Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/199

BATTLES OF PLATJEA AND MYKALE, I75 with astonishment and disdain, declaring " that he for one would never so far disgrace Sparta as to run away from the foreigner."' Pausanias, with the second in command, Euryanax, exhausted every effort to overcome his reluctance : but they could by no means induce him to retreat ; nor did they dare to move without him, leaving his entire lochus exposed alone to the enemy.2 Amidst the darkness of night, and in this scene of indecision and dispute, an Athenian messenger on horseback reached Pau- sanias, instructed to ascertain what was passing, and to ask for the last directions: for in spite of the resolution taken after formal debate, the Athenian generals still mistrusted the Lace- daemonians, and doubted whether, after all, they would act as they had promised : the movement of the central division having become known to them, they sent at the last moment before they commenced their own march, to assure themselves that the Spar- tans were about to move also. A pi'ofound, and even an exag- gerated mistrust, but too well justified by the previous behavior of the Si>artans towards Athens, is visible in this proceeding : 3 yet it proved fortunate in its results, — for if the Athenians, satisfied with executing their pai't in the preconcerted plan, had marched at once to the island, the Grecian army would have been severed without the possibility of reuniting, and the issue of the battle might have proved altogether different. The Athenian herald found the Lacedaemonians still stationary in their position, and the generals in hot dispute with Amomphare- tus ; who despised the threat of being left alone to make head against the Persians, and when reminded that the resolution had been taken by general vote of the officers, took up with _both hands a vast rock, fit for the hands of Ajax or Hektor, and cast tus : the former affinns that there never was any Spartan lochus so called (Thucyd. i, 21). We have no means of reconciling the difference, nor can we be certain that Thucydides is right in his negative comprehending all past time — 6f ov6' kyevero i:io~oTe. ' Herodot. ix, 5.3, 54. '^ Herodot. ix, 52, 53. ^ Herodot. ix, 54, 'A'&rjvaloi — ecxov urpefiag cffiEac avroic Iva iTux&7jaav, iTTiGTa/xevoi to. AaKei^ai/xoviuv (ppov^fiara, uf uXXa (ppoveovruv Kal uAXa