THE ENTR’ACTE: B.C. 490–480.
◆H. vi. 132.◆
The victory of Marathon greatly increased the reputation of the man
to whose strategy the success was due. If the dispositions before
and during the battle are to be taken as a criterion of Miltiades’
military capacity, he must be given the highest place among those who
led Greek troops in the land warfare of this century. Never, indeed,
until Leuktra, did any Greek general display such ability for command;
and it may even be doubted whether the genius shown by Epaminondas in
his dispositions for that battle was superior to that of Miltiades in
dealing with the infinitely more complicated political and strategical
situation of the year 490.
He was now at the zenith of his reputation. The decline was fated to be
rapid. It was a feature in his life’s history which Herodotus could not
fail to emphasize. The greatness, the suddenness of the fall seemed to
illustrate in the most marked manner the uncertainty of human fortune.
By predilection Herodotus was almost as much a philosopher as an
historian. He was not satisfied with merely recording facts; he wished
to point their moral; and, consequently, in those cases in which
a story exemplifies in the concrete some important article of his
philosophical creed, he displays a tendency to emphasize that side, and
those features of it which have the most direct bearing on the moral
which he wishes it to convey. The relief of his picture aims rather at
philosophical than at historical effect.
It is so with his tale of the closing incident of Miltiades’ career.
The striking reverse of fortune needed, indeed, no emphasizing. The
catastrophe was sufficiently marked to point its moral even to
the dullest intelligence. But the feature of the story which the world
might fail to notice unless it were brought into high relief was the
self-incurred nature of the disaster. It is characteristic of his
philosophy that he regards Fate as acting on mortals internally rather
than externally, making them the instruments of their own doom. The
“agent provocateur” appears late on the stage. In the opening scene the
victim is himself the instrument of Fate.
This faith of his dominates his narrative of Miltiades’ disastrous
expedition against Paros. The man is alone responsible for the design.
His folly and impiety cause its failure. Like many another prominent
character who appears upon the stage of his history, he is one under a
doom. The circumstances outside his own personal action which must have
contributed so largely to the final catastrophe, are hardly apparent in
the story.
◆H. vi. 132.◆
“After the defeat [of the Persians] at Marathon, Miltiades, who had
previously enjoyed a great reputation at Athens, acquired a still
greater fame.
“He asked the Athenians to grant him seventy ships, together with an
army and money supplies, without telling them what land he proposed to
attack, but saying that, if they followed him, he would make them rich.
“Such was his pretext for the demand of the ships. The Athenians,
elated by his promises, granted them. ◆H. vi. 133.◆ After taking over
his forces, Miltiades sailed against Paros, on the pretext that the
Parians had been the aggressors in sending a trireme to Marathon with
the Persian. This was his alleged reason; but he had a grudge against
the Parians on account of Lysagoras, son of Tisias, a Parian by birth,
who had prejudiced Hydarnes the Persian against him. On arriving at the
object of attack, Miltiades with his force besieged the Parians, who
were shut up within their fortifications; and, sending in a messenger,
he demanded a hundred talents, saying that if they did not give it him,
he would not withdraw his army until he had destroyed them.”
The Parians refused the money, and took measures for the defence.
#THE EXPEDITION AGAINST PAROS.#
◆H. vi. 134.◆
So far, says Herodotus, the story is a pan-Hellenic one: but as to
what ensued, several versions were current. He only gives the Parian
tale. For the purposes of history all that is important in it is that
a certain Timo, priestess of Ceres Thesmophora, arranged to disclose
to Miltiades a way by which the city might be captured. In leaving the
temple he fell and dislocated his thigh.
◆H. vi. 135.◆
“Miltiades, therefore, being in evil plight, sailed back home, neither
bringing money to the Athenians, nor having acquired Paros, but having
besieged it for six and twenty days and laid waste the island.”[86]
There is an important sequel to the story. The Parians consulted the
oracle at Delphi as to whether they should punish the priestess.
