will of an autocratic king, was very different from that which was
reached by the Greeks, in whose council all who spoke had equal
authority. The fleet had come to Salamis to aid the flight of the
Athenians. This done, it was necessary to decide where it was best to
meet the Persian fleet. Only the Athenians, under the leadership of
Themistocles, favored remaining where they were. The others perceived
that if they were defeated here, escape would be impossible. Most of
them wished to sail to the isthmus of Corinth, to aid the land army of
the Peloponnesians, while various other plans were urged.
While the chiefs thus debated news came that Athens and the Acropolis
were in flames. At once some of the captains left the council in alarm,
and began hastily to hoist sail for flight. Those that remained voted to
remove to the isthmus, but not to start till the morning of the next
day.
Themistocles, who had done his utmost to prevent this fatal decision,
which he knew would end in the dispersal of the fleet and the triumph of
Persia, returned to his own ship sad of heart. Many of the women and
children of Athens were on the island of Salamis, and if the fleet
sailed they, too, must be removed.
"What has the council decided?" asked his friend Mnesiphilus.
Themistocles gloomily told him.
"This will be ruinous!" burst out Mnesiphilus. "Soon there will be no
allied fleet, nor any cause or country to fight for. You must have the
council meet again; this vote must be set aside; if it be carried out
the liberty of Greece is at an end."
So strongly did he insist upon this that Themistocles was inspired to
make another effort. He went at once to the ship of Eurybiades, the
Spartan who had been chosen admiral of the fleet, and represented the
case so earnestly to him that Eurybiades was partly convinced, and
consented to call the council together again.
Here Themistocles was so excitedly eager that he sought to win the
chiefs over to his views even before Eurybiades had formally opened the
meeting and explained its object. For this he was chided by the
Corinthian Adeimantus, who said,--
"Themistocles, those who in the public festivals rise up before the
proper signal are scourged."
"True," said Themistocles; "but those who lag behind the signal win no
crowns."
When the debate was formally opened, Themistocles was doubly urgent in
his views, and continued his arguments until Adeimantus burst out in a
rage, bidding him, a man who had no city, to be silent.
This attack drew a bitter answer from the insulted Athenian. If he had
no city, he said, he had around him two hundred ships, with which he
could win a city and country better than Corinth. Then he turned to
Eurybiades, and said,--
"If you will stay and fight bravely here, all will be well. If you
refuse to stay, you will bring all Greece to ruin. If you will not stay,
we Athenians will migrate with our ships and families. Then, chiefs,
when you lose an ally like us, you will remember what I say, and regret
what you have done."
[Illustration: THE VICTORS AT SALAMIS.]
These words convinced Eurybiades. Without the Athenian ships the fleet
would indeed be powerless. He asked for no vote, but gave the word that
they should stay and fight, and bade the captains to make ready for
battle. Thus it was that at dawn of day the fleet, instead of being in
full flight, remained drawn up in battle array in the Bay of Salamis.
The Peloponnesian chiefs, however, were not content. They held a secret
council, and resolved to steal secretly away. This treacherous purpose
came to the ears of Themistocles, and to prevent it he took a desperate
course. He sent a secret message to Xerxes, telling him that the Greek
fleet was about to fly, and that if he wished to capture it he must at
once close up both ends of the strait, so that flight would be
impossible.
He cunningly represented himself as a secret friend of the Persian king,
who lost no time in taking the advice. When the next day's dawn was at
hand the discontented chiefs were about to fly, as they had secretly
resolved, when a startling message came to their ears. Aristides, a
noble Athenian who had been banished, but had now returned, came on the
fleet from Salamis and told them that only battle was left, that the
Persians had cooped them in like birds in a cage, and that there was
nothing to do but to fight or surrender.
This disturbing message was not at first believed. But it was quickly
confirmed. Persian ships appeared at both ends of the strait.
Themistocles had won. Escape was impossible. They must do battle like
heroes or live as Persian slaves. There was but one decision,--to fight.
The dawn of day found the Greeks actively preparing for the most famous
naval battle of ancient times.
