Chapter XV: Book III (2)

=63.= The history of Athens presents an infinitely greater variety of character and incident than that of Sparta. Unsurpassed by the Spartans in patriotism or valor, the Athenians differed from them in their love for rare sculpture, magnificent architecture, and the refined diversions of music, poetry, and the drama. The consequence is, that while the Spartans won the world’s admiration only by their sacrifice of personal interests to those of the state, the Athenians were at once the models and the leaders of all civilized nations in the arts which give grace and loveliness to life. An Athenian visiting Sparta, and seeing the appointments of the public tables, said that he no longer wondered at Spartan bravery in battle, for life so nourished could not be worth preserving.

[Sidenote: B. C. 1050-752.]

=64.= In the Heroic Age Athens was governed by kings. Theseus subdued the country towns of Attica, and made the city the capital of a centralized monarchy. Codrus, the last of the kings, fell in resisting the Dorian invaders, who had conquered the Peloponnesus and designed to subjugate Attica. The invasion was repelled, but the kingdom was not reëstablished. The eupatridæ, or nobles, secured the election of an archon for life, who was in a certain degree responsible to them for his actions. Though of the royal race of Codrus, he had neither the name nor the dignity of a king. This succession of archons continued about 300 years.

[Sidenote: B. C. 684.]

=65.= An important change was then made by limiting the term of office to ten years. At the expiration of his service, the archon could be tried and punished if his conduct was proved to have been unjust. At first the election was made, as before, from the descendants of Codrus; but one of these being deposed for his cruelty, the office was thrown open to all nobles. A third change appointed, instead of a single magistrate, a board of nine, who were chosen yearly from among the eupatrids. Nobles alone had the right to vote, and for sixty years the government of Athens was a pure aristocracy.

[Sidenote: B. C. 621.]

=66.= But the people of Athens, afterward to fill so important a part in history, now made themselves heard in a demand for _written laws_, which should stand between them and the arbitrary will of their rulers. The nobles acceded to the demand, but avenged their injured dignity by appointing Draco to prepare the code. This first Athenian law-giver made a collection of statutes so severe that they were said to be indeed the work of a dragon, and to be written not with ink, but with blood. The smallest theft, not less than murder and sacrilege, was punished by death, and the life of every citizen was left absolutely at the mercy of the ruling order.

[Sidenote: B. C. 620.]

[Sidenote: B. C. 596.]

=67.= Great dissatisfaction arose among the Athenians in consequence of these laws, and Cylon, an aspiring young noble, aided by his father-in-law, the tyrant of Megara, took advantage of the disturbance to seize the Acropolis, with a view to making himself tyrant of Athens. The archons quelled this rash rebellion, but in so doing they themselves incurred the guilt of sacrilege, for the criminals were put to death at the very altar of the Eumenides.[39] While the people were thrown into a tumult of superstitious fear, a plague broke out, which was believed to be a judgment of the gods. The Delphic oracle being invoked, commanded that Athens should be purified by priestly rites. Epimen´ides, a sage and seer, who was reputed to have great insight into the healing powers of Nature, was brought from Crete, and by his sacrifices and intercessions the plague was believed to be arrested. The archons, however, saw a cause of their recent danger, deeper than the transient outbreak, and they appointed Solon, the wisest of their number, to frame a new code of laws.

=68.= The condition of Attica demanded immediate remedies. The three factions, consisting of the wealthy nobles of the Athenian _Plain_, the merchants of the _Shore_, and the poor peasantry of the Attic _Mountains_, were opposed to each other by the most bitter enmities. Some of the latter in their need had been compelled to borrow money, at exorbitant interest, from the nobles, and being unable to pay, had become the slaves of their creditors.

[Sidenote: B. C. 594.]

=69.= Solon, though a noble, had been forced by the ruin of his fortune to engage in commerce, choosing this means of support, however, with a view to the improvement of his mind by observation of foreign lands. While he was exchanging his Attic oil and honey for Egyptian millet, at Naucratis, he had not failed to study the laws of the Pharaohs, or to observe their effects upon the interests and character of the people. His wisdom and integrity commanded the confidence of all classes of his fellow-citizens, and he was made sole archon for life, with unlimited power to alter the existing state of things.

=70.= His first object was to improve the condition of the poor debtors, not merely by alleviating present distress, but by removing its causes. To this end he enacted a bankrupt law, canceling all contracts in which the land or person of a debtor had been given as security; and to avoid such evils in the future, he abolished slavery for debt. The rate of interest was abated, and the value of the currency lowered, so that the debtor gained about one-fourth by paying in a depreciated medium. Above all, provision was made against a recurrence of the same distress, by requiring every father to teach his son some mechanical art. If this was neglected, the son was freed from all responsibility for supporting his father in old age. Foreigners were not allowed to settle in the country, unless skilled in some form of industry which they engaged to carry on.

=71.= The chief design of the new constitution was to set up a free and moderate government, instead of the oppressive tyranny of the nobles. Solon divided the people into four classes, according to their possessions. The poorest were permitted to vote, but not to hold office. The upper three classes alone were subject to direct taxation, which fell with greatest weight upon the wealthiest. The code of Draco was repealed. Instead of severe punishments, Solon introduced the fear of shame and the hope of honor as preventives of crime. Among the rewards for faithful citizenship were crowns presented by senate or people; public banquets in the hall of state; statues in the Agora or the streets; places of honor in the theater or popular assembly. As persons distinguished by these various honors were constantly seen by the youth of Athens, their ambition was kindled to deserve similar rewards.

