HERODOTUS

BOOK IX. 16-17and those honourable Persians that are with him ? ""Sir/' said the Persian, "that which heaven willsto send no man can turn aside ;for even truth findsnone to believe it. What I have said is known tomany of us Persians but we; follow, in the bondsof necessity.And it is the hatefulest of all humansorrows to have much knowledge and no power."This tale 1 heard from Thersandrus of Orchomenus ;who said to me, moreover, that he had straightwaytold it to others before the fight of Plataeae.17. So Mardonius was making his encampment inBoeotia ;all the Greeks of that region who took thePersian part furnished fighting men, and they joinedwith him in his attack upon Athens, except onlythe Phocians : as to taking the Persian part, thatthey did in good sooth, albeit not willingly but ofnecessity. But when a few days were past after thePersians' coming to Thebes, there came a thousandPhocian men-at-arms, led by Harmocydes, the mostnotable of their countrymen. These also beingarrived at Thebes, Mardonius sent horsemen andbade the Phocians take their station on the plainby themselves. When they had so done, straightwayappeared the whole of the Persian cavalry ;and presently it was bruited about through all theGreek army that was with Mardonius, and likewiseamong the Phocians themselves, that Mardoniuswould shoot them to death. Then their generalHarmocydes exhorted them " Men of Phocis," he:" said, seeing it is plain that death at these fellows'hands stares us in the face (we being, as I surmise,maligned by the Thessalians) now it is meet for;177