Where’er we tread ’tis haunted, holy ground;
No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould,
But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,
And all the muse’s tales seem truly told,
Till the sense aches with gazing to behold
The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon;
Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold,
Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone:
Age shakes Athena’s tower, but spares gray Marathon.
--BYRON.
Curtius in the well-known passage which begins his celebrated history
asks where is the division between Asia and Europe, pointing out that
the islands of the Ægean Sea are practically stepping-stones between
Asia Minor and Greece, and that from one point of view the intervening
bits of water are rather connecting links than a severing barrier. This
claim has much to support it in the view of a maritime people; yet from
another point of view a very tangible barrier does exist between the two
continents. The Persians, as is well known, having their native seat
far inland had a standing dread of water. For them the Ægean Sea was
unquestionably a barrier, not a bridge. It would probably have been long
before they attempted to cross this barrier had not the initiative been
taken from the other side. But while it was far from Asia to Europe, it
was not far, in the point of view of the sea-faring Greek, from Europe to
Asia. To him the sea was a bridge.
No one knows how early the Greeks themselves crossed the various
“bridges” of the Ægean and began to make settlements in Asia Minor, but
it is known that in a very early day these settlements on the eastern
shore had come to play a most important part in Grecian life. It is
supposed that in the early day the inhabitants of Asia Minor welcomed the
Greek colonist who became valuable to them as a manufacturer, and, in
particular, as a trader.
It was long before there seemed anything menacing in the growth of these
scattered colonies, and, before the powers of Asia Minor had aroused to
a right understanding of the political import of the colonisation that
had gone on under their eyes, the whole coast had come practically under
the control of these peaceful invaders from the West. Then indeed the
Lydians, in particular, were aroused to a realisation of what they had
permitted, and sought to make amends by subjecting the colonies that had
hitherto been their own masters. The attempt was first made on a large
scale by Crœsus, but, before he had completed the task, he was himself
overthrown by Cyrus, and the standing broil with the Greek colonies of
the coast was one of the perquisites of war which Crœsus handed over to
the Persians.
Cyrus himself seems to have thought the Greeks of small importance, as
he left a subordinate to dispose of them, while he turned his personal
attention to the more powerful Babylonians, but the Greeks were supported
by the memory of some generations of freedom, and they did not prove
the contemptible foe that they seemed. Cities once conquered were prone
to revolt, and the indomitable spirit of the Greeks on this western
border of the Persian territory proved a standing source of annoyance.
At last Darius determined to put an end to the Grecians once for all,
and it was his general who for the first time led a Persian host across
the Hellespont and into the precincts of Greece itself. The repulse of
this host by the Athenians on the field of Marathon was an event which
the Greeks of a later time never tired of celebrating, and which has
taken its place in later history as one of the half-dozen great decisive
battles of the world. Subjected to a critical view this battle of
Marathon, as we shall have occasion to see presently, was not quite so
decisive an event as the Athenians were disposed to think it. Still it
turned the Persian horde back from Greece for a decade. Then under Xerxes
came that stupendous half-organised army that has been the wonder of all
after-times; and the glorious events of Thermopylæ, Salamis, Platæa, and
Mycale in rapid succession added to the glory of Greek prowess and saved
the life of Greece as a nation--saved it from an outer foe that it might
die by its own hand. The events of this memorable epoch are among the
most important in all Grecian history, and we must view them in detail,
drawing largely for our knowledge of them on the great original source,
Herodotus, but noting also the impression which they have made upon many
generations of historians of other times and other lands.[a]
THE ORIGIN OF ANIMOSITY
Herodotus, born 484, in the midst of the Median wars, wondered at this
great conflict between the Greek and barbarian worlds and sought its
causes in times more remote than the Trojan war, even in the mythological
period.
[Sidenote: [506 B.C.]]
“The most learned of the Persians,” he says, “assert that the Phœnicians
were the original exciters of contention. This nation migrated from the
borders of the Red Sea to the place of their present settlement, and
soon distinguished themselves by their long and enterprising voyages.
They exported to Argos, among other places, the produce of Egypt and
Assyria. Argos, at that period, was the most famous of all those states
which are now comprehended under the general appellation of Greece. On
their arrival here, the Phœnicians exposed their merchandise to sale;
after remaining about six days, and when they had almost disposed of
their different articles of commerce, the king’s daughter, whom both
nations agree in calling Io, came among a great number of other women,
to visit them at their station. Whilst these females, standing near the
stern of the vessel, amused themselves with bargaining for such things
as attracted their curiosity, the Phœnicians, in conjunction, made an
attempt to seize their persons. The greater part of them escaped, but Io,
with many others, remained a captive. They carried them on board, and
directed their course for Egypt.
“The relation of the Greeks differs essentially; but this, according to
the Persians, was the cause of Io’s arrival in Egypt, and the first act
of violence which was committed. In process of time, certain Grecians,
concerning whose country writers disagree, but who were really of Crete,
are reported to have touched at Tyre, and to have carried away Europa,
the daughter of the prince. Thus far the Greeks had only retaliated; but
they were certainly guilty of the second provocation. They made a voyage
in a vessel of war to Æa, a city of Colchis, near the river Phasis; and,
after having accomplished the more immediate object of their expedition,
they forcibly carried off the king’s daughter, Medea. The king of Colchis
despatched a herald to demand satisfaction for the affront, and the
restitution of the princess; but the Greeks replied, that they should
make no reparation in the present instance, as the violence formerly
offered to Io still remained unexpiated.
“In the age which followed, Alexander [Paris], the son of Priam,
encouraged by the memory of these events, determined on obtaining a wife
from Greece, by means of similar violence; fully persuaded that this,
like former wrongs, would never be avenged.
“Upon the loss of Helen, the Greeks at first employed messengers to
demand her person, as well as a compensation for the affront. All the
satisfaction they received was reproach for the injury which had been
offered to Medea; and they were further asked, how, under circumstances
entirely alike, they could reasonably require what they themselves had
denied.
“Hitherto the animosity betwixt the two nations extended no farther
than to acts of private violence. But at this period, the Greeks
certainly laid the foundation of subsequent contention; who, before the
Persians invaded Europe, doubtless made military incursions into Asia.
The Persians appear to be of opinion, that they who offer violence
to women must be insensible to the impressions of justice, but that
such provocations are as much beneath revenge, as the women themselves
are undeserving of regard: it being obvious, that all females thus
circumstanced must have been more or less accessary to the fact. They
asserted also, that although women had been forcibly carried away from
Asia, they had never resented the affront. The Greeks, on the contrary,
to avenge the rape of a Lacedæmonian woman, had assembled a mighty fleet,
entered Asia in a hostile manner, and had totally overthrown the empire
of Priam. Since which event they had always considered the Greeks as the
public enemies of their nation.”
[Sidenote: [515-499 B.C.]]
