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Then the Medes, having met so rough a reception, withdrew from the
fight; and their place was taken by the band of Persians under
Hydarnes, whom the king called his "Immortals": they, it was
thought, would soon finish the business. But when they joined battle
with the Greeks, 'twas with no better success than the Median
detachment - things went much as before - the two armies fighting in a
narrow space, and the barbarians using shorter spears than the
Greeks, and having no advantage from their numbers. The
Lacedaemonians fought in a way worthy of note, and showed themselves
far more skilful in fight than their adversaries, often turning their
backs, and making as though they were all flying away, on which the
barbarians would rush after them with much noise and shouting, when the
Spartans at their approach would wheel round and face their pursuers,
in this way destroying vast numbers of the enemy. Some Spartans
likewise fell in these encounters, but only a very few. At last the
Persians, finding that all their efforts to gain the pass availed
nothing, and that, whether they attacked by divisions or in any other
way, it was to no purpose, withdrew to their own quarters.
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