Histories

Herodotus

Herodotus. Godley, Alfred Denis, translator. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, Ltd., 1920-1925 (printing).

  1. By Thermodon's stream and the grass-grown banks of Asopus,
  2. Will be a gathering of Greeks for fight and the ring of the barbarian's war-cry;
  3. Many a Median archer, by death untimely overtaken will fall
  4. There in the battle when the day of his doom is upon him.
I know that these verses and others very similar to them from Musaeus referred to the Persians. As for the river Thermodon, it flows between +Tanagra [23.6,38.3083] (Perseus) Tanagra and +Glisas [23.4167,38.2833] (Perseus) Glisas.[*](A little to the northwest of Thebes [23.3333,38.325] (Perseus) Thebes.)

After this inquiry about oracles and Mardonius' exhortation, night fell, and the armies posted their sentries. Now when the night was far advanced and it seemed that all was still in the camps and the men were sleeping deeply, at that hour Alexander son of Amyntas, the general and king of the Macedonians, rode up to the Athenian outposts and wanted to speak to their generals.

The greater part of the sentries remained where they were, but the rest ran to their generals and told them that a horseman had ridden in from the Persian camp, imparting no other word save that he desired to speak to the generals and called them by their names.