Chapter XXXVI (1)

FROM THE IONIC REVOLT TO THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.

In the preceding chapter, I indicated the point of confluence between the European and Asiatic streams of Grecian history,—the commencement of a decided Persian intention to conquer Attica; manifested first in the form of a threat by Artaphernês the satrap, when he enjoined the Athenians to take back Hippias as the only condition of safety, and afterwards converted into a passion in the bosom of Darius in consequence of the burning of Sardis. From this time forward, therefore, the affairs of Greece and Persia came to be in direct relation one with the other, and capable of being embodied, much more than before, into one continuous narrative.

The reconquest of Ionia being thoroughly completed, Artaphernês proceeded to organize the future government of it, with a degree of prudence and forethought not often visible in Persian proceedings. Convoking deputies from all the different cities, he compelled them to enter into a permanent convention, for the amicable settlement of disputes, so as to prevent all employment of force by any one against the others. Moreover, he caused the territory of each city to be measured by parasangs (each parasang was equal to thirty stadia, or about three miles and a half), and arranged the assessments of tribute according to this measurement, without any material departure, however, from the sums which had been paid before the revolt.[584]

[584] Herodot. vi, 42.

Unfortunately, Herodotus is unusually brief in his allusion to this proceeding, which it would have been highly interesting to be able to comprehend perfectly. We may, however, assume it as certain, that both the population and the territory of many among the Ionic cities, if not of all, were materially altered in consequence of the preceding revolt, and still more in consequence of the cruelties with which the suppression of the revolt had been accompanied. In regard to Milêtus, Herodotus tells us that the Persians retained for themselves the city with its circumjacent plain, but gave the mountain portion of the Milesian territory to the Karians of Pêdasa.[585] Such a proceeding would naturally call for a fresh measurement and assessment of tribute; and there may have been similar transfers of land elsewhere. I have already observed that the statements which we find in Herodotus, of utter depopulation and destruction falling upon the cities, cannot be credited in their full extent; for these cities are all peopled, and all Hellenic, afterwards. But there can be no doubt that they are partially true, and that the miseries of those days, as stated in the work of Hekatæus, as well as by contemporary informants with whom Herodotus had probably conversed, must have been extreme. New inhabitants would probably be admitted in many of them, to supply the loss sustained; and such infusion of fresh blood would strengthen the necessity for the organization introduced by Artaphernês, in order to determine clearly the obligations due from the cities both to the Persian government and towards each other. Herodotus considers that the arrangement was extremely beneficial to the Ionians, and so it must unquestionably have appeared, coming as it did immediately after so much previous suffering. He farther adds, that the tribute then fixed remained unaltered until his own day,—a statement requiring some comment, which I reserve until the time arrives for describing the condition of the Asiatic Greeks after the repulse of Xerxês from Greece proper.

[585] Herodot. vi, 20.

Meanwhile, the intentions of Darius for the conquest of Greece were now effectively manifested: Mardonius, invested with the supreme command, and at the head of a large force, was sent down in the ensuing spring for the purpose. Having reached Kilikia in the course of the march, he himself got on ship-board and went by sea to Ionia, while his army marched across Asia Minor to the Hellespont. His proceeding in Ionia surprises us, and seems to have appeared surprising as well to Herodotus himself as to his readers. Mardonius deposed the despots throughout the various Greek cities,[586] and left the people of each to govern themselves, subject to the Persian dominion and tribute. This was a complete reversal of the former policy of Persia, and must be ascribed to a new conviction, doubtless wise and well founded, which had recently grown up among the Persian leaders, that on the whole their unpopularity was aggravated, more than their strength was increased, by employing these despots as instruments. The phenomena of the late Ionic revolt were well calculated to teach such a lesson; but we shall not often find the Persians profiting by experience, throughout the course of this history.

[586] Herodot. vi, 43. In recounting this deposition of the
despots by Mardonius, Herodotus reasons from it as an analogy
for the purpose of vindicating the correctness of another of
his statements, which, he acquaints us, many persons disputed;
namely, the discussion which he reports to have taken place among
the seven conspirators, after the death of the Magian Smerdis,
whether they should establish a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a
democracy,—ἐνθαῦτα μέγιστον θώϋμα ἐρέω τοῖσι μὴ ἀποδεκομένοισι
τῶν Ἑλλήνων, Περσέων τοῖσι ἕπτα Ὀτάνεα γνώμην ἀποδέξασθαι, ὡς
χρέων εἴη δημοκρατέεσθαι Πέρσας· τοὺς γὰρ τυράννους τῶν Ἰώνων
καταπαύσας πάντας ὁ Μαρδόνιος, δημοκρατίας κατίστα ἐς τὰς πόλιας.
Such passages as this let us into the controversies of the time,
and prove that Herodotus found many objectors to his story about
the discussion on theories of government among the seven Persian
conspirators (iii, 80-82).

Mardonius did not remain long in Ionia, but passed on with his fleet to the Hellespont, where the land-force had already arrived. He transported it across into Europe, and began his march through Thrace; all of which had already been reduced by Megabazus, and does not seem to have participated in the Ionic revolt. The island of Thasus surrendered to the fleet without any resistance, and the land-force was conveyed across the Strymon to the Greek city of Akanthus, on the western coast of the Strymonic gulf. From hence his land-force marched into Macedonia, and subdued a considerable portion of its inhabitants, perhaps some of those not comprised in the dominion of Amyntas, since that prince had before submitted to Megabazus. Meanwhile, he sent his fleet to double the promontory of Mount Athos, and to join the land-force again at the gulf of Therma, with a view of conquering as much of Greece as he could, and even of prosecuting the march as far as Athens and Eretria;[587] so that the expedition afterwards accomplished by Xerxês would have been tried at least by Mardonius, twelve or thirteen years earlier, had not a terrible storm completely disabled the fleet. The sea near Athos was then, and is now, full of peril to navigators. One of the hurricanes, so frequent in its neighborhood, overtook the Persian fleet, destroyed three hundred ships, and drowned or cast ashore not less than twenty thousand men: of those who reached the shore, many died of cold, or were devoured by the wild beasts on that inhospitable tongue of land. This disaster checked altogether the farther progress of Mardonius, who also sustained considerable loss with his land-army, and was himself wounded, in a night attack made upon him by the tribe of Thracians called Brygi. Though strong enough to repel and avenge this attack, and to subdue the Brygi, he was yet in no condition to advance farther. Both the land-force and the fleet were conveyed back to the Hellespont, and from thence across to Asia, with all the shame of failure. Nor was Mardonius again employed by Darius, though we cannot make out that the fault was imputable to him.[588] We shall hear of him again under Xerxês.

