Histories

Now the Thessalians say that Poseidon made the passage by which the Peneus flows. This is reasonable, for whoever believes that Poseidon is the shaker of the earth and that rifts made by earthquakes are the work of that god will conclude, upon seeing that passage, that it is of Poseidon's making. It was manifest to me that it must have been an earthquake which forced the mountains apart.[*](The correspondence in formation of the two sides of the pass (salients on one side answering to recesses on the other) gives the impression that they were once united and have been violently separated.)

Xerxes asked his guides if there were any other outlet for the Peneus into the sea, and they, with their full knowledge of the matter, answered him: “The river, O king, has no other way into the sea, but this alone. This is so because there is a ring of mountains around the whole of +Thessaly [22.25,39.5] (region), Greece, Europe Thessaly.” Upon hearing this Xerxes said: “These Thessalians are wise men;

this, then, was the primary reason for their precaution long before[*](As a matter of fact the Thessalians had determined on their policy very recently indeed; but Xerxes apparently supposes that they had resolved to join him from the first.) when they changed to a better mind, for they perceived that their country would be easily and speedily conquerable. It would only have been necessary to let the river out over their land by barring the channel with a dam and to turn it from its present bed so that the whole of +Thessaly [22.25,39.5] (region), Greece, Europe Thessaly, with the exception of the mountains, might be under water.”