of Themistocles at Artemisium, was to approach the Greeks serving in
the Persian camp. He caused his ship to be brought as close as possible
to the shore, and instructed a herald to proclaim, as he moved slowly
along, a message to the Greeks. "Men of Ionia," such were the words,
"when we join battle with the Persians, remember freedom." They might,
he thought, act upon the suggestion, and turn their arms against the
Persians. Anyhow, it would cause distrust and suspicion. The latter
anticipation was at once fulfilled, The Persians disarmed the Samians,
and sent the contingent from Miletus to a distant spot, which they
were to guard, the real object being to get them out of the way. This
done they prepared to defend themselves against the Greeks, who were
now advancing to the attack.
And now there happened one of the strange events to which we may safely
give the neutral name of coincidence. As the Greeks moved forward, a
rumour ran from one end of the army to the other that a great battle
had been won in Bœotia. At the same time some one saw a herald's
staff[7] lying on the shore. The common belief at the time was, of
course, in a divine interference. Later on the sceptical explanation
that the commanders invented the story to encourage their troops became
current. The strange phenomena of thought-currents, brain-waves, etc.,
familiar to modern experience, will, perhaps, account for the story
as satisfactorily as can be expected. Anyhow the report was true; the
battle of Platæa had been fought and won in the morning of the day of
Mycalé.
The actual conflict was very like that which occurred at Platæa. As we
hear no more of the stockade of stone and timber with which the ships
were protected, we may presume that the Greeks delivered their attack
on the flank of the Persian position. Here a wicker rampart had been
extemporised, just as it had been at Platæa. With the help of this
the Persians were able for a time to hold their own. Herodotus goes
so far as to say that they had not the worst of the battle. But the
Athenians, anxious to secure the honours of the day before the Spartans
arrived, renewed the attack with fresh vigour, broke down the wicker
rampart, and pursued the flying enemy to their fortified camp. For a
time, even when the rampart had fallen, the valiant Persians maintained
the struggle. Then, overpowered by fresh arrivals, they slowly fell
back. The Greek army advanced in two divisions, the Athenians and the
contingents brigaded with them marching over the level ground by the
sea, the Spartans, with the Peloponnesians generally, taking an inland
route which led them over some rough and difficult country. Naturally
their progress was not rapid, and the battle was virtually decided when
they reached the field of action.
To the very last the Persians showed all the courage and pluck of
a ruling race. The Greek victory was by no means bloodless. The
contingent from Sicyon, in particular, lost heavily. The result of
the day, however, was definite enough. Some survivors from the battle
contrived to escape to the hills, and thence to Sardis, but the army,
as a whole, ceased to exist. The ships were naturally abandoned.
Perhaps this was the most important of the Greek successes, for it
meant the liberation of the islands of the Ægean. These were finally
rescued from the yoke which had been heavy on them for half a century.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: He commanded a _lochos_; there were four in each _mora_,
the whole force being divided into six _moræ_. The divisions varied in
size according to the number of men called out. On this occasion each
_mora_ would number 830 men (about), and each _lochus_ 207 (about).]
[Footnote 5: His name was Callicrates, _Fair and strong_, as it might
be rendered. There is a class of historical critics who would argue
that the name gave rise to the legend, just as they suggest--this has
actually been done--that the name of the fleet runner who traversed
the distance between Athens and Sparta so speedily, shows the mythical
character of the story. It was Pheidippides, _i.e._ Horse-sparer's son.]
[Footnote 6: Observe again the significant name--_Ever remembered_.]
[Footnote 7: The herald's staff (_scutalé_) was a contrivance for
sending messages. A strip of leather, on which the message was written
lengthwise, was rolled slantwise round a baton. When unrolled it could
not be read, but when put on the similar baton in the hands of the
officer abroad it again became legible.]