[587] Herodot. vi, 43, 44, ἐπορεύοντο δὲ ἐπί τε Ἐρετρίαν καὶ
Ἀθήνας.

[588] Herodot. vi, 44-94. Charon of Lampsakus had noticed the
storm near Mount Athos, and the destruction of the fleet of
Mardonius (Charonis Fragment. 3, ed. Didot; Athenæ. ix, p. 394).

The ill-success of Mardonius seems to have inspired the Thasians, so recently subdued, with the idea of revolting. At least, they provoked the suspicion of Darius by making active preparations for defence, building war-ships, and strengthening their fortifications. The Thasians were at this time in great opulence, chiefly from their gold and silver mines, both in their island and in their mainland territory opposite. Their mines at Skaptê Hylê, in Thrace, yielded to them an annual income of eighty talents; and altogether their surplus revenue—after defraying all the expenses of government, so that the inhabitants were entirely untaxed—was two hundred talents (forty-six thousand pounds, if Attic talents; more, if either Euboic or Æginæan). With these large means, they were enabled soon to make preparations which excited notice among their neighbors, many of whom were doubtless jealous of their prosperity, and perhaps inclined to dispute with them possession of the profitable mines of Skaptê Hylê. As in other cases, so in this: the jealousies among subject neighbors often procured revelations to the superior power: the proceedings of the Thasians were made known, and they were forced to raze their fortifications as well as to surrender all their ships to the Persians at Abdêra.[589]

[589] Herodot. vi, 46-48. See a similar case of disclosure
arising from jealousy between Tenedos and Lesbos (Thucyd. iii, 2).

Though dissatisfied with Mardonius, Darius was only the more eagerly bent on his project of conquering Greece, and Hippias was at his side to keep alive his wrath against the Athenians.[590] Orders were despatched to the maritime cities of his empire to equip both ships of war and horse-transports for a renewed attempt. His intentions were probably known in Greece itself by this time, from the recent march of his army to Macedonia; but he thought it advisable to send heralds round to most of the Grecian cities, in order to require from each the formal token of submission,—earth and water; and thus to ascertain what extent of resistance his intended expedition was likely to experience. The answers received were to a high degree favorable. Many of the continental Greeks sent their submission, as well as all those islanders to whom application was made. Among the former, we are probably to reckon the Thebans and Thessalians, though Herodotus does not particularize them. Among the latter, Naxos, Eubœa, and some of the smaller islands, are not included; but Ægina, at that time the first maritime power of Greece, is expressly included.[591]

[590] Herodot. vi, 94.

[591] Herodot. vi, 48-49; viii, 46.

Nothing marks so clearly the imminent peril in which the liberties of Greece were now placed, and the terror inspired by the Persians after their reconquest of Ionia, as this abasement on the part of the Æginetans, whose commerce with the Asiatic islands and continent doubtless impressed them strongly with the melancholy consequences of unsuccessful resistance to the Great King. But on the present occasion, their conduct was dictated as much by antipathy to Athens as by fear, so that Greece was thus threatened with the intrusion of the Persian arm as ally and arbiter in her internal contests: a contingency which, if it had occurred now in the dispute between Ægina and Athens, would have led to the certain enslavement of Greece,—though when it did occur nearly a century afterwards, towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, and in consequence of the prolonged struggle between Lacedæmon and Athens, Greece had become strong enough in her own force to endure it without the loss of substantial independence. The war between Thebes and Ægina on one side, and Athens on the other,—begun several years before, and growing out of the connection between Athens and Platæa,—had never yet been terminated. The Æginetans had taken part in that war from gratuitous feeling, either of friendship for Thebes, or of enmity to Athens, without any direct ground of quarrel,[592] and they had begun the war even without the formality of notice. Though a period apparently not less than fourteen years (from about 506-492 B. C.) had elapsed since it began, the state of hostility still continued; and we may well conceive that Hippias, the great instigator of Persian attack upon Greece, would not fail to enforce upon all the enemies of Athens the prudence of seconding, or at least of not opposing, the efforts of the Persian to reinstate him in that city. It was partly under this feeling, combined with genuine alarm, that both Thebes and Ægina manifested submissive dispositions towards the heralds of Darius.

[592] Herodot. v, 81-89. See above, chapter xxxi. The legendary
story there given as the provocation of Ægina to the war is
evidently not to be treated as a real and historical cause of
war: a state of quarrel causes all such stories to be raked up,
and some probably to be invented. It is like the old alleged
quarrel between the Athenians and the Pelasgi of Lemnos (vi,
137-140).

Among these heralds, some had gone both to Athens and to Sparta, for the same purpose of demanding earth and water. The reception given to them at both places was angry in the extreme. The Athenians cast the herald into the pit called the barathrum,[593] into which they sometimes precipitated public criminals: the Spartans threw the herald who came to them into a well, desiring the unfortunate messenger to take earth and water from thence to the king. The inviolability of heralds was so ancient and undisputed in Greece, from the Homeric times downward, that nothing short of the fiercest excitement could have instigated any Grecian community to such an outrage. But to the Lacedæmonians, now accustomed to regard themselves as the first of all Grecian states, and to be addressed always in the character of superiors, the demand appeared so gross an insult as to banish from their minds for the time all recollection of established obligations. They came subsequently, however, to repent of the act as highly criminal, and to look upon it as the cause of misfortunes which overtook them thirty or forty years afterwards: how they tried at that time to expiate it, I shall hereafter recount.[594]

[593] It is to this treatment of the herald that the story in
Plutarch’s Life of Themistoklês must allude, if that story
indeed be true; for the Persian king was not likely to send a
second herald, after such treatment of the first. An interpreter
accompanied the herald, speaking Greek as well as his own native
language. Themistoklês proposed and carried a vote that he should
be put to death, for having employed the Greek language as medium
for barbaric dictation (Plutarch, Themist. c. 6). We should be
glad to know from whom Plutarch copied this story.

