While these events were occurring in Middle Greece, Mardonius, in the far North, was preparing to move. It is said that before starting he despatched an envoy to make inquiries of the oracles of Northern Greece, at Lebadeia, Abæ, and Mount Ptoon, on what subject Herodotus is unable to say with certainty—on the circumstances of the time, he is inclined to think.

A much more important envoy was despatched to Athens in the person of Alexander, the son of Amyntas, a member of the royal house of Macedonia, who was connected with the Persians by family ties, and with the Athenians by his having held for them the position of Proxenos, or consular agent, in his own country.

It may fairly be doubted whether Herodotus got the tale of Alexander’s mission from an Athenian or from a Macedonian source, or whether he combined information derived from both. H. viii. 136. The reference to the character of the Athenian people has, on the one hand, a strong Attic flavour about it, H. viii. 137 et seqq. while the knowledge of the Macedonian royal family displayed here and elsewhere in his work suggests that Herodotus acquired his information on the spot in the course of a visit to that country.177

This tale might, consequently, be derived from Macedonia. MARDONIUS AND ATHENS. This supposition is, however, rendered unlikely, owing to the excessively mistaken forecast which Alexander is described to have made of forthcoming events; and its Attic origin is the more probable. It is needless to say that that does not make for the veracity of a story whose evident intention is, like that of so many of the stories of this time, to bring into relief the self-denying patriotism of Athens. Yet, in spite of this, the story in itself is credible enough.

Mardonius, so the tale runs, had made up his mind that if he could win over the Athenians to the Persian side he would thereby deprive the forces opposed to him of a people both numerous and brave, who were, moreover, mainly responsible for the disaster of the previous year. By this means he hoped to gain once more command of the sea, and expected to be infinitely superior to the enemy on land. This design, Herodotus thinks, was probably suggested to him by the oracles he had recently consulted.

The most remarkable reference, so far, is to the recovery of the command of the sea. No one could better estimate than Mardonius the full significance of the loss of that command. He must have known well that, unless it were recovered, he could at best obtain but a partial measure of success. Anything of the nature of a prolonged campaign to the southward of Bœotia would be, on the mere question of commissariat, impossible; and a brief campaign was not to be looked for. A foe which had been formidable with the courage of despair was likely to be more formidable when animated with the courage of a hope following despair. He had, no doubt, accumulated during the winter in Thessaly as large a commissariat as possible; but it is beyond conception that he could have greatly increased the necessarily limited supplies obtainable locally by transport along that route of four hundred miles whose use had only been contemplated a month or two before, and whose organization must necessarily have been of the most hurried description. He must win Athens over, or modify his plans.

To her accordingly was offered a free pardon for the past on the part of the Great King, the enjoyment of her existing lands, and any accession of territory she liked. Nor did Alexander the envoy fail to point out to the Athenians the contrast between such a prospect and their actual state as the people who had suffered most from the war.

The news of Alexander’s visit to Athens, and of its object, created considerable alarm at Sparta. An embassy was despatched with all speed to counteract the possible ill-effects of his proposals. This embassy was actually present when Alexander spoke; for the latter had been kept waiting for several days before he had been allowed to bring his business before the assembly. The astute Athenians had made up their minds to use Alexander as a lever wherewith to move the sluggish Sparta to action. They do not seem to have had any intention whatever of taking Mardonius’ message into consideration. When Alexander had done speaking, the Spartan ambassadors addressed the assembly. They urged that it would be gross desertion on the part of the Athenians to renounce their share in a war which had been provoked by them, and by them alone. Turning to more material matters, they promised to alleviate the sufferings of the Athenians by undertaking the support of the non-effective part of the population.

The Athenian answer to Mardonius’ message was as firm as their determination: “So long as the sun runs his course in the heavens, we will never make terms with Xerxes.”

The answer to the Lacedæmonians as reported by Herodotus is, in sentiment and language alike, one of the finest passages in Greek prose.

