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sagacity to perceive that a large and efficient fleet would be the best protection against the barbarians. Influenced by these two motives, and also impressed with the conviction that the very position of Athens fitted it to be a maritime and not a land power, he urged the Athenians at once to build and equip a numerous and powerful fleet. The Athenians were both able and willing to follow his advice. There was at this time a large surplus in the public treasury, arising from the produce of the valuable silver mines at Laurium. These mines, which belonged to the state, were situated in the southern part of Attica, near Cape Sunium, in the midst of a mountainous district. It had been recently proposed to distribute this surplus among the Athenian citizens; but Themistocles persuaded them to sacrifice their private advantage to the public good, and to appropriate this money to building a fleet of 200 ships. The immediate want of a fleet to cope with the Æginetans probably weighed with the Athenian people more powerfully than the prospective danger from the Persians. And thus," as Herodotus says, "the Eginetan war saved Greece by compelling the Athenians to make themselves a maritime power." Not only were these two hundred ships built, but Themistocles also succeeded about the same time in persuading the Athenians to pass a decree that twenty new ships should be built every year.

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§ 15. Of the internal history of Athens during the ten years between the battles of Marathon and Salamis we have little information. We only know that the two leading citizens of this period were Themistocles and Aristides. These two eminent men formed a striking contrast to each other. Themistocles possessed abilities of the most extraordinary kind. In intuitive sagacity, in ready invention, and in prompt and daring execution, he surpasses almost every statesman whether of ancient or of modern times. With unerring foresight he divined the plans of his enemies; in the midst of difficulties and perplexities, not only was he never at a loss for an expedient, but he always adopted the right one; and he carried out his schemes with an energy and a promptness which astonished both friends and foes. But these transcendant abilities were marred by a want of honesty. In the exercise of power he was accessible to bribes, and he did not hesitate to employ dishonest means for the aggrandizement both of Athens and of himself. He closed a glorious career in disgrace and infamy, an exile and a traitor. Aristides was inferior to Themistocles in ability, but was incomparably superior, not only to him but to all his contemporaries, in honesty and integrity. In the administration of public affairs he acted with a single eye to the public good, regardless

of party ties and of personal friendships. His uprightness and justice were so universally acknowledged, that he received the surname of the Just. But these very virtues procured him enemies. Not only did he incur the hatred of those whose currupt practices he denounced and exposed, but many of his fellow-citizens became jealous of a man whose superiority was constantly proclaimed. We are told that an unlettered countryman gave his vote against Aristides at the ostracism, simply on the ground that he was tired of hearing him always called the Just.

Between men of such opposite characters as Themistocles and Aristides, there could not be much agreement. In the management of public affairs they frequently came into collision; and they opposed each other with such violence and animosity, that Aristides is reported to have said, "If the Athenians were wise, they would cast both of us into the barathrum." After three or four years of bitter rivalry, the two chiefs appealed to the ostracism, and Aristides was banished.

Aristides had used all his efforts to prevent the Athenians from abandoning their ancient habits, and from converting their state from a land into a maritime power. There can be no doubt that he viewed such a change as a dangerous innovation, and thought that the sailor would not make so good an Athenian citizen as the heavy-armed soldier. It was fortunate, however, for the liberties of Greece, that the arguments of his rival prevailed. Aristides was a far more virtuous citizen than Themistocles; but their country could now dispense with the former much better than with the latter.

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§ 1. Death of Darius and accession of Xerxes. § 2. Preparations for the invasion of Greece. § 3. A bridge thrown across the Hellespont, and a canal cut through the Isthmus of Mount Athos. § 4. Xerxes sets out from Sardis. Order of the march. § 5. Passage of the Hellespont. § 6. Numbering of the army on the plain of Doriscus. § 7. Continuation of the march from Doriscus to Mount Olympus. § 8. Preparations of the Greeks to resist Xerxes. Congress of the Grecian states at the Isthmus of Corinth. § 9. Patriotism of the Athenians. Resolution of the Greeks to defend the pass of Tempe, which is afterwards abandoned. § 10. Description of the pass of Thermopylæ. § 11. Leonidas sent with 300 Spartans and a small body of Peloponnesians to defend the pass of Thermopyle. 12. Attack and repulse of the Persians at Thermopyla. 13. A Persian detachment cross the mountains by a secret path in order to fall upon the Greeks in the rear. § 14. Heroic death of Leoni. das and his comrades. § 15. Monuments erected to their honour. § 16. Proceedings of the Persian and Grecian fleets. § 17. The Persian fleet overtaken by a terrible storm. § 18. First battle of Artemisium. § 19. Second storm. § 20. Second battle of Artemisium. Retreat of the Grecian fleet to Salamis.