Such were the causes of the animosity between Persians and Greeks as
Herodotus conceived them. But the modern historian gives scant credence
to these tales. In reality we do not have to go back to the abduction
of Io and Helen by the Asiatics, and of Europa and Medea by the Greeks
to explain this mutual hate. Equally trivial are such incidents as the
flight of the physician Democedes, who deceived Darius that he might
return to his native Croton; and the desire of the queen, Atossa, to
include Spartan and Athenian women among her slaves. The appeals of
Hippias to be reinstated in Athens, and of the Aleuadæ of Thessaly to
be delivered from the enemies that oppressed them had, to be sure, a
somewhat more serious influence. But the real cause was Persia’s power.
This empire had at that time attained its natural limits. Being nearly
surrounded by deserts, the sea, wide rivers, and high mountains, there
was but one direction in which she could expand, the northwest; and on
that side lay a famous country, Greece, whose independence affronted
the pride of the Great King. Cyrus had conquered Asia; Cambyses a part
of Africa, so Darius, not to be outdone by his predecessors, attacked
Europe. The Sardian satrap, Artaphernes, had already replied to the
overtures of Clisthenes by demanding that Athens should come under the
rule of the Great King. Darius had reorganised his empire and restored
in his provinces the order so rudely shaken by the usurpation of the
Magian and the efforts of the conquered nations to regain their freedom;
it was necessary moreover to furnish occupation for the warlike ardour
which still characterised the Persians. With this end in view he planned
an important expedition. The Scythians had formerly invaded Asia; it was
the recollection of that injury and the desire to subjugate Thrace which
adjoined his own empire that pointed out to Darius the route he was to
follow. He set out from Susa with a numerous army, crossed the Bosporus
on a bridge of boats constructed by the Samian, Mandrocles, and entered
Europe bringing seven or eight hundred thousand men in his train, among
whom were some Asiatic Greeks commanded by the tyrants of the various
cities. He traversed Thrace, crossed the Danube (Ister) on a bridge
of boats which he left the Greeks to guard, then penetrated well into
Scythia in pursuit of an enemy whom it was impossible to seize. Darius
had told the Greeks not to expect him to return after the expiration of
sixty days. This time having passed without news of him, the Athenian,
Miltiades, tyrant of the Chersonesus, proposed to destroy the bridge
that the way into Thrace might not be left open to the Scythians whom
he supposed victorious, also that the Persian army might be destroyed
by them should it still exist. Histiæus of Miletus opposed this plan,
representing to the chiefs, who were all tyrants of Greek cities, that
they would surely be overthrown the day they lost the support of their
great leader. This reasoning saved Darius, who, returning from his
vain pursuit, left with Megabyzus eighty thousand men to complete the
subjugation of Thrace, and also to conquer Macedonia.
Megabyzus conquered Perinthus, that part of Thrace which still resisted,
Pæonia, and called upon the king of Macedonia to render him homage of
earth and water. Amyntas accorded this, and Megabyzus was able to report
to his master that the Persian empire at last adjoined Greece in Europe.
With this the expedition came to an end. Histiæus’ services were rewarded
by the gift of a vast territory on the banks of the Strymon. The site had
been well chosen, near the gold and silver mines of Mount Pangæ, at the
foot of hills rich in building woods and near the mouth of a river that
offered an excellent port on the Ægean Sea. Myrcinus, founded there by
Histiæus, would soon have attained the growth and prosperity that were to
signalise Amphipolis later on the same spot, had not Megabyzus, in alarm,
warned the king of the necessity of preventing this Greek from carrying
out the plans he meditated. Histiæus was summoned to Sardis on pretext
of being needed for an important consultation, and once there, Darius
told him simply that he could not do without his friendship and advice.
Histiæus was obliged to accept these gilded chains.
THE IONIC REVOLT
[Sidenote: [499-494 B.C.]]
Several years had passed in unbroken peace when a trivial matter and
an obscure man threw all in disorder again. Naxos, the largest of the
Cyclades, was powerful at that time, ruling over several islands,
possessing a considerable navy and able to place in the field eight
thousand hoplites. Unfortunately, like every other Grecian state, Naxos
was divided into two factions, the popular and the aristocratic. This
latter destroyed itself by an unpardonable crime, similar to that of
which Lucretia was victim about the same time in Rome. Sent into exile,
they proposed to Aristagoras, Histiæus’ son-in-law and, in his absence,
tyrant of Miletus, to take them back to their island. He acceded readily,
beholding in fancy the Cyclades, possibly also Eubœa as already under
his dominion. But unable to accomplish such an enterprise without
help, he succeeded in interesting the satrap of Sardis, Artaphernes,
who placed at his disposal a fleet of two hundred ships commanded by
Megabates. This Persian rebelled at being under the orders of a Greek and
to avenge a slight received in a quarrel that broke out between them,
sent information to the Naxians. The success of the expedition depended
on secrecy; this once destroyed, it was bound to fail. Aristagoras
held to the project four months, spending his own treasure as well as
that given him for the enterprise by the king. He feared being obliged
to make good this loss, and decided that revolt offered a preferable
alternative, in which choice he was aided by the secret instigations of
Histiæus. The army he had led before Naxos was still united, and forming
part of it were all the tyrants of the cities on the Asiatic coast.
These he seized and sent back to their respective cities where they were
placed under sentence of death or exile, then established democracy
everywhere (499 B.C.). After these deeds, finding it necessary to attach
some powerful ally to his cause, he visited Lacedæmon. Cleomenes, its
king, questioned him as to the distance of the Persian capital from the
sea. “A three months’ march,” replied Aristagoras. “In that case you
will leave this place to-morrow,” said the king, “it would be folly to
propose to Lacedæmonians to put a three months’ march between themselves
and the sea.” Aristagoras tried to bribe him to consent; but for once
Spartan virtue was incorruptible and the Ionian went on to Athens. Given
permission to speak in the assembly, he described the riches of Persia,
and laid stress on the advantage the Greeks would have over a foe to
whom the use of spear and shield was unknown, and finally adduced the
fact that Miletus was a colony of Athens. The Athenians had more than
one grievance against the Persians--the refuge given to Hippias, and the
order to recall the tyrant received as a reply to their remonstrances.
Aristagoras had little difficulty in persuading them to assure their own
safety by carrying the war with which they were menaced over into the
enemy’s country, they also believing doubtless that the matter was but
a private quarrel between the satrap and Aristagoras. They decreed to
the envoy twenty vessels to which were added five triremes from Eretria,
this state thus repaying the aid it had formerly received from Miletus
in its war against Chalcis. The allies proceeded to Ephesus and thence
to Sardis, which they took and pillaged. The houses were thatched with
reeds, and, a soldier accidentally setting fire to one of the roofs, the
entire city, with the exception of the citadel to which Artaphernes had
retired, was consumed, together with the temple of Cybele, venerated as
deeply by the Persians as by the Lydians (498). Artaphernes meanwhile had
recalled the army that was besieging Miletus, and from all sides gathered
the provincial troops; the Athenians began to think of retreat. A defeat
they suffered near Ephesus, possibly also treason among themselves,
completed their dissatisfaction. They boarded their ships and returned to
Athens, leaving their allies to extricate themselves from the difficulty
in which they were placed as best they could.