“The fear of the Lacedæmonians lest we should make terms with the barbarians is, humanly speaking, very natural. And yet, knowing well, as you do, the spirit of Athens—that there is not in the wide world gold sufficient nor land so exceeding fair and good that we would accept it as the price of our own defection and of the enslavement of Hellas,—your fear, we think, does you but small credit. There are many powerful considerations which would forbid our so acting, even had we the will to do so. ATHENS AND SPARTA. First and foremost is the burning and destruction of the images and temples of the gods, which we, so far from making terms with the doers of these deeds, must of necessity avenge to the full. Secondly, there is that tie of blood and language which binds the Greek world together, our common share in our religious foundations and sacrifices, our community of manners—things which it would disgrace the Athenians to betray. Know this, if you did not before know it, that so long as a single Athenian survives, we will never make terms with Xerxes. We admire your kindly thought for us, in that, homeless as we are, you are willing to support our families. That kindness on your part is complete, but we will endure as we are, without burdening you.

“But now, these things being so, send forth your army with all speed, for we imagine that the invasion of our land by the barbarian will not be long deferred, so soon as he hears our message refusing compliance with his demands. Ere, then, he enters Attica, there is time for us to meet him in Bœotia.”

And so the Spartan ambassadors went home.

The Athenians evidently hoped that they would be able to save their land from the devastation of the previous year by persuading the allies to meet the enemy in Bœotia.

Their hopes were natural, but they were not destined to be fulfilled; and, if by Bœotia the Bœotian plain was meant, it was fortunate they remained unfulfilled.

On receipt of the answer from Athens Mardonius started on his march from Thessaly without delay. The feudal families of that region had thoroughly espoused the Persian cause, and their attitude, as well as that of the Bœotians, shows that the dominant section in the two great territories of the North had definitely made up their minds that, whatever the fate of the South might be, those regions were to become part of the Persian Empire. H. ix. 2. The Theban advice to Mardonius to remain in Bœotian territory and seek to conquer Greece by corrupting the leading men of its various states, shows that the medization of the ruling powers in Bœotia was not merely a passive attitude. One thing, however, Mardonius had made up his mind to do—to capture Athens a second time. Herodotus attributes the intention to mere vanity, but any one or all of three practical reasons made its acquisition of importance to him. Its recapture might induce Xerxes from his base on the Asian coast to attempt to regain the command of the sea. Its possession might bring pressure to bear on the Athenian authorities, and aid his design of detaching that people from the forces of resistance. Finally, in case he intended to advance on the Isthmus, the possession of the Acropolis would protect his left flank. He occupied Athens without striking a blow, the population having been removed, as in the previous year, to Salamis. Having occupied it, he reopened the negotiations which Alexander had attempted but a short time before. The result was the same. The spirit of the people was shown by their stoning to death Lykides, a member of the council, for merely proposing that the message should be communicated to the Assembly. Even his wife and children were murdered in a similar way by the Athenian women at Salamis.

This second withdrawal to Salamis comes somewhat as a surprise in Herodotus’ narrative, for his account of the visit of the Spartan embassy to Athens at the time of Alexander’s presence there makes it appear that an understanding had been arrived at by which Athens might be spared a second invasion. The explanation comes later. “So long as the Athenians expected that an army would come from Peloponnese to help them, they remained in Attica.” But when the presence of the enemy in Bœotia was announced, and it became impossible to hope that help from the South could arrive in time, they retired to Salamis, as they had done the year before. They also despatched an embassy to Sparta to protest against the delay.

The strong appeal to patriotism made in their last communication to the Lacedæmonian embassy had failed to impress a people whose very institutions and training rendered them incapable of forming a real conception of the true spirit of a pan-Hellenic policy. Their stern discipline, moreover, was only too well calculated to render them mere tools of those set over them; and the delay in the present instance was probably due to the policy of an inner ring of the government at Sparta. The records of the time afford no certain clue to the motives lying behind that policy. ATHENIAN EMBASSY AT SPARTA. It is possible that it aimed at forcing the hand of the Athenians, and compelling them to take part in the defence of the Isthmus.

