Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14/IV
IV
THE PERSIAN INVASIONS
In the great contest of East and West the first struggle had ended in favour of the East. When the Ionian revolt had flickered out the king determined to assert his authority in Greece by inflicting signal punishment upon Eretria and Athens for the aid given to the Ionians. But first he tried to secure the allegiance of the Hellenic towns in Asia. His nephew and son-in-law Mardonius was sent down to Lower Asia in B.C. 492 with a double commission. He was to conciliate the Greek states by deposing the tyrants and establishing democracy as their form of home government; and, secondly, he was to lead an expedition against Greece. He performed the first part of his commission, but in attempting to carry out the second he met with a terrible shipwreck whilst rounding the promontory of Nymphaeum (at the foot of Mount Athos) in which the greater part of his fleet and more than twenty thousand men were lost.
The expedition, however, was not entirely fruitless, for the king's authority in Thrace was strengthened, and the island of Thasos was deprived of its fleet and fortifications. Thus secured in the North, the king in the following year (B.C. 491) sent envoys into Greece to demand earth and water—the symbols of submission—from all the principal states. Many of the continental cities complied, especially those in Thessaly and Boeotia (except Plataea), as well as Argos in Peloponnese. Athens and Sparta almost alone of the greater cities refused, and even put the envoys to death. The islands of the Ægean, however, reluctantly complied, for the fleets which the possession of Phoenicia now put into the king's hand gave him supremacy at sea.
The Athenians were specially indignant that Ægina, almost in sight of the Piraeus, should have yielded to the king's command. It was too good an opportunity of humiliating an old rival to be lost, and a formal complaint was promptly lodged at Sparta, as the acknowledged head of Greece. The kings of Sparta at that time were Demaratus and Cleomenes. The latter was half crazed, but always ready to assert Spartan supremacy over neighbours. Demaratus was inclined to support the Æginetans, but he was got rid of by the help of an oracle from Delphi (obtained by bribery) which cast a doubt on his legitimacy. He fled to the Persian court and Leotychides was made king in his place. The Æginetans were speedily compelled to give hostages for their loyalty, who were detained at Athens. Presently on the madness and death of Cleomenes the Spartans repented of their action and sent Leotychides to Athens to demand the restoration of the hostages. The refusal of the Athenians led to acts of retaliation on the part of Ægina, resulting in a state of open war, which seemed likely to enlist other states on one side or the other.
The quarrel, however, was suspended next year (B.C. 490) by the approach of a great danger. In the spring of that year a large fleet had mustered by the king's order on the coast of Cilicia under the command of Datis and Artaphernes. This time it took the Island route across the Ægean. It first touched at Naxos, where the city and temples were burnt and those of the inhabitants who did not escape to the mountains were captured. It next touched at Delos, where, however, no damage was done, from reverence to the sacredness of the place, an outrage upon which might have alienated even the King's partisans in Greece. From Delos the fleet proceeded to Carystus on the south of Euboea. The Eretrians now recognised their danger. They sent urgent messages to Athens for help, but there was, as usual, a party within their own walls who welcomed the invader; and on the seventh day after the arrival of the fleet the town was surrendered, and such of its inhabitants as had not escaped to the interior were removed to the island of Styra to await transport to Asia.
And now came the crowning event of the invasion which has made the name of one man and of one small spot of earth immortal. In the Persian fleet was Hippias, once tyrant of Athens, now old and weary, but still set upon recovering his power. It was at his suggestion that the Persian commanders selected the shore of the Bay of Marathon as the place of landing upon Attic soil. The original intention had probably been to bail round Sunium and blockade Phalerum. But Hippias knew the advantages of Marathon, for he had once before landed there with his father Pisistratus, when he, too, came to capture Athens. The Persians, moreover, had brought a considerable body of horsemen, and skirting the bay of Marathon was a plain six miles in length and about a mile and a half in depth which would be more convenient for cavalry than the ground round the city.
Meanwhile, at Athens there had been a division of opinion. One party had wished to await the attack of the Persians at home, whether they came by sea to Phalerum or overland from Oropus or its neighbourhood; the other wished to march out of the city and meet them on the road which they believed the Persians intended to take. Miltiades, who had returned to Athens as a private citizen, after having been tyrant of the Chersonese, and was now one of the strategi, had all along been in favour of the latter course, and the news that the enemy had actually landed at Marathon seems to have settled the doubt. With nine thousand men the generals and the Polemarch Callimachus, after sending a swift runner to Sparta for help, marched out to Marathon and occupied the precinct of Hercules on the slope of a mountain near which the road to Athens passed, whence they could see the enemy encamped on the plain below.