The Ionians continued the contest, drawing into their movement all the
cities on the Hellespont and the Propontis, together with Chalcedonia
and Byzantium, the Carians and the island of Cyprus. The Persians got
together several armies; one, directed northward against the cities of
the Hellespont, took several towns, then fell back towards the south
against the Carians, who, after losing two battles, surrendered. Another
attacked Cyprus with the Phœnician fleet that had been defeated by the
Ionians, but the treachery of a Cypriote chief delivered the island
over to the enemy. Acting jointly in the centre, Artaphernes and Otanes
captured Clazomenæ and Cyme, and then advanced with a considerable
force against Miletus, the last bulwark of Ionia. Here Aristagoras was
no longer chief; he had basely deserted and escaped to Myrcinus, and
was later killed in an attack on a Thracian city. As regards Histiæus,
Darius, deceived by his promises, had recently restored him to liberty,
but the Milesians, having no liking for tyrants, refused to receive him.
Getting together a small force of Mytilenæans he became a pirate and was
killed in a descent on the Asiatic coast. The Ionians assembled at the
Panionium, deliberated as to the best means of saving Miletus. It was
decided to risk a naval battle; Chios furnished a hundred ships, Lesbos
seventy, Samos sixty, and Miletus itself eighty, the fleet numbering in
all three hundred and fifty-three ships. The Persians had six hundred.
[Sidenote: [494-492 B.C.]]
In the Greek fleet was a very able man who would have saved Ionia had she
been willing to be saved. This was Dionysius, a Phocæan, who demonstrated
to the allies that strict discipline and constant practice in manœuvres
would assure them success. For seven days he drilled the crews in all the
movements of naval warfare, but at the end of this time the effeminate
Ionians had had enough; they left the ships, pitched their tents on land,
and forgot that the enemy existed. As was unavoidable after taking such
a course, their moral fibre became relaxed and treachery began to show
among them. When the day of battle arrived, the Samians, in the hottest
of the action, deserted their post and made for their own island. The
Ionians were defeated despite the splendid courage of the Chian sailors
and of Dionysius, who himself took three of the enemy’s vessels. When he
saw that the battle was lost he boldly pushed on to Tyre and sank several
merchant ships, retiring to Sicily with the wealth obtained. The rest of
his life was passed in pursuing on the open sea Phœnician, Carthaginian,
and Tyrrhenian ships.
All hope was lost for Miletus; it was taken and its inhabitants
transported to Ampe, at the mouth of the Tigris (494). Chios, Lesbos,
Tenedos, shared Miletus’ fate, and several cities of the Hellespont were
destroyed by fire. The inhabitants of Chalcedon and Byzantium abandoned
these cities to seek a home on the northwest coast of the Pontus Euxinus,
in Mesambria. Miltiades also deemed it prudent to leave the Chersonesus;
he returned to Athens, where he was soon to find himself arrayed against
those very Persians from whom he now sought flight. The news of Ionia’s
downfall echoed sadly throughout Greece, Athens, in particular, being
affected. Phrynichus presented a play entitled the _Capture of Miletus_
at which the entire audience burst into tears, and the poet was sentenced
to pay a fine of a thousand drachmæ “for having revived the memory of a
great domestic misfortune.” Tears like these expiate many faults.
Meanwhile Darius had not forgotten that after the burning of Sardis he
had sworn to be revenged on the Athenians. He gave to his son-in-law,
Mardonius, command over a newly raised army that was to enter Europe by
way of Thrace while the fleet followed along the coast. Mardonius, to
conciliate the Greeks in Asia, restored to them a democratic government,
bearing in mind that the authors of the recent revolt had been two of the
tyrants that Persia supported.
Megabazus had already subdued all the nations between the Hellespont and
Macedonia. Mardonius crossed the Strymon and gave his fleet rendezvous
in the Thermaic Gulf. He took Thasos and was passing along the coast of
Chalcidice when on doubling the promontory of Mount Athos, which rises
nineteen hundred and fifty metres out of the sea, his fleet encountered
a terrific gale that wrecked three hundred ships and destroyed twenty
thousand lives. About the same time Mardonius, attacked at night by the
Thracians, lost many of his men and was himself wounded. He continued the
expedition, but was so enfeebled after the subjugation of the Brygians
that he felt himself obliged to return to Asia.
A more formidable armament was at once prepared. Before sending it forth
Darius despatched heralds to Greece demanding homage of earth and water,
and, in the case of maritime cities, a contingent of galleys. The greater
part of the islands and several cities yielded to this demand, Ægina even
anticipating the desire of the Great King. The indignation of Athens and
Sparta was such that they forgot the respect due to envoys. “You want
earth and water?” replied the Spartans, “very well, you shall have both,”
and the unfortunate men were thrown into a well. The Greeks cast them
into the barathrum, and if a not very authentic tale may be believed,
condemned to death the interpreter who had defiled the Greek tongue by
translating into it the orders of a barbarian.[18]
WAR WITH ÆGINA
[Sidenote: [492 B.C.]]
Athens was constantly at war with the Æginetans, and she now seized an
opportunity their conduct offered to accuse them to the Lacedæmonians of
treachery to the common cause. This appeal to the Spartans was equivalent
to acknowledging their claims to supremacy as the recognised chiefs of
Hellas, the exigencies of the situation having silenced pride. Cleomenes
shared the resentment of the Athenians, and proceeded to Ægina to seize
the offenders. But his colleague Demaratus, who had already betrayed him
in an expedition into Attica, informed the islanders and the enterprise
fell through.
To put an end to his colleague’s vexatious opposition Cleomenes caused
it to be declared by the Pythia, whom he had won over, that Demaratus
was not of royal blood, thus obtaining his deposition. Leotychides,
who had joined with him in this scheme, succeeded the deposed king, to
whom he was next of kin, and by outrageous treatment drove him from
Sparta. Demaratus sought out Hippias in his exile and, like him, begged
hospitality of the great protector of kings.
Cleomenes next proceeded to Ægina and took thence ten hostages whom he
delivered over to the Athenians. This was the last public act of the
turbulent chief who later became insane and perished miserably by his own
hand; Leotychides, convicted of having taken bribes from the enemy he
should have stubbornly opposed, died in exile. “Thus,” says Herodotus,
“did the gods punish the perjury of these two princes.” Meanwhile the
Æginetans demanded the return of their hostages, and, Athens refusing to
surrender them, they attacked and captured the sacred galley that was
carrying to Cape Sunium many prominent citizens. War immediately broke
out. An Æginetan attempted to overthrow, in his island, the oligarchical
government. He got possession of the citadel, but reinforcements not
reaching him in time, he left in the hands of the enemy seven hundred of
his men, who were massacred without mercy. One of these poor creatures
succeeded in escaping and made his way to the temple of Ceres where he
expected to find safe refuge. The gates being closed, he clung with
both hands to the latch-ring, and all efforts to make him let go being
unavailing, the butchers cut off his hands, which even in the convulsions
of death still preserved their frenzied hold. Herodotus, accustomed as
he was to civil war, raises not a word of protest against this slaughter
of seven hundred citizens, he remarks only upon the sacrilege committed
on account of one of them. “No sacrifice,” he says piously, “will be
sufficient to appease the wrath of the goddess.” The nobles were all
ejected from the island before they had expiated their act of sacrilege.
