Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/191

 BATTLES OF PL AT J: A AND in'KALE. 167 Mardoniu3, apprized of this change of position, marched his army also a little farther to the westward, and posted himself opposite to the Greeks, divided from them by the river Asopus. At the suggestion of the Thebans, he himself, with his Persians and Medes, the picked men of his ai"my, took post on the left wing, immediately opposite to the Lacedcemonians on the Greek right, and even extending so far as to cover the Tegean ranks on the left of the Lacedsemonians : Baktrians, Indians, Sakce, with other Asiatics and Egyptians, filled the centre : and the Greeks and Macedonians in the service of Persia, the right, — over against the hoplites of Athens. The numbers of these last- mentioned Greeks Herodotus could not learn, though he esti- mates them conjecturally at fifty thousand :i nor can we place any confidence in the total of three hundred thousand, which he gives as belonging to the other troops of Mardonius, though probably it cannot have been much less. In this position lay the two armies, separated only by a narrow space including the river Asopus, and each expecting a battle, whilst the sacrifices on behalf of each were offered up. Pausa- nias, Mardonius, and the Greeks in the Persian army, had each a separate prophet to offer sacrifice, and to ascertain the dispo- sitions of the gods ; the two first had men from the most distin- guished prophetic breeds in EUs, — the latter invited one from Leukas."2 All received large pay, and the prophet of Pausanias had indeed been honored with a recompense above all pay, — the gift of full Spartan citizenship for himself as well as for his brother. It happened that the prophets on both sides delivered the same report of their respective sacrifices, — favorable for resistance if attacked ; unfavorable for beginning the battle. At a moment when doubt and indecision was the reigning feeling on both sides, this was the safest answer for the prophet to give, and the most satisfactory for the soldiers to hear. And though the answer from Delphi had been sufficiently encouraging, ajid the ' Herodot. ix, 31, 32. These prophets were men of great individual consequence, as may o* seen by the details which Herodotus gives respecting their adventur*** compare also the bistorj- of Euenius, ix. 93.
 * Herodot. ix, 36, 38. fieuicrdufiivo^ ovk 6?.iyov.