There was again a division of opinion as to whether they should attack at once. The votes of the ten generals were equally divided, and the casting vote therefore being with Callimachus, he was persuaded by Miltiades to give it in favour of attacking. The four generals who were on the same side gave up their days of command to Miltiades, whose object seems to have been not so much to make an immediate attack as to have the power of attacking whenever he thought the moment had come. The famous battle was, in fact, fought on his own day of command, and seems to have been decided upon owing to information signalled to Miltiades by some Ionians in the Persian army to the effect that the Persian cavalry had been re-embarked. For a treasonable party in Athens had communicated to the enemy—perhaps by the signal of a flashing shield—that the fighting force had left Athens; and the Persian generals seem thereupon to have taken measures at once to sail round Sunium, hoping to find the city defenceless. With Eretria in their hands, commanding the Attic coast, this would probably have been their wisest course in any case. Their large fleet would easily have closed the harbour of Phalerum or Piraeus. Athens was an open town; there were as yet no long walls joining it to its
GREEK FIGHTING MEN.
(From the monument of Dexileos of Athens, who fell in war with the Corinthians, B.C. 394.)
harbour, and though the Acropolis might have held out, the king's object of removing the bulk of the inhabitants would probably have been accomplished. Miltiades saw that his chance had come, when the hurry and bustle of re-embarkation neutralised the advantage of numbers. Shortly after arriving at the Heracleum he had been reinforced by a thousand Plataeans, always eager to show their adherence to Athens and their difference with Thebes. The whole Greek force, therefore, consisted of ten thousand men They had the advantage of advancing down hill; but their centre was too weak, their line having been widely extended to prevent being outflanked; for the Persian embarkation was covered by a considerably superior force. The Athenian centre, therefore, was driven back, while on the two wings they were successful in turning the enemy's line. Instead of pursuing, however, the two wings closed in and restored the battle in the centre; and before long the Persian covering force was a helpless mob. Some were driven upon the marsh which bounds the eastern side of the plain of Marathon, and were there cut to pieces. The rest attempted to get on board the ships and push out to sea. The Athenians only succeeded in preventing seven of the ships from being got afloat, though they pressed the men hard and killed a large number in the struggle. The Persian loss was estimated at 6,400, that of the Athenians at 192, including the Polemarch. The Persian fleet was thus but slightly diminished and might still have easily, it would seem, have blockaded the Athenian harbours. But though it appeared off Phalerum on the next or following day, no attempt to blockade or to land was made. One story is that Datis was killed and that Artaphernes was unwilling to act on his own responsibility. A still stronger reason is that they found an unresisted landing no longer possible. The victorious Athenian army had marched home on the morning after the battle and was in waiting to receive them. Their partisans in the city, therefore, could not venture to invite them to land. Whatever the motive, they turned homewards, only stopping to take the Eretrians from Styra.
The battle of Marathon was only the first act in the struggle, but its moral effect in Greece was very great. It taught the Greeks that the forces of the king were not invincible in spite of their numbers, and it filled them with national pride and a sanguine patriotism. Above all, it raised Athens in public estimation and gave the Athenians high ideas as to their power and destiny. Sentiment counts for much in national life, and the heroes of Marathon were not only a pride but an inspiration. The victory was wholly Athenian. The Spartans had been slow to send aid, and their men only arrived on the day after the battle and could claim no part in it, and something of their acknowledged primacy passed to the Athenians.
The ten years of freedom from Persian attack which followed were years of steady growth for Athens, especially as a sea-power. There was more than one reason for this. Events made it evident that ships of war were a necessity to the state; in Themistocles it had a far seeing statesman capable of carrying out such a policy; while a development of the silver mines at Laurium supplied the requisite funds. The renewal of the quarrel with Aegina after B.C. 490 made an increase in the war fleet necessary, and Herodotus remarks that the ships built for this purpose proved the salvation of Greece. But the fleet had been gradually increased before. In the Aegenitan war of B.C. 492-1 the Athenians had been obliged to borrow or hire triremes from Corinth, but in the year after the battle they were able to furnish Miltiades with seventy when he asked for a commission to exact money from the islanders who had favoured the Persians, and before B.C. 484 the state was able to maintain at least two hundred. The possession of triremes, indeed, was becoming general in the maritime states, and Corinth, which had been the earliest to use them, still had a respectable number, while in the west Corcyra and Syracuse each possessed formidable fleets. But no state seems to have made such a rapid advance in this period as Athens. The credit is chiefly due to Themistocles who continually urged the policy upon his fellow-citizens, persuading them to devote the royalties from the mines to shipbuilding instead of distributing the money among them- selves.
