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Title: The Great Persian War and its preliminaries : A study of the evidence, literary and topographical
Author: Grundy, George Beardoe
Language: English
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THE GREAT PERSIAN WAR.
To
MY WINTER-FRIEND
HENRY FRANCIS PELHAM.
THE
GREAT PERSIAN WAR
AND ITS PRELIMINARIES;
A STUDY OF THE EVIDENCE, LITERARY
AND TOPOGRAPHICAL.
BY G. B. GRUNDY, M.A.,
LECTURER AT BRASENOSE COLLEGE, AND UNIVERSITY LECTURER
IN CLASSICAL GEOGRAPHY, OXFORD.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
NEW YORK:
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1901.
PRINTED BY
WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LIMITED,
LONDON AND BECCLES.
PREFACE.
The publication of a version of an old old story which has been retold
in modern times by famous writers, demands an apology even at this
day of the making of many books. It can only be justified in case the
writer has become possessed of new evidence on the history of the
period with which the story is concerned, or has cause to think that
the treatment of pre-existing evidence is not altogether satisfactory
from a historical point of view.
I think I can justify my work on the first of these grounds; and I hope
I shall be able to do so on the second.
Within the last half-century modern criticism of great ability has
been brought to bear on the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides.
Much of it has been of a destructive nature, and has tended to raise
serious doubts as to the credibility of large and important parts of
the narratives of those authors. I venture to think that, while some of
this criticism must be accepted as sound by every careful student, much
of it demands reconsideration.
A large part of it has been based upon topographical evidence. Of the
nature of that evidence I should like to say a few words.
Until ten years ago the only military site of first-rate importance in
Greek history which had been surveyed was the Strait of Salamis, which
the Hydrographic Department of the English Admiralty had included in
the field of its world-wide activity. A chart of Pylos made by the same
department was also available, but was quite inadequate for the
historical purpose.
Since that time Marathon has been included in the survey of Attica made
by the German Staff Officers for the German Archæological Institute.
The surveys of Thermopylæ, Platæa, and Pylos, I have myself made at
different times between 1892 and 1899. Pylos does not come within the
scope of the present volume.
In the absence of these surveys, this side of Herodotean criticism was
founded upon such sketches as Leake and other travellers had made of
important historical sites, and upon the verbal description of them
contained in their works.
It is superfluous to praise the labours of such inquirers. No amount
of later investigation in Greek topography can ever supplant much that
they have done. But I am quite certain that Leake would have been the
last to claim any scientific accuracy for the sketch-maps which he
made; and I think it will be agreed that maps without accuracy cannot
be used for the historical criticism of highly elaborate narratives.
The present volume, deals exclusively with the Græco-Persian wars up to
the end of 479 B.C. I propose to deal with the Hellenic warfare of the
remainder of the fifth century in a separate volume.
Some of my conclusions are not in accord with the commonly accepted
versions of the history of this period. But, when the circumstances
of the work are considered, it will, I think, be conceded that such a
result was almost inevitable.
I have supported my conclusions, especially in such cases as I believe
them to be in disagreement with accepted views, by arguments taken from
the evidence. Where those arguments are in my opinion likely to be of
interest to the general reader, I have inserted them in the actual
text; where they are of a very specialist character, I have put them in
the form of notes.
I have but little more to say with regard to my own work in general. In
the form in which I have presented it in this volume I have tried
to make it constructive rather than destructive. I have, I believe,
confined my destructive criticism to passages in which I found myself
in conflict with accepted authorities on the subject who had presumably
enjoyed equal opportunities with myself of becoming acquainted with the
facts. I have purposely avoided criticism of those who, not having had
the opportunity of visiting the scenes of action, but yet having made
the best use of the evidence available at the time at which they wrote,
have, in my opinion, been led into error by the defectiveness of the
evidence they were obliged to use.
Early in the course of my inquiries, the results of investigation
suggested to me that Herodotus’ evidence as an historian differs
greatly in value, according as he is relating facts, or seeking to give
the motives or causes lying behind them. Further investigation has
tended to confirm this view. My conclusions on these two points will be
made sufficiently clear in the course of this work.
In his purely military history Herodotus is dealing with a subject
about which he seems to have possessed little, if any, special
knowledge, and hardly any official information. The plan or design
which lay behind the events which he relates can, therefore, only be
arrived at, in the majority of instances, by means of an induction
from the facts he mentions. This will, I think, adequately define and
account for the method I have adopted in treating his evidence.
The necessity of employing various words indicating probability rather
than certainty does not add adornment to style, but is inevitable under
circumstances where the evidence is of the nature of that which is
presented to any one who attempts to write the history of any part of
the fifth century before Christ.
The spelling of Greek names is a difficulty at the present day. Many of
the conventional forms are absolutely wrong. I do not, however, think
that the time has yet come when it is convenient to write Sikelia,
Athenai, Kerkura, etc. I have therefore used the conventional forms for
well-known names, but have adopted the more correct forms for names
less known, with one or two literal changes, such as “y” for _upsilon_,
where the change is calculated to make the English pronunciation
of the name approximate more closely to that of the original Greek.
As one who is from force of present circumstances laying aside, not
without regret, a department of work which has been of infinite
interest to him, and whose necessary discontinuance causes him the
greatest regret, I may perhaps be allowed to speak briefly of my own
experience to those Englishmen who contemplate work in Greece.
Firstly, as to motive: If you wish to take up such work because you
have an enthusiasm for it, and because you feel that you possess
certain knowledge and qualifications, take it up by all means; you
will never regret having done so. It will give you that invaluable
blessing,—a keen intellectual interest, lasting all your life.
But if your motive be to acquire thereby a commercial asset which may
forward your future prospects, leave the work alone. You will, in the
present state of feeling in England, forward those prospects much more
effectively by other means.
In all work in Greece malaria is a factor which has to be very
seriously reckoned with. There has been much both of exaggeration and
of understatement current upon the subject. It so happens that many
of the most interesting sites in Greece are in localities notoriously
unhealthy —Pylos and Thermopylæ are examples in point. Of the rare
visitors to Pylos, two have died there since I was at the place in
August, 1895; and of the population of about two hundred fisher-folk
living near the lagoon in that year, not one was over the age of forty.
The malaria fiend claims them in the end, and the end comes soon.
At Thermopylæ, in this last summer, I escaped the fever, but caught
ophthalmia in the marshes. An Englishman who was with me, and also our
Greek servant, had bad attacks of fever.
On the whole, I prefer the spring as the season for work. The
summer may be very hot. During the four weeks I was at Navarino the
thermometer never fell below 93° Fahrenheit, night or day, and rose
to 110° or 112° in the absolute darkness of a closed house at midday.
What it was in the sun at this time, I do not know. I tried it
with my thermometer, forgetting that it only registered to 140°, with
disastrous results to the thermometer.
At Thermopylæ in 1899 the nights were, in July and August, invariably
cool, though the heat at midday was very great; so much so that you
could not, without using a glove, handle metal which had been exposed
to it.
The winter is, I think, a bad time for exploration,—in Northern Greece
at any rate. Rain and snow may make work impossible, and the mud on the
tracks in the plain must be experienced in order to be appreciated.
Snow, moreover, may render the passes untraversable.
To one who undertakes survey work in circumstances similar to those
in which I have been placed, the expense of travelling in Greece
is considerable. Survey instruments are cumbrous, if not heavy
paraphernalia. Moreover, as I have been obliged to do the work within
the limits of Oxford vacations, and as the journey to Greece absorbs
much time, it has been necessary for me to labour at somewhat high
pressure while in the country. Twelve hours’ work a day under a Greek
sun, with four hours’ work besides, demands that the doer should be in
the best of condition. One is therefore obliged to engage a servant to
act as cook and purveyor, since the native food and cooking are not
of a kind to support a Western European in a healthy bodily state for
any length of time. In case of survey, moreover, it is just as well
to choose a servant who knows personally some of the people of the
district in which the work is carried on, as suspicions are much more
easy to arouse than to allay, and original research may connect itself
in the native mind with an increase of the land-tax.
There are very few parts of Greece where it is dangerous to travel
without an escort. Since the recent war with Turkey, the North has been
a little disturbed, and brigandage has never been quite stamped out
in the Œta and Othrys region. But it is not the organized brigandage
of old times; nor, I believe, in the vast majority of cases, are the
crimes committed by the resident population. The Vlach shepherds, who
come over from Turkish Epirus in the summer with their flocks,
are usually the offenders. Throughout nine-tenths of the area of the
country an Englishman may travel with just as much personal security as
in his own land.
The Greeks are a kindly, hospitable race. The Greek peasant is a
gentleman; and, if you treat him as such, he will go far out of his way
to help you. If you do not, there may be disagreeables.
I cannot acknowledge all the written sources of assistance to which I
have had recourse in compiling this volume, because I cannot recall the
whole of a course of reading which has extended over a period of ten
years.
Of Greek histories I have used especially those of Curtius, Busolt,
Grote and Holm; of editions of Herodotus those of Stein and Macan. Of
special books, I have largely used the French edition of Maspero’s
“Passing of the Empires,” and Rawlinson’s “Herodotus.” I have read
Hauvette’s exhaustive work on “Hérodote, Historien des Guerres
Médiques.” I have not, however, been able to use it largely, as I find
that my method of dealing with the evidence differs very considerably
from his.
Where I have consciously used special papers taken from learned
serials, I have acknowledged them in the text.
Many of my conclusions on minor as well as major questions are founded
on a fairly intimate knowledge of the theatre of war.[1]
I have dealt with the war as a whole, as well as with the major
incidents of it, because it is a subject of great interest to one who,
like myself, has, in the course of professional teaching, had to deal
with the campaigns of modern times.
I cannot close this Preface without expressing my gratitude for the
help which has been given me at various stages of my work.
Mr. Douglas Freshfield, himself a worker in historical research, and
Mr. Scott Keltie gave me invaluable assistance at the time of my first
visit to Greece, when I was holding the Oxford Travelling Studentship
of the Royal Geographical Society.
My own college of Brasenose generously aided me with a grant in
1895, which was renewed last year.
In reckoning up the debt of gratitude, large items in it are due to my
friends Mr. Pelham and Mr. Macan. As Professor of Ancient History, Mr.
Pelham is ever ready to aid and encourage those who are willing to work
in his department, and I am only one of many whom he has thus assisted.
Such grants as I have obtained from the Craven Fund have been obtained
by his advocacy, and he has often by his kindly encouragement cheered
the despondency of a worker whose work can only be rewarded by the
satisfaction of having done it,—a reward of which he is at times, when
malarial fever is upon him, inclined to under-estimate the value.
I owe much to that personal help which Mr. Macan so kindly gives to
younger workers in the same field as his own. He has also been kind
enough to read through the first three chapters of this book. Though he
has suggested certain amendments which I have adopted, he is in no way
responsible for the conclusions at which I have arrived.
To Canon Church, of Wells, I am deeply indebted for those illustrations
which have been made from the beautiful collection of Edward Lear’s
water-colour sketches of Greece which he possesses.
My father, George Frederick Grundy, Vicar of Aspull, Lancashire, has
read through all my proofs, and has done his best to make the rough
places smooth. I have every reason to be grateful for this labour
undertaken with fatherly love, and, I may add, with parental candour.
The chapters in this volume which deal with the warfare of 480–479 were
awarded the Conington Prize at Oxford, given in the year 1900.
G. B. GRUNDY.
Brasenose College, Oxford,
_October_, 1901.
NOTE.
Note.—After nearly a year spent in learning the principles and
practice of surveying, I went to Greece in the winter of 1892–93, and
made
1. A survey of the field of Platæa;
2. A survey of the town of Platæa;
3. A survey of the field of Leuctra.
I also examined
1. The western passes of the Kithæron range;
2. The roads leading to them from Attica by way
of Eleusis and Phyle respectively;
3. The great route from Thebes northward, west of
Kopais, as far as Lebadeia and Orchomenos.
In the summer of 1895 I revisited Greece.
During that visit I did the following work:—
1. A survey of Pylos and Sphakteria;
2. An examination of the great military route from
Corinth to Argos, and from Argos, by way of
Hysiæ, to Tegea;
3. An examination of the military ways from the
Arcadian plain into the Eurotas valley;
4. I also followed and examined the great route
from the Arcadian plain to Megalopolis, and
thence to the Messenian plain;
5. An examination of the site of Ithome.
In the recent summer of 1899 I did further work abroad in reference to
Greek as well as Roman history. The Greek portion consisted of:—
1. A visit to the site of and museums of Carthage,
with a view to ascertaining the traceable effects
of Greek trade and Greek influence in the
Phœnician city;
2. A detailed examination, lasting ten days, of the
region and site of Syracuse;
3. An examination of the field of Marathon, which
I had previously visited, though under adverse
circumstances of weather, in January, 1893;
4. A very careful examination of Salamis strait;
5. A voyage up the Euripus, and such examination
of the strait at Artemisium as was necessary;
6. A survey of the pass of Thermopylæ;
7. A detailed examination of the path of the
Anopæa;
8. An examination of the Asopos ravine and the
site and neighbourhood of Heraklea Trachinia;
9. An examination of the route southward from
Thermopylæ, through the Dorian plain, past
Kytinion and Amphissa to Delphi;
10. A second examination of Platæa and the passes
of Kithæron.
Other parts of Greece known to me, though not visited with the
intention of, or, it may be, under circumstances permitting, historical
inquiry are:—
1. Thessaly, going
(_a_) From Volo to Thaumaki, _viâ_ Pharsalos;
(_b_) From Volo to Kalabaka (Æginion) and
the pass of Lakmon;
(_c_) From Volo to Tempe, _viâ_ Larissa;
2. The great route from Delphi to Lebadeia by the
Schiste;
3. The route up the west coast of Peloponnese from
Pylos, through Triphylia and Elis to Patras;
4. The neighbourhood of Missolonghi;
5. Corfu and Thera (Santorin).
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Greek and Persian 1
II. Persian and Greek in Asia. The Scythian Expedition 29
III. The Ionian Revolt 79
IV. Persian Operations in Europe: B.C. 493–490. Marathon 145
V. The Entr’acte: B.C. 490–480 195
VI. The March of the Persian Army. Preparations in Greece 213
VII. Thermopylæ 257
VIII. Artemisium 318
IX. Salamis 344
X. From Salamis to Platæa 408
XI. The Campaign of Platæa 436
XII. Mykale and Sestos 522
XIII. The War as a Whole 534
XIV. Herodotus as the Historian of the Great War 556
INDEX 581
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
TO FACE PAGE
Marathon: from the “Soros,” looking towards Little Marsh 163
The “Soros” at Marathon 165
Marathon from the “Soros” 187
The Vale of Tempe 231
The Harbour of Corcyra 241
Mountains of Thermopylæ, from Phalara 257
Mount Œta and Plain of Malis 259
Asopos Ravine 261
The Gorge of the Asopos 261
Thermopylæ, from Bridge of Alamana 263
View from Thermopylæ, looking towards Artemisium 264
Channel of Artemisium, from 1600 Feet above Thermopylæ 264
On Thermopylæ-Elatæa Road (_viâ_ Modern Boudenitza) 265
Thermopylæ between Middle and East Gate 290
The East Gate of Thermopylæ 291
Summit of Anopæa, looking East 301
Coast at Middle Gate of Thermopylæ in 480 310
Thermopylæ 311
Thermopylæ: the Middle Gate 311
First and Second Mounds, Middle Gate, Thermopylæ 312
Plain of Eubœa 321
The Narrows at Chalkis 323
Salamis, looking South from Mount Ægaleos, with the Island
of Psyttaleia in the Centre 392
Plain of Thebes and Mount Kithæron 436
Plain of Kopais, from Thebes 452
Plain of Platæa and Kithæron 454
The First Position at Platæa 460
Platæa: “Island,” from Side of Kithæron 480
Bœotian Plain, from Platæa-Megara Pass 482
Platæa—West Side of Νῆσος 482
Platæa: Panorama from Scene of Last Fight 502
MAPS.
Battle of Marathon 166
Region of Thermopylæ and Malian Gulf 266
Isthmus of Corinth and West Attica 368
Salamis 384
Thermopylæ _At end_
Platæa _At end_
CHAPTER I.
GREEK AND PERSIAN.
The sharp, fierce struggle between Greek and Persian which was fought
out on land and sea in the years 480–479, was regarded by those who
were contemporary with it, and has ever since been looked upon as
the great crisis in the history of the two races. It was a struggle
whose results were decisive in the history of the world. From a purely
military point of view, it is true, the fighting in those two years
was not final. The loser did not issue from it in a condition so
crippled that he could not continue the contest. So far from this being
the case, Persia, for more than a century after Salamis was fought,
continued not merely to show a bold front to Greece, but to maintain
the preponderance of her power in the lands east of the Ægean, and to
be a cause of dread to the Hellene of Europe. Athens did, in the period
succeeding these great years of the war, wrest from Persia most of the
Hellenic or semi-Hellenic Islands and coast towns in the Eastern Ægean;
but her tenure of many of them was brief, and of all, precarious.
The city States on the mainland slip rapidly from her grasp, and the
measure of the independence from Persia in the case of some of those
who remain on the tribute lists is at least open to discussion. It was
long before the Greek world discovered that decay of the great Empire
which is so apparent to the student of history who has the story of the
fifth and fourth centuries before him. It set in soon after 479;
but how far it was caused by the festering of the wounds inflicted in
that year cannot now be said. The mischief was internal: it was situate
far away in the depths of Asia, beyond the ken of the Greek of the
fifth century, and it is not strange that he never appreciated the full
extent of the malady.
And yet there is even a military point of view, from which the warfare
of these years _was_, in a sense, decisive. From that time forward
Persia was the assailed and not the assailant. The Great King either
was not, or did not feel himself in a position to assume the offensive
beyond the waters which separated Asia from Europe.
In reckoning up the results of a great war it is instructive to
appreciate what was: it is impossible to ignore what might have been.
Of the issues, military, political, and social, of this Græco-Persian
war, the military issue is perhaps the least important from the point
of view of world-history. It did, indeed, teach a great lesson, in that
it brought into prominence for the first time the strength and weakness
of the East and West when brought into contact with one another; but
the most extraordinary feature about this special aspect of the matter
is that those who had tried the tremendous experiment were all but
utterly unconscious of the true bearing of its results; and it was left
to the fourth generation from them to appreciate a truth which their
forefathers had proved but never realized.
The possible results from a political and social point of view which
might have ensued, had the war ended otherwise than it did, have formed
the subject of many a surmise for those who have written the history
of these years. If Herodotus can be taken as representative of the
views and sentiments of men of his time,—the men, that is to say, of
the half century which succeeded the critical phase of the long warfare
with Persia,—it is evident that those who regarded the great series
of events from a near perspective were supremely conscious of the
political, and but little, if at all, conscious of the social issue.
#THE ISSUES AT STAKE IN THE WAR.# It was perhaps the very intensity
of the love of freedom with the Greek that blinded him to all save
the fact of the preservation of that freedom. Doubtless that feeling
was largely bound up with the social question of the preservation of
Hellenic civilization, and with the consciousness of the peril to which
any social system must be exposed under a political system alien to
it. It is nevertheless strange that, if the peril had been regarded in
this instance as a very real one, a historian like Herodotus, whose
wide experience of other social systems seems to have had the effect
of making him a peculiarly ardent Hellenist, should have failed to
notice it. It is perhaps possible to suggest a reason for an omission
so remarkable. Herodotus himself had been brought up in one of the
Dorian cities of Asia, at a time when it was in a state of vassalage to
Persia. He had personal experience of the position of the Greeks under
Persian rule. He must furthermore have been intimately acquainted with
the life in the great Ionian cities which were subject to the Empire.
From the Greek point of view, their political position was the reverse
of ideal; but even a Greek could hardly have denied that their position
might have been much worse than it actually was. The most objectionable
feature,—the Greek tyrant governing in the Persian interest,—had been
to a great extent removed before his time; and after the deposition
of tyranny the cities seem to have enjoyed a large measure of local
independence under Persian suzerainty. Whatever the extent or nature
of the tie which bound them to the sovereign government, it certainly
does not seem to have been such as to crush social and intellectual
development on Hellenic lines; in fact, with regard to intellectual
development, these very cities seem to have been first in the field,
and to have been infinitely more prominent under Persian than under
Athenian rule. Whatever the cause, whether fear or policy, or both,
it is plain, on the evidence of the Greeks themselves, that the
Persian Government was extraordinarily lenient and liberal in its
treatment of subject Greeks. The Hellenism of the fifth century, social
and intellectual, was, moreover, no tender plant requiring careful
political nurture. It had struck its roots deep into the very being
of the race; and it may be doubted whether Persia could, even if she
would, have eradicated so strong a growth.
It is therefore possible to exaggerate the consequences which might
have resulted to Greek civilization had the issue of the great war
been favourable to the Persian. The inherent probabilities of the case
do not warrant the assertion that such a victory would have brought
about the substitution of an Eastern for a Western civilization in
South European lands. It is, moreover, extremely doubtful whether the
Great King could have maintained his hold upon European Greece for any
prolonged period after the initial conquest; and any attempt to crush
the Hellenism of the land would certainly have led to insurrection in
a country designed by nature to be the home of communal and individual
freedom.
Speculation upon what “might have been” is ever open to the charge of
idleness. It is, indeed, futile to attempt it in detail, by reason of
the infinity of the factors which modify human action. But, inasmuch
as what has been already said with regard to the possible results of
the war might leave a wrong impression as to the legitimate deductions
to be drawn from the main factors of a possible though imaginary
situation, it is necessary to carry the speculation one step farther.
That a Persian victory, even if only temporary, would have immensely
modified the political development of Greece in the last three quarters
of the fifth century, goes without saying; and such a modification
could not but have seriously affected the genius of Hellenism. The
splendour of the life and literature of the last half of the century
was largely due to the elaboration at Athens of a political and social
system, the counterpart of which the world has never seen. Never
before, and never since, has existed a community so large in which so
great a proportion of its members has had time to think out their own
salvation, and to work it out upon their own lines of thought. #EASTERN
AND WESTERN CIVILIZATION.# Salvation may seem a strange word to use of
a system which produced the pitiful record of the fourth century; and
yet, from amid all the evil, failure, and folly of the time there
emerged a social order which was infinitely better than anything of
the kind which had preceded it, and which was destined to form the
foundation of the edifice of civilization in the western world at the
present day. A Persian victory at Salamis, or even at Platæa, must have
postponed the realization of those ideals which are the glory of the
Greek people, and on which rests the claim of their race to the highest
place in the history of the nations; and postponement might have made
the full realization impossible.
The catastrophe of 480 had been long in maturing. The march of events
in South-eastern Europe and Western Asia had been slow. Still, the
two paths of development tended in opposite directions; and it was
inevitable that those who followed them should meet in a collision, the
shock of which would be proportionate to the forces of propulsion. The
moral strength of those forces was enormous. The ancient civilization
of the East, ages old, strong in development, the one ideal of the
millions of Western Asia, came into contact through its most western
off-shoot with a civilization which, whatever its origin, and whatever
the influences to which it had been exposed, was in striking contrast
to it. On the eastern shores of the Ægean the two first met.
It is impossible to say on the one hand what was the level of the
civilization attained by the Greeks at the time they first settled on
these coasts, more than 1000 years before Christ; and it is still less
possible to say what was the state of the peoples they found there at
the time of their settlement. Whether Lydia at this early age of its
development had as yet come into contact with, and been influenced by,
the civilization of the lands east and south of Taurus must also be
matter of doubt. It is, on the whole, probable that it had; for the
number and rapid development of the Greek trading towns on the East
Ægean coast point to a considerable and valuable overland trade, whose
roots would, in all probability, be in the lands of Mesopotamia, if not
still farther east. The caravans from that rich plain would be sure to
carry the infection of its civilization to the lands they traversed.
But, in any case, neither the Greek nor this most westerly off-shoot
of the Asiatic civilization can have passed beyond an early stage of
development, nor, in so far as is known, did the representatives of
either seek to inflict their own form of life upon the representatives
of the other. Neither side seems to have been strong enough to conquer
the other, even if either had been disposed to try. The Greek was
content to trade; the various native races were without union, and
cannot have been equal to the conquest of a people whose original
settlements they had apparently been unable to prevent.
The great Phrygian kingdom which flourished in Asia Minor for several
centuries had probably passed the zenith of its greatness when the
Greeks first established themselves on the coast; and the Lydian
monarchy, still in its infancy, had not developed into the greatness
it attained in after-time. In the obscure and uncertain traditions
of the Asian Greeks which Herodotus has preserved, this monarchy is
represented as having had an existence extending far into the past,
under various dynasties; but of its earliest history nothing is really
known, and the little that can be conjectured rests on the uncertain
foundation of mythical story. The Atyadæ or Herakleidæ of the earlier
dynasties are mere shadow-kings in history. A recurrent theme in
Phrygian and Lydian story alike is the fabulous wealth of certain of
those rulers. They seem to have afforded the Greek his first glimpse of
the splendour of the East.
Though, doubtless, the Greek trader traversed the Western Asian
peninsula through and through in his trading journeys, the populations
with whom he came in contact remained uninfluenced by a civilization
they did not appreciate, and probably could not understand. The Lydians
alone afforded an exception to this rule, because their position was
exceptional. They were brought into close contact with the Greek, and
seem to have implanted on a civilization of an Oriental type certain
characteristics derived from Greek social life. #RISE OF THE LYDIAN
KINGDOM.# It is doubtful whether such features of this civilization as
are known to the modern world were characteristic of the Lydian race
as a whole in early days; it is more probable that the mass of the
people remained in a comparatively low state of social development,
and that the quasi-feudal ruling families of the land evolved for
themselves a civilization copied from foreign lands, and were
influenced especially by the reports which reached them of the life and
glories of the great cities of the Euphrates plain.
The rise of Lydia to greatness seems to date from the early years
of the eighth century before Christ. A feudal family established a
precarious supremacy over the other feudal families of the land.
Nevertheless, the kingdom seems to have acquired a stable unity which
it hitherto had lacked; and the westernmost region of the West Asian
peninsula gradually developed into a dominion more splendid, if not
more powerful, than any which had hitherto existed among the strangely
diverse populations of that part of the world.
Geographical convention has assigned this peninsula to Asia; and,
under the influence of name-association, it has come to be regarded
as being in every sense an integral portion of that great continent.
In point of fact, however, it was at this time a borderland between
Orient and Occident, approximating ethnographically rather to West
than to East; though, in so far as it was influenced by the outside
world, affected rather by the preponderant power and splendour of the
East than by the comparative weakness and insignificance of the West.
The true historical western frontier of Asia has varied at different
periods of history between the Hellespont and the Taurus, according as
this debateable land has been in possession of an eastern or a western
power. But in the earlier days of the Lydian kingdom the region was
politically centred within itself, or, rather, was an aggregation of
political circles, and not, as in later times, a mere segment of a
great circle, whose centre lay far beyond its borders. Those who know
by experience the character of the barrier which, in the shape of Mount
Taurus, separates this region from the adjacent East, are most emphatic
in insisting upon the formidable nature of that wall of separation. It
is not difficult to demonstrate that Taurus has been in the past one
of the most decisive physical features in the history of the world.
The great systems of civilization have had one of two origins. Either
they have sprung up in those great plains of the world whose climate is
favourable to ease of existence; or they have been developed by nations
whose circumstances have been favourable to wide intercourse with, and
experience of, the peoples around them. Egypt, the Euphrates plain,
India, and China, are examples of the first; Greece and Great Britain
are the most prominent examples of the latter class. As, however, the
“civilizations of intercourse” must be largely dependent on navigation,
which can itself be alone developed by long experience, it is plain
that they must be of later development than the “civilizations of ease
of existence.” Thus it is that, many centuries before any system of
civilization of high development existed in Europe, the plains of the
Euphrates basin had given birth to one which, had nature allowed it
unimpeded expansion, must have spread to a great distance from its
centre. The all but blank, impassable wall of Taurus prevented the
West Asian peninsula from being thoroughly orientalized. Thus that
civilization which was springing up beyond the Ægean was allowed to
develop on its own lines, hardly affected by those pale rays of the
glowing life of the East which the narrow passes of Taurus allowed
to penetrate to the lands of the West. It was the Taurus, too, which
protected the earlier stages of the growth of the Lydian kingdom.
East of the chain the Assyrian empire was living out a life of stormy
magnificence. The records of its kings,—a wearisome tale of murder,
conquest, tribute, and torture,—give, it may be, only one side of
its history, and that not the best. Their exploits have as little
perspective as their presentment of them. The immediate object is all
that is sought; the past is dead; the present alone is living; the
future is of no account. A land is conquered; its population is either
decimated, wiped out, or removed elsewhere. Its wealth is plundered;
and, if there is anything left on which tribute can be laid, tribute
is laid upon it. Such is the record of one year. #ASSYRIA.# A few
years later, even in the case of lands previously reported as left
desolate, the same process is repeated. There is no rest for the ruling
race. For some inscrutable reason, its kings seem not to have had
foresight enough to establish a strong system of administration for the
conquered provinces. These are merely treated as sources of revenue,
doomed to tribute,—a heavy burden indeed, but, at least in the case of
regions not bordering immediately on Assyria proper, the only burden
laid upon them.
Of the great empires which arose at different periods in this part of
the world, Assyria seems to have been the least enlightened. Its real
field of operation was bounded by the great mountain-systems on the
north and east, by the Great Sea on the west and the desert on the
south. Any operations undertaken outside these well-defined limits seem
to have been of the nature of punitive expeditions directed against
mountain tribes who had raided within these boundaries. Their lands
were too poor to excite the cupidity of this brigand empire. If they
remained quiet, Assyria left them alone, and devoted its energies to
the exaction of tribute from the richer lands of the plain or of the
Syrian coast. There are few records of expeditions west of the Taurus;
and, though some lands are asserted to have paid tribute, there is
no evidence whatever of anything like permanent conquest. The great
mountain chain acted as a groyne which diverted the flood of invasion
from the Euphrates region southward along the Syrian coast Thus it was
that the growing kingdom of Lydia never came into hostile contact with
the great empire. Yet the commercial intercourse between them must
have been carried on upon a large scale; and, indeed, the prosperity
of Lydia and of the Greek colonies on the Asian coast was due to their
acting as middlemen in the commerce between East and West which passed
along that route which formed in later Persian times the line of the
royal road to Susa. It was an interruption of this intercourse, and a
threatened diversion of this route, which brought about the opening of
diplomatic relations between the two realms.
In the latter half of the eighth century before Christ, the plains
of Asia and East Europe were disturbed by one of those movements
of thrust which are ever recurrent in their history; and a tide of
migration was set up which was destined to have many more remarkable
counterparts in later story. Under pressure of a race which may with a
certain amount of probability be identified with the Massagetæ of after
times, those mysterious peoples, the Cimmerians and Scythians, were
driven from their homes in the northern plains and invaded in whole or
in part the West Asian peninsula. Of the two, the Cimmerians settled
in the region of the North bordering on the Euxine, and by continual
raids made life a burden to the Phrygians and White Syrians of those
parts. Some thirty unhappy years seem to have passed thus. The Phrygian
kingdom was gradually broken up, and by 670 B.C. the Cimmerians found
themselves on the north borders of Lydia, which had just taken a new
lease of life under Gyges, one of the ablest and most energetic of its
successive rulers. The possibility of invasion was only part of the
danger which threatened Lydia. That Gyges could and did ward off in
a fierce struggle with the northern hordes; but his resources were,
unaided, not equal to the task of reopening the great trade route to
the East which passed through the lands of which these hordes were in
possession. He began negotiations with the mighty Empire of the East
which, under the energetic rule of Assur-bani-pal, was at the height
of its power. He sought to get aid in the heavy task which lay before
him. There were difficulties about the interpretation of the message
which his envoys carried to Nineveh; but these were overcome, and he
received fair words in answer to his request. More than this he did not
get. Assur-bani-pal had his hands full nearer home. He and his line
seem to have been past-masters of the art of creating difficulties to
be overcome; but the king seems to have had no desire to interfere in
the affairs of a land whose geographical position was vaguely known to
him as being near the “crossing of the sea.” He had enough self-created
troubles at his very gates without going abroad to find them.
#LYDIA AND THE GREEKS.#
So Gyges got no help from Nineveh, and was obliged to content
himself with having successfully warded off the invasion of his own
territories. For some years at any rate the great route eastward must
have been difficult, if not actually impassable. This interruption of
commercial relations by land with the East may well have led to that
development of Lydian intercourse with Egypt of which the Assyrian
records afford evidence.
The history of the Lydian kingdom, except in so far as it affects the
fortunes of the Greeks in Asia and Europe, forms no part of the design
of the present volume.
In the reign of Gyges, however, the relations between Lydian and Greek
entered upon a new stage. The Lydian rulers had hitherto lived on
friendly terms with most of the Hellenic towns on the adjacent coasts.
Gyges went still further, and by assiduous cultivation of the Delphic
oracle attracted the attention and regard of the Greeks of Europe,
who thus for the first time became intimate with one of the great
monarchies of the East.
For the new relations with Egypt, the Greek trader formed the
connecting link. It was almost inevitable that an energetic ruler
like Gyges should seek to get direct control of the main, if not the
only, means of communication with an ally whose alliance flattered
his vanity, and with a country whose wealth could not fail to benefit
Lydian trade. It is evident, however, that he did not feel himself
strong enough to attempt an overt attack on the Greek cities. That
could only have resulted in a formidable resistance on the part of
those centres of liberty and wealth. He devised a better plan, slow
working but terribly effective, and destined in later days to lead to
the undoing of the liberties of Greece.
Gyges has the distinction of being the first barbarian in history who
saw his way to profit by the fierce political dissensions common to
all Greek communities. By allying himself with factions in the various
cities he acquired in many of them a preponderating influence, while
he reduced others to subjection. Kolophon shared this latter fate; so
did the smaller Magnesia near Sardes. With others he entered into close
relations of friendship favourable to himself, since the continuance of
the pressure from the side of the Cimmerians made persistence in
the policy of absorption impossible. The pressure increased instead of
diminishing; and it was from this quarter that the final catastrophe
came. A combination between the Cimmerians and other tribes of Asia
Minor proved too strong for Gyges. He perished in a great battle.
Lydia was overrun and devastated; and during the stormy days of the
commencement of the reign of his successor, Ardys, the Asian Greeks
found it necessary to join the Lydians in their death struggle. The
Greek towns, though none save Magnesia appear to have been actually
captured, suffered severe losses, which were but partially compensated
for by successes won by Greek hoplites. Ardys, like his father,
appealed to Assyria; and this time the Lydian appeal did not remain
without effect, for the Cimmerians had turned east and were threatening
the Assyrian border. Assailed by the Assyrians in the passes of Taurus,
they were so terribly defeated that they ceased thereafter to be the
formidable power they had been in West Asia during the previous half
century. In the years which followed Lydia gradually acquired all that
northern part of the peninsula which had been in Cimmerian hands.
Lydia was now a considerable power, extending to the Halys on the east;
and as such it presented itself to the European Greek of the later
years of the seventh century. To Lydia accordingly turned the thoughts
of Aristomenes, the hero of the Messenian wars of independence against
Sparta, when as a refugee he sought safety across the Ægean. ◆Paus.
iv. 24. 2, 3.◆ Death overtook him before he had time to carry out his
intention of appealing to Ardys for help.
Having attained a frontier on the east beyond which further attempts
at expansion were dangerous, Ardys’ attention was naturally directed
westward, where the thickly dotted line of Greek colonies practically
cut Lydia off from communication with the Ægean littoral. They held
the natural exits of that overland trade to which the prosperity of
Ardys’ kingdom must have been largely due, and must have absorbed
a large proportion of those trade profits which the Lydian might
not unreasonably regard as his own. #STRATEGIC POSITIONS OF ASIATIC
GREEKS.# Moreover, the relations of Lydia with the great trading
towns of Smyrna, Kolophon, Klazomenæ, Miletus, and Priene, were no
longer of the friendly character of former days. The policy of Ardys
consequently aimed specially at the reduction or absorption of these
towns.
The inevitable was about to happen. The very nature of the peninsula
made it all but certain that whenever a great State acquired command of
the upper part of the great valleys of the Hermus, Mæander, and other
streams, the towns which stood on their western exits must succumb to
that State.
A glance at the map of Western Asia will show this.
The main physical characteristics of the country from the Halys to
the Ægean are, (1) a great interior plateau; (2) a series of parallel
mountain chains running from east to west, between which rivers,
following the same direction, run down towards the Ægean, so that their
valleys form a series of natural lines of communication between the
plateau and the coast. There is no cross-chain running north and south,
at the head of these valleys, to form a natural barrier towards the
east. Access to them is unimpeded from that direction.
