which accorded so well with his own inclinations, and which was supported by his courtiers, as well as by Queen Artemisia.

10. When the Greeks learned that the Persian fleet had left Phalerum, they immediately sailed in pursuit of it. Themistocles and the Athenians are represented, but probably on no sufficient ground, as anxious to push on to the Hellespont, and cut off the retreat of the Persians, and as having been restrained only by the more prudent counsels of Eurybiades and the Peloponnesians. The moment was chosen by Themistocles to send a second message to Xerxes of a much more questionable character than the first. Sicinnus was again despatched to inform the Persian monarch that Themistocles, out of personal friendship for him, had restrained the Greeks from destroying the bridge over the Hellespont, and thus cutting off his retreat. this communication it is impossible to believe that Themistocles can have had anything but his own personal interest in view. He was well aware that the Persian cause was far from desperate; and even if the Greeks should prove victorious in the end, he may have been anxious to secure a safe retreat for himself, if he should be detected in his guilty practices.

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The Greeks pursued the Persian fleet as far as the island of Andros, but without success. To punish those islands which had sided with Xerxes was a natural and justifiable act, which the large naval force under the command of Themistocles enabled him to execute; but he abused the same means in order to gratify his private rapacity. The Andrians, indeed, were too poor to be robbed; and though Themistocles threatened them with two great gods-Persuasion and Necessity-they found themselves protected, as they said, by two others equally efficient-Poverty and Helplessness. But in other quarters he succeeded better. From Carystus, Paros, and other places, he privately extorted bribes by engaging to preserve them from attack; and after a short time employed in the vain attempt to wring something from Andros, the Grecian fleet returned to Salamis.

§ 11. Meanwhile Xerxes pursued his homeward march through Boeotia into Thessaly. In the latter country Mardonius selected the forces with which he proposed to conclude the war, consisting chiefly of Persians, Medes, Sacæ, and Bactrians, to the number of 300,000 men. But as autumn was now approaching, and as 60,000 of these troops were to escort the march of Xerxes as far as the Hellespont, Mardonius resolved to postpone all further operations till the spring.

After forty-five days' march from Attica, Xerxes again reached the shores of the Hellespont, with a force greatly diminished by

famine and pestilence. The sufferings of his army were exaggerated by Eschylus, and by later poets and moralists, who delighted in heightening the contrast between the proud magnificence of the monarch's advance, and the ignominious humiliation of his retreat. Many of these statements cannot be accepted as historical facts; although there can be no doubt that great numbers perished from want of provisions, and the diseases which always follow in the path of famine. On the Hellespont Xerxes found his fleet, but the bridge had been washed away by storms. Landed on the shores of Asia, the Persian army at length obtained abundance of provisions, and contracted new maladies by the sudden change from privation to excess. Thus terminated this mighty but unsuccessful expedition. Two thousand years later, still more barbarous eastern hordes were destined to find a settlement on the fair shores of Greece.. But Greece had then worked out her appointed task, and had transmitted her arts, her literature, and her civilization, to the nations of western Europe.

§ 12. Among the Greeks nothing now remained to be done but to celebrate their victory after the national fashion by the distribution of rewards. To the Æginetans was adjudged the chief prize for valour, whilst the Athenians carried off the second. Amongst individual combatants, the Æginetan, Polycritus, and the Athenians, Eumenes and Aminias, obtained the first rank. The deities also received their share of honour. Three Phonician triremes were dedicated respectively to Athena at Sunium, to Poseidon at the Corinthian isthmus, and to the Salaminian hero, Ajax. The shrine of the Delphian Apollo was also still further enriched by the offerings of grateful superstition.

Having distributed the rewards of valour, the Greek commanders undertook the more difficult task of assigning the prizes of wisdom and conduct. Upon the altar of Poseidon, at the isthmus of Corinth, whither the Grecian fleet had now repaired, each chief deposited a ticket inscribed with two names, of those whom he considered entitled to the first and second prizes. But in this adjudication vanity and self-love defeated their own objects. Each commander had put down his own name for the first prize; for the second, a great majority preponderated in favour of Themistocles. But since the first prize thus remained undecided, and as the second could not, consequently, be adjudicated, the Athenian leader reaped no benefit from these votes. From the Spartans, however, whom he shortly afterwards visited, he received the honours due to his merit. A crown of olive, similar to that which rewarded their own commander, Eurybiades, was conferred upon him, together with one of the most

splendid chariots which the city could produce; and on his departure the three hundred Hippeis, or knights, the youth and flower of the Lacedæmonian militia, accompanied him as a guard of honour as far as Tegea. In fact, the honours heaped upon Themistocles by the haughty Spartans were so extraordinary, as to excite, it is said, the jealousy of the Athenians against their distinguished countryman.

