[178] Herodot. vii, 226.
[179] Herodot. vii, 224. ἐπυθόμην δὲ καὶ ἁπάντων τῶν τριακοσίων. Pausanias, iii, 14, 1. Annual festivals, with a panegyrical oration and gymnastic matches, were still celebrated even in his time in honor of Leonidas, jointly with Pausanias, whose subsequent treason tarnished his laurels acquired at Platæa. It is remarkable, and not altogether creditable to Spartan sentiment, that the two kings should have been made partners in the same public honors.
[180] Herod. vii, 229. Ἀριστόδημον—λειποψυχέοντα λειφθῆναι—ἀλγήσαντα ἀπονοστῆσαι ἐς Σπάρτην. The commentators are hard upon Aristodêmus when they translate these epithets, “animo deficientem, timidum, pusillanimum,” considering that ἐλειποψύχησε is predicated by Thucydides (iv, 12) even respecting the gallant Brasidas. Herodotus scarcely intends to imply anything like pusillanimity, but rather the effect of extreme physical suffering. It seems, however, that there were different stories about the cause which had kept Aristodêmus out of the battle.
The story of another soldier, named Pantitês, who having been sent on a message by Leonidas into Thessaly, did not return in time for the battle, and was so disgraced when he went back to Sparta that he hanged himself,—given by Herodotus as a report, is very little entitled to credit. It is not likely that Leonidas would send an envoy into Thessaly, then occupied by the Persians: moreover, the disgrace of Aristodêmus is particularly explained by Herodotus by the difference between his conduct and that of his comrade Eurytus: whereas Pantitês stood alone.
[181] See the story of the single Athenian citizen, who returned home alone, after all his comrades had perished in an unfortunate expedition to the island of Ægina. The widows of the slain warriors crowded round him, each asking him what had become of her husband, and finally put him to death by pricking with their bodkins (Herodot. v, 87).
In the terrible battle of St. Jacob on the Birs, near Basle (August, 1444), where fifteen hundred Swiss crossed the river and attacked forty thousand French and Germans under the Dauphin of France, against strong remonstrances from their commanders,—all of them were slain, after deeds of unrivalled valor and great loss to the enemy, except sixteen men, who receded from their countrymen in crossing the river, thinking the enterprise desperate. These sixteen men, on their return, were treated with intolerable scorn and hardly escaped execution (Vogelin, Geschichte der Schweizer Eidgenossenschaft, vol. i, ch. 5, p. 393).
[182] Herodot. vii, 233; Plutarch, Herodot. Malign. p. 867. The Bœotian history of Aristophanês, cited by the latter, professed to be founded in part upon memorials arranged according to the sequence of magistrates and generals—ἐκ τῶν κατὰ ἄρχοντας ὑπομνημάτων ἱστόρησε.
[183] Herodot. vii, 235.
[184] Herodot. vii, 236.
[185] Herodot. vii, 237. “The citizen (Xerxes is made to observe) does indeed naturally envy another citizen more fortunate than himself, and if asked for counsel, will keep back what he has best in his mind, unless he be a man of very rare virtue. But a foreign friend usually sympathizes heartily with the good fortune of another foreigner, and will give him the best advice in his power whenever he is asked.”