_BOOK II_
GREECE AND CARTHAGE
I. THE LORD OF SYRACUSE
In the early part of the year 480, when the danger from Persia was
imminent, the Greeks sent an embassy to their countrymen in Sicily,
asking for help. The Greek power in the island was largely in the
hands of one man, Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse. To him, therefore, the
application was made. Herodotus gives an account of the interview,
professing to report the speeches which were made at it. These may be
epitomised thus:--
AMBASSADORS: "The Persian King is bringing against us the strength of
Asia. He professes to be seeking vengeance on Athens; really, he is
bent on subduing the whole Greek race. If he should conquer us he
will certainly attack you. Join with us therefore in resisting him.
Combined, we shall be a match for him; disunited, we shall certainly be
conquered."
GELO: "When I asked you for help against Carthage you would not give
it. For anything that you did to stop it, Sicily might have been
conquered by the barbarians. But I will return good for evil. You
shall have two hundred ships of war, twenty thousand men-at-arms, two
thousand cavalry, as many more light-armed troops, and corn for your
whole army as long as the war lasts. Only you must give me the chief
command."
SYAGRUS (the Spartan ambassador): "What would King Agamemnon say if he
heard that Sparta had given up her leadership to a man of Syracuse?
Know that we will not have your help upon such terms."
GELO: "It seems but fair that I who send so large a force should have
the command. Still, if you are so stiff about the leadership, I will
say--'Command the army, and let me have the fleet; or, if you like it
better, take the fleet and give me the army.'"
THE ATHENIAN AMBASSADOR (_interrupting before any one else could
speak_): "The command of the fleet is ours. We will yield it, indeed,
to the Spartans, if they desire it, but we will yield it to no one
else."
GELO: "Friends, you seem not to want for commanders, though you want
for men. As you ask everything and yield nothing, go back to Greece and
say that she has lost the spring out of the year."
There is nothing improbable about this dialogue. Questions of
precedence and leadership were regarded with great jealousy by States
that were actually independent of each other and nominally equal. The
strange thing is that Gelo makes no mention of the danger with which
he was himself threatened. He brings up against the ambassadors the
fact that the States which they represented had given him no help in
conflict with Carthage (an incident of which we know nothing from
any other source), but he does not mention what was undoubtedly the
case that he was at the moment expecting another attack from the same
quarter. It would have been quite impossible for Gelo to send fifty
thousand troops--not to speak of the crews of the ships--out of Sicily,
when he was certain to want every man that he could raise in the course
of a few months.
The truth is that there was another Asiatic power which was scarcely
less formidable to European civilisation than Persia itself. I speak of
Carthage. Though locally situated in North Africa as an Asiatic power,
she was Phœnician in origin, character, and institutions. Founded by
emigrants from Tyre some time in the ninth century B.C., she had always
kept up a close connection with her mother-country of Phœnicia. One of
the traditions of the race was to regard the Greeks as rivals or as
enemies. Sicily, where Greeks began to settle in the eighth century,
just about the time when Carthage was beginning to expand, and which,
at its nearest point, was not more than a hundred miles from that
city, naturally became a battlefield between the two races. Phœnician
traders had been in the habit of visiting the island long before the
Greeks appeared upon the scene, and though they seem to have given up
most of their scattered ports and factories, they continued to occupy
three towns in the western division. Carthage therefore would find
kinsfolk and friends when she sought to gain a foothold in Sicily. When
this attempt was first made we do not know. The early history of the
city is a blank. About 550 B.C. we hear of one of its leaders making
conquests in Sicily, among other places. That there was a great effort
to conquer the island in 480 we cannot doubt. Probably it was the
result of an agreement with Persia. There is, it is true, no evidence
forthcoming of any compact of the kind; but it is not likely that there
would be such evidence. On the other hand, the Persian king may very
easily have come to an arrangement with the Carthaginian government
through Phœnician intermediaries. The Phœnician contingent was the
largest in his fleet, and was high in his favour, at least until the
disastrous defeat of Salamis.[8] The coincidence of time is, in itself,
a strong argument for the existence of a common plan.
