PROCEEDINGS IN GREECE FROM THE BATTLE OF MARATHON TO THE TIME OF THE
BATTLE OF THERMOPYLÆ.
Our information respecting the affairs of Greece immediately after
the repulse of the Persians from Marathon, is very scanty.
Kleomenês and Leotychidês, the two kings of Sparta (the former
belonging to the elder, or Eurystheneïd, the latter to the younger,
or the Prokleïd, race), had conspired for the purpose of dethroning
the former Prokleïd king Demaratus: and Kleomenês had even gone so
far as to tamper with the Delphian priestess for this purpose. His
manœuvre being betrayed shortly afterwards, he was so alarmed at the
displeasure of the Spartans, that he retired into Thessaly, and from
thence into Arcadia, where he employed the powerful influence of his
regal character and heroic lineage to arm the Arcadian people against
his country. The Spartans, alarmed in their turn, voluntarily invited
him back with a promise of amnesty. But his renewed lease did not
last long: his habitual violence of character became aggravated into
decided insanity, insomuch that he struck with his stick whomsoever
he met; and his relatives were forced to confine him in chains under
a Helot sentinel. By severe menaces, he one day constrained this man
to give him his sword, with which he mangled himself dreadfully and
perished. So shocking a death was certain to receive a religious
interpretation, but which among the misdeeds of his life had drawn
down upon him the divine wrath, was a point difficult to determine.
Most of the Greeks imputed it to the sin of his having corrupted
the Pythian priestess:[73] but the Athenians and Argeians were each
disposed to an hypothesis of their own,—the former believed that
the gods had thus punished the Spartan king for having cut timber
in the sacred grove of Eleusis,—the latter recognized the avenging
hand of the hero Argus, whose grove Kleomenês had burnt, along
with so many suppliant warriors who had taken sanctuary in it.
Without pronouncing between these different suppositions, Herodotus
contents himself with expressing his opinion that the miserable
death of Kleomenês was an atonement for his conduct to Demaratus.
But what surprises us most is, to hear that the Spartans, usually
more disposed than other Greeks to refer every striking phenomenon
to divine agency, recognized on this occasion nothing but a vulgar
physical cause: Kleomenês had gone mad, they affirmed, through habits
of intoxication, learned from some Scythian envoys who had come to
Sparta.[74]
[73] Herodot. vi, 74, 75.
[74] Herodot. vi, 84.
The death of Kleomenês, and the discredit thrown on his character,
emboldened the Æginetans to prefer a complaint at Sparta respecting
their ten hostages whom Kleomenês and Leotychidês had taken away from
the island, a little before the invasion of Attica by the Persians
under Datis, and deposited at Athens as guarantee to the Athenians
against aggression from Ægina at that critical moment. Leotychidês
was the surviving auxiliary of Kleomenês in the requisition of these
hostages, and against him the Æginetans complained. Though the
proceeding was one unquestionably beneficial to the general cause of
Greece,[75] yet such was the actual displeasure of the Lacedæmonians
against the deceased king and his acts, that the survivor Leotychidês
was brought to a public trial, and condemned to be delivered up as
prisoner in atonement to the Æginetans. The latter were about to
carry away their prisoner, when a dignified Spartan named Theasidês,
pointed out to them the danger which they were incurring by such
an indignity against the regal person,—the Spartans, he observed,
had passed sentence under feelings of temporary wrath, which would
probably be exchanged for sympathy if they saw the sentence realized.
[75] Herodot. vi, 61. Κλεομένεα, ἐόντα ἐν τῇ Αἰγίνῃ, καὶ κοινὰ τῇ
Ἑλλάδι ἀγαθὰ προεργαζόμενον, etc.
Accordingly the Æginetans, instead of executing the sentence,
contented themselves with stipulating that Leotychidês should
accompany them to Athens and redemand their hostages detained
there. The Athenians refused to give up the hostages, in spite of
the emphatic terms in which the Spartan king set forth the sacred
obligation of restoring a deposit:[76] they justified the refusal
in part by saying that the deposit had been lodged by the two kings
jointly, and could not be surrendered to one of them alone: but they
probably recollected that the hostages were placed less as a deposit
than as a security against Æginetan hostility,—which security they
were not disposed to forego.
[76] Herodot. vi, 85: compare vi, 49-73, and the preceding volume
of this history, c. xxxvi, pp. 437-441.
Leotychidês having been obliged to retire without success, the
Æginetans resolved to adopt measures of retaliation for themselves:
they waited for the period of a solemn festival celebrated every
fifth year at Sunium, on which occasion a ship peculiarly equipped
and carrying some of the leading Athenians as Theôrs, or sacred
envoys, sailed thither from Athens. This ship they found means to
capture, and carried all on board prisoners to Ægina. Whether an
exchange took place, or whether the prisoners and hostages on both
sides were put to death, we do not know; but the consequence of
their proceeding was an active and decided war between Athens and
Ægina,[77] beginning seemingly about 488 or 487 B. C., and lasting
until 481 B. C., the year preceding the invasion of Xerxes.
[77] Herodot. vi, 87, 88.
Instead of ἦν γὰρ δὴ τοῖσι Ἀθηναίοισι ~πεντήρης~ ἐπὶ Σουνίῳ (vi,
87), I follow the reading proposed by Schömann and sanctioned by
Boëckh—~πεντετηρίς~. It is hardly conceivable that the Athenians
at that time should have had any ships with five banks of oars
(πεντήρης): moreover, apart from this objection, the word
πεντήρης makes considerable embarrassment in the sentence; see
Boëckh, Urkunden über das Attische Seewesen, chap. vii, pp. 75,
76.
The elder Dionysius of Syracuse is said to have been the first
Greek who constructed πεντήρεις or quinquereme ships (Diodor.
xiv, 40, 41).
There were many distinct pentaëterides, or solemnities celebrated
every fifth year, included among the religious customs of Athens:
see Aristoteles, Πολιτ. Fragm. xxvii, ed. Neumann; Pollux, viii,
107.
An Æginetan citizen named Nikodromus took advantage of this war
to further a plot against the government of the island: having
been before, as he thought, unjustly banished, he now organized
a revolt of the people against the ruling oligarchy, concerting
with the Athenians a simultaneous invasion in support of his plan.
Accordingly, on the appointed day he rose with his partisans in
arms and took possession of the Old Town,—a strong post which
had been superseded in course of time by the more modern city on
the sea-shore, less protected though more convenient.[78] But no
Athenians appeared, and without them he was unable to maintain his
footing: he was obliged to make his escape from the island after
witnessing the complete defeat of his partisans,—a large body of
whom, seven hundred in number, fell into the hands of the government,
and were led out for execution. One man alone among these prisoners
burst his chains, fled to the sanctuary of Dêmêtêr Thesmophorus,
and was fortunate enough to seize the handle of the door before
he was overtaken. In spite of every effort to drag him away by
force, he clung to it with convulsive grasp: his pursuers did not
venture to put him to death in such a position, but they severed
the hands from the body and then executed him, leaving the hands
still hanging to and grasping[79] the door-handle, where they seem
to have long remained without being taken off. Destruction of the
seven hundred prisoners does not seem to have drawn down upon the
Æginetan oligarchy either vengeance from the gods or censure from
their contemporaries; but the violation of sanctuary, in the case of
that one unfortunate man whose hands were cut off, was a crime which
the goddess Dêmêtêr never forgave. More than fifty years afterwards,
in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, the Æginetans, having
been previously conquered by Athens, were finally expelled from
their island: such expulsion was the divine judgment upon them for
this ancient impiety, which half a century of continued expiatory
sacrifice had not been sufficient to wipe out.[80]
[78] See Thucyd. i, 8.
