Chapter XLII (3)

On the same day that Pausanias and the Grecian land army conquered at Platæa, the naval armament under Leotychidês and Xanthippus was engaged in operations hardly less important, at Mykalê on the Asiatic coast. The Grecian commanders of the fleet, which numbered one hundred and ten triremes, having advanced as far as Delos, were afraid to proceed farther eastward, or to undertake any offensive operations against the Persians at Samos, for the rescue of Ionia,—although Ionian envoys, especially from Chios and Samos, had urgently solicited aid both at Sparta and at Delos. Three Samians, one of them named Hegesistratus, came to assure Leotychidês, that their countrymen were ready to revolt from the despot Theomêstor, whom the Persians had installed there, so soon as the Greek fleet should appear off the island. In spite of emphatic appeals to the community of religion and race, Leotychidês was long deaf to the entreaty; but his reluctance gradually gave way before the persevering earnestness of the orator. While yet not thoroughly determined, he happened to ask the Samian speaker what was his name. To which the latter replied, “Hegesistratus, _i. e._ army-leader.” “I accept Hegesistratus as an omen (replied Leotychidês, struck with the significance of this name), pledge thou thy faith to accompany us,—let thy companions prepare the Samians to receive us, and we will go forthwith.” Engagements were at once exchanged, and while the other two envoys were sent forward to prepare matters in the island, Hegesistratus remained to conduct the fleet, which was farther encouraged by favorable sacrifices, and by the assurances of the prophet Dêiphonus, hired from the Corinthian colony of Apollonia.[393]

[393] Herodot. ix, 91, 92, 95; viii, 132, 133. The prophet of
Mardonius at Platæa bore the same name, and was probably the more
highly esteemed for it (Herodot. ix, 37).

Diodorus states the fleet as comprising two hundred and fifty
triremes (xi, 34).

The anecdotes respecting the Apolloniate Euenius, the father
of Deïphonus, will be found curious and interesting (Herodot.
ix, 98, 94). Euenius, as a recompense for having been unjustly
blinded by his countrymen, had received from the gods the grant
of prophecy transmissible to his descendants: a new prophetic
breed was thus created, alongside of the Iamids, Telliads,
Klytiads, etc.

When they reached the Heræum near Kalami in Samos,[394] and had prepared themselves for a naval engagement, they discovered that the enemy’s fleet had already been withdrawn from the island to the neighboring continent. For the Persian commanders had been so disheartened with the defeat of Salamis that they were not disposed to fight again at sea: we do not know the numbers of their fleet, but perhaps a considerable proportion of it may have consisted of Ionic Greeks, whose fidelity was now very doubtful. Having abandoned the idea of a sea-fight, they permitted their Phenician squadron to depart, and sailed with their remaining fleet to the promontory of Mykalê near Miletus.[395] Here they were under the protection of a land-force of sixty thousand men, under the command of Tigranês,—the main reliance of Xerxes for the defence of Ionia: the ships were dragged ashore, and a rampart of stones and stakes was erected to protect them, while the defending army lined the shore, and seemed amply sufficient to repel attack from seaward.[396]

[394] Herodot. ix, 96. ἐπεὶ δὲ ἐγένοντο τῆς Σαμίης πρὸς
Καλάμοισι, οἱ μὲν αὐτοῦ ὁρμισάμενοι ~κατὰ τὸ Ἡραῖον τὸ ταύτῃ~,
παρεσκευάζοντο ἐς ναυμαχίην.

It is by no means certain that the Heræum here indicated is the
celebrated temple which stood near the city of Samos (iii, 80):
the words of Herodotus rather seem to indicate that another
temple of Hêrê, in some other part of the island, is intended.

[395] Herodotus describes the Persian position by topographical
indications known to his readers, but not open to be determined
by us,—Gæson, Skolopœis, the chapel of Dêmêtêr, built by
Philistus, one of the primitive colonists of Miletus, etc. (ix,
96): from the language of Herodotus, we may suppose that Gæson
was the name of a town as well as of a river (Ephonas ap. Athenæ.
vi, p. 311).

