CHAPTER XXXVI.

FROM THE IONIC REVOLT TO THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.

In the preceding chapter, I indicated the point of confluence between

the European and Asiatic streams of Grecian history,—the commencement

of a decided Persian intention to conquer Attica; manifested first

in the form of a threat by Artaphernês the satrap, when he enjoined

the Athenians to take back Hippias as the only condition of safety,

and afterwards converted into a passion in the bosom of Darius

in consequence of the burning of Sardis. From this time forward,

therefore, the affairs of Greece and Persia came to be in direct

relation one with the other, and capable of being embodied, much more

than before, into one continuous narrative.

The reconquest of Ionia being thoroughly completed, Artaphernês

proceeded to organize the future government of it, with a degree of

prudence and forethought not often visible in Persian proceedings.

Convoking deputies from all the different cities, he compelled them

to enter into a permanent convention, for the amicable settlement

of disputes, so as to prevent all employment of force by any one

against the others. Moreover, he caused the territory of each city to

be measured by parasangs (each parasang was equal to thirty stadia,

or about three miles and a half), and arranged the assessments

of tribute according to this measurement, without any material

departure, however, from the sums which had been paid before the

revolt.[584]

[584] Herodot. vi, 42.

Unfortunately, Herodotus is unusually brief in his allusion to this

proceeding, which it would have been highly interesting to be able

to comprehend perfectly. We may, however, assume it as certain,

that both the population and the territory of many among the Ionic

cities, if not of all, were materially altered in consequence of the

preceding revolt, and still more in consequence of the cruelties

with which the suppression of the revolt had been accompanied. In

regard to Milêtus, Herodotus tells us that the Persians retained

for themselves the city with its circumjacent plain, but gave

the mountain portion of the Milesian territory to the Karians of

Pêdasa.[585] Such a proceeding would naturally call for a fresh

measurement and assessment of tribute; and there may have been

similar transfers of land elsewhere. I have already observed that

the statements which we find in Herodotus, of utter depopulation and

destruction falling upon the cities, cannot be credited in their

full extent; for these cities are all peopled, and all Hellenic,

afterwards. But there can be no doubt that they are partially true,

and that the miseries of those days, as stated in the work of

Hekatæus, as well as by contemporary informants with whom Herodotus

had probably conversed, must have been extreme. New inhabitants would

probably be admitted in many of them, to supply the loss sustained;

and such infusion of fresh blood would strengthen the necessity for

the organization introduced by Artaphernês, in order to determine

clearly the obligations due from the cities both to the Persian

government and towards each other. Herodotus considers that the

arrangement was extremely beneficial to the Ionians, and so it must

unquestionably have appeared, coming as it did immediately after

so much previous suffering. He farther adds, that the tribute then

fixed remained unaltered until his own day,—a statement requiring

some comment, which I reserve until the time arrives for describing

the condition of the Asiatic Greeks after the repulse of Xerxês from

Greece proper.

[585] Herodot. vi, 20.

Meanwhile, the intentions of Darius for the conquest of Greece were

now effectively manifested: Mardonius, invested with the supreme

command, and at the head of a large force, was sent down in the

ensuing spring for the purpose. Having reached Kilikia in the course

of the march, he himself got on ship-board and went by sea to

Ionia, while his army marched across Asia Minor to the Hellespont.

His proceeding in Ionia surprises us, and seems to have appeared

surprising as well to Herodotus himself as to his readers. Mardonius

deposed the despots throughout the various Greek cities,[586] and

left the people of each to govern themselves, subject to the Persian

dominion and tribute. This was a complete reversal of the former

policy of Persia, and must be ascribed to a new conviction, doubtless

wise and well founded, which had recently grown up among the Persian

leaders, that on the whole their unpopularity was aggravated, more

than their strength was increased, by employing these despots as

instruments. The phenomena of the late Ionic revolt were well

calculated to teach such a lesson; but we shall not often find the

Persians profiting by experience, throughout the course of this

history.

[586] Herodot. vi, 43. In recounting this deposition of the

despots by Mardonius, Herodotus reasons from it as an analogy

for the purpose of vindicating the correctness of another of

his statements, which, he acquaints us, many persons disputed;

namely, the discussion which he reports to have taken place among

the seven conspirators, after the death of the Magian Smerdis,

whether they should establish a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a

democracy,—ἐνθαῦτα μέγιστον θώϋμα ἐρέω τοῖσι μὴ ἀποδεκομένοισι

τῶν Ἑλλήνων, Περσέων τοῖσι ἕπτα Ὀτάνεα γνώμην ἀποδέξασθαι, ὡς

χρέων εἴη δημοκρατέεσθαι Πέρσας· τοὺς γὰρ τυράννους τῶν Ἰώνων

καταπαύσας πάντας ὁ Μαρδόνιος, δημοκρατίας κατίστα ἐς τὰς πόλιας.

Such passages as this let us into the controversies of the time,

and prove that Herodotus found many objectors to his story about

the discussion on theories of government among the seven Persian

conspirators (iii, 80-82).

Mardonius did not remain long in Ionia, but passed on with his

fleet to the Hellespont, where the land-force had already arrived.

He transported it across into Europe, and began his march through

Thrace; all of which had already been reduced by Megabazus, and

does not seem to have participated in the Ionic revolt. The island

of Thasus surrendered to the fleet without any resistance, and the

land-force was conveyed across the Strymon to the Greek city of

Akanthus, on the western coast of the Strymonic gulf. From hence

his land-force marched into Macedonia, and subdued a considerable

portion of its inhabitants, perhaps some of those not comprised in

the dominion of Amyntas, since that prince had before submitted to

Megabazus. Meanwhile, he sent his fleet to double the promontory of

Mount Athos, and to join the land-force again at the gulf of Therma,

with a view of conquering as much of Greece as he could, and even

of prosecuting the march as far as Athens and Eretria;[587] so that

the expedition afterwards accomplished by Xerxês would have been

tried at least by Mardonius, twelve or thirteen years earlier, had

not a terrible storm completely disabled the fleet. The sea near

Athos was then, and is now, full of peril to navigators. One of the

hurricanes, so frequent in its neighborhood, overtook the Persian

fleet, destroyed three hundred ships, and drowned or cast ashore

not less than twenty thousand men: of those who reached the shore,

many died of cold, or were devoured by the wild beasts on that

inhospitable tongue of land. This disaster checked altogether the

farther progress of Mardonius, who also sustained considerable loss

with his land-army, and was himself wounded, in a night attack made

upon him by the tribe of Thracians called Brygi. Though strong enough

to repel and avenge this attack, and to subdue the Brygi, he was yet

in no condition to advance farther. Both the land-force and the fleet

were conveyed back to the Hellespont, and from thence across to Asia,

with all the shame of failure. Nor was Mardonius again employed by

Darius, though we cannot make out that the fault was imputable to

him.[588] We shall hear of him again under Xerxês.

[587] Herodot. vi, 43, 44, ἐπορεύοντο δὲ ἐπί τε Ἐρετρίαν καὶ

Ἀθήνας.

[588] Herodot. vi, 44-94. Charon of Lampsakus had noticed the

storm near Mount Athos, and the destruction of the fleet of

Mardonius (Charonis Fragment. 3, ed. Didot; Athenæ. ix, p. 394).

The ill-success of Mardonius seems to have inspired the Thasians,

so recently subdued, with the idea of revolting. At least, they

provoked the suspicion of Darius by making active preparations for

defence, building war-ships, and strengthening their fortifications.

The Thasians were at this time in great opulence, chiefly from their

gold and silver mines, both in their island and in their mainland

territory opposite. Their mines at Skaptê Hylê, in Thrace, yielded

to them an annual income of eighty talents; and altogether their

surplus revenue—after defraying all the expenses of government, so

that the inhabitants were entirely untaxed—was two hundred talents

(forty-six thousand pounds, if Attic talents; more, if either Euboic

or Æginæan). With these large means, they were enabled soon to make

preparations which excited notice among their neighbors, many of whom

were doubtless jealous of their prosperity, and perhaps inclined

to dispute with them possession of the profitable mines of Skaptê

Hylê. As in other cases, so in this: the jealousies among subject

neighbors often procured revelations to the superior power: the

proceedings of the Thasians were made known, and they were forced to

raze their fortifications as well as to surrender all their ships to

the Persians at Abdêra.[589]

[589] Herodot. vi, 46-48. See a similar case of disclosure

arising from jealousy between Tenedos and Lesbos (Thucyd. iii, 2).

Though dissatisfied with Mardonius, Darius was only the more eagerly

bent on his project of conquering Greece, and Hippias was at his

side to keep alive his wrath against the Athenians.[590] Orders were

despatched to the maritime cities of his empire to equip both ships

of war and horse-transports for a renewed attempt. His intentions

were probably known in Greece itself by this time, from the recent

march of his army to Macedonia; but he thought it advisable to send

heralds round to most of the Grecian cities, in order to require

from each the formal token of submission,—earth and water; and thus

to ascertain what extent of resistance his intended expedition was

likely to experience. The answers received were to a high degree

favorable. Many of the continental Greeks sent their submission,

as well as all those islanders to whom application was made. Among

the former, we are probably to reckon the Thebans and Thessalians,

though Herodotus does not particularize them. Among the latter,

Naxos, Eubœa, and some of the smaller islands, are not included; but

Ægina, at that time the first maritime power of Greece, is expressly

included.[591]

[590] Herodot. vi, 94.

