CHAPTER XI.

THE CAMPAIGN OF PLATÆA.

◆H. viii. 131.◆

While these events were occurring in Middle Greece, Mardonius, in the far North, was preparing to move. It is said that before starting he despatched an envoy to make inquiries of the oracles of Northern Greece, at Lebadeia, Abæ, and Mount Ptoon, on what subject Herodotus is unable to say with certainty—on the circumstances of the time, he is inclined to think.

◆H. viii. 136.◆

A much more important envoy was despatched to Athens in the person of Alexander, the son of Amyntas, a member of the royal house of Macedonia, who was connected with the Persians by family ties, and with the Athenians by his having held for them the position of Proxenos, or consular agent, in his own country.

It may fairly be doubted whether Herodotus got the tale of Alexander’s mission from an Athenian or from a Macedonian source, or whether he combined information derived from both. ◆H. viii. 136.◆ The reference to the character of the Athenian people has, on the one hand, a strong Attic flavour about it, H. viii. 137 _et seqq_. while the knowledge of the Macedonian royal family displayed here and elsewhere in his work suggests that Herodotus acquired his information on the spot in the course of a visit to that country.[177]

[Illustration: PLAIN OF THEBES AND MOUNT KITHAERON.

_From Sketch by E. Lear._]

1. Kithæron (about 15 miles).

2. Ridge between Parasopia and Plain of Thebes.

3. Thebes.

[_To face page_ 436.

]

This tale might, consequently, be derived from Macedonia. #MARDONIUS AND ATHENS.# This supposition is, however, rendered unlikely, owing to the excessively mistaken forecast which Alexander is described to have made of forthcoming events; and its Attic origin is the more probable. It is needless to say that that does not make for the veracity of a story whose evident intention is, like that of so many of the stories of this time, to bring into relief the self-denying patriotism of Athens. Yet, in spite of this, the story in itself is credible enough.

◆H. viii. 136.◆

Mardonius, so the tale runs, had made up his mind that if he could win over the Athenians to the Persian side he would thereby deprive the forces opposed to him of a people both numerous and brave, who were, moreover, mainly responsible for the disaster of the previous year. By this means he hoped to gain once more command of the sea, and expected to be infinitely superior to the enemy on land. This design, Herodotus thinks, was probably suggested to him by the oracles he had recently consulted.

The most remarkable reference, so far, is to the recovery of the command of the sea. No one could better estimate than Mardonius the full significance of the loss of that command. He must have known well that, unless it were recovered, he could at best obtain but a partial measure of success. Anything of the nature of a prolonged campaign to the southward of Bœotia would be, on the mere question of commissariat, impossible; and a brief campaign was not to be looked for. A foe which had been formidable with the courage of despair was likely to be more formidable when animated with the courage of a hope following despair. He had, no doubt, accumulated during the winter in Thessaly as large a commissariat as possible; but it is beyond conception that he could have greatly increased the necessarily limited supplies obtainable locally by transport along that route of four hundred miles whose use had only been contemplated a month or two before, and whose organization must necessarily have been of the most hurried description. He must win Athens over, or modify his plans.

To her accordingly was offered a free pardon for the past on the part of the Great King, the enjoyment of her existing lands, and any accession of territory she liked. Nor did Alexander the envoy fail to point out to the Athenians the contrast between such a prospect and their actual state as the people who had suffered most from the war.

◆H. viii. 141.◆

The news of Alexander’s visit to Athens, and of its object, created considerable alarm at Sparta. An embassy was despatched with all speed to counteract the possible ill-effects of his proposals. This embassy was actually present when Alexander spoke; for the latter had been kept waiting for several days before he had been allowed to bring his business before the assembly. The astute Athenians had made up their minds to use Alexander as a lever wherewith to move the sluggish Sparta to action. They do not seem to have had any intention whatever of taking Mardonius’ message into consideration. When Alexander had done speaking, the Spartan ambassadors addressed the assembly. They urged that it would be gross desertion on the part of the Athenians to renounce their share in a war which had been provoked by them, and by them alone. Turning to more material matters, they promised to alleviate the sufferings of the Athenians by undertaking the support of the non-effective part of the population.

The Athenian answer to Mardonius’ message was as firm as their determination: “So long as the sun runs his course in the heavens, we will never make terms with Xerxes.”

The answer to the Lacedæmonians as reported by Herodotus is, in sentiment and language alike, one of the finest passages in Greek prose.

“The fear of the Lacedæmonians lest we should make terms with the barbarians is, humanly speaking, very natural. And yet, knowing well, as you do, the spirit of Athens—that there is not in the wide world gold sufficient nor land so exceeding fair and good that we would accept it as the price of our own defection and of the enslavement of Hellas,—your fear, we think, does you but small credit. There are many powerful considerations which would forbid our so acting, even had we the will to do so. #ATHENS AND SPARTA.# First and foremost is the burning and destruction of the images and temples of the gods, which we, so far from making terms with the doers of these deeds, must of necessity avenge to the full. Secondly, there is that tie of blood and language which binds the Greek world together, our common share in our religious foundations and sacrifices, our community of manners—things which it would disgrace the Athenians to betray. Know this, if you did not before know it, that so long as a single Athenian survives, we will never make terms with Xerxes. We admire your kindly thought for us, in that, homeless as we are, you are willing to support our families. That kindness on your part is complete, but we will endure as we are, without burdening you.

“But now, these things being so, send forth your army with all speed, for we imagine that the invasion of our land by the barbarian will not be long deferred, so soon as he hears our message refusing compliance with his demands. Ere, then, he enters Attica, there is time for us to meet him in Bœotia.”

And so the Spartan ambassadors went home.

The Athenians evidently hoped that they would be able to save their land from the devastation of the previous year by persuading the allies to meet the enemy in Bœotia.

Their hopes were natural, but they were not destined to be fulfilled; and, if by Bœotia the Bœotian plain was meant, it was fortunate they remained unfulfilled.

On receipt of the answer from Athens Mardonius started on his march from Thessaly without delay. The feudal families of that region had thoroughly espoused the Persian cause, and their attitude, as well as that of the Bœotians, shows that the dominant section in the two great territories of the North had definitely made up their minds that, whatever the fate of the South might be, those regions were to become part of the Persian Empire. ◆H. ix. 2.◆ The Theban advice to Mardonius to remain in Bœotian territory and seek to conquer Greece by corrupting the leading men of its various states, shows that the medization of the ruling powers in Bœotia was not merely a passive attitude. One thing, however, Mardonius had made up his mind to do—to capture Athens a second time. Herodotus attributes the intention to mere vanity, but any one or all of three practical reasons made its acquisition of importance to him. Its recapture might induce Xerxes from his base on the Asian coast to attempt to regain the command of the sea. Its possession might bring pressure to bear on the Athenian authorities, and aid his design of detaching that people from the forces of resistance. Finally, in case he intended to advance on the Isthmus, the possession of the Acropolis would protect his left flank. He occupied Athens without striking a blow, the population having been removed, as in the previous year, to Salamis. Having occupied it, he reopened the negotiations which Alexander had attempted but a short time before. The result was the same. The spirit of the people was shown by their stoning to death Lykides, a member of the council, for merely proposing that the message should be communicated to the Assembly. Even his wife and children were murdered in a similar way by the Athenian women at Salamis.

◆H. ix. 6.◆

This second withdrawal to Salamis comes somewhat as a surprise in Herodotus’ narrative, for his account of the visit of the Spartan embassy to Athens at the time of Alexander’s presence there makes it appear that an understanding had been arrived at by which Athens might be spared a second invasion. The explanation comes later. “So long as the Athenians expected that an army would come from Peloponnese to help them, they remained in Attica.” But when the presence of the enemy in Bœotia was announced, and it became impossible to hope that help from the South could arrive in time, they retired to Salamis, as they had done the year before. They also despatched an embassy to Sparta to protest against the delay.

The strong appeal to patriotism made in their last communication to the Lacedæmonian embassy had failed to impress a people whose very institutions and training rendered them incapable of forming a real conception of the true spirit of a pan-Hellenic policy. Their stern discipline, moreover, was only too well calculated to render them mere tools of those set over them; and the delay in the present instance was probably due to the policy of an inner ring of the government at Sparta. The records of the time afford no certain clue to the motives lying behind that policy. #ATHENIAN EMBASSY AT SPARTA.# It is possible that it aimed at forcing the hand of the Athenians, and compelling them to take part in the defence of the Isthmus.

◆H. ix. 7.◆

Sparta having failed to listen to persuasion, Athens had recourse, as on previous occasions, to threats. The Spartans were told that if Athens found herself deserted, she would seek her salvation in her own way; it was more than hinted that Mardonius’ offer might become a question of practical politics. The Spartan excuse for delay was similar to that urged for the desertion of Thermopylæ, the celebration of a festival. The story of the reception of the ambassadors is one of the strangest in the strange history of this time. They bitterly reproached the Lacedæmonians with their conduct. They put the very worst construction on the Spartan policy, which had, they said, inflicted on patriotism an amount of suffering which it dare not have inflicted on uncertain fidelity. It is probable that the reproach was, in so far as the Spartan authorities were concerned, well deserved. From the language used by the Athenians it is evident that they believed that the Spartans had agreed to join in operations in Bœotia merely in order to keep Athens from medizing before the wall at the Isthmus was absolutely completed.[178]

That was the construction Athens put upon their conduct at this time; but it is probable that the more correct interpretation of their extraordinary policy is that by delaying they would be able to transfer the defence to the wall, and could, under any circumstances, rely on the devotion of Athens to the common cause.

Turning to the question of the future war policy, the Athenian ambassadors proposed that, as Bœotia had been lost, the enemy should be met in Attica; and they mentioned the Thriasian plain between Eleusis and Mount Ægaleos as admirably designed for a field of battle. [It must be remembered that this recommendation was made at a time when the Greeks were without experience of the effectiveness of the Persian cavalry on ground suited to its operations.]

The Ephors deferred their answer to the following day; from that to the next, and so on, until ten days had been wasted. They were waiting, says Herodotus, for the completion of the wall. They were, too, waiting, no doubt, until events in the North developed sufficiently to make it impossible for Athens to propose any other line of defence. This unsatisfactory state of things was brought to an end, so Herodotus says, by a warning addressed to the Ephors by Chileos, a Tegean, who had great influence in Sparta. He pointed out that if Athens joined the Persian, wall or no wall, the doors of the Peloponnese would be opened wide. Herodotus evidently supposed that until this moment such an idea had never occurred to the Spartan authorities, despite the experiences of Artemisium and Salamis in the previous year. In all probability, what really influenced these authorities was the fact that an able man, whose opinion they valued, was not so sure as they themselves were, that Athenian loyalty would endure much longer the severe test to which it was being put.

Their next act was a very strange one. Without saying a word to the ambassadors, they despatched under cover of night a force of five thousand Spartans, each of whom was accompanied by seven helots. There were, therefore, forty thousand in all. The number of light-armed helots is remarkable, certainly above the usual quota allotted to a force of five thousand heavy-armed.[179]

#SECRET DESPATCH OF SPARTAN ARMY.#

In constituting this force, the unusual number of light-armed in the army which it would have to meet would naturally be taken into consideration. The circumstances of population in the Spartan territories, moreover, were such that any unusual increase in the numbers employed on any expedition would be supplied by the increase in this branch of the service. The commander of this large force was Pausanias. Kleombrotos had been in command at the Isthmus in the previous year, but had died shortly after bringing back his army thence.[180] It must have been prepared for departure for some time past No such force could start on short notice.[181]

The ambassadors, knowing nothing of this sudden march, and weary of the continual procrastination, were prepared to leave Sparta on the following morning. Before the deception was discovered the Athenian delegates actually stated that, in consequence of Sparta’s attitude, Athens would make terms with Persia, and, more than that, would accompany the Persians in their invasion. Truly the Spartan government policy had very nearly brought Greece to ruin.

The surprise of the indignant envoys may then be imagined when they were told in answer by the Ephors that they had every reason to believe that their army was, by that time, at Orestheion on its march against “the strangers,” as they called the barbarians. Orestheion was in the small plain of Asea, S.S.E. of the Arcadian plain, where one of the great roads from Sparta northward met the main road coming from Messenia to the Arcadian plain. The fact that they took this route is interesting, because it almost certainly indicates that they wished to avoid Argos, from which, as will be seen, a certain amount of trouble was to be expected.

Thus the truth came out; and the envoys started without delay in pursuit of this phantom army, accompanied by five thousand picked hoplites of the Periœki.

The truth about the attitude of Argos at this time is rendered uncertain by the fact that, after the war was over, the patriot Greeks regarded not merely those races which had medized, but also those who had not taken part with them, as having been enemies of their fatherland. That of itself would give rise to a number of traditions of doubtful credibility with respect to the attitude of such neutrals. Nevertheless, the attitude of Argos was highly suspicious, and there is no doubt that it was firmly believed in after-time that she had had traitorous relations with Persia.

◆H. ix. 12.◆

Herodotus asserts that the Argives sent a messenger about this time to Mardonius, who was in Athens, saying that they were unable to carry out the promise that they had made to him to stop the Spartan army on its march northwards. This tale is to a certain extent supported by the fact that the Spartans, instead of adopting the shorter route north by the Thyreatic plain and Argos, adopted the longer one indicated by the mention of Orestheion. Argos was, by its strategical position, ever a serious obstacle to Sparta’s communication with the north.

#KITHÆRON AND PARNES.#

Mardonius had, up to this time, refrained from damaging Athens and Attica, in the hope that the Athenians would change their minds, and accept his proposals; but, failing to persuade them to do so, and hearing of the advance of this army to the Isthmus, he set fire to Athens, and began to withdraw to Bœotia; “because,” says Herodotus, “Attica was not a country for cavalry, and if he were defeated in an engagement his only line of retreat was through strait places, so that a few men could stop him.” He determined, therefore, to retreat, and make Thebes his base of operations, as lying in a region eminently adapted to the use of cavalry. His evident fear was lest the Greek forces should work up through the Megarid and seize the difficult passes of the Kithæron-Parnes range in his rear.

As this range is of great importance in the campaign which was at this time about to open, it may be well to describe its nature, and to enumerate the passes by which it is pierced. It was regarded by the Greeks as an effective and important line of defence; and the difficulties which it presented to various armies which had occasion to traverse or to attempt to traverse it in the warfare of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ, show that their estimate of its defensive possibilities was not a mistaken one. As its name implies, it is in reality composed of two short ranges, Kithæron on the west, and Parnes on the east. These are connected by an upland country known to the ancients by the name of Panakton, whose approaches on either side are, from a military point of view, of a very difficult character. The chain as a whole may be said to form a continuous barrier stretching from the head of the gulf of Corinth to the southern part of the Euripus. Both Kithæron and Parnes are sharply-edged, steep-sided ridges, whose highest points rise to a height of four thousand five hundred feet above sea-level, while the general elevation of each chain is about three thousand feet. Though not, as will be seen, of any great height, they offer comparatively few passages. There are six points at which the range may be traversed. Of these the western series, four in number, are of importance in reference to the battle of Platæa itself, while the two eastern passes afford alternative routes for an army retreating, like that of Mardonius, from Athens to Thebes.

At the extreme west of the range, where it sinks with sudden abruptness into the gulf of Corinth, it is turned rather than traversed by what is little better than a mountain track, which led from the Bœotian port of Kreusis to the Megarean town of Ægosthena. From Ægosthena a road led southwards to Pagæ, and so round the western bastions of Mount Geraneia to the Isthmus. It was also quite possible to reach Megara by a branch of this route.

◆Cf. Xen. Hell. v. 4; vi. 4.◆

The difficulties of this pass are such that it was rarely used for military purposes, and it seems to have played no part whatever in the operations of 479.

The second pass is that which the road from Platæa to Megara formerly traversed. It crosses Kithæron a little more than a mile eastward of Platæa, entering a deep valley which runs into the chain from the north, and ascending steeply from the head of the valley to the summit of a col in the ridge. Its character forbids the supposition that it can ever have been used for wheeled vehicles, and its importance must have been mainly due to the fact that it is the only one of this series of passes, with the exception of the track by Ægosthena, by which land communication between Northern Greece and the Peloponnese could be maintained without entering Attic territory. The road south of it, towards Megara, traverses the troublesome hill region of the Northern Megarid.[182] The fact that Platæa practically commanded the northern end of this pass rendered the town one of the most important strategic positions in Greece, both in the fifth and in the fourth centuries. It will be hereafter seen that this pass must have played an important part in the operations of the Greek army at Platæa.

