The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [193]
26. And of thirty-four thousand five hundred other slaves belonging to the Lacedaemonians and the rest of the Greeks, nearly at the rate of one light to one heavy armed.
27. Thus the entire number of the light-armed was sixty-nine thousand five hundred.
28. The Greek army, therefore, which mustered at Plataea, was only eighteen hundred men short of one hundred and ten thousand;
29. And this amount was exactly made up by the Thespians who were present in the camp;
30. For eighteen hundred Thespians, being the whole number left, were likewise with the army; but these men were without arms.
31. Such was the array of the Greek troops when they took post on the Asopus.
Chapter 99
1. The barbarians under Mardonius, when the mourning for Masistius was at an end, and they had learnt that the Greeks were in Plataea, moved likewise towards the River Asopus.
2. On their arrival Mardonius marshalled them against the Greeks in the following order.
3. Against the Lacedaemonians he posted his Persians; and as the Persians were far more numerous he drew them up with their ranks deeper than common,
4. And extended their front so that part faced the Tegeans; and here he took care to choose out the best troops to face the Spartans,
5. While against the Tegeans he arrayed those on whom he could not so much depend.
6. This was done on the advice of the Thebans. Next to the Persians he placed the Medes, facing the Corinthians, Potidaeans, Orchomenians and Sicyonians;
7. Then the Bactrians, facing the Epidaurians, Troezenians, Lepreats, Tirynthians, Mycenaeans and Phliasians;
8. After them the Indians, facing the Hermionians, Eretrians, Styreans and Chalcidians; then the Sacans, facing the Ambraciots, Anactorians, Leucadians, Paleans and Eginetans;
9. And last of all, facing the Athenians, the Plataeans and the Megarians, he placed the troops of the Boeotians, Locrians, Malians and Thessalians, and also the thousand Phocians.
10. The whole nation of the Phocians had not joined the Medes;
11. On the contrary, there were some who had gathered themselves into bands about Parnassus, and made expeditions from thence,
12. Whereby they distressed Mardonius and the Greeks who sided with him, and so did good service to the Grecian cause.
13. Besides those mentioned above, Mardonius likewise arrayed against the Athenians the Macedonians and the tribes dwelling about Thessaly.
14. Here have been named the greatest of the nations marshalled by Mardonius on this occasion, all those of most renown.
15. Mixed with these were men of divers other peoples, as Phrygians, Thracians, Mysians, Paeonians and the like;
16. Ethiopians again, and Egyptians, both of the Hermotybian and Calascirian races, whose weapon is the sword, and who are the only fighting men in that country.
17. The number of the barbarians was three hundred thousand; that of the Greeks who had made alliance with Mardonius is not known, but guessed to be near fifty thousand strong.
18. The troops thus marshalled were all foot soldiers. As for the horse, it was drawn up by itself.
Chapter 100
1. Each side now waited for what it thought would be its best opportunity to begin the battle.
2. Since neither side felt quite ready, the two armies remained in camp opposite each other for ten days;
3. But the Persian horse harassed the Greeks, and captured some of their supply trains as they approached from the direction of the Peloponnese.
4. At last Mardonius, fearing to run out of supplies, and urged by some of his advisers that more men were joining the Greek army each day, resolved to give battle.
5. In the night before the eleventh day Alexander of Macedon, whose troops were in the Persian’s host,
6. Secretly rode to the Greek lines and sent a message to the generals, telling them that the attack was imminent.
7. When they heard this, the generals conferred; and Pausanias said to the Athenians,
8. ‘You have fought the Persians at Marathon, and know their style