The acropolis at Athens, having been the primitive city
inhabited, bore the name of _The City_ even in the time of
Thucydides (ii, 15), at a time when Athens and Peiræus covered so
large a region around and near it.
[79] Herodot. vi, 91. χεῖρες δὲ κεῖναι ἐμπεφυκυῖαι ἦσαν τοῖσι
ἐπισπαστῆρσι. The word κεῖναι for ἐκεῖναι, “those hands,” appears
so little suitable in this phrase, that I rather imagine the real
reading to have been κειναὶ (the Ionic dialect for κεναὶ), “the
hands with nothing attached to them:” compare a phrase not very
unlike, Homer, Iliad, iii, 376, κεινὴ δὲ τρυφάλεια ἅμ’ ἕσπετο,
etc.
Compare the narrative of the arrest of the Spartan king
Pausanias, and of the manner in which he was treated when in
sanctuary at the temple of Athênê Chalkiœkos (Thucyd. i, 134).
[80] Herodot. vi, 91. Ἀπὸ τούτου δὲ καὶ ἄγος σφι ἐγένετο, τὸ
ἐκθύσασθαι οὐκ οἶοί τε ἐγένοντο ἐπιμηχανώμενοι, ἀλλ’ ἔφθησαν
ἐκπεσόντες πρότερον ἐκ τῆς νήσου ἤ σφι ἵλεον γενέσθαι τὴν θεόν.
Compare Thucyd. ii, 27 about the final expulsion from Ægina. The
Lacedæmonians assigned to these expelled Æginetans a new abode in
the territory of Thyrea, on the eastern coast of Peloponnesus,
where they were attacked, taken prisoners, and put to death by
the Athenians, in the eighth year of the war (Thucyd. iv, 57).
Now Herodotus, while he mentions the expulsion, does not allude
to their subsequent and still more calamitous fate. Had he
known the fact, he could hardly have failed to notice it, as a
farther consummation of the divine judgment. We may reasonably
presume ignorance in this case, which would tend to support the
opinion thrown out in my preceding volume (chap. xxxiii, p. 225,
note) respecting the date of composition of his history,—in the
earliest years of the Peloponnesian war.
The Athenians who were to have assisted Nikodromus arrived at Ægina
one day too late. Their proceedings had been delayed by the necessity
of borrowing twenty triremes from the Corinthians, in addition
to fifty of their own: with these seventy sail they defeated the
Æginetans, who met them with a fleet of equal number, and then landed
on the island. The Æginetans solicited aid from Argos, but that city
was either too much displeased with them, or too much exhausted
by the defeat sustained from the Spartan Kleomenês, to grant it.
Nevertheless, one thousand Argeian volunteers, under a distinguished
champion of the pentathlon named Eurybatês, came to their assistance,
and a vigorous war was carried on, with varying success, against the
Athenian armament.
At sea, the Athenians sustained a defeat, being attacked at a
moment when their fleet was in disorder, so that they lost four
ships with their crews: on land they were more successful, and few
of the Argeian volunteers survived to return home. The general of
the latter, Eurybatês, confiding in his great personal strength and
skill, challenged the best of the Athenian warriors to single combat:
he slew three of them in succession, but the arm of the fourth,
Sôphanês of Dekeleia, was victorious, and proved fatal to him.[81]
At length the invaders were obliged to leave the island without
any decisive result, and the war seems to have been prosecuted by
frequent descents and privateering on both sides,—in which Nikodromus
and the Æginetan exiles, planted by Athens on the coast of Attica
near Sunium, took an active part;[82] the advantage on the whole
being on the side of Athens.
[81] Herodot. ix, 75.
[82] Herodot. vi, 90-93. Thucyd. i, 41. About Sôphanês, comp. ix,
75.
How much damage was done by such a privateering war, between
countries so near as Ægina and Attica, may be seen by the more
detailed description of a later war of the same kind in 388 B. C.
(Xenophon, Hellenic. v. 1.)
The general course of this war, and especially the failure of the
enterprise concerned with Nikodromus in consequence of delay in
borrowing ships from Corinth, were well calculated to impress upon
the Athenians the necessity of enlarging their naval force. And it is
from the present time that we trace among them the first growth of
that decided tendency towards maritime activity, which coincided so
happily with the expansion of their democracy, and opened a new phase
in Grecian history, as well as a new career for themselves.
The exciting effect produced upon them by the repulse of the Persians
at Marathon has been dwelt upon in my preceding volume. Miltiades,
the victor in that field, having been removed from the scene under
circumstances already described, Aristeidês and Themistoklês became
the chief men at Athens: and the former was chosen archon during the
succeeding year. His exemplary uprightness in magisterial functions
insured to him lofty esteem from the general public, not without
a certain proportion of active enemies, some of them sufferers by
his justice. These enemies naturally became partisans of his rival,
Themistoklês, who had all the talents necessary for bringing them
into coöperation: and the rivalry between the two chiefs became so
bitter and menacing, that even Aristeidês himself is reported to have
said, “If the Athenians were wise, they would cast both of us into
the barathrum.” Under such circumstances, it is not too much to say
that the peace of the country was preserved mainly by the institution
called Ostracism, of which so much has been said in the preceding
volume. After three or four years of continued political rivalry,
the two chiefs appealed to a vote of ostracism, and Aristeidês was
banished.
Of the particular points on which their rivalry turned, we are
unfortunately little informed. But it is highly probable that one
of them was, the important change of policy above alluded to,—the
conversion of Athens from a land-power into a sea-power,—the
development of this new and stirring element in the minds of the
people. By all authorities, this change of policy is ascribed
principally and specially to Themistoklês:[83] on that account, if
for no other reason, Aristeidês would probably be found opposed
to it,—but it was, moreover, a change not in harmony with that
old-fashioned Hellenism, undisturbed uniformity of life and narrow
range of active duty and experience, which Aristeidês seems to have
approved in common with the subsequent philosophers. The seaman was
naturally more of a wanderer and cosmopolite than the heavy-armed
soldier: the modern Greek seaman even at this moment is so to a
remarkable degree, distinguished for the variety of his ideas and the
quickness of his intelligence:[84] the land-service was a type of
steadiness and inflexible ranks, the sea-service that of mutability
and adventure. Such was the idea strongly entertained by Plato and
other philosophers:[85] though we may remark that they do not render
justice to the Athenian seaman, whose training was far more perfect
and laborious, and his habits of obedience far more complete,[86]
than that of the Athenian hoplite, or horseman: a training beginning
with Themistoklês, and reaching its full perfection about the
commencement of the Peloponnesian war.
[83] Plutarch, Themist. c. 19.
