The history of Herodotus - Volume 2, Herodotus [book recommendations txt] 📗

Athenians for a long space; for those of the Thebans who took the side of the Medes had no small zeal for the cause, and they fought and were not slack, so that three hundred of them, the first and best of all, fell there by the hands of the Athenians: and when these also turned to flight, they fled to Thebes, not to the same place as the Persians: and the main body of the other allies fled without having fought constantly with any one or displayed any deeds of valour. 68. And this is an additional proof to me that all the fortunes of the Barbarians depended upon the Persians, namely that at that time these men fled before they had even engaged with the enemy, because they saw the Persians doing so. Thus all were in flight except only the cavalry, including also that of the Bœotians; and this rendered service to the fugitives by constantly keeping close to the enemy and separating the fugitives of their own side from the Hellenes. 69. The victors then were coming after the troops of Xerxes, both pursuing them and slaughtering them; and during the time when this panic arose, the report was brought to the other Hellenes who had posted themselves about the temple of Hera and had been absent from the battle, that a battle had taken place and that the troops of Pausanias were gaining the victory. When they heard this, then without ranging themselves in any order the Corinthians and those near them turned to go by the skirts of the mountain and by the low hills along the way which led straight up to the temple of Demeter, while the Megarians and Phliasians and those near them went by the plain along the smoothest way. When however the Megarians and Phliasians came near to the enemy, the cavalry of the Thebans caught sight of them from a distance hurrying along without any order, and rode up to attack them, the commander of the cavalry being Asopodoros the son of Timander; and having fallen upon them they slew six hundred of them, and the rest they pursued and drove to Kithairon.

70. These then perished thus ingloriously;[75] and meanwhile the Persians and the rest of the throng, having fled for refuge to the palisade, succeeded in getting up to the towers before the Lacedemonians came; and having got up they strengthened the wall of defence as best they could. Then when the Lacedemonians[76] came up to attack it, there began between them a vigorous[77] fight for the wall: for so long as the Athenians were away, they defended themselves and had much the advantage over the Lacedemonians, since these did not understand the art of fighting against walls; but when the Athenians came up to help them, then there was a fierce fight for the wall, lasting for a long time, and at length by valour and endurance the Athenians mounted up on the wall and made a breach in it, through which the Hellenes poured in. Now the Tegeans were the first who entered the wall, and these were they who plundered the tent of Mardonios, taking, besides the other things which were in it, also the manger of his horse, which was all of bronze and a sight worth seeing. This manger of Mardonios was dedicated by the Tegeans as an offering in the temple of Athene Alea,[78] but all the other things which they took, they brought to the common stock of the Hellenes. The Barbarians however, after the wall had been captured, no longer formed themselves into any close body, nor did any of them think of making resistance, but they were utterly at a loss,[79] as you might expect from men who were in a panic with many myriads of them shut up together in a small space: and the Hellenes were able to slaughter them so that out of an army of thirty myriads,[80] if those four be subtracted which Artabazos took with him in his flight, of the remainder not three thousand men survived. Of the Lacedemonians from Sparta there were slain in the battle ninety-one in all, of the Tegeans sixteen, and of the Athenians two-and-fifty.

71. Among the Barbarians those who proved themselves the best men were, of those on foot the Persians, and of the cavalry the Sacans, and for a single man Mardonios it is said was the best. Of the Hellenes, though both the Tegeans and the Athenians proved themselves good men, yet the Lacedemonians surpassed them in valour. Of this I have no other proof (for all these were victorious over their opposites), but only this, that they fought against the strongest part of the enemy's force and overcame it. And the man who proved himself in my opinion by much the best was that Aristodemos who, having come back safe from Thermopylai alone of the three hundred, had reproach and dishonour attached to him. After him the best were Poseidonios and Philokyon and Amompharetos the Spartan.[81] However, when there came to be conversation as to which of them had proved himself the best, the Spartans who were present gave it as their opinion that Aristodemos had evidently wished to be slain in consequence of the charge which lay against him, and so, being as it were in a frenzy and leaving his place in the ranks, he had displayed great deeds, whereas Poseidonios had proved himself a good man although he did not desire to be slain; and so far he was the better man of the two. This however they perhaps said from ill-will; and all these whose names I mentioned among the men who were killed in this battle, were specially honoured, except Aristodemos; but Aristodemos, since he desired to be slain on account of the before-mentioned charge, was not honoured.

