The great Persian War and its preliminaries

by G. B. Grundy

H. ix. 38, 39.

Eight days thus passed without, apparently, any active operations being undertaken by either side. The Greeks profited most by the delay. Reinforcements to their army kept coming in through the passes in their rear, and their numbers were considerably increased. EFFECTIVENESS OF PERSIAN CAVALRY. Mardonius’ attention was called to this fact by a Theban named Timegenides, who suggested that the Persian cavalry should be sent to assail the bands traversing the pass of Dryoskephalæ. The advice was taken, and on the very next night the cavalry was despatched. The fatal weakness of the new Greek position was now made apparent. On its right flank a wide space of practicable ground, traversed, moreover, by the Thebes-Dryoskephalæ road, had been left open, by which the Persian cavalry could without difficulty and without opposition reach the mouth not merely of the Dryoskephalæ pass, but also of that other pass on the Platæa-Athens road, the only two really effective lines of the Greek communications. The Greek army, by taking up so advanced a position, had ceased to cover those passes, and even the Platæa-Megara pass was but imperfectly protected.

The cavalry raid met with immediate and startling success. A Greek provision-train of five hundred pack animals, with their drivers and, presumably, their escort, was annihilated at the mouth of the Dryoskephalæ pass.

H. ix. 40.

During the two next days there was a good deal of skirmishing on the main line of the Asopos, but neither side crossed the stream, so that no decisive result was arrived at. This form of fighting was nevertheless distinctly disadvantageous to the Greeks, who suffered from the missiles of the Persian cavalry without being able to retaliate in any decisive fashion. The Asopos is not a large stream, and at this time of year would be easily traversable at any point. Its bed is sufficiently deep to render it a serious obstacle to the passage of cavalry, if the crossing were disputed, but an undisputed passage could be made without difficulty at almost any point of this part of its course.

H. ix. 41.

Mardonius was becoming impatient at the indecisive character of the operations. The two armies had now been for eleven days facing one another on either side of the Asopos. He had evidently made up his mind that this state of things could not continue, and that a movement of some kind must be made. Artabazos, who had commanded at the siege of Potidæa, advised withdrawal to Thebes, which was only six miles north of their position; it was strongly fortified, and, as the Persian base of operations, was, so he said, amply provided with supplies.[202] H. ix. 41, ad fin. He pointed out that they were possessed of ample funds wherewith a campaign of bribery among the leading men of the Greek states might be instituted. The Thebans advocated the same line of action. They knew their countrymen; so apparently did Herodotus, as his language shows. Mardonius, however, would have none of such advice; he believed his army to be a better fighting machine than that of the Greeks; and it is impossible not to recognize the truth of his view as matters then stood.

A certain amount of light seems to be thrown on this reported discussion between the Persian commanders by an incident which Herodotus reports to have occurred on the night of the same day. Alexander the Macedonian, who has already appeared prominently in the history of this time as Mardonius’ representative in the recent negotiations with the Athenians, is said to have ridden up to the line of the Greek outposts and to have demanded speech with the commanders of the army.[203] After reciting his attachment to the Greek cause, he made one startling revelation as to the state of things in the Persian army, which, if true, would go far to explain the subsequent course of events, and mould put a new complexion upon the advice which Artabazos is represented to have given. He said that he believed Mardonius intended to attack on the following day. If he deferred doing so, the Greeks were not to retire from their position, because the Persian supplies are running short. EVOLUTIONS. If this statement is true, it accounts for the pronounced offensive which Mardonius assumed from this time forward; and, if the enormous difficulties under which the Persians laboured as to their line of communications be taken into consideration, it is extremely probable that it was true. The action of the Phocian refugees away northward was sure to make itself felt in this department of the war.

This part of Herodotus’ narrative takes the form of a series of scenes in which the various prominent actors on either side are introduced upon the stage and use language suitable to the situation; but, though unreliable in form, it can hardly be doubted that these tales indicate in a more or less direct way the actual course of events. That tale among them which is least easy to understand or explain relates to what passed in the Greek camp after Alexander’s message had been reported to the generals.

Pausanias, as commander of the Spartans, is reported to have been alarmed at the prospect of an attack on the following day, and to have proposed to the Athenians that they should exchange places in the line with the Spartans, in order that they might then face the Persian contingent of whose fighting they had had experience at Marathon. The Athenians accepted the proposal willingly; they even said they had been on the point of making it themselves. The exchange was made; but the Bœotians, who noticed it, reported the matter to Mardonius, who made a corresponding change in his own line The Greeks, noticing this, returned to their original order.