The eastern promontory (cape Poseidion) of Samos was separated
only by seven stadia from Mykalê (Strabo, xiv, p. 637), near to
the place where Glaukê was situated (Thucyd. viii. 79),—modern
observers make the distance rather more than a mile (Poppo,
Prolegg. ad Thucyd. vol. ii, p. 465).

[396] Herodot. ix, 96, 97.

It was not long before the Greek fleet arrived. Disappointed of their intention of fighting, by the flight of the enemy from Samos, they had at first proposed either to return home, or to turn aside to the Hellespont: but they were at last persuaded by the Ionian envoys to pursue the enemy’s fleet and again offer battle at Mykalê. On reaching that point, they discovered that the Persians had abandoned the sea, intending to fight only on land. So much had the Greeks now become emboldened, that they ventured to disembark and attack the united land-force and sea-force before them: but since much of their chance of success depended on the desertion of the Ionians, the first proceeding of Leotychidês was, to copy the previous manœuvre of Themistoklês, when retreating from Artemisium, at the watering-places of Eubœa. Sailing along close to the coast, he addressed, through a herald of loud voice, earnest appeals to the Ionians among the enemy to revolt; calculating, even if they did not listen to him, that he should at least render them mistrusted by the Persians. He then disembarked his troops and marshalled them for the purpose of attacking the Persian camp on land; while the Persian generals, surprised by this daring manifestation, and suspecting, either from his manœuvre or from previous evidences, that the Ionians were in secret collusion with him, ordered the Samian contingent to be disarmed, and the Milesians to retire to the rear of the army, for the purpose of occupying the various mountain roads up to the summit of Mykalê,—with which the latter were familiar as a part of their own territory.[397]

[397] Herodot. ix, 98, 99, 104.

Serving as these Greeks in the fleet were, at a distance from their own homes, and having left a powerful army of Persians and Greeks under Mardonius in Bœotia, they were of course full of anxiety lest his arms might prove victorious and extinguish the freedom of their country. It was under these feelings of solicitude for their absent brethren that they disembarked, and were made ready for attack by the afternoon. But it was the afternoon of an ever-memorable day,—the fourth of the month Boëdromion (about September) 479 B. C. By a remarkable coincidence, the victory of Platæa in Bœotia had been gained by Pausanias that very morning. At the moment when the Greeks were advancing to the charge, a divine phêmê, or message, flew into the camp,—whilst a herald’s staff was seen floated to the shore by the western wave, the symbol of electric transmission across the Ægean;—the revelation, sudden, simultaneous, irresistible, struck at once upon the minds of all, as if the multitude had one common soul and sense, acquainting them that on that very morning their countrymen in Bœotia had gained a complete victory over Mardonius. At once the previous anxiety was dissipated, and the whole army, full of joy and confidence, charged with redoubled energy. Such is the account given by Herodotus,[398] and doubtless universally accepted in his time, when the combatants of Mykalê were alive to tell their own story: he moreover mentions another of those coincidences which the Greek mind always seized upon with so much avidity, there was a chapel of Eleusinian Dêmêtêr close to the field of battle at Mykalê as well as at Platæa. Diodorus and other later writers,[399] who wrote when the impressions of the time had vanished, and when divine interventions were less easily and literally admitted, treat the whole proceeding as if it were a report designedly circulated by the generals, for the purpose of encouraging their army.

