Part 3

Aristides accordingly went in to the council and told them his news. Many of them refused to believe it, but when a ship from the island of Tenos that had deserted from the Persians confirmed the report, there was nothing more to say. All that could be done was to make all the preparation possible for a conflict which had become inevitable.

Of the battle we have two accounts, that of Herodotus, derived doubtless from one or more persons who had taken part in it, and that of Æschylus, who actually fought there as he had fought before at Marathon. The two accounts substantially agree, but they differ in the number of Greek ships engaged. Herodotus says that there were 378, made up to the round number of 380 by the Tenian ship which deserted on the night before the battle, and a ship from Lemnos, which had done the same at Artemisium. He gives the number of each contingent, the largest being 180 contributed by Athens, while 89 came from the states of the Peloponnesus, and 57 from Ægina and Eubœa. One ship only came from Greece beyond the sea. Even this was a private rather than a public contribution. A certain Phayllus of Crotona furnished a ship at his own expense, and manned it with fellow-citizens who were sojourning in Greece. Pausanias saw his statue at Delphi six centuries afterwards. Æschylus says that there were 300 ships, and ten were of special swiftness or strength. Mr. Grote thinks that this number is to be accepted in preference, hardly showing, I think, his wonted acuteness. The poet had to state his number in verse, and finds "ten thirties" a convenient way of doing it. But 380 would have been an unmanageable figure, and we have, accordingly, a convenient round number. Very likely Mr. Grote was not so alive to the exigencies of verse as he had been forty years before, when he was a Charterhouse boy.

As soon as the sun rose, the Greek fleet moved forward to the attack, the crews joining, as they advanced, in the _pæan_ or shout of battle. They met no reluctant foe. So confident, indeed, was the bearing of the Persians, that the Greeks were checked. Some of the crews even began to back water. The issues of great battles are often decided by examples of courage. So it was at Salamis, for one of the Greek ships advanced and led the way for the rest. To whom this credit is due cannot be said for certain. The Athenians declared that this brave captain was Ameinias, a brother of the poet Æschylus; the Æginetans claimed the honour for a ship of their own, which had brought over, on the eve of the battle, the heroes worshipped in their city as auxiliaries of the Greek people.[3] Herodotus had also heard a legend how the form of a woman, doubtless the goddess Athené, had been seen in the air and heard to cry, in a voice which reached from one end of the fleet to another, "Friends, how much further are ye going to back?" Æschylus gives his authority in favour of his countryman, not expressly but by saying that the ship which led the attack broke off the stern of a Phœnician ship, for we know that the Phœnician squadron was posted over against the Athenian contingent. The Æginetan was second if not first, and Simonides gives the third place to a ship that came from Naxos. By common consent Athens and Ægina shared the chief distinction of the day between them. The Athenian ships busied themselves with such of the enemy's fleet as offered resistance or were beached by their captains; the Æginetans attacked those that attempted to escape by the southern channel (their way to the open sea).

The subjects of Xerxes, on the whole, displayed great courage, not the less because they were fighting under the eyes of the king, who was watching the battle from a projecting point of Mount Ægaleos on the mainland of Attica. The native Persians and Medes, as inland peoples, were serving as what we call marines on board the ships furnished by the maritime provinces of Phœnicia, Egypt, and Cilicia. But they seldom had the chance of showing their prowess in boarding, and when they had they were hardly a match for their better-armed and more athletic antagonists. As for the management of the ships, the sailors from the east were not, as a rule, equal, either in resolution or in skill, to the hardier races of the west. Their superior numbers, in the narrow space to which the battle was confined, were a hindrance rather than a help. There was no mutual confidence, and no common speech. And the cogent motive that sent them into action was fear of punishment or, at the best, obedience to a ruling race, while the Greeks were fighting for home and country. The Persian fleet was more successful where the Asiatic Greeks were matched with the squadrons from the Peloponnesus. Herodotus, himself an Asiatic Greek by birth, vindicates their honour as combatants at the expense of their Greek patriotism. "I could mention," he says, "the names of many captains who took ships from the Greeks." He thinks it prudent, however, to omit them--and indeed when Herodotus wrote, such exploits would be better forgotten--and gives two names only, both of them well known already. He also mentions with pleasure the signal discomfiture of some Phœnician captains, who, having lost their ships early in the day, sought to excuse themselves to Xerxes by laying the blame on the treasonable practices of the Greeks. The battle was still going on, and almost while they were speaking a Samothracian ship was seen to ram and sink an Athenian. It was in turn disabled by an Æginetan trireme. But the Samothracian crew were expert javelin-throwers. They cleared the deck of the Æginetan, boarded, and captured it. Xerxes turned fiercely on the Phœnicians, and ordered that they should be instantly executed, as having ventured to slander men braver than themselves.