=72.= A new legislative Council of Four Hundred was formed, consisting of one hundred members from each tribe, to be chosen yearly by a free vote in the popular assembly. The source of power was in the assembly of all the people, which elected the archons and councilors, accepted or rejected the laws proposed by the latter, and judged the former at the end of their term of office. Popular courts of law were also instituted, to which a criminal might appeal when condemned by another tribunal. The Council of the Areopagus continued to be the highest court in the state, and was especially charged with the maintenance of religion and morals. Originally it included all the nobles, but Solon restricted it to those who had worthily discharged the duties of the archonship.

=73.= There were no professional lawyers in Athens, for the knowledge and enforcement of the laws were held to be the duty of every citizen. In case of popular sedition, every man was to be dishonored and disfranchised who took no part on either side. This rule was designed to stimulate public spirit, and to supply the want of a regular police or military force by the active interference of the citizens. Already a large body of wealthy and respectable men kept themselves aloof from public affairs, which fell thus into the hands of unscrupulous and ambitious plotters.

[Sidenote: B. C. 570.]

=74.= Solon is reckoned the greatest of the Seven Wise Men[40] of Greece, and some of his sayings have been the maxims of the best legislators of all ages. When asked how injustice could be banished from a republic, he replied, “By making _all_ men feel the injustice done to _each_.” His new constitution failed, however, to satisfy all classes of his fellow-citizens. The nobles blamed him for having gone too far; the common people, for having withheld too much. He himself admitted that his laws were not the best possible, but the best that the people would receive. He obtained, however, from the government and people, an oath to maintain the constitution ten years; and then, to rid himself of perpetual questions and complaints, he departed into foreign lands.

[Sidenote: B. C. 560.]

=75.= On returning to Athens, Solon found that the flames of faction had broken out with more fury than ever. The _Plain_ had for its leader Lycurgus; the _Shore_, Megacles; and the _Mountain_, Pisis´tratus, a kinsman of Solon. The latter was idolized by the people for his personal beauty, his military fame, his persuasive eloquence, and his unbounded generosity. But beneath many real virtues he concealed an insatiable ambition, which could not rest short of supremacy in the state. When his plans were ready for execution, he appeared one day in the market-place bleeding with self-inflicted wounds, which he assured the people he had received in defense of their rights, from the hands of his and their enemies, the factious nobles. The people, in their grief and indignation, voted him a guard of fifty clubmen. Solon saw the danger that lurked in this measure, but his earnest remonstrances were unheeded.

Pisistratus did not limit himself to the fifty men allotted him, but raised a much larger force, with which he seized the Acropolis and made himself master of the city. Notwithstanding his resistance to the usurpation, Solon was treated with great deference by his cousin, who constantly asked his counsel in the administration of affairs. But the aged law-giver did not long survive the freedom of Athens. After his death his ashes were scattered, as he had directed, around the island of Salamis, which in his youth he had won for the Athenians.

[Sidenote: B. C. 560-554.]

=76.= THE FIRST TYRANNY OF PISISTRATUS was not of long duration. For six years he had maintained the laws of Solon, when the two factions of the Plain and the Shore combined against him, and he was driven from the city. An incident which occurred during his first reign had an important bearing on the later history of Greece. A noble named Milti´ades, of the highest birth in Athens, was sitting one day before his door, when he saw strangers passing whom he knew to be foreigners by their spears and peculiar garments. With true Athenian hospitality, he invited them to enjoy the comforts of his house, and was rewarded by a singular disclosure.

They were natives of the Thracian Chersonesus—that narrow tongue of land which lies along the north shore of the Hellespont—and had been to consult the oracle at Delphi concerning the war in which their countrymen were now engaged. The priestess had directed them to ask the first man who should offer them hospitality after leaving the temple, to found a colony in the Chersonesus. They had passed through Phocis and Bœotia without receiving an invitation, and they now hailed their host as the person described by the oracle, and entreated him to come to their assistance. Miltiades and his family were regarded with especial enmity by Pisistratus, and were discontented under his rule. He accepted the invitation of his guests, collected a party of the similarly affected among his fellow-citizens, and with them planted an independent principality on the Hellespont. It was his nephew who commanded at Marathon.[41]

[Sidenote: B. C. 548, 547.]

[Sidenote: B. C. 537.]

=77.= SECOND TYRANNY. Within six years from the expulsion of Pisistratus, his rivals quarreled between themselves, and Megacles, the leader of the Shore, invited him to return and resume the sovereignty. But Athens could not yet remain at peace. In a short time Pisistratus offended Megacles, who had brought him back, and who again united with Lycurgus to expel him. This time the tyrant was ten years in exile, but he was constantly engaged in raising men and money in the different states of Greece. He landed at length with a powerful army at Marathon, and, joined by many friends, advanced toward the city. He had pitched his tent near the temple of Athena before his enemies had mustered any force to oppose him, and their hastily gathered troops were then signally defeated. The people willingly changed masters, and Pisistratus became for the third time supreme ruler of Athens.

[Sidenote: B. C. 537-527.]

