herodotus

courage which he performed. 73. These then having been thus laid inbonds were put to death; and the Athenians after this sent forCleisthenes to return, and also for the seven hundred families whichhad been driven out by Cleomenes: and then they sent envoys to Sardis,desiring to make an alliance with the Persians; for they were wellassured that the Lacedemonians and Cleomenes had been utterly madetheir foes. So when these envoys had arrived at Sardis and were sayingthat which they had been commanded to say, Artaphrenes the son ofHystaspes, the governor of Sardis, asked what men these were whorequested to be allies of the Persians, and where upon the earth theydwelt; and having heard this from the envoys, he summed up his answerto them thus, saying that if the Athenians were willing to give earthand water to Dareios, he was willing to make alliance with them, butif not, he bade them begone: and the envoys taking the matter uponthemselves said that they were willing to do so, because they desiredto make the alliance. 74. These, when they returned to their own land,were highly censured: and Cleomenes meanwhile, conceiving that he hadbeen outrageously dealt with by the Athenians both with words and withdeeds, was gathering together an army from the whole of thePeloponnese, not declaring the purpose for which he was gathering it,but desiring to take vengeance on the people of the Athenians, andintending to make Isagoras despot; for he too had come out of theAcropolis together with Cleomenes. Cleomenes then with a large armyentered Eleusis, while at the same time the Bœotians by agreement withhim captured Oinoe and Hysiai, the demes which lay upon the extremeborders of Attica, and the Chalkidians on the other side invaded andbegan to ravage various districts of Attica. The Athenians then,though attacked on more sides than one, thought that they wouldremember the Bœotians and Chalkidians afterwards, and arrayedthemselves against the Peloponnesians who were in Eleusis. 75. Then asthe armies were just about the join battle, the Corinthians first,considering with themselves that they were not acting rightly, changedtheir minds and departed; and after that Demaratos the son of Aristondid the same, who was king of the Spartans as well as Cleomenes,though he had joined with him in leading the army out from Lacedemonand had not been before this at variance with Cleomenes. Inconsequence of this dissension a law was laid down at Sparta that itshould not be permitted, when an army went out, that both the kingsshould go with it, for up to this time both used to go with it, andthat as one of the kings was set free from service, so one of the sonsof Tyndareus[64] also should be left behind; for before this time bothof these two were called upon by them for help and went with thearmies. 76. At this time then in Eleusis the rest of the allies,seeing that the kings of the Lacedemonians did not agree and also thatthe Corinthians had deserted their place in the ranks, themselves toodeparted and got them away quickly. And this was the fourth time that