Book 9
Now for this prophecy, which Mardonius said was spoken of the Persians, I know it to have been made concerning not them but the Illyrians and the army of the Enchelees.Referring to a legendary expedition of these northwestern tribes, directed against Greece [22,39] (nation), EuropeHellas and Delphi [22.5167,38.4917] (Perseus) Delphi in particular. There is, however, a prophecy made by Bacis concerning this battle:
By Thermodon's stream and the grass-grown banks of Asopus, Will be a gathering of Greeks for fight and the ring of the barbarian's war-cry; Many a Median archer, by death untimely overtaken will fall There in the battle when the day of his doom is upon him. I know that these verses and others very similar to them from Musaeus referred to the Persians. As for the river Thermodon, it flows between +Tanagra [23.6,38.3083] (Perseus) Tanagra and +Glisas [23.4167,38.2833] (Perseus) Glisas.A little to the northwest of Thebes [23.3333,38.325] (Perseus) Thebes.
After this inquiry about oracles and Mardonius' exhortation, night fell, and the armies posted their sentries. Now when the night was far advanced and it seemed that all was still in the camps and the men were sleeping deeply, at that hour Alexander son of Amyntas, the general and king of the Macedonians, rode up to the Athenian outposts and wanted to speak to their generals.
The greater part of the sentries remained where they were, but the rest ran to their generals and told them that a horseman had ridden in from the Persian camp, imparting no other word save that he desired to speak to the generals and called them by their names.
Hearing that, the generals straightway went with the men to the outposts. When they had come, Alexander said to them: “Men of Athens [23.7333,37.9667] (Perseus)Athens, I give you this message in trust as a secret which you must reveal to no one but Pausanias, or else you will be responsible for my undoing. In truth I would not tell it to you if I did not care so much for all Greece [22,39] (nation), EuropeHellas;
I myself am by ancient descent a Greek, and I would not willingly see Greece [22,39] (nation), EuropeHellas change her freedom for slavery. I tell you, then, that Mardonius and his army cannot get omens to his liking from the sacrifices. Otherwise you would have fought long before this. Now, however, it is his purpose to pay no heed to the sacrifices, and to attack at the first glimmer of dawn, for he fears, as I surmise, that your numbers will become still greater. Therefore, I urge you to prepare, and if (as may be) Mardonius should delay and not attack, wait patiently where you are; for he has but a few days' provisions left.
If, however, this war ends as you wish, then must you take thought how to save me too from slavery, who have done so desperate a deed as this for the sake of Greece [22,39] (nation), EuropeHellas in my desire to declare to you Mardonius' intent so that the barbarians may not attack you suddenly before you yet expect them. I who speak am Alexander the Macedonian.” With that he rode away back to the camp and his own station there.
The Athenian generals went to the right wing and told Pausanias what they had heard from Alexander. At the message Pausanias was terrified by the Persians, and said:
“Since, therefore, the battle is to begin at dawn, it is best that you Athenians should take your stand opposite the Persians, and we opposite the Boeotians and the Greeks who are posted opposite you; for you have fought with the Medes at Marathon and know them and their manner of fighting while we have no experience or knowledge of those men. We Spartans have experience of the Boeotians and Thessalians, but not one of us has experience with the Medes.
No, rather let us take up our equipment and change places, you to this wing and we to the left.” “We, too,” the Athenians answered, “even from the moment when we saw the Persians posted opposite you, had it in mind to make that suggestion which now has first come from you. We feared, however, that we would displease you by making it. But since you have spoken the wish yourselves, we too hear your words very gladly and are ready to do as you say.
Since both were satisfied with this, they exchanged their places in the ranks at the first light of dawn. The Boeotians noticed that and made it known to Mardonius. When he heard this, he straight away attempted to make a change for himself also, by moving the Persians opposite the Lacedaemonians. When Pausanias perceived what was being done, he saw that his action had been discovered and led the Spartans back to the right wing; Mardonius did the same thing on the left of his army.