This war did not close, in fact, until nine years after the second
expedition of the Persians.[d]
THE FIRST INVASION
[Sidenote: [492-490 B.C.]]
Whilst these two nations were thus engaged in hostilities, the domestic
of the Persian monarch continued regularly to bid him “Remember the
Athenians,” which incident was further enforced by the unremitting
endeavours of the Pisistratidæ to criminate that people. The king himself
was very glad of this pretext, effectually to reduce such of the Grecian
states as had refused him “earth and water.” He accordingly removed
from his command Mardonius, who had been unsuccessful in his naval
undertakings; he appointed two other officers to commence an expedition
against Eretria and Athens; these were Datis, a native of Media, and
Artaphernes his nephew, who were commanded totally to subdue both the
above places, and to bring the inhabitants captive before him.
[Illustration: GREEK FOOT SOLDIER]
These commanders, as soon as they had received their appointment,
advanced to Aleum in Cilicia, with a large and well-provided body of
infantry. Here, as soon as they encamped, they were joined by a numerous
reinforcement of marines, agreeably to the orders which had been given.
Not long afterwards, those vessels arrived to take the cavalry on board,
which in the preceding year Darius had commanded his tributaries to
supply. The horse and foot immediately embarked, and proceeded to Ionia,
in a fleet of six hundred triremes. They did not, keeping along the
coast, advance in a right line to Thrace and the Hellespont, but loosing
from Samos, they passed through the midst of the islands, and the Icarian
Sea, fearing, as we should suppose, to double the promontory of Athos,
by which they had in a former year severely suffered. They were further
induced to this course by the island of Naxos which before they had
omitted to take.
Proceeding therefore from the Icarian Sea to this island, which was
the first object of their enterprise, they met with no resistance. The
Naxians, remembering their former calamities, fled in alarm to the
mountains. Those taken captive were made slaves, the sacred buildings and
the city were burned. This done, the Persians sailed to the other islands.
At this juncture the inhabitants of Delos deserted their island and
fled to Tenos. The Persian fleet was directing its course to Delos,
when Datis, hastening to the van, obliged them to station themselves at
Rhenea, which lies beyond it. As soon as he learned to what place the
Delians had retired, he sent a herald to them with this message: “Why, oh
sacred people, do you fly, thinking so injuriously of me? If I had not
received particular directions from the king my master to this effect,
I, of my own accord, would never have molested you, nor offered violence
to a place in which two deities were born. Return therefore, and inhabit
your island as before.” Having sent this message, he offered upon one of
their altars incense to the amount of three hundred talents [£60,000 or
$300,000].
[Sidenote: [490 B.C.]]
After this measure, Datis led his whole army against Eretria, taking
with him the Ionians and Æolians. The Delians say, that at the moment of
his departure the island of Delos was affected by a tremulous motion,
a circumstance which, as the Delians affirm, never happened before or
since. The deity, as it should seem by this prodigy, forewarned mankind
of the evils which were about to happen. Greece certainly suffered more
and greater calamities during the reigns of Darius son of Hystaspes,
Xerxes son of Darius, and Artaxerxes son of Xerxes, than in all the
preceding twenty generations; these calamities arose partly from the
Persians, and partly from the contentions for power among its own great
men. It was not therefore without reason that Delos, immovable before,
should then be shaken, which event indeed had been predicted by the
oracle:
“Although Delos be immovable, I will shake it.”
It is also worth observation, that, translated into the Greek tongue,
Darius signifies one who compels, Xerxes, a warrior, Artaxerxes, a great
warrior; and thus they would call them if they used the corresponding
terms.
The barbarians, sailing from Delos to the other islands, took on
board reinforcements from them all, together with the children of the
inhabitants as hostages. Cruising round the different islands, they
arrived off Carystus; but the people of this place positively refused
either to give hostages, or to serve against their neighbours, Athens and
Eretria. They were consequently besieged, and their lands wasted; and
they were finally compelled to surrender themselves to the Persians.
The Eretrians, on the approach of the Persian army, applied to the
Athenians for assistance; this the Athenians did not think proper to
withhold; they accordingly sent them the four thousand men to whom
those lands had been assigned which formerly belonged to the Chalcidian
cavalry; but the Eretrians, notwithstanding their application to the
Athenians, were far from being firm and determined. They were so divided
in their resolutions, that whilst some of them advised the city to be
deserted, and a retreat made to the rocks of Eubœa, others, expecting a
reward from the Persians, prepared to betray their country. Æschines, the
son of Nothon, an Eretrian of the highest rank, observing these different
sentiments, informed the Athenians of the state of affairs, advising them
to return home, lest they should be involved in the common ruin. The
Athenians attended to this advice of Æschines, and by passing over to
Oropus, escaped the impending danger.
The Persians, arriving at Eretria, came near Tamynæ, Chærea, and Ægilia;
making themselves masters of these places, they disembarked the horse,
and prepared to attack the enemy. The Eretrians did not think proper
to advance and engage them; the opinion for defending the city had
prevailed, and their whole attention was occupied in preparing for a
siege. The Persians endeavoured to storm the place, and a contest of
six days was attended with very considerable loss on both sides. On the
seventh, the city was betrayed to the enemy by two of the more eminent
citizens, Euphorbus, son of Alcimachus, and Philager, son of Cyneas.
As soon as the Persians got possession of the place, they pillaged and
burned the temples to avenge the burning of their own temples at Sardis.
The people, according to the orders of Darius, were made slaves.
After this victory at Eretria, the Persians stayed a few days, and then
sailed to Attica, driving all before them, and thinking to treat the
Athenians as they had done the Eretrians. There was a place in Attica
called Marathon, not far from Eretria, well adapted for the motions of
cavalry: to this place therefore they were conducted by Hippias, son of
Pisistratus.