Sparta having failed to listen to persuasion, Athens had recourse, as on previous occasions, to threats. The Spartans were told that if Athens found herself deserted, she would seek her salvation in her own way; it was more than hinted that Mardonius’ offer might become a question of practical politics. The Spartan excuse for delay was similar to that urged for the desertion of Thermopylæ, the celebration of a festival. The story of the reception of the ambassadors is one of the strangest in the strange history of this time. They bitterly reproached the Lacedæmonians with their conduct. They put the very worst construction on the Spartan policy, which had, they said, inflicted on patriotism an amount of suffering which it dare not have inflicted on uncertain fidelity. It is probable that the reproach was, in so far as the Spartan authorities were concerned, well deserved. From the language used by the Athenians it is evident that they believed that the Spartans had agreed to join in operations in Bœotia merely in order to keep Athens from medizing before the wall at the Isthmus was absolutely completed.178

That was the construction Athens put upon their conduct at this time; but it is probable that the more correct interpretation of their extraordinary policy is that by delaying they would be able to transfer the defence to the wall, and could, under any circumstances, rely on the devotion of Athens to the common cause.

Turning to the question of the future war policy, the Athenian ambassadors proposed that, as Bœotia had been lost, the enemy should be met in Attica; and they mentioned the Thriasian plain between Eleusis and Mount Ægaleos as admirably designed for a field of battle. [It must be remembered that this recommendation was made at a time when the Greeks were without experience of the effectiveness of the Persian cavalry on ground suited to its operations.]

The Ephors deferred their answer to the following day; from that to the next, and so on, until ten days had been wasted. They were waiting, says Herodotus, for the completion of the wall. They were, too, waiting, no doubt, until events in the North developed sufficiently to make it impossible for Athens to propose any other line of defence. This unsatisfactory state of things was brought to an end, so Herodotus says, by a warning addressed to the Ephors by Chileos, a Tegean, who had great influence in Sparta. He pointed out that if Athens joined the Persian, wall or no wall, the doors of the Peloponnese would be opened wide. Herodotus evidently supposed that until this moment such an idea had never occurred to the Spartan authorities, despite the experiences of Artemisium and Salamis in the previous year. In all probability, what really influenced these authorities was the fact that an able man, whose opinion they valued, was not so sure as they themselves were, that Athenian loyalty would endure much longer the severe test to which it was being put.

Their next act was a very strange one. Without saying a word to the ambassadors, they despatched under cover of night a force of five thousand Spartans, each of whom was accompanied by seven helots. There were, therefore, forty thousand in all. The number of light-armed helots is remarkable, certainly above the usual quota allotted to a force of five thousand heavy-armed.179

In constituting this force, the unusual number of light-armed in the army which it would have to meet would naturally be taken into consideration. The circumstances of population in the Spartan territories, moreover, were such that any unusual increase in the numbers employed on any expedition would be supplied by the increase in this branch of the service. The commander of this large force was Pausanias. Kleombrotos had been in command at the Isthmus in the previous year, but had died shortly after bringing back his army thence.180 It must have been prepared for departure for some time past No such force could start on short notice.181

The ambassadors, knowing nothing of this sudden march, and weary of the continual procrastination, were prepared to leave Sparta on the following morning. Before the deception was discovered the Athenian delegates actually stated that, in consequence of Sparta’s attitude, Athens would make terms with Persia, and, more than that, would accompany the Persians in their invasion. Truly the Spartan government policy had very nearly brought Greece to ruin.

The surprise of the indignant envoys may then be imagined when they were told in answer by the Ephors that they had every reason to believe that their army was, by that time, at Orestheion on its march against “the strangers,” as they called the barbarians. Orestheion was in the small plain of Asea, S.S.E. of the Arcadian plain, where one of the great roads from Sparta northward met the main road coming from Messenia to the Arcadian plain. The fact that they took this route is interesting, because it almost certainly indicates that they wished to avoid Argos, from which, as will be seen, a certain amount of trouble was to be expected.

Thus the truth came out; and the envoys started without delay in pursuit of this phantom army, accompanied by five thousand picked hoplites of the Periœki.

