they determined to send an army to Thermopylæ, which is the Pass from Thessaly into Greece. And the fleet they sent to Artemisium, which is in the island of Eubœa. As for the Pass it is but fifty feet wide, and westward there is a high mountain which no man can climb, but to the eastward is the sea and the marshes of the river Peneus. And across this Pass there had been built a wall in old time. The Phocians built it for fear of the men of Thessaly. And now the Greeks repaired the breaches, for it was broken down.
In the meanwhile the men of Delphi inquired of the god what they should do, being in great fear of the barbarians. And the god said to them that they should pray to the winds. To the Athenians also there came an oracle that they should seek help from their son-in-law. Now their son-in-law was Boreas, the northwind; for Boreas, being a prince of Thrace, took to wife, as say the Greeks, Orithyia, the daughter of Erechtheus, that was King of Athens.