Chapter IV: Part 4

At length it came to the memory of one who had come from the court of Oroetes, at Sardis, that report had spoken of a Greek surgeon among the slaves of the slain satrap. He mentioned this, and the king, to whom any hope of relief was welcome, gave orders that this man should be sought and brought before him. It was a miserable object that was soon ushered into the royal presence, a poor creature in rags, with fetters on his hands, and deep lines of suffering upon his face; a picture of misery, in fact.

He was asked if he understood surgery. "No," he replied; saying that he was a slave, not a surgeon. Darius did not believe him; these Greeks were artful; but there were ways of getting at the truth. He ordered that the scourge and the pricking instruments of torture should be brought. Democedes, who was probably playing a shrewd game, now admitted that he did have some little skill, but feared to practise his small art on so great a patient. He was bidden to do what he could, and went to work on the royal foot.

The little skill of the Greek soon distanced the great skill of the Egyptians. He succeeded perfectly in alleviating the pain, and soon had his patient in a deep and refreshing sleep. In a short time the foot was sound again, and Darius could once more stand without a twinge of pain.

The king, who had grown hopeless of a cure, was filled with joy, and set no bounds to his gratitude. Democedes had come before him in iron chains. As a first reward the king presented him with two sets of chains of solid gold. He next sent him to receive the thanks of his wives. Being introduced into the harem, Democedes was presented to the sultanas as the man who had saved the king's life, and whom their lord and master delighted to honor. Each of the fair and grateful women, in reward for his great deed, gave him a saucer-full of golden coins, which were so many, and heaped so high, that the slave who followed him grew rich by merely picking up the pieces that dropped on the floor.

Nor did the generosity of Darius stop here. He gave Democedes a splendid house and furniture, made him eat at his own table, and showed him every favor at his command. As for the unlucky Egyptian surgeons, they would all have been crucified for their lack of skill had not Democedes begged for their lives. He might safely have told Darius that if he began to crucify men for ignorance and assurance he would soon have few subjects left.

But with all the favors which Darius granted, there was one which he steadily refused to grant. And it was one on which Democedes had set his heart. He wanted to return to Greece. Splendor in Persia was very well in its way, but to his patriotic heart a crust in Greece was better than a loaf in this land of strangers. Ask as he might, however, Darius would not consent. A sprain or other harm might come to him again. What would he then do without Democedes? He could not let him go.

As asking had proved useless, the wily Greek next tried artifice. Atossa, the favorite wife of the king, had a tumor to form on her breast. She said nothing of it for a time, but at length it grew so bad that she was forced to speak to the surgeon. He examined the tumor, and told her he could cure it, and would do so if she would solemnly swear to do in return whatever he might ask. As she agreed to this, he cured the tumor, and then told her that the reward he wished was liberty to return to Greece. But he told Atossa that the king would not grant that favor even to her, and that it could only be had by stratagem. He advised her how she should act.

When next in conversation with the king, Atossa told him that the Persians expected him to do something for the glory and power of the empire. He must add to it by conquest.

"So I propose," he replied. "I have in view an expedition against the Scythians of the north."

"Better lead one against the Greeks of the west," she replied. "I have heard much about the beauty of the maidens of Sparta, Athens, Argos, and Corinth, and I want to have some of these fair barbarians to serve me as slaves. And if you wish to know more about these Greek people, you have near you the best person possible to give you information,--the Greek who cured your foot."

The suggestion seemed to Darius one worth considering. He would certainly like to know more about this land of Greece. In the end, after conversing with his surgeon, he decided to send some confidential agents there to gain information, with Democedes as their guide. Fifteen such persons were chosen, with orders to observe closely the coasts and cities of Greece, obeying the suggestions and leadership of Democedes. They were to bring back what information they could,--and on peril of their lives to bring back Democedes. If they returned without him it would be a sorry home-coming for them.

The king then sent for Democedes, told him of the proposed expedition and what part he was to take in it, but imperatively bade him to return as soon as his errand was finished. He was bidden to take with him the wealth he had received, as presents for his father and brothers. He would not suffer from its loss, since as much, and more, would be given him on his return. Lastly, orders were given that a store-ship, "filled with all manner of good things," should be taken with the expedition.

Democedes heard all this with the aspect of one to whom it was new tidings. Come back? Of course he would. He wished ardently to see Greece, but for a steady place of residence he much preferred Susa and the palace of his king. As for the gold which had been given him, he would not take it away. He wanted to find his house and property on his return. The store-ship would answer for all the presents he cared to make.

His shrewd reply left no shadow of doubt in the heart of the king. The envoys proceeded to Sidon, in Phoenicia, where two armed triremes and a large store-ship were got ready by their orders. In these they sailed to the coast of Greece, which they fully surveyed, and even went as far as Italy. The cities were also visited, and the story of all they had seen was carefully written down.