=78.= THIRD TYRANNY. He now established his government upon firmer foundations, and the people forgot its arbitrary character in the liberality and justice which marked his administration. He maintained all the laws of Solon, and in his own person set the example of strict and constant obedience. He took care to fill the highest offices with his own kinsmen, but the wealth which he accumulated was at the service of all who needed assistance. His library, the earliest in Greece, and his beautiful gardens on the Ilissus, were thrown freely open to the public. He first caused the poems of Homer to be collected and arranged, that they might be chanted by the rhapsodists at the greater Panathenæ´a,[42] or twelve days’ festival in honor of Athena. He ministered at once to the taste and the necessities of the people, by employing many poor men in the construction of magnificent public buildings with which he adorned the city. The opinion of Solon was justified, that he was the best of tyrants, and possessed no vice save that of ambition.

[Sidenote: B. C. 527.]

[Sidenote: B. C. 527-514.]

=79.= After a reign of seventeen years in all, Pisistratus died at an advanced age, and his eldest son, Hippias, succeeded to his power, his brother Hippar´chus being so closely associated with him that they were frequently mentioned as the Two Tyrants. Their united government was carried on in the same mild and liberal spirit that had distinguished their father, and their reign was considered a sort of Golden Age in Athens. They reduced the tax on produce from a tenth to a twentieth, and yet, by a prudent management of resources, continued to add embellishments to the city.

Fourteen years had thus passed in peace and prosperity, when Hipparchus gave serious offense to a citizen named Harmo´dius, who thereupon united with his friend Aristogi´ton in a plot to murder the two tyrants. Hipparchus was slain. Hippias saved himself by promptness and presence of mind; but from that day his character was changed. His most intimate friends had been accused by the conspirators as concerned in the plot, and executed. Though the charge was false and made only for revenge, the suspicions of Hippias never again slept. The property and lives of the citizens were alike sacrificed to his cruel and miserly passions.

[Sidenote: B. C. 510.]

=80.= The faction of the Alemæon´ids, who had been exiled under their leader, Megacles, now gained strength for an active demonstration. They bribed the Delphic priestess to reiterate in the ears of the Spartans that “Athens must be delivered.” These brave but superstitious people had a friendship of long standing with the Pisistrat´idæ, but they dared not disobey the oracle. An army was sent to invade Attica: it was defeated and its leader slain. A second attempt was more successful: the Thessalian cavalry which had aided the tyrant was now defeated, and Hippias shut himself up in the citadel. His children fell into the hands of the Spartans, who released them only on condition that he and all his kin should withdraw from Attica within five days. A perpetual decree of banishment was passed against the family, and a monument recording their offenses was set up in the Acropolis.

=81.= Clisthenes, the head of the Alemæonidæ, now rose into power. Though among the highest nobles, he attached himself to the popular party, and his measures gave still greater power to the people than the laws of Solon had done. Instead of the four tribes, he ordained ten, and subdivided each into demes, or districts, each of which had its own magistrate and popular assembly. The Senate, or Great Council, was increased from 400 to 500 members, fifty from each tribe, and all the free inhabitants of Attica were admitted to the privileges of citizens.

To guard against the assumption of power by one man, as in the case of Pisistratus, Clisthenes introduced the singular custom of _ostracism_, by which any citizen could be banished without accusation, trial, or defense. If the Senate and Assembly decided that this extreme measure was required for the safety of the state, each citizen wrote upon a tile or oyster-shell the name of the person whom he wished to banish. If the name of any one person was found upon six thousand ballots, he was required to withdraw from the city within ten days. The term of his exile was at first ten years, but it was afterward reduced to five.

=82.= Isag´oras, leader of the nobles, disgusted by the rise of his rival, called again upon the Spartans to interfere in Athenian affairs. Cleom´enes, king of Sparta, advanced upon Athens, and demanded the expulsion of Clisthenes and all his family, as accursed for the sacrilege committed, nearly a hundred years before, in the murder of Cylon. Clisthenes retired, and Cleomenes proceeded with his friend Isagoras to expel seven hundred families, dissolve the Senate, and revolutionize the city. But the people rose against this usurpation, besieged Isagoras and his Spartans in the citadel, and only accepted their surrender on condition of their withdrawing from Attica. Clisthenes was recalled and his institutions restored.

[Sidenote: B. C. 507.]

=83.= Cleomenes had been stirring up Greece to aid his vengeance against Athens. He advanced with a considerable army and seized the city of Eleusis, while the Bœotians ravaged the western, and the Chalcidians from Eubœa the eastern borders of Attica. Undismayed by this threefold invasion, the Athenians marched first against Cleomenes; but the irrational conduct of the Spartan had disgusted his allies and defeated his designs before a battle could take place. The Athenians turned upon the Bœotians and defeated them with great slaughter; then pressed on without delay, crossed the channel which divided them from Eubœa, and gained an equally decisive victory over the Chalcidians.

Hippias now covered his old age with infamy, by going over to the king of Persia and exerting all his eloquence in directing the power of the empire against his native city. The Athenians sent to Artaphernes, begging him not to place confidence in one who had been banished only for his crimes. “If you wish for peace, recall Hippias,” was the peremptory reply.

GRECIAN COLONIES.

=84.= The history of the other continental states is more or less involved in that of Sparta and Athens; but before entering upon the Persian wars, we will take a rapid survey of those foreign settlements which afforded an outlet for the enterprise and the crowded population of the Hellenic peninsula. In very early times, colonies were led forth from Greece by leaders who were afterward worshiped as heroes in the states they founded. Fire, the emblem of civilization, was carried from the _prytaneum_ of the mother city, and placed upon the new hearth-stone of the colony. The Agora, the Acropolis, the temples, and the peculiar worship of the older city were imitated in the new. The colonists bore part in the religious festivals of the metropolis by delegates and offerings, and it was considered sacrilege to bear arms against the parent state.

