74

CHAPTER IV.

THE AUTHENTIC PERIOD OF GRECIAN HISTORY.

SECTION I.

GE HISTORY FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST WAR WITH PERSIA TO THE ES TABLISHMENT OF PHILIP ON THE THRONE OF MACEDON:

490 TO 360 B. C. 130 YEARS.

ANALYSIS. FIRST PERSIAN WAR. 1. Preparations of Darius for the conquest of Greece. Mardonius. Destruction of the Persian fleet. [Mount A'thos.] Return of Mardonius.-2. Re newed properations of Darius. Heralds sent to Greece. Their treatment by the Athenians and Spartans. The Æginétans. [Ægina.]-3. Persian fleet sails for Greece. Islands submit. Eubœ'a. Percians at Mar' athon. The Platæ ans aid the Athenians. Spartans absent. [Marathon. Plete' a.]-4. The Athenian army. How commanded.-5. Battle of Mar' athon. -6. Remarks on the battle. Legends of the battle.-7. The war terminated. Subsequen history of Miltiades. [Paros.] Themistocles and Aristides. Their characters. Banish ment of the latter. [Ostracism.]-9. Death of Darius. SECOND PERSIAN WAR. Xerxes invades Greece Opposed by Leon' idas. [Thermop' ylæ.] Anecdote of Dien' eces.-10. Treachery. Leonidas dismisses his allies. Self-devotion of the Greeks.-11. Eurytus and Aristodémus. -12. The Athenians desert Athens, which is burned by the enemy. [Trezéne.] The Greeks fortify the Corinthian Isthmus.-13. The Persian fleet at Sal' amis. Eurybiades, Themis' tocles, and Aristides.-14. Battle of Sal' amis. Flight of Xerxes. [Hel' lespont.] Battle of Platæ'a of Myc' ale. [Myc'ale.] Death of Xerxes.-15. Athens rebuilt. Banishment of Themis'tocles. Cimon and Pausanias. The Persian dependencies. Ionian revolt. [Cy' prus. Byzan' tium.]—16. Final peace with Persia.-17. Dissensions among the Grecian States. Per' icles. Jealousy of Sparta, and growing power of Athens.-18. Power and character of Sparta. Earthquake at Sparta. Revolt of the Hélots. THIRD MESSE' NIAN WAR. Migration of the Messenians.-19. Athenians defeated at Tan' agra. [Tan' agra.] Subsequent victory gained by the Athenians.

20. Causes which opened the FIRST PELOPONNE'SIAN WAR. [Corcy' ra. Potidæ' a.]—21. The Spartan army ravages At' tica. The Athenian navy desolates the coast of the Peloponnésus. [Meg' ara.]—22. Second invasion of At' tica. The plague at Athens, and death of Per'icles. Potidæ a surrenders to Athens, and Plate' a to Sparta.-23. The peace of Nicias. Pretexts for renewing the struggle.-24. Character of Alcibiades. His artifices. Reduction of Melos. [Mélos.]-25. THE SICILIAN EXPEDITION. Its object. [Sicily. Syracuse.] Revolt and flight of Alcibiades.-26. Operations of Nicias, and disastrous result of the expedition. 27. SECOND PELOPONNE' SIAN WAR. Revolt of the Athenian allies. Intrigues of Alcibiades. Revolution at Athens. [Erétría Cys' icus.] Return of Alcibiades.-28. He is again banished. The affairs of Sparta are retrieved by Lysan' der. Cyrus the Persian.-29. The Athenians are defeated at Æ' gos-Pot' amos. Treatment of the prisoners.-30. Disastrous state of Athenian affairs. Submission of Athens, and close of the war.-31. Change of government at Athens. The Thirty Tyrants overthrown. The rule of the democracy restored.-32. Character, accusation, and death of Soc' rates.--33. The designs of Cyrus the Persian. He is aided by the Greeks -34. Result of his expedition.-35. Famous retreat of the Ten Thousand.-36. The Creek cities of Asia are involved in a war with Persia. The THIRD PELOPONNE' SIAN WAR. [Coronéa.] The peace of Antal' cidas. [Im' brus, Lem' nos, and Scy' rus.]-37. The designs of the Persian king promoted by the jealousy of the Greeks. Athens and Sparta- how affected by the peace -38. Sparta is involved in new wars. War with Mantinéa. With Olyn' thus. [Mantinės

D

75

Olyn' thus.] Seizure of the Theban citadel.-39. The political morality of the Spartans.-40. The Theban citadel recovered. Pelop' idas and Epaminon' das. Events of the Theban war. [Teg' yra. Leuc' tra.]-41. The SECOND SACRED WAR. [First Sacred War.] Causes of the Second Sacred War. [Phócis.]-42. The parties to the war. [Locrians.] Cruelties practised. Philip of Macedon.