Pausanias states that it was Miltiadês who proposed the putting
to death of the heralds at Athens (iii, 12, 6); and that the
divine judgment fell upon his family in consequence of it. From
whom Pausanias copied this statement I do not know: certainly not
from Herodotus, who does not mention Miltiadês in the case, and
expressly says that he does not know in what manner the divine
judgment overtook the Athenians for the crime, “except (says he)
that their city and country was afterwards laid waste by Xerxês;
but I do not think that this happened on account of the outrage
on the heralds.” (Herodot. vii, 133.)

The belief that there must have been a divine judgment of
some sort or other, presented a strong stimulus to invent or
twist some historical fact to correspond with it. Herodotus
has sufficient regard for truth to resist this stimulus and to
confess his ignorance; a circumstance which goes, along with
others, to strengthen our confidence in his general authority.
His silence weakens the credibility, but does not refute the
allegation of Pausanias with regard to Miltiadês,—which is
certainly not intrinsically improbable.

[594] Herodot. vii, 133.

But if, on the one hand, the wounded dignity of the Spartans hurried them into the commission of this wrong, it was on the other hand of signal use to the general liberties of Greece, by rousing them out of their apathy as to the coming invader, and placing them with regard to him in the same state of inexpiable hostility as Athens and Eretria. We see at once the bonds drawn closer between Athens and Sparta. The Athenians, for the first time, prefer a complaint at Sparta against the Æginetans for having given earth and water to Darius,—accusing them of having done this with views of enmity to Athens, and in order to invade Attica conjointly with the Persian. This they represented “as treason to Hellas,” calling upon Sparta as head of Greece to interfere. And in consequence of their appeal, Kleomenês king of Sparta went over to Ægina, to take measures against the authors of the late proceeding, “for the general benefit of Hellas.”[595]

[595] Herodot. vi, 49. Ποιήσασι δέ σφι (Αἰγιμήταις) ταῦτα, ἰθέως
Ἀθηναῖοι ἐπεκέατο, δοκέοντες ἐπὶ σφίσι ἔχοντας τοὺς Αἰγινήτας
δεδωκέναι (γῆν καὶ ὕδωρ), ὡς ἅμα τῷ Πέρσῃ ἐπὶ σφέας στρατεύωνται.
Καὶ ἄσμενοι προφάσιος ἐπελάβοντο· ~φοιτέοντές τε ἐς τὴν Σπάρτην,
κατηγόρεον τῶν Αἰγινητέων τὰ πεποιήκοιεν, προδόντες τὴν Ἑλλάδα~.
Compare viii, 144, ix, 7. ~τὴν Ἑλλάδα δεινὸν ποιούμενοι
προδοῦναι~—a new and very important phrase.

vi, 61. Τότε δὲ τὸν Κλεομένεα, ἐόντα ἐν τῇ Αἰγίνῃ, ~καὶ κοινὰ τῇ
Ἑλλάδι ἀγαθὰ προεργαζόμενον~, etc.

The proceeding now before us is of very great importance in the progress of Grecian history. It is the first direct and positive historical manifestation of Hellas as an aggregate body, with Sparta as its chief, and obligations of a certain sort on the part of its members, the neglect or violation of which constitutes a species of treason. I have already pointed out several earlier incidents, showing how the Greek political mind, beginning from entire severance of states, became gradually prepared for this idea of a permanent league with mutual obligations and power of enforcement vested in a permanent chief,—an idea never fully carried into practice, but now distinctly manifest and partially operative. First, the great acquired power and territory of Sparta, her military training, her undisturbed political traditions, create an unconscious deference towards her, such as was not felt towards any other state: next, she is seen in the proceedings against Athens, after the expulsion of Hippias, as summoning and conducting to war a cluster of self-obliged Peloponnesian allies, with certain formalities which gave to the alliance an imposing permanence and solemnity: thirdly, her position becomes recognized as first power or president of Greece, both by foreigners who invite alliance (Crœsus), or by Greeks who seek help, such as the Platæans against Thebes, or the Ionians against Persia. But Sparta has not been hitherto found willing to take on herself the performance of this duty of protector-general. She refused the Ionians and the Samian Mæandrius, as well as the Platæans, in spite of their entreaties founded on common Hellenic lineage: the expedition which she undertook against Polykratês of Samos, was founded upon private motives of displeasure, even in the estimation of the Lacedæmonians themselves: moreover, even if all these requests had been granted, she might have seemed to be rather obeying a generous sympathy than performing a duty incumbent upon her as superior. But in the case now before us, of Athens against Ægina, the latter consideration stands distinctly prominent. Athens is not a member of the cluster of Spartan allies, nor does she claim the compassion of Sparta, as defenceless against an overpowering Grecian neighbor. She complains of a Pan-Hellenic obligation as having been contravened by the Æginetans to her detriment and danger, and calls upon Sparta to enforce upon the delinquents respect to these obligations. For the first time in Grecian history, such a call is made; for the first time in Grecian history, it is effectively answered. We may reasonably doubt, whether it would have been thus answered,—considering the tardy, unimpressible, and home-keeping character of the Spartans, with their general insensibility to distant dangers,[596]—if the adventure of the Persian herald had not occurred to gall their pride beyond endurance; to drive them into unpardonable hostility with the Great King; and to cast them into the same boat with Athens for keeping off an enemy who threatened the common liberties of Hellas.

[596] Thucyd. i, 70-118. ἄοκνοι πρὸς ὑμᾶς (_i. e._ the Spartans)
μελλητὰς καὶ ἀποδημηταὶ πρὸς ἐνδημοτάτους.