=85.= There was, however, a great difference in the relations of the several colonies with the states from which they sprang. The Æolian, Ionian, and Dorian settlements in Asia, and the Achæan in Italy, were independent states. Commerce, literature, and the arts flourished at an earlier period on the eastern side of the Ægean than in the cities of Greece. Homer, the father of Greek poetry, was an Ionian. Alcæ´us and Sappho, the greatest of Greek poetesses, were natives of Lesbos. Ana´creon was an Ionian of Teos; and four of the Seven Wise Men of Greece lived in the Asiatic colonies.

=86.= _Miletus_ was for two centuries not only the chief of the Asiatic colonies, but the first commercial city in all Hellas. Her sailors penetrated to the most distant corners of the Mediterranean and its inlets, and eighty colonies were founded to protect and enlarge her commerce. _Ephesus_ succeeded Miletus as chief of the Ionian cities. Its commerce was rather by land than sea; and instead of planting distant colonies, it extended its territory on the land at the expense of its Lydian neighbors. _Phocæa_, the most northerly of the Ionic cities, possessed a powerful navy, and its ships were known on the distant coasts of Gaul and Spain. The beautiful city of Massilia (now Marseilles) owed to them its origin.

=87.= The first Greek colony in Italy was at _Cumæ_, near the modern Naples, which sprang from it. It is said to have been founded about 1050 B. C., and continued five centuries the most flourishing city in Campania. _Syb´aris_ and _Croto´na_ were Achæan colonies upon the Gulf of Taren´tum. Several native tribes became their subjects, and their dominions extended from sea to sea across the peninsula of Calabria. The Crotonians were early celebrated for the skill of their physicians, and for the number of their athletes who won prizes at the Olympic Games. The Sybarites were noted for their wealth, luxury, and effeminacy. In public festivals they mustered 5,000 horsemen fully equipped, while Athens could only show 1,200 even for the grand Panathenæa.

The fall of Sybaris, B. C. 510, was occasioned by war with the sister but now rival city Crotona. The popular party had supplanted an oligarchy in Sybaris, and the exiled citizens had taken refuge in Crotona. The Sybarites demanded their rendition. The Crotonians trembled, for they had to choose between two great perils: they must incur either the wrath of the gods by betraying suppliants, or the vengeance of the Sybarites, whose army was supposed to number 300,000 men. Pythagoras urged them to adopt the more generous alternative, and his disciple, Milo, the most celebrated athlete of his time, became their general. In a battle on the Trais the Crotonians were victorious. They became masters of Sybaris, and determined to destroy it so thoroughly that it should never again be inhabited. For this purpose they turned the course of the river Crathis, so that it overflowed the city and buried its ruins in mud and sand. To this day a wall can be seen in the bed of the river when the water is low, the only monument of the ancient grandeur of Sybaris.

=88.= The people of _Locri_ were the first of the Greeks who possessed a body of written laws. The ordinances of Zaleucus, a shepherd whom they made their legislator by the command of the Delphic oracle, were forty years earlier than those of Draco, which they resembled in the severity of their penalties. The Locrians, however, held them in so high esteem, that if any man wished to propose a new law or repeal an old one, he appeared in the public assembly with a rope around his neck, which was immediately tightened if he failed to convince his fellow-citizens of the wisdom of his suggestions.

=89.= _Rhegium_, on the Sicilian Strait, was founded by the Chalcidians of Eubœa, but greatly increased by fugitives from the Spartans during the first and second Messenian wars. The straits and the opposite town in Sicily, formerly called Zan´cle, received a new name from these exiled people. _Taren´tum_ was a Spartan colony founded about 708 B. C. Its harbor was the best and safest in the Tarentine Gulf, and after the fall of Sybaris it became the most flourishing city in Magna Græcia. Though its soil was less fertile than that of other colonies, its pastures afforded the finest wool in all Italy. Tarentine horses were in great favor among the Greeks; and its shores supplied such a profusion of the shell-fish used for coloring, that “Tarentine purple” was second only to the Tyrian. So extensive were the manufactories of this dye, that great mounds may even yet be seen near the ancient harbor, composed wholly of broken shells of the _murex_.

=90.= The prosperity of Magna Græcia declined after the close of the sixth century B. C., when the warlike Samnites and Lucanians began to press southward from their homes in central Italy. The Greek colonies gradually lost their inland possessions, and became limited to mere trading settlements on the coast.

=91.= _Massilia_, in Gaul, has already been mentioned as a colony of the Ionic Phocæans. It exerted a controlling influence upon the Celtic tribes by which it was surrounded, and who derived from it the benefits of Greek letters and civilization. A Massiliot mariner, Pytheas, navigated the Atlantic and explored the western coasts of Europe, as far, at least, as Great Britain. Five colonies on the Spanish coast were founded by Massilia.

=92.= The fertile island of Sicily early attracted the attention of the Greeks. The Carthaginians already occupied the western side of the island, but for two and a half centuries the commercial settlements of either people flourished side by side without collision. Twelve flourishing Greek cities sprang up within 150 years, among which _Syracuse_, on the eastern, and _Agrigentum_, on the southern coast, were the most important. Syracuse, the earliest, except Naxos, of the Sicilian colonies, was founded by Corinthians, B. C. 734. Its position made it the door to the whole island, and in Roman times it was the capital of the province. In its greatest prosperity it contained half a million of inhabitants, and its walls were twenty-two miles in extent. Agrigentum, though of later origin (B. C. 582), grew so fast that it outstripped its older neighbors. The poet Pindar called it the fairest of mortal cities, and its public buildings were among the most magnificent in the ancient world.

