A Greek Warrior. From an Ancient Vase.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS.

§ 1. Results of the battle of Thermopyla. § 2. Alarm and flight of the Athenians. § 3. March of the Persians and attempt upon Delphi. § 4. Taking of Athens and arrival of the Persian fleet. § 5. Dissensions and debates of the Greeks. § 6. Stratagem of Themistocles. Arrival of Aristides. § 7. Position of the hostile fleets. Preparations for the combat. § 8. Battle of Salamis. § 9. Defeat and flight of Xerxes. § 10. Pursuit of the Greeks. § 11. Homeward march of Xerxes. § 12. The Greeks celebrate their victory. § 13. Carthaginian expedition to Sicily. Defeat and death of Hamilcar.

§ 1. THE apathy of the Lacedæmonians in neglecting to provide a sufficient defence against the advancing host of Xerxes seems altogether unaccountable; nor is it easy to understand why the Athenians themselves did not send a single troop to aid in defending Thermopyla. The heroic and long sustained resistance of the handful of men who perished in that pass, as well as the previous battle of Marathon, clearly proves that a moderately numerous force, together with ordinary military precautions, would have sufficed to arrest the onward march of the Persians. But the small body to which that duty was assigned was altogether inadequate to the occasion. The forcing of the pass

annihilated the chief defence of southern Greece. Many of the Grecian states which before were wavering now declared for the invader, and sent contingents to his army; whilst his fleet was also strengthened by reinforcements from Carystus, and the Cyclades.

The Athenians were now threatened with inevitable destruction. The Peloponnesians had utterly neglected their promise of assembling a force in Boeotia for the protection of Attica; and there was consequently nothing to prevent the Persians from marching straight to Athens. The isolated position of the Peloponnesians had probably influenced them in their selfish policy; at all events, on the news of the defeat at Thermopyla, they abandoned Attica and the adjoining states to their fate, whilst they strained every nerve to secure themselves by fortifying the isthmus of Corinth. It is true that in this selfish proceeding they overlooked the fact that their large extent of coast could not be thus secured from the descent of the Persian fleet. But after all, the greatest as well as the most pressing danger arose from the army of Xerxes. At sea, the Greeks and the Barbarians were much more nearly matched; and if the multitudinous land-forces of the Persian monarch were once arrested in their progress, and compelled to retreat, there was perhaps little reason to dread that his fleet, composed mostly of auxiliaries, would be able to make any permanent impression on the Peloponnesus, or indeed to remain upon the coast of Greece.

§ 2. The Athenians, relying upon the march of a Peloponnesian army into Boeotia, had taken no measures for the security of their families and property, and beheld with terror and dismay the barbarian host in full march towards their city. Fortunately, the Grecian fleet, on retiring from Artemisium, had stopped at Salamis on its way to Trozen, where it had been ordered to re-assemble; and, at the entreaties of the Athenians, Eurybiades consented to remain for a time at Salamis, and to assist the Athenian citizens in transporting their families and effects. It was thus by accident, and not from any preconcerted military plan, that Salamis became the station of the Grecian fleet.

In six days, it was calculated Xerxes would be at Athens-a short space to remove the population of a whole city; but fear and necessity work wonders. Before it had elapsed, all who were willing to abandon their homes had been safely transported, some to Ægina, the greater part to Trozen, where they met with an hospitable reception; but many could not be induced to proceed farther than Salamis. It was necessary for Themistocles

to use all his art and all his eloquence on this occasion. Those who were deaf to the voice of reason were assailed with the terrors of superstition. On a first interrogation the oracle of Delphi warned the Athenians to fly to the ends of the earth, since nothing could save them from destruction. In a second response the Delphian god was more obscure but less alarming. "The divine Salamis would make women childless,"-yet "when all was lost, a wooden wall should still shelter the Athenians.” In the interpretation of Themistocles, by whom these words had perhaps been suggested, they clearly indicated a fleet and a naval victory as the only means of safety. As a further persuasion it was declared that the Sacred Serpent, which haunted the temple of Athena Polias, on the Acropolis, had deserted the sanctuary ; and could the citizens hesitate to follow the example of their guardian deity?

In some, however, superstition, combined with love of their ancient homes, worked in an opposite direction. The oracle which declared the safety of the Athenians to lie in their wooden walls might admit of another meaning; and a few, especially among the aged and the poor, resolved to shut themselves up in the Acropolis, and to fortify its accessible or western front with barricades of timber. Not only in them, but even in those who had resolved to abandon Athens, the love of country grew stronger in proportion as the danger of losing it became more imminent. The present misery extinguished past dissensions. Themistocles proposed a decree revoking all sentences of banishment, and specially included in it his opponent and rival Aristides. The rich and the aristocratic assisted the city both by their example and their money. The Hippeis, or knights, headed by Cimon, the son of Miltiades, marched in procession to the Acropolis to hang up their bridles in the temple of Athena, and to fetch from thence some consecrated arms more suitable for that naval service for which they were about to abandon their ancient habits and privileges. The senate of the Areopagus not only exerted its public authority in order to provide funds for the equipment of the fleet and the support of the poorer emigrants, but contributed to those objects by the private munificence of its members. The fund was increased by the policy of Themistocles. Under the pretext that the Gorgon's head had been removed from the statue of Athena, he directed that the baggage of each departing citizen should be searched, and appropriated to the service of the state the private treasures which were about to be exported.