“But the Pythian would not allow it, saying that Timo was not blameable
for this, ‘but that it was fated that Miltiades should not end well,
and that she had appeared to him as a guide to misfortunes.’”
The most striking point in the tale of this expedition to Paros is the
absence of adequate motive in the story as it stands. In addition to
this, it contains certain improbable details.
It is unlikely that the Athenians would entrust an expedition of this
size to either Miltiades or any one else, without knowing the
object of the expedition. Seventy ships would constitute nearly the
whole of the Athenian fleet of this time.
The authorities at Athens must have been well aware from the beginning
that Paros was the object of attack.
◆Cf. H. vi. 132, _ad init._◆
Of the date of the expedition there is no indication given in the story
except that Herodotus’ language implies a certain interval between
Marathon and its departure, during which Miltiades enjoyed a higher
reputation than before. It can hardly have been in the same year as
Marathon; and it cannot therefore be placed earlier than the spring of
489 B.C. Its motive may have been either commercial or strategic; but
in either case it aimed at the acquisition of a strong footing on the
islands which bridge the mid-Ægean. Naxos had certainly suffered in
490. It may even have remained in Persian occupation; and, if so, Paros
was destined to become what Samos and Naxos had successively been in
the past, the outpost of European Greek trade along this route.
Such must have been the real motive lying behind the pretext of the
medism of Paros.
The expedition was certainly a failure; and, rightly or wrongly,
Miltiades was made the scapegoat. The democrats welcomed the
opportunity of revenging their defeat of 493; so Xanthippos led the
accusers in their second political prosecution of the leader of the
aristocratic party. The charge brought against him was a capital one.
He himself was unable to conduct his own defence, for the injured thigh
was mortifying, and his end was near. His friends who fought on his
behalf succeeded so far that the penalty was reduced to a fine of fifty
talents. He did not live to pay the fine; but his son Kimon, destined
to become famous in the wars of twenty years later, paid it after his
death.
The curiously composite nature of the sources of Herodotus’ history
are well illustrated in those passages which relate to the career of
Miltiades. Some originate in a source peculiarly favourable to him;
others in one bitterly hostile. The Parian tale belongs conspicuously
to the latter class.
#PREPARATIONS FOR THE GREAT INVASION.#
He may have been by character, he certainly was by position, a man
about whom his Athenian contemporaries would form strong opinions,
whether good or evil. The leader of the aristocratic party at a period
which, whatever the obscurity of the details of the political history
of the time, was evidently one of fierce party contention, could not
hope in such a state as Athens to escape the defamation of political
opponents. Herodotus may or may not have ignored or toned down many of
the stories; but the fact remains that the worst he has to say of him
is not very bad, and even that is obviously intended to illustrate the
infatuation of a doom.
The real features of Miltiades are blurred in the historical portrait.
But, inasmuch as the most reliable part of the story is that which is
most favourable to him, it may be that the modern world will judge most
truly of him if it thinks of him at his best.
The extant history both of Greece and Persia during the years which
intervened between the Marathonian campaign and the great invasion of
480 is very fragmentary; but, as it was Herodotus’ object to tell the
tale of the relations between the two, such facts as he does mention
have in nearly every instance a direct bearing on those relations, and
the gaps in the story are not of the embarrassing character of those
which are so apparent in the narrative of the years preceding the
Ionian revolt, or, indeed, in that of the revolt itself.
◆H. vii. 1.◆
The failure at Marathon made Darius more desirous than ever to
prosecute his designs against Greece. In spite of the suppression of
the Ionian revolt, the events of the last twenty-five years must have
seriously shaken the prestige of Persia in the extreme western parts
of his territory. Darius’ life-work remained unfinished if he could
not consolidate this one corner of the great empire he had reconquered
so rapidly in the first years of his reign. That consolidation was
manifestly incomplete if the free kin of his turbulent subjects in the
far west were to be allowed to enjoy the reputation of having defied
his power.