[398] Herodot. ix, 100, 101. ἰοῦσι δέ σφι (Ἕλλησι) ~φήμη τε
ἐσέπτατο ἐς τὸ στρατόπεδον πᾶν~, καὶ κηρυκήϊον ἐφάνη ἐπὶ τῆς
κυματωγῆς κείμενον. ~ἡ δὲ φήμη διῆλθέ σφι ὧδε~, ὡς οἱ Ἕλληνες
τὴν Μαρδονίου στρατιὴν νικῷεν ἐν Βοιωτίῃ μαχόμενοι. Δῆλα δὴ
πολλοῖσι τεκμηρίοισί ἐστι τὰ θεῖα τῶν πρηγμάτων· εἰ καὶ τότε
τῆς αὐτῆς ἡμέρης συμπιπτούσης τοῦ τε ἐν Πλαταιῇσι καὶ τοῦ ἐν
Μυκάλῃ μέλλοντος ἔσεσθαι τρώματος, φήμη τοῖσι Ἕλλησι τοῖσι ταύτῃ
ἐσαπίκετο, ὥστε θαρσῆσαί τε τὴν στρατιὴν πολλῷ μᾶλλον, καὶ
ἐθέλειν προθυμότερον κινδυνεύειν ... γεγονέναι δὲ νίκην τῶν μετὰ
Παυσανίεω Ἑλλήνων ~ὀρθῶς σφι ἡ φήμη συνέβαινε ἐλθοῦσα~· τὸ μὲν
γὰρ ἐν Πλαταιῇσι πρωῒ ἔτι τῆς ἡμέρης ἐγίνετο· τὸ δὲ ἐν Μυκάλῃ,
περὶ δείλην ... ἦν δὲ ἀῤῥωδίη σφι πρὶν τὴν φήμην ἐσαπικέσθαι,
οὔτι περὶ σφέων αὐτῶν οὕτω, ὡς τῶν Ἑλλήνων, μὴ περὶ Μαρδονίῳ
πταίσῃ ἡ Ἑλλάς, ὡς μέντοι ~ἡ κλῃδὼν αὕτη σφι ἐσέπτατο~, μᾶλλόν
τι καὶ ταχύτερον τὴν πρόσοδον ἐποιεῦντο: compare Plutarch, Paul.
Emilius, c. 24, 25, about the battle of Pydna. The φήμη which
circulated through the assembled army of Mardonius in Bœotia,
respecting his intention to kill the Phocians, turned out
incorrect (Herodot. ix, 17).

Two passages in Æschines (cont. Timarchum. c. 27, p. 57, and
De Fals. Legat. c. 45, p. 290) are peculiarly valuable as
illustrating the ancient idea of Φήμη,—a divine voice, or vocal
goddess, generally considered as informing a crowd of persons
at once, or moving them all by one and the same unanimous
feeling,—the Vox Dei passing into the Vox Populi. There was an
altar to Φήμη at Athens (Pausan. i, 17, 1); compare Hesiod. Opp.
Di. 761, and the Ὄσσα of Homer, which is essentially the same
idea as Φήμη: Iliad, ii, 93. μετὰ δέ σφισιν Ὄσσα δεδῄει Ὀτρύνουσ’
ἰέναι, Διὸς ἄγγελος; also Odyssey, i, 282—opposed to the idea of
a distinct human speaker or informant—ἤν τίς τοι εἴπῃσι βροτῶν,
ἢ Ὄσσαν ἀκούσῃς Ἐκ Διὸς, ἥτε μάλιστα φέρει κλέος ἀνθρώποισι;
and Odyss. xxiv, 412. Ὄσσα δ’ ἄρ’ ἄγγελος ὦκα κατὰ πτόλιν ᾤχετο
πάντη, Μνηστήρων στυγερὸν θάνατον καὶ κῆρ’ ἐνέπουσα. The word
κλῃδὼν is used in the same meaning by Sophokles, Philoktet. 255
(see Andokides de Mysteriis, c. 22, p. 64): and Herodotus in the
passage now before us considers the two as identical,—compare
also Herodot. v, 72: both words are used also to signify an
omen conveyed by some undesigned human word or speech, which in
that particular case is considered as determined by the special
intervention of the gods for the information of some person who
hears it: see Homer, Odyss. xx, 100: compare also Aristophan.
Aves, 719; Sophoklês, Œdip. Tyr. 43-472; Xenophon, Symposion, c.
14, s. 48.

The descriptions of _Fama_ by Virgil, Æneid, iv, 17 6, _seqq._,
and Ovid Metamorph. xii, 40, _seqq._, are more diffuse and
overcharged, departing from the simplicity of the Greek
conception.