It was fortunate that he had his way in this, for the Persian danger was not over, as some thought, with the victory of Marathon. It had—as Themistocles always maintained—only begun. Darius had no mind to accept his defeat. For three years Asia was in all the hurry and bustle of preparation for a new invasion of Greece with still more formidable numbers. But in B.C. 486 a revolt in Egypt distracted the attention of the king, and before it was put down Darius died (B.C. 485). His successor, Xerxes, was engaged for the first two years in Egypt in necessary preparations for the suppression of the revolt there. But even when he returned from his successful campaign he seems, in spite of grandiloquent language, to have hesitated as to renewing the invasion of Greece, which was not desired by a large number of his Council and of his subjects. Yet when he finally resolved upon it preparations on a vast scale were at once begun and continued for more than three years (B.C. 484-481). More than half a million of fighting men, drawn from innumerable tribes, were mustered in Cappadocia, and in the autumn of B.C. 481 marched to Sardis, where the King himself met and wintered with them. At the same time a fleet of twelve hundred triremes, besides a vast number of smaller vessels, from Phoenicia, Egypt, Cyprus, Cilicia, and many other places, was ordered to proceed to the Hellespont, and thence to coast along as nearly as possible parallel with the land forces. To facilitate the passage of this great army a bridge composed of vessels lashed together was constructed across the Hellespont, and Herodotus delights to tell, as an illustration of Persian insolence, how, when the first bridge was broken up by a storm, the king ordered the waves to be scourged and fetters thrown into the sea. A second and stronger bridge was then constructed. The Strymon was also bridged near the site of what was afterwards Amphipolis;
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| Photo] | [Brogi |
THEMISTOCLES, C. B.C. 514–449.
(Vatican Museum.)
while to save the fleet one great danger a canal was cut across the isthmus of Mount Athos. The march began early in B.C. 480; the Hellespont was safely crossed, and the advance through Macedonia went steadily on, while the fleet made its way to Therma (Thessalonica).
The preparation of such a vast armament could not, of course, be unknown in Greece. A congress of representatives from the southern states met at Corinth in the autumn of B.C. 481. Their first measure was to send spies to Sardis to see whether the report was true. They were captured, but allowed by the king to see everything and return safe, in hope that their report might terrify the Greeks and prevent resistance. The congress had, indeed, a formidable state of things to face. Greece was disunited, and there was a powerful party in nearly all the country north of Attica which was prepared from fear or disaffection to welcome the invaders. The seaboard of Thrace and Macedonia was already subject to the king; most of the islands of the Ægean had been compelled to submit and even to furnish him with ships. In Thessaly the powerful clan of the Aleuadae of Larisa had invited the invasion, and though there was a loyal party in Thessaly, it was too weak to resist. Only two states in Boeotia stood out—Plataea and Thespiae, while the Phocians were divided and useless. Nor did the congress succeed in getting support elsewhere. The Argives refused all help. The Cretans evaded a direct promise by a reference to Delphi. In the West, Gelo of Syracuse, the most powerful sovereign in Sicily, would only help on condition of commanding by sea or land; while the next most powerful sea power in the west, Corcyra, promised help but gave none. In B.C. 480, therefore, when Xerxes was already on the march, there was no army ready to resist him. A fleet, however, of about 270 triremes, of which the Athenians contributed half, had been collected and was ready for action under the command of the Spartan Eurybiades. It took up its position at Artemisium, on the north of Euboea. On the request of some loyal Thessalians, an expedition had earlier in the year been sent to the vale of Tempe, the men being landed at Halus, on the Pegasaean Gulf, but it found the pass indefensible and had hastily returned. As the Persian army and fleet approached, the Spartans were at length induced to send a small force under their king Leonidas to guard the narrow defile of Thermopylae. It consisted of 300 Spartan hoplites, each accompanied by seven helots, and some allies from other states. At these two points, therefore, Thermopylae and Artemisium, the first resistance was to be made.
