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Can’t you see she wears shoes of the Theban model, laced open so as to display her bare feet, though everybody knows Thebes is Medizing? She’s no better than Glaucon.” “Hush,” ordered Clearchus, rising, “you have spoken folly enough. Those trumpets tell us we must hasten if we hope to join in the march ourselves.” Who can tell the great procession?
Many of these cities, which had long maintained very close relations with the Persian governors of the nearer hinterland, not only shaped their policy to please the latter, but even acknowledged Persian suzerainty; and since, as it happens, at this particular moment Sparta had fallen out with Persia, and a Spartan army, under Dercyllidas, was occupying the Aeolian district of the north, the "medizing" cities of Ionia and Caria were in some doubt of their future.
Daily a courier pricked into Sardis with despatches from the Great King to his trusted general. Mardonius left the great levees and public spectacles to Artaphernes, but his hand was everywhere. His decisions were prompt. He was in constant communication with the Medizing party in Hellas.
“Hush!” Democrates spilled the cup as he started. “No ‘Medizing’ talk before me. Am I not Themistocles’s friend?” “Themistocles and Leonidas will seem valiant fools after Xerxes comes. Men of foresight—” “Are never traitors.” “Beloved Democrates,” sneered the Spartan, “in one year the most patriotic Hellene will be he who has made the Persian yoke the most endurable. Don’t blink at destiny.”
“And why should Leonidas wish Glaucon to grind the bones of the champion of Sparta?” asked Cimon, curiously. “Quickly answered,” replied Simonides, who knew half the persons of the nobility in Hellas; “first, Lycon is of the rival kingly house at Sparta; second, he’s suspected of ‘Medizing,’ of favouring Persia.”
“Why, the lukewarmness of so many friends we had counted on, the bickerings which arose among the Confederates when we met just now at the Isthmus, the slackness of all Spartans save Leonidas in preparing for war, the hesitancy of Corcyra in joining us. Thebes is Medizing, Crete is Medizing, so is Argos. Thessaly is wavering.
The Athenians defeated the medizing Greeks, and effected a breach in the defences of the camp, on which the Spartans had failed to make any impression. A terrible carnage followed. The contingent of 40,000 troops under Artabazus alone drew off in good order. The remainder were seized with panic, and were either slaughtered like sheep or fled in complete disarray.
Glaucon sprang away from him and addressed the silent general. “Shall not Athens remain by Sparta, if Sparta will accept?” He could see Leonidas’s cold eyes gleam out through the slits in his helmet. The general reached forth his hand. “Sparta accepts,” called he; “they have lied concerning your Medizing! And you, Euboulus, do not filch from him his glory.”
“Woman,”—Democrates pulled his most consequential frown,—“Medizing is treason. On your duty as a daughter of Athens I charge you tell everything, then rely on my wisdom.” “Certainly, kyrie, certainly,” gasped Lampaxo, and so she began a recital mingled with many moans and protestations, which Democrates dared not bid her hasten.
Promptly—they must be again in their own lines, or they are missed.” An officer here or there threw an interrogation. Lycon answered briefly. Democrates kept sullen silence. He was clearly present more to prove the good faith of his Medizing than for anything he might say. Mardonius smote the ewer again. The soldiers escorted the two Hellenes forth.
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