Herodotus (Swayne)/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII.
PLATÆA AND MYCALE.
Dashed on every rocky square,
Their surging charges foamed themselves away.
Last the Prussian trumpet blew;
Through the long-tormented air
Heaven flashed a sudden jubilant ray,
And down we swept, and charged, and overthrew."
—Tennyson: "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington."
The concluding act of the great historical drama opens with the spring of B.C. 479. Mardonius has come south from Thessaly, and is gleaning in Athens whatever the spoiler, Xerxes, had left. The Athenians are again in their island-asylum of Salamis. The Spartans are marching on the Isthmus of Corinth, under the command of Pausanias, who had succeeded his father Cleombrotus in the regency and the guardianship of the young son of Leonidas, who did not live to reign. After a demonstration towards Megara, where he hoped to cut off the advanced-guard of the allies, Mardonius proceeded into the Theban territory, where he constructed a vast fortified camp on the bank of the river Asopus. A general advance was now made by the Peloponnesians from the isthmus to Eleusis, where they were joined by the Athenian contingent from Salamis. When they had ascertained where the Persians were, they set themselves in array along the highlands of Cithæron. As they seemed indisposed to come down into the plain, Mardonius sent his cavalry to feel their position, under the command of Masistius.
This Murat of the Persian army was a handsome giant, who rode a white Nisæan charger, whose accoutrements, as well as those of his rider, glittered with gold. So rode Charles of Burgundy at Granson or at Morat. In the present day such costume is scarcely to be seen further west than India, and some tall Rajah, full dressed for the Governor-General's durbar, would give a good idea of how Masistius looked at the head of his cuirassiers. These galloped up to the Greek infantry in troops, hurling their javelins, and calling them "women" because they did not come on. The Megarians were in the most exposed place. Being hard pressed, they sent to Pausanias for succour. When he called for volunteers, the Athenians promptly offered, and three hundred picked men, supported by archers, moved up. The charges continued without cessation, Masistius leading with the utmost gallantry, and presenting a conspicuous mark to the bowmen. At last an arrow pierced the side of his charger. He reared back from the agony of the wound, and threw his rider, who now lay at the mercy of his enemies, stunned by his fall, and, like the knights of the middle ages, helpless from the weight of his panoply. His vest of Tyrian crimson was pierced with spear-points, but still lie lived, for under it he wore a shirt of golden mail. At last a hand more dexterous than the rest pierced his brain through one of the eye-holes of his visor, for he was too proud to ask for quarter. Amongst his own followers, as they charged and wheeled about, no one knew that he was dead, and they might even have ridden over the body of their unconscious commander, as the Prussian cavalry did over Blucher when he lay under his dead horse at Ligny. But when they retired he was immediately missed, for there was no one to give the word of command. All that they could now do for him was to recover his body, and with this object the squadrons united .and made a combined onset. To meet this, the Athenians called up other Greek troops to their assistance. While they were coming, a fierce struggle took place for the body, which the Athenians were obliged to leave till their reinforcements joined them. But as it could not be easily removed by cavalry, it ultimately remained in possession of the Greeks. Many Persian knights shared the fate of their commander, so that the rest of the troopers were obliged to ride back to Mardonius with the news of their misfortune. The death of Masistius was considered such a blow that it was bewailed by the whole army, corps after corps taking up the dole of their Adonis, till it resounded through all Bœotia, and horses and men were ordered to be shorn and shaven as a sign of public mourning; for Masistius, next to Mardonius, was considered the greatest man in the army. To the Greeks his fall was a matter of equal rejoicing, and the handsome corpse was carried along the lines to raise the spirits of the soldiers. Their fear of cavalry was now wearing off, and a general forward movement was made towards the plain of Platæa, where water was more abundant. They took up a new position near the Gargaphian Fountain (the modern Vergantiani). Here a hot debate arose between the Tegeans and Athenians, each demanding the honour of occupying the left wing (the Spartans always claimed the right), which was decided, chiefly on mythological grounds, in favour of the Athenians. The army was thus marshalled: on the right were five thousand heavy-armed Spartans, with thirty-five thousand light-armed Helots, and of other Laconians five thousand; then the Tegeans, then the other Greek contingents, till on the extreme left six hundred Platæans stood by the side of eight thousand Athenians under Aristides. The decision of Greek battles mainly rested on the heavy-armed infantry. Each man of these was generally attended by his military servant, and looked upon himself as an officer and a gentleman. The Athenian contingent probably represented all who were not engaged on board the fleet. The remnant of the Thespians—whose city as well as Platæa had been sacked—eighteen hundred in number, were also there, but now too much impoverished to serve as heavy-armed. The sum total of the army was one hundred and ten thousand men, being less than one to three to the army of the king.
