Histories

Herodotus

Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).

The Greeks took them as far as Delos [25.2833,37.4] (Perseus)Delos, and that not readily, for they, having no knowledge of those parts and thinking that armed men were everywhere, feared all that lay beyond. They supposed too that +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos was no nearer to them than the Pillars of Heracles. So it happened that the barbarians were too disheartened to dare to sail farther west than +Nisos Samos [26.8,37.75] (island), Samos, Aegean Islands, Greece, Europe Samos, while at the same time the Greeks dared to go at the Chians' request no farther east than Delos [25.2833,37.4] (Perseus)Delos. It was fear which kept the middle space between them.

The Greeks, then, sailed to Delos [25.2833,37.4] (Perseus)Delos, and Mardonius wintered in +Thessaly [22.25,39.5] (region), Greece, Europe Thessaly. Having his headquarters there he sent a man of +Salahiyeh [40.716,34.75] (deserted settlement), Dayr az-Zawr, Syria, Asia Europus called Mys to visit the places of divination, charging him to inquire of all the oracles which he could test. What it was that he desired to learn from the oracles when he gave this charge, I cannot say, for no one tells of it. I suppose that he sent to inquire concerning his present business, and that alone.

This man Mys is known to have gone to +Levadhia [22.883,38.433] (inhabited place), Boeotia, Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Lebadea and to have bribed a man of the country to go down into the cave of Trophonius and to have gone to the place of divination at Abai [22.9583,38.5917] (Perseus)Abae in +Phocis (department), Central Greece and Euboea, Greece, Europe Phocis. He went first to Thebes [23.3333,38.325] (Perseus) Thebes where he inquired of Ismenian Apollo (sacrifice is there the way of divination, as at Olympia [21.6333,37.65] (Perseus)Olympia), and moreover he bribed one who was no Theban but a stranger to lie down to sleep in the shrine of Amphiaraus.