§ 1. The defeat of the Persians at Marathon served only to increase the resentment of Darius. He now resolved to collect the whole forces of his empire, and to lead them in person

against Athens. For three years, busy preparations were made throughout his vast dominions. In the fourth year his attention was distracted by a revolt of the Egyptians, who had always borne the Persian yoke with impatience; and before he could reduce them to subjection he was surprized by death, after a reign of thirty-seven years (B.c. 485).

The death of Darius was a fortunate event for Greece. It deprived the Persians of an able ruler, who possessed an extensive knowledge of men and of affairs, and it gave the Athenians time to form the navy, which proved the salvation of Greece. Xerxes, the son and successor of Darius, was a man of little ability and less experience. Being the favourite son of Atossa, the daughter of the great Cyrus, he had received the education of an eastern despot, and been surrounded with slaves from his cradle. In person he was the tallest and handsomest man amidst the vast hosts which he led against Greece; but there was nothing in his mind to correspond to this fair exterior. His character was marked by faint-hearted timidity and childish vanity. Such was the monarch upon whom now devolved the execution of the schemes of Darius.

Xerxes had not inherited his father's animosity against Greece, and at first appeared ready to abandon the enterprize. But he was surrounded by men who urged him to prosecute his father's plans. Foremost among these was Mardonius, who was eager to retrieve his reputation, and to obtain the conquered country as a satrapy for himself. The powerful family of the Thessalian Aleuadæ and the exiled Pisistratids from Athens warmly seconded the views of Mardonius, exaggerating the fertility and beauty of Greece, and promising the monarch an easy and a glorious victory. They also inflamed his ambition with the prospect of emulating the military glory of his father Darius, and of his grandfather Cyrus, and of extending his dominions to the farthest limits of the world. The only one of his counsellors, who urged him to adopt a contrary course, was his uncle Artabanus; but his advice was rejected, and Xerxes finally determined upon the invasion of Greece.

§ 2. The subjugation of the Egyptians, however, claimed his immediate attention. This was effected without much difficulty in the second year of his reign (B.C. 484); and he was now at liberty to march against Greece. Darius had nearly completed his preparations for the invasion of Greece at the time of his death; and the forces which he had collected were considered by this prudent monarch sufficient for the purpose. The new king was anxious to make a still more imposing display of his power. He was not satisfied with collecting a military power sufficient for

the conquest of Europe; he also resolved to gratify his vanity and love of ostentation, by gathering together the most numerous armament which the world had ever seen. Accordingly, for four years more the din of preparation sounded throughout Asia. Troops were collected from every quarter of the Persian empire, and were ordered to assemble at Critalla, in Cappadocia. As many as forty-six different nations composed the land-force, of various complexions, languages, dresses, and arms. Among them might be seen many strange and barbarous tribes,—nomad hordes of Asiatics, armed with a dagger and a lasso, with which they entangled their enemy,-Libyans, whose only arms were wooden staves, with the end hardened in the fire,—and Ethiopians, from the Upper Nile, with their bodies painted half white and half red, clothed with the skins of lions and panthers, and armed with arrows tipped with a point of sharp stone instead of iron. The fleet was furnished by the Phoenicians and Ionians, and other maritime nations subject to the Persian monarch. Immense stores of provisions were at the same time collected from every part of the empire, and deposited at suitable stations along the line of march as far as the confines of Greece.

§ 3. While these vast preparations were going on, two great works were also undertaken, which would at the same time both render the expedition easier, and bear witness to the grandeur and might of the Persian king. These were the construction of a bridge across the Hellespont, and the cutting of a canal through the isthmus of Mount Athos. The first of these works was entrusted to Phoenician and Egyptian engineers. The bridge extended from the neighbourhood of Abydos, on the Asiatic coast, to a spot between Sestus and Madytus on the European side, where the strait is about an English mile in breadth. After it had been completed, it was destroyed by a violent storm, at which Xerxes was so enraged, that he not only caused the heads of the chief engineers to be struck off, but in his daring impiety commanded the "divine" Hellespont to be scourged, and a set of fetters cast into it. Thus having given vent to his resentment, he ordered two bridges to be built in place of the former, one for the army to pass over, and the other for the baggage and beasts of burthen. The new work consisted of two broad causeways alongside of one another, each resting upon a row of ships, which were moored by anchors, and by cables fastened to the sides of the channel.

The voyage round the rocky promontory of Mount Athos had become an object of dread to the Persians, from the terrible shipwreck which the fleet of Mardonius had suffered on this dangerous coast. It was to avoid the necessity of doubling this

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