1. After the subjugation of the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, Daríus made active preparations for the conquest of all Greece. A mighty I. FIRST PER- armament was fitted out and intrusted to the command SIAN WAR. of his son-in-law Mardónius, who, leading the land force in person through Thrace and Macedonia, succeeded, after being once routed by a night attack,a in subduing those countries; but the Persian fleet, which was designed to sweep the islands of the Æ' gean, was checked in its progress by a violent storm which it encountered off Mount A'thos', and which was thought to have destroyed three hundred vessels and twenty thousand lives. Weakened by these disasters, Mar dónius abruptly terminated the campaign and returned to Asia.

2. Daríus soon renewed his preparations for the invasion of Greece, and, while his forces were assembling, sent heralds through the Grecian cities, demanding earth and water, as tokens of submission. The smaller States, intimidated by his power, submitted;b but Athens and Sparta haughtily rejected the demands of the eastern monarch, and put his heralds to death with cruel mockery, throwing one into a pit and another into a well, and bidding them take thence their earth and water. The Spartans threatened to make war upon the Æginétans' for having basely submitted to the power of Persia, and com. pelled them to send hostages to Athens.c

1. Mount A' thos is a lofty summit, more than six thousand feet high, on the most eastern of three narrow peninsulas which extend from Macedonia into the Æ' gean sea. The peninsula which is about twenty-five miles in longth by about four in breadth, has long been occupied in modern times by a number of monks of the Greek Church, who live in a kind of fortified monasteries, about twenty in number. No females are admitted within this peninsula, whose modern name, derived from its supposed sanctity, is Monte Santo, "sacred mountain." (Map No. 1.)

2 Ægina, (now Egina or Engia,) was an island containing about fifty square miles, in the centre of the Saron' ic Gulf, (now Gulf of Athens,) between Attica and Ar' golis, and sixteen miles south-west from Athens. The remains of a temple of Jupiter in the northern part of the island are among the most interesting of the Grecian ruins. Of its thirty-six columns twenty-five were recently standing. (Map No. I.)

a. By the Brygi, a Thracian tribe. Mardonius wounded

Ar' gos,

b. Among them, probably, the Thebans and Thessalians; also most of the islands, but not Euboea and Nax' os. The Persians desolated Nax' os on their way across the E' gean. c. At this time Thebes and Egina had been at war with Athens fourteen years. which had contested with Sparta the supremacy of Greece, had recently been subdued; and Sparta was acknowledged to be the head of the political union of Greece against the Per sians. Grote's Greece, iv. 311-328,

3. In the third year after the first disastrous campaign, a Persian fleet of six hundred ships, conveying an army of a hundred and twenty thousand men, commanded by the generals Dátis and Artapher' nes, and guided by the exiled tyrant and traitor Hip' pias, directed its course towards the Grecian shores. (B. C. 490.) Several islands of the 'gean submitted without a struggle; Euboea was punished for the aid it had given the Iónians in their rebellion; and without farther opposition the Persian host advanced to the plains of Mar' athon, within twenty miles of Athens. The Athenians probably called on the Plata' ans' as well as the Spartans for aid :—the former sent their entire force of a thousand men; but the latter, influenced by jealousy or superstition, refused to send their proffered aid before the full of the moon.

4. In this extremity the Athenian army, numbering only ten thou sand men, and commanded by ten generals, marched against the enemy. Five of the ten generals had been afraid to hazard a battle, but the arguments of Miltiades, one of their number, finally prevailed upon the polemarch Callim' achus to give his casting vote in favor of fighting. The ten generals were to command the whole army successively, each for a day. Those who had seconded the advice of Miltiades were willing to resign their turns to him, but he waited till his own day arrived, when he drew up the little army in order of battle.

1. Mar' athon, which still retains its ancient name, is a small town of Attica, twenty miles northeast from Athens, and about three miles from the sea-coast, or Bay of Marathon. The plain in which the battle was fought is about five miles in length and two in breadth, inclosed on the land side by steep slopes descending from the higher ridges of Pentel' icus and Páros, and divided into two unequal parts by a small stream which falls into the Bay. Towards the middle of the plain may still be seen a mound of earth, twenty-five feet in height, which was raised over the bodies of the Athenians who fell in the battle. In the marsh near the sea coast, also, the remains of trophies and marble monuments are still visible. The names of the one hundred and ninety-two Athenians who were slain were inscribed on ten pillars erected on the battle-field. (Map No. I.)

2. Plate' a, a city of Boótia, now wholly in ruins, was situated on the northern side of the Cithæ ron mountains, seven miles south from Thebes. This city has acquired an immortality of renown from its having given its name to the great battle fought in its vicinity in the year 479 B. C. between the Persians under Mardónius, and the Greeks under Pausanias the Spartan. (See p. 80.) From the tenth of the spoils taken from the Persians on that occasion, and presented to the shrine of Delphi, a golden tripod was made, supported by a brazen pillar resembling three serpents twined together. This identical brazen pillar may still be seen in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. (Map No. I.)

a. Thirwall says: "It is probable that they summoned the Plata' ans." Grote says: "We are not told that they had been invited."