The truth about the attitude of Argos at this time is rendered uncertain by the fact that, after the war was over, the patriot Greeks regarded not merely those races which had medized, but also those who had not taken part with them, as having been enemies of their fatherland. That of itself would give rise to a number of traditions of doubtful credibility with respect to the attitude of such neutrals. Nevertheless, the attitude of Argos was highly suspicious, and there is no doubt that it was firmly believed in after-time that she had had traitorous relations with Persia.

Herodotus asserts that the Argives sent a messenger about this time to Mardonius, who was in Athens, saying that they were unable to carry out the promise that they had made to him to stop the Spartan army on its march northwards. This tale is to a certain extent supported by the fact that the Spartans, instead of adopting the shorter route north by the Thyreatic plain and Argos, adopted the longer one indicated by the mention of Orestheion. Argos was, by its strategical position, ever a serious obstacle to Sparta’s communication with the north.

Mardonius had, up to this time, refrained from damaging Athens and Attica, in the hope that the Athenians would change their minds, and accept his proposals; but, failing to persuade them to do so, and hearing of the advance of this army to the Isthmus, he set fire to Athens, and began to withdraw to Bœotia; “because,” says Herodotus, “Attica was not a country for cavalry, and if he were defeated in an engagement his only line of retreat was through strait places, so that a few men could stop him.” He determined, therefore, to retreat, and make Thebes his base of operations, as lying in a region eminently adapted to the use of cavalry. His evident fear was lest the Greek forces should work up through the Megarid and seize the difficult passes of the Kithæron-Parnes range in his rear.

As this range is of great importance in the campaign which was at this time about to open, it may be well to describe its nature, and to enumerate the passes by which it is pierced. It was regarded by the Greeks as an effective and important line of defence; and the difficulties which it presented to various armies which had occasion to traverse or to attempt to traverse it in the warfare of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ, show that their estimate of its defensive possibilities was not a mistaken one. As its name implies, it is in reality composed of two short ranges, Kithæron on the west, and Parnes on the east. These are connected by an upland country known to the ancients by the name of Panakton, whose approaches on either side are, from a military point of view, of a very difficult character. The chain as a whole may be said to form a continuous barrier stretching from the head of the gulf of Corinth to the southern part of the Euripus. Both Kithæron and Parnes are sharply-edged, steep-sided ridges, whose highest points rise to a height of four thousand five hundred feet above sea-level, while the general elevation of each chain is about three thousand feet. Though not, as will be seen, of any great height, they offer comparatively few passages. There are six points at which the range may be traversed. Of these the western series, four in number, are of importance in reference to the battle of Platæa itself, while the two eastern passes afford alternative routes for an army retreating, like that of Mardonius, from Athens to Thebes.

At the extreme west of the range, where it sinks with sudden abruptness into the gulf of Corinth, it is turned rather than traversed by what is little better than a mountain track, which led from the Bœotian port of Kreusis to the Megarean town of Ægosthena. From Ægosthena a road led southwards to Pagæ, and so round the western bastions of Mount Geraneia to the Isthmus. It was also quite possible to reach Megara by a branch of this route.

The difficulties of this pass are such that it was rarely used for military purposes, and it seems to have played no part whatever in the operations of 479.

The second pass is that which the road from Platæa to Megara formerly traversed. It crosses Kithæron a little more than a mile eastward of Platæa, entering a deep valley which runs into the chain from the north, and ascending steeply from the head of the valley to the summit of a col in the ridge. Its character forbids the supposition that it can ever have been used for wheeled vehicles, and its importance must have been mainly due to the fact that it is the only one of this series of passes, with the exception of the track by Ægosthena, by which land communication between Northern Greece and the Peloponnese could be maintained without entering Attic territory. The road south of it, towards Megara, traverses the troublesome hill region of the Northern Megarid.182 The fact that Platæa practically commanded the northern end of this pass rendered the town one of the most important strategic positions in Greece, both in the fifth and in the fourth centuries. It will be hereafter seen that this pass must have played an important part in the operations of the Greek army at Platæa.

