d ways open
through the various valleys and glens, and along the banks of the
rivers. All that was necessary was to procure guides and proceed.

The Thessalians were very ready to furnish guides. They had submitted to
Xerxes before the battle of Thermopylae, and they considered themselves,
accordingly, as his allies. They had, besides, a special interest in
conducting the Persian army, on account of the hostile feelings which
they entertained toward the people immediately south of the pass, into
whose territories Xerxes would first carry his ravages. This people were
the Phocaeans. Their country, as has already been stated, was separated
from Thessaly by impassable mountains, except where the Straits of
Thermopylae opened a passage; and through this pass both nations had been
continually making hostile incursions into the territory of the other
for many years before the Persian invasion. The Thessalians had
surrendered readily to the summons of Xerxes, while the Phocaeans had
determined to resist him, and adhere to the cause of the Greeks in the
struggle. They were suspected of having been influenced, in a great
measure, in their determination to resist, by the fact that the
Thessalians had decided to surrender. They were resolved that they would
not, on any account, be upon the same side with their ancient and
inveterate foes.

The hostility of the Thessalians to the Phocaeans was equally implacable.
At the last incursion which they had made into the Phocaean territory,
they had been defeated by means of stratagems in a manner which tended
greatly to vex and irritate them. There were two of these stratagems,
which were both completely successful, and both of a very extraordinary
character.

The first was this. The Thessalians were in the Phocaean country in great
force, and the Phocaeans had found themselves utterly unable to expel
them. Under these circumstances, a body of the Phocaeans, six hundred in
number, one day whitened their faces, their arms and hands, their
clothes, and all their weapons, with chalk, and then, at the dead of
night--perhaps, however, when the moon was shining--made an onset upon
the camp of the enemy. The Thessalian sentinels were terrified and ran
away, and the soldiers, awakened from their slumbers by these
unearthly-looking troops, screamed with fright, and fled in all
directions, in utter confusion and dismay. A night attack is usually a
dangerous attempt, even if the assaulting party