The third pass is one by which the road from Platæa to Athens crossed the range. It is little more than a mile to the east of that last mentioned. Remains of the road are visible on the north side, entering a somewhat broad valley running into the hills. It must have always been an easy pass, and the ancient wheel-ruts worn in the rock show that it was used by wheeled vehicles.[183] #PASSES BETWEEN ATTICA AND BŒOTIA.# The road, after traversing it, turned east, and joined, near Eleutheræ, the road from Thebes to Eleusis by way of the pass of Dryoskephalæ. This pass also played an important part in the operations at Platæa.

The fourth pass was well known under its Attic name of Dryoskephalæ, and though not traversed by the direct road between Thebes and Athens, must have been largely used by those going from one place to the other, owing to the route by way of it being more easy than the direct road by Phyle. From the Bœotian side, near the site of the ancient Erythræ, the ascent is steep; it must have always been necessary to make it by a series of zigzags. The summit once reached, the descent is gradual, down a long stream-valley which abuts on a small plain of Attica beneath the fortress of Eleutheræ. As a pass, it was probably always more difficult than that on the Platæa-Athens road, but as the route from Thebes through it was more direct, it became the most used of the passes of Kithæron, and seems to have been the only one which had a special name in ancient times. The road through it was continued southward through a not very difficult country, as country goes in Greece, to the Thriasian plain and Eleusis, passing by or very near the fortress of Œne, whose importance must have been due to its position with reference to this road. Near Eleusis it joined the Sacred Way to Athens. Of the importance of this pass at the time of the battle of Platæa it is hardly necessary to speak.

The fifth of the series of passes is that on the direct road between Thebes and Athens. After ascending from the Bœotian plain to the plateau of Panakton, it traverses the upland pastures of that region, and enters a difficult country, where it was commanded by the important Attic fortress of Phyle. Thence it reaches the head of the Athenian plain. Mardonius might certainly have made use of this route for his retreat. He preferred, however, the more roundabout way through the sixth pass. It may have been, on the whole, an easier route. Furthermore, Mardonius, who seems to have been more apprehensive than he need at this moment have been that his retreat might be cut off, evidently thought that the route furthest from the Greek lines of advance would be safest.

The sixth pass leads from the plain of Athens into the lower basin of the Asopos. It was commanded near its summit by that fortress of Dekeleia which was destined to become so famous in the latter part of the Peloponnesian war. After passing Dekeleia, it was possible, instead of continuing along the road due north, to diverge to the left and follow a stream-valley to Tanagra. From Tanagra there must always have been a good, though not absolutely direct, road to Thebes, and also an easy passage up the Asopos valley.

◆H. ix. 14.◆

Herodotus, after describing Mardonius’ preparations for leaving Athens, says that when already on his way it was reported to him that a body of a thousand Lacedæmonians had been pushed forward to Megara. On hearing this, he wheeled about, and led his army as far as Megara, while his cavalry overran the whole of the Megarid. Herodotus’ intention in mentioning the incident is made sufficiently clear by the words which follow: ◆H. ix. 14, ad fin.◆ “This is the furthest point west in Europe which the Persian army reached.” ◆Paus. i. 44, 4.◆ It is to this expedition that a tradition mentioned by Pausanias must be referred—a tradition which preserved the record of the advance of the Medes to Pagæ.

There is no reason to doubt that the Persian raid into the Megarid is an historical fact, recorded by Herodotus and preserved in this chance tradition. It is not, however, at all likely that it was made by the whole Persian army, or that it was made at the time Herodotus mentions. His object in relating the story is plainly indicated, and in his desire to make his main point, he has probably not been over careful as to exactness in date.

If Mardonius wished, as is represented by the historian, to secure his safe passage to Bœotia, he would hardly have turned back with all his force. Had he done so, his natural line of withdrawal would have been by Dryoskephalæ. #MARDONIS RETREATS TO BŒOTIA.# The raid into Megara seems to have been a cavalry reconnaissance, whose object was to discover what the Greeks were doing at the Isthmus, and, moreover, it was probably made several days at least before the time indicated by Herodotus.

◆H. viii. 15.◆

The actual line of retreat Herodotus describes with some detail. He first went to Dekeleia, whence guides despatched by the Bœotarchs conducted him to Sphendale, and so to Tanagra. From thence he made his way up the Asopos valley to Skolos, where he formed a stockaded camp.[184]

It is impossible to arrive at any real comprehension of the history of this stage of the war without deducing from the action of Mardonius the nature of the designs, both political and strategical, which led him to adopt the course of action which he did.

It is evident, in the first place, that he had given up all idea of an attack on the fortifications of the Isthmus. It is also evident that he had recognized from the first that the only possibility offered him of an attack on that position was in the event of his winning over Athens to his side. If he could not do so, he would be liable to have his communications cut at any moment in the very difficult region of the Megarid. The negotiations with Athens had conspicuously failed. It would be absurd to suppose that he was not prepared for such an eventuality even before he started for Thessaly; he may be conceived even to have recognized that, after the events of the previous year, the probability of success in the negotiation was remote.[185] If this be the case, it is to be concluded that he had some alternative design in his mind, which he intended to carry out in case the first miscarried. The very circumstances under which the history of the time was written forbade the possibility of the nature of that design becoming known to after-ages, and the only surviving indications of what he planned are afforded by what he did.

It is amply proved in the Greek historians that the disaster of the previous year had left the ruling powers of the north just as loyal to Persian interests as they had been before Salamis. If anything, their loyalty had increased. Their contingents were with Mardonius. They had practically staked their all on his success; and only his presence could save them from the severe retaliation which the patriotic Greeks might be expected to inflict on those who had joined the enemies of their country. If Mardonius’ strategy at this time be any indication of his policy, that policy aimed at the establishment of a new Persian frontier at the Kithæron-Parnes line, with Thessaly, Phocis, and Bœotia in a similar position to the vassal states of Thrace and Macedonia.

His strategical plan was well based. The Kithæron-Parnes line offered a much easier defence against an assailant from the south than against one from the north, because the continuous valleys of the Œroë and Asopos formed a natural highway running lengthwise along the chain, such a highway as was conspicuous by its absence on the southern side. By this highway an army could be moved rapidly from one point to the other, according to the locality of the pass through which the attack might be delivered. #CHANGE IN GREEK PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.# On the south no such facilities existed, and an army on the north which made a feint at one of the eastern passes, and so attracted an enemy to its defence, could move to one of the western passes, and get through it long before the defender could move from his original defensive position.[186]

Thus Mardonius was well placed. He had a fortified base at Thebes, in a rich country, and a country well adapted to his strength in cavalry; and he had a fortified camp on the strategic line of highway which the Asopos valley afforded.

It is little short of a calamity for the history of this time that Herodotus has omitted to account for the absolute change in the Greek plan of campaign which is indicated by the advance of the army from the Isthmus into Bœotia. It had manifestly been the intention of the Spartans up to the very last moment to await attack at the Isthmus; it may be certain that the other Peloponnesian States entertained this design still more emphatically. And yet, in spite of this, they follow the enemy to Bœotia, and shortly after their arrival there develop an offensive movement of a most unmistakable character. Athens must have been mainly responsible for this remarkable change; but what were the motives of Athens? It was too late to save Attica. The mischief there had been done. And yet these Greeks were persuaded to develop a policy whose boldness is in conspicuous contrast to the purely defensive attitude they had hitherto adopted in all their land operations, and to inaugurate the new policy in a region peculiarly favourable to that arm of the enemy’s force from which they had most to fear and against which they had nothing to match. It can only have been carried out under the impetus of some great and well-grounded alarm; and in view of the silence of the ancient historian, the only conclusion that it is possible to draw from the acts of either side is that the Greeks, through the Athenians, suspected the existence of a design to establish a new Persian frontier at Kithæron.

It was consequently necessary to take the offensive and the risk it involved, unless they were ready to submit to the existence of the Persian terror at their very doors. Whether its continued existence would have been possible without the regaining of the command of the sea is another question; but, considering the attitude of Bœotia and Thessaly, it would be unsafe to assert the impossibility. In any case, the Greeks regarded those possibilities from so near a perspective, that their field of vision must have been contracted to the one dangerous alternative.

◆H. ix. 19.◆

The Lacedæmonian army, which was last heard of at Orestheion in Arcadia, arrived at the Isthmus and encamped there. The patriotic States of Peloponnese, seeing the Spartans on the move, despatched their contingents thither also, or, rather, the complements of their contingents, since it must be concluded that the wall had not been without any defenders up to this time. From the Isthmus the whole army moved forward to Eleusis, where the Athenian land-army from Salamis joined it. The whole combined force then moved north along the road to Dryoskephalæ.[187]

[Illustration: PLAIN OF KAPAIS, FROM THEBES.

_From Sketch by E. Lear._]

[_To face page_ 452.

]

Shortly after passing the summit of the pass the Greek army would arrive in full view of the Bœotian plain, which from that elevated place appears more flat than it really is. The comparative monotony of the scenery of the plain itself is disguised by distance; and that which strikes the eye most forcibly is the contrast between this huge extent of comparatively low level ground, and the magnificent frame of mountains which forms the horizon on every side. To the north-west, Helicon descends in a long and highly serrated slope, behind which the hump of Parnassus in the far distance towers to a great height. #LIMITS OF THE FIELD OF OPERATIONS.# The northern horizon is bounded by that southern extension of the Œta range which lies between Kopais and the North Euripus, though Kopais, or what was once Kopais, is out of sight behind a comparatively low ridge in the neighbourhood of Thebes. To the north-east, Mount Ptoon is visible; and over its lower ridge the great cliffs of Mount Mekistos, on the Eubœan side of the Euripus, are just discernible. Away to the east, though hidden from sight at the top of the pass by a high bastion of Kithæron, the truncated cone of Mount Dirphys in Mid-Eubœa is the most prominent object.

There are but few extensive views in Greece comparable with it, and perhaps only one which excels it, that from Thaumaki on the road from Lamia northward, when the great plain of Thessaly, with its fringing ranges, is spread out like a sea before the spectator.

From the pass the Greeks descended to a position which extended across the road by which they had come, at the point at which it debouched fully on the plain. Before describing this position in detail it may be well to give a brief general description of the ground on which the prolonged struggle took place.

Its limits may be clearly defined. To the south its boundary is the limit of cultivation, where the rocky foot of Kithæron begins to rise from the rounded ridges of the plain. Outside this line the ground was impracticable for cavalry operations, and, though both armies at different times traversed this ground, no fighting took place beyond the line, or even in its neighbourhood. On the north, the limits are equally well defined by the river Asopos, although again in this case the major part of the Persian army was, during nearly the whole of the operations, to the north of the stream. The only fighting, however, which can possibly have taken place beyond it occurred during the assault on the Persian camp after the battle. To the east the limit may be taken as the line of the Thebes-Athens road; while to the west an imaginary line running due north from the town of Platæa to the Asopos will well define its utmost extent in that direction. The area of this field is about fifteen square miles, the dimensions from north to south and from east to west being about three and a half and four miles respectively.

In respect to the lie of its surface it may be divided into two parts. The southern portion of it along the foot of Kithæron consists of ridges running south and north, divided from one another by stream-valleys,—spurs, in fact, of the great mountain, but of no great height.[188] Of these the easternmost is much loftier than the others. On the westernmost is the site of the town of Platæa.

North of these ridges a distinctly marked line of depression extends across the field from east to west. It runs up the course of a brook,[189] in a south-westerly direction, to the site of the modern Kriekouki. After reaching the bottom of that village it turns at right angles and goes north-west in a line parallel to, and immediately north of, the watershed between the basins of the Asopos and Œroë, reaching the flat alluvial plain north of Platæa, just west of the springs of Apotripi, the traditional Gargaphia.

This depression is of considerable importance in relation to the general scheme of the operations of the Greek army on the field:—

(_a_) Because it forms the dividing line between the first and intended third positions and the second position, that is to say, between the positions which were chiefly remarkable for their defensive character, and that position which was assumed with the manifest intention of taking a vigorous offensive.

(_b_) Because in it the Greek army, after marching from the first position, took up its order before occupying the second position.

(_c_) Because in it the two combats which ultimately decided the battle were fought.

The plain which has been mentioned in reference to the western extremity of this depression extends without any break from the north end of the site of the town of Platæa to the Asopos river. The plain is the only flat land in the whole battle-field.

[Illustration: PLAIN OF PLATÆA AND KITHÆRON.

_From Sketch by E. Lear._]

[_To face page_ 454.

]

#DESCRIPTION OF THE FIELD.#

North of the depression rise three ridges or hills.[190] These ridges are separated from one another by two deep stream-valleys.[191] The slope of these ridges northward toward the Asopos is longer and more gradual than on the south.

In general appearance the plain of Bœotia at this part resembles the Wantage downs in such parts as the ploughland predominates over the pasture. The great grey wall of Kithæron to the south rises into the air, and dwarfs into insignificance the inequalities of the plain, rendering, moreover, all horizontal distances most deceptive to the eye.

It may be assumed with absolute confidence that the accidents of the terrain in this region of Greece are for all practical purposes identical with those which existed more than two thousand years ago. There is no evidence of great surface-changes such as are brought about in other parts of Greece by the torrents which sweep down in violence from the mountains. In Upper Parasopia such torrents do not exist. Their non-existence can hardly be ascribed to inferior rainfall, for the Bœotian climate is not more dry than that of other parts of Greece. The probable cause is the peculiarly porous nature of the soil, and, presumably, of the underlying rock, which absorbs a large amount of water which would in other parts of Greece escape along the surface.[192]

In the flat plain between Platæa and the Asopos river, the courses of the various streams which traverse it are without doubt liable to alterations, but the characteristics of the stream-beds as to width, depth, and so forth, are undoubtedly the same as they were in the past.

The passes which actually debouch upon the field are, as has been already mentioned, three in number. It is remarkable that in Herodotus’ account of the battle that of Dryoskephalæ is the only one mentioned. It is, however, quite clear from Herodotus that, while the Greeks were in the second position on the battle-field, the Dryoskephalæ pass, and also that on the Platæa-Athens road, were both held by the Persian cavalry, and the supplies of the army during the time must have come through the pass on the Platæa-Megara road.[193]

#HERODOTUS’ ACCOUNT OF PLATÆA.#

Before entering upon the actual description of the battle itself, it may be well to say one word about the general character of the account of it which Herodotus has given to the world. Its length and elaboration are greater than that devoted by the author to the description of any other single act or scene in the history of his time. The historian had evidently expended extraordinary trouble in its preparation, and had done his utmost to arrive at all the facts and to relate them with accuracy. Any failure in the latter respect is owing either to the nature of his source or sources of information, or to a misapprehension of military details due to his want of special knowledge and experience. But whatever these defects may be, his narrative is by far the best of the accounts which have survived until the present day, a fact which is capable of proof by reason of the extraordinary manner in which, in spite of certain obscurities, it harmonizes with the present state of the region wherein the incidents occurred. There can be no reasonable doubt that he visited the field, and that, where he gives topographical details, they are the result of autopsy. Some of the difficulties which arise with reference to his description are more probably due to want of knowledge on the part of the modern than on the part of the ancient historian. Some, again, are attributable to that natural difficulty, which must ever arise, when any one attempts to follow exactly the description, however clear, of a complicated piece of ground as seen by the eyes of another man; and this difficulty is not decreased when the language employed does not possess that wealth of technical vocabulary which is at the service of the writer of the present day. It is so easy to fail to realize these difficulties under which Herodotus wrote. Official records were probably non-existent: written records of any kind, if existent, were probably of the most meagre kind; and the historian must have been obliged to have recourse to the narratives of those who were actually present at the operations. It must have cost an infinite amount of trouble to collect the information, and to piece together the different narratives; and yet, despite the immense difficulty of dealing with evidence of this kind, Herodotus has left an account of the battle which is not merely of interest and value from the point of view of general history, but also in the narrower field of exclusively military history.

Platæa was no ordinary engagement. It was really a campaign of several weeks, conducted within an extraordinarily limited field of operations. During that brief time, and within that small area, the strength and weakness of East and West matched in battle against one another were exemplified in a most striking way. The lesson it taught was so tremendous, so wide in application, that men could not grasp it. Perhaps it was as well for the world that they did not.

◆H. ix. 19.◆

The Greeks having descended from the summit of the pass of Dryoskephalæ towards the Bœotian plain, discovered that the Persians were encamped upon the Asopos, and took up their position “on the foothills of Kithæron.”[194] ◆H. ix. 22.◆ Herodotus refers later to this position as having been at Erythræ. The site of that small town has been somewhat in dispute; it appears to have been in the hollow on the north side of the mountain into which the road from Dryoskephalæ descends.[195]

#FIRST POSITION OF THE GREEKS.#

The position taken up by the Greeks is recognizable without difficulty at the present day. Their right was on the high bastion of Kithæron, east of Erythræ, stationed for the most part, in all probability, in the neighbourhood of the old fort which here overhangs the road. Their centre was on the low ground, _à cheval_ of the Thebes road. Their left was probably on the slopes of the high ridge (ridge 1 in the map) to the east of the site of Kriekouki. The numbers present at this time are not known. All that is known is that, after considerable reinforcements had come in, from a hundred thousand to a hundred and ten thousand Greeks were in the field. It is not therefore possible to say what would be likely to be the length of the Greek front in this first position.

