CHAPTER XLII.

BATTLES OF PLATÆA AND MYKALE. — FINAL REPULSE OF THE PERSIANS.

Though the defeat at Salamis deprived the Persians of all hope from farther maritime attack of Greece, they still anticipated success by land from the ensuing campaign of Mardonius. Their fleet, after having conveyed the monarch himself with his accompanying land-force across the Hellespont, retired to winter at Kymê and Samos: in the latter of which places large rewards were bestowed upon Theomêstor and Phylakus, two Samian captains who had distinguished themselves in the late engagement. Theomêstor was even nominated despot of Samos under Persian protection.[293] Early in the spring they were reassembled, to the number of four hundred sail, but without the Phenicians, at the naval station of Samos, intending, however, only to maintain a watchful guard over Ionia, and hardly supposing that the Greek fleet would venture to attack them.[294]

[293] Herodot. viii, 85.

[294] Herodot. viii, 130; Diodor xi. 27.

For a long time, the conduct of that fleet was such as to justify such a belief in its enemies. Assembled at Ægina in the spring, to the number of one hundred and ten ships, under the Spartan king Leotychidês, it advanced as far as Delos, but not farther eastward: nor could all the persuasions of Chian and other Ionian envoys, despatched both to the Spartan authorities and to the fleet, and promising to revolt from Persia as soon as the Grecian fleet should appear, prevail upon Leotychidês to hazard any aggressive enterprise. Ionia and the western waters of the Ægean had now been for fifteen years completely under the Persians, and so little visited by the Greeks, that a voyage thither appeared, especially to the maritime inexperience of a Spartan king, like going to the Pillars of Hêraklês,[295]—not less venturesome than the same voyage appeared fifty-two years afterwards to the Lacedæmonian admiral Alkidas, when he first hazarded his fleet amidst the preserved waters of the Athenian empire.

[295] Herodot. viii, 131, 132: compare Thucyd. iii, 29-32.

Herodotus says, that the Chian envoys had great difficulty in inducing Leotychidês to proceed even as far as Delos,—τὸ γὰρ προσωτέρω πᾶν δεινὸν ἦν τοῖσι Ἕλλησι, οὔτε τῶν χώρων ἐοῦσι ἐμπείροισι, στρατιῆς τε πάντα πλέα ἐδόκεε εἶναι· τὴν δὲ Σάμον ἐπιστέατο δόξῃ καὶ Ἡρακλέας στήλας ἴσον ἀπέχειν.

This last expression of Herodotus has been erroneously interpreted by some of the commentators, as if it were a measure of the geographical ignorance, either of Herodotus himself, or of those whom he is describing. In my judgment, no inferences of this kind ought to be founded upon it: it marks fear of an enemy’s country which they had not been accustomed to visit, and where they could not calculate the risk beforehand,—rather than any serious comparison between one distance and another. Speaking of our forefathers, such of them as were little used to the sea, we might say,—“A voyage to Bordeaux or Lisbon seemed to them as distant as a voyage to the Indies,”—by which we should merely affirm something as to their state of feeling, not as to their geographical knowledge.

Meanwhile the hurried and disastrous retreat of Xerxes had produced less disaffection among his subjects and allies than might have been anticipated. Alexander, king of Macedon, the Thessalian Aleuadæ,[296] and the Bœotian leaders, still remained in hearty coöperation with Mardonius: nor were there any, except the Phocians, whose fidelity to him appeared questionable, among all the Greeks northwest of the boundaries of Attica and Megaris. It was only in the Chalkidic peninsula, that any actual revolt occurred. Potidæa, situated on the isthmus of Pallênê, together with the other towns in the long tongue of Pallênê, declared themselves independent: and the neighboring town of Olynthus, occupied by the semi-Grecian tribe of Bottiæans, was on the point of following their example. The Persian general, Artabazus, on his return from escorting Xerxes to the Hellespont, undertook the reduction of these towns, and succeeded perfectly with Olynthus. He took the town, slew all the inhabitants, and handed it over to a fresh population, consisting of Chalkidic Greeks, under Kritobulus of Torônê. It was in this manner that Olynthus, afterwards a city of so much consequence and interest, first became Grecian and Chalkidic. But Artabazus was not equally successful in the siege of Potidæa, the defence of which was aided by citizens from the other towns in Pallênê. A plot which he concerted with Timoxenus, commander of the Skiônæan auxiliaries in the town, became accidentally disclosed: a considerable body of his troops perished while attempting to pass at low tide under the walls of the city, which were built across the entire breadth of the narrow isthmus joining the Pallenæan peninsula to the mainland: and after three months of blockade, he was forced to renounce the enterprise, withdrawing his troops to rejoin Mardonius, in Thessaly.[297]

[296] Herodot. ix, 1, 2, 67; viii, 136.

[297] Herodot. viii, 128, 129.

The latter, before he put himself in motion for the spring campaign, thought it advisable to consult the Grecian oracles, especially those within the limits of Bœotia and Phocis. He sent a Karian, named Mys, familiar with the Greek as well as the Karian language, to consult Trophônius at Lebadeia, Amphiaraus, and the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes, Apollo at mount Ptôon near Akræphiæ, and Apollo at the Phocian Abæ. This step was probably intended as a sort of ostentatious respect towards the religious feelings of allies upon whom he was now very much dependent: but neither the questions put, nor the answers given, were made public: and the only remarkable fact which Herodotus had heard was, that the priest of the Ptôian Apollo delivered his answer in Karian, or at least in a language intelligible to no person present except the Karian Mys himself.[298] It appears, however, that at this period, when Mardonius was seeking to strengthen himself by oracles, and laying his plans for establishing a separate peace and alliance with Athens against the Peloponnesians, some persons in his interest circulated predictions, that the day was approaching when the Persians and the Athenians jointly would expel the Dorians from Peloponnesus.[299] The way was thus paved for him to send an envoy to Athens,—Alexander, king of Macedon; who was instructed to make the most seductive offers, to promise reparation of all the damage done in Attica, as well as the active future friendship of the Great King, and to hold out to the Athenians a large acquisition of new territory as the price of their consent to form with him an equal and independent alliance.[300] The Macedonian prince added warm expressions of his own interest in the welfare of the Athenians, recommending them, as a sincere friend, to embrace propositions so advantageous as well as so honorable: especially as the Persian power must in the end prove too much for them, and Attica lay exposed to Mardonius and his Grecian allies, without being covered by any common defence as Peloponnesus was protected by its isthmus.[301]

[298] Herodot. viii, 134, 135; Pausanias, ix, 24, 3.

[299] Herodot. viii. 141. Λακεδαιμόνιοι δὲ ... ἀναμνησθέντες τῶν λογίων, ὥς σφεας χρεόν ἐστι ἅμα τοῖσι ἄλλοισι Δωριεῦσι ἐκπίπτειν ἐκ Πελοποννήσου ὑπὸ Μήδων τε καὶ Ἀθηναίων, κάρτα τε ἔδεισαν μὴ ὁμολογήσωσι τῷ Πέρσῃ Ἀθηναῖοι, etc.

Such oracles must have been generated by the hopes of the _medizing_ party in Greece at this particular moment: there is no other point of time to which they could be at all adapted,—no other, in which expulsion of all the Dorians from Peloponnesus, by united Persians and Athenians, could be even dreamed of. The Lacedæmonians are indeed said here, “to call to mind the prophecies,”—as if these latter were old, and not now produced for the first time. But we must recollect that a fabricator of prophecies, such as Onomakritus, would in all probability at once circulate them as old; that is, as forming part of some old collection like that of Bakis or Musæus. And Herodotus doubtless, himself, believed them to be old, so that he would naturally give credit to the Lacedæmonians for the same knowledge, and suppose them to be alarmed by “calling these prophecies to mind.”

[300] Herodot. ix, 7.

[301] Herodot. viii, 142.

This offer, despatched in the spring, found the Athenians reëstablished wholly or partially in their half-ruined city. A simple tender of mercy and tolerable treatment, if despatched by Xerxes from Thermopylæ the year before, might perhaps have been sufficient to detach them from the cause of Hellas: and even at the present moment, though the pressure of overwhelming terror had disappeared, there were many inducements for them to accede to the proposition of Mardonius. The alliance of Athens would insure to the Persian general unquestionable predominance in Greece, and to Athens herself protection from farther ravage as well as the advantage of playing the winning game: while his force, his position, and his alliances, even as they then stood, threatened a desolating and doubtful war, of which Attica would bear the chief brunt. Moreover, the Athenians were at this time suffering privations of the severest character; for not only did their ruined houses and temples require to be restored, but they had lost the harvest of the past summer, together with the seed of the past autumn.[302] The prudential view of the case being thus favorable to Mardonius rather than otherwise, and especially strengthened by the distress which reigned at Athens, the Lacedæmonians were so much afraid lest Alexander should carry his point, that they sent envoys to dissuade the Athenians from listening to him, as well as to tender succor during the existing poverty of the city. After having heard both parties, the Athenians delivered their reply in terms of solemn and dignified resolution, which their descendants delighted in repeating. To Alexander they said: “Cast not in our teeth that the power of the Persian is many times greater than ours: we too know _that_, as well as thou: but we, nevertheless, love freedom well enough to resist him in the best manner we can. Attempt not the vain task of talking us over into alliance with him. Tell Mardonius that as long as the sun shall continue in his present path, we will never contract alliance with Xerxes: we will encounter him in our own defence, putting our trust in the aid of those gods and heroes to whom he has shown no reverence, and whose houses and statues he has burned. Come thou not to us again with similar propositions, nor persuade us, even in the spirit of good-will, into unholy proceedings: thou art the guest and friend of Athens, and we would not that thou shouldst suffer injury at our hands.”[303]

[302] Herodot. viii, 142. Πιεζευμένοισι μέντοι ὑμῖν συναχθόμεθα (say the Spartan envoys to the Athenians), καὶ ὅτι καρπῶν ἐστερήθητε διξῶν ἤδη, καὶ ὅτι οἰκοφθόρησθε χρόνον ἤδη πολλόν. Seeing that this is spoken before the invasion of Mardonius, the loss of _two crops_ must include the seed of the preceding autumn; and the advice of Themistoklês to his countrymen,—καί τις οἰκίην τε ἀναπλασάσθω, καὶ σπόρου ἀνακῶς ἐχέτω (viii, 109)—must have been found impracticable in most cases to carry into effect.

[303] Lykurgus the Athenian orator, in alluding to this incident a century and a half afterwards, represents the Athenians as having been “on the point of stoning Alexander,”—μικροῦ δεῖν κατέλευσαν (Lykurg. cont. Leokrat. c. 17. p. 186)—one among many specimens of the careless manner in which these orators deal with past history.

To the Spartans, the reply of the Athenians was of a similar decisive tenor: protesting their unconquerable devotion to the common cause and liberties of Hellas, and promising that no conceivable temptations, either of money or territory, should induce them to desert the ties of brotherhood, common language, and religion. So long as a single Athenian survived, no alliance should ever be made with Xerxes. They then thanked the Spartans for offering them aid during the present privations: but while declining such offers, they reminded them that Mardonius, when apprized that his propositions were refused, would probably advance immediately, and they therefore earnestly desired the presence of a Peloponnesian army in Bœotia to assist in the defence of Attica.[304] The Spartan envoys, promising fulfilment of this request,[305] and satisfied to have ascertained the sentiments of Athens, departed.

[304] Herodot. viii, 143, 144; Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 10. According to Plutarch, it was Aristeidês who proposed and prepared the reply to be delivered. But here as elsewhere, the loose, exaggerating style of Plutarch contrasts unfavorably with the simplicity and directness of Herodotus.

[305] Herodot. ix, 7. συνθέμενοι δὲ ἡμῖν τὸν Πέρσην ἀντιώσεσθαι ἐς τὴν Βοιωτίην, etc.

Diodorus gives the account of this embassy to Athens substantially in the same manner, coupling it however with some erroneous motives (xi, 28).

Such unshaken fidelity on the part of the Athenians to the general cause of Greece, in spite of present suffering, combined with seductive offers for the future, was the just admiration of their descendants, and the frequent theme of applause by their orators.[306] But among the contemporary Greeks it was hailed only as a relief from danger, and repaid by a selfish and ungenerous neglect. The same feeling of indifference towards all Greeks outside of their own Isthmus, which had so deeply endangered the march of affairs before the battle of Salamis, now manifested itself a second time among the Spartans and Peloponnesians. The wall across the Isthmus, which they had been so busy in constructing, and on which they had relied for protection against the land-force of Xerxes, had been intermitted and left unfinished when he retired: but it was resumed as soon as the forward march of Mardonius was anticipated. It was, however, still unfinished at the time of the embassy of the Macedonian prince to Athens, and this incomplete condition of their special defence was one reason of their alarm lest the Athenians should accept the terms proposed. That danger being for the time averted, they redoubled their exertions at the Isthmus, so that the wall was speedily brought into an adequate state of defence, and the battlements along the summit were in course of being constructed. Thus safe behind their own bulwark, they thought nothing more of their promise to join the Athenians in Bœotia, and to assist in defending Attica against Mardonius: indeed, their king Kleombrotus, who commanded the force at the Isthmus, was so terrified by an obscuration of the sun at the moment when he was sacrificing to ascertain the inclinations of the gods in reference to the coming war, that he even thought it necessary to retreat with the main force to Sparta, where he soon after died.[307] Besides these two reasons,—indifference and unfavorable omens,—which restrained the Spartans from aiding Attica, there was also a third: they were engaged in celebrating the festival of the Hyakinthia, and it was their paramount object, says the historian,[308] to fulfil “the exigences of the god.” As the Olympia and the Karneia in the preceding year, so now did the Hyakinthia, prevail over the necessities of defence, putting out of sight both the duties of fidelity towards an exposed ally, and the bond of an express promise.

[306] Herodot. ix, 7. ἐπιστάμενοί τε ὅτι κερδαλεώτερόν ἐστι ὁμολογέειν τῷ Πέρσῃ μᾶλλον ἢ πολεμέειν, etc.

The orators are not always satisfied with giving to Athens the credit which she really deserved: they venture to represent the Athenians as having refused these brilliant offers from Xerxes on his first invasion, instead of from Mardonius in the ensuing summer. Xerxes never made any offers to them. See Isokratês, Or. iv, Panegyric, c. 27, p. 61.

[307] Herodot. ix, 10.

[308] Herodot. ix, 7. Οἱ γὰρ δὴ Λακεδαιμόνιοι ὅρταζόν τε τοῦτον τὸν χρόνον καί σφι ἦν Ὑακίνθια· περὶ πλείστου δ’ ἦγον τὰ τοῦ θεοῦ πορσύνειν· ἅμα δὲ τὸ τεῖχός σφι τὸ ἐν τῷ Ἰσθμῷ ἐτείχεον, καὶ ἤδη ἐπάλξεις ἐλάμβανε.

Nearly a century after this, we are told that it was always the practice for the Amyklæan hoplites to go home for the celebration of the Hyakinthia, on whatever expedition they might happen to be employed (Xenoph. Hellen. iv, 5, 11).

Meanwhile, Mardonius, informed of the unfavorable reception which his proposals had received at Athens, put his army in motion forthwith from Thessaly, joined by all his Grecian auxiliaries, and by fresh troops from Thrace and Macedonia. As he marched through Bœotia, the Thebans, who heartily espoused his cause, endeavored to dissuade him from farther military operations against the united force of his enemies,—urging him to try the efficacy of bribes, presented to the leading men in the different cities, for the purpose of disuniting them. But Mardonius, eager to repossess himself of Attica, heeded not their advice: about ten months after the retreat of Xerxes, he entered the country without resistance, and again established the Persian head-quarters in Athens, May or June, 479 B. C.[309]

[309] Diodor. xi, 28; Herodot. ix, 2, 3, 17. οἱ μὲν ἄλλοι πάντες παρεῖχον στρατιὴν καὶ συνεσέβαλον ἐς Ἀθήνας ὅσοι περ ἐμήδιζον Ἑλλήνων τῶν ταύτῃ οἰκημένων, etc.

