Note 315 — Chapter XLII · BATTLES OF PLATÆA AND MYKALE. — FINAL REPULSE OF THE PERSIANS.

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.”

It appears that the Bœotians from the neighborhood of the Asôpus were necessary as guides for this road. Perhaps even the territory of Orôpus was at this time still a part of Bœotia: we do not certainly know at what period it was first conquered by the Athenians.

The combats between Athenians and Bœotians will be found to take place most frequently in this southeastern region of Bœotia,—Tanagra, Œnophyta, Delium, etc.