9.61.3
They could get no favorable omen from their sacrifices, and in the meanwhile many of them were killed and by far more wounded (for the Persians set up their shields for a fence, and shot showers of arrows). Since the Spartans were being hard-pressed and their sacrifices were of no avail, Pausanias lifted up his eyes to the temple of Hera at Plataea and called on the goddess, praying that they might not be disappointed in their hope.
ch. 62
9.62.1
While he was still in the act of praying, the men of Tegea leapt out before the rest and charged the barbarians, and immediately after Pausanias' prayer the sacrifices of the Lacedaemonians became favorable. Now they too charged the Persians, and the Persians met them, throwing away their bows.
9.62.2
First they fought by the fence of shields, and when that was down, there was a fierce and long fight around the temple of Demeter itself, until they came to blows at close quarters. For the barbarians laid hold of the spears and broke them short.
9.62.3
Now the Persians were neither less valorous nor weaker, but they had no armor; moreover, since 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.
ch. 63
9.63.1
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.
9.63.2
When, however, Mardonius was killed and his guards, who were the strongest part of the army, had also fallen, then the rest too yielded and gave ground before the men of Lacedaemon. For what harmed them the most was the fact that they wore no armor over their clothes and fought, as it were, naked against men fully armed.
ch. 64
9.64.1
On that day the Spartans, as the oracle had foretold, gained from Mardonius their full measure of vengeance for the slaying of Leonidas, and the most glorious of victories of all which we know was won by Pausanias, the son of Cleombrotus, who was the son of Anaxandrides.
9.64.2
(I have named the rest of Pausanias' ancestors in the lineage of Leonidas, for they are the same for both.) As for Mardonius, he was killed by Aeimnestus, a Spartan of note who long after the Persian business led three hundred men to battle at Stenyclerus against the whole army of Messenia, and was there killed, he and his three hundred.
ch. 65
9.65.1
At Plataea, however, the Persians, routed by the Lacedaemonians, fled in disorder to their own camp and inside the wooden walls which they had made in the territory of Thebes.
9.65.2
It is indeed a marvel that although the battle was right by the grove of Demeter, there was no sign that any Persian had been killed in the precinct or entered into it; most of them fell near the temple in unconsecrated ground. I think—if it is necessary to judge the ways of the gods—that the goddess herself denied them entry, since they had burnt her temple, the shrine at Eleusis.
ch. 66
9.66.1
This, then, is what happened in this battle. But Artabazus son of Pharnaces had from the very first disapproved of the king's leaving Mardonius, and now all his counselling not to join battle had been of no avail. In his displeasure at what Mardonius was doing, he himself did as I will show.
9.66.2
He had with him a great army, as many as forty thousand men. He knew full well what the outcome of the battle would be, and no sooner had the Greeks and Persians met than he led these with a fixed purpose, telling them to follow him all together wherever he should lead them, whatever they thought his intent might be.
