Part 4

Leonidas and his Spartan band having perished vainly at Thermopylæ, in their heroic attempt to hold the pass against the host of Xerxes, and the Greek ships at Artemisium having vainly beaten their overwhelming enemies, the whole of Greece north of the isthmus of Corinth lay completely at the mercy of the invader. The Thebans and other false-hearted Greeks joined his ranks, and saved their own cities by helping to destroy their neighbors. The Platæans, the Thespians and the Athenians abandoned their homes in haste, conducted their families, and such property as they might snatch away, to the nearer islands and to places of refuge in Peloponnesus. The Greeks of Peloponnesus rallied in force to the isthmus and began there the building of a defensive wall. Their fleet, retiring from Artemisium, was drawn together, with some re-enforcements, behind the island of Salamis, which stretches across the entrance to the bay of Eleusis, off the inner coast of Attica, near Athens. {1574} Meantime the Persians had advanced through Attica, entered the deserted city of Athens, taken the Acropolis, which a small body of desperate patriots resolved to hold, had slain its defenders and burned its temples. Their fleet had also been assembled in the bay of Phalerum, which was the more easterly of the three harbors of Athens. At Salamis the Greeks were in dispute. The Corinthians and the Peloponnesians were bent upon falling back with the fleet to the isthmus; the Athenians, the Eginetans and the Megarians looked upon all as lost if the present combination of the whole naval power of Hellas in the narrow strait of Salamis was permitted to be broken up. At length Themistocles, the Athenian leader, a man of fertile brain and overbearing resolution, determined the question by sending a secret message to Xerxes that the Greek ships had prepared to escape from him. This brought down the Persian fleet upon them at once and left them no chance for retreat. Of the memorable fight which ensued (September 20 B. C. 480) the following is a part of the description given by Herodotus: "Against the Athenians, who held the western extremity of the line towards Eleusis, were placed the Phœnicians; against the Lacedæmonians, whose station was eastward towards the Piræus, the Ionians. Of these last, a few only followed the advice of Themistocles, to fight backwardly; the greater number did far otherwise. … Far the greater number of the Persian ships engaged in this battle were disabled, either by the Athenians or by the Eginetans. For as the Greeks fought in order and kept their line, while the barbarians were in confusion and had no plan in anything that they did, the issue of the battle could scarce be other than it was. Yet the Persians fought far more bravely here than at Eubœa, and indeed surpassed themselves; each did his utmost through fear of Xerxes, for each thought that the king's eye was upon himself. … During the whole time of the battle Xerxes sat at the base of the hill called Ægaleos, over against Salamis; and whenever he saw any of his own captains perform any worthy exploit he inquired concerning him; and the man's name was taken down by his scribes, together with the names of his father and his city. … When the rout of the barbarians began, and they sought to make their escape to Phalêrum, the Eginetans, awaiting them in the channel, performed exploits worthy to be recorded. Through the whole of the confused struggle the Athenians employed themselves in destroying such ships as either made resistance or fled to shore; while the Eginetans dealt with those which endeavoured to escape down the straits; so that the Persian vessels were no sooner clear of the Athenians than straightway they fell into the hands of the Eginetan squadron. … Such of the barbarian vessels as escaped from the battle fled to Phalêrum, and there sheltered themselves under the protection of the land army. … Xerxes, when he saw the extent of his loss, began to be afraid lest the Greeks might be counselled by the Ionians, or without their advice might determine, to sail straight to the Hellespont and break down the bridges there; in which case he would be blocked up in Europe and run great risk of perishing. He therefore made up his mind to fly."

_Herodotus, History (edited and translated by Rawlinson), book 8, sections 85—97 (volume 4)._

ALSO IN: _E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2)._

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 4 (volume 4)._

_W. W. Goodwin, The Battle of Salamis (Papers of the American School at Athens, volume 1)._

GREECE: B. C. 479. The Persian Wars: Platæa.

