the other without performing any memorable piece of service, Mardonius, whose victuals began to fail, resolved to begin the fray. The Greeks were promised victory by an oracle, if they fought in the land of the Athenians, and in the plain of Ceres and Proserpina, making prayers unto certain gods, demigods, and nymphs. But it was hard to find the certain place which the oracle designed. For the plain of Ceres was indeed in the territory of Athens; but there was also an old temple of Ceres and Proserpina, near unto the place where they lay at that time encamped, as likewise the memorials of those nymphs and demigods were in the same place, upon mount Citharon, and the ground served well for footmen against horse; only the land belonged unto the Plateans, and not unto the Athe

nians.

Whilst the Greeks were perplexed about the interpretation of this doubtful oracle, the Platæans, to make all clear, did freely bestow their land on that side the town upon the Athenians.

This magnificence of the Plateans caused Alexander the Great, many ages after, to reedify their city, which was ruined in the Peloponnesian wars.

All things being ready for battle, the Lacedæmonian general thought it most meet that the Athenians should stand opposite that day to the Medes and Persians, whom they had formerly vanquished at Marathon; and that he, with his Spartans, should entertain the Thebans and other Greeks which followed Mardonius, as better acquainted with their fight, and having beaten them oftentimes before. This being agreed upon, the Athenians changed place with the Lacedæmonians; which Mardonius understanding, (whether fearing the Athenians, of whose valour the Medes and Persians had felt heavy proof, or desiring to encounter the Spartans, as thinking them the bravest soldiers in Greece,) he did also change the order of his battle, and oppose himself to Pausanias. All the Greeks might well perceive how the enemy did shift his wings, and Pausanias thereupon returned to his former station; which Mardonius noting, did BALEGH, VOL. III.

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also the like. So one whole day was spent in changing to and fro. Some attempt the Persians made that day with their archers on horseback, who did so molest the Greeks at their watering-place, that they were fain to enter into consultation of retiring; because they could not, without much loss to themselves, and none to the enemy, lie near to that fountain which did serve all the camp. Having therefore concluded among themselves to dislodge, and part of the army being sent away before daylight, Mardonius perceived their departure in the morning, and thereupon, being encouraged by their flight, (which to him seemed to proceed out of mere cowardice,) he charged them in rear with great violence. It may well be recorded as a notable example of patient valour, that the Lacedæmonians being overtaken by the enemy's horse, and overwhelmed with great flights of arrows, did quietly sit still, not making any resistance or defence, till the sacrifices for victory were happily ended, though many of them were hurt and slain, and some of especial mark lost, before any sign of good success appeared in the entrails.

But as soon as Pausanias had found in the sacrifice those tokens which the superstition of that age and country accounted fortunate, he gave the signal of battle; and thereupon the soldiers, who till then did sit upon the ground, as was their manner, arose all together, and with excellent courage received the charge of the Barbarians, that came thronging upon them without any fear of such notable resistance. The rest of the Greek army that was in march, being revoked by Pausanias, came in apace to succour the Lacedæmonians; only that part of the army which was led by the Athenians could not arrive unto the place of the great battle, because the Thebans, and other Greeks confederated with the Persians, gave them check by the way. Nevertheless, the Spartans, with other their assistants, did so well acquit themselves, that the Persians were vanquished, and Mardonius, with many thousands more, slain in the field; the rest fled into the camp, which they had fortified with wooden walls, and there defended themselves with such cou

rage as desperate necessity enforced them unto, holding out the longer, because the Lacedæmonians were not acquainted with the manner of assaulting fortresses and walls. In the mean season the Athenians, having found strong opposition of the Thebans and Thessalians, did with much labour and courage obtain victory, which having not long pursued, they came to help the Lacedæmonians, whom they found wearily busied in assaulting the camp with more valour than skill. Wherefore they themselves undertook it, and in short space forced a passage through the wall, at which breach first, and then on all sides, the Greeks entered with such fury, and just desire of vengeance, that of three hundred thousand they are said not to have left three thousand alive, excepting those who fled away with Artabazus, when the Persian army first fell to rout.

