Histories

That is the number of Xerxes' whole force. No one, however, can say what the exact number of cooking women, and concubines, and eunuchs was, nor can one determine the number of the beasts of draught and burden, and the Indian dogs which accompanied the host; so many of them were there. It is accordingly not surprising to me that some of the streams of water ran dry. I do, however, wonder how there were provisions sufficient for so many tens of thousands,

for calculation shows me, that if each man received one choenix of wheat a day and no more, eleven hundred thousand and three hundred and forty bushels would be required every day.[*](The figure is wrong. Reckoning 48 choenixes to the medimnus, Herodotus has of course divided 5,283, 220 by 48. The right quotient is 110,067.083. 5,280,000 divided by 48 produces 110,000; 3220 divided by 48 leaves a dividend, after the first stage of division, of 340, and this for some unexplained reason Herodotus has added to the quotient. The medimnus is the chief Attic unit for dry measure; said to be the equivalent of six gallons.) In this calculation I take no account of the provisions for the women, eunuchs, beasts of burden and dogs. Of all those tens of thousands of men, there was not one, as regards looks and grandeur, worthier than Xerxes himself to hold that command.

The Persian fleet put to sea and reached the beach of the Magnesian land, between the city of Casthanaea and the headland of Sepia. The first ships to arrive moored close to land, with the others after them at anchor; since the beach was not large, they lay at anchor in rows eight ships deep out into the sea.

They spent the night in this way, but at dawn a storm descended upon them out of a clear and windless sky, and the sea began to boil. A strong east wind blew, which the people living in those parts call Hellespontian.

Those who felt the wind rising or had proper mooring dragged their ships up on shore ahead of the storm and so survived with their ships. The wind did, however, carry those ships caught out in the open sea against the rocks called the Ovens at +Pilion (mountain range), Nomos Magnisias, Thessaly, Greece, Europe Pelion or onto the beach. Some ships were wrecked on the Sepian headland, others were cast ashore at the city of +Meliboea [22.8167,39.75] (Perseus) Meliboea or at Casthanaea. The storm was indeed unbearable.