This physical conformation of the land was alike a curse and a blessing
to the Greek trading towns of the coast. The valleys formed, on the
one hand, natural routes for commerce of immense value to those who
held their exits; but they also afforded natural highways for attack to
any power coming from the interior which assailed the holders of those
exits.
The disadvantage had not been so apparent while Lydia was still a
comparatively weak State; but it was sure to come into prominence
so soon as she attained to any degree of power. The weakness of the
strategic position of those Greek cities is not less striking than the
advantages of their positions from a commercial point of view. Their
territories, besides being this void of any line of defence towards the
east, were separated from one another by the ranges which divided the
river valleys; and intercommunication by sea was rendered difficult
by the long projecting promontories which separate the deep gulfs at
the head of which most of the cities were situated. From the point
of view of joint action this was a very serious drawback. Nature had
been doubly unkind to them in this respect. Not content with having
made a base of combination on land impossible, she had made combination
on sea difficult. Prosperity without liberty was the natural birthright
of these Asian towns. Even when backed up by all the naval strength of
the Athenian empire, their independence of the power on the mainland
seems to have been in most cases partial, and in all precarious; and
even independence gave them little more or better than a change of
masters.
◆H. i. 15.◆
Priene was taken by Ardys somewhere about the year 620. Miletus was
next attacked; but this greatest of the cities proved no easy prey.
The war dragged on after Ardys’ death, through the short reign of his
successor, Sadyattes; ◆H. i. 17.◆ and under Alyattes took the form of
annual raids, designed to wear out the patience of the citizens. At
last, mainly on the advice of the oracle at Delphi, a compromise was
effected about B.C. 604, by which each side granted commercial
concessions to the other, though matters remained politically _in statu
quo_.
The comparative failure at Miletus did not discourage Alyattes in his
enterprises against the towns. Kolophon, which had regained or
reassumed its independence at the time of the Cimmerian trouble, was
brought into subjection once more; ◆H. i. 16.◆ Smyrna, as a town, was
destroyed, and its inhabitants forced to take up their abode in
unwalled settlements. Klazomenæ well-nigh experienced the same fate.
Alliances were made with other cities, such as Ephesus and Kyme.
Alyattes would doubtless have prosecuted further his designs against
the Greek cities, had not his attention been at this moment called away
to the eastern frontier of his kingdom.
It was not from Assyria that the trouble threatened. That great empire
had come to an end some years before, under circumstances of which the
details do not directly affect the Greeks. A Scythian incursion, so
prolonged that it seemed likely to terminate in permanent settlement,
had broken it. #MEDO-LYDIAN WAR.# The final death-blow had been
inflicted by two peoples—the Medes, who inhabited the mountainous
uplands beyond the Zagros chain which bounds the plain of the Tigris on
the east and north-east, and the Babylonians, who had ever chafed under
Assyrian rule.
Within a short period the Medes had pushed their frontier westward
beyond the Taurus, and had reduced to subjection the country between
that range and the Halys, a region which at times came within the
sphere of Assyrian influence, but cannot be said to have formed part of
that empire.
With all the vigour inspired by recent success, the Mede sought to push
his way westward; and a fierce frontier war seems to have been waged
for several years upon the Halys between Alyattes and Cyaxares, the
Median king.
Pteria, a town whose position renders it the chief strategic point in
the Halys region, commanding, as it does, the middle portion of the
cleft-like valley through which the river flows, formed the _point
d’appui_ of the Lydian defence, and was the immediate object of the
Median attack.
Of the war itself but little is known, except the important fact that
it came to an end in a remarkable way. The opposing armies were drawn
up for a battle, when an eclipse of the sun took place, which caused
both sides to shrink from the engagement. It is calculated that such
eclipses took place in Asia Minor in the years 610 and 585, of which
the latter seems to be the more probable date of this unfought fight.
◆H. i. 74.◆ A peace was concluded through the mediation of a Babylonian
whose name Herodotus gives as Labynetos; but in what capacity he acted
as mediator is not known. The celebrated Nebuchadrezzar was ruling in
Babylon at the time. Lydia apparently sacrificed Pteria and the region
east of Halys, and that river became the definite frontier between the
two States.
The story of this Median kingdom has come down to posterity in a form
so imperfect that it is difficult to extract the small historical from
the large mythical element contained in it. Its chief importance in
history is that its kings are the first of that series of Iranian
dynasties which, whether Median, Persian, or Parthian, were paramount
in the eastern world for many centuries. From this time forward the
Iranian took the place of the Semite as the suzerain of the East; for
the Babylonian realm of Nebuchadrezzar was but of comparatively brief
splendour, and was soon absorbed by the less civilized but more virile
power which became heir to its partner in the destruction of Assyria.
The Median king Cyaxares, who had warred with the Lydians on the Halys,
lived but one year after the close of the campaign, and was succeeded
by his son Astyages, whose chief claim to fame is that he was the
last of the brief line of Median kings. Little is known of him. For
the Greek the truth concerning him and his was lost in that mirage
of legends which accumulated round the personality of the man who
overthrew him, Cyrus the Great.
The myths, fables, and legends which the ever lively imagination of
the East invented with regard to the founder of the Persian dynasty,
have crowded the greater part of the real story of his life out of
the pages of history. Their adoption by Greek historians was all but
complete; though some, like Herodotus, sought to rationalize a few
of the incidents reported. Did there exist no other records of his
life than those which have survived in the Greek historians, it would
be difficult to assert with confidence which of the reported details
are true. Comparatively recent discoveries in the East have brought
to light, however, certain annals of a Babylonian king, Nabonidus, a
successor of Nebuchadrezzar, and a contemporary of Cyrus. From these
records it is possible to reconstruct the story of some of the main
events of what must have been a very stirring time in that part of the
world.
Astyages the Mede had reigned a quarter of a century, when Cambyses,
the prince of one of the vassal principalities of the Median empire,
died, and was succeeded by his son Kurush, the Cyrus of the Greeks.
This was about the year 559. The name of the principality appears in
the records as Anshan. Its inhabitants were the Persians of history.
#MEDE AND PERSIAN.#
This people, which was destined to play so great a part in the two
following centuries, were of the same race as the Medes. The only
possible deduction to be drawn from subsequent events is that the
connection between the two nations was very close. Its exact nature
can only be guessed at. Any difference between the two must have been
rather nominal than real; for the supremacy of the one race does not
appear to imply the subjection of the other; and when, somewhere about
552, Cyrus revolted, and defeated Astyages, the Median army came over
immediately to his side. It is hardly credible that such a thing should
have taken place, had not the Medes regarded Cyrus and his family as
being in some very real sense a part of themselves, and as possessed
of some title to be their rulers. Both races were certainly Iranian.
They were alike in religion and very near akin in language. It may
even have been that the Persian was a tribesman of the nation to which
the name Mede was given. Their nearest neighbours, the Babylonians,
recorded the change of ruler, but not in language which could lead to
the supposition that they regarded it as an event of great magnitude.
They seem to have looked upon it as more or less of a domestic matter,
an internal revolution.
The Persian empire was indeed the empire of the Mede under a new name;
stronger and more vigorous than its forerunner, because the helm of
government passed into abler hands. The Greeks themselves hardly
recognized the distinction between the two, and used the names Mede and
Persian in a general sense as synonymous terms. Nor has the perspective
of centuries sensibly altered the nature of the picture as it presented
itself to those who regarded it from a nearer point of view. The two
nations, one in religion, one in civilization, one in social system,
appear as one in the making of the history of the three centuries
during which they played the foremost part in Western Asia.
During the thirty years of Astyages’ rule in Media, the Lydian kingdom
enjoyed a continuous career of expansion. Whether owing to troubles at
home, or to the severity of the check administered in the campaign on
the Halys before 585, Astyages made no attempt to extend the Median
frontier towards the West. It is probable that he had his hands full
with the work of consolidating the wide dominion which his race had so
recently won, and the revolt of Cyrus may have been but the last of a
series of insurrections on the part of his subordinate rulers. Be that
as it may, Lydia was given a breathing space from attack, which, under
the energetic rule of Alyattes, she used to the full.
The renewal of the assault on the liberties of the Greek towns of the
Ægean coast followed immediately upon the close of the fighting with
the Medes. Before five years had elapsed, the Troad and Mysia, with
the Æolian Greek cities of the Hellespontine region, had been reduced.
Even Bithynia seems to have been invaded about this time, and part of
it secured by strongholds built at important strategical points. In the
south-west Caria proved a harder conquest. Its population, from which
the earliest professional soldiery in the Levant had been drawn, did
not give up the struggle until about the year 566, well-nigh at the
close of Alyattes’ reign. The Dorian cities on the coast seem to have
shared its fate. On this occasion, at any rate, they were partners in
its adversity.
It was in this campaign that Crœsus, that figure of pathetic
magnificence, destined later to cast both light and shadow on the
historical records of the Greek, first came into prominence. The
mingled admiration and commiseration of after-time exaggerated his
personality into the very type of human fortune and misfortune; and
the picture of his life as drawn by Herodotus is probably no more than
a truthful reproduction of the impression of him which prevailed a
century after his death. Nevertheless the thread of fact runs unbroken
through the maze of fiction, and it is possible to reconstruct his
history with more reliability than can be claimed for the records of
his predecessors.
#CRŒUS. LYDIAN CIVILIZATION.#
As a youth he had incurred the displeasure of his father Alyattes by
his extravagance, and had imperilled his chances of succession by the
distrust which his conduct excited among an influential section of
the population, composed probably of staid merchants, who would
be unlikely to sympathize with irresponsible and expensive frivolity.
The danger brought him to his senses; and he apparently made up his
mind that the Carian war afforded him an opportunity of winning a good
opinion he had never tried to earn. How he succeeded is not known. He
did succeed; for the fortunate issue of the war was largely attributed
to his exertions and ability. He was just in time to save the situation
for himself, since the years of his father’s life were numbered. About
B.C. 561,[2] Alyattes died, not before he had raised the Lydian kingdom
to a greatness beyond what it hitherto had known.
It stood, indeed, on the same level as the great contemporary
monarchies of the East, while as yet the Mede had not succeeded to
the full heritage of that Assyria which he had helped to destroy. It
absorbed for the time the attention of the Greek, when he gave his
attention to anything beyond his home affairs. Its very splendour
became a barrier of light which the Greek eye could not pierce so far
as to see clearly what was going on in the region beyond, so that even
the great Cyrus came not within the field of Hellenic vision until he
had emerged from the comparative darkness of the lands beyond the Halys.
Archæological discovery within Lydia itself has done far more than
the meagre records of contemporary history towards disclosing the
characteristics of the civilization which was thus brought into strong
contrast with that of the Hellenic lands and cities. It would be out
of place in a work of this kind to enter into details with regard to
it; yet the possibilities of the future were at the moment of Crœsus’
accession so significant, and of such world-wide importance, that it is
impossible to pass over in silence the main features of a social system
whose influence upon the Hellenic world must have been very great,
and might have been much greater.
The Lydians, a people of undeniable genius, seem to have built upon
an indigenous foundation a composite civilization, made up largely
of elements drawn from foreign lands. Assyria, Babylonia, and Egypt
all contributed to its formation; and the influence of the Greek of
the Asian coast and of Europe is unmistakable, especially in the last
years of its independent existence. It was, indeed, in the main a
“civilization of intercourse,” due to the important trading relations
of the kingdom with the various nations which lay within its reach.
Its main characteristics in the sixth century are Oriental, though the
tendency towards its hellenization, fostered greatly by its rulers,
is strikingly apparent. It must, indeed, on the other hand, have
influenced the social life of the Greek cities within the borders of
the kingdom; and it is difficult to say how far this influence might
have affected the civilization of the West, had not the process of
infiltration been brought to a sudden standstill.
It was, as might be expected from the variety of its origin, a strange
compound of good and evil. From his very vocation the Lydian trader
evolved a system of cosmopolitan humanity, rare in those ages, rare,
indeed, in any age in eastern lands. Living at ease himself, he was
naturally inclined to live and let live. The width of his trade
connections, and the necessity of securing safe passage through foreign
countries, would tend to make him cultivate friendly relations with
the people around him. One thing that he evolved from the necessities
of his mode of life has had as much influence upon the history of the
world as any single invention of man before or since. The awkwardness
of exchange and barter to a merchant whose trade had distant roots, and
who had to make long overland journeys in the course of his business,
led him to invent and gradually adopt one medium of exchange, which
all peoples, however various their home products, would appreciate.
#LYDIAN INFLUENCE ON THE GREEKS.# It required but little education in
taste to make even the rudest of races set value on the most beautiful
of all the metals; and the gold and silver which Lydia produced so
freely was stamped into the first currency of which there is record in
history. Greek and Persian alike lost but little time in adopting so
magnificent an invention.
The Lydian works of art which have survived show that the nation had
attained to considerable skill in that respect.
But if the virtues of this civilization were great, its vices were
equally so. The grossest form of immorality, that pest which the East
seems to inherit like a moral leprosy, was prevalent. Certain tales in
Herodotus show this to have been the case. The Greek did not escape the
disease, and it may be that it was from the Lydian that he first caught
it. Wholesale immorality of another kind was not merely prevalent,
but received a religious sanction in the guise of that Aphrodite
worship which in various forms sapped the vigour of the East. The town
populations of Greece, especially those which, like the Corinthians,
had closest intercourse with the Asian coast, caught this infection
also.
It would have been contrary to the very nature of things had the
Greeks,—a race peculiarly apt to learn both evil and good,—escaped
altogether the influence of this Oriental social system at their doors.
It is fortunate for posterity that its influence was short-lived.
The very excellence of the general relations between the Lydia of
Crœsus and the Greeks as a body made the Lydian influence the more
dangerous. It was the bitter hostility which sprang up in after times
between the Greeks and the representatives of that new Orientalism
which was superimposed upon the Lydian form, which saved the Greek
civilization from becoming itself orientalized. The danger which
Greece ran in the great war of 480–479 was as nothing compared with
the danger Hellenism would have run had the war never taken place. The
bitter, lasting hostility which it roused was far less dangerous than
friendly intercourse with a great empire, the heir of all the ages of a
world-old civilization, which might have made a moral conquest of the
Hellene, had it refrained from attempting a physical one. It was the
war itself, rather than its issue, which proved the salvation of Greece.
Crœsus’ succession to the great dominion which Alyattes had left
was not undisputed. But the son had inherited the vigour of his father.
He anticipated the plans of his rival. The pretender disappeared,—how
or whither is not known; and his supporters, who were largely drawn
from the feudal nobility of the land, met death in many grievous forms.
Some of the Greek cities had more than sympathized with his antagonist,
so to these he now turned his attention. All of them, Æolian, Ionian,
and Dorian alike, were reduced to the position of Lydian dependencies,
though in matters purely local they remained autonomous, if the name of
autonomy can be given to a form of government in which a local tyrant
played the part of administrator and political agent. Yet unpromising
as was their position from the point of view of theoretical politics,
they were in actual fact treated with marked consideration by Crœsus.
It is impossible at the present day to sound the motives which underlay
the attitude which this extraordinary man adopted to the Greeks alike
of Asia and of Europe. It may have been from pure self-interest; it may
have been because Hellenism had cast over him the glamour which it cast
over other barbarian monarchs. Whatever the cause, the fact remains
that, when once he had reduced the Greek cities to that position of
dependence which was necessary for the political homogeneity of his
empire, he seems to have lost no opportunity of ingratiating himself in
the eyes of his Greek subjects and of their kinsmen beyond the seas. At
Branchidæ and at Ephesus he enriched the Greek temples with splendid
offerings; and the wealth of the gifts he gave to Delphi excited the
admiration of centuries. If contemporary report be not exaggerated,
the value of his dedications to the great Hellenic shrine amounted to
considerably more than a million pounds sterling of the money of the
present day. Gifts of great value were also sent to the lesser Greek
oracles.
#DESIGNS OF CRŒUS.#
The authorities at Delphi would have been exceptional among similar
societies in all ages of the world, had they not shown appreciation of
a devotee so wealthy and so willing. He was made a citizen; to his
embassies were given a precedence over all others.
It is difficult to imagine that Crœsus should have expended such
enormous sums on the cultivation of friendly relations with the Greeks
of Europe for purely sentimental reasons. The oracles were not the
only recipients of his gifts. The friendship of prominent and powerful
families in various States, such as the Alkmæonidæ of Athens, was
bought with a price.
Perhaps the explanation maybe sought and found in the previous and
later policy of the king. He had subjugated the Greek cities of the
coast, and by so doing had advanced his kingdom to its extreme limits
on the west. Unless he converted Lydia into a naval power, further
expansion on this side was impossible. So he turned his eyes towards
the East, where nature and the circumstances of the time offered what
must have seemed a favourable opportunity for the extension of his
empire.
It must, however, have been quite evident to him that any policy of
expansion eastward could only be carried out with safety in case his
rear was secured from attack, where danger lay, not merely in the
recently subdued Greek cities, but also in the possibility of any
movement on their part being supported by help from their kinsmen in
Europe.
Considerations such as these must have had a large influence upon his
policy.
The story of his operations in the East has survived in history in what
is manifestly a very mutilated form. It is fortunate that Strabo has
preserved some reliable details which Herodotus does not mention in
his somewhat legendary account of the last days of the rule of Crœsus.
The Lydian frontier had been extended to the Halys; but the motley
collection of races and states included within the dominion was in some
cases bound to the ruler of Sardes by comparatively loose ties. These
ties Crœsus strengthened.
Affairs in Asia beyond the Halys were at the moment, when Crœsus
brought his plans to maturity, about the year 548, in a condition
which made all certain calculation as to their issue impossible.
The Median dynasty had come to an end some four years before, and with
it the treaty concluded by Lydia with the Mede in 585 had come to an
end also. Cyrus must have been an unknown factor to the Lydian, though
doubtless the merchant travellers had brought back from the East many
a tale of his energy and success. He was certainly a danger: and the
question probably suggested itself to Crœsus whether he were not a
danger which it would be wise to forestall, by pushing forward the
Lydian frontier to that mass of mountains formed by the meeting of
Taurus with the Armenian chains. Such a precautionary measure would
be rendered the more attractive to the Lydian trader by the fact that
it would lead to the inclusion within the empire of that rich mineral
district on the south shore of the Euxine wherein the famed Chalybes
dwelt.
Crœsus was wise enough not to enter upon this venture single-handed.
It is evident that the comparative indifference with which Nabonidus
and the Babylonians had originally regarded the change of rulers in
Median empire, had by this time given place to a feeling of uneasiness,
if not of actual alarm. The easy-going, peace-loving antiquarian
of Babylon might well be apprehensive as to what might be the next
object of the uncomfortable enterprise of his energetic neighbour.
Even then the faint outlines of the writing on the wall were well-nigh
decipherable.
Amasis of Egypt had far less grounds for alarm; but even he seems to
have caught the infection of fear.
◆H. i. 77.◆
With these two states Crœsus entered into negotiations, which resulted
in the formation of a grand alliance, having for its object the
suppression of the power which was so rapidly developing in the East.
The negotiations of Crœsus were not confined to the great powers.
He sought and obtained allies in European Greece. The Lydian kings
had had a long experience of the value of the Greek heavy-armed
infantryman. Greek hoplites had fought many a time both with and
against them. #LYDIA AND SPARTA.# The addition of a contingent of them
to the grand army which the king was now gathering together would be
of inestimable value. There was evidently a difficulty about his
obtaining such a force from the Greek cities of Asia; nor can there
be any reasonable doubt as to where that difficulty lay. These cities
had within the last few years been robbed of much of that measure of
autonomy which they had up to that time enjoyed, and upon which they
had set a value out of proportion, doubtless, to its real worth. The
vivid discontent which such a loss must have aroused in Greek minds,
a discontent the depth of which the experience of ages would enable
the Lydian to gauge, would inevitably render them dangerous elements
in a Lydian army. The cities did, indeed, with one exception, remain
proof against Cyrus’ attempts to tamper with their loyalty; but
their attitude at the time was probably as much due to caution as to
fidelity. Their geographical position would not allow them to accept
risks against Lydia.
It was, therefore, to Greece itself that Crœsus turned. The relations
which he had so assiduously cultivated with Delphi enabled him to
obtain its assistance in the negotiations. ◆H. i. 69.◆ The outcome was,
so Herodotus says, that Sparta, partly persuaded by the oracle, partly
flattered by the Lydian embassy, consented to give aid in the war.
Moreover, the way to this alliance had been previously paved with
Lydian gold.
It is true that this contingent never reached Lydia. Ere it had
actually started, Sardes had fallen and Crœsus was either dead or a
prisoner. Whether the delay in despatching it was intentional or not,
the satisfactorily attested fact of such an alliance having been made
is evidence that the Lydia of that day exercised a very real influence
in Greece. Of the danger to which Hellenic civilization was exposed by
Lydian friendship, enough has been already said.
That friendship was genuine and unaffected on the side, at any rate,
of the Greeks. The relations of Crœsus with Delphi must have been
largely instrumental in forming it; but what happened in relation to
this very war showed clearly that the feeling of Greece towards Crœsus
was built upon wider foundations. The Greeks had come to regard
him as a distinguished convert to that Hellenism they so much loved.
The impression may have been false, but it was powerful. “He loveth
our nation” is an article in a national creed whose possibilities can
be hardly exaggerated. That the feeling had become independent of the
relations with Delphi is conspicuously shown in the present instance by
the fact that it was Delphi which administered to it a shock which the
Greek world took long to forget. The remembrance of it was evidently
vivid a hundred years later in the time of Herodotus.
It came about as follows. Anxious as to the issue of the great venture
upon which he was entering, Crœsus sought to fortify or defeat his own
resolution by inquiring of the oracles as to what the future had in
store for him.
◆H. i. 53.◆
Two of the oracles consulted, of which Delphi was one, answered that
“if he warred with the Persians he would overthrow a mighty empire.”
The response was capable of two interpretations, of which Crœsus
seized upon the most obvious; and was thus, so the Greeks thought, led
to his undoing. Despite the pious faith with which Herodotus regards
the utterances of the Delphic oracle, he is unable to conceal the
tremendous shock which this apparent deception caused to Hellenic
sentiment all the world over. To the Greek it appeared as though
the oracle had betrayed its best friend and his also. Even in the
cities of Asia, chafing though they were under recent subjugation,
this feeling must have found some echo, whose resonance lasted till
Herodotus’ own time. It is unlikely that he would ever have disclosed
its existence had not the feeling been very widespread in the Hellenic
world he loved. ◆H. i. 90.◆ The legendary story which he relates of the
conversation between Crœsus and Cyrus, expresses evidently a feeling
entertained by many besides Crœsus himself; and in the chapter which
follows upon this tale, he shows that the Delphic oracle was forced by
public opinion to attempt to explain away the apparent deception it had
practised. #FALL OF THE LYDIAN KINGDOM.# The true explanation, which
would have relieved it of a large part of the burden of the moral
guilt, was one it dare not give in view of the prophetic character
which it had to maintain before the eyes of the world. Prophecy founded
upon intimate knowledge of Greek affairs was very far from being the
mere guesswork, wrapped in enigma, of its utterances relative to
matters deep in Asia, of which it can have had no real ken.
The account of the campaign given by Herodotus is full of
inconsistencies; but by comparison of his story with other incidental
references to it in various sources, it is possible to arrive at an
understanding of the main outlines of what took place.
The great coalition might have taken Cyrus by surprise, had not the
plans of Crœsus been divulged to him by an Ephesian traitor, if a tale
preserved by Diodorus is to be believed. The mere fact that he was
able to anticipate the designs of Crœsus renders it probable that some
disclosure of the kind did take place.
Forewarned and forearmed, Cyrus executed a rapid and adventurous march
through the northern territories of the Babylonian kingdom, and must
have been already near the Taurus before Crœsus received from his ally
Nabonidus news of the coming attack. He was but half-prepared; but the
danger was so imminent that he had to take the field with the force
he had with him, while he sent urgent messages to his allies to come
with all speed to help him. ◆H. i. 75.◆ He crossed the Halys into the
district of Pteria, which he laid waste as a defensive measure. The
historians, Herodotus and Polyænus, are hopelessly at variance as to
what happened in the actual fighting that ensued. A great battle did
take place: that is certain. It is also certain that after the battle
Crœsus retired through Phrygia to Sardes; but whether he did so because
he had been defeated, or because he had inflicted a severe check on
Cyrus, and expected that a diversion on the part of the Babylonians
would make it impossible for him to advance towards Sardes in the
winter, is unknown. In any case, Nabonidus did not move, and Cyrus
surprised Crœsus in Lydia. Crœsus, caught unprepared, made a desperate
defence with such forces as he could collect; but he was shut up in
Sardes. Of the real history of the siege the Greeks seem to have known
little or nothing; their chroniclers give the most contradictory
accounts of it. But the town fell within a short time—taken, it would
seem, by escalade. What became of Crœsus is not known. ◆Bakchylides
III. 23 _ff_.◆ It is probable that he immolated himself upon a burning
pyre. The tale was too shocking for Greek ears, and was softened down
by a legendary addition to the effect that he was saved from the flames
by divine intervention.
The sudden collapse of Lydia is one of the most remarkable incidents in
history.
It fell in a moment, as it were, never to rise again; and it fell,
not in the decadence of age, but at the very height of its young and
vigorous life. To the Greek the spectacle was bewildering: nor is
it strange that a catastrophe so sudden and complete, unparalleled,
indeed, in the history of the world, should have so dazed the senses of
those who were spectators of it, that they were never able to give a
rational account of how it came to pass.
CHAPTER II.
PERSIAN AND GREEK IN ASIA. THE SCYTHIAN EXPEDITION.
Despite the great catastrophe which had just taken place before their
eyes, the Greek cities had no mind to make an unconditional surrender
to the power which had vanquished their old master. It was unfortunate
that, after coming to such a decision, they did not combine in a common
resistance. The inherent weakness of their strategical position,
together with the incompleteness of the sympathy between Æolian,
Ionian, and Dorian Greek, made such united action difficult. There is a
terrible sameness in the drama of history as played upon this coast of
the Ægean. The scenery admitted of but one plot, of which the leading
motive was disunion. In the present, as in other instances, the Dorian
states of the Carian coast went their own way. They threw in their
lot with their Carian neighbours. The Æolians and Ionians were not
altogether blameless in the matter. They did not at first show a bold
front to the Persian, but offered to submit to him on the terms on
which they had submitted to Crœsus.
Save in the case of Miletus, the largest and most formidable of the
towns, Cyrus would not hear of terms; and so the cities prepared to
fight for their liberty.
It was the beginning of the winter; and, as the Persians did not
possess the means for assaulting the cities from the side of the sea,
the latter had a few months’ respite wherein to make preparations.
They appealed to Sparta for help. That cautious government, which was
probably congratulating itself on having escaped from involving its
citizens in the Lydian _débâcle_, refused active assistance, but sent
an embassy to Cyrus to warn him against interference. Cyrus, whose
notions as to the geography of this part of the world may well have
been vague, asked who the ambassadors were, and whence they came. ◆H.
i. 153.◆ On being told, he warned them that, all well, he would give
them cause to talk about their own woes and not those of the Ionians.
This rough humour must have seemed in great contrast to the politeness
with which Crœsus had addressed the foremost race in Greece.
Cyrus was obliged to entrust the completion of the conquest of the
Lydian kingdom to one of his lieutenants. The news of the fall of
Sardes had scared Babylon into inactivity; but the Baktrians and
Sakæ on the extreme eastern borders of his dominion had seized the
opportunity afforded by the western campaign to rise in revolt.
He had not proceeded far on his homeward march before news reached
him of a rising in Lydia. Paktyas, a renegade Lydian who had embraced
his cause, and to whom the conqueror had entrusted the care of the
transport of the spoils, had intrigued with the Ionian Greeks; and,
having ample funds at his disposal, had hired mercenaries from them.
Tabalos, the Persian lieutenant whom Cyrus had left behind him, was
besieged in the citadel of Sardes; and there was every prospect that,
if the place fell, all the work of the late campaign would have to be
done again. There was no time to be lost: nor was Cyrus the man to
lose time. He despatched an army under Mazares the Mede to rescue the
besieged, and Sardes was saved. Paktyas fled to Kyme, and thence to the
islands. He neither deserved nor received sympathy, and, after various
adventures, was handed over by the Chians to the Median commander.
With the flight of Paktyas the insurrection in Lydia came to an end; in
fact, in so far as extant records go, the Lydians themselves played but
little part in it. The passive and entire submission of this people,
their acceptance, once and for all, of the yoke laid upon them, is
one of the most extraordinary features of this extraordinary time.
#CONQUEST OF IONIA BY PERSIA.# It might well have been expected that a
nation with a past so recent and so glorious would have seized the
first and every opportunity of attempting to regain the freedom, if not
the dominion they had lost. But nothing of the kind took place; and
even the great effort of the Ionian revolt failed to rouse them from
the apathy of defeat.
The circumstances of Paktyas’ rebellion showed Mazares that the
Greek cities of the coast could no longer be left in a position to
be the instruments of trouble in the newly-won territory. To them,
accordingly, he immediately turned his attention. He first attacked
Priene and sacked it; but, before he had completed the reduction of
Magnesia on the Mæander, he died, and Harpagos, who succeeded him as
governor, took up the task of reduction. Phokæa and Teos were besieged.
Ere they fell, the mass of their inhabitants went into voluntary
exile—the Phokæans to Corsica in the farthest west, the Teans to the
near coast of Thrace.
There can be little doubt that the departure of these peoples was
a disaster of the first magnitude to the Greek towns of Asia. It
is hardly possible to realize at the present day the strength of
resolution which prompted the Phokæans to undertake their long and
perilous journey. They are the New Englanders of the sixth century
before Christ. Their presence fifty years later, at the time of the
revolt, might have given the Ionian resistance that “stiffening” which
it seems to have lacked; indeed, a member of the remnant they left
behind them, that dare-devil old pirate Dionysius, is the one prominent
person on the Greek side in that distressful time whom later historians
consented to praise. One by one the other Ionian and Æolian cities
fell into Persian power. There does not appear to have been any real
combined resistance. Nature had made them units without unity. The
islanders of Samos alone escaped subjection.
Caria was next attacked. It yielded practically without a blow, and the
Dorian colonies fell with it into Persian hands—a fate in their case
not wholly undeserved. Lycia fought for its liberty, but in vain; and
with its subjection the establishment of Persian rule on the continent
of West Asia was complete.
The rest of the career of Cyrus, important though it is, has little
influence on Greek history. His campaign in the East was a prolonged
one. He seems to have extended the borders of his empire to the
Thian-Shan and Suleiman ranges, if not into the plains of India itself.
His aim can hardly have been the mere acquisition of these enormous
areas of comparatively unproductive territory. The reason lying behind
his policy was, in all probability, the fact that the races of this
region were near akin to his own, and that he wished to advance against
the Semitic peoples at the head of a forced coalition of the Iranian
races.
The turn of Babylon for attack was soon to come. Nabonidus’ antiquarian
researches absorbed more and more of his time, and the real conduct
of the government seems to have passed into the hands of his son
Bel-sharuzar, the Belshazzar of the Book of Daniel. In the final
struggle, indeed, Nabonidus seems to have come to the front again.
By 538 Cyrus was ready. He made great preparations for the invasion,
probably in anticipation of a much harder task than it actually proved.
The collapse seems to have been rapid, so that within a short time
Babylon was taken, Nabonidus a prisoner, and the brief revival of
the Chaldæan empire at an end. The whole of the Babylonian dominions
submitted to the conqueror, and the empire of Cyrus now stretched
unbroken from the Ægean and Mediterranean on the west to the borders of
India on the east.
Of the three rival kingdoms, Egypt alone survived. Doubtless Cyrus had
designs upon it; but after the fall of Babylon in 538, he seems to have
wisely devoted himself to the task of consolidating the empire he had
won so rapidly in the previous fourteen years. Before his plans were
ripe for an expedition beyond the Isthmus of Suez, disturbances in the
far east called him thither. There he died, probably in a great battle
about the year 529. The halo of legend which rapidly formed about his
great personality concealed not merely the real man, but even his
real history. #THE PERSIAN CIVILIZATION.# Four versions of the story
of his death, each differing wholly from the other, were known to
the Greeks. But whatever fate he met, his body was brought to his
home-land, where the remains of his tomb may be seen at the present
day. “I am Cyrus, the king, the Achæmenian,” is the only part of his
epitaph which survives. It would be too little for a lesser man. It is
sufficient for him even now that he has been twenty-five centuries dead.
The new Orientalism with which the Asian Greek was brought into
contact by the conquest of Lydia was, in many respects, of a different
character to that which had preceded it in Western Asia. As years
rolled on, and the specially Persian characteristics of it became more
and more merged in the general Oriental type, the difference tended
to disappear; but even until quite late times the hardy races from
the mountains of Iran had many national customs which were in strong
contrast to the typical civilization of the Euphrates plain. Though far
from ideal, there were certain grand elements in it which struck the
imagination of some of the finer minds of Greece, and which, through
them, must have influenced Greek life, though in ways which it is not
possible now to trace. Had the Greek come much under its influence,
that influence, though it would have been disastrous in many respects,
would not have tended wholly for evil.
The civilization was indeed essentially of an Eastern type. It
is unnecessary to point out the significance of such a general
characteristic. The Mede and Persian had been for centuries next-door
neighbours of the population of the great plains, and it was inevitable
that they should have borrowed from their brilliant life. Yet, despite
their nearness, there was a triple gulf between the two, which the
intercourse even of centuries could not bridge. Difference of race,
difference of habitat, and, above all, difference of religion sundered
them. The Iranian and Semite regarded the world and life in it from
different points of view. The struggle for existence presented
itself in wholly different aspects to the mountaineer and the man
of the plain. The monotheist could have but little sympathy with a
polytheistic creed.
The Medo-Persian was a strange product for an Asiatic soil. He
was an Asian apart. His religious belief was alone calculated to
make him remarkable among his contemporaries. The Asiatic of this
time had a natural tendency towards polytheism. The monotheism of
even the Israelites was spasmodic. But with the Persian monotheism
was the set religion of the race. It had a legendary origin in the
teachings of Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, as he appears in Western
history. Ahura-mazda was the one god. There were, indeed, other objects
of worship,—the stars, the sun, the moon, and fire, beautiful and
incomprehensible works of Ahura-mazda; but he was god alone. Other
spiritual beings there were too, represented as deified virtues and
blessings—Good Thought, Perfect Holiness, Good Government, Meek Piety,
Health, and Immortality; and these stood nearest to Ahura-mazda’s
throne.
The national religion had not, indeed, wholly escaped the contamination
of the less spiritual cults of the neighbouring peoples. The animalism
of the worship of the Babylonian goddess Mylitta had been introduced
into the land under the guise of the adoration of the nymph Anahita.
Nevertheless, with the Persian the deification of the various forms
of nature took a special form. The deities themselves were treated
as demi-gods, rather than gods; creations of the great spirit of
Ahura-mazda. One power alone, the power of evil, seemed to contest his
supremacy. In opposition, therefore, to the god of that light which
he looked upon as the visible embodiment of the Good, the Persian
conceived the existence of a god of darkness, a god of evil, a god of
the under-world, a god of death. This god, Angro-mainyus, possessed,
indeed, the attributes both of Satan and of Pluto. There was no hope
for the complete triumph of good over evil in this life. “Choose ye
this day whom ye will serve,”—in that lay the whole alternative, the
ultimate possibility for good or evil, in so far as the world of the
present was concerned. Only in an after-life could the final triumph
of the good be looked for,—in a life after that resurrection of the
dead which the prophets, the sons of Zoroaster, awaking from their long
sleep, should bring to pass.
#POLYKRATES OF SAMOS.#
It seems at first strange that the Persian creed never captured
the imagination of the Greek. It may, indeed, be doubted whether
it was ever presented to him in its highest and purest form. The
ideal was, perhaps, too elevated for the ordinary devotee, and its
full appreciation confined to the initiated few. The Greek learnt
indeed in after times to admire certain of the virtues which the
Persian displayed; but never grasped, apparently, the spiritual and
intellectual basis which underlay them. It was long, too, ere the
bitter hostility to the barbarian allowed the Greek to view him and his
ways with unprejudiced eyes; and in that lapse of time the barbarian
had deteriorated, and his life had become more and more tainted with
the baser side of Oriental civilization, which could only excite
contempt in the Hellenic mind.
Of the history of the Asiatic Greeks during the later years of Cyrus
and the brief reign of his successor, Cambyses, but little is known.
