[86] for when the Persians landed in Attica the Athenians did not wait for their allies, but, making the common war their private cause, they marched out with their own forces alone to meet an enemy who looked with contempt upon the whole of Hellas—a mere handful against thousands upon thousands[65]—as if they were about to risk the lives of others, not their own;[66] the Lacedaemonians, on the other hand, no sooner heard of the war in Attica than they put all else aside and came to our rescue, having made as great haste as if it had been their own country that was being laid waste.