He went to work slowly, for the task was great; and it was all
to do, since Datis and Artaphernes had failed to establish a footing
on the western mainland. Moreover, that expedition had shown him
the difficulty, if not the impossibility of isolating the immediate
object of attack. Pan-Hellenic sentiment may not at the time have been
stronger west than east of the Ægean; but its practical expression,
in the form of combination among the states, was infinitely easier on
the European than on the Asiatic side. The years of the revolt had
furnished him with all the data for an estimate of the formidable
character of this sentimental factor in the politics of this western
border of his empire. The punishment of the free Ionians, and the
establishment of a _tête-du-pont_ on the European shore, could only
be accomplished by a force sufficiently large to meet a formidable
combination among the Greek states.
In the years following Marathon,—the last years of his eventful
life,—he set to work to prepare for the great expedition. The work
was necessarily a work of time. Apart from the magnitude of the
undertaking, the last ten years must have severely strained even the
great resources of his empire. Moreover, those resources were, owing
to the methods on which the government of the empire was organised,
potential rather than active. Persia possessed the materials for a
great army; but she did not keep that army in commission. Prompt action
was impossible with her when the action was to be on a large scale.
Some years passed, and yet the blow did not fall on Greece. The
exhausted state of the empire, apart from the habitual slowness in
the working of its military machinery, must have delayed the progress
of the preparations. ◆H. vii. 2.◆ Darius, too, was in the decline of
his days; and it may well be that a failure in his health, apparent
some years before his actual death, led to those quarrels about the
succession, the story of which reached Greece, and is reproduced
by Herodotus, after his custom, with much circumstantial detail.
This failure of energy at the centre of the empire would entail a
corresponding lack of energy in the outlying parts of it.
#DEATH OF DARIUS.#
Whatever the progress made in the years immediately succeeding
Marathon,[87] an event took place in 486 which diverted the attention
of Darius to another part of the world. Egypt revolted.
But the old king was dying; and before the work of suppressing the
revolt was carried out, he passed away in 485.
Enough has been said about him in connection with his organization of
the empire to make it unnecessary to write his obituary here.
Singularly able, singularly enlightened, and, for the time in which he
lived, singularly humane, he stands forth in history as the greatest
Oriental that ever ruled in Western Asia.
In the year after Darius died the revolt in Egypt was suppressed.
During the six years which followed the Marathonian campaign the march
of events at Athens had been rapid.
The victory won by the democratic party in securing the condemnation
of Miltiades (probably in 489) shows that, after Marathon, the finely
balanced political scale had inclined in their direction.[88] The full
reasons for this change in the political situation are unknown, but the
failure at Paros must have largely contributed to it, if it was not its
main cause. But the democratic party which came into power somewhere
towards the close of 489 was a very different party to that of two
years earlier. Its Peisistratid leanings had been brought to a violent
and sudden end by the events of 490, and tyranny and its attendant
medism were for ever dead in Athens.
Still the fact that Aristides held an archonship in the official
year 489–488, suggests that the triumph was a triumph of a moderate and
not of an extreme democracy, the triumph of a party largely recruited
from among the moderates who must have supported the aristocrats in
their ascendency during the years preceding 490. This section would
require no urging to a policy of “anti-tyrannis”; and it may well have
been the case that the main body of the democrats, with eyes now opened
to the real nature of that they had misjudged, were anxious, under the
new order of things, to purge themselves of their past sins by the
punishment of those who had led them astray.
In the year after Aristides’ archonship the law of ostracism was
passed. It was immediately put in operation against the close friends
of tyranny, three being sent into exile, among them Megakles the
Alkmæonid. This in 488–487.
In the next year, the application of the lot to the selection of
archons robbed those officials of much of their prestige, if not of
their power.
Changed alike in sentiment and policy, the democracy of Athens
developed in the years immediately following Marathon into that
intensely patriotic party which contributed so largely to the salvation
of Greece in the greater war which was soon to come.
It was probably in the latter half of the ten years’ interval that
hostilities with Ægina broke out afresh. The two powers were still
at enmity in 481, when the Greeks, in view of the great invasion
which then so manifestly threatened them, sought to bring about a
reconciliation between such of the Greek states as were at variance
with one another.
