The great Persian War and its preliminaries

by G. B. Grundy

The surprise of the indignant envoys may then be imagined when they were told in answer by the Ephors that they had every reason to believe that their army was, by that time, at Orestheion on its march against “the strangers,” as they called the barbarians. Orestheion was in the small plain of Asea, S.S.E. of the Arcadian plain, where one of the great roads from Sparta northward met the main road coming from Messenia to the Arcadian plain. The fact that they took this route is interesting, because it almost certainly indicates that they wished to avoid Argos, from which, as will be seen, a certain amount of trouble was to be expected.

Thus the truth came out; and the envoys started without delay in pursuit of this phantom army, accompanied by five thousand picked hoplites of the Periœki.

The truth about the attitude of Argos at this time is rendered uncertain by the fact that, after the war was over, the patriot Greeks regarded not merely those races which had medized, but also those who had not taken part with them, as having been enemies of their fatherland. That of itself would give rise to a number of traditions of doubtful credibility with respect to the attitude of such neutrals. Nevertheless, the attitude of Argos was highly suspicious, and there is no doubt that it was firmly believed in after-time that she had had traitorous relations with Persia.

H. ix. 12.

Herodotus asserts that the Argives sent a messenger about this time to Mardonius, who was in Athens, saying that they were unable to carry out the promise that they had made to him to stop the Spartan army on its march northwards. This tale is to a certain extent supported by the fact that the Spartans, instead of adopting the shorter route north by the Thyreatic plain and Argos, adopted the longer one indicated by the mention of Orestheion. Argos was, by its strategical position, ever a serious obstacle to Sparta’s communication with the north.

KITHÆRON AND PARNES.

Mardonius had, up to this time, refrained from damaging Athens and Attica, in the hope that the Athenians would change their minds, and accept his proposals; but, failing to persuade them to do so, and hearing of the advance of this army to the Isthmus, he set fire to Athens, and began to withdraw to Bœotia; “because,” says Herodotus, “Attica was not a country for cavalry, and if he were defeated in an engagement his only line of retreat was through strait places, so that a few men could stop him.” He determined, therefore, to retreat, and make Thebes his base of operations, as lying in a region eminently adapted to the use of cavalry. His evident fear was lest the Greek forces should work up through the Megarid and seize the difficult passes of the Kithæron-Parnes range in his rear.

As this range is of great importance in the campaign which was at this time about to open, it may be well to describe its nature, and to enumerate the passes by which it is pierced. It was regarded by the Greeks as an effective and important line of defence; and the difficulties which it presented to various armies which had occasion to traverse or to attempt to traverse it in the warfare of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ, show that their estimate of its defensive possibilities was not a mistaken one. As its name implies, it is in reality composed of two short ranges, Kithæron on the west, and Parnes on the east. These are connected by an upland country known to the ancients by the name of Panakton, whose approaches on either side are, from a military point of view, of a very difficult character. The chain as a whole may be said to form a continuous barrier stretching from the head of the gulf of Corinth to the southern part of the Euripus. Both Kithæron and Parnes are sharply-edged, steep-sided ridges, whose highest points rise to a height of four thousand five hundred feet above sea-level, while the general elevation of each chain is about three thousand feet. Though not, as will be seen, of any great height, they offer comparatively few passages. There are six points at which the range may be traversed. Of these the western series, four in number, are of importance in reference to the battle of Platæa itself, while the two eastern passes afford alternative routes for an army retreating, like that of Mardonius, from Athens to Thebes.

At the extreme west of the range, where it sinks with sudden abruptness into the gulf of Corinth, it is turned rather than traversed by what is little better than a mountain track, which led from the Bœotian port of Kreusis to the Megarean town of Ægosthena. From Ægosthena a road led southwards to Pagæ, and so round the western bastions of Mount Geraneia to the Isthmus. It was also quite possible to reach Megara by a branch of this route.

Cf. Xen. Hell. v. 4; vi. 4.