The great Persian War and its preliminaries

by G. B. Grundy

On the question of the value of Plutarch’s evidence relative to the battle, I agree with Colonel Leake:⁠—

“It is scarcely worth while to advert to the particulars in which the other ancient authors who have related this great event differ from Herodotus; Diodorus and Plutarch lived so long afterwards that they cannot have much weight against the testimony of the contemporary historian. The former does not, however, deviate from it in any important point, and the contradictions of the latter are undeserving of much respect, as being those of a Bœotian angry with Herodotus for having spoken freely of the disgraceful conduct of his countrymen, and thinking no mode of exculpation so effectual as that of throwing general discredit on the historian’s accuracy.” (“Travels in Northern Greece,” vol. ii. p. 353.)

The movement of the Spartans was directed towards the pass on the Platæa-Athens road. It was evidently their object to avoid as much as possible the unimpeded ground of the plain on which the Persian cavalry could act, and with this intent they seem to have diverged slightly from the direct route to the pass in order to gain the northern end of that rocky bastion of Kithæron whereon the modern Kriekouki stands, a point at which the rocky mountain foot projects for some distance into the plain. SPARTANS LEAVE THE SECOND POSITION. They would thus take a direction S.S.E. from their position on the Asopos ridge, and must have passed the now useless Gargaphia spring on their way. After proceeding thus for ten stades, or about a mile and a furlong, they waited for Amompharetos and his company, whose reluctant movement from the late position they would be able to see from the moment that it began. It must therefore have been near the head waters of the two streams which run northwards on either side of the Long Ridge that this delay took place; and either the easternmost of these streams or the larger brook which skirts the site of Kriekouki on the west would seem to be the river Moloeis of which Herodotus speaks. Looking northward from that position, the highest point of the Long Ridge would rise in front of them in the form of a flat-topped table-land, bounded on either flank by the steep-sided stream valleys,[213] with the temple of Eleusinian Demeter, of which Herodotus speaks, upon its summit. The flat table-land itself formed doubtless that sacred precinct of the goddess of which Herodotus has something more to tell. Somewhere in the neighbourhood was the Argiopian country of which the historian speaks, all trace of whose name and identity has long vanished into the past. Possibly the plateau to the east of the Long Ridge bore that name in ancient times.

It was in the position which they had thus attained that they were fated to fight the decisive engagement by which the long-drawn struggle was won. They never reached that rocky projection where Kriekouki now stands.[214]

H. ix. 57.

“Those with Amompharetos joined them, and the whole of the barbarian cavalry assailed them,” says Herodotus, in one significant sentence.

In the gathering light of the dawn the Persians beyond the Asopos had noticed that the ridges which the Greeks had occupied for more than a fortnight past were vacant, and had sent forward their cavalry to overtake the retreating enemy. Amompharetos seems to have just managed to reach the main body before the attack fell; but the reunited force had no time to move before the cavalry was upon it. The ground on which it stood at the time was as unfavourable as it well could be. The bottom of the ridge lying west of Kriekouki sinks into the depression in a long gentle slope, affording a terrain admirably suited to the operations of the Persian cavalry; and it was on this ground that the Spartans were obliged to make their stand. The object of the cavalry attack was evidently to prevent the Greeks from attaining, before the Persian infantry should have time to come up, the strong position which the rocky slopes of Kithæron would afford. Mardonius made the fatal mistake of supposing that the Greeks were a broken as well as a beaten army,[215] and his sole anxiety seems to have been to render the victory complete. Had he been able to appreciate the real circumstances of the case, had he been content to abide by the tactics he had employed on the previous days, the whole history of the battle might have been changed.

H. ix. 59.

Having despatched his cavalry in pursuit of the Greeks, Mardonius lost no time in hurrying forward his infantry across the Asopos on the track of the retreating foe.[216] It is interesting to notice that it was against the Lacedæmonians and Tegeans alone that his efforts were directed, the line of retreat of the Athenians on the right wing of the Greeks being hidden from him by the hills.[217]

It was with the Persian infantry that Mardonius led the way; but the rest of the army followed with much speed and little order, eager to take part in the rout of the enemy with whom they had been so long face to face. They must have ascended the long gradual slope of the theatre which is formed by the curve of the Asopos ridge on its north front, and, arrived at its summit, they would see on the low ground southward the large mass of the Lacedæmonian contingent engaged by their cavalry.