Herodotus’ account of the relations between Athens and Ægina is very
confused, so much so that it is difficult to allocate the various
incidents which marked those relations even to their probable dates.
Yet there is no reason to doubt the main fact that a serious struggle
did take place between those states in this decade, and, probably, in
the latter half of it.
#THEMISTOCLES AND THE FLEET.#
In the history of the relations between Greece and Persia this war
is of doubtful importance;—doubtful, because it is not known how far it
played a part in bringing about one of the most momentous resolutions
that the people of Athens ever took.
The great development of the silver coinage system about this time had
made the demand for silver much greater than it had been previously. It
was possibly owing to this cause that one of the lessees who held from
the State silver mines at Laurion in South Attica, sought to increase
the output by exploring deeper levels than had hitherto been worked.
After sinking his shaft to a depth of 300 feet, he came upon lodes of
ore infinitely richer than those at the higher levels, to which the
workings had been hitherto confined.
The date generally attributed to this discovery and its results is 484
B.C. The income which the State derived from the mines increased so
greatly, that it became a question at Athens what had best be done with
the money.
This seems to have been about the time at which Themistocles, who
was destined to play so great a part in the war of 480, came to the
front in Athenian politics. He appears to have held high office some
years before this time,[89] but his predominating influence in Athens
coincides with the last five years of this decade. ◆H. vii. 144.◆ When
it was proposed that the money thus accruing to the State should be
divided among the citizens, he urged that a better use should be made
of it in building 200 vessels for the navy.
He carried the proposal. That is certain; but what is not certain is
the nature of the motive which induced him to make it.
Herodotus, whose account of Themistocles is drawn from sources hostile
to this great man and to that phase of home politics of which he was in
this and succeeding years the chief exponent,[90] attributes this
proposal not to a wise foresight as to the plans of Persia, ◆H. vii.
144.◆ but to the immediate necessities of the war with Ægina.
But Plutarch in his life of Themistocles has preserved a fuller record
of his policy in the years preceding the great war of 480, a record
which bears all the traces of reliability, and gives a wholly different
colouring to the circumstances of the time.
Themistocles’ policy with regard to naval matters was not suddenly
sprung upon the world in the year 484 but dated from what must
have been the very outset of his political career. Even before or
immediately after the time of Marathon, he is advocating this policy in
opposition to Miltiades.[91]
◆Plut. Them. 3.◆
Many regarded Marathon as the end of the war, but he looked upon it as
the beginning only.
Plutarch’s statement as to the early date at which Themistocles began
to advocate the policy which was fated to render his name famous,
has been received in later times with much suspicion, mainly on the
ground of the general unreliability of that historian as a recorder
of history. It is, indeed, frequently the case that his statements,
unless supported by actual or presumptive external evidence, cannot
be accepted as final. But in this particular instance the presumptive
evidence strongly corroborates his story.
Up to 500 B.C. Persia as a naval power had not played any part in the
Ægean. It seems, indeed, to have been during the Ionian revolt that she
developed to the full this arm of her service. After Ladé, in 494 the
Persian fleet in the Western seas becomes ever more prominent and more
important. Islands previously unsubdued begin to fall one by one into
her hands.
Was this a warning whose significance could have been misjudged by a
Themistocles?
#INCREASE IN THE ATHENIAN FLEET.#
Until 484, however, the success of his advocacy of increase in the
navy seems to have been but partial. But something had been done. The
Athens, which some nine years before [about 498 B.C.] had been compelled
to borrow ships from Corinth for use against Ægina, is able in 489 to
despatch a fleet of seventy ships with Miltiades to Paros. It was,
doubtless, on the question of expense, found impossible, in view of the
then resources of the State, to build and maintain a large number of
vessels.
The increase in the revenues from Laurion gave Themistocles and Athens
the opportunity for so doing. Herodotus, as has been seen, alleges that
Themistocles’ motive was the war with Ægina.