Before he arrived, the Athenians had again removed to Salamis, under feelings of bitter disappointment and indignation. They had in vain awaited the fulfilment of the Spartan promise, that a Peloponnesian army should join them in Bœotia for the defence of their frontier; at length, being unable to make head against the enemy alone, they found themselves compelled to transport their families across to Salamis.[310] The migration was far less terrible than that of the preceding summer, since Mardonius had no fleet to harass them; but it was more gratuitous, and might have been obviated had the Spartans executed their covenant, which would have brought about the battle of Platæa two months earlier than it actually was fought.

[310] Herodot. ix, 4.

Mardonius, though master of Athens, was so anxious to conciliate the Athenians, that he at first abstained from damaging either the city or the country, and despatched a second envoy to Salamis to repeat the offers made through Alexander of Macedon: he thought that they might now be listened to, since he could offer the exemption of Attica from ravage, as an additional temptation. Murychidês, a Hellespontine Greek, was sent to renew these propositions to the Athenian senate at Salamis; but he experienced a refusal not less resolute than that of Alexander of Macedon when sent to Athens, and all but unanimous. One unfortunate senator, Lykidas, made an exception to this unanimity, and ventured to recommend acceptance of the propositions of Murychidês. So furious was the wrath, or so strong the suspicion of corruption, which his single-voiced negative provoked, that senators and people both combined to stone him to death: while the Athenian women in Salamis, hearing what had passed, went of their own accord to the house of Lykidas, and stoned to death his wife and children. In the desperate pitch of resolution to which the Athenians were now wound up, an opponent passed for a traitor: unanimity, even though extorted by terror, was essential to their feelings.[311] Murychidês, though his propositions were refused, was dismissed without injury.

[311] Herodot. ix, 5. I dare not reject this story about Lykidas (see Lykurgus cont. Leokrat. c. 30, p. 222), though other authors recount the same incident as having happened to a person named Kyrsilus, during the preceding year, when the Athenians quitted Athens: see Demosthen. de Coronâ, p. 296, c. 59; and Cicero de Officiis, iii, 11. That two such acts were perpetrated by the Athenians, is noway probable: and if we are to choose between the two, the story of Herodotus is far the more probable. In the migration of the preceding year, we know that a certain number of Athenians actually did stay behind in the acropolis, and Kyrsilus might have been among them, if he had chosen. Moreover, Xerxes held out no offers, and gave occasion to no deliberation; while the offers of Mardonius might really appear to a well-minded citizen deserving of attention.

Isokrates (Or. iv, Panegyric. p. 74, c. 42) states that the Athenians condemned many persons to death for _medism_ (in allusion doubtless to Themistoklês as one), but he adds,—“even now they imprecate curses on any citizen who enters into amicable negotiation with the Persians,”—ἐν δὲ τοῖς συλλόγοις ἔτι καὶ νῦν ἀρὰς ποιοῦνται, εἴτις ἐπικηρυκεύεται Πέρσαις τῶν πολιτῶν. It is difficult to believe that in his time any such imprecation can have been included in the solemnities whereby the Athenian meetings were opened.

While the Athenians thus gave renewed proofs of their steadfast attachment to the cause of Hellas, they at the same time sent envoys, conjointly with Megara and Platæa, to remonstrate with the Spartans on their backwardness and breach of faith, and to invoke them even thus late to come forth at once and meet Mardonius in Attica: not omitting to intimate, that if they were thus deserted, it would become imperatively necessary for them, against their will, to make terms with the enemy. So careless, however, were the Spartan ephors respecting Attica and the Megarid, that they postponed giving an answer to these envoys for ten successive days, while in the mean time they pressed with all their efforts the completion of the isthmic fortifications. And after having thus amused the envoys as long as they could, they would have dismissed them at last with a negative answer,—such was their fear of adventuring beyond the Isthmus,—had not a Tegean, named Chileos, whom they much esteemed, and to whom they communicated the application, reminded them that no fortifications at the Isthmus would suffice for the defence of Peloponnesus, if the Athenians became allied with Mardonius, and thus laid the peninsula open by sea. The strong opinion of this respected Tegean, proved to the ephors that their selfish policy would not be seconded by their chief Peloponnesian allies, and brought to their attention, probably for the first time, that danger by sea might again be renewed, though the Persian fleet had been beaten in the preceding year, and was now at a distance from Greece. It changed their resolution, not less completely than suddenly; and they despatched forthwith in the night five thousand Spartan citizens to the Isthmus,—each man with seven Helots attached to him. And when the Athenian envoys, ignorant of this sudden change of policy, came on the next day to give peremptory notice that Athens would no longer endure such treacherous betrayal, but would forthwith take measures for her own security and separate pacification,—the ephors affirmed on their oath that the troops were already on their march, and were probably by this time out of the Spartan territory.[312] Considering that this step was an expiation, imperfect, tardy, and reluctant, for foregoing desertion and breach of promise,—the ephors may probably have thought that the mystery of the night-march, and the sudden communication of it as an actual fact to the envoys, in the way of reply, would impress more emphatically the minds of the latter,—who returned with the welcome tidings to Salamis, and prepared their countrymen for speedy action. Five thousand Spartan citizens, each with seven light-armed Helots as attendants, were thus on their march to the theatre of war. Throughout the whole course of Grecian history, we never hear of any number of Spartan citizens at all approaching to five thousand being put on foreign service at the same time. But this was not all: five thousand Lacedæmonian Periœki, each with one light-armed Helot to attend him, were also despatched to the Isthmus, to take part in the same struggle. Such unparalleled efforts afford sufficient measure of the alarm which, though late yet real, now reigned at Sparta. Other Peloponnesian cities followed the example, and a large army was now collected under the Spartan Pausanias.

[312] Herodot. ix, 10, 11; Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 10. Plutarch had read a decree ascribed to Aristeidês, in which Kimon, Xanthippus, and Myrônidês, were named envoys to Sparta. But it is impossible that Xanthippus could have taken part in the embassy, seeing that he was now in command of the fleet.

Probably the Helots must have followed: one hardly sees how so great a number could have been all suddenly collected, and marched off in one night, no preparations having been made beforehand.

Dr. Thirlwall (Hist. Gr. ch. xvi, p. 366) suspects the correctness of the narrative of Herodotus, on grounds which do not appear to me convincing. It seems to me that, after all, the literal narrative is more probable than anything which we can substitute in its place. The Spartan foreign policy all depended on the five ephors; there was no public discussion or criticism. Now the conduct of these ephors is consistent and intelligible,—though selfish, narrow-minded, and insensible to any dangers except what are present and obvious. Nor can I think, with Dr. Thirlwall, that the manner of communication ultimately adopted is of the nature of a jest.

It appears that Mardonius was at this moment in secret correspondence with the Argeians, who, though professing neutrality, are said to have promised him that they would arrest the march of the Spartans beyond their own borders.[313] We may reasonably doubt whether they ever made such a promise: but at any rate, the suddenness of the march as well as the greatness of the force prevented them from fulfilling it; and they were forced to content themselves with apprizing Mardonius instantly of the fact, through their swiftest courier. It determined that general to evacuate Attica, and to carry on the war in Bœotia,—a country in every way more favorable to him. He had for some time refrained from committing devastations in or round Athens, hoping that the Athenians might be induced to listen to his propositions; but the last days of his stay were employed in burning and destroying whatever had been spared by the host of Xerxes during the preceding summer. After a fruitless attempt to surprise a body of one thousand Lacedæmonians which had been detached for the protection of Megara,[314] he withdrew all his army into Bœotia, not taking either the straight road to Platæa through Eleutheræ, or to Thebes through Phylê, both which roads were mountainous and inconvenient for cavalry, but marching in the northeasterly direction to Dekeleia, where he was met by some guides from the adjoining regions near the river Asôpus, and conducted through the deme of Sphendaleis to Tanagra. He thus found himself, by a route longer but easier, in Bœotia, on the plain of the Asôpus: along which river he next day marched westward to Skôlus, a town in the territory of Thebes, seemingly near to that of Platæa.[315] He then took up a position not far off, in the plain on the left bank of the Asôpus: his left wing over against Erythræ, his centre over against Hysiæ, and his right in the territory of Platæa: and he employed his army in constructing forthwith a fortified camp[316] of ten furlongs square, defended by wooden walls and towers, cut from trees in the Theban territory.

[313] Herodot. ix, 12.

[314] There were stories current at Megara, even in the time of Pausanias, respecting some of these Persians, who were said to have been brought to destruction by the intervention of Artemis (Pausan. i, 40, 2).

[315] Herodot. ix, 15. The situation of the Attic deme Sphendalê, or Sphendaleis, seems not certainly known (Ross, Über die Demen von Attika, p. 138); but Colonel Leake and Mr. Finlay think that it stood “near Aio Merkurio, which now gives name to the pass leading from Dekeleia through the ridges of Parnes into the extremity of the Tanagrian plain, at a place called Malakasa.” (Leake, Athens and the Demi of Attica, vol. ii, sect. iv, p. 123.)

Mr. Finlay (Oropus and the Diakria, p. 38) says that “Malakasa is the only place on this road where a considerable body of cavalry could conveniently halt.”

It appears that the Bœotians from the neighborhood of the Asôpus were necessary as guides for this road. Perhaps even the territory of Orôpus was at this time still a part of Bœotia: we do not certainly know at what period it was first conquered by the Athenians.

The combats between Athenians and Bœotians will be found to take place most frequently in this southeastern region of Bœotia,—Tanagra, Œnophyta, Delium, etc.

[316] Herodot. ix, 15.

Mardonius found himself thus with his numerous army, in a plain favorable for cavalry; with a camp more or less defensible,—the fortified city of Thebes[317] in his rear,—and a considerable stock of provisions as well as a friendly region behind him from whence to draw more. Few among his army, however, were either hearty in the cause or confident of success:[318] even the native Persians had been disheartened by the flight of the monarch the year before, and were full of melancholy auguries. A splendid banquet to which the Theban leader Attagînus invited Mardonius, along with fifty Persians and fifty Theban or Bœotian guests, exhibited proofs of this depressed feeling, which were afterwards recounted to Herodotus himself by one of the guests present,—an Orchomenian citizen of note named Thersander. The banquet being so arranged as that each couch was occupied by one Persian and one Theban, this man was accosted by his Persian neighbor in Greek, who inquired to what city he belonged, and, upon learning that he was an Orchomenian,[319] continued thus: “Since thou hast now partaken with me in the same table and cup, I desire to leave with thee some memorial of my convictions: the rather, in order that thou mayst be thyself forewarned so as to take the best counsel for thine own safety. Seest thou these Persians here feasting, and the army which we left yonder encamped near the river? Yet a little while, and out of all these thou shalt behold but few surviving.” Thersander listened to these words with astonishment, spoken as they were with strong emotion and a flood of tears, and replied: “Surely, thou art bound to reveal this to Mardonius, and to his confidential advisers:” but the Persian rejoined: “My friend, man cannot avert that which God hath decreed to come: no one will believe the revelation, sure though it be. Many of us Persians know this well, and are here serving only under the bond of necessity. And truly this is the most hateful of all human sufferings,—to be full of knowledge, and at the same time to have no power over any result.”[320] “This (observes Herodotus) I heard myself from the Orchomenian Thersander, who told me farther that he mentioned the fact to several persons about him, even before the battle of Platæa.” It is certainly one of the most curious revelations in the whole history; not merely as it brings forward the historian in his own personality, communicating with a personal friend of the Theban leaders, and thus provided with good means of information as to the general events of the campaign,—but also as it discloses to us, on testimony not to be suspected, the real temper of the native Persians, and even of the chief men among them. If so many of these chiefs were not merely apathetic, but despondent, in the cause, much more decided would be the same absence of will and hope in their followers and the subject allies. To follow the monarch in his overwhelming march of the preceding year, was gratifying in many ways to the native Persians: but every man was sick of the enterprise as now cut down under Mardonius: and Artabazus, the second in command, was not merely slack but jealous of his superior.[321] Under such circumstances we shall presently not be surprised to find the whole army disappearing forthwith, the moment Mardonius is slain.

[317] The strong town of Thebes was of much service to him (Thucyd. i, 90).

[318] Herodot. ix, 40, 45, 67; Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 18.

[319] Herodot. ix, 16. Thersander, though an Orchomenian, passes as a Theban—Πέρσην τε καὶ Θηβαῖον ἐν κλίνῃ ἑκάστῃ—a proof of the intimate connection between Thebes and Orchomenus at this time, which is farther illustrated by Pindar, Isthm. i, 51 (compare the Scholia ad loc. and at the beginning of the Ode), respecting the Theban family of Herodotus and Asôpodôrus. The ancient mythical feud appears to have gone to sleep, but a deadly hatred will be found to grow up in later times between these two towns.

[320] Herodot. ix, 16, 17. The last observation here quoted is striking and emphatic—ἐχθίστη δὲ ὀδύνη ἐστὶ τῶν ἐν ἀνθρώποισι αὕτη, πολλὰ φρονέοντα μηδενὸς κρατέειν. It will have to be more carefully considered at a later period of this history, when we come to touch upon the scientific life of the Greeks, and upon the philosophy of happiness and duty as conceived by Aristotle. If carried fully out, this position is the direct negative of what Aristotle lays down in his Ethics, as to the superior happiness of the βίος θεωρητικὸς, or life of scientific observation and reflection.

[321] Herodot. ix, 66.

Among the Grecian allies of Mardonius, the Thebans and Bœotians were active and zealous, most of the remainder lukewarm, and the Phocians even of doubtful fidelity. Their contingent of one thousand hoplites, under Harmokydês, had been tardy in joining him, having only come up since he retired from Attica into Bœotia: and some of the Phocians even remained behind in the neighborhood of Parnassus, prosecuting manifest hostilities against the Persians. Aware of the feeling among this contingent, which the Thessalians took care to place before him in an unfavorable point of view, Mardonius determined to impress upon them a lesson of intimidation. Causing them to form in a separate body on the plain, he then brought up his numerous cavalry all around them: while the phêmê, or sudden simultaneous impression, ran through the Greek allies as well as the Phocians themselves, that he was about to shoot them down.[322] The general Harmokydês, directing his men to form a square and close their ranks, addressed to them short exhortations to sell their lives dearly, and to behave like brave Greeks against barbarian assassins,—when the cavalry rode up, apparently to the charge, and advanced close to the square, with uplifted javelins and arrows on the string, some few of which were even actually discharged. The Phocians maintained, as enjoined, steady ranks with a firm countenance, and the cavalry wheeled about without any actual attack or damage. After this mysterious demonstration, Mardonius condescended to compliment the Phocians on their courage, and to assure them, by means of a herald, that he had been greatly misinformed respecting them: he at the same time exhorted them to be faithful and forward in service for the future, and promised that all good behavior should be amply recompensed. Herodotus seems uncertain,—difficult as the supposition is to entertain,—whether Mardonius did not really intend at first to massacre the Phocians in the field, and desisted from the intention only on seeing how much blood it would cost to accomplish. However this may be, the scene itself was a remarkable reality, and presented one among many other proofs of the lukewarmness and suspicious fidelity of the army.[323]

[322] Herodot. ix, 17. διεξῆλθε φήμη, ὡς κατακοντιεῖ σφέας. Respecting φήμη, see a note a little farther on, at the battle of Mykalê, in this same chapter.

Compare the case of the Delians at Adramyttium, surrounded and slain with missiles by the Persian satrap, though not his enemies—περιστήσας τοὺς ἑαυτοῦ κατηκόντισε (Thucyd. viii, 108).

[323] Οὐκ ἔχω δ’ ἀτρεκέως εἰπεῖν, οὔτε εἰ ἦλθον μὲν ἀπολέοντες τοὺς Φωκέας, δεηθέντων τῶν Θεσσαλῶν, etc. (Herodot. ix, 18.)

