rray our ranks and fight the enemy as not to
impair the honour which we have gained in former battles. We did not
come hither to quarrel with our allies, but to fight the enemy; not to
boast about our ancestors, but to fight bravely for Greece. The
coming struggle will clearly show to all the Greeks the real worth and
value of each city, each general, and each single citizen." When the
council of generals heard this speech, they allowed the claim of the
Athenians, and gave up the left wing to them.

XIII. While the cause of Greece was thus trembling in the balance, and
Athens was especially in danger, certain Athenians of noble birth, who
had lost their former wealth during the war, and with it their
influence in the city, being unable to bear to see others exalted at
their expense, met in secret in a house in Plataea and entered into a
plot to overturn the free constitution of Athens. If they could not
succeed in this, they pledged themselves to ruin, the city and betray
it to the Persians. While these men were plotting in the camp, and
bringing many over to their side, Aristeides discovered the whole
conspiracy. Afraid at such a crisis to take any decisive step, he
determined, while carefully watching the conspirators, yet not at once
to seize them all, not knowing how far he might have to proceed if he
acted according to strict justice. From all the conspirators he
arrested eight. Two of these, who would have been the first to be put
on their trial, AEschines of Lampra, and Agesias of Acharna, made their
escape out of the camp, and Aristeides pardoned the others, as he
wished to give an opportunity to those who believed themselves
unsuspected, to take courage and repent. He also hinted to them that
the war afforded them a means of clearing themselves from any
suspicion of disloyalty by fighting for their country like good men
and true.

XIV. After this, Mardonius made trial of Grecian courage, by sending
the whole of his cavalry, in which he was much the stronger, to attack
them where they were, all except the Megarians, encamped at the foot
of Mount Kithaeron, in an easily-defended rocky country. These men,
three thousand in number, were encamped nearer the plain, and suffered
much from the attacks of the horsemen, who surrounded them on all
sides. They sent a messenger in great haste to Pausanias, begging him
to send assistance, as they could not by themselves resist the great
numbers of the barbarians. Pausanias