dispute, an Athenian messenger on horseback reached Pausanias,
instructed to ascertain what was passing, and to ask for the last
directions: for in spite of the resolution taken after formal debate,
the Athenian generals still mistrusted the Lacedæmonians, and doubted
whether, after all, they would act as they had promised: the movement
of the central division having become known to them, they sent at
the last moment before they commenced their own march, to assure
themselves that the Spartans were about to move also. A profound,
and even an exaggerated mistrust, but too well justified by the
previous behavior of the Spartans towards Athens, is visible in this
proceeding:[355] yet it proved fortunate in its results,—for if the
Athenians, satisfied with executing their part in the preconcerted
plan, had marched at once to the island, the Grecian army would
have been severed without the possibility of reuniting, and the
issue of the battle might have proved altogether different. The
Athenian herald found the Lacedæmonians still stationary in their
position, and the generals in hot dispute with Amompharetus; who
despised the threat of being left alone to make head against the
Persians, and when reminded that the resolution had been taken by
general vote of the officers, took up with both hands a vast rock,
fit for the hands of Ajax or Hektor, and cast it at the feet of
Pausanias, saying—“This is _my_ pebble, wherewith I give my vote
not to run away from the strangers.” Pausanias denounced him as a
madman,—desiring the herald to report the scene of embarrassment
which he had just come to witness, and to entreat the Athenian
generals not to commence their retreat until the Lacedæmonians should
also be in march. In the mean time the dispute continued, and was
even prolonged by the perverseness of Amompharetus until the morning
began to dawn; when Pausanias, afraid to remain longer, gave the
signal for retreat,—calculating that the refractory captain, when he
saw his lochus really left alone, would probably make up his mind to
follow. Having marched about ten furlongs, across the hilly ground
which divided him from the island, he commanded a halt,—either to
await Amompharetus, if he chose to follow, or to be near enough to
render aid and save him, if he were rash enough to stand his ground
single-handed. Happily the latter, seeing that his general had really
departed, overcame his scruples, and followed him; overtaking and
joining the main body in its first halt near the river Moloeis and
the temple of Eleusinian Dêmêtêr.[356] The Athenians, commencing
their movement at the same time with Pausanias, got round the hills
to the plain on the other side and proceeded on their march towards
the island.
[355] Herodot. ix, 54, Ἀθηναῖοι—εἶχον ἀτρέμας σφέας αὐτοὺς ἵνα
ἐτάχθησαν, ἐπιστάμενοι τὰ Λακεδαιμονίων φρονήματα, ὡς ἄλλα
φρονεόντων καὶ ἄλλα λεγόντων.
[356] Herodot. xi. 56, 57.
When the day broke, the Persian cavalry were astonished to find the
Grecian position deserted. They immediately set themselves to the
pursuit of the Spartans, whose march lay along the higher and more
conspicuous ground, and whose progress had moreover been retarded
by the long delay of Amompharetus: the Athenians on the contrary,
marching without halt and being already behind the hills, were not
open to view. To Mardonius, this retreat of his enemy inspired an
extravagant and contemptuous confidence, which he vented in full
measure to the Thessalian Aleuadæ: “These are your boasted Spartans,
who changed their place just now in the line, rather than fight the
Persians, and have here shown by a barefaced flight what they are
really worth!” With that, he immediately directed his whole army to
pursue and attack, with the utmost expedition. The Persians crossed
the Asôpus, and ran after the Greeks at their best speed, pell-mell,
without any thought of order or preparations for overcoming
resistance: the army already rang with shouts of victory, in full
confidence of swallowing up the fugitives as soon as they were
overtaken.
The Asiatic allies all followed the example of this disorderly rush
forward:[357] but the Thebans and the other Grecian allies on the
right wing of Mardonius, appear to have maintained somewhat better
order.
[357] Herodot. ix, 59. ἐδίωκον ὡς ποδῶν ἕκαστος εἶχον, οὔτε κόσμῳ
οὐδενὶ κοσμηθέντες, οὔτε τάξι. Καὶ οὗτοι μὲν βοῇ τε καὶ ὁμίλῳ
ἐπήϊσαν, ὡς ἀναρπασόμενοι τοὺς Ἕλληνας.
Herodotus dwells especially on the reckless and disorderly manner
in which the Persians advanced: Plutarch, on the contrary, says
of Mardonius,—ἔχων ~συντεταγμένην~ τὴν δύναμιν ἐπεφέρετο τοῖς
Λακεδαιμονίοις, etc. (Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 17.)
Plutarch also says that Pausanias ἦγε τὴν ἄλλην δύναμιν ~πρὸς τὰς
Πλαταιὰς~, etc., which is quite contrary to the real narrative
of Herodotus. Pausanias intended to march to the island, not to
Platæa: he did not reach either the one or the other.
Pausanias had not been able to retreat farther than the neighborhood
of the Demetrion, or temple of Eleusinian Dêmêtêr, where he had
halted to take up Amompharetus. Overtaken first by the Persian
horse, and next by Mardonius with the main body, he sent a horseman
forthwith to apprize the Athenians, and to entreat their aid. Nor
were the Athenians slack in complying with his request: but they
speedily found themselves engaged in conflict against the Theban
allies of the enemy, and therefore unable to reach him.[358]
Accordingly, the Lacedæmonians and Tegeates had to encounter the
Persians single-handed, without any assistance from the other Greeks.
The Persians, on arriving within bowshot of their enemies, planted
in the ground the spiked extremities of their gerrha, or long wicker
shields, forming a continuous breastwork, from behind which they
poured upon the Greeks a shower of arrows:[359] their bows were of
the largest size, and drawn with no less power than skill. In spite
of the wounds and distress thus inflicted, Pausanias persisted in
the indispensable duty of offering the battle sacrifice, and the
victims were for some time unfavorable, so that he did not venture
to give orders for advance and close combat. Many were here wounded
or slain in the ranks,[360] among them the brave Kallikratês, the
handsomest and strongest man in the army: until Pausanias, wearied
out with this compulsory and painful delay, at length raised his eyes
to the conspicuous Heræum of the Platæans, and invoked the merciful
intervention of Hêrê to remove that obstacle which confined him
to the spot. Hardly had he pronounced the words, when the victims
changed and became favorable:[361] but the Tegeans, while he was
yet praying, anticipated the effect and hastened forward against
the enemy, followed by the Lacedæmonians as soon as Pausanias
gave the word. The wicker breastwork before the Persians was soon
overthrown by the Grecian charge: nevertheless the Persians, though
thus deprived of their tutelary hedge, and having no defensive
armor, maintained the fight with individual courage, the more
remarkable because it was totally unassisted by discipline or trained
collective movement, against the drilled array, the regulated step,
the well-defended persons, and the long spears, of the Greeks.[362]
They threw themselves upon the Lacedæmonians, seizing hold of
their spears, and breaking them: many of them devoted themselves in
small parties of ten to force by their bodies a way into the lines,
and to get to individual close combat with the short spear and the
dagger.[363] Mardonius himself, conspicuous upon a white horse, was
among the foremost warriors, and the thousand select troops who
formed his body-guard distinguished themselves beyond all the rest.
At length he was slain by the hand of a distinguished Spartan named
Aeimnêstus; his thousand guards mostly perished around him, and the
courage of the remaining Persians, already worn out by the superior
troops against which they had been long contending, was at last
thoroughly broken by the death of their general. They turned their
backs and fled, not resting until they got into the wooden fortified
camp constructed by Mardonius behind the Asôpus. The Asiatic allies
also, as soon as they saw the Persians defeated, took to flight
without striking a blow.[364]
[358] Herodot. ix, 60, 61.
[359] About the Persian bow, see Xenoph. Anabas. iii, 4, 17.
[360] Herod. ix, 72.
[361] Herodot. ix, 62. Καὶ τοῖσι Λακεδαιμονίοισι ~αὐτίκα~ μετὰ
τὴν εὐχὴν τὴν Παυσανίεω ἐγίνετο θυομένοισι τὰ σφάγια χρηστά.
Plutarch exaggerates the long-suffering of Pausanias (Aristeid.
c. 17, ad finem).
The lofty and conspicuous site of the Heræon, visible to
Pausanias at the distance where he was, is plainly marked in
Herodotus (ix, 61).
For incidents illustrating the hardships which a Grecian army
endured from its reluctance to move without favorable sacrifices,
see Xenophon, Anabasis, vi, 4, 10-25; Hellenic. iii, 2, 17.