When Xerxes, after the defeat of his fleet at Salamis, fled back to Asia with part of his disordered host, he left his lieutenant, Mardonius, with a still formidable army, to repair the disaster and accomplish, if possible, the conquest of the Greeks. Mardonius retired to Thessaly for the winter, but returned to Attica in the spring and drove the Athenians once more from their shattered city, which they were endeavoring to repair. He made overtures to them which they rejected with scorn, and thereupon he destroyed everything in city and country which could be destroyed, reducing Athens to ruins and Attica to a desert. The Spartans and other Peloponnesians who had promised support to the Athenians were slow in coming, but they came in strong force at last. Mardonius fell back into Bœotia, where he took up a favorable position in a plain on the left bank of the Asopus, near Platæa. This was in September, B. C. 479. According to Herodotus, he had 300,000 "barbarian" troops and 50,000 Greek allies. The opposing Greeks, who followed him to the Asopus, were 110,000 in number. The two armies watched one another for more than ten days, unwilling to offer battle because the omens were on both sides discouraging. At length the Greeks undertook a change of position and Mardonius, mistaking this for a movement of retreat, led his Persians on a run to attack them. It was a fatal mistake. The Spartans, who bore the brunt of the Persian assault, soon convinced the deluded Mardonius that they were not in flight, while the Athenians dealt roughly with his Theban allies. "The barbarians," says Herodotus, "many times seized hold of the Greek spears and brake them; for in boldness and warlike spirit the Persians were not a whit inferior to the Greeks; but they were without bucklers, untrained, and far below the enemy in respect of skill in arms. Sometimes singly, sometimes in bodies of ten, now fewer and now more in number, they dashed forward upon the Spartan ranks, and so perished. … After Mardonius fell, and the troops with him, which were the main strength of the army, perished, the remainder yielded to the Lacedæmonians and took to flight. Their light clothing and want of bucklers were of the greatest hurt to them: for they had to contend against men heavily armed, while they themselves were without any such defence." Artabazus, who was second in command of the Persians, and who had 40,000 immediately under him, did not strike a blow in the battle, but quitted the field as soon as he saw the turn events had taken, and led his men in a retreat which had no pause until they reached and crossed the Hellespont. Of the remainder of the 300,000 of Mardonius' host, only 3,000, according to Herodotus, outlived the battle. It was the end of the Persian invasions of Greece.

_Herodotus, History (translated by Rawlinson), book 9._

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 42 (volume 5)._

_C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 16 (volume 1)._

_G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 7 (volume 1)._

{1575}

In celebration of the victory an altar to Zeus was erected and consecrated by the united Greeks with solemn ceremonies, a quintennial festival, called the Feast of Liberty, was instituted at Platæa, and the territory of the Platæans was declared sacred and inviolable, so long as they should maintain the appointed sacrifices and funeral honors to the dead. But these agreements did not avail to protect the Platæans when the subsequent Peloponnesian War broke out, and they stood faithfully among the allies of Athens. "The last act of the assembled army was the expedition against Thebes, in order, according to the obligation incumbent upon them, to take revenge on the most obstinate ally of the national enemy. Eleven days after the battle Pausanias appeared before the city and demanded the surrender of the party-leaders, responsible for the policy of Thebes. Not until the siege had lasted twenty days was the surrender obtained. … Timagenidas and the other leaders of the Thebans were executed as traitors against the nation, by order of Pausanias, after he had dismissed the confederate army."

_E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2)._

GREECE: B. C. 479. The Persian Wars: Mycale.

The same day, in September, B. C. 479, on which the Greeks at Platæa destroyed the army of Mardonius, witnessed an almost equal victory won by their compatriots of the fleet, on the coast of Asia Minor. The Persian fleet, to avoid a battle with them, had retreated to Mycale on the narrow strait between the island of Samos and the mainland, where a land army of 60,000 men was stationed at the time. Here they drew their ships on shore and surrounded them with a rampart. The Greeks, under Leotychides the Lacedæmonian, landed and attacked the whole combined force. The Ionians in the Persian army turned against their masters and helped to destroy them. The rout was complete and only a small remnant escaped to reach Sardis, where Xerxes was still lingering.

_Herodotus, History (translated by Rawlinson), book 9._

ALSO IN: _C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 16 (volume 1)._

_G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 42 (volume 5)._

GREECE: B. C. 479-478. Athens assumes the protection of Ionia. Siege and capture of Sestus. Rebuilding and enlargement of Athens and its walls. Interference of Sparta foiled by Themistocles.

See ATHENS: B. C. 479-478.

GREECE: B. C. 478-477. Reduction of Byzantium. Mad conduct of Pausanias. His recall. Alienation of the Asiatic Greeks from Sparta. Their closer union with Athens. Withdrawal of the Spartans from the war. Formation of the Delian Confederacy.

