CHAPTER 95

So the new commanders took their departure from the court and went down to Cilicia, to the Aleian plain, having with them a numerous and wellappointed land army. Encamping here, they were joined by the sea force which had been required of the several states, and at the same time by the horsetransports which Darius had, the year before, commanded his tributaries to make ready. Aboard these the horses were embarked; and the troops were received by the ships of war; after which the whole fleet, amounting in all to six hundred triremes, made sail for Ionia. Thence, instead of proceeding with a straight course along the shore to the Hellespont and to Thrace, they loosed from Samos and voyaged across the Icarian sea through the midst of the islands; mainly, as I believe, because they feared the danger of doubling Mount Athos, where the year before they had suffered so grievously on their passage; but a constraining cause also was their former failure to take Naxos.