At length they arrived at Tarentum, in Italy, not far from Crotona, the native place of Democedes. Here, at the secret suggestion of the wily surgeon, the king seized the Persians as spies, and, to prevent their escape, took away the rudders of their ships. Their treacherous leader took the opportunity to make his way to Crotona, and here the Persians, who had been released and given back their ships, found him on their arrival. They seized him in the market-place, but he was rescued from them by his fellow-citizens in spite of the remonstrances and threats of the envoys. The Crotonians even took from them the store-ship, and forced them to leave the harbor in their triremes.

On their way home the unlucky envoys suffered a second misfortune; they were shipwrecked and made slaves,--as was the cruel way of dealing with unfortunates in those days. An exile from Tarentum, named Gillis, paid their ransom, and took them to Susa,--for which service Darius offered him any reward he chose to ask. Like Democedes, all he wanted was to go home. But this reward he did not obtain. Darius brought to bear on Tarentum all the influence he could wield, but in vain. The Tarentines were obdurate, and would not have their exile back again. And Gillis was more honorable than Democedes. He did not lay plans to bring a Persian invasion upon Greece through his selfish wish to get back to his native land.

A few words more will tell all else we know about Democedes. His last words to his Persian companions bade them tell Darius that he was about to marry the daughter of Milo of Crotona, famed as the greatest wrestler of his time. Darius knew well the reputation of Milo. He had probably learned it from Democedes himself. And a Persian king was more likely to admire a muscular than a mental giant. Milo meant more to him than Homer or any hero of the pen. Democedes did marry Milo's daughter, paying a high price for the honor, for the sole purpose, so far as we know, of sending back this boastful message to his friend, the king. And thus ends all we know of the story of the surgeon of Crotona.

_DARIUS AND THE SCYTHIANS._

The conquest of Asia Minor by Cyrus and his Persian army was the first step towards that invasion of Greece by the Persians which proved such a vital element in the history of the Hellenic people. The next step was taken in the reign of Darius, the first of Asiatic monarchs to invade Europe. This ambitious warrior attempted to win fame by conquering the country of the Scythian barbarians,--now Southern Russia,--and was taught such a lesson that for centuries thereafter the perilous enterprise was not repeated.

It was about the year 516 B.C. that the Persian king, with the ostensible purpose--invented to excuse his invasion--of punishing the Scythians for a raid into Asia a century before, but really moved only by the thirst for conquest, reached the Bosphorus, the strait that here divides Europe from Asia. He had with him an army said to have numbered seven hundred thousand men, and on the seas was a fleet of six hundred ships. A bridge of boats was thrown across this arm of the sea,--on which Constantinople now stands,--and the great Persian host reached European soil in the country of Thrace.

Happy was it for Greece that the ambitious Persian did not then seek its conquest, as Democedes, his physician, had suggested. The Athenians, then under the rule of the tyrant Pisistratus, were not the free and bold people they afterwards became, and had Darius sought their conquest at that time, the land of Greece would probably have become a part of the overgrown Persian empire. Fortunately, he was bent on conquering the barbarians of the north, and left Greece to grow in valor and patriotism.

While the army marched from Asia into Europe across its bridge of boats, the fleet was sent into the Euxine, or Black Sea, with orders to sail for two days up the Danube River, which empties into that sea, and build there also a bridge of boats. When Darius with his army reached the Danube, he found the bridge ready, and on its swaying length crossed what was then believed to be the greatest river on the earth. Reaching the northern bank, he marched onward into the unknown country of the barbarous Scythians, with visions of conquest and glory in his mind.

What happened to the great Persian army and its ambitious leader in Scythia we do not very well know. Two historians tell us the story, but probably their history is more imagination than fact. Ctesias tells the fairy-tale that Darius marched northward for fifteen days, that he then exchanged bows with the Scythian king, and that, finding the Scythian bow to be the largest, he fled back in terror to the bridge, which he hastily crossed, having left a tenth of his army as a sacrifice to his mad ambition.

The story told by Herodotus is probably as much a product of the imagination as that of Ctesias, though it reads more like actual history. He says that the Scythians retreated northward, sending their wives and children before them in wagons, and destroying the wells and ruining the harvests as they went, so that little was left for the invaders to eat and drink. On what the vast host lived we do not know, nor how they crossed the various rivers in their route. With such trifling considerations as these the historians of that day did not concern themselves. There were skirmishes and combats of horsemen, but the Scythian king took care to avoid any general battle. Darius sent him a herald and taunted him with cowardice, but King Idanthyrsus sent word back that if the Persians should come and destroy the tombs of the forefathers of the Scythians they would learn whether they were cowards or not.

Day by day the monster Persian army advanced, and day by day its difficulties increased, until its situation grew serious indeed. The Scythians declined battle still, but Idanthyrsus sent to his distressed foe the present of a bird, a mouse, a frog, and five arrows. This signified, according to the historian, "Unless you take to the air, like a bird; to the earth, like a mouse; or to the water, like a frog, you will become the victim of the Scythian arrows."