Plutarch, on the other hand, while saying that such was the object
on the face of his proposal, adds that his real motive was to make
preparations to meet the Persian.
To the people he used, in advocating his measure, that argument from
the present which would appeal to them, knowing well that the argument
from the future is not one which can be expected to move the feelings
of the masses, who have not the means of gauging what the future will
bring forth.
In this case again Plutarch’s account of the matter is supported by
other evidence.
The number of ships demanded was much larger than could have been
required for any war with Ægina. The Æginetan fleet may have suffered
severely in this war, but Ægina could only commission forty-two vessels
at the time of Salamis.
Nor can it have required a large amount of foresight on the part of any
statesman who cared to study the question, to understand that another
attack of Persia must come, and must come, too, at no remote period.
This measure must have been carried at Athens about the time when
Xerxes is described to have been deliberating upon an attempt to
conquer Greece.
◆Cf. H. vii. 7.◆
Succeeding his father in 485, Xerxes found himself heir to an Egypt in
revolt That revolt was suppressed in 484. The nature of the country
made revolt in Egypt ever formidable, and hence such preparations as
Darius had made for the invasion of Greece must have been to a
certain extent expended on the campaign in Egypt.
Much of the work of the last years of Darius’ life would have to be
done over again, if the great design of a conquest of the whole of
European Greece was to be persisted in.
The personality of Xerxes is much distorted in the records of Greek
historians. From Herodotus onward they with one consent aim at
emphasizing the contrast between the superficial magnificence and the
pitiful incapacity of the monarch who made so disastrous a failure
in his attack on Greece. Judged, indeed, by his known acts, Xerxes
appears to have been much less able and less energetic than his great
predecessor.
He was at first, says Herodotus, in some doubt as to whether to carry
out the design against Greece. He was, however, persuaded by Mardonius,
who, wishing to be made governor of Greece, advised him from motives of
self-interest.
It is obvious that Herodotus’ account of events which took place on
the Persian side must be received with the utmost caution, since the
occasions on which he could obtain anything resembling authentic
information on such points must have been few and far between. This
reported advice of Mardonius may be the mere creation of the fancy
of Greek tradition, seeking to attribute to the man who dragged on
the war to its disastrous close the responsibility for its inception.
But it is, on the other hand, quite possible that Herodotus did have
substantial evidence as to the part which Mardonius played in the
matter.
No great advantage from an historical point of view can be gained
by following the long account which Herodotus gives of the various
influences which were brought to bear on Xerxes for and against the
proposed expedition. ◆H. vii. 6.◆ Those persistent plotters against
the freedom of Hellas, the Peisistratidæ, appear once more, this time
with an oracle-monger in their train, a certain Onomakritos, who is
represented as plying Xerxes with oracles favourable to the Persian
prospects, while suppressing those which foretold disaster to the king.
#THE MEDISM OF THE ALEUADÆ.#
A far more significant influence is that asserted to have been
exercised by the Aleuadæ, whom Herodotus describes as “Kings in
Thessaly.” This great feudal family from Larisa found itself in a very
difficult and hazardous position. They were at the time supreme in this
border-land; but it was a supremacy which was threatened by the fact
that the Persian frontier had been advanced by Mardonius’ conquest
of Macedonia to within a few miles of their own stronghold. Their
Thessalian vassals were ofttimes inclined to kick against the pricks
of a quasi-serfdom; and, furthermore, their rulers must have been in a
position to gauge accurately the feeling that would be excited among
them in the event of a Persian advance, and in case the Greeks farther
south showed any disposition to aid them in resistance to that invasion
which must come sooner or later.
The attitude of the Aleuadæ some few years later, at the time of the
war, was indeed calculated to give rise in after-times to sinister
reports as to their previous proceedings; but their position at this
time between the upper millstone of Persia and the nether millstone
of Greece was so uncomfortable, that they may well have sought to
escape from it before the mill started working. It was a far cry to
Peloponnese from the banks of the Peneius, and a supremacy in Thessaly
under Persia was better than no supremacy at all. It is not strange,
then, if, in their providence of the future, they made friends of the
mammon of Persian unrighteousness.
