[Picture: Decorative chapter heading]
The Athenians had not a long breathing-time. Darius, indeed, died five
years after the battle of Marathon; but his son Xerxes was far more fiery
and ambitious, and was no sooner on the throne than he began to call
together all the vast powers of the East, not to crush Athens alone, but
all the Greeks. He was five years gathering them together, but in the
spring of 480 he set out from Sardis to march to the Hellespont, where he
had a bridge of ships chained together, made to enable his army to cross
the strait on foot. Xerxes was a hot-tempered man, not used to
resistance, and it was said that when a storm broke part of his bridge he
caused the waves to be scourged and fetters to be thrown in, to show that
he was going to bind it to his will. He sat on a throne to watch his
armies pass by. It is said that there were two million six hundred
thousand men, of every speech and dress in Asia and Egypt, with all sorts
of weapons; and as the "Great King" watched the endless number pass by,
he burst into tears to think how soon all this mighty host would be dead
men!
Xerxes had a huge fleet besides, manned by Phoenicians and Greeks of Asia
Minor, and this did not venture straight across the AEgean, because of
his father's disaster, but went creeping round the northern coast. Mount
Athos, standing out far and steep into the sea, stood in the way, and it
was dangerous to go round it; so Xerxes thought it would be an
undertaking worthy of him to have a canal dug across the neck that joins
the mountain to the land, and the Greeks declared that he wrote a letter
to the mountain god, bidding him not to put rocks in the way of the
workmen of the "Great King." Traces of this canal can still be found in
the ravine behind Mount Athos.
All the Greeks knew their danger now, and a council from every city met
at the Isthmus of Corinth to consider what was to be done. All their
ships, 271 in number, were gathered in a bay on the north of the great
island of Euboea. There the Spartan captain of the whole watched and
waited, till beacons from height to height announced that the Persians
were coming, and then he thought it safer to retreat within the Euripus,
the channel between the island and the mainland, which is so narrow that
a very few ships could stop the way of a whole fleet. However, just as
they were within shelter, a terrible storm arose, which broke up and
wrecked a great number of Persian ships, though the number that were left
still was far beyond that of the Greeks. On two days the Greeks ventured
out, and always gained the victory over such ships as they encountered,
but were so much damaged themselves, without destroying anything like the
whole fleet, that such fighting was hopeless work.
In the meantime Xerxes, with his monstrous land army, was marching on,
and the only place where it seemed to the council at the Isthmus that he
could be met and stopped was at a place in Thessaly, where the mountains
of OEta rose up like a steep wall, leaving no opening but towards the
sea, where a narrow road wound round the foot of the cliff, and between
it and the sea was a marsh that men and horses could never cross. The
springs that made this bog were hot, so that it was called Thermopylae,
or the Hot Gates.
The council at the Isthmus determined to send an army to stop the enemy
there, if possible. There were 300 Spartans, and various troops from
other cities, all under the command of one of the Spartan kings,
Leonidas, who had married Gorgo, the girl whose word had kept her father
faithful. They built up a stone wall in front of them, and waited for
the enemy, and by-and-by the Persians came, spreading over an immense
space in the rear, but in this narrow road only a few could fight at
once, so that numbers were of little use. Xerxes sent to desire the
Spartans to give up their arms. Leonidas only answered, "Come and take
them." The Persian messenger reported that the Greeks were sitting on
the wall combing their hair, while others were playing at warlike games.
Xerxes thought they were mad, but a traitor Spartan whom he had in his
camp said it was always the fashion of his countrymen before any very
perilous battle. Xerxes made so sure of victory over such a handful of
men, that he bade his captains bring them all alive to him; but day after
day his best troops fell beaten back from the wall, and hardly a Greek
was slain.
[Picture: Pass of Thermopylae]
But, alas! there was a mountain path through the chestnut woods above.
Leonidas had put a guard of Phocian soldiers to watch it, and the
Persians did not know of it till a wretch, for the sake of reward, came
and offered to show them the way, so that they might fall on the
defenders of the pass from behind. In the stillness of the early dawn,
the Phocians heard the trampling of a multitude on the dry chestnut
leaves. They stood to arms, but as soon as the Persians shot their
arrows at them they fled away and left the path open. Soon it was known
in the camp that the foe were on the hills above. There was still time
to retreat, and Leonidas sent off all the allies to save their lives; but
he himself and his 300 Spartans, with 700 Thespians, would not leave
their post, meaning to sell their lives as dearly as possible. The
Delphic oracle had said that either Sparta or a king of Sparta must
perish, and he was ready to give himself for his country. Two young
cousins of the line of Hercules he tried to save, by telling them to bear
his messages home; but one answered that he had come to fight, not carry
letters, and the other that they would fight first, and then take home
the news. Two more Spartans, whose eyes were diseased, were at the hot
baths near. One went back with the allies, the other caused his Helot to
lead him to the camp, where, in the evening, all made ready to die, and
Leonidas sat down to his last meal, telling his friends that on the
morrow they should sup with Pluto. One of these Thespians had answered,
when he was told that the Persian arrows came so thickly as to hide the
sky, "So much the better; we shall fight in the shade."