=93.= AFRICAN COLONIES. Greek colonization was at first confined to the northern shores of the Mediterranean, Egypt and Carthage dividing between them the southern. But the policy of Psammetichus, and, after him, of Amasis, favored the Greeks, who were thenceforth permitted to settle at Naucratis, and enjoy there a monopoly of the Mediterranean commerce of Egypt. Twenty years after the first establishment at Naucratis, _Cyrene_ was founded by the people of Thera, a Spartan colony on the Ægean. Unlike most Greek colonies, Cyrene was governed by kings during the first two centuries of its existence.

=94.= The peninsula of Chalcid´ice, in Macedonia, was covered with the settlements of colonists from Chalcis and Eretria, from the former of which it derived its name. _Potidæ´a_, on the same coast, was planted by Corinthians. _Byzantium_ was founded by Megarians, on the strait which connects the Propontis with the Euxine. Few cities could boast so splendid a position; but the power of the Megarian colony bore little proportion to what it was afterward to attain as the capital of Constantine and the mistress of the world. The most northerly Grecian settlement was _Istria_, founded by Milesians near the mouth of the Danube.

RECAPITULATION.

Codrus, the last king of Athens, was succeeded during three
centuries by archons for life, chosen from his family. Seven
archons afterward reigned successively ten years each, and the
government was then intrusted to a commission of nine, annually
elected. The people demanding written laws, Draco prepared
a code of inhuman severity. A more moderate constitution was
framed by Solon, one of the Seven Wise Men of Greece; but the
contention of the three rival factions of the _Plain_, the
_Shore_, and the _Mountain_ soon resulted in the subjection
of Athens to the tyranny of Pisistratus. Twice expelled,
Pisistratus twice re-established his power, and by his justice
and liberal encouragement of all the arts, consoled the people
for his unwarranted seizure of the government. His son Hippias
was expelled by the Alemæonidæ, with the aid of the Spartans.
Clisthenes completed the liberal reforms of Solon, and
introduced the singular custom of ostracism. In three attempts
to overthrow the free constitution of Athens, the Spartans and
their allies were signally defeated.

THIRD PERIOD. B. C. 500-338.

=95.= The details of the Ionian Revolt (B. C. 499-494) have been found in the History of Persia.[43] Reserving his vengeance for the European Greeks who had interfered in the quarrel, Darius sought to console the conquered Ionians for the loss of their political independence by greater personal freedom. Just laws, equal taxes, peace and good order began to restore their prosperity; and when Mardonius, the son-in-law of Darius, succeeded Artaphernes in the satrapy, he signalized his reign by removing all tyrants and restoring to the cities a republican form of government. All this was done to secure their friendship or neutrality in his approaching expedition against Greece. That expedition (B. C. 492) failed, as we have seen, in its principal object.

[Sidenote: B. C. 491.]

=96.= The next year messengers were sent by Darius to each of the states of Greece, demanding earth and water, the customary symbols of obedience. None of the island states and few on the continent dared refuse. The people of Athens and Sparta returned an answer which could not be mistaken. The latter threw the envoys into a well, and the former into a pit where the vilest criminals were punished, telling them to get earth and water for themselves.

=97.= The youth and ill success of Mardonius led Darius to recall him, and place the command of his new expedition against the Greeks in the hands of Datis, a Mede, and Artaphernes, his own nephew. In the spring of 490 B. C., the great host was drawn up off the coast of Cilicia—a fleet of 600 triremes, carrying not less than 100,000 men. They sailed westward and ravaged the isle of Naxos, but spared Delos, the reputed birth-place of Apollo and Artemis, because the Median Datis recognized them as identical with his own national divinities, the sun and moon. The fleet then advanced to Eubœa, Eretria being the first object of vengeance. Carystus, refusing to join the armament against her neighbors, was taken and destroyed. Eretria withstood a siege of six days; but the unhappy city was a prey to the same dissensions which constituted the fatal weakness of Greece.[44] Two traitors of the oligarchical party opened the gates to the barbarians. The place was given up to plunder, the temples burnt, and the people enslaved.

=98.= A swift-footed messenger was now dispatched from Athens to Sparta imploring aid. The distance was ninety miles, and he reached his destination the day after his departure. The Spartans did not refuse their assistance, but they declared that religion forbade their marching before the full moon, and it was now only the ninth day. The Persians were already landed on the coast of Attica, and, guided by Hippias, advanced to the plain of Marathon. The Athenian army, posted upon the heights, had to consider whether to await their tardy allies or meet these overwhelming numbers alone. At the last moment there arrived an unexpected reinforcement, which, though small in numbers, raised the spirits of the Athenians by the friendliness it expressed. It was the entire fighting population of the little town of Platæa, a thousand men in all, who came to testify their gratitude for a former service rendered by the Athenians.

