The Good Book (67 page)

  2. And while the Spartan leaders Pausanias and Euryanax were arguing with him, the Athenians, who had kept their station, sent a horseman to find out what was happening,

  3. For they distrusted the Lacedaemonians, who often said one thing and did another.

  4. Just at the moment when the Athenian herald arrived, Amompharetus, still disputing, took up a vast rock with both hands, and placed it at the feet of Pausanias, saying,

  5. ‘With this pebble I give my vote not to run away from the barbarians.'

  6. Pausanias, in reply, called him a fool and a madman, and, turning to the Athenian herald, instructed him to tell his countrymen how he was occupied,

  7. And ask them to approach nearer, and retreat or not according to the movements of the Spartans.

  8. The herald returned to the Athenians; and the Spartans continued to dispute till morning began to dawn.

  9. Then Pausanias, who as yet had not moved, gave the signal for retreat, expecting that Amompharetus, when he saw the rest of the Lacedaemonians in motion, would be unwilling to be left.

10. No sooner was the signal given, than all the army except the Pitanates began their march, and retreated along the line of the hills, the Tegeans accompanying them.

11. The Athenians likewise set off in good order, but proceeded by a different way from the Lacedaemonians.

12. For while the latter clung to the hilly ground and the skirts of Mount Cithaeron, on account of their fear of the enemy Persian cavalry, the former took themselves to the low country and marched through the plain.

13. As for Amompharetus, at first he did not believe that Pausanias would really dare to leave him behind; he therefore kept his men at their post;

14. When, however, he saw Pausanias and his troops were now some way off, Amompharetus, thinking himself forsaken in good earnest, ordered his band to take their arms, and led them towards the main army.

15. Now the army was waiting for them at a distance of about ten furlongs, having halted on the bank of the River Moloeis at a place called Argiopius.

16. They had stopped there so that, in case Amompharetus and his band should really not quit the spot where they were drawn up, they might have it in their power to move back and lend them assistance.

17. Amompharetus, however, and his companions rejoined the main body; and at the same time the whole mass of the barbarian cavalry arrived and began to harass them.

18. The Persian cavalry had followed their usual practice and ridden up to the Greek camp, when they discovered that it was deserted.

19. So they pushed forward without stopping, and, as soon as they overtook the Greeks, pressed them heavily.

 

Chapter 102

  1. When Mardonius heard that the Greeks had quit their place he summoned Thorax of Larissa, and his brothers Eurypylus and Thrasideius, and said,

  2. ‘O sons of Aleuas! what do you say now, when you see the Greek camp empty?

  3. ‘Why, you told me the Lacedaemonians never fled from battle, but were brave beyond the rest of mankind.

  4. ‘Yet you saw them change their place in the line; and now, as all may see, they have run away during the night.

  5. ‘In truth they have shown plainly that they are men of no worth, and if they have distinguished themselves among Greeks then Greeks in general are even of less worth.

  6. ‘I can readily excuse you, who, knowing nothing of Persians, praised these men from your acquaintance with certain exploits of theirs;

  7. ‘But I marvel at Artabazus, that he should have been afraid of the Lacedaemonians, and have therefore given us such poor counsel,

  8. ‘Bidding us to remove to Thebes, and allow ourselves to be besieged there by the Greeks.

  9. ‘But now we must not allow them to escape us, but must pursue them till we overtake them.'

10. When he had so spoken, he immediately crossed the Asopus, and led the Persians forward at a run directly on the track of the Greeks, whom he believed to be in actual flight.

11. He could not see the Athenians; for, as they had taken the way of the plain, they were hidden from his sight by the hills;

12. He therefore led his troops against the Lacedaemonians and the Tegeans only.

13. When the commanders of the other divisions of the barbarians saw the Persians pursuing the Greeks so hastily, they all seized their standards and hurried after, in great disorder and disarray.

14. On they went with loud shouts and in a wild rout, thinking to swallow up the runaways.

15. Pausanias sent a horseman to the Athenians with a message saying,

16. ‘Men of Athens! now that the great struggle has come, which is to decide the freedom or the slavery of Greece,

17. ‘We two people, Lacedaemonians and Athenians, are deserted by all the other allies, who have fled away during the night.

18. ‘Nevertheless, we are resolved what to do; we must endeavour, as best we may, to defend ourselves and to succour one another.

19. ‘Come to our aid, sore pressed as we are by the enemy. Should you yourselves be so straitened that you cannot come, at least send us your archers, and be sure you will earn our gratitude.

20. ‘We acknowledge that throughout this whole war there has been no zeal to be compared to yours; we therefore do not doubt that you will do us this service.'

21. The Athenians, as soon as they received this message, were anxious to go to the Spartans' aid;

22. But as they marched they were attacked by the Greeks who had sided with Xerxes, whose place in the line had been opposite theirs.

23. Accordingly the Lacedaemonians, and the Tegeans, whom nothing could induce to quit their side, were left to resist the Persians.

24. Many fell on the Spartan side, and a still greater number were wounded, for the Persians had made a rampart of their wicker shields, and shot such clouds of arrows from behind them, that the Spartans were sorely distressed.

25. Goaded by the hail of arrows, the Tegeans rushed forward against the enemy, and the Lacedaemonians followed their attack; while the Persians, on their side, left shooting their bows, and prepared to meet them.

26. And first the combat was at the wicker shields. When these were swept down a fierce contest followed, which lasted long, and ended in a hand-to-hand struggle.