The third pass is one by which the road from Platæa to Athens crossed the range. It is little more than a mile to the east of that last mentioned. Remains of the road are visible on the north side, entering a somewhat broad valley running into the hills. It must have always been an easy pass, and the ancient wheel-ruts worn in the rock show that it was used by wheeled vehicles.183 PASSES BETWEEN ATTICA AND BŒOTIA. The road, after traversing it, turned east, and joined, near Eleutheræ, the road from Thebes to Eleusis by way of the pass of Dryoskephalæ. This pass also played an important part in the operations at Platæa.

The fourth pass was well known under its Attic name of Dryoskephalæ, and though not traversed by the direct road between Thebes and Athens, must have been largely used by those going from one place to the other, owing to the route by way of it being more easy than the direct road by Phyle. From the Bœotian side, near the site of the ancient Erythræ, the ascent is steep; it must have always been necessary to make it by a series of zigzags. The summit once reached, the descent is gradual, down a long stream-valley which abuts on a small plain of Attica beneath the fortress of Eleutheræ. As a pass, it was probably always more difficult than that on the Platæa-Athens road, but as the route from Thebes through it was more direct, it became the most used of the passes of Kithæron, and seems to have been the only one which had a special name in ancient times. The road through it was continued southward through a not very difficult country, as country goes in Greece, to the Thriasian plain and Eleusis, passing by or very near the fortress of Œne, whose importance must have been due to its position with reference to this road. Near Eleusis it joined the Sacred Way to Athens. Of the importance of this pass at the time of the battle of Platæa it is hardly necessary to speak.

The fifth of the series of passes is that on the direct road between Thebes and Athens. After ascending from the Bœotian plain to the plateau of Panakton, it traverses the upland pastures of that region, and enters a difficult country, where it was commanded by the important Attic fortress of Phyle. Thence it reaches the head of the Athenian plain. Mardonius might certainly have made use of this route for his retreat. He preferred, however, the more roundabout way through the sixth pass. It may have been, on the whole, an easier route. Furthermore, Mardonius, who seems to have been more apprehensive than he need at this moment have been that his retreat might be cut off, evidently thought that the route furthest from the Greek lines of advance would be safest.

The sixth pass leads from the plain of Athens into the lower basin of the Asopos. It was commanded near its summit by that fortress of Dekeleia which was destined to become so famous in the latter part of the Peloponnesian war. After passing Dekeleia, it was possible, instead of continuing along the road due north, to diverge to the left and follow a stream-valley to Tanagra. From Tanagra there must always have been a good, though not absolutely direct, road to Thebes, and also an easy passage up the Asopos valley.

Herodotus, after describing Mardonius’ preparations for leaving Athens, says that when already on his way it was reported to him that a body of a thousand Lacedæmonians had been pushed forward to Megara. On hearing this, he wheeled about, and led his army as far as Megara, while his cavalry overran the whole of the Megarid. Herodotus’ intention in mentioning the incident is made sufficiently clear by the words which follow: H. ix. 14, ad fin. “This is the furthest point west in Europe which the Persian army reached.” Paus. i. 44, 4. It is to this expedition that a tradition mentioned by Pausanias must be referred—a tradition which preserved the record of the advance of the Medes to Pagæ.

There is no reason to doubt that the Persian raid into the Megarid is an historical fact, recorded by Herodotus and preserved in this chance tradition. It is not, however, at all likely that it was made by the whole Persian army, or that it was made at the time Herodotus mentions. His object in relating the story is plainly indicated, and in his desire to make his main point, he has probably not been over careful as to exactness in date.

If Mardonius wished, as is represented by the historian, to secure his safe passage to Bœotia, he would hardly have turned back with all his force. Had he done so, his natural line of withdrawal would have been by Dryoskephalæ. MARDONIS RETREATS TO BŒOTIA. The raid into Megara seems to have been a cavalry reconnaissance, whose object was to discover what the Greeks were doing at the Isthmus, and, moreover, it was probably made several days at least before the time indicated by Herodotus.

