Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/91

 THE GREEKS ENTER THESSALY. 67 The envoys wlio visited Korkyra proceeded onward on their mission to Gelon, the despot of Syracuse. Of that potentate, regarded by Herodotus as more powerful than any state in Greece, I shall speak more fully in a subsequent chapter : it is sufficient to mention now, that he rendered no aid against Xerxes. Nor was it in his power to do so, whatever might have been his inclinations ; for the same year which brought the Persian mon- arch against Greece, was also selected by the Carthaginians for a formidable invasion of Sicily, which kept the Sicilian Greeks to the defence of their own island. It seems even probable that this simultaneous invasion had been concerted between the Per- sians and Carthaginians.! The endeavors of the deputies of Greeks at the Isthmus had thus produced no other reinforcement to their cause except some fair words from the Korkyrceans. It was near the time when Xerxes was about to pass the Hellespont, in the begin- ning of 480 B.C., that the first actual step for resistance was taken, at the instigation of the Thessalians. Though the great Thes- salian family of the Aleuadae were among the companions of Xerxes, and the most forward in inviting him into Greece, with every promise of ready submission from their countrymen, it seems that these promises were in reality unwaiTanted : the Aleuadae were at the head only of a minority, and perhaps were even in exile, like the Peisistratidce •? while most of the Thessalians were disposed to resist Xerxes, for which purpose they now sent envoys to the Isthmus,^ intimating the necessity of guarding the passes of Olympus, the northernmost entrance of Greece. They offered their own cordial aid in this defence, adding that they should be under the necessity of making their own separate sub- mission, if this demand were not complied with. Accordingly, a body of ten thousand Grecian heavy-armed infantry, under the Thucydides do not make any allusion to the duplicity of the Korkyrseans m regard to the Persian invasion, in the strong invective which they de- liver against Korkyra before the Athenian assembly (Thucydid.i, 37-42). The conduct of Corinth herself, however, on the sane occasion, was not altogether without reproach. ' Herodot. vii, 158-167. Diodor. xi, 22. ' See Schol. ad Aristeid., Anathenaic. p. 138. ' Herodot. vii, 172 ; compare c. 130.