This confession of uncertainty as to motives and plans, distinguishing between them and the visible facts which he is describing, is not without importance as strengthening our confidence in the historian.

Conformably to the suggestion of the Thebans, the liberties of Greece were now to be disputed in Bœotia: and not only had the position of Mardonius already been taken, but his camp also fortified, before the united Grecian army approached Kithæron in its forward march from the Isthmus. After the full force of the Lacedæmonians had reached the Isthmus, they had to await the arrival of their Peloponnesian and other confederates. The hoplites who joined them were as follows: from Tegea, fifteen hundred; from Corinth, five thousand,—besides a small body of three hundred from the Corinthian colony of Potidæa; from the Arcadian Orchomenus, six hundred; from Sikyon, three thousand; from Epidaurus, eight hundred; from Trœzen, one thousand; from Lepreon, two hundred; from Mykênæ and Tiryns, four hundred; from Phlius, one thousand; from Hermionê, three hundred; from Eretria and Styra, six hundred; from Chalkis, four hundred; from Ambrakia, five hundred; from Leukas and Anaktorium, eight hundred; from Palê in Kephallenia, two hundred; from Ægina, five hundred. On marching from the Isthmus to Megara, they took up three thousand Megarian hoplites; and as soon as they reached Eleusis in their forward progress, the army was completed by the junction of eight thousand Athenian hoplites, and six hundred Platæan, under Aristeidês, who passed over from Salamis.[324] The total force of hoplites, or heavy-armed troops, was thus thirty-eight thousand seven hundred men: there were no cavalry, and but very few bowmen; but if we add those who are called light-armed, or unarmed generally,—some perhaps with javelins or swords, but none with any defensive armor,—the grand total was not less than one hundred and ten thousand men. Of these light-armed, or unarmed, there were, as computed by Herodotus; thirty-five thousand in attendance on the five thousand Spartan citizens, and thirty-four thousand five hundred in attendance on the other hoplites,—together with eighteen hundred Thespians, who were properly hoplites, yet so badly armed as not to be reckoned in the ranks.[325]

[324] Compare this list of Herodotus with the enumeration which Pausanias read inscribed on the statue of Zeus, erected at Olympia by the Greeks who took part in the battle of Platæa (Pausan. v, 23, 1).

Pausanias found inscribed all the names here indicated by Herodotus except the Palês of Kephallenia: and he found in addition the Eleians Keans, Kythnians, Tenians, Naxians, and Mêlians. The five last names are islanders in the Ægean: their contingents sent to Platæa must, at all events, have been very small, and it is surprising to hear that they sent any,—especially when we recollect that there was a Greek fleet at this moment on service, to which it would be natural that they should join themselves in preference to land-service.

With respect to the name of the Eleians, the suspicion of Bröndstedt is plausible, that Pausanias may have mistaken the name of the Palês of Kephallenia for theirs, and may have fancied that he read FΑΛΕΙΟΙ when it was really written ΠΑΛΕΙΣ, in an inscription at that time about six hundred years old. The place in the series wherein Pausanias places the name of the Eleians, strengthens the suspicion. Unless it be admitted, we shall be driven, as the most probable alternative, to suppose a fraud committed by the vanity of the Eleians, which may easily have led them to alter a name originally belonging to the Palês. The reader will recollect that the Eleians were themselves the superintendents and curators at Olympia.

Plutarch seems to have read the same inscription as Pausanias (De Herodoti Malignit. p. 873).

[325] Herodot. ix, 19, 28, 29.

Such was the number of Greeks present or near at hand in the combat against the Persians at Platæa, which took place some little time afterwards: but it seems that the contingents were not at first completely full, and that new additions[326] continued to arrive until a few days before the battle, along with the convoys of cattle and provisions which came for the subsistence of the army. Pausanias marched first from the Isthmus to Eleusis, where he was joined by the Athenians from Salamis: at Eleusis, as well as at the Isthmus, the sacrifices were found encouraging, and the united army then advanced across the ridge of Kithæron, so as to come within sight of the Persians. When Pausanias saw them occupying the line of the Asôpus in the plain beneath, he kept his own army on the mountain declivity near Erythræ, without choosing to adventure himself in the level ground. Mardonius, finding them not disposed to seek battle in the plain, despatched his numerous and excellent cavalry under Masistius, the most distinguished officer in his army, to attack them. For the most part, the ground was so uneven as to check their approach,—but the Megarian contingent, which happened to be more exposed than the rest, were so hard pressed that they were forced to send to Pausanias for aid. They appear to have had not only no cavalry, but no bowmen or light-armed troops of any sort with missile weapons; while the Persians, excellent archers and darters, using very large bows, and trained in such accomplishments from their earliest childhood, charged in successive squadrons and overwhelmed the Greeks with darts and arrows,—not omitting contemptuous taunts on their cowardice for keeping back from the plain.[327] So general was then the fear of the Persian cavalry, that Pausanias could find none of the Greeks, except the Athenians, willing to volunteer and go to the rescue of the Megarians. A body of Athenians, however, especially three hundred chosen troops under Olympiodorus, strengthened with some bowmen, immediately marched to the spot and took up the combat with the Persian cavalry. For some time the struggle was sharp and doubtful: at length the general, Masistius,—a man renowned for bravery, lofty in stature, clad in conspicuous armor, and mounted on a Nisæan horse with golden trappings,—charging at the head of his troops, had his horse struck by an arrow in the side. The animal immediately reared and threw his master on the ground, close to the ranks of the Athenians, who, rushing forward, seized the horse, and overpowered Masistius before he could rise. So impenetrable were the defences of his helmet and breastplate,[328] however, that they had considerable difficulty in killing him, though he was in their power: at length a spearman pierced him in the eye. The death of the general passed unobserved by the Persian cavalry, but as soon as they missed him and became aware of the loss, they charged furiously and in one mass to recover the dead body. At first the Athenians, too few in number to resist the onset, were compelled for a time to give way, abandoning the body; but reinforcements presently arriving at their call, the Persians were driven back with loss, and it finally remained in their possession.[329]

[326] Herodot. ix, 28. οἱ ἐπιφοιτῶντές τε καὶ οἱ ἀρχὴν ἐλθόντες Ἑλλήνων.

[327] About the missile weapons and skill of the Persians, see Herodot. i, 136; Xenophon, Anabas. iii, 4, 17.

Cyrus the younger was eminent in the use both of the bow and the javelin (Xenoph. Anab. i, 8, 26; i, 9, 5: compare Cyropæd. i, 2, 4).

[328] See Quintus Curtius, iii, 11, 15; and the note of Mützel.

[329] Herodot. ix, 21, 22, 23; Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 14.

The death of Masistius, coupled with that final repulse of the cavalry which left his body in possession of the Greeks, produced a strong effect on both armies, encouraging the one as much as it disheartened the other. Throughout the camp of Mardonius, the grief was violent and unbounded, manifested by wailings so loud as to echo over all Bœotia; while the hair of men, horses, and cattle, was abundantly cut in token of mourning. The Greeks, on the other hand, overjoyed at their success, placed the dead body in a cart, and paraded it around the army: even the hoplites ran out of their ranks to look at it; not only hailing it as a valuable trophy, but admiring its stature and proportions.[330] And so much was their confidence increased, that Pausanias now ventured to quit the protection of the mountain-ground, inconvenient from its scanty supply of water, and to take up his position in the plain beneath, interspersed only with low hillocks. Marching from Erythræ in a westerly direction along the declivities of Kithæron, and passing by Hysiæ, the Greeks occupied a line of camp in the Platæan territory along the Asôpus and on its right bank; with their right wing near to the fountain called Gargaphia,[331] and their left wing near to the chapel, surrounded by a shady grove, of the Platæan hero, Androkratês. In this position they were marshalled according to nations, or separate fractions of the Greek name,—the Lacedæmonians on the right wing, with the Tegeans and Corinthians immediately joining them,—and the Athenians on the left wing; a post which, as second in point of dignity, was at first claimed by the Tegeans, chiefly on grounds of mythical exploits, to the exclusion of the Athenians, but ultimately adjudged by the Spartans, after hearing both sides, to Athens.[332] In the field, even Lacedæmonians followed those democratical forms which pervaded so generally Grecian military operations: in this case, it was not the generals, but the Lacedæmonian troops in a body, who heard the argument, and delivered the verdict by unanimous acclamation.

[330] Herodot. ix, 24, 25. οἰμωγῇ τε χρεώμενοι ἀπλέτῳ· ἅπασαν γὰρ τὴν Βοιωτίην κατεῖχε ἠχώ, etc.

The exaggerated demonstrations of grief, ascribed to Xerxes and Atossa. in the Persæ of Æschylus, have often been blamed by critics: we may see from this passage how much they are in the manners of Orientals of that day.

[331] Herodot. ix, 25-30; Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 11. τὸ τοῦ Ἀνδροκράτους ἡρῷον ἐγγὺς ἄλσει πυκνῶν καὶ συσκίων δένδρων περιεχόμενον.

The expression of Herodotus respecting this position taken by Pausanias, Οὗτοι μὲν οὖν ταχθέντες ἐπὶ τῷ Ἀσωπῷ ἐστρατοπεδεύοντο, as well as the words which follow in the next chapter (31)—Οἱ βάρβαροι, πυθόμενοι εἶναι τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἐν Πλαταιῇσι, παρῇσαν καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐπὶ τὸν Ἀσωπὸν τὸν ταύτῃ ῥέοντα,—show plainly that the Grecian troops were encamped along the Asôpus on the Platæan side, while the Persians in their second position occupied the ground on the opposite, or Theban side of the river. Whichever army commenced the attack had to begin by passing the Asôpus (c. 36-59).

For the topography of this region, and of the positions occupied by the two armies, compare Squire, in Walpole’s Turkey, p. 338; Kruse, Hellas, vol. ii, ch. vi, p. 9, _seq._, and ch. viii, p. 592. _seq._: and the still more copious and accurate information of Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, ch. xvi, vol. ii, pp. 324-360. Both of them have given plans of the region; that which I annex is borrowed from Kiepert’s maps. I cannot but think that the fountain Gargaphia is not yet identified, and that both Kruse and Leake place the Grecian position farther from the river Asôpus than is consistent with the words of Herodotus; which words seem to specify points near the two extremities, indicating that the fountain of Gargaphia was near the river towards the right of the Grecian position, and the chapel of Androkratês also _near_ the river towards the left of that position, where the Athenians were posted. Nor would such a site for a chapel of Androkratês be inconsistent with Thucydides (iii, 24), who merely mentions that chapel as being on the right hand of the first mile of road from Platæa to Thebes.

Considering the length of time which has elapsed since the battle, it would not be surprising if the spring of Gargaphia were no longer recognizable. At any rate, neither the fountain pointed out by Colonel Leake (p. 332) nor that of Vergutiani, which had been supposed by Colonel Squire and Dr. Clarke, appear to me suitable for Gargaphia.

The errors of that plan of the battle of Platæa which accompanies the Voyage d’Anacharsis, are now well understood.

[332] Herodot. ix, 26-29. Judging from the battles of Corinth (B. C. 396) and Mantineia (B. C. 418), the Tegeans seem afterwards to have dropped this pretension to occupy the left wing, and to have preferred the post in the line next to the Lacedæmonians (Xenoph. Hellen. iv, 2, 19).

Mardonius, apprized of this change of position, marched his army also a little farther to the westward, and posted himself opposite to the Greeks, divided from them by the river Asôpus. At the suggestion of the Thebans, he himself, with his Persians and Medes, the picked men of his army, took post on the left wing, immediately opposite to the Lacedæmonians on the Greek right, and even extending so far as to cover the Tegean ranks on the left of the Lacedæmonians: Baktrians, Indians, Sakæ, with other Asiatics and Egyptians, filled the centre: and the Greeks and Macedonians in the service of Persia, the right,—over against the hoplites of Athens. The numbers of these last-mentioned Greeks Herodotus could not learn, though he estimates them conjecturally at fifty thousand:[333] nor can we place any confidence in the total of three hundred thousand, which he gives as belonging to the other troops of Mardonius, though probably it cannot have been much less.

[333] Herodot. ix, 31, 32.

In this position lay the two armies, separated only by a narrow space including the river Asôpus, and each expecting a battle, whilst the sacrifices on behalf of each were offered up. Pausanias, Mardonius, and the Greeks in the Persian army, had each a separate prophet to offer sacrifice, and to ascertain the dispositions of the gods; the two first had men from the most distinguished prophetic breeds in Elis,—the latter invited one from Leukas.[334] All received large pay, and the prophet of Pausanias had indeed been honored with a recompense above all pay,—the gift of full Spartan citizenship for himself as well as for his brother. It happened that the prophets on both sides delivered the same report of their respective sacrifices,—favorable for resistance if attacked; unfavorable for beginning the battle. At a moment when doubt and indecision was the reigning feeling on both sides, this was the safest answer for the prophet to give, and the most satisfactory for the soldiers to hear. And though the answer from Delphi had been sufficiently encouraging, and the kindness of the patron-heroes of Platæa[335] had been solemnly invoked, yet Pausanias did not venture to cross the Asôpus and begin the attack, in the face of a pronounced declaration from his prophet. Nor did even Hegesistratus, the prophet employed by Mardonius, choose on his side to urge an aggressive movement, though he had a deadly personal hatred against the Lacedæmonians, and would have been delighted to see them worsted. There arose commencements of conspiracy, perhaps encouraged by promises or bribes from the enemy, among the wealthier Athenian hoplites, to establish an oligarchy at Athens under Persian supremacy, like that which now existed at Thebes,—a conspiracy full of danger at such a moment, though fortunately repressed[336] by Aristeidês, with a hand at once gentle and decisive. More over, the annoyance inflicted by the Persian cavalry, under the guidance of the Thebans, was incessant: their constant assaults, and missile weapons from the other side of the Asôpus, prevented the Greeks from using it for supplies of water, so that the whole army was forced to water at the fountain Gargaphia, at the extreme right of the position,[337] near the Lacedæmonian hoplites. Moreover, the Theban leader, Timegenidas, remarking the convoys which arrived over the passes of Kithæron, in the rear of the Grecian camp, and the constant reinforcements of hoplites which accompanied them, prevailed upon Mardonius to employ his cavalry in cutting off such communication. The first movement of this sort, undertaken by night against the pass called the Oak Heads, was eminently successful: a train of five hundred beasts of burden with supplies, was attacked descending into the plain with its escort, all of whom were either slain or carried prisoners to the Persian camp: nor was it safe for any farther convoys to approach the Greeks.[338] Eight days had already been passed in inaction before Timegenidas suggested, or Mardonius executed, this manœuvre, which it is fortunate for the Greeks that he did not attempt earlier, and which afforded clear proof how much might be hoped from an efficient employment of his cavalry, without the ruinous risk of a general action. Nevertheless, after waiting two days longer, his impatience became uncontrollable, and he determined on a general battle forthwith.[339] In vain did Artabazus endeavor to dissuade him from the step,—taking the same view as the Thebans, that in a pitched battle the united Grecian army was invincible, and that the only successful policy was that of delay and corruption to disunite them: he recommended standing on the defensive, by means of Thebes, well fortified and amply provisioned,—which would allow time for distributing effective bribes among the leading men throughout the various Grecian cities. This suggestion, which Herodotus considers as wise and likely to succeed, was repudiated by Mardonius as cowardly and unworthy of the recognized superiority of the Persian arms.[340]

[334] Herodot. ix, 36, 38. μεμισθωμένος οὐκ ὀλίγου.

These prophets were men of great individual consequence, as may be seen by the details which Herodotus gives respecting their adventures: compare also the history of Euenius, ix, 93.

[335] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. xi; Thucyd. ii, 74.

[336] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 13.