The actual line of retreat Herodotus describes with some detail. He first went to Dekeleia, whence guides despatched by the Bœotarchs conducted him to Sphendale, and so to Tanagra. From thence he made his way up the Asopos valley to Skolos, where he formed a stockaded camp.184

It is impossible to arrive at any real comprehension of the history of this stage of the war without deducing from the action of Mardonius the nature of the designs, both political and strategical, which led him to adopt the course of action which he did.

It is evident, in the first place, that he had given up all idea of an attack on the fortifications of the Isthmus. It is also evident that he had recognized from the first that the only possibility offered him of an attack on that position was in the event of his winning over Athens to his side. If he could not do so, he would be liable to have his communications cut at any moment in the very difficult region of the Megarid. The negotiations with Athens had conspicuously failed. It would be absurd to suppose that he was not prepared for such an eventuality even before he started for Thessaly; he may be conceived even to have recognized that, after the events of the previous year, the probability of success in the negotiation was remote.185 If this be the case, it is to be concluded that he had some alternative design in his mind, which he intended to carry out in case the first miscarried. The very circumstances under which the history of the time was written forbade the possibility of the nature of that design becoming known to after-ages, and the only surviving indications of what he planned are afforded by what he did.

It is amply proved in the Greek historians that the disaster of the previous year had left the ruling powers of the north just as loyal to Persian interests as they had been before Salamis. If anything, their loyalty had increased. Their contingents were with Mardonius. They had practically staked their all on his success; and only his presence could save them from the severe retaliation which the patriotic Greeks might be expected to inflict on those who had joined the enemies of their country. If Mardonius’ strategy at this time be any indication of his policy, that policy aimed at the establishment of a new Persian frontier at the Kithæron-Parnes line, with Thessaly, Phocis, and Bœotia in a similar position to the vassal states of Thrace and Macedonia.

His strategical plan was well based. The Kithæron-Parnes line offered a much easier defence against an assailant from the south than against one from the north, because the continuous valleys of the Œroë and Asopos formed a natural highway running lengthwise along the chain, such a highway as was conspicuous by its absence on the southern side. By this highway an army could be moved rapidly from one point to the other, according to the locality of the pass through which the attack might be delivered. CHANGE IN GREEK PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. On the south no such facilities existed, and an army on the north which made a feint at one of the eastern passes, and so attracted an enemy to its defence, could move to one of the western passes, and get through it long before the defender could move from his original defensive position.186

Thus Mardonius was well placed. He had a fortified base at Thebes, in a rich country, and a country well adapted to his strength in cavalry; and he had a fortified camp on the strategic line of highway which the Asopos valley afforded.

It is little short of a calamity for the history of this time that Herodotus has omitted to account for the absolute change in the Greek plan of campaign which is indicated by the advance of the army from the Isthmus into Bœotia. It had manifestly been the intention of the Spartans up to the very last moment to await attack at the Isthmus; it may be certain that the other Peloponnesian States entertained this design still more emphatically. And yet, in spite of this, they follow the enemy to Bœotia, and shortly after their arrival there develop an offensive movement of a most unmistakable character. Athens must have been mainly responsible for this remarkable change; but what were the motives of Athens? It was too late to save Attica. The mischief there had been done. And yet these Greeks were persuaded to develop a policy whose boldness is in conspicuous contrast to the purely defensive attitude they had hitherto adopted in all their land operations, and to inaugurate the new policy in a region peculiarly favourable to that arm of the enemy’s force from which they had most to fear and against which they had nothing to match. It can only have been carried out under the impetus of some great and well-grounded alarm; and in view of the silence of the ancient historian, the only conclusion that it is possible to draw from the acts of either side is that the Greeks, through the Athenians, suspected the existence of a design to establish a new Persian frontier at Kithæron.

It was consequently necessary to take the offensive and the risk it involved, unless they were ready to submit to the existence of the Persian terror at their very doors. Whether its continued existence would have been possible without the regaining of the command of the sea is another question; but, considering the attitude of Bœotia and Thessaly, it would be unsafe to assert the impossibility. In any case, the Greeks regarded those possibilities from so near a perspective, that their field of vision must have been contracted to the one dangerous alternative.