The strength of the position would be great. Their right and left wings would be unassailable by cavalry, and only assailable by infantry at a great disadvantage. Only on the flat ground in front of Erythræ would it be possible for the Persian cavalry to attack them, and this only along the right or east portion of the low ground, since the left or west portion of their centre would be protected by deep and precipitous stream-gullies which are there at this day, and must have existed in a similar form at the time of the battle. #ATTACK BY PERSIAN CAVALRY.# The comparatively advanced position of their centre in front of Erythræ, instead of on the difficult ground south of its site, was probably due to their being largely dependent on the wells of the little town for their supply of water.

[Illustration: THE FIRST POSITION AT PLATÆA.

1. Greek right.

2. Greek centre.

3. Greek left.

4. Site of Erythræ.

5. Pass of Dryoskephalæ.

[_To face page_ 460.

]

◆H. ix. 20.◆

Mardonius, seeing that the Greeks had taken up this position, and that they showed no disposition to come down into the plain, sent against them the whole of his cavalry, under the command of Masistios, a Persian of high reputation. On getting near the Greeks it did not attack in a body,—the deep stream courses opposite the Greek left centre would make that difficult,—but, owing evidently to the narrowness of the front assailable, attacked in squadrons, and did a great deal of damage. The Megareans were drawn up at the most assailable point, and were hard pressed by an assault which evidently aimed at cutting the Greek army in two, and seizing their direct line of retreat by way of the pass. The narrowness of the assailable front appears emphatically in Herodotus’ account of the message the Megareans despatched for assistance. They speak of themselves as being single-handed in the fight, and beg to be relieved from their position. They threaten even that, unless help be sent, they will be obliged to leave their post. Pausanias, who led the great Spartan contingent and commanded the whole army, had some difficulty in finding volunteers for the post of danger. Finally the Athenian picked troops, under the command of Olympiodoros, accompanied by a body of bowmen, undertook to occupy the critical position. Aristides, who commanded the Athenian contingent, would see clearly the pressing nature of the danger. ◆H. ix. 22.◆ The Persians continued their attack by squadrons until their leader, Masistios, had his horse wounded by an arrow. It reared and threw him, close, apparently, to the Greek line of battle; for the Athenians immediately rushed towards him. He was killed, and his horse was captured. The Persians had not noticed the fall of their commander, and it was not until they had retired and had come to a stand-still that the loss was discovered. With shouts of encouragement to one another, the horsemen turned upon the Greeks, eager to gain possession of their leader’s body. They came no longer in squadrons, but in what must have been one column of horse, many ranks in depth. The Athenians called on the rest of the army to aid them, but before the latter came up the attack fell. The Athenians, only three hundred in number, were pressed back from the place where Masistios lay; the fight was too unequal. But when the other Greeks came up the Persian horsemen retired and were obliged to leave the body in the hands of the enemy. After retreating a distance of two stades, they held a consultation, and decided that, having lost their general, the best thing they could do was to retire to the camp.

In this combat the Persian cavalry was evidently taught a severe lesson. They found out the mistake of attacking unshaken heavy infantry at close quarters, a fundamental error in tactics which they did not repeat again in the course of the battle. From this time forward the Persians used their cavalry to inflict damage on the immobile Greek force by assailing it with missiles from a distance, and by cutting its lines of communication. They had learnt their lesson: the Greeks had not.

It is evident that the latter drew a wholly mistaken conclusion from the results of the fight, ◆H. ix. 25.◆ and that their previous fear of the enemy’s cavalry gave place to an unwarranted confidence in their ability to face it on any ground. They were now prepared to carry out tactically that offensive movement which they had begun strategically by their advance into Bœotia. It would seem as if their original design had been to use the Dryoskephalæ-Thebes road as their line of advance, a design which was checked in part by the nervousness originally pervading the greater part of their army as to the result of a rencontre with the Persian cavalry, and still more by the fact that they could see that the fortified Persian camp was saddled, as it were, on their proposed line of advance. From Herodotus’ description it would appear as if that camp were on both sides of the Asopos river, and that the point at which the Thebes-Dryoskephalæ road crosses that river at the present day must have been well within its area.

#MOVEMENT FROM THE FIRST POSITION.#

It was, then, in consequence of their elation at the success which they had won over the Persian cavalry, and probably also in consequence of the decision of the Greek commanders to take the offensive along a line other than that of the direct route to Thebes, that the Greeks moved from the position which they had hitherto occupied. It was plain that in that position no decisive result could be obtained. The extreme importance of this movement makes it necessary that Herodotus’ description of it should be follow with the utmost care:—

◆H. ix. 25.◆

“After this they decided to go down towards Platæa. For the Platæan country seemed to them to be a much more suitable place for encampment than that about Erythræ. It was better supplied with water, and had other advantages. They determined therefore that they must move to that region and to the spring of Gargaphia, which is situated in it, and form a regular encampment. Taking up their arms, therefore, they went along the foot hills of Kithæron by Hysiæ to the Platæan country, and on arriving there they proceeded to take up their order by contingents near the spring of Gargaphia and the precinct of the hero Androkrates, along hills of no great height and level country.”

* * * * *

_The Position of the Persian Camp._

Herodotus (ix. 15) describes the position of the camp as follows: Παρῆκε δὲ αὐτοῦ (Mardonius) τὸ στρατόπεδον ἀρξάμενον ἀπὸ Ἐρυθρέων παρὰ Ὑσίας, κατέτεινε δὲ ἐς τὴν Πλαταιίδα γῆν, παρὰ τὸν Ἀσωπὸν ποταμὸν τεταγμένον. Οὐ μέντοι τό γὲ τεῖχος τοσουτον ἐποιέετο, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐπὶ δέκα σταδίους μάλιστά κῃ μέτωπον ἕκαστον.

Earlier in the same chapter he speaks of the Persian force as having arrived ἐς Σκῶλον, ἐν γῇ τῇ Θηβαίων.

I could not find any traces of the ruins of Skolos; ◆_Vide_ note on p. 449.◆ but if the distance given in the passage of Pausanias (ix. 4, 3) already quoted is in any sense reliable, it lay four and a half miles east of the point where the Platæa-Thebes road crossed the Asopos; that is to say, about a mile and a half east of the Dryoskephalæ-Thebes road. Comparing this statement with Herodotus’ description of the position of the Persian army as stretching from Erythræ and Hysiæ, the conclusion which must be arrived at is that its encampment was on the low ground on either side of the Dryoskephalæ-Thebes road, and on the Asopos river.

The passage in Herodotus (ix. 31) πυθόμενοι τούς Ἓλληνας εἶναι ἐν Πλαταιῇσι, from the use of the word πυθόμενοι, would seem to indicate that the first phase of the second position of the Greeks was not in view of the Persian camp. If so, that camp was on the low ground, and did not extend southward to either of those heights called in the map the Long ridge and the Plateau.

* * * * *

At the risk of appearing to anticipate the evidence, it is necessary for the clear understanding of the somewhat complicated operations of this period of the battle, to state that the movement this indicated is not the _complete_ movement to the second position, nor, consequently, is the position adopted the position finally taken up by the Greeks. That second position had three phases, of which this is the first.

It is possible to follow without difficulty this movement which Herodotus describes. It is evident that the Greek army first matched west along the south or upper part of the ridges[196] which descend from Kithæron towards the plain. Their object was evidently to keep, in so far as possible, on the rocky hill slopes, where their march could not be imperilled or interrupted by cavalry attack. In this march they passed Hysiæ. The position of that small place is not, as has been already said, determinable with certainty; but it seems most probable that its site is to be looked for immediately above the village of Kriekouki, and, if so, it would lie almost on the line of march which Herodotus indicates.

* * * * *

_The Site of Hysiæ._

Tradition gives the site of the modern Kriekouki as that of Hysiæ. Water being so important in this region, it is worthy of notice that, except in case of prolonged drought, Kriekouki is well supplied in this respect, which would render it likely that the site or its immediate neighbourhood would have been chosen for habitation in ancient times. As I have already indicated, I think Hysiæ stood just outside the area of the modern village, to the south of it, _i.e._ higher up the hillside. There is a mound there with a more or less circular enclosure at the top, quite close to the great bend of the loop-road above the Kriekouki. The enclosure may possibly mark the site of the foundations of an ancient φρούριον. Other remains I could not find. Hysiæ was at best but a little place, and, if it stood on that site, whatever remnants of it survived till modern times would inevitably be swept away for the building of the large village of Kriekouki, in whose walls, too, are stones which appear to have been taken from pre-existing buildings. This site accords with the little that is told us in ancient authors of the position of Hysiæ. It lies east of the line of road from Athens to Platæa, at a distance of something less than half a mile. To the traveller coming along the road from Eleutheræ it would therefore be, as Pausanias says (ix. 2, i), “a little to the right of the road.” It is also west of the site of Erythræ, as Herodotus (ix. 15) indicates Hysiæ to have been.

* * * * *

#MOVEMENT TO THE SECOND POSITION.#

After moving some distance westward along the foothills the Greek army must have turned in a north and north-westerly direction to reach the position which Herodotus describes. ◆H. ix. 25.◆ He mentions the spring of Gargaphia and the precinct of Androkrates[197] as the two points defining the position, and indicates clearly what that position was, for the spring may be identified at the present day, and the precinct is referred to in Thucydides’ account of the escape of the two hundred and twelve from Platæa, in such a way that its site must lie somewhere within a comparatively small area of ground.

* * * * *

_The Spring of Gargaphia._

The spring of Alopeki or Apotripi, at the head of the brook A 1, is pointed to by local tradition as the ancient Gargaphia. This spring does not give a very copious supply of water. I believe it does not always run dry in summer; but in August, 1899, after the long drought of that year, it was yielding no water whatever. The state of things in that month was such that the inhabitants of Kriekouki were absolutely dependent for water for themselves and their cattle on a group of springs lying east of Apotripi, distant from it about three-quarters of a mile, and forming the source of Stream A 4. These are the springs which Colonel Leake, rightly, as I firmly believe, identified with Gargaphia. The chief of these springs has, in modern times, been enclosed in a wall. What is quite certain is that one of these two groups is the Gargaphia.

Herodotus says (ix. 49) that the whole Greek army watered from the springs. As the battle took place in September, the greater yield of water from the eastern group of springs supports its identity as against Apotripi.

Herodotus also says (ix. 51) that the “Island” was ten stades from the spring.

Those who have visited the field since I was there in 1892 seem to be agreed that I was right in my identification of the “Island.”

The distance of the eastern springs from the “Island” is just about ten stade. Apotripi is about the same distance from it.

Herodotus says (ix. 52) that the spring was twenty stades from the Ἥραιον which, he says, is πρὸ τῆς πόλιος τῆς Πλαταιέων. The eastern springs are sixteen stades from the approximate position of that temple; Apotripi is but twelve stades off.

It will, I think, be seen that the evidence of Herodotus is in favour of the eastern springs.

_The Precinct of the Hero Androkrates._

The evidence of Thucydides enables us to determine approximately the position of this Heroön. He says (iii. 24) that the two hundred and twelve who escaped made their way from Platæa

“along the road leading to Thebes, having on their right the hero-chapel of Androkrates ... and for six or seven stades the Platæans advanced along the Thebes road, and then, turning, went along the road leading to the mountain to Erythræ and Hysiæ.”

This can only mean that the Heroön was in the angle between the road to Thebes and the road to the mountains; and as these people only went about three-quarters of a mile along the Thebes road, it is evident that, if Thucydides be correct, the Heroön was to the right of the road and within three-quarters of a mile of Thebes. I have marked in the map the conjectural site of the building on the extremity of the last low ridge of the mountain before it sinks into the plain. There are at that point the remains of what has been an oblong building constructed of good squared blocks. I am almost certain that it is Hellenic work.

Mr. W. J. Woodhouse, in a recent number of the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_ (Part I. 1898), dissents from my view as to the position of the Heroön of Androkrates.

His argument is as follows:—

(1) If the Heroön lay hard by the road, constituting a familiar landmark, Thucydides’ remark is pointless.

(2) There were two other roads from Platæa to Thebes, viz. those through Dryoskephalæ and the Pass on the Platæa-Athens road respectively.

(3) Plutarch places the Heroön near the ancient temple of Demeter.

Mr. Woodhouse accordingly suggests that the Heroön stood on the site of the church of St. John, on the Asopos ridge.

I would point out:—

(1) That Thucydides’ language [iii. 24] is not pointless, even if the Heroön be near “the road leading to Thebes,” inasmuch as he indicates a point near the road which the fugitives certainly passed before they turned to the right, and thus diminishes the comparative vagueness of the “six or seven stades” which follow. It does not seem unnatural that he should wish to make quite clear the fact that they passed the Heroön before they turned, _i.e._ that it lay within the angle through which they turned. I would also point out, that it is not the fact of the Heroön being on the right of the _road_, which Thucydides emphasizes, but it being on the right of the _Platæans_ as they went along the road. The site of the church of St. John is eighteen stades from Platæa. Thucydides would hardly say that persons who only went “six or seven stades” along this road ever had that site upon their right hand.

(2) The alternative routes Mr. Woodhouse mentions are alternative routes from Platæa in much the same sense that the route by Bletchley is an alternative railway route from Oxford to London. “The road leading [from Platæa] to Thebes” could only mean the ordinary direct road. An author using that expression would not imagine that his meaning could be doubtful.

(3) Plutarch’s topography of Platæa is quite hopeless. It was evidently not a side of historical inquiry in which he took the slightest real interest

* * * * *

#PRECINCT OF ANDROKRATES.#

There can be little doubt that the Greek army on descending from the hillside of Kithæron proceeded to form in something resembling order of battle on the low ground near the bottom of the depression which extends across the field, or on the flattish ridge which forms the watershed between the Œroë and the Asopos. In this position their left would be near, but probably north of the hero-chapel of Androkrates; their right would be near the Gargaphia. The position of the centre and the right would, moreover, be “on hills of no great height;” that is to say, on the lower ends of the ridges which come down from Kithæron, while their left would be in the plain before Platæa, the “level country” of which Herodotus speaks. On this ground they would be completely hidden from the Persian camp by the intervening ridges to the north of them, which rise a hundred and twenty feet above the Gargaphia spring, and much more than that above the plain of Platæa.

This first phase or development of the second position of the Greeks was probably not of long duration. The nature of the ground provides an explanation of it. After completing this march from the first position, the Greeks seem to have been anxious to form their army in something like order of battle before ascending to the summit of the northern ridges (the Asopos ridge), for on arriving there they would be in full view of the enemy, and at no great distance from the Persian camp. In other words, they deployed their army out of sight of the enemy.

There seems to have been a certain amount of quarrelling between the various contingents as to the order to be taken in the line of battle. #NUMBERS OF THE GREEK ARMY.# Herodotus describes at some length such a dispute between the Tegeans and Athenians as to who should take position on the extreme left; but then he dearly loved that kind of traditional history which he represents the two disputants as having introduced into their arguments.

The matter was decided in favour of the Athenians. It is clear that the Greeks at this time had a high opinion of the fighting qualities of the people which had faced the Persians alone at Marathon.

◆H. ix. 28.◆

The Greek army was now larger in numbers than when it entered Bœotia. Reinforcements had been coming in day by day. The total given by Herodotus at this point in his narrative may be taken to represent the largest number present at any time on the field, though it must not, perhaps, be assumed that all these troops were actually with the army immediately after the first development of the second position had been completed.[198]

The total number amounts to more than a hundred and eight thousand men, of whom more than one-third were heavy-armed infantry. When it is remembered that with the exception of two thousand eight hundred, all the troops were drawn from the Peloponnese, Megara, and Attica, and that, besides these, large numbers of the men of military age were serving on board the fleet at this time, the strenuous nature of the effort which Greece put forth in this year can best be realized. There is one curious point about the list in Herodotus. Manifest as is his admiration for Aristides, it is in this passage only in his long account of Platæa that he mentions him as commander of the Athenian contingent.