Mardonius honoured the Spartans by confronting them with his best troops, the Persians; he posted his Medes, Bactrians, Indians, and Sacæ opposite the other Greeks, and threatened the Athenians with his Greek and Macedonian allies. Besides his three hundred thousand, he had a number of small contingents, such as marines from the fleet, and perhaps fifty thousand Greek auxiliaries. It was not the custom for any army to engage until the omens had been pronounced favourable; and the soothsayers on both sides constantly reported that they were favourable for defence, but not for attack. After the two armies had thus watched each other for eight days, Mardonius was advised to occupy the passes of Cithæron, as the Greeks were constantly being reinforced from that quarter, and accordingly despatched cavalry to a pass leading to Platæa, called "Three Heads" by the Bœotians, and "Oakheads" by the Athenians (the Greek words sounding much the same). This foray resulted in destroying a military train of five hundred sumpter animals, which was making its way to the Greek army. The two next days were passed in demonstrations of cavalry up to the Asopus, which ran between the armies, the Theban horse showing great alacrity in annoying their Hellenic brethren, but leaving the serious fighting to the Persians. On the eleventh day Mardonius, tired of inaction, held a council of war, the result of which was that he ordered an attack on the next day, in spite of the still unfavourable auspices.
In the dead of night, as the armies lay in position, the Athenian sentries were accosted by a solitary horseman who: asked to speak to their commanders. When they came to the front, he told them that the omens had till now restrained Mardonius, but that yesterday he had "bid the omens farewell," and intended to fight on the morrow. He added, that he hoped that his present service would not be forgotten; he was of Greek origin, and a secret friend of the Greeks: his name was Alexander, the son of Amyntas of Macedonia. As soon as the message had been reported to Pausanias, he, with a scarcely Spartan spirit, wished the Athenians to change places with him, as, from their experience at Marathon, they knew the Persian manner of fighting better. And this manœuvre, dangerous as it was to attempt in the face of the enemy, would have been executed, had not Mardonius discovered it, and made a corresponding disposition of his own army. He then sent a herald to reproach the Spartans, and challenge them to fight man for man, with or without the rest of the combatants, as they pleased. As no answer was given, his cavalry were launched en masse against the Greek army. The mounted archers caused them great annoyance, and destroyed the Gargaphian well, from which their water supply was drawn. The supplies from the rear having been cut off, the Greeks determined on a westward movement towards the city of Platæa, where they would be within reach of water. Half the army were to carry out this movement in the night, while the other half were to fall back on Cithæron, to protect their line of communication with their base behind the isthmus. The first division had suffered so much during the day, that in their joy at the respite they retired too far, and never halted till they reached the precincts of a temple of Juno, close to Platæa itself. Pausanias himself was following, but he was kept back by the insubordination of a sturdy colonel named Amompharetus, who objected to any strategic movements which looked like running away. At length he was left to follow or not, as he pleased, while the rest of the Spartans defiled along the safe and hilly ground, the Athenians striking across the exposed plain. Mardonius had now some reason to despise his enemy, and he ordered all his cavalry to charge, and the infantry to advance at quick march, crossing the Asopus. The Athenians were hidden from him by a series of knolls, but he pressed hard on the steps of the Lacedaemonians and Tegeans. Fortune sometimes favours the timid as well as the brave. Seeing Mardonius apparently pursuing the enemy, the rest of his army at once broke their ranks and followed in disorder, each man eager to be in at the death of the quarry which his commander was hunting down. Pausanias had already sent a mounted orderly to the Athenians to beg that they would come to his assistance, or at least send their archers, as he was sorely vexed by the cavalry. They could not comply, as they wanted all their strength to repulse a general attack which was just then being made on them by the king's Greeks. Pausanias halted his line; but still the sacrifices were unpropitious. From behind the Persian breastwork of shields came a rain of arrows, and the breastwork itself seemed impregnable. The Lacedaemonians and Tegeans were falling fast. At last Pausanias espied at no great distance the temple of Juno, and offered up a prayer to the goddess. The omens at once changed, as by magic. The Tegeans dashed at the enemy's fence of shields. The Spartans followed, and the battle was won. The Persians fought like bull-dogs, singly or in knots, though their long dress, says the chronicler, was terribly in the way. They wrenched away or snapt asunder the long Greek lances, and made play with their hangers. Mardonius, conspicuous on a white horse, like Ney at Waterloo, was the "bravest of the brave." But at last a cry rose that Mardonius was down, and at that cry the Persians wavered, and fled in wild disorder to the great stockade which had been built to protect their camp. But Artabazus, who had now come up, had kept his forty thousand men in hand when he saw the scramble of the attack; and when he saw the repulse, he made no attempt to save the day, but faced about and at once began an orderly retreat on the Hellespont. Some of the Greeks who had joined the Persian king fought desperately in their miserable cause. Three hundred noble Thebans are said to have fallen in the front of the battle. This may have been the "Sacred Band" which fought under Epaminondas in later history, and which consisted of friends sworn to live and die together. These Thebans fought indeed "with halters round their necks:" for after the victory, Pausanias insisted on the surrender of the chiefs of the late movement, and executed them all. "When the Greeks who had made the mistake of retreating too far turned back in disorder to get their share of the glory, poetical justice overtook them in the shape of a charge of the Persian and Theban cavalry, which stung them with the energy of a doomed swarm of wasps. They lost six hundred men, and were scattered to the heights of Cithæron. All was not yet over. A new battle began at the Persian camp, which vigorously repelled the onslaughts of the Spartans arid their allies. It was not till the Athenians came up (who understood "wall-fighting," says Herodotus) that the day could be spoken of as finally decided. They managed to break or upset the "abattis," and the Tegeans again led the forlorn hope through it or over it. Then began the slaughter. Only three thousand were left alive of the whole Persian army. This seems incredible, especially in connection with, the small number of the allies who fell in the action, as given by Herodotus. But the vanquished were possibly impounded in their fortified camp, like the wretched Mamelukes whom Mehemet Ali destroyed in the court of a fortress.