[362] Herodot. ix, 62, 63. His words about the courage of the
Persians are remarkable: λήματι μέν νυν καὶ ῥώμῃ οὐκ ἕσσονες
ἦσαν οἱ Πέρσαι· ἄνοπλοι δὲ ἐόντες, καὶ πρὸς, ἀνεπιστήμονες ἦσαν,
καὶ οὐκ ὁμοῖοι τοῖσι ἐναντίοισι σοφίην ... πλεῖστον γάρ σφεας
ἐδηλέετο ἡ ἐσθὴς ἐρῆμος ἐοῦσα ὅπλων· πρὸς γὰρ ὁπλίτας ἐόντες
γυμνῆτες ἀγῶνα ἐποιεῦντο. Compare the striking conversation
between Xerxes and Demaratus (Herodot. vii, 104).
The description given by Herodotus of the gallant rush made by
these badly-armed Persians, upon the presented line of spears in
the Lacedæmonian ranks, may be compared with Livy (xxxii, 17),
a description of the Romans attacking the Macedonian phalanx,
and with the battle of Sempach (June, 1386), in which fourteen
hundred half-armed Swiss overcame a large body of fully-armed
Austrians, with an impenetrable front of projecting spears; which
for some time they were unable to break in upon, until at length
one of their warriors, Arnold von Winkelried, grasped an armful
of spears, and precipitated himself upon them, making a way for
his countrymen over his dead body. See Vogelin, Geschichte der
Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, ch. vi, p. 240, or indeed
any history of Switzerland, for a description of this memorable
incident.
[363] For the arms of the Persians, see Herodot. vii, 61.
Herodotus states in another place that the Persian troops adopted
the Egyptian breastplates (θώρηκας): probably this may have been
after the battle of Platæa. Even at this battle, the Persian
leaders on horseback had strong defensive armor, as we may see by
the case of Masistius, above narrated: by the time of the battle
of Kunaxa, the habit had become more widely diffused (Xenoph.
Anabas. i, 8, 6; Brisson, De Regno Persarum, lib. iii, p. 361),
for the cavalry at least.
[364] Herodot. ix, 64, 65.
The Athenians on the left, meanwhile, had been engaged in a serious
conflict with the Bœotians; especially the Theban leaders with the
hoplites immediately around them, who fought with great bravery,
but were at length driven back, after the loss of three hundred of
their best troops. The Theban cavalry, however, still maintained a
good front, protecting the retreat of the infantry and checking the
Athenian pursuit, so that the fugitives were enabled to reach Thebes
in safety; a better refuge than the Persian fortified camp.[365]
With the exception of the Thebans and Bœotians, none of the other
_medizing_ Greeks rendered any real service: instead of sustaining
or reinforcing the Thebans, they never once advanced to the charge,
but merely followed in the first movement of flight. So that, in
point of fact, the only troops in this numerous Perso-Grecian army
who really fought, were the native Persians and Sakæ on the left, and
the Bœotians on the right: the former against the Lacedæmonians, the
latter against the Athenians.[366]
[365] Herodot. ix, 67, 68.
[366] Herodot. ix, 67, 68. Τῶν δὲ ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων τῶν μετὰ βασιλέος
ἐθελοκακεόντων ... καὶ τῶν ἄλλων συμμάχων ὁ πᾶς ὅμιλος οὔτε
διαμαχεσάμενος οὐδενὶ οὔτε τι ἀποδεξάμενος ἔφυγεν.
Nor did even all the native Persians take part in the combat. A
body of forty thousand men under Artabazus, of whom some must
doubtless have been native Persians, left the field without fighting
and without loss. That general, seemingly the ablest man in the
Persian army, had been from the first disgusted with the nomination
of Mardonius as commander-in-chief, and had farther incurred his
displeasure by deprecating any general action. Apprized that
Mardonius was hastening forward to attack the retreating Greeks, he
marshalled his division and led them out towards the scene of action,
though despairing of success, and perhaps not very anxious that his
own prophecies should be contradicted. And such had been the headlong
impetuosity of Mardonius in his first forward movement,—so complete
his confidence of overwhelming the Greeks when he discovered their
retreat,—that he took no pains to insure the concerted action of his
whole army: accordingly, before Artabazus arrived at the scene of
action, he saw the Persian troops, who had been engaged under the
commander-in-chief, already defeated and in flight. Without making
the least attempt either to save them or to retrieve the battle,
he immediately gave orders to his own division to retreat: not
repairing, however, either to the fortified camp, or to Thebes, but
abandoning at once the whole campaign, and taking the direct road
through Phocis to Thessaly, Macedonia, and the Hellespont.[367]
[367] Herodot. ix, 66.
As the native Persians, the Sakæ, and the Bœotians, were the only
real combatants on the one side, so also were the Lacedæmonians,
Tegeans, and Athenians, on the other. It has already been mentioned
that the central troops of the Grecian army, disobeying the general
order of march, had gone during the night to the town of Platæa
instead of to the island. They were thus completely severed from
Pausanias, and the first thing which they heard about the battle,
was, that the Lacedæmonians were gaining the victory. Elate with
this news, and anxious to come in for some share of the honor, they
rushed to the scene of action, without any heed of military order;
the Corinthians taking the direct track across the hills, while
the Megarians, Phliasians, and others, marched by the longer route
along the plain, so as to turn the hills and arrive at the Athenian
position. The Theban horse under Asôpodôrus, employed in checking
the pursuit of the victorious Athenian hoplites, seeing these fresh
troops coming up in thorough disorder, charged them vigorously, and
drove them back to take refuge in the high ground, with the loss
of six hundred men.[368] But this partial success had no effect in
mitigating the ruin of the general defeat.
[368] Herodot. ix, 69.
Following up their pursuit, the Lacedæmonians proceeded to attack
the wooden redoubt wherein the Persians had taken refuge. But though
they were here aided by all or most of the central Grecian divisions,
who had taken no part in the battle, they were yet so ignorant of
the mode of assailing walls, that they made no progress, and were
completely baffled, until the Athenians arrived to their assistance.
The redoubt was then stormed, not without a gallant and prolonged
resistance on the part of its defenders. The Tegeans, being the first
to penetrate into the interior, plundered the rich tent of Mardonius,
whose manger for his horses, made of brass, remained long afterwards
exhibited in their temple of Athênê Alea,—while his silver-footed
throne, and cimeter[369] were preserved in the acropolis of Athens,
along with the breastplate of Masistius. Once within the wall,
effective resistance ceased, and the Greeks slaughtered without mercy
as well as without limit; so that if we are to credit Herodotus,
there survived only three thousand men out of the three hundred
thousand which had composed the army of Mardonius,—save and except
the forty thousand men who accompanied Artabazus in his retreat.[370]
Respecting these numbers, the historian had probably little to give
except some vague reports, without any pretence of computation: about
the Grecian loss, his statement deserves more attention, when he
tells us that there perished ninety-one Spartans, sixteen Tegeans,
and fifty-two Athenians. Herein, however, is not included the loss of
the Megarians when attacked by the Theban cavalry, nor is the number
of slain Lacedæmonians, not Spartans, specified; while even the other
numbers actually stated are decidedly smaller than the probable
truth, considering the multitude of Persian arrows and the unshielded
right side of the Grecian hoplite. On the whole, the affirmation of
Plutarch, that not less than thirteen hundred and sixty Greeks were
slain in the action, appears probable: all doubtless hoplites,—for
little account was then made of the light-armed, nor indeed are we
told that they took any active part in the battle.[371] Whatever may
have been the numerical loss of the Persians, this defeat proved
the total ruin of their army: but we may fairly presume that many
were spared and sold into slavery,[372] while many of the fugitives
probably found means to join the retreating division of Artabazus.
That general made a rapid march across Thessaly and Macedonia,
keeping strict silence about the recent battle, and pretending to be
sent on a special enterprise by Mardonius, whom he reported to be
himself approaching. If Herodotus is correct (though it may well be
doubted whether the change of sentiment in Thessaly and the other
_medizing_ Grecian states was so rapid as he implies), Artabazus
succeeded in traversing these countries before the news of the battle
became generally known, and then retreated by the straightest and
shortest route through the interior of Thrace to Byzantium, from
whence he passed into Asia: the interior tribes, unconquered and
predatory, harassed his retreat considerably; but we shall find long
afterwards Persian garrisons in possession of many principal places
on the Thracian coast.[373] It will be seen that Artabazus afterwards
rose higher than ever in the estimation of Xerxes.
[369] Herodot. ix, 70; Demosthenês cont. Timokrat. p. 741, c. 33.
Pausanias (i, 27, 2) doubts whether this was really the cimeter
of Mardonius, contending that the Lacedæmonians would never have
permitted the Athenians to take it.
