of the Platæans was rather different from the former occasion when the town was taken by the Lacedæmonians and Archidamus. For then the Lacedæmonians blockaded them and shut them in by a double wall so that they could not get out, whereas now the Thebans prevented their getting into the town at all. This second capture of Platæa was the third year after Leuctra, when Asteus was Archon at Athens. And the town was rased to the ground by the Thebans entirely except the temples, but there was no sack, and the Athenians took in the Platæans a second time. But when Philip was victorious at Chæronea, he introduced a garrison into Thebes, and among other things to destroy the Theban power, restored the Platæans. CHAPTER II. If you turn off a little to the right from the high road in the Platæan district near Mount Cithæron, you come to the ruins of Hysiæ and Erythræ. They were formerly cities, and among the ruins of Hysiæ there is still a temple of Apollo half-finished, and a Holy Well, of which whoever drank in former days prophesied, if we may believe the tradition of the Bœotians. And on your return to the high road on the right is what is said to be the tomb of Mardonius. It is admitted that the dead body of Mardonius was missing after the battle, but as to who buried him there are different traditions. What is certain is that Artontes the son of Mardonius gave many gifts to the Ephesian Dionysophanes, and also to several Ionians, for not having neglected his father’s burial. And this road leads from Eleutheræ to Platæa. As you go from Megara there is a spring on the right hand, and a little further a rock called the bed of Actæon, because they say he used to sleep on that rock when tired with hunting, and in that spring they say he saw Artemis bathing. And Stesichorus of Himera has represented the goddess as dressing Actæon in a deerskin, so that his dogs should devour him, that he should not be married to Semele. But I think that madness came upon the dogs of Actæon without the intervention of the goddess, and if they were mad and did not distinguish him they would rend in pieces whoever they met. In what part of Mount Cithæron Pentheus the son of Echion met with his fate, or where they exposed Œdipus after his birth, no one knows, as we do know the cross-roads on the way to Phocis where Œdipus slew his father. Mount Cithæron is sacred to Zeus of Cithæron, but I shall enter into all that more fully when I come to that part of my subject.