One of the many Hamilcars who figure in Carthaginian history was put
in command of an army which is said to have numbered 300,000 men. It
was made up of Phœnicians, probably recruited in Carthage itself, and
in various settlements of that race along the Mediterranean coast, of
Africans from the home provinces, of natives of Sardinia, Corsica,
and the Italian mainland, and, finally, of Spaniards, for Spain was
by this time within the sphere of Carthaginian influence. Hamilcar
landed at Panoromus and marched to Himera, which lay some twenty miles
to the westward on the northern coast of the island. Some of his
large fleet of transports, especially such as carried the cavalry and
the war-chariots, were lost on the way, or lagged behind. Still the
army, as a whole, was successfully transferred to Sicilian soil, and
Hasdrubal, convinced that if this could be done his force would be
practically irresistible, is reported to have said: "The war is over."
He had, we must remember, another good reason for confidence. There
was a powerful minority among the Greek cities which was prepared
to welcome the interference of Carthage. Hamilcar had been actually
invited by the banished tyrant of Himera. Unfortunately, any enemy
of a Greek city could expect to find helpers within its walls in an
unsuccessful party. Eager political life did much for the development
of Greek character, but a heavy price had sometimes to be paid for its
benefits. Hamilcar divided his force between two camps. One of them
was for the crews of the fleet, which had all been beached with the
exception of twenty swift vessels kept for an emergency; the other
was occupied by the army. Himera, on the other hand, prepared for a
desperate resistance. Even the gates were bricked up. The garrison was
under the command of Theron, tyrant of Agrigentum. His first step was
to send off a messenger to Gelo with an urgent appeal for help. Gelo
was ready to march. He had under his command fifty thousand infantry
and five thousand horse. He reached Himera, and strongly fortified a
camp outside the city. He had, as has been said, a strong force of
cavalry, an arm in which the Carthaginians were deficient owing to the
accident to the horse transports. This superiority he used to cut off
the enemy's foraging parties. His success in these operations was so
great as to raise the spirits of his troops. The inhabitants of Himera
grew so confident that they pulled down the brickwork with which, as
has been said, they had blocked up their gates.
The decisive battle was not long delayed. We have no details of the
tactics employed on either side, but we are told that the contest
was long and bloody, lasting from sunrise almost to sunset. A daring
stratagem seems to have done something towards deciding the issue of
the battle. Gelo had intercepted a letter from the magistrates of the
Greek city of Selinus to Hasdrubal, in which there was a promise that
they would send a force of cavalry to his help. He intended some of his
own horsemen to play the part of the cavalry of Selinus. They were to
make their way into the enemy's camp and then take the opportunity of
doing all the mischief they could. A concerted signal was to apprise
the commander-in-chief of their success. On seeing he would press the
attack with all possible vigour. This he did, and the result was the
complete defeat of the Carthaginians.
So far there is nothing improbable about the story. When we are told
that one-half of the invading army fell on the field of battle we
recognise one of the familiar exaggerations of ancient history. It is
probable that the real number, both of the combatants and of the slain,
was much smaller than that commonly received. However this may be,
Carthage certainly suffered a disaster of the first magnitude. Her army
ceased to exist; some of the fugitives probably made good their escape
to the Phœnician strongholds in the island, but many were compelled to
surrender to the conquerors. Some, doubtless, were ransomed by their
friends at home; the rest were sold as slaves.
So fine an opportunity of pointing a moral and adorning a tale was not
likely to be lost by the Greek writers. The story in the shape which
it ultimately took was this: As both of the Carthaginian camps were
captured by Gelo, the fleet met with the same fate as the army. But
the squadron of twenty ships which had been reserved for emergencies
made good its escape. But even these were not fated to reach the
African shore. A storm overtook them on their voyage and all perished.