As soon as the Athenians heard this, they advanced to the same spot,
under the conduct of ten leaders, with the view of repelling force
by force. The last of these was Miltiades. His father Cimon, son of
Stesagoras, had been formerly driven from Athens by the influence of
Pisistratus, son of Hippocrates. During his exile, he had obtained the
prize at the Olympic games, in the chariot-race of four horses. This
honour, however, he transferred to Miltiades his uterine brother. At
the Olympic games which next followed he was again victorious, and with
the same mares. This honour he suffered to be assigned to Pisistratus,
on condition of his being recalled; a reconciliation ensued, and he was
permitted to return. Being victorious a third time, on the same occasion,
and with the same mares, he was put to death by the sons of Pisistratus,
Pisistratus himself being then dead. He was assassinated in the night,
near the Prytaneum, by some villains sent for the purpose: he was buried
in the approach to the city, near the hollow way; and in the same spot
were interred the mares which had three times obtained the prize at the
Olympic games. If we except the mares of Evagoras of Sparta, no other
ever obtained a similar honour. At this period, Stesagoras, the eldest
son of Cimon, resided in the Chersonesus with his uncle Miltiades;
the youngest was brought up at Athens under Cimon himself, and named
Miltiades, from the founder of the Chersonesus.
This Miltiades, the Athenian leader, in advancing from the Chersonesus,
escaped from two incidents which alike threatened his life: he was
pursued as far as Imbros by the Phœnicians, who were exceedingly desirous
to take him alive, and present him to the King; on his return home,
where he thought himself secure, his enemies accused, and brought him
to a public trial, under pretence of his aiming at the sovereignty of
the Chersonesus; from this also he escaped, and was afterwards chosen a
general of the Athenians by the suffrages of the people.
The Athenian leaders, before they left the city, despatched Phidippides
to Sparta: he was an Athenian by birth, and his daily employment was that
of a courier. To this Phidippides, as he himself affirmed, and related
to the Athenians, the god Pan appeared on Mount Parthenius, which is
beyond Tegea. The deity called him by his name, and commanded him to ask
the Athenians why they so entirely neglected him, who not only wished
them well, but who had frequently rendered them service, and would do so
again. All this the Athenians believed, and as soon as the state of their
affairs permitted, they erected a temple to Pan near the citadel: ever
since the above period, they venerate the god by annual sacrifices, and
the race of torches.
Phidippides, who was sent by the Athenian generals, and who related his
having met with Pan, arrived at Sparta on the second day of his departure
from Athens. He went immediately to the magistrates, and thus addressed
them: “Men of Lacedæmon, the Athenians supplicate your assistance, and
entreat you not to suffer the most ancient city of Greece to fall into
the hands of the barbarians: Eretria is already subdued, and Greece
weakened by the loss of that illustrious place.” After this speech of
Phidippides, the Lacedæmonians resolved to assist the Athenians; but
they were prevented from doing this immediately by the prejudice of an
inveterate custom. This was the ninth day of the month, and it was a
practice with them to undertake no enterprise before the moon was at the
full: for this, therefore, they waited.
In the night before Hippias conducted the barbarians to the plains of
Marathon, he saw this vision: he thought that he lay with his mother.
The inference which he drew from this was, that he should again return
to Athens, be restored to his authority, and die in his own house of old
age: he was then executing the office of a general. The prisoners taken
in Eretria he removed to Ægilia, an island belonging to the Styreans; the
vessels which arrived at Marathon, he stationed in the port, and drew up
the barbarians in order as they disembarked. Whilst he was thus employed,
he was seized with a fit of sneezing, attended with a very unusual cough.
The agitation into which he was thrown, being an old man, was so violent,
that as his teeth were loose, one of them dropped out of his mouth upon
the sand. Much pains were taken to find it, but in vain; upon which
Hippias remarked with a sigh to those around him, “This country is not
ours, nor shall we ever become masters of it--my lost tooth possesses all
that belongs to me.”
Hippias conceived that he saw in the above incident, the accomplishment
of his vision. In the meantime the Athenians, drawing themselves up
in military order near the temple of Hercules, were joined by the
whole force of the Platæans. The Athenians had formerly submitted to
many difficulties on account of the Platæans, who now, to return the
obligation, gave themselves up to their direction. The occasion was this:
the Platæans being oppressed by the Thebans, solicited the protection of
Cleomenes the son of Anaxandrides, and of such Lacedæmonians as were at
hand; they disclaimed, however, any interference, for which they assigned
this reason:
“From us,” said they, “situated at so great a distance, you can expect
but little assistance; for before we can even receive intelligence of
your danger, you may be effectually reduced to servitude; we would rather
recommend you to apply to the Athenians, who are not only near, but able
to protect you.”
The Lacedæmonians, in saying this, did not so much consider the interest
of the Platæans, as they were desirous of seeing the Athenians harassed
by a Bœotian war. The advice was nevertheless accepted, and the Platæans
going to Athens, first offered a solemn sacrifice to the twelve deities,
and then sitting near the altar, in the attitude of supplicants, they
placed themselves formally under the protection of the Athenians. Upon
this the Thebans led an army against Platæa, to defend which, the
Athenians appeared with a body of forces. As the two armies were about to
engage, the Corinthians interfered; their endeavours to reconcile them
so far prevailed, that it was agreed, on the part of both nations, to
suffer such of the people of Bœotia as did not choose to be ranked as
Bœotians, to follow their own inclinations. Having effected this, the
Corinthians retired, and their example was followed by the Athenians;
these latter were on their return attacked by the Bœotians, whom they
defeated. Passing over the boundaries, which the Corinthians had marked
out, they determined that Asopus and Hysiæ should be the future limits
between the Thebans and Platæans. The Platæans having thus given
themselves up to the Athenians, came to their assistance at Marathon.
The Athenian leaders were greatly divided in opinion; some thought that
a battle was by no means to be hazarded, as they were so inferior to
the Medes in point of number; others, among whom was Miltiades, were
anxious to engage the enemy. Of these contradictory sentiments, the less
politic appeared likely to prevail, when Miltiades addressed himself to
the polemarch, whose name was Callimachus of Aphidna. This magistrate,
elected into his office by vote, has the privilege of a casting voice:
and, according to established customs, is equal in point of dignity and
influence to the military leaders. Miltiades addressed him thus:
“Upon you, O Callimachus, it alone depends, whether Athens shall be
enslaved, or whether, in the preservation of its liberties, it shall
perpetuate your name even beyond the glory of Harmodius and Aristogiton.
Our country is now reduced to a more delicate and dangerous predicament
than it has ever before experienced; if conquered, we know our fate,
and must prepare for the tyranny of Hippias; if we overcome, our city
may be made the first in Greece. How this may be accomplished, and in
what manner it depends on you, I will explain: the sentiments of our
ten leaders are divided, some are desirous of an engagement, others the
contrary. If we do not engage, some seditious tumult will probably arise,
which may prompt many of our citizens to favour the cause of the Medes;
if we come to a battle before any evil of this kind take place, we may,
if the gods be not against us, reasonably hope for victory: all these
things are submitted to your attention, and are suspended on your will.
If you accede to my opinion, our country will be free, our city the first
in Greece.”
These arguments of Miltiades produced the desired effect upon
Callimachus, from whose interposition it was determined to fight. Those
leaders, who from the first had been solicitous to engage the enemy,
resigned to Miltiades the days of their respective command. This he
accepted, but did not think proper to commence the attack till the day of
his own particular command arrived in its course.
