Calliope   

glorious combats. Misunderstanding the oracle, and imagining that he
was to win combats in the games, Tisamenus at once applied himself
to the practice of gymnastics. He trained himself for the
Pentathlum, and, on contending at Olympia, came within a little of
winning it; for he was successful in everything, except the
wrestling-match, which was carried off by Hieronymus the Andrian.
Hereon the Lacedaemonians perceived that the combats of which the
oracle spoke were not combats in the games, but battles: they
therefore sought to induce Tisamenus to hire out his services to them,
in order that they might join him with their Heracleid kings in the
conduct of their wars. He however, when he saw that they set great
store by his friendship, forthwith raised his price, and told them,
"If they would receive him among their citizens, and give him equal
rights with the rest, he was willing to do as they desired, but on
no other terms would they ever gain his consent." The Spartans, when
they heard this, at first thought it monstrous, and ceased to
implore his aid. Afterwards, however, when the fearful danger of the
Persian war hung over their heads, they sent for him and agreed to his
terms; but Tisamenus now, perceiving them so changed, declared, "He
could no longer be content with what he had asked before: they must
likewise make his brother Hagias a Spartan, with the same rights as
himself."
In acting thus he did but follow the example once set by Melampus,
at least if kingship may be compared with citizenship. For when the
women of Argos were seized with madness, and the Argives would have
hired Melampus to come from Pylos and heal them of their disease, he
demanded as his reward one-half of the kingdom; but as the Argives
disdained to stoop to this, they left him and went their way.
Afterwards, however, when many more of their women were seized, they
brought themselves to agree to his terms; and accordingly they went
again to him, and said they were content to give what he required.
Hereon Melampus, seeing them so changed, raised his demand, and told
them, "Except they would give his brother Bias one-third of the
kingdom likewise, he would not do as they wished." So, as the
Argives were in a strait, they consented even to this.
In like manner the Spartans, as they were in great need of
Tisamenus, yielded everything: and Tisamenus the Elean, having in this
way become a Spartan citizen, afterwards, in the capacity of
soothsayer, helped the Spartans to gain five very glorious combats. He
and his brother were the only men whom the Spartans ever admitted to
citizenship. The five combats were these following:- The first was the
combat at Plataea; the second, that near Tegea, against the Tegeans
and the Argives; the third, that at Dipaeeis, against all the
Arcadians excepting those of Mantinea; the fourth, that at the
Isthmus, against the Messenians; and the fifth, that at Tanagra,
against the Athenians and the Argives. The battle here fought was
the last of all the five.
The Spartans had now brought Tisamenus with them to the Plataean
territory, where he acted as soothsayer for the Greeks. He found the
victims favourable, if the Greeks stood on the defensive, but not if
they began the battle or crossed the river Asopus.
With Mardonius also, who was very eager to begin the battle, the
victims were not favourable for so doing; but he likewise found them
bode him well, if he was content to stand on his defence. He too had
made use of the Grecian rites; for Hegesistratus, an Elean, and the
most renowned of the Telliads, was his soothsayer. This man had once
been taken captive by the Spartans, who, considering that he had
done them many grievous injuries, laid him in bonds, with the intent
to put him to death. Thereupon Hegesistratus, finding himself in so
sore a case, since not only was his life in danger, but he knew that
he would have to suffer torments of many kinds before his death,-
Hegesistratus, I say, did a deed for which no words suffice. He had
been set with one foot in the stocks, which were of wood but bound
with iron bands; and in this condition received from without an iron