Another incident of the day Herodotus relates from personal knowledge. His native city of Halicarnassus had been ruled for some years by Artemisia, the daughter of one Lygdamis and the widow of another. She had advised Xerxes not to engage the Greek fleet, speaking with a frankness which might well have put her life in danger. Overruled by other counsellors, she did her best for the king's cause, but found herself in the greatest peril. An Athenian ship was in close pursuit of her, and there was a crowd of Persian vessels in front which hindered her escape. One of these belonged to a Carian neighbour, with whom, it is possible, she was not on the best of terms. She bore down upon his vessel, and sank it. The Athenian captain concluded at once that she had changed sides and was now fighting for Greece. He abandoned the pursuit, and Artemisia escaped. And she earned praise as well. "Sire," said one of the courtiers who stood by the king's seat, "dost thou see how bravely Artemisia bears herself? She has just sunk a Greek ship." He was sure, he went on to say, that the exploit was Artemisia's, for he knew her flag. No one seemed to have suspected the truth, and fortunately for Artemisia there was not a single survivor from the Carian ship to tell the tale.

Herodotus gives no estimate of the loss on either side. A later Greek writer says that two hundred Persian and forty Greek ships were destroyed, and that the Persian loss in men was in a much greater proportion. Few of them could swim, and consequently, when a ship was sunk, the whole crew perished with it. Most of the Greeks, on the contrary, were able to save themselves by swimming. Another disaster to the king's forces was the total destruction of the Persian troops landed on the island of Psyttaleia. Aristides disembarked with some Greek heavy-armed, and put them all to the sword. Among them were some of the king's own guard.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: These were Peleus and Phocus, sons of Æacus. Telamon, also a son of Æacus, and Ajax, son of Telamon, were worshipped in Salamis.]

V

THE BATTLES ON THE PLAIN AND ON THE SHORE

After the defeat at Salamis Xerxes withdrew his army into Thessaly. The result of his deliberations with his advisers was that he should himself go home, protected by a division of 60,000 men, and that his uncle Mardonius should stop in Greece with the intention of renewing the campaign in the following year. Mardonius was allowed to choose such portions of the army as he thought best, and having selected 300,000 men, went into winter quarters in Thessaly. It is needless to relate all that happened during the six months or so that passed from the opening of the campaign in the spring of 479 up to the final struggle in the early autumn of that year. It will suffice to say that Mardonius did his best to detach the Athenians from the cause of Greece by the most liberal offers, and that the Peloponnesians did all they could to bring about the same end by the consistent selfishness of their policy. To Mardonius the Athenians returned a firm refusal. To the Spartans they addressed a strong remonstrance. They represented that they had been already deserted, that the promise of help to be given for the defence of Attica had been shamefully broken. They hinted that if the Spartans and their friends persisted in neglecting every Greek interest outside the Isthmus they would be compelled, much against their will, to make terms with the enemy.

The Spartans would probably have continued to temporise but for the plain speaking of a native of Tegea in Arcadia, a friendly state for which they felt the greatest respect. "No wall at the Isthmus will protect us," he said, "if you drive the Athenians into alliance with Persia. They will put their fleet at the disposal of the enemy, and you will be helpless." The change in the Spartan policy was dramatically sudden. That very night five thousand Spartans set out for the front, a larger force than the state ever before put into the field, or was ever to put afterwards. Each Spartan had seven light-armed helots to attend him. The same number of the non-Spartan population of Laconia, each with one helot, followed. Mardonius, on hearing of this movement, withdrew from Attica into Bœotia and prepared to give battle.

The contingents of the Peloponnesian States mustered at Corinth. As they marched north, the Athenians, who had crossed over from Salamis, joined them. The whole force amounted to more than 100,000 men. It is not necessary to give all the numbers sent by the various states. The Lacedæmonians had 10,000 heavy armed (with 40,000 light armed), the Tegeans 1,500, the Athenians 8,000; the other contingents, for reasons which will shortly appear, may be left out of the account.

