck. They then, being informed of
it, prayed first to Poseidon the Saviour and poured libations, and then
they hastened to go back to Artemision, expecting that there would be
but a very few ships of the enemy left to come against them.
193. They, I say, came for the second time and lay with their ships
about Artemision: and from that time even to this they preserve the use
of the surname "Saviour" for Poseidon. Meanwhile the Barbarians, when
the wind had ceased and the swell of the sea had calmed down, drew their
ships into the sea and sailed on along the shore of the mainland, and
having rounded the extremity of Magnesia they sailed straight into the
gulf which leads towards Pagasai. In this gulf of Magnesia there is a
place where it is said that Heracles was left behind by Jason and his
comrades, having been sent from the Argo to fetch water, at the time
when they were sailing for the fleece to Aia in the land of Colchis: for
from that place they designed, when they had taken in water, to loose
199 their ship into the open sea; and from this the place has come
to have the name Aphetai. Here then the fleet of Xerxes took up its
moorings.
194. Now it chanced that fifteen of these ships put out to sea a good
deal later than the rest, and they happened to catch sight of the ships
of the Hellenes at Artemision. These ships the Barbarians supposed to be
their own, and they sailed thither accordingly and fell among the enemy.
Of these the commander was Sandokes the son of Thamasios, the governor
of Kyme in Aiolia, whom before this time king Dareios had taken and
crucified (he being one of the Royal Judges) for this reason, 19901
namely that Sandokes had pronounced judgment unjustly for money. So then
after he was hung up, Dareios reckoned and found that more good services
had been done by him to the royal house than were equal to his offences;
and having found this, and perceived that he had himself acted with more
haste than wisdom, he let him go. Thus he escaped from king Dareios, and
did not perish but survived; now, however, when he sailed in toward the
Hellenes, he was destined not to escape the second time; for when the
Hellenes saw them sailing up, perceiving the mistake which was being
made they put out against them and captured them without difficulty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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