[370] Herodot. ix, 70: compare Æschyl. Pers. 805-824. He singles
out “the Dorian spear” as the great weapon of destruction to the
Persians at Platæa,—very justly. Dr. Blomfield is surprised at
this compliment; but it is to be recollected that all the earlier
part of the tragedy had been employed in setting forth the glory
of Athens at Salamis, and he might well afford to give the
Peloponnesians the credit which they derived at Platæa. Pindar
distributes the honor between Sparta and Athens in like manner
(Pyth. i, 76).
[371] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 19. Kleidemus, quoted by Plutarch,
stated that all the fifty-two Athenians who perished belonged
to the tribe Æantis, which distinguished itself in the Athenian
ranks. But it seems impossible to believe that no citizens
belonging to the other nine tribes were killed.
[372] Diodorus, indeed, states that Pausanias was so apprehensive
of the numbers of the Persians, that he forbade his soldiers to
give quarter or take any prisoners (xi, 32); but this is hardly
to be believed, in spite of his assertion. His statement that the
Greeks lost ten thousand men is still less admissible.
[373] Herodot. ix, 89. The allusions of Demosthenês to Perdikkas
king of Macedonia, who is said to have attacked the Persians
on their flight from Platæa, and to have rendered their ruin
complete, are too loose to deserve attention; more especially as
Perdikkas was _not then_ king of Macedonia (Demosthenês cont.
Aristokrat. pp. 687, c. 51; and περὶ Συντάξεως, p. 173, c. 9).
Ten days did the Greeks employ after their victory, first in
burying the slain, next in collecting and apportioning the booty.
The Lacedæmonians, the Athenians, the Tegeans, the Megarians, and
the Phliasians, each buried their dead apart, erecting a separate
tomb in commemoration: the Lacedæmonians, indeed, distributed their
dead into three fractions, in three several burial-places: one for
those champions who enjoyed individual renown at Sparta, and among
whom were included the most distinguished men slain in the recent
battle, such as Poseidonius, Amompharetus, the refractory captain,
Philokyon, and Kallikratês,—a second for the other Spartans and
Lacedæmonians,[374]—and a third for the Helots. Besides these
sepulchral monuments, erected in the neighborhood of Platæa by those
cities whose citizens had really fought and fallen, there were
several similar monuments to be seen in the days of Herodotus, raised
by other cities which falsely pretended to the same honor, with the
connivance and aid of the Platæans.[375] The body of Mardonius was
discovered among the slain, and treated with respect by Pausanias,
who is even said to have indignantly repudiated advice offered to
him by an Æginetan, that he should retaliate upon it the ignominious
treatment inflicted by Xerxes upon the dead Leonidas.[376] On the
morrow, the body was stolen away and buried; by whom, was never
certainly known, for there were many different pretenders who
obtained reward on this plea from Artyntês, the son of Mardonius: the
funereal monument was yet to be seen in the time of the traveller
Pausanias.[377]
[374] Herodot. ix, 84. Herodotus indeed assigns this second
burial-place only to the other _Spartans_, apart from the Select.
He takes no notice of the Lacedæmonians not Spartans, either in
the battle or in reference to burial, though he had informed us
that five thousand of them were included in the army. Some of
them must have been slain, and we may fairly presume that they
were buried along with the Spartan citizens generally. As to
the word ἱρέας, or εἴρενας, or ἱππέας (the two last being both
conjectural readings), it seems impossible to arrive at any
certainty: we do not know by what name these select warriors were
called.
[375] Herodot. ix, 85. Τῶν δ’ ἄλλων ὅσοι καὶ φαίνονται ἐν
Πλαταιῇσι ἐόντες τάφοι, τούτους δὲ, ~ὡς ἐγὼ πυνθάνομαι~,
ἐπαισχυνομένους τῇ ἀπεστοῖ τῆς μάχης, ἑκάστους χώματα χῶσαι
κεινὰ, τῶν ἐπιγινομένων εἵνεκεν ἀνθρώπων· ἐπεὶ καὶ Αἰγινητέων
ἐστὶ αὐτόθι καλεόμενος τάφος, τὸν ἐγὼ ἀκούω καὶ δέκα ἔτεσι
ὕστερον μετὰ ταῦτα, δεηθέντων τῶν Αἰγινητέων, χῶσαι Κλεάδην τὸν
Αὐτοδίκου, ἄνδρα Πλαταιέα, πρόξεινον ἐόντα αὐτῶν.
This is a curious statement, derived by Herodotus doubtless from
personal inquiries made at Platæa.
[376] Herodot. ix, 78, 79. This suggestion, so abhorrent to
Grecian feeling, is put by the historian into the mouth of
the Æginetan Lampôn. In my preceding note, I have alluded to
another statement made by Herodotus, not very creditable to the
Æginetans: there is, moreover, a third (ix, 80), in which he
represents them as having cheated the Helots in their purchases
of the booty. We may presume him to have heard all these
anecdotes at Platæa: at the time when he probably visited that
place, not long before the Peloponnesian war, the inhabitants
were united in the most intimate manner with Athens, and
doubtless sympathized in the hatred of the Athenians against
Ægina. It does not from hence follow that the stories are all
untrue. I disbelieve, indeed, the advice said to have been given
by Lampôn to crucify the body of Mardonius,—which has more the
air of a poetical contrivance for bringing out an honorable
sentiment, than of a real incident. But there seems no reason to
doubt the truth of the other two stories. Herodotus does but too
rarely specify his informants: it is interesting to scent out the
track in which his inquiries have been prosecuted.
After the battle of Kunaxa, and the death of Cyrus the younger,
his dead body had the head and hands cut off, by order of
Artaxerxes, and nailed to a cross (Xenoph. Anab. i, 10, 1; iii,
1, 17).
[377] Herodot. ix, 84; Pausanias, ix, 2, 2.
The spoil was rich and multifarious,—gold and silver in Darics as
well as in implements and ornaments, carpets, splendid arms and
clothing, horses, camels, etc., even the magnificent tent of Xerxes,
left on his retreat with Mardonius, was included.[378] By order of
the general Pausanias, the Helots collected all the valuable articles
into one spot for division; not without stealing many of the golden
ornaments, which, in ignorance of the value, they were persuaded
by the Æginetans to sell as brass. After reserving a tithe for the
Delphian Apollo, together with ample offerings for the Olympic Zeus
and the Isthmian Poseidon, as well as for Pausanias as general,—the
remaining booty was distributed among the different contingents
of the army in proportion to their respective numbers.[379] The
concubines of the Persian chiefs were among the prizes distributed:
there were probably however among them many of Grecian birth,
restored to their families; and one especially, overtaken in her
chariot amidst the flying Persians, with rich jewels and a numerous
suite, threw herself at the feet of Pausanias himself, imploring his
protection. She proved to be the daughter of his personal friend
Hegetoridês, of Kos, carried off by the Persian Pharandatês; and he
had the satisfaction of restoring her to her father.[380] Large as
the booty collected was, there yet remained many valuable treasures
buried in the ground, which the Platæan inhabitants afterwards
discovered and appropriated.
[378] Herodot. ix, 80, 81: compare vii, 41-83.
[379] Diodorus (xi, 33) states this proportional distribution.
Herodotus only says—ἔλαβον ἕκαστοι τῶν ἄξιοι ἦσαν (ix, 81).
[380] Herodot. ix, 76, 80, 81, 82. The fate of these female
companions of the Persian grandees, on the taking of the camp by
an enemy, forms a melancholy picture here as well as at Issus,
and even at Kunaxa: see Diodor. xvii, 35; Quintus Curtius, iii,
xi, 21; Xenoph. Anab. i, 10, 2.
The real victors in the battle of Platæa were the Lacedæmonians,
Athenians, and Tegeans: the Corinthians and others, forming part of
the army opposed to Mardonius, did not reach the field until the
battle was ended, though they doubtless aided both in the assault of
the fortified camp and in the subsequent operations against Thebes,
and were universally recognized, in inscriptions and panegyrics,
among the champions who had contributed to the liberation of
Greece.[381] It was not till after the taking of the Persian camp
that the contingents of Elis and Mantineia, who may perhaps have been
among the convoys prevented by the Persian cavalry from descending
the passes of Kithæron, first reached the scene of action. Mortified
at having missed their share in the glorious exploit, the new-comers
were at first eager to set off in pursuit of Artabazus: but the
Lacedæmonian commander forbade them, and they returned home without
any other consolation than that of banishing their generals for not
having led them forth more promptly.[382]
[381] Plutarch animadverts severely (De Malign. Herodot. p. 873;
compare Plut. Aristeid. c. 19) upon Herodotus, because he states
that none of the Greeks had any share in the battle of Platæa
except the Lacedæmonians, Tegeans, and Athenians: the orator
Lysias repeats the same statement (Oratio Funebr. c. 9).