This warning frightened Darius. In truth, he was in a desperate strait. Leaving the sick and weak part of his army encamped with the asses he had brought,--animals unknown to the Scythians, who were alarmed by their braying,--he began a hasty retreat towards his bridge of boats. But rapidly as he could march, the swifter Scythians reached the bridge before him, and counselled with the Ionian Greeks, who had been left in charge, and who were conquered subjects of the Persian king, to break down the bridge and leave Darius and his army to their fate.

And now we get back into real history again. The story of what happened in Scythia is all romance. All we really know is that the expedition failed, and what was left of the army came back to the Danube in hasty retreat. And here comes in an interesting part of the narrative. The fleet of Darius was largely made up of the ships of the Ionians of Asia Minor, who had long been Persian subjects. It was they who had bridged the Danube, and who were left to guard the bridge. After Darius had crossed the bridge, on his march north, he ordered the Ionians to break it down and follow him into Scythia, leaving only the rowers and seamen in the ships. But one of his Greek generals advised him to let the bridge stand under guard of its builders, saying that evil fortune might come to the king's army through the guile and shrewdness of the Scythians.

Darius found this advice good, and promised to reward its giver after his return. He then took a cord and tied sixty knots in it. This he left with the Ionians. "Take this cord," he said. "Untie one of the knots in it each day after my advance from the Danube into Scythia. Remain here and guard the bridge until you shall have untied all the knots; but if by that time I shall not have returned, then depart and sail home."

Such were the methods of counting which then prevailed. And the knowledge of geography was not more advanced. Darius had it in view to march round the Black Sea and return to Persia along its eastern side,--with the wild idea that sixty days would suffice for this great march.

Fortunately for him, as the story goes, the Ionians did not obey orders, but remained on guard after the knots were all untied. Then, to their surprise, Scythians instead of Persians appeared. These told the Ionians that the Persian army was in the greatest distress, was retreating with all speed, and that its escape from utter ruin depended on the safety of the bridge. They urged the Greeks to break the bridge and retire. If they should do so the Persians would all be destroyed, and Ionia would regain its freedom.

This was wise advice. Had it been taken it might have saved Greece from the danger of Persian invasion. The Ionians were at first in favor of it, and Miltiades, one of their leaders, and afterwards one of the heroes of Greek history, warmly advised that it should be done. But Histiaeus, the despot of Miletus, advised the other Ionian princes that they would lose their power if their countries became free, since the Persians alone supported them, while the people everywhere were against them. They determined, therefore, to maintain the bridge.

But, to rid themselves of the Scythians, they pretended to take their advice, and destroyed the bridge for the length of a bow-shot from the northern shore of the stream. The Scythians, thinking that they now had their enemies at their mercy, departed in search of their foes. That night the Persian army, in a state of the greatest distress and privation, reached the Danube, the Scythians having missed them and failed to check their march. To the horror of Darius and his starving and terror-stricken men, the bridge, in the darkness, appeared to be gone. An Egyptian herald, with a voice like a trumpet, was ordered to call for Histiaeus, the Milesian. He did so, an answer came through the darkness, and the hopes of the fleeing king were restored. The bridge was speedily made complete again, and the Persian army hastily crossed, reaching the opposite bank before the Scythians, who had lost their track, reappeared in pursuit.

Thus ended in disaster the first Persian invasion of Europe. It was to be followed by others in later years, equally disastrous to the invaders. As for the despots of Ionia, who had through selfishness lost the chance of freeing their native land, they were to live to see, before many years, Ionia desolated by the Persian tyrant whom they had saved from irretrievable ruin. We shall tell how this came about, as a sequel to the story of the invasion of Scythia.

Histiaeus, despot of Miletus, whose advice had saved the bridge for Darius, was richly rewarded for his service, and attended Darius on his return to Susa, the Persian capital, leaving his son-in-law Aristagoras in command at Miletus. Some ten years afterwards this regent of Miletus made an attempt, with Persian aid, to capture the island of Naxos. The effort failed, and Aristagoras, against whom the Persians were incensed by their defeat and their losses, was threatened with ruin. He began to think of a revolt from Persian rule.

While thus mentally engaged, he received a strangely-sent message from Histiaeus, who was still detained at Susa, and who eagerly desired to get away from dancing attendance at court and return to his kingdom. Histiaeus advised his regent to revolt. But as this message was far too dangerous to be sent by any ordinary channels, he adopted an extraordinary method to insure its secrecy. Selecting one of his most trusty slaves, Histiaeus had his head shaved, and then pricked or tattooed upon the bare scalp the message he wished to send. Keeping the slave in seclusion until his hair had grown again, he sent him to Miletus, where he was instructed simply to tell Aristagoras to shave and examine his head. Aristagoras did so, read the tattooed message, and immediately took steps to obey.

Word of the proposed revolt was sent by him to the other cities along the coast, and all were found ready to join in the attempt to secure freedom. Not only the coast settlements, but the island of Cyprus, joined in the revolt. At the appointed time all the coast region of Asia Minor suddenly burst into a flame of war.

Aristagoras hurried to Greece for aid, seeking it first at Sparta. Finding no help there, he went to Athens, which city lent him twenty ships,--a gift for which it was to pay dearly in later years. Hurrying back with this small reinforcement, he quickly organized an expedition to assail the Persians at the centre of their power.

