Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/184

160 HISTORY OF GREECE. with astonishment, spoken as they were with strong emotion and a flood of tears, and replied: " Surely, thou art bound to reveal this to Mardonius, and to his confidential advisers :" but the Persian rejoined: "My friend, man cannot avert that which God hath decreed to come : no one will believe the revelation, sure though it be. Many of us Persians know this well, and are here serving only under the bond of necessity. And truly this is the most hateful of all human sufferings, — to be full of knowl- edge, and at the same time to have no power over any result." ' " This (observes Herodotus) I heard myself from the Orchome- nian Thersander, who told me farther that he mentioned the fact to several persons about him, even before the battle of Plataea." It is certainly one of the most curious revelations in the whole history ; not merely as it brings forward the historian in his own personality, communicating with a personal friend of the Theban leaders, and thus provided with good means of information as to the general events of the campaign, — but also as it discloses to us, on testimony not to be suspected, the real temper of the native Persians, and even of the chief men among them. If so many of these chiefs were not merely apathetic, but despondent, in the cause, much more decided would be the same absence of will and hope in their followers and the subject allies. To follow the monarch in his overwhelming march of the preceding year, was gratifying in many ways to the native Persians : but every man was sick of the enterprise as now cut down under Mar- donius : and Artabazus, the second in command, was not merely slack but jealous of his superior .2 Under such circumstances we shall presently not be surprised to find the whole army disap- pearing forthwith, the moment Mardonius is slain. Among the Grecian allies of Mardonius, the Thebans and ' Herodot. ix, 16, 17. The last observation here quoted is striking and emphatic — ix^icrTTj 6s ddvvrj earl tuv kv av-dpuiroicL avrrj, rroXTiu (ppoviovTa [iridevog Kparteiv. It will have to be more carefullj- considered at a later period of this history, when we come to touch upon the scientific life of the Greeks, and upon the philosophy of happiness and duty as con- ceived by Aristotle. If carried fully out, this position is the direct negative of what Aristotle lays down in his Ethics, as to the superior happiness of the /3fof ■deupTiTLKbc, or life of scientific observation and reflection. ' Herodot. ix, 66.