B. C. 479.] POSITION OF THE PERSIAN AND GREEK FLEETS.

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Temple of Niké Apteros (the Wingless Victory), on the Acropolis at Athens, restored

CHAPTER XX.

1. Position of the Persian and Greek Fleets. § 2. Preparations of Mardonius for the Campaign. 3. He solicits the Athenians to join him. Faithlessness of the Spartans. 4. Mardonius occupies Athens. Athenian Embassy to Sparta. March of the Spartan Army. 5. Mardonius retires into Bœotia: followed by the Grecian Army. Skirmishes. § 6. The Greeks descend into the Plain. Manoeuvres of the two Armies. 7. Alexan der, King of Macedon, visits the Grecian Camp. The Greeks resolve to change their Ground: their disorderly Retreat. § 8. Battle of Platea. Defeat of the Persians. 9. Division of the Spoil. § 10. Reduction of Thebes, and Execution of the Theban Leaders. 11. Death of Aristodemus. § 12. League of Platea. Religious Ceremonies. 13. Battle of Mycalé. Defeat of the Persians. § 14. Liberation of the Greek Islands. § 15. Siege and Capture of Sestos.

§ 1. THE remnant of the Persian fleet, after conveying Xerxes and his army across the Hellespont, wintered at Cymé and Samos; and early in the ensuing spring, the whole armament, to the number of about four hundred vessels, reassembled at the latter island. This movement was adopted in order to keep a watch over Ionia, which showed symptoms of an inclination to revolt, and not with any design of attacking the Grecian fleet. The latter, consisting of about one hundred and ten ships, under the command of the Spartan king, Leotychides, assembled in the spring at Ægina. From this station it advanced as far eastward as Delos; but the Ionian envoys despatched to the Peloponnesians, with promises that the Ionians would revolt from Persia as soon as the Greek fleet appeared off their coast, could not prevail upon Leotychides to venture an attack upon the Persians.

§ 2. The disastrous retreat of Xerxes had not much shaken the fidelity of his Grecian allies. Potidæa, indeed, and the other towns on the isthmus of Pallené, declared themselves independent; whilst symptoms of disaffection were also visible among the Phocians; but the more important allies of Persia, the Macedonians, the Thessalians, and especially the Boeotians, were still disposed to co-operate vigorously with Mardonius. That general prepared to open the campaign in the spring. As a preliminary measure, adopted probably with the view of flattering the religious prejudices of his Greek allies, he consulted some of the most celebrated oracles in Boeotia and Phocis respecting the issue of the war. He was not without hopes of inducing the Athenians to join the Persian alliance; and, in order to facilitate such a step, it was pretended that the oracles had foretold the approach of the time when the Athenians, united with the Persians, should expel the Dorians from Peloponnesus.

§ 3. The influence of superstition was aided by the intrigues of diplomacy. Alexander, king of Macedon, was despatched to conciliate the Athenians, now partially re-established in their dilapidated city. His offers on the part of the Persians were of the most seductive kind; the reparation of all damage, the friendship of the Great King, and a considerable extension of territory: the whole backed by the pressing instances of Alexander himself, and enforced by a vivid picture of the exposed and helpless situation of Attica.

The temptation was certainly strong. On the one hand, ruined homes and empty granaries, the result of the last campaign; the first shock and severest brunt of the war to be sustained by Attica, as the outpost of Southern Hellas, and this for lukewarm and selfish allies, to whose negligence and breach of faith the Athenians chiefly owed their present calamities on the other hand, their city restored, their starving population fed, the horrors of war averted, and only that more agreeable part of it adopted which would consist in accompanying and aiding an overwhelming force in a career of almost certain victory. The Lacedæmonians were quite alive to the exigencies of the situation, so far, at least, as it concerned their own safety. They also had sent envoys to counteract the seductions of Alexander, and to tender relief to the distressed population of Athens. The answer of the Athenians was magnanimous and dignified. They dismissed Alexander with a positive refusal, and even with something like a threat of personal violence in case he should again be the bearer of such proposals; whilst to the Lacedæmonians they protested that no temptations, however great, should ever induce them to desert the common cause of Greece and freedom. In return for this disinterested conduct, all they asked was that a Peloponnesian army should be sent into Boeotia for the defence of the Attic frontier; a request which the Spartan envoys promised to fulfil.

No sooner, however, had they returned to their own country than this

promise was completely forgotten. As on the former occasion, the Lacedæmonians covered their selfishness and indifference beneath the hypocritical garb of religion. The omens were unfavorable; the sun had been eclipsed at the moment when Cleombrotus, the Spartan king, was consult ing the gods respecting the expedition; and, besides this, they were engaged in celebrating the festival of the Hyacinthia. But no omens nor festivals had prevented them from resuming with unremitting diligence the labor of fortifying the Isthmus, and the walls and battlements were now rapidly advancing towards completion.