[591] Herodot. vi, 48-49; viii, 46.

Nothing marks so clearly the imminent peril in which the liberties

of Greece were now placed, and the terror inspired by the Persians

after their reconquest of Ionia, as this abasement on the part of

the Æginetans, whose commerce with the Asiatic islands and continent

doubtless impressed them strongly with the melancholy consequences

of unsuccessful resistance to the Great King. But on the present

occasion, their conduct was dictated as much by antipathy to Athens

as by fear, so that Greece was thus threatened with the intrusion

of the Persian arm as ally and arbiter in her internal contests: a

contingency which, if it had occurred now in the dispute between

Ægina and Athens, would have led to the certain enslavement of

Greece,—though when it did occur nearly a century afterwards,

towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, and in consequence of

the prolonged struggle between Lacedæmon and Athens, Greece had

become strong enough in her own force to endure it without the loss

of substantial independence. The war between Thebes and Ægina on

one side, and Athens on the other,—begun several years before, and

growing out of the connection between Athens and Platæa,—had never

yet been terminated. The Æginetans had taken part in that war from

gratuitous feeling, either of friendship for Thebes, or of enmity

to Athens, without any direct ground of quarrel,[592] and they had

begun the war even without the formality of notice. Though a period

apparently not less than fourteen years (from about 506-492 B. C.)

had elapsed since it began, the state of hostility still continued;

and we may well conceive that Hippias, the great instigator of

Persian attack upon Greece, would not fail to enforce upon all the

enemies of Athens the prudence of seconding, or at least of not

opposing, the efforts of the Persian to reinstate him in that city.

It was partly under this feeling, combined with genuine alarm, that

both Thebes and Ægina manifested submissive dispositions towards the

heralds of Darius.

[592] Herodot. v, 81-89. See above, chapter xxxi. The legendary

story there given as the provocation of Ægina to the war is

evidently not to be treated as a real and historical cause of

war: a state of quarrel causes all such stories to be raked up,

and some probably to be invented. It is like the old alleged

quarrel between the Athenians and the Pelasgi of Lemnos (vi,

137-140).

Among these heralds, some had gone both to Athens and to Sparta,

for the same purpose of demanding earth and water. The reception

given to them at both places was angry in the extreme. The Athenians

cast the herald into the pit called the barathrum,[593] into which

they sometimes precipitated public criminals: the Spartans threw

the herald who came to them into a well, desiring the unfortunate

messenger to take earth and water from thence to the king. The

inviolability of heralds was so ancient and undisputed in Greece,

from the Homeric times downward, that nothing short of the fiercest

excitement could have instigated any Grecian community to such

an outrage. But to the Lacedæmonians, now accustomed to regard

themselves as the first of all Grecian states, and to be addressed

always in the character of superiors, the demand appeared so gross an

insult as to banish from their minds for the time all recollection of

established obligations. They came subsequently, however, to repent

of the act as highly criminal, and to look upon it as the cause of

misfortunes which overtook them thirty or forty years afterwards: how

they tried at that time to expiate it, I shall hereafter recount.[594]

[593] It is to this treatment of the herald that the story in

Plutarch’s Life of Themistoklês must allude, if that story

indeed be true; for the Persian king was not likely to send a

second herald, after such treatment of the first. An interpreter

accompanied the herald, speaking Greek as well as his own native

language. Themistoklês proposed and carried a vote that he should

be put to death, for having employed the Greek language as medium

for barbaric dictation (Plutarch, Themist. c. 6). We should be

glad to know from whom Plutarch copied this story.

Pausanias states that it was Miltiadês who proposed the putting

to death of the heralds at Athens (iii, 12, 6); and that the

divine judgment fell upon his family in consequence of it. From

whom Pausanias copied this statement I do not know: certainly not

from Herodotus, who does not mention Miltiadês in the case, and

expressly says that he does not know in what manner the divine

judgment overtook the Athenians for the crime, “except (says he)

that their city and country was afterwards laid waste by Xerxês;

but I do not think that this happened on account of the outrage

on the heralds.” (Herodot. vii, 133.)

The belief that there must have been a divine judgment of

some sort or other, presented a strong stimulus to invent or

twist some historical fact to correspond with it. Herodotus

has sufficient regard for truth to resist this stimulus and to

confess his ignorance; a circumstance which goes, along with

others, to strengthen our confidence in his general authority.

His silence weakens the credibility, but does not refute the

allegation of Pausanias with regard to Miltiadês,—which is

certainly not intrinsically improbable.

[594] Herodot. vii, 133.

But if, on the one hand, the wounded dignity of the Spartans hurried

them into the commission of this wrong, it was on the other hand

of signal use to the general liberties of Greece, by rousing them

out of their apathy as to the coming invader, and placing them with

regard to him in the same state of inexpiable hostility as Athens

and Eretria. We see at once the bonds drawn closer between Athens

and Sparta. The Athenians, for the first time, prefer a complaint

at Sparta against the Æginetans for having given earth and water to

Darius,—accusing them of having done this with views of enmity to

Athens, and in order to invade Attica conjointly with the Persian.

This they represented “as treason to Hellas,” calling upon Sparta

as head of Greece to interfere. And in consequence of their appeal,

Kleomenês king of Sparta went over to Ægina, to take measures against

the authors of the late proceeding, “for the general benefit of

Hellas.”[595]

[595] Herodot. vi, 49. Ποιήσασι δέ σφι (Αἰγιμήταις) ταῦτα, ἰθέως

Ἀθηναῖοι ἐπεκέατο, δοκέοντες ἐπὶ σφίσι ἔχοντας τοὺς Αἰγινήτας

δεδωκέναι (γῆν καὶ ὕδωρ), ὡς ἅμα τῷ Πέρσῃ ἐπὶ σφέας στρατεύωνται.

Καὶ ἄσμενοι προφάσιος ἐπελάβοντο· ~φοιτέοντές τε ἐς τὴν Σπάρτην,

κατηγόρεον τῶν Αἰγινητέων τὰ πεποιήκοιεν, προδόντες τὴν Ἑλλάδα~.

Compare viii, 144, ix, 7. ~τὴν Ἑλλάδα δεινὸν ποιούμενοι

προδοῦναι~—a new and very important phrase.

vi, 61. Τότε δὲ τὸν Κλεομένεα, ἐόντα ἐν τῇ Αἰγίνῃ, ~καὶ κοινὰ τῇ

Ἑλλάδι ἀγαθὰ προεργαζόμενον~, etc.

The proceeding now before us is of very great importance in the

progress of Grecian history. It is the first direct and positive

historical manifestation of Hellas as an aggregate body, with Sparta

as its chief, and obligations of a certain sort on the part of its

members, the neglect or violation of which constitutes a species

of treason. I have already pointed out several earlier incidents,

showing how the Greek political mind, beginning from entire severance

of states, became gradually prepared for this idea of a permanent

league with mutual obligations and power of enforcement vested in

a permanent chief,—an idea never fully carried into practice, but

now distinctly manifest and partially operative. First, the great

acquired power and territory of Sparta, her military training, her

undisturbed political traditions, create an unconscious deference

towards her, such as was not felt towards any other state: next, she

is seen in the proceedings against Athens, after the expulsion of

Hippias, as summoning and conducting to war a cluster of self-obliged

Peloponnesian allies, with certain formalities which gave to the

alliance an imposing permanence and solemnity: thirdly, her position

becomes recognized as first power or president of Greece, both

by foreigners who invite alliance (Crœsus), or by Greeks who seek

help, such as the Platæans against Thebes, or the Ionians against

Persia. But Sparta has not been hitherto found willing to take

on herself the performance of this duty of protector-general.

She refused the Ionians and the Samian Mæandrius, as well as the

Platæans, in spite of their entreaties founded on common Hellenic

lineage: the expedition which she undertook against Polykratês of

Samos, was founded upon private motives of displeasure, even in the

estimation of the Lacedæmonians themselves: moreover, even if all

these requests had been granted, she might have seemed to be rather

obeying a generous sympathy than performing a duty incumbent upon

her as superior. But in the case now before us, of Athens against

Ægina, the latter consideration stands distinctly prominent. Athens

is not a member of the cluster of Spartan allies, nor does she claim

the compassion of Sparta, as defenceless against an overpowering

Grecian neighbor. She complains of a Pan-Hellenic obligation as

having been contravened by the Æginetans to her detriment and danger,

and calls upon Sparta to enforce upon the delinquents respect to

these obligations. For the first time in Grecian history, such a call

is made; for the first time in Grecian history, it is effectively

answered. We may reasonably doubt, whether it would have been thus

answered,—considering the tardy, unimpressible, and home-keeping

character of the Spartans, with their general insensibility to

distant dangers,[596]—if the adventure of the Persian herald had not

occurred to gall their pride beyond endurance; to drive them into

unpardonable hostility with the Great King; and to cast them into the

same boat with Athens for keeping off an enemy who threatened the

common liberties of Hellas.

[596] Thucyd. i, 70-118. ἄοκνοι πρὸς ὑμᾶς (_i. e._ the Spartans)

μελλητὰς καὶ ἀποδημηταὶ πρὸς ἐνδημοτάτους.

From this time, then, we may consider that there exists a

recognized political union of Greece against the Persians,[597]—or

at least something as near to a political union as Grecian temper

will permit,—with Sparta as its head for the present. To such a

preëminence of Sparta, Grecian history had been gradually tending;

but the final event which placed it beyond dispute, and which humbled

for the time her ancient and only rival—Argos—is now to be noticed.