From this time, then, we may consider that there exists a recognized political union of Greece against the Persians,[597]—or at least something as near to a political union as Grecian temper will permit,—with Sparta as its head for the present. To such a preëminence of Sparta, Grecian history had been gradually tending; but the final event which placed it beyond dispute, and which humbled for the time her ancient and only rival—Argos—is now to be noticed.

[597] Herodot. vii, 145-148. Οἱ συνωμόται Ἑλλήνων ἐπὶ τῷ Πέρσῃ.

It was about three or four years before the arrival of these Persian heralds in Greece, and nearly at the time when Milêtus was besieged by the Persian generals, that a war broke out between Sparta and Argos,[598]—on what grounds Herodotus does not inform us. Kleomenês, encouraged by a promise of the oracle that he should take Argos, led the Lacedæmonian troops to the banks of the Erasinus, the border river of the Argeian territory. But the sacrifices, without which no river could be crossed, were so unfavorable, that he altered his course, extorted some vessels from Ægina and Sikyon,[599] and carried his troops by sea to Nauplia, the seaport belonging to Argos, and to the territory of Tiryns. The Argeians having marched their forces down to resist him, the two armies joined battle at Sêpeia, near Tiryns: Kleomenês, by a piece of simplicity on the part of his enemies, which we find it difficult to credit in Herodotus, was enabled to attack them unprepared, and obtained a decisive victory. For the Argeians, it is stated, were so afraid of being overreached by stratagem, in the post which their army occupied over against the enemy, that they listened for the commands proclaimed aloud by the Lacedæmonian herald, and performed with their own army the same order which they thus heard given. This came to the knowledge of Kleomenês, who communicated private notice to his soldiers, that when the herald proclaimed orders to go to dinner, they should not obey, but immediately stand to their arms. We are to presume that the Argeian camp was sufficiently near to that of the Lacedæmonians to enable them to hear the voice of the herald, yet not within sight, from the nature of the ground. Accordingly, so soon as the Argeians heard the herald in the enemy’s camp proclaim the word to go to dinner,[600] they went to dinner themselves; and in this disorderly condition they were easily overthrown by the Spartans. Many of them perished in the field, while the fugitives took refuge in a thick grove consecrated to their eponymous hero Argus. Kleomenês pursued and inclosed them therein; but thinking it safer to employ deceit rather than force, he ascertained from deserters the names of the chief Argeians thus shut up, and then invited them out successively by means of a herald,—pretending that he had received their ransom, and that they were released. As fast as each man came out, he was put to death; the fate of these unhappy sufferers being concealed from their comrades within the grove by the thickness of the foliage, until some one climbing to the top of a tree detected and proclaimed the destruction going on,—after about fifty of the victims had perished. Unable to entice any more of the Argeians from their consecrated refuge, which they still vainly hoped would protect them, Kleomenês set fire to the grove, and burnt it to the ground, insomuch that the persons within it appear to have been destroyed, either by fire or by sword.[601] After the conflagration had begun, he inquired for the first time to whom the grove belonged, and learnt that it belonged to the hero Argus.

[598] That which marks the siege of Milêtus, and the defeat of
the Argeians by Kleomenês, as contemporaneous, or nearly so, is,
the common oracular dictum delivered in reference to both: in the
same prophecy of the Pythia, one half alludes to the sufferings
of Milêtus, the other half to those of Argos (Herodot. vi, 19-77).

Χρεωμένοισι γὰρ Ἀργείοισι ἐν Δελφοῖσι περὶ σωτηρίης τῆς πόλιος
τῆς σφετέρης, τὸ μὲν ἐς αὐτοὺς τοὺς Ἀργείους φέρον, τὴν δὲ
παρενθήκην ἔχρησε ἐς Μιλησίους.

I consider this evidence of date to be better than the statement
of Pausanias. That author places the enterprise against Argos
immediately (αὔτικα—Paus. iii, 4, 1) after the accession of
Kleomenês, who, as he was king when Mæandrius came from Samos
(Herodot. iii, 148), must have come to the throne not later than
518 or 517 B. C. This would be thirty-seven years prior to 480 B.
C.; a date much too early for the war between Kleomenês and the
Argeians, as we may see by Herodotus (vii, 149).

[599] Herodot. vi, 92.

[600] Herodot. vi, 78; compare Xenophon, Rep. Laced. xii, 6.
Orders for evolutions in the field, in the Lacedæmonian military
service, were not proclaimed by the herald, but transmitted
through the various gradations of officers (Thucyd. v, 66).

[601] Herodot. vi, 79, 80.

Not less than six thousand citizens, the flower and strength of Argos, perished in this disastrous battle and retreat. And so completely was the city prostrated, that Kleomenês might easily have taken it, had he chosen to march thither forthwith and attack it with vigor. If we are to believe later historians whom Pausanias, Polyænus, and Plutarch have copied, he did march thither and attack it, but was repulsed by the valor of the Argeian women; who, in the dearth of warriors occasioned by the recent defeat, took arms along with the slaves, headed by the poetess Telesilla, and gallantly defended the walls.[602] This is probably a mythe, generated by a desire to embody in detail the dictum of the oracle a little before, about “the female conquering the male.”[603] Without meaning to deny that the Argeian women might have been capable of achieving so patriotic a deed, if Kleomenês had actually marched to the attack of their city, we are compelled, by the distinct statement of Herodotus, to affirm that he never did attack it. Immediately after the burning of the sacred grove of Argos, he dismissed the bulk of his army to Sparta, retaining only one thousand choice troops,—with whom he marched up to the Hêræum, or great temple of Hêrê, between Argos and Mykênæ, to offer sacrifice. The priest in attendance forbade him to enter, saying that no stranger was allowed to offer sacrifice in the temple. But Kleomenês had once already forced his way into the sanctuary of Athênê, on the Athenian acropolis, in spite of the priestess and her interdict,—and he now acted still more brutally towards the Argeian priest, for he directed his helots to drag him from the altar and scourge him. Having offered sacrifice, Kleomenês returned with his remaining force to Sparta.[604]

[602] Pausan. ii, 20, 7; Polyæn. viii, 33; Plutarch, De Virtut.
Mulier, p. 245; Suidas, v. Τελέσιλλα.