Samos alone, as has been said, retained its independence. During the
last years of Cyrus, somewhere about 533, a certain Polykrates made
himself tyrant of the island, and under his rule the Samians enjoyed
a short period of prosperity, so great that it remained proverbial in
after-history. Polykrates used to the full the opportunity afforded
him by Cyrus’ detention in the East. Separated as he was by only a few
miles of sea from the great empire, he could not but recognize the
danger of his position, a danger which was rendered far greater by the
fact that the acquisition of Phœnicia had given the Persians that arm
they had up to that time lacked, a fleet. The great prosperity of the
island, due, no doubt, in a great measure to its being the only Greek
trading community on the Asiatic side which was not under the Persian
dominion, enabled him to raise and maintain a large body of mercenaries
as well as a fleet of a hundred fifty-oared war-ships. He furthermore
entered into negotiations with Egypt, with a view to mutual defence.
At home in the Ægean, he played a many-sided part. Piracy, trade,
engineering, and territorial acquisition were all included in the
field of his manifold activity. The piracy was probably carried on
at the expense of those traders who did not use Samos as an entrepôt
between East and West. It involved him in many a quarrel with the
Asiatic Greek towns, whose anomalous position at the time is shown by
the recorded fact that Polykrates actually took possession of parts of
their territory on the mainland, although they were under the Persian
dominion. This somewhat wild career was interrupted, if not positively
checked, by events which were preparing on the far side of the Levant.
Cambyses had made up his mind to complete by the conquest of Egypt
the work which his father had done. With a view to so doing, he was
collecting a great armament, in which a powerful fleet was to play a
part. This method of invasion, thus adopted for the first time, served
as a precedent for all the great Persian expeditions of after years.
The fact that it was Cambyses who conceived the design is sufficient to
stamp the picture which Herodotus draws of him as a copy of a somewhat
clumsy Egyptian caricature, even if other evidence did not tend the
same way.
Ships were levied from Phœnicia, and the Greeks of Cyprus had also to
contribute to the fleet. ◆H. iii. 19.◆ The latter, after the fall of
Assyria, to which they had been in a position of nominal subordination,
had enjoyed a short period of absolute liberty. Amasis of Egypt had
reduced them to subjection; but, on the establishment of the Persian
power in the Syrian region, they had thrown off their allegiance to
Egypt and tendered their submission to the new empire.
Polykrates began to reconsider his position. A Greek legend, which
Herodotus has preserved, represents him as having been thrown over
by Amasis out of superstitious apprehension. His hitherto unvarying
success, so thought the Egyptian king, must end in some terrible
disaster proportionate in greatness. Herodotus could not resist a tale
which so entirely harmonized with his views of life.
In actual fact, the reverse seems to have been the case. #SAMOS ANNEXED
BY PERSIA.# Polykrates broke off the alliance with Amasis; and not
merely did so, but actually despatched forty ships to aid the
Persian expedition. He tried, indeed, to kill two birds with one stone,
and missed both; for he manned these vessels with Samian suspects, who
had no mind to lend their bodies for this experiment in diplomacy, and
forthwith turned Polykrates’ own weapons against himself by sailing
back with the fleet and making an attack on Samos. Failing in that,
they sailed away to Laconia, with a view to getting help of Sparta.
Polykrates’ great bid for Persian favour had miscarried.
What followed is peculiarly interesting as being the first example
of the way in which Corinth could, and did, force the hand of the
Lacedæmonians in matters of policy.
The Lacedæmonians had indeed grievances against the Samians; but it is
unlikely that they would have undertaken the expedition, had they not
been urged thereto by Corinth. The grievance on the side of Corinth was
of a kind that was fated to reappear on many momentous occasions in
the course of the next century. Corinthian trade had been interfered
with by the Samians. The piratical enterprise of Polykrates was sure
to be directed against the trade of a state which had broken off its
old commercial relations with Samos and transferred its connection to
Miletus.
The expedition took place about 524. It failed. After a fruitless siege
of forty days the Lacedæmonians returned to Peloponnese.
Soon afterwards Polykrates met his end. He was enticed to Magnesia on
the Mæander by Orœtes, Satrap of Sardes, and there put to death.
His secretary, Mæandrios, carried on the tyranny for some years;
but about the year 516 a Persian force invaded the island, ◆H. iii.
139–149.◆ and established Syloson, a brother of Polykrates who had won
the favour of Darius, as tyrant in the Persian interest. A brother of
Mæandrios made one vigorous but vain attempt to win the island back.
The acquisition of Samos completed the Persian conquest of the Asian
coast.
It is significant that Sparta, when appealed to by Mæandrios for help,
not merely refused it, but dismissed him from the Peloponnese, lest
he should bring about political complications. Sparta’s policy on this
occasion, and her attitude at the time of the Ionian revolt, show that
the fear of experience had taken the place with her of that courage of
ignorance which she had shown in her alliance with Lydia.
Cambyses’ short reign came to an end in 522. He had added to his
dominions Egypt and the Libyan coast as far as the Greater Syrtis, and
had even made an expedition up the Nile into Ethiopia. The Greeks in
Egypt had been involved in the disaster which fell upon their adopted
home.
On the other hand, Persian enterprise in the West was for the time
being at a standstill; and the Asiatic Greeks, with the exception of
the Samians, seem to have passed seven uneventful years of submission
to their new ruler.
The last few months of Cambyses’ life had been troubled by the plots
of a Magian named Gaumata, who is said to have borne a remarkable
resemblance to Smerdis, a brother whom Cambyses had caused to be
murdered. The rising was no doubt encouraged by the state of Cambyses’
health. He had certainly suffered from serious illness in Egypt; there
is, indeed, reason to suspect that he was an epileptic.
The story of this false Smerdis is one of the unsolved mysteries of the
period. But few reliable details of it survive, and these are for the
most part contained in the great inscription of Darius on the rocks at
Behistun.
The usurpation was certainly popular in the home provinces of the
empire, if the rapid spread of the insurrection be any criterion. On
his way home from Egypt to suppress it, Cambyses died,—a violent death,
it seems certain, though historians are not in agreement as to its
exact form.
For some years the pseudo-Smerdis concealed his identity, and
maintained his power; but at last the suspected deception was
discovered by some of the great Persian nobles, among whom was Darius,
who claimed descent from the Achæmenid family. #DARIUS.# Of the events
that followed, nothing is known for certain, save that these nobles
assassinated the pretender, and Darius succeeded to the supreme power.
He seems to have been at first a king without a kingdom; for the great
satraps of the provinces, whose position placed at their disposal large
resources of men and money, revolted with well-nigh one consent. The
province in Asia Minor was one of the few which did not join in the
rising. ◆H. iii. 126, 128.◆ If a tale preserved in Herodotus be true,
its governor Orœtes meditated insurrection; but before he could carry
his plans into action, he was assassinated by his own bodyguard, in
obedience to written orders sent by Darius.
The whole of the work of Cyrus seemed undone. The conquest of the great
Empire had to be carried out again, as it were, from the beginning. How
Darius carried it out is no real part of the present story. Suffice
it to say that he did the work, and that he seems to have done it
thoroughly.
This formidable upheaval showed Darius the necessity of giving the
empire a new organization, under which its recurrence would be
difficult or impossible. The time of Cyrus had been fully taken up with
the military acquisition and maintenance of the great realm. Cambyses
had been similarly occupied during his short reign; though it may also
be doubted whether he possessed the capacity required for carrying
out so huge a scheme. Under these two rulers the old Assyrian method,
or want of method, of administration had largely prevailed, a system
which seems to have been admirably designed for goading the subject
populations into rebellion, but which provided no machinery by which
insurrection could be rendered difficult or be nipped in the bud. The
central power was ever kept on the strain by repeated revolts in the
provinces, if the term “province” can be applied to regions which
were not in any real sense “areas of administration,” but were merely
regarded as lands to be exploited for the benefit of the conquerors.
There are two important reasons why, in dealing with the history of
the relations between Greek and Persian, prominence should be given to
this organization of the empire under Darius. It was, in the first
place, destined to be the permanent political system of the Persian
dominion for all the ages during which that empire continued to be the
neighbour of the Greek of Europe and of Asia. In the second place, it
is impossible to realize the ability of the Persian race at its highest
point of development, and the enlightened character of some, at least,
of its rulers, without fully appreciating the main details of the great
scheme of imperial and provincial government which Darius promulgated.
In certain respects, indeed, its methods may seem rude when compared
with those of later ages; but in judging of them it must be borne in
mind that it was designed for the government of peoples most of whom
recognized no law save that of the strong hand, and furthermore, that
its creators were creators in a very literal sense of the term, in that
their work was so far in advance of anything on the same scale which
had preceded it, that its originality is beyond question. The decay of
the empire for whose government it was formed was not due to faults
in the scheme itself, but to the rapid deterioration of those who
administered it. It erred perhaps on the side of centralization; but
then the East does not understand, and never has understood, anything
but centralization in government. Still, this feature was, owing to
special circumstances, destined to prove fatal to it; for it was at the
centre of the empire, in the reigning family itself, that the decay set
in which corrupted the whole.
The first danger to be provided against by the new scheme was caused by
the isolation and comparative independence of the provincial governors,
especially in the remoter provinces of the empire. It is a form of
danger common to all great empires at all ages of the world, one
against which the central government must ever make provision. Darius’
solution of the difficulty was conceived on much the same lines as
were followed in later days by the Cæsars in dealing with the Cæsarean
provinces of the Roman empire. #ORGANIZATION OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE.#
Not merely was the area of administration of the governor limited
within the province, but also his actions were placed under immediate
observation by the appointment of high officials, with special
departments of their own, who were not under his control, but
were directly responsible to the head of the empire. The plan had its
disadvantages from the point of view of the governed; and there were
doubtless many instances in which the subjects of the Great King, like
the Roman provincial of later days, complained that ◆Tac Agric. 15.◆
“discord and harmony between those set over them were alike disastrous
to those they ruled.” For the end for which it was devised, however,
the method seems to have been effective.
The empire was divided into satrapies, whose number varied from twenty
to twenty-eight at different periods of Darius’ reign.[3] Persia proper
was alone excluded, receiving special treatment as the home of the
ruling race.
The civil and military powers in these satrapies or provinces were
divided. Three independent officials, with separate departments of
administration, were appointed to each. In the case of important
provinces the satraps were generally drawn from great families
connected with the Achæmenids; but in the case of the others the field
of choice seems to have been practically unlimited, and governors were
selected from among the comparatively poor as well as from the wealthy,
from the subject races as well as from the Persians. The instances in
which persons not of Persian or Medic extraction were appointed to
these important posts seem, however, to have been rare and exceptional.
There was no set period for the tenure of the office. The duration of
the governor’s administration depended on the pleasure of the Great
King.
In all civil matters the governor had absolute authority. He controlled
the administration of the taxes and the dispensation of justice; he
possessed the power of life and death. As viceroy, representing the
king, he was allowed to maintain a court and bodyguard, with other
minor attributes of regal power. Under ordinary circumstances he
neither commanded nor even controlled the military forces in his
province; in fact, a common policy of the central government seems to
have been to place a personal enemy of the governor in command of
the troops, whose relations with the king were, of course, direct. It
may be that under exceptional circumstances,—as, for instance, when
Artaphernes was satrap of Sardes at the time of the Ionian revolt,—the
supreme direction of military operations was entrusted to a governor of
peculiarly high distinction.
The secretary of state within the province was a third official who had
immediate relations to the king. Though nominally the chief assistant
of the governor, he was in reality appointed to watch his conduct, and
to report irregularities or suspicious circumstances to the central
government at Susa.
In his general relations with the subject populations and vassal
kingdoms, the Persian seems to have followed a policy of forbearance
and liberality which is extraordinary at that period. The language,
customs, religion, and local laws of the various peoples were
respected; even their rulers were in many cases allowed to remain
in power, provided always that their rule was in conformity with
Persian interests. The Greek cities of Asia are an instance in point.
They were allowed to retain such local self-government as they had
possessed under their Lydian suzerain, with the exception that, for
any democracies which had existed in them, either an aristocracy,
or a Greek tyrant ruling in the Persian interest, was substituted.
Such was the case, at any rate, before the Ionian revolt Motives of
self-interest obviously contributed to this policy. The maintenance
of local institutions in the empire, and the avoidance of complete
unification, were eminently calculated to keep the various populations
separate, and to prevent the spread of any rebellion over a wide area.
To use a modern simile, the provinces were converted, in so far as
possible, into compartments fireproof against the flame of insurrection.
There can be no question that, throughout the vast area of the empire
as a whole, the condition of the population generally was greatly
ameliorated in comparison with its life in the past. Precautions were
taken to safeguard the subject from oppression by high officials.
Apart from the check which the triple division of direct
responsibility placed on the arbitrary exercise of power, a special
body of officers, known to the Greeks as the king’s “eyes” or “ears,”
went on annual circuits through the empire, and reported any case of
abuse in the administration. The intention, at any rate, was good;
though it may be doubted whether the system could guarantee the
provincial from acts of oppression on the part of officials who had a
mind to act in arbitrary fashion.
But there was another most important side to the policy of the
government. The ordinary conditions of daily life within the empire
were certainly made much better than they had been before its
establishment. It was to the interest of the government to preserve
peace, an inestimable blessing to a continent which only knew the peace
of exhaustion. Petty states were no longer allowed to wage war on one
another. Life became more secure. The highways of the land and sea were
rendered safe by the suppression of brigandage and piracy. The great
roads were improved in character, to the benefit of internal trade.
Moreover, to facilitate trade, and for the convenience of the revenue,
Darius instituted a system of currency, whose coins were notorious for
the purity of their metal. The gold Daric became, indeed, the sovereign
of the ancient trading world; for the Greeks had not command of a
sufficient supply of the precious metal to introduce a gold standard
into their coinage system. The encouragement of agriculture, and the
bringing of waste lands into cultivation, was not merely a part of the
policy of the government; it was actually inculcated by the Persian
religion.
The revenue and taxation of the empire was conducted on business-like
principles during the days of Darius; and though the burdens imposed
on the subject populations were not light, yet, on the whole, they
received a fair return for their contributions in the shape of that
prosperity which followed upon the greater security they enjoyed. The
financial levy was either in money or in kind, or in both, according to
the nature and products of a province. The great defect of the system
was, however, that the satraps, after handing over the provincial
quota to the imperial treasury, had thereafter to raise from the
province the expenses of themselves and their following. Given a strong
central government and a good satrap, the system was probably as free
from abuse as such a system could be; but if, as must too often have
been the case, either of these circumstances were unfavourable, much
evil must have resulted to the subject populations, and many of the
outbreaks which took place must be assigned to such a cause.
In all probability, however, the heaviest burden laid upon the
provincial population was the obligation to furnish contingents for the
army of the empire. Considering the nature of the monarchy, the actual
standing army seems to have been curiously small, little more, in
fact, than what was necessary for the maintenance of peace within the
frontiers. In case, therefore, of external war, unsparing levies of the
subject population were inevitable. The burden seems also to have been
unevenly distributed: it would naturally fall most heavily on those
peoples who made the most effective soldiers. From a military point of
view, this feature of the imperial system was a mistake. An army formed
of heterogeneous elements deficient in military training cannot under
such a system have been welded into one harmonious whole. Only its
multitude could be strikingly formidable.
But in every other respect the new empire with which the Greeks had
been brought into contact was not a mere aggregation of barbarism, but
a highly organized piece of machinery, controlled by a people who, in
certain sides of their civilization, compared not unfavourably with the
Greeks themselves.
This great scheme of organization was in all probability not carried
out in one piece, though the greater part of it must be attributed to
the years which followed the completion of the re-conquest.
After securing the empire from disturbance from within, the next step
was to secure it against disturbance from without; and it was in
carrying out this policy that Darius came into conflict with the Greek
in Europe.
#THE GREEKS OF ASIA.#
An examination of the map will show that the weakest part of the whole
frontier, with the exception, perhaps, of that portion immediately east
of the Caspian, lay along the shores of the Ægean and the Propontis.
But whereas on the eastern frontier the races on either side of the
boundary were probably alien and hostile to one another, on the western
border the peoples on either side of the narrow seas were akin, and in
close sympathy. The Thracian races of North-west Asia Minor were within
sight of the lands of their free brethren in Europe; the Greek of the
Ionian coast was within an easy and safe voyage of twenty-four hours of
his mother country. Blood was thicker than water even towards the close
of the sixth century before Christ; and the sympathy of kindred races
so near at hand must have seemed to Darius and the Persians a standing
menace to this extremity of the empire. The possibility of its taking
an active form in case of a revolt was also an obvious danger.
Had the Greeks of Asia been different from what they were, had, indeed,
they not been Greeks, it is possible that Darius would not have
considered it necessary to take action.
The character of this branch of the Hellenic race at this period of its
history is difficult to realize. The extant evidence on the question,
with the exception of a few fragments of the writings of historians
most of whose works have perished, is demonstrably hostile to the
Ionian Greek, and not merely that, but demonstrably unfair. Herodotus,
as will be shown in dealing with his account of the Ionian revolt,
is largely responsible for the mistaken impression of the nature of
this people which has been handed down to after-time. His whole view
of the Ionian Greek was coloured by the belief that he was originally
responsible for all the trouble which fell upon European Hellas in the
years succeeding the revolt; that he imperilled the very existence
of that Hellenic liberty which was destined to produce the greatness
of that after-time under whose influence he wrote. He looked upon
the revolt as having been from beginning to end a colossal mistake.
Begun in culpable ignorance, it was carried out with contemptible
pusillanimity,—so he thought. Its authors were a people of whom the
Hellenic race was ashamed. Even their nearest relations among the
Greeks were loth to claim relationship with them.
Apart from the facts which Herodotus himself gives tending to an
opposite conclusion, the previous history of this branch of the Greek
race, and especially of the Ionian section of it, tends in every way to
deductions which are irreconcilable with the views of the historian.
These Ionians were the descendants of men who had been conspicuous for
ages as the boldest navigators of their time; who had planted colonies
in almost every part of the Mediterranean, making voyages to lands
previously unknown to the Greek, undeterred by the partly fabulous,
partly real, perils of such enterprises. The Ionian Greek had been
accustomed for centuries to take his life in his hands, facing all the
manifold dangers incident to early navigation, to intercourse with
barbarous tribes and life among them. And though by the end of the
sixth century custom and experience must have diminished the perils
attached to such adventurous existence, yet even then the Ionian had
only one rival, the Phœnician, in the boldness of his seamanship. The
dangerous trade route with Egypt across the expanse of the Levant was
in his hands; the corn trade with the stormy Euxine was still for the
most part under his control.
Such a mode of life, in which a large portion of the population of the
Asiatic Greek towns must have shared, was not calculated to produce a
people lacking in courage or, indeed, in perseverance. It is true that
by the time that Darius’ organization of the empire had been brought
to something like completion, the race had been for more than half a
century under a foreign yoke. Judged by the standard of those days, the
yoke had been a light one; it could hardly have been accounted heavy at
any period of history. It might easily have been much heavier. It would
have been to the advantage of the conqueror to have made it so, had the
subject cities displayed the temper of passive submission.
#THE ASIATIC GREEKS.#
Little is known of the history of these cities during the half century
which intervened between the fall of Crœsus and the outbreak of the
revolt. If they tamely submitted to their fate during this period,
the revolt itself becomes incomprehensible. There is absolutely no
adequate _immediate_ cause for it; and Herodotus’ own account of its
beginning shows by certain significant phrases which he uses that,
though the actual outbreak was premature, the design had existed before
ever Aristagoras made his failure at Naxos. There is no record of an
actual change of attitude on the part of Persia towards the towns
during the years which immediately preceded it, which could lead to
the supposition that the relations between them had become suddenly
embittered.
The cause which lay behind the whole of the history of Darius’ dealings
with the West is the feeling with which the Greek regarded the very
idea of subjection. He must have been at the period the most restless
subject that ever empire had. Darius seems to have recognized from the
very first that the presence of this wayward, bold, intriguing race on
the western fringe of his dominions constituted an ever-present danger.
The intensity of the political feeling within the cities themselves
with regard to their internal affairs, which is known to have existed
within them at this time, indicates the intensity of the feeling with
which they regarded the foreign yoke. Democrat, aristocrat, and tyrant
did not fight their fierce battles with one another to win the prize of
pre-eminence in servitude. The opponents would seek, too, for external
support; and the satraps of the West must have been continually worried
by appeals for assistance from whatever side assumed for the time being
the philo-Persian _rôle_; and must have known, too, that the opposite
side would seek for help elsewhere. And what was “elsewhere” likely
to mean, save beyond the narrow seas, in European Greece? Nor can the
intense desire for freedom in the mass of the populations of the Greek
cities have remained in any way a secret from the Persian governors.
There were plenty of people in every city whose interest it would be to
tell tales of their neighbours, and it is perhaps the blackest blot
on the character of the Greek that he was but too ready to betray his
fellow-countrymen.
The problem which presented itself to Darius in the sixth century
before Christ on the west coast of Asia must have been very similar to
that which presented itself to Cæsar five and a half centuries later in
North-west Gaul. Just as the Gaul of that period was likely to remain a
restless subject of Rome so long as kinsmen beyond the Channel remained
free, and so long as he might look to them for support in case of
revolt, so was the Greek of Asia likely to be restive, even under the
lightest yoke, so long as his kin beyond the Ægean remained unsubdued,
and so long as their aid might be hoped for whenever he made up his
mind to strike a blow for freedom.
The policy thus, in a way, forced upon Darius, was carried out in three
steps, of which the second came near to being a retrograde one, and
formed no part of the original programme, while the third was certainly
not one of advance.
These are:—
(1) The Scythian Expedition;
(2) The Suppression of the Ionian Revolt;
(3) The Expeditions of 492 and 490.
It may seem strange to include the so-called Scythian Expedition in any
design for the settlement of affairs in Western Asia. The name commonly
attributed to it, for which Herodotus is mainly responsible, is,
however, misleading. Neither he nor, in all probability, those Greeks
who were contemporary with it, or even took part in it, were likely to
understand its object. The Persian Government had the most overwhelming
interest in concealing that object from the Greeks.
Greek imagination, however, could not resist the attractions of a
subject so unknown and so vast and absolutely ran riot in dealing
with it. Herodotus reproduces in detail the fantastic legend. It is
not necessary to reproduce it here. The first aim must be to try and
discover any solid facts in the story of the expedition. #THE PERSIAN
ARMY.# The next, in view of the mass of modern literature which has
sprung up with regard to it, must be to show what the expedition
was _not_. Lastly, it will be necessary to point out the most
reasonable hypothesis as to what it was, and to show its connection
with such designs as Darius had upon Greece.
The very date of the expedition is a matter of extreme uncertainty.
Dates ranging from 515 to 508 before Christ have been suggested by
various authorities.[4] On the whole, it is most probable that it took
place in 512.
A twofold _tête-du-pont_ had already been acquired in Europe by the
reduction of Byzantion and of the Thracian Chersonese, over the latter
of which Miltiades, son of Kimon, who was destined to become famous at
Marathon, bore rule.
The standing army of the Empire seems to have been singularly small,
little more, indeed, than what was requisite for police duties at
home and in the provinces. It was therefore necessary, when any great
expedition was contemplated, to call for levies from the subject
races. There were several reasons for this peculiar policy in military
matters. It was manifestly an economy in time of peace. It made it
unnecessary to entrust large bodies of troops, save under exceptional
circumstances, to commanders in the remote provinces. The levy system
was also an effective one when dealing with such enemies, within and
without, as the Empire would have to meet in Asia, and this had been
satisfactorily proved in many years of campaigning. It never really
failed until brought face to face with an infinitely better armed foe,
the Greek of Europe.
In the present instance, the force collected is reported by tradition
to have amounted to seven hundred thousand men.[5] Here let it be said,
as will frequently have to be said in the course of the history of
these wars, that the numbers which the Greeks attributed to the Persian
armies in various campaigns are, without doubt, invariably exaggerated.
There is no fixed ratio in the exaggeration. Sometimes it is manifold;
sometimes it is not. The real meaning of the Greek estimate of numbers
is that the forces which Persia could put into the field when occasion
demanded were of infinitely greater magnitude than any of which the
Greek had experience. Even the myriad stood with him for a countless
number.
In the present instance the force must indeed have been a large one,
for the undertaking was great; and the Persian, unless he is much
misrepresented in history, preferred on all occasions to have a large
numerical margin of safety. Possibly he thought Ahura-mazda was “on the
side of the big battalions.”
◆H. iv. 87.◆
The crossing into Europe was affected by throwing a bridge over the
Bosphorus in the neighbourhood of Kalchedon.[6]
#THE ADVANCE TO THE ISTER.#
◆H. iv. 89.◆
After crossing into Europe, Darius commanded the Ionians, Æolians,
and Hellospontines, who conducted the fleet, to sail to the Ister,
and while waiting for him there, to build a bridge over the river.
They went two days’ sail up the stream, and constructed one at or
near the head of the Delta.[7] The first point indicated in the route
taken by the army is the source or sources of the Tearos. This was a
subtributary of the Agrianes (the modern Ergene), which was itself a
tributary of the Hebrus.[8] The Arteskos river, which is the next point
mentioned, is not capable of certain identification at the present day.
◆H. iv. 93.◆
The tribes of the coast of the modern East Rumelia or South Bulgaria
yielded without a blow. The Getæ, between the Hæmus (Balkans) and the
Ister, were the first to offer any resistance; but they were subdued.
So far the tale is comprehensible. The army must have passed near to
the Greek colonies, Salmydessos, Apollonia, and Mesembria, which are
indeed mentioned in relation to the tribes south of the Hæmus. From
these, probably, vague tales of this part of the expedition arrived in
Greece.
From this point onwards the story is full of inconsistencies and
improbabilities.
Arrived at the Ister, Darius, a commander of great and manifold
experience, is represented as having ordered the Ionian Greeks to
break down the bridge over the river after he had passed it, and to
follow him into the unknown north. No reason is either given or
is conceivable for such a suicidal plan. The ships, moreover, are to
remain in the Ister. He was dissuaded from this by the advice of Koës,
the Greek tyrant of Mytilene. He then gave orders that the Greeks
should remain at the river sixty days, and if he did not return in that
time, should loose the bridge and sail away.
No advantage can possibly be gained by treating this as serious
history. It is inconceivable that any general of experience should
either propose to deliberately cut his own line of communications when
about to enter an unknown region, or even that he should have appointed
a set limit of time, and that not very long, after which it might be
cut.
The story is in all probability merely a peg whereon to hang an
indictment of the Greek tyrants of the Asian coast, and is designed for
the glorification of the part played by Miltiades in the subsequent
debate on the advisability of leaving Darius to his fate.
The truth it contains may amount to no more than that the fleet did not
go farther than the Ister, and that Darius did not intend to remain
north of the river for any length of time.
The tale of the actual campaigning in Scythia is more extraordinary
still. The Persians are represented as having penetrated beyond the
river Tanais (Don) to the Oarus, (probably the Volga), on which
they built a series of forts. They then returned to the Ister by a
circuitous route, and, as might indeed be expected, the sixty days had
elapsed before their arrival. Such is Herodotus’ story.
◆Strabo vii. 305.◆
A reference to this campaign in the works of the geographer Strabo
shows that Herodotus’ version of its history was not the only one
current among the Greeks. He says that the king and his army, when
between the Ister and the Tyras (Dniester), were compelled to turn back
under stress of thirst.
Ktesias, a Greek who spent a large part of his life at the Persian
Court, and who, though unreliable, is not likely to understate Persian
exploits, ◆Ktes. Pers. 17.◆ says that the king only penetrated fifteen
days’ march beyond the Ister.
#CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE.#
The impossibilities of Herodotus’ story are so manifest that it is
hardly necessary to point them out. How could the commissariat of a
large force have been provided for on a march of that length through
a hostile country where the natives, according to the historian’s own
account, destroyed all local food supplies in advance of the army? How
could the army and the transport required for it have been carried
across such rivers as would have to be passed ere the Volga was
reached,—the Sereth, the Pruth, the Dniester, Dnieper, Boug, and Don,
not to mention numerous minor unfordable streams? If this long march
was undertaken, why did not Darius employ the fleet for commissariat
purposes, as was the custom in Persian campaigns of this age, where the
fleet could possibly be employed?
If the fleet did remain at the Ister, which seems to be one of the few
absolutely reliable statements in the story, the fact itself is strong
presumptive evidence that Darius did not intend to go far beyond that
river. Ktesias says he only proceeded fifteen days’ march. Strabo
implies that he never reached the Dniester.
Inasmuch as the reliability of Herodotus as an historian is in
question, it is important to make an attempt to surmise, in so far as
possible, what was the source or sources of this extraordinary tale
which he has preserved.
It must be remembered, in the first place, that at the time at which he
wrote, anything of the nature of reliable information with regard to
events before the war of 480 must have been very difficult to obtain.
The palpable gaps in the story of the Ionian Revolt, the confusion in
the account of the relations between Athens and Ægina, the meagreness
of the story of Marathon, are striking proofs that such was the case;
and if he experienced such manifest difficulty in arriving at a
detailed knowledge of the great events of the beginning of the fifth
century, in which Greeks played a foremost part, how much greater
difficulty must he have experienced in gaining information as to the
events of the later years of the sixth century, in which the part
played by the Greeks was but secondary?
It seems probable that his sources of information in the present
instance were two in number:—
(1) A tale current in the Athens of his own day, which had come
thither by way of the principality of Miltiades in the Thracian
Chersonese.
(2) Reports collected by the historian himself, either in the course of
a journey to the Greek colonies on the north coast of the Euxine, or
from persons who were natives of those parts, or had visited them.
To the first of these must be attributed the account which he gives of
the events on the Danube, and especially the celebrated tale of the
proposal of Miltiades to break down the bridge and leave Darius to his
fate.
The story is one of the most famous in Greek History. Twice, it is
said, did the Scythians, while Darius with his army was still far
north of the river, ride down to the Ister and call upon the Greeks to
break down the bridge. ◆H. iv. 133, 136.◆ On the first occasion the
Ionians promised to do so. The tale seems to imply that the promise
was merely made with a view to getting rid of the Scythians. On the
second occasion the Scythians made much the same appeal, calling on the
Ionians to strike one grand, effective blow for their freedom.
It is unnecessary to dwell on the minor difficulties of the tale, how,
for instance, it came about that the Scythians knew of Darius’ orders
that the bridge should be loosed after the expiration of sixty days.
◆H. iv. 137.◆
After this second appeal the Ionians held a consultation.
“It was the opinion of Miltiades—the Athenian who commanded, and was
tyrant of the Hellespontine Chersonesites—that they should listen to
the advice of the Scythians and give liberty to Ionia. His views were
opposed by Histiæus the Milesian. The argument of the latter was that
the tyrants individually owed their position to Darius, and that, if
Darius’ power were destroyed, neither would he himself be able to rule
in Miletus, nor any of the rest to rule elsewhere, for all the states
would prefer a democracy to a tyranny. After this statement of opinion
by Histiæus, all of them forthwith went over to it, though they had
previously assented to that of Miltiades.”
A list, intended doubtless as a black list, of these tyrants is given.
#TALE OF THE ISTER BRIDGE.#
To prevent the Scythians seizing the bridge, and to give them the
impression that they were going to follow their advice, the northern
end of the bridge was removed for the space of a bow shot. The
Scythians accordingly withdrew. Some time afterwards Darius and his
army returned, and were alarmed to find the bridge apparently removed.
They soon discovered their mistake. ◆H. iv. 141, 142.◆ The bridge was
restored by Histiæus. “Thus the Persians escaped.” The Scythians’
judgment of the Ionians, as reported by Herodotus, is not without its
significance in the story: ◆H. iv. 142.◆ “Their cowardice as free men
was only equalled by their fidelity as slaves.”
Herodotus himself would be naturally inclined to seize upon a tale
which so strikingly confirmed his own estimate of the Ionians.
But is the story true?
The historian Thirlwall suggested that, in its existing form, it is
an excerpt from the defence made by Miltiades in answering the charge
of “tyranny” brought against him at Athens about the year 493. Such
stories are, however, very rarely pure fabrications from beginning to
end; and, in accordance with general probability, it is more likely
than unlikely that it contains a considerable element of truth. There
are, furthermore, certain considerations deducible from evidence
outside the story itself which tend to support the view.
Herodotus regards the expedition as the one great disaster of Darius’
career. Regarded as evidence, this is not of itself very important. The
story as he told it was intended to point the great moral which runs
throughout his history,—that special phase of the great Hellenic idea
of the “tragedy” of life in which he most firmly believed. The career
of Darius, without this great disaster, would have formed too startling
an exception to that divine and natural law of the incontinuity of
human fortune which he had so consciously and conspicuously illustrated
in his account of the lives of Cambyses, Crœsus, and Polykrates of
Samos.
But there are other reasons for supposing that the expedition was not
without disaster, rumours of which,—probably, too, emanating from
the Greeks at the Ister,—reached the cities of the Propontis.
◆Ktes. Pers. 16 (Justin, ii. 5).◆ Ktesias states Darius’ losses to have
been 80,000 men. Even if the actual number stated be untrustworthy, it
shows that this historian, who would be naturally inclined to minimize
them, had reason to regard them as serious.
But, furthermore, it is evident that during Darius’ absence north of
the Danube, ◆Cf. H. v. 26.◆ a large number of the Hellespontine cities
had seized the opportunity for revolt. Byzantion, Kalchedon, Antandros,
and Lamponion were among the number. This caused Darius to return to
Asia by way of Sestos. It is inconceivable that these towns should
have chosen this time of all others, when a large portion of the levy
of the Empire was actually under arms, for insurrection, had they not
some reason to believe that it had gone whence it could never return
their way. They must have received, either from the Greek colonies on
the North Euxine, or, more probably, from the Greeks on the Ister, some
tidings of a great disaster.
Even if the Greeks on the Ister were not the authors of such tidings,
it is unlikely that reports which came to the towns of the Propontis
failed to reach them.
May it not then be that the fictitious element in the report of the
discussion on the desertion of Darius, in so far as the general details
of the lines which the discussion itself followed are concerned, is
confined to the part which Miltiades is alleged to have played in it?
It is not necessary on this assumption to further assume the veracity
of the tale of the orders given by Darius to the guardians of the
bridge. That tale simply served to heighten the colouring of the
picture of the treason of those Asiatic Hellenes to Hellenic freedom,
in that it robbed them of the excuse of fidelity to a trust imposed
upon them.
It is quite possible, then, that some report of disaster did lead to
the formation of a plot in which all the tyrants were more or less
implicated, but which for some unknown reason never came to a head.
If it had been a one-man plot, in which Miltiades had played a solo
part, surely his design must have become known to Darius. #ORIGIN OF
THE LEGEND.# And yet on return to Asia Darius passed through Miltiades’
dominions, the only part, apparently, of the Hellespontine region
to which the infection of rebellion had not spread. If Miltiades had
taken part in the plot, and if any judgment can be formed from the
general practice of Persian kings, it can hardly be supposed that he
would have lived to fight at Marathon.
It now remains to consider briefly how the extraordinary story of the
march beyond the Ister can possibly have originated.
Doubtless the Greeks in the cities on the north coast had many a
tale brought to them by the native traders from the interior of the
commotion caused by the sudden appearance of this strange army within
the Scythian borders.
These tales, probably wild exaggerations even in their original form,
would not, it may be certain, lose aught in the course of their
evolution. An element common to all of them would be that somewhere in
the Hinterland this army had appeared; and it may well be that within a
comparatively short period the most easterly of the Greek cities came
to regard their own Hinterland as the scene of its operations. This
would bring the imaginary march of the army to the neighbourhood of the
Don and the Volga.
In actual fact, however, it is impossible to suppose that the most
extreme point ever reached by Darius was far north of the Ister. It is
in the highest degree improbable that he ever passed the well-defined
boundaries set by the Carpathians and the Pruth.
With regard to the motives of the expedition, Herodotus declares that
it was intended as a retaliation for the Scythian invasion of Western
Asia, which spread desolation through part of the continent, and was
about synchronous with, and largely the cause of, the fall of the
Assyrian Empire. Apart from the improbability of Darius cherishing
resentment for occurrences of such ancient date, or for injuries of
which he was in no real sense heir, he was probably aware, though
Herodotus was not, that the people who lived to the north of the Euxine
were wholly distinct from the Sakæ, whom Herodotus calls Scyths, who
had troubled the continent more than a century before this time.
The unreliability and vagueness of the story of the campaign have led
to the formation in modern times of many conjectures as to the object
with which it was undertaken.
It has been represented as an attempt to make the Euxine a Persian
lake. Such a theory must assume that Darius carried his operations far
beyond the Ister. On this point sufficient has been said. But apart
from this the theory is met by two other difficulties. What object
could be gained by success in so bald a design? And if such a design
existed, why was the fleet left at the Ister?