[597] Herodot. vii, 145-148. Οἱ συνωμόται Ἑλλήνων ἐπὶ τῷ Πέρσῃ.

It was about three or four years before the arrival of these Persian

heralds in Greece, and nearly at the time when Milêtus was besieged

by the Persian generals, that a war broke out between Sparta and

Argos,[598]—on what grounds Herodotus does not inform us. Kleomenês,

encouraged by a promise of the oracle that he should take Argos, led

the Lacedæmonian troops to the banks of the Erasinus, the border

river of the Argeian territory. But the sacrifices, without which

no river could be crossed, were so unfavorable, that he altered

his course, extorted some vessels from Ægina and Sikyon,[599] and

carried his troops by sea to Nauplia, the seaport belonging to Argos,

and to the territory of Tiryns. The Argeians having marched their

forces down to resist him, the two armies joined battle at Sêpeia,

near Tiryns: Kleomenês, by a piece of simplicity on the part of his

enemies, which we find it difficult to credit in Herodotus, was

enabled to attack them unprepared, and obtained a decisive victory.

For the Argeians, it is stated, were so afraid of being overreached

by stratagem, in the post which their army occupied over against

the enemy, that they listened for the commands proclaimed aloud by

the Lacedæmonian herald, and performed with their own army the same

order which they thus heard given. This came to the knowledge of

Kleomenês, who communicated private notice to his soldiers, that

when the herald proclaimed orders to go to dinner, they should not

obey, but immediately stand to their arms. We are to presume that the

Argeian camp was sufficiently near to that of the Lacedæmonians to

enable them to hear the voice of the herald, yet not within sight,

from the nature of the ground. Accordingly, so soon as the Argeians

heard the herald in the enemy’s camp proclaim the word to go to

dinner,[600] they went to dinner themselves; and in this disorderly

condition they were easily overthrown by the Spartans. Many of them

perished in the field, while the fugitives took refuge in a thick

grove consecrated to their eponymous hero Argus. Kleomenês pursued

and inclosed them therein; but thinking it safer to employ deceit

rather than force, he ascertained from deserters the names of the

chief Argeians thus shut up, and then invited them out successively

by means of a herald,—pretending that he had received their ransom,

and that they were released. As fast as each man came out, he was

put to death; the fate of these unhappy sufferers being concealed

from their comrades within the grove by the thickness of the foliage,

until some one climbing to the top of a tree detected and proclaimed

the destruction going on,—after about fifty of the victims had

perished. Unable to entice any more of the Argeians from their

consecrated refuge, which they still vainly hoped would protect them,

Kleomenês set fire to the grove, and burnt it to the ground, insomuch

that the persons within it appear to have been destroyed, either by

fire or by sword.[601] After the conflagration had begun, he inquired

for the first time to whom the grove belonged, and learnt that it

belonged to the hero Argus.

[598] That which marks the siege of Milêtus, and the defeat of

the Argeians by Kleomenês, as contemporaneous, or nearly so, is,

the common oracular dictum delivered in reference to both: in the

same prophecy of the Pythia, one half alludes to the sufferings

of Milêtus, the other half to those of Argos (Herodot. vi, 19-77).

Χρεωμένοισι γὰρ Ἀργείοισι ἐν Δελφοῖσι περὶ σωτηρίης τῆς πόλιος

τῆς σφετέρης, τὸ μὲν ἐς αὐτοὺς τοὺς Ἀργείους φέρον, τὴν δὲ

παρενθήκην ἔχρησε ἐς Μιλησίους.

I consider this evidence of date to be better than the statement

of Pausanias. That author places the enterprise against Argos

immediately (αὔτικα—Paus. iii, 4, 1) after the accession of

Kleomenês, who, as he was king when Mæandrius came from Samos

(Herodot. iii, 148), must have come to the throne not later than

518 or 517 B. C. This would be thirty-seven years prior to 480 B.

C.; a date much too early for the war between Kleomenês and the

Argeians, as we may see by Herodotus (vii, 149).

[599] Herodot. vi, 92.

[600] Herodot. vi, 78; compare Xenophon, Rep. Laced. xii, 6.

Orders for evolutions in the field, in the Lacedæmonian military

service, were not proclaimed by the herald, but transmitted

through the various gradations of officers (Thucyd. v, 66).

[601] Herodot. vi, 79, 80.

Not less than six thousand citizens, the flower and strength of

Argos, perished in this disastrous battle and retreat. And so

completely was the city prostrated, that Kleomenês might easily have

taken it, had he chosen to march thither forthwith and attack it

with vigor. If we are to believe later historians whom Pausanias,

Polyænus, and Plutarch have copied, he did march thither and attack

it, but was repulsed by the valor of the Argeian women; who, in the

dearth of warriors occasioned by the recent defeat, took arms along

with the slaves, headed by the poetess Telesilla, and gallantly

defended the walls.[602] This is probably a mythe, generated by a

desire to embody in detail the dictum of the oracle a little before,

about “the female conquering the male.”[603] Without meaning to

deny that the Argeian women might have been capable of achieving so

patriotic a deed, if Kleomenês had actually marched to the attack of

their city, we are compelled, by the distinct statement of Herodotus,

to affirm that he never did attack it. Immediately after the burning

of the sacred grove of Argos, he dismissed the bulk of his army to

Sparta, retaining only one thousand choice troops,—with whom he

marched up to the Hêræum, or great temple of Hêrê, between Argos and

Mykênæ, to offer sacrifice. The priest in attendance forbade him

to enter, saying that no stranger was allowed to offer sacrifice

in the temple. But Kleomenês had once already forced his way into

the sanctuary of Athênê, on the Athenian acropolis, in spite of the

priestess and her interdict,—and he now acted still more brutally

towards the Argeian priest, for he directed his helots to drag him

from the altar and scourge him. Having offered sacrifice, Kleomenês

returned with his remaining force to Sparta.[604]

[602] Pausan. ii, 20, 7; Polyæn. viii, 33; Plutarch, De Virtut.

Mulier, p. 245; Suidas, v. Τελέσιλλα.

Plutarch cites the historian Sokratês of Argos for this story

about Telesilla; an historian, or perhaps composer of a

περιήγησις Ἄργους, of unknown date: compare Diogen. Laërt. ii,

5, 47, and Plutarch, Quæstion. Romaic. pp. 270-277. According to

his representation, Kleomenês and Demaratus jointly assaulted

the town of Argos, and Demaratus, after having penetrated into

the town and become master of the Pamphyliakon, was driven out

again by the women. Now Herodotus informs us that Kleomenês and

Demaratus were never employed upon the same expedition, after the

disagreement in their march to Attica (v, 75; vi, 64).

[603] Herodot. vi, 77.

Ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν ἡ θηλεῖα τὸν ἄρσενα νικήσασα

Ἐξελάσῃ, καὶ κῦδος ἐν Ἀργείοισιν ἄρηται, etc.

If this prophecy can be said to have any distinct meaning, it

probably refers to Hêrê, as protectress of Argos, repulsing the

Spartans.

Pausanias (ii, 20, 7) might well doubt whether Herodotus

understood this oracle in the same sense as he did: it is plain

that Herodotus could not have so understood it.

[604] Herodot. vi, 80, 81: compare v, 72.

But the army whom he had sent home returned with a full persuasion

that Argos might easily have been taken,—that the king alone was

to blame for having missed the opportunity. As soon as he himself

returned, his enemies—perhaps his colleague Demaratus—brought him

to trial before the ephors, on a charge of having been bribed,

against which he defended himself as follows: He had invaded the

hostile territory on the faith of an assurance from the oracle that

he should take Argos; but so soon as he had burnt down the sacred

grove of the hero Argus,—without knowing to whom it belonged,—he

became at once sensible that this was all that the god meant by

_taking Argos_, and therefore that the divine promise had been

fully realized. Accordingly, he did not think himself at liberty

to commence any fresh attack, until he had ascertained whether the

gods would approve it and would grant him success. It was with this

view that he sacrificed in the Hêræum. But though his sacrifice was

favorable, he observed that the flame kindled on the altar flashed

back from the bosom of the statue of Hêrê, and not from her head. If

the flame had flashed from her head, he would have known at once that

the gods intended him to take the city by storm;[605] but the flash

from her bosom plainly indicated that the topmost success was out

of his reach, and that he had already reaped all the glories which

they intended for him. We may see that Herodotus, though he refrains

from criticizing this story, suspects it to be a fabrication. Not

so the Spartan ephors: to them it appeared not less true as a story

than triumphant as a defence, insuring to Kleomenês an honorable

acquittal.[606]

[605] Herodot. vi, 82. εἰ μὲν γὰρ ~ἐκ τῆς κεφαλῆς~ τοῦ ἀγάλματος

ἐξέλαμψε, αἱρέειν ἂν ~κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς~ τὴν πόλιν· ἐκ τῶν στηθέων δὲ

λάμψαντος, πᾶν οἱ πεποιῆσθαι ὅσον ὁ θεὸς ἤθελε.

For the expression αἱρέειν κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς, compare Herodot. vi, 21,

and Damm. Lex. Homer. v. ἀκρός. In this expression, as generally

used, the last words κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς have lost their primitive and

special sense, and do little more than intensify the simple

αἱρέειν,—equivalent to something like “de fond en comble:” for

Kleomenês is accused by his enemies,—φάμενοί μιν δωροδοκήσαντα,

οὐκ ἑλέειν τὸ Ἄργος, παρέον εὐπετέως μιν ἑλεῖν. But in the story

recounted by Kleomenês, the words κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς come back to their

primitive meaning, and serve as the foundation for his religious

inference, from type to thing typified: if the light had shone

from the head or _top_ of the statue, this would have intimated

that the gods meant him to take the city “_from top to bottom_.”