Mardonius had constructed an entrenched camp on the north or left bank of the river Asopus. In front of this camp he drew up his line of battle. The Greek army, which was under the command of Pausanias, uncle of one of the kings of Sparta and regent, took up its position on the slopes of Mount Cithæron. Their unwillingness to descend into the plain and come to close quarters emboldened Mardonius to attack them with his cavalry. The contingent from Megara happened to be in a peculiarly advanced or otherwise exposed situation, and suffered so severely that it had to send for help. It explains Pausanias's apparent timidity when we find that he could not induce any of his troops to go to the assistance of their hard-pressed countrymen. In the end three hundred Athenians volunteered for this service. They took with them a force of archers, an arm in which Megarians were entirely deficient. Some sharp fighting ensued; at last an arrow killed the horse of the Persian general Masistius, and the general, a man of great stature and beauty, and a splendid figure in his gilded chain-armour, was thrown to the ground. This happened close to the Athenian lines, and Masistius was soon killed, though it was only by a thrust in the eye that he could be despatched, so impenetrable was his armour. The Persian cavalry, as soon as it became aware of its leader's fate, charged furiously to recover the body. For a time the Greeks were driven back, but they rallied and recovered the prize. The Persians, demoralised, in the usual fashion of Asiatics, by the loss of their leader, retreated in disorder.

Encouraged by this success, the Greeks descended into the plain, and took up a second position on the right bank of the Asopus. The Lacedæmonians occupied the right wing, the Athenians the left. A curious instance of the want of discipline in the army is afforded by the dispute which arose between the Athenians and the Tegeans as to precedence. The first post of honour, the right wing, was conceded by common consent to the Lacedæmonians; the second part, the left wing, was the matter in dispute. Tegea claimed it on account of various mythical exploits, and on more recent successes achieved in company with Sparta. Athens had also its mythical claims, but it relied on the victory at Marathon. The decision was given in favour of Athens by a general vote of the Lacedæmonian soldiery. The new position taken up by the Greeks was found to be anything but convenient. The army suffered from a scarcity of water; it was unsafe to approach the river banks, for this was commanded by the Persian archers, and consequently the sole supply was a spring, known by the name of Gargaphia, which was close to the Lacedæmonian position. Mardonius shifted his line of battle a little to the west, so as to front the new Greek position. His picked native troops, the Persians and the Sacæ (Turkomans) were posted, not in the centre, the post of honour in an Asiatic army, as we have seen more than once before, but on the left wing, where they would face the Spartans; to the Theban contingent was allotted a place on the right where they were opposed to their old enemies of Athens. This was done at the suggestion of the Theban leaders, and the suggestion did credit, as we shall see, to their sagacity.

For ten days the two armies remained in position without moving. The soothsayers on both sides reported that the sacrifices portended success to a policy of defence; disaster, if an attack should be attempted. It was to the Greek cause that the delay was more perilous. The army suffered greatly from the incessant attacks of the Persian cavalry; the scanty water supply was a great inconvenience and even a danger; and when, at the suggestion of his Theban friends, Mardonius sent his cavalry to cut off the supplies that were sent by the passes of Cithæron into the Greek camp, the dangers of the situation were still further aggravated. But the most serious peril of all was of another kind. The spirit of party, without which no free state can exist, but by which every free state is ultimately ruined, was rife in the Greek ranks. The traitors who had shown the signal of the shield after Marathon were not absent from the ranks at Platæa. The Thebans, with malignant sagacity, suggested to Mardonius that he should rely on the influences that were working for him, and avoid a general engagement. Happily for Greece, he refused their advice, which was discreditable, he said, to Persian honour. A people so superior in war had no need to resort to such expedients. He resolved to assume the offensive.

The Greeks were apprised of this change of plan by a visitor from the Persian camp. After nightfall, Alexander, King of Macedonia, who claimed to be descended from the great hero Achilles, rode up to the Athenian outposts and demanded speech with the generals. They were fetched by the guard, and he told them that Mardonius had tried in vain to obtain from the sacrifices signs that promised success, but that, nevertheless, he was determined to attack. "Be prepared," he went on, "and if you prevail, do something for my freedom; I have risked my life for love of Greece, to save you from a surprise by the barbarians. I am Alexander of Macedon."

When Pausanias heard the news he made a proposition to the Athenian generals, which, as coming from a Spartan, a race so punctilious in military honour, sounds very strange. He suggested that they should take the place of the Spartans on the right wing, where they would be opposed to the Persian infantry whom they had already conquered at Marathon, but whom the Spartans had never met in battle. The Athenians promptly agreed, but the movement was detected by Mardonius, and was met by a corresponding change in his line. On perceiving this, Pausanias reverted to the former arrangement.

The first offensive movement on the part of Mardonius was eminently successful. His cavalry got past, or broke through the Spartan line, so as to get at the spring of Gargaphia. This they choked, and so deprived the Greek army of their only available water supply.