The Lacedæmonian army, which was last heard of at Orestheion in Arcadia, arrived at the Isthmus and encamped there. The patriotic States of Peloponnese, seeing the Spartans on the move, despatched their contingents thither also, or, rather, the complements of their contingents, since it must be concluded that the wall had not been without any defenders up to this time. From the Isthmus the whole army moved forward to Eleusis, where the Athenian land-army from Salamis joined it. The whole combined force then moved north along the road to Dryoskephalæ.187

Shortly after passing the summit of the pass the Greek army would arrive in full view of the Bœotian plain, which from that elevated place appears more flat than it really is. The comparative monotony of the scenery of the plain itself is disguised by distance; and that which strikes the eye most forcibly is the contrast between this huge extent of comparatively low level ground, and the magnificent frame of mountains which forms the horizon on every side. To the north-west, Helicon descends in a long and highly serrated slope, behind which the hump of Parnassus in the far distance towers to a great height. LIMITS OF THE FIELD OF OPERATIONS. The northern horizon is bounded by that southern extension of the Œta range which lies between Kopais and the North Euripus, though Kopais, or what was once Kopais, is out of sight behind a comparatively low ridge in the neighbourhood of Thebes. To the north-east, Mount Ptoon is visible; and over its lower ridge the great cliffs of Mount Mekistos, on the Eubœan side of the Euripus, are just discernible. Away to the east, though hidden from sight at the top of the pass by a high bastion of Kithæron, the truncated cone of Mount Dirphys in Mid-Eubœa is the most prominent object.

There are but few extensive views in Greece comparable with it, and perhaps only one which excels it, that from Thaumaki on the road from Lamia northward, when the great plain of Thessaly, with its fringing ranges, is spread out like a sea before the spectator.

From the pass the Greeks descended to a position which extended across the road by which they had come, at the point at which it debouched fully on the plain. Before describing this position in detail it may be well to give a brief general description of the ground on which the prolonged struggle took place.

Its limits may be clearly defined. To the south its boundary is the limit of cultivation, where the rocky foot of Kithæron begins to rise from the rounded ridges of the plain. Outside this line the ground was impracticable for cavalry operations, and, though both armies at different times traversed this ground, no fighting took place beyond the line, or even in its neighbourhood. On the north, the limits are equally well defined by the river Asopos, although again in this case the major part of the Persian army was, during nearly the whole of the operations, to the north of the stream. The only fighting, however, which can possibly have taken place beyond it occurred during the assault on the Persian camp after the battle. To the east the limit may be taken as the line of the Thebes-Athens road; while to the west an imaginary line running due north from the town of Platæa to the Asopos will well define its utmost extent in that direction. The area of this field is about fifteen square miles, the dimensions from north to south and from east to west being about three and a half and four miles respectively.

In respect to the lie of its surface it may be divided into two parts. The southern portion of it along the foot of Kithæron consists of ridges running south and north, divided from one another by stream-valleys,—spurs, in fact, of the great mountain, but of no great height.188 Of these the easternmost is much loftier than the others. On the westernmost is the site of the town of Platæa.

North of these ridges a distinctly marked line of depression extends across the field from east to west. It runs up the course of a brook,189 in a south-westerly direction, to the site of the modern Kriekouki. After reaching the bottom of that village it turns at right angles and goes north-west in a line parallel to, and immediately north of, the watershed between the basins of the Asopos and Œroë, reaching the flat alluvial plain north of Platæa, just west of the springs of Apotripi, the traditional Gargaphia.

This depression is of considerable importance in relation to the general scheme of the operations of the Greek army on the field:⁠—

(a) Because it forms the dividing line between the first and intended third positions and the second position, that is to say, between the positions which were chiefly remarkable for their defensive character, and that position which was assumed with the manifest intention of taking a vigorous offensive.

(b) Because in it the Greek army, after marching from the first position, took up its order before occupying the second position.