[84] See Mr. Galt’s interesting account of the Hydriot sailors,
Voyages and Travels in the Mediterranean, pp. 376-378 (London,
1802).
“The city of Hydra originated in a small colony of boatmen
belonging to the Morea, who took refuge in the island from the
tyranny of the Turks. About forty years ago they had multiplied
to a considerable number, their little village began to assume
the appearance of a town, and they had cargoes that went as
far as Constantinople. In their mercantile transactions, the
Hydriots acquired the reputation of greater integrity than the
other Greeks, as well as of being the most intrepid navigators
in the Archipelago; and they were of course regularly preferred.
Their industry and honesty obtained its reward. The islands of
Spezzia, Paros, Myconi, and Ipsara, resemble Hydra in their
institutions, and possess the same character for commercial
activity. In paying their sailors, Hydra and its sister islands
have a peculiar custom. The whole amount of the freight is
considered as a common stock, from which the charges of
victualing the ship are deducted. The remainder is then divided
into two equal parts: one is allotted to the crew, and equally
shared among them without reference to age or rank; the other
part is appropriated to the ship and captain. The capital of the
cargo is a trust given to the captain and crew on certain fixed
conditions. The character and manners of the Hydriot sailors,
from the moral effect of these customs, are much superior in
regularity to the ideas that we are apt to entertain of sailors.
They are sedate, well-dressed, well-bred, shrewd, informed,
and speculative. They seem to form a class, in the orders of
mankind, which has no existence among us. By their voyages,
they acquire a liberality of notion which we expect only among
gentlemen, while in their domestic circumstances their conduct
is suitable to their condition. The Greeks are all traditionary
historians, and possess much of that kind of knowledge to which
the term _learning_ is usually applied. This, mingled with the
other information of the Hydriots, gives them that advantageous
character of mind which I think they possess.”
[85] Plato, Legg. iv, pp. 705, 706. Plutarch, Themistoklês, c.
19. Isokratês, Panathenaic, c. 43.
Plutarch, Philopœmen. c. 14. Πλὴν Ἐπαμεινώνδαν μὲν ἔνιοι λέγουσιν
ὀκνοῦντα γεῦσαι τῶν κατὰ θάλασσαν ὠφελειῶν τοὺς πολίτας, ὅπως
αὐτῷ μὴ λάθωσιν ἀντὶ μονίμων ὁπλιτῶν, κατὰ Πλάτωνα, ναῦται
γενόμενοι καὶ διαφθαρέντες, ἄπρακτον ἐκ τῆς Ἀσίας καὶ τῶν νήσων
ἀπελθεῖν ἑκουσίως: compare vii, p. 301.
[86] See the remarkable passage in Xenophon (Memorab. iii, 5,
19), attesting that the Hoplites and the Hippeis, the persons
first in rank in the city were also the most disobedient on
military service.
In recommending extraordinary efforts to create a navy as well
as to acquire nautical practice, Themistoklês displayed all that
sagacious appreciation of the circumstances and dangers of the time
for which Thucydides gives him credit: and there can be no doubt
that Aristeidês, though the honester politician of the two, was at
this particular crisis the less essential to his country. Not only
was there the struggle with Ægina, a maritime power equal or more
than equal, and within sight of the Athenian harbor,—but there was
also in the distance a still more formidable contingency to guard
against. The Persian armament had been driven with disgrace from
Attica back to Asia; but the Persian monarch still remained with
undiminished means of aggression and increased thirst for revenge;
and Themistoklês knew well that the danger from that quarter would
recur greater than ever. He believed that it would recur again in
the same way, by an expedition across the Ægean like that of Datis
to Marathon;[87] against which the best defence would be found in a
numerous and well-trained fleet. Nor could the large preparations of
Darius for renewing the attack remain unknown to a vigilant observer,
extending as they did over so many Greeks subject to the Persian
empire. Such positive warning was more than enough to stimulate the
active genius of Themistoklês, who now prevailed upon his countrymen
to begin with energy the work of maritime preparation, as well
against Ægina as against Persia.[88] Not only were two hundred new
ships built, and citizens trained as seamen,—but the important work
was commenced, during the year when Themistoklês was either archon
or general, of forming and fortifying a new harbor for Athens at
Peiræus, instead of the ancient open bay of Phalêrum. The latter
was indeed somewhat nearer to the city, but Peiræus, with its three
separate natural ports,[89] admitting of being closed and fortified,
was incomparably superior in safety as well as in convenience. It
is not too much to say, with Herodotus,—that the Æginetan “war was
the salvation of Greece, by constraining the Athenians to make
themselves a maritime power.”[90] The whole efficiency of the
resistance subsequently made to Xerxes turned upon this new movement
in the organization of Athens, allowed as it was to attain tolerable
completeness through a fortunate concurrence of accidents; for the
important delay of ten years, between the defeat of Marathon and the
fresh invasion by which it was to be avenged, was in truth the result
of accident. First, the revolt of Egypt; next, the death of Darius;
thirdly, the indifference of Xerxes, at his first accession, towards
Hellenic matters,—postponed until 480 B. C., an invasion which would
naturally have been undertaken in 487 or 486 B. C., and which would
have found Athens at that time without her wooden walls,—the great
engine of her subsequent salvation.
[87] Thucyd. i, 93. ἰδὼν (Themistoklês) τῆς βασιλέως στρατιᾶς τὴν
κατὰ θάλασσαν ἔφοδον εὐπορωτέραν τῆς κατὰ γῆν οὖσαν.
[88] Thucyd. i, 14. Herodot. vii, 144.
[89] Thucyd. i, 93.
[90] Herodot. vii, 144. Οὗτος γὰρ ὁ πόλεμος συστὰς ἔσωσε τότε τὴν
Ἑλλάδα, ἀναγκάσας θαλασσίους γενέσθαι Ἀθηναίους.
Thucyd. i, 18. ναυτικοὶ ἐγένοντο.
Another accidental help, without which the new fleet could not
have been built,—a considerable amount of public money,—was also
by good fortune now available to the Athenians. It is first in an
emphatic passage of the poet Æschylus, and next from Herodotus on the
present occasion, that we hear of the silver mines of Laurium[91]
in Attica, and the valuable produce which they rendered to the
state. They were situated in the southern portion of the territory,
not very far from the promontory of Sunium,[92] amidst a district
of low hills which extended across much of the space between the
eastern sea at Thorikus, and the western at Anaphlystus. At what
time they first began to be worked, we have no information; but
it seems hardly possible that they could have been worked with
any spirit or profitable result until after the expulsion of
Hippias and the establishment of the democratical constitution of
Kleisthenês. Neither the strong local factions, by which different
portions of Attica were set against each other before the time of
Peisistratus, nor the rule of that despot succeeded by his two sons,
were likely to afford confidence and encouragement. But when the
democracy of Kleisthenês first brought Attica into one systematic
and comprehensive whole, with equal rights to all the parts, and a
common centre at Athens,—the power of that central government over
the mineral wealth of the country, and its means of binding the whole
people to respect agreements concluded with individual undertakers,
would give a new stimulus to private speculation in the district of
Laurium. It was the practice of the Athenian government either to
sell, or to let for a long term of years, particular districts of
this productive region to individuals or companies,—on consideration
partly of a sum or fine paid down, partly of a reserved rent equal to
one-twenty-fourth part of the gross produce.
