 Chapter 7 Part 4, 5, and 6 of a History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1 by John Begno Burry. Chapter 7 Parts 4, 5, and 6. Section 4 Battle of Salamis Having thus succeeded in breaking through the inner gate of Hellas and slaying the king of the leading state, Xerxes continued his way and passed from locusts into focus and thence into Boetia, meeting with no resistance. The Thebans and most of the other Boetians now, unable to do otherwise, submitted to the Persians. The loss of Thermopylae forced them to this course, as the abandonment of Tempe had forced the Thessalians. In later days, a story was told at Delphi that a Persian band detached itself from the main host in focus in order to proceed to Pytho and plunder the shrine of the god. I think, says Herodotus, that Xerxes knew its treasures better than his own. The Delphins fled up into the heights of Parnassus, leaving only 60 men and the prophet Echaratius in the temple. They did not remove the treasures, for the god said that he would protect his own. As soon as the barbarians approached, marvels began to happen. The prophet saw the sacred arms, which no man might touch, lying in front of the temple, carried out by some mysterious means. And when the Persians came to the shrine of Althina Proneia, which stood not far from the Castilian fountain, lightning flashed, two crags rent from Parnassus fell with a large crash, crushing many of them, and a war-woop was heard from Athena's temple. The barbarians fled in terror and told how two hoplites of superhuman size pursued them. These were Phalaecius and Autunaus, the native heroes of Delphi. Such was the legend told at Delphi of the Persian invasion. When the Athenians returned from Artemisium, they found that the main body of the Peloponnesian army was gathered at the Ithmis and engaged in building a wall from sea to sea, instead of advancing to the defense of Boetia, as had been previously arranged. Thus Boetia and Attica were unprotected. Themistocles and his Athenian colleagues decided to evacuate Athens. They made a proclamation that all citizens should embark in the triremes, and that all who could, should convey their families and belongings to places of safety. This was done. The women and children were transported to Troazin, Igena, and Salamis. The council of Aereopagus helped at this crisis by distributing from the treasury of Athena eight drachmae to each citizen who embarked. At the same time, the great natural strength of the Acropolis, though its walls had been demolished after the expulsion of the tyrants, encouraged the hope that it might be held against the Persians, and a small garrison was left to defend it. This bold and wise policy of embarkation was dictated by the circumstances, but it was supposed to have been based on an oracle which foretold the utter destruction of Attica with the sole exception of a wooden wall. The wooden wall was interpreted to mean the ships, and to suit this view it was represented that the garrison left on the Acropolis was merely a handful of poor citizens who remained behind and barricaded themselves there because they adopted the more literal interpretation of a wooden barricade. This explanation of the oracle was perhaps suggested by subsequent events. While the Athenians were thus showing that they were not bound to their soil, the allied fleet had stationed itself in the bay of Salamis, and it was reinforced by new contingents so that it reached the total strength of 378 triremes and seven pentaconters. The army at the Isthmus was now placed under the command of Cle Ambrotus, brother of Leonidas and guardian of his son, Pleistarchus, who was still a child. Xerxes arrived at Athens about the same time that his fleet sailed into the roadstead of Phalaron. He found the town empty but for a small band which had entrenched itself on the Acropolis. Persian troops occupied the lower height of the Areopagus, which is severed from the Acropolis by a broad saddle and succeeded in setting the wooden barricades on fire by means of burning arrows. The garrison rolled stones down on them and such is the natural strength of the Acropolis that the siege lasted two weeks. Then the Persians managed to ascend on the precipitous north side by the secret path which emerged close to the shrine of Aglarus. The Greeks were slain, the temples plundered and burnt. After the fall of the Acropolis, the Greek generals held a council of war and it was carried by the votes of the majority that they should retreat to the Isthmus and await there the attack of the Persian fleet. The advantage of this seemed to be that they would be in close touch with the land forces and have the Peloponnesus as a retreat in case of defeat, whereas at Salamis they would be entirely cut off. This decision meant the abandonment of Aegina, Salamis and Megara and it was strenuously opposed by the Agintians, Athenians and Megarians. The mysticlies determined to thwart it. He went privately to Uribeatus and convinced him that it would be much more advantageous to fight in the narrow waters of the Salamian Channel than in the open bay of the Isthmus, where the superior speed and number of the hostile ships would tell. A new council was summoned at which, it is said, hot words pass between the Athenian and Corinthian general. When the mysticlies opened the debate without waiting for the formal introduction of Uribeatus, the Corinthian Edimiantus said, Oh, the mysticlies, those who stand up too soon in the games are whipped. Yes was the reply, but those who start late are not crowned. It is recorded that the mysticlies, in order to carry his point, had to threaten that the Athenians, who were half the fleet, would cease to cooperate with their allies and seek new homes in some western land if the retreat to the Isthmus were decided. The mysticlies won his way, and when it was resolved to fight in Salamanian waters, the heroes of the island, Ajax and Telemann, were invoked and a ship was sent to Aegina to fetch the other Ayakid heroes. Of all the tales of signs and marvels which befell in those memorable days, none perhaps was more attractive to the Athenians than the experience of two Greek exiles as they walked in the Triassian Plain. One was an Athenian named Dikaus, and his companion was none other than Demaratus, the Spartan king who had sought refuge at the Persian court. As they went, they saw a great dust, a far off near Elusus, such a dust as they thought might be raised by a host of 30,000 men, and then they heard a voice suddenly from the mist of the dust, and it sounded like the cry of the mystic Ayakus, which is cried at the Elusian festival. Demaratus asked his companion what it might be. It is a token, said Dikaus, of some great disaster to the king's host, for since the plain is desolate of men, it is clear that the thing which uttered the cry is divine, and it is a thing coming from Elusus to help the Athenians. If it turned to the Peloponnes, the peril menaces the army of the land, but if it went towards the ships, then are the king's ships endangered. Peace, said Demaratus, for if these words of thine come to the king's ears thou shall lose thy head. Then the dust, wherein the voice was, turned to a cloud, and rising aloft moved towards the Greek fleet at Salamis, and so they knew that the fleet of Xerxes was doomed. Meanwhile, the Persians too had deliberated and determined a fight. According to a Halachonassian story told by Herodotus, the Carian queen Artemisia alone gave sound advice, not to risk a sea fight, but either to wait for the Greek fleet to disperse from want of provisions, or to advance by land into the Peloponnes. The southern entrance to the narrow sound between Salamis and Attica is blocked by the islet of Pistalia, and the long promontory which runs out from Salamis towards the mainland. The Greek fleet was anchored close to the town of Salamis, north of this promontory. It would be best for the Greeks if they could lure the Persian fleet to enter the Salamanian bay so that its flank would be exposed as it sailed through the narrow waters. It would be best for the Persians if they could force the Greeks out into the open sea. Xerxes foresaw the possibility that his enemies might attempt to escape at night, and to prevent this he moved his armament so as to enclose the ingresses of the two straits on either side of Pistalia, and landed troops on that island to rescue Persians and kill Greeks who should happen to swim to its shores in the expected battle. These movements carried out in the afternoon alarmed the Greeks. The Peloponnesian commanders brought pressure to bear on Eurebiatus. Another council was called, and themistically saw that the hard-won result of his previous exertions would now be overthrown. He therefore determined on a bold stroke. Leaving the council, he dispatched a slave named Sickenus to the Persian camp bearing a message from himself as a well-wisher to Xerxes that the Greeks proposed to sail away in the night. If they were prevented from doing so, a Persian victory was certain, owing to the disunion that existed in the Hellenic camp. If the Persians attacked the Greeks here, as they were, the Athenians would turn against their allies. This message was believed, and Xerxes took his measures at nightfall to prevent the Greek fleet from escaping by the western straits between Salamis and the Megurid. He sent his 200 Egyptian ships to round the southern promontory of Salamis and place themselves so that they could bar the straits. And he decided to attack in the morning, a fatal decision which only the prospect of the treachery of some of his allies could have induced him to take. The Greek generals, meanwhile, were engaged in hot discussion. Suddenly, Themistocles was called out from the council. It was his rival, Aristides, who had sailed across from Aegina and brought the news that the fleet was surrounded by the enemy. Themistocles, Bade, Aristides informed the generals of what had happened, and the tidings was presently confirmed by a Athenian