72. These obtained the most renown of those who fought at Plataia, for as for Callicrates, the most beautiful who came to the camp, not of the Lacedemonians alone, but also of all the Hellenes of his time, he was not killed in the battle itself; but when Pausanias was offering sacrifice, he was wounded by an arrow in the side, as he was sitting down in his place in the ranks; and while the others were fighting, he having been carried out of the ranks was dying a lingering death: and he said to Arimnestos[82] a Plataian that it did not grieve him to die for Hellas, but it grieved him only that he had not proved his strength of hand, and that no deed of valour had been displayed by him worthy of the spirit which he had in him to perform great deeds.[83]

73. Of the Athenians the man who gained most glory is said to have been Sophanes the son of Eutychides of the deme of Dekeleia,-a deme of which the inhabitants formerly did a deed that was of service to them for all time, as the Athenians themselves report. For when of old the sons of Tyndareus invaded the Attic land with a great host, in order to bring home Helen, and were laying waste the demes, not knowing to what place of hiding Helen had been removed, then they say that the men of Dekeleia, or as some say Dekelos himself, being aggrieved by the insolence of Theseus and fearing for all the land of the Athenians, told them the whole matter and led them to Aphidnai, which Titakos who was sprung from the soil delivered up by treachery to the sons of Tyndareus. In consequence of this deed the Dekeleians have had continually freedom from dues in Sparta and front seats at the games,[84] privileges which exist still to this day; insomuch that even in the war which many years after these events arose between the Athenians and the Peloponnesians, when the Lacedemonians laid waste all the rest of Attica, they abstained from injury to Dekeleia. 74. To this deme belonged Sophanes, who showed himself the best of all the Athenians in this battle; and of him there are two different stories told: one that he carried an anchor of iron bound by chains of bronze to the belt of his corslet; and this he threw whensoever he came up with the enemy, in order, they say, that the enemy when they came forth out of their ranks might not be able to move him from his place; and when a flight of his opponents took place, his plan was to take up the anchor first and then pursue after them. This story is reported thus; but the other of the stories, disputing the truth of that which has been told above, is reported as follows, namely that upon his shield, which was ever moving about and never remaining still, he bore an anchor as a device, and not one of iron bound to his corslet. 75. There was another illustrious deed done too by Sophanes; for when the Athenians besieged Egina he challenged to a fight and slew Eurybates the Argive,[85] one who had been victor in the five contests[86] at the games. To Sophanes himself it happened after these events that when he was general of the Athenians together with Leagros the son of Glaucon, he was slain after proving himself a good man by the Edonians at Daton, fighting for the gold mines.

76. When the Barbarians had been laid low by the Hellenes at Plataia, there approached to these a woman, the concubine of Pharandates the son of Teaspis a Persian, coming over of her own free will from the enemy, who when she perceived that the Persians had been destroyed and that the Hellenes were the victors, descended from her carriage and came up to the Lacedemonians while they were yet engaged in the slaughter. This woman had adorned herself with many ornaments of gold, and her attendants likewise, and she had put on the fairest robe of those which she had; and when she saw that Pausanias was directing everything there, being well acquainted before with his name and with his lineage, because she had heard it often, she recognised Pausanias and taking hold of his knees she said these words: "O king of Sparta, deliver me thy suppliant from the slavery of the captive: for thou hast also done me service hitherto in destroying these, who have regard neither for demigods nor yet for gods.[87] I am by race of Cos, the daughter of Hegetorides the son of Antagoras; and the Persian took me by force in Cos and kept me a prisoner." He made answer in these words: "Woman, be of good courage, both because thou art a suppliant, and also if in addition to this it chances that thou art speaking the truth and art the daughter of Hegetorides the Coan, who is bound to me as a guest-friend more than any other of the men who dwell in those parts." Having thus spoken, for that time her gave her in charge to those Ephors who were present, and afterwards he sent her away to Egina, whither she herself desired to go.

77. After the arrival of the woman, forthwith upon this arrived the Mantineians, when all was over; and having learnt that they had come too late for the battle, they were greatly grieved, and said that they deserved to be punished: and being informed that the Medes with Artabazos were in flight, they pursued after them as far as Thessaly, though the Lacedemonians endeavoured to prevent them from pursuing after fugitives.[88] Then returning back to their own country they sent the leaders of their army into exile from the land. After the Mantineians came the Eleians; and they, like the Mantineians, were greatly grieved by it and so departed home; and these also when they had returned sent their leaders into exile. So much of