§3. While these things were passing at Athens, the Persian army was in full march towards the city. Xerxes was surprised

to find that the Olympic games still deterred the Peloponnesians from opposing his progress; nor was his astonishment diminished on learning that the prize, which occasioned so much excitement and emulation, was a simple wreath of the wild olive. Of the states which lay between Thermopylae and Attica, the Phocians alone refused to submit to the Persians. Under the conduct of the Thessalians, the Persian army poured into Phocis, but found only deserted towns; several of which, however, they plundered and destroyed. The same fate attended Thespia and Platea, the only towns of Boeotia which declined to acknowledge the conqueror.

On his march towards Athens, Xerxes sent a detachment of his army to take and plunder Delphi. But this attempt proved unsuccessful. The god of the most renowned oracle of the Hellenic world vindicated at once the majesty of his sanctuary and the truth of his predictions. He forbade the Delphians to remove the treasures which enriched and adorned his shrine, and encouraged by divine portents the handful of priests and citizens who ventured to remain and defend his temple. The sacred arms preserved in the inner cell, and which it was sacrilege to touch, were miraculously conveyed outside the door, as if the god himself interfered to arm his defenders. As the Persians climbed the rugged path at the foot of Mount Parnassus, leading up to the shrine, and had already reached the temple of Athena Pronæa, thunder was heard to roll, and two crags suddenly detaching themselves from the mountain, rolled down upon the Persians, and spread dismay and destruction in their ranks. Seized with a sudden panic, they turned and fled, pursued, as they said, by two warriors of superhuman size and prowess, who had assisted the Delphians in defending their temple. The Delphians themselves confirmed the report, averring that the two warriors were the heroes Phylacus and Autonous. Herodotus, when he visited Delphi, saw in the sacred enclosure of Athena Pronæa the identical crags which had crushed the Persians; and near the spot may still be seen large blocks of stone which have rolled down from the mountain.

§ 4. On arriving before Athens, Xerxes found the Acropolis occupied by a handful of desperate citizens, whom the Pisistratids in his suite in vain exhorted to surrender. The nature of the Acropolis might indeed have inspired them with reasonable hopes of successful resistance, had the disparity of force been less enormous. Rising abrupt and craggy to the height of 150 feet above the level of the town, its summit presents a space of about 1000 feet in length, from east to west, and 500 in breadth, from north to south. On every side except the west it

205 is nearly inaccessible, and in the few places where access seemed practicable, it was defended by an ancient fortification called the Pelasgic wall. The Persian army took up a position on the Areopagus (Mars' Hill), over against the north-western side of the Acropolis, whence they endeavoured to destroy the wooden fortifications which had been erected, by shooting against them arrows furnished with burning tow. But even after the destruction of these barricades, the Athenians managed to keep their assailants at bay by rolling down huge stones upon them as they attempted to mount the western ascent. At length some of the besiegers ventured to climb up the precipitous rock, on the northern side, by the cave of Aglaurus, where no guard was stationed. They gained the summit unperceived, thus taking the little garrison in the rear. Confusion and despair now seized upon the Athenians. Some threw themselves down from the rock, others took refuge in the inner temple; while the Persian host, to whom the gates had been thrown open by their comrades, mounted to the attack, pillaged and burnt the temples and houses on the Acropolis, and put its defenders to the sword.

Thus was the oracle accomplished which had foretold that Athens should fall before the might of Persia. But in the very midst of her ashes and desolation, a trivial portent seemed to foreshadow the resurrection of her power. The Athenians in the train of Xerxes, whilst sacrificing in the Acropolis, observed with astonishment that the sacred olive tree, which grew in the temple of Athena, had, in the two days which had elapsed since the fire, thrown out a fresh shoot a cubit in length.

About the same time that the army of Xerxes took possession of Athens, his fleet arrived in the bay of Phalerum. Its strength is not accurately known, but at the lowest estimate must have exceeded 1000 vessels. The combined Grecian fleet at Salamis consisted of 366 ships ;* a larger force than had assembled at Artemisium, yet far inferior to that of the Persians. Of these ships 200 were Athenian; the remainder consisted of the contingents of the allies, among which that of the Corinthians was the most numerous after the Athenian, namely, forty vessels.

Xerxes went down to inspect his fleet, and held a council of war as to the expediency of an immediate attack upon the Greeks. The kings of Sidon and Tyre, together with the other assembled potentates, probably with the view of flattering Xerxes, were for an immediate battle. One voice alone broke

According to Herodotus; but Eschylus reckons them at 310 only.