102 HISTORY OF GREECE withdraw the naval force farther into Greece :' though this was in fact a surrender of the pass of Thermopjlse, and though the removal which the Euboeans were hastening was still unfinished. These unfortunate men were forced to be satisfied with the prom- ise of Themistokles to give them convoy for their boats and their persons ; abandoning their sheep and cattle for the con- sumption of the fleet, as better than leaving them to become booty for the enemy. While the Greeks were thus employed in organizing their retreat, they received news which rendered retreat doubly necessary. The Athenian Abronychus, sta- tioned with his ship near Thermopylae, in order to keep up com- munication between the army and fleet, brought the disastrous intelligence that Xerxes was already master of the pass, and that the division of Leonidas was either destroyed or in flight. Upon this the fleet abandoned Artp.misinm forthwith, and sailed up the Euboean strait ; the Corinthian ships in the van, the Athe- nians bringing up the rear. Themistokles, conducting the latter, stayed long enough at the various watering-stations and landing- places to inscribe on some neighboring stones invitations to the Ionian contingents serving under Xerxes : whereby the latter were conjured not to serve against their fathers, but to desert, if possible, — or at least, to fight as little and as backwardly as they could. Themistokles hoped by this stratagem perhaps to detach some of the lonians from the Persian side, or, at any rate, to render them objects of mistrust, and thus to diminish their eflBci- ency.2 With no longer delay than was requisite for such inscrip- tions, he followed the remaining fleet, which sailed round the coast of Attica, not stopping until it reached the island of Sa- lamis. The news of the retreat of the Greek fleet was speedily con- veyed by a citizen of Histiasa to the Persians at Aphetee, who at first disbelieved it, and detained the messenger until they had sent to ascertain the fact. On the next day, their fleet passed across to the north of Euboea, and became master of Histisea and the neighboring territory : from whence many of them, by permission and even invitation of Xerxes, crossed over to Ther-
- Herodot. viii, 18. dpTjanbv 6f] k^ovXevov iau kg tjjv E.'X7.aia.
' Herodot. viii, 19, 21, 22 ; Plutarch, Themistokles, c. 9.