[91] Æschylus, Persæ, 235.
[92] The mountain region of Laurium has been occasionally visited
by modern travellers, but never carefully surveyed until 1836,
when Dr. Fiedler examined it mineralogically by order of the
present Greek government. See his Reisen durch Griechenland, vol.
i, pp. 39, 73. The region is now little better than a desert,
but Fiedler especially notices the great natural fertility of
the plain near Thorikus, together with the good harbor at that
place,—both circumstances of great value at the time when the
mines were in work. Many remains are seen of shafts sunk in
ancient times,—and sunk in so workmanlike a manner as to satisfy
the eye of a miner of the present day.—p. 76.
We are told by Herodotus that there was in the Athenian treasury, at
the time when Themistoklês made his proposition to enlarge the naval
force, a great sum[93] arising from the Laurian mines, out of which a
distribution was on the point of being made among the citizens,—ten
drachms to each man. This great amount in hand must probably have
been the produce of the purchase-money or fines received from
recent sales, since the small annual reserved rent can hardly have
been accumulated during many successive years: new and enlarged
enterprises in mines must be supposed to have been recently begun by
individuals under contract with the government, in order to produce
at the moment so overflowing an exchequer and to furnish means for
the special distribution contemplated. Themistoklês availed himself
of this precious opportunity,—set forth the necessities of the war
with Ægina and the still more formidable menace from the great
enemy in Asia,—and prevailed upon the people to forego the promised
distribution for the purpose of obtaining an efficient navy.[94]
One cannot doubt that there must have been many speakers who would
try to make themselves popular by opposing this proposition and
supporting the distribution, insomuch that the power of the people
generally to feel the force of a distant motive as predominant over
a present gain deserves notice as an earnest of their approaching
greatness.
[93] Herodot. vii, 144. Ὅτε Ἀθηναίοισι γενομένων χρημάτων μεγάλων
ἐν τῷ κοινῷ, τὰ ἐκ τῶν μετάλλων σφι προσῆλθε τῶν ἀπὸ Λαυρείου,
ἔμελλον λάξεσθαι ὀρχηδὸν ἕκαστος δέκα δραχμάς.
[94] All the information—unfortunately it is very scanty—which
we possess respecting the ancient mines of Laurium, is brought
together in the valuable Dissertation of M. Boëckh, translated
and appended to the English translation of his Public Economy
of Athens. He discusses the fact stated in this chapter of
Herodotus, in sect. 8 of that Dissertation: but there are many of
his remarks in which I cannot concur.
After multiplying ten drachmæ by the assumed number of twenty
thousand Athenian citizens, making a sum total distributed
of thirty-three and one-third talents, he goes on: “That the
distribution was made annually might have been presumed from the
principles of the Athenian administration, without the testimony
of Cornelius Nepos. We are not, therefore, to suppose that the
savings of several years are meant, nor merely a surplus; but
that all the public money arising from the mines, as it was not
required for any other object, was divided among the members of
the community,” (p. 632).
We are hardly authorized to conclude from the passage of
Herodotus that _all_ the sum received from the mines was about to
be distributed: the treasury was very rich, and a distribution
was about to be made,—but it does not follow that nothing was
to be left in the treasury after the distribution. Accordingly,
all calculations of the total produce of the mines, based upon
this passage of Herodotus, are uncertain. Nor is it clear
that there was any regular annual distribution, unless we are
to take the passage of Cornelius Nepos as proving it: but he
talks rather about the magistrates employing this money for
jobbing purposes,—not about a regular distribution: “Nam cum
pecunia publica quæ ex metallis redibat, largitione magistratuum
quotannis periret.” Corn. Nep. Themist. c. 2. A story is told by
Polyænus, from whomsoever he copied it,—of a sum of one hundred
talents in the treasury, which Themistoklês persuaded the people
to hand over to one hundred rich men, for the purpose of being
expended as the latter might direct, with an obligation to
reimburse the money in case the people were not satisfied with
the expenditure: these rich men employed each the sum awarded
to him in building a new ship, much to the satisfaction of the
people (Polyæn. i, 30). This story differs materially from that
of Herodotus, and we cannot venture either to blend the two
together or to rely upon Polyænus separately.
I imagine that the sum of thirty three talents, or fifty talents,
necessary for the distribution, formed part of a larger sum lying
in the treasury, arising from the mines. Themistoklês persuaded
the people to employ the _whole_ sum in ship-building, which of
course implied that the distribution was to be renounced. Whether
there had been distributions of a similar kind in former years,
as M. Boëckh affirms, is a matter on which we have no evidence.
M. Boëckh seems to me not to have kept in view the fact, which
he himself states just before, that there were two sources of
receipt into the treasury,—original purchase-money paid down, and
reserved annual rent. It is from the former source that I imagine
the large sum lying in the treasury to have been derived: the
small reserved rent probably went among the annual items of the
state-budget.
Immense, indeed, was the recompense reaped for this self-denial,
not merely by Athens but by Greece generally, when the preparations
of Xerxes came to be matured, and his armament was understood to
be approaching. The orders for equipment of ships and laying in of
provisions, issued by the Great King to his subject Greeks in Asia,
the Ægean, and Thrace, would of course become known throughout Greece
Proper,—especially the vast labor bestowed on the canal of Mount
Athos, which would be the theme of wondering talk with every Thasian
or Akanthian citizen who visited the festival games in Peloponnesus.
All these premonitory evidences were public enough, without any need
of that elaborate stratagem whereby the exiled Demaratus is alleged
to have secretly transmitted, from Susa to Sparta, intelligence
of the approaching expedition.[95] The formal announcements of
Xerxes all designated Athens as the special object of his wrath and
vengeance;[96] and other Grecian cities might thus hope to escape
without mischief: so that the prospect of the great invasion did not
at first provoke among them any unanimous dispositions to resist.
Accordingly, when the first heralds despatched by Xerxes from
Sardis in the autumn of 481 B. C., a little before his march to the
Hellespont, addressed themselves to the different cities with demand
of earth and water, many were disposed to comply. Neither to Athens,
nor to Sparta, were any heralds sent; and these two cities were thus
from the beginning identified in interest and in the necessity of
defence. Both of them sent, in this trying moment, to consult the
Delphian oracle: while both at the same time joined to convene a
Pan-Hellenic congress at the Isthmus of Corinth, for the purpose of
organizing resistance against the expected invader.
[95] Herodot. vii, 239.
[96] Herodot. vii, 8-138.
