The threats of superstition become but incitements to courage when interpreted by the brave.
V.

And now the hostile army had crossed the Hellespont, and the Thessalians, perceiving that they were the next objects of attack, despatched ambassadors to the congress at the Isthmus.
Those Thessalian chiefs called the Aleuadae had, it is true, invited Xerxes to the invasion of Greece.

But precisely because acceptable to the chiefs, the arrival of the great king was dreaded by the people.
By the aid of the Persians, the Aleuadae trusted to extend their power over their own country--an ambition with which it is not to be supposed that the people they assisted to subject would sympathize.
Accordingly, while Xerxes was to the chiefs an ally, to the people he remained a foe.
These Thessalian envoys proclaimed their willingness to assist the confederates in the defence of their fatherland, but represented the imminence of the danger to Thessaly, and demanded an immediate supply of forces.

"Without this," they said, "we cannot exert ourselves for you, and our inability to assist you will be our excuse, if we provide for our own safety." Aroused by these exhortations, the confederates commenced their military movements.

A body of infantry passed the Euripus, entered Thessaly, and encamped amid the delights of the vale of Tempe.