[337] Herodot. ix, 40, 49, 50. τήν τε κρήνην τὴν Γαργαφίην, ἀπ’ ἧς ὑδρεύετο πᾶν τὸ στράτευμα τὸ Ἑλληνικόν—ἐρυκόμενοι δὲ ἀπὸ τοῦ Ἀσωποῦ, οὕτω δὴ ἐπὶ τὴν κρήνην ἐφοίτεον· ἀπὸ τοῦ ποταμοῦ γάρ σφι οὐκ ἐξῆν ὕδωρ φορέεσθαι, ὑπό τε τῶν ἱππέων καὶ τοξευμάτων.

Diodorus (xi, 30) affirms that the Greek position was so well defended by the nature of the ground, and so difficult of attack, that Mardonius was prevented from making use of his superior numbers. It is evident from the account of Herodotus that this is quite incorrect. The position seems to have had no protection except what it derived from the river Asôpus, and the Greeks were ultimately forced to abandon it by the incessant attacks of the Persian cavalry. The whole account, at once diffuse and uninstructive, given by Diodorus of this battle (xi, 30-36), forms a strong contrast with the clear, impressive, and circumstantial narrative of Herodotus.

[338] Herodot. ix, 38, 39.

[339] Herodot. ix, 40, 41.

[340] Herodot. ix, 42.

But while he overruled, by virtue of superior authority, the objections of all around him, Persian as well as Greek, he could not but feel daunted by their reluctant obedience, which he suspected might arise from their having heard oracles or prophecies of unfavorable augury. He therefore summoned the chief officers, Greek as well as Persian, and put the question to them, whether they knew any prophecy announcing that the Persians were doomed to destruction in Greece. All were silent: some did not know the prophecies, but others, Herodotus intimates, knew them full well, though they did not dare to speak. Receiving no answer, Mardonius said, “Since ye either do not know or will not tell, I, who know well, will myself speak out. There is an oracle to the effect, that Persian invaders of Greece shall plunder the temple of Delphi, and shall afterwards all be destroyed. Now we, being aware of this, shall neither go against that temple, nor try to plunder it: on that ground, therefore, we shall not be destroyed. Rejoice ye, therefore, ye who are well-affected to the Persians,—we shall get the better of the Greeks.” With that he gave orders to prepare everything for a general attack and battle on the morrow.[341]

[341] Herodot. ix, 42.

It is not improbable that the Orchomenian Thersander was present at this interview, and may have reported it to Herodotus. But the reflection of the historian himself is not the least curious part of the whole, as illustrating the manner in which these prophecies sunk into men’s minds, and determined their judgments. Herodotus knew, though he does not cite it, the particular prophecy to which Mardonius made allusion; and he pronounces, in the most affirmative tone,[342] that it had no reference to the Persians: it referred to an ancient invasion of Greece by the Illyrians and the Encheleis. But both Bakis, from whom he quotes four lines, and Musæus had prophesied, in the plainest manner, the destruction of the Persian army on the banks of the Thermôdon and Asôpus. And these are the prophecies which we must suppose the officers convoked by Mardonius to have known also, though they did not dare to speak out: it was the fault of Mardonius himself that he did not take warning.

[342] Herodot. ix, 43. Τοῦτον δ’ ἔγωγε τὸν χρησμὸν τὸν Μαρδόνιος εἶπε ἐς Πέρσας ἔχειν, ἐς Ἰλλυρίους τε καὶ τὸν Ἐγχελέων ~στρατὸν οἶδα πεποιημένον~, ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἐς Πέρσας. Ἀλλὰ τὰ μὲν Βάκιδι ἐς ταύτην τὴν μάχην ἔστι πεποιημένα, etc.

The attack of a multitude like that of Mardonius was not likely under any circumstances to be made so rapidly as to take the Greeks by surprise: but the latter were forewarned of it by a secret visit from Alexander, king of Macedon; who, riding up to the Athenian advanced posts in the middle of the night, desired to speak with Aristeidês and the other generals. Announcing to them alone his name, and proclaiming his earnest sympathy for the Grecian cause, as well as the hazard which he incurred by this nightly visit,—he apprized them that Mardonius, though eager for a battle long ago, could not by any effort obtain favorable sacrifices, but was, nevertheless, even in spite of this obstacle, determined on an attack the next morning. “Be ye prepared accordingly; and if ye succeed in this war (said he) remember to liberate me also from the Persian yoke: I too am a Greek by descent, and thus risk my head because I cannot endure to see Greece enslaved.”[343]

[343] Herodot. ix, 44-45. The language about the sacrifices is remarkable,—λέγω δὲ ὦν ὅτι Μαρδονίῳ τε καὶ τῇ στρατιῇ οὐ ~δύναται τὰ σφάγια καταθύμια γενέσθαι~· πάλαι γὰρ ἂν ἐμάχεσθε, etc.

Mardonius had tried many unavailing efforts to procure better sacrifices: it _could_ not be done.

The communication of this important message, made by Aristeidês to Pausanias, elicited from him a proposal not a little surprising as coming from a Spartan general. He requested the Athenians to change places with the Lacedæmonians in the line. “We Lacedæmonians (said he) now stand opposed to the Persians and Medes, against whom we have never yet contended, while ye Athenians have fought and conquered them at Marathon. March ye then over to the right wing and take our places, while we will take yours in the left wing, against the Bœotians and Thessalians, with whose arms and attack we are familiar.” The Athenians readily acceded, and the reciprocal change of order was accordingly directed: nor was it yet quite completed when day broke, and the Theban allies of Mardonius immediately took notice of what had been done. That general commanded a corresponding change in his own line, so as to place the native Persians once more over against the Lacedæmonians: upon which Pausanias, seeing that his manœuvre had failed, led back his Lacedæmonians to the right wing, while a second movement on the part of Mardonius replaced both armies in the order originally observed.[344]

[344] Herodot. ix, 47; Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 16. Here, as on many other occasions, Plutarch rather spoils than assists the narrative of Herodotus.

No incident similar to this will be found throughout the whole course of Lacedæmonian history. To evade encountering the best troops in the enemy’s line, and to depart for this purpose from their privileged post on the right wing, was a step well calculated to lower them in the eyes of Greece, and could hardly have failed to produce that effect, if the intention had been realized: it is at the same time the highest compliment to the formidable reputation of the native Persian troops,—a reputation recognized by Herodotus, and well sustained at least by their personal bravery.[345] Nor can we wonder that this publicly manifested reluctance on the part of the leading troops in the Grecian army contributed much to exalt the rash confidence of Mardonius: a feeling which Herodotus, in Homeric style,[346] casts into the speech of a Persian herald sent to upbraid the Lacedæmonians, and challenge them to a “single combat with champions of equal numbers, Lacedæmonians against Persians.” This herald, whom no one heard or cared for, and who serves but as a mouthpiece for bringing out the feelings belonging to the moment, was followed by something very real and terrible,—a vigorous attack on the Greek line by the Persian cavalry; whose rapid motions, and showers of arrows and javelins, annoyed the Greeks on this day more than ever. The latter, as has been before stated, had no cavalry whatever; nor do their light troops, though sufficiently numerous, appear to have rendered any service, with the exception of the Athenian bowmen. How great was the advantage gained by the Persian cavalry, is shown by the fact that they for a time drove away the Lacedæmonians from the fountain of Gargaphia, so as to choke it up and render it unfit for use. As the army had been prevented by the cavalry from resorting to the river Asôpus, this fountain had been of late the only watering-place: and without it the position which they then occupied became untenable,—while their provisions also were exhausted, inasmuch as the convoys, from fear of the Persian cavalry, could not descend from Kithæron to join them.[347]

[345] Herodot. ix, 71.

[346] Compare the reproaches of Hektor to Diomêdês (Iliad, viii, 161).

[347] Herodot. ix, 49, 50. Pausanias mentions that the Platæans restored the fountain of Gargaphia after the victory (τὸ ὕδωρ ἀνεσώσαντο); but he hardly seems to speak as if he had himself seen it (ix, 4, 2).

In this dilemma, Pausanias summoned the Grecian chiefs to his tent, and after an anxious debate the resolution was taken, in case Mardonius should not bring on a general action in the course of the day, to change their position during the night, when there would be no interruption from the cavalry; and to occupy the ground called the island, distant about ten furlongs in a direction nearly west, and seemingly north of the town of Platæa, which was itself about twenty furlongs distant: this island, improperly so denominated, included the ground comprised between two branches of the river Oeroê,[348] both of which flow from Kithæron, and, after flowing for a certain time in channels about three furlongs apart, form a junction and run in a northwesterly direction towards one of the recesses of the gulf of Corinth,—quite distinct from the Asôpus, which, though also rising near at hand in the lowest declivities under Kithæron, takes an easterly direction and discharges itself into the sea opposite Eubœa. When in this so-called island, the army would be secure of water from the stream in their rear; nor would they, as now, expose an extended breadth of front to a numerous hostile cavalry separated from them only by the Asôpus.[349] It was farther resolved, that so soon as the army should once be in occupation of the island, half of the troops should forthwith march onward to disengage the convoys blocked up on Kithæron and conduct them to the camp. Such was the plan settled in council among the different Grecian chiefs; the march to be commenced at the beginning of the second night-watch, when the enemy’s cavalry would have completely withdrawn.

[348] See a good description of the ground in Colonel Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, ch. xvi, vol. ii, p. 358.

[349] Herodot. ix, 51. Ἐς τοῦτον δὴ τὸν χῶρον ἐβουλεύσαντο μεταστῆναι, ἵνα καὶ ὕδατι ἔχωσι χρᾶσθαι ἀφθόνῳ, καὶ οἱ ἱππέες σφέας μὴ σινοίατο, ὥσπερ κατ’ ἰθὺ ἐόντων.

The last words have reference to the position of the two hostile armies, extended front to front along the course of the Asôpus.

In spite of what Mardonius is said to have determined, he passed the whole day without any general attack: but his cavalry, probably elated by the recent demonstration of the Lacedæmonians, were on that day more daring and indefatigable than ever, and inflicted much loss as well as severe suffering;[350] insomuch that the centre of the Greek force (Corinthians, Megarians, etc., between the Lacedæmonians and Tegeans on the right, and the Athenians on the left), when the hour arrived for retiring to the island, commenced their march indeed, but forgot or disregarded the preconcerted plan and the orders of Pausanias, in their impatience to obtain a complete shelter against the attacks of the cavalry. Instead of proceeding to the island, they marched a distance of twenty furlongs directly to the town of Platæa, and took up a position in front of the Heræum, or temple of Hêrê, where they were protected partly by the buildings, partly by the comparatively high ground on which the town with its temple stood. Between the position which the Greeks were about to leave and that which they had resolved to occupy (_i. e._ between the course of the Asôpus and that of the Oeroê), there appear to have been a range of low hills: the Lacedæmonians, starting from the right wing, had to march directly over these hills, while the Athenians, from the left, were to turn them and get into the plain on the other side.[351] Pausanias, apprized that the divisions of the centre had commenced their night-march, and concluding of course that they would proceed to the island according to orders, allowed a certain interval of time in order to prevent confusion, and then directed that the Lacedæmonians and Tegeans should also begin their movement towards that same position. But here he found himself embarrassed by an unexpected obstacle. The movement was retrograde, receding from the enemy, and not consistent with the military honor of a Spartan; nevertheless, most of the taxiarchs, or leaders of companies, obeyed without murmuring; but Amompharetus, lochage or captain of that band which Herodotus calls the lochus of Pitana,[352] obstinately refused. Not having been present at the meeting in which the resolution had been taken, he now heard it for the first time with astonishment and disdain, declaring “that he for one would never so far disgrace Sparta as to run away from the foreigner.”[353] Pausanias, with the second in command, Euryanax, exhausted every effort to overcome his reluctance: but they could by no means induce him to retreat; nor did they dare to move without him, leaving his entire lochus exposed alone to the enemy.[354]

[350] Herodot. ix, 52. κείνην μὲν τὴν ἡμέρην πᾶσαν, προσκειμένης τῆς ἵππου, εἶχον πόνον ἄτρυτον.

[351] Herodot. ix, 56. Παυσανίης—σημῄνας ἀπῆγε διὰ τῶν κολωνῶν τοὺς λοιποὺς πάντας· εἵποντο δὲ καὶ Τεγεῆται. Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ ταχθέντες ἤϊσαν τὰ ἔμπαλιν ἢ Λακεδαιμόνιοι. Οἱ μὲν γὰρ τῶν τε ὄχθων ἀντείχοντο καὶ τῆς ὑπωρείης τοῦ Κιθαιρῶνος. Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ, κάτω τραφθέντες ἐς τὸ πεδίον.

With which we must combine another passage, c. 59, intimating that the track of the Athenians led them to turn and get behind the hills, which prevented Mardonius from seeing them, though they were marching along the plain: Μαρδόνιος—ἐπεῖχε ἐπὶ Λακεδαιμονίους καὶ Τεγεήτας μούνους· Ἀθηναίους γὰρ τραπομένους ἐς τὸ πεδίον ὑπὸ τῶν ὄχθων οὐ κατεώρα.

[352] There is on this point a difference between Thucydides and Herodotus: the former affirms that there never was any Spartan lochus so called (Thucyd. i, 21).

We have no means of reconciling the difference, nor can we be certain that Thucydides is right in his negative comprehending all past time—ὃς οὐδ’ ἐγένετο πώποτε.

[353] Herodot. ix, 53, 54.

[354] Herodot. ix, 52, 53.

Amidst the darkness of night, and in this scene of indecision and dispute, an Athenian messenger on horseback reached Pausanias, instructed to ascertain what was passing, and to ask for the last directions: for in spite of the resolution taken after formal debate, the Athenian generals still mistrusted the Lacedæmonians, and doubted whether, after all, they would act as they had promised: the movement of the central division having become known to them, they sent at the last moment before they commenced their own march, to assure themselves that the Spartans were about to move also. A profound, and even an exaggerated mistrust, but too well justified by the previous behavior of the Spartans towards Athens, is visible in this proceeding:[355] yet it proved fortunate in its results,—for if the Athenians, satisfied with executing their part in the preconcerted plan, had marched at once to the island, the Grecian army would have been severed without the possibility of reuniting, and the issue of the battle might have proved altogether different. The Athenian herald found the Lacedæmonians still stationary in their position, and the generals in hot dispute with Amompharetus; who despised the threat of being left alone to make head against the Persians, and when reminded that the resolution had been taken by general vote of the officers, took up with both hands a vast rock, fit for the hands of Ajax or Hektor, and cast it at the feet of Pausanias, saying—“This is _my_ pebble, wherewith I give my vote not to run away from the strangers.” Pausanias denounced him as a madman,—desiring the herald to report the scene of embarrassment which he had just come to witness, and to entreat the Athenian generals not to commence their retreat until the Lacedæmonians should also be in march. In the mean time the dispute continued, and was even prolonged by the perverseness of Amompharetus until the morning began to dawn; when Pausanias, afraid to remain longer, gave the signal for retreat,—calculating that the refractory captain, when he saw his lochus really left alone, would probably make up his mind to follow. Having marched about ten furlongs, across the hilly ground which divided him from the island, he commanded a halt,—either to await Amompharetus, if he chose to follow, or to be near enough to render aid and save him, if he were rash enough to stand his ground single-handed. Happily the latter, seeing that his general had really departed, overcame his scruples, and followed him; overtaking and joining the main body in its first halt near the river Moloeis and the temple of Eleusinian Dêmêtêr.[356] The Athenians, commencing their movement at the same time with Pausanias, got round the hills to the plain on the other side and proceeded on their march towards the island.

[355] Herodot. ix, 54, Ἀθηναῖοι—εἶχον ἀτρέμας σφέας αὐτοὺς ἵνα ἐτάχθησαν, ἐπιστάμενοι τὰ Λακεδαιμονίων φρονήματα, ὡς ἄλλα φρονεόντων καὶ ἄλλα λεγόντων.

[356] Herodot. xi. 56, 57.