I have in the preceding volume pointed out the various steps whereby
the separate states of Greece were gradually brought, even against
their own natural instincts, into something approaching more nearly
to political union. The present congress, assembled under the
influence of common fear from Persia, has more of a Pan-Hellenic
character than any political event which has yet occurred in Grecian
history. It extends far beyond the range of those Peloponnesian
states who constitute the immediate allies of Sparta: it comprehends
Athens, and is even summoned in part by her strenuous instigation: it
seeks to combine, moreover, every city of Hellenic race and language,
however distant, which can be induced to take part in it,—even the
Kretans, Korkyræans, and Sicilians. It is true that all these states
do not actually come, but earnest efforts are made to induce them to
come: the dispersed brethren of the Hellenic family are intreated
to marshal themselves in the same ranks for a joint political
purpose,[97]—the defence of the common hearth and metropolis of the
race. This is a new fact in Grecian history, opening scenes and ideas
unlike to anything which has gone before,—enlarging, prodigiously,
the functions and duties connected with that headship of Greece
which had hitherto been in the hands of Sparta, but which is about
to become too comprehensive for her to manage,—and thus introducing
increased habits of coöperation among the subordinate states, as well
as rival hopes of aggrandizement among the leaders. The congress at
the isthmus of Corinth marks such further advance in the centralizing
tendencies of Greece, and seems at first to promise an onward march
in the same direction: but the promise will not be found realized.
[97] Herodot. vii, 145. Φρονήσαντες εἴ κως ἕν τε γένοιτο τὸ
Ἑλληνικὸν, καὶ εἰ συγκύψαντες τωὐτὸ πρήσσοιεν πάντες, ὡς δεινῶν
ἐπιόντων ὁμοίως πᾶσι Ἕλλησι.
Its first step was, indeed, one of inestimable value. While most of
the deputies present came prepared, in the name of their respective
cities, to swear reciprocal fidelity and brotherhood, they also
addressed all their efforts to appease the feuds and dissensions
which reigned among the particular members of their own meeting. Of
these the most prominent, as well as the most dangerous, was the war
still subsisting between Athens and Ægina. The latter was not exempt,
even now, from suspicions of _medizing_,[98] _i. e._, embracing the
cause of the Persians, which had been raised by her giving earth
and water ten years before to Darius: but her present conduct gave
no countenance to such suspicions: she took earnest part in the
congress as well as in the joint measures of defence, and willingly
consented to accommodate her difference with Athens.[99] In this
work of reconciling feuds, so essential to the safety of Greece, the
Athenian Themistoklês took a prominent part, as well as Cheileos of
Tegea in Arcadia.[100] The congress proceeded to send envoys and
solicit coöperation from such cities as were yet either equivocal or
indifferent, especially Argos, Korkyra, and the Kretan and Sicilian
Greeks,—and at the same time to despatch spies across to Sardis, for
the purpose of learning the state and prospects of the assembled army.
[98] Herodot. viii, 92.
[99] Herodot. vii, 145.
[100] Plutarch, Themistokl. c. 10. About Cheileos, Herodot. ix, 9.
These spies presently returned, having been detected and condemned
to death by the Persian generals, but released by express order of
Xerxes, who directed that the full strength of his assembled armament
should be shown to them, in order that the terror of the Greeks might
be thus magnified. The step was well calculated for such a purpose:
but the discouragement throughout Greece was already extreme, at this
critical period when the storm was about to burst upon them. Even to
intelligent and well-meaning Greeks, much more to the careless, the
timid, or the treacherous,—Xerxes with his countless host appeared
irresistible, and indeed something more than human:[101] of course,
such an impression would be encouraged by the large number of Greeks
already his tributaries: and we may even trace a manifestation of a
wish to get rid of the Athenians altogether, as the chief objects of
Persian vengeance and chief hindrance to tranquil submission. This
despair of the very continuance of Hellenic life and autonomy breaks
forth even from the sanctuary of Hellenic religion, the Delphian
temple; when the Athenians, in their distress and uncertainty, sent
to consult the oracle. Hardly had their two envoys performed the
customary sacrifices, and sat down in the inner chamber near the
priestess Aristonikê, when she at once exclaimed: “Wretched men, why
sit ye there? Quit your land and city, and flee afar! Head, body,
feet, and hands are alike rotten: fire and sword, in the train of the
Syrian chariot, shall overwhelm you: nor only your city, but other
cities also, as well as many even of the temples of the gods,—which
are now sweating and trembling with fear, and foreshadow, by drops of
blood on their roofs, the hard calamities impending. Get ye away from
the sanctuary, with your souls steeped in sorrow.”[102]
[101] Herodot. vii, 203. οὐ γὰρ θεὸν εἶναι τὸν ἐπιόντα ἐπὶ τὴν
Ἑλλάδα, ἀλλ’ ἄνθρωπον, etc.: compare also vii, 56.
[102] Herodot. vii, 140.
Ἀλλ’ ἴτον ἐξ ἀδύτοιο, κακοῖς δ’ ἐπικίδνατε θυμόν.
The general sense and scope of the oracle appears to me clear,
in this case. It is a sentence of nothing but desolation and
sadness; though Bähr and Schweighäuser, with other commentators,
try to infuse into it some thing of encouragement by construing
θυμόν, _fortitude_. The translation of Valla and Schultz is
nearer to the truth. But even when the general sense of an oracle
is plain (which it hardly ever is), the particular phrases are
always wild and vague.
So terrific a reply had rarely escaped from the lips of the
priestess. The envoys were struck to the earth by it, and durst not
carry it back to Athens. In their sorrow they were encouraged yet
to hope by an influential Delphian citizen named Timon (we trace
here, as elsewhere, the underhand working of these leading Delphians
on the priestess), who advised them to provide themselves with the
characteristic marks of supplication, and to approach the oracle a
second time in that imploring guise: “O lord, we pray thee (they
said), have compassion on these boughs of supplication, and deliver
to us something more comfortable concerning our country; else we
quit not thy sanctuary, but remain here until death.” Upon which the
priestess replied: “Athênê with all her prayers and all her sagacity
cannot propitiate Olympian Zeus.[103] But this assurance I will give
you, firm as adamant: when everything else in the land of Kekrops
shall be taken, Zeus grants to Athênê that the wooden wall alone
shall remain unconquered, to defend you and your children. Stand not
to await the assailing horse and foot from the continent, but turn
your backs and retire: you shall yet live to fight another day. O
divine Salamis, thou too shalt destroy the children of women, either
at the seed-time or at the harvest.”[104]
[103] Herodot. vii, 141.
Οὐ δύναται Παλλὰς Δί’ Ὀλύμπιον ἐξιλάσασθαι
Λισσομένη πολλοῖσι λόγοις καὶ μήτιδι πυκνῇ.
Compare with this the declaration of Apollo to Crœsus of Lydia
(i, 91).
[104]
... Τεῖχος Τριτογενεῖ ξύλινον διδοῖ εὐρύοπα Ζεὺς
Μοῦνον ἀπόρθητον τελέθειν, τὸ σὲ τέκνα τ’ ὀνήσει.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ὦ θείη Σαλαμὶς, ἀπολεῖς δὲ σὺ τέκνα γυναικῶν, etc.
(Herodot. vii, 141).
