BATTLES OF PLAT^A AND MYKALE. 159 his right in the territory of Plataea : and he employed his army in constructing forthwith a fortified camp' of ten furlongs square, defended by wooden walls and towers, cut from trees in the Theban territory. Mardonius found himself thus with his numerous army, in a plain favorable for cavalry ; with a camp more or less defensible, — the fortified city of Thebes ~ in his rear, — and a considerable stock of provisions as well as a friendly region behind him from whence to draw more. Few among his army, however, were either hearty in the cause or confident of success : 3 even the native Per- sians had been disheartened by the flight of the monarch the year before, and were full of melancholy auguries. A splendid banquet to which the Theban leader Attaginus invited Mardonius, along with fifty Persians and fifty Theban or Boeotian guests, exhibited proofs of this depressed feeling, which were afterwards recounted to Herodotus himself by one of the guests present, — an Orcho- menian citizen of note named Thersander. The banquet being so arranged as that each couch was occupied by one Persian and one Theban, this man was accosted by his Persian neighbor in Greek, who inquired to what city he belonged, and, upon learning that he was an Orcliomenian,4 continued thus : " Since thou hast now partaken with me in the same table and cup, I desire to leave with thee some memorial of my convictions : the rather, in order that thou mayst be thyself forewarned so as to take the best counsel for thine own safety. Seest thou these Persians here feasting, and the army which we left yonder encamped near the river ? Yet a little while, and out of all these thou shalt behold but few surviving:." Thersander listened to these words ' Herodot. ix, 15.
- The strong- town of Thebes was of much service to him (Thucyd. i, 90).
- Herodot. ix, 40, 45, 67 ; Plutarch, Aristcides, c. 18.
- Herodot. ix, 16. Thersander, though an Orchomenian, passes as a
Theban — Ylipar/v re nal QrjSaiov kv k/uvt) iKuarri — a proof of the intimate connection between Thebes and Orchomenus at this time, which is farther ilUistratcd by Pindar, Isthm. i, 51 (compare the Scholia ad loc. and at the bcf^inning of the Ode), respecting the Theban family of Herodotus and Asopodorus. The ancient mythical feud appears to have gone to sleep, but a deadly hatred will be found to grow up in later times between these two towns.
