Calliope   

In all this Leotychides had the very same design which
Themistocles entertained at Artemisium. Either the barbarians would
not know what he had said, and the Ionians would be persuaded to
revolt from them; or if his words were reported to the former, they
would mistrust their Greek soldiers.
After Leotychides had made this address, the Greeks brought
their ships to the land, and, having disembarked, arrayed themselves
for the battle. When the Persians saw them marshalling their array,
and bethought themselves of the advice which had been offered to the
Ionians, their first act was to disarm the Samians, whom they
suspected of complicity with the enemy. For it had happened lately
that a number of the Athenians who lingered in Attica, having been
made prisoners by the troops of Xerxes, were brought to Asia on
board the barbarian fleet; and these men had been ransomed, one and
all, by the Samians, who sent them back to Athens, well furnished with
provisions for the way. On this account, as much as on any other,
the Samians were suspected, as men who had paid the ransom of five
hundred of the king's enemies. After disarming them, the Persians next
despatched the Milesians to guard the paths which lead up into the
heights of Mycale, because (they said) the Milesians were well
acquainted with that region: their true object, however, was to remove
them to a distance from the camp. In this way the Persians sought to
secure themselves against such of the Ionians as they thought
likely, if occasion offered, to make rebellion. They then joined
shield to shield, and so made themselves a breastwork against the
enemy.
The Greeks now, having finished their preparations, began to
move towards the barbarians; when, lo! as they advanced, a rumour flew
through the host from one end to the other- that the Greeks had fought
and conquered the army of Mardonius in Boeotia. At the same time a
herald's wand was observed lying upon the beach. Many things prove
to me that the gods take part in the affairs of man. How else, when
the battles of Mycale and Plataea were about to happen on the self
same day, should such a rumour have reached the Greeks in that region,
greatly cheering the whole army, and making them more eager than
before to risk their lives.
A strange coincidence too it was, that both the battles should
have been fought near a precinct of Eleusinian Ceres. The fight at
Plataea took place, as I said before, quite close to one of Ceres'
temples; and now the battle at Mycale was to be fought hard by
another. Rightly, too, did the rumour run, that the Greeks with
Pausanias had gained their victory; for the fight at Plataea fell
early in the day, whereas that at Mycale was towards evening. That the
two battles were really fought on the same day of the same month
became apparent when inquiries were made a short time afterwards.
Before the rumour reached them, the Greeks were full of fear, not so
much on their own account, as for their countrymen, and for Greece
herself, lest she should be worsted in her struggle with Mardonius.
But when the voice fell on them, their fear vanished, and they charged
more vigorously and at a quicker pace. So the Greeks and the
barbarians rushed with like eagerness to the fray; for the
Hellespont and the Islands formed the prize for which they were
about to fight.
The Athenians, and the force drawn up with them, who formed one
half of the army, marched along the shore, where the country was low
and level; but the way for the Lacedaemonians and the troops with
them, lay across hills and a torrent-course. Hence, while the
Lacedaemonians were effecting their their passage round, the Athenians
on the other wing had already closed with the enemy. So long as the
wicker bucklers of the Persians continued standing, they made a
stout defence, and had not even the worst of the battle; but when
the Athenians, and the allies with them, wishing to make the victory
their own, and not share it with the Lacedaemonians, cheered each
other on with shouts, and attacked them with the utmost fierceness,