With respect to the name of the Eleians, the suspicion of Bröndstedt is plausible, that Pausanias may have mistaken the name of the Palês of Kephallenia for theirs, and may have fancied that he read FΑΛΕΙΟΙ when it was really written ΠΑΛΕΙΣ, in an inscription at that time about six hundred years old. The place in the series wherein Pausanias places the name of the Eleians, strengthens the suspicion. Unless it be admitted, we shall be driven, as the most probable alternative, to suppose a fraud committed by the vanity of the Eleians, which may easily have led them to alter a name originally belonging to the Palês. The reader will recollect that the Eleians were themselves the superintendents and curators at Olympia. Plutarch seems to have read the same inscription as Pausanias (De Herodoti Malignit. p. 873). [325] Herodot. ix, 19, 28, 29. Such was the number of Greeks present or near at hand in the combat against the Persians at Platæa, which took place some little time afterwards: but it seems that the contingents were not at first completely full, and that new additions[326] continued to arrive until a few days before the battle, along with the convoys of cattle and provisions which came for the subsistence of the army. Pausanias marched first from the Isthmus to Eleusis, where he was joined by the Athenians from Salamis: at Eleusis, as well as at the Isthmus, the sacrifices were found encouraging, and the united army then advanced across the ridge of Kithæron, so as to come within sight of the Persians. When Pausanias saw them occupying the line of the Asôpus in the plain beneath, he kept his own army on the mountain declivity near Erythræ, without choosing to adventure himself in the level ground. Mardonius, finding them not disposed to seek battle in the plain, despatched his numerous and excellent cavalry under Masistius, the most distinguished officer in his army, to attack them. For the most part, the ground was so uneven as to check their approach,—but the Megarian contingent, which happened to be more exposed than the rest, were so hard pressed that they were forced to send to Pausanias for aid. They appear to have had not only no cavalry, but no bowmen or light-armed troops of any sort with missile weapons; while the Persians, excellent archers and darters, using very large bows, and trained in such accomplishments from their earliest childhood, charged in successive squadrons and overwhelmed the Greeks with darts and arrows,—not omitting contemptuous taunts on their cowardice for keeping back from the plain.[327] So general was then the fear of the Persian cavalry, that Pausanias could find none of the Greeks, except the Athenians, willing to volunteer and go to the rescue of the Megarians. A body of Athenians, however, especially three hundred chosen troops under Olympiodorus, strengthened with some bowmen, immediately marched to the spot and took up the combat with the Persian cavalry.