This second answer was a sensible mitigation of the first: it left
open some hope of escape, though faint, dark, and unintelligible,—and
the envoys wrote it down to carry back to Athens, not concealing,
probably, the terrific sentence which had preceded it. When read to
the people, the obscurity of the meaning provoked many different
interpretations. What was meant by “the wooden wall?” Some supposed
that the acropolis itself, which had originally been surrounded
with a wooden palisade, was the refuge pointed out: but the greater
number, and among them most of those who were by profession
expositors of prophecy, maintained that the wooden wall indicated
the fleet. But these professional expositors, while declaring that
the god bade them go on shipboard, deprecated all idea of a naval
battle, and insisted on the necessity of abandoning Attica forever:
the last lines of the oracle, wherein it was said that Salamis would
destroy the children of women, appeared to them to portend nothing
but disaster in the event of a naval combat. Such was the opinion
of those who passed for the best expositors of the divine will: it
harmonized completely with the despairing temper then prevalent,
heightened by the terrible sentence pronounced in the first oracle;
and emigration to some foreign land presented itself as the only hope
of safety even for their persons. The fate of Athens,—and of Greece
generally, which would have been helpless without Athens,—now hung
upon a thread, when Themistoklês, the great originator of the fleet,
interposed with equal steadfastness of heart and ingenuity, to insure
the proper use of it. He contended that if the god had intended to
designate Salamis as the scene of a naval disaster to the Greeks,
that island would have been called in the oracle by some such epithet
as “wretched Salamis:” but the fact that it was termed “divine
Salamis,” indicated that the parties, destined to perish there, were
the enemies of Greece, not the Greeks themselves. He encouraged his
countrymen, therefore, to abandon their city and country, and to
trust themselves to the fleet as the wooden wall recommended by the
god, but with full determination to fight and conquer on board.[105]
Great, indeed, were the consequences which turned upon this bold
stretch of exegetical conjecture. Unless the Athenians had been
persuaded, by some plausible show of interpretation, that the sense
of the oracle encouraged instead of forbidding a naval combat, they
would in their existing depression have abandoned all thought of
resistance.
[105] Herodot. vii, 143. Ταύτῃ Θεμιστοκλέους ἀποφαινομένου,
Ἀθηναῖοι ταῦτά σφι ἔγνωσαν αἱρετώτερα εἶναι μᾶλλον ἢ τὰ τῶν
χρησμολόγων, οἳ οὐκ εἴων ναυμαχίην ἀρτέεσθαι, ἀλλὰ ἐκλιπόντας
χώρην τὴν Ἀττικὴν, ἄλλην τινὰ οἰκίζειν.
There is every reason to accept the statement of Herodotus as
true, respecting these oracles delivered to the Athenians, and
the debated interpretation of them. They must have been discussed
publicly in the Athenian assembly, and Herodotus may well have
conversed with persons who had heard the discussion. Respecting
the other oracle which he states to have been delivered to the
Spartans,—intimating that either Sparta must be conquered or a
king of Sparta must perish,—we may well doubt whether it was in
existence before the battle of Thermopylæ (Herodot. vii, 220).
The later writers, Justin (ii, 12), Cornelius Nepos (c. 2),
and Polyænus (i, 30), give an account of the proceeding of
Themistoklês, inferior to Herodotus in vivacity as well as in
accuracy.
Even with the help of an encouraging interpretation, however, nothing
less than the most unconquerable resolution and patriotism could have
enabled the Athenians to bear up against such terrific denunciations
from the Delphian god, and persist in resistance in place of seeking
safety by emigration. Herodotus emphatically impresses this truth
upon his readers:[106] nay, he even steps out of his way to do so,
proclaiming Athens as the real saviour of Greece. Writing as he did
about the beginning of the Peloponnesian war,—at a time when Athens,
having attained the maximum of her empire, was alike feared, hated,
and admired, by most of the Grecian states,—he knows that the opinion
which he is giving will be unpopular with his hearers generally, and
he apologizes for it as something wrung from him against his will by
the force of the evidence.[107] Nor was it only that the Athenians
dared to stay and fight against immense odds: they, and they alone,
threw into the cause that energy and forwardness whereby it was
enabled to succeed,[108] as will appear farther in the sequel. But
there was also a third way, not less deserving of notice, in which
they contributed to the result. As soon as the congress of deputies
met at the isthmus of Corinth, it became essential to recognize
some one commanding state, and with regard to the land-force no one
dreamed of contesting the preëminence of Sparta. But in respect to
the fleet, her pretensions were more disputable, since she furnished
at most only sixteen ships, and little or no nautical skill; while
Athens brought two-thirds of the entire naval force, with the best
ships and seamen. Upon these grounds the idea was at first started,
that Athens should command at sea. and Sparta on land: but the
majority of the allies manifested a decided repugnance, announcing
that they would follow no one but a Spartan. To the honor of the
Athenians, they at once waived their pretensions, as soon as they saw
that the unity of the confederate force, at this moment of peril,
would be compromised.[109] To appreciate this generous abnegation of
a claim in itself so reasonable, we must recollect that the love of
preëminence was among the most prominent attributes of the Hellenic
character: a prolific source of their greatness and excellence,
but producing also no small amount both of their follies and their
crimes. To renounce at the call of public obligation a claim to
personal honor and glory, is perhaps the rarest of all virtues in a
son of Hellen.
[106] Herodot. vii, 139. οὐδὲ σφέας χρηστήρια φοβερὰ, ἐλθόντα ἐκ
Δελφῶν, καὶ ἐς δεῖμα βαλόντα, ἔπεισε ἐκλιπεῖν τὴν Ἑλλάδα, etc.
For the abundance of oracles and prophecies, from many different
sources, which would be current at such a moment of anxiety, we
may compare the analogy of the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war,
described by the contemporary historian (Thucyd. ii, 8).
[107] Herodot. vii, 139. Ἐνθαῦτα ~ἀναγκαίῃ~ ἐξέργομαι γνώμην
ἀποδέξασθαι, ~ἐπίφθονον μὲν πρὸς τῶν πλεόνων ἀνθρώπων~· ὅμως
δὲ, τῇ γέ μοι φαίνεται εἶναι ἀληθὲς, οὐκ ἐπισχήσω. Εἰ Ἀθηναῖοι,
καταῤῥωδήσαντες τὸν ἐπιόντα κίνδυνον, ἐξέλιπον τὴν σφετέρην, etc.
... Νῦν δὲ, Ἀθηναίους ἄν τις λέγων σωτῆρας γενέσθαι τῆς Ἑλλάδος,
οὐκ ἂν ἁμαρτάνοι τὸ ἀληθές, etc.
The whole chapter deserves peculiar attention, as it brings
before us the feelings of those contemporaries to whom his
history is addressed, and the mode of judging with which they
looked back on the Persian war. One is apt unconsciously to fancy
that an ancient historian writes for men in the abstract, and not
for men of given sentiments, prejudices, and belief. The persons
whom Herodotus addressed are those who were so full of admiration
for Sparta, as to ascribe to her chiefly the honor of having
beaten back the Persians; and to maintain that, even without
the aid of Athens, the Spartans and Peloponnesians both could
have defended, and would have defended, the isthmus of Corinth,
fortified as it was by a wall built expressly. The Peloponnesian
allies of that day forgot that they were open to attack by sea as
well as by land.
[108] Herodot. vii, 139. ἑλόμενοι δὲ τὴν Ἑλλάδα περιεῖναι
ἐλευθέρην, τοῦτο τὸ Ἑλληνικὸν πᾶν τὸ λοιπὸν, ὅσον μὴ ἐμήδισε,
αὐτοὶ οὗτοι ἦσαν οἱ ἐπεγείραντες, καὶ βασιλέα μετά γε θεοὺς
ἀνωσάμενοι.