§ 13. On the very same day on which the Persians were defeated at Salamis, another portion of the Hellenic race, the Sicilian Greeks, also obtained a victory over an immense barbarian force. There is reason to believe that the invasion of Sicily by the Carthaginians was concerted with Xerxes, and that the simultaneous attack on two distinct Grecian peoples, by two immense armaments, was not merely the result of chance. It was, however, in the internal affairs of Sicily that the Carthaginians sought the pretext and the opportunity for their invasion. About the year 481 B.C., Theron, despot of Agrigentum, a relative of Gelon's, the powerful ruler of Syracuse, expelled Terillus from Himera, and took possession of that town. Terillus, backed by some Sicilian cities, which formed a kind of Carthaginian party, applied to the Carthaginians to restore him. The Carthaginians complied with the invitation; and in the year 480 B.C., Hamilcar landed at Panormus with a force composed of various nations, which is said to have amounted to the enormous sum of 300,000 men. Having drawn up his vessels on the beach, and protected them with a rampart, Hamilcar proceeded to besiege the Himeræans, who on their part prepared for an obstinate defence. At the instance of Theron, Gelon marched to the relief of the town with 50,000 foot and 5000 horse. An obstinate and bloody engagement ensued, which, by a stratagem of Gelon's, was at length determined in his favour. The ships of the Carthaginians were fired, and Hamilcar himself slain. According to the statement of Diodorus, 150,000 Carthaginians fell in the engagement, while the greater part of the remainder surrendered at discretion, twenty ships alone escaping with a few fugitives. This account may justly be regarded as an exaggeration; yet it cannot be doubted that the victory was a decisive one, and the number very great of the prisoners and slain.

Thus were the arms of Greece victorious on all sides, and the outposts of Europe maintained against the incursions of the semi-barbarous hordes of Asia and Africa. In Sicily, Greek taste made the sinews of the prisoners subserve the purposes of art; and many of the public structures which adorned and distinguished Agrigentum, rose by the labor of the captive Carthaginians.

Temple of Niké Apteros (the Wingless Victory), on the Acropolis at Athens.

CHAPTER XX.

§ 1. Position of the Persian and Greek fleets. § 2. Preparations of Mardonius for the campaign. § 3. He solicits the Athenians to join him. Faithlessness of the Spartans. § 4. Mardonius occupies Athens. Athenian embassy to Sparta. March of the Spartan army. § 5. Mardonius retires into Boeotia: followed by the Grecian army. Skirmishes. $6. The Greeks descend into the plain. Manoeuvres of the two armies. §7. Alexander, king of Macedon, visits the Grecian camp. The Greeks resolve to change their ground: their disorderly retreat. § 8. Battle of Platea. Defeat of the Persians. § 9. Division of the spoil. § 10. Reduction of Thebes, and execution of the Theban leaders. § 11. Death of Aristodemus. § 12. League of Platea. Religious ceremonies. § 13. Battle of Mycalé. Defeat of the Persians. 14. Liberation of the Greek islands. § 15. Siege and capture of Sestos.

§ 1. THE remnant of the Persian fleet, after conveying Xerxes and his army across the Hellespont, wintered at Cymé and Samos; and early in the ensuing spring, the whole armament, to the number of about 400 vessels, re-assembled at the latter island. This movement was adopted in order to keep a watch over Ionia, which showed symptoms of an inclination to revolt; and not with any design of attacking the Grecian fleet. The latter, consisting of about 110 ships, under the command of the Spartan king Leotychides, assembled in the spring at Egina. From this station it advanced as far eastwards as Delos; but

the Ionian envoys despatched to the Peloponnesians, with promises that the Ionians would revolt from Persia as soon as the Greek fleet appeared off their coast, could not prevail upon Leotychides to venture an attack upon the Persians.

§ 2. The disastrous retreat of Xerxes had not much shaken the fidelity of his Grecian allies. Potidæa, indeed, and the other towns on the isthmus of Pallené, declared themselves independent; whilst symptoms of disaffection were also visible among the Phocians; but the more important allies of Persia, the Macedonians, the Thessalians, and especially the Baotians, were still disposed to co-operate vigorously with Mardonius. That general prepared to open the campaign in the spring. As a preliminary measure, adopted probably with the view of flattering the religious prejudices of his Greek allies, he consulted some of the most celebrated oracles in Boeotia and Phocis respecting the issue of the war. He was not without hopes of inducing the Athenians to join the Persian alliance; and, in order to facilitate such a step, it was pretended that the oracles had foretold the approach of the time when the Athenians, united with the Persians, should expel the Dorians from Peloponnesus.

§3. The influence of superstition was aided by the intrigues of diplomacy. Alexander, king of Macedon, was despatched to conciliate the Athenians, now partially re-established in their dilapidated city. His offers on the part of the Persians were of the most seductive kind; the reparation of all damage, the friendship of the Great King, and a considerable extension of territory: the whole backed by the pressing instances of Alexander himself, and enforced by a vivid picture of the exposed and helpless situation of Attica.

The temptation was certainly strong. On the one hand, ruined homes and empty granaries, the result of the last campaign; the first shock and severest brunt of the war to be sustained by Attica, as the outpost of southern Hellas, and this for lukewarm and selfish allies, to whose negligence and breach of faith the Athenians chiefly owed their present calamities: on the other hand, their city restored, their starving population fed, the horrors of war averted, and only that more agreeable part of it adopted which would consist in accompanying and aiding an overwhelming force in a career of almost certain victory. The Lacedæmonians were quite alive to the exigencies of the situation, so far, at least, as it concerned their own safety. They also had sent envoys to counteract the seductions of Alexander, and to tender relief to the distressed population of Athens. The answer of the Athenians was magnanimous and dignified. They dismissed Alexander with a positive refusal, and even with

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