'b. Herodotus describes this debate as having occurred at Mar' athon, after the Greeks had taken post in sight of the Persians; while Cornelius Nepos says it occurred before the army Left Athens. Thirwall appears to follow the former: Grote declares his preference for the aver, as the most reasonable.

5. The Persians were extended in a line across the middle of the plain, having their best troops in the centre. The Athenians were drawn up in a line opposite, but having their main strength in the extreme wings of their army. The Greeks made the attack, and, as had been foreseen by Miltiades, their centre was soon broken, while the extremities of the enemy's line, made up of motley and undisciplined bands of all nations, were routed, and driven towards the shore, and into the adjoining morasses. Hastily concentrating his two wings, Miltiades next directed their united force against the flanks of the Persian centre, which, deeming itself victorious, was taken completely by surprise. In a few minutes victory decided in favor of the Greeks. The Persians fled in disorder to their ships; but many perished in the marshes; the shore was strewn with their dead,—and seven of their ships were destroyed. The loss of the Persians was 6,400 that of the Athenians, not including the Plata' ans, only 192.

6. Such was the famous battle of Mar' athon; but the glory of the victory is not to be measured wholly by the disparity of the numbers engaged, when compared with the result. The Persians were strong in the terror of their name, and in the renown of their conquests; and it required a most heroic resolution in the Athenians to face a danger which they had not yet learned to despise. The victory was viewed by the people as a deliverance vouchsafed to the Grecians by the gods themselves: the marvellous legends of the battle attributed to the heroes prodigies of valor; and represented Théseus and Her' cules as sharing in the fight, and dealing death to the flying barbarians; while to this day the peasant believes the field of Mar' athon to be haunted with spectral warriors, whose shouts are heard at midnight, borne on the wind, and rising above the din of battle.

7. The victory obtained by the Greeks at Mar' athon terminated the first war with Persia. Soon after the Persian defeat, Miltiades, who at first received all the honors which a grateful people could bestow, experienced a fate which casts a melancholy gloom over his history. Being unfortunate in an expedition which he led against Páros,' and which he induced the Athenians to intrust to him, without informing them of its destination, he was accused of having deceived

1. Paros is an island of the Æ' gean sea, of the group of the Cyc' lades, about seventy-five miles south east from Attica. It is about twelve miles in length by eight in breadth, rugged and uneven but generally very fertile. Páros was famous in antiquity for its marble, although that obtained from Mount Pentel' icus in Attica was of the purest white. In modern times Páros has become distinguished for the discovery there of the celebrated "Parian or Arundolian Chronicle," cut in a marble slab, and purporting to be a chronological account of Grecian

Unable to

the peop.e, or, as some say, of having received a bribe. defend his cause before the people on account of an injury which he had received at Páros, he was impeached before the popular judicature as worthy of death; and although the proposition of his accusers was rejected, he was condemned to pay a fine of fifty talents. A few days later Miltíades died of his wound, and the fine was paid by his son Címon.

8. After the death of Miltíades, Themis' tocles and Aristides become, for a time, the most prominent men among the Athenians. The former, a most able statesman, being influenced by ambitious motives, aimed to make Athens great and powerful, that he himself might rise to greater eminence with the growing fortunes of the state;-the latter, a pure patriot, had, like Themis' tocles, the good of Athens at heart, but, unlike his rival, he was wholly destitute of selfish ambition, and knew no cause but that of justice and the public welfare. His known probity acquired for him the appellation of The Just; but his very integrity made for him secret enemies, who, although they charged him with no crimes, were yet able to procure from the people the penalty of banishment against him by ostracism.' His removal left Themis' tocles in possession of almost undivided power at Athens, and threw upon him chiefly the responsibility of the measure for resisting another Persian invasion, with which the Greeks were now threatened.

II. SECOND

9. Daríus made great preparations for invading Greece in person, when death put an end to his ambitious projects. Ten years after the battle of Mar'athon, Xerxes, the son and successor of Daríus, being determined to execute the plans of his persian war. father, entered Greece at the head of an army the greatest the world has ever seen, and whose numbers have been estimated at more than two millions of fighting men. This immense force, passing through, Thes' saly, had arrived, without opposition, at the strait of Thermop'. ylæ, where Xerxes found a body of eight thousand men, command

history from the time of Cécrops to the year 261 B. C. The pretence of Miltiades in attacking Paros was that the inhabitants had aided the Persians; but Herod' otus assures us that his real motive was a private grudge against a Párian citizen. The injury of which he died was caused by a fall that he received while attempting to visit by night, a Párian priestess of Ceres, who had promised to reveal to him a secret that would place Páros in his power. (Map No. III.) 1. The mode of Ostracism was as follows: The people having assembled, each man took a shell (ostrakon) and wrote on it the name of the person whom he wished to have banished. If the number of votes thus given was less than six thousand, the ostracism was void; but if more, then the person whose name was on the greatest number of shells was sent into banish ment for ten years.

2. Thermop' yla is a narrow defile on the western shore of the Gulf which lies between Euboea and Thessaly, and is almost the only road by which Greece can be entered on the