Plutarch cites the historian Sokratês of Argos for this story
about Telesilla; an historian, or perhaps composer of a
περιήγησις Ἄργους, of unknown date: compare Diogen. Laërt. ii,
5, 47, and Plutarch, Quæstion. Romaic. pp. 270-277. According to
his representation, Kleomenês and Demaratus jointly assaulted
the town of Argos, and Demaratus, after having penetrated into
the town and become master of the Pamphyliakon, was driven out
again by the women. Now Herodotus informs us that Kleomenês and
Demaratus were never employed upon the same expedition, after the
disagreement in their march to Attica (v, 75; vi, 64).

[603] Herodot. vi, 77.

Ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν ἡ θηλεῖα τὸν ἄρσενα νικήσασα
Ἐξελάσῃ, καὶ κῦδος ἐν Ἀργείοισιν ἄρηται, etc.

If this prophecy can be said to have any distinct meaning, it
probably refers to Hêrê, as protectress of Argos, repulsing the
Spartans.

Pausanias (ii, 20, 7) might well doubt whether Herodotus
understood this oracle in the same sense as he did: it is plain
that Herodotus could not have so understood it.

[604] Herodot. vi, 80, 81: compare v, 72.

But the army whom he had sent home returned with a full persuasion that Argos might easily have been taken,—that the king alone was to blame for having missed the opportunity. As soon as he himself returned, his enemies—perhaps his colleague Demaratus—brought him to trial before the ephors, on a charge of having been bribed, against which he defended himself as follows: He had invaded the hostile territory on the faith of an assurance from the oracle that he should take Argos; but so soon as he had burnt down the sacred grove of the hero Argus,—without knowing to whom it belonged,—he became at once sensible that this was all that the god meant by _taking Argos_, and therefore that the divine promise had been fully realized. Accordingly, he did not think himself at liberty to commence any fresh attack, until he had ascertained whether the gods would approve it and would grant him success. It was with this view that he sacrificed in the Hêræum. But though his sacrifice was favorable, he observed that the flame kindled on the altar flashed back from the bosom of the statue of Hêrê, and not from her head. If the flame had flashed from her head, he would have known at once that the gods intended him to take the city by storm;[605] but the flash from her bosom plainly indicated that the topmost success was out of his reach, and that he had already reaped all the glories which they intended for him. We may see that Herodotus, though he refrains from criticizing this story, suspects it to be a fabrication. Not so the Spartan ephors: to them it appeared not less true as a story than triumphant as a defence, insuring to Kleomenês an honorable acquittal.[606]

[605] Herodot. vi, 82. εἰ μὲν γὰρ ~ἐκ τῆς κεφαλῆς~ τοῦ ἀγάλματος
ἐξέλαμψε, αἱρέειν ἂν ~κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς~ τὴν πόλιν· ἐκ τῶν στηθέων δὲ
λάμψαντος, πᾶν οἱ πεποιῆσθαι ὅσον ὁ θεὸς ἤθελε.

For the expression αἱρέειν κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς, compare Herodot. vi, 21,
and Damm. Lex. Homer. v. ἀκρός. In this expression, as generally
used, the last words κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς have lost their primitive and
special sense, and do little more than intensify the simple
αἱρέειν,—equivalent to something like “de fond en comble:” for
Kleomenês is accused by his enemies,—φάμενοί μιν δωροδοκήσαντα,
οὐκ ἑλέειν τὸ Ἄργος, παρέον εὐπετέως μιν ἑλεῖν. But in the story
recounted by Kleomenês, the words κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς come back to their
primitive meaning, and serve as the foundation for his religious
inference, from type to thing typified: if the light had shone
from the head or _top_ of the statue, this would have intimated
that the gods meant him to take the city “_from top to bottom_.”

In regard to this very illustrative story,—which there seems no
reason for mistrusting,—the contrast between the point of view
of Herodotus and that of the Spartan ephors deserves notice. The
former, while he affirms distinctly that it was the real story
told by Kleomenês, suspects its truth, and utters as much of
skepticism as his pious fear will permit him; the latter find
it in complete harmony, both with their canon of belief and
with their religious feeling,—Κλεομένης δέ σφι ἔλεξε, οὔτε εἰ
ψευδόμενος οὔτε εἰ ἀληθέα λέγων, ἔχω σαφηνέως εἶπαι· ἔλεξε δ᾽
ὦν.... Ταῦτα δὲ λέγων, πιστά τε καὶ οἴκοτα ἐδόκεε Σπαρτιήτῃσι
λέγειν, καὶ ἀπέφυγε πολλὸν τοὺς διώκοντας.

[606] Compare Pausanias, ii, 20, 8.

Though this Spartan king lost the opportunity of taking Argos, his victories already gained had inflicted upon her a blow such as she did not recover for a generation, and put her for a time out of all condition to dispute the primacy of Greece with Lacedæmon. I have already mentioned that both in legend and in earliest history, Argos stands forth as the first power in Greece, with legendary claims to headship, and decidedly above Lacedæmon; who gradually usurps from her, first the reality of superior power, next the recognition of preëminence,—and is now, at the period which we have reached, taking upon herself both the rights and the duties of a presiding state over a body of allies who are bound both to her and to each other. Her title to this honor, however, was never admitted at Argos, and it is very probable that the war just described grew in some way or other out of the increasing presidential power which circumstances were tending to throw into her hands. And the complete temporary prostration of Argos was an essential condition to the quiet acquisition of this power by Sparta. Occurring as it did two or three years before the above-recounted adventure of the heralds, it removed the only rival at that time both willing and able to compete with Sparta,—a rival who might well have prevented any effective union under another chief, though she could no longer have secured any Pan-Hellenic ascendency for herself,—a rival who would have seconded Ægina in her submission to the Persians, and would thus have lamed incurably the defensive force of Greece. The ships which Kleomenês had obtained from the Æginetans as well as from the Sikyonians, against their own will, for landing his troops at Nauplia, brought upon both these cities the enmity of Argos, which the Sikyonians compromised by paying a sum of money, while the Æginetans refused to do so.[607] And thus the circumstances of the Kleomenic war had the effect not only of enfeebling Argos, but of alienating her from natural allies and supporters, and clearing the ground for undisputed Spartan primacy.