After giving the numbers of the various contingents of the Greek army, Herodotus closes the account with a remark which, in view of his previous description of their position as being in the neighbourhood of the precinct of Androkrates and the spring of Gargaphia, is difficult to understand. He says, “These (troops) were drawn up in regular order upon the Asopos.” If by the Asopos is to be understood what is undoubtedly the main stream of that river, the army in the first development of the second position cannot have been even in its immediate neighbourhood, much less upon it. It cannot have been at any point less than a mile and a half distant. The probable explanation is that the name of Asopos was applied by the inhabitants of Platæa, in so far as the upper course of that stream is concerned, to the brook which has its rise in the springs of Apotripi.[199]

#MOVEMENT OF THE PERSIANS.#

◆H. ix. 31.◆

On receiving information of the movement of the Greeks, the Persians moved westward along the Asopos, keeping, as it would appear from subsequent events, to the north of the river. If Herodotus’ language is accurate in wording,[200] it must be understood that this movement was made before the second position of the Greeks had entered upon its second phase; that is, while they were still out of sight of the Persian army behind the line of the northern ridges. Herodotus gives the Persian array in some detail. For all practical purposes of the story of the battle it is sufficient to know that the Persians proper were at this time on the left wing, opposite to the Lacedæmonians on the Greek right, and with a front overlapping that of the Tegeans. The other Asiatics formed the centre, opposite to the smaller Greek contingents, while the Bœotians and other medized Greeks on the Persian right were opposite to the Athenians, Platæans, and Megareans on the Greek left.

◆H. ix. 31.◆

Of the medized Greeks the Phocians were only represented by a fraction of their force. The remainder of that people had refused to medize, and from their strong refuge in Parnassus were evidently doing their best to interrupt the Persian line of communications, an operation for which their position was admirably adapted, as it was on the flank of the route from the north, at that point near Parapotamii and Chæronea where the available is peculiarly restricted.

The total number of the barbarian portion of the Persian army Herodotus gives at three hundred thousand. The numbers of the medized Greeks he does not know, but reckons to have been about fifty thousand. Probably there is an exaggeration in both estimates; but it cannot be very great in the first case. The numbers opposing the Greeks were certainly much superior to their own. The Thessalian element among the medized Greeks, whose numbers may have been very large, renders it impossible to make even a guess at the amount of truth in Herodotus’ estimate.

It is now necessary to consider what was the object of this movement of the Greeks to their second position. The main motive mentioned by Herodotus is the superiority of the water-supply at the new position. No one who has been in this part of Bœotia in the dry season would be inclined to under-estimate the importance of such a motive. But if the question of water had been the only motive, an equally good supply might have been obtained from the Vergutiani spring, and the wells or springs which must have supplied the contemporary town of Platæa. The position taken up in that case would have been beyond the reach of the Persian cavalry—it would, in fact, have been nearly identical with the proposed position at the “Island,” which became a prominent factor in the later developments of the battle.

If the motives given by Herodotus in his account of Platæa be examined, it will be seen that they are obviously those which would suggest themselves to one who had been present at the battle, but who had not been of sufficiently high military rank to be conversant with the designs of those in command. It was on some such man that Herodotus relied for his information; of actual official information he had little or none. He can only say where the army went, what positions it took up, and what were the incidents and issues of the combats which were fought. It is further plain that, as in the case of Thermopylæ, he supplemented this information by a personal examination of the ground.

#THE OFFENSIVE.#

It is, therefore, from the incidents of the battle that a judgment must be formed as to the nature of the design or designs which determined those incidents. In the present instance the three most remarkable factors in the situation were:—

(1) The Greeks had deliberately taken up a position far more advanced than they need have done, if guided by physical conditions alone.

(2) They had, after their march from their original position, deployed their army in order of battle before coming in sight of the enemy.

(3) Their new position was attained, not by a direct forward movement, but by a strong inclination to the left.

The first factor can only be interpreted in the sense that the Greeks intended to assume a vigorous offensive; the second indicates that the attack was to be of the nature of a surprise; the third that it aimed at an assault on the Persian flank.

In judging from the subsequent history of the battle, it seems probable that, had it been possible to carry out this programme in its entirety, the result would have been a great success. It must have led to close fighting; and in close fighting the Greek hoplite was infinitely superior to anything which the Persian could oppose to him. The failure of the plan—for it certainly did fail—was due to the fact that the Persians discovered the movement of the Greeks before the latter were ready to attack; and a surprise was impossible. Moreover, they took up a new position in which they could not be outflanked. This the Greeks must have discovered when they completed the second development of the second position.

This second development of the new position is indicated though not described in Herodotus’ narrative. Had the Greeks remained in the position stretching from the Gargaphia to the Heroön, the Asopos could not have played the part which it did in the subsequent fighting. ◆H. ix. 31.◆ The historian has described the movement of the Persians as having been to “the Asopos, which flows in this part,” that is to say, approximately opposite the new Greek position. The Asopos here must be the stream above and below the point where the brook joins it. ◆But _vide_ note, p. 470. H. ix. 30.◆ The brook to which he has previously applied the name Asopos could not form the obstacle which is implied in the account of the fighting which occurred subsequently.[201] It is evident what the nature of the movement of the Greek army must have been. The whole army, after deploying on the low ground, advanced up the slope of the Asopos ridge. The right must have been to the east of the site of the church of St. John. Westwards the line extended along the curve of the ridge, and the extreme left was probably on the low ground at the north end of the plain of Platæa, though the amount of the extension in this direction must necessarily be a matter of uncertainty. The sight of the Persian army drawn up on the far side of the Asopos, which must have met the eyes of the Greeks when they reached the summit of the ridge, would clearly demonstrate to them that the attempted surprise had failed. The position for the moment was, indeed, one of stalemate; ◆H. ix. 33–37.◆ and that this was recognized by both sides is shown by Herodotus’ tale of the sacrifices offered in both camps on the day subsequent to the attainment of the position. The conclusions drawn from them were favourable to the maintenance of the defensive, but unfavourable to the adoption of the offensive by crossing the Asopos. It may be suspected that the Greek commanders assisted in the interpretation of the omens. Mardonius also had a prophet in his employ, a Greek from Elis, whose previous treatment by the Spartans had been such as to guarantee his loyalty to any cause opposed to theirs. He also advised the maintenance of the defensive, and his advice accorded with that of a third prophet who accompanied the medized Greeks. Prophecy and tactics combined had brought matters to an _impasse_ for the time being.

◆H. ix. 38, 39.◆

Eight days thus passed without, apparently, any active operations being undertaken by either side. The Greeks profited most by the delay. Reinforcements to their army kept coming in through the passes in their rear, and their numbers were considerably increased. #EFFECTIVENESS OF PERSIAN CAVALRY.# Mardonius’ attention was called to this fact by a Theban named Timegenides, who suggested that the Persian cavalry should be sent to assail the bands traversing the pass of Dryoskephalæ. The advice was taken, and on the very next night the cavalry was despatched. The fatal weakness of the new Greek position was now made apparent. On its right flank a wide space of practicable ground, traversed, moreover, by the Thebes-Dryoskephalæ road, had been left open, by which the Persian cavalry could without difficulty and without opposition reach the mouth not merely of the Dryoskephalæ pass, but also of that other pass on the Platæa-Athens road, the only two really effective lines of the Greek communications. The Greek army, by taking up so advanced a position, had ceased to cover those passes, and even the Platæa-Megara pass was but imperfectly protected.

The cavalry raid met with immediate and startling success. A Greek provision-train of five hundred pack animals, with their drivers and, presumably, their escort, was annihilated at the mouth of the Dryoskephalæ pass.

◆H. ix. 40.◆

During the two next days there was a good deal of skirmishing on the main line of the Asopos, but neither side crossed the stream, so that no decisive result was arrived at. This form of fighting was nevertheless distinctly disadvantageous to the Greeks, who suffered from the missiles of the Persian cavalry without being able to retaliate in any decisive fashion. The Asopos is not a large stream, and at this time of year would be easily traversable at any point. Its bed is sufficiently deep to render it a serious obstacle to the passage of cavalry, if the crossing were disputed, but an undisputed passage could be made without difficulty at almost any point of this part of its course.

◆H. ix. 41.◆

Mardonius was becoming impatient at the indecisive character of the operations. The two armies had now been for eleven days facing one another on either side of the Asopos. He had evidently made up his mind that this state of things could not continue, and that a movement of some kind must be made. Artabazos, who had commanded at the siege of Potidæa, advised withdrawal to Thebes, which was only six miles north of their position; it was strongly fortified, and, as the Persian base of operations, was, so he said, amply provided with supplies.[202] ◆H. ix. 41, _ad fin._◆ He pointed out that they were possessed of ample funds wherewith a campaign of bribery among the leading men of the Greek states might be instituted. The Thebans advocated the same line of action. They knew their countrymen; so apparently did Herodotus, as his language shows. Mardonius, however, would have none of such advice; he believed his army to be a better fighting machine than that of the Greeks; and it is impossible not to recognize the truth of his view as matters then stood.

A certain amount of light seems to be thrown on this reported discussion between the Persian commanders by an incident which Herodotus reports to have occurred on the night of the same day. Alexander the Macedonian, who has already appeared prominently in the history of this time as Mardonius’ representative in the recent negotiations with the Athenians, is said to have ridden up to the line of the Greek outposts and to have demanded speech with the commanders of the army.[203] After reciting his attachment to the Greek cause, he made one startling revelation as to the state of things in the Persian army, which, if true, would go far to explain the subsequent course of events, and mould put a new complexion upon the advice which Artabazos is represented to have given. He said that he believed Mardonius intended to attack on the following day. If he deferred doing so, the Greeks were not to retire from their position, because the Persian supplies are running short. #EVOLUTIONS.# If this statement is true, it accounts for the pronounced offensive which Mardonius assumed from this time forward; and, if the enormous difficulties under which the Persians laboured as to their line of communications be taken into consideration, it is extremely probable that it was true. The action of the Phocian refugees away northward was sure to make itself felt in this department of the war.

This part of Herodotus’ narrative takes the form of a series of scenes in which the various prominent actors on either side are introduced upon the stage and use language suitable to the situation; but, though unreliable in form, it can hardly be doubted that these tales indicate in a more or less direct way the actual course of events. That tale among them which is least easy to understand or explain relates to what passed in the Greek camp after Alexander’s message had been reported to the generals.

Pausanias, as commander of the Spartans, is reported to have been alarmed at the prospect of an attack on the following day, and to have proposed to the Athenians that they should exchange places in the line with the Spartans, in order that they might then face the Persian contingent of whose fighting they had had experience at Marathon. The Athenians accepted the proposal willingly; they even said they had been on the point of making it themselves. The exchange was made; but the Bœotians, who noticed it, reported the matter to Mardonius, who made a corresponding change in his own line The Greeks, noticing this, returned to their original order.

As an account of what actually happened this can hardly be taken literally. It seems to refer to some evolution which either Herodotus or his informant did not understand, though what that evolution was it is impossible to say. The Athenian element in the story is evident.

◆H. ix. 48.◆

The tale which follows, that Mardonius sent a challenge to the Spartans to fight an equal number of his army, cannot be taken as serious history. Mardonius was well aware that until the Greek infantry were thoroughly shaken by his cavalry it would be unwise to assail them with the Persian foot-soldiers. His action which immediately followed shows this quite clearly. ◆H. ix. 49.◆ He intended,—it may be under the stress of necessity,—to take the offensive in some form. It was probably a case of victory or withdrawal. That being so, he despatched the whole of his numerous cavalry against the Greek army. Herodotus describes the attack in language which leaves no doubt as to the gravity of the situation which it created.

“When the cavalry rode up, they harassed the whole Greek army by hurling javelins and shooting arrows, being horsebowmen, who could not be brought to close combat. The spring of Gargaphia, too, from which the whole Greek army got water, they spoiled and filled up. Lacedæmonians alone were in position by the spring; it was at some distance from the various positions of the rest of the Greeks, while the Asopos was near them. Being driven back, however, from the Asopos, they resorted to the spring, for it was not possible for them to get water from the river, owing to the cavalry and bowmen.”[204]

This remarkable passage indicates with singular clearness what took place at this exceedingly critical moment of the battle. The Greek left was forced by the cavalry to retire from the Asopos, where they had on previous days been skirmishing with the enemy, and to take refuge on the Asopos ridge away from the flat ground.[205] The second position of the Greeks attained, in other words, its third phase or development, in which the whole Greek army was confined to a position on the summit of the ridge.

On the extreme right matters were no less serious. #CAVALRY ATTACK OF THE PERSIANS.# The cavalry had got round the Greek flank to the Gargaphia spring, and after driving away what was probably a Lacedæmonian detachment on guard there, had rendered the spring unserviceable. The Greek army was consequently without water, and its retirement from the position could be at most a question of hours.

The situation of the Greek army was as critical as it well could be. Between them and the rough ground at the immediate foot of the mountain lay a band of country over which cavalry could ride; and they were cut off, not merely from their water supply, but also from the lines of communication afforded by the three passes. ◆Cf. H. ix. 50.◆ The convoys were blocked by the Persian cavalry, and were unable to reach the camp.

◆Cf. H. ix. 51, _ad init._ and 52, _ad init._◆

This fierce attack seems to have lasted two days. On the morning of the second day a Council of War was held, and it was decided, if the attack were not renewed that day, to move to a position which Herodotus calls the “Island.” The attack was, however, renewed, and the movement had to be postponed.[206]

The passage in which Herodotus describes and explains the nature of the proposed movement is not merely of the greatest importance in the history of the battle, but is perhaps still more important as showing the pains which he took to get as accurate a knowledge as possible of the scenes of the greatest events which he describes. It is peculiarly noticeable in the case of Thermopylæ, and it is not less noticeable in this account of Platæa. It is impossible to conceive that he should have been able to write the description of the “Island,” unless he had actually seen the ground. His informant as to the incidents of the battle cannot be presumed to have described it to him, since no part of the Greek army ever attained the position, and he cannot therefore be supposed to have seen it.

“At a meeting of the Greek generals,” he says, “it was determined, should the Persians omit to renew the attack that day, to go to the Island. It is ten stades distant from the Asopos and from the spring of Gargaphia, at which they were at the time stationed, in front of the city of Platæa. This is how there comes to be an island on the mainland: the river, flowing from Kithæron divides high up the hill, and then flows down towards the plain, the streams being about three stades distant from one another, and then they join.... The name of the (combined) stream is Œroë.... To this position they determined to move, in order that they might have a plentiful water-supply, and the cavalry might not do them damage as when drawn up on their front. They determined to move in the second watch of the night,[207] so that the Persians might not see them leaving their position, and their cavalry might not pursue them, and throw them into confusion. They determined, further, on arriving at the new position, which the Œroë, daughter of the Asopos, encloses in its course from Kithæron, to send the half of their army in the course of the night to Kithæron, in order that it might rescue the service corps which had gone for provisions; for it was blocked in Kithæron.”

[Illustration: PLATÆA: “ISLAND,” FROM SIDE OF KITHÆRON.

1. Foot of Helicon.

2. Parnassos.

3. Plain of Platæa.

4. “Island.”

[_To face page_ 480.

]

* * * * *

_Note on the Position of the “Island.”_

In order to understand this very important passage, it is necessary to examine the evidence, both documentary and topographical, as to the position of the νῆσος or Island. It will be well to tabulate the facts which Herodotus mentions with regard to it.

(1) It is ten stades from the Asopos.

(2) It is ten stades from the spring of Gargaphia.

(3) It is πρὸ τῆς τῶν Πλαταιέων πόλιος.

(4) The river divides ἄνωθεν ἐκ τοῦ Κιθαιρῶνος, and flows down into the plain.

(5) The streams are ὅσνπερ τρία στάδια distant from one another.

(6) The streams afterwards join one another.

(7) The name of the river is Œroë.

(8) There was a plentiful water supply at the νῆσος.

#THE ISLAND.#

(9) The cavalry could not annoy the Greeks there, ὥσπερ κατιθὺ ἐόντων.

Both Leake (“Northern Greece”) and Vischer (“Erinnerungen aus Griechenland”) identify a strip of flat ground, lying in the plain due north of the site of the town of Platæa between two of the stream-beds of the Œroë, as the “Island” of which Herodotus speaks.

This identification may be tested by the facts given by Herodotus:

(1) This piece of ground is ten stades from A 1, which, as I have said, is apparently the upper part of the Asopos of Herodotus. (It is thirteen or fourteen stades from the branch of the river which comes down from Leuktra.)

(2) It is considerably over ten stades, viz. fifteen or sixteen stades, from the spring which Leake identifies, rightly, as I think, with the Gargaphia.

(3) It is before or in full view of the city of Platæa.

(4) The words used by Herodotus do not seem to be those which he might have been expected to use in describing this piece of land. The streams divide at a point more than two miles above this.

(5) (6) (7) are adequately fulfilled by it.

It is when we come to (8) and (9), which are the very reasons stated by Herodotus for the movement to the “Island,” that the position indicated absolutely fails to accord with the conditions.