It would flatter Greek conceit to think that their own renegade
countrymen could have so much influence for evil with the Great King;
and the part which these families of the Peisistratidæ and Aleuadæ are
represented to have played in determining the great war was doubtless
greatly exaggerated.
Apart from this motive for exaggeration, there was a tendency in
after-times to antedate the medism of those who sided with the Persian
in the war of 480.
Perhaps in the case of the Aleuadæ, however, later tradition may not
have been wholly unjust. It would be natural that they should seek
to make some arrangements with the great Power which was now at
their very gates. It was to their interest to do so; but no motive of
interest can be assigned to their reported advocacy of an invasion
of Greece; and this part of the tradition preserved in Herodotus was
probably a creation of the imagination of posterity.
◆H. vii. 8.◆
The language attributed by Herodotus to Xerxes and his counsellors
in the meeting at which the king announced his decision to undertake
the expedition against Greece, though it cannot have any claim to
an historical foundation, still less to historical accuracy, is
interesting as expressing the Greek idea of the working of the Oriental
mind.
Xerxes places before his council his reasons for undertaking the
expedition. He must not, as a conqueror, fall short of his great
predecessors. He must punish Athens, and, incidentally, conquer Greece.
The Empire of Persia must be universal.
Mardonius then speaks on the same side. He urges that the Ionians in
Europe must not remain free; a statement of an opinion which, whether
uttered or not on this particular occasion, seems to have been an
essential feature of the policy of those great Persian officials who
had ruled in Western Asia for twenty-five years past.
There are other passages in the reported speech which are of the utmost
interest. The acquisition of territory out of sheer lust of conquest is
advocated, implying, to Greek minds, a marked and striking contrast to
the utter absence of mere land-hunger in the Greek disposition.
Mardonius’ description of the methods of Greek warfare, how that
“having found out the fairest and most level spot, they go down to
it and fight,” is so apt that, though the words may never have been
uttered by Mardonius himself, they represent possibly, a sarcastic
criticism made by some Persian with whom Herodotus has spoken. The
Persian could not understand the limitations which the nature of the
land of Greece placed upon the methods of warfare of its inhabitants.
Finally, Mardonius urges that the Greek will be scared into submission
by the mere numbers with which Persia can take the field.
#XERXES DECIDES TO INVADE GREECE.#
◆H. vii. 10.◆
Of all the members of the council only one is represented as having
dared to oppose the scheme. This was Artabanos, son of Hystaspes,
and uncle of Xerxes. He represents the “little Persian” side of
contemporary politics.
He opens his speech with a passage which might have been culled from
a drama of Euripides. He proceeds to point out with what disastrous
results his warnings as to the “Scythian” expedition had been
disregarded. He then gives a forecast of the war which, had it been
made at this time, would have been singularly justified by events.
After this he indulges in philosophical remarks peculiarly in accord
with Herodotus’ own views, and winds up with an estimate of the Greeks
peculiarly flattering to that people.
The retort of Xerxes is conceived in the typical form that an absolute
monarch of the East might be expected to employ towards an adviser
whose advice was unpalatable.
It is almost inevitable that at a time so momentous the supernatural
should make its appearance in Herodotus’ history.
◆H. vii. 12, _seqq_.◆
Xerxes’ resolution is shaken by Artabanos’ advice. He even decides to
follow it, though warned in a dream not to change his resolution. The
warning comes a second time. He consults Artabanos, and suggests that
he should put on the royal apparel and sleep in the royal bed, and so
make experiment whether the dream would come to him. To him also the
vision comes; and he, too, is converted. So jealous are the gods of
human greatness, and so persistent were they in leading the great king
into disaster!
◆H. vii. 20.◆
Having decided on the expedition, Xerxes proceeded with his
preparations. Herodotus says that he took four whole years in making
them, and that he began them immediately after suppressing the revolt
of Egypt.
