When Mardonius learnt 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 Thrasydeïus, and said: "What will you now say, sons of Athens! when you see this place deserted? for you, who are their neighbours, ever told me that the Lacedaemonians fled from no battlefield and were surpassing masters of war; yet these same men you lately saw changing from their post, and now you and all of us see that they have fled away in the night that is past; no sooner must they measure themselves in battle with those that are in very truth the bravest on earth, than 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 at Artabazus, that he should be so sore affrighted by the Lacedaemonians as to give us a craven's advice to strike our camp, and march away to be beleaguered in Thebes; of which advice the king shall yet learn from me. This shall be matter for speech elsewhere; but now, we must not suffer our enemies to do as they desire; they must be pursued till they be overtaken and pay the penalty for all the harm they have wrought the Persians." With that, he led the Persians at speed across the Asopus in pursuit of the Greeks, supposing that they were in flight; it was the army of Lacedaemon and Tegea alone that was his goal; for the Athenians marched another way over the broken ground, and were out of his sight. Seeing the Persians setting forth in pursuit of the Greeks, the rest of the foreign battalions straightway raised their standards and pursued likewise, each at the top of his speed, no battalion having order in its ranks nor place assigned in the line.
So they ran pell-mell and shouting, as though they would utterly make an end of the Greeks; but Pausanias, when the cavalry attacked him, sent a horseman to the Athenians, with this message: "Men of Athens, in this great issue which must give freedom or slavery to Hellas, we Lacedaemonians and you Athenians have been betrayed by the flight of our allies in the night that is past. Now therefore I am resolved what we must forthwith do; we must protect each other by fighting as best we can. If the cavalry had attacked you first, it had been for us and the Tegeans with us, who are faithful to Hellas, to succour you; but now, seeing that the whole brunt of their assault falls on us, it is right that you should come to the aid of that division which is hardest pressed. But if, as may be, aught has befallen you whereby it is impossible that you should aid us, yet do us the service of sending your archers. We are assured that you will hearken to us, as knowing that you have been by far more zealous than all others in this present war." When the Athenians heard that, they essayed to succour the Lacedaemonians and defend them with all their might; but when their march was already begun they were set upon by the Greeks posted over against them, who had joined themselves to the king; wherefore they could now send no aid, being troubled by the foe that was closest. Thus it was that the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans stood alone; men-at‑arms and light-armed together, there were of the Lacedaemonians fifty thousand and of the Tegeans, who had never been parted from the Lacedaemonians, three thousand; and they offered sacrifice, the better to join battle with Mardonius and the army that was with him. But as they could get no favourable omen from their sacrifices, and in the meanwhile many of them were slain and by far more wounded (for the Persians set up their shields for a fence, and shot showers of arrows innumerable), it was so, that, the Spartans being hard pressed and their sacrifices of no avail, Pausanias lifted up his eyes to the temple of Here at Plataeae and called on the goddess, praying that they might nowise be disappointed of their hope.
While he yet prayed, the men of Tegea leapt out before the rest and charged the foreigners; and immediately after Pausanias' prayer the sacrifices of the Lacedaemonians grew to be favourable; which being at last vouchsafed to them, they too charged the Persians, and the Persians met them, throwing away their bows. And first they fought for the fence of shields; and when that was down, thereafter the battle waxed fierce and long about the temple of Demeter itself, till they grappled and thrust; for the foreigners laid hold of the spears and broke them short. Now the Persians were neither the less valorous nor the weaker; but they had no armour, and moreover they were unskilled and no match for their adversaries in craft; they would rush out singly and in tens or in groups great or small, hurling themselves on the Spartans and so perishing.
Where Mardonius was himself, riding a white horse in the battle and surrounded by a thousand picked men who were the flower of the Persians, there they pressed their adversaries hardest. 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. On that day the Spartans gained from Mardonius their full measure of vengeance for the slaying of Leonidas, according to the oracle, and the most glorious of victories ever known to men was won by Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, who was the son of Anaxandrides. As for Mardonius, he was slain by Aeimnestus, a Spartan of note; who long after the Persian business did in time of war lead three hundred men to battle at Stenyclerus against the whole army of Messenia, and was there slain, he and his three hundred. But at Plataeae, the Persians being routed by the Lacedaemonians fled in disorder to their own camp and within the wooden walls that they had made in the lands of Thebes. And herein is a marvellous thing, that though the battle was hard by the grove of Demeter there was no sign that any Persian had been slain in the precinct, or entered into it; most of them fell near the temple in unconsecrated ground; and I judge if it be not a sin to judge of the ways of heaven that the goddess herself denied them entry, for that they had burnt her temple, the shrine at Eleusis.