In respect to water supply it is conspicuously deficient; and of the three streams which cross the plain at this point one was absolutely dry at the time of my visit (Dec., 1892); and this one was that which would have formed the side of the “Island” towards the Persian army, viz. O 1.

The second contained water, but in a much less quantity than before it entered the plain. The third contained water also, but not in any quantity.

This was at a period of peculiarly heavy rains.

In September all of them would almost certainly be dry by the time they reached this part of the plain. O 1, being a pure drainage stream, would be, under ordinary circumstances, dry along its whole course at that time of year.

There would, under no conceivable circumstances, have been water enough in this conjectured νῆσος, at that time of year, to supply an army one-tenth the number of the Greek force. We cannot even assume exceptionally heavy rain (a most extraordinary circumstance in the month of September), for in that case the lands of the Asopos would have been impassable for cavalry, and even infantry would have been unable to cross them. I speak from personal experience. I wanted to get down to the river, in order to get points of survey upon it, since its course is not distinguishable with certainty, even from a furlong off; but after getting into plough, into which I sank above my knees, and after my Albanian servant had come down and nearly disappeared with my plane table, I gave it up. I could not reach it at that point; and that part of the Asopos had to remain marked in my map by a dotted line which, although it gives the course very nearly, does not pretend to the same accuracy as the rest of the map.

Condition (9) really contains two conditions.

(1) The Persian cavalry could not damage the Greeks so much in the former position, because—

(2) They would not attack them on the front

Applying (1) to this conjectured νῆσος, I have no hesitation in saying that the stream-beds which bound it afford no serious obstacles to cavalry for at least ninety out of every hundred yards of their course. A horse could cross them in most places without even easing from its gallop, and, apart from this, the effectiveness of the recent attacks of the Persian cavalry had been due to the fact that it had been fighting with missiles and not at close quarters, as Herodotus expressly says. The Greeks could not have faced them across a watercourse a yard or two broad, so as to be able to prevent their passing it, even had the passage been a work of some difficulty to a mounted man. If further argument on this point be necessary, I can only say that it is impossible to conceive how the generals of the Greeks, having found the Asopos an utterly insufficient protection, could have supposed that the army would be in safety behind these much slighter watercourses. Have the stream-beds altered in character? If any alteration has taken place, it can only have taken the form of the raising of the plain by earth brought down from the uplands, the result of which would be that the channels would be deeper now than at the time of the battle.

Condition (9, 2).—Had the Greek position been on this ground, the attack would certainly have been on the front.

[Illustration: BŒOTIAN PLAIN, FROM PLATÆA-MEGARA PASS.]

[Illustration: PLATÆA—WEST SIDE OF Νῆσος.

[_To face page_ 482.

]

There is another point mentioned by Herodotus which is very difficult to reconcile with the location of the νῆσος in the position in which Leake and Vischer place it. #“ISLAND” OF LEAKE AND VISCHER.# He says (ix. 56) that when the Athenians and Lacedæmonians did actually begin their movement thither, οἱ μὲν (the Lacedæmonians) τῶν τε ὄχθων ἀντείχοντο καὶ τῆς ὑπωρέης του Κιθαιρῶνος, φοβεόμενοι τὴν ἵππον. Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ κάτω τραφ θέντες ἐς τὸ πεδίον, etc.

Since the Lacedæmonians, had they marched direct from the Asopos ridge to this νῆσος, would not have had to traverse a longer stretch of ἱππάσιμος χῶρος than if they had gone round by the ὑπωρέη (_vide_ map), it is difficult to see why they should have adopted the infinitely more circuitous route.

I do not, however, wish to lay too much stress upon this argument, as I believe the real object of the course taken by the Spartans to have been the relief of the convoys blocked up in the pass on the Platæa-Athens road, a reason which may be deduced from Herodotus’ own words in describing the decision to move to the “Island” (ix. 51)—“They determined, on arriving at this place (the ‘Island’), to send off half the army towards Kithæron in the course of this night, to recover the attendants who had gone after the provisions, they being blocked up in Kithæron.”

It does not seem likely that, after the damage which they had suffered in the second position, they could have come to the decision to send off from the νῆσος of Leake and Vischer one half of the army to the pass. It would be obliged to march across a mile of ἱππάσιμος χῶρος between Platæa and Ridge 4, and to venture itself, at a distance of from two and a half to three miles from the remainder of the army.

The reason which mainly influenced both Leake and Vischer in thus determining the site of the νῆσος was no doubt the question of distance from the Asopos. They assumed that when Herodotus used that name he meant the stream coming from Leuktra and the west. It is almost beyond doubt that he does not mean this stream. The Asopos to him was the stream A 1 with the main stream below the junction of A 1; and it is extremely likely that what was the Asopos to him was also the Asopos to the Platæans. It is only necessary to stand on the site of Platæa and look northward over the plain in order to understand how this nomenclature would arise. The course of A 1 is traceable all along the west foot of the Asopos ridge; but the upper course of the main stream is undistinguishable unless the river be in flood.

As this piece of ground fails in such important particulars to harmonize with Herodotus’ account of the “Island,” it remains to be considered whether it is possible to apply his description to any other part of the field.

One fact is quite evident from Herodotus: the “Island” lay between the branches of the Œroë.

I think it is to be found high up in the interval between the branch streams, at the point indicated in the map, and that it consisted of Ridge 4, and possibly of Ridge 3 also. Any one who takes the higher track from Kriekouki to Kokla cannot fail to be struck by the peculiarity of the ground, should he happen to look down towards the plain at the point where the road passes close to the narrow strip of land which separates the sources of the streams O 1 and O 3. These sources, as will be seen from the map, are close together, and the ridge which separates them is quite low at the narrowest part. The stream O 3 (east branch) flows down towards the plain at first in a deep valley with a very steep slope towards the “Island,” which valley it leaves at the point where the streams which unite to form O 3 have their junction. From this point it flows beneath the “Island,” which rises steeply above it, whereas on the other side of the stream, _i.e._ on the west side, the ground slopes quite gradually up to the rounded back of the low-lying Ridge 5.

The stream O 1 flows down to the plain in a deep depression.

It is true that at the present day these streams do not join immediately on reaching the plain; but to show how possible it is that their courses in the flat alluvial ground may have altered again and again, within certain limits, in the course of time, I may mention that when Colonel Leake visited this ground, the stream O 2 did not join O 3 at the point where it now joins it, but was a separate stream from it at the point where the Kokla-Thebes track passes the branches of the Œroë, _i.e._ more than a mile below their present junction.

There is another very striking point about this piece of ground, which is noticeable in its contouring in the map. Its insular character is, if I may so say, emphasized by a large hillock which rises on it close to O 3, and which is a most prominent object, especially when viewed from Platæa itself. This hillock may be identified by any one visiting the ground, owing to its having on the south slope of it a white building, the only building existing between Kriekouki and Kokla.

#THE “ISLAND.”#

It will be found on examination of the evidence that this locality corresponds most closely with the description of the “Island,” given by Herodotus, and furthermore that the incidents of the battle, as related by Herodotus, support in a remarkable degree the hypothesis that this is the island which he describes. It may be compared with the nine conditions deducible from Herodotus with the following result:—

(1) It is, like the “Island” of Leake and Vischer, ten stades from the stream A 1, the Asopos of Herodotus.

(2) It is, unlike their “Island,” ten stades from the Gargaphia spring.

(3) It may be peculiarly well described as being πρὸ τῆς τῶν Πλαταιέων πόλιος.

(_a_) Because, the site of Platæa city has a slope this way, in fact, “verges” towards the east, as well as towards the north.

(b) Because, looking at it from the site of Platæa across the low Ridge 5, it [especially the hillock] stands out in a remarkable way.

(4) The division of the streams ἄνωθεν ἐκ τοῦ Κιθαιρῶνος, whether it be taken as that between O 1 and O 3, or between O 1 and O 2, is peculiarly striking in either case, the head waters of the streams nearly touching.

(5) O 3 and O 2 are three stades from one another. O 3 and O 1 are nearly four stades.

(6) The streams _do_ join now, but may well have joined at a point higher up their course at the time at which the battle was fought.

(7) The streams are the head waters of the Œroë.

(8) The water-supply of O 3 is derived, as will be seen, from seven streams. On these streams are two large springs, one of which is called by Leake the spring of Vergutiani, ◆Paus ix. 2, 3.◆ and is apparently the πηγή of Pausanias. Beside these two springs there are numerous smaller ones, and O 3 as it passes beneath the hillock on the “Island,” is quite a large stream; but, like the other streams which flow to the plain, its volume goes on decreasing the further it gets into the flat country.

(9_a_) Reference to the map will show how well the condition is fulfilled by the ground. The position would be unassailable by cavalry on south and west. On the west, the slope of the “Island” is very steep indeed; on the east of the valley of the stream O 1 is deep. It would seem, too, from the large accumulation of rocks and stones which have been removed from the cultivated land at this part, as if this Eastern slope of the “Island” was till recent times of the same nature as the rocky hillside of Kithæron.

If, however, O 2 be taken as the boundary of the “Island,” then there would be this rocky ground on the far side of it The valley of O 2 is not, however, so deep as that of O 1.

The only point, then, at which this ground would be assailable by cavalry would be at the north end or bottom of the slope. This brings me to the second part of Condition 9.

(9_a_) The last fact mentioned explains Herodotus’ words, ὥσπερ κατιθὺ ἐόντων.

Such, then, are the reasons, taken from Herodotus, which induce me to take what may appear to be, and is, I confess, a very decided view as to the position of the ground called the “Island.”

I think, too, that there are other considerations of a strategic character which support this view.

A brief examination of the map will show that it would have been difficult for the Greek generals to have chosen a spot in the whole neighbourhood of Platæa which would have rendered their position in case of disaster a more hopeless one than it would have been had they withdrawn to the “Island” of Leake and Vischer. The possibility of disaster must have been very present to their minds at the time at which the decision was made to move to the “Island.”

Herodotus’ description of the state of the army under the continued attacks of the Persian cavalry is brief but graphic. Its position was, beyond doubt, exceedingly serious. But what would have been its position had disaster overtaken it on that tongue of land in the plain of Platæa? It would in the first place have been surrounded by the Persian cavalry, since the ground between it and Platæa, a considerable stretch of land, is all ιππάσιμος χῶρος, and to all intents and purposes absolutely flat. Supposing even that it did try to cut its way out, it would have been obliged either to retreat to the west towards the Corinthian Gulf, or to make its way to one of the passes. In either case the result must have been the practical, if not actual, ruin of the Greek army.

The way to the Corinthian Gulf, however, would be outside all calculation, since—

#MOVEMENT TO THE “ISLAND.”#

(1) There was no fleet in the gulf which could possibly have transported even a small fraction of the force across it

(2) The only path across Kithæron west of Platæa must, from Xenophon’s description (Xen. Hell. v. 4; and vi. 4), have been an exceedingly difficult one. It is, moreover, some nine or ten miles distant from Platæa. It cannot, in fact, have ever entered into the calculations of the Greek generals.

As regards the three passes which lead on to the field, can we, if we bear in mind the condition of the Greek army at the time of the movement, suppose for a moment that the Greek generals would move to a position farther away from the passes than they were before the movement began? Surely their natural course would be to retire to the higher ground, where they would be in comparative safety from the Persian cavalry, and where, in the position I have indicated, they would be exactly between the passes on the Platæa-Megara and Platæa-Athens roads respectively, and where, too, they would be in easy communication with both by way of the rocky part of the Kithæron slope.

The last piece of evidence bearing on this point is afforded by the remarkable tale of Amompharetos, the Spartan officer who refused to move from the second position with the rest of the Lacedæmonian force. The reason which prompted (H. ix. 53) him in his refusal is stated by Herodotus to have been the disgrace of retreating before the enemy.

The feeling is hardly comprehensible if the movement was to be to the “Island” in the plain; it is comprehensible if it was to be towards Kithæron, since he might well suspect that the real design of Pausanias was to retreat through the mountain into Attica.

* * * * *

At the time at which this resolution was taken the Greeks were for the moment a beaten army. What might have happened had the proposed movement ever become an actual fact cannot of course be said, but it is extremely probable that a leakage through the passes would have commenced, by which its numbers would have been so rapidly reduced that an absolute withdrawal from Bœotia would have shortly become necessary. Had that been the case, Northern Greece must have been lost. It would have been very difficult after what had happened to keep together so composite a force in an advanced but purely defensive position. As far as the Greek generals were concerned, their design, doubtless, was to remain on the defensive in Bœotia, now that their offensive strategy had not met with success, and to starve the enemy out of the country. Alexander of Macedon had reported to them the approaching failure of the Persian supplies.

They had failed in attempting to take the offensive in a country which was peculiarly adapted for the operations of cavalry. They had been led by the success they had achieved in the first position into the mistake of remaining in a position which could only be justified by an active offensive, not recognizing that their success on that occasion had been due to the wrong use which Mardonius or Masistios had made of their numerous cavalry. The passes formed, as it were, their immediate base; and they had not recognized that by leaving an interval between themselves and that base they exposed their line of communications to the attacks of an arm against whose mobility they had nothing to match, and had rendered themselves assailable from all sides by a mode of assault which made it impossible for them to retaliate in adequate fashion. It was their first experience of the possibilities of cavalry action on a large scale; and it is noticeable that in the many subsequent years of warfare with Persia in that century they never again willingly exposed themselves to the possibility of such a reverse as they had suffered in the second position at Platæa.

The curious piece of land, with its curious name of the “Island,” which was fixed upon by the Greek commanders as the goal of the proposed movement, is easily recognizable at the present day, owing to the accuracy with which Herodotus describes it. It is one of those ridges which extend northwards into the plain from the foot of the rocky slope of Kithæron; but it is remarkable among them for two peculiarities. #LAST HOURS ON THE ASOPOS RIDGE.# The streams which bound it on either side have their sources on the mountain slope above it within but a few yards of one another, so that it may be said to be all but surrounded by water; and the ordinarily rounded back of these northward stretching ridges is varied in this case by a steep and very noticeable natural mound which rises upon it. It is nearly two miles due south of the ridge which formed the Greek second position, and about one mile due east of the town of Platæa. As a position it offered the distinct advantage of being within touch of the Platæa-Athens and Platæa-Megara passes, and of affording the army comparative immunity from cavalry attack.

The Greek commanders were disappointed in their hope or expectation that the cavalry attack would not be renewed on that day, on the morning of which the Council of War was held. The Persians had plain evidence of the effectiveness of the method they were employing; and for the whole of a second day the Greeks had to support a series of assaults without being able to inflict any proportionate damage on the foe. Those who have been in the plains of Bœotia during the heat of the late summer and early autumn will best appreciate the terrible hardships which the army suffered. For at least forty hours it must have been wholly cut off from water, and for a considerable part of that time must have been undergoing severe exertion and supporting severe losses under a burning sun upon that dusty, rolling plain. It is evident indeed that the Persian cavalry withdrew during the night; but they had, before doing so, rendered the Gargaphia spring unusable. The longed-for darkness came at last, and at the appointed hour the movement began. It began, indeed,—but it ended vary differently from what had been intended. With the exception of the Spartans and Athenians, the Greek army, without waiting for further orders, started off in haste at the time appointed, —but not to the “Island,” so says Herodotus. They never even thought of so doing, but were glad to take refuge just outside the town of Platæa, around the temple of Hera.[208]

It is quite plain that Herodotus believed that the centre of the Greek army fled in something resembling a panic, and neither obeyed, nor intended to obey, orders. When the story is examined it is found to contain several features which are very difficult to reconcile with the colouring which Herodotus has given to it. If these Greeks intended to fly, why did they not make directly for the Platæa-Megara pass, which must have been open? Why did they go to Platæa?

Having gone thither, why did they not seize upon the town?

It has been suggested that in going thither they were carrying out orders, and that the position at the Heræon was part of the position of which the “Island” was another part. The nature of the ground between the two positions, and their distance apart, does not render this very probable.

The probability is that, like so many stories of incidents in Greek history, this particular one has suffered from the exaggeration of some of its true details, and the loss of others.

It is not strange that the events of the last two days’ fighting on the Asopos ridge should have created disposition to panic throughout the Greek army. Doubtless such a disposition did exist, and showed itself in the hurried departure of a large portion of the army. But even Herodotus does not say that the departure was premature. So far, the tale may give a true representation of the facts of the case. #RETIREMENT OF GREEK CENTRE.# What in all probability took place was that the retiring force started without taking due precautions to ascertain the exact line of retreat, or to provide itself with guides who could lead it amid the darkness of the night to the position which had been appointed as the rendezvous of the army. If that were so, a mistake was not merely possible, but almost inevitable. In that country of rise and fall which lies between Kithæron and the Asopos, one slope resembles another, and one stream is similar in character to its neighbours, so that there is a conspicuous absence of those landmarks which may serve as a guide to one who traverses it by night.

