Sykes' History of Persia - Heritage Institute

REPULSE OF PERSIA BY HELLAS 221
when once the order was given, marched swiftly north to
meet the foe.
Mardonius, who had destroyed what was left of
Athens, retired to Boeotia, where he was supported by
allies and could use his cavalry to greater effect than in
which included no mounted
hilly Attica. The Greek army,
troops, followed, and at first took up its
position on the
lower slopes of Mount Cithaeron, where it was less ex-
posed than in the open plain to the attacks of the
Persian cavalry. Mardonius sent all his
cavalry, under
Masistius, to harass the Greeks, and by charging in the
Persian manner division after division, it inflicted con-
siderable loss.
Finally, however, the horse of Masistius
was wounded and threw him. The Greeks then rushed
forward and killed the
prostrate leader. The Persian
cavalry charged with the utmost fury to recover his body,
but in vain ; and after incurring serious losses returned
to camp much dejected.
The Battle of Plataea^ 479 b.c. — Elated by this
success, and influenced no doubt by the important matter
of the water supply, the army of Hellas quitted the pro-
tection of the hills and took up an advanced position,
with its left resting on a tributary of the Asopus River,
and its right near the spring of Gargaphia. The main
stream of the Asopus lay between the Greeks and the
Persians. The Persian cavalry could now be employed
more effectively. The new Greek position had ceased to
protect the two passes
across which their lines of communication
ran, and as a result a convoy of five hundred
pack animals, with its drivers, and presumably its escort,
was cut to pieces by the Persians.
Mardonius, possibly owing to shortness of supplies,
was anxious to
fight a decisive battle. His plan was to
weaken the Greek moral by a free use of his mounted
troops, and in this he partially succeeded. His active
horsemen "harassed the whole Greek army by hurling
javelins and shooting arrows, being mounted archers
who could not be brought to close combat. The spring
of Gargaphia, too, from which the entire Greek " army
obtained water, they spoiled and filled 1 up This quota-