"Sestos had fallen: but Byzantion and the Thrakian Doriskos, with Eion on the Strymon and many other places on the northern shores of the Egean, were still held by Persian garrisons, when, in the year after the battle of Plataiai, Pausanias, as commander of the confederate fleet, sailed with 20 Peloponnesian and 30 Athenian ships to Kypros (Cyprus) and thence, having recovered the greater part of the island, to Byzantion. The resistance here was as obstinate perhaps as at Sestos; but the place was at length reduced, and Sparta stood for the moment at the head of a triumphant confederacy. It was now in her power to weld the isolated units, which made up the Hellenic world, into something like an organised society, and to kindle in it something like national life. … But she had no statesman capable, like Themistokles, of seizing on a golden opportunity, while in her own generals she found her greatest enemies." Pausanias "was, it would seem, dazzled by Persian wealth and enamoured of Persian pleasures. He had roused the indignation of his own people by having his name inscribed, as leader of all the Greek forces, on the tripod which was to commemorate the victory of Plataiai: and now his arrogance and tyranny were to excite at Byzantion a discontent and impatience destined to be followed by more serious consequences to his country as well as to himself. On the fall of Byzantion he sent to the Persian king the prisoners taken in the city, and spread the report that they had escaped. He forwarded at the same time, it is said, … a letter in which he informed Xerxes that he wished to marry his daughter and to make him lord of all Hellas." Xerxes opened negotiations with him, and "the head of this miserable man was now fairly turned. Clad in Persian garb, he aped the privacy of Asiatic despots; and when he came forth from his palace it was to make a royal progress through Thrace, surrounded by Median and Egyptian life guards, and to show his insolence to men who were at least his equals. The reports of this significant change in the behaviour of Pausanias led to his recall. He was put on his trial; but his accusers failed to establish the personal charges brought against him, while his Medism also was dismissed as not fully proved. The suspicion, however, was so strong that he was deprived of his command. … All these events were tending to alienate the Asiatic Greeks and the islanders of the Egean from a state which showed itself incapable of maintaining its authority over its own servants." Even before the recall of Pausanius, "the Asiatic Greeks intreated Aristeides the Athenian commander to admit them into direct relations with Athens; and the same change of feeling had passed over all the non-medising Greek states with the exception of the Peloponnesian allies of Sparta. In short, it had become clear that all Hellas was divided into two great sections, the one gravitating as naturally to Sparta, the great land power, as the other gravitated to Athens with her maritime preponderance. When therefore a Spartan commission headed by Dorkis arrived with a small force to take the place of Pausanias, they were met by passive resistance where they had looked for submission; and their retirement from the field in which they were unable to compel obedience left the confederacy an accomplished fact."

_G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 8 (volume 2)._

This confederacy of the Asiatic Greeks with Athens, now definitely organized, is known as the Confederacy of Delos, or the Delian League. "To Athens, as decidedly the preponderant power, both morally and materially, was of necessity, and also with free good-will, consigned the headship and chief control of the affairs and conduct of the alliance; a position that carried with it the responsibility of the collection and administration of a common fund, and the presidency of the assemblies of delegates. As time went on and circumstances altered, the terms of confederation were modified in various instances; but at first the general rule was the contribution, not only of money or ships, but of actual personal service. … We have no precise enumeration of the allies of Athens at this early time, but the course of the history brings up the mention of many. {1576} … Crete was never directly affected by these events, and Cyprus was also soon to be left aside; but otherwise all the Greek islands of the Aegean northwards—except Melos, Thera, Aegina, and Cythera—were contributory, including Euboea; as were the cities on the coasts of Thrace and the Chalcidic peninsula from the Macedonian boundary to the Hellespont; Byzantium and various cities on the coasts of the Propontis, and less certainly of the Euxine; the important series of cities on the western coast of Asia Minor—though apparently with considerable exceptions—Aeolian, Ionian, Dorian, and Carian, as far as Caunus at least on the borders of Lycia, if not even round to the Chelidonian isles. The sacred island of Delos was chosen as the depository of the common treasure and the place of meeting of the contributors. Apart from its central convenience and defensibleness as an island, and the sanctity of the temple, … it was a traditional centre for solemn reunions of Ionians from either side the Aegean. … At the distinct request of the allies the Athenians appointed Aristides to superintend the difficult process of assessing the various forms and amounts of contribution. … The total annual amount of the assessment was the large sum of 460 talents (£112,125), and this perhaps not inclusive of, but only supplementary to, the costly supply of equipped ships."

_W. W. Lloyd, The Age of Pericles, chapter 14 (volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _E. Abbott, History of Greece, part 2, chapters 6 and 8._

GREECE: B. C. 477-462. Advancing democracy of Athens. Sustentation of the Commons from the Confederate Treasury. The stripping of power from the Areopagus.

See ATHENS: B. C. 477-462.

GREECE: B. C. 477-461. Athens as the head of the Delian League. Triumph of Anti-Spartan policy at Athens and approach of war. Ostracism of Cimon.