No useful end can be gained by following in detail through the pages
of Herodotus the exaggerated estimate which the Greek formed of the
magnitude of the expedition and of the preparations made for it.
All that will be attempted here will be to show what, on a sober
estimate of possibilities and probabilities, may be assumed to
have been the actual facts of the case. The obvious exaggerations of
the Greek estimate have led writers in modern times to what must be
regarded as exaggerated depreciations of the magnitude of this supreme
effort on the part of the great Empire.[92]
Whatever the obscurities of the detailed evidence, one reliable fact
seems to stand forth: that this was an unusual effort on the part
of Persia. The levy of troops for the expedition was certainly an
extraordinary one.
Allowing for the Greek exaggeration of numbers, there is reason
to suppose that the ordinary full levy of the Persian land forces
produced an army of about half a million. It had been called out for
the Scythian expedition, nearly twenty years before this time. This
full levy was, however, rarely made, and only when circumstances
imperatively demanded it. It is also noticeable that on such occasions
the Great King assumes the command.
It is quite possible that the number of troops put into the field
during the Ionian revolt amounted from beginning to end to numbers even
exceeding those of the ordinary general levy; but it is a noticeable
feature of that war that the Government at Susa carries it on by means
of reinforcements despatched at various times. There is nothing of the
nature of a single great levy.
It must be concluded that the troops employed on land in the campaign
of 480 amounted to more than half a million.[93]
In Herodotus the numbers of the expedition run into millions. The
exaggeration is so hopelessly great that it is impossible to draw any
conclusion from the statements made.[94]
#NUMBERS OF THE PERSIAN EXPEDITION.#
It is only when the historian deals with the relatively moderate
dimensions of the force left behind with Mardonius in 479, which he
says amounted to 300,000 men, that his evidence on this particular
point becomes worthy of consideration. The numbers he gives of the
Greek contingents at Platæa, derived apparently from some official
information, amount altogether to over 100,000 men. It may be regarded
as certain that Mardonius did not face the Greek on that occasion with
an army in a less proportion than two to one to that of the enemy.
If so, Herodotus’ statements must approximate to the truth. It is
probable, too, that Mardonius retained with him a considerable fraction
of the original land force, and this would be in general accord with
an estimate of over half a million for the total numbers of the land
army.[95]
The preparation and collection of such a force, drawn from every race
in that extensive empire, would be necessarily a work of time; and,
apart from this, the Orient does not work quickly. Whatever the faults
committed in the war, the excellence of the organization on the Persian
side must, in certain important respects, have been remarkable; and
that organization cannot, for the purposes of an expedition of such
magnitude, have been a brief work.
The exaggeration in Herodotus’ statement that the expedition took four
years to prepare, may not, therefore, be very great. One deduction must
be made. Egypt was not reduced until Darius had been dead a year, and
therefore its reduction may fall _late_ in 484; and, if so, the period
of preparation cannot have greatly exceeded three years.
It was early in these years of preparation that labourers were
sent to cut a canal through the low and narrow isthmus which connects
Mount Athos with the mainland of Chalkidike. The disaster to Mardonius’
expedition in 492 had aroused within the Persian breast a dread of this
formidable promontory.
The plan of the expedition was, indeed, a return to that of the
expedition of 492. Marathon had shown the Persians that an attack on
Greece, or even on Athens, in order to be successful, must be organized
on a larger scale than any expedition which could be put on board a
fleet The expedition of Mardonius had been successful as far as human
agency was concerned; that of Datis and Artaphernes, though launched
against an infinitely less formidable object of attack, had been a
serious failure. The most natural way of accounting for the contrast
would be the comparison of size.
While the canal at Athos was in process of construction, a bridge was
being built over the Strymon river, and ropes were being prepared for
the great bridges by which it was proposed to cross the Hellespont.
Large depôts of provisions were also collected at various points on the
intended route, at Leuké Akté in Thrace, at Tyrodiza in Perinthia, at
Doriskos, at Eion, and in Macedonia.