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With three hundred infantry, mixed with archers, Olympiodorus, one of the ablest of the Athenian officers, advanced eagerly on the barbarian. Masistius himself, at the head of his troops, spurred his Nisaean charger against the new enemy.
The Magi, however, were not deceived; they shut themselves up in their palace, assembled an army in the Nisaean plain, promised the soldiers high pay, and used every effort to strengthen the belief of the people in Gaumata's disguise. On this point no one could do them more injury, or, if he chose, be more useful to them, than Prexaspes.
In after times the Nisaean Megarians named it Soönautes when they were about to settle in the land of the Mariandyni. For indeed the river saved them with their ships when they were caught in a violent tempest. By this way the heroes took the ship through the Acherusian headland and came to land over against it as the wind had just ceased.
He also built in one part of the country a number of fortified posts. He then imposed a tribute on the natives, consisting entirely of horses, which were perhaps required to be of the famous Nisaean breed. After his fourteenth year, B.C. 708, Sargon ceased to lead out his troops in person, employing instead the services of his generals.
Nisaean men of Megara, ye champions of the oars, happily may ye dwell, for that ye honoured above all men the Athenian stranger, even Diodes, the true lover. Always about his tomb the children gather in their companies, at the coming in of the spring, and contend for the prize of kissing. And whoso most sweetly touches lip to lip, laden with garlands he returneth to his mother.
It was the practice of the later Persians to protect with armor, not only the horseman, but the horse. They selected for the service large and powerful animals, chiefly of the Nisaean breed, and cased them almost wholly in mail. The head was guarded by a frontlet, and the neck and chest by a breast-piece; the sides and flanks had their own special covering and cuisses defended the thighs.
Armenia supplied the Phoenicians with "horses of common and of noble breeds," and also with mules. Strabo says that it was a country exceedingly well adapted for the breeding of the horse, and even notes the two qualities of the animal that it produced, one of which he calls "Nisaean," though the true "Nisaean plain" was in Media.
'A cross between that white Nisaean which you sent me, and one of my own mares. 'Not a bad cross; though he keeps a little of the bull head and greyhound flank of your Africans. 'So much the better, friend. Give me bone bone and endurance for this rough down country.
Of its animals, those which had the highest reputation were its horses, distinguished into two breeds, an ordinary kind, of which Media produced annually many thousands, and a kind of rare size and excellence, known under the name of Nisaean. These last are celebrated by Herodotus, Strabo, Arrian, Ammianus Marcellinus, Suidas, and others.
On they swept the conveyance of the baggage, and a vast promiscuous crowd of all nations, preceding; behind, at a considerable interval, came the flower of the Persian army a thousand horse a thousand spearmen the ten sacred steeds, called Nisaean the car of the great Persian god, drawn by eight snow-white horses, and in which no mortal ever dared to seat himself.
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