The army at Thermopylæ must have known of the retirement of the fleet; but it must have known also that there was every intention of returning to the former station so soon as the weather allowed. For that reason it held its ground.
The adventures of the ten Persian ships did not end with their capture of the Athenian vessels. Three of them came to grief on the rock called Murmex, which is in the fairway just at the entrance of the channel.
THE STORM AT THE SEPIAD STRAND.
On the evening of the twelfth day of the journal the position appears to be as follows: the Greek fleet was at Artemisium; the Persian at the Sepiad strand outside the strait; the Persian scouting vessels, or, rather, the seven survivors of them, H. vii. 183. were probably engaged in erecting a pillar on the Murmex rock as a danger mark to the rest of the fleet.
The Sepiad shore was not sufficiently extensive for it to be possible to draw up the whole of the Persian fleet upon it. A large number of the vessels were obliged to remain at anchor, with their bows facing seawards, in eight lines. 13th day. These were surprised at dawn by the storm. It arose suddenly, the sea having previously been quite calm. The wind was from the east or E.N.E., known in that region as the “Hellespontian wind,” not less known, nor less obnoxious to sailors at the present day than it was in the days of Herodotus. The destruction wrought in the fleet was enormous. Four hundred warships and an unknown number of transports are said to have perished. The numbers are no doubt greatly exaggerated; but the loss relatively to the size of the fleet seems to have been very considerable. Such were the events of the thirteenth day at the Sepiad strand. The Greek fleet, driven from the North Euripus on that morning by the storm, took refuge in the inner channel,—“at Chalkis,”—so says Herodotus.[132]
14th day. 15th day.
The storm lasted during the fourteenth and fifteenth days, the fleets remaining at their respective stations.
16th day.
The events of the sixteenth day are of special importance. They are crowded together in the narrative in a way that raises the suspicion that the chronological error in the story is to be sought in this part of it.
H. vii. 192.