[369] Herodot. ix, 70; Demosthenês cont. Timokrat. p. 741, c. 33. Pausanias (i, 27, 2) doubts whether this was really the cimeter of Mardonius, contending that the Lacedæmonians would never have permitted the Athenians to take it.
[370] Herodot. ix, 70: compare Æschyl. Pers. 805-824. He singles out “the Dorian spear” as the great weapon of destruction to the Persians at Platæa,—very justly. Dr. Blomfield is surprised at this compliment; but it is to be recollected that all the earlier part of the tragedy had been employed in setting forth the glory of Athens at Salamis, and he might well afford to give the Peloponnesians the credit which they derived at Platæa. Pindar distributes the honor between Sparta and Athens in like manner (Pyth. i, 76).
[371] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 19. Kleidemus, quoted by Plutarch, stated that all the fifty-two Athenians who perished belonged to the tribe Æantis, which distinguished itself in the Athenian ranks. But it seems impossible to believe that no citizens belonging to the other nine tribes were killed.
[372] Diodorus, indeed, states that Pausanias was so apprehensive of the numbers of the Persians, that he forbade his soldiers to give quarter or take any prisoners (xi, 32); but this is hardly to be believed, in spite of his assertion. His statement that the Greeks lost ten thousand men is still less admissible.
[373] Herodot. ix, 89. The allusions of Demosthenês to Perdikkas king of Macedonia, who is said to have attacked the Persians on their flight from Platæa, and to have rendered their ruin complete, are too loose to deserve attention; more especially as Perdikkas was not then king of Macedonia (Demosthenês cont. Aristokrat. pp. 687, c. 51; and περὶ Συντάξεως, p. 173, c. 9).
[374] Herodot. ix, 84. Herodotus indeed assigns this second burial-place only to the other Spartans, apart from the Select. He takes no notice of the Lacedæmonians not Spartans, either in the battle or in reference to burial, though he had informed us that five thousand of them were included in the army. Some of them must have been slain, and we may fairly presume that they were buried along with the Spartan citizens generally. As to the word ἱρέας, or εἴρενας, or ἱππέας (the two last being both conjectural readings), it seems impossible to arrive at any certainty: we do not know by what name these select warriors were called.
[375] Herodot. ix, 85. Τῶν δ’ ἄλλων ὅσοι καὶ φαίνονται ἐν Πλαταιῇσι ἐόντες τάφοι, τούτους δὲ, ὡς ἐγὼ πυνθάνομαι, ἐπαισχυνομένους τῇ ἀπεστοῖ τῆς μάχης, ἑκάστους χώματα χῶσαι κεινὰ, τῶν ἐπιγινομένων εἵνεκεν ἀνθρώπων· ἐπεὶ καὶ Αἰγινητέων ἐστὶ αὐτόθι καλεόμενος τάφος, τὸν ἐγὼ ἀκούω καὶ δέκα ἔτεσι ὕστερον μετὰ ταῦτα, δεηθέντων τῶν Αἰγινητέων, χῶσαι Κλεάδην τὸν Αὐτοδίκου, ἄνδρα Πλαταιέα, πρόξεινον ἐόντα αὐτῶν.
This is a curious statement, derived by Herodotus doubtless from personal inquiries made at Platæa.
[376] Herodot. ix, 78, 79. This suggestion, so abhorrent to Grecian feeling, is put by the historian into the mouth of the Æginetan Lampôn. In my preceding note, I have alluded to another statement made by Herodotus, not very creditable to the Æginetans: there is, moreover, a third (ix, 80), in which he represents them as having cheated the Helots in their purchases of the booty. We may presume him to have heard all these anecdotes at Platæa: at the time when he probably visited that place, not long before the Peloponnesian war, the inhabitants were united in the most intimate manner with Athens, and doubtless sympathized in the hatred of the Athenians against Ægina. It does not from hence follow that the stories are all untrue. I disbelieve, indeed, the advice said to have been given by Lampôn to crucify the body of Mardonius,—which has more the air of a poetical contrivance for bringing out an honorable sentiment, than of a real incident. But there seems no reason to doubt the truth of the other two stories. Herodotus does but too rarely specify his informants: it is interesting to scent out the track in which his inquiries have been prosecuted.
After the battle of Kunaxa, and the death of Cyrus the younger, his dead body had the head and hands cut off, by order of Artaxerxes, and nailed to a cross (Xenoph. Anab. i, 10, 1; iii, 1, 17).