In regard to this very illustrative story,—which there seems no

reason for mistrusting,—the contrast between the point of view

of Herodotus and that of the Spartan ephors deserves notice. The

former, while he affirms distinctly that it was the real story

told by Kleomenês, suspects its truth, and utters as much of

skepticism as his pious fear will permit him; the latter find

it in complete harmony, both with their canon of belief and

with their religious feeling,—Κλεομένης δέ σφι ἔλεξε, οὔτε εἰ

ψευδόμενος οὔτε εἰ ἀληθέα λέγων, ἔχω σαφηνέως εἶπαι· ἔλεξε δ᾽

ὦν.... Ταῦτα δὲ λέγων, πιστά τε καὶ οἴκοτα ἐδόκεε Σπαρτιήτῃσι

λέγειν, καὶ ἀπέφυγε πολλὸν τοὺς διώκοντας.

[606] Compare Pausanias, ii, 20, 8.

Though this Spartan king lost the opportunity of taking Argos, his

victories already gained had inflicted upon her a blow such as she

did not recover for a generation, and put her for a time out of all

condition to dispute the primacy of Greece with Lacedæmon. I have

already mentioned that both in legend and in earliest history, Argos

stands forth as the first power in Greece, with legendary claims to

headship, and decidedly above Lacedæmon; who gradually usurps from

her, first the reality of superior power, next the recognition of

preëminence,—and is now, at the period which we have reached, taking

upon herself both the rights and the duties of a presiding state

over a body of allies who are bound both to her and to each other.

Her title to this honor, however, was never admitted at Argos, and

it is very probable that the war just described grew in some way or

other out of the increasing presidential power which circumstances

were tending to throw into her hands. And the complete temporary

prostration of Argos was an essential condition to the quiet

acquisition of this power by Sparta. Occurring as it did two or three

years before the above-recounted adventure of the heralds, it removed

the only rival at that time both willing and able to compete with

Sparta,—a rival who might well have prevented any effective union

under another chief, though she could no longer have secured any

Pan-Hellenic ascendency for herself,—a rival who would have seconded

Ægina in her submission to the Persians, and would thus have lamed

incurably the defensive force of Greece. The ships which Kleomenês

had obtained from the Æginetans as well as from the Sikyonians,

against their own will, for landing his troops at Nauplia, brought

upon both these cities the enmity of Argos, which the Sikyonians

compromised by paying a sum of money, while the Æginetans refused

to do so.[607] And thus the circumstances of the Kleomenic war had

the effect not only of enfeebling Argos, but of alienating her from

natural allies and supporters, and clearing the ground for undisputed

Spartan primacy.

[607] Herodot. vi, 92.

Returning now to the complaint preferred by Athens to the Spartans

against the traitorous submission of Ægina to Darius, we find that

king Kleomenês passed immediately over to that island for the purpose

of inquiry and punishment. He was proceeding to seize and carry away

as prisoners several of the leading Æginetans, when Krius and some

others among them opposed to him a menacing resistance, telling him

that he came without any regular warrant from Sparta and under the

influence of Athenian bribes,—that, in order to carry authority, both

the Spartan kings ought to come together. It was not of their own

accord that the Æginetans ventured to adopt so dangerous a course.

Demaratus, the colleague of Kleomenês in the junior or Prokleid line

of kings, had suggested to them the step and promised to carry them

through it safely.[608] Dissension between the two coördinate kings

was no new phenomenon at Sparta; but in the case of Demaratus and

Kleomenês, it had broken out some years previously on the occasion of

the march against Attica; and Demaratus, hating his colleague more

than ever, entered into the present intrigue with the Æginetans with

the deliberate purpose of frustrating his intervention. He succeeded,

and Kleomenês was compelled to return to Sparta; not without

unequivocal menace against Krius and the other Æginetans who had

repelled him,[609] and not without a thorough determination to depose

Demaratus.

[608] Herodot. vi, 50. Κρῖος—ἔλεγε δὲ ταῦτα ἐξ ἐπιστολῆς τῆς

Δημαρήτου. Compare Pausan. iii, 4, 3.

[609] Herodot. vi, 50-61, 64. Δημάρητος—φθόνῳ καὶ ἄγῃ χρεώμενος.

It appears that suspicions had always attached to the legitimacy of

Demaratus’s birth. His reputed father Aristo had had no offspring

by two successive wives: at last, he became enamored of the wife of

his friend Agêtus,—a woman of surpassing beauty,—and entrapped him

into an agreement, whereby each solemnly bound himself to surrender

anything belonging to him which the other might ask for. That which

Agêtus asked from Aristo was at once given: in return, the latter

demanded to have the wife of Agêtus, who was thunderstruck at the

request, and indignantly complained of having been cheated into a

sacrifice of all others the most painful: nevertheless, the oath was

peremptory, and he was forced to comply. The birth of Demaratus took

place so soon after this change of husbands, that when it was first

made known to Aristo, as he sat upon a bench along with the ephors,

he counted on his fingers the number of months since his marriage,

and exclaimed with an oath, “The child cannot be mine.” He soon,

however, retracted his opinion, and acknowledged the child, who grew

up without any question being publicly raised as to his birth, and

succeeded his father on the throne. But the original words of Aristo

had never been forgotten, and private suspicions were still cherished

that Demaratus was really the son of his mother’s first husband.[610]

[610] Herodot. vi, 61, 62, 63.

Of these suspicions, Kleomenês now resolved to avail himself,

exciting Leotychidês, the next heir in the Prokleid line of kings,

to impugn publicly the legitimacy of Demaratus; engaging to second

him with all his influence as next in order for the crown, and

exacting in return a promise that he would support the intervention

against Ægina. Leotychidês was animated not merely by ambition, but

also by private enmity against Demaratus, who had disappointed him

of his intended bride: he warmly entered into the scheme, arraigned

Demaratus as no true Herakleid, and produced evidence to prove

the original doubts expressed by Aristo. A serious dispute was

thus raised at Sparta, and Kleomenês, espousing the pretensions of

Leotychidês, recommended that the question as to the legitimacy of

Demaratus should be decided by reference to the Delphian oracle.

Through the influence of Kobôn, a powerful native of Delphi, he

procured from the Pythian priestess an answer pronouncing that

Demaratus was not the son of Aristo.[611] Leotychidês thus became

king of the Prokleid line, while Demaratus descended into a private

station, and was elected at the ensuing solemnity of the Gymnopædia

to an official function. The new king, unable to repress a burst

of triumphant spite, sent an attendant to ask him, in the public

theatre, how he felt as an officer after having once been a king.

Stung with this insult, Demaratus replied that he himself had tried

them both, and that Leotychidês might in time come to try them both

also: the question, he added, shall bear its fruit,—great evil, or

great good, to Sparta. So saying, he covered his face and retired

home from the theatre,—offered a solemn farewell sacrifice at the

altar of Zeus Herkeios, and solemnly adjured his mother to declare to

him who his real father was,—then at once quitted Sparta for Elis,

under pretence of going to consult the Delphian oracle.[612]

[611] Herodot. vi, 65, 66. In an analogous case afterwards,

where the succession was disputed between Agesilaus the brother,

and Leotychidês the reputed son of the deceased king Agis, the

Lacedæmonians appear to have taken upon themselves to pronounce

Leotychidês illegitimate; or rather to assume tacitly such

illegitimacy by choosing Agesilaus in preference, without the

aid of the oracle (Xenophon, Hellen. iii, 3, 1-4; Plutarch,

Agesilaus, c. 3). The previous oracle from Delphi, however,

φυλάξασθαι τὴν χωλὴν βασιλείαν, was cited on the occasion, and

the question was, in what manner it should be interpreted.

[612] Herodot. vi, 68, 69. The answer made by the mother to this

appeal—informing Demaratus that he is the son either of king

Aristo, or of the hero Astrabakus—is extremely interesting as an

evidence of Grecian manners and feeling.

Demaratus was well known to be a high-spirited and ambitious

man,—noted, among other things, as the only Lacedæmonian king down

to the time of Herodotus who had ever gained a chariot victory at

Olympia; and Kleomenês and Leotychidês became alarmed at the mischief

which he might do them in exile. By the law of Sparta, no Herakleid

was allowed to establish his residence out of the country, on pain of

death: this marks the sentiment of the Lacedæmonians, and Demaratus

was not the less likely to give trouble because they had pronounced

him illegitimate.[613] Accordingly they sent in pursuit of him, and

seized him in the island of Zakynthus. But the Zakynthians would not

consent to surrender him, so that he passed unobstructed into Asia,

where he presented himself to Darius, and was received with abundant

favors and presents.[614] We shall hereafter find him the companion

of Xerxês, giving to that monarch advice such as, if it had been

acted upon, would have proved the ruin of Grecian independence; to

which, however, he would have been even more dangerous, if he had

remained at home as king of Sparta.

[613] Plutarch, Agis, c. 11. κατὰ δή τινα νόμον παλαιὸν, ὃς

οὐκ ἐᾷ τὸν Ἡρακλείδην ἐκ γυναικὸς ἀλλοδαπῆς τεκνοῦσθαι, τὸν δ᾽

ἀπελθόντα τῆς Σπάρτης ἐπὶ μετοικισμῷ πρὸς ἑτέρους ἀποθνήσκειν

κελεύει.