ship which deserted from the Persians. There is no reason to question the sensational accident that Aristides brought the news. But we need not suppose that this was his first return from ostracism. It seems probable that he had been sent with the ship which fetched the Iochids from Aegina and that he was one of the Ten Strategoi. Themistocles had managed that a naval battle should be fought at Salamis and under the conditions most favorable to the Greeks. The position and tactics of the two armaments have been the subject of much debate. According to the poet Ishalas, who was an eyewitness of the battle, the Persian ships were drawn up in three lines outside the entrance into the sound. The extreme left wing was composed of the Ionian Greeks, while the right towards the Parias was the Phoenician squadron on which Xerxes cheaply replied. The Greek fleet was drawn up behind the promontory of Sinosura and facing northward, the Athenians on the left towards the town of Salamis, and the Argentians probably near them, and the Lycomandonians on the right. On the opposite mainland, on shore, under Mount Igalios, a high throne was erected, from which Xerxes could survey the battle and watch the conduct of his men. At the break of day, the Persians began to advance into the Straits. The three lines converted their formation into three columns, and the Phoenicians led the way through the opening between Pestalia and the mainland. The Ionians on the left would naturally move through the smaller channel between Pestalia and Salamis. When the Phoenicians came into view, the Athenian squadron immediately advanced and sailed them in the flank and cut them off from the rest of the fleet, driving them towards the Attic shore. The other Persian divisions crowded through the Straits, and a furious melee issued which lasted till nightfall. There was no room for the exercise of tactical skill in the crowded narrow waters where the fairway between Sinosura and Attica is little more than a mile in breadth. The valor of the Ijanitans was conspicuous. They seemed to have completed the disconfiture of the Phoenicians and to have dispersed the Ionians. The Persians, under the eyes of their king, fought with great bravery, but they were badly generaled, and the place of combat was unfavorable to them. By sunset, the great armament of Xerxes was partly destroyed, partly put out of action. Aristides, who with the force of Athenian hoplites was watching events on the shore of Salamis, crossed over to Pestalia and killed the barbarians who had been posted there by Xerxes. Among the Anticnotes told about this battle, the most famous is that which was current at Heliconassus, of the signal bravery and no less signal good fortune of the Karrion Queen, Artemisia. She saved herself by the stratagem of attacking and sinking another Karrion vessel. Those who stood round Xerxes observed the incident, but supposed the destroyed trireme to be Greek. Sire, they said, see as how Artemisia has sunked an enemy ship, and Xerxes exclaimed, my men have become women, my women men. Section 5 Consequences of Salamis The Greek victory at Salamis was a heavy, perhaps a decisive blow to the naval arm of the Persian power. The wrath of Xerxes against the Phoenicians was boundless. On them he had relied, and to their infidelity he ascribed the loss of the battle. His threats so frightened the remnant of the Phoenician contingent that they deserted, but the prospects of the ultimate success of the invasion was still favorable. The land army had met with no reverse and was overwhelmingly superior in numbers. The only difficulty was to keep it supplied with provisions, and in this respect the loss of the command of the sea was a serious misfortune. The Greeks represented Xerxes as smitten with wild terror, fleeing back overland to the Hellespont and hardly drawing breath till he reached Sousa. This dramatic glorification of the victory misrepresents the situation. Xerxes was personally in no jeopardy. The real danger lay not in Attica, but in Ionia. The Persians had good reason to fear the effect which the news of the crushing defeat of their navy might have upon the Greeks of Asia. And if Xerxes dreaded anything, he dreaded the revolt which actually came to pass in the following year. It was all important for him to secure his line of retreat, while he had no intention of relinquishing his enterprise of conquering Greece. These considerations explain what happened. The Persian fleet was immediately dispatched to the Hellespont to guard the bridge and the line of retreat. The land forces were placed under the command of Mardonius, who, as the season was now advanced, determined to postpone further operations till the spring into winter in Thessaly. A force of 60,000 men was detached to accompany Xerxes to the Hellespont. When he arrived there, he found that the bridge had been destroyed by storms, the same storms which had wrecked his ships off Magnesia. The fleet took him across to Abidos, and he proceeded to Sardis, which he made his headquarters. The convoy of 60,000 soldiers returned to the main army in Thessaly, and on their way they laid siege to two towns which afterwards became famous, on the Pallian Isthmus, Olyntus and Pododia. Olyntus, then a Boetian town, was taken and handed over to the Chalcedinians, who remained faithful to Persia. Pododia successfully was stood as siege of three months. Meanwhile, the Greeks had failed to follow up their victory. Cleum Brotus was about to advance from the Isthmus with the purpose of aiming a blow at the retreating columns of the Persian forces before they reached Boetia. But as he was sacrificing before setting out, two hours after noon, on the 2nd of October, the sun was totally eclipsed, and this ill omen made him desist from his plan and march back to the Peloponnesus. The Mysticles tried to induce the naval commanders to follow up their advantage by sailing after the Persian fleet to the Hellespont, that they might deal it another blow and break down the bridge. It might be expected that, if this were done, the Greeks of Ionia would revolt. But the Peloponnesians would not consent to sail to a distant part of the world, while the Isthmus was still threatened by the presence of the Persian army. The story goes that, having failed to get his advice adopted, the Mysticles, with that characteristic adroitness which won the admiration of his contemporaries, determined to utilize his failure. The faithful sickness was sent to Xerxes to assure the monarch of the goodwill of the Mysticles, who had dissuaded the Greeks from pursuing the Persian fleet. The Mysticles might expect that Xerxes, having been deceived before, would now disbelieve his announcement, and therefore hasten back with all speed to reach the Hellespont, if possible, before the Greeks. But on a later day of his life, when he was in exile, he claimed the Persian gratitude for this service. It was even represented that, with extraordinary long-sightedness or treachery, he had in his view the contingency of being driven to seek Persian help or protection against his countrymen. But the tale need not be seriously criticized. It has all the appearance of an invention suggested by subsequent adventures of the subtle Athenian. The island of Andros and the Euboean city, Caristus, had furnished the contingents to the Persian fleet. Just as the Athenians, after the battle marathon, had sailed against Paros and demanded a war contribution, so now the Greeks acted against Andros and Caristus. They failed at Andros, just as Mitalides had failed at Paros. They devastated the territory of Caristus. Great was the rejoicing in Greece over the brilliant victory which was so little hoped for. The generals met at the Isthmus to distribute the booty and have judged rewards. The Aegean Etans received the choice lot of the spoil on account of their preeminent bravery and dedicated, in the Temple of Delphi, on Apollo's express demand, three golden stars set in a mast of bronze. For bravery, the Athenians were abjudged the second place. Prizes were also proposed for individuals who had distinguished themselves for valor or for wisdom. In abjudging the prizes for wisdom, each captain wrote down two names in order of merit and placed his tablet on the altar of Poseidon at Isthmus. The story is that each wrote his own name first and that of Themistocles' second, and consequently there was no prize for a second cannot be given unless a first were also awarded. This ingenious antidote reflects the reputation for cleverness which had been won by Themistocles. The Corinthians who fell in the battle were buried in Salamis, and their sepulchral stele was inscribed with a simple district telling the stranger that Salamis, the Isle of Ajax, holds us now, who once dwelled in the city of Corinth between her waters. The stone has been recently found. This is only one of many epithets composed by nameless author in those days of joy and sorrow in various parts of Greece, all marked by the simplicity of a great age whose reserve, as has been said truly, is the pride of strong men under the semblance of modesty. In later days, insensible to such reserve, it became fashion to improve these epithets by the addition of boastful verses, which have been imposed till recently upon posterity, and the epithets thus disfigured were all said to be the workmanship of the poet Simonides. The exposure of these two deceptions increases our admiration for Hellas at the time of the invasion. There were men everywhere capable of writing a simple, appropriate inscription for a grave, and the tombstones of the fallen were not used for superfluous boasts. But the triumph of Hellas had nobler memorials than the unassuming verses of the tombs. The barbarian invasion affected art and literature and inspired the creation of some of the great works of the world. Men seemed to rise at once to the sense of the high historical importance of their experience. The great poets of the day wrought it into their song. The great plastic arts