=99.= All the other generals, who were to have commanded in turn, gave up their days to Miltiades, whose genius and experience alike won their confidence; but he, fearful of arousing envy, waited until his own turn came, and then gave orders for battle. The sacrifices and prayers were offered, the trumpets sounded, and, chanting a battle-hymn, the eleven thousand Greeks rushed down from the heights where they had been encamped. Instead of the usual slow march of the phalanx, they traversed the mile or more of level ground which separated them from the Persians at a full run, bearing their level spears in a straight, unwavering line.[45]

The front rank of Asiatics fell instantly before this unusual assault; but the resistance was not less determined. Rushing upon the spears of the Greeks, in the attempt to make an opening in the phalanx where their short swords and daggers might serve them, the Persians freely sacrificed their lives. It was the belief of many on the field that the gigantic shade of Theseus, the great Attic hero, might be seen in the ranks. Night approached before the desperate conflict was decided. But the Greeks, though wearied with the long action, never wavered, and at length the shattered remains of the Asiatic host turned and fled.[46]

=100.= The Persians had brought with them a mass of white marble, with which they meant to erect upon the field of Marathon a monument of their victory. It was carved by Phid´ias into a gigantic statue of Nemesis, the impersonation of divine vengeance. From the brazen spoils of the Persians was cast that colossal statue of Athena Promachos, whose glittering spear and helmet, from the summit of the Athenian citadel, could be seen far off at sea beyond the point of Sunium. The armed goddess, “First in the Fight,” seemed to be keeping a perpetual guard over her beloved city.

[Sidenote: B. C. 489.]

=101.= For a time after the victory at Marathon, Miltiades was the best beloved of the Athenians. Even while prince in the Chersonesus, he had won their gratitude by annexing Lemnos and Imbros to their dominions. To this claim on their regard he now added that of having delivered them from their greatest peril, and there was no limit to their confidence. When, therefore, he promised them a still more lucrative though less glorious enterprise than the recent one against the Persians, they were not slow to consent, though the conditions were a fleet of seventy ships and a large supply of men and money for his use, of which he was to render no account until his return. They were granted, and Miltiades set sail for the isle of Paros, which had furnished a trireme to the Persians during the recent invasion. The chief city was besieged and on the point of being taken, when suddenly, for no sufficient cause, Miltiades burnt his fortifications, drew off his fleet, and returned to Athens, having no treasures and only disgrace and loss to report as the result of his expedition.

=102.= The glory of Miltiades was now departed. He was accused by Xanthip´pus, a leader of the aristocracy, of having accepted a bribe from the Persians to withdraw from Paros. Severely wounded, Miltiades was brought into the court upon a couch; and although his brother Tisag´oras undertook his defense, the only plea he cared to make was in the two words, “Lemnos” and “Marathon.” The offense, if proved, was capital; but the people refused to sentence their deliverer to death. They commuted his punishment to a fine of fifty talents; but before it was paid he expired from his wound.

=103.= The greatest citizen of Athens, after the death of Miltiades, was Aristides, called “the Just.” He was of noble birth and belonged to the Alcmæonid party, but he was ardently devoted to the interests of the people. Stern toward crime, whether in friends or foes, he was yet mild toward all persons; and so proverbial were his truth and impartiality, that when he held the office of archon the courts of law were deserted, all suitors preferring to submit their causes to his arbitration.

=104.= His chief rival was Themis´tocles, a young man of great talents, and, perhaps, still greater ambition. At length his opposition rose to the pitch of proposing the ostracism, and Aristides was banished. It is said that, during the voting, the great archon was requested by a man who could not write, to inscribe the name of Aristides on an oyster-shell for him. “Has he ever injured you?” Aristides asked. “No,” said the man, “nor do I even know him by sight; but it vexes me to hear him always called the Just.” Aristides wrote his name on the shell, which was cast into the heap. As he left his native city he said, with his usual generosity, “May the Athenian people never know a day which shall force them to remember Aristides!”

=105.= Themistocles was now without a rival in Athens. His acute mind perceived what his countrymen too willingly ignored, that the Persian invasions were only checked, not ended. Proud of the victory of Marathon, the Athenians believed that the Persians would never again dare to attack them. But Ægina was yet powerful, and a fierce enmity had long existed between the two states. Their merchants regarded each other as rivals in trade, while the free people of Athens hated the oligarchy of Ægina. Themistocles resolved to turn this enmity to account, in arming Athens against the greater though more distant danger. He persuaded the citizens to construct a fleet which should surpass that of Ægina, and to apply to that purpose the revenues from the silver mines of Laurium, near the extremity of the Attic peninsula.

Two hundred triremes were built and equipped, and a decree was passed which required twenty to be added every year. Hitherto Attica had been more an agricultural than a maritime state; but Themistocles clearly saw that, with so small and sterile a territory, her only lasting power must be upon the sea. So strenuous were his exertions, that in the ten years that intervened between the first and the second Persian wars, the Athenians had trained a large number of seamen, organized their naval power, and were ready to be as victorious at Salamis as they had been at Marathon.

=106.= In 481 B. C., a Hellenic Congress was held at Corinth. The command of the Greek forces, both by land and sea, was assigned to Sparta. An appeal for coöperation was sent to the distant colonies in Sicily, as well as to Corcyra and Crete. Emissaries were also sent into Asia to watch the movements of the Persian army. They were seized at Sardis, and would have been put to death, had not Xerxes believed that their reports would do more to terrify and weaken than to assist their countrymen. He caused them to be led through his innumerable hosts, and to mark their splendid equipments, then to be dismissed in safety.

=107.= The most difficult duty of the Congress was to silence the quarrels of the several states. Athens, by the entreaties of Themistocles, consented to peace and friendship with Ægina, and all the delegates formally bound their states to act together as one body. Still many elements of disunion remained. Bœotia, with the honorable exceptions of Thespiæ and Platæa, sent earth and water to the Persian king. Argos was at once weakened and enraged against Sparta by the massacre of 6,000 of her citizens, who had been burned, by order of Cleomenes, in a temple where they had taken refuge. Unwilling to refuse her aid in the common danger, she consented to join the league only upon terms which Sparta refused to accept.

