05-20-2005, 06:43 PM
Quote:...but Xerxes left Mardonius in Thessaly. He himself journeyed with all speed to the Hellespont and came in forty-five days to the passage for crossing, bringing back with him as good as none (if one may say so) of his host. Wherever and to whatever people they came, they seized and devoured its produce. If they found none, they would eat the grass of the field and strip the bark and pluck the leaves of the trees, garden and wild alike, leaving nothing--such was the degree of their starvation. Moreover, pestilence and dysentery broke out among them on their way, from which they died. Some who were sick Xerxes left behind, charging the cities to which he came in his march to care for them and nourish them, some in Thessaly and some in Siris of Paeonia and in Macedonia. In Siris he had left the sacred chariot of Zeus when he was marching to Hellas, but on his return he did not get it back again.
Disaster! This is the fate of the men who's only battle was at Thermopylae.
Rich Marinaccio
