The great Persian War and its preliminaries

by G. B. Grundy

5. Pass of Dryoskephalæ.

[To face page [460].

H. ix. 20.

Mardonius, seeing that the Greeks had taken up this position, and that they showed no disposition to come down into the plain, sent against them the whole of his cavalry, under the command of Masistios, a Persian of high reputation. On getting near the Greeks it did not attack in a body,—the deep stream courses opposite the Greek left centre would make that difficult,—but, owing evidently to the narrowness of the front assailable, attacked in squadrons, and did a great deal of damage. The Megareans were drawn up at the most assailable point, and were hard pressed by an assault which evidently aimed at cutting the Greek army in two, and seizing their direct line of retreat by way of the pass. The narrowness of the assailable front appears emphatically in Herodotus’ account of the message the Megareans despatched for assistance. They speak of themselves as being single-handed in the fight, and beg to be relieved from their position. They threaten even that, unless help be sent, they will be obliged to leave their post. Pausanias, who led the great Spartan contingent and commanded the whole army, had some difficulty in finding volunteers for the post of danger. Finally the Athenian picked troops, under the command of Olympiodoros, accompanied by a body of bowmen, undertook to occupy the critical position. Aristides, who commanded the Athenian contingent, would see clearly the pressing nature of the danger. H. ix. 22. The Persians continued their attack by squadrons until their leader, Masistios, had his horse wounded by an arrow. It reared and threw him, close, apparently, to the Greek line of battle; for the Athenians immediately rushed towards him. He was killed, and his horse was captured. The Persians had not noticed the fall of their commander, and it was not until they had retired and had come to a stand-still that the loss was discovered. With shouts of encouragement to one another, the horsemen turned upon the Greeks, eager to gain possession of their leader’s body. They came no longer in squadrons, but in what must have been one column of horse, many ranks in depth. The Athenians called on the rest of the army to aid them, but before the latter came up the attack fell. The Athenians, only three hundred in number, were pressed back from the place where Masistios lay; the fight was too unequal. But when the other Greeks came up the Persian horsemen retired and were obliged to leave the body in the hands of the enemy. After retreating a distance of two stades, they held a consultation, and decided that, having lost their general, the best thing they could do was to retire to the camp.

In this combat the Persian cavalry was evidently taught a severe lesson. They found out the mistake of attacking unshaken heavy infantry at close quarters, a fundamental error in tactics which they did not repeat again in the course of the battle. From this time forward the Persians used their cavalry to inflict damage on the immobile Greek force by assailing it with missiles from a distance, and by cutting its lines of communication. They had learnt their lesson: the Greeks had not.

It is evident that the latter drew a wholly mistaken conclusion from the results of the fight, H. ix. 25. and that their previous fear of the enemy’s cavalry gave place to an unwarranted confidence in their ability to face it on any ground. They were now prepared to carry out tactically that offensive movement which they had begun strategically by their advance into Bœotia. It would seem as if their original design had been to use the Dryoskephalæ-Thebes road as their line of advance, a design which was checked in part by the nervousness originally pervading the greater part of their army as to the result of a rencontre with the Persian cavalry, and still more by the fact that they could see that the fortified Persian camp was saddled, as it were, on their proposed line of advance. From Herodotus’ description it would appear as if that camp were on both sides of the Asopos river, and that the point at which the Thebes-Dryoskephalæ road crosses that river at the present day must have been well within its area.

MOVEMENT FROM THE FIRST POSITION.

It was, then, in consequence of their elation at the success which they had won over the Persian cavalry, and probably also in consequence of the decision of the Greek commanders to take the offensive along a line other than that of the direct route to Thebes, that the Greeks moved from the position which they had hitherto occupied. It was plain that in that position no decisive result could be obtained. The extreme importance of this movement makes it necessary that Herodotus’ description of it should be follow with the utmost care:⁠—

H. ix. 25.

“After this they decided to go down towards Platæa. For the Platæan country seemed to them to be a much more suitable place for encampment than that about Erythræ. It was better supplied with water, and had other advantages. They determined therefore that they must move to that region and to the spring of Gargaphia, which is situated in it, and form a regular encampment. Taking up their arms, therefore, they went along the foot hills of Kithæron by Hysiæ to the Platæan country, and on arriving there they proceeded to take up their order by contingents near the spring of Gargaphia and the precinct of the hero Androkrates, along hills of no great height and level country.”