When all were at their former posts again, Mardonius sent a herald to the Lacedaemonians with this message: “Men of Sparta [22.416,37.83] (inhabited place), Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece, Europe Lacedaemon, you are said by the people of these parts to be very brave men. It is their boast of you that you neither flee from the field nor leave your post, but remain there and either slay your enemies or are yourselves killed. It would seem, however, that there is no truth in all this,
for before we could attack and fight hand to hand, we saw you even now fleeing and leaving your station, using Athenians for the first trial of your enemy and arraying yourselves opposite those who are but our slaves.
This is not the action of brave men. No, we have been grievously mistaken about you, for in accordance with what we heard about you, we expected that you would send us a herald challenging the Persians and none other to fight with you. That we were ready to do; but we find you making no such offer, but rather quailing before us. Now, therefore, since the challenge comes not from you, take it from us instead.
What is there to prevent us from fighting with equal numbers on both sides, you for the Greeks (since you have the reputation of being their best), and we for the barbarians? If it is desirable that the others fight also, let them fight after us, but if, on the contrary the opinion prevails that we alone suffice, then let us fight it out. Let the winner in this contest determine victory for the whole army.”
This is the proclamation made by the herald; and when he had waited a while and no one answered him, he went back again, and at his return told what had happened to him. Mardonius was overjoyed 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, since they were mounted archers and difficult to deal with in an encounter; they spoiled and blocked the Gargaphian spring, from which the entire Greek army 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; nevertheless, they would always go to the spring, since they were barred from the Asopus, not being able to draw water from that river because of the horsemen and the arrows.
When this happened, seeing that their army was cut off from water and thrown into confusion by the horsemen, the generals of the Greeks went to Pausanias on the right wing, and debated concerning this and other matters; for there were other problems which troubled them more than what I have told. They had no food left, and their followers whom they had sent into the +Peloponnese [22,37.5] (region), Greece, Europe Peloponnese to bring provisions had been cut off by the horsemen and could not make their way to the army.
So they resolved in their council that if the Persians held off through that day from giving battle, they would go to the Island.Several streams flow north or northwest from Cithaeron, and unite eventually form the small river Oeroe. Between two of these there is a long strip of land, which is perhaps the nh=sos; but it is not now actually surrounded by water, as Herodotus describes it. This is ten furlongs distant from the Asopus and the Gargaphian spring, near which their army then lay, and in front of the town of Plataea [23.2667,38.2] (Perseus) Plataea.
It is like an island on dry land because the river in its course down from Cithaeron into the plain is parted into two channels, and there is about three furlongs space in between till presently the two channels unite again, and the name of that river is Oeroe, who (as the people of the country say ) was the daughter of Asopus.
To that place then they planned to go so that they might have plenty of water for their use and not be harmed by the horsemen, as now when they were face to face with them; and they resolved to change places in the second watch of the night, lest the Persians should see them setting forth and the horsemen press after them and throw them into confusion.
Furthermore, they resolved that when they had come to that place, which is encircled by the divided channels of Asopus' daughter Oeroe as she flows from Cithaeron, they would in that night send half of their army to Cithaeron, to remove their followers who had gone to get the provisions; for these were cut off from them on Cithaeron.
Having made this plan, all that day they suffered constant hardship from the cavalry which continually pressed upon them. When the day ended, however, and the horsemen stopped their onslaught, then at that hour of the night at which it was agreed that they should depart, most of them rose and departed, not with intent to go to the place upon which they had agreed. Instead of that, once they were on their way, they joyfully shook off the horsemen and escaped to the town of Plataea [23.2667,38.2] (Perseus) Plataea. In the course of their flight they came to the temple of Hera which is outside of that town, twenty furlongs distant from the Gargaphian spring and piled their arms in front of the temple.
So they encamped around the temple of Hera. Pausanias, however, seeing their departure from the camp, gave orders to the Lacedaemonians to take up their arms likewise and follow the others who had gone ahead, supposing that these were making for the place where they had agreed to go.