It is not difficult to imagine their position when they found themselves at the Heræon. They must have arrived there in the night, and may have thought it well to wait until dawn disclosed the true position of the rallying point of the Greek army. From the Heræon the “Island” would be full in sight, when the advance of daylight had rendered the surrounding country visible. But the dawn can have brought but little comfort to them. It is more easy to realize the scene that met their eyes than the intensity of this anxiety which that scene aroused. Away to the east the “Island”—empty, unoccupied. To the north-east the Persian army pouring in streams over the ridge which they had evacuated during the night, and from the hollow beneath that ridge two clouds of dust arising, sole indication of the terrible struggle which was going on beyond the intervening ridges. This is not merely a picture of the imagination and no more. It is what these men _must_ have seen from their position at Platæa; for the narrative of Herodotus indicates with sufficient clearness the time and the locality of the battles which were fought on that fatal morning by the right and left wings of the Greek army.

It would be unjustifiable to pass a decisive judgment on the conduct of those Greeks. The extent of their cowardice is not indeed calculable. The tradition which Herodotus followed tended manifestly to depict the whole attitude of the Peloponnesian Greeks, both on this and other occasions in the war, in the most unfavourable light. There can be little doubt that the tradition was Athenian in origin.

It is not, however, necessary to assume that in this or any other particular instance the truth was distorted in order to cloke Athenian failings. The animosities of that later time at which Herodotus wrote his history are quite sufficient to account for the discoloration of facts, and in this particular instance there does not appear to be any valid reason for supposing that the Athenians had anything to conceal.

Much had happened during the night of which the Greek centre was wholly unaware.

Pausanias on the right wing, on seeing that the troops in the centre had begun the movement of retirement, gave orders to the Spartans to do the same. He supposed that the other Greeks would, according to orders, withdraw to the “Island;” and, as has been seen, it is probable that the latter had every intention of so doing.

A question now arises which is of very great importance with regard to the history of the battle. Was it the intention of Pausanias that his Spartans on the right wing should likewise withdraw direct to the “Island,” or did he intend to carry out some other operation before joining the rest of the army in that position? Herodotus, whose attention is at this point in his narrative distracted by the not unimportant tale of Amompharetos, makes no direct statement on the subject, but he furnishes sufficient indirect evidence to render it almost certain that the march of the Spartans neither was, nor was intended to be, directed straight to the “Island,” but aimed first at the accomplishment of a design which was at the moment of the utmost importance to the army. It is further noticeable that the indirect evidence of Herodotus is peculiarly supported by the light which is thrown upon the further incidents of the battle by the topography of the field.

In describing the resolution to move to the “Island,” Herodotus, it will be remembered, says that it was the intention of the Greek commanders to send half the army to relieve the provision trains which were blocked in the passes; and the other evidence shows that the Spartans’ movement from the second position had this immediate object in view.[209]

#OBSTINACY OF AMOMPHARETOS.#

When, therefore, Pausanias saw the Greek centre was starting for the “Island,” he gave orders to his division of forty thousand Spartans and helots to move also, intending to march towards the pass on the Platæa-Athens road, and, possibly, towards Dryoskephalæ pass also. For the moment, however, his plan was completely upset by the obstinacy and insubordination of one of his captains, Amompharetos, who, so Herodotus says, commanded the Pitanate division of the Lacedæmonian force.[210] The refusal to obey was evidently based on the supposition that the withdrawal from the position was nothing less than a preliminary to a retreat.[211] Orders and expostulations proving alike unavailing, persuasion was tried, but with no better effect. The whole night seems to have been wasted in the dispute, for it was not until day was dawning that Pausanias moved away, reluctant to leave the regiment to its fate, but hoping that when Amompharetos found himself alone he would make up his mind to follow. The Tegeans accompanied the Spartans in their movement.

That movement is described in some detail by Herodotus. While the Athenians, who had been suspiciously waiting for the Spartans to move, turned down towards the plain, the latter kept to the hills, and made for the slopes of Kithæron, from fear of the Persian cavalry.[212] Amompharetos, on seeing that the rest of the Spartan army was leaving him in good earnest, started slowly after it, which movement being perceived by Pausanias, he stopped the main body in order to wait for him. He had by that time advanced ten stades, or a little more than a mile, from his previous position, and he waited at a place which is described as having been near the river Moloeis, in what was called the Argiopian country, where was a temple of Eleusinian Demeter.

* * * * *

_The Temple of Eleusinian Demeter, etc._

Herodotus, in the words recently quoted, gives the following facts:—

(1) That Pausanias, with the main body of the Spartans, advanced ten stades, and then waited for Amompharetos and his regiment.

(2) That he waited at the river Moloeis, in what is called the Argiopian country.

(3) That there is a temple of Eleusinian Demeter in that part.

To which may be added from an earlier chapter:—

(4) Pausanias, after failing to persuade Amompharetos, starts at dawn: his movements Herodotus describes as having been as follows:—

◆H. ix. 56.◆

“He gave the signal and led away the whole of the rest of his force through the hills; the Tegeans also followed him.... For the Lacedæmonians intended to keep to the hilly ground and the foot-slopes of Kithæron, because they feared the cavalry.”

#TEMPLE OF ELEUSIAN DEMETER.#

Circumstances (1) and (2) may be taken together.

This is the first mention of the river Moloeis.

Nothing is known of the position of the Argiopian country; but it may be surmised that it had some more or less striking characteristic which caused it to be called by a special name.

Any identification of these two geographical features must be a matter of extreme uncertainty.

After my stay at Kriekouki in 1892–1893, I was disposed to identify the brook A 5 with the river Moloeis. I am inclined, after revisiting the country in August, 1899, to think that the brook A 6 is more probably the stream mentioned by Herodotus. It is the largest of the streams which traverse the field, save, of course, the Asopos itself, and Leake, in his map, assigns to it the name of the main stream. Though the Spartan army after advancing ten stades from the Asopos ridge would not be actually on this brook, yet, even granting to the measurement given a greater accuracy than perhaps it can claim, the position attained might be described as περὶ ποταμὸν Μολόεντα.

The matter, however, is so uncertain, that it is impossible to insist on either of these two identifications against the other.

The name Argiopian has been supposed to mean “white rock,” and, adopting this interpretation, one visitor to the region has discovered that there is a patch of white rock on the side of Kithæron which is a prominent object from the plain. As we were in August, 1899, encamped in the plain near the head of brook A 5, I had ample opportunity for observing the north slope of Kithæron. No such patch was then visible on the dull grey-green rock slopes of the mountain. As to the interpretation of the name I am, I confess, sceptical. The interpretation of place-names in Greece, as elsewhere, is a most dangerous though fascinating pastime; and it is but too often the case that the most obvious interpretation is the most incorrect. All, I think, that can be safely assumed in the present instance is that the Argiopian country was a stretch of land marked off in some way from its surroundings, and I venture to think that either the Long Ridge or the Plateau has sufficient peculiarities, _quâ_ ground, to render it possible that either of them might in ancient times have been known by a distinctive local name.

The temple of Eleusinian Demeter is a more important landmark in the history of the battle.

I venture to think that the ruins of the church of St. Demetrion are probably on or near the site of that temple, and that the τέμενος of the temple was on the flat top of that mound of the Long Ridge. The reasons which may be adduced for this identification are as follows:—

(_a_) The Christians, in cases in which they adopted an ancient temple, or the site of an ancient temple, for a church, were apt, in dedicating the new sanctuary, to make a pious pun on the dedication of the pre-existing pagan shrine. This kind of nomenclature has been peculiarly common in Greece.

(_b_) It is true that Pausanias mentions several temples of Eleusinian Demeter as having existed in this immediate neighbourhood, no one of which can be supposed to have stood in this position.

But it is also clear that the temple mentioned by Herodotus is not any one of these mentioned by Pausanias.

Cf. Paus. ix. 4, 2, at Platæa; ix. 4, 3, at Skolos; ix. 9, 1, Grove of Demeter at Potniæ on the road from Thebes to Platæa, ten stades from Thebes, _i.e._ about sixty stades from Platæa.

The omission of Pausanias to mention the one to which I refer may possibly be accounted for by the fact that it lay, if I am right, _not_ near the great road from Athens to Thebes, _viâ_ Dryoskephalæ, but near the alternative and probably much less frequented route between the two towns by way of the Platæa-Athens pass.

(_c_) Pausanias (ix. 2, 6) says: “The trophy of the battle of Platæa which the Greeks set up stood about fifteen stades from the city.”

It would be in accordance with Greek custom that this trophy should be set up in that part of the field where the decisive engagement took place. If, as I take it, it was fought just south of the hill on which the ruined church of St Demetrion stands, a trophy placed on or near that site would be almost exactly two miles from the town of Platæa, or a little more than seventeen stades.

(_d_) This hypothesis as to the site of the temple receives peculiar confirmation, as I shall show, from the account given by Herodotus of the subsequent incidents of the battle, but it will, I think, be best to take the order of the incidents as given by Herodotus.

In Plutarch’s life of Aristides (xi.) is a topographical detail which would present considerable difficulty, were it not accompanied by other details which show the absolute valuelessness of Plutarch as an authority on the topographical question. He is speaking of the time at which a move from the first position was contemplated: “Near Hysiæ Kithæron is a quite ancient temple called (the shrine) of Eleusinian Demeter and Kore.” He says further on that the rocky slope of Kithæron meets the plain near the temple, and then adds that the Heroön of Androkrates was there also, surrounded by a thick grove of trees.

Pausanias mentions (ix. 2, 1) a temple of Apollo among the ruins of Hysiæ, but says not a word of any temple of Eleusinian Demeter being found there.

But the reference to the position of the Heroön of Androkrates shows that either Plutarch has made a great error, or that his language is hopelessly inexact.

If latter be assumed to be the case, the temple of Demeter to which I have referred might, I think, be described as being near what I take to be the site of Hysiæ. It might even, owing to the height of Kithæron, be described as underneath that mountain. As to the position of the temple being near the edge of the ύπωρέη, it may be pointed out that the site of the modern Kriekouki is a part of the rocky mountain-side which projects far into the plain, but stops far short of the church of St. Demetrion.

But even the utmost looseness of language will hardly account for the assertion that the Heroön of Androkrates was near this temple, still less that it was near the site of Hysiæ.

The explanation of the difficulty is, I take it, that Plutarch was a biographer and not an historian; and consequently he may not have thought, nay, he evidently did not think it necessary to deal intimately with the topography of the battle. There is very little topographical detail given by him, though as a Bœotian he had most probably traversed one or more of the roads which cross the field. He makes no mention of the νῆσος, either directly or indirectly:—a most strange omission if he insisted at all on topographical detail.

There is in the passage above referred to a clause which is in direct conflict with Herodotus’ narrative. Plutarch speaks of τὰς ὑπωρείας ... ἄφιππα ποιούσας τὰ καταλήγοντα καὶ συγκυροῦντα τοῦ πεδίου πρὸς τὸ ἱερόν, whereas Herodotus describes a cavalry attack as having taken place upon this ground. Furthermore,—and this is a most important point if Herodotus’ account of the fighting be correct,—the temple of Demeter certainly lay on the Persian line of retreat after they had been defeated by the Spartans; that is to say, it was almost certainly between the place where the final action took place or began and the Persian camp.

Again, I think that the words of Herodotus, in describing the first phase of the second position of the Greeks as “near the Spring of Gargaphia and the τέμενος of Androkrates the Hero, through hills of no great height and level country,” can only mean that the τέμενος was on the left of the Greek line; for the ἀπέδος χῶρος can only be the plain between Platæa and the Asopos which comes from Leuktra, and this position for the τέμενος accords with the details given by Thucydides. How, then, the τέμενος be described as near the temple of Demeter, if the latter was near Hysiæ?

On the question of the value of Plutarch’s evidence relative to the battle, I agree with Colonel Leake:—

“It is scarcely worth while to advert to the particulars in which the other ancient authors who have related this great event differ from Herodotus; Diodorus and Plutarch lived so long afterwards that they cannot have much weight against the testimony of the contemporary historian. The former does not, however, deviate from it in any important point, and the contradictions of the latter are undeserving of much respect, as being those of a Bœotian angry with Herodotus for having spoken freely of the disgraceful conduct of his countrymen, and thinking no mode of exculpation so effectual as that of throwing general discredit on the historian’s accuracy.” (“Travels in Northern Greece,” vol. ii. p. 353.)

The movement of the Spartans was directed towards the pass on the Platæa-Athens road. It was evidently their object to avoid as much as possible the unimpeded ground of the plain on which the Persian cavalry could act, and with this intent they seem to have diverged slightly from the direct route to the pass in order to gain the northern end of that rocky bastion of Kithæron whereon the modern Kriekouki stands, a point at which the rocky mountain foot projects for some distance into the plain. #SPARTANS LEAVE THE SECOND POSITION.# They would thus take a direction S.S.E. from their position on the Asopos ridge, and must have passed the now useless Gargaphia spring on their way. After proceeding thus for ten stades, or about a mile and a furlong, they waited for Amompharetos and his company, whose reluctant movement from the late position they would be able to see from the moment that it began. It must therefore have been near the head waters of the two streams which run northwards on either side of the Long Ridge that this delay took place; and either the easternmost of these streams or the larger brook which skirts the site of Kriekouki on the west would seem to be the river Moloeis of which Herodotus speaks. Looking northward from that position, the highest point of the Long Ridge would rise in front of them in the form of a flat-topped table-land, bounded on either flank by the steep-sided stream valleys,[213] with the temple of Eleusinian Demeter, of which Herodotus speaks, upon its summit. The flat table-land itself formed doubtless that sacred precinct of the goddess of which Herodotus has something more to tell. Somewhere in the neighbourhood was the Argiopian country of which the historian speaks, all trace of whose name and identity has long vanished into the past. Possibly the plateau to the east of the Long Ridge bore that name in ancient times.

It was in the position which they had thus attained that they were fated to fight the decisive engagement by which the long-drawn struggle was won. They never reached that rocky projection where Kriekouki now stands.[214]

◆H. ix. 57.◆

“Those with Amompharetos joined them, and the whole of the barbarian cavalry assailed them,” says Herodotus, in one significant sentence.

In the gathering light of the dawn the Persians beyond the Asopos had noticed that the ridges which the Greeks had occupied for more than a fortnight past were vacant, and had sent forward their cavalry to overtake the retreating enemy. Amompharetos seems to have just managed to reach the main body before the attack fell; but the reunited force had no time to move before the cavalry was upon it. The ground on which it stood at the time was as unfavourable as it well could be. The bottom of the ridge lying west of Kriekouki sinks into the depression in a long gentle slope, affording a terrain admirably suited to the operations of the Persian cavalry; and it was on this ground that the Spartans were obliged to make their stand. The object of the cavalry attack was evidently to prevent the Greeks from attaining, before the Persian infantry should have time to come up, the strong position which the rocky slopes of Kithæron would afford. Mardonius made the fatal mistake of supposing that the Greeks were a broken as well as a beaten army,[215] and his sole anxiety seems to have been to render the victory complete. Had he been able to appreciate the real circumstances of the case, had he been content to abide by the tactics he had employed on the previous days, the whole history of the battle might have been changed.

◆H. ix. 59.◆

Having despatched his cavalry in pursuit of the Greeks, Mardonius lost no time in hurrying forward his infantry across the Asopos on the track of the retreating foe.[216] It is interesting to notice that it was against the Lacedæmonians and Tegeans alone that his efforts were directed, the line of retreat of the Athenians on the right wing of the Greeks being hidden from him by the hills.[217]

It was with the Persian infantry that Mardonius led the way; but the rest of the army followed with much speed and little order, eager to take part in the rout of the enemy with whom they had been so long face to face. They must have ascended the long gradual slope of the theatre which is formed by the curve of the Asopos ridge on its north front, and, arrived at its summit, they would see on the low ground southward the large mass of the Lacedæmonian contingent engaged by their cavalry.

#BEGINNING THE GREAT FIGHT.#

Pausanias had no illusions as to the serious nature of the cavalry attack, but sent an urgent message to the Athenians, who were at this time making straight for the Island, to come to his help with all speed.[218] The message is recorded, after the manner of Herodotus, in what purport to be the words actually used. Without unduly insisting upon the letter, its spirit is remarkable. The Spartans are represented as having placed the worst construction upon the conduct of the Greek centre in withdrawing from the position on the Asopos ridge before they had done so themselves. And yet it will be remembered that Herodotus expressly says that these “runaways” did not leave that position until the hour which had been originally fixed for that movement. But here these allies are represented as cowards and traitors to their friends. The whole question of the conduct of the Greek centre at this stage of the battle is an exceedingly difficult one; the only thing which seems to be clear is that those Greeks who bore the burden and heat of this day of decisive battle rightly or wrongly regarded them as having yielded to a panic of fear. The condemnation was probably unjust; but it is not possible to demonstrate conclusively that it was so.

