Calliope   

goods and chattels from the mainland, and themselves again crossed the
strait to Salamis. At the same time they sent ambassadors to
Lacedaemon, who were to reproach the Lacedaemonians for having allowed
the barbarian to advance into Attica, instead of joining them and
going out to meet him in Boeotia. They were likewise to remind the
Lacedaemonians of the offers by which the Persian had sought to win
Athens over to his side, and to warn them, that no aid came from
Sparta, the Athenians must consult for their own safety.
The truth was, the Lacedaemonians were keeping holiday at that
time; for it was the feast of the Hyacinthia, and they thought nothing
of so much moment as to perform the service of the god. They were also
engaged in building their wall across the Isthmus, which was now so
far advanced that the battlements had begun to be placed upon it.
When the envoys of the Athenians, accompanied by ambassadors
from Megara and Plataea, reached Lacedaemon, they came before the
Ephors, and spoke as follows:-
"The Athenians have sent us to you to say,- the king of the
Medes offers to give us back our country, and wishes to conclude an
alliance with us on fair and equal terms, without fraud or deceit.
He is willing likewise to bestow on us another country besides our
own, and bids us choose any land that we like. But we, because we
reverenced Hellenic Jupiter, and thought it a shameful act to betray
Greece, instead of consenting to these terms, refused them;
notwithstanding that we have been wronged and deserted by the other
Greeks, and are fully aware that it is far more for our advantage to
make peace with the Persian than to prolong the war with him. Still we
shall not, of our own free will, consent to any terms of peace. Thus
do we, in all our dealings with the Greeks, avoid what is base and
counterfeit: while contrariwise, ye, who were but now so full of
fear least we should make terms with the enemy, having learnt of
what temper we are, and assured yourselves that we shall not prove
traitors to our country- having brought moreover your wall across
the Isthmus to an advanced state- cease altogether to have any care
for us. Ye covenanted with us to go out and meet the Persian in
Boeotia; but when the time came, ye were false to your word, and
looked on while the barbarian host advanced into Attica. At this time,
therefore, the Athenians are angered with you; and justly,- for ye
have not done what was right. They bid you, however, make haste to
send forth your army, that we may even yet meet Mardonius in Attica.
Now that Boeotia is lost to us, the best place for the fight within
our country, will be the plain of Thria."
The Ephors, when they had heard this speech, delayed their
answer till the morrow; and when the morrow came, till the day
following. And thus they acted for ten days, continually putting off
the ambassadors from one day to the next. Meanwhile the Peloponnesians
generally were labouring with great zeal at the wall, and the work
nearly approached completion. I can give no other reason for the
conduct of the Lacedaemonians in showing themselves so anxious, at the
time when Alexander came, that the Athenians should not join the
Medes, and now being quite careless about it, except that at the
former time the wall across the Isthmus was not complete, and they
worked at it in great fear of the Persians, whereas now the bulwark
had been raised, and so they imagined that they had no further need of
the Athenians.
At last the ambassadors got an answer, and the troops marched
forth from Sparta, under the following circumstances. The last
audience had been fixed for the ambassadors, when, the very day before
it was to be given, a certain Tegean, named Chileus, a man who had
more influence at Sparta than any other foreigner, learning from the
Ephors exactly what the Athenians had said, addressed these words to
them- "The case stands thus, O ye Ephors! If the Athenians are not our
friends, but league themselves with the barbarians, however strong our
wall across the Isthmus may be, there will be doors enough, and wide
enough open too, by which the Persian may gain entrance to the