=108.= Even the gods seemed to waver, and the timid answers of the Pythia prevented some states from engaging in the war. The Athenian messengers at Delphi received an oracle that would have appalled less steadfast minds. “Unhappy men!” cried the Pythia, “leave your houses and the ramparts of the city, and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth. Fire and keen Ares, compelling the Syrian chariot, shall destroy; towers shall be overthrown, and temples destroyed by fire. Lo, now, even now, they stand dropping sweat, and their house-tops black with blood, and shaking with prophetic awe. Depart, and prepare for ill!”

=109.= The Athenians put on the mourning garb of suppliants, and entreated Apollo for a more favorable answer, declaring that they would not depart without it, but remain at his altar until they died. The second response was still more obscure, but possibly more hopeful. “Athena is unable to appease the Olympian Zeus. Again, therefore, I speak, and my words are as adamant. All else within the bounds of Cecropia and the bosom of the divine Cithæron shall fall and fail you. The wooden wall alone Zeus grants to Pallas, a refuge to your children and yourselves. Wait not for horse and foot; tarry not the march of the mighty army; retreat even though they close upon you. O divine Salamis! thou shalt lose the sons of women, whether Demeter scatter or hoard her harvest!” Themistocles, who had, perhaps, dictated the response, now furnished an apt solution. The “walls of wood,” he said, meant the fleet, in which the citizens and their children should take refuge. The last sentence threatened woe not to the Athenians, but to their foes, else why was Salamis called “divine”?

[Sidenote: B. C. 480.]

=110.= Arriving with his vast army at the head of the Malian Gulf, Xerxes sent a spy to ascertain the force sent against him. The messenger saw only the Spartan three hundred. They were engaged either in gymnastic exercises or in dressing their long hair as if for a festival. Demaratus, an exiled king of Sparta, was with the Persian army, and he was questioned by the great king as to the meaning of this behavior in the face of overwhelming danger. Demaratus replied, “It is manifestly their intention, sire, to dispute the pass, for it is the custom of the Spartans to adorn themselves on the eve of battle. You are about to attack the flower of Grecian valor.” Xerxes could not yet believe that such a handful of men meant serious resistance. He waited four days to give them time to retreat, but sent a messenger in the interval to Leonidas, demanding his arms. “Come and take them!” replied the Spartan.

=111.= BATTLE OF THERMOPYLÆ. On the fifth day the patience of the great king was exhausted. He sent a detachment of Medes and Cissians into the pass, with orders to bring its defenders alive into his presence. The assailants were repulsed with loss. The Immortal Band were then sent forward, but with no better success. The next day the contest was renewed, with great loss to the Persians and no signs of yielding on the part of the Greeks. But treachery now accomplished what force had failed to do.[47] A council of war was held among the defenders of the pass, and it was resolved to retreat, since defeat was certain. Leonidas did not oppose, but rather favored the decision on the part of the other generals; he only remarked that it was not permitted to Spartans to fly from any foe. He knew, too, that the Delphic oracle had declared that either Sparta must fall or a king of the blood of Hercules be sacrificed. He believed that he should save at least his hereditary kingdom, if not the whole of Greece, by the voluntary devotion of his life.

The Thespians insisted upon sharing the fate of the Spartan three hundred. The four hundred Thebans, whose loyalty had been suspected from the first, were held as hostages. The remainder of the Greeks hastily withdrew before the arrival of the Persians. Thus left alone, the Spartans and Thespians went forth to meet the immense army, which was now in motion to attack them. The Orientals, when their courage failed, were driven into battle by the lash, and thousands were doomed to perish before the desperate valor of the Greeks. At length Hydar´nes, with his Immortal Band, appeared from behind, and the Spartans drew back to the narrowest part of the pass, where they fought to the last breath, and were crushed at last by the numbers, rather than slain by the swords of the Persians.

=112.= The memory of Leonidas was honored by games celebrated around his tomb in Sparta, in which none but his countrymen were allowed to have part. A lion of stone was placed, by order of the Amphictyonic Council, on the spot where he fell; and other monuments at the same place preserved the memory of his brave companions. That of the Three Hundred bore these words: “Go, stranger, and tell the Spartans that we obeyed the laws, and lie here!”

=113.= Learning the fate of Leonidas and his men, the fleet retired southward for the protection of the coast. The Spartans acted with their accustomed selfishness, by leaving Athens and the rest of Greece to their fate, while they employed their land forces in fortifying the isthmus, to bar the entrance of their own peninsula. It was with difficulty that Themistocles even persuaded his maritime allies to remain at anchor off Salamis, long enough to allow some measures to be taken for the safety of the Athenian people.

=114.= ABANDONMENT OF ATHENS. Nor was it easy to persuade the Athenians themselves to leave their beloved city to the revengeful hands of barbarians. But as no other means remained for averting total destruction, Themistocles had recourse, as usual, to a stratagem. The serpent sacred to Athena suddenly disappeared from the Acropolis, the cakes of honey were left untasted, and the priests announced that the goddess herself had abandoned the city, and was ready to conduct her chosen warriors to the sea. The people now consented to depart. Women, children, and old men were hastily removed to places of greater security, while all who could fight betook themselves to the fleet. Only a few Athenians, either too poor to meet the expense of removal, or still convinced that the “wooden walls” of the oracle meant the citadel, remained and perished, after a brave but useless resistance, by the swords of the Persians. Beautiful Athens was reduced to a heap of ashes, in revenge for the destruction of Sardis, twenty years before.

