The naval force of Xerxes, setting out from the city of Therma, advanced with ten of the fastest sailing ships straight to Scyathus, where were three Grecian ships keeping a look-out:  a Troezenian, an AEginetan, and an Athenian, These, seeing the ships of the barbarians at a distance, betook themselves to flight.

The Troezenian ship, which Praxinus commanded, the barbarians pursued and soon captured; and then, having led the handsomest of the marines to the prow of the ship, they slew him, deeming it a good omen that the first Greek they had taken was also very handsome.  The name of the man that was slain was Leon, and perhaps he in some measure reaped the fruits of his name.

The AEginetan ship, which Asonides commanded, gave them some trouble; Pytheas, son of Ischenous, being a marine on board, a man who on this day displayed the most consummate valor; who, when the ship was taken, continued fighting until he was entirely cut to pieces.  But when, having fallen (he was not dead, but still breathed), the Persians who served on board the ships were very anxious to save him alive, on account of his valor, healing his wounds with myrrh, and binding them with bandages of flaxen cloth; and when they returned to their own camp, they showed him with admiration to the whole army, and treated him well; but the others, whom they took in this ship, they treated as slaves.

Thus, then, two of the ships were taken; but the other, which Phormus, an Athenian, commanded, in its flight ran ashore at the mouth of the Peneus, and the barbarians got possession of the ship, but not of the men; for as soon as the Athenians had run the ship aground, they leaped out, and, proceeding through Thessaly, reached Athens.  The Greeks who were stationed at Artemisium were informed of this event by signal-fires from Sciathus; and being informed of it, and very much alarmed, they retired from Artemisium to Chalcis, intending to defend the Euripus, and leaving scouts on the heights of Euboea.  Of the ten barbarian ships, three approached the sunken rock called Myrmex, between Sciathus and Magnesia.  Then the barbarians, when they had erected on the rock a stone column, which they had brought with them, set out from Therma, now that every obstacle had been removed, and sailed forward with all their ships, having waited eleven days after the king’s departure from Therma.  Pammon, a Scyrian, pointed out to them this hidden rock, which was almost directly in their course.  The barbarians, sailing all day, reached Sepias in Magnesia, and the shore that lies between the city of Casthanaea and the coast of Sepias.