The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [196]
24. Many fell on the Spartan side, and a still greater number were wounded, for the Persians had made a rampart of their wicker shields, and shot such clouds of arrows from behind them, that the Spartans were sorely distressed.
25. Goaded by the hail of arrows, the Tegeans rushed forward against the enemy, and the Lacedaemonians followed their attack; while the Persians, on their side, left shooting their bows, and prepared to meet them.
26. And first the combat was at the wicker shields. When these were swept down a fierce contest followed, which lasted long, and ended in a hand-to-hand struggle.
27. The barbarians many times seized the Greek spears and broke them, for in boldness and warlike heart they were not inferior to the Greeks;
28. But they were without bucklers, untrained, and far below the enemy in skill at arms.
29. Sometimes singly, sometimes in bodies of ten, now fewer and now more in number, they dashed upon the Spartan ranks, and perished.
30. Wherever Mardonius fought in person, mounted on a white horse and surrounded by the elite of the Persians, the fight went most against the Greeks.
31. So long as Mardonius was alive, this body resisted all attacks, and, while they defended their own lives, struck down many Spartans.
32. But after Mardonius fell, and the troops with him, which were the main strength of the Persian army, the remainder yielded to the Lacedaemonians, and ran hastily away, without preserving any order,
33. And took refuge in their own camp, within the wooden defence which they had raised in the Theban territory.
34. Their light clothing, and want of bucklers, were their downfall: for they had to contend against men heavily armed, while they themselves were without such defence.
35. Mardonius was slain by Aeimnestus, a man famous in Sparta; his killing of Mardonius was the vengeance owed to the Spartans for the death of Leonidas.
36. And thus did Pausanias, son of Cleombrotus, grandson of Anaxandridas, and of the same ancestry as Leonidas,
37. Win a victory exceeding in glory all those to which knowledge of earlier times extends.
Chapter 103
1. Artabazus, the son of Pharnaces, who had disapproved from the first of Xerxes’ leaving Mardonius behind,
2. And then had made great endeavours to dissuade Mardonius from risking a battle, when he found that the latter was bent on acting otherwise, did as follows.
3. He had a force under his command amounting to nearly forty thousand men. Knowing how the battle was likely to go,
4. As soon as the two armies began to fight he led his soldiers forward in an orderly array, bidding them to follow him at the same pace as himself.
5. He then pretended to lead them to the battle. But when, advancing before his army, he saw that the Persians were already in flight, instead of keeping the same order he wheeled his troops round and retreated;
6. Nor did he seek shelter behind the walls of Thebes, but hurried on into Phocis, resolved to make his way to the Hellespont with all speed.
7. As for the Greeks with Mardonius’ forces, while most of them played the coward on purpose, the Boeotians, on the contrary, had a long struggle with the Athenians.
8. Those of the Thebans who were attached to the Persians especially displayed great zeal;
9. Far from retreating, they fought with such fury that three hundred of the best and bravest among them were slain by the Athenians.
10. But at last they too were routed, and fled away; not, however, in the same direction as the Persians and the crowd of allies,
11. Who, having taken no part in the battle, ran off without striking a blow, but to their own city of Thebes.
12. This clearly shows how completely the rest of the barbarians were dependent on the Persian troops,
13. That they all fled at once, without ever coming to blows with the enemy, merely because they saw the Persians running away.
Chapter 104
1. And so it came to pass that the whole army of Mardonius took to flight, except only the Persian and Boeotian cavalry.
2. These did good service to