The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [188]
16. ‘Return at once, and tell Mardonius that our answer to him is this: “So long as the sun keeps his present course, we will never join alliance with Xerxes.
17. ‘“Nay, we shall oppose him unceasingly, and never yield.”’
18. To the Spartan ambassadors the Athenians said, ‘It was natural no doubt that the Lacedaemonians should be afraid we might make terms with the barbarian;
19. ‘But nevertheless it was a base fear in men who knew so well of what temper and heart we are.
20. ‘Not all the gold that the whole earth contains – not the fairest and most fertile of all lands – would bribe us to side with the Persians and help them enslave our countrymen.
21. ‘Even if we could have brought ourselves to such a thing, there are many powerful motives which would now make it impossible.
22. ‘The chief of these is the burning and destruction of our city, which forces us to make no terms with its destroyer,
23. ‘But rather to pursue him with our resentment to the uttermost.
24. ‘Again, there is our common brotherhood with the Greeks: our common language, the shared history, the common character which we bear;
25. ‘If the Athenians betray these, it would not be well. Know then now, if you did not know it before, that while one Athenian remains alive, we will never join alliance with Xerxes.
26. ‘We thank you, however, for your forethought on our behalf, and for your wish to give our families sustenance, now that ruin has fallen on us; the kindness is complete on your part;
27. ‘But for ourselves, we will endure as we may, and not be a burden to you. Such is our resolve.
28. ‘Be it your care now to lead out your troops with all speed; for if we guess rightly, the barbarian will not wait long before he invades our territory again, but will set out so soon as he hears our answer.
29. ‘Now then is the time for us, before he enters Attica, to go forward ourselves into Boeotia, and give him battle.’
30. When the Athenians had thus spoken, the ambassadors from Sparta returned in good heart to their own country.
Chapter 94
1. When Mardonius heard the Athenians’ answer he immediately broke camp and led his army with all speed from Thessaly towards Athens,
2. Forcing the several nations through whose land he passed to furnish him with additional troops.
3. The chief men of Thessaly, far from repenting of the part they had taken in the war hitherto, urged on the Persians more earnestly than ever.
4. Thorax of Larissa in particular, who had helped to escort Xerxes on his flight to Asia, now openly encouraged Mardonius in his march towards Attica.
5. When the army reached Boeotia the Thebans advised Mardonius to stop,
6. And by sending gifts to various of the great men of Greece, to sow division among them, making it easier to conquer them.
7. But Mardonius had too strong a desire to take Athens a second time,
8. Not least so that by fire-signals along the islands he could tell Xerxes in Sardis that he was once again master of that city, ten months after it had first fallen to the Persians.
9. So he pressed forward; and the Athenians, as before withdrawing all their families and goods to Salamis, left a deserted and still ruined city to him.
10. On reaching the city Mardonius again sent a message offering the Athenians terms, hoping that now that they saw all Attica under Persian sway, their stubbornness would yield.
11. When Mardonius’ message was delivered to the Athenians at Salamis, one of their councillors, Lycidas, gave it as his opinion that the proposal ought to be put before the assembly of the people.
12. When they heard this the other councillors and the body of Athenians waiting outside were exceedingly angry, and immediately surrounded Lycidas, and stoned him to death.
13. When the Athenian women heard of what he said, they hastened to the house of his wife and children, and stoned them to death too.
14. Meanwhile the Athenians had sent messengers to Sparta,
15. To reproach the Lacedaemonians for being too slow to send troops to oppose the Persian advance, so that