oracle of Delphi, and indeed that venerable shrine appears to have
been equally dissuasive of resistance to all the states that consulted
it; although the daring of the Athenians had construed the ambiguous
menace into a favourable omen. The threats of superstition become but
incitements to courage when interpreted by the brave.

V. And now the hostile army had crossed the Hellespont, and the
Thessalians, perceiving that they were the next objects of attack,
despatched ambassadors to the congress at the Isthmus.

Those Thessalian chiefs called the Aleuadae had, it is true, invited
Xerxes to the invasion of Greece. But precisely because acceptable to
the chiefs, the arrival of the great king was dreaded by the people.
By the aid of the Persians, the Aleuadae trusted to extend their power
over their own country--an ambition with which it is not to be
supposed that the people they assisted to subject would sympathize.
Accordingly, while Xerxes was to the chiefs an ally, to the people he
remained a foe.

These Thessalian envoys proclaimed their willingness to assist the
confederates in the defence of their fatherland, but represented the
imminence of the danger to Thessaly, and demanded an immediate supply
of forces. "Without this," they said, "we cannot exert ourselves for
you, and our inability to assist you will be our excuse, if we provide
for our own safety."

Aroused by these exhortations, the confederates commenced their
military movements. A body of infantry passed the Euripus, entered
Thessaly, and encamped amid the delights of the vale of Tempe. Here
their numbers, in all ten thousand heavy-armed troops, were joined by