herodotus

one was seen to put out against them, but they perceived ships drawnup within the wall and a large land-army ranged along the shore, thenfirst Leotychides, sailing along in his ship and coming as near to theshore as he could, made proclamation by a herald to the Ionians,saying: "Ionians, those of you who chance to be within hearing of me,attend to this which I say: for the Persians will not understandanything at all of that which I enjoin to you. When we join battle,each one of you must remember first the freedom of all, and then thewatchword 'Hebe'; and this let him also who has not heard know fromhim who has heard." The design in this act was the same as that ofThemistocles at Artemision; for it was meant that either the wordsuttered should escape the knowledge of the Barbarians and persuade theIonians, or that they should be reported to the Barbarians and makethem distrustful of the Hellenes.[108]99. After Leotychides had thus suggested, then next the Hellenesproceeded to bring their ships up to land, and they disembarked uponthe shore. These then were ranging themselves for fight; and thePersians, when they saw the Hellenes preparing for battle and alsothat they had given exhortation to the Ionians, in the first placedeprived the Samians of their arms, suspecting that they were inclinedto the side of the Hellenes; for when the Athenian prisoners, the menwhom the army of Xerxes had found left behind in Attica, had come inthe ships of the Barbarians, the Samians had ransomed these and sentthem back to Athens, supplying them with means for their journey; andfor this reason especially they were suspected, since they hadransomed five hundred persons of the enemies of Xerxes. Then secondlythe Persians appointed the Milesians to guard the passes which lead tothe summits of Mycale, on the pretext that they knew the country best,but their true reason for doing this was that they might be out of thecamp. Against these of the Ionians, who, as they suspected, would makesome hostile move[109] if they found the occasion, the Persians soughtto secure themselves in the manner mentioned; and they themselves thenbrought together their wicker-work shields to serve them as a fence.100. Then when the Hellenes had made all their preparations, theyproceeded to the attack of the Barbarians; and as they went, a rumourcame suddenly[110] to their whole army, and at the same time aherald's staff was found lying upon the beach; and the rumour wentthrough their army to this effect, namely that the Hellenes werefighting in Bœotia and conquering the army of Mardonios. Now by manysigns is the divine power seen in earthly things, and by this amongothers, namely that now, when the day of the defeat at Plataia and ofthat which was about to take place at Mycale happened to be the same,a rumour came to the Hellenes here, so that the army was encouragedmuch more and was more eagerly desirous to face the danger. 101.