Thus far then went this battle. But Artabazus son of Pharnaces had from the very first misliked the king's leaving Mardonius, and now all his counselling not to join battle had been of no avail; and in his displeasure at what Mardonius was doing he himself did as I will show. He had with him a great army, even as many as forty thousand men; knowing well what would be the event of the battle, no sooner had the Greeks and Persians met than he led these with purpose fixed, bidding them follow him all together whither he should lead them, according to whatsoever they should see to be his intent; and with that command he made pretence of leading them to battle. But as he came farther on his way he saw the Persians already fleeing; whereat he led his men no longer in the same array, but took to his heels and fled with all speed not to the wooden fort nor to the walled city but to Phocis, that so he might make his way with all despatch to the Hellespont. So Artabazus and his army turned that way. All the rest of the Greeks that were on the king's side fought of set purpose ill; but not so the Boeotians; they fought for a long time against the Athenians. For those Thebans that took the Persian part showed no small zeal in the battle, and had no will to fight slackly, insomuch that three hundred of their first and best were there slain by the Athenians. But at last the Boeotians too yielded; and they fled to Thebes, not by the way that the Persians had fled and all the multitude of the allies, a multitude that had fought no fight to the end nor achieved any feat of arms. This flight of theirs ere they had even closed, because they saw the Persians flee, proves to me that it was on the Persians that all the fortune of the foreigners hung. Thus they all fled, save only the cavalry, Boeotian and other; which did in so far advantage the fleeing men as it kept ever between them and their enemies, and shielded its friends from the Greeks in their flight.
So the Greeks followed in victory after Xerxes' men, pursuing and slaying. In this rout that grew apace there came a message to the rest of the Greeks, who lay at the temple of Here and had kept away from the fight, that there had been a battle and that Pausanias' men were victorious; which when they heard, they set forth in no ordered array, they that were with the Corinthians keeping to the spurs of the mountain and the hill country, by the road that led upward straight to the temple of Demeter, and they that were with the Megarians and Phliasians following the levelest way over the plain. But when the Megarians and Phliasians were come near to the enemy, the Theban horsemen (whose captain was Asopodorus son of Timander) espied them approaching in haste and disorder, and rode at them; by which onfall they laid six hundred of them low, and pursued and swept the rest to Cithaeron. So these perished, one regarding them. 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 Lacedaemonians 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. But at the last the Athenians did by valour and steadfast endeavour scale the wall and breach it, by which breach the Greeks poured in; the first to enter were the Tegeans, and it was they who plundered the tent of Mardonius, taking from it beside all else the manger of his horses, that was all of bronze and a thing worth the beholding. The Tegeans dedicated this manger of Mardonius in the temple of Athene Alea; all else that they took they brought into the common stock, as did the rest of the Greeks. 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.
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. Of this my only clear proof is (for all these vanquished the foes opposed to them) that the Lacedaemonians met the strongest part of the army, and overcame it. According to my judgment, he that bore himself by far the best was Aristodemus, who had been reviled and dishonoured for being the only man of the three hundred that came alive from Thermopylae; and the next after him in valour were Posidonius and Philocyon and Amompharetus. Nevertheless when there was talk, and question who had borne himself most bravely, those Spartans that were there judged that Aristodemus had achieved great feats because by reason of the reproach under which he lay he plainly wished to die, and so pressed forward in frenzy from his post, whereas Posidonius had borne himself well with no desire to die, and must in so far be held the better man. This they may have said of mere jealousy; but all the aforesaid who were slain in that fight received honour, save only Aristodemus; he, because he desired death by reason of the reproach afore-mentioned, received none.
Πηγή : http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Herodotus/9A*.html
So they ran pell-mell and shouting, as though they would utterly make an end of the Greeks; but Pausanias, when the cavalry attacked him, sent a horseman to the Athenians, with this message: "Men of Athens, in this great issue which must give freedom or slavery to Hellas, we Lacedaemonians and you Athenians have been betrayed by the flight of our allies in the night that is past. Now therefore I am resolved what we must forthwith do; we must protect each other by fighting as best we can. If the cavalry had attacked you first, it had been for us and the Tegeans with us, who are faithful to Hellas, to succour you; but now, seeing that the whole brunt of their assault falls on us, it is right that you should come to the aid of that division which is hardest pressed. But if, as may be, aught has befallen you whereby it is impossible that you should aid us, yet do us the service of sending your archers. We are assured that you will hearken to us, as knowing that you have been by far more zealous than all others in this present war." When the Athenians heard that, they essayed to succour the Lacedaemonians and defend them with all their might; but when their march was already begun they were set upon by the Greeks posted over against them, who had joined themselves to the king; wherefore they could now send no aid, being troubled by the foe that was closest. Thus it was that the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans stood alone; men-at‑arms and light-armed together, there were of the Lacedaemonians fifty thousand and of the Tegeans, who had never been parted from the Lacedaemonians, three thousand; and they offered sacrifice, the better to join battle with Mardonius and the army that was with him. But as they could get no favourable omen from their sacrifices, and in the meanwhile many of them were slain and by far more wounded (for the Persians set up their shields for a fence, and shot showers of arrows innumerable), it was so, that, the Spartans being hard pressed and their sacrifices of no avail, Pausanias lifted up his eyes to the temple of Here at Plataeae and called on the goddess, praying that they might nowise be disappointed of their hope.
