Histories

It was then that a very apt saying was uttered by one Megacreon of +Abdera [24.9667,40.9833] (Perseus) Abdera. He advised his townsmen, men and women alike, to gather at their temples, and there in all humility to entreat the gods to defend them in the future from half of every threatened ill. They should also, he said, thank the gods heartily for their previous show of favor, for it was Xerxes' custom to take a meal only once a day. Otherwise they would have been commanded to furnish a breakfast similar to the dinner.

The people of +Abdera [24.9667,40.9833] (Perseus) Abdera would then have had no choice but to flee before Xerxes' coming, or to perish most miserably if they awaited him.

So the townsmen, oppressed as they were, nevertheless did as they were commanded. Upon leaving Acanthus, Xerxes sent his ships on their course away from him, giving orders to his generals that the fleet should await him at +Thessaloniki [22.933,40.633] (inhabited place), Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece, Europe Therma, the town on the Thermaic gulf which gives the gulf its name, for this, he learned, was his shortest way.

The order of the army's march, from Doriscus to Acanthus, had been such as I will show. Dividing his entire land army into three parts, Xerxes appointed one of them to march beside his fleet along the coast.