Aristides

When this oracle was reported to Aristides, it perplexed him greatly. The heroes to whom he was to sacrifice were, it was true, ancient dignitaries of the Plataeans; and the cave of the Sphragitic nymphs was on one of the peaks of Cithaeron, facing the summer sunsets; and in it there was also an oracle in former days, as they say, and many of the natives were possessed of the oracular power, and these were called nympholepti, or nymph-possessed.

But the plain of Eleusinian Demeter, and the promise of victory to the Athenians if they fought the battle in their own territory, called them back, as it were, to Attica, and changed the seat of war. At this time the general of the Plataeans, Arimnestus, had a dream in which he thought he was accosted by Zeus the Saviour and asked what the Hellenes had decided to do, and replied: On the morrow, my Lord, we are going to lead our army back to Eleusis, and fight out our issue with the Barbarians there, in accordance with the Pythian oracle.