The Greek fleet was a composite one, and though the Athenians, who supplied the greater part, were under the influence of Themistocles, who was eager to encounter the Persian fleet and prevent its further progress south, many of the other captains were for retreating to the Peloponnese, and separating to their various states, or at any rate for making a stand only when nearer to what seemed a place of safety. When the Persian ships were approaching the coast of Magnesia, opposite Artemisium, the alarm was so great that Themistocles could no longer restrain the Greek captains, and the fleet sailed to Chalcis, on the Euripus, the narrowest point between Euboea and the mainland. But when the Persians, who were in an exposed position, had suffered severely from a great storm, the Greeks mustered courage to return to Artemisium, and there for three days the two fleets were engaged. On the first day the result was rather in favour of the Greeks, and the success was confirmed by another violent storm during the night, in which the Persians, being still in the more exposed position, suffered much more than the Greeks. On the second day nothing of importance was done, though the Greek fleet was reinforced by a new- Athenian squadron. .On the third day a more determined effort was made by the Persians, and though nightfall prevented a victory on either side, the Greek fleet suffered very severely. And now the news reached them that the Spartan army at Thermopylae was destroyed and the country open for the advance of Xerxes upon Attica and the Peloponnese.
The story of Thermopylae is one of the most famous in history. At that time between Mount Œta and the sea for about a mile there was a narrow road scarcely wide enough for two waggons to pass each other, and at one point defended by a wall built by the Phocians to keep off Thessalian marauders. Here Leonidas, with his small army, had established himself. The king could not believe that such a puny force would venture to withstand the grand army, though warned by Demaratus, the exiled Spartan king, that the Spartans would never yield their ground. After waiting four days in vain expectation of some sign of submission, he launched some of his best troops at the foolhardy opponents, with orders to clear the way. But two days of fierce fighting left the Greeks unconquered and the pass still closed to the invaders. But on the evening of the second day a Malian named Ephialtes demanded an audience of the king, and offered to guide a force over the height on the land side of the pass (afterwards called Callidromos) by a path only used by shep- herds, which would lead them to the rear of the Greeks. Xerxes, who had watched the failure of his troops with signs of violent emotion and anxiety, eagerly accepted the offer. At nightfall, just as the watch-fires were being lit, ten thousand of the finest troops, called the “Immortals,” started under the guidance of Ephialtes to cross the height. By daybreak they were approaching the summit. Just below the crest a thousand Phocians had been stationed to guard against this danger, for Leonidas was aware of the existence of this path. The hill was thickly covered with oak forest, and no view of the coming enemy was possible, though there was a bright moon. But in the clear morning air the sound of their trampling through the brushwood reached the ears of the Phocians. Yet their warning was brief; the Persians seemed to start suddenly into sight, surprised themselves to see men hastily getting under arms where they had expected a bare mountain top. They fancied that they were the dreaded Spartans who had repulsed them the day before, but being reassured by learning the truth from Ephialtes, they began pouring in volleys of arrows. The Phocians retired hastily to the crest of the hill, and the Persians, following the winding path which avoided the summit, descended with all speed on the other side.
News had come early to the Greeks at Thermopylae that they were betrayed. The sacrifices were unfavourable, and deserters bringing in the intelligence were soon followed by their own scouts conveying the same news. The allies immediately decided to depart, or were dismissed by Leonidas, that no more Greeks should be lost. For him and his three hundred retreat was intolerable. A Spartan was bound to die at his post; it was undying disgrace to quit it. The Theban and Thespian contingents alone remained. The Thespians, like the Spartans, preferred death to desert their post, while the Thebans, being known to medise, were retained as hostages by Leonidas, but took the first opportunity of deserting.
At sunrise Xerxes poured libations to his god, and a few hours later started for the pass. The Spartans, knowing themselves to be surrounded, determined to die fighting in the open. They quitted their shelter behind the Phocian wall and advanced into the wider part of the plain. A desperate hand-to-hand fight followed. Two of the king's brothers fell; many of the Persians were driven into the sea or were trodden under the feet of their own men. Presently Leonidas fell, and an obstinate battle raged round his corpse. But in the midst of it the Spartans found the ten thousand “Immortals” on their rear. They made one more desperate charge, forced their way back to the wall, and thence to a piece of elevated ground, where for some time they defended themselves gallantly with swords, hands, and teeth, till, becoming completely surrounded, they were overwhelmed with missiles and perished to a man. Only one soldier, who happened not to be engaged that day, survived of the three hundred. But so strong was the Spartan sentiment on the disgrace of such survival that his life was a burden to him, and he courted and found death next year at Plataea.
The result of this famous battle was to leave the way clear for the advance of Xerxes into Attica. On the frontier of Boeotia he divided his forces into two columns, one of which, led by the king himself, marched towards Athens, the other moved upon Delphi, only to be frightened there by earthquake and miracle. When this disaster was known at Artemisium it was no longer possible to restrain officers or men. They thought that while they were warring in the north the irresistible army of Xerxes would be overrunning the land, and they would soon have no country for which to fight. Themistocles could not persuade them to remain, and the whole fleet rowed through the Euripus, rounded Sunium, and took up a position in the bay of Salamis.
