His hoplites were as quick to move. They reversed their path through the foothills, with the helots coming down in a flood behind them. The sheer number was comforting in the face of the Persian host. Aristides saw enemy horsemen beginning to mount in response to the movement, ready for whatever was happening. He wondered if they would be lost without their officer. He hoped so. If they chose to threaten his fledgling army, he could not do much to stop them. They could even carry news that the helots were not elite soldiers. He could not help that, for all he longed for a force of cavalry to run them off, even to raise choking dust around his men so that they were obscured.

His hoplites fell into ranks as they came down to the plain. Spears were held upright on the march, with shields on their backs, ready to be thrown round on a simple strap and grasped with the left arm. Aristides felt pride in their manner, then frowned. In comparison, the helots looked ragged.

‘Dress those lines!’ he roared to his own men. ‘Lochagoi to me!’

He waited as around a hundred officers received the order and came trotting out of the ranks. Aristides held position almost at the rear as they came close enough to hear his orders.

‘Gentlemen, these helots need officers. Your own men will survive without you for a time. I want shield lines ready on the flanks if the Persian cavalry come too close. For these others … give me respectable-looking marching ranks, with as many spears as we can bring to bear. Clear? Good, move!’

He settled back. They were not fools or children, those men. As tempting as it was to try and nurse them through every step and order, he knew he would only end up exhausting himself. Better to stare over their heads and seem to see all, while they sweated and cursed to make the helots look like a real army and not just farmers at a country fair, out for a stroll.

Aristides looked over his shoulder, watching the visible consternation in the Persian forces. They had no idea yet what was going on. Orders would be flying, officers called from their tents behind the encampment walls. He grinned at the thought. With just a little luck, the dust raised by his men would obscure the actual caravan completely, so that the Persians never learned why a large contingent of Greeks had suddenly marched away to the east.