alluded to it in their sculptures. Frenicus now had a theme that he could treat without any dread of another fine. Eishelis, who had himself fought against the Mead, made the tragedy of Xerxes the argument of a drama, which still abides the one great historical play dealing with a contemporary event that exists in literature. But the Persian War produced, though not too soon, another and a greater work than the Persians. It inspired the father of history with the theme of his book, The Contest of Europe with Asia. The theme was afloat in the air that the Trojan War was an earlier act of an insane drama, that the warriors of Salamis and Plataea were fighting in the same use as the heroes who had striven with Hector on the plain of Troy. Men might see if they cared this suggestion in the scenes from the two Trojan Wars which were wrought by the master sculptors of Aegea to deck the pediments of the Temple of Athena, whose Dora columns still stand to remind us that Aegean once upon a time was one of the great states of Greece. And in other temples, Frisees and pediments spoke in the conventional language of sculpture legend by the symbols of Lapiths and Centaurs, gods and titans of the struggle of Greek and Barbarium. Section 6. Preparations for another campaign The words of the poet Aishelis that the defeat of the Persian sea host was the defeat of the land host too were perfectly true for the hour, but only for the hour. The army, compelled after Salamis to retreat to the north, spent the winter in the plains of Thessaly and was ready for action, though unsupported by a fleet for the following spring. The liberty of Greece was in greater jeopardy than ever, and the chances were that the success of Salamis could be utterly undone. For in the first place the Greeks, especially the Lachodemonians and Athenians, found it hard to act together. This had been shown clearly the year before, eminently on the eve of the Salamanian battle. The Peloponnesian interests of the Lachodemonians rendered them unwilling to meet the enemy in northern Greece. While the northern Greeks, unless they were supported from the Peloponnesus, could not attempt a serious resistance and were therefore driven to come to terms with the Barbarians. And in the second place, if these difficulties were overcome and a pan-Hellenic force were opposed to the Persians, the chances were adverse to the Greeks, not from the disparity of numbers, but from the deficiency of Greeks in cavalry. In spring Mardoneus was joined by Artebasis and the troops who had conducted Xerxes to the Hellespont. The total number of forces now at the disposal of Mardoneus is unknown. It may perhaps have been 150,000. Meanwhile, the Persian fleet, 400 strong but without the Phoenician ships, was collected at Sammos with the purpose of guarding Ionia. And a Greek squadron of 110 ships gathered at Ijina under the command of the Spartan king, Leoticaus, for the purpose of defending the coasts of Greece, but not attending, to assume the offensive. With great difficulty some envoys from Chios induce Leoticaus to advance as far as Delos. But he could not be moved to sail further east with the view to the liberation of Ionia. For Sammos seemed as far away as the pillars of Hercules and he dreaded the Persian waters teaming with unknown dangers. It seems probable that Athenian policy was working upon the Spartan admirals inexperience in military affairs. The object of the Athenians was to secure their own land against a second Persian occupation. They therefore desired the protection of the fleet for their coasts. But there was a more important consideration still. If the fleet took the offensive and gained another naval victory, the Peloponnesus would be practically secured against a Persian attack, defended at once by victorious navy and the fortifications of the Ithsmis. The result would be that the Peloponnesians would refuse to take any further part in the defense of northern Greece and would leave Athens a prey to the army of Mardonius. It was therefore the policy of the Athenians to keep the fleet inactive until the war should have been decided by a battle on land, and for this reason they equipped only a few of their ships. Mardonius, well aware of the spatal division of interests between the Athenians and Peloponnesians, made a politic attempt to withdraw Athens from the Greek League. He sent an honorable ambassador, King Alexander of Macedon himself, with most generous offers. He undertook to repair all the injuries suffered by Athens from the Persian occupation, to help her gain new territory and asked only for her alliance as an equal and independent power. In a desolated land, amid the ruins of their city and its temples, although well that their allies, indifferent to the fate of Attica, were busy in completing the walls of the Ithsmis, the Athenians might be sorely tempted to lend an ear to these seductive overtures. Had they done so, the fate of Peloponnesians would have been sealed, as the Lachemedonians knew. Accordingly, envoys were sent from Sparta to counteract the negotiations of Alexander and to offer Athens material help in the privations which she was suffering. Interempting as the proposals of Mardonius sounded, and good reason as they had to depend little on the cooperation of their allies, the Athenians were constrained by that instinct of freedom which made them a great people to decline the Persian offer. Tell Mardonius, they said to Alexander, that the Athenians say, so long as the sun moves in its present course we will never come to terms with Xerxes. This answer udders the spirit of Europe in the eternal question between the East and the West, the spirit of the Senate when Hannibal was at the gates of Rome, the spirit of Roman and Goth when they met the riders of Attila on the Catalanian plain. Thus the embassy of Alexander ought to have strengthened rather than weakened the Greek League. It ought to have made the Lachemedonians more actively conscious of the importance of Athenian cooperation and consequently readier to cooperate with Athens. It enabled Athens to exert stronger pressure on the Peloponnesians with a view to the defense of northern Greece, and the Spartan envoys promised that an army should march into Boetia, but still stronger pressure was needed to overcome the selfish policy of the Peloponnesians. Soon after the embassy of Alexander they had completed the walling of the Isthmus, and, feeling secure, they took no thought of fulfilling their promise. The Spartans alleged an excuse, the festival of the Hyacinthia, just as before they had pleaded the Carnia. In the meantime, Mardonius had sent his army in motion and advanced into Boetia with the purpose of reoccupying Attica. Once more the Athenians had been cruelly deceived by their allies. Once more they had to leave their land and remove their families and property to the refuge of Salamis. Mardonius reached Athens without burning or herring. He still hoped to detach the Athenians from the Greek cause, herein lay his best chance of success. If they would now accept his former offers, he would retreat from their land, leaving it unraveged. But even at this extremity, under the bitter disappointment of the ill faith of their allies, the Athenians rejected the insidious propositions which were laid by an envoy before the council of the 500 at Salamis. Immediately the three northern states which had not yielded to the mead, Athens, Megara and Plataea, sent ambassadors to Sparta to insist upon an army marching at once to oppose Mardonius and Attica, a tardy redemption of their promises, with a threat that otherwise there would be nothing for it but to come to terms with the foe. Even now the narrow Peloponnesian policy of the Ephors almost betrayed Greece. For ten days, it is said, they postponed answering the ambassadors and would have ultimately refused to do anything, but for the intervention of a man of Tegea, named Kilios, who impressively pointed out that the alliance of the Athenian power with the Persians would render the Ismian fortifications on which the Ephors relied absolutely useless. One would have fancied that this was obvious even to an Ephor, without a prophet from Tegea to teach him. However it happened, the Lacomandonian government suddenly changed its policy and dispatched a force of 5,000 Spartans, each attended by some Helots to northern Greece. Never since, never perhaps before did so large a body of Spartan citizens take the field at once. They were followed by 5,000 Periocri, each attended by one Helot. It was clear that Sparta had risen at last to an adequate sense of the jeopardy of the Peloponnesus. The command was entrusted to Paul Seneos, who was acting as regent for his child cousin Pleistarchus, son of the hero of Thermopylae. At the Ismus, the Lacomandonian army was joined by the troops of the Peloponnesian allies and the contingents from Euboea, Igena, and western Greece. And in the Megarid, they were reinforced by the Megarians, and it elucids by Aristides in command of 8,000 Athenians and 600 Platians. It was entirely an army of foot soldiers, and the total number, including light-armed troops, may have approached 100,000. The task of leading this host devolved upon Paul Seneos. The strong fortress of Thebes, which he had abundantly supplied with provisions, was the base of Mardonius. And once the Greek army was in the field, he could not run the risk of having his communications with his base broken off and finding himself shut up in Attica, a land exhausted by the devastation of the preceding autumn. Finally, he withdrew into Boetia, having completed the ruin of Athens, and having sent a detachment to make a demonstration in the Megarid. He did not take the direct route to Thebes, but marching northwards to Decalia, and by the north side of Mount Parnas he reached Tanagra, and the plain of Esopis. Marching up this stream, westward, he came to the spot where it is crossed by the road from Athens to Thebes, at the point where that road descends from the heights of