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The use of his overwhelming cavalry to cut communications was the obvious course for Mardonius (cf. App. XXII. 5). Even a temporary cutting of the lines, by such a raid as is here described, was serious, and might at any time be repeated. Dryoscephalae is usually rightly identified with the pass of Gyphto Kastro (cf. Grundy, 447, 493 n.; Frazer, Paus. v. 2), through which the main road from Athens and Eleusis by Eleutherae to Thebes passed in ancient as in modern times. This is the natural interpretation of Thucydides (iii. 24), and a modern traveller (Vischer, Erinner aus Griech. p. 533) states that the ‘three heads’ after which the Boeotians named the pass can be plainly distinguished from their side. On the other hand, the words αἱ ἐπὶ Πλαταιέων φέρουσι hardly suit this pass. Hence Munro would include under the name the whole group of passes (J. H. S. xxiv. 155 n.), and others, e. g. Stein and Rawlinson, identify ‘Dryoscephalae’ with Grundy's second pass. Through this came probably the main road to Thebes from Megara and the Peloponnese over Mount Kardyes by the modern Vilia (J. H. S. xxiv. 155, 156). Cleombrotus used it in 378 B. C., and thus avoided touching Attic territory (Xen. Hell. v. 4. 14, 19). Grundy's third road (called by him the Plataea-Megara road; cf. p. 456 n.) seems to be a rough track of no great importance, used as a short cut by travellers on foot or on horseback.

περιβαλόμενοι: either ‘surrounding’ (Stein; cf. Xen. Cyr. iii. 3. 23) or ‘securing them’ (Blakesley, Rawlinson); cf. iii. 71. 4; vi. 24. 2; vii. 190; viii. 8. 1.

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