Marching hastily to Sardis, the capital of Asia Minor, the revolted Ionians took and burned that city. But the Persians, gathering in numbers, defeated and drove them back to the coast, where the Athenians, weary of the enterprise, took to their ships and hastened home.

When word of this raid, and the burning of Sardis by the Athenians and Ionians, came to the ears of Darius at his far-off capital city, he asked in wonder, "The Athenians!--who are they?" The name of this distant and insignificant Greek city had not yet reached his kingly ears.

He was told who the Athenians were, and, calling for his bow, he shot an arrow high into the air, at the same time calling to the Greek deity, "Grant me, Zeus, to revenge myself on those Athenians."

And he bade one of his servants to repeat to him three times daily, when he sat down to his mid-day meal, "Master, remember the Athenians!"

The invaders had been easily repulsed from Sardis, but the revolt continued, and proved a serious and stubborn one, which it took the Persians years to overcome. The smaller cities were conquered one by one, but the Persians were four years in preparing for the siege of Miletus. Resistance here was fierce and bitter, but in the end the city fell. The Persians now took a savage revenge for the burning of Sardis, killing most of the men of this important city, dragging into captivity the women and children, and burning the temples to the ground. The other cities which still held out were quickly taken, and visited like Miletus, with the same fate of fire and bloodshed. It was now 495 B.C., more than twenty years after the invasion of Scythia.

As for Histiaeus, he was at first blamed by Darius for the revolt. But as he earnestly declared his innocence, and asserted that he could soon bring it to an end, Darius permitted him to depart. Reaching Miletus, he applied at the gates for admission, saying that he had come to the city's aid. But Aristagoras was no longer there, and the Milesians had no use for their former tyrant. They refused him admission, and even wounded him when he tried to force his way in at night. He then went to Lesbos, obtained there some ships, occupied the city of Byzantium, and began a life of piracy, which he kept up till his death, pillaging the Ionian merchant ships as they passed into and out of the Euxine Sea. Thus ended the career of this treacherous and worthless despot, to whom Darius owed his escape from Scythia.

_THE ATHENIANS AT MARATHON._

The time came when Darius of Persia did not need the bidding of a slave to make him "Remember the Athenians." He was taught a lesson on the battle-field of Marathon that made it impossible for him ever to forget the Athenian name. Having dismally failed in his expedition against the Scythians, he invaded Greece and failed as dismally. It is the story of this important event which we have next to tell.

And here it may be well to remark what terrible consequences to mankind the ambition of a single man may cause. The invasion of Greece, and all that came from it, can be traced in a direct line of events from the deeds of Histiaeus, tyrant of Miletus, who first saved Darius from annihilation by the Scythians, then roused the Ionians to rebellion, and, finally, through the medium of Aristagoras, induced the Athenians to come to their aid and take part in the burning of Sardis. This roused Darius, who had dwelt at Susa for many years in peace, to a thirst for revenge on Athens, and gave rise to that series of invasions which ravaged Greece for many years, and whose fitting sequel was the invasion and conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great, a century and a half later.

And now, with this preliminary statement, we may proceed with our tale. No sooner had the Ionian revolt been brought to an end, and the Ionians punished for their daring, than the angry Oriental despot prepared to visit upon Athens the vengeance he had vowed. His preparations for this enterprise were great. His experience in Scythia had taught him that the Western barbarians--as he doubtless considered them--were not to be despised. For two years, in every part of his vast empire, the note of war was sounded, and men and munitions of war were actively gathered. On the coast of Asia Minor a great fleet, numbering six hundred armed triremes and many transports for men and horses, was prepared. The Ionian and AEolian Greeks largely manned this fleet, and were forced to aid their late foe in the effort to destroy their kinsmen beyond the archipelago of the AEgean Sea.

An Athenian traitor accompanied the Persians, and guided their leader in the advance against his native city. We have elsewhere spoken of Pisistratus, the tyrant of Athens, whose treason Solon had in vain endeavored to prevent. After his death, his sons Hipparchus and Hippias succeeded him in the tyranny. Hipparchus was killed in 514 B.C., and in 511 Hippias, who had shown himself a cruel despot, was banished from Athens. He repaired to the court of King Darius, where he dwelt many years. Now he came back, as guide and counsellor to the Persians, hoping, perhaps, to become again a despot of Athens; but only, as the fates decreed, to find a grave on the fatal field of Marathon.

The assault on Greece was a twofold one. The first was defeated by nature, the second by man. A land expedition, led by the Persian general Mardonius, crossed the Hellespont in the year 493 B.C., proposing to march to Athens along the coast, and with orders to bring all that were left alive of its inhabitants as captives to the great king. On marched the great host, nothing doubting that Greece would fall an easy prey to their arms. And as they marched along the land, the fleet followed them along the adjoining sea, until the stormy and perilous promontory of Mount Athos was reached.