[607] Herodot. vi, 92.

Returning now to the complaint preferred by Athens to the Spartans against the traitorous submission of Ægina to Darius, we find that king Kleomenês passed immediately over to that island for the purpose of inquiry and punishment. He was proceeding to seize and carry away as prisoners several of the leading Æginetans, when Krius and some others among them opposed to him a menacing resistance, telling him that he came without any regular warrant from Sparta and under the influence of Athenian bribes,—that, in order to carry authority, both the Spartan kings ought to come together. It was not of their own accord that the Æginetans ventured to adopt so dangerous a course. Demaratus, the colleague of Kleomenês in the junior or Prokleid line of kings, had suggested to them the step and promised to carry them through it safely.[608] Dissension between the two coördinate kings was no new phenomenon at Sparta; but in the case of Demaratus and Kleomenês, it had broken out some years previously on the occasion of the march against Attica; and Demaratus, hating his colleague more than ever, entered into the present intrigue with the Æginetans with the deliberate purpose of frustrating his intervention. He succeeded, and Kleomenês was compelled to return to Sparta; not without unequivocal menace against Krius and the other Æginetans who had repelled him,[609] and not without a thorough determination to depose Demaratus.

[608] Herodot. vi, 50. Κρῖος—ἔλεγε δὲ ταῦτα ἐξ ἐπιστολῆς τῆς
Δημαρήτου. Compare Pausan. iii, 4, 3.

[609] Herodot. vi, 50-61, 64. Δημάρητος—φθόνῳ καὶ ἄγῃ χρεώμενος.

It appears that suspicions had always attached to the legitimacy of Demaratus’s birth. His reputed father Aristo had had no offspring by two successive wives: at last, he became enamored of the wife of his friend Agêtus,—a woman of surpassing beauty,—and entrapped him into an agreement, whereby each solemnly bound himself to surrender anything belonging to him which the other might ask for. That which Agêtus asked from Aristo was at once given: in return, the latter demanded to have the wife of Agêtus, who was thunderstruck at the request, and indignantly complained of having been cheated into a sacrifice of all others the most painful: nevertheless, the oath was peremptory, and he was forced to comply. The birth of Demaratus took place so soon after this change of husbands, that when it was first made known to Aristo, as he sat upon a bench along with the ephors, he counted on his fingers the number of months since his marriage, and exclaimed with an oath, “The child cannot be mine.” He soon, however, retracted his opinion, and acknowledged the child, who grew up without any question being publicly raised as to his birth, and succeeded his father on the throne. But the original words of Aristo had never been forgotten, and private suspicions were still cherished that Demaratus was really the son of his mother’s first husband.[610]

[610] Herodot. vi, 61, 62, 63.

Of these suspicions, Kleomenês now resolved to avail himself, exciting Leotychidês, the next heir in the Prokleid line of kings, to impugn publicly the legitimacy of Demaratus; engaging to second him with all his influence as next in order for the crown, and exacting in return a promise that he would support the intervention against Ægina. Leotychidês was animated not merely by ambition, but also by private enmity against Demaratus, who had disappointed him of his intended bride: he warmly entered into the scheme, arraigned Demaratus as no true Herakleid, and produced evidence to prove the original doubts expressed by Aristo. A serious dispute was thus raised at Sparta, and Kleomenês, espousing the pretensions of Leotychidês, recommended that the question as to the legitimacy of Demaratus should be decided by reference to the Delphian oracle. Through the influence of Kobôn, a powerful native of Delphi, he procured from the Pythian priestess an answer pronouncing that Demaratus was not the son of Aristo.[611] Leotychidês thus became king of the Prokleid line, while Demaratus descended into a private station, and was elected at the ensuing solemnity of the Gymnopædia to an official function. The new king, unable to repress a burst of triumphant spite, sent an attendant to ask him, in the public theatre, how he felt as an officer after having once been a king. Stung with this insult, Demaratus replied that he himself had tried them both, and that Leotychidês might in time come to try them both also: the question, he added, shall bear its fruit,—great evil, or great good, to Sparta. So saying, he covered his face and retired home from the theatre,—offered a solemn farewell sacrifice at the altar of Zeus Herkeios, and solemnly adjured his mother to declare to him who his real father was,—then at once quitted Sparta for Elis, under pretence of going to consult the Delphian oracle.[612]

[611] Herodot. vi, 65, 66. In an analogous case afterwards,
where the succession was disputed between Agesilaus the brother,
and Leotychidês the reputed son of the deceased king Agis, the
Lacedæmonians appear to have taken upon themselves to pronounce
Leotychidês illegitimate; or rather to assume tacitly such
illegitimacy by choosing Agesilaus in preference, without the
aid of the oracle (Xenophon, Hellen. iii, 3, 1-4; Plutarch,
Agesilaus, c. 3). The previous oracle from Delphi, however,
φυλάξασθαι τὴν χωλὴν βασιλείαν, was cited on the occasion, and
the question was, in what manner it should be interpreted.

[612] Herodot. vi, 68, 69. The answer made by the mother to this
appeal—informing Demaratus that he is the son either of king
Aristo, or of the hero Astrabakus—is extremely interesting as an
evidence of Grecian manners and feeling.

Demaratus was well known to be a high-spirited and ambitious man,—noted, among other things, as the only Lacedæmonian king down to the time of Herodotus who had ever gained a chariot victory at Olympia; and Kleomenês and Leotychidês became alarmed at the mischief which he might do them in exile. By the law of Sparta, no Herakleid was allowed to establish his residence out of the country, on pain of death: this marks the sentiment of the Lacedæmonians, and Demaratus was not the less likely to give trouble because they had pronounced him illegitimate.[613] Accordingly they sent in pursuit of him, and seized him in the island of Zakynthus. But the Zakynthians would not consent to surrender him, so that he passed unobstructed into Asia, where he presented himself to Darius, and was received with abundant favors and presents.[614] We shall hereafter find him the companion of Xerxês, giving to that monarch advice such as, if it had been acted upon, would have proved the ruin of Grecian independence; to which, however, he would have been even more dangerous, if he had remained at home as king of Sparta.

