Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

HISTORY OF PERSIA. 57
which had gone forth from the Lydian capital in
the spring, not many thousands can have re-entered
it in the autumn."
But, though he had himself retired in disgrace
from unconquered Greece, Xerxes would not give
the game up, the more so that Mardonius still
maintained that, with his 300,000 veteran troops, he
must sooner or later reduce Greece to a satrapy of
Persia. And, indeed, at that time, Mardonius had
some ground for his hopes, as affairs in Greece
were grievously out of joint. Thus the Argives had
made their own petty treaty with the Persians ; Sparta
held aloof in sullen hesitation; while Athens alone
stood undaunted. But a change soon came, the more
welcome that it \vas scarcely expected. Pausanias, a
man of ability and courage, became regent of the youth-
a Spartan army of considerable force was
ful Leonidas ;
collected, and in the great battle of Plataea, wherein
the Greek assailants were barely one-fourth of their
opponents, the victory was complete and crushing.
Mardonius, it is true, was able to prevent the junction
of the Athenians and Spartans, but each Greek
force was separately successful, and Mardonius him-
self fell.
The victorious Greeks at once resolved to carry
on the war effectively, and, not content with driving
the Persians out of Greece, proposed even to invade
Asia Minor itself. Indeed, both parties were now
able to form a juster estimate of their respective
strength, the Persians themselves admitting
that in
everything necessary to make good soldiers, the
Greeks were greatly their superiors. The distance