Herodotus

“ When they came before the generals, Hegesistratus spoke long and vehemently: “If the Ionians but see you,” said he, “they will revolt from the Persians; and the foreigners will not stand; but if perchance they do stand, you will have such a prey as never again”; and he prayed them in the name of the gods of their common worship to deliver Greeks from slavery and drive the foreigner away. ”

“ for I myself am by ancient descent a Greek, and I would not willingly see Hellas change her freedom for slavery. I tell you, then, that Mardonius and his army cannot get from the sacrifices omens to his liking; else had you fought long ere this. But now it is his purpose to pay no heed to the sacrifices, and join battle at the first glimmer of dawn; for he is in dread, as I surmise, lest you should muster to a greater host. Therefore I bid you make ready; and if (as may be) Mardonius should delay and not join battle, wait patiently where you are; for he has but a few days’ provision left. ”

“ Yet seeing that this is no time for wrangling about our place in the battle, we are ready to obey you, men of Lacedaemon! and take whatso place and face whatso enemy you deem most fitting; wheresoever you set us, we will strive to be valiant men. Command us then, as knowing that we will obey.” Thus the Athenians answered; and the whole army shouted aloud that the Athenians were worthier to hold the wing than the Arcadians. ”

“ But since it is idle to recall these matters—for they that were erstwhile valiant may now be of lesser mettle, and they that lacked mettle then may be better men now—enough of these doings of old time; and we, if we are known for no achievement (as we are, for more and greater than are any men in Hellas) , yet from our feat of arms at Marathon we deserve to have this honour, yea, and more beside; seeing that alone of all Greeks we met the Persian single-handed, nor failed in that high enterprise, but overcame six and forty nations. ”

“ So they made haste to reach the Isthmus. But the Argives had already promised Mardonius that they would hinder the Spartan from going out to war; and as soon as they were informed that Pausanias and his army had departed from Sparta, they sent as their herald to Attica the swiftest runner of long distances that they could find; who, when he came to Athens, spoke on this wise to Mardonius: “I am sent by the Argives to tell you that the young men have gone out from Lacedaemon to war, and that the Argives cannot stay them from so doing; wherefore, may fortune grant you good counsel.” ”

“ Seeing that the Greeks would not cease from their harrying, when nineteen days were past, Timagenidas thus spoke to the Thebans: “Men of Thebes, since the Greeks have so resolved that they will not raise the siege till Thebes be taken or we be delivered to them, now let not the land of Boeotia increase the measure of its ills for our sake; nay, if it is money they desire and their demand for our surrender is but a pretext, let us give them money out of our common treasury (for it was by the common will and not ours alone that we took the Persian part) ”

“ Now it is the greatest of all taunts in Persia to be called worse than a woman. These many insults so angered Artaÿntes, that he drew his sword upon Masistes to kill him; but Xenagoras son of Praxilaus of Halicarnassus, who stood behind Artaÿntes himself, saw him run at Masistes, and caught him round the middle and lifted and hurled him to the ground; meanwhile Masistes’ guards came between them. By so doing Xenagoras won the gratitude of Masistes himself and Xerxes, for saving the king’s brother; for which deed he was made ruler of all Cilicia by the king’s gift. ”

“ Save me, your suppliant, O king of Sparta! from captive slavery; for you have done me good service till this hour, by making an end of yonder men, that regard not aught that is divine in heaven or earth. ”

“ Now before this rumour came they had been faint-hearted, fearing less for themselves than for the Greeks with Pausanias, lest Mardonius should be the stumbling-block of Hellas; but when the report sped among them they grew stronger and swifter in their onset. So Greeks and foreigners alike were eager for battle, seeing that the islands and the Hellespont were the prizes of victory. ”

