inhabitants. Of these magazines the story of the retreat in Herodotos says nothing; nor are we told that their contents were all consumed on the march into Greece. Yet Xerxes, as he journeyed westwards, unquestionably contemplated a speedy return to his own land, and had his dreams of leading back a long line of Athenian and Spartan slaves in addition to the hosts which he was driving on to conquest. His need of food would be increased by the measure of his success; and his care to preserve and to extend these stores would be stimulated by his hopes of immediate victory. On the other hand, in proportion to the fewness of his attendants would be the ease of maintaining them from these unexhausted or replenished magazines. Yet, as though submitting to an ordinary necessity, he leaves his army to subsist by plunder or to die by famine, in a land where, as it would seem, not a single arm was raised against him in spite of all this robbery and pillage, and where we are told that he left his sick in the cities through which he passed, not without confidence in the kindly feeling of the inhabitants. Still, with this friendliness or at least neutrality of the people, perplexing though it be, his passage is more disastrous than that of Artabazos who, as we shall see, fought his way after the battle of Plataiai through the wild tribes of the Thrakian highlands. The story of Herodotos would give some countenance to the Makedonian boast, of which probably he never heard, that they had slaughtered and almost cut off the whole army in its flight; and unless we assume some great hostility whether of Makedonians or Thrakians, as accounting for the scanty numbers with which Xerxes is said to have reached the Hellespont, we might be tempted to draw the conclusion that he had brought with him into Europe not many more troops than those which he left under the command of Mardonios, and that he journeyed from Thessaly only with a moderate bodyguard. We have, however, the distinct assertion that he was attended as far as the Hellespont by 60,000 men commanded by Artabazos, whose conduct after the fight at Plataiai won for him a high reputation for decision and adroitness.1 But however this may have been, the change which comes over the spirit of the narrative as soon as Xerxes is safely restored to the luxurious tyranny of his own land tends more than anything else to call into question the tale of misery and ruin which precedes it. From the moment that Artabazos has dismissed his master he appears as a man well able to hold his ground against all efforts of his enemies without calling on his troops to undergo any special privations. We hear no more of famine or disease, of men plucking grass and roots and then lying down to die. Instead of 1 Herod. viii. 126. this, we find him deliberately resolving to remain in Makedonia, until the return of spring should allow Mardonios to move his army in Boiotia. So completely is he master of his position and his movements that he determines to attack the Greek colonies which had dared to revolt after the king had passed them on his retreat and when they had heard of the hurried departure of the fleet from Salamis. In truth, the real source of weakness was gone with Xerxes: and thus Artabazos had no hesitation in laying siege to Olynthos and no compunction in slaughtering its inhabitants when it fell and in handing the place over to the Chalkidians of Toronê. His next step was not that of a leader who, alarmed for his own safety or for that of his men, was anxious to fall back upon the main army. From Olynthos he turned his arms against Potidaia. During his siege of three months he was encouraged by the hope that Timoxenos the Skionaian general might succeed in betraying the town, as he had pledged himself to do. But the correspondence which by means of letters twined round arrows he had carried on with Timoxenos was discovered; and he was glad to avail himself of an extraordinary ebbing of the sea to march across the ground which the waters had thus left bare between his camping-place and the walls of the city. But before they could reach the other side the sea came back with a flow as astonishing as its ebb, and all who could not swim were drowned, while those who escaped by swimming were slaughtered by the Potidaians who came in boats to complete the work of destruction. Of the extent of his loss by this disaster we are not informed: but as we find him after the battle of Plataiai with 40,000 men still under his command, we must suppose that these were a portion of the 60,000 who escorted Xerxes to the Hellespont, and that 20,000 represent the losses sustained in the siege of Potidaia and perhaps in the fatal fight which destroyed the army of Mardonios. This loss can scarcely be considered out of proportion with the greatness of his efforts and of his disasters. But the history of Artabazos is, in truth, conclusive evidence that, however intense may have been the hatred of the native tribes for their Asiatic invaders, they were unable to place any serious hindrance in his path, and that though the Persians may not have enjoyed the luxuries of Sousa, they were not reduced to the hard lot of an Arabian caravan in lack of food and water. Whatever wretchedness the tyrant underwent was a wretchedness of his own causing; and probably not even the ignominy of his retreat was allowed to interfere with his sensual enjoyments. The alleged operations of the Greek fleet after the battle of 2 Ib. ix. 66. 1 Herod. viii. 127 P Salamis seem to show that the aim of the commanders was not to dissipate their strength by expeditions to the Hellespont (which, Siege of Andros by the confederates. however, they refused to undertake solely on the score of their inutility) but to repair their losses whether by the forced or the voluntary contributions of Hellenic cities. Themistokles was acting as spokesman for the Greeks generally, when he told the Andrians that the Athenians had come to them under the guidance of two very mighty deities1 Faith and Necessity, and therefore pay they must. The rejoinder of the Andrians that they likewise had two deities, Poverty and Helplessness, which would never leave their island and made it impossible for them to pay anything, was followed by a blockade. The result verified the prediction of the Andrians that the power of Athens could never exceed their own impotence; and the Greeks, compelled to abandon the siege, ravaged the lands of Karystos at the southern extremity of Euboia and then sailed back to Salamis. This fact, if it took place, sufficiently refutes the story that Themistokles had already extorted large sums from the Karystians