The Athenians had now a very difficult part to play. The Peloponnesian states were for abandoning all north of the Isthmus of Corinth, and trusting to a wall which they had for some time been building across the isthmus to keep back the invaders. The Oracle of Delphi, which was always under the influence of Sparta, had seemed to favour that policy and to predict destruction to Athens.
But Themistocles saw that the final result rested with the fleet. The wall across the isthmus would be of little service to the Peloponnesian states, if the huge flotilla of the king was free to sail round the coast and make descents wherever the leaders chose. If this fleet, however, was beaten or dispersed the land army would before long be crippled. The failure of provisions, the terror of being so far from home without the means of return afforded by the ships, he felt sure, would bring the invasion to an end. He therefore resolved to stake all on the navy, leaving an empty city on which the enemy might wreak his wrath; while he employed the Athenian ships in transporting the inhabitants of Athens to the Salamis, Troezen, and other neighbouring towns. The king's army duly occupied and destroyed the abandoned city, without any resistance except from a handful of men on the Acropolis, and his fleet arrived along the Attic coast, and could be seen stretching from Phalerum to Sunium. But this sacrifice would be all in vain if Themistocles could not persuade the Greek captains to keep the fleet together and engage the enemy where the confined space and narrow seas would deprive him of the advantage of his superior number of vessels. In fact it was by a trick that Themistocles finally secured that the battle should be fought where it was. At his instigation a secret message was sent to the king informing him that the Greek captains meant to elude him by sailing along the north of Salamis, through the narrow waters between that island and the coast of the Megarid. He therefore ordered one part of his fleet to be moved up so as to block the southern channel and occupy the island of Psysttaleia, while another part sailed round the island and blocked up the narrows in the west. News of this movement of the Persian ships was brought to Themistocles, just as a council of Greek captains, in which he had in vain urged them to stay and fight, had broken up in anger. It was brought by Aristides, who had been residing in Aegina., under the sentence of ostracism which had been passed on him two years before. A decree had since been passed recalling exiles, and he was on his way home to offer his services once more. As he sailed towards the Piraeus he had observed the movement of the ships, which he immediately communicated to Themistocles. The fact was soon afterwards confirmed by the captain of a Tenian ship who had deserted the enemy and came to offer his services to the Greeks. The council hastily reassembled and could not but consent to fight.
The battle began early the next morning. It cannot be described in any general phrase. It began with a charge made by an Athenian upon a Phoenician ship. Following this there was a series of engagements between single ships, or between a single ship and several charging it at the same time, till the vast fleet of the enemy, harassed by repeated attacks of the Greek craft, which if smaller in size were more skilfully worked, and had the advantage of being less crowded, became a confused mob of vessels which damaged each other as much as they were damaged by the Greeks. Aeschylus, who was present, will give the liveliest and most correct idea of the scene. He represents the messenger in the Persoe as thus describing the fight:—
“The hour was come, and straightway ship on ship |
Xerxes, sitting upon a throne which commanded a view of the bay of Salamis, watched with extreme agitation the issue of these combats, in nearly all of which the Greek ships were successful. The number of his ships made the confusion more disastrous when they attempted to retreat, for the retiring ships frequently crashed in upon those that were still rowing up to join in the struggle. The loss of life on the Persian side was the greater from the fact that they had less facilities than the Greeks for escaping to land. The small island of Psysttaleia had been occupied by some Persian troops for the purpose of securing a refuge for men whose ships were disabled or sunk, but Aristides landed on the islet and put these men to the sword: while some of the disengaged ships of the Greeks were employed in pursuing and drowning those of the enemy who tried to escape by swimming. Towards evening the bay was covered with floating wrecks, and corpses were washed ashore all along the coast. The work of destruction was only stopped by nightfall. The losses on the Greek side were small, while on the side of the Persians, though their fleet was by no means annihilated, they were very great, and included many men of high position, among them a brother of the king.
