United States or Angola ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


In one point Mardonius was nearly right in his predictions, since it proved subsequently, as will hereafter be seen, that when the Persian army reached the pass of Thermopylæ, which was the great avenue of entrance, on the north, into the territories of the Greeks, they found only three hundred men ready there to oppose their passage!

The war tent of Xerxes had been left to Mardonius, and on taking the Persian camp Pausanias saw it with its colored hangings and its gold and silver adornments, and gave orders to the cooks that they should prepare him such a feast as they were used to do for their lord. On seeing the splendid banquet, he ordered that a Spartan supper should be prepared.

Perceiving this the next morning, Mardonius hastened with his Persians toward the higher ground, where the Spartan troops might be seen winding along under the hillside, for from the river-banks he could not catch sight of the Athenians, who were hidden among the low hills which rose from the level plain. The last momentous strife had now begun.

What else will you?” asked the bow-bearer. “Gold?” “Nothing. Yet take this.” Glaucon unclasped from his waist the golden belt Xerxes had bestowed at Sardis. “A Hellene I went forth, a Hellene I return.” He made to kiss the Persian’s dress, but Mardonius would not suffer it. “Did I not desire you for my brother?” he said, and they embraced.

We commiserate your melancholy condition your privation for two years of the fruits of your soil, your homes destroyed, and your fortunes ruined. We, the Spartans, and the other allies, will receive your women and all who may be helpless in the war while the war shall last. Let not the Macedonian, smoothing down the messages of Mardonius, move you.

Eight deep, unhasting, unresting, Pausanias was bringing his heavy infantry across the two hundred paces betwixt himself and Mardonius. His Spartan spearmen might be unlearned, doltish, but they knew how to do one deed and that surpassingly well,—to march in line though lightnings dashed from heaven, and to thrust home with their lances.

Mardonius stepped to the bedside and gave the Athenian his right hand. “At the island you saved my life and that of my best beloved. Let it never be said that Mardonius, son of Gobryas, is ungrateful. To-day, in some measure, I have repaid the debt I owe. If you will have it so, as speedily as your strength returns and opportunity offers I will return you to your people.

Overcome by a thousand emotions, he flung himself upon a chest and pressed the homely toy many times to his lips. After a long interval he recovered himself enough to go down to the eunuchs, who were misdoubting his long absence. “Persian,” he said to Mardonius, when he was again at the bow-bearer’s tents, “either suffer me to go back to my people right soon or put me to death.

He knew Themistocles hardly trusted him as frankly as of yore. Little Simonides, a man of wide influence and keen insight, treated him very coldly. Cimon had cooled also. But worse than all was a haunting dread. Democrates knew, if hardly another in Hellas, that the Cyprianin other words Mardoniuswas safe in Asia, and likewise that he had fled on the Solon.

Xerxes would acquire, by the success of the enterprise, a great accession to his wealth and to his dominion, and Mardonius, too, might expect to reap very rich rewards; but what were they themselves to gain?