=115.= The commanders of the fleet now resolved to withdraw from Salamis, and station themselves near the isthmus to coöperate with the Peloponnesian land forces. The Athenians strongly opposed this retreat, which would leave the refuges of their wives and children at the mercy of the barbarians. It was midnight, and the council had broken up, when Themistocles again sought the ship of Eurybi´ades, and convincing him at length of the greater wisdom of his own plan, persuaded him to reassemble the council. The leaders were recalled from their ships and a violent discussion ensued. The Corinthian, Adimantus, opposed Themistocles not only with argument, but with insult. Alluding to the recent destruction of Athens, he maintained that one who had no longer a city to represent should have no voice in the deliberation.

Themistocles kept his temper and replied with dignity and firmness. He showed that the naval advantages of the Greeks in the present war had always been in the narrow seas, where the immense numbers of the Persians gave them no superiority, while their better discipline and acquaintance with the currents and soundings were all in favor of the Greeks. He argued that by transferring the war to the Peloponnesus they would only attract thither the armies and ships of the Persians; while, by defeating them before they could arrive at the isthmus, they would preserve southern Greece from invasion. He ended by declaring that, if Salamis were abandoned, the Athenians would abandon Greece, and taking their wives and children on board their fleet, sail to the coasts of Italy, where the oracle had commanded them to found a new city.

=116.= Lest even this argument should not be sufficient, Themistocles had recourse to another of his wiles. He retired a moment from the council and dispatched a trusty messenger to the Persian fleet, assuring its commander that the Greeks, struck with consternation, were preparing to flee, and urging him to seize the opportunity, while they were divided among themselves, to gain a decisive victory. The Persian admiral knew too well the frequent dissensions of the Greeks to doubt the truth of the message. He immediately moved his squadrons to cut them off from the possibility of retreat.

In the meantime Themistocles was again called from the council by the arrival of a messenger. It was his ancient rival, the brave and upright Aristides, still in exile through the influence of Themistocles, but watchful as ever for the interests of his country. He had crossed from Ægina in an open boat to inform the Greeks that they were surrounded by the Persians. “At any time,” said the just Athenian, “it would become us to forget our private dissensions, and at this time especially, in contending only who should most serve his country.” Themistocles led him at once to the council. His intelligence was soon confirmed by a Tenian deserter, and the leaders were now forced to unite in preparation for immediate battle.

[Sidenote: B. C. 480.]

=117.= BATTLE OF SALAMIS. When the sun arose upon the straits of Salamis, the Attic shores were seen lined with the glittering ranks of the Persian army, drawn up by order of Xerxes to intercept fugitives from the Grecian fleet. The king himself, on a throne of precious metals, sat to watch the coming contest. His ships were fully three times the number of the Greeks, and no serious disaster had yet stayed his progress. The Greeks advanced, singing that battle-song which the great poet Æschylus, who himself fought on this memorable day, has preserved for us: “On, sons of the Greeks! Strike for the freedom of your country! strike for the freedom of your children and your wives—for the shrines of your fathers’ gods, and for the sepulchers of your sires! All, all are now staked upon your strife!”

Themistocles held them back until a wind began to blow, which usually arose in the morning, causing a heavy swell in the channel. This seriously incommoded the cumbrous vessels of the Persians, while the light and compact Greek craft easily drove their brazen beaks into the sides of the enemy. The Athenians, on the right, soon broke the Phœnician line which was opposed to them; and the Spartans, on the left, gained victories over the Ionian allies of the Persians. The sea was strewn with dead bodies, entangled in the masts and cordage of the ships. Aristides, who had been waiting with his command on the coast of Salamis, now crossed to the little island of Psyt´tali´a, and put the Persian garrison to the sword. Xerxes, from his throne on Mount Ægaleos, helplessly watched the confusion and slaughter of his men. The contest lasted until evening, when the straits of Salamis were abandoned by the barbarians.

=118.= When morning came, the Greeks were ready to renew the battle. The Persians had still a large fleet and a numerous army; and, in the night, the Phœnician transports had been joined so as to make a bridge between Salamis and the mainland. But this was only a feint to cover the real movement. The fleet was already under orders to sail to the Hellespont, and the army retired in a few days to Bœotia. Leaving 300,000 men with Mardonius to renew the war in the following year, Xerxes hastened into Asia. His army was reduced on the way by famine and pestilence, and it was but a fragment of the great host which had crossed the Hellespont in the spring of 480, that returned in the autumn.

[Sidenote: B. C. 479.]

=119.= As spring opened, Mardonius prepared to renew the war; but first he sought to accomplish by diplomacy what he had hitherto failed to do by force. Deeply impressed with the valor of the Athenians, he was sure that if he could withdraw them from the confederacy, the rest of Greece would be an easy prey. To this end he sent Alexander I., king of Macedon, his ally, but a former friend of the Athenians, to flatter them with promises of favor and solicit their alliance. The Athenians refused him an audience until they had time to summon delegates from Sparta. When the Spartans had arrived, Alexander delivered his message. The great king offered to the Athenians forgiveness of the injuries they had done him, the restoration of their country and its extension over neighboring territories, the free enjoyment of their own laws, and the means of rebuilding all their temples. He urged the Athenians to embrace so favorable an offer, for to them alone of all the Greeks was forgiveness extended.