Herodotus, The Histories (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Hdt.].
<<Hdt. 9.48.2 Hdt. 9.53.2 (Greek) >>Hdt. 9.57.2

9.51.3 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. 9.51.4 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.

ch. 52 9.52.1 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. 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.

ch. 53 9.53.1 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. 9.53.2 Thereupon, all the rest of the captains being ready to obey Pausanias, Amompharetus son of Poliades, the leader of the Pitanate note battalion, refused to flee from the barbarians or (save by compulsion) bring shame on Sparta; the whole business seemed strange to him, for he had not been present in the council recently held. 9.53.3 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. 9.53.4 Bearing this in mind, they kept the Laconian army where it was and tried to persuade Amompharetus that he was in the wrong.

ch. 54 9.54.1 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. 9.54.2 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.

ch. 55 9.55.1 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. 9.55.2 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.



Herodotus, The Histories (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Hdt.].
<<Hdt. 9.48.2 Hdt. 9.53.2 (Greek) >>Hdt. 9.57.2

Powered by PhiloLogic