[613] Plutarch, Agis, c. 11. κατὰ δή τινα νόμον παλαιὸν, ὃς
οὐκ ἐᾷ τὸν Ἡρακλείδην ἐκ γυναικὸς ἀλλοδαπῆς τεκνοῦσθαι, τὸν δ᾽
ἀπελθόντα τῆς Σπάρτης ἐπὶ μετοικισμῷ πρὸς ἑτέρους ἀποθνήσκειν
κελεύει.

[614] Herodot. vi, 70.

Meanwhile Kleomenês, having obtained a consentient colleague in Leotychidês, went with him over to Ægina, eager to revenge himself for the affront which had been put upon him. To the requisition and presence of the two kings jointly, the Æginetans did not dare to oppose any resistance. Kleomenês made choice of ten citizens, eminent for wealth, station, and influence, among whom were Krius and another person named Kasambus, the two most powerful men in the island. Conveying them away to Athens, he deposited them as hostages in the hands of the Athenians.[615]

[615] Herodot. vi, 78.

It was in this state that the affairs of Athens and of Greece generally were found by the Persian armament which landed at Marathon, the progress of which we are now about to follow. And the events just recounted were of material importance, considered in their indirect bearing upon the success of that armament. Sparta had now, on the invitation of Athens, assumed to herself for the first time a formal Pan-Hellenic primacy, her ancient rival Argos being too much broken to contest it,—her two kings, at this juncture unanimous, employ their presiding interference in coercing Ægina, and placing Æginetan hostages in the hands of Athens. The Æginetans would not have been unwilling to purchase victory over a neighbor and rival at the cost of submission to Persia, and it was the Spartan interference only which restrained them from assailing Athens conjointly with the Persian invaders; thus leaving the hands of the latter free, and her courage undiminished, for the coming trial.

Meanwhile, a vast Persian force, brought together in consequence of the preparation made during the last two years in every part of the empire, had assembled in the Aleïan plain of Kilikia, near the sea. A fleet of six hundred armed triremes, together with many transports, both of men and horses, was brought hither for their embarkation: the troops were put on board, and sailed along the coast to Samos in Ionia. The Ionic and Æolic Greeks constituted an important part of this armament, and the Athenian exile Hippias was on board as guide and auxiliary in the attack of Attica. The generals were Datis, a Median,[616]—and Artaphernês, son of the satrap of Sardis, so named, and nephew of Darius. We may remark that Datis is the first person of Median lineage who is mentioned as appointed to high command after the accession of Darius, which had been preceded and marked, as I have noticed in a former chapter, by an outbreak of hostile nationality between the Medes and Persians. Their instructions were, generally, to reduce to subjection and tribute all such Greeks as had not already given earth and water. But Darius directed them most particularly to conquer Eretria and Athens, and to bring the inhabitants as slaves into his presence.[617] These orders were literally meant, and probably neither the generals nor the soldiers of this vast armament doubted that they would be literally executed; and that before the end of the year, the wives, or rather the widows, of men like Themistoklês and Aristeidês would be seen among a mournful train of Athenian prisoners, on the road from Sardis to Susa, thus accomplishing the wish expressed by queen Atossa at the instance of Dêmokêdês.

[616] Herodot. vi, 94. Δᾶτίν τε, ἐόντα Μῆδον γένος, etc.

Cornelius Nepos (Life of Pausanias, c. 1) calls Mardonius a Mede;
which cannot be true, since he was the son of Gobryas, one of the
seven Persian conspirators (Herodot. vi, 43).

[617] Herodot. vi, 94. ἐντειλάμενος δὲ ἀπέπεμπε,
ἐξανδραποδίσαντας Ἐρετρίαν καὶ Ἀθήνας, ἄγειν ἑωϋτῷ ἐς ὄψιν τὰ
ἀνδράποδα.

According to the Menexenus of Plato (c. 17, p. 245), Darius
ordered Datis to fulfil this order on peril of his own head; no
such harshness appears in Herodotus.

The recent terrific storm near Mount Athos deterred the Persians from following the example of Mardonius, and taking their course by the Hellespont and Thrace. It was resolved to strike straight across the Ægean[618] (the mode of attack which intelligent Greeks like Themistoklês most feared, even after the repulse of Xerxês), from Samos to Eubœa, attacking the intermediate islands in the way. Among those islands was Naxos, which ten years before had stood a long siege, and gallantly repelled the Persian Megabatês with the Milesian Aristagoras. It was one of the main objects of Datis to efface this stain on the Persian arms, and to take a signal revenge on the Naxians.[619] Crossing from Samos to Naxos, he landed his army on the island, which was found an easier prize than he had expected. The terrified citizens, abandoning their town, fled with their families to the highest summits of their mountains; while the Persians, seizing as slaves a few who had been dilatory in flight, burnt the undefended town with its edifices sacred and profane.

[618] Thucyd. i, 93.

[619] Herodot. vi, 95, 96. ἐπὶ ταύτην (Naxos) γὰρ δὴ πρώτην
ἐπεῖχον στρατεύεσθαι οἱ Πέρσαι, μεμνημένοι τῶν πρότερον.

Immense, indeed, was the difference in Grecian sentiment towards the Persians, created by the terror-striking reconquest of Ionia, and by the exhibition of a large Phenician fleet in the Ægean. The strength of Naxos was the same now as it had been before the Ionic revolt, and the successful resistance then made might have been supposed likely to nerve the courage of its inhabitants. Yet such is the fear now inspired by a Persian armament, that the eight thousand Naxian hoplites abandon their town and their gods without striking a blow,[620] and think of nothing but personal safety for themselves and their families. A sad augury for Athens and Eretria!