When the day broke, the Persian cavalry were astonished to find the Grecian position deserted. They immediately set themselves to the pursuit of the Spartans, whose march lay along the higher and more conspicuous ground, and whose progress had moreover been retarded by the long delay of Amompharetus: the Athenians on the contrary, marching without halt and being already behind the hills, were not open to view. To Mardonius, this retreat of his enemy inspired an extravagant and contemptuous confidence, which he vented in full measure to the Thessalian Aleuadæ: “These are your boasted Spartans, who changed their place just now in the line, rather than fight the Persians, and have here shown by a barefaced flight what they are really worth!” With that, he immediately directed his whole army to pursue and attack, with the utmost expedition. The Persians crossed the Asôpus, and ran after the Greeks at their best speed, pell-mell, without any thought of order or preparations for overcoming resistance: the army already rang with shouts of victory, in full confidence of swallowing up the fugitives as soon as they were overtaken.

The Asiatic allies all followed the example of this disorderly rush forward:[357] but the Thebans and the other Grecian allies on the right wing of Mardonius, appear to have maintained somewhat better order.

[357] Herodot. ix, 59. ἐδίωκον ὡς ποδῶν ἕκαστος εἶχον, οὔτε κόσμῳ οὐδενὶ κοσμηθέντες, οὔτε τάξι. Καὶ οὗτοι μὲν βοῇ τε καὶ ὁμίλῳ ἐπήϊσαν, ὡς ἀναρπασόμενοι τοὺς Ἕλληνας.

Herodotus dwells especially on the reckless and disorderly manner in which the Persians advanced: Plutarch, on the contrary, says of Mardonius,—ἔχων ~συντεταγμένην~ τὴν δύναμιν ἐπεφέρετο τοῖς Λακεδαιμονίοις, etc. (Plutarch, Aristeid. c. 17.)

Plutarch also says that Pausanias ἦγε τὴν ἄλλην δύναμιν ~πρὸς τὰς Πλαταιὰς~, etc., which is quite contrary to the real narrative of Herodotus. Pausanias intended to march to the island, not to Platæa: he did not reach either the one or the other.

Pausanias had not been able to retreat farther than the neighborhood of the Demetrion, or temple of Eleusinian Dêmêtêr, where he had halted to take up Amompharetus. Overtaken first by the Persian horse, and next by Mardonius with the main body, he sent a horseman forthwith to apprize the Athenians, and to entreat their aid. Nor were the Athenians slack in complying with his request: but they speedily found themselves engaged in conflict against the Theban allies of the enemy, and therefore unable to reach him.[358] Accordingly, the Lacedæmonians and Tegeates had to encounter the Persians single-handed, without any assistance from the other Greeks. The Persians, on arriving within bowshot of their enemies, planted in the ground the spiked extremities of their gerrha, or long wicker shields, forming a continuous breastwork, from behind which they poured upon the Greeks a shower of arrows:[359] their bows were of the largest size, and drawn with no less power than skill. In spite of the wounds and distress thus inflicted, Pausanias persisted in the indispensable duty of offering the battle sacrifice, and the victims were for some time unfavorable, so that he did not venture to give orders for advance and close combat. Many were here wounded or slain in the ranks,[360] among them the brave Kallikratês, the handsomest and strongest man in the army: until Pausanias, wearied out with this compulsory and painful delay, at length raised his eyes to the conspicuous Heræum of the Platæans, and invoked the merciful intervention of Hêrê to remove that obstacle which confined him to the spot. Hardly had he pronounced the words, when the victims changed and became favorable:[361] but the Tegeans, while he was yet praying, anticipated the effect and hastened forward against the enemy, followed by the Lacedæmonians as soon as Pausanias gave the word. The wicker breastwork before the Persians was soon overthrown by the Grecian charge: nevertheless the Persians, though thus deprived of their tutelary hedge, and having no defensive armor, maintained the fight with individual courage, the more remarkable because it was totally unassisted by discipline or trained collective movement, against the drilled array, the regulated step, the well-defended persons, and the long spears, of the Greeks.[362] They threw themselves upon the Lacedæmonians, seizing hold of their spears, and breaking them: many of them devoted themselves in small parties of ten to force by their bodies a way into the lines, and to get to individual close combat with the short spear and the dagger.[363] Mardonius himself, conspicuous upon a white horse, was among the foremost warriors, and the thousand select troops who formed his body-guard distinguished themselves beyond all the rest. At length he was slain by the hand of a distinguished Spartan named Aeimnêstus; his thousand guards mostly perished around him, and the courage of the remaining Persians, already worn out by the superior troops against which they had been long contending, was at last thoroughly broken by the death of their general. They turned their backs and fled, not resting until they got into the wooden fortified camp constructed by Mardonius behind the Asôpus. The Asiatic allies also, as soon as they saw the Persians defeated, took to flight without striking a blow.[364]

[358] Herodot. ix, 60, 61.

[359] About the Persian bow, see Xenoph. Anabas. iii, 4, 17.

[360] Herod. ix, 72.

[361] Herodot. ix, 62. Καὶ τοῖσι Λακεδαιμονίοισι ~αὐτίκα~ μετὰ τὴν εὐχὴν τὴν Παυσανίεω ἐγίνετο θυομένοισι τὰ σφάγια χρηστά. Plutarch exaggerates the long-suffering of Pausanias (Aristeid. c. 17, ad finem).

The lofty and conspicuous site of the Heræon, visible to Pausanias at the distance where he was, is plainly marked in Herodotus (ix, 61).

For incidents illustrating the hardships which a Grecian army endured from its reluctance to move without favorable sacrifices, see Xenophon, Anabasis, vi, 4, 10-25; Hellenic. iii, 2, 17.

[362] Herodot. ix, 62, 63. His words about the courage of the Persians are remarkable: λήματι μέν νυν καὶ ῥώμῃ οὐκ ἕσσονες ἦσαν οἱ Πέρσαι· ἄνοπλοι δὲ ἐόντες, καὶ πρὸς, ἀνεπιστήμονες ἦσαν, καὶ οὐκ ὁμοῖοι τοῖσι ἐναντίοισι σοφίην ... πλεῖστον γάρ σφεας ἐδηλέετο ἡ ἐσθὴς ἐρῆμος ἐοῦσα ὅπλων· πρὸς γὰρ ὁπλίτας ἐόντες γυμνῆτες ἀγῶνα ἐποιεῦντο. Compare the striking conversation between Xerxes and Demaratus (Herodot. vii, 104).

The description given by Herodotus of the gallant rush made by these badly-armed Persians, upon the presented line of spears in the Lacedæmonian ranks, may be compared with Livy (xxxii, 17), a description of the Romans attacking the Macedonian phalanx, and with the battle of Sempach (June, 1386), in which fourteen hundred half-armed Swiss overcame a large body of fully-armed Austrians, with an impenetrable front of projecting spears; which for some time they were unable to break in upon, until at length one of their warriors, Arnold von Winkelried, grasped an armful of spears, and precipitated himself upon them, making a way for his countrymen over his dead body. See Vogelin, Geschichte der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft, ch. vi, p. 240, or indeed any history of Switzerland, for a description of this memorable incident.

[363] For the arms of the Persians, see Herodot. vii, 61.

Herodotus states in another place that the Persian troops adopted the Egyptian breastplates (θώρηκας): probably this may have been after the battle of Platæa. Even at this battle, the Persian leaders on horseback had strong defensive armor, as we may see by the case of Masistius, above narrated: by the time of the battle of Kunaxa, the habit had become more widely diffused (Xenoph. Anabas. i, 8, 6; Brisson, De Regno Persarum, lib. iii, p. 361), for the cavalry at least.

[364] Herodot. ix, 64, 65.

The Athenians on the left, meanwhile, had been engaged in a serious conflict with the Bœotians; especially the Theban leaders with the hoplites immediately around them, who fought with great bravery, but were at length driven back, after the loss of three hundred of their best troops. The Theban cavalry, however, still maintained a good front, protecting the retreat of the infantry and checking the Athenian pursuit, so that the fugitives were enabled to reach Thebes in safety; a better refuge than the Persian fortified camp.[365] With the exception of the Thebans and Bœotians, none of the other _medizing_ Greeks rendered any real service: instead of sustaining or reinforcing the Thebans, they never once advanced to the charge, but merely followed in the first movement of flight. So that, in point of fact, the only troops in this numerous Perso-Grecian army who really fought, were the native Persians and Sakæ on the left, and the Bœotians on the right: the former against the Lacedæmonians, the latter against the Athenians.[366]

[365] Herodot. ix, 67, 68.

[366] Herodot. ix, 67, 68. Τῶν δὲ ἄλλων Ἑλλήνων τῶν μετὰ βασιλέος ἐθελοκακεόντων ... καὶ τῶν ἄλλων συμμάχων ὁ πᾶς ὅμιλος οὔτε διαμαχεσάμενος οὐδενὶ οὔτε τι ἀποδεξάμενος ἔφυγεν.

Nor did even all the native Persians take part in the combat. A body of forty thousand men under Artabazus, of whom some must doubtless have been native Persians, left the field without fighting and without loss. That general, seemingly the ablest man in the Persian army, had been from the first disgusted with the nomination of Mardonius as commander-in-chief, and had farther incurred his displeasure by deprecating any general action. Apprized that Mardonius was hastening forward to attack the retreating Greeks, he marshalled his division and led them out towards the scene of action, though despairing of success, and perhaps not very anxious that his own prophecies should be contradicted. And such had been the headlong impetuosity of Mardonius in his first forward movement,—so complete his confidence of overwhelming the Greeks when he discovered their retreat,—that he took no pains to insure the concerted action of his whole army: accordingly, before Artabazus arrived at the scene of action, he saw the Persian troops, who had been engaged under the commander-in-chief, already defeated and in flight. Without making the least attempt either to save them or to retrieve the battle, he immediately gave orders to his own division to retreat: not repairing, however, either to the fortified camp, or to Thebes, but abandoning at once the whole campaign, and taking the direct road through Phocis to Thessaly, Macedonia, and the Hellespont.[367]

[367] Herodot. ix, 66.

As the native Persians, the Sakæ, and the Bœotians, were the only real combatants on the one side, so also were the Lacedæmonians, Tegeans, and Athenians, on the other. It has already been mentioned that the central troops of the Grecian army, disobeying the general order of march, had gone during the night to the town of Platæa instead of to the island. They were thus completely severed from Pausanias, and the first thing which they heard about the battle, was, that the Lacedæmonians were gaining the victory. Elate with this news, and anxious to come in for some share of the honor, they rushed to the scene of action, without any heed of military order; the Corinthians taking the direct track across the hills, while the Megarians, Phliasians, and others, marched by the longer route along the plain, so as to turn the hills and arrive at the Athenian position. The Theban horse under Asôpodôrus, employed in checking the pursuit of the victorious Athenian hoplites, seeing these fresh troops coming up in thorough disorder, charged them vigorously, and drove them back to take refuge in the high ground, with the loss of six hundred men.[368] But this partial success had no effect in mitigating the ruin of the general defeat.

[368] Herodot. ix, 69.

Following up their pursuit, the Lacedæmonians proceeded to attack the wooden redoubt wherein the Persians had taken refuge. But though they were here aided by all or most of the central Grecian divisions, who had taken no part in the battle, they were yet so ignorant of the mode of assailing walls, that they made no progress, and were completely baffled, until the Athenians arrived to their assistance. The redoubt was then stormed, not without a gallant and prolonged resistance on the part of its defenders. The Tegeans, being the first to penetrate into the interior, plundered the rich tent of Mardonius, whose manger for his horses, made of brass, remained long afterwards exhibited in their temple of Athênê Alea,—while his silver-footed throne, and cimeter[369] were preserved in the acropolis of Athens, along with the breastplate of Masistius. Once within the wall, effective resistance ceased, and the Greeks slaughtered without mercy as well as without limit; so that if we are to credit Herodotus, there survived only three thousand men out of the three hundred thousand which had composed the army of Mardonius,—save and except the forty thousand men who accompanied Artabazus in his retreat.[370] Respecting these numbers, the historian had probably little to give except some vague reports, without any pretence of computation: about the Grecian loss, his statement deserves more attention, when he tells us that there perished ninety-one Spartans, sixteen Tegeans, and fifty-two Athenians. Herein, however, is not included the loss of the Megarians when attacked by the Theban cavalry, nor is the number of slain Lacedæmonians, not Spartans, specified; while even the other numbers actually stated are decidedly smaller than the probable truth, considering the multitude of Persian arrows and the unshielded right side of the Grecian hoplite. On the whole, the affirmation of Plutarch, that not less than thirteen hundred and sixty Greeks were slain in the action, appears probable: all doubtless hoplites,—for little account was then made of the light-armed, nor indeed are we told that they took any active part in the battle.[371] Whatever may have been the numerical loss of the Persians, this defeat proved the total ruin of their army: but we may fairly presume that many were spared and sold into slavery,[372] while many of the fugitives probably found means to join the retreating division of Artabazus. That general made a rapid march across Thessaly and Macedonia, keeping strict silence about the recent battle, and pretending to be sent on a special enterprise by Mardonius, whom he reported to be himself approaching. If Herodotus is correct (though it may well be doubted whether the change of sentiment in Thessaly and the other _medizing_ Grecian states was so rapid as he implies), Artabazus succeeded in traversing these countries before the news of the battle became generally known, and then retreated by the straightest and shortest route through the interior of Thrace to Byzantium, from whence he passed into Asia: the interior tribes, unconquered and predatory, harassed his retreat considerably; but we shall find long afterwards Persian garrisons in possession of many principal places on the Thracian coast.[373] It will be seen that Artabazus afterwards rose higher than ever in the estimation of Xerxes.

[369] Herodot. ix, 70; Demosthenês cont. Timokrat. p. 741, c. 33. Pausanias (i, 27, 2) doubts whether this was really the cimeter of Mardonius, contending that the Lacedæmonians would never have permitted the Athenians to take it.

[370] Herodot. ix, 70: compare Æschyl. Pers. 805-824. He singles out “the Dorian spear” as the great weapon of destruction to the Persians at Platæa,—very justly. Dr. Blomfield is surprised at this compliment; but it is to be recollected that all the earlier part of the tragedy had been employed in setting forth the glory of Athens at Salamis, and he might well afford to give the Peloponnesians the credit which they derived at Platæa. Pindar distributes the honor between Sparta and Athens in like manner (Pyth. i, 76).

[371] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 19. Kleidemus, quoted by Plutarch, stated that all the fifty-two Athenians who perished belonged to the tribe Æantis, which distinguished itself in the Athenian ranks. But it seems impossible to believe that no citizens belonging to the other nine tribes were killed.

[372] Diodorus, indeed, states that Pausanias was so apprehensive of the numbers of the Persians, that he forbade his soldiers to give quarter or take any prisoners (xi, 32); but this is hardly to be believed, in spite of his assertion. His statement that the Greeks lost ten thousand men is still less admissible.

[373] Herodot. ix, 89. The allusions of Demosthenês to Perdikkas king of Macedonia, who is said to have attacked the Persians on their flight from Platæa, and to have rendered their ruin complete, are too loose to deserve attention; more especially as Perdikkas was _not then_ king of Macedonia (Demosthenês cont. Aristokrat. pp. 687, c. 51; and περὶ Συντάξεως, p. 173, c. 9).

