Another of the supernatural events I decided to include was when Fear struck the entire army one night, when they were camped at Troy.
The facts told in the Histories: the army travels to the site of Troy’s ruins. Xerxes hears the story of the war there, and then his advisors say he should offer libations to the fallen heroes. He does so. Then that night, Fear (yes, with a capital ‘F’ LOL) descends upon each and every heart, and they’re all so terrified that they promptly break camp in the morning and push onward.
Now, Herodotus doesn’t get into reasoning on this one, but I think his subtext is that it was a premonition of things to come. Personally, I wanted more reason than that. And I found it in that niggling of doubt about the whole libations/offering thing. See, Xerxes and his folks were followers of Ahura Mazda. As in, monotheistic. Herodotus makes one think otherwise, but I think that was him projecting his own beliefs onto the Persians. But still. What if he did make this offering? Not only would that have angered his god . . . it would have angered the One, too. So . . . well, there you go. Reasoning.
(Photo of the walls of Troy)