Thereupon, all the rest of the captains being ready to obey Pausanias, Amompharetus son of Poliades, the leader of the Pitanate Thucydides (Thuc. 1.20) denies the existence of a Πιτανάτης λόχος as a formal part of the Spartan army; it is not clear what Herodotus means. For Pitana, see Hdt. 3.55. battalion, refused to flee from the barbarians or (save by compulsion) bring shame on Sparta [22.4417,37.0667] (Perseus) Sparta; the whole business seemed strange to him, for he had not been present in the council recently held.
Pausanias and Euryanax were outraged that Amompharetus disobeyed them. Still more, however, they disliked that his refusing would 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.
Bearing this in mind, they kept the Laconian army where it was and tried to persuade Amompharetus that he was in the wrong.
So they reasoned with Amompharetus, he being the only man left behind of all the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans. As for the Athenians, they stood unmoved at their post, well aware that the purposes and the promises of Lacedaemonians were not alike.
But when the army left its station, they sent a horseman of their own to see whether the Spartans were attempting to march or whether they were not intending to depart, and to ask Pausanias what the Athenians should do.
When the messenger arrived among the Lacedaemonians, he saw them arrayed where they had been, and their chief men by now in hot dispute. For though Euryanax and Pausanias reasoned with Amompharetus, that the Lacedaemonians should not be endangered by remaining there alone, they could in no way prevail upon him. At last, when the Athenian messenger came among them, angry words began to pass.
In this wrangling Amompharetus took up a stone with both hands and threw it down before Pausanias' feet, crying that it was the pebble with which he voted against fleeing from the strangers (meaning thereby the barbarians). Pausanias called him a madman; then when the Athenian messenger asked the question with which he had been charged, Pausanias asked the man to tell the Athenians of his present condition, and begged them to join themselves to the Lacedaemonians and, as for departure, to do as they did.
The messenger then went back to the Athenians. When dawn found the dispute still continuing, Pausanias, who had up to this point kept his army where it was, now gave the word and led all the rest away between the hillocks, the Tegeans following, for he supposed that Amompharetus would not stay behind when the rest of the Lacedaemonians left him; this was in fact exactly what happened.
The Athenians marshalled themselves and marched, but not by the same way as the Lacedaemonians, who stayed close to the broken ground and the lower slopes of Cithaeron in order to stay clear of the Persian horse. The Athenians marched down into the plain instead.
Now Amompharetus at first supposed that Pausanias would never have the heart to leave him and his men, and he insisted that they should remain where they were and not leave their post. When Pausanias' men had already proceeded some distance, he thought that they had really left him. He accordingly bade his battalion take up its arms and led it in marching step after the rest of the column,
which after going a distance of ten furlongs, was waiting for Amompharetus by the stream Molois and the place called Argiopium, where there is a shrine of Eleusinian Demeter. The reason for their waiting was that, if Amompharetus and his battalion should not leave the place where it was posted but remain there, they would then be able to assist him.
No sooner had Amompharetus' men come up than the barbarians' cavalry attacked the army, for the horsemen acted as they always had. When they saw no enemy on the ground where the Greeks had been on the days before this, they kept riding forward and attacked the Greeks as soon as they overtook them.
When Mardonius learned that the Greeks had departed under cover of night and saw the ground deserted, he called to him Thorax of Larissa and his brothers Eurypylus and Thrasydeius and said:
“What will you say now, sons of Aleuas, when you see this place deserted? For you, who are their neighbors, kept telling me that Lacedaemonians fled from no battlefield and were the masters of warfare. These same men, however, you just saw changing their post, and now you and all of us see that they have fled during the night. The moment they had to measure themselves in battle with those that are in very truth the bravest on earth, they plainly showed that they are men of no account, and all other Greeks likewise.
Now you, for your part, were strangers to the Persians, and I could readily pardon you for praising these fellows, who were in some sort known to you; but I marvelled much more that Artabazus, be he ever so frightened, should give us a coward's advice to strike our camp, and march away to be besieged in Thebes [23.3333,38.325] (Perseus) Thebes. Of this advice the king will certainly hear from me, but it will be discussed elsewhere.