27. The barbarians many times seized the Greek spears and broke them, for in boldness and warlike heart they were not inferior to the Greeks;

28. But they were without bucklers, untrained, and far below the enemy in skill at arms.

29. Sometimes singly, sometimes in bodies of ten, now fewer and now more in number, they dashed upon the Spartan ranks, and perished.

30. Wherever Mardonius fought in person, mounted on a white horse and surrounded by the elite of the Persians, the fight went most against the Greeks.

31. So long as Mardonius was alive, this body resisted all attacks, and, while they defended their own lives, struck down many Spartans.

32. But after Mardonius fell, and the troops with him, which were the main strength of the Persian army, the remainder yielded to the Lacedaemonians, and ran hastily away, without preserving any order,

33. And took refuge in their own camp, within the wooden defence which they had raised in the Theban territory.

34. Their light clothing, and want of bucklers, were their downfall: for they had to contend against men heavily armed, while they themselves were without such defence.

35. Mardonius was slain by Aeimnestus, a man famous in Sparta; his killing of Mardonius was the vengeance owed to the Spartans for the death of Leonidas.

36. And thus did Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, grandson of Anaxandridas, and of the same ancestry as Leonidas,

37. Win a victory exceeding in glory all those to which knowledge of earlier times extends.

 

Chapter 103

1. Artabazus, the son of Pharnaces, who had disapproved from the first of Xerxes' leaving Mardonius behind,

2. And then had made great endeavours to dissuade Mardonius from risking a battle, when he found that the latter was bent on acting otherwise, did as follows.

3. He had a force under his command amounting to nearly forty thousand men. Knowing how the battle was likely to go,

4. As soon as the two armies began to fight he led his soldiers forward in an orderly array, bidding them to follow him at the same pace as himself.

5. He then pretended to lead them to the battle. But when, advancing before his army, he saw that the Persians were already in flight, instead of keeping the same order he wheeled his troops round and retreated;

6. Nor did he seek shelter behind the walls of Thebes, but hurried on into Phocis, resolved to make his way to the Hellespont with all speed.

7. As for the Greeks with Mardonius' forces, while most of them played the coward on purpose, the Boeotians, on the contrary, had a long struggle with the Athenians.

8. Those of the Thebans who were attached to the Persians especially displayed great zeal;

9. Far from retreating, they fought with such fury that three hundred of the best and bravest among them were slain by the Athenians.

10. But at last they too were routed, and fled away; not, however, in the same direction as the Persians and the crowd of allies,

11. Who, having taken no part in the battle, ran off without striking a blow, but to their own city of Thebes.

12. This clearly shows how completely the rest of the barbarians were dependent on the Persian troops,

13. That they all fled at once, without ever coming to blows with the enemy, merely because they saw the Persians running away.

 

Chapter 104

  1. And so it came to pass that the whole army of Mardonius took to flight, except only the Persian and Boeotian cavalry.

  2. These did good service to the fleeing infantry, by advancing close to the enemy, and protecting the fugitives from the Greeks.

  3. The victors however pressed on, pursuing and slaying the remnant of the Persian army.

  4. Meantime, while the Persian flight continued, news reached the Greeks who were drawn up round the Heraeum, and so were absent from the battle, that Pausanias was gaining the victory.

  5. Hearing this, they rushed forward without any order, the Corinthians taking the upper road across the skirts of Cithaeron and the hills,

  6. While the Megarians and Phliasians followed the level route through the plain.

  7. These last had almost reached the enemy when the Theban cavalry saw them,

  8. And, observing their disarray, dispatched against them the squadron led by Asopodorus, the son of Timander.

  9. He charged them with such effect that he left six hundred of their number dead on the plain,

10. And, pursuing the rest, compelled them to seek shelter in Cithaeron. So these men perished without honour.

11. The Persians, and the multitude with them, who fled to the wooden fortress, were able to ascend into the towers before the Lacedaemonians came up.

12. Thus placed, they strengthened the defences as well as they could;

13. And when the Lacedaemonians arrived, a sharp fight took place at the rampart.

14. So long as the Athenians were away, the barbarians kept off their assailants, and had much the best of the combat, because the Lacedaemonians were unskilled in the attack of walled places:

15. But on the arrival of the Athenians, a more concerted assault was made.

16. In the end the valour of the Athenians prevailed; they gained the top of the wall, and, breaking a breach through it, enabled the Greeks to pour in.

17. The first to enter were the Tegeans, and they it was who plundered the tent of Mardonius;

18. Where, among other booty, they found the manger from which his horses ate, made of solid brass.

19. As soon as the wall was broken the barbarians no longer kept together in any array,

20. Nor was there one among them who thought of making further resistance;

21. In truth, they were all half dead with fright, huddled as so many thousands were into such a confined space.

22. With such tameness did they submit to be slaughtered by the Greeks, that of the three hundred thousand men who composed the army,

23. Omitting the forty thousand by whom Artabazus was accompanied in his flight, no more than three thousand survived the battle.

24. Yet of the Lacedaemonians from Sparta, only ninety-one died in this battle; of the Tegeans, sixteen; of the Athenians, fifty-two.

25. On the side of the barbarians, the greatest courage was manifested, among the foot soldiers, by the Persians;

26. Among the horse, by the Sacae; while Mardonius himself, as a man, bore off the palm from the rest.

27. Among the Greeks, the Athenians and the Tegeans fought well; but the prowess shown by the Lacedaemonians was beyond either.