If the execution were so great as is reported, an especial cause of it was the foolish retreat, or rather flight into the camp. For though it were so, that the place was well fortified, and the number of those who cast themselves into it greater than of the assailants; yet they, being of several nations and languages, and having lost their general, with other principal commanders, it was unpossible that they in such a terror and astonishment should make good that piece of ground, lying in the heart of an enemy's country, against an army of men far more valiant than themselves, and inflamed with present victory. Therefore the same wall, which for a few hours had preserved their lives by holding out the enemy, did now impale them, and leave them to the slaughtering fury of unpitiful victors. Artabazus fled into Thrace, telling the people of Thessaly and other countries in his way, that he was sent by Mardonius upon some piece of service; for he well knew, that had they understood any thing of that great discomfiture, all places would have been hostile unto him, and sought with his ruin to purchase favour of the vanquishers. Therefore making so large marches, that many of his soldiers being feeble were left behind and lost, he came to Byzantium, whence he shipped his men over into Asia. Such was the end of the

vainglorious expedition undertaken by Xerxes against the Greeks, upon hope of honour and great conquest; though sorting otherwise, accordingly as Artabazus had foreseen, and rather worse; forasmuch as it began the quarrel, which never ended before the ruin of the Persian empire was effected, by that nation of the Greeks despised, and sought to have been brought into slavery. Hereby it may seem, that the vision appearing to Xerxes was from God himself, who had formerly disposed of those things, ordaining the subversion of the Persian monarchy by the Greeks, who, thus provoked, entered into greater consideration of their own strength and the weakness of their enemies.

SECT. X.

The battle of Mycale, with a strange accident that fell out in the beginning of it; and examples of the like.

THE same day on which the battle was fought at Platææ, there was another battle fought at Mycale, a promontory or headland in Asia, where the Persian fleet rode.

Leutychides the Spartan, with Xantippus the Athenian, admirals of the Greek navy, at the request of some islanders and Ionians, did sail into those parts to deliver the Samians, and procure the Ionians to revolt from the Persian. Xerxes himself at this time lay at Sardis, a city in Lydia, not far from the sea-side, having left threescore thousand under the command of Tigranes for defence of Ionia and the sea-coast. Therefore when Artayntes and Ithramitres, admirals of the Persian fleet, understood that the Greeks bent their course towards them, they did forthwith draw their ships aground, fortifying with palisadoes and otherwise as much ground as did seem needful for the encamping of all their land and sea forces. Leutychides at his arrival, perceiving that they meant to keep within their strength, and resolving to force them out of it, rowed with his galley close aboard the shore, and called upon the Ionians, (who more for fear than good-will were encamped among the Persians,) exhorting them in the Greek tongue to remember liberty, and use the fair occasion which they now had to reco

ver it. Herein he did imitate Themistocles, who had done the like at Euboea; trusting that either these persuasions would prevail, or if the Persians did happen to understand them, that it would breed some jealousy in them, causing them to fight in fear of their own companions. It need not seem strange, that this very same stratagem, which little or nothing availed Themistocles, did now very happily succeed. For Xerxes being in his full strength, it was a matter of much difficulty to persuade those inhabitants of Asia to revolt; who now, in his declining estate, gave a willing ear to the sweet sound of liberty. The Persians likewise, who in their former bravery little regarded, and less feared, any treason to be contrived by their subjects, were now so wary, that from the Samians, which were amongst them, they took away their arms; the Milesians, whom they did suspect, but would not seem to mistrust, they placed far from them, as it were for defence of the strait passages of Mycale, pretending that these Milesians did best of all others know those places. But these devices little availed them; for the Samians, perceiving that they were held as traitors, took courage in the heat of the fight, and laying hold upon such weapons as came to hand, assailed the Persians manfully within the camp; which example the Ionians presently followed, being very glad to have found some that durst begin. It is said, that while the Greeks were yet in march towards the enemy's camp, a rumour suddenly ran in the army that Mardonius was overthrown in Greece, which (though perhaps it was given out by the captains to encourage the soldiers) was very true. For the battle of Platææ was fought in the morning, and this of Mycale in the evening of the same day.

The like report of that great battle, wherein Paulus Emylius overthrew Perseus the last king of Macedon, was brought to Rome in four days, as Livy with others do record. And Plutarch hath many other examples of this kind: as that of the battle by the river Sagra in Italy, which was heard of the same day in Peloponnesus; that of the battle against the Tarquinians and the Latins, presently