If this were the fact (Plutarch asks) how comes it that the
inscriptions and poems of the time recognize the exploit as
performed by the whole Grecian army, Corinthians and others
included? But these inscriptions do not really contradict what is
affirmed by Herodotus. The actual battle happened to be fought
only by a part of the collective Grecian army; but this happened
in a great measure by accident; the rest were little more than a
mile off, and until within a few hours had been occupying part of
the same continuous line of position; moreover, if the battle had
lasted a little longer, they would have come up in time to render
actual help. They would naturally be considered, therefore, as
entitled to partake in the glory of the entire result.
When however in after-times a stranger visited Platæa, and saw
Lacedæmonian, Tegean, and Athenian tombs, but no Corinthian nor
Æginetan, etc., he would naturally inquire how it happened that
none of these latter had fallen in the battle, and would then
be informed that they were not really present at it. Hence the
motive for these cities to erect empty sepulchral monuments on
the spot, as Herodotus informs us that they afterwards did or
caused to be done by individual Platæans.
[382] Herodot. ix, 77.
There yet remained the most efficient ally of Mardonius,—the city
of Thebes; which Pausanias summoned on the eleventh day after the
battle, requiring that the _medizing_ leaders should be delivered
up, especially Timêgenidas and Attagînus. On receiving a refusal, he
began to batter their walls, and to adopt the still more effective
measure of laying waste their territory,—giving notice that the work
of destruction would be continued until these chiefs were given up.
After twenty days of endurance, the latter at length proposed, if
it should prove that Pausanias peremptorily required their persons
and refused to accept a sum of money in commutation, to surrender
themselves voluntarily as the price of liberation for their country.
A negotiation was accordingly entered into with Pausanias, and the
persons demanded were surrendered to him, excepting Attagînus, who
found means to escape at the last moment. His sons, whom he left
behind, were delivered up as substitutes, but Pausanias refused to
touch them, with the just remark, which in those times was even
generous,[383] that they were nowise implicated in the _medism_
of their father. Timêgenidas and the remaining prisoners were
carried off to Corinth, and immediately put to death, without the
smallest discussion or form of trial: Pausanias was apprehensive
that if any delay or consultation were granted, their wealth and
that of their friends would effectually purchase voices for their
acquittal,—indeed, the prisoners themselves had been induced to give
themselves up partly in that expectation.[384] It is remarkable that
Pausanias himself, only a few years afterwards, when attainted of
treason, returned and surrendered himself at Sparta, under similar
hopes of being able to buy himself off by money.[385] In this hope,
indeed, he found himself deceived, as Timêgenidas had been deceived
before: but the fact is not the less to be noted, as indicating
the general impression that the leading men in a Grecian city were
usually open to bribes in judicial matters, and that individuals
superior to this temptation were rare exceptions. I shall have
occasion to dwell upon this recognized untrustworthiness of the
leading Greeks when I come to explain the extremely popular cast of
the Athenian judicature.
[383] See, a little above in this chapter, the treatment of the
wife and children of the Athenian senator Lykidas (Herodot. ix,
5). Compare also Herodot. iii, 116; ix, 120.
[384] Herodot. ix, 87, 88.
[385] Thucyd. i, 131. καὶ πιστεύων χρήμασι διαλύσειν τὴν
διαβολήν. Compare Thucyd. viii, 45, where he states that the
trierarchs and generals of the Lacedæmonian and allied fleet,
all except Hermokratês of Syracuse, received bribes from
Tissaphernes to betray the interests both of their seamen and of
their country: also c. 49 of the same book about the Lacedæmonian
general Astyochus. The bribes received by the Spartan kings
Leotychidês and Pleistoanax are recorded (Herodot. vi, 72;
Thucyd. ii, 21).
Whether there was any positive vote taken among the Greeks respecting
the prize of valor at the battle of Platæa, may well be doubted: and
the silence of Herodotus goes far to negative an important statement
of Plutarch, that the Athenians and Lacedæmonians were on the point
of coming to an open rupture, each thinking themselves entitled to
the prize,—that Aristeidês appeased the Athenians, and prevailed
upon them to submit to the general decision of the allies,—and that
Megarian and Corinthian leaders contrived to elude the dangerous
rock by bestowing the prize on the Platæans, to which proposition
both Aristeidês and Pausanias acceded.[386] But it seems that the
general opinion recognized the Lacedæmonians and Pausanias as bravest
among the brave, seeing that they had overcome the best troops of
the enemy and slain the general. In burying their dead warriors,
the Lacedæmonians singled out for peculiar distinction Philokyon,
Poseidonius, and Amompharetus the lochage, whose conduct in the
fight atoned for his disobedience to orders. There was one Spartan,
however, who had surpassed them all,—Aristodêmus, the single survivor
of the troop of Leonidas at Thermopylæ. Having ever since experienced
nothing but disgrace and insult from his fellow-citizens, this
unfortunate man had become reckless of life, and at Platæa he stepped
forth single-handed from his place in the ranks, performing deeds
of the most heroic valor, and determined to regain by his death the
esteem of his countrymen. But the Spartans refused to assign to him
the same funereal honors as were paid to the other distinguished
warriors, who had manifested exemplary forwardness and skill, yet
without any desperate rashness, and without any previous taint such
as to render life a burden to them. Subsequent valor might be held to
efface this taint, but could not suffice to exalt Aristodêmus to a
level with the most honored citizens.[387]
[386] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 20; De Herodot. Malign. p. 873.
[387] Herodot. iv, 71, 72.
But though we cannot believe the statement of Plutarch, that the
Platæans received by general vote the prize of valor, it is certain
that they were largely honored and recompensed, as the proprietors
of that ground on which the liberation of Greece had been achieved.
The market-place and centre of their town was selected as the scene
for the solemn sacrifice of thanksgiving, offered up by Pausanias,
after the battle, to Zeus Eleutherius, in the name and presence of
all the assembled allies. The local gods and heroes of the Platæan
territory, who had been invoked in prayer before the battle, and who
had granted their soil as a propitious field for the Greek arms,
were made partakers of this ceremony, and witnesses as well as
guarantees of the engagements with which it was accompanied.[388]
The Platæans, now re-entering their city, which the Persian invasion
had compelled them to desert, were invested with the honorable duty
of celebrating the periodical sacrifice in commemoration of this
great victory, as well as of rendering care and religious service
at the tombs of the fallen warriors. As an aid to enable them to
discharge this obligation, which probably might have pressed hard
upon them at a time when their city was half-ruined and their fields
unsown, they received out of the prize-money the large allotment of
eighty talents, which was partly employed in building and adorning a
handsome temple of Athênê,—the symbol probably of renewed connection
with Athens. They undertook to render religious honors every year
to the tombs of the warriors, and to celebrate in every fifth year
the grand public solemnity of the Eleutheria with gymnastic matches
analogous to the other great festival games of Greece.[389] In
consideration of the discharge of these duties, together with the
sanctity of the ground, Pausanias, and the whole body of allies,
bound themselves by oath to guarantee the autonomy of Platæa, and
the inviolability of her territory. This was an emancipation of the
town from the bond of the Bœotian federation, and from the enforcing
supremacy of Thebes as its chief.
[388] Thucyd. ii, 71, 72. So the Roman emperor Vitellius, on
visiting the field of Bebriacum, where his troops had recently
been victorious, “instaurabat sacrum Diis loci.” (Tacitus,
Histor. ii, 70.)
[389] Thucyd. ii, 71; Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 19-21; Strabo, ix,
p. 412; Pausanias, ix, 2, 4.
The Eleutheria were celebrated on the fourth of the Attic month
Boedromion, which was the day on which the battle itself was
fought; while the annual decoration of the tombs, and ceremonies
in honor of the deceased, took place on the sixteenth of the
Attic month Mæmaktêrion. K. F. Hermann (Gottesdienstliche
Alterthümer der Griechen, ch. 63, note 9) has treated these two
celebrations as if they were one.
