Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/67

XEKX]:S REACHES THE STRYMON. 43 of no great importance, is said to have been drunk up by the army, together with a lake of some magnitude near Pistyrus.i Through the territory of the Edonian Thracians and the Pieri- ans, between Pangaeus and the sea, Xerxes and his army reached the river Strymon at the important station called Ennea Hodoi, or Nine-Roads, afterwards memorable by the foundation of Am- pbipolis. Bridges had been already thrown over the river, to which the Magian priests rendered solemn honors by sacrificing white horses and throwing them into the stream. Nor were his religious feelings satisfied without the more precious sacrifices often resorted to by the Persians : he here buried alive nine na- tive youths and nine maidens, in compliment to Nine-Roads, the name of the spot :- moreover, he also left, under the care of the Paeonians of Siris, the sacred chariot of Zeus, which had been brought from the seat of empire, but which doubtless was found inconvenient on the line of march. From the Strymon he marched forward along the Strymonic gulf, passing through the territory of the Bisaltte, near the Greek colonies of Argilus and Stageirus, until he came to the Greek town of Akanthus, hard by the isthmus of Athos, which bad been recently cut through. The fierce king of the BisaltseS refused submission to Xerxes, fled to Rhodope for safety, and forbade his six sons to join the Persian host. Unhappily for themselves, they nevertheless did so, and when they came back he caused all of them to be bhnded. All the Greek cities, which Xerxes had passed by, obeyed his orders with sufficient readiness, and probably few doubted the ultimate success of so prodigious an armament. But the inhabi- tants of Akanthus had been eminent for their zeal and exertions in the cutting of the canal, and had probably made considerable profits during the operation ; Xerxes now repaid their zeal by choenix of wheat for each man's daily consumption, equal to one eighth of a medimnus. It is unnecessary to examine a computation founded on such inadmissible data. ' Herodot. vii, 108, 109. ^ Herodot. vii, 114. He pronounces this savage practice to be specially Persian. The old and cruel Persian queen Amestris, wife of Xerxes, sought to prolong her own life by burying aUve fourteen victims, children of illustrious men, as offerings to the subterranean god. 3 Herodot. viii. 116.