[115], of whom two hundred had
conducted Themistocles to Tegea (among these was the stubborn
Amompharetus); the second, the other Spartans; the third, the helots.
The Athenians, Tegeans, Megarians, Phliasians, each had their single
and separate places of sepulture, and, over all, barrows of earth were
raised. Subsequently, tribes and states, that had shared indeed the
final battle or the previous skirmishes, but without the glory of a
loss of life, erected cenotaphs to imaginary dead in that illustrious
burial-field. Among those spurious monuments was one dedicated to the
Aeginetans. Aristodemus, the Spartan who had returned safe from
Thermopylae, fell at Plataea, the most daring of the Greeks on that
day, voluntarily redeeming a dishonoured life by a glorious death.
But to his manes alone of the Spartan dead no honours were decreed.

XXIV. Plutarch relates that a dangerous dispute ensued between the
Spartans and Athenians as to their relative claim to the Aristeia, or
first military honours; the question was decided by awarding them to
the Plataeans--a state of which none were jealous; from a similar
motive, ordinary men are usually found possessed of the honours due to
the greatest.

More important than the Aristeia, had the spirit been properly
maintained, were certain privileges then conferred on Plataea.
Thither, in a subsequent assembly of the allies, it was proposed by
Aristides that deputies from the states of Greece should be annually
sent to sacrifice to Jupiter the Deliverer, and confer upon the
general politics of Greece. There, every fifth year, should be
celebrated games in honour of Liberty; while the Plataeans themselves,
exempted from military service, should be deemed, so long as they
fulfilled the task thus imposed upon them, a sacred and inviolable
people. Thus Plataea nominally became a second Elis--its battle-field
another Altis. Aristides, at the same time, sought to enforce the
large and thoughtful policy commenced by Themistocles. He endeavoured
to draw the jealous states of Greece into a common and perpetual
league, maintained against all invaders by a standing force of one
thousand cavalry, one hundred ships, and ten thousand heavy-armed
infantry.

XXV. An earnest and deliberate council was now held, in which it was
resolved to direct the victorious army against Thebes, and demand the
persons of those who had sided with the Mede. Fierce as had been the
hostility of that state to