The plunder was immense. The tent of Mardonius, with all the royal plate which the king had left him, his manger of bronze, gold and silver in all shapes, splendidly inlaid arms, vestments, horses, camels, beautiful women, became the dangerous prize of the needy Peloponnesians, who, to avert Nemesis, offered a tithe of all to the gods. Pausanias buried with due honours the body of the brave Mardonius, though he was strongly urged by an Æginetan of high rank to remember how that of Leonidas had been treated by Xerxes. "Would you have me humble my country in the dust, now that I have just raised her?" was the Spartan's answer. And he bid the proposer be thankful that he answered him only in words.
It seems to have been the invidious custom in all Greek battles to assign to one or two men the prize of valour, and our author always gives their names. The bravest of all was adjudged to be the Spartan Aristodemus, sole survivor of the glorious three hundred of Thermopylæ. He could not bear his life, and now lost it purposely; therefore he was refused the usual honours. Sophanes was proclaimed the bravest of the Athenians: he was in fact so brave that (perhaps adopting an idea from his experience afloat) he wore an anchor and chain, by which he moored himself to his post in action.[1] It is a pity to lose our faith in so quaint an expedient; but there was another version of the story, says our honest chronicler, that he bore an anchor as the device on his shield. The prudent Artabazus reached Byzantium safely, though he was roughly handled on the road by the Thracians and Macedonians, the latter of whom had been from the first favourable to the Greeks.
This "crowning mercy" of Platæa, as Cromwell would have called it, was supplemented by a brilliant action which took place on the same day at Mycale, on the coast of Ionia.
When the season for navigation had come, the Greek fleet under Leotychides, which had remained at Delos, pushed across to Samos, but the prey they had expected to find there had flown. The Persian fleet had placed itself under the protection of a land force of sixty thousand men under Tigranes, appointed by Xerxes governor of Ionia, and was drawn up on shore at Mycalè, protected by a rampart and palisade. The Greeks came provided with gangway boards, and all other appliances for naval action. But the Persians were morally sea-sick, therefore Leotychides disembarked his troops at his leisure. A mysterious rumour of a great victory in Bœotia, ascribed to some divine messenger, but possibly brought as a telegram by fire-signals, put the Greeks in heart. It was afternoon, and the field of Platæa had been fought in the morning. The Athenians were already engaged, when the Lacedæmonians came up, having to make a circuit by a rugged way intersected with ravines. As at Platæa, the Persians fought well as long as their rampart of bucklers stood upright: even when it gave way, they broke up into clusters, which fought like wild boars at bay. The onset of the Athenians was the more furious that they feared to have their laurels snatched from them by their friends. They drove the Persians into their camp, and, more fortunate than their brethren at Platæa, entered it pell-mell with the flying enemy. The barbarian auxiliaries fled where they could, but the Persians themselves still held out desperately, until the Lacedæmonians came up and completed the defeat. Tigranes and Mardontes died as became Persian officers, fighting gallantly to the last. The Milesians in the Persian service, who had been posted to guard the passes of the mountain, turned on the fugitives and cut them up; for revolt became general among the Ionian Greeks as soon as the battle was over, and Samos, Chios, Lesbos, and other islands, joined the confederacy for reprisals against Persia.
The Greek fleet now sailed to the Hellespont, where they found the bridge of boats destroyed. Then Leotychides went home with his Spartans, but the Athenians stayed and besieged Sestos, which held out till the autumn, when it was taken by famine. There had been a serious debate whether it would not be better to remove the Ionian colonists altogether, and settle them in Greece, than leave them to the future tender mercies of Persia. But the question was settled by the Athenians taking their Asiatic colonies into close league and alliance.
In those two memorable years, which end the narrative of Herodotus, Europe had established its preponderance over Asia for ever. The last tableau of his great epic drama is almost lost in its blaze of glory, and it is time that the curtain should fall. It is true that Herodotus hardly recognises this, and tries to amuse his readers for some time longer with the not very edifying court-scandal of Susa. Xerxes had infinite trouble with the ladies of his court. The fierce and jealous sultana Amestris, who treated her rival with such fiendish cruelty, may be the Vashti of the Book of Esther, as Ahasuerus is supposed to be the Scriptural form of her husband's name. Nemesis was fully satisfied when Xerxes himself fell a victim to a palace intrigue; but this is not mentioned by Herodotus, nor that a statue of that dread Power was placed on the spot where he had been a spectator of the destruction of his fleet.
- ↑ So the wounded at the battle of Clontarf, in Ireland, are said to have got themselves tied to stakes.