for indeed confidence leads to victory.  This Artemisium is a promontory of the island of Euboea, stretching northwards beyond Hestiaea; and opposite to it is Olizon, which was once part of the dominions of Philoktetes.  There is upon it a small temple of Artemis (Diana), which is called the “Temple towards the East.”  Round it stand trees and a circle of pillars of white stone.  This stone, when rubbed in the hand, has the colour and smell of saffron.  On one of these pillars were written the following verses: 

    “The sons of Athens once o’ercame in fight
      All Asia’s tribes, on yonder sea;
    They raised these pillars round Diana’s shrine,
      To thank her for their victory.”

Even now a place is pointed out on the beach where, under a great heap of sand, there is a deep bed of black ashes where it is thought the wrecks and dead bodies were burned.

IX.  But when the news of Thermopylae was brought to the Greeks at Artemisium, that Leonidas had fallen, and Xerxes was in possession of the passes, they retired further into Greece, the Athenians protecting the rear on account of their bravery, and full of pride at their achievements.  At all the harbours and landing-places along the coast, Themistokles, as he passed by, cut conspicuous inscriptions on stones, some of which he found on the spot, and others which he himself set up at all the watering-places and convenient stations for ships.  In these inscriptions he besought the Ionians, if possible, to come over to the Athenians, who were their fathers, and who were fighting for their liberty; and if they could not do this, to throw the barbarian army into confusion during battle.  He hoped that these writings would either bring the Ionians over to the side of the Greeks, or make them suspected of treason by the Persians.

Meanwhile Xerxes invaded Greece through Doris, and came into Phokis, where he burned the city of the Phokaeans.  The Greeks made no resistance, although the Athenians begged them to make a stand in Boeotia, and cover Attica, urging that they had fought in defence of the whole of Greece at Artemisium.  However, as no one would listen to them, but all the rest of the Greeks determined to defend the Peloponnesus, and were collecting all their forces within it, and building a wall across the Isthmus from sea to sea, the Athenians were enraged at their treachery, and disheartened at being thus abandoned to their fate.  They had no thoughts of resisting so enormous an army; and the only thing they could do under the circumstances, to abandon their city and trust to their ships, was distasteful to the people, who saw nothing to be gained by victory, and no advantage in life, if they had to desert the temples of their gods and the monuments of their fathers.