The combat about to be fought had the largest audience of any naval
battle the world has ever known. For the vast army of Persia was drawn
up as spectators on the verge of the narrow strait which held the
warring fleets, and Xerxes himself sat on a lofty throne erected at a
point which closely overlooked the liquid plain. His presence, he felt
sure, would fill his seamen with valor, while by his side stood scribes
prepared to write down the names alike of the valorous and the backward
combatants. On the other hand, the people of Athens and Attica looked
with hope and fear on the scene from the island of Salamis. It was a
unique preparation for a battle at sea, such as was never known before
or since that day.
The fleet of Persia outnumbered that of Greece three to one. But the
Persian seamen had been busy all night long in carrying out the plan to
entrap the Greeks, and were weary with labor. The Greeks had risen fresh
and vigorous from their night's rest. And different spirits animated the
two hosts. The Persians were moved solely by the desire for glory; the
Greeks by the stern alternatives of victory, slavery, or death. These
differences in strength and motive went far to negative the difference
in numbers; and the Greeks, caught like lions in a snare, dashed into
the combat with the single feeling that they must now fight or die.
History tells us that the Greeks hesitated at first; but soon the ship
of Ameinias, an Athenian captain, dashed against a Phoenician trireme
with such fury that the two became closely entangled. While their crews
fought vigorously with spear and javelin, other ships from both sides
dashed to their aid, and soon numbers of the war triremes were fiercely
engaged.
The battle that followed was hot and furious, the ships becoming mingled
in so confused a mass that no eye could follow their evolutions. Soon
the waters of the Bay of Salamis ran red with blood. Broken oars, fallen
spars, shattered vessels, filled the strait. Hundreds were hurled into
the waters,--the Persians, few of whom could swim, to sink; the Greeks,
who were skilful swimmers, to seek the shore of Salamis or some friendly
deck.
From the start the advantage lay with the Greeks. The narrowness of the
strait rendered the great numbers of the Persians of no avail. The
superior discipline of the Greeks gave them a further advantage. The
want of concert in the Persian allies was another aid to the Greeks.
They were ready to run one another down in the wild desire to escape.
Soon the Persian fleet became a disorderly mass of flying ships, the
Greek fleet a well-ordered array of furious pursuers. In panic the
Persians fled; in exultation the Greeks pursued. One trireme of Naxos
captured five Persian ships. A brother of Xerxes was slain by an
Athenian spear. Great numbers of distinguished Persians and Medes shared
his fate. Before the day was old the battle on the Persian side had
become a frantic effort to escape, while some of the choicest troops of
Persia, who had been landed before the battle on the island of
Psyttaleia, were attacked by Aristides at the head of an Athenian troop,
and put to death to a man.
The confident hope of victory with which Xerxes saw the battle begin
changed to wrath and terror when he saw his ships in disorderly flight
and the Greeks in hot pursuit. The gallant behavior of Queen Artemisia
alone gave him satisfaction, and when he saw her in the flight run into
and sink an opposing vessel, he cried out, "My men have become women;
and my women, men." He was not aware that the ship she had sunk, with
all on board, was one of his own fleet.
The mad flight of his ships utterly distracted the mind of the
faint-hearted king. His army still vastly outnumbered that of Greece.
With all its losses, his fleet was still much the stronger. An ounce of
courage in his soul would have left Greece at his mercy. But that was
wanting, and in panic fear that the Greeks would destroy the bridge over
the Hellespont, he ordered his fleet to hasten there to guard it, and
put his army in rapid retreat for the safe Asiatic shores.
He had some reason to fear the loss of his bridge. Themistocles and the
Athenians had it in view to hasten to the Hellespont and break it down.
But Eurybiades, the Spartan leader, opposed this, saying that it was
dangerous to keep Xerxes in Greece. They had best give him every chance
to fly.
Themistocles, who saw the wisdom of this advice, not only accepted it,
but sent a message to Xerxes--as to a friend--advising him to make all
haste, and saying that he would do his best to hold back the Greeks, who
were eager to burn the bridge.
The frightened monarch was not slow in taking this advice. Leaving a
strong force in Greece, under the command of his general Mardonius, he
marched with the speed of fear for the bridge. But he had nearly
exhausted the country of food in his advance, and starvation and plague
attended his retreat, many of the men being obliged to eat leaves,
grass, and the bark of trees, and great numbers of them dying before the
Hellespont was reached.