THE BATTLE OF MARATHON
When this happened, the Athenians were drawn up for battle in the
following order: Callimachus, as polemarch, commanded the right wing, in
conformity with the established custom of the Athenians; next followed
the tribes, ranged in close order, according to their respective ranks;
the Platæans, placed in the rear, formed the left wing. Ever since this
battle, in those solemn and public sacrifices, which are celebrated every
fifth year, the herald implores happiness for the Platæans, jointly with
the Athenians. Thus the Athenians produced a front equal in extent to
that of the Medes. The ranks in the centre were not very deep, which
of course constituted their weakest part; but the two wings were more
numerous and strong.
The preparations for the attack being thus made, and the appearance of
the victims favourable, the Athenians ran toward the barbarians. There
was betwixt the two armies an interval of about eight furlongs. The
Persians seeing them approach by running, prepared to receive them, and
as they observed the Athenians to be few in number, destitute both of
cavalry and archers, they considered them as mad, and rushing on certain
destruction; but as soon as the Greeks mingled with the enemy, they
behaved with the greatest gallantry. They were the first Greeks that we
know of, who ran to attack an enemy; they were the first also who beheld
without dismay the dress and armour of the Medes; for hitherto in Greece
the very name of a Mede excited terror.
After a long and obstinate contest, the barbarians in the centre,
composed of the Persians and the Sacæ, obliged the Greeks to give
way, and pursued the flying foe into the middle of the country. At
the same time the Athenians and Platæans, in the two wings, drove the
barbarians before them; then making an inclination toward each other, by
contracting themselves, they formed against that part of the enemy which
had penetrated and defeated the Grecian centre, and obtained a complete
victory, killing a prodigious number, and pursuing the rest to the sea,
where they set fire to their vessels.
Callimachus the polemarch, after the most signal acts of valour, lost his
life in this battle. Stesilaus also, the son of Thrasylas, and one of the
Grecian leaders, was slain. Cynægirus, son of Euphorion, after seizing
one of the vessels by the poop, had his hand cut off with an axe, and
died of his wounds: with these many other eminent Athenians perished.
In addition to their victory, the Athenians obtained possession of
seven of the enemy’s vessels. The barbarians retired with their fleet,
and taking on board the Eretrian plunder, which they had left in the
island, they passed the promontory of Sunium, thinking to circumvent the
Athenians, and arrive at their city before them. The Athenians impute the
prosecution of this measure to one of the Alcmæonidæ, who they say held
up a shield as a signal to the Persians, when they were under sail.
While they were doubling the cape of Sunium, the Athenians lost no time
in hastening to the defence of their city, and effectually prevented
the designs of the enemy. Retiring from the temple of Hercules, on the
plains of Marathon, they fixed their camp near another temple of the same
deity, in Cynosarges. The barbarians anchoring off Phalerum, the Athenian
harbour, remained there some time, and then retired to Asia.
The Persians lost in the battle of Marathon six thousand four hundred
men, the Athenians one hundred and ninety-two. In the heat of the
engagement a most remarkable incident occurred: an Athenian, the son
of Cuphagoras, whose name was Epizelus, whilst valiantly fighting, was
suddenly struck with blindness. He had received no wound, nor any kind of
injury, notwithstanding which he continued blind for the remainder of his
life. Epizelus, in relating this calamity, always declared, that during
the battle he was opposed by a man of gigantic stature, completely armed,
whose beard covered the whole of his shield: he added, that the spectre,
passing him, killed the man who stood next him.[c]
Thus far we have followed the account of Herodotus. His high repute,
for many years scoffed at, has had a sudden and cordial revival. Minute
surveys of the Grecian battle-fields have recently been made by George
Beardoe Grundy,[f] who finds Herodotus remarkably accurate in his
topography and in his sifting of evidence and discarding of what he could
not definitely substantiate. It is well to read, however, a typical
account of the battle of Marathon, by a German critic Busolt, whose
cautious use of Herodotus has made the following account of this battle
famous.[a]
At the head of the army marched Callimachus the polemarch, who in his
capacity of military chief was entitled to important privileges and
honours. Not only did he offer sacrifices and vows, and in the order of
battle assume the place of honour at the head of the right wing, but he
was also entitled to vote with the Strategi in the council of war, and
it even appears that as president of the latter he registered his vote
last. In spite of this the actual command of the army was in the hands of
the leaders of the regiments of the phylæ, amongst whom the chief command
alternated in daily rotation. The Strategi at that time included, so far
as we know, Aristides, Stesilaus, and Miltiades, who had apparently been
elected as the tenth by his phyle, the Œneis. The Athenian army is said
to have marched out nine or ten thousand strong, but no confidence can be
placed in these numbers as they rest on a later and unreliable authority.
[Illustration: THE PLAIN OF MARATHON]
Similarly, we have no decided, tangible information, as to what it was
that induced the Athenians not to fortify themselves behind the walls of
their city, but to venture into the open field to encounter an enemy,
far superior in numbers and also, since the victory over the Ionians,
evidently dreaded in Hellas. Perhaps the fate of Eretria may have
exercised a decisive influence on the resolution of the Athenians. The
town walls may not have been in the best condition, and, as in particular
there was good cause to distrust the followers of the Pisistratidæ, there
must have been some apprehension lest the latter should find occasion,
while the Persian army lay before the town, to enter into relations
with the enemy, as the Eretrian traitors had done. But if they decided
for contest in the open field it was advisable to join battle in as
favourable a position as possible; so that the country might be protected
from plunder and foraging. It was therefore necessary to renounce the
idea of barring the passes of Pentelicus and its outlying slopes, since
this position might be easily turned by way of the sea. Still less durst
they risk a battle in the open plain, where the enemy would have all
the advantage belonging to their overwhelming numbers, and the Persian
cavalry would have full play.
The most favourable place to take up a position would be in one of the
long narrow side valleys, which adjoin the plain of Marathon and in which
a small army might safely encamp opposite a large one. In one of these
side valleys and indeed in that of Avlon itself, was the temple precinct
of the Heracleum, by which the Athenian army took up its position. The
flanks were covered by the slopes of Argaliki (right) and of Kotroni
(left) and secured against a turning movement. Whilst it was well
calculated for an attack the position also afforded protection against
an advancing enemy. The limited breadth of the entrance to the valley
hindered the Persians from bringing forward the whole strength of their
infantry and from using their cavalry effectively.[19] If they elected
to make no attack but to slip past the Athenian army, two ways offered
themselves for the march against Athens. One of these led by Marathon or
Vrana to Cephisia, the other between the outlying slopes of Pentelicus
towards Pallene and the Mesogæa. But it was only this last road that
was practicable for vehicles and an army with cavalry and baggage. On
the march by either of these two routes the Persians must expose their
flank to the enemy. If they took ship, that they might make direct for
Phalerum, they were liable to be attacked by the Athenian army before
they could get away.
