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As for the number of the provision craft and other merchant ships which
perished, it was beyond count. Indeed, such was the loss, that the
commanders of the sea force, fearing lest in their shattered condition
the Thessalians should venture on an attack, raised a lofty barricade
around their station out of the wreck of the vessels cast ashore. The
storm lasted three days. At length the Magians, by offering victims
to the Winds, and charming them with the help of conjurers, while at
the same time they sacrificed to Thetis and the Nereids, succeeded in
laying the storm four days after it first began; or perhaps it ceased
of itself. The reason of their offering sacrifice to Thetis was
this: they were told by the Ionians that here was the place whence
Peleus carried her off, and that the whole promontory was sacred to
her and to her sister Nereids. So the storm lulled upon the fourth day.
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