[614] Herodot. vi, 70.

Meanwhile Kleomenês, having obtained a consentient colleague in

Leotychidês, went with him over to Ægina, eager to revenge himself

for the affront which had been put upon him. To the requisition and

presence of the two kings jointly, the Æginetans did not dare to

oppose any resistance. Kleomenês made choice of ten citizens, eminent

for wealth, station, and influence, among whom were Krius and another

person named Kasambus, the two most powerful men in the island.

Conveying them away to Athens, he deposited them as hostages in the

hands of the Athenians.[615]

[615] Herodot. vi, 78.

It was in this state that the affairs of Athens and of Greece

generally were found by the Persian armament which landed at

Marathon, the progress of which we are now about to follow. And the

events just recounted were of material importance, considered in

their indirect bearing upon the success of that armament. Sparta had

now, on the invitation of Athens, assumed to herself for the first

time a formal Pan-Hellenic primacy, her ancient rival Argos being too

much broken to contest it,—her two kings, at this juncture unanimous,

employ their presiding interference in coercing Ægina, and placing

Æginetan hostages in the hands of Athens. The Æginetans would not

have been unwilling to purchase victory over a neighbor and rival at

the cost of submission to Persia, and it was the Spartan interference

only which restrained them from assailing Athens conjointly with the

Persian invaders; thus leaving the hands of the latter free, and her

courage undiminished, for the coming trial.

Meanwhile, a vast Persian force, brought together in consequence of

the preparation made during the last two years in every part of the

empire, had assembled in the Aleïan plain of Kilikia, near the sea. A

fleet of six hundred armed triremes, together with many transports,

both of men and horses, was brought hither for their embarkation:

the troops were put on board, and sailed along the coast to Samos in

Ionia. The Ionic and Æolic Greeks constituted an important part of

this armament, and the Athenian exile Hippias was on board as guide

and auxiliary in the attack of Attica. The generals were Datis, a

Median,[616]—and Artaphernês, son of the satrap of Sardis, so named,

and nephew of Darius. We may remark that Datis is the first person

of Median lineage who is mentioned as appointed to high command

after the accession of Darius, which had been preceded and marked,

as I have noticed in a former chapter, by an outbreak of hostile

nationality between the Medes and Persians. Their instructions were,

generally, to reduce to subjection and tribute all such Greeks as

had not already given earth and water. But Darius directed them

most particularly to conquer Eretria and Athens, and to bring the

inhabitants as slaves into his presence.[617] These orders were

literally meant, and probably neither the generals nor the soldiers

of this vast armament doubted that they would be literally executed;

and that before the end of the year, the wives, or rather the

widows, of men like Themistoklês and Aristeidês would be seen among

a mournful train of Athenian prisoners, on the road from Sardis to

Susa, thus accomplishing the wish expressed by queen Atossa at the

instance of Dêmokêdês.

[616] Herodot. vi, 94. Δᾶτίν τε, ἐόντα Μῆδον γένος, etc.

Cornelius Nepos (Life of Pausanias, c. 1) calls Mardonius a Mede;

which cannot be true, since he was the son of Gobryas, one of the

seven Persian conspirators (Herodot. vi, 43).

[617] Herodot. vi, 94. ἐντειλάμενος δὲ ἀπέπεμπε,

ἐξανδραποδίσαντας Ἐρετρίαν καὶ Ἀθήνας, ἄγειν ἑωϋτῷ ἐς ὄψιν τὰ

ἀνδράποδα.

According to the Menexenus of Plato (c. 17, p. 245), Darius

ordered Datis to fulfil this order on peril of his own head; no

such harshness appears in Herodotus.

The recent terrific storm near Mount Athos deterred the Persians

from following the example of Mardonius, and taking their course by

the Hellespont and Thrace. It was resolved to strike straight across

the Ægean[618] (the mode of attack which intelligent Greeks like

Themistoklês most feared, even after the repulse of Xerxês), from

Samos to Eubœa, attacking the intermediate islands in the way. Among

those islands was Naxos, which ten years before had stood a long

siege, and gallantly repelled the Persian Megabatês with the Milesian

Aristagoras. It was one of the main objects of Datis to efface this

stain on the Persian arms, and to take a signal revenge on the

Naxians.[619] Crossing from Samos to Naxos, he landed his army on the

island, which was found an easier prize than he had expected. The

terrified citizens, abandoning their town, fled with their families

to the highest summits of their mountains; while the Persians,

seizing as slaves a few who had been dilatory in flight, burnt the

undefended town with its edifices sacred and profane.

[618] Thucyd. i, 93.

[619] Herodot. vi, 95, 96. ἐπὶ ταύτην (Naxos) γὰρ δὴ πρώτην

ἐπεῖχον στρατεύεσθαι οἱ Πέρσαι, μεμνημένοι τῶν πρότερον.

Immense, indeed, was the difference in Grecian sentiment towards

the Persians, created by the terror-striking reconquest of Ionia,

and by the exhibition of a large Phenician fleet in the Ægean. The

strength of Naxos was the same now as it had been before the Ionic

revolt, and the successful resistance then made might have been

supposed likely to nerve the courage of its inhabitants. Yet such is

the fear now inspired by a Persian armament, that the eight thousand

Naxian hoplites abandon their town and their gods without striking a

blow,[620] and think of nothing but personal safety for themselves

and their families. A sad augury for Athens and Eretria!

[620] The historians of Naxos affirmed that Datis had been

repulsed from the island. We find this statement in Plutarch, De

Malign. Herodot. c. 36, p. 869, among his violent and unfounded

contradictions of Herodotus.

From Naxos, Datis despatched his fleet round the other Cyclades

islands, requiring from each, hostages for fidelity and a contingent

to increase his army. With the sacred island of Delos, however,

he dealt tenderly and respectfully. The Delians had fled before

his approach to Tênos, but Datis sent a herald to invite them back

again, promised to preserve their persons and property inviolate,

and proclaimed that he had received express orders from the Great

King to reverence the island in which Apollo and Artemis were born.

His acts corresponded with this language; for the fleet was not

allowed to touch the island, and he himself, landing with only a

few attendants, offered a magnificent sacrifice at the altar. A

large portion of his armament consisted of Ionic Greeks, and this

pronounced respect to the island of Delos may probably be ascribed

to the desire of satisfying their religious feelings; for in their

days of early freedom, this island had been the scene of their solemn

periodical festivals, as I have already more than once remarked.

Pursuing his course without resistance along the islands, and

demanding reinforcements as well as hostages from each, Datis at

length touched the southernmost portion of Eubœa,—the town of

Karystus and its territory.[621] The Karystians, though at first

refusing either to give hostages or to furnish any reinforcements

against their friends and neighbors, were speedily compelled to

submission by the aggressive devastation of the invaders. This was

the first taste of resistance which Datis had yet experienced; and

the facility with which it was overcome gave him a promising omen as

to his success against Eretria, whither he soon arrived.

[621] Herodot. vi, 99.

The destination of the armament was no secret to the inhabitants of

this fated city, among whom consternation, aggravated by intestine

differences, was the reigning sentiment. They made application to

Athens for aid, which was readily and conveniently afforded to them

by means of those four thousand kleruchs, or out-citizens, whom

the Athenians had planted sixteen years before in the neighboring

territory of Chalkis. Notwithstanding this reinforcement, however,

many of them despaired of defending the city, and thought only of

seeking shelter on the unassailable summits of the island, as the

more numerous and powerful Naxians had already done before them;

while another party, treacherously seeking their own profit out of

the public calamity, lay in wait for an opportunity of betraying the

city to the Persians.[622] Though a public resolution was taken to

defend the city, yet so manifest was the absence of that stoutness

of heart which could alone avail to save it, that a leading Eretrian

named Æschinês was not ashamed to forewarn the four thousand Athenian

allies of the coming treason, and urge them to save themselves before

it was too late. They followed his advice and passed over to Attica

by way of Orôpus; while the Persians disembarked their troops, and

even their horses, in expectation that the Eretrians would come

out and fight, at Tamynæ and other places in the territory. As the

Eretrians did not come out, they proceeded to lay siege to the city,

and for some days met with a brave resistance, so that the loss on

both sides was considerable. At length two of the leading citizens,

Euphorbus and Philagrus, with others, betrayed Eretria to the

besiegers; its temples were burnt, and its inhabitants dragged into

slavery.[623] It is impossible to credit the exaggerated statement

of Plato, which is applied by him to the Persians at Eretria, as it

had been before applied by Herodotus to the Persians at Chios and

Samos,—that they swept the territory clean of inhabitants by joining

hands and forming a line across its whole breadth.[624] Evidently,

this is an idea illustrating the possible effects of numbers and

ruinous conquest, which has been woven into the tissue of historical

statements, like so many other illustrative ideas in the writings

of Greek authors. That a large proportion of the inhabitants were

carried away as prisoners, there can be no doubt. But the traitors

who betrayed the town were spared and rewarded by the Persians,[625]

and we see plainly that either some of the inhabitants must have been

left or new settlers introduced, when we find the Eretrians reckoned

ten years afterwards among the opponents of Xerxês.