“ Mardonius perceived that the advice was good; and when night had fallen he sent his horsemen to the outlet of the pass over Cithaeron that leads towards Plataeae, which pass the Boeotians call the Three Heads, and the Athenians the Oaks’ Heads. This despatch of the horsemen was no fruitless one; for they caught five hundred beasts of burden issuing into the low country, bringing provision from the Peloponnese for the army, and men that came with the waggons; having taken which quarry the Persians slew without mercy, sparing neither man nor beast. ”

“ While all their foot was rallying to aid, there waxed a sharp fight over the dead body. As long as the three hundred stood alone, they had the worst of the battle by far, and were nigh leaving the dead man; but when the main body came to their aid, then it was the horsemen that could no longer hold their ground, nor avail to recover the dead man, but they lost others of their comrades too besides Masistius. They drew off therefore and halted about two furlongs off, where they consulted what they should do; and resolved, as there was none to lead them, to ride away to Mardonius. ”

“ At the message Pausanias was struck with fear of the Persians, and said: “Since, therefore, the battle is to begin at dawn, it is best that you Athenians should take your stand fronting the Persians, and we fronting the Boeotians and the Greeks that are posted over against you, by reason that you have fought with the Medes at Marathon and know them and their manner of fighting, but we have no experience or knowledge of those men; we Spartans have experience of the Boeotians and Thessalians, but not one of us has put the Medes to the test. ”

“ What hinders that we should fight with equal numbers on both sides, you for the Greeks (since you have the name of being their best) , and we for the foreigners? and if it be willed that the others fight also, let them fight later after us; but if contrariwise it be willed that we alone suffice, then let us fight it out, and which side soever wins, let that serve as a victory for the whole army. ”

“ When the Athenian envoys were arrived at Lacedaemon, bringing with them envoys from Megara and Plataeae, they came before the ephors and said: “The Athenians have sent us with this message: The king of the Medes is ready to give us back our country, and to make us his confederates, equal in right and standing, in all honour and honesty, and to give us withal whatever land we ourselves may choose besides our own. ”

“ This was the way of it: there is at Elaeus in the Chersonesus the tomb of Protesilaus, and a precinct about it, where was much treasure, with vessels of gold and silver, bronze, raiment, and other dedicated offerings; all of which Artaÿctes carried off, by the king’s gift. “Sire,” he said deceitfully to Xerxes, “there is here the house of a certain Greek, who met a just death for invading your territory with an army; give me this man’s house, whereby all may be taught not to invade your territory.” ”

“ But the manner of their answering at last and sending the Spartan army was this: On the day before that hearing which should have been the last, Chileüs, a man of Tegea, who had more authority with the Lacedaemonians than any other of their guests, learnt from the ephors all that the Athenians had said; and having heard it he said, as the tale goes, to the ephors, “Sirs, this is how the matter stands: if the Athenians be our enemies and the foreigner’s allies, then though you drive a strong wall across the Isthmus the Persian has an effectual door opened for passage into the Peloponnese. ”

“ But when the Persians and the rest of the multitude had fled within the wooden wall, they made a shift to get them up on the towers before the coming of the Lacedaemonians, which done they strengthened the wall as best they could; and when the Athenians were now arrived there began a stiff battle for the wall. For as long as the Athenians were not there, the foreigners defended themselves, and had greatly the advantage of the Lacedaemonians, they having no skill in the assault of walls; but when the Athenians came up, the fight for the wall waxed hot and continued long. ”

“ As for the foreigners, they drew no more to a head once the wall was down, but they were crazed with panic fear, as men hunted down in a narrow space where many myriads were herded together; and such a slaughter were the Greeks able to make, that of two hundred and sixty thousand, that remained after Artabazus had fled with his forty thousand, scarce three thousand were left alive. Of the Lacedaemonians from Sparta there were slain in the battle ninety-one in all; of the Tegeans, seventeen; and of the Athenians, fifty-two. ”