When the Athenians had taken up their stand at the Heracleum, the whole
fighting force of the Platæans joined them. It appears from this that
the armies had been encamped opposite one another for several days,
since the Platæans could of course only start for Marathon after they
had heard of the decisive resolution of the Athenians to go out to meet
the enemy in that place. Since the Persians showed no signs of attacking
the Attic position and since doubtful tidings had already arrived from
Sparta, Miltiades decided to anticipate the attack himself, in order, as
Herodotus says, to leave those who cherished projects of high treason no
time to affect a wider circle of citizens and create discord. Yet half of
his colleagues held the Athenian army to be too weak and declared against
a battle. Under these circumstances the decision lay with the vote of the
polemarch Callimachus, and the latter sided with Miltiades. Thereupon,
each of the Strategi, who had voted for the battle, surrendered his
command for the day on which it was his turn to assume it to Miltiades.
The latter did indeed accept it, but it is nevertheless said that he
did not advance to the attack until the day arrived on which he held
the command-in-chief himself in his own right. This statement is very
doubtful, but shows that Herodotus was unacquainted with the tradition
that Miltiades advanced to the attack when he received the news that the
Persians were embarking and that the cavalry were on the sea-shore. If
the battle-day was selected in this way, Miltiades could not certainly
have voluntarily waited for his day. Now it is principally Herodotus whom
we have to go upon, as the oldest authority and the one on which later
writers have generally preferred to draw, and, moreover, the tradition
of the embarkation of the cavalry is a completely unreliable one; all
hypotheses therefore which are built upon it and on the circumstance of
the display of the shield on the height of Pentelicus are to be regarded
as of no value.
In the order of battle the Athenians placed themselves according to the
official order of the phylæ. At their head as leader of the right wing,
stood the polemarch Callimachus, with the phyle Æantis, to which he
himself, as an Aphidnæan, belonged. The Platæans received a place on the
extreme left. The front of the Athenians was turned to the northeast. The
left wing was covered by the slope of Kotroni and the trees which fringed
it; the right was not very far from the shore. The ground permitted
Miltiades to make the line of battle the same length as that of the
enemy, in order to protect himself from a flank movement. The wings had
to be strong enough both to repel an attempt to surround them and to
effect a charge; he therefore ranged the centre only a few lines deep,
whilst the wings were relatively strong. The attack was not unexpected
by the Persians; they had time to form in order of battle with a centre
including their picked troops, Persians and Sacæ, while the cavalry
seem to have been kept in reserve behind the hills. They were, however,
astounded by the manner of the attack. According to Herodotus the space
between the two lines of battle amounted to eight stadia. The serried
ranks of the Athenians covered this distance at a run (in some nine
minutes) chiefly to avoid the chance that the cavalry might fall upon
them by the way, and in order to get as quickly as possible past the hail
of Persian arrows and come to a hand-to-hand combat. For the Persians
began their battles with a fight at a distance, and their army was
essentially a defensive army, to which Hellenic hoplites were superior
in a struggle of man against man. Moreover the speed of the forward
movement must have added force to the charge of the heavy-armed infantry.
The shock of meeting probably took place between the Charadra and the
Brexisa; the Persian foot stood firm and the fight lasted a long time.
Finally the Athenians and Platæans with great force threw back the enemy,
on either wing, although their centre was pierced by the Persians and
Sacæ and pursued inland. In consequence, the victorious wings left the
vanquished to fly, wheeled inwards and turned their united front against
the Persians and Sacæ. A new fight ensued, which ended in the total
defeat of the barbarians. Many of them were driven, in their flight, into
the great swamp of Kato Suli, and there perished.
In the meantime, the Persian wings which had been vanquished in the
onset, had had some time in which to launch a number of ships and get
first on board. In especial, the embarkation of the cavalry, which
had probably remained behind the wings, must have been effected. This
cannot have required very much time, since the horse-transports were
flat-built vessels. When the Athenians wished to follow up the pursuit of
the Persians and Sacæ by the shore, they attempted to take or set fire
to such ships as were still within reach. Thereupon there ensued a hot
fight in which fell many men of name, such as polemarch Callimachus, the
strategus Stesilaus, and Cynægirus, brother of the poet Æschylus. The
Athenians succeeded in gaining possession of only seven ships; with the
others the Persians got away and then made for the islet of Ægilia, to
take on board the Eretrians they had left there.
The Persians were already in their ships, when it was noticed in the
Athenian camps that a signal had been made by a shield, set up apparently
upon the height of Pentelicus. It was believed that it had been given
by the traitors in the town. Apparently on the morning after the battle
the Persian fleet left Ægilia and steered its course for Cape Sunium.
As soon as the Athenians observed the direction taken, the strategi
could no longer doubt that it was the town which was aimed at. Forthwith
they started with the army, and, by a rapid forced march, succeeded
in reaching Athens before the enemy, and there set up a camp on the
Heracleum, at the southern foot of Lycabettus, in Cynosarges. The Persian
fleet soon showed itself above the height of Phalerum, yet made no
attack, but only anchored for a time and then sailed back to Asia.
Presumably Datis did not venture on a landing in sight of the Athenian
army after the experience of Marathon. The defeat was not indeed a
crushing one, but had been by no means insignificant, for the Persians
had lost 6400 killed, to which a considerable number of wounded is to
be added. Of the Athenians, 192 citizens had fallen in the battle. The
town bestowed on them the peculiar honour of a common burial on the
battle-field itself. Close by, a tropæum of white marble and a monument
to Miltiades were erected. With the tithe of the spoil, the Athenians
erected, amongst other things, a bronze group at Delphi. Every year, on
the sixth of Bœdromion, the festival of Artemis Agrotera, a great goat
sacrifice was offered to that goddess for the crowd of defeated enemies,
in fulfilment of a vow of the polemarch, before the battle.
Pan, who had thrown his terror amongst the barbarians, received a
sanctuary in the grotto on the northwest side of the rock-citadel. To
him also an annual sacrifice was offered and a torch-race instituted.
The memory of the victory which the Athenians, as advance guard of the
Hellenes, had achieved always filled them with special pride. Poets and
orators could not refer to it often enough.
The day of the battle cannot be determined with precision. Only this
much is certain, that the fight took place at the time of the full moon,
in one of the last months of the summer of the year 490. For after the
full moon two thousand Lacedæmonians marched hastily from Sparta and
made every effort to reach Athens in time. On the third day they arrived
in Attica, but the battle had already been fought. After having viewed
the scene of the Persian overthrow they started on their return march
spreading eulogies on the Athenians.[g]
In an article in the _Journal of Hellenic Studies_ (1898), J. A. R.
Munro[h] declares that the reason the Persians chose so disadvantageous
a field as Marathon, was purely to lure Miltiades and the troops out of
Athens while the plot was maturing by which the supporters of Hippias
should open the gates and admit the Persians by way of Phalerum. But as
usually happens, something hung fire, the Spartans approached and, before
the signal of the shield could be raised, Miltiades had routed the land
forces with undreamed success and was hastening back to Athens.
