before bringing the waiting armies to battle, we must tell what
led to their meeting on the Plataean plain. After the battle of Salamis a
vote was taken by the chiefs to decide who among them should be awarded
the prize of valor on that glorious day. Each cast two ballots, and when
these were counted each chief was found to have cast his first vote
for--himself! But the second votes were nearly all for Themistocles, and
all Greece hailed him as its preserver. The Spartans crowned him with
olive, and presented him with a kingly chariot, and when he left their
city they escorted him with the honors due to royalty.

Meanwhile Mardonius, who was wintering with his army in Thessaly, sent
to Athens to ask if its people still proposed the madness of opposing
the power of Xerxes the king. "Yes," was the answer; "while the sun
lights the sky we will never join in alliance with barbarians against
Greeks."

On receiving this answer Mardonius broke up his winter camp and marched
again to Athens, which he found once more empty of inhabitants. Its
people had withdrawn as before to Salamis, and left the shell of their
nation to the foe.

The Athenians sent for aid to Sparta, but the people of that city,
learning that Athens had defied Mardonius, selfishly withheld their
assistance, and the completion of the wall across the isthmus was
diligently pushed. Fortunately for Greece, this selfish policy came to a
sudden end. "What will your wall be worth if Athens joins with Persia
and gives the foe the aid of her fleet?" was asked the Spartan kings;
and so abruptly did they change their opinion that during that same
night five thousand Spartan hoplites, each man with seven Helot
attendants, marched for the isthmus, with Pausanias, a cousin of
Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylae, at their head.

On learning of this movement, Mardonius set fire to what of Athens
remained, and fell back on the city of Thebes, in Boeotia, as a more
favorable field for the battle which now seemed sure to come. Here his
numerous cavalry could be brought into play, the country was allied with
him, the friendly city of Thebes lay behind him, and food for his great
army was to be had. Here, then, he awaited the coming of the Greeks, and
built for his army a fortified camp, surrounded with walls and towers of
wood.

Yet his men and officers alike lacked heart. At a splendid banquet given
to Mardonius by the Thebans, one of the Persians said to his Theban
neighbo