◆H. ix. 61.◆

The Athenian help never reached the Spartans, and so they were left to fight the battle alone. It was no small combat. Over fifty thousand Greeks on the one side were face to face with what must have been numerically a still more formidable force—a force which may have been indeed several times their own in number. The Persian cavalry adhered to the tactics which had been so effective on the previous days, avoiding close fighting, and making the assault with arrows and missile weapons from behind a barrier of shields. Many of the Lacedæmonians fell, and many more were wounded in this unequal combat, in which they must have been able to inflict but little damage on their mobile opponents. The sacrifices were unfavourable; and so the Greeks did not take the offensive. Pausanias must have been wholly in agreement with the sacrifices, knowing well, it may be apprehended, that his only chance of salvation lay in offering a firm front to the attack, and in preventing the assailant horse from finding its way through the line of Greek shields. The Persian infantry was, of course, by this time aiding the assault, and it must indeed have been their shields which were set up to form the extemporized stockade. This went on for a long time. Pausanias was probably waiting till the press of the enemy became sufficiently great to deprive their front ranks of that mobility from which the Greek hoplite had most to fear. When this state of things supervened he let his men loose upon the foe, after offering up a prayer to Hera, which that goddess answered by rendering the sacrifices favourable. It is probable that the attention which the Greek commander paid to sacrificial omens was due rather to their effect on the minds and courage of the common soldiers than to any undue trust which he placed in them as indications of the tactical policy to be pursued.

◆H. ix. 62.◆

The Tegeans were the first to attack the mass of barbarians opposed to them, and after an interval the Lacedæmonians did the same. They first had to break through the barricade of shields; then the battle became a fierce hand-to-hand struggle. Herodotus bears testimony to the fact that the Persians were no whit inferior in courage, but being without heavy defensive armour, they were no match for the most experienced and best drilled infantry in Greece. ◆Cf. ix. 62, _ad fin._◆ They evidently made fierce efforts to break through the iron-clad line of the enemy, charging singly and in groups. But it was all of no avail; not even the most desperate courage could compensate for the immense disparity of weapons, and the men who had “made the tour of Asia on foot,” and had fought and conquered the numerous peoples of the East, found themselves utterly unable to cope with an army drawn from one small corner of the Western Continent. Mardonius had made a terrible miscalculation when he launched his comparatively light-armed infantry against the Greek hoplites. He paid for his mistake with his own life. ◆H. ix. 63.◆ Surrounded by a picked #FLIGHT OF THE PERSIANS.# body of Persians, he was himself in the midst of the _mêlée_, and was naturally marked out by the Greeks for attack. At last he fell, but not until the assailants had paid dearly for their success.

[Illustration: PLATÆA: PANORAMA FROM SCENE OF LAST FIGHT.

1. Hills North of Kopais.

2. Mount Kandili (Mekistos) in Eubœa.

3. Hills between Kopais and Euripus.

4. Mount Dirphys in Eubœa.

5. Valley of Stream A 4.

6. Temenos of Demeter.

7. Valley of Stream A 5.

8. The Plateau.

[_to face page_ 502.

]

It is not difficult at the present day to follow the course of this struggle.[219] After their commander’s fall the Persians gave way, and were pushed down the gradual slope towards the stream valleys which ran on either side of the precinct of Demeter,[220] affording them direct lines of retreat to their camp. The stream of fugitives would divide where the rise of the ground towards the precinct begins, and would naturally take the easier and quicker routes afforded by these valleys. ◆H. ix. 65.◆ They fled in disorder to their camp and stockade. Herodotus notes with pious emphasis the fact that, though the fight had raged near the temple, none of the sacrilegious destroyers of her temple at Eleusis fell within the consecrated ground about this shrine of Demeter. On more materialistic grounds it would be extremely unlikely that men flying for their lives in panic flight should ascend the hill whereon the sanctuary and its precinct stood, when easier avenues of retreat were ready for them on either side of it.[221]

Such were the fortunes of what had been the Greek right wing. It is now necessary to follow the movements of the Athenians who had been stationed on the left of the second position.

It is clear that the two days’ cavalry attack had driven back the Greek left from the Asopos; and, in the final phase of its tenure of the second position, the army must have been massed on the summit of the Asopos ridge; so that the left would be at no great distance from the right.

◆H. ix. 54.◆

The Lacedæmonian delay in starting upon the movement of retirement seems to have aroused suspicion in the minds of the Athenians, if Herodotus’ narrative is to be believed. He does not mention any specific cause for the distrust in the present instance, other than the delay caused by the obstinacy of Amompharetos, attributing it rather to general grounds: “They knew the Lacedæmonians had a way of intending one thing and saying another.” The conduct of the Athenians is not consistent with the tale of suspicion; and the tale itself probably does something less than justice to the Athenian motives for remaining at their post of danger. It is noticeable that when they do move they take a wholly different line to the Spartans, showing that they did not suspect them of any intention of deserting the army, and consequently the only conceivable motive they can have had in waiting must have been the desire that the withdrawal should be covered, if necessary, by a sufficient number of the Greek army. As, however, the Spartans started just before daylight, and the Persians did not immediately discover the movement, the Athenians evidently thought that there would be no danger in carrying out the original design; so, while their allies made their way towards the passes, they took the easiest route to the Island.

They apparently started on their movement about the same time as the Lacedæmonians. Their course can be traced with fair certainty. From their position on the Asopos ridge north of the ruins of the church of St John, they did not take the direct line for the Island, which would have led them past the site of that modern sanctuary, but descended to the western slope of the ridge to the Platæan plain.[222]

On reaching it they would pass up the course of that stream which Herodotus identifies with the upper Asopos,[223] and would be marching in a straight line for the Island. #ATHENIANS AND MEDIZED GREEKS.# The route adopted was indeed but little longer than the direct route, and would be easier, as it lay along the level plain. ◆H ix. 60.◆ It must have been at some point in the course of this march that the message from Pausanias reached them, announcing the attack of the Persian cavalry, and urgently entreating them to come to his assistance, or at any rate to send their bowmen to his help. ◆H. ix. 61.◆ On receiving this the Athenians diverged from the line of march, and started towards the place where the Spartans were being sore pressed by the cavalry. Shortly after this change of direction had taken place they were attacked by the medized Greeks who were with the Persian force, and were thus prevented from assisting the Spartans. The circumstance that this fight seems to have been out of sight of that part of the Greek army which was at Platæa, renders it probable that the Athenians had turned from the plain along the line of the modern track which leads from Leuktra to Dryoskephalæ, and that the medized Greeks, coming up over the Asopos ridge in the neighbourhood of the church of St. John, overtook them in the hollow near the springs of Apotripi, where a fierce engagement took place. ◆H. ix. 67.◆ Although the rest of the medized Greeks voluntarily played the coward on this occasion, the Bœotians showed that they had not espoused the Persian cause to no purpose, and for a long time maintained an obstinate struggle, losing three hundred of their best and bravest in the battle. In the end they had to give way, and fled in disorder to Thebes.

◆H. ix. 68.◆

The whole Persian army was now in full flight, save the cavalry, which made a brave and, for the time being, a successful effort to cover the retreat, though it could not prevent the pursuing Greeks from inflicting severe losses upon the fugitives.

◆H. ix. 69.◆

It was at this time, says Herodotus, that the Greeks at Platæa first heard that a battle had taken place, and that Pausanias and his men had won the day. They must have spent an anxious morning on that rocky slope near the Heræon, not venturing to move, because uncertain what they ought to do, and knowing nothing of their friends save that they were not at the Island, where, according to arrangement, they should have been. They may perhaps have seen the Athenians moving along the foot of the Asopos ridge shortly after dawn, and the Persian army as, a little later, it streamed across that ridge, must have been plainly visible; but from the moment when the Athenians disappeared into the hollow near the springs of Apotripi, until they received this message, all they can have seen or heard must have been the clouds of dust rising from two points in the depression beneath the northern ridges, and the confused and distant noise of an engagement. They seem to have played an inglorious, if not a cowardly, part in sitting still while these things were going on; but if it be borne in mind that the little they did see of the movements of their friends and of the enemy on the fatal morning was wholly inexplicable by the orders they themselves had received, or by anything that had happened within their knowledge, their inaction may seem natural. Herodotus is not inclined to put the best construction on the conduct of those who were drawn largely from those Greek states which had advocated what seemed to him the cowardly blunder of confining the defence to the Isthmus.

The receipt of the message, therefore, put them for the first time in possession of certain information as to what had happened since they had parted from their allies on the Asopos ridge on the preceding night. The news, such as it was, was good; and they started immediately with a view to take part in the victory. The details which Herodotus gives of their movements afford conspicuous proof of his remarkable excellence as a topographer, though they also illustrate his limitations as a military historian.

The Greeks at Platæa divided into two bodies; and from the description which the historian gives of the lines of advance which they adopted there can be little doubt that, though he does not mention the fact, they marched respectively on the two places where fighting was going on. ◆H. ix. 69.◆ The advance was hurried and disorderly. The one body was composed of the Corinthians and those with them—the right centre. #THE GREEK CENTRE.# It took a line along the rocky slope of Kithæron and through the hills, along the upper way leading straight to the temple of Demeter. Its course was evidently along the rocky slope at the south end of the ridge[224] which intervenes between Platæa and the Island, over the head waters of the streams which form the Island,[225] and then over the open and unimpeded ridges towards the temple.[226] This division of the Greek centre seems to have reached the Lacedæmonians in safety, and may even have taken part in the last stages of the struggle near the temple. The other division, composed of Megareans, Phliasians, and the rest of the Greek left centre, was not so fortunate. ◆H. ix. 69.◆ They took “the most level way through the plain.” Herodotus is evidently under the impression that they also were making for the temple of Eleusinian Demeter; but the course they took, which must have been along the base of the ridge between Platæa and the Island,[227] together with the fact that they came across the Bœotian cavalry at a time at which it cannot have been covering the retreat of the medized Greeks,—at a time, that is to say, at which they were still engaged with the Athenians,—suggests that they aimed at giving assistance to their friends in that part of the field, and that the Bœotian cavalry sought, not in vain, to prevent them from so doing. The conjecture is further supported by Herodotus’ statement that they were “near the enemy” when the Theban horse caught sight of them; and that cavalry must presumably have been engaged at the time in battle with the Athenians. Their disorderly and hurried advance cost them dear. The Thebans cut them to pieces, killing six hundred of them, and driving the rest in headlong rout towards Kithæron.

This was the only disaster which befell any section of the Greek army on that eventful day. No doubt the Athenians and Lacedæmonians suffered severely—more severely than the Greeks ever admitted; but in any case they paid but a cheap price for their great victory.

◆H. ix. 63.◆

Herodotus is fully aware that it was to the superiority of their weapons that the Greeks owed their success. “The main cause of the Persian defeat was the fact that their equipment was devoid of defensive armour. They sought, exposed as they were, to compete with heavy armed infantry.”

The enthusiasm with which he hails the victory is rare with him. Salamis left him comparatively cold; but of Platæa he says that there “Pausanias the son of Kleombrotos the son of Anaxandrides gained the most glorious victory on record.”[228]

The historian was right in thus attributing to Pausanias and his Lacedæmonians the chief credit of the victory. The decisive conflict was fought beneath the shadow of the temple of Eleusinian Demeter.

The two defeated bodies of the enemy fled in different directions. The Persians retreated to their camp, where, thanks to the bravery of their cavalry in covering their rout, they had time to man the stockaded portion of it before the Greeks came up. The beaten Bœotians, on the other hand, fled straight to Thebes, probably striking the Platæa-Thebes road shortly after recrossing the Asopos.

◆H. ix. 66.◆

One division of the Persians, a body of forty thousand men, under the command of Artabazos, neither took part in the final struggle nor took refuge in the stockaded camp. With singular foresight, their commander was strongly opposed to the attack on the apparently retreating Greeks, apprehending that it could only end in disaster. He only brought up his men in time to meet the stream of fugitives from the battle, and then turned right about and departed without further ado for Phocis.

#LOSSES IN THE BATTLE.#

In the course of the pursuit the Lacedæmonians, as would be expected from their position in the field, arrived first at the stockaded camp; but, with that noteable incapacity in the attack on fortified places which is one of the most striking and least comprehensible features in Greek military history, they failed to make any impression on it, until the Athenians, who possessed more skill in this respect, came up. A successful assault was made, the Tegeans being the first to enter the stockade. Then ensued a massacre, in which it is reported that thirty thousand men perished. ◆H. ix. 82, _ad init._◆ Plunder, too, of great value fell into the hands of the victors, for Xerxes, in his precipitate flight to the Hellespont, had left behind him much of the extraordinary paraphernalia which he, like other Oriental monarchs of other ages, thought necessary to bring with him on campaign.

◆H. ix. 70.◆

It is doubtless the case that the numbers of those who perished on the Persian side were very large, though much exaggerated in later tradition. On the Greek side the losses, as given by Herodotus, were ninety-one Lacedæmonians, seventeen Tegeans, and fifty-two Athenians. It is evident that this statement refers only to those who fell in the fighting of the last day of the battle; but, even so, it may be suspected that there is a considerable understatement. It is, indeed, the case that, throughout the history of the fifth and fourth centuries, the losses of Greek armies in victorious combats against Orientals are singularly small; but it is hardly credible that on the present occasion, when the Persian infantry and cavalry fought with all the confidence of success, that the large mass of their opponents, the majority of whom were light-armed, lost but ninety-one men in a somewhat protracted engagement; still less is it credible that the Athenian loss was so small when matched against an enemy armed like themselves.

Of the Greeks that took part in the fight, Herodotus considers that the Lacedæmonians distinguished themselves most, and after them the Athenians and Tegeans.

Any one who realizes the difficulties which must have faced the historian of the fifth century when seeking to discover the truth with respect to the incidents of a battle which had been fought years before he began even to collect his materials, must admire the success which Herodotus has attained in his description. At the same time, that description is of such a nature, and is so manifest in its limitations, that a careful reader can distinguish without difficulty the kind of sources from which it is drawn. There is hardly any trace whatever of any official record lying behind it; it does not even seem as if the historian drew his information with regard to any one of its incidents from any one who was acquainted with the design of those in command. The account, as it stands, seems to be mainly built upon a foundation of evidence furnished by some intelligent observer or observers present at the fight in some subordinate position. This fact would account for the entire absence of any mention of any plan, strategic or tactical, on the part of the Greek generals. Two motives continually brought forward for the movements of the Greek force are the want of water and the damage wrought by the Persian cavalry; and these are the very motives which would present themselves to the mind of a Greek soldier to whom the plans governing the battle were unknown. It is fortunate that sufficient details of a reliable character have been preserved to make it possible to see the general nature of the design entertained by those in command in what was certainly the greatest and most interesting of the Hellenic battles of the fifth century. But, while the major part of Herodotus’ narrative rests on the basis of information thus supplied, there are undoubtedly parts of it which are drawn from traditional sources. He seems to have interwoven into the main story incidents drawn both from Athenian and from Spartan, or possibly Pan-Hellenic traditions; for instance, the tale of the shifting of the positions of the Athenians and Spartans in the Greek line of battle, and possibly the tale of Amompharetos, together with passages here and there which show a bias in favour of some particular element in the Greek army. But, judged even by modern standard, there is but little to find fault with in the account, in so far as its fairness is concerned. The only section of it which shows signs of personal feeling on the part of the narrator himself, is that relating to the conduct of the Greek centre after the withdrawal from the second position. #SURVEY OF THE BATTLE.# In that case it may be suspected that what has appeared to him the reprehensible and selfish policy of the Peloponnesian states in the previous period of the war, has coloured his view of the conduct of their contingents on this particular occasion. His failure to appreciate the strategy and larger tactics is in accordance with what is found elsewhere in his history; and though it renders his narrative difficult to unravel, it makes the demonstrable accuracy of the tale which he does tell all the more remarkable.

A battle so great and so important must necessarily excite the imagination of any student of history. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that much of the environment of our daily life at the present day owes its existence to the issue of that struggle in the hollow beneath the temple of Eleusinian Demeter. Had the great battle turned out differently, as it so very nearly did, the whole history of the fifth century might have been altered. Surely it was one of the strangest battles ever fought; it was indeed more of the nature of a campaign within an extremely circumscribed area. The operations were spread over a period of certainly not less than three weeks, reckoning from the arrival in Bœotia up to the time of the capture of Thebes; and it is possible even to argue from Herodotus’ narrative that they covered a period of four weeks. But the most remarkable point with regard to them is not perhaps their protracted nature, but the extraordinary variations of success and failure which attended the operations of either side. It was eminently a battle in which the ultimate success was due, not to the excellence of the dispositions made by the victor, but to the mistakes made by the vanquished. Theoretically those mistakes were hardly greater than those which the victor made: practically they were fatal.

