Herodotus - The Histories.pdf

40 V Herodotus
stock, one each. The whole number of the ships,
without counting the penteconters, was three
hundred and seventy-eight.
When the captains from these various nations
were come together at Salamis, a council of war
was summoned; and Eurybiades proposed that
any one who liked to advise, should say which
place seemed to him the fittest, among those still
in the possession of the Greeks, to be the scene of
a naval combat. Attica, he said, was not to be
thought of now; but he desired their counsel as to
the remainder. The speakers mostly advised that
the fleet should sail away to the Isthmus, and
there give battle in defence of the Peloponnese;
and they urged as a reason for this, that if they
were worsted in a sea-fight at Salamis, they would
be shut up in an island where they could get no
help; but if they were beaten near the Isthmus,
they could escape to their homes.
As the captains from the Peloponnese were thus
advising, there came an Athenian to the camp,
who brought word that the barbarians had