[109] Herodot. viii, 2, 3: compare vii, 161.
We find thus the Athenians nerved up to the pitch of
resistance,—prepared to see their country wasted, and to
live as well as to fight on shipboard, when the necessity
should arrive,—furnishing two thirds of the whole fleet, and
yet prosecuting the building of fresh ships until the last
moment,[110]—sending forth the ablest and most forward leader in the
common cause, while content themselves to serve like other states
under the leadership of Sparta. During the winter preceding the
march of Xerxes from Sardis, the congress at the Isthmus was trying,
with little success, to bring the Grecian cities into united action.
Among the cities north of Attica and Peloponnesus, the greater number
were either inclined to submit, like Thebes and the greater part
of Bœotia, or at least lukewarm in the cause of independence,—so
rare at this trying moment (to use the language of the unfortunate
Platæans fifty-three years afterwards), was the exertion of resolute
Hellenic patriotism against the invader.[111] Even in the interior of
Peloponnesus, the powerful Argos maintained an ambiguous neutrality.
It was one of the first steps of the congress to send special envoys
to Argos, to set forth the common danger and solicit coöperation; the
result is certain, that no coöperation was obtained,—the Argeians did
nothing throughout the struggle; but as to their real position, or
the grounds of their refusal, contradictory statements had reached
the ears of Herodotus. They themselves affirmed that they were ready
to have joined the Hellenic cause, in spite of dissuasion from the
Delphian oracle,—exacting only as conditions, that the Spartans
should conclude a truce with them for thirty years, and should
equally divide the honors of headship with Argos. To the proposed
truce there would probably have been no objection, nor was there
any as to the principle of dividing the headship: but the Spartans
added, that they had two kings, while the Argeians had only one; and
inasmuch as neither of the two Spartan kings could be deprived of
his vote, the Argeian king could only be admitted to a third vote
conjointly with them. This proposition appeared to the Argeians, who
considered that even the undivided headship was no more than their
ancient right, as nothing better than insolent encroachment. and
incensed them so much that they desired the envoys to quit their
territory before sunset,—preferring even a tributary existence under
Persia to a formal degradation as compared with Sparta.[112]
[110] Herodot. vii, 144.
[111] Thucyd. iii, 56. ἐν καιροῖς οἷς σπάνιον ἦν τῶν Ἑλλήνων τινὰ
ἀρετὴν τῇ Ξέρξου δυνάμει ἀντιτάξασθαι.
This view of the case is much more conformable to history than
the boasts of later orators respecting wide-spread patriotism in
these times. See Demosthen. Philipp. iii, 37, p. 120.
[112] Herodot. vii, 147-150.
Such was the story told by the Argeians themselves, but seemingly
not credited either by any other Greeks or by Herodotus himself. The
prevalent opinion was, that the Argeians had a secret understanding
with Xerxes, and some even affirmed that they had been the parties
who invited him into Greece, as a means both of protection and
of vengeance to themselves against Sparta after their defeat by
Kleomenês. And Herodotus himself evidently believed that they
_medized_, though he is half afraid to say so, and disguises his
opinion in a cloud of words which betray the angry polemics going on
about the matter, even fifty years afterwards.[113] It is certain
that in act the Argeians were neutral, and one of their reasons for
neutrality was, that they did not choose to join any Pan-Hellenic
levy except in the capacity of chiefs; but probably the more powerful
reason was, that they shared the impression then so widely diffused
throughout Greece as to the irresistible force of the approaching
host, and chose to hold themselves prepared for the event. They kept
up secret negotiations even with Persian agents, yet not compromising
themselves while matters were still pending; nor is it improbable,
in their vexation against Sparta, that they would have been better
pleased if the Persians had succeeded,—all which may reasonably be
termed, _medizing_.
[113] The opinion of Herodotus is delivered in a remarkable way,
without mentioning the name of the Argeians, and with evident
reluctance. After enumerating all the Grecian contingents
assembled for the defence of the Isthmus, and the different
inhabitants of Peloponnesus, ethnically classified, he proceeds
to say: Τούτων ὦν τῶν ἑπτὰ ἐθνέων αἱ λοιπαὶ πόλις, πάρεξ τῶν
κατέλεξα, ἐκ τοῦ μέσου ἐκατέατο· ~εἰ δὲ ἐλευθέρως ἔξεστι εἰπεῖν,
ἐκ τοῦ μέσου κατήμενοι ἐμήδιζον~ (viii, 73). This assertion
includes the Argeians without naming them.
Where he speaks respecting the Argeians by name, he is by no
means so free and categorical; compare vii, 152,—he will give no
opinion of his own, differing from the allegation of the Argeians
themselves,—he mentions other stories, incompatible with that
allegation, but without guaranteeing their accuracy,— he delivers
a general admonition that those who think they have great reason
to complain of the conduct of others would generally find, on an
impartial scrutiny, that others have as much reason to complain
of them,—“and thus the conduct of Argos has not been _so much
worse than that of others_,”—οὕτω δὴ ~οὐκ Ἀργείοισι αἴσχιστα
πεποίηται~.
At the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, when the history
of Herodotus was probably composed, the Argeians were in a
peculiarly favorable position. They took part neither with
Athens nor Lacedæmon, each of whom was afraid of offending them.
An historian who openly countenanced a grave charge of treason
against them in the memorable foregone combat against Xerxes, was
thus likely to incur odium from both parties in Greece.
The comments of Plutarch on Herodotus in respect to this matter
are of little value (De Herodoti Malignit. c. 28, p. 863), and
are indeed unfair, since he represents the Argeian version of the
facts as being universally believed (ἅπαντες ἴσασιν), which it
evidently was not.
The absence of Hellenic fidelity in Argos was borne out by the
parallel examples of Krete and Korkyra, to which places envoys from
the Isthmus proceeded at the same time. The Kretans declined to
take any part, on the ground of prohibitory injunctions from the
oracle;[114] the Korkyræans promised without performing, and even
without any intention to perform. Their neutrality was a serious
loss to the Greeks, since they could fit out a naval force of
sixty triremes, second only to that of Athens. With this important
contingent they engaged to join the Grecian fleet, and actually
set sail from Korkyra; but they took care not to sail round cape
Malea, or to reach the scene of action. Their fleet remained on
the southern or western coast of Peloponnesus, under pretence of
being weatherbound, until the decisive result of the battle of
Salamis was known. Their impression was that the Persian monarch
would be victorious, in which case they would have made a merit
of not having arrived in time; but they were also prepared with
the plausible excuse of detention from foul winds, when the result
turned out otherwise, and when they were reproached by the Greeks
for their absence.[115] Such duplicity is not very astonishing, when
we recollect that it was the habitual policy of Korkyra to isolate
herself from Hellenic confederacies.[116]
[114] Herodot. vii, 169.
[115] Herodot. vii, 168.
[116] Thucyd. i, 32-37. It is perhaps singular that the
Corinthian envoys in Thucydides do not make any allusion to the
duplicity of the Korkyræans in regard to the Persian invasion,
in the strong invective which they deliver against Korkyra
before the Athenian assembly (Thucydid. i, 37-42). The conduct
of Corinth herself, however, on the same occasion, was not
altogether without reproach.