Scythaeron. The river Esopis was the boundary between the Thebian and Plataean territories, and the destruction of Plataea was probably an object of the Persians. But the main purpose of Mardonius in posting himself on the Esopis was that he might fight with Thebes behind him. The Persians had every cause to be sanguine. Not only had they superior, though not overwhelmingly superior forces, but they had a general who was far abler than any commander on the side of the Greeks. Mardonius was not anxious to bring on a battle. He fully realized that his true strategy was to do as little as possible. He knew that the longer the army of the Greeks remained in the field, the more would its cohesion be relaxed through the jealousies and dissensions of the various contingents. We need not take too seriously the story which the Greeks were afterwards feigned to believe, that at this moment there was a certain dispiritiveness and foreboding of disaster in the Persian camp. An anecdote told by one of the guests at a Thebian banquet was thought to illustrate this gloomy mood. At the Guinness, a Theban general made a feast in honor of Mardonius. A hundred guests were present, arranged on double couches, a Persian and a Boeisian on each. Thursander of Orco Manus was among the guests, and in after days he told the historian Herodotus that his Persian couch fellows spoke these words to him. Since we have now shared the same table and wine, I wish to leave thee a memorial of my opinion, that being forewarned thou mayest look to thine own welfare. Seeest thou these Persians feasting, and the host which we left accamped by the river, and a little while thou shalt see few of these remaining. The Persians shed tears as he spoke, and Thursander rejoined. It behooves thee to tell this to Mardonius, but the Persian said, Stranger, man cannot avert what God hath ordained. No one would believe me. Many of us Persians know it, and follow the army under constraint. No human affliction is worse than this, to know and to be helpless. Mardonius had taken up his position, and constructed a fortification on the north bank of the river Ossopis, before the Greek army had crossed the Scythaeron. His plan was to act on the defensive. He would wait for the Greeks to attack him, so that the issue might be tried in a plain, when he would be able to reap the full advantage of his superiority in cavalry. It would, on the contrary, be to the interests of the Greeks when they descended from Scythaeron, if they could by any means entice the enemy to give battle on the rough and high ground south of the river, where the cavalry would be of little use. End of chapter 7, parts 4, 5 and 6 Chapter 7, parts 7, 8 and 9 of a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Graham Redman A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great, Volume 1 by John Bagnell Bury Chapter 7, Part 7, Battle of Plataea The field on which the fate of Greece was decided is bounded on the north by the river Ossopis, on the south by Mount Scythaeron. The town of Plataea stood in the south-west of this space, on the most westerly of six ridges which connect the lower heights of the mountain with the plain. Three roads descended here into Beosia, on the extreme east the road from Athens to Thebes, in the centre that from Athens to Plataea, on the west that from Megara to Plataea. The Greek army took the most easterly way, which after a gradual ascent on the Attic side reaches the fortress of Eleuthery and the pass of the Oaks heads, and then descends steeply into the Beotian land. They found when they reached the other side that the road passed through the Persian camp and they were forced to take up a position at the foot of the pass. Their right wing consisting of the Spartans and Tegiates rested on the high bastion of the mountain which rises above the town of Erythry. Their centre on lower ground close to the town, and the left wing where the Athenians and Magarians were posted was advanced right down to the foot of the descent. Thus the position of the Greeks was astride the road to Thebes. The only assailable point was the left wing, and against it Mardonius sent cavalry under the command of Mesistius. Sore bested by the darts and arrows of the enemy and with no cavalry to aid them, the Magarians required succour. Three hundred Athenians, for the Athenians were also on the left wing, went down to the scene of battle, and the fortune of the day was at last changed when the general Mesistius, a conspicuous figure in the fight, fell from his wounded charger. He was slain with difficulty by a spear which pierced his eye, for his armour was impenetrable, and the Persian horseman after a furious and fruitless charge to recover the body of their leader abandoned the attack. The camp of the Persians was filled with loud wailing and lamentation, echoing, says Herodotus, all over Beotia, for the death of Mesistius. But this success was far from dealing any solid advantage to the Greeks or serious injury to their foes. The Persians were well content to remain where they were. Their great hosts still lay north of the Osopus. The Greeks, in order to obtain a better water supply, and knowing that there was no chance that the Persians would attack them in their present position, decided to occupy lower ground in the territory of Plataea. In order to do this they moved north-westward along the spurs of Scytheron, past the towns of Erythrae and Hysaeae. To understand the operations which ensued, it is to be observed that the region between Scytheron and the Osopus falls into two parts, separated by a depression in the ground. The southern part is marked by the six ridges already mentioned and the streams which divide them, while the northern tract is also hilly, being marked by three ridges between which rivulets flow into the Osopus. Westward the depression opens out into Flatland, the only Flatland here, which stretches northward from Plataea to the river and is traversed by the road to Thebes. The Greek army ultimately arranged itself in order of battle between the Theban Road and the Moloice, a tributary stream of the Osopus. Their position was marked by the spring of Gargaphia, which afforded an abundant supply of fresh water and the temple of the hero Androcrates. We are told that a dispute arose between the Tegeates and the Athenians for the occupation of the West Wing and that the Lacedaemonians decided in favour of the Athenians who, as we have seen, were under the command of Aristides. The Tegeates were stationed next to Lacedaemonians on the right. Porcenius had now lost control of the eastern passes across Mount Scytheron. The Persian general, as soon as the Greeks had left their first position, promptly occupied the roads and cut off a provision train which was on its way to supply the Greek army. The Greek general hoped every day that the enemy would attack, but Mardonius, apart from cavalry skirmishing, remained persistently on the defensive. It would seem that the Greeks remained about two days inactive in this weak position, harassed by the Persian cavalry, which crossed the river, hovered on the ridges, discharged darts into the camp, and finally succeeded in choking up the waters of the Gargaphia spring. The only course open to the Greeks was to fall back upon the mountain and either take up a position on the ridges between Hizzii and Plotia or seek to regain their former position at the foot of the main pass, for they could not venture to cross the Osopus and brave the Persian cavalry. Porcenius held a council of war and it was determined that the army should fall back to a position between Hizzii and Plotia and that one division should move up the mountain slope to recover command of the pass from Plotia to Athens. The whole movement was to be carried out at night. Perhaps Porcenius had received information that the Persian commander was growing impatient and was contemplating an attack. In any case, his plan of retreat proved fortunate and though it was not executed with precision, the Persians, even as at Salamis, were induced to give battle in conditions chosen by their enemy and unfavorable to themselves. We might understand why Mardonius decided to abandon the defensive strategy to which hitherto he had adhered if we knew something of the intrigues and divisions in the Persian camp. There seems to have been disastrous rivalry between himself and his second-in-command, Arta Badsus, who in the ensuing battle did simply nothing and probably desired that Mardonius should not win the glory of victory. A little to the southeast of Plotia, a spur of Scytheron was enclosed by the two branches of a stream which met again at the foot of the ridge and went by the name of the island. It was arranged that the Athenians should now occupy the centre next to the Lacedaemonians and they were instructed to retreat to this ridge. The scheme was carried out as it was planned by the left wing who took up their post in front of the Temple of Hera which was just outside the walls of Plotia. But the Athenians, for some unexplained reason, failed to obey orders and remained where they were in a dangerous and isolated position. The Lacedaemonians too seemed to have wasted the precious hours of the short night. Their delay is ascribed to the obstinacy of the commander of one of the Spartan divisions who had not been present at the Council of War and refused to obey the order to retreat. His name was Amompharetus. He was a man of blameless valor and Porcenius could not persuade himself to leave him behind. But the morning was approaching and at length Porcenius began his march convinced that his stubborn captain would follow when he found himself deserted. And so it fell out. When they had moved about ten states the Spartans saw that Amompharetus was coming and waited for him. But the day had dawned. The Persians had perceived that the Greek position was deserted and Mordonius decided that now was the moment to attack when the forces of the enemy were divided. His cavalry came up and prevented the