But the engagement of the allies appears to have had other objects
also, larger than that of protecting Platæa, or establishing
commemorative ceremonies. The defensive league against the Persians
was again sworn to by all of them, and rendered permanent: an
aggregate force of ten thousand hoplites, one thousand cavalry,
and one hundred triremes, for the purpose of carrying on the war,
was agreed to and promised, the contingent of each ally being
specified: moreover, the town of Platæa was fixed on as the annual
place of meeting, where deputies from all of them were annually to
assemble.[390] This resolution is said to have been adopted on the
proposition of Aristeidês, whose motives it is not difficult to
trace. Though the Persian army had sustained a signal defeat, no
one knew how soon it might reassemble, or be reinforced; indeed,
even later, after the battle of Mykalê had become known, a fresh
invasion of the Persians was still regarded as not improbable,[391]
nor did any one then anticipate that extraordinary fortune and
activity whereby the Athenians afterwards organized an alliance such
as to throw Persia on the defensive. Moreover, the northern half of
Greece was still _medizing_, either in reality or in appearance,
and new efforts on the part of Xerxes might probably keep up his
ascendency in those parts. Now assuming the war to be renewed,
Aristeidês and the Athenians had the strongest interest in providing
a line of defence which should cover Attica as well as Peloponnesus,
and in preventing the Peloponnesians from confining themselves to
their isthmus, as they had done before. To take advantage for this
purpose of the new-born reverence and gratitude which now bound
the Lacedæmonians to Platæa, was an idea eminently suitable to the
moment, though the unforeseen subsequent start of Athens, combined
with other events, prevented both the extensive alliance and the
inviolability of Platæa, projected by Aristeidês, from taking
effect.[392]
[390] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 21.
[391] Thucyd. i, 90.
[392] It is to this general and solemn meeting, held at Platæa
after the victory, that we might probably refer another vow
noticed by the historians and orators of the subsequent century,
if that vow were not of suspicious authenticity. The Greeks,
while promising faithful attachment, and continued peaceful
dealing among themselves, and engaging at the same time to amerce
in a tithe of their property all who had _medized_,—are said to
have vowed that they would not repair or rebuild the temples
which the Persian invader had burnt; but would leave them in
their half-ruined condition as a monument of his sacrilege.
Some of the injured temples near Athens were seen in their
half-burnt state even by the traveller Pausanias (x, 35, 2),
in his time. Periklês, forty years after the battle, tried to
convoke a Pan-Hellenic assembly at Athens, for the purpose of
deliberating what should be done with these temples (Plutarch,
Periklês, c. 17). Yet Theopompus pronounced this alleged oath to
be a fabrication, though both the orator Lykurgus and Diodorus
profess to report it verbatim. We may safely assert that the
oath, _as they give it_, is not genuine; but perhaps the vow of
tithing those who had voluntarily joined Xerxes, which Herodotus
refers to an earlier period, when success was doubtful, may now
have been renewed in the moment of victory: see Diodor. ix,
29; Lykurgus cont. Leokrat. c. 19, p. 193; Polybius, ix, 33;
Isokrates, Or. iv; Panegyr. c. 41, p. 74; Theopompus, Fragm. 167,
ed. Didot; Suidas, v. Δεκατεύειν, Cicero de Republicâ, iii, 9,
and the beginning of the chapter last but one preceding, of this
history.
On the same day that Pausanias and the Grecian land army conquered
at Platæa, the naval armament under Leotychidês and Xanthippus
was engaged in operations hardly less important, at Mykalê on the
Asiatic coast. The Grecian commanders of the fleet, which numbered
one hundred and ten triremes, having advanced as far as Delos, were
afraid to proceed farther eastward, or to undertake any offensive
operations against the Persians at Samos, for the rescue of
Ionia,—although Ionian envoys, especially from Chios and Samos, had
urgently solicited aid both at Sparta and at Delos. Three Samians,
one of them named Hegesistratus, came to assure Leotychidês, that
their countrymen were ready to revolt from the despot Theomêstor,
whom the Persians had installed there, so soon as the Greek fleet
should appear off the island. In spite of emphatic appeals to
the community of religion and race, Leotychidês was long deaf to
the entreaty; but his reluctance gradually gave way before the
persevering earnestness of the orator. While yet not thoroughly
determined, he happened to ask the Samian speaker what was his name.
To which the latter replied, “Hegesistratus, _i. e._ army-leader.” “I
accept Hegesistratus as an omen (replied Leotychidês, struck with
the significance of this name), pledge thou thy faith to accompany
us,—let thy companions prepare the Samians to receive us, and we will
go forthwith.” Engagements were at once exchanged, and while the
other two envoys were sent forward to prepare matters in the island,
Hegesistratus remained to conduct the fleet, which was farther
encouraged by favorable sacrifices, and by the assurances of the
prophet Dêiphonus, hired from the Corinthian colony of Apollonia.[393]
[393] Herodot. ix, 91, 92, 95; viii, 132, 133. The prophet of
Mardonius at Platæa bore the same name, and was probably the more
highly esteemed for it (Herodot. ix, 37).
Diodorus states the fleet as comprising two hundred and fifty
triremes (xi, 34).
The anecdotes respecting the Apolloniate Euenius, the father
of Deïphonus, will be found curious and interesting (Herodot.
ix, 98, 94). Euenius, as a recompense for having been unjustly
blinded by his countrymen, had received from the gods the grant
of prophecy transmissible to his descendants: a new prophetic
breed was thus created, alongside of the Iamids, Telliads,
Klytiads, etc.
When they reached the Heræum near Kalami in Samos,[394] and had
prepared themselves for a naval engagement, they discovered that
the enemy’s fleet had already been withdrawn from the island to
the neighboring continent. For the Persian commanders had been so
disheartened with the defeat of Salamis that they were not disposed
to fight again at sea: we do not know the numbers of their fleet,
but perhaps a considerable proportion of it may have consisted of
Ionic Greeks, whose fidelity was now very doubtful. Having abandoned
the idea of a sea-fight, they permitted their Phenician squadron to
depart, and sailed with their remaining fleet to the promontory of
Mykalê near Miletus.[395] Here they were under the protection of a
land-force of sixty thousand men, under the command of Tigranês,—the
main reliance of Xerxes for the defence of Ionia: the ships were
dragged ashore, and a rampart of stones and stakes was erected to
protect them, while the defending army lined the shore, and seemed
amply sufficient to repel attack from seaward.[396]
[394] Herodot. ix, 96. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐγένοντο τῆς Σαμίης πρὸς
Καλάμοισι, οἱ μὲν αὐτοῦ ὁρμισάμενοι ~κατὰ τὸ Ἡραῖον τὸ ταύτῃ~,
παρεσκευάζοντο ἐς ναυμαχίην.
It is by no means certain that the Heræum here indicated is the
celebrated temple which stood near the city of Samos (iii, 80):
the words of Herodotus rather seem to indicate that another
temple of Hêrê, in some other part of the island, is intended.
[395] Herodotus describes the Persian position by topographical
indications known to his readers, but not open to be determined
by us,—Gæson, Skolopœis, the chapel of Dêmêtêr, built by
Philistus, one of the primitive colonists of Miletus, etc. (ix,
96): from the language of Herodotus, we may suppose that Gæson
was the name of a town as well as of a river (Ephonas ap. Athenæ.
vi, p. 311).
The eastern promontory (cape Poseidion) of Samos was separated
only by seven stadia from Mykalê (Strabo, xiv, p. 637), near to
the place where Glaukê was situated (Thucyd. viii. 79),—modern
observers make the distance rather more than a mile (Poppo,
Prolegg. ad Thucyd. vol. ii, p. 465).
[396] Herodot. ix, 96, 97.
It was not long before the Greek fleet arrived. Disappointed of their
intention of fighting, by the flight of the enemy from Samos, they
had at first proposed either to return home, or to turn aside to the
Hellespont: but they were at last persuaded by the Ionian envoys
to pursue the enemy’s fleet and again offer battle at Mykalê. On
reaching that point, they discovered that the Persians had abandoned
the sea, intending to fight only on land. So much had the Greeks
now become emboldened, that they ventured to disembark and attack
the united land-force and sea-force before them: but since much of
their chance of success depended on the desertion of the Ionians, the
first proceeding of Leotychidês was, to copy the previous manœuvre of
Themistoklês, when retreating from Artemisium, at the watering-places
of Eubœa. Sailing along close to the coast, he addressed, through
a herald of loud voice, earnest appeals to the Ionians among the
enemy to revolt; calculating, even if they did not listen to him,
that he should at least render them mistrusted by the Persians. He
then disembarked his troops and marshalled them for the purpose of
attacking the Persian camp on land; while the Persian generals,
surprised by this daring manifestation, and suspecting, either from
his manœuvre or from previous evidences, that the Ionians were in
secret collusion with him, ordered the Samian contingent to be
disarmed, and the Milesians to retire to the rear of the army, for
the purpose of occupying the various mountain roads up to the summit
of Mykalê,—with which the latter were familiar as a part of their
own territory.[397]
[397] Herodot. ix, 98, 99, 104.
