Histories

Xerxes was pleased by what Epialtes promised to accomplish. He immediately became overjoyed and sent out Hydarnes and the men under Hydarnes command, who set forth from the camp at about lamp-lighting time. This path[*](Plutarch in his life of Cato (13) describes the difficulty which troops under Cato's command encountered in trying to follow it.) had been discovered by the native Malians, who used it to guide the Thessalians into +Phocis (department), Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Phocis when the Phocians had fenced off the pass with a wall and were sheltered from the war. So long ago the Malians had discovered that the pass was in no way a good thing.[*](This is Steins interpretation; others make ou)de\n xrhsth\ refer to the a)trapo/s, meaning there “pernicious.”)

The course of the path is as follows: it begins at the river Asopus as it flows through the ravine, and this mountain and the path have the same name, Anopaea. This Anopaea stretches along the ridge of the mountain and ends at Alpenus, the Locrian city nearest to Malis, near the rock called Blackbuttock and the seats of the Cercopes, where it is narrowest.[*](The Cercopes, mischievous dwarfs, had been warned against a “mela/mpugos” enemy. Heracles, to rid the country of them, carried off two on his back, hanging head downwards, in which position they had every opportunity of observing his title to the above epithet; until their jests on the subject moved him to release them.)