Next morning the Greeks were prepared to renew the fight. Their experience at Artemisium warned them not to expect that one day's contest would account for the whole or greater part of such an armament. But to their surprise no movement was made by the enemy and none of their ships hove in sight. It soon became evident that most of those that were still seaworthy had already started on their homeward voyage. The Greeks followed in pursuit, but after going as far as the island of Andros without overtaking them, the Spartan Eurybiades insisted on returning home in spite of the advice of Themistocles, who wished to sail to the Hellespont and break down the bridge. “They should rather,” said Eurybiades, “build the Persians a bridge to get them out of Europe.” Themistocles yielded, but took means to have the affair so represented to the king that he might suppose the stopping of the pursuit to have been his work.
An important effect of the battle, however, was to frighten Xerxes and to make him resolve to return home. His chief officers humoured what they knew to be their master's intention, and perhaps thought that they were really better without him, for his courage was questionable and he was at any rate excitable and irresolute. Mardonius, therefore, after escorting him for some distance on his return, was left with the flower of the army to renew the invasion in the next year. The king, after much suffering and loss, reached the Hellespont, and thence crossed to Asia and reached Sardis in safety; while Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus, who had distinguished herself in the battle, and had remained afterwards, was entrusted with the royal family and household, whom she conveyed safely back to Asia.
Next year (B.C. 479) the fighting was on land, and the result of the invasion was settled by the great battle of Plataea. Early in the spring Mardonius, who had wintered in Thessaly, marched south and again occupied Athens. But he found the country ill-suited for cavalry, in which his chief strength lay; and hearing that a strong force had been collected in the Peloponnese and was on its way to attack him, after some indecision he left Attica for Boeotia. There he could count on the assistance of Thebes, and could find more suitable ground for his operations in the valley of the Asopus. He constructed a great camp of refuge on the bank of this river, and there awaited the arrival of the Greek forces. The Greeks presently appeared on the slopes of Mount Cithaeron, and for twelve days the two armies faced each other. The Greeks were afraid to descend into the valley because of the Persian cavalry, while Mardonius could do little but harass them and cut off their convoys by daily cavalry excursions. For want of water the Greeks had more than once to shift their position, gradually edging towards Plataea. It was during the last of these moves that the engagement was brought on. The Athenians, taking the lower road, became engaged with some Theban cavalry. The rest of the allies had moved somewhat further than was intended, and had taken up a position close to the temple of Herè, outside the walls of Plataea. But the Spartans and Tegeans, moving along upon higher ground, were sighted by Mardonius and forced to give battle near a lonely temple of Demeter, about a mile to the east of Plataea. That the Spartans had thus been overtaken is accounted for partially, according to Herodotus, by the obstinacy of a captain named Amompharetos, who for many hours refused to join in a retreat. But when brought to bay the Spartans justified their reputation. For some time the omens remained unsatisfactory, and their commander, Pausanias, did not venture to charge. The Persians, fixing their long wicker shields in the ground, poured in volleys of arrows from behind them. After a while Pausanias is represented as lifting his eyes to the temple of Herè in the distance and uttering a prayer to the goddess. Suddenly the omens became favourable, and the Tegeans began the charge. The whole force was soon engaged, and the better discipline and longer spears of the Greeks presently gave them the advantage. The Persians fought valiantly until Mardonius fell, with the flower of his troops round him. The rest of the panic-stricken crowd fled in great confusion to the camp of refuge on the Asopus. Here they were followed by the Spartans, who attempted to pull down the wooden palisade and enter the camp. They were never so good at such operations as at fighting in the open, and according to Herodotus it was not till the Athenians arrived that the camp was taken. Then the unhappy and disheartened crowd were slaughtered like sheep, with hardly a show of resistance. The only part of the Persian army that escaped was a division of forty thousand men led by Artabazos. That cautious commander seems to have felt a sure foreboding of the result of the battle, and had therefore purposely loitered behind when Mardonius marched out of camp on that fatal morning. He was met by the first fugitives from the field, and promptly wheeling round, he hastened along the shortest road that led to the north. By persuading the Thessalians and Macedonians that he was only leading an advanced guard of a victorious army, he obtained a safe and honourable passage through the country; and though in this forced march he lost many men from disease and from the attacks of Thracian tribes, he arrived safely with the rest at Byzantium, and thence took ship for Asia.
This was the end of the Persian invasion. The grand army was annihilated, and there was no fear of further molestation. The Athenians returned to their devastated country and dismantled city, and set about their task of restoration. The conference once more assembled at Corinth and passed sentence on the medizing party at Thebes and other cities, and the rest, after dividing the spoil and deciding on the prize of valour, dispersed to their several homes. One question which helped to keep Greece divided was thus settled. But the honour of those states which had stood for Greek freedom was perpetuated by the inscription on a bronze stand of twisted serpents, on which once stood a golden tripod, placed by Pausanias at Delphi, and still existing at Constantinople, to which it was transferred seven hundred years later by Constantine the Great. It contains the names of thirty-one states, which include not only those who fought at Plataea, but those who had taken any part in the war by land or sea.