We may notice, as partial illustrations of what is here intended,
those sudden, unaccountable impressions of panic terror which
occasionally ran through the ancient armies or assembled
multitudes, and which were supposed to be produced by Pan or by
Nymphs—indeed sudden, violent, and contagious impressions of
every kind, not merely of fear. Livy, x, 28. “Victorem equitatum
velut _lymphaticus_ pavor dissipat.” ix, 27. “Milites, incertum
ob quam causam, _lymphatis_ similes ad arma discurrunt,”—in
Greek, νυμφόληπτοι: compare Polyæn, iv. 3, 26, and an instructive
note of Mutzel, ad Quint. Curt. iv, 46, 1 (iv, 12, 14).

But I cannot better illustrate that idea, which the Greeks
invested with divinity under the name of Φήμη, than by
transcribing a striking passage from M. Michelet’s Histoire de la
Révolution Françoise. The illustration is the more instructive,
because the religious point of view, which in Herodotus is
predominant,—and which, to the believing mind, furnishes an
explanation preëminently satisfactory,—has passed away in the
historian of the nineteenth century, and gives place to a graphic
description of the real phenomenon, of high importance in human
affairs; the common susceptibilities, common inspiration and
common spontaneous impulse, of a multitude, effacing for the time
each man’s separate individuality.

M. Michelet is about to describe that ever-memorable event, the
capture of the Bastile, on the 14th of July, 1789 (ch. vii, vol.
i, p. 105).

“Versailles, avec un gouvernement organisé, un roi, des
ministres, un général, une armée, n’étoit qu’hésitation, doute,
incertitude, dans la plus complète anarchie morale.

“Paris, bouleversé, délaissé de toute autorité légale, dans un
désordre apparent, atteignit, le 14 Juillet, ce qui moralement
est l’ordre le plus profond, l’unanimité des esprits.

“Le 13 Juillet, Paris ne songeait qu’à se defendre. Le 14, il
attaqua.

“Le 13, au soir, il y avoit encore des doutes, il n’y en eut plus
le matin. Le soir étoit plein de troubles, de fureur désordonnée.
Le matin fut lumineux et d’une sérénité terrible.

“_Une idée se leva sur Paris avec le jour, et tous virent la même
lumière. Une lumière dans les esprits, et dans chaque cœur une
voix_: Va, et tu prendras la Bastille!

“Cela étoit impossible, insensé, étrange à dire;... Et tous le
crurent néanmoins. Et cela se fit.

“La Bastille, pour être une vieille forteresse, n’en étoit pas
moins imprenable, à moins d’y mettre plusieurs jours, et beaucoup
d’artillerie. Le peuple n’avoit en cette crise ni le temps ni les
moyens de faire un siége régulier. L’eût il fait, la Bastille
n’avoit pas à craindre, ayant assez de vivres pour attendre
un secours si proche, et d’immenses munitions de guerre. Ses
murs de dix pieds d’épaisseur au sommet des tours, de trente et
quarante à la base, pouvaient rire longtemps des boulets: et ses
batteries, à elle, dont le feu plongeoit sur Paris, auroient pu
en attendant démolir tout le Marais, tout le Faubourg St. Antoine.

“L’attaque de la Bastille ne fut un acte nullement raisonnable.
Ce fut un acte de foi.

“_Personne ne proposa. Mais tous crurent et tous agirent._ Le
long des rues, des quais, des ponts, des boulevards, la foule
criait à la foule—à la Bastille—à la Bastille. Et dans le tocsin
qui sonnoit, tous entendoient: à la Bastille.

“_Personne, je le répète, ne donna l’impulsion._ Les parleurs
du Palais Royal passèrent le temps à dresser une liste de
proscription, à juger à mort la Reine, la Polignac, Artois, le
prévôt Flesselles, d’autres encore. Les noms des vainqueurs de la
Bastille n’offrent pas un seul des faiseurs de motions. Le Palais
Royal ne fut pas le point de départ, et ce n’est pas non plus au
Palais Royal que les vainqueurs raménèrent les depouilles et les
prisonniers.