No doubt the Greeks viewed with deep alarm this formidable progress. They had never yet directly measured arms with the Persians, and dreaded them more than, as was afterwards shown, they had reason to. But at Mount Athos the deities of the winds came to their aid. As the fleet was rounding that promontory, often fatal to mariners, a frightful hurricane swooped upon it, and destroyed three hundred of its ships, while no less than twenty thousand men became victims of the waves. Some of the crews reached the shores, but of these many died of cold, and others were slain and devoured by wild beasts, which roamed in numbers on that uninhabited point of land. The land army, too, lost heavily from the hurricane; and Mardonius, fearing to advance farther after this disaster, ingloriously made his way back to the Hellespont. So ended the first invasion of Greece.

Three years afterwards another was made. Darius, indeed, first sent heralds to Greece, demanding _earth and water_ in token of submission to his will. To this demand some of the cities cowardly yielded; but Athens, Sparta, and others sent back the heralds with no more earth than clung to the soles of their shoes. And so, as Greece was not to be subdued through terror of his name, the great king prepared to make it feel his power and wrath, incited thereto by his hatred of Athens, which Hippias took care to keep alive. Another expedition was prepared, and put under the command of another general, Datis by name.

The army was now sent by a new route. Darius himself had led his army across the Bosphorus, where Constantinople now stands, and where Byzantium then stood. Mardonius conveyed his across the southern strait, the Hellespont. The third expedition was sent on shipboard directly across the sea, landing and capturing the islands of the AEgean as it advanced. Landing at length on the large island of Euboea, near the coast of Attica, Datis stormed and captured the city of Eretria, burnt its temples, and dragged its people into captivity. Then, putting his army on shipboard again, he sailed across the narrow strait between Euboea and Attica, and landed on Attic soil, in the ever-memorable Bay of Marathon.

It seemed now, truly, as if Darius was about to gain his wish and revenge himself on Athens. The plain of Marathon, where the great Persian army had landed and lay encamped, is but twenty-two miles from Athens by the nearest road,--scarcely a day's march. The plain is about six miles long, and from a mile and a half to three miles in width, extending back from the sea-shore to the rugged hills and mountains which rise to bind it in. A brook flows across it to the sea, and marshes occupy its ends. Such was the field on which one of the decisive battles of the world was about to be fought.

The coming of the Persians had naturally filled the Athenians and all the neighboring nations of Greece with alarm. Yet if any Athenian had a thought of submission without fighting, he was wise enough to keep it to himself. The Athenians of that day were a very different people from what they had been fifty years before, when they tamely submitted to the tyranny of Pisistratus. They had gained new laws, and with them a new spirit. They were the freest people upon the earth,--a democracy in which every man was the equal of every other, and in which each had a full voice in the government of the state. They had their political leaders, it is true, but these were their fellow-citizens, who ruled through intellect, not through despotism.

There were now three such men in Athens,--men who have won an enduring fame. One of these was that Miltiades who had counselled the destruction of Darius's bridge of boats. The others were named Themistocles and Aristides, concerning whom we shall have more to say. These three were among the ten generals who commanded the army of Athens, and each of whom, according to the new laws, was to have command for a day. It was fortunate for the Athenians that they had the wit to set aside this law on this important occasion, since such a divided generalship must surely have led to defeat and disaster.

But before telling what action was taken there is an important episode to relate. Athens--as was common with the Greek cities when threatened--did not fail to send to Sparta for aid. When the Persians landed at Marathon, a swift courier, Phidippides by name, was sent to that city for assistance, and so fleet of foot was he that he performed the journey, of one hundred and fifty miles, in forty-eight hours' time.

The Spartans, who knew that the fall of Athens would soon be followed by that of their own city, promised aid without hesitation. But superstition stood in their way. It was, unfortunately, only the ninth day of the moon. Ancient custom forbade them to march until the moon had passed its full. This would be five days yet,--five days which might cause the ruin of Greece. But old laws and observances held dominion at Sparta, and, whatever came from it, the moon must pass its full before the army could march.

When this decision was brought back by the courier to Athens it greatly disturbed the public mind. Of the ten generals, five strongly counselled that they should wait for Spartan help. The other five were in favor of immediate action. Delay was dangerous with an enemy at their door and many timid and doubtless some treacherous citizens within their walls.

Fortunately, there was an eleventh general, Callimachus, the war archon, or polemarch, who had a casting vote in the council of generals, and who, under persuasion of Miltiades, cast his vote for an immediate march to Marathon. The other generals who favored this action gave up to Miltiades their days of command, making him sole leader for that length of time. Herodotus says that he refused to fight till his own day came regularly round,--but we can scarcely believe that a general of his ability would risk defeat on such a childish point of honor. If so, he should have been a Spartan, and waited for the passing of the full moon.

To Marathon, then, the men of Athens marched, and from its surrounding hills looked down on the great Persian army that lay encamped beneath, and on the fleet which seemed to fill the sea. Of those brave men there were no more than ten thousand. And from all Greece but one small band came to join them, a thousand men from the little town of Plataea. The numbers of the foe we do not know. They may have been two hundred thousand in all, though how many of these landed and took part in the battle no one can tell. Doubtless they outnumbered the Athenians more than ten to one.