Here he found the bridge gone. A storm had destroyed it. He was forced
to have his army taken across in ships. Not till Asia Minor was reached
did the starving troops obtain sufficient food,--and there gorged
themselves to such an extent that many of them died from repletion. In
the end Xerxes entered Sardis with a broken army and a sad heart, eight
months after he had left it with the proud expectation of conquering the
western world.
_PLATAEA'S FAMOUS DAY._
On a certain day, destined to be thereafter famous, two strong armies
faced each other on the plain north of the little Boeotian town of
Plataea. Greece had gathered the greatest army it had ever yet put into
the field, in all numbering one hundred and ten thousand men, of whom
nearly forty thousand were hoplites, or heavy-armed troops, the
remainder light-armed or unarmed. Of these Sparta supplied five thousand
hoplites and thirty-five thousand light-armed Helots, the greatest army
that warlike city had ever brought into action. The remainder of Laconia
furnished five thousand hoplites and five thousand Helot attendants.
Athens sent eight thousand hoplites, and the remainder of the army came
from various states of Greece. This host was in strange contrast to the
few thousand warriors with whom Greece had met the vast array of Xerxes
at Thermopylae.
Opposed to this force was the army which Xerxes had left behind him on
his flight from Greece, three hundred thousand of his choicest troops,
under the command of his trusted general Mardonius. This host was not a
mob of armed men, like that which Xerxes had led. It embraced the best
of the Persian forces and Greek auxiliaries, and the hopes of Greece
still seemed but slight, thus outnumbered three to one. But the Greeks
fought for liberty, and were inspired with the spirit of their recent
victories; the Persians were disheartened and disunited: this difference
of feeling went far to equalize the hosts.
And now, before bringing the waiting armies to battle, we must tell what
led to their meeting on the Plataean plain. After the battle of Salamis a
vote was taken by the chiefs to decide who among them should be awarded
the prize of valor on that glorious day. Each cast two ballots, and when
these were counted each chief was found to have cast his first vote
for--himself! But the second votes were nearly all for Themistocles, and
all Greece hailed him as its preserver. The Spartans crowned him with
olive, and presented him with a kingly chariot, and when he left their
city they escorted him with the honors due to royalty.
Meanwhile Mardonius, who was wintering with his army in Thessaly, sent
to Athens to ask if its people still proposed the madness of opposing
the power of Xerxes the king. "Yes," was the answer; "while the sun
lights the sky we will never join in alliance with barbarians against
Greeks."
On receiving this answer Mardonius broke up his winter camp and marched
again to Athens, which he found once more empty of inhabitants. Its
people had withdrawn as before to Salamis, and left the shell of their
nation to the foe.
The Athenians sent for aid to Sparta, but the people of that city,
learning that Athens had defied Mardonius, selfishly withheld their
assistance, and the completion of the wall across the isthmus was
diligently pushed. Fortunately for Greece, this selfish policy came to a
sudden end. "What will your wall be worth if Athens joins with Persia
and gives the foe the aid of her fleet?" was asked the Spartan kings;
and so abruptly did they change their opinion that during that same
night five thousand Spartan hoplites, each man with seven Helot
attendants, marched for the isthmus, with Pausanias, a cousin of
Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylae, at their head.
On learning of this movement, Mardonius set fire to what of Athens
remained, and fell back on the city of Thebes, in Boeotia, as a more
favorable field for the battle which now seemed sure to come. Here his
numerous cavalry could be brought into play, the country was allied with
him, the friendly city of Thebes lay behind him, and food for his great
army was to be had. Here, then, he awaited the coming of the Greeks, and
built for his army a fortified camp, surrounded with walls and towers of
wood.
Yet his men and officers alike lacked heart. At a splendid banquet given
to Mardonius by the Thebans, one of the Persians said to his Theban
neighbor,--
"Seest thou these Persians here feasting, and the army which we left
yonder encamped near the river? Yet a little while, and out of all these
thou shalt behold but a few surviving."
"If you feel thus," said the Theban, "thou art surely bound to reveal it
to Mardonius."