“Encore moins les électeurs qui siégeaient à l’Hotel de Ville
eurent ils l’idée de l’attaque. Loin de là, pour l’empêcher,
pour prévenir le carnage que la Bastille pouvoit faire si
aisément, ils allèrent jusqu’à promettre au gouverneur, que s’il
retirait ses canons, on ne l’attaqueroit pas. Les électeurs ne
trahissoient pas comme ils en furent accusés; mais ils n’avoient
pas la foi.

“Qui l’eut? Celui qui eut aussi le dévoument, la force, pour
accomplir sa foi. Qui? Le peuple, tout le monde.”

[399] Diodor. xi, 35; Polyæn. i, 33. Justin (ii, 14) is
astonished in relating “tantam famæ velocitatem.”

The Lacedæmonians on the right wing, and the portion of the army near them, had a difficult path before them, over hilly ground and ravine; while the Athenians, Corinthians, Sikyonians, and Trœzenians, and the left half of the army, marching only along the beach, came much sooner into conflict with the enemy. The Persians, as at Platæa, employed their _gerrha_, or wicker bucklers, planted by spikes in the ground, as a breastwork, from behind which they discharged their arrows, and they made a strenuous resistance to prevent this defence from being overthrown. Ultimately, the Greeks succeeded in demolishing it, and in driving the enemy into the interior of the fortification, where they in vain tried to maintain themselves against the ardor of the pursuers, who forced their way into it almost along with the defenders. Even when this last rampart was carried, and when the Persian allies had fled, the native Persians still continued to prolong the struggle with undiminished bravery. Unpractised in line and drill, and acting only in small knots,[400] with disadvantages of armor, such as had been felt severely at Platæa, they still maintained an unequal conflict with the Greek hoplites; nor was it until the Lacedæmonians with their half of the army arrived to join in the attack, that the defence was abandoned as hopeless. The revolt of the Ionians in the camp put the finishing stroke to this ruinous defeat: first, the disarmed Samians; next, other Ionians and Æolians; lastly, the Milesians who had been posted to guard the passes in the rear, not only deserted, but took an active part in the attack; and the Milesians especially, to whom the Persians had trusted for guidance up to the summits of Mykalê, led them by wrong roads, threw them into the hands of their pursuers, and at last set upon them with their own hands. A large number of the native Persians, together with both the generals of the land-force, Tigranês and Mardontês, perished in this disastrous battle: the two Persian admirals, Artayntês and Ithamithrês, escaped, but the army was irretrievably dispersed, while all the ships which had been dragged up on the shore fell into the hands of the assailants, and were burned. But the victory of the Greeks was by no means bloodless: among the left wing, upon which the brunt of the action had fallen, a considerable number of men were slain, especially Sikyonians, with their commander Perilaus.[401] The honors of the battle were awarded, first to the Athenians, next to the Corinthians, Sikyonians, and Trœzenians; the Lacedæmonians having done comparatively little. Hermolykus the Athenian, a celebrated pankratiast, was the warrior most distinguished for individual feats of arms.[402]

[400] Herodot. ix, 102, 103. Οὗτοι δὲ (Πέρσαι), κατ’ ὀλίγους
γινόμενοι, ἐμάχοντο τοῖσι αἰεὶ ἐς τὸ τεῖχος ἐσπίπτουσι Ἑλλήνων.

[401] Herodot. ix, 104, 105. Diodorus (xi, 36) seems to follow
different authorities from Herodotus: his statement varies in
many particulars, but is less probable.

Herodotus does not specify the loss on either side, nor Diodorus
that of the Greeks; but the latter says that forty thousand
Persians and allies were slain.

[402] Herodot. ix, 105.

