For centuries before and after King Xerxes camped there with his Persians waiting to do battle at Thermopylae in 480 B.C., the plain of Anthele lay bleached and barren. No trees grew to shade its parched acres from the relentless Grecian sun; no water flowed over the bank of the winding Sperchios River to wash them clear of salt and alkali. For generations, no local farmer even bothered to put his plow to the 9,000 useless acres of the plain, and even those who worked the stingy lands on its edge were forced...
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