The year after, Miltiades died in consequence of a wound received at Paros, when, to avenge a private injury, he wanted to make the inhabitants pay heavily for having submitted to the Persians. While in a dying state, he was accused by Xanthippus of having deceived the people, who had entrusted him with a fleet; and, though acquitted of the capital charge, he was ungratefully fined fifty talents 3. The just and high-minded Aristīdes now contended for the chief power with Themistocles, a man of greater genius, but his inferior in birth and integrity. Themistocles managed to have his rival ostracised; and, foreseeing another Persian invasion, succeeded in creating an efficient navy. B. C. 485. Accession of Xerxes. 480. Battles of Thermopyla, the Artemisium, and Salamis. 479. Battles of Platoa and Mycale. 477. Insolence of Pausanias. Naval supremacy of Athens. 471. Themistocles ostracised. 467. Death of Pausanias. 466. Battles of the Eurymedon. Flight of Themistocles. A rebellion in Egypt, and the settlement of the succession to his throne, hindered Darius from wreaking his vengeance upon Athens. He died B. c. 485; and not long afterwards the new king, Xerxes, his son by Atossa the daughter of Cyrus, was induced by Mardonius and the Greek exiles to renew the war. Collecting a vast fleet and army, Xerxes crossed the Hellespont, over which a double bridge of ships had been made', and marched unre 5 A talent was about eighty pounds' weight of silver. • His forces, including camp-followers, are said to have amounted to 5,000,000 men; but 500,000 would be nearer the truth. When he reviewed them at Abydos, he wept at the thought, that in an hundred years not one man among them would be alive. 7 To avoid the dangerous passage round Mount Athos, Xerxes had a ship-canal cut through the isthmus which connected it with the main land. sisted through Thrace, Macedon, and Thessaly, B. c. 480. Boeotia, with the noble exceptions of Plataea and Thespiæ, —and most of the northern states of Greece, declared for him; while Argos, Corcyra, and several others, remained neutral®. He was, however, stopped at the narrow pass of Thermopyla by a small army of Greek patriots under Leonidas, the Spartan king; until, at length, a traitor guided a detachment of his troops by a mountain-path, to attack them in the rear. Leonidas, seeing that all was lost, dismissed his allies, and with his 300 Spartans, and 700 brave Thespians, who would not leave him, resolutely fought and died in obedience to the laws of Sparta, which forbade retreat. At the tidings of his fall, the Greek fleet, which had been stationed at the Artemisium, or opposite shore of Euboea, and had had some undecisive battles with the Persians, whose ships had been much shattered by a storm, retreated in haste to Salamis. Xerxes now wasted Phocis, and sent part of his army to plunder the temple of Delphi, a most ill-fated expedition. Thence he proceeded to Attica, where he burned Athens. The city was easily taken, as most of the inhabitants had been persuaded by Themistocles to remove their families from the country, and to man their ships'. The Greeks at Salamis were now so alarmed, that they would again have retreated. But the threats of Themis 8 Gelon, the powerful tyrant of Syracuse, who was then struggling with the Carthaginians, whom he defeated at Himera, would give no help to the Greeks, unless he had the chief command. That the Spartans would not yield; and the command at sea, the Athenians would yield to none but the Spartans. 9 The mountain heights, and a storm which was thought miraculous, favoured the defence of the Delphians. 1 He thus interpreted the oracle which told the Athenians to trust to a "wooden wall." tocles, who declared, that, in that case, the Athenians would go away and settle in Italy, caused Eurybiades, the Spartan admiral, to have the question reconsidered. They agreed to stay and fight; and Themistocles, to keep them to their word', sent privately to tell Xerxes that they were going to escape, and that he ought to beset both ends of the straits. The king followed his advice, and had the mortification of seeing his fleet completely defeated'; on which he returned home, leaving Mardonius with a considerable force to carry on the war. Mardonius, after trying in vain to gain over the Athenians, advanced from Thessaly, where he had wintered, and burned Athens; which was again deserted by its inhabitants, to whom the Spartans gave no assistance, it being their selfish plan to defend the Peloponnesus only. As a wall then building across the isthmus was nearly finished, they neither minded the entreaties nor the threats of the Athenians; until some one told the Ephors that