Demaratus made answer, “Since thou seekest counsel of me so earnestly, O King, I will tell thee, as is right, the best thing thou canst do. Send three hundred of thy ships against the land of the Lacedæmonians. Now there lieth over against this land a certain island, Cythera, concerning which island one Chilon, a very wise man that once dwelt among us, was wont to say that it would be far better for the Spartans that it should be sunk under the sea than that it should be above the sea. This he said because he feared always lest some such thing should be done as I am now about to tell thee. And he said it knowing nothing of thy coming against Greece, but fearing all coming of strangers to this place. Send men therefore to this island, and let them harass the Spartans from thence. And it shall be that if they have a war of their own close at home they will not be a trouble to thee, so as to help the other Greeks when thy army seeks to subdue them. And when thou hast subdued the rest of Greece, the Spartans, being left alone, will be feeble. But if thou wilt not follow this counsel then know that there shall come to pass that which I now tell thee. When thou comest to the Peloponnesus thou wilt find a narrow neck of land: and at this neck all the men of the Peloponnesus that are leagued together against thee will be gathered together, and there wilt thou have to fight battles fiercer by far than that which thou hast now seen.”
Now it is so chanced that Achæmenes, who was brother to King Xerxes, and had command of the fleet, was present when Demaratus thus spake. Fearing then that the King might follow this counsel, he brake in, “I see, O King, that thou listenest to the counsels of a man that envies thy good fortune, and seeks to betray thee. This indeed is ever the manner of the Greeks; they envy good fortune, and hate that which is stronger than themselves. If now, when we have lost four hundred ships by shipwreck, three hundred more shall be sent away from the fleet to sail round the Peloponnesus, then will our enemies be a match for us. But if we keep our whole fleet together, then will it be such as they will not dare to encounter. Consider also that if that which we have on the land and that