“ When the Greeks had made an end of most of the foreigners, either in battle or in flight, they brought out their booty on to the beach, and found certain stores of wealth; then they burnt the ships and the whole of the wall, which having burnt they sailed away. When they were arrived at Samos, they debated in council whether they should dispeople Ionia, and in what Greek lands under their dominion it were best to plant the Ionians, leaving the country itself to the foreigners; for it seemed to them impossible to stand on guard between the Ionians and their enemies for ever ”

“ Among the foreigners they that fought best were the Persian foot and the horse of the Sacae, and of men, it is said, the bravest was Mardonius; among the Greeks, the Tegeans and Athenians bore themselves gallantly, but the Lacedaemonians excelled all in valour. ”

“ When the cavalry returned to the camp, Mardonius and all the army made very great mourning for Masistius, cutting their own hair and the hair of their horses and beasts of burden, and lamenting loud and long; for the sound of it was heard over all Boeotia, inasmuch as a man was dead who was next to Mardonius most esteemed by all Persia and the king.
25. So the foreigners honoured Masistius’ death after their manner; but the Greeks were much heartened by their withstanding and repelling of the horsemen. And first they laid the dead man on a cart and carried him about their ranks ”

“ While the Persians still fought, the Lacedaemonians and their comrades came up, and finished what was left of the business. The Greeks too lost many men there, notably the men of Sicyon and their general Perilaus. As for the Samians who served in the Median army, and had been disarmed, they, seeing from the first that victory hung in the balance, did what they could in their desire to aid the Greeks; and when the other Ionians saw the Samians set the example, they also thereupon deserted the Persians and attacked the foreigners. ”

“ So long as Mardonius was alive the Persians stood their ground and defended themselves, overthrowing many Lacedaemonians; but when Mardonius was slain and his guards, who were the strongest part of the army, fallen likewise, then the rest too yielded and gave ground before the men of Lacedaemon. For what chiefly wrought them harm was that they wore no armour over their raiment, and fought as it were naked against men fully armed. ”

“ So Mardonius was making his encampment in Boeotia; all the Greeks of that region who took the Persian part furnished fighting men, and they joined with him in his attack upon Athens, except only the Phocians: as to taking the Persian part, that they did in good sooth, albeit not willingly but of necessity. But when a few days were past after the Persians’ coming to Thebes, there came a thousand Phocian men-at-arms, led by Harmocydes, the most notable of their countrymen. ”

“ When Mardonius came to Athens, he sent to Salamis one Murychides, a man of the Hellespont, bearing the same offer as Alexander the Macedonian had ferried across to the Athenians. He sent this the second time because, albeit he knew already the Athenians’ unfriendly purpose, he expected that they would abate their stiff-neckedness now that Attica was the captive of his spear and lay at his mercy. ”

“ Pausanias and Euryanax liked little enough that Amompharetus should disobey them; but they misliked yet more that his refusing should compel them to abandon the Pitanate battalion; for they feared that if they fulfilled their agreement with the rest of the Greeks and abandoned him, Amompharetus and his men would be left behind to perish. Thus considering, they held the Laconian army unmoved, and strove to persuade Amompharetus that he did not aright. ”

“ But when the army in its march was come into Boeotia, the Thebans sought to stay Mardonius, advising him that he could find no country better fitted than theirs for encampment; he should not (they pleaded) go further, but rather halt there and so act as to subdue all Hellas without fighting. For as long as the Greeks who before had been of the same way of thinking remained in accord, it would be a hard matter even for the whole world to overcome them by force of arms ”

“ Mardonius was overjoyed thereat and proud of this semblance of victory, and sent his cavalry to attack the Greeks. The horsemen rode at them and shot arrows and javelins among the whole Greek army to its great hurt, inasmuch as they were mounted archers and ill to close with; and they troubled and choked the Gargaphian spring, whence all the army of the Greeks drew its water. None indeed but the Lacedaemonians were posted near the spring, and it was far from the several stations of the other Greeks, whereas the Asopus was near ”