§ 4. When Mardonius was informed that the Athenians had rejected his proposal, he immediately marched against Athens, accompanied by all his Grecian allies; and in May or June, B. c. 479, about ten months after the retreat of Xerxes, the Persians again occupied that city. With feelings of bitter indignation against their faithless allies, the Athenians saw themselves once more compelled to remove to Salamis. But even in this depressed condition, the naval force of the Athenians still rendered them formidable; and Mardonius took advantage of his situation to endeavor once more to win them to his alliance. Through a Hellespontine Greek, the same favorable conditions were again offered to them, but were again refused. One voice alone, that of the senator Lycidas, broke the unanimity of the assembly. But his opposition cost him his life. He and his family were stoned to death by the excited populace.

In this desperate condition the Athenians sent ambassadors to the Spartans to remonstrate against their breach of faith, and to implore them, before it was too late, to come forwards in the common cause of Greece. The ambassadors were also instructed to intimate that necessity might at length compel the Athenians to listen to the proposals of the enemy. This message, however, was very coolly received by the Lacedæmonians. For ten days no answer whatever was returned; and it can scarcely be doubted that the reply, which they at last thought fit to make, would have been a negative, but for a piece of advice which opened their eyes to the consequences of their selfish policy. Chileos, a Tegean, a man whose wisdom they revered, and whom they consulted on this occasion, pointed out to them that their fortifications at the isthmus would prove of no avail in case the Athenians allied themselves to the Persians, and thus, by means of their fleet, opened a way into the heart of Peloponnesus. It is strange that the Lacedæmonians should have needed this admonition, which seems obvious enough; but selfishness is proverbially blind.

The conduct of the Spartans was as prompt as their change of resolution had been sudden. That very night five thousand citizens, each attended by seven Helots, were despatched to the frontiers; and these were shortly fol lowed by five thousand Lacedæmonian Pericci, each attended by one lightarmed Helot. Never before had the Spartans sent so large a force into the field. Their example was followed by other Peloponnesian cities; and

the Athenian envoys returned to Salamis with the joyful news that a large army was preparing to march against the enemy, under the command of Pausanias, who acted as regent for Pleistarchus, the infant son of Leonidas.

§ 5. Mardonius, on learning the approach of the Lacedæmonians, abandoned Attica, and proceeded by the pass. of Decelea across Mount Parnes into Boeotia, a country more adapted to the operations of the cavalry, in which his strength principally lay. Whilst he still entertained a hope that the Athenians might be induced to join his arms, he had refrained from committing any depredations on their territory; but finding this expectation vain, he employed the last days of his stay in burning and devastating all that had been spared by the army of Xerxes. After crossing the frontiers of Boeotia, and marching a day or two along the Asopus, he finally took up a position on the left bank of that river, and not far from the town of Platea. Here he caused a camp to be constructed of ten furlongs square, and fortified with barricades and towers. The situation was well selected, since he had the friendly and well-fortified city of Thebes in his rear, and was thus in no danger of falling short of provisions. Yet the disposition of his army was far from being sanguine. With the exception of the Thebans and Boeotians, his Grecian allies were become lukewarm or wavering; and even among the Persians themselves, the disastrous flight of their monarch in the preceding year had naturally damped all hopes of the successful issue of a campaign which was now to be conducted with far inferior forces.

Meanwhile, the Lacedæmonian force collected at the Isthmus was receiving reinforcements from the various states of Peloponnesus. On its march through Megara it was joined by 3,000 Megarians; and at Eleusis received its final accession of 8,000 Athenian and 600 Plataan Hoplites, who had crossed over from Salamis under the command of Aristeides. The Grecian army now consisted of 38,700 heavy-armed men, attended by Helots and light-armed troops to the number of nearly 70,000; and, together with 1,800 badly armed Thespians, formed a grand total of about 110,000 men. There were, however, no cavalry, and but very few bowmen.

Having consulted the gods by sacrifices, which proved of a favorable nature, the Grecian army broke up from Eleusis, and directed its march over the ridge of Citharon. On descending its northern side, the Greeks came in sight of the Persian army drawn up in the valley of the Asopus. Pausanias, not caring to expose his troops to the attacks of the Persian cavalry on the plain, halted them on the slopes of the mountain, near Erythræ, where the ground was rugged and uneven. (See Plan, First Position.) This position did not, however, altogether preserve them. Skilled in the use of the bow and of the javelin, the Persian horsemen, under the command of Masistius, repeatedly charged the Greeks, harass

ing them with flights of missiles, and taunting them with cowardice for not venturing down into the plain. The Megarians, especially, suffered severely, until rescued by a body of three hundred chosen Athenians, who succeeded in repulsing the Persian cavalry, and killing their leader, Masistius, a man tall in stature and of distinguished bravery. The Greeks celebrated their triumph by parading the corpse through the army in a

§ 6. This success encouraged Pausanias to quit the high ground and take up a position on the plain. Defiling from Erythræ in a westerly direction, and marching by Hysiæ, he formed his army in a line on the right bank of the Asopus. In this arrangement, the right wing, which extended to the fountain Gargaphia, was conceded, as the post of honor, to the Lacedæmonians; the occupation of the left, near the grove of the hero Androcrates, was disputed between the Tegeans and Athenians. The matter was referred to the whole body of the Lacedæmonian troops, who by acclamation declared the Athenians entitled to the preference.