Histories

If we do not attack now, I expect that great strife will fall upon and shake the spirit of the Athenians, leading them to medize. But if we attack now, before anything unsound corrupts the Athenians, we can win the battle, if the gods are fair.

All this concerns and depends on you in this way: if you vote with me, your country will be free and your city the first in Greece [22,39] (nation), EuropeHellas. But if you side with those eager to avoid battle, you will have the opposite to all the good things I enumerated.”

By saying this Miltiades won over Callimachus. The polemarch's vote was counted in, and the decision to attack was resolved upon. Thereafter the generals who had voted to fight turned the presidency over to Miltiades as each one's day came in turn.[*](Each general seems to have been head commander in turn.) He accepted the office but did not make an attack until it was his own day to preside.

When the presidency came round to him, he arrayed the Athenians for battle, with the polemarch Callimachus commanding the right wing, since it was then the Athenian custom for the polemarch to hold the right wing. He led, and the other tribes were numbered out in succession next to each other.[*](There was a fixed official order; but Plutarch's account of the battle places certain tribes according to a different system. Perhaps the battle-order was determined by lot.) The Plataeans were marshalled last, holding the left wing.