[620] The historians of Naxos affirmed that Datis had been
repulsed from the island. We find this statement in Plutarch, De
Malign. Herodot. c. 36, p. 869, among his violent and unfounded
contradictions of Herodotus.

From Naxos, Datis despatched his fleet round the other Cyclades islands, requiring from each, hostages for fidelity and a contingent to increase his army. With the sacred island of Delos, however, he dealt tenderly and respectfully. The Delians had fled before his approach to Tênos, but Datis sent a herald to invite them back again, promised to preserve their persons and property inviolate, and proclaimed that he had received express orders from the Great King to reverence the island in which Apollo and Artemis were born. His acts corresponded with this language; for the fleet was not allowed to touch the island, and he himself, landing with only a few attendants, offered a magnificent sacrifice at the altar. A large portion of his armament consisted of Ionic Greeks, and this pronounced respect to the island of Delos may probably be ascribed to the desire of satisfying their religious feelings; for in their days of early freedom, this island had been the scene of their solemn periodical festivals, as I have already more than once remarked.

Pursuing his course without resistance along the islands, and demanding reinforcements as well as hostages from each, Datis at length touched the southernmost portion of Eubœa,—the town of Karystus and its territory.[621] The Karystians, though at first refusing either to give hostages or to furnish any reinforcements against their friends and neighbors, were speedily compelled to submission by the aggressive devastation of the invaders. This was the first taste of resistance which Datis had yet experienced; and the facility with which it was overcome gave him a promising omen as to his success against Eretria, whither he soon arrived.

[621] Herodot. vi, 99.

The destination of the armament was no secret to the inhabitants of this fated city, among whom consternation, aggravated by intestine differences, was the reigning sentiment. They made application to Athens for aid, which was readily and conveniently afforded to them by means of those four thousand kleruchs, or out-citizens, whom the Athenians had planted sixteen years before in the neighboring territory of Chalkis. Notwithstanding this reinforcement, however, many of them despaired of defending the city, and thought only of seeking shelter on the unassailable summits of the island, as the more numerous and powerful Naxians had already done before them; while another party, treacherously seeking their own profit out of the public calamity, lay in wait for an opportunity of betraying the city to the Persians.[622] Though a public resolution was taken to defend the city, yet so manifest was the absence of that stoutness of heart which could alone avail to save it, that a leading Eretrian named Æschinês was not ashamed to forewarn the four thousand Athenian allies of the coming treason, and urge them to save themselves before it was too late. They followed his advice and passed over to Attica by way of Orôpus; while the Persians disembarked their troops, and even their horses, in expectation that the Eretrians would come out and fight, at Tamynæ and other places in the territory. As the Eretrians did not come out, they proceeded to lay siege to the city, and for some days met with a brave resistance, so that the loss on both sides was considerable. At length two of the leading citizens, Euphorbus and Philagrus, with others, betrayed Eretria to the besiegers; its temples were burnt, and its inhabitants dragged into slavery.[623] It is impossible to credit the exaggerated statement of Plato, which is applied by him to the Persians at Eretria, as it had been before applied by Herodotus to the Persians at Chios and Samos,—that they swept the territory clean of inhabitants by joining hands and forming a line across its whole breadth.[624] Evidently, this is an idea illustrating the possible effects of numbers and ruinous conquest, which has been woven into the tissue of historical statements, like so many other illustrative ideas in the writings of Greek authors. That a large proportion of the inhabitants were carried away as prisoners, there can be no doubt. But the traitors who betrayed the town were spared and rewarded by the Persians,[625] and we see plainly that either some of the inhabitants must have been left or new settlers introduced, when we find the Eretrians reckoned ten years afterwards among the opponents of Xerxês.

[622] Herodot. vi, 100. Τῶν δὲ Ἐρετριέων ἦν ἄρα οὐδὲν ὑγιὲς
βούλευμα, οἳ μετεπέμποντο μὲν Ἀθηναίους, ἐφρόνεον δὲ διφασίας
ἰδέας· οἳ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν ἐβουλεύοντο ἐκλιπεῖν τὴν πόλιν ἐς τὰ ἄκρα
τῆς Εὐβοίης, ἄλλοι δὲ αὐτῶν ἴδια κέρδεα προσδεκόμενοι παρὰ τοῦ
Πέρσεω οἴσεσθαι προδοσίην ἐσκευάζοντο.

Allusion to this treason among the Eretrians is to be found in a
saying of Themistoklês (Plutarch, Themist. c. 11).

The story told by Hêrakleidês Ponticus (ap. Athenæ. xii, p. 536),
of an earlier Persian armament which had assailed Eretria and
failed, cannot be at all understood; it rather looks like a mythe
to explain the origin of the great wealth possessed by the family
of Kallias at Athens,—the Λακκόπλουτος. There is another story,
having the same explanatory object, in Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 5.

[623] Herodot. vi, 101, 102.

[624] Plato, Legg. iii, p. 698, and Menexen. c. 10, p. 240;
Diogen. Laërt. iii, 33; Herodot. vi, 31: compare Strabo, x, p.
446, who ascribes to Herodotus the statement of Plato about the
σαγήνευσις of Eretria. Plato says nothing about the betrayal of
the city.

It is to be remarked that, in the passage of the Treatise de
Legibus, Plato mentions this story (about the Persians having
swept the territory of Eretria clean of its inhabitants)
with some doubt as to its truth, and as if it were a rumor
intentionally circulated by Datis with a view to frighten the
Athenians. But in the Menexenus, the story is given as if it were
an authentic historical fact.

[625] Plutarch, De Garrulitate, c. 15, p. 510. The descendants of
Gongylus the Eretrian, who passed over to the Persians on this
occasion, are found nearly a century afterwards in possession of
a town and district in Mysia, which the Persian king had bestowed
upon their ancestor. Herodotus does not mention Gongylus (Xenoph.
Hellen. iii, 1, 6).

This surrender to the Persians drew upon the Eretrians bitter
remarks at the time of the battle of Salamis (Plutarch,
Themistoklês, c. 11).