Histories

When they had received the oracle, the Delphians first sent word of it to those Greeks who desired to be free; because of their dread of the barbarian, they were forever grateful. Subsequently they erected an altar to the winds at Thyia, the present location of the precinct of Thyia the daughter of Cephisus, and they offered sacrifices to them. This, then, is the reason why the Delphians to this day offer the winds sacrifice of propitiation.

Xerxes' fleet, however, set forth from the city of +Thessaloniki [22.933,40.633] (inhabited place), Thessaloniki, Macedonia, Greece, Europe Therma, and the ten swiftest of the ships laid their course straight for Sciathus, where there lay an advance guard of three Greek ships, a Troezenian, an Aeginetan, and an Attic. These, when they sighted the foreigners ships, took to flight.

The ship of Troizen [23.375,37.5] (Perseus)Troezen, of which Prexinus was captain, was pursued and straightway captured by the foreigners, who brought the best of its fighting men and cut his throat on the ship's prow, thinking that the sacrifice[*](diade/cion has been otherwise translated, as meaning “of good augury”; Stein derives it rather from diade/cesqai, supposing the meaning to be “a sacrifice where the portions of the victim are handed round among the sacrificers.”) of the foremost and fairest of their Greek captives would be auspicious. The name of the sacrificed man was Leon, and it was perhaps his name that he had to thank for it.