One little boat, rowed by a single survivor, survived to carry the
story of how the most splendid armament ever sent forth from Carthage
had ceased to exist. Exactly the same story was told of the return of
Xerxes after the defeat of Salamis. According to Herodotus, who had
every opportunity of knowing the truth, the Persian king made his way
back over-land, losing many men on the way from hunger and disease, but
unmolested. So tame a conclusion did not satisfy the Greek sense of
the fitness of things. Tradition pictured the Persian king as making
his escape after the battle in a single ship; and Juvenal, when he
was seeking illustrations for the great theme of the vanity of human
wishes, found the legend admirably suited to his purpose. Xerxes had
lashed the winds and put the sea in fetters when they hindered his
triumphal march. But how did he return?--
"In one poor ship the baffled monarch fled
O'er crimsoned seas and billows clogged with dead."
The fate of Hamilcar himself was wrapped in romantic mystery. Some said
that he was slain by one of the horsemen who made their way into the
camp; according to others he destroyed himself. While the conflict was
raging he remained in the camp, occupied in soliciting the favour of
the gods by costly sacrifices. He was not content to offer the victims
in the usual way, by pieces taken from this or that part. They were
thrown whole into the fire, which was built high in order to consume
them. When he found that his devotion was unavailing and that the tide
of battle was turning against him, he threw himself into the furnace.
Certain it is that he was never again seen alive. Gelo erected a
monument to him on the field of battle, and the Carthaginians paid
to his memory yearly honours of sacrifice. There must have been some
greatness in the man which was thus recognised by the conqueror, and by
the city which had, one would think, no reason to be grateful to him.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 8: See p. 41.]
II
THE STORM FROM AFRICA
Though the Carthaginians, for some reasons which we do not understand,
commemorated Hamilcar on the field of Himera, they did their best at
home to banish all recollection of his disastrous expedition. They even
sent his son, Gisco, into exile for no reason except his unfortunate
parentage. Gisco took up his abode in the Greek city of Selinus. A
Greek city was not likely to be an agreeable home for a stranger not
of Hellenic blood. The Greek's pride of race was intense; all the
outside world was barbarian to him. Anyhow, one of Gisco's children,
Hannibal by name, carried away from the place where his youth was spent
an intense dislike of the race. "He was by nature," says Diodorus, "a
Greek-hater." The guilt of his race had been expiated, it would seem,
by his father's lifelong exile, and he had been permitted to return
home, and had even risen to the highest office in the State.
An opportunity now came to him for gratifying the animosity which he
felt against the city of Selinus. This seems to have been in a state of
chronic enmity with its neighbour Egesta. The quarrel between them had
already led to the most disastrous consequences. It was the complaint
of Egesta against their neighbours of Selinus that had given Athens a
pretext for their Sicilian expedition. Only two years had passed since
this expedition had come to an end, disastrous beyond all precedent in
Greek history, and now this paltry quarrel was about to cause another
devastating war. Egesta was, of course, worse off than when she made
her unlucky application to Athens and was hard pressed by her Greek
neighbours. She now sent envoys to Carthage. Hannibal, as I have said,
saw his opportunity. He persuaded his countrymen to take up the cause
of the weaker State. The first thing was to send envoys to Sicily with
instructions so to manage the affair as to make an appeal to arms
certain.
They were to go to Syracuse in company with a deputation from Egesta,
lay the affair before that State, and offer to submit to arbitration.
It was pretty certain that Selinus would refuse its consent, for it
was practically in possession of the territory which was the matter in
dispute. This, indeed, was exactly what happened. Selinus represented
its case before the Syracusan assembly, but refused arbitration.
Syracuse, accordingly, resolved to stand neutral, to maintain its
alliance with Selinus, and to remain at peace with Carthage. Selinus,
left to itself, failed to understand the danger in which it was placed.
Five thousand Africans and eight hundred mercenaries from Italy,
veterans who had served with the Athenians in the siege of Syracuse,
but had left them or been discharged before the final catastrophe, came
to the help of Egesta. The Selinuntines took no heed of their arrival,
but continued to ravage the enemy's territory. As they met with no
opposition, they grew more and more careless. But the enemy was on the
watch, and taking the invading force by surprise inflicted on them a
heavy loss, killing or taking prisoners as many as one thousand men.