Serving as these Greeks in the fleet were, at a distance from their
own homes, and having left a powerful army of Persians and Greeks
under Mardonius in Bœotia, they were of course full of anxiety lest
his arms might prove victorious and extinguish the freedom of their
country. It was under these feelings of solicitude for their absent
brethren that they disembarked, and were made ready for attack by the
afternoon. But it was the afternoon of an ever-memorable day,—the
fourth of the month Boëdromion (about September) 479 B. C. By a
remarkable coincidence, the victory of Platæa in Bœotia had been
gained by Pausanias that very morning. At the moment when the Greeks
were advancing to the charge, a divine phêmê, or message, flew into
the camp,—whilst a herald’s staff was seen floated to the shore by
the western wave, the symbol of electric transmission across the
Ægean;—the revelation, sudden, simultaneous, irresistible, struck
at once upon the minds of all, as if the multitude had one common
soul and sense, acquainting them that on that very morning their
countrymen in Bœotia had gained a complete victory over Mardonius. At
once the previous anxiety was dissipated, and the whole army, full
of joy and confidence, charged with redoubled energy. Such is the
account given by Herodotus,[398] and doubtless universally accepted
in his time, when the combatants of Mykalê were alive to tell their
own story: he moreover mentions another of those coincidences which
the Greek mind always seized upon with so much avidity, there was a
chapel of Eleusinian Dêmêtêr close to the field of battle at Mykalê
as well as at Platæa. Diodorus and other later writers,[399] who
wrote when the impressions of the time had vanished, and when divine
interventions were less easily and literally admitted, treat the
whole proceeding as if it were a report designedly circulated by the
generals, for the purpose of encouraging their army.
[398] Herodot. ix, 100, 101. ἰοῦσι δέ σφι (Ἕλλησι) ~φήμη τε
ἐσέπτατο ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδον πᾶν~, καὶ κηρυκήϊον ἐφάνη ἐπὶ τῆς
κυματωγῆς κείμενον. ~ἡ δὲ φήμη διῆλθέ σφι ὧδε~, ὡς οἱ Ἕλληνες
τὴν Μαρδονίου στρατιὴν νικῷεν ἐν Βοιωτίῃ μαχόμενοι. Δῆλα δὴ
πολλοῖσι τεκμηρίοισί ἐστι τὰ θεῖα τῶν πρηγμάτων· εἰ καὶ τότε
τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρης συμπιπτούσης τοῦ τε ἐν Πλαταιῇσι καὶ τοῦ ἐν
Μυκάλῃ μέλλοντος ἔσεσθαι τρώματος, φήμη τοῖσι Ἕλλησι τοῖσι ταύτῃ
ἐσαπίκετο, ὥστε θαρσῆσαί τε τὴν στρατιὴν πολλῷ μᾶλλον, καὶ
ἐθέλειν προθυμότερον κινδυνεύειν ... γεγονέναι δὲ νίκην τῶν μετὰ
Παυσανίεω Ἑλλήνων ~ὀρθῶς σφι ἡ φήμη συνέβαινε ἐλθοῦσα~· τὸ μὲν
γὰρ ἐν Πλαταιῇσι πρωῒ ἔτι τῆς ἡμέρης ἐγίνετο· τὸ δὲ ἐν Μυκάλῃ,
περὶ δείλην ... ἦν δὲ ἀῤῥωδίη σφι πρὶν τὴν φήμην ἐσαπικέσθαι,
οὔτι περὶ σφέων αὐτῶν οὕτω, ὡς τῶν Ἑλλήνων, μὴ περὶ Μαρδονίῳ
πταίσῃ ἡ Ἑλλάς, ὡς μέντοι ~ἡ κλῃδὼν αὕτη σφι ἐσέπτατο~, μᾶλλόν
τι καὶ ταχύτερον τὴν πρόσοδον ἐποιεῦντο: compare Plutarch, Paul.
Emilius, c. 24, 25, about the battle of Pydna. The φήμη which
circulated through the assembled army of Mardonius in Bœotia,
respecting his intention to kill the Phocians, turned out
incorrect (Herodot. ix, 17).
Two passages in Æschines (cont. Timarchum. c. 27, p. 57, and
De Fals. Legat. c. 45, p. 290) are peculiarly valuable as
illustrating the ancient idea of Φήμη,—a divine voice, or vocal
goddess, generally considered as informing a crowd of persons
at once, or moving them all by one and the same unanimous
feeling,—the Vox Dei passing into the Vox Populi. There was an
altar to Φήμη at Athens (Pausan. i, 17, 1); compare Hesiod. Opp.
Di. 761, and the Ὄσσα of Homer, which is essentially the same
idea as Φήμη: Iliad, ii, 93. μετὰ δέ σφισιν Ὄσσα δεδῄει Ὀτρύνουσ’
ἰέναι, Διὸς ἄγγελος; also Odyssey, i, 282—opposed to the idea of
a distinct human speaker or informant—ἤν τίς τοι εἴπῃσι βροτῶν,
ἢ Ὄσσαν ἀκούσῃς Ἐκ Διὸς, ἥτε μάλιστα φέρει κλέος ἀνθρώποισι;
and Odyss. xxiv, 412. Ὄσσα δ’ ἄρ’ ἄγγελος ὦκα κατὰ πτόλιν ᾤχετο
πάντη, Μνηστήρων στυγερὸν θάνατον καὶ κῆρ’ ἐνέπουσα. The word
κλῃδὼν is used in the same meaning by Sophokles, Philoktet. 255
(see Andokides de Mysteriis, c. 22, p. 64): and Herodotus in the
passage now before us considers the two as identical,—compare
also Herodot. v, 72: both words are used also to signify an
omen conveyed by some undesigned human word or speech, which in
that particular case is considered as determined by the special
intervention of the gods for the information of some person who
hears it: see Homer, Odyss. xx, 100: compare also Aristophan.
Aves, 719; Sophoklês, Œdip. Tyr. 43-472; Xenophon, Symposion, c.
14, s. 48.
The descriptions of _Fama_ by Virgil, Æneid, iv, 17 6, _seqq._,
and Ovid Metamorph. xii, 40, _seqq._, are more diffuse and
overcharged, departing from the simplicity of the Greek
conception.
We may notice, as partial illustrations of what is here intended,
those sudden, unaccountable impressions of panic terror which
occasionally ran through the ancient armies or assembled
multitudes, and which were supposed to be produced by Pan or by
Nymphs—indeed sudden, violent, and contagious impressions of
every kind, not merely of fear. Livy, x, 28. “Victorem equitatum
velut _lymphaticus_ pavor dissipat.” ix, 27. “Milites, incertum
ob quam causam, _lymphatis_ similes ad arma discurrunt,”—in
Greek, νυμφόληπτοι: compare Polyæn, iv. 3, 26, and an instructive
note of Mutzel, ad Quint. Curt. iv, 46, 1 (iv, 12, 14).
But I cannot better illustrate that idea, which the Greeks
invested with divinity under the name of Φήμη, than by
transcribing a striking passage from M. Michelet’s Histoire de la
Révolution Françoise. The illustration is the more instructive,
because the religious point of view, which in Herodotus is
predominant,—and which, to the believing mind, furnishes an
explanation preëminently satisfactory,—has passed away in the
historian of the nineteenth century, and gives place to a graphic
description of the real phenomenon, of high importance in human
affairs; the common susceptibilities, common inspiration and
common spontaneous impulse, of a multitude, effacing for the time
each man’s separate individuality.
M. Michelet is about to describe that ever-memorable event, the
capture of the Bastile, on the 14th of July, 1789 (ch. vii, vol.
i, p. 105).
“Versailles, avec un gouvernement organisé, un roi, des
ministres, un général, une armée, n’étoit qu’hésitation, doute,
incertitude, dans la plus complète anarchie morale.
“Paris, bouleversé, délaissé de toute autorité légale, dans un
désordre apparent, atteignit, le 14 Juillet, ce qui moralement
est l’ordre le plus profond, l’unanimité des esprits.
“Le 13 Juillet, Paris ne songeait qu’à se defendre. Le 14, il
attaqua.
“Le 13, au soir, il y avoit encore des doutes, il n’y en eut plus
le matin. Le soir étoit plein de troubles, de fureur désordonnée.
Le matin fut lumineux et d’une sérénité terrible.
“_Une idée se leva sur Paris avec le jour, et tous virent la même
lumière. Une lumière dans les esprits, et dans chaque cœur une
voix_: Va, et tu prendras la Bastille!
“Cela étoit impossible, insensé, étrange à dire;... Et tous le
crurent néanmoins. Et cela se fit.
“La Bastille, pour être une vieille forteresse, n’en étoit pas
moins imprenable, à moins d’y mettre plusieurs jours, et beaucoup
d’artillerie. Le peuple n’avoit en cette crise ni le temps ni les
moyens de faire un siége régulier. L’eût il fait, la Bastille
n’avoit pas à craindre, ayant assez de vivres pour attendre
un secours si proche, et d’immenses munitions de guerre. Ses
murs de dix pieds d’épaisseur au sommet des tours, de trente et
quarante à la base, pouvaient rire longtemps des boulets: et ses
batteries, à elle, dont le feu plongeoit sur Paris, auroient pu
en attendant démolir tout le Marais, tout le Faubourg St. Antoine.
