Histories

After he had done this, the ships were drawn down and launched into the sea. Xerxes alighted from his chariot into a Sidonian ship and sat under a golden canopy while he was carried past the prows of the ships, questioning the men in the same way as the army and having the answers written down.

The captains put out and anchored in line four hundred feet from the shore, with their prows turned landward and the marines armed for war; Xerxes viewed them by passing between the prows and the land.