The Greeks arrived in Bœotia and took up their position with a general intention of striking at the Persian and his base of operations along the Dryoskephalæ-Thebes road. Finding this blocked by the Persian position, they were probably somewhat at a loss as to what course to pursue next. Opinions were, doubtless, divided as to the significance of that factor of unknown but suspected value in the Persian camp, the cavalry, for, owing to its absence at Marathon, the European Greeks had had no opportunity of testing its effectiveness. Mardonius was not slow in providing them with an experiment in his desire to win what would have been a striking success by piercing the Greek centre, and seizing the pass in its immediate rear, he made the mistake of using his cavalry against unbroken heavy infantry in a position which offered exceedingly restricted opportunities for such an attack, with the inevitable result that his men were beaten back with considerable loss. There can be little question that the Greek commanders misread the results of that experiment, and mistakenly assumed that what had occurred on the low ground in front of Erythræ gave satisfactory assurance of the capacity of the Greek army to face the enemy’s cavalry in the plain. It did not, apparently, occur to them that it was one thing to face that cavalry in a position where the attack could only be on their front, and, moreover, on but a small extent of that front, and quite another thing to meet it on the open plain, where its extreme mobility, compared with their own immobility, would render it able to assail front, flank, and rear at the same time.

Their immediate object of attack was Thebes. It is little short of absurd to suppose that a people such as the Greeks reversed without cause the whole system on which they had hitherto conducted the war, and entered Bœotia with a witless lack of design.

Their plan was to force the Persian to retire from Northern Greece, and from Bœotia first of all, and so to get rid of the danger which manifestly threatened them, the establishment of a new frontier of the great Empire within their own borders. If the enemy’s tenure of Thebes could be rendered impossible, he must retire northward; and against Thebes therefore their operations were directly aimed. The fatal weakness of their plan was their lack of cavalry; but it was the very form of weakness whose significance, from their lack of experience in that arm, they were least capable of gauging.

In spite of this, their design in moving to the second position might have been effective, had they been able to execute it before the Persians received information of what they were doing. #STRATEGY AND TACTICS AT PLATÆA.# A flank attack suddenly delivered by the whole Greek army could hardly have failed to lead to decisive results. With such an end in view, they moved along the side of Kithæron, and then, advancing into the plain, deployed the army in that depression which was hidden from the Persian camp by the northern ridges,[229] so as to be able to advance in battle array directly upon the Persian right flank. But on reaching the summit of the Asopos ridge, they found that their movement had been discovered by the enemy, and that he had also moved in such a way as to make a flank attack and a surprise alike impossible. The position was, for the time being, stalemate; and remained so for at least a week, neither side venturing on a direct frontal attack. But the situation began to develop rapidly so soon as Mardonius launched his cavalry against the short Greek line of communication with the passes. The position became desperate when he began to use his horsemen in the effective way in which that excellent Asiatic light cavalry could be used, to harass the Greek infantry by a form of attack which they were wholly unable to meet in adequate fashion.

The Greek force was obliged to retire from the Asopos ridge. Mardonius, if he had only known it, had won the battle, in the sense that he had rendered impossible all further offensive operations on the part of the enemy in the plains of Bœotia. He was too eager to convert the defeat into a rout, when, on seeing that the Greeks had evacuated their position during the night, he launched the whole of his infantry against them. The mistake was fatal, irremediable. The rout of his infantry was such that no effort on the part of his cavalry could restore the battle; all that it could do was to cover the retreat as far as the stockaded ramp. Marengo is perhaps the only other great battle in history which presents so startling a reversal of fortune. Platæa was lost and won. Truly the Persian was the rock on which he himself made shipwreck.

With the capture of the stockaded camp the battle ended. Two Greek contingents arrived on the scene after the fighting was over, the Mantineans and Eleians. The incident is chiefly remarkable as showing how extraordinarily difficult it was to instil into the population of the Peloponnese the necessity of prompt united action against the common foe. Their delay does not seem to have been due to cowardice, but to an absolute failure to appreciate the necessities of warfare waged beyond their own borders, with an enemy who was prepared to keep the field for an indefinite length of time. Their disappointment in not sharing in the victory was no doubt genuine enough,—the Mantineans are even reported to have offered to pursue the retreating army of Artabazos as far as Thessaly,—but it is significant for the trustworthiness of Greek official records that the Eleians, probably owing to their close and friendly relations to Sparta at this time, got their name engraved on the official lists both at Olympia and at Delphi of those who had taken part in the battle.

◆H. ix. 77.◆

Many tales told by Herodotus of individual exploits display all the traces of the embellishment of later tradition. One of them, however, is notable. It may be true, or it may be an invention, for an Æginetan plays the part of villain in the plot; but it shows in any case the incorruptible character of a not unimportant side of Greek civilization. An Æginetan of rank, named Lampon, is represented as having advised Pausanias to requite on the dead body of Mardonius the outrages which the barbarians had inflicted on the corpse of Leonidas after his death at Thermopylæ. Pausanias’ striking answer lays down the law that, even under circumstances of the greatest provocation, Hellenic civilization should never imitate the barbarism of the foreigner. It was, perhaps, owing to the very vagueness of their ideas as to the afterworld, and to the prevalence of the old Homeric view that in any case the future life could be at best but a shadow of the present, that they regarded the mortality of the body with most touching sympathy. To a people who lived, enjoyed, and appreciated every moment of their vivid life amid the light and colour of the East, the dead body, whether of Greek or Barbarian, was the material presentment of the loss of all they valued most.

#AFTER THE BATTLE.#

The spoil which the Greeks collected from the Persian camp seemed to them of enormous value; and Pausanias took special precautions for its collection, employing the helots alone for this purpose. If Herodotus is to be believed, these precautions were not entirely successful; for the Æginetans persuaded the helots to sell them many of the valuables for a mere nothing, and by that means acquired considerable wealth. The tale, however, must be read in the light of after-history, when the long-standing enmity between Athens and Ægina reached its culminating point.

A tithe of the plunder was dedicated to Delphi, offerings being also made at Olympia and the Isthmus. It belongs to the romance of history that, amid the wholesale and irreparable destruction of the monuments of the great ages of Greece, the most remarkable of the memorials of the battle survives at the present day. Near the great altar at Delphi was set up a golden tripod upon a lofty stand of three entwined snakes, on which was engraved the names of the Greek states which had sent contingents to Platæa. This most interesting and most important monument of antiquity still in part remains. The snake pillar was removed by Constantine to Constantinople. Amid all the vicissitudes in the subsequent history of the great city it has survived. It still stands in a mutilated form, the heads of the snakes having been broken off, exposed, alas! to the weather in front of the great Mosque of Sultan Achmet.

The burial of those who had died in the battle was next carried out. The body of Mardonius had vanished—how, no one could say; but Herodotus thinks that some Greeks had been paid to give it sepulture, and he knows that many subsequently claimed and received money from the son of Mardonius for having so done. The Greek dead were placed in graves, according to their nationality, ◆Paus. ix. 2, 5.◆ and centuries later Pausanias saw those graves by the side of the Platæa-Megara road, just before it entered the town of Platæa. There are numerous rock-hewn tombs remaining at the present day in the same locality; and it would seem as if a cemetery had in later times been established on the ground in which the heroes of the battle were buried. Among the Spartan dead was Amompharetos, whose obstinacy had been so largely instrumental in bringing about the victory. Some of the Greeks, says Herodotus, who had no dead to bury, owing to the inglorious part they had played, raised tombs there “for the sake of posterity.” The unfortunate Æginetans, of whom the historian in this part of his history has no good word to say, are reported to have caused such a tomb to be raised at Platæa ten years after the event.[230]

The Greeks spent ten days over the distribution of the spoil and the disposal of the dead. Before leaving Bœotia they determined to settle the long account standing against the Thebans and the Bœotians generally. They can hardly be blamed for the bitter feeling which the policy of that people had aroused in their breasts. The treason of Bœotia to the national cause had indeed been beyond forgiveness. From the very outset its attitude had been doubtful and suspicious, even before the time when the desertion of Thermopylæ afforded it some excuse for an unpatriotic policy. It is very difficult to form any certain idea of the motives which prompted the Bœotians to medize at all in the first instance, and to medize so energetically in the end. It is probable, however, that from the very beginning the oligarchs in the various cities, adopting the policy of the feudal lords in Thessaly, thought that they could best secure the permanence of their own selfish interests by submission to Persia; and that subsequently the determination of the other Greeks to make no attempt to defend the land north of Geraneia caused the mass of the population to side with a policy which afforded them some possibility of saving their rich lands from wholesale ruin. The decision once taken, they displayed at least the merit of thoroughness. #PUNISHMENT OF THE THEBANS.# Their medism was by no means passive. They had staked all on the Persian success, and could expect far less mercy from the Greek patriots than, as a fact, they actually received. That being so, they remained faithful to their new allies after Salamis, and showed no disposition to revolt during that winter of 480–479, while Mardonius was far away north in Thessaly. It may be that they were acquainted with that alternative design of conquest whose conjectured existence can alone account for the strategy of Greek and Persian alike previous to the battle of Platæa. They had so thoroughly identified themselves with the invaders, that the success of the Greek in the war might be expected to prove far more dangerous to them than that of the Persian. Moreover, public opinion in Bœotia was that of the few rather than that of the many; and the few evidently conceived that their interests in the present and future alike were intimately bound up in the success of Persia, whose Government had shown in its treatment of the Ionians that it was sufficiently civilized to appreciate the advisability of ruling Greeks by means of Greeks.

The patriots seem to have recognized that the responsibility for the treason of Bœotia rested not so much with the whole population as with its leaders; ◆H. ix. 86.◆ for they aimed not at a wide measure of revenge, but at the punishment of those prominent men who had led the people astray. They marched on Thebes, and demanded the surrender of the medizing party, and especially of the prime instigators, Timegenides and Attaginos. The town was blockaded, but still the Thebans refused to give up the men; so the wall was attacked and the lands in the neighbourhood laid waste. On the ninth day of the siege Timegenides proposed that, in order to save the country, the assailants, if they wanted money, should be bought off; or, if they persisted in their demand for the surrender of himself and his fellow culprits, they should give themselves up, and take their chance of a trial. His hope was, evidently, that bribery would do its work. The Thebans gave up all save Attaginos, who escaped. It is a strange commentary on Greek character that Pausanias did not entrust the prisoners to the judgment of a pan-Hellenic court, fearing, as Herodotus plainly hints, that bribery might secure their acquittal, but took them away to Corinth, where he had them executed. It is, perhaps, a still stranger commentary on Greek character that a Greek historian should have dared to insert such a suspicion into an account of what was in many respects the crowning incident in the national history.

Of the fate of the defeated Persians Herodotus says nothing. They probably streamed back to Asia in a miserable and ever diminishing train. ◆H. ix. 89.◆ Even Artabazos, who made good his escape, thought it necessary to conceal from the Thessalians what had happened in Bœotia, and himself suffered severe losses in a retreat which must have been a counterpart on a smaller scale of that of Xerxes the year before. He did not venture along the coast route, but took an inland course, and finally reached Asia across the Bosphorus by way of Byzantion.

_Appendix Note 1.—The Account of the Battle given by Diodorus._

It is, perhaps, impossible to say from what authorities other than Herodotus Diodorus drew his account of the battle. We have had reason to see that, despite his carelessness as to chronological details, he sometimes displays the merit of having followed valuable authorities whose original work is not now extant. This is noticeably the case in his account of Salamis. His narrative of Platæa seems to rest mainly on the history of Herodotus, together with elaborations either of his own or taken from his main authority, Ephoros. One great omission, and his looseness in the treatment of his facts, make it impossible to accept his evidence, where it differs from Herodotus’ version, as being of historical importance. I do not therefore propose to do more than tabulate the main points of resemblance and difference in the two accounts.

(1) He, like Herodotus, says that the first position of the Greeks was near Erythræ (D. xi. 29).

(2) He represents the Persian force as having been at Thebes when the news of the Greek advance into Bœotia reached Mardonius. Herodotus does not say this; but he does, of course, give an account of a banquet at Thebes somewhere about this time, at which the principal Persians were present (D. xi. 30).

#ACCOUNTS OF DIODORUS AND PLUTARCH.#

(3) His account of the first cavalry attack of the Persians differs from that of Herodotus in certain details. He seems to represent the Athenians as having been the first to be attacked; but he also represents them as subsequently extricating the Megareans from their dangerous position.

(4) He mentions, more emphatically perhaps than Herodotus, the feeling of elation and confidence among the Greeks at the defeat of the Persian horse and the death of Masistios, whom, however, he does not name.

(5) He mentions the movement to the second position, his description of which corresponds very well with what I think must, from the description of Herodotus, have been the locality of the second phase of that position.

(6) The rest of his narrative appears to be a version of Herodotus’ account of the last great fight which took place in the course of the movement to the “Island.” Consequently there is a large gap in his narrative (D. xi. 30, 31).

Generally speaking, he represents the Greeks as having taken the offensive in a more emphatic way than we should suppose did we take the account of Herodotus without reading between the lines of it.

_Appendix Note 2.—The Account of the Battle given in Plutarch’s “Aristides.”_

The account of the operations of the army as a whole, in so far as it is given, follows closely the account of the same events given by Herodotus, and is, apparently, largely taken from his narrative. It is noteworthy, however, that all that Herodotus says relating to the “Island” is omitted, and a doubt is expressed as to the accuracy of his statement with regard to the part which the Greek centre played on the decisive day of the struggle. The reasons given for this doubt would, however, seem to indicate that Plutarch had not fully estimated the significance of this part of Herodotus’ story. That Plutarch did not rely wholly on Herodotus in writing the account of the operations of the army is shown by his reference to Kleidemos for an unimportant and not very probable detail (Plut. Arist. 19). Still, his narrative, in so far as it relates to the events mentioned by Herodotus, coincides very closely with the account of the latter.

_Appendix Note 3.—Note on Platæa._

In the _American Journal of Archæology_, 1890, p. 460, Mr. Irving Hunt, who spent some time at Platæa as one of the members of the American School of Archæology engaged in superintending excavations on the site of the ruins of the town, has written an account of the battlefield. A slight map of the field is added at the end of the volume; it is, however, on a very small scale, and does not mark any natural features at all save the streams.

Mr. Hunt seems to accept most of the identifications previously made by Leake; and as these have been already discussed, there is no reason to refer to them again here. The point, however, in his paper with which I wish to deal at length is his determination of the site of the temple of Eleusinian Demeter.

He places it “on high ground south-east of Platæa, where are the foundations of a large Byzantine church, six minutes’ walk east of the spring of Vergutiani.” Over the ground to which Mr. Hunt refers, six minutes’ walk could be at most five or six hundred yards. He says that it is probable that the trophy erected by the Greeks was near the temple of Eleusinian Demeter. This was, no doubt, the case. He then quotes Pausanias (ix. 2, 6), who states that this trophy was fifteen stades from Platæa, ἀπωτέρω τῆς πόλεως, the comparative of distance being used, as elsewhere in Pausanias, in a positive sense. Mr. Hunt says that the ναός of which he speaks is at that distance from the ruins of the city.

The Vergutiani spring is about 2100 yards from Platæa, therefore this ναός is about thirteen stades from the city, a discrepancy of distance which does not render the position impossible.

But when we come to compare the situation of this ναός with the details in Herodotus, which enable us to fix approximately the position of the temple of Eleusinian Demeter, some very serious difficulties arise.

(1) Pausanias had only moved ten stades from the second position when he waited for Amompharetos in the neighbourhood of the temple. This site is 4000 yards, _i.e._ twenty stades, from what is clearly defined as the second position.

(2) This ναός is on the rocky ὑπωρέη. #TOPOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM.# Also, from Herodotus’ account, the temple of Eleusinian Demeter must have been between the Spartans and the Persian camp. If this, then, coincides with its site, the Spartans, who must have been south of it, were on ground on which cavalry could not act, and Herodotus’ account of the cavalry attack becomes incomprehensible.

(3) A battle in this position must have been within sight of the Greek centre at the Heræon. Herodotus’ views as to the conduct of the Greek centre are not such as to render it probable that he would have implied that the battle took place out of sight of them when in that position, unless such had actually been the case.

(4) The topographical detail of Plutarch, to which Mr. Hunt refers, is manifestly unreliable, as has been shown in a previous note.