The histories of Herodotus;

40-44] ATHENS ABANDONED 455
Having been informed of this, they therefore entreated them
to direct their course to Salamis. The rest, therefore, held on
to Salamis, but the Athenians to their own country; and
on their arrival they caused proclamations to be made that
every one should save his children and family by the best
means he could. Thereupon the greatest part sent away
their families to Trcezene, some to iEgina, and others to
Salamis. They used all diligence to remove them to a place
of safety, both from a desire to obey the oracle, and more
particularly for the following reason : the Athenians say that
a large serpent used to live in the temple as a guard to the
Acropolis : they both say this, and, as if it were really there,
they do it honour by placing before it its monthly food; the
monthly food consists of a honey-cake: this honey-cake having
been in former time always consumed, now remained untouched.
When the priestess made this known, the Athenians
with more readiness abandoned the city, since even the goddess
had forsaken the Acropolis. As soon as everything had
been deposited in a place of safety, they sailed to the encampment.
When those from Artemisium stationed their ships
at Salamis, the rest of the naval forces of the Greeks being
informed of this joined them from Trcezene ; for they had been
ordered to assemble at Pogon, a harbour of the Trcezenians.
Many more ships were assembled together than had fought
at Artemisium, and from a greater number of cities. The
same admiral commanded them as at Artemisium, Eurybiades,
son of Euryclides, a Spartan, though he was not of
the royal family : the Athenians, however, furnished by far the
most and the best sailing ships.
The following joined the fleet: From the Peloponnesus,
the Lacedaemonians, furnishing sixteen ships ; the Corinthians,
furnishing the same number as at Artemisium ; the Sicyonians
furnished fifteen ships ; the Epidaurians, ten ; the Trcezenians,
five ; and the Hermionians, three ; all these, except
the Hermionians, being of Doric and Macedonic extraction,
having come from Erineum, and Pindus, and last of all from
Dryopis. The Hermionians are Dryopians, driven out by
Hercules and the Malians, from the country now called Doris.
These, then, of the Peloponnesians served in the fleet. The
following were from the outer continent: the Athenians, beyond
all the rest, alone furnished one hundred and eighty
ships ; for at Salamis the Plataeans did not join their forces
to the Athenians, on account of the following circumstance:
when the Greeks retired from Artemisium, and were off Chalcis,
the Plataeans, having landed on the opposite coast in