Herodotus' HISTORY BOOK 9 (CALLIOPE) Complete

Translated by G. Macaulay.

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63. In the place where Mardonios himself was, riding on a white horse and having about him the thousand best men of the Persians chosen out from the rest, here, I say, they pressed upon their opponents most of all: and so long as Mardonios survived, they held out against them, and defending themselves they cast down many of the Lacedemonians; but when Mardonios was slain and the men who were ranged about his person, which was the strongest portion of the whole army, had fallen, then the others too turned and gave way before the Lacedemonians; for their manner of dress, without defensive armour, was a very great cause of destruction to them, since in truth they were contending light-armed against hoplites. 64. Then the satisfaction for the murder of Leonidas was paid by Mardonios according to the oracle given to the Spartans, [67] and the most famous victory of all those about which we have knowledge was gained by Pausanias the son of Cleombrotos, the son of Anaxandrides; of his ancestors above this the names have been given for Leonidas, [68] since, as it happens, they are the same for both. Now Mardonios was slain by Arimnestos, [69] a man of consideration in Sparta, who afterwards, when the Median wars were over, with three hundred men fought a battle against the whole army of the Messenians, then at war with the Lacedemonians, at Stenycleros, and both he was slain and also the three hundred. 65. When the Persians were turned to flight at Plataia by the Lacedemonians, they fled in disorder to their own camp and to the palisade which they had made in the Theban territory: [70] and it is a marvel to me that, whereas they fought by the side of the sacred grove of Demeter, not one of the Persians was found to have entered the enclosure or to have been slain within it, but round about the temple in the unconsecrated ground fell the greater number of the slain. I suppose (if one ought to suppose anything about divine things) that the goddess herself refused to receive them, because they had set fire to the temple, that is to say the "palace" [71] at Eleusis.

67. See viii. 114.

68. {es Leoniden}: this is ordinarily translated "as far as Leonidas;" but to say "his ancestors above Anaxandrides have been given as far as Leonidas" (the son of Anaxandrides), is hardly intelligible. The reference is to vii. 204.

69. Most of the MSS. call him Aeimnestos (with some variation of spelling), but Plutarch has Arimnestos.

70. See ch. 15. There is no sharp distinction here between camp and palisade, the latter being merely the fortified part of the encampment.

71. {anaktoron}, a usual name for the temple of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis.

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