(MARDONIUS. When the Persian force, having entered
Boeotia, was drawn up on the right bank of the Asopus, with the Greeks opposite them along the
skirts of Cithaeron, Mardonius, having waited impatiently and to no purpose for the enemy to
descend and fight him in the plain, sent Masistius and the cavalry against them. In the combat
which ensued, the horse of Masistius, being wounded in the side with an arrow, reared and
threw him. The Athenians rushed upon him immediately, but he was cased in complete armour,
which for a time protected him, till at last he was slain by the thrust of a spear in his eye
through the visor of his helmet. The Persians tried desperately, but in vain, to rescue his
body, which was afterwards placed in a cart and led along the Grecian lines, while the men
gazed on it with admiration. His countrymen mourned for him as the most illustrious man in the
army next to Mardonius. They shaved their own heads, as well as their horses and their beasts
of burden, and they raised a wailing, which, according to Herodotus, was heard over the whole
of Boeotia. (