Far along the plain stretched the lines of the Persians, with their fleet behind them, extended along the beach. On the high ground in the rear were marshalled the Greeks, spread out so long that their line was perilously thin. The space of a mile separated the two armies.

And now, at the command of Miltiades, the valiant Athenians crossed this dividing space at a full run, sounding their paean or war-cry as they advanced. Miltiades was bent on coming to close quarters at once, so as to prevent the enemy from getting their bowmen and cavalry at work.

The Persians, on seeing this seeming handful of men, without archers or horsemen, advancing at a run upon their great array, deemed at first that the Greeks had gone mad and were rushing wildly to destruction. The ringing war-cry astounded them,--a Greek paean was new music to their ears. And when the hoplites of Athens and Plataea broke upon their ranks, thrusting and hewing with spear and sword, and with the strength gained from exercises in the gymnasium, dread of these courageous and furious warriors filled their souls. On both wings the Persian lines broke and fled for their ships. But in the centre, where Datis had placed his best men, and where the Athenian line was thinnest, the Greeks, breathless from their long run, were broken and driven back. Seeing this, Miltiades brought up his victorious wings, attacked the centre with his entire force, and soon had the whole Persian army in full flight for its ships.

The marshes swallowed up many of the fleeing host. Hundreds fell before the arms of the victors. Into the ships poured in terror those who had escaped, followed hotly by the victorious Greeks, who made strenuous efforts to set the ships on fire and destroy the entire host. In this they failed. The Persians, made desperate by their peril, drove them back. The fleet hastily set sail, leaving few prisoners, but abandoning a rich harvest of tents and equipments to the victorious Greeks. Of the Persian host, some sixty-four hundred lay dead on the field, the ships having saved them from further slaughter. The Greek loss in dead was only one hundred and ninety-two.

Yet, despite this signal victory, Greece was still in imminent danger. Athens was undefended. The fleeing fleet might reach and capture it before the army could return. In truth, the ships had sailed in this direction, and from the top of a lofty hill Miltiades saw the polished surface of a shield flash in the sunlight, and quickly guessed what it meant. It was a signal made by some traitor to the Persian fleet. Putting his army at once under march, despite the weariness of the victors, he hastened back over the long twenty-two miles at all possible speed, and the worn-out troops reached Athens barely in time to save it from the approaching fleet.

The triumph of Miltiades was complete. Only for his quickness in guessing the meaning of the flashing shield, and the rapidity of his march, all the results of his great victory would have been lost, and Athens fallen helpless into Persian arms. But Datis, finding the city amply garrisoned, and baffled at every point, turned his ships and sailed in defeat away, leaving the Athenians masters of city and field.

And now the Spartans--to whom the full moon had come too late--appeared, two thousand strong, only in time to congratulate the victors and view the dead Persians on the field. They had marched the whole distance in less than three days. As for the Athenian dead, they were buried with great ceremony on the plain where they fell, and the great mound which covers them is visible there to this day.

_XERXES AND HIS ARMY._

The defeat of the Persian army at Marathon redoubled the wrath of King Darius against the Athenians. He resolved in his autocratic mind to sweep that pestilent city and all whom it contained from the face of the earth. And he perhaps would have done so had he not met a more terrible foe even than Miltiades and his army,--the all-conqueror Death, to whose might the greatest monarchs must succumb. Burning with fury, Darius ordered the levy of a mighty army, and for three years busy preparations for war went on throughout the vast empire of Persia. But, just as the mustering was done and he was about to march, that grisly foe Death struck him down in the midst of his schemes of conquest, and Greece was saved,--the great Darius was no more.

Xerxes, son of Darius, succeeded him on the throne. This new monarch was the handsomest and stateliest man in all his army. But his fair outside covered a weak nature; timid, faint-hearted, vain, conceited, he was not the man to conquer Greece, small as it was and great as was the empire under his control; and the death of Darius was in all probability the salvation of Greece.

Xerxes succeeded not only to the throne of Persia, but also to the vast army which his father had brought together. He succeeded, moreover, to a war, for Egypt was in revolt. But this did not last long; the army was at once set in motion, Egypt was quickly subdued, and the Egyptians found themselves under a worse tyranny than before.

Greece remained to conquer, and for that enterprise the timid Persian king was not eager. Marathon could not be forgotten. Those fierce Athenians who had defeated his father's great host were not to be dealt with so easily as the unwarlike Egyptians. He held back irresolute, now persuaded to war by one councillor, now to peace by another, and finally--so we are told--driven to war by a dream, in which a tall, stately man appeared to him and with angry countenance commanded him not to abandon the enterprise which his father had designed. This dream came to him again the succeeding night, and when Artabanus, his uncle, and the advocate of peace, was made to sit on his throne and sleep in his bed, the same figure appeared to him, and threatened to burn out his eyes if he still opposed the war. Artabanus, stricken with terror, now counselled war, and Xerxes determined on the invasion of Greece.

