for this purpose had made
preparations many months before-hand. The cost of feeding such a
multitude brought many cities to the brink of ruin. At Acanthus his
fleet sailed through the isthmus of Athos and after doubling the
promontories of Sithonia and Pallene joined him at the city of Therma,
better known by its later name of Thessalonica. Thence he continued
his march through the southern part of Macedonia and Thessaly, meeting
with no opposition till he reached the celebrated pass of Thermopylae.

The mighty preparations of Xerxes had been no secret in Greece; and
during the preceding winter a congress of the Grecian states had been
summoned by the Spartans and Athenians to meet at the isthmus of
Corinth. But so great was the terror inspired by the countless hosts
of Xerxes that many of the Grecian states at once tendered their
submission to him, and others refused to take any part in the congress.
The only people, north of the isthmus of Corinth, who remained faithful
to the cause of Grecian liberty, were the Athenians and Phocians, and
the inhabitants of the small Boeotian towns of Plataea and Thespiae.
The other people in northern Greece were either partisans of the
Persians, like the Thebans, or were unwilling to make any great
sacrifices for the preservation of their independence. In
Peloponnesus, the powerful city of Argos and the Achaeans stood aloof.
From the more distant members of the Hellenic race no assistance was
obtained. Gelon, the ruler of Syracuse, offered to send a powerful
armament, provided the command of the allied forces was intrusted to
him; but the envoys did not venture to accept a proposal which would
have placed both Sparta and Athens under the control of a Sicilian
tyrant.

The desertion of the cause of Grecian independence by so many of the
Greeks did not shake the resolution of Sparta and of Athens. The
Athenians, especially, set a noble example of an enlarged patriotism.
They became reconciled to the AEginetans, and thus gained for the
common cause the powerful navy of their rival. They readily granted to
the Spartans the supreme command of the forces by sea as well as by
land, although they furnished two-thirds of the vessels of the entire
fleet. Their illustrious citizen Themistocles was the soul of the
congress. He sought to enkindle in the other Greeks some portion of
the ardour and energy which he had succeeded in breathing into the
Athenians.

The Greeks determined to