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With Xerxes' desire to see the vale of Tempe we may compare Darius' visit to the Cyanean rocks (iv. 85). His march would not bring him into the neighbourhood of Tempe (cf. infr.). There are three roads from lower Macedonia into Thessaly. (1) East of Mount Olympus along the coast to the mouth of the Peneius, and up that river to Gonnus through the pass of Tempe; (2) through the depression between western Olympus and the Pierian hills, called the pass of Petra, leading to the sources of the river Europus or Titaresius, and down that river through Perrhaebia; (3) making a much longer circuit round the mountains up the valley of the Haliacmon, and then turning south-east through a deep cleft in the Cambunian Mountains (the pass of Volustana or Servia) to the upper valley of the Titaresius. There is also a difficult mountain path over southern Olympus from Heracleum to Lake Ascuris near Lapathus, descending thence to Gonnus, the key of Tempe; cf. Livy xxxiii. 10; xxxvi. 10; xlii. 54. 67. H. would appear to have imagined there was only one pass besides Tempe (cf. 173. 4), but if so his account is confused. The repeated emphasis on παρὰ Γόννον πόλιν (128. 1, 173. 4), and the great labour involved in cutting a road (ch. 131), point to the mountain path (cf. Liv. xliv. 3 ‘ardua et aspera et confragosa via fuit’; cf. ib. 5), but it is hard to see how a route so difficult and easily blocked could be described as ἀσφαλέστατον (cf. inf.), or could possibly have been used by the whole Persian army (ch. 151. 1, 173. 4). Again, the expressions ἐς Περραιβούς, διὰ Περραιβῶν (131. 1, 173. 4), though possible of the mountain path, are more appropriate of the two other passes, since after crossing the passes of Volustana and Petra a force coming from Macedonia to Oloosson (Elassona) has still to traverse the lower passes of Perrhaebia, i.e. the region between Mount Pindus and the Peneius, south of Tripolis, to which in 480 B.C. the Perrhaebi were confined. Again, the phrases οἱ Μακεδόνες οἱ κατύπερθε οἰκημένοι, ἡ ἄνω Μακεδονίη (cf. 127 n., 173. 4) apply properly to the mountain regions of Orestis, Lyncestis and Elimia. The Persians would not reach even the nearest of these districts Elimia unless they went round by the pass of Volustana (cf. Liv. xlii. 53 ‘(Perseus) postero die in Elimeam ad Haliacmona fluvium processit. Deinde saltu angusto superatis montibus, quos Cambunios vocant, descendit ad Azorum Pythium et Dolichen: Tripolim vocant incolentes’). Further, if Xerxes intended to march by the mountain path which led to Gonnus close to Tempe, why did he make a special excursion to it from Therma? On the whole it would seem almost certain that Xerxes must have used the easier passes of Volustana and Petra for his main force, though a detachment may have gone by the mountain path. The mountain path as the shortest circuit would naturally be used in turning the position of a force holding Tempe (cf. ch. 173), as the Anopaea path was at Thermopylae, and would therefore be the best known. Its fame may have obscured the existence of the more distant passes. ἀσφαλέστατον, ‘the safest way.’ The way along the marshy strip of coastland and through the narrow cleft of Tempe could be easily held by an enemy (Livy xliv. 6), and presented many difficulties for a large army even if undefended (cf. ch. 173). Even if the mountain path were also used, the exit from it and from Tempe might be closed by holding Gonnus (Liv. xxxvi. 10; xlii. 54, 67).
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