Histories

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 [22.25,39.5] (region), Greece, Europe Thessaly and some in +Siris [15.6333,40.0667] (Perseus) Siris of Paeonia and in Macedonia (region (general)), EuropeMacedonia.

In +Siris [15.6333,40.0667] (Perseus) Siris he had left the sacred chariot of Zeus when he was marching to Greece [22,39] (nation), EuropeHellas, but on his return he did not get it back again. The Paeonians had given it to the Thracians, and when Xerxes demanded it back, they said that the horses had been carried off from pasture by the Thracians of the hills who dwelt about the headwaters of the Strymon.

It was then that a monstrous deed was done by the Thracian king of the Bisaltae and the Crestonian country. He had refused to be of his own free will Xerxes' slave, and fled to the mountains called +Nomos Rodhopis [25.5,41.83] (department), Western Thrace, Greece, Europe Rhodope. He forbade his sons to go with the army to Greece [22,39] (nation), EuropeHellas,

but they took no account of that; they had always wanted to see the war, and they followed the Persians' march. For this reason, when all the six of them returned back scatheless, their father tore out their eyes.