“L’attaque de la Bastille ne fut un acte nullement raisonnable.
Ce fut un acte de foi.
“_Personne ne proposa. Mais tous crurent et tous agirent._ Le
long des rues, des quais, des ponts, des boulevards, la foule
criait à la foule—à la Bastille—à la Bastille. Et dans le tocsin
qui sonnoit, tous entendoient: à la Bastille.
“_Personne, je le répète, ne donna l’impulsion._ Les parleurs
du Palais Royal passèrent le temps à dresser une liste de
proscription, à juger à mort la Reine, la Polignac, Artois, le
prévôt Flesselles, d’autres encore. Les noms des vainqueurs de la
Bastille n’offrent pas un seul des faiseurs de motions. Le Palais
Royal ne fut pas le point de départ, et ce n’est pas non plus au
Palais Royal que les vainqueurs raménèrent les depouilles et les
prisonniers.
“Encore moins les électeurs qui siégeaient à l’Hotel de Ville
eurent ils l’idée de l’attaque. Loin de là, pour l’empêcher,
pour prévenir le carnage que la Bastille pouvoit faire si
aisément, ils allèrent jusqu’à promettre au gouverneur, que s’il
retirait ses canons, on ne l’attaqueroit pas. Les électeurs ne
trahissoient pas comme ils en furent accusés; mais ils n’avoient
pas la foi.
“Qui l’eut? Celui qui eut aussi le dévoument, la force, pour
accomplir sa foi. Qui? Le peuple, tout le monde.”
[399] Diodor. xi, 35; Polyæn. i, 33. Justin (ii, 14) is
astonished in relating “tantam famæ velocitatem.”
The Lacedæmonians on the right wing, and the portion of the army
near them, had a difficult path before them, over hilly ground and
ravine; while the Athenians, Corinthians, Sikyonians, and Trœzenians,
and the left half of the army, marching only along the beach, came
much sooner into conflict with the enemy. The Persians, as at Platæa,
employed their _gerrha_, or wicker bucklers, planted by spikes in
the ground, as a breastwork, from behind which they discharged
their arrows, and they made a strenuous resistance to prevent this
defence from being overthrown. Ultimately, the Greeks succeeded
in demolishing it, and in driving the enemy into the interior of
the fortification, where they in vain tried to maintain themselves
against the ardor of the pursuers, who forced their way into it
almost along with the defenders. Even when this last rampart was
carried, and when the Persian allies had fled, the native Persians
still continued to prolong the struggle with undiminished bravery.
Unpractised in line and drill, and acting only in small knots,[400]
with disadvantages of armor, such as had been felt severely at
Platæa, they still maintained an unequal conflict with the Greek
hoplites; nor was it until the Lacedæmonians with their half of the
army arrived to join in the attack, that the defence was abandoned
as hopeless. The revolt of the Ionians in the camp put the finishing
stroke to this ruinous defeat: first, the disarmed Samians; next,
other Ionians and Æolians; lastly, the Milesians who had been posted
to guard the passes in the rear, not only deserted, but took an
active part in the attack; and the Milesians especially, to whom the
Persians had trusted for guidance up to the summits of Mykalê, led
them by wrong roads, threw them into the hands of their pursuers, and
at last set upon them with their own hands. A large number of the
native Persians, together with both the generals of the land-force,
Tigranês and Mardontês, perished in this disastrous battle: the two
Persian admirals, Artayntês and Ithamithrês, escaped, but the army
was irretrievably dispersed, while all the ships which had been
dragged up on the shore fell into the hands of the assailants, and
were burned. But the victory of the Greeks was by no means bloodless:
among the left wing, upon which the brunt of the action had fallen,
a considerable number of men were slain, especially Sikyonians,
with their commander Perilaus.[401] The honors of the battle were
awarded, first to the Athenians, next to the Corinthians, Sikyonians,
and Trœzenians; the Lacedæmonians having done comparatively little.
Hermolykus the Athenian, a celebrated pankratiast, was the warrior
most distinguished for individual feats of arms.[402]
[400] Herodot. ix, 102, 103. Οὗτοι δὲ (Πέρσαι), κατ’ ὀλίγους
γινόμενοι, ἐμάχοντο τοῖσι αἰεὶ ἐς τὸ τεῖχος ἐσπίπτουσι Ἑλλήνων.
[401] Herodot. ix, 104, 105. Diodorus (xi, 36) seems to follow
different authorities from Herodotus: his statement varies in
many particulars, but is less probable.
Herodotus does not specify the loss on either side, nor Diodorus
that of the Greeks; but the latter says that forty thousand
Persians and allies were slain.
[402] Herodot. ix, 105.
The dispersed Persian army, so much of it at least as had at first
found protection on the heights of Mykalê, was withdrawn from the
coast forthwith to Sardis under the command of Artayntês, whom
Masistês, the brother of Xerxes, bitterly reproached on the score
of cowardice in the recent defeat: the general was at length so
maddened by a repetition of these insults, that he drew his cimeter
and would have slain Masistês, had he not been prevented by a Greek
of Halikarnassus named Xenagoras,[403] who was rewarded by Xerxes
with the government of Kilikia. Xerxes was still at Sardis, where he
had remained ever since his return, and where he conceived a passion
for the wife of his brother Masistês; the consequences of his passion
entailed upon that unfortunate woman sufferings too tragical to be
described, by the orders of his own queen, the jealous and savage
Amêstris.[404] But he had no fresh army ready to send down to the
coast, so that the Greek cities, even on the continent, were for the
time practically liberated from Persian supremacy, while the insular
Greeks were in a position of still greater safety.
[403] Herodot. ix, 107. I do not know whether we may suppose
Herodotus to have heard this from his fellow-citizen Xenagoras.
[404] Herodot. ix, 108-113. He gives the story at considerable
length: it illustrates forcibly and painfully the interior of the
Persian regal palace.
The commanders of the victorious Grecian fleet had full confidence
in their power of defending the islands, and willingly admitted the
Chians, Samians, Lesbians, and the other islanders hitherto subjects
of Persia, to the protection and reciprocal engagements of their
alliance. We may presume that the despots Stratis and Theomêstor were
expelled from Chios and Samos.[405] But the Peloponnesian commanders
hesitated in guaranteeing the same secure autonomy to the continental
cities, which could not be upheld against the great inland power
without efforts incessant as well as exhausting. Nevertheless, not
enduring to abandon these continental Ionians to the mercy of Xerxes,
they made the offer to transplant them into European Greece, and to
make room for them by expelling the _medizing_ Greeks from their
seaport towns. But this proposition was at once repudiated by the
Athenians, who would not permit that colonies originally planted
by themselves should be abandoned, thus impairing the metropolitan
dignity of Athens.[406] The Lacedæmonians readily acquiesced in this
objection, and were glad, in all probability, to find honorable
grounds for renouncing a scheme of wholesale dispossession eminently
difficult to execute,[407]—yet, at the same time, to be absolved
from onerous obligations towards the Ionians, and to throw upon
Athens either the burden of defending or the shame of abandoning
them. The first step was thus taken, which we shall quickly see
followed by others, for giving to Athens a separate ascendency and
separate duties in regard to the Asiatic Greeks, and for introducing
first, the confederacy of Delos,—next, Athenian maritime empire.
[405] Herodot. viii, 132.
[406] Herodot. ix, 106; Diodor. xi, 37. The latter represents the
Ionians and Æolians as having actually consented to remove into
European Greece, and indeed the Athenians themselves as having at
first consented to it, though the latter afterwards repented and
opposed the scheme.
[407] Such wholesale transportations of population from one
continent to another have always been more or less in the habits
of Oriental despots, the Persians in ancient times and the Turks
in more modern times: to a conjunction of free states, like the
Greeks, they must have been impracticable.
See Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, vol. i, book
vi, p. 251, for the forced migrations of people from Asia into
Europe, directed by the Turkish Sultan Bajazet (A. D. 1390-1400).