"My friend," answered the Persian, "man cannot avert what God has
decreed. No one will believe the revelation, sure though it be. Many of
us Persians know this well, and are here serving only under the bond of
necessity. And truly this is the most hateful of all human sufferings,
to be full of knowledge, and at the same time to have no power over any
result."
Not long had the lukewarm Persians to wait for their foes. Soon the army
of Greece appeared, and, seeing their enemy encamped along the little
river Asopus in the plain, took post on the mountain declivity above.
Here they were not suffered to rest in peace. The powerful Persian
cavalry, led by Masistius, the most distinguished officer in the army,
broke like a thunderbolt on the Grecian ranks. The Athenians and
Megarians met them, and a sharp and doubtful contest ensued. At length
Masistius fell from his wounded horse and was slain as he lay on the
ground. The Persians fought with fury to recover his body, but were
finally driven back, leaving the corpse of their general in the hands of
the Greeks.
This event had a great effect on both armies. Grief assailed the army of
Mardonius at the loss of their favorite general. Loud wailings filled
the camp, and the hair of men, horses, and cattle was cut in sign of
mourning. The Greeks, on the contrary, were full of joy. The body of
Masistius, a man of great stature, and clad in showy armor, was placed
in a cart and paraded around the camp, that all might see it and
rejoice. Such was their confidence at this defeat of the cavalry, which
they had sorely feared, that Pausanias broke up his hill camp and
marched into the plain below, where he took station in front of the
Persian host, only the little stream of the Asopus dividing the two
hostile armies.
And here for days they lay, both sides offering sacrifices, and both
obtaining the same oracle,--that the side which attacked would lose the
battle, the side which resisted would win. Under such circumstances
neither side cared to attack, and for ten days the armies lay, the
Greeks much annoyed by the Persian cavalry, and having their convoys of
provisions cut off, yet still waiting with unyielding faith in the
decision of the gods.
Mardonius at length grew impatient. He asked his officers if they knew
of any prophecy saying that the Persians would be destroyed in Greece.
They were all silent, though many of them knew of such prophecies.
"Since you either do not know or will not tell," he at length said, "I
well know of one. There is an oracle which declares that Persian
invaders shall plunder the temple of Delphi, and shall afterwards all be
destroyed. Now we shall not go against that temple, so on that ground we
shall not be destroyed. Doubt not, then, but rejoice, for we shall get
the better of the Greeks." And he gave orders to prepare for battle on
the morrow, without waiting longer on the sacrifices.
That night Alexander of Macedon, who was in the Persian army, rode up to
the Greek outposts and gave warning of the coming attack. "I am of Greek
descent," he said, "and ask you to free me from the Persian yoke. I
cannot endure to see Greece enslaved."
During the night Pausanias withdrew his army to a new position in front
of the town of Plataea, water being wanting where they were. One Spartan
leader, indeed, refused to move, and when told that there had been a
general vote of the officers, he picked up a huge stone and cast it at
the feet of Pausanias, crying, "This is _my_ pebble. With it I give my
vote not to run away from the strangers."
Dawn was at hand, and the Spartans still held their ground, their leader
disputing in vain with the obstinate captain. At length he gave the
order to march, it being fatal to stay, since the rest of the army had
gone. Amompharetus, the obstinate captain, seeing that his general had
really gone, now lost his scruples and followed.
When day dawned the Persians saw with surprise that their foes had
disappeared. The Spartans alone, detained by the obstinacy of
Amompharetus, were still in sight. Filled with extravagant confidence at
this seeming flight. Mardonius gave orders for hasty pursuit, crying to
a Greek ally, "There go your boasted Spartans, showing, by a barefaced
flight, what they are really worth."
Crossing the shallow stream, the Persians ran after the Greeks at full
speed, without a thought of order or discipline. The foe seemed to them
in full retreat, and shouts of victory rang from their lips as they
rushed pell-mell across the plain.
The Spartans were quickly overtaken, and found themselves hotly
assailed. They sent in haste to the Athenians for aid. The Athenians
rushed forward, but soon found themselves confronted by the Greek allies
of Persia, and with enough to do to defend themselves. The remainder of
the Greek army had retreated to Plataea and took no part in the battle.