Again, it has been ascribed to mere lust of conquest. That is, indeed,
not an uncommon characteristic with Eastern rulers. But Darius was not
an Eastern ruler of the ordinary type. His wars, in so far as their
history is known, are not waged from mere irrational land-hunger,
but in obedience to rational policy, whose main lines are even now
distinguishable. That he intended in this campaign to conquer something
is obvious. But did he intend to make conquests in Scythia? Had he,
too, no other conceivable motive than mere land-hunger behind the
intention of conquest?
A more attractive theory which has been put forward in explanation of
the object of the expedition is that, in accordance with his commercial
policy, he attempted to open up, possibly to acquire, the rich region
north of the Euxine. In that case it would certainly have been expected
that he would have made one of the Greek harbours on the north coast
of that sea the base of his operations, and have transferred his fleet
thither. He could have got plenty of information on the subject from
his Asiatic Greek vassals.
A theory which has been recently put forward is that his real object
was to get hold of that gold region in the land of the Agathyrsi, a
tribe mentioned in Herodotus’ account of the campaign. #THE INTENT OF
THE CAMPAIGN.# This gold-bearing region must be identified with that on
the western border of the modern province of Transylvania, which was
included in the Roman province of Dacia. It is, however, impossible
to say that there is even presumptive evidence of such an intention on
Darius’ part.
It must be confessed that the evidence is not of such a nature that
any theory as to the object of the campaign can be put forward with
confidence. There are, however, two questions which must be taken into
account in any theory on the subject which is to have the merit of
plausibility:—
(1) What were the net results of the campaign?
(2) Did the acts of Darius in any way declare his intentions?
The net results of the campaign were the submission of the Thracian
tribes on the Euxine coast south of Hæmus, and the conquest and
apparent submission of the Getæ between Hæmus and the Ister.
The intention of Darius to cross the Ister existed apparently from
the beginning of the campaign. He sent the fleet thither with orders
to prepare a bridge; but the intention not to proceed far beyond that
river is almost equally clearly shown by his leaving his fleet at
the point of crossing. Whether this second intention was part of the
original design is another question. The tale of the countermanding of
the orders given to the Greeks at the river, absurd though it is, may
rest on a remote foundation of fact; and the fact may have been that
Darius did actually modify his original plans on his arrival at the
Ister.
The expedition north of that point seems to have been either of the
nature of a reconnaissance in force, on the results of which the king
decided against further advance and attempt at conquest, or a display
intended to strike awe into the tribes beyond the newly won territory.
Whether any attempt at conquest in these northern regions formed part
of the original programme may be doubted: one thing is certain, that
the expedition in the form it was made was not anything of the kind.
It is noticeable that at this period the great river formed a very
marked and striking ethnographical boundary between the tribes of
Thracian stock and the Scyths of Europe. It has already been
pointed out that Darius had within his dominions in Asia Minor—mainly
in the region of Bithynia—people of Thracian origin. May he not have
undertaken the expedition with intent to minimize the chances of
disturbance on the weak imperial frontier formed by the Propontis and
its two straits by subduing the free kinsmen of his Thracian subjects?
It is a precaution such as the rulers of empires at every time in
history and in every part of the world have frequently had to take. It
may be, then, that Darius was in search of an ethnic frontier, and when
he had found it on the Ister he sought not for further conquest, but
confined himself to measures intended to secure what he had won.
_The Ethnic Frontier._
It is perhaps unnecessary to insist on the importance of an ethnic
frontier. It is, of course, frequently coincident with a physical
frontier. Where such a coincidence exists, a “scientific” frontier is
attained. But in cases where the two are not coincident, history has
shown again and again that the ethnic is the more “scientific” of the
two.
Regarding the question from another point of view,—it is infinitely
more dangerous for a state to have on its borders a race who have kin
immediately beyond the border in the enjoyment of a form of government
which assures them their independence, or in which they are paramount,
than to have on its frontier a race alien to their neighbours beyond
the border.
The first of these alternatives is an almost inevitable source of
trouble and danger to the state in which the circumstances exist. The
danger is twofold. It may arise from the desire of those within the
frontier to attain to the position enjoyed by their kinsmen outside it,
or from the sympathy of the latter with those of their race who are in
subjection to aliens.
Such considerations are not the mere abstractions of political
philosophy, but are plain, practical questions which have called
for practical solution from men to whom the very idea of political
philosophy may never have been presented. They appear in actual
history in a concrete form, and are therefore hard to recognize amid
the numerous factors which are involved in the complicity of human
action. #ETHNIC FRONTIERS.# The very use of such modern terms as
“scientific” or “ethnic” frontier in reference to policies of
ancient date has a tendency to create the idea that the person using
them is mistakenly attributing to the past conceptions which are
essentially of modern date. But are such conceptions of modern date? Is
it not rather the form in which they are expressed which is of recent
creation? The very creation of such a form of expression indicates,
indeed, that the conception itself has become clearer in course of
time; it rarely, if ever, indicates the actual birth of the conception.
It is quite possible to grossly exaggerate the difference between the
nature of the problems presented to the rulers of empire in the sixth
century before Christ, and those which call for solution at the present
time.
It is not difficult to illustrate from both ancient and modern history:—
(1) The dangers of a frontier which is not ethnic;
(2) The appreciation of this practical fact by those who have had to
face the circumstances.
The circumstances present themselves in a complex form, consequently
the traceable motive which induces those in power to deal with them
is never simple. It is necessary therefore for the student of history
to abstract from the complex motive that part with which he wishes
specially to deal; and that must be done in the present as in every
other instance in which human motive is in question.
The problem of the ethnic frontier was one which presented itself at
every stage of the making of the Roman Empire. It was perhaps most
strikingly illustrated in the relations with the Gauls and Germans.
The original Gallic province had indeed a marked physical frontier in
that elevated region of Auvergne and the Cevennes, together with those
ranges which come from the Alps to meet the Gallic mountain system
on the middle Rhone. It was, however, bordered on two sides by the
lands of the free Gauls. So long as this continued its history was
a stormy one. The Gauls of the province were ever restive under the
Roman yoke. Every commotion outside the province was echoed within it.
The haphazard provincial policy of the last century of the Republic
ignored, in so far as possible, discomforts which it had not the energy
to remedy. It was not until Cæsar became governor that the work was
undertaken by the conquest of the Gauls who remained free.
But while solving one ethnic problem, Cæsar found himself face
to face with another. Germans had made their way into Gaul, and
showed every disposition to go farther. He invented a new solution.
He converted the German settlements along the river into a military
frontier, allowing the immigrants to retain their lands on condition
that they prevented their kinsmen from crossing the Rhine. He sought to
create an antipathy of interests where there existed no antipathy of
race. The plan was but partially successful, and in the end the Roman
legionary had to do the work that the German provincial was intended
to do. Cæsar evidently aimed in his Gallic wars at the establishment
of a physical frontier in the shape of the Rhine. The same policy
has been tried again and again since his day. It has invariably been
unsuccessful in modern times, simply because the Rhine is not an
ethnic boundary. Cæsar left the problem unsolved, and his successors
had to take it up where he left it. Under Augustus the policy of
advance was first tried. Its failure was due to various causes,—some
of them, perhaps, preventible; but one, and perhaps the major, reason
for failure was the impossibility of reaching the far borders of the
Germanic races. The problem presented itself on the Elbe in a still
more difficult form even than on the Rhine, in that the new-sought
frontier was farther from the Roman base.
After the disaster to Varus in A.D. 9, the policy of advance was given
up. The apparently natural, but really artificial, frontier of the
Rhine was definitely decided upon. The maintenance of it, owing to
its artificiality, absorbed for well nigh a century a large part of
the military resources of the empire. But the denationalization and
romanization of the Germans within the border created in course of time
an ethnic boundary where none had previously existed, and with its
creation the problem was for the time being solved. Here, as elsewhere,
Roman Imperial policy created an ethnic boundary where it found none.
Britain furnishes at least two prominent examples of the problem.
Reference has been already made to the motive underlying the expedition
of Julius Cæsar. Agricola, the greatest and the most humane of the
governors of the province in the early years of its existence,
found himself dragged ever farther northwards by sheer necessity of
conquest. By his time, moreover, the problem had taken a more or less
definite shape in men’s mind. ◆Tac. Germ. 1.◆ Tacitus, his biographer,
recognized at least one side of it. “Germania,” he says, “a Sarmatis
Dacisque mutuo metu aut montibus separatur”—an ethnic or physical
frontier. He reports, too, a significant remark of Agricola in reference
to the possibility of the conquest of Ireland: “Idque etiam adversus
Britanniam profuturum, si Romana ubique arma et velut e conspectu
libertas tolleretur.” The practical ethnic question was evidently in
Tacitus’ time in process of becoming crystallized into a political
theory.
It would require too much space to recount in detail all the examples
of the ethnic problem which have been conspicuous in mediæval and
modern history. It has cropped up again and again within the memory of
the living generation.
Austria had to face it in Italy in 1859–60. She has to face it now in
the Sclav provinces of the North.
Denmark’s attempted solution of the problem in Schleswig-Holstein cost
her those provinces in 1864.
The demand for the cession of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871 would hardly have
been made by Germany had not the problem in these regions presented
itself to her in a seemingly favourable form.
The Turkish Empire presents, and has presented, numerous examples of
the problem—Servia in 1876; Bulgaria in 1878; the Greek populations of
the Ægean coast at the present day.
In South Africa Great Britain has been within the last year forced to
solve the problem in the special phase in which it presented itself to
her there.
To sum up, the circumstances which give rise to the ethnic problem are,
stated briefly, of the following nature—
(1) The existence within but on the borders of a state of a race alien
to the ruling race, but akin to the race beyond the frontier.
(2) The real or fancied inferiority in respect to liberty of the aliens
within the state to their kinsmen outside it.
(3) The consequent setting up of two currents of feeling, one from the
outside to the inside, and another from the inside to the outside of
the state. These are usually coexistent, though in exceptional cases
one may exist without the other.
(4) The dangers to the state arising from the existence of circumstance
(3).
The various solutions which have been tried by different states at
different periods of history have taken one of two main forms of policy—
Either (1) the pushing forward of the borders by conquest to the ethnic
frontier;
Or (2) the denationalization of the alien race within the border.
Of these the second requires time. Any attempts to bring it about
rapidly must end in failure, and may end in disaster; witness the case
of Denmark in 1864.
Rome under the early Principate adopted, by the precept of Augustus,
the policy of denationalization as against that of conquest. Augustus
had tried both policies, but had deliberately laid aside the latter in
A.D. 9.
But there was a vast difference between the Rome of Augustus and the
Persia of Darius. Two centuries of past existence as the greatest
power in the world made the Roman regard the future with a confidence
with which Darius, heir to the maker of a new empire, and himself its
re-maker, can never have regarded it. The Roman speculated in eternity,
the Persian in time; hence the latter was naturally led to adopt
methods which promised to bear fruit in the immediate future.
The question whether this is the sole motive which can be suggested for
the expedition remains for consideration.
The evidence as to the real drift of the policy of Darius during the
last fifteen years of the sixth century is so obscure and uncertain,
that there has been much debate among historians as to whether this
expedition was the first deliberate step in a large scheme of conquest
in Europe. In order to form a judgment on this question it is necessary
to take into consideration not only the immediate sequel of the
expedition, but also the history, in so far as it is known, of the
years which intervened between it and the outbreak of the Ionian revolt.
◆H. iv. 143; H. v. 1.◆
Darius took back with him to Asia the greater part of the great army
which he had employed in the Scythian expedition; but he left his
general Megabazos in Europe with a considerable force to complete the
work of conquest which he had begun in Thrace, and, presumably, to
suppress the revolt of the Greek cities in the neighbourhood of the
Propontis. This force is reported by Herodotus to have amounted to
80,000 men.
◆H. iv. 144.◆
Megabazos proceeded, says the historian, to reduce “the Hellespontians
who had not medized.” Who are these Hellespontians? They are certainly
in Europe. #CAMPAIGN OF MEGABAZOS.# They are also not the
populations of the revolted cities,[9] for he expressly states that
these were subsequently reduced by Otanes. They must be some small
places in the neighbourhood of Miltiades’ principality in the Thracian
Chersonese.
◆H. v. 1, 2.◆
Of the history of this campaign Herodotus gives no detail, save that he
says that Perinthos was taken; and this incident is obviously mentioned
in order to introduce a story which has but a very remote connection
with the circumstances of the time.
After the capture of this town “Megabazos marched his army through
Thrace, reducing every state and race of those parts to subjection to
the king; for Darius had ordered the reduction of Thrace.”
This is a very remarkable statement. The coast districts of the Euxine
had submitted to Darius on his advance to the Danube. It may be doubted
whether this submission was very real or permanent.
◆H. v. 10.◆
But now Megabazos appears to be represented as having reduced the whole
of Thrace, of which region Herodotus takes the opportunity of giving a
comprehensive description. Bearing in mind the language of the sentence
which suggested the description, it is somewhat startling to read in
the closing sentence of it the words, “Megabazos then reduced the coast
regions (of Thrace) to subjection to the Persians.”
These two apparently conflicting statements form one of the many
examples of the highly composite character of the sources from which
Herodotus drew his history of these obscure years. It is impossible
to say that the one is true and the other false. It is probably the
case that here, as in some other similar instances in Herodotus’
history where two irreconcilable accounts of the same thing are either
deliberately or inadvertently given, that either both are true in a
sense, or that both contain elements of the truth. May it not
be that this is an instance of the first of these two alternatives,
and that the assertion with regard to the whole of Thrace refers to
a position of weak dependence, whereas that with regard to the coast
region refers to actual subjection?
It will be seen later that this matter is not unimportant in its
bearing upon the conclusions which must be drawn as to the history of
the years which follow.
The hypothesis is supported by the fact that though in those thirty
years the coast region does appear to be, save during the interval of
the Ionian revolt, under Persian rule, there is no evidence of the real
subjection of the hinterland.
Herodotus next recounts two incidents, the first of which is connected
indirectly, the second directly with this campaign.
These are (1) the grant of Myrkinos to Histiæus;
(2) The removal of the Pæonians to Asia.
Of the prominent Greeks who had accompanied the king to the Danube,
Koës the Mytilenian, and Histiæus the Milesian were singled out for
special rewards. To Koës was given the tyranny of Mytilene. ◆H. v. 11.◆
Histiæus was already tyrant of Miletus, and he asked not for further
tyranny, but requested the grant of Myrkinos on the Strymon. This
Darius gave him.
There can be no question that he knew for what he was asking. This
place, which stood within a short distance of the site of Amphipolis
of later days, was the key of the North Ægean lands. It commanded not
merely the great coast route from east to west, but the trade route
which ran up the Strymon valley towards mid-Europe. It may well be
that it was the latter circumstance, together with its nearness to the
Thracian gold region, which made its value known to the tyrant of the
great trading city.
◆H. v. 12, 13.◆
The sequel to this story is in all probability not unconnected with the
policy which led to the removal of the Pæonians to Asia. #THE LOWER
STRYMON.# It is evident that Herodotus had no idea of the reasons
which induced Darius to adopt a measure which, though not uncommon
in the previous history of the Eastern empires, was an unusual one
with him. The tale which he tells in order to account for it was
doubtless a commonplace among the stories of his time, and one which
was told in relation to more than one event in the history of the past.
It is unnecessary to reproduce it here, and still more unnecessary to
point out the inadequacy of the motive which it suggests.
The strategic importance of the country occupied by this people is
amply sufficient to account for the policy which Darius adopted with
regard to them. They commanded the short stretch of the Strymon river
between Lake Prasias[10] and the sea, and were thus in a position whose
natural strength was again and again demonstrated in later history, and
whose importance lay in the fact, already pointed out in the case of
Myrkinos, that it commanded not merely the trade-route north, but also
the great route westward from Eastern Thrace and the Hellespont region.
The substantial details in the account of the incident indicate that
it must have taken place during, not after, that conquest of the coast
districts of Thrace of which Herodotus has already spoken.
The story is told as follows:—
◆H. v. 14.◆
“Then Darius wrote letters to Megabazos, whom he had left in command
in Thrace, ordering him to remove the Pæonians from their homes,
and to bring them, their children and wives, to him. A horseman
immediately hurried off to the Hellespont bearing the message, and,
having crossed over, handed the despatch to Megabazos. After reading
it, Megabazos took guides from Thrace and marched against Pæonia.”
From the last detail it must be presumed that he had not as yet been
campaigning in the Pæonian region.
“The Pæonians, on hearing that the Persians were coming against them,
collected their forces on the side towards the sea; thinking that the
Persians would attempt the invasion at that point”
The Persians, however, turned the position by taking the inland road.
◆H. v. 16.◆
The Pæonians between Lake Praslas and the sea immediately surrendered
and were removed to Asia. Herodotus then adds that those about Mount
Pangæus were “not substantially” subdued by Megabazos.[11]
If this were indeed the case, it is evident that the assertion which
he has previously made to the effect that Megabazos reduced the “coast
districts” of Thrace must be understood in a restricted sense in so far
as this part of the country is concerned.
The net result of this part of the campaign seems to have been that
Megabazos got possession of the most critical point of the coast road.
◆H. v. 17.◆
In accordance, it may be presumed, with his instructions, Megabazos
next sent seven Persians of high rank to the neighbouring kingdom of
Macedonia to demand the earth and water of submission from Amyntas,
its then ruler. The extraordinary tale of this embassy,[12]—how it
came to Amyntas; how he agreed to give earth and water; how the envoys
were murdered at a banquet at the instigation of his son Alexander;
how the murder was hushed up:—contains what are evidently elements
of fact combined with a large amount of fiction whose intent is to
glorify Alexander in the sight of the Greeks.[13] That such a murder
could, if it ever took place, be hushed up, is incredible. ◆H. v. 21,
_ad fin._◆ The parts of the story which appear to be true, are (1)
that Macedonia did in some way tender submission to Persia; (2) that a
Persian, Bubares, probably the son of the general Megabazos, did marry
a Macedonian princess. It is, however, a doubtful question whether the
submission was very real.
After the negotiations with Macedon, Megabazos went to the Hellespont
and thence to Sardes, taking the Pæonians with him.
#HISTIÆUS AND MYRKINOS.#
◆H. v. 23.◆
On arriving there he heard, says Herodotus, of the grant of Myrkinos to
Histiæus; and that the latter was fortifying the place. If this be
true, it must be presumed that he had not marched direct from Pæonia to
the Hellespont and Sardes, otherwise he would have known all about the
proceedings of Histiæus at Myrkinos. It is, however, much more probable
that Darius first heard from him the measures which Histiæus was taking
to secure his new possession. Megabazos was evidently alarmed at the
idea of this Greek tyrant holding a position which commanded the North
Ægean route; and, if the matter of his representations to the king be
truly reported, he pointed out to Darius the possibility of Histiæus
establishing Myrkinos as a rallying centre for the Thracians, which
might become the nucleus of a powerful state.
The subsequent history of Histiæus shows conclusively that the great
Persian officials had the deepest distrust of this scheming Greek.
Megabazos’ representations had their effect. Histiæus was recalled to
Sardes, and when, later, Darius went up to Susa, he took him with him,
an honoured but unwilling guest.
◆H. v. 25, 26.◆
Before departing for Susa, Xerxes appointed Artaphernes satrap of
Sardes, and Otanes to succeed Megabazos in the command in Thrace.
◆H. v. 26.◆
Otanes proceeded to take Byzantion and Kalchedon. He also took
Antandros in the Troad, and Lamponion. Then, by means of ships obtained
from Lesbos, he reduced the islands of Lemnos and Imbros. That,
according to Herodotus, was the sum of his exploits.
There follow words, one at least of which has got corrupted in the
text; but there seems little cause to doubt that Herodotus wrote
either: “After this there was a respite from troubles, though not a
long one:” or, “After no long time there was a renewal of troubles.”[14]
He then enters upon the description of that affair at Naxos which
immediately preceded the Ionian revolt.
The story of these operations in Thrace which are subsequent to and
the direct outcome of the so-called Scythian expedition, is one of the
most obscure chapters in Herodotus’ history. He had manifestly the
greatest difficulty in obtaining information with regard to the events
of the time. That which he did get he got from various sources, whose
discrepancies he only partially succeeded in reconciling.
The modern writer is obliged to face the historical situation with the
courage alike of necessity and despair; of necessity, inasmuch as the
history of these years is of the utmost importance in the story of
the Persian relations with Europe, and, consequently, with Greece; of
despair, in that he must feel that detailed criticism of such material
must border on mere eclecticism. On the main outlines the question it
is, however, possible to arrive at conclusions which have some sound
foundation in evidence.
It seems quite clear that these campaigns of Megabazos and Otanes
aimed at the reduction of the Thracian races in Europe. In ordering
them Darius was probably pursuing the policy which had underlain the
so-called Scythian expedition. His stay at Sardes, for what cannot have
been less than the better part of a year after his return from that
expedition, indicates certainly that he considered that the affairs of
the westernmost extremity of his empire demanded his personal attention
more imperatively than affairs elsewhere, and may well imply that
they were of a nature to cause him some anxiety. There had certainly
been some disaster in the Scythian expedition. It had been followed
by the revolt, not merely of the towns on the European side of the
Propontis, but of places like Antandros in the Troad, which Otanes had
subsequently to reduce.
The strategic policy observed in the campaign of Megabazos is striking
in that the revolted cities are practically ignored. Its results are
in many respects uncertain. Herodotus describes them in a descending
scale;—first, as having consisted of the subjugation of all the
Thracians; secondly, as being confined to the conquest of the coast
regions; thirdly, as leaving even the conquest of these regions
incomplete in the neighbourhood of Mount Pangæus. #DESIGNS OF DARIUS IN
EUROPE.# It has been pointed out that the first two statements may be
reconciled as implying subjugation in two different degrees; but
the third constitutes, in whatever way it be regarded, a significant
exception.
As far as the revolted cities are concerned, it is possible that Darius
thought he could bide his time for dealing with them, and that the
larger Thracian policy first demanded his attention. The cities were
not powerful enough to do any active damage meanwhile.
How far was Megabazos successful in carrying out this larger policy? If
any conclusion is to be drawn from the fact that Darius before leaving
Sardes put Otanes in command in place of him, it is that the king was
not satisfied with what he had achieved. Nevertheless, the success of
his operations seems to have been sufficient to convince the Macedonian
king Amyntas of the advisability of submitting to Persian suzerainty.
What Megabazos certainly did was to open up the coast road to the West;
and this, if the tale of the Pæonians is to be regarded as significant,
he seems to have done by the express orders of the king. In any case
the advance along this line is certainly a significant fact.
The objects, then, of Megabazos’ campaign appear to have been—
(1) To complete the reduction of Thrace;
(2) To open up the route westwards.
Of these the first seems to have been but half accomplished; and though
more success had been attained with the second, the failure to fully
accomplish the first made it impossible for Darius to avail himself for
the time being of the advantages won along that western route. He had
found the Thracians, as others found them in later days, a much more
difficult conquest than he had in all probability anticipated.
It is now possible to consider whether the attempt to arrive at
an ethnic frontier is the only object which may be suggested as
guiding the policy with regard to Thrace. Despite the obscurity of
the evidence, it seems clear that Darius intended the conquest of
Thrace to be a prelude to further conquest westwards, and that, in
pursuance of this design, European Greece was to be the next object of
attack. Whether the conquest of Greece was to be merely a second
stage in a great scheme of conquest along the northern shores of the
Mediterranean, or whether it was merely designed for the purpose of
securing the western borders of the empire by subjugating the free
kinsmen of the most western subjects of the empire, cannot now be said,
inasmuch as there is no evidence which throws light upon the question.
It now remains to consider the evidence,—
(1) As to Darius’ design of conquest westward;
(2) As to the reasons why the attempts to carry it out was postponed
for many years.
The operations of Megabazos on the Strymon, followed by the demand for
the submission of Macedonia, are certainly strong indications, if not
conclusive evidence of, the design to get hold of the coast route to
Northern Greece.
For the carrying out of operations on the scale requisite for an
expedition aiming at the reduction of Greece as a whole, the command
of a land route was necessary. The carrying capacity of a ship of
those days was so small that it would have been very difficult, if not
impossible, to transport a force of the magnitude required _across_ the
Ægean. The expedition of 490 represents in all probability the utmost
that Persia could accomplish by sea transport, and that was merely
directed against Athens and Eretria, and had as its _declared_ object
the punishment of the only two states of European Greece which had
interfered in the Ionian revolt.
But the results of Megabazos’ campaign, if unsupported by other facts,
would afford very inadequate evidence of a design on Greece.
◆H. iii. 138.◆
There is, however, a tale in Herodotus, the very telling of which by
that historian argues strongly for its general truth. It is the story
of Demokedes, the famous physician of Kroton, who, having been in the
service of Polykrates of Samos, was captured by the Persians at the
time of his murder, and after a series of adventures became court
physician at Susa. #PERSIANS EXPLORE THE GREEK COAST.# About the time
when Darius was starting for the Scythian expedition, this Demokedes
had rendered a great service to Atossa, the wife of Darius, who,
instructed by him, persuaded Darius to send him with an expedition
to explore the coasts of Greece, with a view to the subsequent invasion
of the country. ◆H. iii. 136.◆ Accompanied by some prominent Persians,
Demokedes went down to Sidon in Phœnicia, where the expedition embarked
on two triremes and set sail for Greece. They circumnavigated the land,
keeping close to the shore, surveying the coasts, and making notes
thereof in writing. “At length, having examined the greatest part of
it, they proceeded to Tarentum in Italy.” What happened thereafter is
not so important. Suffice it to say that, with the aid of the tyrant
of Tarentum, Demokedes made his escape, and went to Kroton, whither
the Persians followed. The Krotonians refused to surrender him. The
Persians accordingly sailed back to Asia, but, “not having their
guide, they did not attempt to explore Greece any further.” It is not
necessary to recount the rest of their adventures. ◆H. iii. 129–138.◆
Herodotus closes the tale by remarking that they were the first
Persians who came from Asia to Greece, and that they were spies.
This tale, like other tales of the time, did not lose in the telling.
It manifestly contains fanciful elements. But there do not, on the
other hand, exist any grounds whatever for disbelieving its main
details,—namely, that such an expedition was actually sent with a view
to explore the lands of Greece, and in accordance with an intention to
invade the country when the necessary steps for such an invasion had
been taken.
Megabazos’ campaign in Thrace was such a step. But when this is said,
it must not be supposed that the remark is intended to convey the
impression that this was the sole or even the main motive of that
campaign. Sole motives are, as it has been said, rare in the history of
policies. The design on Greece was the corollary to the problem to be
solved in Thrace. It was not necessarily regarded as either superior or
inferior in importance to the Thracian problem.
It is possible that the designs on both Thrace and Greece were parts of
a larger design which aimed at a simultaneous advance of the Persian
frontier along both sides of the Mediterranean. It is, at any
rate, noticeable that at the time of these operations in Europe, if
Herodotus’ rough chronology is to be accepted, Aryandes, the Persian
satrap in Egypt, was engaged in a campaign in Cyrene. ◆H. iii. 13;
iv. 165.◆ Cyrene had been tributary to Persia for some time past;
but troubles had arisen there which called for Persian interference;
and this resulted in the Persian frontier being advanced as far as
Euesperides.
There still remains what is, owing to the lack of evidence, the very
difficult question as to the reasons which prevented or dissuaded
Darius from carrying out his designs on Greece in the years which
intervened between the campaign of Megabazos and the outbreak of the
Ionian revolt. That may be calculated to have actually broken out in
499. But what is the date of the end of Megabazos’ campaign?
◆H. v. 23.◆
It certainly took place some time before Darius left Sardes. Megabazos
finds him there on his return; and Histiæus is subsequently recalled to
Sardes before Darius leaves the place.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to fix the date of Darius’ departure
from Sardes.
◆H. v. 73.◆
He had certainly gone to Susa before the arrival of the Athenian
embassy which appealed to Persia for aid against Spartan aggression,
because it is to Artaphernes that the appeal is addressed. But even if
the date of Hippias’ expulsion be taken as fixed, who is to say what
time elapsed between that and the sending of this embassy? ◆H. v. 66,
70, 72, 73.◆ Much happened at Athens during the interval—the political
struggle between Kleisthenes and Isagoras; the demand of Kleomenes of
Sparta for the expulsion of Kleisthenes; the retirement of Kleisthenes;
the disastrous expedition of Kleomenes, ending in his own defeat, and
in disaster to the party of Isagoras; the return of Kleisthenes, and
the carrying out of the reforms which bear his name.
All these things must have taken a considerable time; but in so far as
the history of Persian affairs in Asia is concerned, the conclusion to
be drawn from them is but vague. #POSTPONEMENT OF DESIGNS ON GREECE.#
It comes to no more than this,—that Artaphernes was acting alone in
Sardes some years after the expulsion of Hippias, at a date which
can hardly be later than B.C. 507, and that therefore Darius had gone
up to Susa before that time; but, on the other hand, it is quite
impossible to say how long before that time his departure had taken
place.
Darius’ departure seems to indicate clearly that he had for the time
being given up all idea of the immediate prosecution of large designs
in the West.
There are several reasons which may be suggested for the temporary
abandonment of his plans.
There can, in the first place, be little doubt that the campaign in
Thrace had not ended in anything resembling the complete subjugation
of that difficult country. Disaster in the Scythian expedition had
seriously shaken Persian prestige, not merely on the European, but also
on the Asiatic side of the Propontis; and though Megabazos’ campaign
may have staved off actual danger, its positive results appear to have
been but partial, and not such as to warrant further advance.
By the time that campaign came to an end Darius must have been absent
from Susa for a space of well-nigh two years; and so prolonged an
absence in one remote corner of the empire, far away from the real
centre of government, must have had its inconveniences, if not its
dangers, in a dominion so wide and so recently reduced to obedience.
The postponement of success in Thrace was the first cause of the
postponement of the designs on Greece.
During the years between the departure of Darius from Sardes and the
occurrence of those incidents which led to the outbreak of the Ionian
revolt Persian history is almost a blank. Darius, the central figure
of the whole drama, vanishes from the stage for a long interval of
years. Had he, like the Nebuchadnezzar of the Book of Daniel, been
driven forth among the beasts of the field, his effacement from written
record could hardly have been more complete. ◆H. ii. 110.◆ There is an
incidental tale in Herodotus’ Egyptian history which refers to a visit
of Darius to Egypt, made possibly during this time. If the tale be
true, the incident certainly occurred after the Scythian expedition;
and the campaign in Cyrene, or the settlement of affairs after it,
may have called for his presence in that part of the empire.
Otherwise, in so far as is known, he spent these years at Susa, where
he appears to have been at the time of the outbreak of the Ionian
revolt.
Otanes, Megabazos’ successor, is engaged in a campaign against the
revolted Greek cities of the Hellespontine region, which are once more
brought into subjection; but there is no means of judging how long the
campaign lasted.
Did he carry on the operations in Thrace? Probable though the
conjecture may be, there is no evidence that he did so, ◆H. v. 116.◆
save the very indecisive fact that he is still in Asia Minor at the
time of the revolt.
Artaphernes is satrap at Sardes throughout the interval, and during his
tenure of office there is a distinct and striking development of the
relations between Persia and European Greece. It is remarkable that
it is from the side of Greece,—from Athens, above all,—that the first
advances are made.
That state had been for some years past in the throes of a revolution,
in which the Spartan king, Kleomenes, had played various parts. After
being instrumental in expelling Hippias in 511 B.C., he had discovered
that by so doing he had placed the power in the hands of the democratic
party at Athens. He sought to remedy the mistake by espousing the cause
of Isagoras and the oligarchs. His interference was disastrous to
himself and fatal to them. In spite of his failure, his action caused
great alarm at Athens, and an idea sprang up there that he aimed at
making the country subservient to Sparta. There was no power in Greece
itself to which Athens could turn for protection against Sparta,
◆H. v. 73.◆ and in her perplexity she cast her eyes over sea to the
great empire on the eastern side of the Ægean, and sent an embassy to
Artaphernes asking for his assistance.
#AFFAIRS AT ATHENS.#
It is on the face of it a very remarkable fact that Artaphernes
abstained from making full use of the opportunity thus offered him for
interference in the affairs of Greece; but the fact, remarkable as it
is, is in accord with such other indications as exist of the position
of affairs at this time in the West Asian satrapies. It is probable
that Artaphernes had his hands full with the maintenance of the
dominion which Persia had won in that region, and that he had at the
time neither the will nor the power to spare such resources as he had
at his disposal on the direct acquisition of further territory. He made
a pretence,—his ignorance can hardly have been real,—of not knowing
who the Athenians were. On being informed, he offered them alliance
on condition they gave earth and water, an offer which the Athenian
ambassadors took upon themselves to accept. When, however, they
returned to Athens their conduct in so doing was strongly condemned,
and the terms were repudiated.
Shortly after this the storm which the Athenians had foreseen broke
upon them. ◆H. v. 74.◆ Kleomenes collected a formidable army from
Peloponnesus and invaded Attica, while the Bœotians and the Chalkidians
of Eubœa prepared to attack from the north. The main danger was averted
by the disruption of Kleomenes’ army. The defection not merely of the
Corinthians, but also of Demaratos, Kleomenes’ partner in the dual
kingship of Sparta, brought the expedition to a premature close after
it had actually entered upon Attic territory. This was disastrous
for the northern allies. The Bœotians and the Chalkidians were both
defeated. In the case of the latter the disaster was irreparable.
Their great city, foremost in early Greek trade and colonization, lost
its independence, and its lands were occupied by Athenian settlers.
Athens had acquired one of the great strategic positions of Greece; and
Corinth had made the first of those fatal mistakes of policy which were
to have such momentous consequences in the next century.
The Bœotians did not accept defeat. Left in the lurch by their
Peloponnesian allies, ◆H. v. 89.◆ they sought and obtained aid from
Ægina, which great trading state seized the opportunity of inflicting
damage on an old enemy and growing rival in commerce, and harried the
Attic coast with piratical raids.
Meanwhile events were preparing for a second interference of Persia in
Athenian affairs. ◆H. v. 90.◆ The Lacedæmonians had discovered the fact
that they had been tricked by the Delphic Oracle, which, bribed
by the Alkmæonidæ, had urged them to aid in the expulsion of Hippias
from Athens. Seeking to amend this mistake, they recalled Hippias
from Sigeon in the Troad, to which principality he had retired after
his expulsion, and where he must have been living for some years as
a vassal prince of Persia. Their intention was to reinstate him in
the tyranny at Athens. It was again the Corinthians who wrecked the
plan. At a conference of the Peloponnesian League called to consider
the question, they bitterly opposed the proposal, and carried the
other allies with them. Hippias, having had his journey for nothing,
returned to Asia more than ever embittered in feeling against Athens
and Greece alike; and he seems to have moved heaven and earth to induce
Artaphernes to reinstate him in his tyranny. In the end he prevailed
so far that Artaphernes called upon the Athenians to receive him back.
Whether he intended to take action in case of their refusal will never
be known, but events were imminent in Asia, even if they had not
already occurred, which rendered all idea of his active interference
out of the question; for, if Herodotus’ chronology be correct, this
demand was made by him either immediately before or after the first
actual step had been taken in the great revolt. ◆H. v. 96, 97.◆ The
demand, says Herodotus, convinced the Athenians that thereafter there
could only be open enmity with Persia; and while they were in this mind
Aristagoras came to Athens.
CHAPTER III.
THE IONIAN REVOLT.
The mist which hangs over the history of the last decade of the sixth
century lifts somewhat when the historian enters upon the narrative
of the first ten years of the fifth; but it does not wholly vanish.
Striking incidents occur indeed within the range of vision; but it is
evident that beyond that range many events took place which had much
influence on the history of the time; and the causes of the known lie
largely in the region of the unknown.
It is impossible to accept the accounts which Herodotus gives of the
Ionian revolt or of the Marathonian campaign as a full history of
either of those events. There are wide gaps in both narratives; and
much that is recorded is wholly unaccounted for by anything in the
rest of the story, or is, in some cases, wholly inconsistent with
other facts which are mentioned. In tracing the course of events
the modern inquirer is in the position of an astronomer who, having
observed aberrations in the course of a far-off planet which cannot be
accounted for by any known causes, seeks in the dim distance beyond for
the disturbing influence. There, alas! the parallel between the two
inquirers ceases, inasmuch as mathematical formulæ have not yet been
made applicable to human action.
The imperfect character of the information which Herodotus furnishes
with regard to the story of the great Revolt is so evident that the
historian himself must have been conscious of it. The peculiarity of
his narrative was therefore due in all probability to some simple
reason; either, it may be, to the difficulties which met him in his
search for reliable information, and to his disinclination to insert in
his history anything which he personally regarded as unreliable; or
to a determination to deal with only the most prominent and striking
incidents of a part of history which was, after all, merely a preface
to the great tale which he had set himself to tell—the story of the war
in Europe in the years 480 B.C. and 479 B.C.