and Parians under the pledge, it must be assumed, that he would hold them scathless in person and property; but we are told further that while the siege of Andros was still being carried on, Themistokles by threatening the other islands with summary measures in case of refusal collected large sums of money without the knowledge of the other leaders and retained them for himself." The charge is incredible. Themistokles and the agents of his extortions might keep the secret: but there was nothing to stop the mouths of his victims, and Athens was not so popular with the confederates as to make them deaf to charges which accused Themistokles of crippling the resources of the allies for his own personal advantage. of honours among the Greeks. The work of a memorable year was now ended. It only remained to dedicate to the gods the thank-offerings due to them for their Distribution guardianship and active aid, and to distribute the rewards and honours which the conduct of the confederates might deserve. Their first act was to consecrate three Phenician ships, one to the honour of Aias at Salamis, another at Sounion, and the third, which Herodotos3 himself had seen, at the isthmus. At the isthmus the question of personal 1 Peitho, which is etymologically the English faith, is here the power which produces obedience or trust. The refusal of the Andrians to contribute to the expenses of the war was regarded, we are told, as so serious an offence against the welfare of Hellas that the confederates be sieged it with the deliberate design of destroying the city altogether. The further charge of Medism, Herod. viii. 112, would probably have been condoned, if the money had been paid. 2 Herod. viii. 112 merit in the war was decided, it is said, by the written votes of the generals, each of whom claimed the first place for himself, while most of them (Plutarch says, all) assigned the second to Themistokles. But the incredibly silly vanity which thus deprived the Athenian general of his formal pre-eminence in no way lessened his glory or interfered with the honours paid to him. If an olivecrown was given to Eurybiades as the commander-in-chief, the same prize was bestowed on Themistokles expressly for his unparalleled wisdom and dexterity. The most beautiful chariot in Sparta, the gift of the citizens, conveyed him from that city, three hundred chosen Spartiatai being his escort as far as the boundaries of Tegea. No other man, it is said, ever received such honours from the Spartans. So ended the triumph of the confederates for that victory in which the names of Aigina and Athens were associated in pre-eminent lustre. CHAPTER VI. THE BATTLES OF PLATAIAI AND MYKALÊ. Movements fleets. of the Greek and Persian THE winter which followed the defeat at Salamis was spent by the Persian fleet at the Aiolic Kymê on the Elaiatic gulf, about ten miles to the east of the ill-fated city of Phokaia. Early in the spring it moved forwards as far as Samos under the command of Mardontes and Artayntes. There was no intention of renewing the struggle in the waters of Western Hellas. Their whole attention was fixed on the repression of revolt in Asiatic Ionia, if the people who had, as it was said, shown so much zeal in behalf of the king at Salamis should be disposed to renew the trouble which they had given in the days of Aristagoras. Of any attack from the fleet of the Western Greeks they had no fear. Any such danger had in their belief passed away when their enemies gave up the idea of pursuing them from Salamis; and they believed further that by land Mardonios would succeed in taking ample vengeance for the mishaps of the Persian navy. The Greek fleet at the same time assembled at Aigina, 110 ships in all,-the Athenians under Xanthippos, and the Peloponnesians under Leotychides. They had scarcely taken up their station off the island, when an embassy 1 Herod. viii. 130. 479 B.C. came from Chios praying them to hasten at once to the help of the Ionians. The confederates in compliance with their request sailed as far as Delos, beyond which they resolutely refused to advance. The waters which stretched away to the east were in their eyes, we are told, swarming with Persian or Phenician cruisers; and Samos appeared to them as distant as the pillars of Herakles and the gates of the Atlantic ocean. Respecting this singular statement something has been said already:1 it is unnecessary to say more here than that when, a few months earlier, these hostile ships were in the waters to the west of Delos, no such fears were expressed, if the story be true that Themistokles proposed an immediate pursuit of the retreating Persians as far as the Hellespont and that the proposal was rejected only as being impolitic. It is impossible that the history of fifteen years should obliterate the associations and traditions of ages, or that a state of feeling should have sprung up six months after the fight of Salamis which was not in existence when Xerxes sent away his fleet to guard the bridge over the Hellespont. Offers of alliance made by Mardonios to the Athenians. The occupation of Mardonios in his Thessalian winter-quarters consisted chiefly of attempts to ascertain the feelings of the Greek states towards himself and his master. The information which he received probably encouraged him to make the greater venture which betrayed a significant change in Persian policy. Mardonios had learnt that the aid of Thessalians and Boiotians was as nothing in comparison of the advantage which he would gain by an alliance with Athens: nor could he have failed to ascertain that, if the decision had rested with the Athenians, the decisive struggle between the two fleets would have been at Artemision, not at Salamis. It was Athens therefore which stood in the way; and until this hindrance should be removed, tribute, the true end of Persian conquest, would never flow from Western Hellas into the treasuries of Sousa. It was worth while then to sacrifice much to turn a people so resolute from an enemy into a friend; and if the proposal ascribed to Mardonios was really made, the sacrifice which he professed himself ready to make must have cost his master, if not himself, no slight struggle. Nor was it a scanty recognition of Athenian greatness when the Makedonian chief Alexandros came to tell them that the great king was willing not merely to forgive all their sins against him if they would become not his servants but his friends, but to bestow upon them in addition to their own land any territory which they might choose for independent occupation and, further, to rebuild all the temples which his followers had burnt. 1 See note 1, p. 153. |