in their country's cause. He then communicated the fact that the Grecian fleet was completely surrounded by that of the Persians; and related that it was only by favour of the darkness that his own vessel had contrived to elude them. Themistocles, having thus learned the success of his stratagem, expressed his satisfaction, and desired Aristides to communicate the news of their situation to the council, which would not be disposed to believe it from his own lips. But even from the lips of Aristides such unwelcome intelligence found but little credit, till it was confirmed by the arrival of a Tenian ship, which had deserted from the enemy.

§ 7. At length the day began to dawn which was to decide the fate of Greece. As the veil of night rolled gradually away, the Persian fleet was discovered stretching as far as the eye could reach along the coast of Attica. Its right wing, consisting of Phoenician and Cyprian vessels, was drawn up towards the bay of Eleusis, whilst the Ionians occupied the left, towards Piræus and the southern entrance of the straits. On the low and barren island of Psyttaleia, adjacent to that point, a detachment of choice Persian troops had been landed. As the Grecian fleet was concentrated in the harbour of the town of Salamis, it was thus surrounded, as it were, in a net by the Persians. Xerxes, who attributed the disasters at Artemisium to his own absence, had caused a lofty throne to be erected upon one of the projecting declivities of Mount Egaleos, opposite the harbour of Salamis, whence he could survey the combat, and stimulate by his presence the courage of his men ; whilst by his side stood scribes, prepared to record the names both of the daring and the backward.

"A king sate on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations ;-all were his !

He counted them at break of day

And when the sun set where were they?"

The Grecian commanders lost no time in preparing to meet their multitudinous opponents. The Athenians were posted in the left wing, and consequently opposed to the Phoenicians on the Persian right. The Lacedæmonians and the other Peloponnesians took their station on the right, and the Æginetans and Eubœans in the centre. Animated by the harangues of Themistocles and the other leaders, the Greek seamen embarked with alacrity, encouraging one another to deliver their country, their wives and children, and the temples of their gods, from the grasp of the barbarians. Just at this juncture a favourable omen seemed to pro

mise them success. When Eurybiades gave the order for the fleet to remain and fight at Salamis, a trireme had been despatched to Ægina to invoke the assistance of Eacus, and the acid heroes Telamon and Ajax. As the Greeks were on the point of embarking, the trireme returned from the mission just in time to take her place in the line of battle.

§ 8. As the trumpets sounded, the Greeks rowed forward to the attack, hurling into the still morning air the loud war Pæan reverberated shrilly from the cliffs of Salamis, and not unanswered by the Persians. But suddenly a panic appeared to seize the Grecian oarsmen. They paused-backed astern-and some of the rearward vessels even struck the ground at Salamis. At this critical juncture a supernatural portent is said to have re-animated the drooping courage of the Greeks. A female figure was seen to hover over the fleet, uttering loud reproaches at their flight. Re-animated by the vision, the Greeks again rowed forward to the attack. History has preserved to us but few details of the engagement, which, indeed, soon became a scene of confusion too intricate to be accurately observed; but the names of those who first grappled with the enemy have not been left unrecorded. The Athenian captains, Aminias and Lycomedes, the former a brother of the poet Æschylus, were the first to bring their ships into action; Democritus, a Naxian, was the third. The Persian fleet, with the exception of some of the Ionic contingents, appears to have fought with alacrity and courage. But the very numbers on which they so confidently relied, proved one of the chief causes of their defeat. They had neither concert in action, nor space to manœuvre; and the confusion was augmented by the mistrust with which the motley nations composing the Persian armament regarded one another. Too crowded either to advance or to retreat, their oars broken or impeded by collision with one another, their fleet lay like an inert and lifeless mass upon the water, and fell an easy prey to the Greeks. A single incident will illustrate the terror and confusion which reigned among the Persians. Artemisia, although, as we have related, averse to giving battle, distinguished herself in it by deeds of daring bravery. At length she turned and fled, pursued by the Athenian trierarch, Aminias. Full in her course lay the vessel of the Carian prince, Damosithymus of Calyndus. Instead of avoiding, she struck and sunk it, sending her countryman and all his crew to the bottom. Aminias, believing from this act that she was a deserter from the Persian cause, suffered her to escape. Xerxes, who from his lofty throne beheld the feat of the Halicarnassian queen, but who imagined that the sunken ship belonged to the Greeks, was filled with admiration at her courage, and is said to have exclaimed-"My men are become women, my women men!"

