The Position of the Persian Camp.
Herodotus (ix. 15) describes the position of the camp as follows: Παρῆκε δὲ αὐτοῦ (Mardonius) τὸ στρατόπεδον ἀρξάμενον ἀπὸ Ἐρυθρέων παρὰ Ὑσίας, κατέτεινε δὲ ἐς τὴν Πλαταιίδα γῆν, παρὰ τὸν Ἀσωπὸν ποταμὸν τεταγμένον. Οὐ μέντοι τό γὲ τεῖχος τοσουτον ἐποιέετο, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐπὶ δέκα σταδίους μάλιστά κῃ μέτωπον ἕκαστον.
Earlier in the same chapter he speaks of the Persian force as having arrived ἐς Σκῶλον, ἐν γῇ τῇ Θηβαίων.
I could not find any traces of the ruins of Skolos; Vide note on p. 449. but if the distance given in the passage of Pausanias (ix. 4, 3) already quoted is in any sense reliable, it lay four and a half miles east of the point where the Platæa-Thebes road crossed the Asopos; that is to say, about a mile and a half east of the Dryoskephalæ-Thebes road. Comparing this statement with Herodotus’ description of the position of the Persian army as stretching from Erythræ and Hysiæ, the conclusion which must be arrived at is that its encampment was on the low ground on either side of the Dryoskephalæ-Thebes road, and on the Asopos river.
The passage in Herodotus (ix. 31) πυθόμενοι τούς Ἓλληνας εἶναι ἐν Πλαταιῇσι, from the use of the word πυθόμενοι, would seem to indicate that the first phase of the second position of the Greeks was not in view of the Persian camp. If so, that camp was on the low ground, and did not extend southward to either of those heights called in the map the Long ridge and the Plateau.
At the risk of appearing to anticipate the evidence, it is necessary for the clear understanding of the somewhat complicated operations of this period of the battle, to state that the movement this indicated is not the complete movement to the second position, nor, consequently, is the position adopted the position finally taken up by the Greeks. That second position had three phases, of which this is the first.
It is possible to follow without difficulty this movement which Herodotus describes. It is evident that the Greek army first matched west along the south or upper part of the ridges[196] which descend from Kithæron towards the plain. Their object was evidently to keep, in so far as possible, on the rocky hill slopes, where their march could not be imperilled or interrupted by cavalry attack. In this march they passed Hysiæ. The position of that small place is not, as has been already said, determinable with certainty; but it seems most probable that its site is to be looked for immediately above the village of Kriekouki, and, if so, it would lie almost on the line of march which Herodotus indicates.