the wall would be useless, if ever the Persians had the aid of the Athenian fleet. On this they resolved to exert themselves. A confederate army of Greeks, under Pausanias, the cousin and guardian of one of the Spartan kings, now advanced against Mardonius, who had returned to Boeotia, which was better than Attica for his cavalry. Though advised to protract the war, and to employ gold to conquer Greece, he hazarded an engagement at Platæa, where he lost his army and his life, B. c. 479. On this occasion, Pausanias and the Spartans were opposed to the 2 And perhaps to have a claim on Xerxes should he conquer; for his policy was always a double-minded one. In the same way, when he afterwards could not get the Greeks to sail to the Hellespont, and cut off Xerxes' retreat, he told Xerxes of the design, and pretended that he had hindered it. 3 Aristides had behaved nobly. He came in an open boat to bring news to his rival of the enemy's approach. Purnians, while Aristides and the Athenians had to encounter The Breorians and the other Greek allies of the enemy. On the very same day, a great victory was also gained by the patrioe fleet, commanded by king Leotychides of Sparta. The barbarians had fled at his approach to the promontory of Mycale, where an army of 60,000 men lay encamped, and, drawing their ships ashore, had raised a rampart to defend themselves. The Greeks landed; Xanthippus and the Athenians forced the entrenchments; and the revolt of the Ionians completed the discomfiture of the enemy. The selfish Spartans now tried to hinder the Athenians from rebuilding their walls; but they were baffled by the arts of Themistocles, who also got the people to fortify the harbour of the Piraeus. They soon afterwards lost the command at sea, as Pausanias, who had gone out as admiral, and, after taking Byzantium, had offered to betray Greece to Xerxes, whose daughter he was to marry, behaved with such haughtiness, that the whole fleet, excepting the Peloponnesian ships, placed itself under the orders of the Athenian officers. After a fruitless effort to recover the command, the Spartans withdrew their squadron, B. c. 477, and the naval supremacy of Athens began. It was agreed that the confederates should furnish ships, and a contribution of 460 talents, to be paid yearly into a common treasury at Delos. The assessment was fair, and highly creditable to Aristides, who made it. 4 In the earlier days of Greece, when piracy was rife, a steep rocky height, two or three miles from the sea, was a favourable site for a town. In more settled times, the people removed to the level ground below, and the inconvenient old town (the Acropolis) became a fortress, or place of refuge. This practice gave rise to the plural names of so many Greek cities. Sea-ports were now built, which were often conneeted with the city by fortifications, as was the Piraeus with Athens, the Lechæum with Corinth, &c. After his recal to a private station, Pausanias again went out to the Hellespont to renew his intrigues with Persia, B. C. 468. Being again summoned home, trusting to money and influence, he obeyed; and, though the Ephors knew that he was tampering with the Helots, they did not dare convict him, until a letter of his to a Persian satrap was betrayed to them. To avoid being arrested, he took refuge in a sanctuary; but the roof of the building was taken off, the entrance blocked up, and he was left to perish with hunger, B. c. 467. The Spartans now denounced their old enemy, Themistocles, as his accomplice. Themistocles, whom Athenian ingratitude had already ostracised, finding that no one in Greece could protect him, boldly fled to seek refuge in the court of Persia, where he was honourably received". and The allies, in the mean time, began to grow weary of the war, and of them had the folly to give money many ships instead of personal service. Thus Athens was enabled to tyrannize over them; and when Naxos refused to pay any more contributions, Cimon, the son of Miltiades, who had reduced the Persian strongholds in Europe, was sent with a fleet to deprive it of its independence, a fate which others soon shared. When Naxos had fallen, Cimon sailed to Pamphylia, and defeated the Persian fleet at the mouth of the river Eurymedon; immediately after which he landed, and routed a large army encamped on the shore, B. c. 466. By these and other victories, he drove the barbarians out of the Grecian seas. 5 By a young man, who, observing that no messenger of Pausanias ever came back, opened the letter, and found that he was also to be put to death. 6 Themistocles fled B. c. 466. He arrived at the Persian court B. C. 465, just after Xerxes had been assassinated. |