Histories

Being in such bad shape inasmuch as he was in peril of his life and was likely to be very grievously maltreated before his death, he did something which was almost beyond belief; made fast in iron-bound stocks, he got an iron weapon which was brought in some way into his prison, and straightway conceived a plan of such courage as we have never known; reckoning how best the rest of it might get free, he cut off his own foot at the instep.

This done, he tunneled through the wall out of the way of the guards who kept watch over him, and so escaped to Tegea [22.4,37.5] (Perseus) Tegea. All night he journeyed, and all day he hid and lay hidden in the woods, till on the third night he came to Tegea [22.4,37.5] (Perseus) Tegea, while all the people of Sparta [22.416,37.83] (inhabited place), Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece, Europe Lacedaemon sought him. The latter were greatly amazed when they saw the half of his foot which had been cut off and lying there but not were unable to find the man himself.

This, then, is the way in which he escaped the Lacedaemonians and took refuge in Tegea [22.4,37.5] (Perseus) Tegea, which at that time was unfriendly to Sparta [22.416,37.83] (inhabited place), Laconia, Peloponnese, Greece, Europe Lacedaemon. After he was healed and had made himself a foot of wood, he declared himself an open enemy of the Lacedaemonians. Yet the enmity which he bore them brought him no good at the last, for they caught him at his divinations in +Zakinthos [20.9,37.783] (inhabited place), Nisos Zakinthos, Zakinthos, Ionian Islands, Greece, Europe Zacynthus and killed him.

The death of Hegesistratus, however, took place after the Plataean business. At the present he was by the Asopus, hired by Mardonius for no small wage, where he sacrificed and worked zealously, both for the hatred he bore the Lacedaemonians and for gain.