The histories of Herodotus;

64-68] BATTLE OF PLAT^A 515
distinction at Sparta, who, some time after the Medic affairs,
at the head of three hundred men, engaged at Stenyclerus
with all the Messenians, there being war ; and he himself perished
and his three hundred. The Persians at Platsea, when
they were put to flight by the Lacedaemonians, fled in disorder
to their own camp, and to the wooden fortification which they
had made in the Theban territory. It is a wonder to me that,
when they fought near the grove of Ceres, not one of the
barbarians was seen to enter into the sacred inclosure, or to
die in it, but most fell round the precinct in unconsecrated
ground. I am of opinion, if it is allowable to form an opinion
concerning divine things, that the goddess would not receive
them, because they had burned her royal temple at Eleusis.
Such was the issue of this battle.
Artabazus, son of Pharnaces, from the very first had disapproved
of Mardonius being left by the king, and at that
time, though he strongly dissuaded him, he could not prevail,
urging him not to engage. He therefore acted as follows,
being displeased with the conduct of Mardonius : Those whom
Artabazus commanded (and he had no small force, but to the
number of forty thousand men with him), these, as soon as
the action began, well knowing what the result of the battle
would be, he drew up in order and advanced, having
ordered them to go where he should lead, whenever they
should see him advancing at a quick pace; having given this
order, he led his forces as if to join in the engagement: but
being in advance of his troops, he discovered the Persians
flying; whereupon he no longer led his forces in the same
order, but fled with all possible speed ; neither toward the
wooden fortification nor the walls of Thebes, but to the Phocians,
wishing to reach the Hellespont as soon as he could.
These, then, took that direction. Although the rest of the
Greeks in the king's army behaved themselves ill on purpose,
the Boeotians fought with the Athenians for a considerable
time. For those Thebans who sided with the Mede displayed
no little zeal, fighting and not willingly behaving ill, so that
three hundred of them, the first and most valiant, fell there
by the hands of the Athenians : but when they also were put
to flight, they fled to Thebes, not as the Persians fled, and
the whole throng of the other allies, without having fought
at all, or performed anything considerable. And it is manifest
to me that on the side of the barbarians all depended on
the Persians, since the others, before they engaged with the
enemy, fled at once, because they saw the Persians flying.
Accordingly, all fled, except the rest of the cavalry and espe-