"Between the end of the Persian war and the year 464 B. C., Sparta had sunk from the champion of the whole of Hellas to the half-discredited leader of the Peloponnese only. Athens, on the contrary, had risen from a subordinate member of the league controlled by Sparta to be the leader and almost the mistress of a league more dangerous than that over which Sparta held sway. Sparta unquestionably entertained towards Athens the jealous hatred of a defeated rival. By what steps Athens was increasing her control over the Delian League, and changing her position from that of a president to that of an absolute ruler will be explained. …

See ATHENS: B. C. 466-454.

She was at the same time prosecuting the war against Persia with conspicuous success. Her leader in this task was Cimon. In the domain of practice Athens produced no nobler son than this man. He was the son of Miltiades, the victor of Marathon, and by heredity and inclination took his stand with the conservative party in Athens.

See ATHENS: B. C. 477-462, to 460-449.

He succeeded here to the leading position of Aristides, and he possessed all that statesman's purity of character. … It was as a naval commander, and as a supporter of a forward policy against Persia, that Cimon won his greatest renown. But he had also a keen interest in the domestic development of Athens and her attitude to the other states of Greece. To maintain friendship with Sparta was the root of all his policy. His perfect honesty in supporting this policy was never questioned, and Sparta recognised his good will to them by appointing him Proxenus in Athens. It was his duty in this capacity to protect any Spartan resident in or visiting Athens. His character and personality were eminently attractive. … Under his guidance the Athenian fleet struck Persia blow on blow. … In 466, near the mouth of the Eurymedon in Pamphylia [see ATHENS: B. C. 470-466], the Persian fleet was destroyed, and after a fierce struggle her land forces also were defeated with very great slaughter. It was long before Persian influence counted for anything again on the waters of the Mediterranean. Cimon, with the personal qualities of Aristides, had obtained the successes of Themistocles. Opposition to Cimon was not wanting. The Athenian democracy had entered on a path that seemed blocked by his personal supremacy. And now the party of advancing democracy possessed a leader, the ablest and greatest that it was ever to possess. Pericles was about thirty years of age. … He was related to great families through both father and mother, and to great families that had championed the democratic side. His father Zanthippus had prosecuted Miltiades, the father of Cimon. … To lead the party of advanced democracy was to attack Cimon, against whom he had hereditary hostility. … When in 465 Thasos rebelled from Athens, defeat was certain unless she found allies. She applied to Sparta for assistance. Athens and Sparta were still nominally allies, for the creation of the Delian League had not openly destroyed the alliance that had subsisted between them since the days of the Persian war. But the Thasians hoped that Sparta's jealousy of Athens might induce her to disregard the alliance. And they reckoned rightly. The Spartan fleet was so weak that no interference upon the sea could be thought of, but if Attica were attacked by land the Athenians would be forced to draw off some part of their armament from Thasos. Sparta gave a secret promise that this attack should be made. But before they could fulfil their promise their own city was overwhelmed by a terrible earthquake. … Only five houses were left standing, and twenty thousand of the inhabitants lost their lives. King Archidamus saved the state from even more appalling ruin. While the inhabitants were dazed with the catastrophe, he ordered the alarm-trumpet to be blown; the military instincts of the Spartans answered to the call, and all that were left assembled outside of the city safe from the falling ruins. Archidamus's presence of mind saved them from even greater danger than that of earthquake. The disaster seemed to the masses of Helots that surrounded Sparta clear evidence of the wrath of the god Poseidon. … The Helots seized arms, therefore, and from all sides rushed upon Sparta. Thanks to Archidamus's action, they found the Spartans collected and ready for battle. They fell back upon Messenia, and concentrated their strength round Mount Ithome, the natural Acropolis of that district. … All the efforts of their opponents, never very successful in sieges, failed to dislodge them. At last, in 464, Sparta had to appeal to her allies for help against her own slaves; and, as Athens was her ally, she appealed to Athens. Should the help be granted? … Cimon advocated the granting of Sparta's demand with all his strength. … But there was much to be said on the other side, and it was said by Ephialtes and Pericles. {1577} The whole of Pericles's foreign policy is founded on the assumption that union between Athens and Sparta was undesirable and impossible. In everything they stood at opposite poles of thought. …. Cimon gained the vote of the people. He went at once with a force of four thousand heavy-armed soldiers to Ithome. Athenian soldiers enjoyed a great reputation for their ability in the conduct of sieges; but, despite their arrival, the Helots in Ithome still held out. And soon the Spartans grew suspicious of the Athenian contingent. The failure of Sparta was so clearly to the interest of Athens that the Spartans could not believe that the Athenians were in earnest in trying to prevent it; and at last Cimon was told that Sparta no longer had need of the Athenian force. The insult was all the more evident because none of the other allies were dismissed. Cimon at once returned to Athens. …

See MESSENIAN WAR, THE THIRD.