Ten days did the Greeks employ after their victory, first in burying the slain, next in collecting and apportioning the booty. The Lacedæmonians, the Athenians, the Tegeans, the Megarians, and the Phliasians, each buried their dead apart, erecting a separate tomb in commemoration: the Lacedæmonians, indeed, distributed their dead into three fractions, in three several burial-places: one for those champions who enjoyed individual renown at Sparta, and among whom were included the most distinguished men slain in the recent battle, such as Poseidonius, Amompharetus, the refractory captain, Philokyon, and Kallikratês,—a second for the other Spartans and Lacedæmonians,[374]—and a third for the Helots. Besides these sepulchral monuments, erected in the neighborhood of Platæa by those cities whose citizens had really fought and fallen, there were several similar monuments to be seen in the days of Herodotus, raised by other cities which falsely pretended to the same honor, with the connivance and aid of the Platæans.[375] The body of Mardonius was discovered among the slain, and treated with respect by Pausanias, who is even said to have indignantly repudiated advice offered to him by an Æginetan, that he should retaliate upon it the ignominious treatment inflicted by Xerxes upon the dead Leonidas.[376] On the morrow, the body was stolen away and buried; by whom, was never certainly known, for there were many different pretenders who obtained reward on this plea from Artyntês, the son of Mardonius: the funereal monument was yet to be seen in the time of the traveller Pausanias.[377]

[374] Herodot. ix, 84. Herodotus indeed assigns this second burial-place only to the other _Spartans_, apart from the Select. He takes no notice of the Lacedæmonians not Spartans, either in the battle or in reference to burial, though he had informed us that five thousand of them were included in the army. Some of them must have been slain, and we may fairly presume that they were buried along with the Spartan citizens generally. As to the word ἱρέας, or εἴρενας, or ἱππέας (the two last being both conjectural readings), it seems impossible to arrive at any certainty: we do not know by what name these select warriors were called.

[375] Herodot. ix, 85. Τῶν δ’ ἄλλων ὅσοι καὶ φαίνονται ἐν Πλαταιῇσι ἐόντες τάφοι, τούτους δὲ, ~ὡς ἐγὼ πυνθάνομαι~, ἐπαισχυνομένους τῇ ἀπεστοῖ τῆς μάχης, ἑκάστους χώματα χῶσαι κεινὰ, τῶν ἐπιγινομένων εἵνεκεν ἀνθρώπων· ἐπεὶ καὶ Αἰγινητέων ἐστὶ αὐτόθι καλεόμενος τάφος, τὸν ἐγὼ ἀκούω καὶ δέκα ἔτεσι ὕστερον μετὰ ταῦτα, δεηθέντων τῶν Αἰγινητέων, χῶσαι Κλεάδην τὸν Αὐτοδίκου, ἄνδρα Πλαταιέα, πρόξεινον ἐόντα αὐτῶν.

This is a curious statement, derived by Herodotus doubtless from personal inquiries made at Platæa.

[376] Herodot. ix, 78, 79. This suggestion, so abhorrent to Grecian feeling, is put by the historian into the mouth of the Æginetan Lampôn. In my preceding note, I have alluded to another statement made by Herodotus, not very creditable to the Æginetans: there is, moreover, a third (ix, 80), in which he represents them as having cheated the Helots in their purchases of the booty. We may presume him to have heard all these anecdotes at Platæa: at the time when he probably visited that place, not long before the Peloponnesian war, the inhabitants were united in the most intimate manner with Athens, and doubtless sympathized in the hatred of the Athenians against Ægina. It does not from hence follow that the stories are all untrue. I disbelieve, indeed, the advice said to have been given by Lampôn to crucify the body of Mardonius,—which has more the air of a poetical contrivance for bringing out an honorable sentiment, than of a real incident. But there seems no reason to doubt the truth of the other two stories. Herodotus does but too rarely specify his informants: it is interesting to scent out the track in which his inquiries have been prosecuted.

After the battle of Kunaxa, and the death of Cyrus the younger, his dead body had the head and hands cut off, by order of Artaxerxes, and nailed to a cross (Xenoph. Anab. i, 10, 1; iii, 1, 17).

[377] Herodot. ix, 84; Pausanias, ix, 2, 2.

The spoil was rich and multifarious,—gold and silver in Darics as well as in implements and ornaments, carpets, splendid arms and clothing, horses, camels, etc., even the magnificent tent of Xerxes, left on his retreat with Mardonius, was included.[378] By order of the general Pausanias, the Helots collected all the valuable articles into one spot for division; not without stealing many of the golden ornaments, which, in ignorance of the value, they were persuaded by the Æginetans to sell as brass. After reserving a tithe for the Delphian Apollo, together with ample offerings for the Olympic Zeus and the Isthmian Poseidon, as well as for Pausanias as general,—the remaining booty was distributed among the different contingents of the army in proportion to their respective numbers.[379] The concubines of the Persian chiefs were among the prizes distributed: there were probably however among them many of Grecian birth, restored to their families; and one especially, overtaken in her chariot amidst the flying Persians, with rich jewels and a numerous suite, threw herself at the feet of Pausanias himself, imploring his protection. She proved to be the daughter of his personal friend Hegetoridês, of Kos, carried off by the Persian Pharandatês; and he had the satisfaction of restoring her to her father.[380] Large as the booty collected was, there yet remained many valuable treasures buried in the ground, which the Platæan inhabitants afterwards discovered and appropriated.

[378] Herodot. ix, 80, 81: compare vii, 41-83.

[379] Diodorus (xi, 33) states this proportional distribution. Herodotus only says—ἔλαβον ἕκαστοι τῶν ἄξιοι ἦσαν (ix, 81).

[380] Herodot. ix, 76, 80, 81, 82. The fate of these female companions of the Persian grandees, on the taking of the camp by an enemy, forms a melancholy picture here as well as at Issus, and even at Kunaxa: see Diodor. xvii, 35; Quintus Curtius, iii, xi, 21; Xenoph. Anab. i, 10, 2.

The real victors in the battle of Platæa were the Lacedæmonians, Athenians, and Tegeans: the Corinthians and others, forming part of the army opposed to Mardonius, did not reach the field until the battle was ended, though they doubtless aided both in the assault of the fortified camp and in the subsequent operations against Thebes, and were universally recognized, in inscriptions and panegyrics, among the champions who had contributed to the liberation of Greece.[381] It was not till after the taking of the Persian camp that the contingents of Elis and Mantineia, who may perhaps have been among the convoys prevented by the Persian cavalry from descending the passes of Kithæron, first reached the scene of action. Mortified at having missed their share in the glorious exploit, the new-comers were at first eager to set off in pursuit of Artabazus: but the Lacedæmonian commander forbade them, and they returned home without any other consolation than that of banishing their generals for not having led them forth more promptly.[382]

[381] Plutarch animadverts severely (De Malign. Herodot. p. 873; compare Plut. Aristeid. c. 19) upon Herodotus, because he states that none of the Greeks had any share in the battle of Platæa except the Lacedæmonians, Tegeans, and Athenians: the orator Lysias repeats the same statement (Oratio Funebr. c. 9).

If this were the fact (Plutarch asks) how comes it that the inscriptions and poems of the time recognize the exploit as performed by the whole Grecian army, Corinthians and others included? But these inscriptions do not really contradict what is affirmed by Herodotus. The actual battle happened to be fought only by a part of the collective Grecian army; but this happened in a great measure by accident; the rest were little more than a mile off, and until within a few hours had been occupying part of the same continuous line of position; moreover, if the battle had lasted a little longer, they would have come up in time to render actual help. They would naturally be considered, therefore, as entitled to partake in the glory of the entire result.

When however in after-times a stranger visited Platæa, and saw Lacedæmonian, Tegean, and Athenian tombs, but no Corinthian nor Æginetan, etc., he would naturally inquire how it happened that none of these latter had fallen in the battle, and would then be informed that they were not really present at it. Hence the motive for these cities to erect empty sepulchral monuments on the spot, as Herodotus informs us that they afterwards did or caused to be done by individual Platæans.

[382] Herodot. ix, 77.

There yet remained the most efficient ally of Mardonius,—the city of Thebes; which Pausanias summoned on the eleventh day after the battle, requiring that the _medizing_ leaders should be delivered up, especially Timêgenidas and Attagînus. On receiving a refusal, he began to batter their walls, and to adopt the still more effective measure of laying waste their territory,—giving notice that the work of destruction would be continued until these chiefs were given up. After twenty days of endurance, the latter at length proposed, if it should prove that Pausanias peremptorily required their persons and refused to accept a sum of money in commutation, to surrender themselves voluntarily as the price of liberation for their country. A negotiation was accordingly entered into with Pausanias, and the persons demanded were surrendered to him, excepting Attagînus, who found means to escape at the last moment. His sons, whom he left behind, were delivered up as substitutes, but Pausanias refused to touch them, with the just remark, which in those times was even generous,[383] that they were nowise implicated in the _medism_ of their father. Timêgenidas and the remaining prisoners were carried off to Corinth, and immediately put to death, without the smallest discussion or form of trial: Pausanias was apprehensive that if any delay or consultation were granted, their wealth and that of their friends would effectually purchase voices for their acquittal,—indeed, the prisoners themselves had been induced to give themselves up partly in that expectation.[384] It is remarkable that Pausanias himself, only a few years afterwards, when attainted of treason, returned and surrendered himself at Sparta, under similar hopes of being able to buy himself off by money.[385] In this hope, indeed, he found himself deceived, as Timêgenidas had been deceived before: but the fact is not the less to be noted, as indicating the general impression that the leading men in a Grecian city were usually open to bribes in judicial matters, and that individuals superior to this temptation were rare exceptions. I shall have occasion to dwell upon this recognized untrustworthiness of the leading Greeks when I come to explain the extremely popular cast of the Athenian judicature.

[383] See, a little above in this chapter, the treatment of the wife and children of the Athenian senator Lykidas (Herodot. ix, 5). Compare also Herodot. iii, 116; ix, 120.

[384] Herodot. ix, 87, 88.

[385] Thucyd. i, 131. καὶ πιστεύων χρήμασι διαλύσειν τὴν διαβολήν. Compare Thucyd. viii, 45, where he states that the trierarchs and generals of the Lacedæmonian and allied fleet, all except Hermokratês of Syracuse, received bribes from Tissaphernes to betray the interests both of their seamen and of their country: also c. 49 of the same book about the Lacedæmonian general Astyochus. The bribes received by the Spartan kings Leotychidês and Pleistoanax are recorded (Herodot. vi, 72; Thucyd. ii, 21).

Whether there was any positive vote taken among the Greeks respecting the prize of valor at the battle of Platæa, may well be doubted: and the silence of Herodotus goes far to negative an important statement of Plutarch, that the Athenians and Lacedæmonians were on the point of coming to an open rupture, each thinking themselves entitled to the prize,—that Aristeidês appeased the Athenians, and prevailed upon them to submit to the general decision of the allies,—and that Megarian and Corinthian leaders contrived to elude the dangerous rock by bestowing the prize on the Platæans, to which proposition both Aristeidês and Pausanias acceded.[386] But it seems that the general opinion recognized the Lacedæmonians and Pausanias as bravest among the brave, seeing that they had overcome the best troops of the enemy and slain the general. In burying their dead warriors, the Lacedæmonians singled out for peculiar distinction Philokyon, Poseidonius, and Amompharetus the lochage, whose conduct in the fight atoned for his disobedience to orders. There was one Spartan, however, who had surpassed them all,—Aristodêmus, the single survivor of the troop of Leonidas at Thermopylæ. Having ever since experienced nothing but disgrace and insult from his fellow-citizens, this unfortunate man had become reckless of life, and at Platæa he stepped forth single-handed from his place in the ranks, performing deeds of the most heroic valor, and determined to regain by his death the esteem of his countrymen. But the Spartans refused to assign to him the same funereal honors as were paid to the other distinguished warriors, who had manifested exemplary forwardness and skill, yet without any desperate rashness, and without any previous taint such as to render life a burden to them. Subsequent valor might be held to efface this taint, but could not suffice to exalt Aristodêmus to a level with the most honored citizens.[387]

[386] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 20; De Herodot. Malign. p. 873.

[387] Herodot. iv, 71, 72.

But though we cannot believe the statement of Plutarch, that the Platæans received by general vote the prize of valor, it is certain that they were largely honored and recompensed, as the proprietors of that ground on which the liberation of Greece had been achieved. The market-place and centre of their town was selected as the scene for the solemn sacrifice of thanksgiving, offered up by Pausanias, after the battle, to Zeus Eleutherius, in the name and presence of all the assembled allies. The local gods and heroes of the Platæan territory, who had been invoked in prayer before the battle, and who had granted their soil as a propitious field for the Greek arms, were made partakers of this ceremony, and witnesses as well as guarantees of the engagements with which it was accompanied.[388] The Platæans, now re-entering their city, which the Persian invasion had compelled them to desert, were invested with the honorable duty of celebrating the periodical sacrifice in commemoration of this great victory, as well as of rendering care and religious service at the tombs of the fallen warriors. As an aid to enable them to discharge this obligation, which probably might have pressed hard upon them at a time when their city was half-ruined and their fields unsown, they received out of the prize-money the large allotment of eighty talents, which was partly employed in building and adorning a handsome temple of Athênê,—the symbol probably of renewed connection with Athens. They undertook to render religious honors every year to the tombs of the warriors, and to celebrate in every fifth year the grand public solemnity of the Eleutheria with gymnastic matches analogous to the other great festival games of Greece.[389] In consideration of the discharge of these duties, together with the sanctity of the ground, Pausanias, and the whole body of allies, bound themselves by oath to guarantee the autonomy of Platæa, and the inviolability of her territory. This was an emancipation of the town from the bond of the Bœotian federation, and from the enforcing supremacy of Thebes as its chief.

[388] Thucyd. ii, 71, 72. So the Roman emperor Vitellius, on visiting the field of Bebriacum, where his troops had recently been victorious, “instaurabat sacrum Diis loci.” (Tacitus, Histor. ii, 70.)

[389] Thucyd. ii, 71; Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 19-21; Strabo, ix, p. 412; Pausanias, ix, 2, 4.

The Eleutheria were celebrated on the fourth of the Attic month Boedromion, which was the day on which the battle itself was fought; while the annual decoration of the tombs, and ceremonies in honor of the deceased, took place on the sixteenth of the Attic month Mæmaktêrion. K. F. Hermann (Gottesdienstliche Alterthümer der Griechen, ch. 63, note 9) has treated these two celebrations as if they were one.

But the engagement of the allies appears to have had other objects also, larger than that of protecting Platæa, or establishing commemorative ceremonies. The defensive league against the Persians was again sworn to by all of them, and rendered permanent: an aggregate force of ten thousand hoplites, one thousand cavalry, and one hundred triremes, for the purpose of carrying on the war, was agreed to and promised, the contingent of each ally being specified: moreover, the town of Platæa was fixed on as the annual place of meeting, where deputies from all of them were annually to assemble.[390] This resolution is said to have been adopted on the proposition of Aristeidês, whose motives it is not difficult to trace. Though the Persian army had sustained a signal defeat, no one knew how soon it might reassemble, or be reinforced; indeed, even later, after the battle of Mykalê had become known, a fresh invasion of the Persians was still regarded as not improbable,[391] nor did any one then anticipate that extraordinary fortune and activity whereby the Athenians afterwards organized an alliance such as to throw Persia on the defensive. Moreover, the northern half of Greece was still _medizing_, either in reality or in appearance, and new efforts on the part of Xerxes might probably keep up his ascendency in those parts. Now assuming the war to be renewed, Aristeidês and the Athenians had the strongest interest in providing a line of defence which should cover Attica as well as Peloponnesus, and in preventing the Peloponnesians from confining themselves to their isthmus, as they had done before. To take advantage for this purpose of the new-born reverence and gratitude which now bound the Lacedæmonians to Platæa, was an idea eminently suitable to the moment, though the unforeseen subsequent start of Athens, combined with other events, prevented both the extensive alliance and the inviolability of Platæa, projected by Aristeidês, from taking effect.[392]

[390] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 21.

[391] Thucyd. i, 90.