It is possible that both causes had their effect on his narrative.
But if any judgment can be formed from data furnished by the general
characteristics of the history as a whole, the first of these two
suggested causes is the more credible. If, as is manifestly the case,
he experienced the greatest difficulty in arriving at the truth
concerning events which were comparatively recent at the time at
which he wrote, and which had been of a nature such as to attract the
attention of the whole world of his day, it is by no means surprising
if he experienced much greater difficulty in getting at the facts
concerning what occurred at an earlier date, and about events which,
though striking, were infinitely less remarkable than those of the
period which immediately followed them.
The defects in the story of the Ionian revolt,[15] to whatever cause
they be due, are in the main of three kinds:—
(1) Omissions;
(2) Lack of chronological data;
(3) Anti-Ionian bias.
The main chronological difficulty is to attribute the events recorded
to the years in which they actually took place. ◆H. vi. 18.◆ The only
fact obtainable from Herodotus is that the outbreak took place in the
sixth year before the capture of Miletus. It is possible to calculate
with satisfactory certainty that the latter event took place in 494
B.C.; and therefore the revolt must have broken out in 499.
#THE AFFAIR OF NAXOS.#
The actual outbreak of the rising was brought about in a somewhat
indirect way by an event or series of events which appear in Herodotus’
narrative as wholly independent of what had happened in the previous
years. It may, however, be seen that these events could hardly have
taken place had they not promised an issue such as would have been in
accord with the tentative policy which Artaphernes had been following
for some time past in his relations with European Greece.
He had already on two occasions shown a wish to interfere in the
internal affairs of Athens. On both occasions he had made demands
which aimed at the establishment of an area of Persian influence west
of the Ægean; but on both occasions also he had omitted to back up
those demands by even the display of force, unless,—which is, indeed,
possible,—the demand for the reinstatement of Hippias was made at the
time that the Persian expedition was preparing to start for Naxos, if
not on its way thither.[16]
The affair at Naxos, which afforded Artaphernes the prospect of being
able to forward his policy towards Greece, arose from circumstances
which were but too common in Greek communities. The island was at
the time the most opulent in the Ægean. When Samos lost its position
as the easternmost land of the free Greeks on the great trade route
which followed the line of islands which all but bridge the middle
of that sea, ◆H. v. 28.◆ much of its trade must have passed to the
most important of the islands which now became the outworks of Greek
liberty. Prosperity did not bring peace in its train. Political
dissension was rife; and certain of the wealthier inhabitants were
driven out from the island, and sought refuge at Miletus.
There ruled at this time in Miletus Aristagoras, a cousin and
son-in-law of that Histiæus whom Darius had taken up to Susa. To him
the exiles applied for assistance. He told them that he could not
unaided supply them with a force powerful enough to cope with the eight
thousand hoplites which Naxos could put into the field, but that he
would get help from Artaphernes. ◆H. v. 31.◆ To Artaphernes at Sardes
he accordingly went. The great satrap required but little persuasion to
induce him to enter upon an undertaking so promising for the fulfilment
of his designs upon Greece; for Aristagoras held out the prospect of
the acquisition not merely of Naxos, but of the other Cyclades and of
the great island of Eubœa.
The circumstances seemed favourable for the establishment of a base
which would immediately threaten the European shore.
Aristagoras had asked for one hundred ships; and, for some reason which
is not satisfactorily accounted for in the story, had offered to defray
the expenses of the expedition.
So thoroughly did Artaphernes approve of the plan that, in order
to ensure its success, he offered to furnish double the number of
ships for which Aristagoras had asked, provided Darius assented to
the proposed expedition. It is evident that the custom, if not the
constitution, of the empire under Darius did not permit even a great
satrap like Artaphernes, who was the king’s own brother, to call out a
force of considerable magnitude without leave from the king himself.
◆H. v. 31.◆ Artaphernes further promised that the ships should be ready
in the coming spring, which shows that Aristagoras’ visit to Sardes
must have been made in the first year of the fifth century, probably in
the winter of 500 B.C.
Aristagoras returned to Miletus elated at his diplomatic success.
A few months must have elapsed ere Artaphernes received a despatch from
Susa approving of his proposal. The assent of Darius is important, as
showing that the king was quite willing to resume his designs on Greece
when fair opportunity offered.
The true tale of what followed is one of the many unsolved riddles of
this period. As told by Herodotus, it runs as follows:—
#FAILURE AT NAXOS.#
Artaphernes prepared a fleet of two hundred triremes, together with
a considerable force of Persians and other allies, and appointed
Megabates, a member of the Achæmenid family, and cousin of Darius,
to the command. This armament he despatched to Miletus to pick up
Aristagoras together with the Ionian contingent and the Naxian exiles.
Thence the expedition sailed to Kaukasa in Chios, with the pretended
object of operating in the Hellespontine district,—a pretence which
would not have been very effective had the operations of Otanes left it
in a wholly satisfactory state of subjection. It was at Kaukasa that
the design of the expedition was fated to be wrecked. Megabates, going
his rounds, found a Myndian vessel without any guards set, and punished
the Greek captain by causing him to be tied with his head through
one of the oar-holes. On this being reported to Aristagoras, he made
protest to Megabates; but as this had no effect, he himself released
the man. A quarrel ensued between the two commanders, the result of
which was that Megabates sent a ship and gave warning to the Naxians
of the coming expedition. The latter prepared in all haste to meet the
danger, and successfully resisted a four months’ siege. The attempt
turned out a complete failure, and Aristagoras found himself in the
position of guarantor of the expenses, without the means of meeting the
guarantee. Such is the tale in Herodotus.
It is necessary to pursue the story somewhat further before any attempt
can be made to hazard a conjecture as to the true explanation of some
of the incidents in this narrative.
Aristagoras had brought his affairs into a very critical position. He
had quarrelled with Megabates, and had made himself surety for a debt
to Artaphernes which he had no prospect of being able to pay. He had,
indeed, reason to fear that he would lose his tyranny of Miletus.
◆H. v. 35.◆
“Fearing these two things, he proceeded to plan a revolt. For it so
fell out that the man with the tattooed head[17] arrived at this time
from Histiæus at Susa, suggesting to Aristagoras that he should
revolt from the king. For Histiæus when wishing to suggest this revolt
to Aristagoras, had, in consequence of the roads being watched, no
other way of so doing except by shaving the head of the most faithful
of his slaves and tattooing the message upon it. As soon as the hair
had grown again he sent him off to Miletus, merely bidding him when
he came to Miletus to ask Aristagoras to cut off his hair and look at
his head. The tattoo marks, as I have already said, indicated revolt.
Histiæus did this because he looked on his retention at Susa as a
great misfortune. If a revolt took place he had every hope that he
would be sent down to the sea, but he reckoned that if no disturbance
took place at Miletus he would never get there. Such was the intent of
Histiæus in sending the message. ◆H. v. 36.◆ But for Aristagoras it
came about that all these things befel at the same time. He therefore
proceeded to consult the conspirators, laying before them his own
views and the message which had come from Histiæus.”
There are certain strange inconsistencies in this tale.
Megabates, though in command of the expedition, though responsible to
Darius and Artaphernes for its success, is represented as wrecking
what appears to have been a well-devised plan by giving information
to the unsuspecting objects of attack. Yet he is neither disgraced
nor discredited. His alleged treachery might have been concealed; his
failure was, however, patent.
Again, it is quite clear that it is the intention of Herodotus to
ascribe the outbreak of the revolt to this failure at Naxos; the
insurrection is set on foot by Aristagoras merely for the sake of
rescuing himself from a position of great embarrassment. And yet, when
he proceeds in all haste to plan revolt, he finds fellow conspirators
already in existence. It is impossible to suppose that any long
interval can have elapsed between the return from Naxos and the first
act of the revolt, for that took place on the fleet which had just
returned from the attack on the island. The conspiracy cannot have been
of recent origin.
There can be little doubt that Herodotus’ incidental reference to the
“conspirators” or “insurgents” indicates that the plan of revolt had
been made before,—it may be, long before,—the expedition to Naxos.
#THE ORIGIN OF THE REVOLT.#
It is evident from the account of the Scythian expedition, and of the
campaigns which followed it, that something had taken place in it which
had for the time being seriously shaken the Persian position in West
Asia; in other words, that Herodotus is not wrong in his general view
of it as a disaster to the Persian arms.
The Greek cities of the coast would watch with the closest interest the
development of events. It would be a hostile vigilance; and with such
a race as the Greeks the step from hostile vigilance to conspiracy is
a short one. For the successful accomplishment of any design, however,
against a power so great as Persia, combination was necessary, and
any attempt at practical combination between the cities, except under
unusually favourable circumstances, must wreck the design by disclosing
it prematurely to the satrap at Sardes. It was the gathering of the
Ionian fleet for the attack on Naxos which offered the opportunity,
the favourable circumstances, for which they had waited. The affair
at Naxos was rightly regarded by Herodotus as the immediate efficient
cause of the revolt.
It now remains to consider the part which Aristagoras played in the
matter. In so doing it is necessary to draw a strong distinction
between the facts which Herodotus states and his interpretation of
them. It is also necessary to compare the facts which he records in one
connection with those which he records in another.
Taking his account as it stands, it seems clear that Aristagoras was
in the conspiracy before he entered upon the Naxian expedition. It is
inconceivable that the astute Greek conspirator would have admitted
into his confidence a man who held the position of tyrant in the
Persian interest in one of the Greek cities, and who had just been
engaged in an attack on the liberty of the free Greeks, unless that man
had been beforehand thoroughly involved in the conspiracy.
It is also difficult to imagine that Aristagoras would have ventured
on a journey to European Greece with a view to getting help thence in
the same year in which the expedition to Naxos had taken place, had
he not had some valid defence to offer for the part he had played in
an affair which cannot but have caused the most serious alarm in
Greece.
It is possible to explain away either of those difficulties taken
separately; but taken together they constitute a very serious question,
which the student of history must face if he is to arrive at an
understanding of the story of these years. The evidence on which the
account of Herodotus is to be tested is that which he himself supplies.
The critical question is whether Aristagoras in urging upon Artaphernes
the expedition against Naxos did not merely aim at bringing about the
mobilization and concentration of the Ionian fleet,—to provide, in
other words, the only possible means for that combination between the
Greek cities which was absolutely necessary for the success of the
revolt.
What had Aristagoras to hope for from success at Naxos?
The fate of his predecessor, Histiæus, must have shown him clearly that
the Persian authorities had no intention whatever of allowing even the
most faithful and most favoured Greek tyrant to acquire a position
of real power on the coast. He could, then, hardly hope for further
extension of rule. Had he one particle of interest in the expedition
except in so far as it afforded the opportunity for the gathering of
the Ionian fleet?
Did Megabates send the message to Naxos? He had every motive for not
doing so. Why should motive be disregarded in the court of history
when it is regarded as an essential factor in a court of law? The
problem,—the human problem,—is the same in both cases. Again, in a
court of law the credibility of a witness is not regarded by those
expert in the testing of evidence as being dependent solely on the
assertions made by that witness with respect to the case before the
court. Inquiry is made into the origin of his assertions, and into the
possibility of personal prejudice on his part.
Was a man like Herodotus, a Greek to the very backbone, likely to be
free from the bitter, hostile prejudice which the Greek entertained
against a tyrant and all his works?
#PART PLAYED BY ARISTAGORAS.#
The tale of the affair at Naxos was not, maybe, of his own making;
but it was one which he was not likely to subject to severe criticism.
The very idea of tyranny stunk in the nostrils of the free Greek. He
refused to recognize the part played by a Sicilian tyrant in the great
war of liberation. With what feelings must he have regarded those
tyrants of the Asiatic coast who inflicted on their fellow-countrymen
the twofold tyranny of servitude to themselves and to the barbarian? It
would have been a strange thing if Herodotus _had_ been able to obtain
in after times a true, unprejudiced account of the part played by a man
in the position of Aristagoras.
Even prejudice could not, however, deny that he had been the chief
instigator of the Ionian revolt. It contented itself with placing the
worst complexion on his motives. Having failed to enslave the free, he
tried to free the slave.
There is one further question which demands consideration. If this
hypothesis as to the designs of Aristagoras be correct, why did he
not take the first steps in the revolt before the expedition actually
started from the Asian coast?
There are two facts stated in Herodotus which may possibly account for
this delay. Artaphernes had, perhaps, been only too eager in taking
up the proposed design. Aristagoras had asked for one hundred ships;
Artaphernes had given two hundred. This accession of numbers may have
been actually embarrassing to Aristagoras, as rendering the expedition
of such magnitude as to demand the presence of a larger percentage of
the non-Greek element on board the fleet than he had either hoped for
or reckoned upon. The ships and crews seem to have been Greek; ◆H.
v. 32. _ad fin._◆ but it must be concluded from Herodotus’ account
of the gathering of the expedition that a considerable Persian force
was embarked. So long as this force was with the fleet such a measure
as that with which the revolt was opened could hardly have been
adopted with success, and would, indeed, hardly have been attempted.
The conspirators would have to wait until the non-Greek element had
disembarked and gone up country, and then would have to strike quickly
before the fleet was dispersed by official orders.
Another possible reason for this delay is that Aristagoras wished
to defer the outbreak until the close of the campaigning season, when
he would have time to make preparations to meet the coming storm. The
four months’ duration of the fruitless siege of Naxos would be in that
case all in his favour. He had to waste time at Naxos in order to gain
it on the Asiatic coast. A sturdy defence on the part of the Naxians
was the very thing from which he had most to hope.
Did Megabates or Aristagoras send the fatal message?
The tale of “the man with the tattooed head” was evidently a celebrated
tale of the time. There is no reason whatever to suspect the truth of
it. In the plot as given in Herodotus it plays the part of a second
motive. All that Herodotus knows of the message is that it “signified
revolt,” and that Aristagoras imparted it to his fellow-conspirators.
The method of communication implies that the message cannot indeed have
been a long one.
It must, however, be regarded as an extraordinary coincidence that it
should have arrived in the very brief period which must have intervened
between the return from Naxos and the first act of insurrection. It
must, in order to be effective, have suggested some powerful motive for
revolt. It cannot possibly be imagined that Aristagoras wanted Histiæus
back on the coast. The Greek conspirators were very unlikely to desire
the return of the favoured friend of the great king, except on one
assumption, namely, that Histiæus had been in the plot before ever he
made the involuntary journey to Susa.
But whatever the full contents of the message, whatever the reasons
which made it contribute to the determination of the conspirators,
there are, as has been already said, no grounds whatever for doubting
that the message did come. The question is as to the time at which it
came.
Before proceeding with the narrative of the revolt it may be well to
point out clearly the exact status, if it may be so called, of the
hypothesis which has been here suggested as to the circumstances of its
outbreak.
It is an hypothesis, and cannot pretend to be more than that. #MEETING
OF CONSPIRATORS.# The evidence in the version of Herodotus, while it
justifies destructive criticism of the story as told by him, is not
sufficient to afford anything that can be claimed as a _sure_ basis
for constructive history. Herodotus was naturally disposed to accept a
version which brought into relief the haphazard want of method in the
first act of those who were responsible for a design which, however
laudable its aims, was, as seemed to him, carried out from beginning to
end with a strange mixture of pusillanimity and criminal folly.
◆H. v. 36. Cf. v. 36, _ad fin._◆
The meeting of the conspirators took place immediately after the return
from Naxos. The place of meeting was presumably Miletus. It certainly
was not held on board the fleet.
On the question of revolt the conspirators were unanimous, with one
prominent exception. Hecatæus the historian spoke words of serious
warning. He pointed out the magnitude of the resources of the great
king when compared with their own. Failing to dissuade them, he advised
that, as they were bent on revolt, they should secure the command of
the sea. This, he considered, offered the sole chance of success.
For its successful maintenance capital was necessary; and this, he
suggested, might be obtained from the great treasures of the temple of
the Branchidæ, a shrine which had been enriched by the offerings of
Crœsus. This plan was also rejected by the meeting.
The express mention of Hecatæus’ name in connection with two proposals,
of one of which Herodotus must have cordially approved, is noticeable
as an indication of the origin of much of the “prejudice” which is
discoverable in Herodotus’ work. ◆Cf. H. ii. 16; iv. 36; iv. 95, 96;
ii. 123.◆ Either from jealousy or from conviction, he had no very high
opinion of the Ionian historio-geographers, and of the Ionian intellect
generally. ◆H. iv. 36.◆ One of his most depreciatory remarks about them
is in all probability directed against Hecatæus personally.
Yet though he entertained so poor an opinion of one side of Hecatæus’
work, though he was probably jealous of his reputation as a historian,
he does not hesitate to reproduce from his sources emphatic testimony
to the practical wisdom and judgment of the man.
The statement of the absolute rejection of the second proposal of
Hecatæus must be understood in a modified sense. The Ionians did in the
subsequent campaign allot a very prominent part to their fleet. The
meaning of the proposal was that the offensive should be taken on sea;
and, above all, that the sea should be regarded as the real base.
But Aristagoras, as his subsequent language at Sparta makes clear,
was convinced that the Greek hoplite was infinitely more than a match
for any soldiery which Persia could put into the field; and others
apparently shared his opinion. The events of twenty years later proved
the truth of his general judgment on this point. He and his fellow
conspirators may have made a mistake, when they took the offensive on
land, in expecting too much from the land forces which the insurgents
could put into the field. But in great ventures great risks have to be
taken; and the attack on the Persian base made at the beginning of the
year 498, had it been successful, must have brilliantly justified the
plan.
It is easy now, in the light of knowledge after the event, to see
that, if the revolt was to be successful, it must succeed on both
elements:—on sea, because only by means of the fleet could the
concentration of a large land force be brought about: on land, because
only on that element could an effective blow be struck against the
Persian dominion in Western Asia.
Aristagoras’ estimate of the strategic position of the insurgents
was singularly justified by the history of the subsequent warfare of
the century. The sea was, indeed, and must be, the Ionian base. The
strategic weakness of the position of the cities rendered any other
alternative impossible. But ages of fighting were destined to prove
that no mortal blow could be inflicted on Persia by sea alone. The
Ægean might be made a Hellenic lake. The islands on the Asian coast
might be liberated. But so long as Persia maintained her hold upon the
continent, the cities of the mainland must be ultimately at the mercy
of a great land power holding the central position in Western Asia. If
the revolt was to be successful, it was at this central position that
the blow must be struck. Sardes must be the objective of the insurgents.
#FIRST ACT OF REVOLT.#
It was evident that nothing could be done with the fleet until the
tyrants who were in command of its contingents were removed. ◆H. v.
37.◆ A certain Iatragoras was accordingly sent to seize them. He
did so “by a trick,” whose nature is not specified. He seized four
who are mentioned by name, and “many others.” It is a remarkable
fact that not one of the four is Ionian. Two are Æolan, and two are
Helleno-Carian[18] Aristagoras, of his own accord, “nominally” laid
aside the tyranny of Miletus. He then proceeded to depose other tyrants
in Ionia, besides those whom he had caught upon the fleet, and handed
over the whole number to their various cities. The Mytilenians slew
their tyrant Koës; the others were allowed to depart. Inasmuch as
those tyrants had all been acting in the interests of Persia, their
deposition was necessarily the first step in the revolt.
This measure must have been taken later in the autumn of 499, just
at the close of the campaigning season; for Aristagoras could not
otherwise have ventured on the journey to Greece which he immediately
undertook with a view to getting assistance.
It was to Sparta that he first turned for help.
The tale of his visit to Kleomenes, the Spartan king, is told at
considerable length. As told, it contained at least one incident which
was likely to render it famous in Greek story. The version of it which
Herodotus has preserved is of Lacedæmonian origin.[19]
Aristagoras brought with him a map of the world engraved on a bronze
tablet, the work of one of the Ionian geographers,—possibly of the
famous Hecatæus. The strong appeal which he addressed to Kleomenes
as leader of the foremost state in Greece to save the Ionians from
their slavery comes strangely from the mouth of one who has just been
represented as doing all in his power to bring one of the European
islands into that state from which he now begged Kleomenes to save the
Asiatic Greeks. It is still more strange that in this story, whose
origin is manifestly different from that of the affair at Naxos, there
is no mention whatever of any suspicion having been excited by
Aristagoras’ conduct; and no explanation of it was demanded from him.
Coming to the practical question of the possibilities offered by a
campaign in Asia, Aristagoras emphasizes in a very remarkable way the
superiority of the Greek military equipment over that of the Persian.
◆H. v. 49.◆ His proposal does not confine itself to the liberation
of Ionia: he even holds out the prospect of the conquest of the rich
lands of Western Asia. To the men of the time at which Herodotus
wrote, this part of the story must have seemed a striking example of
the wild exaggeration of the Ionian imagination. As an estimate of
possibilities it was, however, far more near the truth than they can
have supposed—nearer, perhaps, than Aristagoras supposed himself. “When
it is in your power,” said he, “to rule all Asia with ease, will you
choose aught else?”
Kleomenes took three days for consideration, and then, at a second
conference, asked Aristagoras how far the king was from the Ionian sea.
When informed that it was a journey of three months up country to Susa,
he broke off negotiations and dismissed Aristagoras at once.
Aristagoras would not accept dismissal, but returned once more, and,
so the story goes, in the presence of the king’s little daughter
Gorgo, tempted him with ever-increasing bribes. The child, with more
than childish wisdom, brought the interview to a conclusion by saying,
“Father, the stranger will corrupt you, unless you go away.”
Whether the story itself be truth or fiction the fact remains that
Sparta abided by that policy which she had followed for some years
past, and refused to become embroiled with the great empire of the East.
◆H. v. 55.◆
From Sparta Aristagoras went to Athens. His arrival was, in a sense,
opportune. The demand of Artaphernes for the reinstatement of Hippias
had created an intensely bitter feeling of hostility towards the
Persian. Introduced before the public assembly, he used the same
arguments as he had employed at Sparta, and further claimed that the
Milesians were Athenian colonists. “There is nothing that he did not
promise, so urgent was his request, until he persuaded them.”
#AID FROM GREECE.#
Herodotus is at considerable pains to show the depth of the folly, as
he conceived it to be, with which Athens entered upon a fatal venture.
In the end the Athenians voted an aid of twenty ships; not a small
number, when it is remembered that their navy at this time was but
a fraction of what it was twenty years later. ◆H. v. 97.◆ “These
ships were a source of woes to the Greeks and the barbarians,” says
Herodotus. There can be no doubt as to his meaning. He regarded this as
the decisive moment in the relations between Persia and European Greece.
The tale of the revolt is that part of his history in which he allows
his own personal views to be most clearly seen. To him it seemed the
great mistake of the century; that is clear from his story of it; but
it is not so easy to say why he so utterly condemned it, unless he
regarded it as leading to the renewal of those designs on Greece which
Darius had been obliged for ten years past to lay aside.
But that cannot have been all. It is necessary to examine the whole
story as told by him. That alone can afford some clear clue to the
causes which brought about what was undoubtedly a strange perversion of
his judgment.
◆H. v. 98.◆
Aristagoras, he says, returned from Athens to Miletus, “having devised
a plan from which no advantage was fated to come to the Ionians.”
It must have been in the winter of 499 B.C. or early spring of the year
498 that Aristagoras returned.
His first act was to send a message to those Pæonians whom Darius had
removed from the Strymon to Asia, telling them that they were free to
return, as all Ionia had revolted from the king. Unless his object
in so doing were to create an impression in the Persian sphere of
influence in Europe, it is impossible to attribute a motive to any
otherwise apparently causeless act. Herodotus looks upon it as simply
designed to give annoyance to Darius, an end which, it may be presumed,
Aristagoras had sufficiently attained by raising the standard of
revolt. It is quite possible that he sought to carry out the policy
attributed to his father-in-law, Histiæus, some ten years before, and
to enlist the aid of the Thracians in a struggle with the Persian
power in Western Asia. If this was the intent, the design did not meet
with success. The Thracians did not take any active part in the revolt,
though they took advantage of the events on the Asian side to throw off
whatever allegiance they had hitherto owed to the king.
In the spring of 498 the twenty Athenian ships, accompanied by five
triremes from Eretria, arrived on the Asiatic coast. The Eubœan
city had apparently sent her aid unasked, influenced by those trade
relations of which so little is heard from the two great historians of
the fifth century, but which must have played so decisive a part in the
shaping of events. The academic atmosphere of the Athens of the latter
part of the century excluded such ♠banausic details from a cultured
narrative of events.
♠ “banaustic” replaced with “banausic”
Hitherto the offensive operations of the insurgents had been confined
to the deposition of the tyrants of the Greek cities.
Herodotus is absolutely silent as to the measures which Artaphernes
took in consequence of this bloodless act of war. He can hardly have
entertained any illusions as to its significance; yet, if Herodotus’
account is to be taken as a complete narrative of events, the Ionians
took the offensive in the spring of 498, some months at least after
this act of unmistakable hostility, without meeting at first with any
opposition.
◆H. v. 99.◆
After the arrival of the ships from European Greece Aristagoras sent
an expedition against Sardes. He did not accompany it himself, but
placed his brother Charopinos and another Milesian in command. The
expedition went by sea to Ephesus, and, leaving the ships at Koresos
in the Ephesian territory, went up country under the guidance of the
Ephesians.[20]
Following first the river Kaÿster, they afterwards crossed Mount
Tmolos, and took Sardes, except the Acropolis, without opposition. That
was saved by Artaphernes “with no inconsiderable force.”
#ATTACK ON SARDES.#
The town was composed of houses either thatched with reeds or wholly
constructed of them. One of these was kindled by a Greek soldier,
either by accident or design, and the whole place was burnt to the
ground. A statement is then made which seems inconsistent with the
assertion that the town had been taken without opposition, to the
effect that, in consequence of the conflagration, the Lydians and
Persians were compelled to defend themselves in the market-place, and
that the Ionians, by reason of their numbers, found it advisable to
retreat under cover of night to their ships.
The most remarkable feature of this story, as it stands in Herodotus,
is its lack of consequence. Cause and effect are as little apparent
in it as in the narrative of a dream. Artaphernes, after months of
warning, is caught unprepared. Sardes is taken without opposition; yet,
when the conflagration takes place, a host, not merely of Lydians, but
of Persians also, springs from its very ashes, and in such formidable
numbers that the Ionians are obliged to withdraw under cover of night.
If Greek history is to bear the guise of history, this story requires
examination. No useful end can be served by accepting as fact that
which is incapable of rational interpretation. Human motive springs
from human thought; and if thought has its formal laws, it is
reasonable to suppose that there is a formality in motive also.
It happens that in the present instance there exists evidence which
puts a complexion on these events very different to that which is given
by Herodotus.
◆Plut. de Herod. Malignitate, 24.◆
Plutarch has preserved a tradition that at the time at which the
expedition against Sardes took place the Persians were engaged in the
siege of Miletus, and that one object of the expedition was to force
the Persians to raise the siege. The bitter animus of the treatise in
which this assertion is made makes it impossible to accept statements
in it without consideration. In the present instance, however, the
statement is so manifestly in accord with the situation at the time
that it is impossible to reject it as untrue.
Miletus had been, through Aristagoras, the author of the revolt.
Artaphernes had had a whole winter’s warning. It is inconceivable that
he should have allowed months to elapse without taking measures to
crush the rising before it became formidable; and this end could best
be attained by an attack on that centre at which the conflagration
had had its origin, and from which it was, if left unchecked, but
too likely to spread far and wide. Artaphernes was no child playing
at empire, but a practised administrator, who had governed a great
outlying province for nearly ten years of a critical period of its
history.
There can be little question that the bold design of a direct attack
on Sardes completely upset his plans. It forced him not merely to
raise the siege of Miletus, but also to hurry with all speed to save
the Persian capital in the west, which must, from its very position,
be his base of operations in the coming struggle. An examination of
the map will show that the loss of Sardes would have necessitated the
withdrawal of that base far to the east. It is doubtful indeed whether
another could have been found west of Halys. The attack was a brilliant
venture on the part of the Greeks. It was a brilliant idea on the part
of the one man to whom it can be attributed,—Aristagoras.
Aristagoras has come down in history with the ill reputation of one
who dared to lead brave men to their death, but dared not die with
them. This feature of his life’s story has tended to obscure the true
picture of the man. The added selfishness of motive is not calculated
to present him in a more favourable light.
Such is the general impression created by the picture which Herodotus
draws of him.
Yet the details do not altogether bear out the impression which is
created by the picture as a whole.
It is doubtless the case that he acted from selfish motives. It may
be that his highest aim was to become the first man among the Greeks
of the Asiatic coast; but he must at least be credited with a spirit
that ventured much to gain more. He miscalculated the means to the end
he sought. But was the miscalculation more discreditable to him than
to those European Greeks on whose aid he had calculated? They had, no
doubt, their excuse; but he had his.
#THE LYDIANS AND THE REVOLT.#
Even in the hostile pages of Herodotus there is clear evidence that the
measures he took with the means at his disposal showed high ability,
if not genius. He all but checkmated the Persians at Sardes; and the
period during which the revolt was formidable was coincident with the
time at which he played the foremost part in it.
The incidental light which Herodotus’ narrative throws on the events
at Sardes is, in some respects, of more historical importance than his
direct story of events.
The attitude of the Lydians towards the revolt is clearly marked from
the very first. This people, for some reason which it is not possible
to conjecture with anything approaching certainty, not merely stood
apart and remained neutral, but actually fought on the Persian side,
in Sardes at any rate. ◆H. v. 102.◆ This deed of active hostility may
have been exceptional, and both it and the absence on the part of the
Lydians of all sympathy with the revolt may be due to the destruction
of their chief city, and especially of their national sanctuary of
the goddess Kybebe, which perished in the conflagration. This, so
Herodotus says, served as an excuse for the subsequent destruction of
the Greek temples; but if it also served to alienate the sympathies of
the Lydians from the struggle for freedom, it can only be regarded as a
disaster of the first magnitude to the cause of the Asiatic Greeks.[21]
◆H. v. 102.◆
The Greek occupation of the town of Sardes does not seem to have been
a matter of a few days. Not merely had the news of its seizure time
to spread to the region west of Halys, but the Persian commanders[22]
in that wide stretch of country had time to assemble a large levy
for the rescue of the capital; and though when they arrived there
the Greeks had departed, their departure had been so recent that the
relieving force actually overtook and fought an action with them before
they reached their ships.
The spreading of the news and the gathering of this force must have
been at least an affair of some weeks; and the summer of 498 must have
been at its height ere the Greek retreat began.
It was near Ephesus that the Persian reinforcements overtook the
Greeks. In the battle which followed the Ionians were, so Herodotus
says, badly defeated, and a great many prominent men were slain,
while the survivors dispersed to their various cities. Evalkides, the
Eretrian general, was one of those who perished; and the record of his
death has all the appearance of truth. There are several very serious
reasons, however, for believing that the result of the battle has been
greatly exaggerated.
After the battle the Athenian contingent sailed off home. This was
probably in the autumn of 498. It is the last event recorded by
Herodotus which can be attributed with certainty to that year.
It is possible that the Athenians had a valid excuse for this apparent
desertion, in that they had just become engaged in a war with Ægina;
but the date of the outbreak of that war is quite uncertain, and
the real cause of withdrawal may have been that the Athenians took
too pessimistic a view of the prospects of the revolt.[23] The
non-participation of the Lydians was calculated to set them thinking.
If the latter of these alternatives were the case, it is conceivable
that the tale of the results of the battle of Ephesus is of Athenian
origin, put forward in part justification of the withdrawal.
Herodotus[24] evidently attributed it to the results of the battle
of Ephesus, and this may be taken to indicate, at any rate, that the
Athenians thought badly of the prospects of the revolt. #BYZANTION
AND CARIA JOIN THE REVOLT.# Aristagoras sent message after message
during the winter of 498–97, imploring them to return; but they
refused to come back.
It seems certain that the Athenians greatly miscalculated the
possibilities of the moment; yet it may be doubted whether the actual
facts were not such as to justify their decision. Save for the
assistance given by their own small contingent and by the five ships
from Eretria, the Ionians had gone through the first season of the
war single-handed. The revolt had merely excited opposition in Lydia;
and its remarkable extension in the next year could hardly have been
foreseen. Even the Greek cities of the coast were not unanimous in
supporting it. Herodotus, himself a Dorian of Asia, is so significantly
silent as to any part which the Dorian cities played in it, that it
must be concluded that they played no part at all.
The winter of 498–97 was passed by the Ionians in preparation for the
continuance of the struggle. The withdrawal of the Athenians was not a
great loss to the actual fighting power of the insurgents. It seems,
moreover, to have had but little moral effect upon them, and none
whatever upon their relations and friends in Asia.
The Ionian fleet opened the year’s campaign by sailing to Byzantion,
and bringing about the revolt of the whole region of the Propontis.[25]
From the Propontis the fleet returned to Caria, which also joined the
insurgents. The Carian district of Kaunos had apparently been invited
to join at the time of the burning of Sardes, but had deferred doing so
until the arrival of the fleet.
The action of the fleet, and the sudden spread of the revolt at this
time, tend to throw light on certain obscurities in the history of the
campaign of the previous year.
Inasmuch as the Ionian fleet must, in spite of Aristagoras’ refusal
to recognize the fact, have formed the real base of the insurgent
operations, it is inconceivable that the Persians should have
omitted to bring up the Phœnician fleet to cope with it. This would
be the first measure which would suggest itself to them. Yet at the
beginning of the second campaigning season, at least a year and a
half after the first act of revolt had placed the Ionian fleet in the
power of the insurgents, that fleet is free to leave the Ægean coast
undefended, and to go to the Propontis to stir the Hellespontine region
into activity! Where was the Phœnician fleet meanwhile? The artifice of
Aristagoras in bringing about the mobilization of the Ionian fleet had
indeed given the Asiatic Greeks a long start in naval operations; but
at least eighteen months had elapsed since he had shown his hand.
Had the revolt of Cyprus already taken place, and had the Phœnician
fleet been obliged to make the reduction of that island its first
objective? There are at least three reasons which render this
assumption unlikely:—
◆H. v 104, _ad init._◆
(1) Herodotus is certainly under the impression that the Cypriote
revolt took place about the same time as that of Caria.[26]
(2) Cyprus was so important to the revolt that, had the Phœnician fleet
been in a position to threaten it at this time, the Ionians could
hardly have ventured on an expedition to the Hellespontine region.
(3) The revolt in Cyprus had been in progress for many months before
the Ionian fleet went thither.
◆Plut. de Herod. Malign. 24.◆
It seems probable that Plutarch has preserved the record of an
important incident in the history of this time, which Herodotus had
either forgotten, or of which he had never heard. He refers to a
victory gained by the Ionian fleet off the Pamphylian coast. This would
account for the non-appearance of the Phœnician fleet in the Ægean in
the campaign of 498.
#REVOLT OF CYPRUS.#
It may be conjectured that the victory took place early in that
year—that is, in the spring or early summer,—and that it was won over
a fleet which was coming up to assist Artaphernes in the siege of
Miletus. It would account also for the spirit shown by the Ionians in
the bold venture of the attack on Sardes.
◆H. v. 103.◆
The rapid spread of the revolt in 497 makes it almost impossible to
accept Herodotus’ version of the battle at Ephesus. If he is to be
believed, the reverse there sustained more than compensated for any
success won at Sardes. If that be so, the impetus given to the revolt
by the burning of Sardes becomes inexplicable. It must be concluded
that Ephesus was not the disaster which Herodotus represents it to have
been.
The news of the revolt of the Ionians had thrown the Cypriote Greeks
into a state of ferment. The island had been for many ages past divided
between the Greek and Phœnician interests. The Greek section of the
population seems to have hitherto adopted an attitude of passive or
secretly active resistance to the Persian, while the Phœnician formed
the Medic party. Persian and Phœnician interests in the island were
mutual. The Persian communications were dependent on the Phœnician
fleet, while the Phœnicians could only hold their ground against the
preponderating numbers of the Greeks by means of Persian support.
Salamis and Amathus (Hamath) were respectively the foremost towns of
the Greek and Phœnician regions.
◆H. v. 104.◆
The leader of the movement in the island was Onesilos, the younger
brother of Gorgos, the Greek king of Salamis. “He had frequently before
this time advised his brother Gorgos to revolt from the king; but now,
when he heard that even the Ionians had revolted, he was very urgent
in his endeavours to induce him to do so.” Failing to persuade Gorgos,
he seized the city during his temporary absence, and Gorgos fled to
the Persians. The revolt spread to all the towns of the island except
Amathus. Onesilos proceeded accordingly to besiege this place.
