It appears that Mardonius was at this moment in secret correspondence with the Argeians, who, though professing neutrality, are said to have promised him that they would arrest the march of the Spartans beyond their own borders.[313] We may reasonably doubt whether they ever made such a promise: but at any rate, the suddenness of the march as well as the greatness of the force prevented them from fulfilling it; and they were forced to content themselves with apprizing Mardonius instantly of the fact, through their swiftest courier. It determined that general to evacuate Attica, and to carry on the war in Bœotia,—a country in every way more favorable to him. He had for some time refrained from committing devastations in or round Athens, hoping that the Athenians might be induced to listen to his propositions; but the last days of his stay were employed in burning and destroying whatever had been spared by the host of Xerxes during the preceding summer. After a fruitless attempt to surprise a body of one thousand Lacedæmonians which had been detached for the protection of Megara,[314] he withdrew all his army into Bœotia, not taking either the straight road to Platæa through Eleutheræ, or to Thebes through Phylê, both which roads were mountainous and inconvenient for cavalry, but marching in the northeasterly direction to Dekeleia, where he was met by some guides from the adjoining regions near the river Asôpus, and conducted through the deme of Sphendaleis to Tanagra. He thus found himself, by a route longer but easier, in Bœotia, on the plain of the Asôpus: along which river he next day marched westward to Skôlus, a town in the territory of Thebes, seemingly near to that of Platæa.[315] He then took up a position not far off, in the plain on the left bank of the Asôpus: his left wing over against Erythræ, his centre over against Hysiæ, and his right in the territory of Platæa: and he employed his army in constructing forthwith a fortified camp[316] of ten furlongs square, defended by wooden walls and towers, cut from trees in the Theban territory. [313] Herodot. ix, 12. [314] There were stories current at Megara, even in the time of Pausanias, respecting some of these Persians, who were said to have been brought to destruction by the intervention of Artemis (Pausan. i, 40, 2). [315] Herodot. ix, 15. The situation of the Attic deme Sphendalê, or Sphendaleis, seems not certainly known (Ross, Über die Demen von Attika, p. 138); but Colonel Leake and Mr. Finlay think that it stood “near Aio Merkurio, which now gives name to the pass leading from Dekeleia through the ridges of Parnes into the extremity of the Tanagrian plain, at a place called Malakasa.” (Leake, Athens and the Demi of Attica, vol. ii, sect. iv, p. 123.) Mr. Finlay (Oropus and the Diakria, p. 38) says that “Malakasa is the only place on this road where a considerable body of cavalry could conveniently halt.”