This story we are told by Herodotus, who told many things which it is not very safe to believe. What we really know is that Xerxes began the most stupendous preparations for war that had ever been known, and added to the army left by his father until he had got together the greatest host the world had yet beheld. For four years those preparations, to which Darius had already given three years of time, were actively continued. Horsemen and foot-soldiers, ships of war, transports, provisions, and supplies of all kinds were collected far and near, the vanity of Xerxes probably inciting him to astonish the world by the greatness of his army.

In the autumn of the year 481 B.C. this vast army, marching from all parts of the mighty empire, reached Lydia and gathered in and around the city of Sardis, the old capital of Croesus. Besides the land army, a fleet of twelve hundred and seven ships of war, and numerous other vessels, were collected, and large magazines of provisions were formed at points along the whole line of march. For years flour and other food, from Asia and Egypt, had been stored in cities on the route, that the fatal enemy starvation might not attack the mighty host.

Two important questions occupied the mind of Xerxes. How was he to get his vast army on European soil, and how escape those dangers from storm which had wrecked his father's fleet? He might cross the sea in ships, as Datis had done,--and be like him defeated. Xerxes thought it safest to keep on solid land, and decided to build a bridge of boats across the Hellespont, that ocean river now known as the Dardanelles, the first of the two straits which connect the Mediterranean with the Black Sea. As for the other trouble, that of storms at sea, he remembered the great gale which had wrecked the fleet of Mardonius off the stormy cape of Mount Athos, and determined to avoid this danger. A narrow neck of land connects Mount Athos with the mainland. Xerxes ordered that a ship-canal should be cut through this isthmus, wide and deep enough to allow two triremes--war-ships with three ranks of oars--to sail abreast.

This work was done by the Phoenicians, the ablest engineers at that time in the world. A canal was made through which his whole fleet could sail, and thus the stormy winds and waves which hovered about Mount Athos be avoided.

This work was successfully done, but not so the bridge of boats. Hardly had the latter been completed, when there came so violent a storm that the cables were snapped like pack-thread and the bridge swept away. With the weakness of a man of small mind, on hearing of this disaster Xerxes burst into a fit of insane rage. He ordered that the heads of the chief engineers should be cut off, but this was far from satisfying his anger. The elements had risen against his might, and the elements themselves must be punished. The Hellespont should be scourged for its temerity, and three hundred lashes were actually given the water, while a set of fetters were cast into its depths. It is further said that the water was branded with hot irons, but it is hard to believe that even Xerxes was such a fool as this would make him.

The rebellious water thus punished, Xerxes regained his wits, and ordered that the bridge should be rebuilt more strongly than before. Huge cables were made, some of flax, some of papyrus fibre, to anchor the ships in the channel and to bind them to the shore. Two bridges were constructed, composed of large ships laid side by side in the water, while over each of them stretched six great cables, to moor them to the land and to support the wooden causeway. In one of these bridges no less than three hundred and sixty ships were employed.

And now, everything being ready, the mighty army began its march. It presented a grand spectacle as it made its way from Sardis to the sea. First of all came the baggage, borne on thousands of camels and other beasts of burden. Then came one-half the infantry. The other half marched in the rear, while between them were Xerxes and his great body-guard, which is thus described by the Greek historian:

First came a thousand Persian cavalry and as many spearmen, each of the latter having a golden pomegranate on the rear end of his spear, which was carried in the air, the point being turned downward. Then came ten sacred horses, splendidly caparisoned, and following them rolled the sacred chariot of Zeus, drawn by eight white horses. This was succeeded by the chariot of Xerxes himself, who was immediately attended by a thousand horse-guards, the choicest troops of the kingdom, of whose spears the ends glittered with golden apples. Then came detachments of one thousand horse, ten thousand foot, and ten thousand horse. These foot-soldiers, called the Immortals, because their number was always maintained, had pomegranates of silver on their spears, with the exception of one thousand, who marched in front and rear and on the sides, and bore pomegranates of gold. After these household troops followed the vast remaining host.

The army of Xerxes was, as we have said, superior in numbers to any the world had ever seen. Forty-six nations had sent their quotas to the host, each with its different costume, arms, mode of march, and system of fighting. Only those from Asia Minor bore such arms as the Greeks were used to fight with. Most of the others were armed with javelins or other light weapons, and bore slight shields or none at all. Some came armed only with daggers and a lasso like that used on the American plains. The Ethiopians from the Upper Nile had their bodies painted half red and half white, wore lion-and panther-skins, and carried javelins and bows. Few of the whole army bore the heavy weapons or displayed the solid fighting phalanx of those whom they had come to meet in war.

