Author: Herodotus
Summary (Slides by nblm)
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Notes
- When Alexander gets back and tells Mardonius that his peace terms where not considered and that the Greeks would not surrender, he immediately mobilized his troops to march towards Athens.
- Along the way, the Thebans advice him to not attack while the Greeks are united. They tell him to send gifts to numerous Greek states and cause division. But Mardonius is stubborn and wants to subdue the Greeks by force.
- When he reaches Athens he sees the city deserted and that the people and troops have fled to Salamis and other places. Mardonius offers a second peace treaty through Murychides.
- Murychides delivers the message to the Athenian council and one of the council members - Lycidas supports this. The Athenians stone him to death. They also stone his family to death.
- 289 - When the Persians attack, the Athenians send a message to the Spartans - asking them to honor their word of protecting them. But the Spartans are busy building a wall in the Isthmus, they also have a festival. So they delay by ten days. Finally, they send a troop of 5000 men.
- The Argives send a messenger to Mardonius informing him that Spartans are coming for the aid of the Athenians and that they cannot stop them.
- Mardonius is unhappy after hearing this. He had not done anything to Athens expecting them to accept his treaty. Now he decides to burn the city to the ground of whatever was remaining. He decides to withdraw to Thebes since Attica (Athens) is not good fighting ground for cavalry.
- The Persians reach Thebes, they cut down all the trees to make a wall of protection for themselves. The Thebans give them a feast where they sit around with Thebans and Persians alternating.
- Thousand heavy armed Phocian soldiers join them. Mardonius tell them to take position at the plains away from the main army. But a rumor spreads among them that the Persians will kill all of them before the battle begins due to Thessalians asking Persians to destroy Phocians. They see a horse charging towards them. They stand firm ready to fight. But the horse stops and goes back. So the fighting is averted.
- When Mardonius sees that the Greeks are not attacking them, he sends out his cavalry under Masistus to attack the Greeks. Masistus is well reputed as a great general among the Persians. He leads multiple attacks and causes great harm to the Greek army. But on one of the rounds, he gets hit by an arrow and falls down from his horse. The Greeks slay him. The Persians attack but are not able to recover their leader’s body. They go back to Mardonius and lament Masistus’ death.
- The Greeks put Masistus’ body in a cart and parade it around to show the army to embolden them to fight. After this, they decide to go to Plataea since it was better to encamp there.
- Battle of words (debate?) between the Athenians and the Tegeans over the positioning of their armies. Tegeans claim the post based on ancestry and ancient conquests. Athenians say they also have ancestry to talk about. But in recent times, they were the ones who fought the enemy bravely after the Persians had already conquered 46 nations. In the end, the Spartans support Athenians and the post on the left flank is given to the Athenians.
- The Greek army size - eighteen hundred men short of one hundred and ten thousand. 10k Lacaemedonians on the right (5k of them being Spartans), Tegeans were next to the Spartans on the right. Many other groups. Athenians on the left with 8k soldiers.