Blood had turned the soil of Mount Kithairon into slick red mud. There was a squelching thud as yet another goat buckled and collapsed, spilling the contents of its veins down the hillside. As it coursed downward, it mixed with blood that did not come from goats.
"Come on," the Spartan by the seer's side urged through clenched teeth. "Come on! How many more? We can't keep taking this!"
The seer knelt by the goat's body and tore into it, removing the liver with a few practised cuts. "Patience. The god will reveal when the moment has come."
Down the hill, Spartans screamed. Volleys of arrows rained down on their raised shields, tearing through wood and cloth and flesh. Further down, towards the bank of the Asopos, the Persian shieldwall was taking shape. Beyond it, masses of horsemen were wheeling around in the plain, readying themselves for another strike.
"We have to charge now! Now, before they're fully formed!"
"Patience, lord Pausanias," the seer said again. "Without the blessing of the god, how could you hope to win victory?"
"I'll concern myself with victory," the Spartan general snapped. "Just read the liver before we're all food for the crows."
"It is not right to dismiss the judgment of higher powers here, lord Pausanias."
"I know! Just give me the word! Tell me the gods will protect the Greeks! The Athenians are not going to come. We're all alone against the Persians. How much longer before the Tegeans on our left give way like the others?"
"Do you know the story of the Phokians' war against Thessaly, lord Pausanias?"
The Spartan sighed. Persian arrows thudded into the ground beneath his feet. Below him, his men were dying. "What about that accursed war?"
"Do you remember the time the Phokians attacked at night and destroyed a Thessalian army?"
"What of it?"
"It was a seer who told them to do this, lord Pausanias. A man from Elis. He saw it in a dream."
"We're not free to choose when to fight, though, are we? Tell me the signs. Just tell me the signs!"
The seer, who had been running his eyes and his bloodstained fingers over the liver, dropped it on the ground, shaking his head calmly. "Not yet."
Pausanias growled. "Another!"
"Do you know, lord Pausanias," the seer continued as the helots dragged up another goat, "of the battle of Pallene, where Peisistratos regained his tyranny?"
"Of course I know of it! We Spartans had to fight the man's wretched sons, did we not?"
"Do you know who gave him the idea to attack his enemies after breakfast, resulting in his splendid victory?"
Pausanias said nothing. He surveyed the carnage below, eyes wide with despair. "What can I do?" he whispered, seeing a group of helots carry off another wounded Spartiate, covered in blood and howling in pain.
"It was a seer, my lord. And he--"
The man was cut off by the sound of singing. It was an Arkadian paean, a song to some forgotten god, a battle hymn - sung far off to the left. Pausanias turned his head in shock. Breathless, he watched as the Tegeans raised the high-pitched battle cry, threw their orders to the wind, and charged down the hill toward the Persians.
It was the seer's turn to sigh. Without another word, he seized the next sacrifical victim, slit its throat, and recovered the liver with a deft motion. "The omens are favourable," he said, but he knew Pausanias was no longer listening.
The Spartan general was already on the way down to the line, seizing his shield and spear from the hands of his helots. He no longer cared for omens. He had a battle to win.
This is a scene from the battle of Plataia (479 BC), as recounted by Herodotos (9.59-62), with some anecdotes from elsewhere in the same work (1.64, 8.27).