(c) Because in it the two combats which ultimately decided the battle were fought.

The plain which has been mentioned in reference to the western extremity of this depression extends without any break from the north end of the site of the town of Platæa to the Asopos river. The plain is the only flat land in the whole battle-field.

North of the depression rise three ridges or hills.190 These ridges are separated from one another by two deep stream-valleys.191 The slope of these ridges northward toward the Asopos is longer and more gradual than on the south.

In general appearance the plain of Bœotia at this part resembles the Wantage downs in such parts as the ploughland predominates over the pasture. The great grey wall of Kithæron to the south rises into the air, and dwarfs into insignificance the inequalities of the plain, rendering, moreover, all horizontal distances most deceptive to the eye.

It may be assumed with absolute confidence that the accidents of the terrain in this region of Greece are for all practical purposes identical with those which existed more than two thousand years ago. There is no evidence of great surface-changes such as are brought about in other parts of Greece by the torrents which sweep down in violence from the mountains. In Upper Parasopia such torrents do not exist. Their non-existence can hardly be ascribed to inferior rainfall, for the Bœotian climate is not more dry than that of other parts of Greece. The probable cause is the peculiarly porous nature of the soil, and, presumably, of the underlying rock, which absorbs a large amount of water which would in other parts of Greece escape along the surface.192

In the flat plain between Platæa and the Asopos river, the courses of the various streams which traverse it are without doubt liable to alterations, but the characteristics of the stream-beds as to width, depth, and so forth, are undoubtedly the same as they were in the past.

The passes which actually debouch upon the field are, as has been already mentioned, three in number. It is remarkable that in Herodotus’ account of the battle that of Dryoskephalæ is the only one mentioned. It is, however, quite clear from Herodotus that, while the Greeks were in the second position on the battle-field, the Dryoskephalæ pass, and also that on the Platæa-Athens road, were both held by the Persian cavalry, and the supplies of the army during the time must have come through the pass on the Platæa-Megara road.193

Before entering upon the actual description of the battle itself, it may be well to say one word about the general character of the account of it which Herodotus has given to the world. Its length and elaboration are greater than that devoted by the author to the description of any other single act or scene in the history of his time. The historian had evidently expended extraordinary trouble in its preparation, and had done his utmost to arrive at all the facts and to relate them with accuracy. Any failure in the latter respect is owing either to the nature of his source or sources of information, or to a misapprehension of military details due to his want of special knowledge and experience. But whatever these defects may be, his narrative is by far the best of the accounts which have survived until the present day, a fact which is capable of proof by reason of the extraordinary manner in which, in spite of certain obscurities, it harmonizes with the present state of the region wherein the incidents occurred. There can be no reasonable doubt that he visited the field, and that, where he gives topographical details, they are the result of autopsy. Some of the difficulties which arise with reference to his description are more probably due to want of knowledge on the part of the modern than on the part of the ancient historian. Some, again, are attributable to that natural difficulty, which must ever arise, when any one attempts to follow exactly the description, however clear, of a complicated piece of ground as seen by the eyes of another man; and this difficulty is not decreased when the language employed does not possess that wealth of technical vocabulary which is at the service of the writer of the present day. It is so easy to fail to realize these difficulties under which Herodotus wrote. Official records were probably non-existent: written records of any kind, if existent, were probably of the most meagre kind; and the historian must have been obliged to have recourse to the narratives of those who were actually present at the operations. It must have cost an infinite amount of trouble to collect the information, and to piece together the different narratives; and yet, despite the immense difficulty of dealing with evidence of this kind, Herodotus has left an account of the battle which is not merely of interest and value from the point of view of general history, but also in the narrower field of exclusively military history.

Platæa was no ordinary engagement. It was really a campaign of several weeks, conducted within an extraordinarily limited field of operations. During that brief time, and within that small area, the strength and weakness of East and West matched in battle against one another were exemplified in a most striking way. The lesson it taught was so tremendous, so wide in application, that men could not grasp it. Perhaps it was as well for the world that they did not.