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After this the Athenians marched to Plataea and brought in provisions, and left a garrison in the place, also taking away the women and children and such of the men as were least efficient. After the affair at Plataea, the treaty had been broken by an overt act, and Athens at once prepared for war, as did also Lacedaemon and her allies.
XXV. There is a legend that the news of the battle on the river Sagra in Italy against the natives was carried the same day into Peloponnesus, and that of the battle of Mykale against the Medes was so carried to Plataea. The victory of the Romans over the Latins under the exiled Tarquins was reported at Rome a little after it took place, by two men, tall and fair, who came from the army.
Xerxes pursued his march through Greece unopposed except by Thespiae and Plataea, which towns he reduced, and spread desolation over Attica until he arrived at the foot of the Cecropian hill, which he found guarded by a handful of desperate citizens who refused to surrender. But the brave defenders were soon put to the sword, and Athens was plundered and then burned to the ground.
And that the god replied, they were utterly mistaken, for that the places spoken of by the oracle were within the bounds of Plataea, and if they sought there they should find them.
He being killed by Antipater near Megalopolis, and leaving no issue, was succeeded by his brother Eudamidas; he, by a son called Archidamus; and Archidamus, by another Eudamidas, the father of this Agis of whom we now treat. Leonidas, son of Cleonymus, was of the other royal house of the Agiadae, and the eighth in descent from Pausanias, who defeated Mardonius in the battle of Plataea.
But Aristides was never principal in any action; for Miltiades carried the day at Marathon, at Salamis Themistocles, and at Plataea, Herodotus tells us, Pausanias got the glory of that noble victory: and men like Sophanes, and Aminias, Callimachus, and Cynaegyrus, behaved themselves so well in all those engagements, as to contest it with Aristides even for the second place.
Of these, ships were furnished by Chios, Lesbos, and Corcyra, infantry and money by the rest. Such were the allies of either party and their resources for the war. Immediately after the affair at Plataea, Lacedaemon sent round orders to the cities in Peloponnese and the rest of her confederacy to prepare troops and the provisions requisite for a foreign campaign, in order to invade Attica.
So to this day, barbarians say, when whispered far or near, More than all else the ATTIC WASP is still a name of fear. Trans. by W. LUCAS COLLINS. Six years after the battle of Plataea the career of Xerxes was terminated by assassination, and his son, Artaxerxes Longim'anus, succeeded to the throne.
The magistrates of Greece, therefore, went forthwith and compelled such as had fire to put it out; and Euchidas, a Plataean, promising to fetch fire, with all possible speed, from the altar of the god, went to Delphi, and having sprinkled and purified his body, crowned himself with laurel; and taking the fire from the altar ran back to Plataea, and got back there before sunset, performing in one day a journey of a thousand furlongs; and saluting his fellow-citizens and delivering them the fire, he immediately fell down, and in a short time after expired.
Before any actual declaration of war, hostilities were begun in the spring of B.C. 431 by a treacherous attack of the Thebans upon Plataea. Though Boeotians by descent, the Plataeans did not belong to the Boeotian league, but had long been in close alliance with the Athenians.
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