HERODOTUS

BOOK IX. 57-58arms he led it at a foot's pace after the rest of thecolumn ;which having gone as far as ten furlongsaway was waiting for Amompharetus, halting bythe stream MoloTs and the place called Argiopium,where is set a shrine of Eleusinian Demeter. Thereason of their waiting was that, if Amompharetusand his battalion should not leave the place whereit was posted but abide there still, they might returnand succour him. No sooner had Amompharetus'men come up than the foreigners' cavalry attackedthe armyfor the horsemen did according as they;had ever been wont, and when they saw no enemyon the ground where the Greek array had been onthe days before this, they rode ever forward andattacked the Greeks as soon as they overtook them.58. When Mardonius learnt that the Greeks haddeparted under cover of night, and saw the grounddeserted, he called to him Thorax of Larissa andhis brothers Eurypylus and Thrasydei'us, and " said :What will you now say, sons of Aleuas ! when yousee this place deserted ? for you, who are theirneighbours, ever told me that Lacedaemonians fledfrom no battlefield and were surpassing masters ofwar ; yet these same men you lately saw changingfrom their post, and now you and all of us see thatthey have fled away in the night that is past no;sooner must they measure themselves in battle withthose that are in very truth the bravest on earth,than they plainly showed that they are men of noaccount, and all other Greeks likewise. Now youfor your part were strangers to the Persians, and Icould readily pardon you for praising these fellows,who were in some sort known to you ;but I marvelledmuch more at Artabazus, that he should be229