The histories of Herodotus;

179-184] THE FIRST ENGAGEMENT 425
Therma, advanced with ten of the fastest-sailing ships straight
to Scyithus, where were three Grecian ships keeping a lookout,
a Trcezenian, an yEginetan, and an Athenian. These,
seeing the ships of the barbarians at a distance, betook themselves
to flight. The Trcezenian ship, which Praxinus commanded,
the barbarians pursued and soon captured ; and then,
having led the handsomest of the marines to the prow of the
ship, they slew him, deeming it a good omen that the first
Greek they had taken was also very handsome. The name
of the man that was slain was Leon, and perhaps he in some
measure reaped the fruits of his name. The ^Eginetan ship,
which Asonides commanded, gave them some trouble, Pytheas,
son of Ischenous, being a marine on board, a man who
on this day displayed the most consummate valour; who,
when the ship was taken, continued fighting until he was entirely
cut to pieces. But when, having fallen, he was not dead,
but still breathed, the Persians who served on board the ships
were very anxious to save him alive, on account of his valour,
healing his wounds with myrrh, and binding them with bandages
of flaxen cloth. And when they returned to their own
camp, they showed him with admiration to the whole army,
and treated him well ; but the others, whom they took in this
ship, they treated as slaves. Thus, then, two of the ships were
taken ; but the third, which Phormus, an Athenian, com-
manded, in its flight ran ashore at the mouth of the Peneus
and the barbarians got possession of the ship, but not of the
for as soon as the Athenians had run the ship aground,
men :
they leaped out, and, proceeding through Thessaly, reached
Athens. The Greeks who were stationed at Artemisium were
informed of this event by signal fires from Sciathus ; and being
informed of it, and very much alarmed, they retired from
Artemisium to Chalcis, leaving scouts on the heights of Eubcea,
intending to defend the Euripus. Of the ten barbarian
ships, three approached the sunken rock called Myrmex, between
Sciathus and Magnesia. Then the barbarians, when
they had erected on the rock a stone column, which they had
brought with them, set out from Therma, now that every obstacle
had been removed, and sailed forward with all their
ships, having waited eleven days after the king's departure
from Therma. Pammon, a Scyrian, pointed out to them this
hidden rock, which was almost directly in their course. The
barbarians, sailing all day, reached Sepias in Magnesia, and
the shore that lies between the city of Casthanaea and the coast
of Sepias.
As far as this place, and Thermopylae, the army had suf-
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