[392] It is to this general and solemn meeting, held at Platæa after the victory, that we might probably refer another vow noticed by the historians and orators of the subsequent century, if that vow were not of suspicious authenticity. The Greeks, while promising faithful attachment, and continued peaceful dealing among themselves, and engaging at the same time to amerce in a tithe of their property all who had _medized_,—are said to have vowed that they would not repair or rebuild the temples which the Persian invader had burnt; but would leave them in their half-ruined condition as a monument of his sacrilege. Some of the injured temples near Athens were seen in their half-burnt state even by the traveller Pausanias (x, 35, 2), in his time. Periklês, forty years after the battle, tried to convoke a Pan-Hellenic assembly at Athens, for the purpose of deliberating what should be done with these temples (Plutarch, Periklês, c. 17). Yet Theopompus pronounced this alleged oath to be a fabrication, though both the orator Lykurgus and Diodorus profess to report it verbatim. We may safely assert that the oath, _as they give it_, is not genuine; but perhaps the vow of tithing those who had voluntarily joined Xerxes, which Herodotus refers to an earlier period, when success was doubtful, may now have been renewed in the moment of victory: see Diodor. ix, 29; Lykurgus cont. Leokrat. c. 19, p. 193; Polybius, ix, 33; Isokrates, Or. iv; Panegyr. c. 41, p. 74; Theopompus, Fragm. 167, ed. Didot; Suidas, v. Δεκατεύειν, Cicero de Republicâ, iii, 9, and the beginning of the chapter last but one preceding, of this history.

On the same day that Pausanias and the Grecian land army conquered at Platæa, the naval armament under Leotychidês and Xanthippus was engaged in operations hardly less important, at Mykalê on the Asiatic coast. The Grecian commanders of the fleet, which numbered one hundred and ten triremes, having advanced as far as Delos, were afraid to proceed farther eastward, or to undertake any offensive operations against the Persians at Samos, for the rescue of Ionia,—although Ionian envoys, especially from Chios and Samos, had urgently solicited aid both at Sparta and at Delos. Three Samians, one of them named Hegesistratus, came to assure Leotychidês, that their countrymen were ready to revolt from the despot Theomêstor, whom the Persians had installed there, so soon as the Greek fleet should appear off the island. In spite of emphatic appeals to the community of religion and race, Leotychidês was long deaf to the entreaty; but his reluctance gradually gave way before the persevering earnestness of the orator. While yet not thoroughly determined, he happened to ask the Samian speaker what was his name. To which the latter replied, “Hegesistratus, _i. e._ army-leader.” “I accept Hegesistratus as an omen (replied Leotychidês, struck with the significance of this name), pledge thou thy faith to accompany us,—let thy companions prepare the Samians to receive us, and we will go forthwith.” Engagements were at once exchanged, and while the other two envoys were sent forward to prepare matters in the island, Hegesistratus remained to conduct the fleet, which was farther encouraged by favorable sacrifices, and by the assurances of the prophet Dêiphonus, hired from the Corinthian colony of Apollonia.[393]

[393] Herodot. ix, 91, 92, 95; viii, 132, 133. The prophet of Mardonius at Platæa bore the same name, and was probably the more highly esteemed for it (Herodot. ix, 37).

Diodorus states the fleet as comprising two hundred and fifty triremes (xi, 34).

The anecdotes respecting the Apolloniate Euenius, the father of Deïphonus, will be found curious and interesting (Herodot. ix, 98, 94). Euenius, as a recompense for having been unjustly blinded by his countrymen, had received from the gods the grant of prophecy transmissible to his descendants: a new prophetic breed was thus created, alongside of the Iamids, Telliads, Klytiads, etc.

When they reached the Heræum near Kalami in Samos,[394] and had prepared themselves for a naval engagement, they discovered that the enemy’s fleet had already been withdrawn from the island to the neighboring continent. For the Persian commanders had been so disheartened with the defeat of Salamis that they were not disposed to fight again at sea: we do not know the numbers of their fleet, but perhaps a considerable proportion of it may have consisted of Ionic Greeks, whose fidelity was now very doubtful. Having abandoned the idea of a sea-fight, they permitted their Phenician squadron to depart, and sailed with their remaining fleet to the promontory of Mykalê near Miletus.[395] Here they were under the protection of a land-force of sixty thousand men, under the command of Tigranês,—the main reliance of Xerxes for the defence of Ionia: the ships were dragged ashore, and a rampart of stones and stakes was erected to protect them, while the defending army lined the shore, and seemed amply sufficient to repel attack from seaward.[396]

[394] Herodot. ix, 96. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐγένοντο τῆς Σαμίης πρὸς Καλάμοισι, οἱ μὲν αὐτοῦ ὁρμισάμενοι ~κατὰ τὸ Ἡραῖον τὸ ταύτῃ~, παρεσκευάζοντο ἐς ναυμαχίην.

It is by no means certain that the Heræum here indicated is the celebrated temple which stood near the city of Samos (iii, 80): the words of Herodotus rather seem to indicate that another temple of Hêrê, in some other part of the island, is intended.

[395] Herodotus describes the Persian position by topographical indications known to his readers, but not open to be determined by us,—Gæson, Skolopœis, the chapel of Dêmêtêr, built by Philistus, one of the primitive colonists of Miletus, etc. (ix, 96): from the language of Herodotus, we may suppose that Gæson was the name of a town as well as of a river (Ephonas ap. Athenæ. vi, p. 311).

The eastern promontory (cape Poseidion) of Samos was separated only by seven stadia from Mykalê (Strabo, xiv, p. 637), near to the place where Glaukê was situated (Thucyd. viii. 79),—modern observers make the distance rather more than a mile (Poppo, Prolegg. ad Thucyd. vol. ii, p. 465).

[396] Herodot. ix, 96, 97.

It was not long before the Greek fleet arrived. Disappointed of their intention of fighting, by the flight of the enemy from Samos, they had at first proposed either to return home, or to turn aside to the Hellespont: but they were at last persuaded by the Ionian envoys to pursue the enemy’s fleet and again offer battle at Mykalê. On reaching that point, they discovered that the Persians had abandoned the sea, intending to fight only on land. So much had the Greeks now become emboldened, that they ventured to disembark and attack the united land-force and sea-force before them: but since much of their chance of success depended on the desertion of the Ionians, the first proceeding of Leotychidês was, to copy the previous manœuvre of Themistoklês, when retreating from Artemisium, at the watering-places of Eubœa. Sailing along close to the coast, he addressed, through a herald of loud voice, earnest appeals to the Ionians among the enemy to revolt; calculating, even if they did not listen to him, that he should at least render them mistrusted by the Persians. He then disembarked his troops and marshalled them for the purpose of attacking the Persian camp on land; while the Persian generals, surprised by this daring manifestation, and suspecting, either from his manœuvre or from previous evidences, that the Ionians were in secret collusion with him, ordered the Samian contingent to be disarmed, and the Milesians to retire to the rear of the army, for the purpose of occupying the various mountain roads up to the summit of Mykalê,—with which the latter were familiar as a part of their own territory.[397]

[397] Herodot. ix, 98, 99, 104.

Serving as these Greeks in the fleet were, at a distance from their own homes, and having left a powerful army of Persians and Greeks under Mardonius in Bœotia, they were of course full of anxiety lest his arms might prove victorious and extinguish the freedom of their country. It was under these feelings of solicitude for their absent brethren that they disembarked, and were made ready for attack by the afternoon. But it was the afternoon of an ever-memorable day,—the fourth of the month Boëdromion (about September) 479 B. C. By a remarkable coincidence, the victory of Platæa in Bœotia had been gained by Pausanias that very morning. At the moment when the Greeks were advancing to the charge, a divine phêmê, or message, flew into the camp,—whilst a herald’s staff was seen floated to the shore by the western wave, the symbol of electric transmission across the Ægean;—the revelation, sudden, simultaneous, irresistible, struck at once upon the minds of all, as if the multitude had one common soul and sense, acquainting them that on that very morning their countrymen in Bœotia had gained a complete victory over Mardonius. At once the previous anxiety was dissipated, and the whole army, full of joy and confidence, charged with redoubled energy. Such is the account given by Herodotus,[398] and doubtless universally accepted in his time, when the combatants of Mykalê were alive to tell their own story: he moreover mentions another of those coincidences which the Greek mind always seized upon with so much avidity, there was a chapel of Eleusinian Dêmêtêr close to the field of battle at Mykalê as well as at Platæa. Diodorus and other later writers,[399] who wrote when the impressions of the time had vanished, and when divine interventions were less easily and literally admitted, treat the whole proceeding as if it were a report designedly circulated by the generals, for the purpose of encouraging their army.

[398] Herodot. ix, 100, 101. ἰοῦσι δέ σφι (Ἕλλησι) ~φήμη τε ἐσέπτατο ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδον πᾶν~, καὶ κηρυκήϊον ἐφάνη ἐπὶ τῆς κυματωγῆς κείμενον. ~ἡ δὲ φήμη διῆλθέ σφι ὧδε~, ὡς οἱ Ἕλληνες τὴν Μαρδονίου στρατιὴν νικῷεν ἐν Βοιωτίῃ μαχόμενοι. Δῆλα δὴ πολλοῖσι τεκμηρίοισί ἐστι τὰ θεῖα τῶν πρηγμάτων· εἰ καὶ τότε τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρης συμπιπτούσης τοῦ τε ἐν Πλαταιῇσι καὶ τοῦ ἐν Μυκάλῃ μέλλοντος ἔσεσθαι τρώματος, φήμη τοῖσι Ἕλλησι τοῖσι ταύτῃ ἐσαπίκετο, ὥστε θαρσῆσαί τε τὴν στρατιὴν πολλῷ μᾶλλον, καὶ ἐθέλειν προθυμότερον κινδυνεύειν ... γεγονέναι δὲ νίκην τῶν μετὰ Παυσανίεω Ἑλλήνων ~ὀρθῶς σφι ἡ φήμη συνέβαινε ἐλθοῦσα~· τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἐν Πλαταιῇσι πρωῒ ἔτι τῆς ἡμέρης ἐγίνετο· τὸ δὲ ἐν Μυκάλῃ, περὶ δείλην ... ἦν δὲ ἀῤῥωδίη σφι πρὶν τὴν φήμην ἐσαπικέσθαι, οὔτι περὶ σφέων αὐτῶν οὕτω, ὡς τῶν Ἑλλήνων, μὴ περὶ Μαρδονίῳ πταίσῃ ἡ Ἑλλάς, ὡς μέντοι ~ἡ κλῃδὼν αὕτη σφι ἐσέπτατο~, μᾶλλόν τι καὶ ταχύτερον τὴν πρόσοδον ἐποιεῦντο: compare Plutarch, Paul. Emilius, c. 24, 25, about the battle of Pydna. The φήμη which circulated through the assembled army of Mardonius in Bœotia, respecting his intention to kill the Phocians, turned out incorrect (Herodot. ix, 17).

Two passages in Æschines (cont. Timarchum. c. 27, p. 57, and De Fals. Legat. c. 45, p. 290) are peculiarly valuable as illustrating the ancient idea of Φήμη,—a divine voice, or vocal goddess, generally considered as informing a crowd of persons at once, or moving them all by one and the same unanimous feeling,—the Vox Dei passing into the Vox Populi. There was an altar to Φήμη at Athens (Pausan. i, 17, 1); compare Hesiod. Opp. Di. 761, and the Ὄσσα of Homer, which is essentially the same idea as Φήμη: Iliad, ii, 93. μετὰ δέ σφισιν Ὄσσα δεδῄει Ὀτρύνουσ’ ἰέναι, Διὸς ἄγγελος; also Odyssey, i, 282—opposed to the idea of a distinct human speaker or informant—ἤν τίς τοι εἴπῃσι βροτῶν, ἢ Ὄσσαν ἀκούσῃς Ἐκ Διὸς, ἥτε μάλιστα φέρει κλέος ἀνθρώποισι; and Odyss. xxiv, 412. Ὄσσα δ’ ἄρ’ ἄγγελος ὦκα κατὰ πτόλιν ᾤχετο πάντη, Μνηστήρων στυγερὸν θάνατον καὶ κῆρ’ ἐνέπουσα. The word κλῃδὼν is used in the same meaning by Sophokles, Philoktet. 255 (see Andokides de Mysteriis, c. 22, p. 64): and Herodotus in the passage now before us considers the two as identical,—compare also Herodot. v, 72: both words are used also to signify an omen conveyed by some undesigned human word or speech, which in that particular case is considered as determined by the special intervention of the gods for the information of some person who hears it: see Homer, Odyss. xx, 100: compare also Aristophan. Aves, 719; Sophoklês, Œdip. Tyr. 43-472; Xenophon, Symposion, c. 14, s. 48.

The descriptions of _Fama_ by Virgil, Æneid, iv, 17 6, _seqq._, and Ovid Metamorph. xii, 40, _seqq._, are more diffuse and overcharged, departing from the simplicity of the Greek conception.

We may notice, as partial illustrations of what is here intended, those sudden, unaccountable impressions of panic terror which occasionally ran through the ancient armies or assembled multitudes, and which were supposed to be produced by Pan or by Nymphs—indeed sudden, violent, and contagious impressions of every kind, not merely of fear. Livy, x, 28. “Victorem equitatum velut _lymphaticus_ pavor dissipat.” ix, 27. “Milites, incertum ob quam causam, _lymphatis_ similes ad arma discurrunt,”—in Greek, νυμφόληπτοι: compare Polyæn, iv. 3, 26, and an instructive note of Mutzel, ad Quint. Curt. iv, 46, 1 (iv, 12, 14).

But I cannot better illustrate that idea, which the Greeks invested with divinity under the name of Φήμη, than by transcribing a striking passage from M. Michelet’s Histoire de la Révolution Françoise. The illustration is the more instructive, because the religious point of view, which in Herodotus is predominant,—and which, to the believing mind, furnishes an explanation preëminently satisfactory,—has passed away in the historian of the nineteenth century, and gives place to a graphic description of the real phenomenon, of high importance in human affairs; the common susceptibilities, common inspiration and common spontaneous impulse, of a multitude, effacing for the time each man’s separate individuality.

M. Michelet is about to describe that ever-memorable event, the capture of the Bastile, on the 14th of July, 1789 (ch. vii, vol. i, p. 105).

“Versailles, avec un gouvernement organisé, un roi, des ministres, un général, une armée, n’étoit qu’hésitation, doute, incertitude, dans la plus complète anarchie morale.

“Paris, bouleversé, délaissé de toute autorité légale, dans un désordre apparent, atteignit, le 14 Juillet, ce qui moralement est l’ordre le plus profond, l’unanimité des esprits.

“Le 13 Juillet, Paris ne songeait qu’à se defendre. Le 14, il attaqua.

“Le 13, au soir, il y avoit encore des doutes, il n’y en eut plus le matin. Le soir étoit plein de troubles, de fureur désordonnée. Le matin fut lumineux et d’une sérénité terrible.

“_Une idée se leva sur Paris avec le jour, et tous virent la même lumière. Une lumière dans les esprits, et dans chaque cœur une voix_: Va, et tu prendras la Bastille!

“Cela étoit impossible, insensé, étrange à dire;... Et tous le crurent néanmoins. Et cela se fit.

“La Bastille, pour être une vieille forteresse, n’en étoit pas moins imprenable, à moins d’y mettre plusieurs jours, et beaucoup d’artillerie. Le peuple n’avoit en cette crise ni le temps ni les moyens de faire un siége régulier. L’eût il fait, la Bastille n’avoit pas à craindre, ayant assez de vivres pour attendre un secours si proche, et d’immenses munitions de guerre. Ses murs de dix pieds d’épaisseur au sommet des tours, de trente et quarante à la base, pouvaient rire longtemps des boulets: et ses batteries, à elle, dont le feu plongeoit sur Paris, auroient pu en attendant démolir tout le Marais, tout le Faubourg St. Antoine.

“L’attaque de la Bastille ne fut un acte nullement raisonnable. Ce fut un acte de foi.

“_Personne ne proposa. Mais tous crurent et tous agirent._ Le long des rues, des quais, des ponts, des boulevards, la foule criait à la foule—à la Bastille—à la Bastille. Et dans le tocsin qui sonnoit, tous entendoient: à la Bastille.