The Persians, thrusting the spiked extremities of their long shields in
the ground, formed a breastwork from which they poured showers of arrows
on the Spartan ranks, by which many were wounded or slain. Yet, despite
their distress, Pausanias would not give the order to charge. He was at
the old work again, offering sacrifices while his men fell around him.
The responses were unfavorable, and he would not fight.
At length the victims showed favorable signs. "Charge!" was the word.
With the fury of unchained lions the impatient hoplites sprang forward,
and like an avalanche the serried Spartan line fell on the foe.
Down went the breastwork of shields. Down went hundreds of Persians
before the close array and the long spears of the Spartans. Broken and
disordered, the Persians fought bravely, doing their utmost to get to
close quarters with their foes. Mardonius, mounted on a white horse, and
attended by a body-guard of a thousand select troops, was among the
foremost warriors, and his followers distinguished themselves by their
courage.
At length the spear of Aeimnestus, a distinguished Spartan, brought
Mardonius dead to the ground. His guards fell in multitudes around his
body. The other Persians, worn out with the hopeless effort to break
the Spartan phalanx, and losing heart at the death of their general,
turned and fled to their fortified camp. At the same time the Theban
allies of Persia, whom the Athenians had been fighting, gave ground, and
began a retreat, which was not ended till they reached the walls of
Thebes.
On rushed the victorious Spartans to the Persian camp, which they at
once assailed. Here they had no success till the Athenians came to their
aid, when the walls were stormed and the defenders slain in such hosts
that, if we can believe Herodotus, only three thousand out of the three
hundred thousand of the army of Mardonius remained alive. It is true
that one body of forty thousand men, under Artabazus, had been too late
on the field to take part in the fight. The Persians were already
defeated when these troops came in sight, and they turned and marched
away for the Hellespont, leaving the defeated host to shift for itself.
Of the Greeks, Plutarch tells us that the total loss in the battle was
thirteen hundred and sixty men.
The spoil found in the Persian camp was rich and varied. It included
money and ornaments of gold and silver, carpets, splendid arms and
clothing, horses, camels, and other valuable materials. This was divided
among the victors, a tenth of the golden spoil being reserved for the
Delphian shrine, and wrought into a golden tripod, which was placed on a
column formed of three twisted bronze serpents. This defeat was the
salvation of Greece. No Persian army ever again set foot on European
soil. And, by a striking coincidence, on the same day that the battle
of Plataea was fought, the Grecian fleet won a brilliant victory at
Mycale, in Asia Minor, and freed the Ionian cities from Persian rule. In
Greece, Thebes was punished for aiding the Persians. Byzantium (now
Constantinople) was captured by Pausanias, and the great cables of the
bridge of Xerxes were brought home in triumph by the Greeks.
We have but one more incident to tell. The war tent of Xerxes had been
left to Mardonius, and on taking the Persian camp Pausanias saw it with
its colored hangings and its gold and silver adornments, and gave orders
to the cooks that they should prepare him such a feast as they were used
to do for their lord. On seeing the splendid banquet, he ordered that a
Spartan supper should be prepared. With a hearty laugh at the contrast
he said to the Greek leaders, for whom he had sent, "Behold, O Greeks,
the folly of this Median captain, who, when he enjoyed such fare as
this, must needs come here to rob us of our penury."
_FOUR FAMOUS MEN OF ATHENS._
In the days of Croesus, the wealthiest of ancient kings, a citizen of
Athens, Alkmaeon by name, kindly lent his aid to the messengers sent by
the Lydian monarch to consult the Delphian oracle, before his war with
King Cyrus of Persia, This generous aid was richly rewarded by
Croesus, who sent for Alkmaeon to visit him at Sardis, richly
entertained him, and when ready to depart made him a present of as much
gold as he could carry from the treasury.
This offer the visitor, who seemed to possess his fair share of the
perennial thirst for gold, determined to make the most of. He went to
the treasure-chamber dressed in his loosest tunic and wearing on his
feet wide-legged buskins, both of which he filled bursting full with
gold. Not yet satisfied, he powdered his hair thickly with gold-dust,
and filled his mouth with this precious but indigestible food. Thus
laden, he waddled as well as he could from the chamber, presenting so
ludicrous a spectacle that the good-natured monarch burst into a loud
laugh on seeing him.