A change of position became necessary. The new ground which the council of war determined to occupy was near Platæa, and went by the name of the Island, because it lay between two small streams which descend from Cithæron. The army would have a water supply, and would be protected, in a degree, from the Persian cavalry. It was then too late to make the movement, which would not be practicable except under cover of darkness. The whole of the next day had to be spent in extreme discomfort; and when at nightfall orders were given for a change of position, two somewhat alarming incidents took place. The centre of the Greek force, comprising all the smaller contingents, had been so demoralised, it would seem, by the troubles of the day that, as soon as the night fell, they marched off, not to the Island, but beyond it, to a place which they very probably considered to be better protected against the harassing attacks of the cavalry. This was the town of Platæa itself. They took up a position in front of the temple of Heré, a building of considerable size, as we know from the ruins still to be seen, and on high ground. Here they had the town behind them, and ground, unfavourable to the action of cavalry on either side. The other disconcerting event was the conduct of one of the Spartan officers, Amompharetus by name.[4] This man conceived that the movement ordered by Pausanias was a retreat, and so forbidden by the strict code of Spartan military honour. Accordingly he refused to move. An angry dispute followed, Pausanias and his second in command doing all they could to convince their subordinate, he obstinately adhering to his decision. In the midst of the argument a messenger from the Athenians arrived on horseback. They were perplexed by the inaction of the Spartans, and, very possibly, suspicious of some design which would be compromising to their own safety. At the moment of this messenger's arrival Amompharetus had delivered his ultimatum. Taking up from the ground a huge stone, he cast it at the feet of Pausanias, saying at the same time, "I give my vote for staying"--the same word serves in Greek for vote and pebble, pebbles being used in the ballot-boxes. Pausanias hurriedly explained the situation to the Athenian, and begged him to carry back a message that he hoped his countrymen would not move till he could overcome the difficulty in which he found himself. This, indeed, seemed almost hopeless. At last, just before dawn, Pausanias made up his mind to leave the refractory captain behind. Finding himself alone with his company, he would, he hoped, consent to follow. And this was what actually took place.

By this time day was dawning, and Mardonius became aware of what had happened. He seems to have looked upon the movement in much the same way as Amompharetus had done. It was a flight. These Spartans, for all their boasted courage, were running away. His Persian troops answered the command by a disorderly advance. They crossed the Asopus, which, it will be remembered, flowed in front of their position, and hurried in the track of the Spartans; the rest of the Asiatics followed their example. Pausanias sent a message to the Athenians, telling them that the Persians were concentrating their whole strength against his division, and begging that they would come to his help, at least by sending their archers. The Athenians, however, had by this time work enough of their own to deal with, for the Thebans and Thessalians had commenced an attack upon them.

The Spartans, therefore, had to bear the brunt of the Persian attack alone. They had ten thousand heavy-armed and four times as many light-armed, numbers slightly increased by the contingent from Tegea, a force of three thousand, equally divided between the two classes of troops. Pausanias, who seems to have shown little ability or presence of mind from the beginning to the end of the campaign, was busy with the customary sacrifice. Unfortunately the victims showed no encouraging signs, and he was content, possibly was compelled by the public opinion of his men--for a Greek army, even when it came from Sparta, was a democracy--to postpone any movement of offence till the Fates seemed propitious. Meanwhile his men were falling about him--one of the slain was reputed to be the handsomest man in the whole Greek army.[5] In an agony of distress, Pausanias lifted his eyes to the Temple of Heré, which stood on a conspicuous height, and prayed for the help of the goddess. The signs immediately changed, and the welcome signal to charge was given. The Tegeans seem to have already moved. Together they advanced against the Persian line, which was protected by a rampart of wicker shields, from behind which the archers had been pouring volleys of arrows. The rampart was soon broken down. Then a fierce hand-to-hand fight began. Again and again the Persian braves dashed themselves on the Spartans' spears and broke or strived to break them. "They were not one whit inferior to the Greeks in boldness and warlike spirit"--such is the testimony which men who had borne their part in that fierce struggle bore to the bravery of their antagonists--but their armament was less effective and their military training less complete. The battle raged most furiously about the person of Mardonius, who was surrounded by a bodyguard of a thousand Immortals. As long as he lived these picked warriors held their own; when he was struck down--a Spartan, Aeimnestus[6] by name, had the credit of the deed--they fled in wild confusion to their camp. A body of forty thousand was led off the field by the general in command, when he saw how the fortune of the day was going.