The dispersed Persian army, so much of it at least as had at first found protection on the heights of Mykalê, was withdrawn from the coast forthwith to Sardis under the command of Artayntês, whom Masistês, the brother of Xerxes, bitterly reproached on the score of cowardice in the recent defeat: the general was at length so maddened by a repetition of these insults, that he drew his cimeter and would have slain Masistês, had he not been prevented by a Greek of Halikarnassus named Xenagoras,[403] who was rewarded by Xerxes with the government of Kilikia. Xerxes was still at Sardis, where he had remained ever since his return, and where he conceived a passion for the wife of his brother Masistês; the consequences of his passion entailed upon that unfortunate woman sufferings too tragical to be described, by the orders of his own queen, the jealous and savage Amêstris.[404] But he had no fresh army ready to send down to the coast, so that the Greek cities, even on the continent, were for the time practically liberated from Persian supremacy, while the insular Greeks were in a position of still greater safety.

[403] Herodot. ix, 107. I do not know whether we may suppose
Herodotus to have heard this from his fellow-citizen Xenagoras.

[404] Herodot. ix, 108-113. He gives the story at considerable
length: it illustrates forcibly and painfully the interior of the
Persian regal palace.

The commanders of the victorious Grecian fleet had full confidence in their power of defending the islands, and willingly admitted the Chians, Samians, Lesbians, and the other islanders hitherto subjects of Persia, to the protection and reciprocal engagements of their alliance. We may presume that the despots Stratis and Theomêstor were expelled from Chios and Samos.[405] But the Peloponnesian commanders hesitated in guaranteeing the same secure autonomy to the continental cities, which could not be upheld against the great inland power without efforts incessant as well as exhausting. Nevertheless, not enduring to abandon these continental Ionians to the mercy of Xerxes, they made the offer to transplant them into European Greece, and to make room for them by expelling the _medizing_ Greeks from their seaport towns. But this proposition was at once repudiated by the Athenians, who would not permit that colonies originally planted by themselves should be abandoned, thus impairing the metropolitan dignity of Athens.[406] The Lacedæmonians readily acquiesced in this objection, and were glad, in all probability, to find honorable grounds for renouncing a scheme of wholesale dispossession eminently difficult to execute,[407]—yet, at the same time, to be absolved from onerous obligations towards the Ionians, and to throw upon Athens either the burden of defending or the shame of abandoning them. The first step was thus taken, which we shall quickly see followed by others, for giving to Athens a separate ascendency and separate duties in regard to the Asiatic Greeks, and for introducing first, the confederacy of Delos,—next, Athenian maritime empire.

[405] Herodot. viii, 132.

[406] Herodot. ix, 106; Diodor. xi, 37. The latter represents the
Ionians and Æolians as having actually consented to remove into
European Greece, and indeed the Athenians themselves as having at
first consented to it, though the latter afterwards repented and
opposed the scheme.

[407] Such wholesale transportations of population from one
continent to another have always been more or less in the habits
of Oriental despots, the Persians in ancient times and the Turks
in more modern times: to a conjunction of free states, like the
Greeks, they must have been impracticable.

See Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, vol. i, book
vi, p. 251, for the forced migrations of people from Asia into
Europe, directed by the Turkish Sultan Bajazet (A. D. 1390-1400).

From the coast of Ionia the Greek fleet sailed northward to the Hellespont, chiefly at the instance of the Athenians, and for the purpose of breaking down the Xerxeian bridge; for so imperfect was their information, that they believed this bridge to be still firm and in passable condition in September, 479 B. C., though it had been broken and useless at the time when Xerxes crossed the strait in his retreat, ten months before, about November, 480 B. C.[408] Having ascertained on their arrival at Abydos the destruction of the bridge, Leotychidês and the Peloponnesians returned home forthwith; but Xanthippus with the Athenian squadron resolved to remain and expel the Persians from the Thracian Chersonese. This peninsula had been in great part an Athenian possession, for the space of more than forty years, from the first settlement of the elder Miltiadês[409] down to the suppression of the Ionic revolt, although during part of that time tributary to Persia: from the flight of the second Miltiadês to the expulsion of Xerxes from Greece (493-480 B. C.), a period during which the Persian monarch was irresistible and full of hatred to Athens, no Athenian citizen would find it safe to live there. But the Athenian squadron from Mykalê were now naturally eager both to reëstablish the ascendency of Athens and to regain the properties of Athenian citizens in the Chersonese,—probably many of the leading men, especially Kimon, son of Miltiadês, had extensive possessions there to recover, as Alkibiades had in after days, with private forts of his own.[410] To this motive for attacking the Chersonese may be added another,—the importance of its corn-produce as well as of a clear passage through the Hellespont for the corn ships out of the Propontis to Athens and Ægina.[411] Such were the reasons which induced Xanthippus and the leading Athenians, even without the coöperation of the Peloponnesians, to undertake the siege of Sestus,—the strongest place in the peninsula, the key of the strait, and the centre in which all the neighboring Persian garrisons, from Kardia and elsewhere, had got together, under Œobazus and Artayktês.[412]