Lacedaemonians from proceeding. It was on the slopes under Hizzii near the modern village of Krikouki that Porcenius was compelled to turn and withstand the Persian horsemen who were speedily supported by the main body advancing under Mordonius himself. The Persians threw up a light barricade of their wicker shields from behind which they discharged innumerable arrows. Under this fire the Greeks hesitated for the victims were unfavorable. At length Porcenius, looking towards the temple of Hera invoked the goddess and after his prayer the prophets obtained good omens from the sacrifices. The Lacedaemonians no longer held back. Along with the T'jiates who were with them they carried the barricade and pressed the Persians backwards towards the temple of Demeter which stood on a higher cleavity above them. In this direction the battle raged hotly but the discipline of the best spearmen of Greece approved itself brilliantly and when Mordonius fell the battle was decided. The Lacedaemonians and T'jiates had borne the brunt of the day. At the first attack Porcenius had dispatched a hasty messenger to the Athenians. As they marched to the scene they were attacked by the Greeks of the left wing of the enemy's army who effectively hindered them from marching farther. Meanwhile the tidings had reached the rest of the Greek army at Plotir that a battle was being fought and that Porcenius was winning it. They hastened to the scene but the action was practically decided before their arrival. Some of them were cut off on the way by Theban cavalry. The defeated host fled back across the Asopas to their fortified camp. The Greeks pursued and stormed it. The tent of Mordonius was plundered by the men of T'jiates who dedicated in the temple of Athena Allaea in their city the brass manger of his horses. While his throne with silver feet and his scimitar were kept by the Athenians on the Acropolis along with the breastplate of Mesistius as memorials of the fateful day. The body of Mordonius was respected by Porcenius but it was mysteriously stolen and none ever knew the hand that buried it. The slain Greek warriors among whom was the brave Amompharetus were buried before the gates of Plotir and the honor of celebrating their memory by annual sacrifice was assigned to the Plotians who also agreed to commemorate the day of the deliverance of Helas by a feast of freedom every four years. Porcenius called the host together and in the name of the Spartans and all the Confederacy guaranteed to Plotir political independence and the inviolability of her town and territory. The hour of triumph for Plotir was an hour of humiliation for Thebes. Ten days after the battle the army advanced against the chief Biotian city and demanded the surrender of the leaders of the Medaizing party. On a refusal Porcenius laid siege to the place but presently the leaders were given up by their own wish for they calculated on escaping punishment by the influence of bribery. But Porcenius caused them to be executed without trial at Corinth. A Theban poet who sympathized with the national effort of Helas might well feel distressed in soul. The battle had been won simply and solely by the discipline and prowess of the Spartan hoplites. The plans of the exceptionally able commander who was matched indeed with a commander Abler than himself were frustrated once and again through the want of unity and cohesion in his army through the want apparently of tactical skill most of all perhaps through the half-heartedness of the Athenians. Never do the Athenians appear in such an ill light as in the campaign of Scytheron and in no case have they exhibited so strikingly their faculty of refashioning history in no case so successfully imposed their misrepresentations on the faith of posterity. They had no share in the victory but they told the whole story afterwards so as to exalt themselves and to disparage the Spartans. They represented the night movements planned by Porcenius as a retreat before an expected attack of the enemy and they invented an elaborate tale to explain how the attack came to be expected. Mordonius, they said, growing impatient of the delay called a council of war and it was decided to abandon defensive tactics and provoke a battle. Then Alexander of Macedon showed at this critical moment that his real sympathies were with Helas and not with his barbarian allies. He rode down to the outposts of the Athenians and, shouting, we must suppose, across the river revealed the decision of the Persian Council of War. Thus made aware of the Persian resolve to risk a battle the Spartans proposed to the Athenians to change wings in order that the victors of Marathon might fight with the Persians whose ways of warfare they had already experienced while the Spartans themselves could deal better with the Beotians and other Greeks with whose methods of fighting they were familiar. The proposal was agreed to and as day dawned the change was being effected but the enemy perceived it and immediately began to make a corresponding change in their own array. Seeing their plan frustrated the Greeks desisted from completing it and both the adversaries resumed their original positions. Mardonius then sent a message to the Lacedaemonians complaining that he had been deeply disappointed in them for though they had the repute of never fleeing or deserting their post they had now attempted to place the Athenians in the place of danger. He challenged them to stand forth as champions for the whole Greek host and fight against an equal number of Persians. To this proposal the Spartans made no reply. Then Mardonius began his cavalry operations which led to the retreat of the Greeks from their second position. The three striking incidents of this malicious tale the night visit of Alexander the fruitless attempt of the Spartans to shirk the responsibility of their post on the right wing the challenge of Mardonius are all improbable in themselves but nevertheless this story was circulated and believed and has received a sort of consecration in the pages of Herodotus. End of Chapter 7 Part 7 Chapter 7 Part 8 Battle of Mycaly and Capture of Cestos The battle of Scytheron shares with Salamis the dignity of being decisive battles in the world's history. Pindar links them together as the great triumphs of Sparta and Athens respectively battles wherein the meads of the bent bows were sore afflicted. Notwithstanding the immense disadvantage of want of cavalry the Lacedaemonians had turned at Plataea a retreat into a victory. The remarkable feature of the battle was that it was decided by a small part of either army Sparta and Tegea were the actual victors and on the Persian side Artabazus at the head of forty thousand men had not entered into the action at all. On the death of Mardonius that general immediately faced about and began without delay the long march back to the helispond. Never again was Persia to make a serious attempt against the liberty of European Greece. A god, said a poet of the day and the poet was a Theban turned away the stone of Tantalus imminent above our heads. For the following century and a half the dealings between Greece and Persia will only affect the western fringe of Asia and then the balance of power will have so completely shifted that Persia will succumb to a Greek conqueror and Alexander of Macedon will achieve against the Asiatic monarchy what Xerxes failed to achieve against the free states of Europe. One memorial of this victory of Europe over Asia has survived till today. The votive offering which the Greeks sent to Delphi was a tripod of gold set upon a pillar of three brazen serpents with the names of the Greek peoples who offered it inscribed upon the base. The pillar still stands in Byzantium, whether it was transferred after that city had been renamed Constantinople by her second founder. The immense booty which was found in the Persian camp was divided when portions had been set apart for the gods and for the general who had led the Greeks to victory. The achievement of the Hellenic army under Mount Scytheron which rescued Greek Europe from the invader was followed in a few days by an achievement of the Hellenic fleet which delivered the Asiatic Greeks from their master. The Greek fleet was still at Delos. We saw that it was the policy of the Athenians to remain inactive at sea until a battle had been fought on land for a naval victory would probably have meant the retreat of the Spartans from northern Greece on the calculation that the enemy would not attack Peloponnesus without the cooperation of the fleet. But the armament at Delos was drawn into action by a message from the Samians seeking to join the Greek League and begging help against the Persian. For the Persian fleet was at Samos and hard by at Cape Mycaly a large Persian army including many Ionian troops was encamped. The Samian request was granted. Leoticaides sailed to the island and on his approach the Persian ships withdrew to the shelter of Cape Mycaly and their army. The Greeks landed, attacked, carried and burned the enemy's camp. Their victory was decided by the desertion of the Ionians who won their freedom on this memorable day. Mycaly followed so hard upon Plataea that the belief easily arose that the two victories were won on the same afternoon. There is more to be said for the tradition that as the Athenians and their comrades assailed the entrenchments on the shore of Mycaly the tidings of Plataea reached them and heartened them in their work. The Athenians and Ionians, led by the admirals and theppus followed up the great victory by vigorous action in the helispont while the Peloponnesians with Leoticaides content with what they had achieved returned home. The difference between the Athenian and the Spartan character between the cautious policy of Sparta and the imperial instinct of Athens is here distinctly and it is not too much to say momentously expressed. The Lacedaemonians were unwilling to concern themselves further with the Greeks of the Eastern and North Eastern Aegean. The Athenians