Calliope   

the road, with his sons and his whole army. Such is the tale of King
Xerxes' love and of the death of his brother Masistes.
Meanwhile the Greeks, who had left Mycale, and sailed for the
Hellespont, were forced by contrary winds to anchor near Lectum;
from which place they afterwards sailed on to Abydos. On arriving
here, they discovered that the bridges, which they had thought to find
standing, and which had been the chief cause of their proceeding to
the Hellespont, were already broken up and destroyed. Upon this
discovery, Leotychides, and the Peloponnesians under him, were anxious
to sail back to Greece; but the Athenians, with Xanthippus their
captain, thought good to remain, and resolved to make an attempt
upon the Chersonese. So, while the Peloponnesians sailed away to their
homes, the Athenians crossed over from Abydos to the Chersonese, and
there laid siege to Sestos.
Now, as Sestos was the strongest fortress in all that region,
the rumour had no sooner gone forth that the Greeks were arrived at
the Hellespont, than great numbers flocked thither from all the
towns in the neighbourhood. Among the rest there came a certain
Oeobazus, a Persian, from the city of Cardia, where he had laid up the
shore-cables which had been used in the construction of the bridges.
The town was guarded by its own Aeolian inhabitants, but contained
also some Persians, and a great multitude of their allies.
The whole district was under the rule of Artayctes, one of the
king's satraps; who was a Persian, but a wicked and cruel man. At
the time when Xerxes was marching against Athens, he had craftily
possessed himself of the treasures belonging to Protesilaus the son of
Iphiclus, which were at Elaesus in the Chersonese. For at this place
is the tomb of Protesilaus, surrounded by a sacred precinct; and
here there was great store of wealth, vases of gold and silver,
works in brass, garments, and other offerings, all which Artayctes
made his prey, having got the king's consent by thus cunningly
addressing him-
"Master, there is in this region the house of a Greek, who, when
he attacked thy territory, met his due reward, and perished. Give me
his house, I pray thee, that hereafter men may fear to carry arms
against thy land."
By these words he easily persuaded Xerxes to give him the man's
house; for there was no suspicion of his design in the king's mind.
And he could say in a certain sense that Protesilaus had borne arms
against the land of the king; because the Persians consider all Asia
to belong to them, and to their king for the time being. So when
Xerxes allowed his request, he brought all the treasures from
Elaesus to Sestos, and made the sacred land into cornfields and
pasture land; nay, more, whenever he paid a visit to Elaesus, he
polluted the shrine itself by vile uses. It was this Artayctes who was
now besieged by the Athenians- and he was but ill prepared for
defence; since the Greeks had fallen upon him quite unawares, nor
had he in the least expected their coming.
When it was now late in the autumn, and the siege still continued,
the Athenians began to murmur that they were kept abroad so long; and,
seeing that they were not able to take the place, besought their
captains to lead them back to their own country. But the captains
refused to move, till either the city had fallen, or the Athenian
people ordered them to return home. So the soldiers patiently bore
up against their sufferings.
Meanwhile those within the walls were reduced to the last straits,
and forced even to boil the very thongs of their beds for food. At
last, when these too failed them, Artayctes and Oeobazus, with the
native Persians, fled away from the place by night, having let
themselves down from the wall at the back of the town, where the
blockading force was scantiest. As soon as day dawned, they of the
Chersonese made signals to the Greeks from the walls, and let them
know what had happened, at the same time throwing open the gates of
their city. Hereupon, while some of the Greeks entered the town,