From the coast of Ionia the Greek fleet sailed northward to the
Hellespont, chiefly at the instance of the Athenians, and for the
purpose of breaking down the Xerxeian bridge; for so imperfect was
their information, that they believed this bridge to be still firm
and in passable condition in September, 479 B. C., though it had
been broken and useless at the time when Xerxes crossed the strait
in his retreat, ten months before, about November, 480 B. C.[408]
Having ascertained on their arrival at Abydos the destruction of the
bridge, Leotychidês and the Peloponnesians returned home forthwith;
but Xanthippus with the Athenian squadron resolved to remain and
expel the Persians from the Thracian Chersonese. This peninsula had
been in great part an Athenian possession, for the space of more than
forty years, from the first settlement of the elder Miltiadês[409]
down to the suppression of the Ionic revolt, although during part
of that time tributary to Persia: from the flight of the second
Miltiadês to the expulsion of Xerxes from Greece (493-480 B. C.), a
period during which the Persian monarch was irresistible and full
of hatred to Athens, no Athenian citizen would find it safe to live
there. But the Athenian squadron from Mykalê were now naturally
eager both to reëstablish the ascendency of Athens and to regain the
properties of Athenian citizens in the Chersonese,—probably many of
the leading men, especially Kimon, son of Miltiadês, had extensive
possessions there to recover, as Alkibiades had in after days, with
private forts of his own.[410] To this motive for attacking the
Chersonese may be added another,—the importance of its corn-produce
as well as of a clear passage through the Hellespont for the corn
ships out of the Propontis to Athens and Ægina.[411] Such were the
reasons which induced Xanthippus and the leading Athenians, even
without the coöperation of the Peloponnesians, to undertake the
siege of Sestus,—the strongest place in the peninsula, the key of
the strait, and the centre in which all the neighboring Persian
garrisons, from Kardia and elsewhere, had got together, under Œobazus
and Artayktês.[412]
[408] Herodot. viii, 115, 117; ix, 106, 114.
[409] See the preceding volume of this history, ch. xxx, p 119;
ch. xxxiv, p. 271; ch. xxxv, p. 307.
[410] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5. 17. τὰ ἑαυτοῦ τείχη.
[411] Herodot. vii, 147. Schol. ad Aristophan. Equites, 262.
In illustration of the value set by Athens upon the command of
the Hellespont, see Demosthenês, De Fals. Legat. c. 59.
[412] Herodot. ix, 114, 115. Σηστὸν—φρούριον καὶ φυλακὴν τοῦ
παντὸς Ἑλλησπόντου—Thucyd. viii, 62: compare Xenophon, Hellenic.
ii, 1, 25.
The Grecian inhabitants of the Chersonese readily joined the
Athenians in expelling the Persians, who, taken altogether by
surprise, had been constrained to throw themselves into Sestus,
without stores of provisions or means of making a long defence.
But of all the Chersonesites the most forward and exasperated were
the inhabitants of Elæus,—the southernmost town of the peninsula,
celebrated for its tomb, temple, and sacred grove of the hero
Protesilaus, who figured in the Trojan legend as the foremost warrior
in the host of Agamemnon to leap ashore, and as the first victim to
the spear of Hektor. The temple of Protesilaus, conspicuously placed
on the sea-shore,[413] was a scene of worship and pilgrimage not
merely for the inhabitants of Elæus, but also for the neighboring
Greeks generally, insomuch that it had been enriched with ample
votive offerings, and probable deposits for security,—money, gold
and silver saucers, brazen implements, robes, and various other
presents. The story ran, that when Xerxes was on his march across
the Hellespont into Greece, Artayktês, greedy of all this wealth,
and aware that the monarch would not knowingly permit the sanctuary
to be despoiled, preferred a wily request to him: “Master, here is
the house of a Greek, who, in invading thy territory, met his just
reward and perished: I pray thee give his house to me, in order
that people may learn for the future not to invade _thy_ land,”—the
whole soil of Asia being regarded by the Persian monarchs as their
rightful possession, and Protesilaus having been in this sense an
aggressor against them. Xerxes, interpreting the request literally,
and not troubling himself to ask who the invader was, consented:
upon which, Artayktês, while the army were engaged in their forward
march into Greece, stripped the sacred grove of Protesilaus,
carrying all the treasures to Sestus. Nor was he content without
still farther outraging Grecian sentiment: he turned cattle into the
grove, ploughed and sowed it, and was even said to have profaned the
sanctuary by visiting it with his concubines.[414] Such proceedings
were more than enough to raise the strongest antipathy against him
among the Chersonesite Greeks, who now crowded to reinforce the
Athenians and blocked him up in Sestus. After a certain length of
siege, the stock of provisions in the town failed, and famine began
to make itself felt among the garrison, which nevertheless still
held out, by painful shifts and endurance, until a late period in
the autumn, when the patience even of the Athenian besiegers was
well-nigh exhausted; nor was it without difficulty that the leaders
repressed the clamorous desire manifested in their own camp to return
to Athens.
[413] Thucyd. viii, 102.
[414] Herodot. ix, 116: compare i, 4. Ἀρταΰκτης, ἀνὴρ Πέρσης,
δεινὸς δὲ καὶ ἀτάσθαλος· ὃς καὶ βασιλέα ἐλαύνοντα ἐπ’ Ἀθήνας
ἐξηπάτησε, τὰ Πρωτεσίλεω τοῦ Ἰφίκλου χρήματα ἐξ Ἐλαιοῦντος
ὑφελόμενος. Compare Herodot. ii, 64.
Impatience having been appeased, and the seamen kept together, the
siege was pressed without relaxation, and presently the privations
of the garrison became intolerable; so that Artayktês and Œobazus
were at last reduced to the necessity of escaping by stealth, letting
themselves down with a few followers from the wall at a point where
it was imperfectly blockaded. Œobazus found his way into Thrace,
where, however, he was taken captive by the Absinthian natives and
offered up as a sacrifice to their god Pleistôrus: Artayktês fled
northward along the shores of the Hellespont, but was pursued by
the Greeks, and made prisoner near Ægos Potamos, after a strenuous
resistance. He was brought with his son in chains to Sestus, which
immediately after his departure had been cheerfully surrendered by
its inhabitants to the Athenians. It was in vain that he offered
a sum of one hundred talents as compensation to the treasury of
Protesilaus, and a farther sum of two hundred talents to the
Athenians as personal ransom for himself and his son. So deep was the
wrath inspired by his insults to the sacred ground, that both the
Athenian commander Xanthippus and the citizens of Elæus disdained
everything less than a severe and even cruel personal atonement for
the outraged Protesilaus. Artayktês, after having first seen his son
stoned to death before his eyes, was hung up to a lofty board fixed
for the purpose, and left to perish, on the spot where the Xerxeian
bridge had been fixed.[415] There is something in this proceeding
more Oriental than Grecian: it is not in the Grecian character to
aggravate death by artificial and lingering preliminaries.
[415] Herodot. ix, 118, 119, 120. Οἱ γὰρ Ἐλαιούσιοι τιμωρέοντες
τῷ Πρωτεσίλεῳ ἐδέοντό μιν καταχρησθῆναι καὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ στρατηγοῦ
ταύτῃ ὁ νόος ἔφερε.
After the capture of Sestus, the Athenian fleet returned home with
their plunder, towards the commencement of winter, not omitting
to carry with them the vast cables of the Xerxeian bridge, which
had been taken in the town, as a trophy to adorn the acropolis of
Athens.[416]
[416] Herodot. ix, 121. It must be either to the joint Grecian
armament of this year, or to that of the former year, that
Plutarch must intend his celebrated story respecting the
proposition of Themistoklês, condemned by Aristeidês, to apply
(Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 20; Aristeidês, c. 22). He tells us
that the Greek fleet was all assembled to pass the winter in the
Thessalian harbor of Pagasæ, when Themistoklês formed the project
of burning all the other Grecian ships except the Athenian,
in order that no city except Athens might have a naval force.
Themistoklês, he tells us, intimated to the people, that he had
a proposition, very advantageous to the state, to communicate;
but that it could not be publicly proclaimed and discussed: upon
which they desired him to mention it privately to Aristeidês.
Themistoklês did so: and Aristeidês told the people, that the
project was at once eminently advantageous and not less eminently
unjust. Upon which the people renounced it forthwith, without
asking what it was.
Considering the great celebrity which this story has obtained,
some allusion to it was necessary, though it has long ceased to
be received as matter of history. It is quite inconsistent with
the narrative of Herodotus, as well as with all the conditions
of the time: Pagasæ was _Thessalian_, and as such hostile to the
Greek fleet rather than otherwise: the fleet seems to have never
been there: moreover, we may add, that taking matters as they
then stood, when the fear from Persia was not at all terminated,
the Athenians would have lost more than they gained by burning
the ships of the other Greeks, so that Themistoklês was not very
likely to conceive the scheme, nor Aristeidês to describe it in
the language put into his mouth.
The story is probably the invention of some Greek of the Platonic
age, who wished to contrast justice with expediency, and
Aristeidês with Themistoklês,—as well as to bestow at the same
time panegyric upon Athens in the days of her glory.