were both capable of taking a panhellenic point of view and moved by the impulse to extend their own influence. The strong fortress of Sestos, which stands by the straits of Heli was beleaguered and taken and with this event Herodotus closes his history of the Persian wars. The independence of the helispontine regions was a natural consequence of the victory of Mycaly, but its historical significance lies in the fact that it was accomplished under the auspices of Athens. The fall of Sestos is the beginning of that Athenian empire to which Pysistratus and the elder Miltiades had pointed the way. End of Chapter 7 Part 8 Chapter 7, Part 9 Geelon Tyrant of Syracuse While the Eastern Greeks were securing their future development against the Persian foe and were affirming their possession of the Aegean waters the Western Greeks had been called upon to defend themselves against that Asiatic power which had established itself in the Western Mediterranean and was a constant threat to their existence. The Greeks had indeed, on their side, proved a formidable check and hindrance to the expansion of the dominion and trade of Carthage. The endeavors of this vigorous Phoenician state to secure the queenship of the Western seas from Africa to Gaul, from the coast of Spain to the shores of Italy depended largely for their success on her close connection and identity of interests with her sister towns in Sicily and secondly on her alliance with the strong pirate power of Etruria. The friendly Phoenician ports of Western Sicily, Motia, Panormus and Solus were an indispensable aid for the African city both for the maintenance of her communications with Tuscany and for the prosecution of designs upon Sardinia and Corsica. In Corsican waters as well as in Sicily the Phoenician clashed with the Greek. It was in the first quarter of the sixth century that Dorian adventurers from Cnidus and Rhodes sought to gain a foothold in the barbarian corner of Sicily at the very gates of the Phoenicians. The name of their leader was Pentathlis. He attempted to plant a settlement on Cape Lilibeum, hard by Motia, a direct menace to the communications between Motia and Carthage. The Phoenicians gathered in arms and they were supported by their Illymian neighbours. The Greeks were defeated and Pentathlis was slain. It was not the destiny of Lilibeum to be the place of a Hellenic city but long afterwards it was to become illustrious as the site of a Punic stronghold which would take the place of Motia when Motia herself had been destroyed by a Greek Avenger of Pentathlis. After their defeat the men of Pentathlis, casting about for another dwelling place, set themselves to the volcanic archipelago of the north coast of Sicily and founded Lippera in the largest of the islands. This little state was organised on communistic principles. The soil was public property. A certain number of the citizens were set apart to till it for the common use. The rest were employed in keeping watch and ward on the coasts of their little home against the descents of Tuscan rovers. This system was indeed subsequently modified. The land was portioned out in lots but was redistributed every twenty years. The attempt of Pentathlis, the occupation of the Lipperean group, the recent settlement of Acragas pressed upon Carthage the need of stemming the Greek advance. Accordingly we find her sending an army to Sicily. The commander of this expedition, precursor of many a greater, was Malcos and it is possible that he was opposed by Felaris who established a tyranny at Acragas. There was a long war of which we know nothing except that the invader was successful and Greek territory was lost to the Venetian. In the northern seas Carthage was also confronted by the Greeks. The Phoecians of Missalia planted colonies and won influence on the coast of Spain. We are told that in the days of Cambyses the Phoecians gained repeated victories over the Carthaginians by sea. Moreover the new Phoecian settlement at Alalia in Corsica was a challenge to Carthage in what she regarded as her own domain. But Greek Alalia was short-lived. Carthage and her powerful Etruscan allies nearly annihilated the Phoecian fleet and the crews which escaped were only able to rescue their families and goods. Alalia was deserted. Corsica fell under the power of the Etruscans and the coasts of Sardinia were gradually appropriated by Carthage. Thus the chance of establishing a chain of Greek settlements between Missalia and Sicily was frustrated. It now remained for Carthage to establish and extend Phoenician power in Sicily. We have seen how Dorius, son of a Spartan king, made an attempt to do somewhat the same thing of which the Canadian adventurer had esade to gain a footing in Sicily within the Phoenician circle. He too failed, but such incidents brought home to Carthage the need of dealing another and a mightier blow at the rival power in Sicily. She was occupied with the conquest of Sardinia and with the Libyan War and the struggle was postponed. But the hour came at last and the Carthaginians put forth all their power to annihilate colonial Greece at the very time when the great king had poured forth the resources of Asia against the mother country. It was, in the first instance, an accident that the two struggles happened at the same moment. The causes which led to the one were independent of the causes which led to the other. But the exact moment chosen by Carthage for her attack upon Sicily was probably determined by the attack of Xerxes upon Greece, and although the two struggles ran each its independent course, there is no reason to question the statement that the courts of Sousa and Carthage exchanged messages through the mediation of the Phoenicians and were conscious of acting in concert against the same enemy. In the second decade of the fifth century Greek Sicily was dominated by four tyrants. An axilas of Regium had made himself master of Zankli, which from this time forward is known as Massana, and he thus controlled both sides of the Straits, which he secured against the passage of Etruscan pirates. Tyrillus, his father-in-law, was tyrant of Himera. Over against this family group in the north stood another family group in the south, Gelon of Syracuse, and his father-in-law Theron of Acrecas. Gelon had been the general of Hippocrates, a tyrant of Gela, who had extended his sway, whether as lord or overlord, over Naxos, Zankli, and other Greek cities, and had aimed at winning Syracuse. Hippocrates had defeated the Syracusans on the banks of the Helorus, and would have seized their city if it had not been for the intervention of Corinth and Corsaira. But Syracuse was forced to cede her dependency Camarena to the victor. Hippocrates died in besieging Heibla, and the men of Gela had no mind to allow his sons to continue their father's tyranny. But Gela, son of Dynomenes, a general who had often led the cavalry of Gela to victory, espoused the cause of his master's heirs, and as soon as he had gained possession of the city, brushed them aside, and took the tyranny for himself. The new lord of Gela achieved what his predecessors had vainly striven to accomplish. The Gamorai, or nobles of Syracuse, had been driven out by the commons, and they appealed to Gelaun to restore them. The Syracusan people, unable to resist the forces which Gelaun brought against them, made terms with him, and he established his power in Syracuse over oligarchs and democrats alike. It seems probable that Gelaun was either at once or at a later stage of his rule, appointed formally General with full powers. We find his brother Hyron, who succeeded to his position, addressed by the poet Paquilides as General of the Syracusan horsemen. The tyrant of Gela now abandoned his own city and took up his abode in Syracuse, making it the centre of a dominion which embraced the eastern part of the island. Gela had, for a short space, enjoyed the rank of the first of Sicilian cities. She now surrendered it to Syracuse, which was marked out by its natural sight for strength and domination. Gelaun may be called the second founder of Syracuse. He joined the island of Ortigia with the fortified height of Acrodina which looked down upon it. In the course of the sixth century a mole had been constructed connecting the island with the mainland so that the city, though it was still called the island, had become strictly a peninsula. Gelaun built a wall from the Acrodina fort down to the shore of the great harbour. Thus Acrodina and Ortigia were included within the same circuit of wall. Acrodina became part of the city. Ortigia remained the acropolis. The chief gate of Syracuse was now in the new wall of Gelaun close to the harbour and near it a new aggra was laid out for the old aggra in the island no longer sufficed. Hard by docks were built for Syracuse was to become a naval power. She was now by far the greatest Greek city in the west. Gelaun, belonging to a proud and noble family, sympathised and most willingly consorted with men of his own class and looked with little favour on the people whom he described in a famous phrase as a thankless neighbour. He held court at Syracuse like a king surrounded by men of noble birth. He tolerated the Syracusean commons. He was not unpopular with them but he showed elsewhere what his genuine feelings were. One of his first needs was to find inhabitants to fill the spaces of his enlarged town. For this purpose he transplanted men on a large scale from other places of his dominions. His own town Gela was sacrificed to the new capital. The half of its citizens were removed to Syracuse. Harder was the fate of Lucklis Camarena which was now for the second time blotted out from the number of Greek cities. Two generations had hardly passed since she had been swept away by the Syracusean Republic and now the Syracusean tyrant carried off all the inhabitants and made them burgesses of the ruling state. Megara, the next door neighbour of Syracuse on the north and Ubiara higher up the coast, also contributed to swell the population