Even now Selinus, it is possible, might have escaped her doom. My
readers will remember that the State had been on friendly terms
with Carthage, and had actually sent, or at least promised, help to
Hamilcar when he was attacking Himera.[9] Had it asked for peace and
appealed to these associations in support of the petition, Hannibal
might not improbably have granted tolerable terms. His great quarrel
was not against Selinus, but against Himera. It was at Himera that
his grandfather had perished, and it was his grandfather's death that
he desired above all things to avenge. But the Selinuntines appear to
have been totally insensible of their danger. They asked for help from
Syracuse, should the need arise, and received a promise that it would
be given. But nothing was actually done.
The fact is that no one in the island was aware of the vast
preparations which Hannibal was making for an expedition in the
following year. We are not told how the secret was kept; but kept
it was. When the storm burst on the Sicilian Greeks it took them by
surprise, and it came with overpowering force.
The numbers given by historians are, as usual, various and
untrustworthy.[10] One writer gives 100,000, and this we may take
as approximating to the truth. The army was made up as usual of
mercenaries, commanded, as far at least as the superior officers were
concerned, by native Carthaginians. The city was now at the very height
of its prosperity and could command a practically unlimited supply of
men from the fighting races of the world. Africans, Spaniards, and
Italians made up the force, with a mixture of Greeks, always ready
to sell their swords to any paymaster. This great army was carried
across the sea in fifteen hundred transports, and were landed in the
bay of Motyé, not far from Lilybæum, the western extremity of the
island. Selinus is on the southern coast of the island, but Hannibal
preferred to disembark his troops at some distance. Had he sailed any
distance along the southern coast his advance might have been regarded
as a menace to Syracuse and the other Greek cities. His sagacity
served him well. Syracuse, whether informed of what had happened or
not, made no movement. Hannibal, on the other hand, lost no time, but
marched straight to Selinus, his forces being increased by contingents
from Egesta and the Carthaginian settlements. The walls of the town
were ill-adapted to resist the attack of an army far outnumbering the
force available for defence and amply furnished with everything that
the engineers of the time could put at the disposal of a besieging
force. Powerful catapults discharged showers of missiles which cleared
the walls; archers and slingers were posted at points of advantage
where they could serve with the best effect the same purpose; wooden
towers, filled with armed men, were brought up to the walls, with
which they were very nearly on a level; elsewhere huge battering-rams
were driven against such spots in the fortifications as showed any
signs of weakness or decay. Every one of these methods of attack was
made formidable in the extreme by the multitudes of men available for
pushing them home. And Hannibal was present everywhere, urging on his
soldiers with an almost fanatical energy. The siege lasted for nine
days, the besiegers pressing the assault with unabated energy, the
besieged maintaining the defence with all the resolution of despair.
There was no thought of capitulation. Indeed, the Carthaginian general
would grant no terms. He had promised the plunder of the town to his
soldiers, and Selinus had no other prospect than to resist or to perish.
Assault after assault was delivered and repulsed. But it was a conflict
that could not be indefinitely continued. The combatants in the place
could hardly have exceeded ten thousand; probably their number, even
when swelled by every one who could hold a weapon, was under this
figure. And they had all to be on service, with the very briefest
intervals of rest, or with no intervals at all. The assailants came on
by relays, of which there were so many that no one had to fight for
more than three or four hours at a time. On the third or fourth day
a body of Campanian mercenaries found their way into the town over a
breach that had been made by the battering-rams. But Selinus was not
yet taken. The townsmen gathered themselves up for a supreme effort,
and the Campanians were driven out with the loss of many of their
number. On the tenth day a Spanish force--the Spaniards were always
the most resolute fighters in the armies of Carthage--made their way
into the town. This time the wearied citizens could not drive the
storming party back. Yet they still resisted. Barricades were set up
and desperately defended in the narrow streets, while the women and
children showered tiles and bricks from the roofs and upper stories
on the enemy below. A last stand was made in the market-place. Thus
most of those who still survived were slain. Some fell alive into the
hands of the enemy; two or three thousand made good their escape to
Agrigentum.