“_Personne, je le répète, ne donna l’impulsion._ Les parleurs du Palais Royal passèrent le temps à dresser une liste de proscription, à juger à mort la Reine, la Polignac, Artois, le prévôt Flesselles, d’autres encore. Les noms des vainqueurs de la Bastille n’offrent pas un seul des faiseurs de motions. Le Palais Royal ne fut pas le point de départ, et ce n’est pas non plus au Palais Royal que les vainqueurs raménèrent les depouilles et les prisonniers.

“Encore moins les électeurs qui siégeaient à l’Hotel de Ville eurent ils l’idée de l’attaque. Loin de là, pour l’empêcher, pour prévenir le carnage que la Bastille pouvoit faire si aisément, ils allèrent jusqu’à promettre au gouverneur, que s’il retirait ses canons, on ne l’attaqueroit pas. Les électeurs ne trahissoient pas comme ils en furent accusés; mais ils n’avoient pas la foi.

“Qui l’eut? Celui qui eut aussi le dévoument, la force, pour accomplir sa foi. Qui? Le peuple, tout le monde.”

[399] Diodor. xi, 35; Polyæn. i, 33. Justin (ii, 14) is astonished in relating “tantam famæ velocitatem.”

The Lacedæmonians on the right wing, and the portion of the army near them, had a difficult path before them, over hilly ground and ravine; while the Athenians, Corinthians, Sikyonians, and Trœzenians, and the left half of the army, marching only along the beach, came much sooner into conflict with the enemy. The Persians, as at Platæa, employed their _gerrha_, or wicker bucklers, planted by spikes in the ground, as a breastwork, from behind which they discharged their arrows, and they made a strenuous resistance to prevent this defence from being overthrown. Ultimately, the Greeks succeeded in demolishing it, and in driving the enemy into the interior of the fortification, where they in vain tried to maintain themselves against the ardor of the pursuers, who forced their way into it almost along with the defenders. Even when this last rampart was carried, and when the Persian allies had fled, the native Persians still continued to prolong the struggle with undiminished bravery. Unpractised in line and drill, and acting only in small knots,[400] with disadvantages of armor, such as had been felt severely at Platæa, they still maintained an unequal conflict with the Greek hoplites; nor was it until the Lacedæmonians with their half of the army arrived to join in the attack, that the defence was abandoned as hopeless. The revolt of the Ionians in the camp put the finishing stroke to this ruinous defeat: first, the disarmed Samians; next, other Ionians and Æolians; lastly, the Milesians who had been posted to guard the passes in the rear, not only deserted, but took an active part in the attack; and the Milesians especially, to whom the Persians had trusted for guidance up to the summits of Mykalê, led them by wrong roads, threw them into the hands of their pursuers, and at last set upon them with their own hands. A large number of the native Persians, together with both the generals of the land-force, Tigranês and Mardontês, perished in this disastrous battle: the two Persian admirals, Artayntês and Ithamithrês, escaped, but the army was irretrievably dispersed, while all the ships which had been dragged up on the shore fell into the hands of the assailants, and were burned. But the victory of the Greeks was by no means bloodless: among the left wing, upon which the brunt of the action had fallen, a considerable number of men were slain, especially Sikyonians, with their commander Perilaus.[401] The honors of the battle were awarded, first to the Athenians, next to the Corinthians, Sikyonians, and Trœzenians; the Lacedæmonians having done comparatively little. Hermolykus the Athenian, a celebrated pankratiast, was the warrior most distinguished for individual feats of arms.[402]

[400] Herodot. ix, 102, 103. Οὗτοι δὲ (Πέρσαι), κατ’ ὀλίγους γινόμενοι, ἐμάχοντο τοῖσι αἰεὶ ἐς τὸ τεῖχος ἐσπίπτουσι Ἑλλήνων.

[401] Herodot. ix, 104, 105. Diodorus (xi, 36) seems to follow different authorities from Herodotus: his statement varies in many particulars, but is less probable.

Herodotus does not specify the loss on either side, nor Diodorus that of the Greeks; but the latter says that forty thousand Persians and allies were slain.

[402] Herodot. ix, 105.

The dispersed Persian army, so much of it at least as had at first found protection on the heights of Mykalê, was withdrawn from the coast forthwith to Sardis under the command of Artayntês, whom Masistês, the brother of Xerxes, bitterly reproached on the score of cowardice in the recent defeat: the general was at length so maddened by a repetition of these insults, that he drew his cimeter and would have slain Masistês, had he not been prevented by a Greek of Halikarnassus named Xenagoras,[403] who was rewarded by Xerxes with the government of Kilikia. Xerxes was still at Sardis, where he had remained ever since his return, and where he conceived a passion for the wife of his brother Masistês; the consequences of his passion entailed upon that unfortunate woman sufferings too tragical to be described, by the orders of his own queen, the jealous and savage Amêstris.[404] But he had no fresh army ready to send down to the coast, so that the Greek cities, even on the continent, were for the time practically liberated from Persian supremacy, while the insular Greeks were in a position of still greater safety.

[403] Herodot. ix, 107. I do not know whether we may suppose Herodotus to have heard this from his fellow-citizen Xenagoras.

[404] Herodot. ix, 108-113. He gives the story at considerable length: it illustrates forcibly and painfully the interior of the Persian regal palace.

The commanders of the victorious Grecian fleet had full confidence in their power of defending the islands, and willingly admitted the Chians, Samians, Lesbians, and the other islanders hitherto subjects of Persia, to the protection and reciprocal engagements of their alliance. We may presume that the despots Stratis and Theomêstor were expelled from Chios and Samos.[405] But the Peloponnesian commanders hesitated in guaranteeing the same secure autonomy to the continental cities, which could not be upheld against the great inland power without efforts incessant as well as exhausting. Nevertheless, not enduring to abandon these continental Ionians to the mercy of Xerxes, they made the offer to transplant them into European Greece, and to make room for them by expelling the _medizing_ Greeks from their seaport towns. But this proposition was at once repudiated by the Athenians, who would not permit that colonies originally planted by themselves should be abandoned, thus impairing the metropolitan dignity of Athens.[406] The Lacedæmonians readily acquiesced in this objection, and were glad, in all probability, to find honorable grounds for renouncing a scheme of wholesale dispossession eminently difficult to execute,[407]—yet, at the same time, to be absolved from onerous obligations towards the Ionians, and to throw upon Athens either the burden of defending or the shame of abandoning them. The first step was thus taken, which we shall quickly see followed by others, for giving to Athens a separate ascendency and separate duties in regard to the Asiatic Greeks, and for introducing first, the confederacy of Delos,—next, Athenian maritime empire.

[405] Herodot. viii, 132.

[406] Herodot. ix, 106; Diodor. xi, 37. The latter represents the Ionians and Æolians as having actually consented to remove into European Greece, and indeed the Athenians themselves as having at first consented to it, though the latter afterwards repented and opposed the scheme.

[407] Such wholesale transportations of population from one continent to another have always been more or less in the habits of Oriental despots, the Persians in ancient times and the Turks in more modern times: to a conjunction of free states, like the Greeks, they must have been impracticable.

See Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, vol. i, book vi, p. 251, for the forced migrations of people from Asia into Europe, directed by the Turkish Sultan Bajazet (A. D. 1390-1400).

From the coast of Ionia the Greek fleet sailed northward to the Hellespont, chiefly at the instance of the Athenians, and for the purpose of breaking down the Xerxeian bridge; for so imperfect was their information, that they believed this bridge to be still firm and in passable condition in September, 479 B. C., though it had been broken and useless at the time when Xerxes crossed the strait in his retreat, ten months before, about November, 480 B. C.[408] Having ascertained on their arrival at Abydos the destruction of the bridge, Leotychidês and the Peloponnesians returned home forthwith; but Xanthippus with the Athenian squadron resolved to remain and expel the Persians from the Thracian Chersonese. This peninsula had been in great part an Athenian possession, for the space of more than forty years, from the first settlement of the elder Miltiadês[409] down to the suppression of the Ionic revolt, although during part of that time tributary to Persia: from the flight of the second Miltiadês to the expulsion of Xerxes from Greece (493-480 B. C.), a period during which the Persian monarch was irresistible and full of hatred to Athens, no Athenian citizen would find it safe to live there. But the Athenian squadron from Mykalê were now naturally eager both to reëstablish the ascendency of Athens and to regain the properties of Athenian citizens in the Chersonese,—probably many of the leading men, especially Kimon, son of Miltiadês, had extensive possessions there to recover, as Alkibiades had in after days, with private forts of his own.[410] To this motive for attacking the Chersonese may be added another,—the importance of its corn-produce as well as of a clear passage through the Hellespont for the corn ships out of the Propontis to Athens and Ægina.[411] Such were the reasons which induced Xanthippus and the leading Athenians, even without the coöperation of the Peloponnesians, to undertake the siege of Sestus,—the strongest place in the peninsula, the key of the strait, and the centre in which all the neighboring Persian garrisons, from Kardia and elsewhere, had got together, under Œobazus and Artayktês.[412]

[408] Herodot. viii, 115, 117; ix, 106, 114.

[409] See the preceding volume of this history, ch. xxx, p 119; ch. xxxiv, p. 271; ch. xxxv, p. 307.

[410] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5. 17. τὰ ἑαυτοῦ τείχη.

[411] Herodot. vii, 147. Schol. ad Aristophan. Equites, 262.

In illustration of the value set by Athens upon the command of the Hellespont, see Demosthenês, De Fals. Legat. c. 59.

[412] Herodot. ix, 114, 115. Σηστὸν—φρούριον καὶ φυλακὴν τοῦ παντὸς Ἑλλησπόντου—Thucyd. viii, 62: compare Xenophon, Hellenic. ii, 1, 25.

The Grecian inhabitants of the Chersonese readily joined the Athenians in expelling the Persians, who, taken altogether by surprise, had been constrained to throw themselves into Sestus, without stores of provisions or means of making a long defence. But of all the Chersonesites the most forward and exasperated were the inhabitants of Elæus,—the southernmost town of the peninsula, celebrated for its tomb, temple, and sacred grove of the hero Protesilaus, who figured in the Trojan legend as the foremost warrior in the host of Agamemnon to leap ashore, and as the first victim to the spear of Hektor. The temple of Protesilaus, conspicuously placed on the sea-shore,[413] was a scene of worship and pilgrimage not merely for the inhabitants of Elæus, but also for the neighboring Greeks generally, insomuch that it had been enriched with ample votive offerings, and probable deposits for security,—money, gold and silver saucers, brazen implements, robes, and various other presents. The story ran, that when Xerxes was on his march across the Hellespont into Greece, Artayktês, greedy of all this wealth, and aware that the monarch would not knowingly permit the sanctuary to be despoiled, preferred a wily request to him: “Master, here is the house of a Greek, who, in invading thy territory, met his just reward and perished: I pray thee give his house to me, in order that people may learn for the future not to invade _thy_ land,”—the whole soil of Asia being regarded by the Persian monarchs as their rightful possession, and Protesilaus having been in this sense an aggressor against them. Xerxes, interpreting the request literally, and not troubling himself to ask who the invader was, consented: upon which, Artayktês, while the army were engaged in their forward march into Greece, stripped the sacred grove of Protesilaus, carrying all the treasures to Sestus. Nor was he content without still farther outraging Grecian sentiment: he turned cattle into the grove, ploughed and sowed it, and was even said to have profaned the sanctuary by visiting it with his concubines.[414] Such proceedings were more than enough to raise the strongest antipathy against him among the Chersonesite Greeks, who now crowded to reinforce the Athenians and blocked him up in Sestus. After a certain length of siege, the stock of provisions in the town failed, and famine began to make itself felt among the garrison, which nevertheless still held out, by painful shifts and endurance, until a late period in the autumn, when the patience even of the Athenian besiegers was well-nigh exhausted; nor was it without difficulty that the leaders repressed the clamorous desire manifested in their own camp to return to Athens.

[413] Thucyd. viii, 102.

[414] Herodot. ix, 116: compare i, 4. Ἀρταΰκτης, ἀνὴρ Πέρσης, δεινὸς δὲ καὶ ἀτάσθαλος· ὃς καὶ βασιλέα ἐλαύνοντα ἐπ’ Ἀθήνας ἐξηπάτησε, τὰ Πρωτεσίλεω τοῦ Ἰφίκλου χρήματα ἐξ Ἐλαιοῦντος ὑφελόμενος. Compare Herodot. ii, 64.

Impatience having been appeased, and the seamen kept together, the siege was pressed without relaxation, and presently the privations of the garrison became intolerable; so that Artayktês and Œobazus were at last reduced to the necessity of escaping by stealth, letting themselves down with a few followers from the wall at a point where it was imperfectly blockaded. Œobazus found his way into Thrace, where, however, he was taken captive by the Absinthian natives and offered up as a sacrifice to their god Pleistôrus: Artayktês fled northward along the shores of the Hellespont, but was pursued by the Greeks, and made prisoner near Ægos Potamos, after a strenuous resistance. He was brought with his son in chains to Sestus, which immediately after his departure had been cheerfully surrendered by its inhabitants to the Athenians. It was in vain that he offered a sum of one hundred talents as compensation to the treasury of Protesilaus, and a farther sum of two hundred talents to the Athenians as personal ransom for himself and his son. So deep was the wrath inspired by his insults to the sacred ground, that both the Athenian commander Xanthippus and the citizens of Elæus disdained everything less than a severe and even cruel personal atonement for the outraged Protesilaus. Artayktês, after having first seen his son stoned to death before his eyes, was hung up to a lofty board fixed for the purpose, and left to perish, on the spot where the Xerxeian bridge had been fixed.[415] There is something in this proceeding more Oriental than Grecian: it is not in the Grecian character to aggravate death by artificial and lingering preliminaries.

[415] Herodot. ix, 118, 119, 120. Οἱ γὰρ Ἐλαιούσιοι τιμωρέοντες τῷ Πρωτεσίλεῳ ἐδέοντό μιν καταχρησθῆναι καὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ στρατηγοῦ ταύτῃ ὁ νόος ἔφερε.

After the capture of Sestus, the Athenian fleet returned home with their plunder, towards the commencement of winter, not omitting to carry with them the vast cables of the Xerxeian bridge, which had been taken in the town, as a trophy to adorn the acropolis of Athens.[416]

[416] Herodot. ix, 121. It must be either to the joint Grecian armament of this year, or to that of the former year, that Plutarch must intend his celebrated story respecting the proposition of Themistoklês, condemned by Aristeidês, to apply (Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 20; Aristeidês, c. 22). He tells us that the Greek fleet was all assembled to pass the winter in the Thessalian harbor of Pagasæ, when Themistoklês formed the project of burning all the other Grecian ships except the Athenian, in order that no city except Athens might have a naval force. Themistoklês, he tells us, intimated to the people, that he had a proposition, very advantageous to the state, to communicate; but that it could not be publicly proclaimed and discussed: upon which they desired him to mention it privately to Aristeidês. Themistoklês did so: and Aristeidês told the people, that the project was at once eminently advantageous and not less eminently unjust. Upon which the people renounced it forthwith, without asking what it was.

Considering the great celebrity which this story has obtained, some allusion to it was necessary, though it has long ceased to be received as matter of history. It is quite inconsistent with the narrative of Herodotus, as well as with all the conditions of the time: Pagasæ was _Thessalian_, and as such hostile to the Greek fleet rather than otherwise: the fleet seems to have never been there: moreover, we may add, that taking matters as they then stood, when the fear from Persia was not at all terminated, the Athenians would have lost more than they gained by burning the ships of the other Greeks, so that Themistoklês was not very likely to conceive the scheme, nor Aristeidês to describe it in the language put into his mouth.

The story is probably the invention of some Greek of the Platonic age, who wished to contrast justice with expediency, and Aristeidês with Themistoklês,—as well as to bestow at the same time panegyric upon Athens in the days of her glory.