of Gelaun's capital. Megara became an outpost of Syracuse while Ubiara was so entirely blotted out that its very sight is uncertain. But in both these cases the policy of Gelaun strikingly displayed the prejudice of his class. He admitted the nobles of Megara and Ubiara to Syracusean citizenship. He sold the mass of the commons in the slave market. In abolishing cities and transplanting populations Gelaun set an example which we shall see followed by later tyrants. He also invited new settlers from elder Greece and gave the citizenship to 10,000 mercenary soldiers. Gelaun was supported in his princely power by his three brothers, Hieron, Polysalus and Thacibulus. He entered into close friendship with Hieron, his fellow tyrant, who made acrogas in wealth a power second only to Syracuse itself. Hieron, like Gelaun, was a noble belonging to the family of the Eminids and his rule was said to have been mild and just. Gelaun married Damareta, the daughter of Hieron and Hieron married a daughter of Polysalus. The brilliant lords of Syracuse and acrogas, thus joined by close bonds, were presently associated in the glorious work of delivering Greek Sicily from the terrible danger which was about to come against her from overseas. End of chapter 7 Part 9 Recording by Graham Redman Chapter 7 Parts 10 and 11 of a history of Greece to the death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 This is the LibriVox recording, while LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Lizzie Driver A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander the Great Volume 1 by John Bagnell Burie Chapter 7 Part 10 The Carthaginian invasion of Sicily and the Battle of Hymeria, a quarrel between Theeron of Acrogas and Teryllis, Tyrant of Hymeria, led up to the catastrophe which might easily prove fatal to the freedom of all the Sicilian Greeks. The ruler of Acrogas crossed the island and drove Teryllis out of Hymeria. The exiled Tyrant in Annexilus of Regium. But Regium was no match for the combined power of Acrogas and Syracuse. And so Teryllis sought the help of Carthage, the common enemy of all. Carthage was only waiting for the opportunity. She'd be making preparations for a descent on Sicily, and the appeal of Teryllis merely determined the moment and the point of her attack. Teryllis urging the Phoenician against Hymeria plays the same part as Hyppius urging the Persian against Athens. But in neither case is a tyrant's fall the cause of the invasion. The motive of the Carthaginian expedition against Sicily at this particular epoch is to be found in a far higher range of politics than the local affairs of Hymeria or the interests of a petty despot. There can hardly be a doubt that the great king and the Carthaginian Republic were acting in concert, and that it was deliberately planned to attack, independently but at the same moment, eastern and western Greece, while the galleys of the elder Phoenicia under their Persian master sailed to crush the elder Helies. The galleys of the younger Phoenician city would cross over on her own account against the younger Helies. In the Phoenicians of Tyre and Sedon, Xerxes had willing intermediaries to arrange with Carthage the plan of enslaving or annihilating Helies. The western island mattered little to Xerxes, but it mattered greatly to him that the Lord of Syracuse should be hindered from sending a powerful sucker in men and ships to the mother country. We have already seen how the mother country sought the help of Gellon and how the dangerous Sicily forced him to refuse. When the preparations were complete, Hamelcar, the soffit of Carthage, sailed with a large armament and landed at Ponomus, for the call of Tyrellus determined that the recovery of Hymeria should be the first object. It is said that the army consisted of three hundred thousand men, conveyed by more than two hundred galleys and three thousand transports. But we can lay no stress on these figures. From Ponomus this great host moved along the coast to Hymeria, accompanied by the warships, and proceeded to besiege the city, which Theron was himself guarding with a large force. The sea camp lay on the low ground between the hill of Hymeria and the beach. The land camp stretched along the low hills on the western side of the town. A sally of the besiege resulted in loss, and Theron sent a message to Syracuse to hasten the coming of his son-in-law. With fifty thousand foot soldiers and five thousand horsemen, Gellon marched to the rescue without delay. He approached the town on the east side and formed a strong camp on the right bank of the river. The decisive battle was brought about in a strange way, if we can trust the story. Hamelkar determined to enlist the gods of his foes on his own side. He appointed a day for a great sacrifice to Poseidon near the shore of the sea. For this purpose it was needful to have Greeks present who understood how the sacrifice should be performed. Accordingly Hamelkar wrote to Salinas, which had become a dependency of Carthage, bidding that city send horsemen to the Punic camp by fixed day. The letter fell into the hands of Gellon, and he conceived a daring strategy. On the morning of the appointed day a band of Syracusean horsemen stood at the gate of the sea-camp, professing to be the expected contingent from Salinas. The Carthaginians could not distinguish strangers of Syracuse from strangers of Salinas, and they were admitted without suspicion. They cut down Hamelkar by the altar of Poseidon, and they set fire to the ships. All this was visible from the high parts of the town above them, and men posted their signal to Gellon the success of the plan. The Greek commander immediately led his troops round the south side of the city against the land-camp of the enemy. There the battle was fought, a long and desperate struggle, in which the scale was finally turned in favour of the Greeks, by a body of men which Theron sent round to take the barbarians in the rear. The victory was complete, the great expedition was utterly destroyed, the chief himself was slain. But off the death of that chieftain the Carthaginians had another and a far grander tale to tell. This tale does not explain how the battle was brought about. It simply gives us a splendid picture. The battle rages from the morning till the late evening, and during that long day Hamelkar stands at the altar of Baal in his camp by the sea. A great fire devours the burnt offerings to the god, victim after victim, whole bodies of beasts and perhaps of men are flung into the flames, and the omens are favourable to Carthage. But as he is pouring out a drink offering, he looks forth, and behold his armies put to flight. The moment for a supreme sacrifice has come, he leaps into the fire and the flames consume him. The offering of his life did not retrieve the day, but hereafter Haimira was destined to pay a heavy penalty for the death of Hamelkar. The common significance of the battles of Salamis and Haimira, or the repulse of Asia from Europe, was appreciated at the time, and naively expressed in the fanciful tradition that the two battles were fought on the same day. But Haimira, unlike Salamis, was immediately followed by a treaty of peace. Carthage paid the Lord of Syracuse two thousand talents as a war indemnity. But this was a small treasury compared with the booty taken in the camp. Out of a portion of that spoil, a beautiful issue of large silver coins was minted, and called Damaritian after Gellon's wife, and some pieces of this memorial of the great deliverance of Sicily are preserved. Section 11 Syracuse and Acragas under Huron and Theron Theron and Acragas had played an honourable part in the deliverance of Sicily, though it was a part which was second to that of Gellon and Syracuse. Theron survived the victory by eight years, and during that time he was engaged in doing for Acragas what had been already done for Syracuse by his fellow tyrant. The enlargement of the Syracusian and the Acrantinian cities were affected by opposite processes. Syracuse had sprung up a hill. Acragas, which was perched aloft at the height, sprang down the slope. The enlarged city was encompassed by a wall of which nature had already done half the building. The most striking feature of the new city was a southern wall stretching between the rivers and lined by a row of temples. Theron laid the foundations of the temples along the wall, but it was not till long after his death that they were completed, and the building shone forth in all its glory. In all this work and in the water-courses which he also constructed, Theron had slave labour in abundance. The barbarians who had been captured after the Battle of Hymeria. Theron placed rescued Hymeria under the government of his son Thracidius. Who, however, unlike Theron himself, proved an oppressor and was hated by the citizens. Meanwhile Gelon died and left the fruits of his enterprise and statesmanship to be enjoyed by his brother Hyeron. While Hyeron was to have the sovereign power, Gelon decided that Polysalis, whom he ordered to marry his widow Damaretta, should have the supreme command of the Syracusean army. The idea of this dual system was unwise and it necessarily led to fraternal discord. Polysalis was popular at Syracuse and his double connection with Theron secured him the support of that tyrant. To Hyeron he seemed a dangerous rival and in the end he was compelled to seek refuge at Acragas. This led to an open breach between Hyeron and Theron, but it did not come to actual war. And it is said that the lyric poet Simonides, who was a favourite at both courts, acted as peacemaker. War between the two chief cities of Sicily did not come to laugh to Theron's death. And then it brought freedom to Acragas. Hyeron may be said to have completed the work of Hymyra by the defeat which he inflicted upon the Utrascans at Sime. Utrascans were the other rival power which, besides the Carthanginians, threatened the greater Greece of the west. The possession of the northern outpost of Hellas on the Italian