It is very difficult to assign a certain date to these events. One
thing may, however, be confidently assumed, namely, that when Onesilos
made his urgent representations to his brother, and, still more, when
the revolt broke out, the Phœnician fleet was for the time being _hors
de combat_. The absolutely indeterminate element in the matter
is the length of time which intervened between the first urgent
representation of Onesilos and the deposition of Gorgos. Certain facts
stated in the subsequent story of the campaign render it probable that
Onesilos’ representations were made after the battle off the Pamphylian
coast, if not after the burning of Sardes, and that they must therefore
be attributed to the autumn of 498; while the first step in revolt, the
deposition of Gorgos, took place in the following winter, and the siege
of Amathus began in the spring of 497.
The customs or necessities of campaigning in the fifth century rendered
the winter the natural time for planning insurrection, and the summer
the time for carrying it out.
This chronology of the prelude to the revolt in Cyprus is not merely in
accord with calculations which may be made from Herodotus’ statements,
but is also in agreement with his general assumption that the outbreak
concurred with the similar outbreaks in the Hellespontine region and in
Caria.
After mentioning the beginning of the siege of Amathus, Herodotus
transfers the scene of his narrative to Susa, where he describes
the reception by Darius of the news of the burning of Sardes by the
Athenians and Ionians. The details of the story cannot be cited as
serious history, but it contains the record of what are undeniably
historical events. As is so often the case with famous stories, the
historical matter has become involved in a mass of graphic detail which
cannot be supposed to rest on anything but the slenderest foundation of
fact.
There are two features of Herodotus’ version which, though not, it may
be, historical, are of both interest and importance to the student of
Herodotus’ history; they are (1) the prominence given to the Athenian
participation in the opening campaign of the revolt; (2) an incidental
reference to the Ionians.
#DARIUS HEARS OF THE REVOLT.#
◆H. v. 105.◆
“When the news was brought to King Darius that Sardes had been
captured and burnt by the Athenians and Ionians, and that Aristagoras
the Milesian had been leader of the coalition, so that he had devised
those things, he is said in the first instance, on hearing this,
to have recked nothing of the Ionians, knowing well that they
would not come off unpunished for their revolt, but to have asked
who the Athenians were; and afterwards, when he had been informed
on this point, he is said to have asked for his bow, and to have
taken an arrow, and, placing it in the bow, to have shot it towards
heaven, exclaiming in so doing: ‘Zeus, grant that I be avenged on the
Athenians.’ Having thus said, he ordered one of his attendants that
whenever his dinner was laid before him, he should say three times,
‘Master, forget not the Athenians.’”
The tale then passes on to a reported conversation with Histiæus.
The historical fact underlying this story amounts in all probability to
no more than that Darius was both exasperated and alarmed at this first
instance of an active interference of the European Greeks in his West
Asian dominions. It was, indeed, the realization of a trouble which he
seems to have foreseen.
The references to the Athenians and Ionians, though they cannot be
regarded as historical, are undoubtedly made with intent to give a
certain colouring to the history of the time. It is therefore important
to try and form some judgment as to their significance. Whatever their
origin, there can be no doubt that they give _that colouring to events
which Herodotus himself believed to be the true one_.
His judgment as to the part played by Athens in the great events of the
first twenty years of the century is a very striking one, and bears the
impress of genuine conviction.
Of the attitude of that state in the great war of 480–479 he has
nothing but good to say; but he is evidently convinced that Athens,
and Athens alone, was really responsible for that war having taken
place at all. This judgment of his must have been a purely personal
one, formed upon his reading of the events of the period of which he
wrote the history. It can be seen now that he was not wholly mistaken.
His mistake consisted in assuming that what was only a contributory
cause was the whole efficient cause of what occurred subsequent to the
revolt. His attitude towards the Ionians cannot, on the other
hand, be attributed to purely personal judgment. His sources for
the history of the revolt, which had their origin largely, it may
be, in those Dorian cities of Asia which had not taken part in it,
were evidently of a nature to prejudice his mind against the Ionian
Greek.[27]
The second part of the story which relates to Histiæus is probably
a piece of Greek invention, describing what might well be supposed
to have happened at Susa in consequence of the part which his near
relative Aristagoras had played in the revolt. It served also to bring
into relief the duplicity of this Ionian tyrant towards a master and a
friend who trusted him but too implicitly.
But in the case of this story, as in the case of other similar
stories in Herodotus, it is necessary to bear in mind that, though
the story itself may be fiction, it is extremely likely to contain
historical matter in the shape of chance disclosures of the views
which its framers or their contemporaries held as to the events of
the time. There is in this very story a remark which indicates that
some contemporary opinion was not disposed to regard the revolt as
the hurried creation of Aristagoras. “The Ionians seem,” Histiæus is
represented to have said, “after losing sight of me, to have done what
they long desired to do.”
Whatever persuasion Histiæus used, he succeeded in inducing Darius to
let him go down to the coast.
It would be vain to attempt to deduce from the juxtaposition of these
two imaginative tales any conclusion as to the time at which Histiæus
started from Susa.
◆Cf. H. vi. 1.◆
The only real indication of the date of his return is given in a
subsequent chapter, where it is clearly implied that it was subsequent
to the departure of Aristagoras from Miletus, if not to his death at
Myrkinos.
◆Cf. H. v. 108.◆
From Susa the story shifts back to Cyprus. #STRATEGIC VALUE OF CYPRUS.#
The siege of Amathus is still proceeding, and Onesilos has just
received word of the coming of a Phœnician fleet with a large Persian
force aboard of it, under the command of Artybios. He accordingly
despatched messengers to Ionia to ask for help. Herodotus emphasizes
the promptness with which the Ionian fleet was despatched to aid the
Cypriotes.
It is plain that both sides recognized the crucial importance of the
part which Cyprus had to play in the great struggle. The peculiar
configuration of the neighbouring continent, which brings the only
really practicable military line of communication between Asia Minor
and the Euphrates valley into immediate contact with the shore of the
Levant at that corner of the sea which is commanded by Cyprus, renders
this island a strategical position of inestimable value either to a
power assailing Asia Minor from the east, or to one defending it from
the west. The Cypriote Greeks, backed by the Ionian fleet, would have
been in a position to threaten at its weakest point the Persian line of
communication with the Western satrapies. From it as a base also, the
Ionian fleet might have made it impossible for the Phœnicians to sail
to the Ægean. Cyprus was then, as it is now, the key of the Levant.
Of its value as a strategic position the Greek was, moreover, fully
aware. The alacrity with which the Ionians accepted the invitation
in the present instance was equalled by the eagerness with which,
twenty years later, the Greeks on the fleet under Pausanias sought
to seize it, even when the liberation of the Ægean coast was as yet
in its initial stage. They knew that its possession would inevitably
facilitate their task nearer home. Had not Kimon died so inopportunely,
Athens might have realized the dream of its permanent acquisition.
But it was not merely its strategic position that rendered it so
attractive in the eyes of the trading cities of Ionia. From a
commercial point of view it would have supplied an ideal base for
trade with the wealthy East, and would have placed the Greek trader
in possession of a sea route of his own, instead of, on the one hand,
a sea route on which he had to face the fierce Phœnician competition,
and, on the other, a land route through Asia Minor, inconvenient alike
from the expense of traffic along it, and from its passing through many
alien peoples.
When it is considered that the Ionian fleet had already in this
campaigning season brought about the revolt both of the Hellespontine
region and of Caria, it cannot be supposed that the expedition to
Cyprus was undertaken earlier than the late summer of this year 497.
Apart from the time spent in the actual operations at these two
comparatively distant points, the ships of those days were not able to
keep the sea for any prolonged period without a refit.
◆H. v. 108.◆
The Ionian fleet seems to have arrived at Cyprus at about the same time
as the Persian expedition. The Phœnician fleet transhipped the Persian
army from the Cilician coast to the north shore of the island, whence
it marched overland towards Salamis. The fleet then rounded the islands
called “the Keys,”[28] and so sailed towards the same destination.
Herodotus describes an interview between the Cypriote tyrants and the
Greek commanders, in which the former offer to embark their men on
board the fleet and let the Ionians fight on land. The latter, however,
replied that the Common Council of the Ionians had sent them to fight
on board the fleet, and on board the fleet they intended to fight.
Of the battle by sea which ensued, Herodotus says but little, save
that the Ionians fought well and beat the Phœnicians; and that, of the
Ionians, the Samians fought best.
Whatever the measure of success attained, it was more than compensated
for by the loss of the battle on land. There was grievous treachery
in the Cypriote army. Stesenor, tyrant of Kourion, with a large band,
deserted during the battle; and part, at least, of the Salaminian
contingent followed his example. Onesilos and one of the Greek tyrants
perished in the battle.
The Ionian fleet seems to have remained some time longer upon the
coast, until, at any rate, the Persians began the siege of the various
Greek cities. Then, finding itself powerless to effect anything, it
sailed away home. #CHRONOLOGICAL DISCREPANCY.# One of the towns, Soli,
held out for five months, but with its capture the revolt of
Cyprus came to an end; and “thus,” says Herodotus “the Cyprians, after
a year of freedom, were enslaved anew.”
Five months of siege would protract the revolt far into the winter of
497–96. It is noteworthy that the chronological details deducible from
the account of the revolt in Cyprus are in reasonable agreement with
the general statements as to its duration. This chapter of the history
of the revolt as a whole is, indeed, conspicuous as being the only one
in which chronological data can be said to be existent.
From the end of the revolt in Cyprus in the winter of 497–96 until the
siege of Miletus in 494, the course of recorded events does not admit
of any certain chronological arrangement, and, apart from this, the
record is manifestly of a most fragmentary character.
It is now necessary to carry back the story to the Ægean coast. Earlier
in the year the Ionian fleet had brought about the revolt of Caria and
the district of the Propontis. These events can be attributed with some
assurance to the spring and early summer of 497. But the chronology of
the measures taken by the Persians to reduce these revolted regions to
submission is so hopelessly involved that it is impossible to accept
it.[29]
◆H. v. 116, _ff_.◆
The greatness of the chronological discrepancy will be best appreciated
when it is pointed out that Herodotus in one chapter ascribes the
reduction of the revolt on the Hellespont and in Caria to a period
which, ◆H. v. 103.◆ if the data of a previous chapter be correct,
must have been from four to six months before the outbreak of the
insurrection in those regions. Of the two series of chronological data
the earlier one is by far the more trustworthy. It is connected with
the outbreak of the revolt by a continuous chain of events whose
dates can be fixed with reasonable probability. The later chronological
series is not merely in disaccord with the previous one, but, if
adhered to, renders the whole story of the revolt incomprehensible. The
reader wanders amid a maze of circumstances without cause and without
effect.
The main incidents attendant on the suppression of the revolt on
the continent of Asia Minor seem, in so far as they are told, to
be correctly told by Herodotus, in all save their chronological
setting. The modern world has, at any rate, no other evidence on the
subject. On the question of fact the position must be accepted. On
the question of chronology, Herodotus must be corrected by his own
chronological statements, and by the strong presumptive evidence of
his own statements of fact. The direct evidence makes it quite clear
that the measures undertaken by the Persians for the suppression of
the widespread revolt were not undertaken at the time to which he
attributes them. His statements of fact render it possible to form some
conclusion as to when they were undertaken.
It is not possible to assign an earlier date than the summer of 497 to
the despatch of the Ionian fleet to Cyprus. Herodotus himself says that
the General Council of the Ionians were prompt in their decision to
send it. It may reasonably be concluded that the circumstances of the
insurrection on Asia Minor were at the time in a favourable condition.
The lack of hesitation would be otherwise incomprehensible, inasmuch as
the combination of the cities against attack was, from the vary nature
of things, dependent upon the fleet.
It is not a mere assumption to say that the circumstances must have
been favourable. The formidable character of the rising had been
well-nigh quadrupled by the accession of the Hellespont, Caria, and
Cyprus to the insurrection in the earlier half of the year 497. The
forces which Artaphernes had at his disposal were sufficient to save
the citadel of Sardes in 498, and to inflict some sort of reverse on
the retreating Ionians at Ephesus; but were they sufficient to cope
with the infinitely more dangerous situation in the early months of the
following year?
#PERSIAN REINFORCEMENTS.#
The Persian Empire appears in history as a great military power because
it only appears in extant records when engaged in warfare with the
Greek. But it was not a military monarchy in any real sense of the
word. It did not, relatively to the size of the empire, keep a large
standing army on foot. It met military necessities by the calling
forth of levies, the gathering of which must have demanded time. The
Persian king, like the Roman emperor of later days, did not entrust the
governors of distant provinces with the disposal of large bodies of
troops, unless circumstances rendered such a step absolutely necessary.
The reverse suffered by the Greeks at Ephesus cannot have been serious;
but it had clearly demonstrated the fact that, on land, Artaphernes
was able to hold his own against the insurrection, so long as it was
confined to Ionia. At sea the circumstances were not so promising. The
defeat off Pamphylia had placed the Phœnician fleet _hors de combat_
for the time being, and it is not difficult to imagine that at least
a year would have to pass before the cities of the Syrian coast could
turn out a fleet sufficiently powerful to cope with that of the Ionian
Greeks. This second fleet would be that one which was defeated off
Cyprus in 497. But in the course of that year the whole balance of
military power on land had been completely changed by the spread of the
revolt to Hellespont and Caria. This would necessitate the despatch of
reinforcements from Susa to the Western satrapies, reinforcements which
would, doubtless, have reached Sardes by the latter part of the summer
of 497, had not the state of affairs in Cyprus rendered it necessary to
divert them, as well as the new Phœnician fleet, to the suppression of
the revolt in that island. That was an affair of some months; and these
reinforcements cannot have reached Sardes until early in the year 496.
There is, and there must be, a certain arbitrariness in any scheme for
the rearrangement of the confused chronology of those years. All that
can be urged in favour of the one here set forth is that it is of a
piece with Herodotus’ own chronology of the opening year of the revolt,
and is in accord with the facts, other than chronological, stated
by him.[30]
The arrival of these troops at Sardes in the late winter or early
spring of 496 made it possible for the Persian generals to devise a
scheme for the simultaneous suppression of the revolt in Hellespont and
Cana. The events of 498 had shown that the Ionians were not formidable
on land unless the Persians were taken by surprise.
◆H. v. 116.◆
The three chief commanders were Daurises, Hymeës, and Otanes, the last
of whom had been the successor of Megabazos, nigh ten years before, in
the command in Thrace.
◆H. v. 117.◆
Daurises began operations in the district of the Hellespont, and took
Dardanos, Abydos, Perkote, Lampsakos and Paisos. These places he
is reported to have taken with incredible rapidity.[31] From these
successes he was called away, so Herodotus says, by the revolt of
Caria. Why Caria should have revolted at a time when the structure of
revolt in the Hellespont was falling like a house of cards, and why,
above all, the Common Council of the Ionians, after bringing about
the revolt of both the Hellespont and Caria by means of its fleet,
should have unhesitatingly despatched the fleet to Cyprus at a time
when a large part of the one district had been resubjugated, and the
other was on the point of being attacked, Herodotus does not explain.
The chronological combination of events in these chapters is intended
to heighten the impression of the hopelessness of the revolt which
has been conveyed by the story of the disaster at Ephesus, and with
that intent these events are brought into close juxtaposition with
it. #CAMPAIGN IN CARIA.# When it is remembered that the defection of
Thrace and Macedonia must have been closely linked with that of the
Hellespontine region, it is impossible to suppose that the revolt in
these parts was of so feeble a nature that it could be suppressed
within what, if Herodotus’ second chronological series is to be
accepted, cannot have amounted to more than a few weeks from its
outbreak—so feeble, too, that a large number of the most prominent
cities were captured with the utmost ease.
The campaign of Daurises in the Hellespont seems to have taken place
in the spring of 496. It seems, moreover, to have been successful. The
European shore was, indeed, left alone for the time being, but the
revolt on the Asiatic side of the Hellespont must have been practically
stamped out.
◆H. v. 117.◆
Herodotus represents Daurises as having been called away to Caria
before his work in the Hellespontine region was done. It may be that he
was called away from the north; but, even on Herodotus’ own evidence,
he had done his work thoroughly on the Asiatic side of the Propontis.
The reconquest of Caria was a much more difficult matter. The Carians
were not mere amateurs in the art of war, but numbered among them
men who had seen fighting in many lands, the soldiers of fortune of
their time. The race was infected with that strange fever which has at
different periods driven members of some of the world’s most virile
peoples to seek a livelihood in quarrels not their own.
Herodotus makes no attempt to place the striking events of this war in
Caria in a chronological setting. Three great battles take place, of
which the first two are great Persian victories, while the last is a
tremendous disaster to their arms. There is no means of judging of the
interval between the victories and the disaster; though, from the way
in which the narrative is told, it might be supposed that the Carians
recovered almost instantaneously from two serious and successive
defeats.
On the general question of the campaign it may be said that it seems
to have been part of a great design planned at Sardes in the winter of
497–96, to be carried out so soon as reinforcements came up from the
east.
The Carians were not caught unprepared. The insurgents of the Ægean
coast must have spent a winter of anxious expectation as to what would
happen when the Persian reinforcements arrived. The Ionian fleet had
in the autumn brought back news of the disastrous failure of the
revolt in Cyprus; and from that time it was a question where the next
blow would fall, and how it could best be parried. The danger of the
situation arose from the fact that by the end of the year 497 the
opportunity for a vigorous offensive on land in the west had, for the
time being, vanished. The absence of the Ionian fleet in Cyprus in the
late summer of that year would prevent any combined movement of the
insurgents at a time when the available fighting strength of Persia in
the satrapy of Sardes can hardly have been sufficient to cope with the
force which might have been collected had the fleet been there. The
Ionian towns, the moral and geographical centre of the revolt, had for
the moment staked their all on success in Cyprus, and had despatched
thither their fleet, the sole means by which the concentration
necessary for a formidable combined movement could be brought about. So
the revolted were reduced to a passive state of expectancy, confined to
a defensive, which, inasmuch as Persia held the inner line in Western
Asia Minor, was most disadvantageous to them from a strategical point
of view. The Persian council of war saw this weakness. The revolted
regions could be taken in detail.
The plan adopted seems to have been to deal with the Hellespont, the
Ionian towns, and Caria, as three areas of operations, and to take
a vigorous offensive in one region at a time, while threatening the
other two with a number of troops sufficient to prevent their sending
any substantial help to the region attacked. With the reduction of
one region, the troops which had been employed in it would be largely
available for the second attack.
The Hellespont, certainly the weakest of the three, was first invaded
and reduced, while Ionia and Caria were merely threatened. This
accomplished, a twofold force was directed against Caria, while Ionia
was watched; and, finally, the combined armies fell upon the land which
formed the heart, the life-centre of the revolt.
The first step in this design seems to have succeeded. The second
proved a harder task.
◆H. v. 118.◆
Forewarned, and therefore forearmed, the Carians collected their
forces at a place called “the White Pillars,” near a river named
Marsyas,[32] a tributary of the Mæander, with the intention of meeting
the Persian invasion at that point. Arrived there, a discussion arose
among the commanders as to whether it would be better to fight with
the river at their backs, and so animate their men with the courage of
despair, or to retire somewhat from the river and make the Persians,
as the assailants, take up a position which, in case of their defeat,
would be infinitely disastrous to them.[33]
The second of these alternatives was wisely chosen. There must have
been many experienced soldiers in the Carian army who would be well
aware of the error which the first proposal involved. The fact that it
was made, and the stated reason for its being made, suggests, however,
the difficulty under which the insurgents laboured, in that they had to
meet the Persian levies with armies which must have been composed for
the most part of untrained men. The period of subjection to Persia was
now half a century old, and, during that time, the subject population
must have been afforded the minimum of opportunity for anything
resembling military training. Persia did _not_ call out levies except
under stress of necessity; and it is quite certain that she would never
have allowed any subject race to practise its people in arms.
◆H. v. 119.◆
The battle on the Marsyas was fiercely contested. No details of it are
given, except that the Carians were finally overpowered by numbers, and
sustained a loss of 10,000 men, whereas the Persian loss was only 2000.
The fugitives took refuge in the temple and sacred precinct of Zeus
Stratios at Labraunda, ◆Strabo, 659.◆ a village on the mountain pass
between Alabanda and Mylassa, about seven miles from the latter.
They seem to have regarded their position as a desperate one; for they
are reported to have debated the question of leaving Asia altogether.
This place was, however, near Miletus, and the Milesians and their
allies, presumably Greeks from the smaller towns near Miletus,[34]
◆H. v. 120.◆ sent help to the Carians. This put new heart into them.
Instead of capitulating or deserting their post, they resisted the
Persian attack, only, however, to sustain a defeat worse than that at
the Marsyas river, a disaster in which their Milesian allies suffered
severely.
◆H. v. 121.◆
“But after this disaster the Carians recovered and fought once more,”
says Herodotus. When it is remembered that their first defeat had
reduced these Carians to a state bordering on despair, and that their
second defeat is expressly said to have been still more serious
than their first, this statement is difficult to understand. It may
reasonably be suggested that, if the account of the previous operations
be the whole truth, it is incomprehensible that the Carians should have
had time to recover from such disasters before the Persians followed
up their successes. The question may even arise whether Herodotus is
relating the events of the same campaign as that in which the two
defeats took place. It is impossible to pretend that the available
evidence is in any way conclusive on this point. The only detail which
tends to throw light upon the question is a geographical one. By
the time that the events next recorded took place, the Persians had
certainly advanced beyond Labraunda; and this fact would tend to the
conclusion that they did actually occur in the same campaign. Herodotus
recounts them as follows:—
#HELLESPONT AND IONIA.#
◆H. v. 121.◆
“The Carians, on hearing that the Persians were about to march against
their cities, laid an ambush on the road in Pedasos, into which the
Persians fell by night and were destroyed, both they and their
generals, Daurises, Amorges, and Sisimakes. With them perished also
Myrsos the son of Gyges. The commander of this ambush was Herakleides,
the son of Ibanollis, a Mylassian.”
The scene of this terrible defeat is on the road which would be taken
by an army advancing from Labraunda southward into Caria.
What had really happened can only be a subject for conjecture. The
Persians must have suffered so severely in the battles on the Marsyas
and at Labraunda, that further advance was delayed until reinforcements
could come up. During this delay the Carians rallied, and then
inflicted on the invaders the most crushing defeat of the whole war.
◆H. v. 122.◆
In this campaigning season of the year 496, the operations in the
Hellespont region which Daurises had left in an all but complete
stage, were continued by Hymeës, who had been campaigning in the
Mysian district. But little can have remained for him to do. His army
accomplished the task, though he himself died before it was actually
completed.
◆H. v. 123.◆
A little light is also thrown upon the doings of the army which, under
the command of Artaphernes and Otanes, had occupied the attention of
the Ionians during the campaign in Caria. It captured the towns of
Klazomenæ and Kyme.
The outlook towards the close of the summer, before the great Persian
defeat in Caria took place, must have been a gloomy one for the
insurgents. Cyprus was lost. The prospects of the revolt in Caria
seemed desperate. The Hellespont region had been reduced, though that
of the Bosphorus was as yet untouched; and even two of the Greek coast
towns of the Ægean had fallen.
◆H. v. 124.◆
It is not strange if Aristagoras began to despair of the future.
Herodotus is consistent in placing his conduct in the very worst light:
he was a coward at heart: he had thrown Ionia into confusion: he had
stirred up a mighty business; and now he planned flight.
As a preface to a story of a selfish attempt on the part of
Aristagoras to provide for his own safety, regardless of the fate of
his fellow-conspirators, such bitter condemnation of the man would have
been justified. But the tale which follows is singularly inconsistent
with the preface. So far from stealing away from Miletus, and seeking
to save his own life alone, he called the conspirators together, and,
in view of the desperate position of the revolt, he pointed out to
them that it would be well to secure some place of retreat, in case
they were driven forth from Miletus, by establishing a colony either
in Sardinia or at Myrkinos, “which Histiæus had proceeded to fortify
after receiving it as a gift from Darius.” Hecatæus is reported to
have opposed the plan, and to have suggested the futile alternative of
fortifying the small island of Leros, off Miletus, and of using it as
a base for the recovery of that town.[35] The majority of the meeting
voted in favour of Aristagoras’ design. Accordingly, leaving Miletus
in charge of a prominent citizen named Pythagoras, Aristagoras sailed
for Myrkinos, presumably late in the year 496, taking with him all
who volunteered to go. They all perished in an attack on a Thracian
town, whose name Herodotus does not mention, but which seems, ◆Th. iv.
102.◆ from what Thucydides says, to have been on the site of the later
Amphipolis.
Herodotus’ story of this last scene in Aristagoras’ life cannot be
said to support the bitter language of the judgment passed on him. He
went out to secure a refuge for his fellow citizens, and died in so
doing. He never returned, because he could not return. Had he remained
indefinitely at Myrkinos; had he looked on while his native city and
the men who had joined him in the great venture were destroyed, without
making one effort to return and take part in the last struggle for life
and liberty, he might with justice have been branded with the cowardice
of desertion. Herodotus’ account of the man and all that he did, fails,
when examined, to support the picture of his character which the
historian has drawn.
#HISTIÆUS AND ARTAPHERNES.#
◆H. vi. 1.◆
It was about the time of Aristagoras’ death that Histiæus, having
come down from Susa, arrived at Sardes. There he met the satrap
Artaphernes. The brief account of their meeting given by Herodotus is a
dramatic scene.
“On his arrival from Susa, Artaphernes, the satrap of Sardes, asked
him what he supposed to be the reason for the Ionian revolt. He said
he did not know, and that he was surprised at what had happened,
pretending that he was wholly ignorant of the causes[36] of what was
taking place. Artaphernes, however, seeing through his dissimulation,
and knowing the truth about the revolt, said, ‘Histiæus, the truth
about these matters is this: You stitched this sandal, and Aristagoras
put it on.’ Thus Artaphernes spoke about the revolt.”
It has been assumed by modern historians of Greece that Artaphernes’
language is a direct reference to the man with the tattooed head. The
assumption involves, however, certain difficulties.
Unless Artaphernes’ information with regard to the part played by
Histiæus was a recent acquisition at the time at which the latter
arrived at Sardes, it is incomprehensible that Histiæus should ever
have been allowed to leave Susa. The great Persian officials would
certainly not conceal such information from Darius. They loathed
Histiæus, and would have been but too glad to do him a bad turn.
Furthermore, Darius himself had taken the precaution of removing
Histiæus to Susa for reasons which would have seemed as nothing
compared with an allegation that he had been a prime mover in the great
revolt.
The “truth about the revolt” which Artaphernes knew in so far as
Histiæus was concerned, can have amounted to little more than the
suspicion that, at the time when he was fortifying Myrkinos, he had had
designs against the peace of the empire. The remarkable persistence
with which Histiæus and Aristagoras pursued their designs upon Myrkinos
suggests that behind the direct design lay a larger one, which is only
incidentally mentioned by Herodotus.[37]
Whatever may have been the grounds for Artaphernes’ suspicions,
Histiæus saw clearly that it would be dangerous to remain at Sardes,
and so fled by night to the sea, ◆H. vi. 2.◆ “having deceived King
Darius: for he, having undertaken to subdue Sardinia, the greatest of
islands, sought to assume the leadership of the Ionians in the war
with Darius.” He went to Chios first, where he was imprisoned upon
suspicion of being engaged in evil designs at Darius’ instigation. “But
the Chians, learning the whole story, that he was an enemy to the king,
released him.”
It is a strange tale this tale of Histiæus. He had certainly been
playing a double game for years past, but it is very difficult to say
what the two sides of the game actually were. His reception by the
Chians shows that some of the insurgents, at any rate, were unaware
that he had played any part in bringing about the revolt. He had,
moreover, been able to persuade Darius of his honesty of purpose.
Probably his purpose was dishonest to both sides, and what he aimed at
was the leadership of the Asiatic Greeks, which should, if he could
make it so, be independent of Persia. Failing that, he was prepared
to serve the king as an Ionian satrap, but not as an underling of
Artaphernes, or any other Persian governor. The great Persian officials
were, accordingly, his irreconcilable opponents.
◆H. v. 23, _ad fin._◆
The words reported in the tale of his conversation with Darius at Susa
show that the author of that story had some reason for suggesting that
Histiæus had long been privy to a conspiracy of revolt. ◆H. v. 106.◆
His action at Myrkinos had been interpreted by Megabazos as aiming at
the setting up of a great power hostile to Persian interests. May not
all this mean that this man, a schemer to his very fingers’ ends, had,
before he was taken up to Susa, planned the conspiracy which ended
in the revolt, and that his original design had been to overturn the
Persian power in Asia with the aid of the Thracian tribes, who were
at the time of his settlement in Myrkinos smarting under the recent
attempt of Darius to subjugate them,—an attempt which had certainly
not turned out a success? #THE SITUATION IN B.C. 495# Is it not this
which Megabazos hinted at but could not prove to Darius? Is it not
of these plans of twelve years before that Histiæus spoke to the Chians,
and so persuaded them to release him? Had not Aristagoras been, in a
sense, an heir to these designs in virtue of that strange testament
tattooed on the head of the slave? But was that testament of so late a
date as Herodotus supposed?
It was either late in 496 or early in 495 that Histiæus came down to
the coast. The revolt had not, indeed, prospered, but it was far from
crushed. Aristagoras had gone to Myrkinos, if not to Hades. He had
left Miletus, in all probability, before the great Persian disaster on
the Pedasos road. That disaster, in which the greatest of the armies,
if not the major part of the whole Persian force in Western Asia, had
been wiped out of existence, now put a wholly different complexion upon
affairs; and the satraps seem to have found themselves once more, in
495, in the position in which they had been in 497,—able to maintain
the existing status, but without the means necessary for taking further
offensive, for the time being. Hence the gap in this part of Herodotus’
story of the war. There is nothing recorded, because there was nothing
remarkable to record. The side which had suffered most severely in the
last round of the great fight had managed at the last moment to get in
a smashing blow; and during the next round both sides were too weak to
attempt a vigorous attack.
In one respect the circumstances were favourable to Histiæus. They
afforded him time for intrigue. If Herodotus’ story is to be believed,
he had to face the bitter reproaches of the Ionians at Chios for
having brought about the revolt. It is doubtless the case that the
Ionians were dispirited at the way in which matters had gone in the
last campaign; but, apart from the inconsistency of this attitude of
the Chians with their previous treatment of Histiæus, the story serves
to point the moral of the hopelessness of the revolt, and, so doing,
is not above suspicion. Histiæus is related to have defended himself
by saying that he sent the message because he had discovered that
Darius entertained a design of removing the Ionians to Phœnicia and
the Phœnicians to Ionia. The intense rivalry between these two
great commercial peoples may well have rendered such an allegation a
commonplace with agitators on the Asiatic side of the Ægean; but there
is no reason for supposing that it had any foundation in fact.
Histiæus now proceeded with his schemes. He was evidently convinced
that the revolt could not succeed without external support of some
kind. Upon Thrace he could not now reckon, since the news that
Aristagoras had embroiled himself with the Thracians on the Strymon
must have reached him by that time. ◆H. vi. 4.◆ He had, however,
discovered that there was at Sardes a Persian party hostile to
Artaphernes, with which he had previously conferred “about revolt.”
With it he now sought to establish communications. He was unfortunate
in his messenger—a certain Hermippos of Atarneus,—who carried the
letters straight to Artaphernes. The latter directed him to take them
to those to whom they were sent, and to bring back the answers. As
might be expected, the recipients were executed.
So the plan miscarried.
Histiæus now persuaded the Chians to convey him to his old seat of
tyranny, Miletus. Its citizens, who, says Herodotus, had been glad to
get rid of Aristagoras, were not in a mood to receive him. He made an
ineffectual attempt to force an entrance into the town, and was wounded
in so doing. He accordingly returned to Chios and tried to persuade the
Chians to give him ships,—on what excuse or for what purpose is not
stated. As they refused, he went across to Mytilene and persuaded the
Lesbians to give him eight triremes. With these he went to Byzantion,
and, “settling there, they proceeded to seize vessels sailing out of
the Pontus, except such as professed to be ready to obey Histiæus.”
Before making any attempt to explain the policy pursued by Histiæus
and the Mytilenians at Byzantion, it is necessary to arrive at some
conclusion as to when he and his allies went thither. Except for the
narrative of the adventures of Histiæus, the history of the fourth year
of the revolt (495) appears to be a blank. #HISTIÆUS AT BYZANTION.# No
event seems to have occurred of a sufficiently striking nature
to find a place in a record such as Herodotus set himself to write.
For the time matters seem to have been at a standstill in so far as
large operations are concerned. Either side had sufficient strength to
keep the other in check, but neither was strong enough to inflict a
serious blow. The war continued; but it was, doubtless, of a desultory
character, unmarked by decisive success or failure. The Persians were
waiting for reinforcements; the insurgents were too exhausted to do
aught but wait for the renewal of the real struggle.
The great defeat in Caria seems, indeed, to have taken place in the
autumn of 496; and it may therefore appear strange that a power like
Persia should not have been able to supply the losses in time, at any
rate, to strike a decisive blow before the next campaigning season
ended. Had the losses been of an ordinary character, such would, no
doubt, have been the case; but the reparation of a great defeat in
those days of slow communications, and in a monarchy which did not
keep a large standing army, was essentially a work of time. It was
necessary to communicate with Susa. Susa had to communicate with the
provinces from which the new levies had to be drawn. The levies had to
be collected and drilled, and then had to be despatched on their long,
long march to the Western satrapies. It is not strange, if more than a
year elapsed before Persia was ready, after the campaign in Caria, to
resume a real offensive in the west.
If this be so, the exploits of Histiæus constitute the sole record
of events for the year 495, and his departure to Byzantion may be
attributed to the late summer or to the autumn of that year.
What was his design in going to Byzantion? It has been assumed that he
went there to commit the acts of piracy to which Herodotus is supposed
to refer. But is it certain that this is the only interpretation which
can be put upon Herodotus’ language? Even if it is, is it possible to
credit such a story?
Were the Mytilenians in the slightest degree likely to allow their
ships to be used for the mere purpose of plundering their allies,
for to them a large number of the vessels engaged in the Pontus trade
must have belonged? Was it for this that Histiæus had come down to the
coast?
But Herodotus’ language is inconsistent with this interpretation
of Histiæus’ acts. He is described as treating the passing vessels
in different ways, according as they did or did not “obey” him. No
explanation is given of what this means, but it does not seem possible
to interpret it as a reference to piracy.
Was he bringing pressure to bear on the Greek cities of the Asian
coast,—such as, for instance, Ephesus,—which were beginning to waver in
their determination, by interfering with their trade at an important
point? The Mytilenians might have supported him in this. They might,
too, have supported him in a design to make the revolt more active
in these parts, for it is a noteworthy fact that Byzantion is not
recorded to have taken any active part in it. Was Byzantion wavering?
Did it require watching? Its loss would have been a serious blow, for
it would have meant the loss of the command of that route on which the
insurgents must have been peculiarly dependent for food supplies, amid
the destruction, stress, and turmoil of the war.
◆H. vi. 6.◆
At the time of Histiæus’ departure, the Ionians were living in
expectation of the renewal of the attack upon them. By the autumn of
495, reinforcements from the east must have begun to arrive at Sardes.
But the attack does not seem to follow in that year, in so far as any
calculation can be made from the known date of the subsequent fall of
Miletus.[38] It appears to have been in the early spring of 494 that
the Persians collected all their available troops for an attack on
Miletus, “considering the other cities to be of less account.” So much
for the Greek cities. But what of Caria? #THE FATE OF CARIA?# That land
practically disappears from the story of the revolt, after dealing
Persia the severest blow she suffered during all the years of it.
◆H. vi. 25.◆
Herodotus does not tell the tale of its reduction. All that he says is
that, “after the fall of Miletus [in 494], the Persians immediately
got possession of Caria, some of the cities surrendering voluntarily,
others being brought to submission by force.”
But the absence of any record of Carian participation in the revolt
during the long period intervening between the Persian defeat near
Pedasos and the fall of Miletus, suggests the suspicion that these
“voluntary surrenders” are not in all cases attributable to the time
following the fall of that city.
◆H. vi. 20.◆
The people of that very town Pedasos are, in the settlement of affairs
made after the capture of Miletus, granted by the Persians a portion
of the late Milesian territory. It would seem as if Caria, partially,
at any rate, made terms with her old masters; as if Artaphernes made
a successful trial of diplomacy in the critical time which succeeded
the great defeat, and detached Caria from the cause of the insurgents
by offering her a share in the spoils of her allies. This hypothesis
explains, at any rate, two features in the history of this time which
would otherwise be inexplicable, namely, the apparent non-participation
of Caria in the years following the Persian defeat, and the unexpected
grant made by the Persians to a Carian city.