For it was not only continental Greece that was saved. The benefit reached the islanders and the Greek cities in Asia. Early in the spring of B.C. 479 the Greek fleet of 110 ships mustered at Aegina, and in response to an urgent request from Samos started for the coast of Asia. For some time it remained at Delos, not venturing for some time to approach a district which, though it contained many Greek cities, had for twenty years been regarded as under the undisputed sway of the great king. The Cyclades were indeed securely Greek, and had only suffered a passing visitation of the Persian fleet; but to attack the islands off the Asiatic shore, and Asia itself, seemed too venturesome. At the same time the Persian fleet mustered at Samos, but feared to go westward to encounter once more those who had beaten them the year before. Therefore, through the spring and summer months these two forces, whose collision was destined to put a finishing touch to the war, remained at a safe distance from each other. But the Samians longed to be delivered from the presence of the enemy, and again sent messages to Leotychides, who was commanding the combined fleet at Delos, begging him to come to their aid.[1] Some time towards the end of August, accordingly, the Greek fleet sailed to Samos and anchored off the Heraeum of the capital city.
The battle which ensued was fought on land, not at sea. The Persian admirals distrusted their power to fight the Greek fleet. They had therefore dragged their ships on shore at Mykale and entrenched a kind of naval camp. Accordingly the Greeks also disembarked, and the battle which ensued had many features in common with that at Plataea, which according to tradition took place on the same day. In both there were two distinct struggles, one in the open and one in the fortified camp, to which the beaten enemy retreated. At Plataea, however, it was the Spartans who almost alone won the battle in the field. At Mykale the line of their march brought them on to the field only in time to strike a last blow. It was the Athenians, Corinthians, and Sicyonians who turned the enemy in the field and were the first to storm the camp. As at Plataea, the battle—fought like the latter near a temple of Demeter—and the fight at the camp resulted in the practical annihilation of the Persian army. Even a division stationed on the high ground of Mykale as a reserve were betrayed and misled by Milesian guides, and perished with the rest. A curious story is told by Herodotus in regard to this battle. On the morning of the day a herald's staff was washed on shore, and a report spread of the victory gained at Plataea. Whether historians are mistaken in placing the battles on the same day, or whether (as later writers assume) the Greek generals deliberately spread the report to encourage their men, we cannot tell. In times of excitement such rumours will spread among men. Whatever their origin, their effect is often decisive, and the Greeks naturally attributed them to divine influence.
This victory freed many Ionian states from Persia, and made all the other Hellenic states in Asia ready to strike for freedom. In order to secure this a beginning of what was afterwards a much larger league was made by Samos, Chios, and Lesbos, whose citizens bound themselves by an oath—confirmed by dropping leaden tablets into the sea—to furnish ships and men to resist the Persians. In fact, measures were at once begun. The Greek fleet sailed to the Chersonese, and freed the cities there, expelling the royal garrisons, the last to hold out being Sestos, which fell in the course of the winter.
In the spring of the next year (B.C. 478), the Greek fleet again returned to the Aegean, and in the
Temple of Victory at Athens. (Fifth Century Ionic.)
course of that and the following year the confederacy was extended to nearly all the islands and Asiatic Greek states. It was called the confederacy of Delos, because the money of the confederacy was to be deposited there, as a neutral place, and its object was to keep the Persian fleets from the Aegean, to put down piracy, and to set free every Greek state. This was to be secured by each state—according to its means—agreeing to supply ships, or an equivalent in money, for the maintenance of a fleet of seventy triremes. This confederacy was a league of free states and did not in theory imply any loss of independence, nor a special superiority of any one state. That it gradually came to be regarded as a kind of empire in which Athens exercised the supreme authority was partly due to accident, partly to natural development.