[408] Herodot. viii, 115, 117; ix, 106, 114.

[409] See the preceding volume of this history, ch. xxx, p 119;
ch. xxxiv, p. 271; ch. xxxv, p. 307.

[410] Xenoph. Hellen. i, 5. 17. τὰ ἑαυτοῦ τείχη.

[411] Herodot. vii, 147. Schol. ad Aristophan. Equites, 262.

In illustration of the value set by Athens upon the command of
the Hellespont, see Demosthenês, De Fals. Legat. c. 59.

[412] Herodot. ix, 114, 115. Σηστὸν—φρούριον καὶ φυλακὴν τοῦ
παντὸς Ἑλλησπόντου—Thucyd. viii, 62: compare Xenophon, Hellenic.
ii, 1, 25.

The Grecian inhabitants of the Chersonese readily joined the Athenians in expelling the Persians, who, taken altogether by surprise, had been constrained to throw themselves into Sestus, without stores of provisions or means of making a long defence. But of all the Chersonesites the most forward and exasperated were the inhabitants of Elæus,—the southernmost town of the peninsula, celebrated for its tomb, temple, and sacred grove of the hero Protesilaus, who figured in the Trojan legend as the foremost warrior in the host of Agamemnon to leap ashore, and as the first victim to the spear of Hektor. The temple of Protesilaus, conspicuously placed on the sea-shore,[413] was a scene of worship and pilgrimage not merely for the inhabitants of Elæus, but also for the neighboring Greeks generally, insomuch that it had been enriched with ample votive offerings, and probable deposits for security,—money, gold and silver saucers, brazen implements, robes, and various other presents. The story ran, that when Xerxes was on his march across the Hellespont into Greece, Artayktês, greedy of all this wealth, and aware that the monarch would not knowingly permit the sanctuary to be despoiled, preferred a wily request to him: “Master, here is the house of a Greek, who, in invading thy territory, met his just reward and perished: I pray thee give his house to me, in order that people may learn for the future not to invade _thy_ land,”—the whole soil of Asia being regarded by the Persian monarchs as their rightful possession, and Protesilaus having been in this sense an aggressor against them. Xerxes, interpreting the request literally, and not troubling himself to ask who the invader was, consented: upon which, Artayktês, while the army were engaged in their forward march into Greece, stripped the sacred grove of Protesilaus, carrying all the treasures to Sestus. Nor was he content without still farther outraging Grecian sentiment: he turned cattle into the grove, ploughed and sowed it, and was even said to have profaned the sanctuary by visiting it with his concubines.[414] Such proceedings were more than enough to raise the strongest antipathy against him among the Chersonesite Greeks, who now crowded to reinforce the Athenians and blocked him up in Sestus. After a certain length of siege, the stock of provisions in the town failed, and famine began to make itself felt among the garrison, which nevertheless still held out, by painful shifts and endurance, until a late period in the autumn, when the patience even of the Athenian besiegers was well-nigh exhausted; nor was it without difficulty that the leaders repressed the clamorous desire manifested in their own camp to return to Athens.

[413] Thucyd. viii, 102.