Whatever may be the truth with regard to Caria, it is plain that she
was a negligible quantity at the time when the great attack on Miletus
was planned.
The attack was to be of a twofold character, by sea as well as land.
The naval forces of Persia had already suffered two severe defeats in
the course of the war. On these two occasions the Phœnicians had proved
inferior to the Ionians on the sea. ◆H. vi. 6.◆ But the fleet in the
present instance was drawn not merely from Phœnicia, but also from
Cilicia and Egypt, and even from that Cyprus which, but two short years
before, had fought as an ally of the Ionians. Both sides regarded this
great effort as the crisis of the struggle.
Delegates from the Ionian towns met at the pan-Ionian sanctuary
of Poseidon near Mykale, to concert measures to meet the great attack.
Their decision was a somewhat remarkable one. They determined to
confine the operations on land to the defence of the actual walls of
Miletus, which should be conducted by the Milesians themselves; but to
mobilize the whole of their available navy and to station it at Ladé, a
small island off the town of Miletus.
It was a great misfortune to the Ionian cause at this time that the
war operations of the League were not directed by one man of ability.
There may have been able men in the pan-Ionian Council; but in war such
a Council is apt to err on the side of caution, and to adopt a purely
defensive attitude, when the offensive would be the best defence. The
main features of the situation are sufficiently clear.
The real Ionian base was on the sea; the Persian on the land. Each
side, in order to strike a decisive blow at the other, must strike on
that element on which the other was strong. This Persia did; and this
the Ionian Greeks failed to do in this campaign. The simple result was
that the Persian stood to win, the Ionian to lose.
The story of Ladé is one of the very few sections of the history of the
revolt in which Herodotus attempts anything of the nature of a detailed
narrative. It bears all the traces of a compilation from various
sources. It opens with a list of the fleet, giving not merely the
numbers of the contingents, but also the battle array. Chronologically
this latter feature is manifestly out of place, inasmuch as the battle
was fought some time after the gathering of the fleet.
The story of the events in Ladé itself prior to the battle is
noticeable for two elements which can hardly be attributed to the same
source. The despicable Ionian tyrant is made to appear more despicable;
and the Ionian insurgents are presented in a most unfavourable light.
#FLEET AT LADÉ.#
The list of ships contributed by the various States is as follows:—
Miletus 80
Priene 12
Myus 3
Teos 17
Chios 100
Erythræ 8
Phokæa 3
Lesbos 70
Samos 60
---
353
The Persian fleet is said to have numbered 600.
The absence of Ephesus from the Greek list is noticeable. There are
other absentees of less note. If the contingent of Miletus, the object
of attack, be omitted, the number of ships supplied by the states on
the mainland amounts to only 43.
The smallness of this number is so remarkable that it cannot be passed
over without comment. One of two things must have occurred. Either some
of the Ionian towns had been reduced since 496, and the story of their
reduction is part of the lost records of 495; or the resistance was
weakening, and the Greek cities were withdrawing one by one from the
struggle, after making their own terms with the Persian. Of the two
conjectures, the latter is, perhaps, the more probable, as it would in
a way justify the impression of pusillanimity which Herodotus gives to
the revolt, an impression which, though on the whole unjustifiable,
must have rested on some partial basis. The tradition of the last act
in the great tragedy, as preserved in these renegade cities, was sure
to be sinister; and from them, or some one of them, Herodotus may
have drawn information which contributed to the formation of his own
opinions.
The magnitude of the Ionian fleet which gathered at Ladé is in
itself sufficient evidence of the determination of the insurgents to
concentrate their effort on the sea. The Persian fleet was more than
half again as numerous; but it had already suffered two severe defeats
off Pamphylia and off Cyprus, and it showed a manifest inclination
to avoid a conflict. Herodotus does not mention the station which it
took up; but it was presumably somewhere near Miletus, because some
of the ex-tyrants of the Greek cities who were aboard entered, at
the instigation of the Persians, into communication with their
late subjects, with intent to detach some of the contingents from the
formidable armada. For the moment these intrigues met with no success.
◆H. vi. 10.◆
Herodotus is evidently of opinion that even this resistance to a
proposal of treachery was an instance of the wrong-headedness[39] which
the Ionians displayed throughout the revolt.
It is very difficult to form a judgment as to the amount of historical
truth which is contained in the tale of the events which intervened
between this time and the actual battle. It is manifestly told with the
intention of presenting the Ionians in the worst possible light. This
people, which had already in the course of the revolt inflicted two
defeats by sea upon the Persians, is now represented as having neither
the power nor the will to practise the tactics of a sea-fight.
◆H. vi. 11.◆
After the fleet had gathered at Ladé the Ionians held meetings on
land, at which the situation was discussed. Among others who spoke was
Dionysios, who commanded the small Phokæan contingent.
“Our affairs,” he said, “are balanced on a razor’s edge, Ionians, as
to whether we are to be free men or slaves—more than that, runaway
slaves. Therefore, if you will now have the will to bear hardships,
toil for the moment will be yours, but you will be able to overcome
the foe and enjoy freedom. If, however, you continue to display a lack
of fortitude and of discipline, I have no hope for you that you will
not pay to the king the penalty of revolt. Give ear to my advice, and
place yourselves in my hands. I promise you, if the gods deal fairly
by us, either that the enemy will not give us battle, or that, if they
do, will be badly beaten.”
To this advice the Ionians listened, and placed themselves for the time
being at his disposal. He accordingly practised them in manœuvres every
day, and especially in the manœuvre of cutting the line, and kept them
busy from morning to night. This they endured for seven days. After
that they refused to carry out the orders of this “vagabond Phokæan,
who provided only three ships.” #CONDEMNATION OF THE IONIANS.#
The language attributed to them is that of men who, accustomed to
lead a life of luxury, find themselves in a situation of self-imposed
hardship, which they have not the courage to face. After five years of
resistance to the greatest power of their time, they are damned as mere
“boulevardiers” on the battle-field, “men who had no experience of such
hardships,” lacking the very elements of courageous perseverance. The
condemnation does not fall on the population of those cities which are
not represented in this last great struggle for Ionian freedom, but on
those who fought to the bitter end. The extraordinary feature of the
whole matter is that Herodotus should have allowed such a tale to stand
side by side with his narrative of the battle, in which it appears that
part of the Ionian fleet fought with the most desperate courage.
The “Dionysios” story throws considerable light on the nature of the
sources for Herodotus’ history of the revolt. The personal references
to Dionysios may, like the subsequent reference to him,[40] be suggested
by information as to his exploits obtained by the author in some Greek
city of Italy. But the intent of the whole story is manifest. It
provides an excuse for the conduct of those Samians who deserted in the
battle, to the tale of which it serves as a preface. It is not merely
a story of Samian origin, but a version to which currency was given by
certain persons in Samos, who found it necessary to invent some defence
for an act of cowardice for which the facts themselves provided no
excuse.[41]
The introduction into the story of what is almost certainly an
anachronism, the manœuvre of “cutting the line,” is, however, a graphic
touch of the historian’s own, suggested to him, like the reference to
Kythera in the Persian debate after Thermopylæ, by the incidents
of the Peloponnesian war.
It is a strange tendency this, which the father of history now and
again displays, to introduce into his narrative a page or two of matter
which is conspicuously refuted by his general history. He is far too
honest to distort the story of events in accordance with his own views;
but he again and again, especially in the case of the revolt, yields
to the temptation of introducing evidence from manifestly partial and
contaminated sources, simply because it happens to agree with his own
judgment on the general course of events.
Of the origin of the story of the actual battle there can be but
little question. It is also a Samian version. But, even so, it is
not simple in its elements. The behaviour of the two sections of the
Samian contingent in the battle rendered it certain that two very
different versions of the fight would survive in Samos,—one of them
the creation of those who were faithless, and the other that of those
who were faithful to the Ionian cause. Herodotus’ account contains
features borrowed from them both. This oft-repeated characteristic
of his history is in no sense deplorable. It is essentially _the_
characteristic of his work which renders that work most valuable at the
present day, in that, by reason of it, the contemporary evidence is
preserved in the form in which he found it.
The truth with regard to the state of affairs in the Ionian fleet
before Ladé is, in all probability, that counsels were greatly divided
on the details of the course to be pursued in the battle which was
imminent. On this occasion, as on previous occasions, the lack of a
single directing mind made itself felt. There was no one in supreme
command. Even a Eurybiades, not gifted with the ability to devise a
great design, but possessed of a common-sense judgment which would have
enabled him to decide between the plans suggested by others, might have
saved the situation.
This lack of leadership, and consequent lack of unanimity is the only
excuse which can be brought forward for the doubly treacherous conduct
of the Samians. #BATTLE OF LADÉ.# Herodotus admits all the evidence
for their defence; but he does not exclude the damning evidence
against them. This is present not merely in the matter but in the
form of the history of the battle. Despite the fact that the grounds
of their apology were in accord with his own general views, he is not
wholly convinced that they constituted a valid excuse for their conduct
on the present occasion.
◆H. vi. 13.◆
“The Samian commanders,” he says, “seeing what was taking place among
the Ionians, and their lack of discipline, proceeded to accept the
proposal which Æakes, the son of Syloson, had kept sending them at
the bidding of the Persians, calling on them to desert the Ionian
league. It appeared to them also that it was impossible to overcome
the resources of the king, because they knew well that if the present
fleet were defeated another would come, five times as large.
“Seizing, then, upon this excuse, so soon as they saw that the Ionians
were unwilling to make a fight of it, they thought it to their
advantage to save their temples and their property.”
The Æakes mentioned was one of the hated Ionian tyrants whom
Aristagoras had deposed at the beginning of the revolt. Herodotus does
not comment on his connection with the matter; but it is certain that
the part which he played in it would weigh heavily against the Samian
traitors in the balance of the historian’s judgment on their act.
◆H. vi. 14.◆
In giving his account of the battle he suffers, as he himself says,
from a lack of reliable information.[42] Matter is, however, introduced
which shows plainly that he had heard at Samos a version of the story
told from a point of view directly opposed to that of the tale of
events in the previous chapters, and that this version was supported by
inscriptional evidence existent in his own day.
“When, therefore, the Phœnicians advanced to the attack, the Ionians
proceeded to put out against them with their ships in column,[43] But
when they approached one another, and joined battle, I am not able to
say with certainty which of the Ionians were cowardly or brave
in the sea-fight, for they cast the blame on one another. The Samians
are said to have set sail at this moment and to have left the line of
battle, with the exception of eleven ships, and to have gone off to
Samos, in accordance with their agreement with Æakes. The captains of
these eleven vessels remained and fought, disregarding the orders of
the commanders. The Samian commonwealth, in consequence of this act
of theirs, voted that a pillar should be set up in their honour, with
their personal and family names inscribed upon it, in that they had
been brave men: and this pillar is in the market-place.[44]
“The Lesbians, seeing those next to them in the line in flight,
followed their example; and in like manner most of the Ionians did
the same. Of those who remained in the battle, the Chians suffered
most severely, for they made a brilliant fight of it, and showed no
cowardice. They provided, as has been already said, 100 vessels, and
forty picked citizens on board each, serving as marines. Though they
saw the majority of the allies deserting, they thought it not right
to imitate their cowardice, but, left alone with a few allies, they
went on fighting, using the manœuvre of cutting the line, until, after
capturing many of the enemy’s vessels, they had lost most of their
own.”
Such of their vessels as were in a condition to do so, made off to
Chios; those which were seriously damaged were run ashore at Mykale,
whence their crews proceeded to make their way homeward by land. On
entering Ephesian territory at night, however, they chanced upon the
women celebrating the Thesmophoria, and, being mistaken for robbers,
were attacked by the Ephesians, and some of them, at least, were killed.
This last incident may admit of various explanations; and it may be
doubted whether the action of the Ephesians was wholly due to error.
The attitude of this city at this time excites suspicion.
#DIONYSIOS OF PHOKÆA.#
But the rest of the account of the battle bears the impress of
truth. Anti-Ionian or not, Herodotus cannot withhold his admiration
from those who fought to the bitter end.
One detail may be inferred from its general incidents. The ease with
which both the Samians and the other allies got away, and with which
the Chians retreated after the fight, suggests that the Greek fleet at
the beginning of the battle was north of the Persian.
Dionysius of Phokæa is the only hero of it whose name has come down in
story. That old sea-dog, the very prototype of the seamen of the days
of Elizabeth, had no mind to return to Phokæa and share the slavery of
whatever small remnant of its inhabitants had either remained in their
old home, or had returned thither from Corsica. With his three ships he
had, in the course of the fight, taken three of the enemy’s vessels;
and now he sailed off, not in any cowardly flight, but with the
determination to “singe the King of Persia’s beard” by an unexpected
raid into his home waters. To Phœnicia he went, and there fell in with
certain merchant ships, which he disabled and plundered; and then,
laden with spoil, set sail for Sicily, where he set up as a pirate
at the expense of the Carthaginian and Tyrrhenian traders of those
seas. Doubtless the Greek cities of Italy appreciated to the full so
valuable an ally in trade competition, and from them Herodotus learnt
the history of the last days of the fierce old adventurer. The world
is poorer in that further details of his life have not survived. Would
that some Sicilian writer had taken down his story from his own lips!
It might have been one of the greatest tales of adventure in literature.
There must have been many another who fought a good fight for liberty.
They had the misfortune to have their deeds recorded by men less brave
than they. But even amid the intense partiality of the history of the
time the truth shines forth that, owing to the courage which they
displayed, the story of the revolt is one of the glorious pages in the
history of the Hellenic race. The fault of those men who persevered to
the bitter end was not lack of courage, but lack of the perception that
nature had so placed them in the world that their struggle against
the great empire was from its very outset a desperate, a hopeless
venture. It is not possible to suppose that, without the energetic help
of the European Greek, the revolt could have ended otherwise than as
it did; it may even be doubted whether, even with help from beyond the
Ægean, the struggle could have been maintained against the enormous
resources of Persia, as yet unimpaired by the disasters of the great
war of 480 and 479. Even after that war, the energy and strength of
Athens could not maintain more than an uncertain hold on the cities of
the continent.
But the revolt had saved Greece.
The great blow levelled against her must have fallen in the first
decade of the fifth century; and, had it done so, it would have fallen
upon a Greece but ill-prepared to meet it. The struggle would doubtless
have been a fierce one, but it would have been waged on the part of the
Greeks without the aid of that factor which was decisive in the great
struggle of ten years later—the great Athenian fleet.
The revolt had severely taxed the resources of the Empire. It took
Persia six years to suppress it, and in this time she lost two fleets
and one great army with its generals, besides the losses incurred
in successful operations. It resulted that, though she did make two
efforts in the years immediately following the revolt to gain a footing
beyond the Ægean, those efforts were not of a nature which, judged in
the light of knowledge after the event, could have attained any measure
of success. She was unable at this time to set on foot an expedition
adequate to the greatness of the undertaking.
It is impossible, on the evidence, to say that the struggle was carried
on with a unanimity of courage on the part of all the Ionian towns; but
it is plain that this aspect of the history of the time has had undue
weight in the judgment formed by Herodotus.
◆H. vi. 18.◆
The end was near. Miletus, the heart and soul of the revolt, was
besieged by sea and land. The walls were undermined, and all sorts of
siege engines were employed. #FALL OF MILETUS.# Finally, some
time in the late summer or autumn of 494, the city fell. The fate
of the population was a piteous one. The great majority of the male
inhabitants were massacred. The women and children were enslaved, and
carried captives to Susa. They and the remnant of the male population
were placed in a settlement on the Persian Gulf, near the mouth of the
river Tigris.
It is very difficult to estimate the loss which civilization has
suffered by the destruction of this great city, which had been, up to
the very time of its destruction, the foremost in the Hellenic world.
It was not merely in the front rank in Greek commerce; it was also an
intellectual centre unrivalled among the cities of the age. Whether it
could ever have developed a period of literary brilliance equal to that
of the Athens of the later part of this century, must remain a matter
of speculation. It had a long start in the intellectual race. The
wide interest of its material relations called forth a corresponding
breadth of interest in literary speculation of various kinds; and the
world would certainly have been enriched, had it possessed an Asiatic
Greek literature parallel to that of European Greece. Difference of
environment and difference of political circumstances would have
produced a literary development on different lines; and the literature
itself could not have failed to display one side of the many-sidedness
of the Greeks, which is lost to the present world, save for a few
fragments, which point to a promise of future greatness.
◆H. vi. 21.◆
At Athens the fall of the great city created more than a momentary
impression. Phrynichos composed a drama on the subject which aroused so
bitter a sense of loss in the mind of the Athenians that they punished
the dramatist by a fine of a thousand drachmas. It is possible that
self-reproach was mingled with regret. The desertion of 498 was so
sudden, and is, in certain respects, so unaccountable, that it may well
have provoked considerable feeling even in Athens itself.
Herodotus draws a contrast between the emotion of Athens and the apathy
of the Sybarites. When Sybaris was destroyed by Kroton about the year
510, the whole Milesian population had mourned the loss of their
old commercial friend.
The last twenty years had been fateful in the history of Greek
trade. Sybaris, Chalkis, and Miletus—three of the greatest names in
the history of Greek commerce—had successively fallen; and their
disappearance from the stage of the commercial world must have greatly
modified that obscure but powerful factor in Greek history. It will
be a matter for later consideration whether the disappearance of
these competitors, especially from the western trade route, had not
a powerful influence in shaping the events of the later half of the
century.
Of the individual fortunes of the rest of the Asiatic Greek cities,
Herodotus says but little. Among the Samians, the divided counsels
in their contingent at Ladé seem to have given birth to such bitter
dissensions that a section of the population which had remained loyal
to the revolt left the island and set sail for Sicily, whence an
invitation had come from the people of Zanklé, calling such Ionians as
would to settle at Kale Akte on the north coast of the island. Their
adventures are related by Herodotus.[45] It is not necessary to follow
them thither. Suffice it to say that the gross treachery of their
conduct to their would-be hosts upon their arrival there affords one of
those painful and striking examples of the co-existence in the Greek
race of great virtues and great defects.
◆H. vi. 25.◆
Æakes, the tyrant who had negotiated the treachery at Ladé, as a reward
for his services on that occasion, was reinstated in Samos by the
Phœnician fleet. The city and its temples were left untouched.
“Immediately after the capture of Miletus,” says Herodotus, “the
Persians got possession of Caria, some of the cities submitting
voluntarily, and others being reduced by force.”
The part played by Caria, as described in the narrative of the revolt,
is quite incomprehensible. What had she been doing during the time that
had intervened since the great defeat of the Persians on the Pedasos
road? #SUBJUGATION OF CARIA.# The interval cannot, upon any calculation
from the facts mentioned by Herodotus, have amounted to less than
two years. Were the Carians during all this time inactive, sullenly
awaiting their fate? Their story during these years is a lost chapter
in history.
It would seem unlikely that Herodotus could not have obtained any
information with regard to the course of events in the land immediately
bordering on the territory of his own native town. The only possible
conjecture is that his reference to the reduction of Caria as
having taken place after that of Miletus, applies to its _complete_
subjugation, and that the process had been going on for some time. It
has already been suggested that the inactivity of Caria was due partly
to its resistance having been undermined by Persian diplomacy in the
period following the great defeat; and it may be that those towns which
submitted voluntarily had been gradually detached from the insurrection
by offers of favourable terms from Artaphernes.
◆H. vi. 26.◆
Histiæus plays the chief part in the last scene of the drama of the
revolt. Whenever this mysterious man appears upon the stage he brings
mystery with him. He is still at Byzantion when the scene opens. He has
been there for at least a year. But the strange feature of the matter
is that, though he has been there so long, and though during all that
time he has been committing acts of piracy (_sic_) against the Ionian
traders, those simple-minded folk continue to send their vessels into
the inevitable trap.
◆H. vi. 26.◆
His Lesbians are still with him, presumably the crews of the eight
ships the Mytilenians had granted him. And yet while all these strange
proceedings are going on at Byzantion, and while their own people are
taking part in them, these very Mytilenians send seventy vessels to
Ladé! Byzantion was less than two days’ sail from them, and with half
that number of vessels they could have put a stop to what was going on
there, had they had the will to do so. They must have been satisfied
that Histiæus was acting in their interest; and had that consisted in
the perpetration of piratical acts against their allies, it is strange
that they should have thought it their interest to join those
allies at Ladé. They played, indeed, a coward’s part there, but not
without excuse.
The evidence, though anything but conclusive, suggests the suspicion
that Histiæus was acting in the interest of those cities who persevered
in the revolt against those other Greek cities who had made, or had
sought to make, terms with the Persian.
His proceedings after he had received the news of the fall of Miletus
are less obscure in motive than his doings at Byzantion. His position
in the Hellespontine region had certainly developed in the course of
the year during which he had been there.
He left his affairs in charge of a certain Bisaltes of Abydos. His
first objective was Chios. Thither accordingly these “beggars of the
sea,” commanded by this broken adventurer, made their way. Driven to
desperation, he and they had made up their minds to one great final
effort to save whatever could be saved. It would seem, too, that
Histiæus had a plan by which he thought this might be accomplished.
The only possible explanation of his conduct, on the extant evidence,
is that he once more turned his thoughts to Thrace, and sought to
establish on the Strymon a rallying-point for the irreconcilables among
the insurgents. He sought to resume in a modified form a design he had
been forced to lay aside nearly twenty years before.
But it may be urged: If this was so, why did he direct his first
efforts against Chios?
Did he go to Chios with any hostile intent at all? Were the hostilities
there forced upon him by the deep distrust of him which the Chians
entertained? The evident and well-founded contempt of Histiæus, which
Herodotus felt on general grounds, has influenced his tale of what
happened at Chios. He deplores alike the fate and folly of these
Chians—their fate, in that suffering was added to their sufferings;
their folly, in that they had brought these sufferings upon themselves
by joining in the revolt, and by persevering in it to the bitter end.
#HISTIÆUS AND CHIOS.#
Yet even so, his story shows that Histiæus’ action with regard to them
was capable of at least two interpretations:
◆H. vi. 26.◆
“Affairs in the Hellespont he committed to the charge of Bisaltes, the
son of Apollophanes, of Abydos, while he himself, accompanied by the
Lesbians, sailed to Chios,[46] and engaged with a Chian garrison which
would not admit him, at a place in the Chian territory called the
Hollows.”
This seems to imply that he had expected the Chian garrison to receive
him.
“Of these he killed many, and, from a base at Polichne, in Chian
territory, he with the Lesbians, got the mastery of the rest of the
Chians, who were in evil plight after the naval battle.”
Apart from the fact, already noticed, that Histiæus seems to have
expected a peaceable occupation of Chios, it is remarkable that there
is no mention of any bloodshed, save in the case of attack of the one
garrison.
The colouring which is given to events by the tale of the organized
attack on Chios from a base at Polichne, is evident. The whole intent
of it is to represent the expedition of Histiæus as hostile to the
Chians, and to emphasize the despicable behaviour of the various
sections of the insurgents to one another when their fortunes had
become desperate. Æolian attacks Ionian, and Ionian resists Æolian. And
yet, in spite of this, Ionian joins Æolian in that attack on Thasos
which immediately succeeds this period of alleged hostility.
But the story is not merely inconsistent with itself; it is hopelessly
inconsistent with such circumstances of the time as may be gathered
from Herodotus’ own evidence.
What conceivable object had Histiæus and these Lesbians in
attacking Chios at a time when its reconquest by the Phœnician fleet
could not be long deferred? Histiæus may or may not have been a
scheming knave, but there is no reason to suppose that he was a witless
man, unable to gauge the impossibility of maintaining Chios, or any of
the islands on the Asian coast, after the disaster at Ladé.
Then why did he go to Chios? The answer to this question is dependent
on the answer to a further question: Why, after occupying Chios, did he
immediately attack Thasos?
Only one explanation of his conduct seems consistent with the
circumstances of the time. The days of the revolt were numbered. A
terrible retribution was to be apprehended. There must have been
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of refugees on the Ionian coast of Asia,
seeking for some shelter from the coming storm; and whither would
they turn? To the islands first, as being safer than the mainland,
with intent to secure time for escape over seas. Chios was the refuge
to which these refugees would look in the first instance. Samos was
anxious only for itself. Lesbos was farther from the centre of things.
Chios was the natural rallying-point.
It was under these circumstances that Histiæus turned to Chios first
after leaving the Hellespontine district. His action need not be
attributed to philanthropic motives. It was at Chios that he would find
any number of desperate recruits, ready for any venture on which he
might propose to lead them; and he had such a venture planned in his
mind.
His past experiences with the Chians had been unfortunate. But he had
in the past managed to persuade them of his good faith towards the
revolt; and why should he not be able to do so now?
The Chians were unprepared for his coming, and his landing was
resisted. He accordingly withdrew to Polichne. This place lay near
Klazomenæ,[47] and commanded from the land side the peninsula off
which Chios lies. #HISTIÆUS AT THASOS.# Herodotus says that
he used the place as a base of operations against the Chians. The
improbability of his having, at this juncture of affairs adopted an
attitude of hostility towards the Chians, and, above all, of his having
deliberately entered upon operations against them at a time when
the arrival of the Phœnician fleet might be expected, is so great,
that it is impossible to accept the statement as a reliable record
of events. Later tradition may well have interpreted his proceedings
at Polichne in the light of the unfortunate incident with the Chian
garrison. Whether depressed or not by the defeat at Ladé, it is beyond
imagination that this powerful island-state should have succumbed to an
attack from such a force as Histiæus could have brought with him. It
is infinitely more probable that he withdrew to Polichne in order to
be able to explain his attitude to the Chians before further collision
took place, and that he did persuade them of the _bona fides_ of his
intentions.
His next proceedings throw considerable light upon those intentions.
◆H. vi. 28.◆ Having got the Chians to his side, he proceeded to attack
the Island of Thasos, taking with him “many of the Ionians and Æolians.”
There can be no doubt as to the general reasons which prompted this
attack. Thasos had considerable possessions on the lower Strymon.
The particular reasons may be matter for conjecture. It is, at least,
conceivable that the Thasians had the strongest objection to the
establishment of a new power in a region in which they had so much
at stake, in the shape of those gold-mines which brought them such
enormous wealth; and that Histiæus found it necessary to subdue them,
before he tried to carry out his plans on the continent.
Had the Thasians participated directly or indirectly in the disaster
which befell Aristagoras?
Be this as it may, Histiæus was only carrying out in a new form, and
under conditions more favourable to himself, a policy he had attempted
to initiate years before, the initiation of which had caused his
removal to Susa. He was now backed up by a number of desperate men,
ready for any venture which might save them from the hands of the
Persian. But time was all-important. The Phœnician fleet was at the
moment engaged in the reduction of such Carian towns as still resisted;
but its arrival in the North Ægean could not be long deferred.
It was, no doubt, owing to the resistance of Thasos that the plan
miscarried. While he was besieging the place, news arrived that the
Phœnician fleet was moving northward. This being so, it was quite
certain that the Æolians in his force would insist on an attempt being
made to rescue the Lesbians, if not Lesbos. So to Lesbos Histiæus went.
◆H. vi. 28.◆
He arrived there only to find that the food supplies of the island,
exhausted probably by the influx of refugees, were insufficient to
support his army. So he crossed over with it to the mainland, making
Atarneus his base, and intending to operate from it and seize the
harvest-produce of its neighbourhood, and of the valley of the Kaïkos
river.
♠ “Kaikos” replaced with “Kaïkos”
Here he was attacked by a large Persian army under Harpagos. A large
part of his force was destroyed, and Histiæus himself was captured.
◆H. vi. 29.◆
“In the battle between the Greeks and Persians at Malene in the
country at Atarneus, the Greeks resisted for a long time, but the
cavalry being afterwards launched against them fell upon the Greeks.
From that moment the attack became simply a cavalry affair. On the
Greeks being put to flight, Histiæus, hoping that he would not perish
at the hands of the king owing to his present transgression, conceived
such a desire for life, that when in his flight he was overtaken by
a Persian, and being overtaken was about to be stabbed to death by
him, using the Persian language, he declared himself to be Histiæus
the Milesian. If he had, when he was captured, been taken forthwith
to King Darius, my belief is that he would have suffered no harm, but
that the king would have freely forgiven him.”
But so it was not to be. The great Persian officials had no intention
of giving their old enemy a chance of his life. When Harpagos brought
him to Sardes, Artaphernes had him executed and sent his head up to
Susa. #HISTIÆUS.# Greek tradition represented Darius to have treated
the poor remains with honour, as being those of a man who had been
a great benefactor to the Persians and their king.
Histiæus has come down in story as the arch-villain of his time. He was
the most contemptible member of a hated class, as the men thought who
created the story of his life, and as Herodotus, who implicitly copied
the picture which they drew of him, thought also.
He cannot be accounted fortunate in his biographer. The shadows of the
picture are so deep that the true lineaments of the man cannot now be
clearly discerned. But he who tries to play a double part, and fails
in the attempt, as Histiæus did, is not likely to occupy an honourable
place in history. He seems to have been of great and selfish ambition,
without the capacity to form a judgment as to the means requisite to
carry it out, and without any scruple as to the means he did adopt. He
figures consequently as a scheming but somewhat futile villain. He had
made up his mind that his main endeavour must be to win the confidence
of Darius, and that, if he won this, he could afford to ignore the
great officials. He forgot how far a cry it was from Susa to Sardes. He
wished at all costs to rule the Asiatic Greek—independent of Persia,
if he could; under Persia, if he could not; but not under any satrap
at Sardes or elsewhere. His plan, well conceived, but prematurely
executed, of gaining a _point d’appui_ in Thrace, gave away the whole
design at its very inception. There followed years of exile at Susa.
He returned to the coast to find the revolt undecided. He had, or
thought he had, two alternative cards to play: either to help in the
suppression of the revolt, and to make Darius believe that he had been
mainly instrumental in its suppression, or to take the lead in the
rising. But Artaphernes forced his hand, and he had no alternative but
to play his second card. It might have been effective, had he been
allowed to bide his time; but the premature display of it spoiled his
whole game,—in fact, the Greeks would have none of him.
And in the last scene of all, at Chios, Thasos, and Lesbos, his curse
is still upon him. He again miscalculated the means necessary to
effect his design in the limited time within which it could possibly
be successful. His cleverness was greater than his ability. He
possessed the finesse of a schemer, but lacked the practical reason of
the man of action.
His capture must be attributed to the spring of the year 493,
inasmuch as his army was engaged in reaping the spring crops in the
neighbourhood of Atarneus at the time at which it was attacked by
Harpagos.
The rest of the tale of the revolt is soon told.
The Persian fleet, having wintered at Miletus, proceeded in the spring
of 493 to reduce the island states. Chios, Lesbos, and Tenedos fell
into their hands. Herodotus reports that they “netted” these islands,
that is to say, swept them from end to end with a line of men with
joined hands stretching from sea to sea. If the story be in any sense
literally true, it probably means that the Persians were anxious to get
hold of prominent refugees. Nothing is said as to what they did with
those they captured.
◆H. vi. 32.◆
Presumably the reduction of the continental cities was proceeding at
this same time. If the list of ships at Ladé be any criterion, it would
seem as if but few of them remained to be reduced. Those that did
remain were treated with severity. Children of both sexes were carried
away up country, and the cities with their temples were burnt to the
ground.
This was the end of the revolt in Asia.
The operations which followed in Europe, though aiming at the
subjugation of revolted districts, have a more intimate historical
connection with their sequel than with the tale of the revolt itself.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE REVOLT.
500–499
W. Aristagoras proposes the Naxos scheme to Artaphernes.
Artaphernes communicates the proposal to Darius.
Sp. Gathering of Ionian fleet and of the expedition
generally.
#CHRONOLOGY OF THE REVOLT.#
S. Siege of Naxos.
A. Failure of siege.
Meeting of Greek conspirators.
Deposition of tyrants.
499–498
W. Aristagoras at Sparta and Athens.
Sp. Athenian and Eretrian vessels arrive on Asian coast.
Pæonians return to Europe.
Artaphernes besieges Miletus.
Phœnician fleet defeated by Ionians off Pamphylia.
Expedition against Sardes.
S. Greeks at Sardes. Artaphernes besieged in citadel.
S. or A.
Withdrawal of Greeks from Sardes, and battle of Ephesus.
A. Athenian fleet returns home.
Onesilos plotting revolt of Cyprus.
Darius hears of burning of Sardes.
498–497
W. Aristagoras appeals to Athens for continued assistance.
Ionians engaged in energetic preparations.
Deposition of Gorgos of Salamis.
Sp. Ionian fleet brings about revolt in Hellespontine
district.
Beginning of siege of Amathus.
Sp. or S.
Revolt of Caria.
S. Ionian fleet called to Cyprus.
Battle by land and sea in Cyprus.
A. Ionian fleet returns to Ægean.
497–496
W. Capture of Soli by Persians, and end of revolt in Cyprus.
Persian troops employed in Cyprus forwarded to Sardes.
Sp. Hymeës operating in the Propontis region.
Campaign of Daurises in the Hellespont region.
S. Campaign in Caria.
Battles of Marsyas and Labraunda.
Campaign of Hymeës in the region of the Troad.
Aristagoras departs for Myrkinos.
S. or A.
Continuation of campaign in Caria.
Great Persian defeat at Pedasos.
A. Death of Aristagoras at Myrkinos.
496–495
W. Histiæus arrives at Sardes.[48]
Sp. Histiæus at Chios.
Sp. or S.
Histiæus’ attempt on Miletus.
A. Histiæus goes to Byzantion.
Persian reinforcements arriving in Asia Minor.
Some Carian and Ionian cities begin to make terms with
the Persian.
494
Sp. Miletus attacked.
Sp. or S.
Battle of Ladé.
S. Capture of Miletus.
A. Reduction of Caria.
Histiæus at Chios and Thasos.
494–493
W. Persian fleet at Miletus.
Sp. Histiæus’ death.
Reduction of the islands and of the towns on the mainland.
CHAPTER IV.
PERSIAN OPERATIONS IN EUROPE: B.C. 493–490.
MARATHON.
There had been a passive as well as an active side to the revolt.
Its effects had been more far reaching than its activities. On the
European side the Hellespont region,[49] Thrace and Macedonia had
thrown off the Persian yoke, but there is no record of their having
joined in the offensive against the Persian. The Hellespontine cities
on the Asiatic shore had been already reduced. ◆H. vi. 33.◆ The fleet
now proceeded to the reduction of the further shore of the Propontis.
Miltiades’ principality in the Thracian Chersonese, Perinthos, the
forts Thraceward, together with Selymbria, Byzantion, and Kalchedon
were subjugated once more. From Byzantion and Kalchedon the inhabitants
fled to the Pontus, whither the Phœnicians did not, possibly dare not,
follow them. These towns were burnt.
The position of Miltiades during the years of the revolt is another
of the many obscure points of the history of the time. ◆H. vi. 40.◆
According to Herodotus, he had been driven out of his principality
somewhere about the year 496 by a Scythian raid, which is alleged to
have been an act of revenge for Darius’ expedition; and had only been
restored to it subsequently by the aid of the Dolonki, the race which
had originally handed over the district to the rule of his family.
He appears at Marathon as a practised general; yet there is no
trace whatever of his part in the revolt having been other than purely
passive. His act seems, indeed, to have been rather defection than
revolt.[50]
On the evidence available, nothing is clear but that Miltiades
considered that he had hopelessly compromised himself with the
insurgents; so much so, that, when he heard the Persian fleet was at
Tenedos, he placed his movable property on five triremes and set sail
for Athens.
His position as ruler of this little principality must have been a very
difficult one while the revolt was in progress. On the one hand, he had
to watch the wild Thracian tribes on the north; and this may account
for his apparent inactivity at the time. On the other hand, he had to
decide between the prospective dangers of defection from Persia and the
more immediate peril of an attack from the Ionian fleet, when, early in
497, it appeared in the Hellespont. The sense of the certain danger of
the moment seems to have overcome whatever feeling he may have had with
regard to the risk of throwing off the Persian yoke.
Of his five ships, four reached Athens in safety; but the fifth, with
his son Metiochos on board, was overtaken by the Phœnicians, and
captured. The youth was sent up to Darius at Susa, who treated him with
kindness.[51]
◆H. vi. 42.◆
The hostilities upon the Asian coast had been brought to a close by
the complete submission of the Ionian districts. #REORGANIZATION OF
GREEK ASIA.# The peculiar enlightenment of the Persia of this age in
contrast with other Oriental monarchies is shown by the settlement of
affairs in Asia made when the fighting was all over. There seems
to be a certain irony in the attitude taken towards the Greeks. It
is assumed that the Ionian cities had been, if not their own, at any
rate each other’s worst enemies; and the most prominent feature of the
reorganization is the regulation of their relations to one another.