The envoys who visited Korkyra proceeded onward on their mission
to Gelon, the despot of Syracuse. Of that potentate, regarded by
Herodotus as more powerful than any state in Greece, I shall speak
more fully in a subsequent chapter: it is sufficient to mention now,
that he rendered no aid against Xerxes. Nor was it in his power to
do so, whatever might have been his inclinations; for the same year
which brought the Persian monarch against Greece, was also selected
by the Carthaginians for a formidable invasion of Sicily, which kept
the Sicilian Greeks to the defence of their own island. It seems even
probable that this simultaneous invasion had been concerted between
the Persians and Carthaginians.[117]
[117] Herodot. vii, 158-167. Diodor. xi, 22.
The endeavors of the deputies of Greeks at the Isthmus had thus
produced no other reinforcement to their cause except some fair
words from the Korkyræans. It was near the time when Xerxes was
about to pass the Hellespont, in the beginning of 480 B. C., that
the first actual step for resistance was taken, at the instigation
of the Thessalians. Though the great Thessalian family of the
Aleuadæ were among the companions of Xerxes, and the most forward
in inviting him into Greece, with every promise of ready submission
from their countrymen, it seems that these promises were in reality
unwarranted: the Aleuadæ were at the head only of a minority, and
perhaps were even in exile, like the Peisistratidæ:[118] while most
of the Thessalians were disposed to resist Xerxes, for which purpose
they now sent envoys to the Isthmus,[119] intimating the necessity
of guarding the passes of Olympus, the northernmost entrance of
Greece. They offered their own cordial aid in this defence, adding
that they should be under the necessity of making their own separate
submission, if this demand were not complied with. Accordingly,
a body of ten thousand Grecian heavy-armed infantry, under the
command of the Spartan Euænetus and the Athenian Themistoklês, were
despatched by sea to Halus in Achæa Phthiôtis, where they disembarked
and marched by land across Achæa and Thessaly.[120] Being joined by
the Thessalian horse, they occupied the defile of Tempê, through
which the river Peneius makes its way to the sea, by a cleft between
the mountains Olympus and Ossa.
[118] See Schol. ad Aristeid., Anathenaic. p. 138.
[119] Herodot. vii, 172: compare c. 130.
[120] Herodot. vii, 173.
The long, narrow, and winding defile of Tempê, formed then, and forms
still, the single entrance, open throughout winter as well as summer,
from lower or maritime Macedonia into Thessaly: the lofty mountain
precipices approach so closely as to leave hardly room enough in
some places for a road: it is thus eminently defensible, and a few
resolute men would be sufficient to arrest in it the progress of the
most numerous host.[121] But the Greeks soon discovered that the
position was such as they could not hold,—first, because the powerful
fleet of Xerxes would be able to land troops in their rear; secondly,
because there was also a second entrance passable in summer, from
upper Macedonia into Thessaly, by the mountain-passes over the
range of Olympus; an entrance which traversed the country of the
Perrhæbians and came into Thessaly near Gonnus, about the spot where
the defile of Tempê begins to narrow. It was in fact by this second
pass, evading the insurmountable difficulties of Tempê, that the
advancing march of the Persians was destined to be made, under the
auspices of Alexander, king of Macedon, tributary to them, and active
in their service; who sent a communication of this fact to the Greeks
at Tempê, admonishing them that they would be trodden under foot by
the countless host approaching, and urging them to renounce their
hopeless position.[122] This Macedonian prince passed for a friend,
and probably believed himself to be acting as such in dissuading the
Greeks from unavailing resistance to Persia: but he was in reality
a very dangerous mediator; and as such the Spartans had good reason
to dread him, in a second intervention of which we shall hear more
hereafter.[123] On the present occasion, the Grecian commanders were
quite ignorant of the existence of any other entrance into Thessaly,
besides Tempê, until their arrival in that region. Perhaps it might
have been possible to defend both entrances at once, and considering
the immense importance of arresting the march of the Persians at
the frontiers of Hellas, the attempt would have been worth some
risk. So great was the alarm, however, produced by the unexpected
discovery, justifying, or seeming to justify, the friendly advice of
Alexander, that they remained only a few days at Tempê, then at once
retired back to their ships, and returned by sea to the isthmus of
Corinth,—about the time when Xerxes was crossing the Hellespont.[124]
[121] Herodot. vii, 172. τὴν ἐσβολὴν τὴν Ὀλυμπικήν. See the
description and plan of Tempê in Dr. Clarke’s Travels, vol. iv,
ch. ix, p. 280; and the Dissertation of Kriegk, in which all the
facts about this interesting defile are collected and compared
(Das Thessalische Tempe. Frankfort, 1834).
The description of Tempê in Livy (xliii, 18; xliv, 6) seems more
accurate than that in Pliny (H. N. iv, 8). We may remark that
both the one and the other belong to times subsequent to the
formation and organization of the Macedonian empire, when it came
to hold Greece in a species of dependence. The Macedonian princes
after Alexander the Great, while they added to the natural
difficulties of Tempê by fortifications, at the same time made
the road more convenient as a military communication. In the time
of Xerxes, these natural difficulties had never been approached
by the hand of art, and were doubtless much greater.
The present road through the pass is about thirteen feet broad
in its narrowest part, and between fifteen and twenty feet
broad elsewhere,—the pass is about five English miles in length
(Kriegk, pp. 21-33).
[122] Herodot. vii, 173.
[123] Herodot. viii, 140-143.
[124] Herodot. vii, 173, 174.
This precipitate retreat produced consequences highly disastrous and
discouraging. It appeared to leave all Hellas north of mount Kithæron
and of the Megarid territory without defence, and it served either
as reason or pretext for the majority of the Grecian states north
of that boundary to make their submission to Xerxes, which some of
them had already begun to do before.[125] When Xerxes in the course
of his march reached the Thermaic gulf, within sight of Olympus
and Ossa, the heralds whom he had sent from Sardis brought him
tokens of submission from a third portion of the Hellenic name,—the
Thessalians, Dolopes, Ænianes, Perrhæbians, Magnêtes, Lokrians,
Dorians, Melians, Phthiôtid Achæans, and Bœotians,—among the latter
is included Thebes, but not Thespiæ or Platæa. The Thessalians,
especially, not only submitted, but manifested active zeal and
rendered much service in the cause of Xerxes, under the stimulus of
the Aleuadæ, whose party now became predominant: they were probably
indignant at the hasty retreat of those who had come to defend
them.[126]
[125] Diodor. xi, 3. ἔτι παρούσης τῆς ἐν τοῖς Τέμπεσι φυλακῆς,
etc.
[126] Herodot. vii, 131, 132, 174.
Had the Greeks been able to maintain the passes of Olympus and
Ossa, all this northern fraction might probably have been induced
to partake in the resistance instead of becoming auxiliaries to the
invader. During the six weeks or two months which elapsed between
the retreat of the Greeks from Tempê and the arrival of Xerxes at
Therma, no new plan of defence appears to have been formed; for it
was not until that arrival became known at the Isthmus that the Greek
army and fleet made its forward movement to occupy Thermopylæ and
Artemisium.[127]
[127] Herodot. vii, 177