Herodotus, The Histories (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Hdt.].
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9.56.1 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. 9.56.2 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.

ch. 57 9.57.1 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, 9.57.2 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. 9.57.3 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.

ch. 58 9.58.1 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: 9.58.2 “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. 9.58.3 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. Of this advice the king will certainly hear from me, but it will be discussed elsewhere. 9.58.4 Now we must not permit our enemies to do as they want; they must be pursued till they are overtaken and pay the penalty for all the harm they have done the Persians.”

ch. 59 9.59.1 With that, he led the Persians with all speed across the Asopus in pursuit of the Greeks, supposing that they were in flight; it was the army of Lacedaemon and Tegea alone which was his goal, for the Athenians marched another way over the broken ground, and were out of his sight. 9.59.2 Seeing the Persians setting forth in pursuit of the Greeks, the rest of the barbarian battalions straightway raised their standards and also gave pursuit, each at top speed, no battalion having order in its ranks nor place assigned in the line.

ch. 60 9.60.1 So they ran pell-mell and shouting, as though they would utterly make an end of the Greeks. Pausanias, however, when the cavalry attacked him, sent a horseman to the Athenians with this message: “Men of Athens, in this great contest 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.



Herodotus, The Histories (English) (XML Header) [word count] [lemma count] [Hdt.].
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