In this view, the strategy of the Persians becomes somewhat less
contemptible and the march of the Spartans seems not so useless.[a]
ON THE COURAGE OF THE GREEKS
Modern history will never cease to ring with grateful praises of the
Athenians and Platæans for their defence of Greece against Persia. They
were the bulwark of the Occident against the Orient, of Europe against
Asia. The Persian scholar can see many ways in which, to his mind at
least, it would have been best if the Asiatic conquest of Greece had not
thus been postponed for centuries. We of to-day shall always be glad that
events fashioned themselves as they did until Europe was ready to resist
any general enforcement of Asiatic ideals and customs.
Granting the importance, then, of the victory to its fullest extent,
it cannot but make for truth to realise how little the Greeks knew all
they were doing, how selfish and mutually jealous they were, and in what
a humble manner they accomplished so much more than they dreamed or
desired.[a] The realism of this glorious feat could not be more vividly
phrased than by Prof. J. P. Mahaffy in his _Rambles and Studies in
Greece_:
“Byron may well be excused for raving about the liberty of the
Greeks, for truly their old conflict at Marathon where a thousand
ill-disciplined men repulsed a larger number of still worse disciplined
Orientals, without any recondite tactics,--perhaps even without any very
extraordinary heroism,--how is it that this conflict has maintained a
celebrity which has not been equalled by all the great battles of the
world, from that day down to our own? The courage of the Greeks was not
of the first order. Herodotus praises the Athenians in this very battle
for being the first Greeks that dared to look the Persians in the face.
Their generals all through history seem never to feel sure of victory,
and always endeavour to harangue their soldiers into a fury. Instead of
advising coolness, they specially incite to rage--ὀργῇ προσμίξωμεν, says
one of them in Thucydides--as if any man not in this state would be sure
to estimate the danger fully, and run away.
“It is, indeed, true that the ancient battles were hand to hand, and
therefore parallel to our charges of bayonets, which are said to be
very seldom carried out by two opposing lines, as one of them almost
always gives way before the actual collision takes place. This must
often have taken place in Greek battles, for, at Amphipolis, Brasidas
in a battle lost seven men; at a battle of Corinth, mentioned by
Xenophon--an important battle, too--the slain amounted to eight; and
these battles were fought before the days when whole armies were composed
of mercenaries, who spared one another, as Ordericus Vitalis says, ‘for
the love of God, and out of good feeling for the fraternity of arms.’
So, then, the loss of 192 Athenians, including some distinguished men,
was rather a severe one. As to the loss of the Persians, I so totally
disbelieve the Greek accounts of such things, that it is better to pass
it by in silence.
“Perhaps most readers will be astonished to hear of the Athenian army as
undisciplined, and of the science of war as undeveloped, in those times.
Yet I firmly believe this was so. The accounts of battles by almost all
the historians are so utterly vague, and so childishly conventional, that
it is evident these gentlemen were not only quite ignorant of the science
of war, but could not easily find any one to explain it to them. We know
that the Spartans, the most admired of all Greek warriors, were chiefly
so admired because they devised the system of subordinating officers to
one another within the same detachment, like our gradation from colonel
to corporal. So orders were passed down from officer to officer, instead
of being bawled out by a herald to a whole army.
“But this superiority of the Spartans who were really disciplined, and
went into battle coolly, like brave men, certainly did not extend to
strategy, but was merely a question of better drill. As soon as any
real strategist met them, they were helpless. Thus Iphicrates, when he
devised Wellington’s plan of meeting their attacking column in line,
and using missiles, succeeded against them, even without firearms. Thus
Epaminondas, when he devised Napoleon’s plan of massing troops on a
single point, while keeping his enemy’s line occupied, defeated them
without any considerable struggle. As for that general’s great battle of
Mantinea, which seems really to have been introduced by some complicated
strategical movements, it is a mere hopeless jumble in our histories.
But these men were in the distant future when the battle of Marathon was
being fought.
“Yet what signifies all this criticism? In spite of all scepticism, in
spite of all contempt, the battle of Marathon, whether badly or well
fought, and the troops at Marathon, whether well or ill trained, will
ever be more famous than any other battle or army, however important or
gigantic its dimensions. Even in this very war, the battles of Salamis
and Platæa were vastly more important and more hotly contested. The
losses were greater, the results were more enduring, yet thousands have
heard of Marathon to whom the other names are unknown. So much for
literary ability--so much for the power of talking well about one’s
deeds. Marathon was fought by Athenians; the Athenians eclipsed the
other Greeks as far as the other Greeks eclipsed the rest of the world
in literary power. This battle became the literary property of the city,
hymned by poet, cited by orator, told by aged nurse, lisped by stammering
infant; and so it has taken its position, above all criticism, as one of
the great decisive battles which assured the liberty of the West against
oriental despotism.”[j]
IF DARIUS HAD INVADED GREECE EARLIER
Had the first aggressive expedition of Darius, with his own personal
command and fresh appetite for conquest, been directed against Greece
instead of against Scythia (between 516-514 B.C.), Grecian independence
would have perished almost infallibly. For Athens was then still governed
by the Pisistratidæ. She had then no courage for energetic self-defence,
and probably Hippias himself, far from offering resistance, would
have found it advantageous to accept Persian dominion as a means of
strengthening his own rule, like the Ionian despots: moreover the Grecian
habit of co-operation was then only just commencing. But fortunately the
Persian invader did not touch the shore of Greece until more than twenty
years afterwards, in 490 B.C.; and during that precious interval, the
Athenian character had undergone the memorable revolution which has been
before described. Their energy and their organisation had been alike
improved and their force of resistance had become decupled; moreover,
their conduct had so provoked the Persians that resistance was then
a matter of necessity with them and submission on tolerable terms an
impossibility. When we come to the grand Persian invasion of Greece,
we shall see that Athens was the life and soul of all the opposition
offered. We shall see further, that with all the efforts of Athens, the
success of the defence was more than once doubtful; and would have been
converted into a very different result, if Xerxes had listened to the
best of his own counsellors. But had Darius, at the head of the very
same force which he conducted into Scythia, or even an inferior force,
landed at Marathon in 514 B.C., instead of sending Datis in 490 B.C.--he
would have found no men like the victors of Marathon to meet him. As far
as we can appreciate the probabilities, he would have met with little
resistance, except from the Spartans singly, who would have maintained
their own very defensible territory against all his effort--like the
Mysians and Pisidians in Asia Minor, or like the Mainots of Laconia in
later days; but Hellas generally would have become a Persian satrapy.[k]
FOOTNOTES
[18] [It is worthy of mention that since this embassy there were no
diplomatic relations between Athens and Persia until, in the last days
of 1902, a Persian ambassador was appointed to the Hellenic court--an
interval of about twenty-four hundred years.]
[19] [“Large trees felled and scattered over the plain obstructed the
movements of the cavalry,” says Bulwer-Lytton, not naming his authority.]
[Illustration]