The Persians were by this time so much afraid of these brave men that
they could only be driven against them by whips. Leonidas and his
thousand burst out on them beyond the wall, and there fought the whole
day, till everyone of them was slain, but with heaps upon heaps of dead
Persians round them, so that, when Xerxes looked at the spot, he asked in
horror whether all the Greeks were like these, and how many more Spartans
there were. Like a barbarian, he had Leonidas' body hung on a cross; but
in after times the brave king's bones were buried on the spot, and a
mound raised over the other warriors, with the words engraven--
"Go, passer-by, at Sparta tell,
Obedient to her law, we fell."
There was nothing now between the Persians and the temple at Delphi. The
priests asked the oracle if they should bury the treasures. "No," the
answer was; "the god will protect his own." And just as a party of
Persians were climbing up the heights to the magnificent temple there was
a tremendous storm; rocks, struck by lightning, rolled down, and the
Persians fled in dismay; but it is said Xerxes sent one man to insult the
heathen god, and that he was a Jew, and therefore had no fears, and came
back safe.
Now that Thermopylae was lost, there was no place fit to guard short of
the Isthmus of Corinth, and the council decided to build a wall across
that, and defend it, so as to save the Peloponnesus. This left Attica
outside, and the Athenians held anxious council what was to become of
them. Before the way to Delphi was stopped, they had asked the oracle
what they were to do, and the answer had been, "Pallas had prayed for her
city, but it was doomed; yet a wooden wall should save her people, and at
Salamis should women be made childless, at seed-time or harvest."
[Picture: Salamis]
Themistocles said the wooden walls meant the ships, and that the
Athenians were all to sail away and leave the city. Others would have it
that the wooden walls were the old thorn fence of the Acropolis, and
these, being mostly old people, chose to stay, while all the rest went
away; and while the wives and children were kindly sheltered by their
friends in the Peloponnesus, the men all joined the fleet, which lay off
Salamis, and was now 366 in number. The Persians overran the whole
country, overcame the few who held out the Acropolis, and set Athens on
fire. All the hope of Greece was now in the fleet, which lay in the
strait between Attica and the isle of Salamis. Eurybiades, the Spartan
commander, still wanted not to fight, but Themistocles was resolved on
the battle. Eurybiades did all he could to silence him. "Those who
begin a race before the signal are scourged," said the Spartan. "True,"
said Themistocles; "but the laggards never win a crown." Eurybiades
raised his leading staff as if to give him a blow. "Strike, but hear
me," said Themistocles; and then he showed such good reason for there
meeting the battle that Eurybiades gave way. Six days later the Persian
fleet, in all its grandeur, came up, and Xerxes caused his throne to be
set on Mount AEgaleos, above the strait, that he might see the battle.
The doubts of the Peloponnesians revived. They wanted to sail away and
guard their own shores, but Themistocles was so resolved that they should
fight that he sent a slave with a message to Xerxes, pretending to be a
traitor, and advising him to send ships to stop up the other end of the
strait, to cut off their retreat. This was done, to the horror of honest
Aristides, who, still exiled, was in AEgina, watching what to do for his
countrymen. In a little boat he made his way at night to the ship where
council was being held, and begged that Themistocles might be called out.
"Let us be rivals still," he said; "but let our strife be which can serve
our country best. I come to say that your retreat is cut off. We are
surrounded, and must fight." Themistocles said it was the best thing
that could happen, and led him into the council with his tidings.
They did fight. Ship was dashed against ship as fast as oars could bring
them, their pointed beaks bearing one another down. The women who were
made childless were Persian women. Two hundred Persian ships were sunk,
and only forty Greek ones; an immense number were taken; and Xerxes, from
his throne, saw such utter ruin of all his hopes and plans, that he gave
up all thought of anything but getting his land army back to the
Hellespont as fast as possible, for his fleet was gone!
[Picture: Xerxes]