As to the number of men thus brought together from half the continent of Asia we cannot be sure. Xerxes, after reaching Europe, took an odd way of counting his army. Ten thousand men were counted and packed close together. Then a line was drawn around them, and a wall built about the space. The whole army was then marched in successive detachments into this walled enclosure. Herodotus tells us that there were one hundred and seventy of these divisions, which would make the whole army one million seven hundred thousand foot. In addition there were eighty thousand horse, many war-chariots, and a fleet of twelve hundred and seven triremes and three thousand smaller vessels. According to Herodotus, the whole host, soldiers and sailors, numbered two million six hundred and forty thousand men, and there were as many or more camp-followers, so that the whole number present, according to this estimate, was over five million men. It is not easy to believe that such a marching host as this could be fed, and it has probably been much exaggerated; yet there is no doubt that the host was vast enough almost to blow away all the armies of Greece with the wind of its coming.

On leaving Sardis a frightful spectacle was provided by Xerxes: the army found itself marching between two halves of a slaughtered man. Pythius, an old Phrygian of great riches, had entertained Xerxes with much hospitality, and offered him all his wealth, amounting to two thousand talents of silver and nearly four million darics of gold. This generous offer Xerxes declined, and gave Pythius enough gold to make up his darics to an even four millions. Then, when the army was about to march, the old man told Xerxes that he had five sons in the army, and begged that one of them, the eldest, might be left with him as a stay to his declining years. Instantly the despot burst into a rage. The request of exemption from military service was in Persia an unpardonable offence. The hospitality of Pythius was forgotten, and Xerxes ordered that his son should be slain, and half the body hung on each side of the army, probably as a salutary warning to all who should have the temerity to question the despot's arbitrary will.

On marched the great army. It crossed the plain of Troy, and here Xerxes offered libations in honor of the heroes of the Trojan war, the story of which was told him. Reaching the Hellespont, he had a marble throne erected, from which to view the passage of his troops. The bridges--which the scourged and branded waters had now spared--were perfumed with frankincense and strewed with myrtle boughs, and, as the march began, Xerxes offered prayers to the sun, and made libations to the sea with a golden censer, which he then flung into the water, together with a golden bowl and a Persian scimitar, perhaps to repay the Hellespont for the stripes he had inflicted upon it.

At the first moment of sunrise the passage began, the troops marching across one bridge, the baggage and attendants crossing the other. All day the march continued, and all night long, the whip being used to accelerate the troops; yet so vast was the host that for seven days and nights, without cessation, the army moved on, and a week was at its end before the last man of the great Persian host set foot on European soil.

Then down through the Grecian peninsula Xerxes marched, doubtless inflated with pride at the greatness of his host and the might of the fleet which sailed down the neighboring seas and through the canal which he had cut to baffle stormy Athos. One regret alone seemed to come into his mind, and that was that in a hundred years not one man of that vast army would be alive. It did not occur to him that in less than one year few of them might be alive, for all thought of any peril to his army and fleet from the insignificant numbers of the Greeks must have been dismissed with scorn from his mind.

Like locusts the army marched southward through Thrace, eating up the cities as it advanced, for each was required to provide a day's meals for the mighty host. For months those cities had been engaged in providing the food which this army consumed in a day. Many of the cities were brought to the verge of ruin, and all of them were glad to see the army march on. At length Xerxes saw before him Mount Olympus, on the northern boundary of the land of Hellas or Greece. This was the end of his own dominions. He was now about to enter the territory of his foes. With what fortune he did so must be left for later tales.

_HOW THE SPARTANS DIED AT THERMOPYLAE._

When Xerxes, as his father had done before him, sent to the Grecian cities to demand earth and water in token of submission, no heralds were sent to Athens or Sparta. These truculent cities had flung the heralds of Darius into deep pits, bidding them to take earth and water from there and carry it to the great king. This act called for revenge, and whatever mercy he might show to the rest of Greece, Athens and Sparta were doomed in his mind to be swept from the face of the earth. How they escaped this dismal fate is what we have next to tell.

As one of the great men of Athens, Miltiades, had saved his native land in the former Persian invasion, so a second patriotic citizen, Themistocles, proved her savior in the dread peril which now threatened her. But the work of Themistocles was not done in a single great battle, as at Marathon, but in years of preparation. And a war between Athens and the neighboring island of AEgina had much to do with this escape from ruin.

To make war upon an island a land army was of no avail. A fleet was necessary. The Athenians were accustomed to a commercial, though not to a warlike, life upon the sea. Many of them were active, daring, and skilful sailors, and when Themistocles urged that they should build a powerful fleet he found approving listeners. Longer of sight than his fellow-citizens, he warned them of the coming peril from Persia. The conflict with the small island of AEgina was a small matter compared with that threatened by the great kingdom of Persia. But to prepare against one was to prepare against both. And Athens was just then rich. It possessed valuable silver-mines at Laurium, in Attica, from which much wealth came to the state. This money Themistocles urged the citizens to use in building ships, and they were wise enough to take his advice, two hundred ships of war being built. These ships, as it happened, were not used for the purpose originally intended, that of the war with AEgina. But they proved of inestimable service to Athens in the Persian war.

The vast preparations of Xerxes were not beheld without deep terror in Greece. Spies were sent into Persia to discover what was being done. They were captured and condemned to death, but Xerxes ordered that they should be shown his total army and fleet, and then sent home to report what they had seen. He hoped thus to double the terror of the Grecian states.