[622] Herodot. vi, 100. Τῶν δὲ Ἐρετριέων ἦν ἄρα οὐδὲν ὑγιὲς

βούλευμα, οἳ μετεπέμποντο μὲν Ἀθηναίους, ἐφρόνεον δὲ διφασίας

ἰδέας· οἳ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν ἐβουλεύοντο ἐκλιπεῖν τὴν πόλιν ἐς τὰ ἄκρα

τῆς Εὐβοίης, ἄλλοι δὲ αὐτῶν ἴδια κέρδεα προσδεκόμενοι παρὰ τοῦ

Πέρσεω οἴσεσθαι προδοσίην ἐσκευάζοντο.

Allusion to this treason among the Eretrians is to be found in a

saying of Themistoklês (Plutarch, Themist. c. 11).

The story told by Hêrakleidês Ponticus (ap. Athenæ. xii, p. 536),

of an earlier Persian armament which had assailed Eretria and

failed, cannot be at all understood; it rather looks like a mythe

to explain the origin of the great wealth possessed by the family

of Kallias at Athens,—the Λακκόπλουτος. There is another story,

having the same explanatory object, in Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 5.

[623] Herodot. vi, 101, 102.

[624] Plato, Legg. iii, p. 698, and Menexen. c. 10, p. 240;

Diogen. Laërt. iii, 33; Herodot. vi, 31: compare Strabo, x, p.

446, who ascribes to Herodotus the statement of Plato about the

σαγήνευσις of Eretria. Plato says nothing about the betrayal of

the city.

It is to be remarked that, in the passage of the Treatise de

Legibus, Plato mentions this story (about the Persians having

swept the territory of Eretria clean of its inhabitants)

with some doubt as to its truth, and as if it were a rumor

intentionally circulated by Datis with a view to frighten the

Athenians. But in the Menexenus, the story is given as if it were

an authentic historical fact.

[625] Plutarch, De Garrulitate, c. 15, p. 510. The descendants of

Gongylus the Eretrian, who passed over to the Persians on this

occasion, are found nearly a century afterwards in possession of

a town and district in Mysia, which the Persian king had bestowed

upon their ancestor. Herodotus does not mention Gongylus (Xenoph.

Hellen. iii, 1, 6).

This surrender to the Persians drew upon the Eretrians bitter

remarks at the time of the battle of Salamis (Plutarch,

Themistoklês, c. 11).

Datis had thus accomplished with little or no resistance one of the

two express objects commanded by Darius, and his army was elated

with the confident hope of soon completing the other. Alter halting

a few days at Eretria, and depositing in the neighboring islet of

Ægilia the prisoners recently captured, he reëmbarked his army to

cross over to Attica, and landed in the memorable bay of Marathon

on the eastern coast,—the spot indicated by the despot Hippias, who

now landed along with the Persians, twenty years after his expulsion

from the government. Forty-seven years had elapsed since he had

made as a young man this same passage, from Eretria to Marathon, in

conjunction with his father Peisistratus, on the occasion of the

second restoration of the latter. On that previous occasion, the

force accompanying the father had been immeasurably inferior to that

which now seconded the son; yet it had been found amply sufficient

to carry him in triumph to Athens, with feeble opposition from

citizens alike irresolute and disunited. And the march of Hippias

from Marathon to Athens would now have been equally easy, as it was

doubtless conceived to be by himself, both in his waking hopes and

in the dream which Herodotus mentions,—had not the Athenians whom he

found been men radically different from those whom he had left.

To that great renewal of the Athenian character, under the

democratical institutions which had subsisted since the dispossession

of Hippias, I have already pointed attention in a former chapter.

The modifications introduced by Kleisthenês in the constitution

had now existed eighteen or nineteen years, without any attempt

to overthrow them by violence. The Ten Tribes, each with its

constituent demes, had become a part of the established habits of

the country, and the citizens had become accustomed to exercise a

genuine and self-determined decision in their assemblies, political

as well as judicial; while even the senate of Areopagus, renovated

by the nine annual archons successively chosen who passed into it

after their year of office, had also become identified in feeling

with the constitution of Kleisthenês. Individual citizens, doubtless,

remained partisans in secret, and perhaps correspondents of Hippias;

but the mass of citizens, in every scale of life, could look upon

his return with nothing but terror and aversion. With what degree

of newly-acquired energy the democratical Athenians could act in

defence of their country and institutions, has already been related

in a former chapter; though unfortunately we possess few particulars

of Athenian history during the decade preceding 490 B. C., nor can

we follow in detail the working of the government. The new form,

however, which Athenian politics had assumed becomes partially

manifest, when we observe the three leaders who stand prominent at

this important epoch,—Miltiadês, Themistoklês, and Aristeidês.

The first of the three had returned to Athens, three or four years

before the approach of Datis, after six or seven years’ absence in

the Chersonesus of Thrace, whither he had been originally sent by

Hippias about the year 517-516 B. C., to inherit the property as

well as the supremacy of his uncle the œkist Miltiadês. As despot

of the Chersonese, and as one of the subjects of Persia, he had

been among the Ionians who accompanied Darius to the Danube in his

Scythian expedition, and he had been the author of that memorable

recommendation which Histiæus and the other despots did not think it

their interest to follow,—of destroying the bridge and leaving the

Persian king to perish. Subsequently, he had been unable to remain

permanently in the Chersonese, for reasons which have before been

noticed; yet he seems to have occupied it during the period of the

Ionic revolt.[626] What part he took in that revolt we do not know.

But he availed himself of the period while the Persian satraps were

employed in suppressing it, and deprived of the mastery of the sea,

to expel, in conjunction with forces from Athens, both the Persian

garrison and Pelasgic inhabitants from the islands of Lemnos and

Imbros. The extinction of the Ionic revolt threatened him with ruin;

so that when the Phenician fleet, in the summer following the capture

of Milêtus, made its conquering appearance in the Hellespont, he

was forced to escape rapidly to Athens with his immediate friends

and property, and with a small squadron of five ships. One of these

ships, commanded by his son Metiochus, was actually captured between

the Chersonese and Imbros; and the Phenicians were most eager to

capture himself,[627]—inasmuch as he was personally odious to Darius

from his strenuous recommendation to destroy the bridge over the

Danube. On arriving at Athens, after his escape from the Phenician

fleet, he was brought to trial before the judicial popular assembly

for alleged misgovernment in the Chersonese, or for what Herodotus

calls “his despotism” there exercised.[628] Nor is it improbable,

that the Athenian citizens settled in that peninsula may have had

good reason to complain of him,—the more so as he had carried out

with him the maxims of government prevalent at Athens under the

Peisistratids, and had in his pay a body of Thracian mercenaries.

However, the people at Athens honorably acquitted him, probably

in part from the reputation which he had obtained as conqueror of

Lemnos;[629] and he was one of the ten annually-elected generals of

the republic, during the year of this Persian expedition,—chosen at

the beginning of the Attic year, shortly after the summer solstice,

at a time when Datis and Hippias had actually sailed, and were known

to be approaching.

[626] The chapter of Herodotus (vi, 40) relating to the

adventures of Miltiadês is extremely perplexing, as I have

already remarked in a former note: and Wesseling considers that

it involves chronological difficulties which our present MSS.

do not enable us to clear up. Neither Schweighäuser, nor the

explanation cited in Bähr’s note, is satisfactory.

[627] Herodot. vi, 43-104.

[628] Herodot. vi, 39-104.

[629] Herodot. vi, 132. Μιλτιάδης, καὶ πρότερον εὐδοκιμέων—_i.

e._ before the battle of Marathon. How much his reputation had

been heightened by the conquest of Lemnos, see Herodot. vi, 136.

The character of Miltiadês is one of great bravery and

decision,—qualities preëminently useful to his country on the present

crisis, and the more useful as he was under the strongest motive to

put them forth, from the personal hostility of Darius towards him;

but he does not peculiarly belong to the democracy of Kleisthenês,

like his younger contemporaries Themistoklês and Aristeidês. The

two latter are specimens of a class of men new at Athens since the

expulsion of Hippias, and contrasting forcibly with Peisistratus,

Lykurgus, and Megaklês, the political leaders of the preceding

generation. Themistoklês and Aristeidês, different as they were in

disposition, agree in being politicians of the democratical stamp,

exercising ascendency by and through the people,—devoting their time

to the discharge of public duties, and to the frequent discussions

in the political and judicial meetings of the people,—manifesting

those combined powers of action, comprehension, and persuasive

speech, which gradually accustomed the citizens to look to them

as advisers as well as leaders,—but always subject to criticism

and accusation from unfriendly rivals, and exercising such rivalry

towards each other with an asperity constantly increasing. Instead of

Attica, disunited and torn into armed factions, as it had been forty

years before,—the Diakrii under one man, and the Parali and Pedieis

under others,—we have now Attica one and indivisible; regimented

into a body of orderly hearers in the Pnyx, appointing and holding

to accountability the magistrates, and open to be addressed by

Themistoklês, Aristeidês, or any other citizen who can engage their

attention.

Neither Themistoklês nor Aristeidês could boast of a lineage of gods

and heroes, like the Æakid Miltiadês:[630] both were of middling

station and circumstances. Aristeidês, son of Lysimachus, was on

both sides of pure Athenian blood. But the wife of Neoklês, father

of Themistoklês, was a foreign woman of Thrace or of Karia: and such

an alliance is the less surprising, since Themistoklês must have

been born during the dynasty of the Peisistratids, when the status

of an Athenian citizen had not yet acquired its political value.

