When the estrangement which
had arisen between the Athenians and the other Greeks became noised abroad, there came to
Athens ambassadors from the Persians and from the
Greeks. Now those who had been dispatched by the Persians bore word that Mardonius the general
assured the Athenians that, if they should choose the cause of the Persians, he would give them
their choice of any land in
Greece, rebuild their
walls and temples, and allow the city to live under its own laws; but those who had been sent
from the Lacedaemonians begged the Athenians not to yield to the persuasions of the barbarians
but to maintain their loyalty toward the Greeks, who were men of their own blood and of the
same speech.
[
2]
And the Athenians replied to the barbarians that
the Persians possessed no land rich enough nor gold in sufficient abundance which the Athenians
would accept in return for abandoning the Greeks; while to the Lacedaemonians they said that as
for themselves the concern which they had formerly held for the welfare of
Greece they would endeavour to maintain hereafter also, and of
the Lacedaemonians they only asked that they should come with all speed to
Attica together with all their allies. For it was evident, they
added, that Mardonius, now that the Athenians had declared against him, would advance with his
army against
Athens. And this is what actually took
place.
[
3]
For Mardonius, who was stationed in
Boeotia with all his forces, at first attempted to cause certain
cities in the
Peloponnesus to come over to him,
distributing money among their leading men, but afterwards, when he learned of the reply the
Athenians had given, in his rage he led his entire force into
Attica.
[
4]
Apart from the army Xerxes had given him
he had himself gathered many other soldiers from
Thrace and
Macedonia and the other allied
states, more than two hundred thousand men.
[
5]
With the advance
into
Attica of so large a force as this, the Athenians
dispatched couriers bearing letters to the Lacedaemonians, asking their aid; and since the
Lacedaemonians still loitered and the barbarians had already crossed the border of
Attica, they were dismayed, and again, taking their children and
wives and whatever else they were able to carry off in their haste, they left their native land
and a second time fled for refuge to
Salamis.
[
6]
And Mardonius was so angry with them that he ravaged the
entire countryside, razed the city to the ground, and utterly destroyed the temples that were
still standing.