While he yet prayed, the men of Tegea leapt out before the rest and charged the foreigners; and immediately after Pausanias' prayer the sacrifices of the Lacedaemonians grew to be favourable; which being at last vouchsafed to them, they too charged the Persians, and the Persians met them, throwing away their bows. And first they fought for the fence of shields; and when that was down, thereafter the battle waxed fierce and long about the temple of Demeter itself, till they grappled and thrust; for the foreigners laid hold of the spears and broke them short. Now the Persians were neither the less valorous nor the weaker; but they had no armour, and moreover they were unskilled and no match for their adversaries in craft; they would rush out singly and in tens or in groups great or small, hurling themselves on the Spartans and so perishing.
Where Mardonius was himself, riding a white horse in the battle and surrounded by a thousand picked men who were the flower of the Persians, there they pressed their adversaries hardest. 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. On that day the Spartans gained from Mardonius their full measure of vengeance for the slaying of Leonidas, according to the oracle, and the most glorious of victories ever known to men was won by Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, who was the son of Anaxandrides. As for Mardonius, he was slain by Aeimnestus, a Spartan of note; who long after the Persian business did in time of war lead three hundred men to battle at Stenyclerus against the whole army of Messenia, and was there slain, he and his three hundred. But at Plataeae, the Persians being routed by the Lacedaemonians fled in disorder to their own camp and within the wooden walls that they had made in the lands of Thebes. And herein is a marvellous thing, that though the battle was hard by the grove of Demeter there was no sign that any Persian had been slain in the precinct, or entered into it; most of them fell near the temple in unconsecrated ground; and I judge if it be not a sin to judge of the ways of heaven that the goddess herself denied them entry, for that they had burnt her temple, the shrine at Eleusis.
Thus far then went this battle. But Artabazus son of Pharnaces had from the very first misliked the king's leaving Mardonius, and now all his counselling not to join battle had been of no avail; and in his displeasure at what Mardonius was doing he himself did as I will show. He had with him a great army, even as many as forty thousand men; knowing well what would be the event of the battle, no sooner had the Greeks and Persians met than he led these with purpose fixed, bidding them follow him all together whither he should lead them, according to whatsoever they should see to be his intent; and with that command he made pretence of leading them to battle. But as he came farther on his way he saw the Persians already fleeing; whereat he led his men no longer in the same array, but took to his heels and fled with all speed not to the wooden fort nor to the walled city but to Phocis, that so he might make his way with all despatch to the Hellespont. So Artabazus and his army turned that way. All the rest of the Greeks that were on the king's side fought of set purpose ill; but not so the Boeotians; they fought for a long time against the Athenians. For those Thebans that took the Persian part showed no small zeal in the battle, and had no will to fight slackly, insomuch that three hundred of their first and best were there slain by the Athenians. But at last the Boeotians too yielded; and they fled to Thebes, not by the way that the Persians had fled and all the multitude of the allies, a multitude that had fought no fight to the end nor achieved any feat of arms. This flight of theirs ere they had even closed, because they saw the Persians flee, proves to me that it was on the Persians that all the fortune of the foreigners hung. Thus they all fled, save only the cavalry, Boeotian and other; which did in so far advantage the fleeing men as it kept ever between them and their enemies, and shielded its friends from the Greeks in their flight.
So the Greeks followed in victory after Xerxes' men, pursuing and slaying. In this rout that grew apace there came a message to the rest of the Greeks, who lay at the temple of Here and had kept away from the fight, that there had been a battle and that Pausanias' men were victorious; which when they heard, they set forth in no ordered array, they that were with the Corinthians keeping to the spurs of the mountain and the hill country, by the road that led upward straight to the temple of Demeter, and they that were with the Megarians and Phliasians following the levelest way over the plain. But when the Megarians and Phliasians were come near to the enemy, the Theban horsemen (whose captain was Asopodorus son of Timander) espied them approaching in haste and disorder, and rode at them; by which onfall they laid six hundred of them low, and pursued and swept the rest to Cithaeron. So these perished, one regarding them. 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 Lacedaemonians 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. But at the last the Athenians did by valour and steadfast endeavour scale the wall and breach it, by which breach the Greeks poured in; the first to enter were the Tegeans, and it was they who plundered the tent of Mardonius, taking from it beside all else the manger of his horses, that was all of bronze and a thing worth the beholding. The Tegeans dedicated this manger of Mardonius in the temple of Athene Alea; all else that they took they brought into the common stock, as did the rest of the Greeks. 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.
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. Of this my only clear proof is (for all these vanquished the foes opposed to them) that the Lacedaemonians met the strongest part of the army, and overcame it. According to my judgment, he that bore himself by far the best was Aristodemus, who had been reviled and dishonoured for being the only man of the three hundred that came alive from Thermopylae; and the next after him in valour were Posidonius and Philocyon and Amompharetus. Nevertheless when there was talk, and question who had borne himself most bravely, those Spartans that were there judged that Aristodemus had achieved great feats because by reason of the reproach under which he lay he plainly wished to die, and so pressed forward in frenzy from his post, whereas Posidonius had borne himself well with no desire to die, and must in so far be held the better man. This they may have said of mere jealousy; but all the aforesaid who were slain in that fight received honour, save only Aristodemus; he, because he desired death by reason of the reproach afore-mentioned, received none.
Πηγή : http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Herodotus/9A*.html
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