304 ARISTIDES.

is said to have been against the Thebans, the chiefest and most powerful persons among them at that time siding zealously with the Medes, and leading the multitude not according to their own inclinations, but as being subjects of an oligarchy. The battle being thus divided, the Lacedtemonians first beat off the Persians ; and a Spartan, named Arimnestus, slew Mardonius by a blow on the head with a stone, as the oracle in the temple of Amphiaraus had foretold to him. For Mardonius sent a Lydian thither, and another person, a Carian, to the cave of Trophonius. This latter, the priest of the oracle answered in his o'wn language. But the Lydian sleeping in the temple of Amphiaraus, it seemed to him that a minister of the divinity stood be- fore him and commanded him to be gone ; and on his refusing to do it, flung a great stone at his head, so that he thought himself slain with the blow. Such is the story. — They drove the fliers within their walls of wood ; and, a little time after, the Athenians put the Thebans to flight, killing three hundred of the chiefest and of great- est note.amono; them in the actual fiorht itself For when they began to fly, news came that the army of the bar- barians was besieged within their palisade : and so giving the Greeks opportunity to save themselves, they marched to assist at the fortifications ; and coming in to the Lace- dtemonians, who were altogether unhandy and unexperi- enced in storming, they took the camp with great slaugh- ter of the enemy. For of thi'ee hundred thousand, forty thousand only are said to have escaj^ed with Artabazus; while on the Greeks' side there perished in all thirteen hundred and sixty : of which fifty-two were Athenians, all of the tribe jEantis, that fought, says Clidemus, with the greatest courage of any ; and for this reason the men of this tribe used to ofier sacrifice for the victory, as en- joined by the oracle, to the njinphs Sphragitides at the