There was a marked contrast between these two eminent men,—those

points which stood most conspicuous in the one, being comparatively

deficient in the other. In the description of Themistoklês, which we

have the advantage of finding briefly sketched by Thucydidês, the

circumstance most emphatically brought out is, his immense force

of spontaneous invention and apprehension, without any previous aid

either from teaching or gradual practice. The might of unassisted

nature[631] was never so strikingly exhibited as in him: he conceived

the complications of a present embarrassment, and divined the chances

of a mysterious future, with equal sagacity and equal quickness:

the right expedient seemed to flash upon his mind extempore, even

in the most perplexing contingencies, without the least necessity

for premeditation. Nor was he less distinguished for daring and

resource in action. When engaged on any joint affairs, his superior

competence marked him out as the leader for others to follow, and

no business, however foreign to his experience, ever took him by

surprise, or came wholly amiss to him. Such is the remarkable picture

which Thucydidês draws of a countryman whose death nearly coincided

in time with his own birth: the untutored readiness and universality

of Themistoklês probably formed in his mind a contrast to the more

elaborate discipline, and careful preliminary study, with which the

statesmen of his own day—and Periklês especially, the greatest of

them—approached the consideration and discussion of public affairs.

Themistoklês had received no teaching from philosophers, sophists,

and rhetors, who were the instructors of well-born youth in the

days of Thucydidês, and whom Aristophanês, the contemporary of the

latter, so unmercifully derides,—treating such instruction as worse

than nothing, and extolling, in comparison with it, the unlettered

courage, with mere gymnastic accomplishments, of the victors at

Marathon.[632] There is no evidence in the mind of Thucydidês of any

such undue contempt towards his own age. Though the same terms of

contrast are tacitly present to his mind, he seems to treat the great

capacity of Themistoklês as the more a matter of wonder, since it

sprung up without that preliminary cultivation which had gone to the

making of Periklês.

[630] Herodot. vi, 35.

[631] Thucyd. i, 138. ἦν γὰρ ὁ Θεμιστοκλῆς βεβαιότατα δὴ ~φύσεως

ἰσχὺν~ δηλώσας καὶ διαφερόντως τι ἐς αὐτὸ μᾶλλον ἑτέρων ἄξιος

θαυμάσαι· ~οἰκείᾳ γὰρ συνέσει καὶ οὔτε προμαθὼν ἐς αὐτὴν οὐδὲν

οὔτ᾽ ἐπιμαθὼν~, τῶν τε παραχρῆμα δι᾽ ἐλαχίστης βουλῆς κράτιστος

γνώμων, καὶ τῶν μελλόντων ἐπὶ πλεῖστον τοῦ γενησομένου ἄριστος

εἰκαστής. Καὶ ἃ μὲν μετὰ χεῖρας ἔχοι, καὶ ἐξηγήσασθαι οἷός τε·

ὧν δὲ ἄπειρος εἴη, κρῖναι ἱκανῶς οὐκ ἀπήλλακτο. Τό τε ἄμεινον ἢ

χεῖρον ἐν τῷ ἀφανεῖ ἔτι προεώρα μάλιστα· καὶ τὸ ξύμπαν εἰπεῖν,

~φύσεως μὲν δυνάμει, μελέτης δὲ βραχύτητι, κράτιστος δὴ οὗτος

αὐτοσχεδιάζειν τὰ δέοντα ἐγένετο~.

[632] See the contrast of the old and new education, as set forth

in Aristophanês, Nubes, 957-1003; also Ranæ, 1067.

About the training of Themistoklês, compared with that of the

contemporaries of Periklês, see also Plutarch, Themistokl. c. 2.

The general character given of Plutarch,[633] though many of his

anecdotes are both trifling and apocryphal, is quite consistent with

the brief sketch just cited from Thucydidês. Themistoklês had an

unbounded passion,—not merely for glory, insomuch that the laurels

of Miltiadês acquired at Marathon deprived him of rest,—but also

for display of every kind. He was eager to vie with men richer

than himself in showy exhibition,—one great source, though not the

only source, of popularity at Athens,—nor was he at all scrupulous

in procuring the means of doing so. Besides being assiduous in

attendance at the ekklesia and the dikastery, he knew most of

the citizens by name, and was always ready with advice to them

in their private affairs. Moreover, he possessed all the tactics

of an expert party-man in conciliating political friends and in

defeating political enemies; and though he was in the early part of

his life sincerely bent upon the upholding and aggrandizement of

his country, and was on some most critical occasions of unspeakable

value to it,—yet on the whole his morality was as reckless as his

intelligence was eminent. He will be found grossly corrupt in the

exercise of power, and employing tortuous means, sometimes indeed

for ends in themselves honorable and patriotic, but sometimes also

merely for enriching himself. He ended a glorious life by years

of deep disgrace, with the forfeiture of all Hellenic esteem and

brotherhood,—a rich man, an exile, a traitor, and a pensioner of

the Great King, pledged to undo his own previous work of liberation

accomplished at the victory of Salamis.

[633] Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 3, 4, 5; Cornelius Nepos,

Themist. c. 1.

Of Aristeidês we possess unfortunately no description from the hand

of Thucydidês; yet his character is so simple and consistent, that we

may safely accept the brief but unqualified encomium of Herodotus and

Plato, expanded as it is in the biography of Plutarch and Cornelius

Nepos,[634] however little the details of the latter can be trusted.

Aristeidês was inferior to Themistoklês in resource, quickness,

flexibility, and power of coping with difficulties; but incomparably

superior to him, as well as to other rivals and contemporaries, in

integrity, public as well as private; inaccessible to pecuniary

temptations, as well as to other seductive influences, and deserving

as well as enjoying the highest measure of personal confidence. He is

described as the peculiar friend of Kleisthenês, the first founder

of the democracy,[635]—as pursuing a straight and single-handed

course in political life, with no solicitude for party ties, and with

little care either to conciliate friends or to offend enemies,—as

unflinching in the exposure of corrupt practices, by whomsoever

committed or upheld,—as earning for himself the lofty surname of the

Just, not less by his judicial decisions in the capacity of archon,

than by his equity in private arbitrations, and even his candor in

political dispute,—and as manifesting throughout a long public life,

full of tempting opportunities, an uprightness without flaw and

beyond all suspicion, recognized equally by his bitter contemporary

the poet Timokreon,[636] and by the allies of Athens, upon whom

he first assessed the tribute. Few of the leading men in any part

of Greece were without some taint on their reputation, deserved

or undeserved, in regard to pecuniary probity; but whoever became

notoriously recognized as possessing this vital quality, acquired

by means of it a firmer hold on the public esteem than even eminent

talents could confer. Thucydidês ranks conspicuous probity among the

first of the many ascendent qualities possessed by Periklês;[637] and

Nikias, equal to him in this respect, though immeasurably inferior in

every other, owed to it a still larger proportion of that exaggerated

confidence which the Athenian people continued so long to repose in

him. The abilities of Aristeidês, though apparently adequate to every

occasion on which he was engaged, and only inferior when we compare

him with so remarkable a man as Themistoklês, were put in the shade

by this incorruptible probity, which procured for him, however, along

with the general esteem, no inconsiderable amount of private enmity

from jobbers whom he exposed, and even some jealousy from persons who

heard it proclaimed with offensive ostentation.

[634] Herodot. viii, 79; Plato, Gorgias, c. 172. ἄριστον ἄνδρα ἐν

Ἀθήνῃσι καὶ δικαιότατον.

[635] Plutarch (Aristeidês, c. 1-4; Themistoklês, c. 3; An Seni

sit gerenda respublica, c. 12, p. 790; Præcepta Reip. Gerend. c.

ii, p. 805).

[636] Timokreon ap. Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 21.

[637] Thucyd. ii, 65.

We are told that a rustic and unlettered citizen gave his ostracizing

vote, and expressed his dislike against Aristeidês,[638] on the

simple ground that he was tired of hearing him always called the

Just. Now the purity of the most honorable man will not bear to be

so boastfully talked of as if he were the only honorable man in the

country: the less it is obtruded, the more deeply and cordially

will it be felt: and the story just alluded to, whether true or

false, illustrates that natural reaction of feeling, produced by

absurd encomiasts, or perhaps by insidious enemies under the mask

of encomiasts, who trumpeted forth Aristeidês as _The_ Just man at

Attica, so as to wound the legitimate dignity of every one else.

Neither indiscreet friends nor artful enemies, however, could rob

him of the lasting esteem of his countrymen; which he enjoyed, with

intervals of their displeasure, to the end of his life. Though he

was ostracized during a part of the period between the battle of

Marathon and Salamis,—at a time when the rivalry between him and

Themistoklês was so violent that both could not remain at Athens

without peril,—yet the dangers of Athens during the invasion of

Xerxês brought him back before the ten years of exile were expired.

His fortune, originally very moderate, was still farther diminished

during the course of his life, so that he died very poor, and the

state was obliged to lend aid to his children.

[638] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 7.