The combined fleet sent out in B.C. 478 to continue the liberation of Greek states from Persian garrisons was under the command of Pausanias of Sparta, uncle and guardian of the young king, the son of Leonidas. His position was the result of the traditional primacy of Sparta. But recent events had raised the prestige of Athens, and Aristides, the commander of the Athenian squadron, was a man to win respect and confidence from all. In his own city he had been generally in opposition to the forward and astute policy of Themistocles; but though for a time the people preferred his rival, they had come back to him, and now trusted him beyond all others. His name of "the Just," according to the common story, had become so stale that some voted for his ostracism because they were tired of hearing it. But it was well deserved, and his character now stood the Athenians in good stead. The allies soon had occasion to show their appreciation of him. Pausanias had been extremely elated by his victory at Plataea, and now offended the allies by his pride and arrogant behaviour, and aroused their suspicions and those of his own government by holding communications with the Persian court, under pretence of negotiating the return of certain Persian prisoners captured in the siege of Byzantium. He was therefore recalled, and when his successor arrived he found that the allies had elected Aristides as commander. The Spartan contingent accordingly returned home, and the extended confederation was made under Athenian influence. Aristides arranged with each state the amount of their contribution (φόρος) to the common fund; and a kind of presidency was assigned to Athens on the proposal of the people of Chios. It is true that there was no notion at first of Athens exercising control over the other states. But this soon came to be practically the fact. It was under- stood that each state was to have a democratic government more or less after the model of the Athenian. Payment of the contribution would at times have to be enforced, and Athens would have to do this as representing the whole body; additions to the confederacy were usually made by the power or influence of Athens. From the first the states were unwilling to supply ships, and preferred a money payment; and thus it soon came to be the regular thing for Athens to find the seventy ships, while the Athenians looked upon it as their right, not only to enforce payment, but to prevent any secession from the confederacy. Such a case did not arise for ten years, when Naxos attempted to break off and was forcibly reduced by Athens. But it was inevitable, that the relations between Athens and the other members should gradually change. That change led to the next great disruption in Greece, brought about by the Peloponnesian war, and will be better considered in connection with it. For the present we may conclude our study of the Persian wars by considering how far the confederacy put an end to them.
The confederate fleet was engaged more or less for eleven years in carrying out the great object of freeing all Greek states from the supremacy of the Persians. The work was carried on systematically, for the most part under the direction of Cimon, son of Miltiades. First, the Thraceward cities were freed, with the island of Scyros, and the work was completed by two great victories, one at the mouth of the Eurymedon in Pamphylia over a large Phoenician fleet, and another by land near Aspendus (B.C. 466). From that time the Persian king seems to have agreed not to send ships of war into the Aegean, and not to interfere with Greek towns on the coast.
By this time or soon afterwards the heroes of the second Persian war had disappeared. Pausanias had been convicted of treason and put to death (B.C. 471). Themistocles had been ostracised in B.C. 471, and then being accused of having shared in the treason of Pausanias, had fled to Persia (B.C. 466–5), and at about the same time Aristides died. A new age was beginning with new men. Greece for about a hundred years was freed from foreign interference, and free to develop in her own way in various parts of the world.
For it was not only Greece proper to which relief from danger had come at this time. In the West a like deliverance had been wrought by Gelo of Syracuse, who, about the same time as the battle of Salamis (Sept. B.C. 480), won a great victory over the Carthaginians at Himera; and in B.C. 474 his successor Hiero conquered the Etruscans at Cumae, the rivals of the Carthaginians for naval supremacy in the Western Mediterranean. It was in this Western or Italian Hellas that, up to this time, the new intellectual movement in Greece had been most prominent. Pythagoras of Samos (fl. B.C. 530–510) had spent most of his later life at Croton, where he founded a school; Xenophanes of Colophon in Sicily and Italy was teaching purer doctrines as to the gods; and a school of philosophers arose at Elea or Velia in Italy, beginning with Parmenides (fl. B.C. 495) and Empedocles (fl. B.C. 455), whose speculations on nature, reason, and ethics had an abiding effect on Greek thought.
But the centre of the intellectual as well as the political life of Hellas was not to be in these outlying parts; for the next hundred years it was to be in Central Greece, and, above all, in Athens. The achievements and heroes of the Persian wars were already finding worthy record in the songs and epigrams of Simonides (d. about B.C. 459), while Pindar (B.C. 521-442), without distinction of city or people, was celebrating all that was vigorous and active in his own clay, and all that was noble and stirring in the traditions of the past. Simonides was an islander, and Pindar was a Boeotian, and the most noteworthy of their contemporaries came from other islands or states, while Herodotus, the historian of the Persian wars, was a native of Caria. But in the writings of them all we see emerging the glory of Athens, and in the next period it is her poets, historians, and orators that have left the most enduring monuments of the Greek genius.
- ↑ According to the story in Herodotus the envoy of the Samians was named Hegesistratos (Army-leader), and Leotychides accepted the omen of the name. No doubt he had other reasons, but we need not wholly reject the story. Such chance omens had great weight with Greeks, and gave confidence to an army.