ght
escape, and that they should afterward follow with the rest of their
fleet at leisure. This being done, Aristides, the son of Lysimachus, was
the first man that perceived it, and went to the test of Themistocles,
not out of any friendship, for he had been formerly banished by his
means, as has been related, but to inform him how they were encompassed
by their enemies. Themistocles, knowing the generosity of Aristides, and
much struck by his visit at that time, imparted to him all that he had
transacted by Sicinnus, and entreated him that, as he would be more
readily believed among the Greeks, he would make use of his credit to
help to induce them to stay and fight their enemies in the narrow seas.
Aristides applauded Themistocles, and went to the other commanders and
captains of the galleys and encouraged them to engage; yet they did not
perfectly assent to him till a galley of Tenos, which deserted from the
Persians, of which Panaetius was commander, came in, while they were
still doubting, and confirmed the news that all the straits and passages
were beset; and then their rage and fury, as well as their necessity,
provoked them all to fight.

As soon as it was day, Xerxes placed himself high up, to view his fleet,
as Acestodorus writes, in the confines of Megara, upon those hills
which are called the Horns, where he sat in a chair of gold, with many
secretaries about him to write down all that was done in the fight.

The number of the enemy's ships the poet Aeschylus gives in his tragedy
called the Persians, as on his certain knowledge, in the following
words:

Xerxes, I know, did into battle lead
One thousand ships; of more than usual speed
Seven and two hundred. So is it agreed.

The Athenians had a hundred and eighty; in every ship eighteen
men fought upon the deck, four of whom were archers and the rest
men-at-arms.

As Themistocles had fixed upon the most advantageous place, so, with no
less sagacity, he chose the best time of fighting; for he would not run
the prows of his galleys against the Persians, nor begin the fight till
the time of day was come when there regularly blows in a fresh breeze
from the open sea, and brings in with it a strong swell into the
channel; this was no inconvenience to the Greek ships, which were
low-built, and little above the water, but did much hurt to the
Persians, which had high sterns and lofty decks, and were heavy and
cumbrous in their movements, a