§ 9. The number of ships destroyed and sunk is stated at 40 on the side of the Greeks, and 200 on that of the Persians, exclusive of those which were captured with all their crews. Besides this loss at sea, Aristides succeeded in inflicting on the

Persians another on land. It has been already stated that some chosen Persian troops had been landed at Psyttaleia, in order to assist such Persian ships, or destroy such Grecian ships as might be forced upon the island. When the rout of the Persian fleet was completed, Aristides landed on the island with a body of Hoplites, defeated the Persians, and cut them to pieces to a man. Boundless were the rage and vexation of Xerxes, as he contemplated the flight and destruction of his fleet. Some Phoenician crews, which were unlucky enough to be forced ashore close at the despot's feet, felt the full weight of his displeasure. In vain they sought to throw the blame of the defeat on the Ionic Greeks serving under the Persian flag. Xerxes, who, besides the feat of Artemisia, had observed a very daring act of valour performed by a Samothracian vessel, treated the Phoenicians as dastardly calumniators, and ordered them to be beheaded.

Notwithstanding this signal defeat and loss, the Persian fleet was still formidable by its numbers, whilst their land-force had suffered hardly any loss. The Greeks themselves did not regard the victory as decisive, and prepared to renew the combat. But from this necessity they were relieved by the pusillanimity of Xerxes. Passing at once from overweening confidence to unreasonable distrust, the Persian monarch became anxiously solicitous even about his own personal safety. He no longer relied on the capability of his ships to protect his retreat over the Hellespont, especially as his own conduct had alienated a considerable part of his fleet. The Phoenicians, alarmed by the threats which rage and fear caused Xerxes to utter against them, stole away in the night and sailed homewards. The whole care of the Persian monarch was now centered on securing his retreat by land. The best troops were disembarked from the ships, and marched towards the Hellespont, in order to secure the bridge, whilst the fleet itself was ordered to leave Phalerum and make for Asia.

These dispositions of Xerxes were prompted by Mardonius. As the adviser of the expedition, Mardonius felt all the danger of responsibility for its failure, especially if the personal safety of his sovereign should be at all endangered. With adroit flattery he consulted at once the fears and the vanity of Xerxes, and his own personal interests. He represented to his master that the defeat, after all, was but slight, and had fallen entirely upon the foreign auxiliaries; that having attained one of the great objects of the expedition by the capture of Athens, he might now retire with honour, and even with glory; and that for the rest he (Mardonius) would undertake to complete the conquest of Greece with 300,000 men. Xerxes readily listened to this advice,

which accorded so well with his own inclinations, and which was supported by his courtiers, as well as by Queen Artemisia.

§ 10. When the Greeks learned that the Persian fleet had left Phalerum, they immediately sailed in pursuit of it. Themistocles and the Athenians are represented, but probably on no sufficient ground, as anxious to push on to the Hellespont, and cut off the retreat of the Persians, and as having been restrained only by the more prudent counsels of Eurybiades and the Peloponnesians. The moment was chosen by Themistocles to send a second message to Xerxes of a much more questionable character than the first. Sicinnus was again despatched to inform the Persian monarch that Themistocles, out of personal friendship for him, had restrained the Greeks from destroying the bridge over the Hellespont, and thus cutting off his retreat. In this communication it is impossible to believe that Themistocles can have had anything but his own personal interest in view. He was well aware that the Persian cause was far from desperate; and even if the Greeks should prove victorious in the end, he may have been anxious to secure a safe retreat for himself, if he should be detected in his guilty practices.

The Greeks pursued the Persian fleet as far as the island of Andros, but without success. To punish those islands which had sided with Xerxes was a natural and justifiable act, which the large naval force under the command of Themistocles enabled him to execute; but he abused the same means in order to gratify his private rapacity. The Andrians, indeed, were too poor to be robbed; and though Themistocles threatened them with two great gods-Persuasion and Necessity—they found themselves protected, as they said, by two others equally efficient-Poverty and Helplessness. But in other quarters he succeeded better. From Carystus, Paros, and other places, he privately extorted bribes by engaging to preserve them from attack; and after a short time employed in the vain attempt to wring something from Andros, the Grecian fleet returned to Salamis.

§ 11. Meanwhile Xerxes pursued his homeward march through Boeotia into Thessaly. In the latter country Mardonius selected the forces with which he proposed to conclude the war, consisting chiefly of Persians, Medes, Sacæ, and Bactrians, to the number of 300,000 men. But as autumn was now approaching, and as 60,000 of these troops were to escort the march of Xerxes as far as the Hellespont, Mardonius resolved to postpone all further operations till the spring.

After forty-five days' march from Attica, Xerxes again reached the shores of the Hellespont, with a force greatly diminished by