| #### CHAPTER 12 |

| #### #### So these troops marched in haste towards the Isthmus. Meanwhile the Argives, who had promised Mardonius that they would stop the Spartans from crossing their borders, as soon as they learnt that Pausanias with his army had started from Sparta, took the swiftest courier they could find, and sent him off to Attica. The message which he delivered, on his arrival at Athens, was the following: "Mardonius," he said, "the Argives have sent me to tell thee that the Lacedaemonian youth are gone forth from their city, and that the Argives are too weak to hinder them. Take good heed therefore to thyself at this time." After thus speaking, without a word more, he returned home. ####  |