coast, the colony of Sime, was one of the greatest objects of Utrascan politics. And, three or four years after the accession of Hyeron, it was pressed hard by a Tuscan squadron. Hyeron was a statesman of a sufficiently large view to answer the prayer of Sime for help. The Syracusian fleet sailed to the spot and defeated the besieges. From this time the Utrascan power rapidly declined and ceased to menace the development of western Greece. From the booty here on centre-bronst helmet to Olympia, and this precious memorial of one of the glorious exploits of Greece, is now in the great London collection of antiquities. More precious still is the song in which Pindara Thebes immortalised the victory. It is perhaps from the hens of Pindara that we win the most lively impression of the wealth and culture of the courts of Sicily in the fifth century. Pindara, like other illustrious poets of the day, Simonides and Bacolides, and Askelis, visited Sicily to bask in the smiles and receive the gifts of the tyrant. The lord of Syracuse, or king as he aspired to be styled, sent his race-horses and chariots to contend in the great games at Olympia and Elphi, and he employed the most gifted lyric poets to celebrate these victories in lordy oads. Pindara and Bacolides were sometimes set to celebrate the same victory in rival strains. These poets give us an impression of the luxury and magnificence of the royal courts and the generosity of the royal victors. Syracuse, on whose adornment her tyrants could spend the Punic spoils, and Acragas, fairest of the cities of men, seemed wonderful to the visitors from elder Greece, yet amid all their own magnificence and amid their absorbing political activity, the princes of this younger western world coveted above all things that their name should be glorious in the mother country. They still looked to the holy place of Delphi as a central sanctuary of the world, and they enriched it with costly dedications. The golden tripod, which Gellon and his brother dedicated from Punic treasure, became, like the other golden things of Delphi, the loot of robbers. But we are reminded of that fraternal union by a precious bronze charioteer, which was dug up recently in the ruins of the Delphic Sanctuary. It was dedicated by Polly Zallis, perhaps in honour of a Pythian victory. It were easy to be blinded by the outward show of these princely tyrants, which the genius of Pindar has invested with a certain dignity. But Pindar, himself born of a noble family, cherished the ideas and prejudices of a bygone generation. He belonged to a class. He wrote chiefly for a class whose days were past. Nobles whose sole aim in life was to win victories at the public games. These men were out of sympathy with the new ideas and the political tendencies of their own age. They were belated survivals of an earlier society. Pindar sympathised with them. He liked aristocracy's best. He accepted monarchy even in the form of tyranny. But democracy he regarded as the role of the mob's passions. The despots of Sicily and Cyrene supported the national games of Greece, and that was in truth their great merit in the eyes of the poet. The chariot race, the athletic contests, seen in the midst of a gay crowd, then the choral dance and song in honour of the victory, and the chorales in the hall perhaps of some noble, Agenet and Berger. These were the delightful things in Hellas, which, to Pindar, were the breath of life. He was religious to the heart's core, and all these things were invested with the atmosphere of religion. But allowing for this, we feel that he takes the games too seriously, and that when a Silas was wrestling with the deep problems of life and death, the day was passed for regarding an Olympian victory as the grandest thing in the world. We must not be beguiled by Pindar's majestic art into ascribing to the tyrants any high moral purpose. It was enough that they should aspire to an Olympian crown, and incur the necessary outlay, and seek immortality from the poet's craft. The poet could hardly dare to demand a higher purpose. Fair as the outside of a Syracusan state might seem to a favoured visitor who was entertained in the tyrant's palace, underneath there was no lack of oppression and suspicion. The system of spies which hereon organised to watch the lives of his private citizens tells its own tale. One of his most despotic acts was his dealing with the city of Katen. He deported all the inhabitants to Leontoni, peopled the place with new citizens, and gave the name of Etna. His motive was partially vanity, partially selfish prudence. He aspired to be remembered and worshipped as the founder of a city, and he also intended Etna to be a stronghold of refuge to himself or his dynasty, in case a day of jeopardy should come. His son Denomenes was installed as king of Etna. But the Dorian city of Etna, so cruelly founded, though it was celebrated in lofty praises by Pindar, and had the still higher honor of supplying the motive of a play of Achilles, had but a short duration. It was soon to become Katen again. At Acherus the mild rule of Theeron seems to have secured the love and trust of his fellow citizens. But at Himmara he showed what a tyrant might do. By slaughtering, without any mercy, those who had showed their discontent at the rule of his son. Neither the Syracusian, nor the Acringtine dynasty, endured long. After Theeron's death Thracidia's misruled Acregus, as he had already misruled Hymyra. But for some unknown reason he had the folly to go to war with Heron, who discomforted him in a hard-fought battle. This defeat led to his fall. Hymyra became independent, and Acregus adopted a free constitution. The deliverance of Syracus came about five years later. When Heron died, his brother Thracipulus took the reins of government, and, being a less able and dexterous ruler than Heron, he soon excited a revolution by his executions and confiscations. The citizens rose in a mass, and obtaining help from other Sicilian cities, besieged the tyrant and his mercenaries in Syracuse. He was ultimately forced to surrender and retire into private life in a foreign land. Thus the tyranny at Syracuse came to an end, and the feast of Illythero was founded to preserve the memory of the dawn of freedom. The rule of the despots seems to have wiped out the old feud between the nobles and the commons. But a new strife arose instead. The old citizens, nobles and commons alike, distrusted the new citizens, whom Gelon had gathered together from all quarters. A civil war broke out. For some time the old citizens were excluded from both the island and Accredina. But in the end all the strangers were driven out, and the democracy of Syracuse was securely established. One good thing the tyrants had done, they had obliterated the class distinctions which had existed before them, and thus the cities could now start afresh on the basis of political equality for all. The next half-century was a period of will and prosperity for the republics of Sicily, especially for the greatest among them. Syracuse and Acrogas, and for Silenus, freed from the Phoenician yoke. At Acrogas the free people carried to completion the works which their beneficent tyrant had begun. The stately row of temples along the southern wall belongs to this period. It was a grand conception to line the southern wall. The wall most open to the attacks of mortal enemies, with this wonderful series of holy places of the divine protectors of the city. It was a conception due, we may believe, in the first instance to Phaeron, but which the democracy fully entered into and carried out. But as sacred buildings brought less glory to Acrogas than the name of the most illustrious first sons, the poet and philosopher Impedocles was reared in what he describes as the great town above the Yellow River of Acrogas. He was not only a profound philosopher, an inspired poet, a skillful physician, but he had lent his hand to the reform of the constitution of his city. Unhappily his personality is lost in the dense cover of legends which quickly grew up around him. The true Impedocles, who, banished from his home, died quietly in the Penoponnesus, becomes a seer and a magician who hurled himself into the bowl of Etna that he might become a god. A god indeed he proclaims himself to be, going about from city to city, crowned a Delphic wreaths, and worshipped by men and women. For a time indeed the Ceciliots were threatened with remarkable danger. The revival of the native power of the Cecils. This revival was entirely due to the genius of one man, and the danger disappeared on his death. Giusetius organized a federation of the Cecil towns, and aspired to bring the Greek cities under Cecil rule. He displayed his talent in the foundation of new cities, which survived the failure of his schemes. His first settlement was on the hilltop of Menaeum, overlooking the sacred lake and temple of the Pallasae. As his power and ambitions grew, he descended from the hill and founded Pallasae, close to the national sanctuary, to be a political capital of the nation. He captured Etna, gained victory over the acroganthines and Syracusians, but was subsequently defeated by Syracuse, and on this defeat his followers deserted him, and the fabric which he had reared collapsed. He boldly took refuge himself at the altar in the Syracusian marketplace. His case was debated in the assembly, and by an act of clemency, which we might hardly expect, he was spared and sent to Corinth. Five years later we find him again in Sicily, engaged in the congenial work of founding a third city, Cale Actae, or Fairshore, on the northern coast, with the approbation of Syracuse. It is uncertain whether he dreamed of repeating his attempt at a national revival, or had become convinced that the fortune of the Cecil lay in the Hellenian nation. His foundations were more abiding than those of Heron. One of them Minoë survives to-day. The career of Ducetius exhibited the decision of destiny that the Greek was to predominate in the island of the Sicils.