Such were the characters of Themistoklês and Aristeidês, the two

earliest leaders thrown up by the Athenian democracy. Half a

century before, Themistoklês would have been an active partisan in

the faction of the Parali or the Pedieis, while Aristeidês would

probably have remained an unnoticed citizen. At the present period

of Athenian history, the characters of the soldier, the magistrate,

and the orator, were intimately blended together in a citizen who

stood forward for eminence, though they tended more and more to

divide themselves during the ensuing century and a half. Aristeidês

and Miltiadês were both elected among the ten generals, each for

his respective tribe, in the year of the expedition of Datis across

the Ægean, and probably even after that expedition was known to be

on its voyage. Moreover, we are led to suspect from a passage in

Plutarch, that Themistoklês also was general of his tribe on the

same occasion,[639] though this is doubtful; but it is certain that

he fought at Marathon. The ten generals had jointly the command of

the army, each of them taking his turn to exercise it for a day: in

addition to the ten, moreover, the third archon, or polemarch, was

considered as eleventh in the military council. The polemarch of this

year was Kallimachus of Aphidnæ.[640] Such were the chiefs of the

military force, and to a great degree the administrators of foreign

affairs, at the time when the four thousand Athenian kleruchs, or

settlers planted in Eubœa,—escaping from Eretria, now invested by

the Persians,—brought word to their countrymen at home that the fall

of that city was impending. It was obvious that the Persian host

would proceed from Eretria forthwith against Athens, and a few days

afterwards Hippias disembarked them at Marathon, whither the Athenian

army marched to meet them.

[639] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 5.

[640] Herodot. vi, 109, 110.

Of the feeling which now prevailed at Athens we have no details, but

doubtless the alarm was hardly inferior to that which had been felt

at Eretria: dissenting opinions were heard as to the proper steps

to be taken, nor were suspicions of treason wanting. Pheidippidês

the courier was sent to Sparta immediately to solicit assistance;

and such was his prodigious activity, that he performed this journey

of one hundred and fifty miles, on foot, in forty-eight hours.[641]

He revealed to the ephors that Eretria was already enslaved, and

entreated their assistance to avert the same fate from Athens,

the most ancient city in Greece. The Spartan authorities readily

promised their aid, but unfortunately it was now the ninth day of the

moon: ancient law or custom forbade them to march, in this month at

least, during the last quarter before the full moon; but after the

full they engaged to march without delay. Five days’ delay at this

critical moment might prove the utter ruin of the endangered city;

yet the reason assigned seems to have been no pretence on the part

of the Spartans. It was mere blind tenacity of ancient habit, which

we shall find to abate, though never to disappear, as we advance in

their history.[642] Indeed, their delay in marching to rescue Attica

from Mardonius, eleven years afterwards, at the imminent hazard of

alienating Athens and ruining the Hellenic cause, marks the same

selfish dulness. But the reason now given certainly looked very like

a pretence, so that the Athenians could indulge no certain assurance

that the Spartan troops would start even when the full moon arrived.

[641] Mr. Kinneir remarks that the Persian Cassids, or

foot-messengers, will travel for several days successively at

the rate of sixty or seventy miles a day (Geographical Memoir of

Persia, p. 44).

[642] Herodot. ix, 7-10.

In this respect the answer brought by Pheidippidês was mischievous,

as it tended to increase that uncertainty and indecision which

already prevailed among the ten generals, as to the proper steps for

meeting the invaders. Partly, perhaps, in reliance on this expected

Spartan help, five out of the ten generals were decidedly averse to

an immediate engagement with the Persians; while Miltiadês with the

remaining four strenuously urged that not a moment should be lost in

bringing the enemy to action, without leaving time to the timid and

the treacherous to establish correspondence with Hippias, and to take

some active step for paralyzing all united action on the part of the

citizens. This most momentous debate, upon which the fate of Athens

hung, is represented by Herodotus to have occurred at Marathon, after

the army had marched out and taken post there within sight of the

Persians; while Cornelius Nepos describes it as having been raised

before the army quitted the city,—upon the question, whether it was

prudent to meet the enemy at all in the field, or to confine the

defence to the city and the sacred rock. Inaccurate as this latter

author generally is, his statement seems more probable here than that

of Herodotus. For the ten generals would scarcely march out of Athens

to Marathon without having previously resolved to fight: moreover,

the question between fighting in the field or resisting behind the

walls, which had already been raised at Eretria, seems the natural

point on which the five mistrustful generals would take their stand.

And probably indeed Miltiadês himself, if debarred from immediate

action, would have preferred to hold possession of Athens, and

prevent any treacherous movement from breaking out there,—rather than

to remain inactive on the hills, watching the Persians at Marathon,

with the chance of a detachment from their numerous fleet sailing

round to Phalêrum, and thus distracting, by a double attack, both the

city and the camp.

However this may be, the equal division of opinion among the

ten generals, whether manifested at Marathon or at Athens, is

certain,—so that Miltiadês had to await the casting-vote of the

polemarch Kallimachus. To him he represented emphatically the danger

of delay, and the chance of some traitorous intrigue occurring to

excite disunion and aggravate the alarms of the citizens. Nothing

could prevent such treason from breaking out, with all its terrific

consequences of enslavement to the Persians and to Hippias, except

a bold, decisive, and immediate attack,—the success of which he

(Miltiadês) was prepared to guarantee. Fortunately for Athens, the

polemarch embraced the opinion of Miltiadês, and the seditious

movements which were preparing did not show themselves until after

the battle had been gained. Aristeidês and Themistoklês are both

recorded to have seconded Miltiadês warmly in this proposal,—while

all the other generals agreed in surrendering to Miltiadês their days

of command, so as to make him, as much as they could, the sole leader

of the army. It is said that the latter awaited the day of his own

regular turn before he fought the battle.[643] Yet considering the

eagerness which he displayed to bring on an immediate and decisive

action, we cannot suppose that he would have admitted any serious

postponement upon such a punctilio.

[643] Herodot. vi, 110.

While the army were mustered on the ground sacred to Heraklês near

Marathon, with the Persians and their fleet occupying the plain and

shore beneath, and in preparation for immediate action, they were

joined by the whole force of the little town of Platæa, consisting

of about one thousand hoplites, who had marched directly from

their own city to the spot, along the southern range of Kithærôn

and passing through Dekeleia. We are not told that they had been

invited, and very probably the Athenians had never thought of

summoning aid from this unimportant neighbor, in whose behalf they

had taken upon themselves a lasting feud with Thebes and the Bœotian

league.[644] Their coming on this important occasion seems to have

been a spontaneous effort of gratitude which ought not to be the

less commended because their interests were really wrapped up in

those of Athens,—since if the latter had been conquered, nothing

could have saved Platæa from being subdued by the Thebans,—yet many

a Grecian town would have disregarded both generous impulse and

rational calculation, in the fear of provoking a new and terrific

enemy. If we summon up to our imaginations all the circumstances

of the case,—which it requires some effort to do, because our

authorities come from the subsequent generations, after Greece had

ceased to fear the Persians,—we shall be sensible that this volunteer

march of the whole Platæan force to Marathon is one of the most

affecting incidents of all Grecian history. Upon Athens generally

it produced an indelible impression, commemorated ever afterwards

in the public prayers of the Athenian herald,[645] and repaid by a

grant to the Platæans of the full civil rights—seemingly without

the political rights—of Athenian citizens. Upon the Athenians then

marshalled at Marathon its effect must have been unspeakably powerful

and encouraging, as a proof that they were not altogether isolated

from Greece, and as an unexpected countervailing stimulus under

circumstances so full of hazard.

[644] Herodot. vi, 108-112.

[645] Thucyd. iii, 55.

Of the two opposing armies at Marathon, we are told that the

Athenians were ten thousand hoplites, either including or besides

the one thousand who came from Platæa.[646] Nor is this statement

in itself improbable, though it does not come from Herodotus, who

is our only really valuable authority on the case, and who mentions

no numerical total. Indeed, the number named seems smaller than we

should have expected, considering that no less than four thousand

kleruchs, or out-settled citizens, had just come over from Eubœa. A

sufficient force of citizens must of course have been left behind

to defend the city. The numbers of the Persians we cannot be said

to know at all, nor is there anything certain except that they were

greatly superior to the Greeks. We hear from Herodotus that their

armament originally consisted of six hundred ships of war, but we

are not told how many separate transports there were; and, moreover,

reinforcements had been procured as they came across the Ægean from

the islands successively conquered. The aggregate crews on board of

all their ships must have been between one hundred and fifty thousand

and two hundred thousand men; but what proportion of these were

fighting men, or how many actually did fight at Marathon, we have

no means of determining.[647] There were a certain proportion of

cavalry, and some transports expressly prepared for the conveyance of

horses: moreover, Herodotus tells us that Hippias selected the plain

of Marathon for a landing place, because it was the most convenient

spot in Attica for cavalry movements,—though it is singular, that in

the battle the cavalry are not mentioned.

[646] Justin states ten thousand Athenians, besides one thousand

Platæans. Cornelius Nepos, Pausanias, and Plutarch give ten

thousand as the sum total of both. Justin, ii, 9; Corn. Nep.

Miltiad. c. 4; Pausan. iv, 25, 5; x, 20, 2: compare also Suidas,

v. Ἱππίας.

Heeren (De Fontibus Trogi Pompeii, Dissertat. ii, 7) affirms that

Trogus, or Justin, follows Herodotus in matters concerning the

Persian invasions of Greece. He cannot have compared the two very

attentively; for Justin not only states several matters which are

not to be found in Herodotus, but is at variance with the latter

on some particulars not unimportant.

[647] Justin (ii, 9) says that the total of the Persian army was

six hundred thousand, and that two hundred thousand perished.

Plato (Menexen. p. 240) and Lysias (Orat. Funebr. c. 7) speak

of the Persian total as five hundred thousand men. Valerius

Maximus (v, 3), Pausanias (iv, 25), and Plutarch (Parallel. Græc.

ad init.), give three hundred thousand men. Cornelius Nepos

(Miltiadês, c. 5) gives the more moderate total of one hundred

and ten thousand men.