[414] Herodot. ix, 116: compare i, 4. Ἀρταΰκτης, ἀνὴρ Πέρσης,
δεινὸς δὲ καὶ ἀτάσθαλος· ὃς καὶ βασιλέα ἐλαύνοντα ἐπ’ Ἀθήνας
ἐξηπάτησε, τὰ Πρωτεσίλεω τοῦ Ἰφίκλου χρήματα ἐξ Ἐλαιοῦντος
ὑφελόμενος. Compare Herodot. ii, 64.

Impatience having been appeased, and the seamen kept together, the siege was pressed without relaxation, and presently the privations of the garrison became intolerable; so that Artayktês and Œobazus were at last reduced to the necessity of escaping by stealth, letting themselves down with a few followers from the wall at a point where it was imperfectly blockaded. Œobazus found his way into Thrace, where, however, he was taken captive by the Absinthian natives and offered up as a sacrifice to their god Pleistôrus: Artayktês fled northward along the shores of the Hellespont, but was pursued by the Greeks, and made prisoner near Ægos Potamos, after a strenuous resistance. He was brought with his son in chains to Sestus, which immediately after his departure had been cheerfully surrendered by its inhabitants to the Athenians. It was in vain that he offered a sum of one hundred talents as compensation to the treasury of Protesilaus, and a farther sum of two hundred talents to the Athenians as personal ransom for himself and his son. So deep was the wrath inspired by his insults to the sacred ground, that both the Athenian commander Xanthippus and the citizens of Elæus disdained everything less than a severe and even cruel personal atonement for the outraged Protesilaus. Artayktês, after having first seen his son stoned to death before his eyes, was hung up to a lofty board fixed for the purpose, and left to perish, on the spot where the Xerxeian bridge had been fixed.[415] There is something in this proceeding more Oriental than Grecian: it is not in the Grecian character to aggravate death by artificial and lingering preliminaries.

[415] Herodot. ix, 118, 119, 120. Οἱ γὰρ Ἐλαιούσιοι τιμωρέοντες
τῷ Πρωτεσίλεῳ ἐδέοντό μιν καταχρησθῆναι καὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ στρατηγοῦ
ταύτῃ ὁ νόος ἔφερε.

After the capture of Sestus, the Athenian fleet returned home with their plunder, towards the commencement of winter, not omitting to carry with them the vast cables of the Xerxeian bridge, which had been taken in the town, as a trophy to adorn the acropolis of Athens.[416]

[416] Herodot. ix, 121. It must be either to the joint Grecian
armament of this year, or to that of the former year, that
Plutarch must intend his celebrated story respecting the
proposition of Themistoklês, condemned by Aristeidês, to apply
(Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 20; Aristeidês, c. 22). He tells us
that the Greek fleet was all assembled to pass the winter in the
Thessalian harbor of Pagasæ, when Themistoklês formed the project
of burning all the other Grecian ships except the Athenian,
in order that no city except Athens might have a naval force.
Themistoklês, he tells us, intimated to the people, that he had
a proposition, very advantageous to the state, to communicate;
but that it could not be publicly proclaimed and discussed: upon
which they desired him to mention it privately to Aristeidês.
Themistoklês did so: and Aristeidês told the people, that the
project was at once eminently advantageous and not less eminently
unjust. Upon which the people renounced it forthwith, without
asking what it was.

Considering the great celebrity which this story has obtained,
some allusion to it was necessary, though it has long ceased to
be received as matter of history. It is quite inconsistent with
the narrative of Herodotus, as well as with all the conditions
of the time: Pagasæ was _Thessalian_, and as such hostile to the
Greek fleet rather than otherwise: the fleet seems to have never
been there: moreover, we may add, that taking matters as they
then stood, when the fear from Persia was not at all terminated,
the Athenians would have lost more than they gained by burning
the ships of the other Greeks, so that Themistoklês was not very
likely to conceive the scheme, nor Aristeidês to describe it in
the language put into his mouth.

The story is probably the invention of some Greek of the Platonic
age, who wished to contrast justice with expediency, and
Aristeidês with Themistoklês,—as well as to bestow at the same
time panegyric upon Athens in the days of her glory.