The Good Book_ A Secular Bible - A. C. Grayling [200]
9. He himself succeeded in reaching Byzantium; but a great part of his army perished on the road,
10. Many being cut to pieces by the Thracians, and others dying from hunger and excess of toil.
11. From Byzantium Artabazus set sail, and crossed the strait to Asia.
12. On the same day that the blow was struck at Plataea, another defeat befell the Persians at Mycale in Ionia.
13. While the Greek fleet under Leotychides was still lying inactive at Delos, there arrived an embassy from Samos,
14. Consisting of three men, Lampon, son of Thrasycles, Athenagoras, son of Archestratidas, and Hegesistratus, son of Aristagoras.
15. The Samians had sent them secretly, concealing their departure both from the Persians and from their own tyrant, Theomestor, son of Androdamas, whom the Persians had made ruler of Samos.
16. When the ambassadors came before the Greek captains, Hegesistratus spoke to them,
17. Saying that the Ionians only needed to see them arrive in order to revolt from the Persians, and that the Persians would not stay to fight;
18. ‘Or if they did, it would be to offer them the finest booty that they could anywhere expect to gain’;
19. And at the same time he urged them to deliver from bondage a Grecian race, and to drive back the barbarians.
20. ‘This,’ he said, ‘might very easily be done, for the Persian ships are poor craft, no match for yours’;
21. Adding, moreover, that ‘if there was any suspicion that the Samians intended treachery, we are ourselves ready to be hostages, and to return on board the ships of the Greeks to Asia.’
22. Leotychides accepted, the Samians pledged their faith, and a treaty of alliance was made.
23. This done, two of the ambassadors immediately sailed away, Hegesistratus remaining with Leotychides and the fleet.
24. The Greeks put to sea and sailed across from Delos to Samos. Arriving off Calami on the Samian coast, they dropped anchor and prepared for battle.
25. The Persians, however, no sooner heard of the Greeks’ arrival than they sailed away to the mainland after dismissing the Phoenician ships.
26. For it had been resolved in council not to risk a battle, since the Persian fleet was no match for the Greeks.
27. They fled to the mainland to be under the protection of their land army, which now lay at Mycale, and consisted of the troops left behind by Xerxes to keep guard over Ionia.
28. This was an army of sixty thousand men, under the command of Tigranes, a Persian of more than common beauty and stature.
29. The Persian captains sailed for Gaeson and Scolopoeis, which are in the territory of Mycale.
30. Here they drew the ships up on the beach, and surrounded them with a rampart of stones and tree trunks,
31. Cutting down for this purpose all the fruit trees which grew near, to the chagrin of the local people,
32. And defending the barrier by means of stakes firmly planted in the ground.
33. They were prepared either to fight a battle, or undergo a siege.
Chapter 109
1. The Greeks, when they understood that the barbarians had fled to the mainland, were annoyed at their escape:
2. Nor could they decide at first what to do, whether to return home or proceed to the Hellespont.
3. In the end they decided to do neither, but to make sail for the continent.
4. So they prepared for a sea fight, with boarding-bridges and everything else necessary, and sailed to Mycale.
5. Now when they came to the Persian camp they found no one to come out to meet them, but observed the ships dragged ashore within the barrier,
6. And a strong land-force drawn up in battle array on the beach.
7. Leotychides therefore sailed along the shore, keeping as close to land as possible, and by the voice of a herald addressed the Ionians:
8. ‘Men of Ionia: the Persians will not understand me, because they do not speak our tongue, but you listen to me.
9. ‘When we join battle with them, before everything else remember Freedom; and next, remember our watchword.’
10. In saying this Leotychides was using the same ploy as Themistocles