CHAPTER VI.
The Conduct of the Greeks .-- The Oracle relating to Salamis .-- Art of Themistocles .-- The Isthmian Congress .-- Embassies to Argos, Crete, Corcyra, and Syracuse .-- Their ill Success .-- The Thessalians send Envoys to the Isthmus .-- The Greeks advance to Tempe, but retreat .-- The Fleet despatched to Artemisium, and the Pass of Thermopylae occupied.
-- Numbers of the Grecian Fleet .-- Battle of Thermopylae.
I.

The first preparations of the Persians did not produce the effect which might have been anticipated in the Grecian states.

Far from uniting against the common foe, they still cherished a frivolous and unreasonable jealousy of each other.

Several readily sent the symbols of their allegiance to the Persian, including the whole of Boeotia, except only the Thespians and Plataeans.

The more timorous states imagined themselves safe from the vengeance of the barbarian; the more resolute were overwhelmed with dismay.