Artaphernes summoned representatives from the various cities to Sardes,
and compelled them to make mutual agreements providing means for the
settlement of disputes, whether public or private, between the states,
and for the discontinuance of raids on neighbour’s property. The last
provision casts a somewhat lurid light on the unruly character of these
subjects of the empire.
He further caused a survey to be made of the territories of the cities,
on which was founded a new assessment of tribute, which, so Herodotus
says, differed but little from the previous assessment, and continued
in force until his own time.[52]
The reconquest of Thrace and Macedonia was the next object of the king.
The absence of evidence as to the nature of the attitude of these
regions towards Persia at the time of the revolt, renders it impossible
to say whether they had actually thrown off the yoke, or whether it
had not rather fallen from them in consequence of the European shore
being denuded of Persian troops for the operations in Asia. They seem
to have lapsed rather than revolted. This view is supported by the fact
that, though they had to be reconquered, that reconquest, apart from a
disaster due to natural causes, seems to have been carried out without
much difficulty, and yet effectively.
It might have been supposed that the large naval and military force
which must have been present in Western Asia during the last year
of the revolt, would have been sufficient for the operations in Europe;
but, apart from the inevitable losses in the war, a large number of
the available troops may have been required for the occupation of the
recently conquered districts.
◆H. vi. 43.◆
Be that as it may, very large reinforcements came westward from Susa
in the spring of the year 492, under the command of Mardonios, that
general who was destined thirteen years later to meet his death on the
field of Platæa. He superseded Harpagos, Otanes, and the other unnamed
generals in the command, so Herodotus says. It is, on the whole,
unlikely that they were actually dismissed from their positions. The
truth may be that Mardonios appeared as commander-in-chief.
After arriving in Cilicia, he went on board the fleet, and sailed to
Ionia along the coast, while his army marched overland.
His first reported act on arrival in Ionia is the deposition of “all”
the Ionian tyrants, and the establishment of democracies in the cities.
Herodotus adduces this as a proof of the credibility of a story of his
that, after the assassination of the pseudo-Smerdis, a proposal was
actually made by Otanes, one of the conspirators, that Persia should be
constituted as a democracy.
That democracies were established in “all” the states is not the case.
There were certainly exceptions, as the evidence of Herodotus himself
indicates.[53] But that the measure was a wide one is shown by the
great rarity of the instances in which any such tyrants appear in
subsequent history, compared with the prominence of the part played by
them in previous times.
This measure seems to have been carried out by direct commission from
Darius.[54]
#POLICY OF DARIUS.#
The severity meted out to the cities immediately on the suppression
of the revolt is so strikingly in contrast with the consideration
shown them in the years immediately following it, that it suggests
the suspicion that the two modes of treatment were the outcome of two
policies, one of which was that of the satraps and commanders in
the West, and the other that of Darius himself. The reversal of policy
shown in the settlement of Ionia by Artaphernes makes it appear as if
the great satrap were acting under orders from Susa; and the further
measures taken upon Mardonios’ arrival on the coast are certainly
carried out in consequence of the instructions he had received.[55]
The nature of the measures taken indicates some of the causes of unrest
in the Greek cities previous to the revolt; namely, unfairness, real or
alleged, in the incidence of the tribute; the absence of any peaceable
means of settling disputes between the towns, except by the obviously
unpopular method of appeal to the satrap; and, above all, the hated
system of ruling them by means of tyrants who acted as political agents
for the Persians.
Darius was not an ordinary Oriental despot. He was a ruler who,
considering the time at which he lived, displayed extraordinary
enlightenment and moderation in his dealings with the subject races.
This laudable feature of his government cannot be ascribed wholly to
his philanthropy. It was largely the outcome of a policy of caution. He
was strongly averse to placing large bodies of troops at the disposal
of the satraps of the outlying provinces, unless circumstances actually
demanded it. The measure taken by Artaphernes, [probably, as it would
seem, by Darius’ direct orders,] with regard to the establishment of
a system of arbitration between the towns, does of itself show how
inadequate under ordinary circumstances were the means at the disposal
even of a great satrap for the repression of acts of war against one
another on the part of sections of the subject populations within the
provincial area. The elimination of causes of discontent among the
peoples of the empire was a necessary derivative of Darius’ policy
towards the satraps.
The main task, however, which Mardonios was commissioned to
perform lay in Europe. Herodotus’ description of the design of the
expedition is remarkable.
◆H. vi. 43, 44.◆
“Having crossed the Hellespont in ships, they proceeded on their march
against Eretria and Athens. These places were the pretended objects of
the expedition. But as they intended to subdue as many of the Greek
cities as possible, they in the first place reduced the Thasians with
their fleet without resistance, and then with the army added the
Macedonians to the number of those in servitude. All the tribes on the
near side of Macedonia had been already reduced.”
It is noteworthy that all this had been achieved before serious
disaster fell on the expedition. It was _after_ the reduction of
Macedonia,—a conquest which the history of subsequent years shows to
have been genuine and complete,—that the fleet, coming from Thasos and
Akanthos, was caught in a storm off Mount Athos, the easternmost of the
promontories of the peninsula of Chalkidike. The _reported_ loss, says
Herodotus, was 300 ships and 20,000 men, his language implying that he
was disposed to regard the number as exaggerated.
Another disaster of a minor character befel the land forces. They were
attacked at night by a tribe in Macedonia called the Brygi; Mardonios
himself was wounded, and the Persian losses are said to have been
considerable; but Herodotus expressly adds that—
◆H. vi. 45.◆
“Not even the Brygi escaped slavery at the hands of the Persians; for
Mardonios did not leave the region until he had reduced them. After
subduing them, he took his expedition back [to Asia], for the army
had met with disaster at the hands of the Brygi, and the fleet had
suffered terribly off Athos. So the expedition went back to Asia,
after meeting with disgraceful reverses.”
The two main questions with regard to this expedition are—
(1) As to its intent;
(2) As to its practical results.
Herodotus is plainly of opinion that it was ultimately aimed against
European Greece.
#THE EXPEDITION OF 492.#
There can be little doubt that Herodotus is right in his view that the
ultimate goal of the expedition was European Greece. The fact that
so great a fleet formed part of it indicates that (1) the numbers
were very large; (2) that its goal was distant. Other considerations
support these indications. The forces, naval and military, in Western
Asia, which were very considerable indeed before ever Mardonios came
down, must have been largely available for service in Europe after the
revolt was suppressed; and the reinforcements which Mardonios brought
down with him are expressly stated to have been very large. The fleet
at Ladé is reported to have amounted to six hundred vessels. This
fleet was presumably still greater, and the numbers of the land force
would, in accordance with Persian custom, be proportionately great. (3)
If Herodotus’ narrative of the sequence of events is to be taken as
trustworthy, Macedonia was subdued before the fleet attempted to round
Mount Athos. The fleets of those days, especially in that particular
sea, where sudden storms are notoriously frequent, did not attempt to
round promontories such as Athos without having good reason for so
doing. If Macedonia had been already subdued before it attempted the
passage, the Thermaic gulf cannot have been its goal. It may be urged,
perhaps, that the incident of the Brygi indicates that the subjugation
of Macedonia was not so complete as Herodotus says. But does Herodotus,
by the order in which he mentions this incident, wish to imply that
it occurred subsequent to the disaster? It would seem not. All he
wishes is to bring the minor disaster on land into juxtaposition with
the major disaster at sea; and, so far as chronological setting is
concerned, his statement that the Brygi were ultimately subdued would,
taken with his previous general statement, place the incident of the
Brygi in its proper position in the course of events—that is to say,
prior to the disaster off Athos. Moreover, in any case, the reduction
of Macedonia was actually effected without the fleet proceeding beyond
Athos, and therefore the presence of the fleet in the Thermaic gulf
was not necessary for the operations in that country. The road across
the north of Chalkidike was short and easy, and from an anchorage
near Akanthos, the commissariat of the army in Macedonia could be
efficiently maintained.
But the fleet; after the disaster, was evidently not in a condition for
further advance; possibly because the actual loss of supplies had been
great, possibly because it was left too weak in numbers and equipment
to face the inevitable fighting in Greek waters which would result,
should any large scheme of conquest be attempted in Greece itself.
Herodotus’ statements as to the greatness of the objects of this
expedition of Mardonios would not of themselves be convincing did not
its magnitude, when compared with the expedition of 490, imply that
its aims were infinitely more ambitious. The fleet which took part in
the earlier expedition seems to have been at least as large as that of
two years later; and, in addition to the fleet, Mardonios had, as has
been said, a very large land army, for he had brought down with him a
considerable number of troops over and above those already in West Asia
which the suppression of the revolt would render largely available. The
punishment of Athens and Eretria was an essential part of the programme
of this expedition; but it was only a part. The dictates of policy
would render it advisable for Darius to show the European Greeks that
they could not with impunity interfere in the affairs of Asia. But the
expedition was not, like that of 490, limited in its scope to Athens
and Eretria. It threatened Greece as a whole.
The results of Mardonios’ campaign were that Macedonia and Thrace (the
southern part of it) were re-conquered, and remained passive in the
hands of Persia for thirteen succeeding years. Thasos was also annexed.
Herodotus’ estimate of its result is coloured by the failure of the
design in so far as Greece was concerned; but, on his own showing, the
campaign was a success in so far as the operations in Macedonia and
Southern Thrace were concerned.
Darius, now definitely prepared to carry out his schemes against the
liberty of European Greece, was in no way diverted from them by the
disaster off Mount Athos. He only altered his plan of action.
#STRATEGY OF 492 AND 490.#
Alike on the north and east of the Ægean, circumstances had been
in 492, for the first time in Persian history, favourable for the
prosecution of his plans west of that sea. The events of the past
twenty years had only served to emphasize some of the more important
considerations which must have been present in his mind when the plan
was originally formed. He knew, he must have known, that, unless
he were prepared to adopt the dangerous policy of entrusting the
commanders in the West with a large permanent force, the recurrence of
a rising on the part of the ever-restless Greek might be looked for so
long as the liberty of his brethren across the sea contrasted with his
own servitude in Asia.
He greatly under-estimated the difficulties of the conquest of European
Greece; but that he regarded it as a serious undertaking is shown by
the magnitude of the expedition which was despatched to Europe under
Mardonios.
The strategic plan of that campaign was similar to that adopted in
the expedition of 480. The disaster off Athos modified his design. It
showed him the dangers attendant upon the voyage of a large fleet by
that circuitous route in those stormy seas,—a voyage which would be
protracted by the necessity of keeping touch with the slow advance of
the army on land.
He determined, therefore, that the plan of the co-operation between
army and fleet must be renounced, and that the attack must be made by
the short sea-route through the islands of the Ægean.
This change of design brought a further modification in its train.
The transport of the huge numbers of a Persian levy of the first
magnitude was out of the question in the vessels of those times; and so
the new expedition was expressly limited in its _apparent_ scope to the
punishment of those states which had taken part with the Ionians.
In accordance with the methods of Persian policy under such
circumstances, it was sought to minimize the danger of the expedition
by detaching as many of the states as possible from the defence before
the attack was actually made. So in the year 491 Persian heralds were
despatched to the various cities of Greece with orders to demand
earth and water from them. Messengers were also sent to the tributary
states on the Asiatic coast, ordering them to prepare warships and
transports. Herodotus says that many of the states of the European
mainland, and all the islands to which application was made, obeyed the
demand; but it is noticeable that he does not mention any by name, save
only the island of Ægina.
The action of Ægina provoked alarm at Athens, and this, coupled
with the desire to get an old enemy into trouble, caused Athens to
make representations at Sparta with regard to the conduct of the
Æginetans.[56]
To follow the confused details given by Herodotus of the relations
between Athens and Ægina is no part of the purpose of this work,
except in so far as they affect the larger question of the relations
with Persia. In the present instance Kleomenes, of the senior branch
of the Royal house of Sparta, did interfere in Ægina in consequence
of the Athenian representations. His first visit to the Island was
ineffective. The Æginetans objected that he was acting solely on his
own authority, and not on that of the Spartan Government; otherwise, so
they said, the other king would have accompanied him. This objection
was suggested to them in a letter of Demaratos, his colleague in the
kingship.[57]
#ALLEGED MEDISM OF ÆGINA.#
The action of Demaratos rendered the relations between the two kings
so hostile, that Kleomenes intrigued to bring about the deposition of
his colleague and rival. In this he was successful, and Leutychides
succeeded to the kingship which Demaratos had held.
◆H. vi. 73.◆
Accompanied by Leutychides, Kleomenes paid a second visit to Ægina, and
received ten of the chief citizens as hostages for the good behaviour
of the state. These he gave into the charge of their “greatest
enemies,” the Athenians.
It is impossible to say with confidence that the story is historical in
all its details. The fact, however, remains that Ægina was absolutely
passive during the Marathonian campaign, and that her attitude at
the time can only be attributable to the fact that Athens had these
hostages at her mercy.
Though Athenian tradition magnified Marathon into one of the greatest
events in Hellenic history, till references to it became a tedious
commonplace in Greek diplomacy, the actual records of the time are very
meagre.[58]
The most remarkable characteristic of Herodotus’ account of the
campaign is its brevity. It cannot, however, be supposed that he
suffered in this instance from want of information. Of that there
was, doubtless, enough and to spare. Herodotus must have found in
Athens material sufficient for a much longer chapter in his history,
had he chosen to make use of all that came to his hand. He had every
temptation to do so. The Marathonian legend was regarded in his day as
one of the most glorious pages in Athenian history. A full reproduction
of it would have been an attractive feature in the historian’s work,
when presented to an Athenian audience.
The cause or causes of this striking abstention may not have been
simple or uniform.
Much of the material must have been unreliable. Popular imagination
would be certain to come into play in dealing with the story of
an event which, whatever its real nature, did greatly increase
the reputation of Athens, raising her suddenly from a position of
comparative obscurity into a place among Greek states but little
inferior to that of Sparta itself.
What has become of all this mass of legend?
Herodotus has certainly rejected the greater part of it as unworthy
of reproduction in history. It has survived in fragmentary references
in the works of the orators of a later age. Its existence provoked
historians like Theopompos to exaggerate on the side of depreciation.
◆Frag. Hist. Græc. Theop. 167.◆
The difficulty of dealing with it at the time at which Herodotus wrote
must have been very great. It cannot be said that he has been wholly
successful. He has been led, in the process of rejection, to omit
details crucially necessary for the understanding of his narrative; he
fails, for example, to quote the most notable instance, to account for
the absence of the Persian cavalry at Marathon.
He has, again, in the process of adoption, inserted details about the
command at Marathon, one of which is a demonstrable anachronism, while
others render the exact position of affairs very uncertain.
#HERODOTUS’ ACCOUNT OF MARATHON.#
But there is a further motive which must be taken into account in
a full consideration of the causes which modified his narrative.
◆H. vi. 121 _ff_.◆
To his tale of the campaign is appended a defence of the Alkmæonidæ,
which shows that the current Marathonian tradition charged that great
Athenian family with having been in collusion with the Mede.
The _possible_ effect of this feature of the tradition on the narrative
of an author writing in the days of the greatness of Pericles the
Alkmæonid cannot be ignored; though its _actual_ effect, other than
these apologetic chapters, is not traceable.
It is, however, evident that the main part of the material for the
history of the campaign up to the point where this apology begins, is
taken from a version emanating from an “aristocratic” source—that is to
say, from that party which was most bitterly opposed to Pericles at the
time at which Herodotus wrote.
It has already been pointed out that the Persian expedition of 490 was
organized on a less ambitious scale than that of 492, and that it must
consequently be concluded that its objects were less ambitious.
How far Herodotus was able in later days to obtain authentic
information from the Persian side with regard to the end which Darius
had in view, it is impossible to say; but there is a remarkable accord
between one of his statements of the Persian motives and his actual
narrative of facts. This feature of his account would not be so
striking, were it not conspicuously absent from other important parts
of his history.
The motives of the expedition seem to have been twofold—
(1) A declared motive,—the punishment of Athens and Eretria.
(2) A motive which the Persian had good reason for keeping, in so far
as possible, in the background,—the establishment of a _tête-du-pont_
on the European shore in Attica.
The first of these is expressly stated by Herodotus. Of the existence
of the second he appears to have had an inkling.
◆H. vi. 94.◆
He says that the expedition was due to Darius’ desire for revenge, and
to the charges and importunities of the Peisistratidæ. He further says
that Darius wished “on this pretext” (_i.e._ the representations made
by the Peisistratidæ) “to subdue those people in Greece which had not
given earth and water.” From an historical point of view, exception
must be taken to one phase of this last statement; in fact, in other
words in the same chapter Herodotus narrows it down to a noticeable
extent. He omits all mention of the recalcitrant states, and says that
Darius appointed Datis and Artaphernes to the command “with orders to
enslave Athens and Eretria, and to bring the slaves into his presence.”
The facts with regard to the expedition make it evident that Darius
was anxious to limit, in so far as possible, the declared scope of
it. It did not aim at a large measure of conquest in Greece. The
contrast in point of numbers between it and the expedition of Mardonios
has been already referred to. The Persian war policy of this age is
characterized by one invariable feature—a large numerical margin
relative to the end to be attained. Darius’ recent experiences in Ionia
were not likely to make him grossly underestimate the forces requisite
for any large design of conquest in Greece.
If this be recognized, certain features of the Persian policy at this
particular time become explicable. Let it be assumed that ◆H. vi. 49.◆
Herodotus’ statement as to the wide nature of the demand for “earth and
water” is correct.[59]
It was made before the expedition started; and presumably its results
were known before the fleet sailed from the Asian coast. #OBJECTIVE OF
EXPEDITION OF 490.# Thus the Persian commanders knew what they had
to expect; and, if Herodotus’ statements be correct, a large number of
states had been detached from the possible defence.
Then there was Hippias. His presence with the expedition served a
double purpose. He was an outward and visible sign of the limitations
of the Persian intentions. He was to be re-established as tyrant in
Athens. But the Persian might expect more from him. His presence might
detach Sparta from the defence. Was it not Sparta which had, not
so many years before, called the Peloponnesian states together and
proposed the forcible reinstatement of Hippias?
Everything, in fact, points to the correctness of one of the views
entertained by Herodotus, that this expedition was aimed against Athens
and Eretria alone.
It was in a sense the completion of the work done in the suppression
of the revolt, and a precaution against the recurrence of such an
outbreak. Not merely must the European Greeks be taught the danger of
interfering in the affairs of the empire, but the subjugation of the
interfering states must show the Ionians that in future they could not
expect help from their free kinsmen beyond the seas.
It is, however, impossible to suppose that the Persian design ended
here, and that, had a footing been once won in Attica, the Persian
Government would have contented itself with the punishment of that
state, and then have withdrawn its troops. ◆H. vi. 96.◆ The action
with regard to Naxos and the other Islands on the passage of the
Ægean shows that Persia intended to acquire this most effective line
of communication; in other words, that the second motive of this
expedition was identical with that which had made Artaphernes the
satrap so keen to take up the design of Aristagoras in 500 B.C., the
desire to acquire a base in the Western Ægean against European Greece.
The expedition was to be the preliminary step in larger schemes of
conquest.
It was in accord with Persian practice at this time that the command
of the new venture should be entrusted to some other general than the
leader in 492. ◆H. vi. 94.◆ Mardonios was deposed, says Herodotus,
because he had mismanaged the previous expedition. That, as has been
seen, had not been the case; and the change of leadership seems to have
been simply an instance of the regular policy of Darius with regard to
high military command.
The new generals were Datis, a Mede, and Artaphernes, the son of the
great satrap of the same name, and nephew of Darius.
From Susa the army was conducted to the Aleian plain in Cilicia, where
the fleet and transports met it. On these vessels it was embarked and
sailed to Ionia.
Herodotus never mentions the number of the force. It is a somewhat
strange omission on his part, the more so as it is his habit to give
some estimate of the strength of the Persian armies on important
expeditions. It is probable that, defective as is his appreciation
of numbers, he could not accept the exaggerated estimates of later
tradition. ◆H. vi. 95.◆ He says that the number of triremes was
600.[60] Whether this be correct or not, it is probable that if it
errs, it errs on the side of exaggeration. But assuming it to be
correct, the numbers of the expedition were extraordinarily small for
a Persian enterprise. Special transports were, indeed, provided for
the horses; but the men of the land army were embarked on board the
fleet.[61] When the smallness of the ships of those days, the largeness
of the crews necessary to work the oarage, and the fact that in the
present instance a considerable amount of room was taken up by the
horses, are taken into consideration, it is impossible to suppose that
the average number of men on board each vessel effective for service on
land can have amounted to more than a hundred; it is probable that it
amounted to considerably less.
The available force in that case was 60,000 at most, and may not have
been more than 40,000.[62]
#PERSIANS AT NAXOS AND DELOS.#
From Samos the fleet sailed past Ikarios, and through the Islands. It
first touched at Naxos, and attacked it. There the success was partial.
The town and its temples were burnt; but the mass of the population
escaped to the hills.
It is noticeable that the Naxians seem to have been caught unprepared
for the defence. There is no resistance such as had been successful ten
years before. Up to this time the preparations of the Greeks to meet
the storm had not passed the initial stage of vague anticipation. Naxos
doubtless warned Athens and Eubœa. Even the preparations of Athens seem
to have been made in a hurry.
Forewarned by the events in the neighbouring island of Naxos, the
inhabitants of sacred Delos fled to Tenos. Datis, however, treated
the pan-Hellenic sanctuary with marked consideration, and is reported
to have offered sacrifice there. This was in accord with the manifest
intention of the Persians to give the Greeks generally the impression
that the expedition aimed merely at vengeance on those states which
had been guilty of _lèse-majesté_ against the Great King; Naxos by its
resistance in B.C. 499; Eretria and Athens by their interference in
B.C. 498. Nor would such an impression have been a false one, in so far
as the _immediate_ circumstances were concerned.
◆H. vi 98.◆
After the departure of Datis, there was an earthquake at Delos,
the first and the last, so Herodotus says, up to the time of his
writing.[63]
◆H. vi. 99.◆
From Delos the fleet went round the islands collecting men, and finally
came to Karystos, in South Eubœa. This town refused a contingent,
until the ravaging of its territory brought it to terms.
◆H. vi. 100.◆
Meanwhile Eretria had heard of the coming expedition, and had sent to
Athens begging help. Athens did not turn a deaf ear to the appeal;
and, though she could not spare men from Attica, she ordered the 4000
Athenian settlers (Kleruchs), who held the lands of that Chalkis which
had been conquered sixteen years before, to go to the help of Eretria.
The tale of what followed, as told by Herodotus, is not wholly
consistent; and it may be suspected that part of it was intended by its
creators to cloke the cowardice of these Kleruchs.[64]
Opinions in Eretria, so the story runs, were divided. One party wished
to leave the city and take refuge in the heights of Eubœa; the other
planned treason and surrender to the Persian. A prominent citizen of
Eretria, Æschines, the son of Nothos, warned the Kleruchs of this
unsound state of things, and advised them to go home. They did more
than this, for they crossed over to the mainland, and took refuge
at Oropos. Then the tale becomes inconsistent; for, on the Persians
landing and disembarking their cavalry, the Eretrians elect to stand
a siege, and for six days make a brave defence against every attack,
losing many men themselves, but also inflicting severe losses on the
enemy.
After that treachery did its work. Two prominent citizens admitted the
Persians into the town. The temples were burnt “in retaliation for the
burning of the temples at Sardes,” and the population was enslaved
“according to the commands of Darius.”
◆H. vi. 102.◆
After reducing Eretria, and waiting for a few days, the Persians sailed
to Attica in hot haste,[65] thinking to treat the Athenians in the
same way as they had treated the Eretrians. #TOPOGRAPHY OF MARATHON.#
Hippias, the son of Peisistratos, led them to Marathon, as being
the most suitable ground in Attica for cavalry, and nearest to Eretria.
[Illustration: MARATHON: FROM THE “SOROS,” LOOKING TOWARDS LITTLE MARSH.
1. Euripus. 2. Little Marsh. 3. Slope of Mount Agrieliki.
[_To face page_ 163.
]
It may be well, before seeking to account for the choice of Marathon as
a landing-place, to describe briefly the plain and its surroundings, as
well as its lines of communication with Athens.
_The Topography of Marathon._
The plain of Marathon is situated on the east coast of Attica, on
the shores of the southern Euripus, at a distance by road of about
twenty-four miles from Athens. It is one of those alluvial plains which
have been formed by the _débris_ brought down by torrents at the head
of a broad bay. This bay is sheltered on the north-east by the long,
narrow, rocky promontory of Kynosura, which projects for more than a
mile from the general line of the coast. Longitudinally the plain runs
from north-east to south-west, having a length of from four and a half
to five miles. Its breadth from the shore of the bay to the foot of the
hills which surround it is from a mile and a half to two miles. These
hills are not, save on the south-west side, very lofty, or very steep;
but their surface is of that peculiarly rugged nature characteristic of
Greek mountain slopes.
At either extremity of the plain is a marsh. That on the north-east is
very extensive, reaching from the mountains all but to the sea. That
on the south-west is small; but being at the extreme end of the plain
where Mount Agrieliki comes within a half or three-quarters of a mile
from the coast, it renders the passage from the south along the foot of
this hill very narrow. This little marsh, though, of course, much drier
in summer than in winter, was not, I should say, traversable in August,
1899; and this, too, after a prolonged period of drought. The interval
between the two marshes is a little more than three miles.
The interval of ground is traversed near its centre by the torrent
known as the Charadra, the bed of which is sufficiently marked to form
an appreciable military obstacle.
Herodotus’ description of Marathon is noticeable for its absence of
topographical detail, and in this respect is in strong contrast with
his descriptions of Thermopylæ and Platæa. Topographically speaking, he
knows more even of Mykale than he does of Marathon.
There is, in fact, no evidence, direct or indirect, of his ever
having visited the field; and the absence of all descriptive detail is
strong presumptive evidence that he never had done so.
This may be simply due to the fact that Marathon, unlike Thermopylæ
and Platæa, is not on any of the main roads of Greece; but, as it is
only twenty-four miles from Athens, and as Herodotus shows himself
peculiarly anxious to give topographical details wherever he is
describing events of first-rate importance, it would seem as if he did
not regard Marathon as being of so much significance as the Athenians
made it out to have been. Of purely physical features he says not a
word. Of other details he simply mentions the place of the encampment
of the Athenians, the sacred precinct of Herakles, the site of which
has been discovered high up that valley of Avlona which leads up among
the hills from the south-west verge of the plain.
South of the Charadra the plain is highly cultivated, mainly with the
vine. If it was so in 490 B.C., it would not have been by any means
unimpeded ground for cavalry, as the Greek habit of allowing the
vine-tendrils to run along the surface renders the vineyards of the
country troublesome, if not dangerous, obstacles to the passage of a
mounted man going at more than a foot’s pace. North of the Charadra the
cultivation is more sparse and the ground more open.
From the plain two roads lead to Athens:
(1)
An upper one, which leaves the plain in two branches, one of which
goes up the valley of the Charadra past the modern Marathona, and then
bends W.S.W. through the hills in the direction of Athens. About a
mile and a half beyond Marathona it is joined by the second branch,
which, leaving the plain near the modern Vrana, goes up the valley of
Avlona and through the site of the precinct of Herakles, which is
situated near, though not at the point of junction of the two.
From this point the road proceeds over the mountains, and, passing the
modern Stamata, descends into the Athenian plain near Kephisia, whence
it goes direct to Athens.
It is a rugged track, though not very difficult, and is certainly that
which was used by the Athenians in their advance to Marathon.
[Illustration: THE “SOROS” AT MARATHON.
[_To face page_ 165.
]
(2)
A lower road, practically coincident with the modern carriage road
from Marathon to Athens. It is much easier than the upper one. The
country it traverses is easy. There are no steep gradients. It passes
through a long stretch of thin pine forest. It leaves the plain by
the narrow passage between the little marsh and Mount Agrieliki.
The important feature of this road is that it is, and must always have
been, easily traversable by cavalry. I mention this, because some
emphatic statements to the contrary have been made in some modern
treatises on the subject of the battle.
The only two landmarks on or near the field which can be said to be in
any way decisive as to the history of the battle are both artificial
in origin.
They are—
(1)
The precinct of Herakles, already mentioned. The site was determined
by Lolling in 1876.[66]
(2)
The soros, or mound, raised over the Athenian dead.
The absence of any mention of this by Herodotus is of itself
significant evidence that he had never visited the ground.
It stands, as will be seen from the map, about half a mile from the
shore, and about a mile and a quarter south of the Charadra.
Pausanias (i. 32. 3–5,7) mentions it in his description of the
neighbourhood. That description bears all the traces of being founded
on autopsy.
Of the grave of the Athenians he says, “There is a grave of the
Athenians in the plain, and on it are columns with the names of the
dead upon them, according to their tribes.”
He also mentions the important negative fact that he could not find
any tomb or mound marking the burial-place of the Medes.
The soros, in its present state, is an earthen mound with rather steep
sides, between twenty and thirty feet high. The fact of its being a
tomb has been proved by recent excavation.
Why the Persians landed at Marathon has always been a matter of
dispute. The reason given by Herodotus, namely its suitability for
cavalry, is not convincing, because the plain of Athens itself, not to
speak of the Thriasian plain, is more suitable for cavalry operations.
Moreover, the Persians made no use of this arm during the battle.
The plan of the Persian campaign, as far as Athens was concerned, was
based on calculations dependent on circumstances other than purely
military, to which it is necessary to turn, in order to account for the
adoption of a design for which no adequate reason of a purely strategic
nature can be suggested.
Very little is known of the history of the internal politics at Athens
during the decade between 500 and 490 B.C. In the previous decade there
had been a fierce struggle between the aristocratic and democratic
parties under Isagoras and Kleisthenes respectively, which, after
several turns of fortune, had apparently ended in the victory of the
democrats. But in spite of the absence of direct reference to this
special side of history in the records of the first ten years of the
fifth century, certain well-attested incidents show that the struggle
for supremacy between the parties had not been decided before the new
century began.
Greek cities were rarely free from intrigue; and it would seem to have
been unusually rife in the Athens of 490. It has already been pointed
out that in a version of the tale of Marathon current in Herodotus’
own time the Alkmæonidæ were accused of having been in league with
the Persian. Herodotus’ defence of them, by its manifest weakness, is
strong evidence against them. They were conspicuous for their hatred of
tyranny, he says. They had driven out Hippias. He might have added that
they had also driven out Peisistratos, but had been instrumental in
restoring him.
He ignores their relations with Peisistratos, not to say anything of
those with Kleisthenes of Sikyon. He forgets for the moment that they
had been in the pay of a Lydian king.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF MARATHON
London: John Murray, Albemarle St.
_Stanford’s Geog^l. Estab^t. London._
]
#POLITICAL PARTIES AT ATHENS.#
The charge made with regard to their conduct at this time was that
they signalled to the Persian fleet at Marathon by means of a shield,
that Athens, in the absence of the Athenian army, lay open, and that a
party within the city would admit the invaders.
Herodotus does not deny the shield incident. He confines himself to
asserting that the Alkmæonidæ could not have had anything to with it.
It is noticeable that he makes no charge against any one else, for
the apparent reason that tradition did not accuse any one else of the
treachery.
The defence he gives is probably that of the Alkmæonidæ themselves.
The charge against the Alkmæonidæ does not seem to have been a late
interpolation into the Marathon tradition. ◆Pind. Pyth. vii. 15.◆
Pindar, in one of his odes, which bears traces of having been composed
shortly after 486, hints strongly that sinister reports on this subject
were existent even at that time.
It is possible to fail to recognize the wide difference between the
mental attitude of the European Greek to the Persian before and
after the decade of 490–480. Before 490, Medism had not acquired the
loathsome significance of twelve years later.
Nor, again, if the Alkmæonidæ and the faction which they led did
Medize on this occasion, was the act without precedent in the case
of Athens herself. Between fifteen and twenty years before, Athenian
ambassadors had given earth and water to Artaphernes at Sardes. Their
act had, indeed, been condemned upon their return; but there is no
reason to suppose that the condemnation was unanimous; and there is
every reason to believe that they would never have so acted, had they
not had good grounds for thinking that a majority or a party of their
fellow-country-men would approve of what they had done.
The sudden withdrawal of Athenian assistance from the Ionian revolt
within a year of that assistance having been granted is most explicable
on the assumption that within that year a philo-Medic party had once
more acquired the ascendency.
The punishment of Phrynichos for his drama on the capture of
Miletus looks very much like the work of the same party.
It seems clear that the democrats in Athens had not found that the
expulsion of the tyrant Hippias had brought unmixed blessings in
its train. They were thereafter face to face with a strong internal
opposition, in the shape of a powerful aristocratic party; and
threatened from outside by a Sparta which repented of the part it
had played in Hippias’ expulsion, and was exasperated at having been
fooled by Delphi at the instigation of the Alkmæonidæ. It is not, then,
strange that the democrats should look abroad for help of which they
saw no prospect nearer home.
The situation of the democratic party had been very unstable. Its
sympathies had been balanced on a razor’s edge, ready to incline to
the one side or the other on the slightest shifting of the weights in
the political scale. The severities of the last years of the rule of
Hippias, after the murder of Hipparchos, had been sufficient to make
it passively acquiesce when the intrigues of the Alkmæonidæ against
the tyrant were brought to a successful termination by the agency of
Sparta; but they had not wholly blotted out the memory of the fact that
the triumph of Peisistratos had been in a very real sense the triumph
of democracy.
By the reforms of Kleisthenes, however, the Alkmæonidæ had made a
strong and successful bid for popular favour; and from 509 onward the
fortunes of the democratic party were closely linked with those of this
powerful clan.
The opposition, backed by the influence of the repentant Sparta, was
dangerously strong. First one side and then the other held the upper
hand; but, in the years immediately preceding Marathon, the political
fortunes of the democrats seem to have been at a low ebb. There had
been one great trial of strength. Miltiades had arrived in Athens in
493, an exile from his tyranny in the Thracian Chersonese, driven
out by the Persians. #POSITION OF THE DEMOCRATS IN 490.# He was not
likely to sympathize with any party which had shown leanings towards
Persia; he seems, indeed from the moment of his return, to have
set himself up and to have been recognized as the champion of the
aristocratic and anti-Persian party. As such he was attacked by the
democrats, being prosecuted on a charge of “tyranny” in the Chersonese.
His acquittal was a great victory for the aristocrats, and a severe
blow for their opponents.
From 493 to 490 his party seems to have been in power. It is quite
evident, at any rate, that he was the foremost man in Athens at the
time of Marathon.
The outlook for the democrats was gloomy. It is not strange if they
began to regret the past. The “golden age” of Peisistratos gained in
glory from its being far. His tyranny had been more of a blessing than
a curse to the mass of the people. The yoke it had laid upon them
had been light; and, in return for their submission to it, they had
attained to a prosperity they had never before enjoyed.
The present was full of possibilities in great contrast to that past.
The reforms of Kleisthenes, that great measure, or series of measures,
which had purchased their oblivion of a beneficent tyranny, seemed
likely to be undone. The Demos was not bound any longer to forget, if
it was like to be robbed of the price of forgetting.
Thus, not unnaturally, the thoughts of a section of the Athenians,
headed by the Alkmæonidæ, turned to Hippias. His restoration would be
a lesser evil than a return to the old oppressions of the days before
Peisistratos.
It is a satisfactorily attested fact in the history of this time
that there was “treason” at Athens; in other words, that there was a
party in the state which would have welcomed the return of Hippias.
Herodotus would have denied it if he could honestly have done so; but
he emphatically admits the truth of it.[67]
Apart from the general political circumstances of the time, Hippias and
the Peisistratidæ might reckon on the assistance of many old family
adherents in Athens.
When it came to a question as to the possible means of bringing about
the restoration, neither Hippias nor his adherents had any
choice.[68] It could only be accomplished through the instrumentality of
the Persian—a dangerous means, perhaps, but the only means; and those
who risked the danger were not, before 490, in a position to estimate
the full extent of it. The real policy of Persia cannot as yet have
been known to the Greeks.
Before proceeding to show in what way these political circumstances
affected the strategy of the campaign, it may be well to glance at the
general form which the Marathonian tradition took in later days.
Marathon greatly enhanced the reputation of Athens. Nor can there
be any doubt that the Athenians were not slow in discovering this.
Therefore the process of evolution by which the tradition became a
tale of a great national effort would be an eminently natural one.
As such the Athenian would present it to those outside the bounds of
Attica. The ugly features of the story would certainly be, in so far
as possible, suppressed in all editions of it given to the world in
general.
Those features would, however, be certain to survive in an edition
evolved in the party struggles within Athens itself, and the aristocrat
would regard Marathon as excellent material whereon to base an attack
on a political opponent.
Aristophanes, nearly three-quarters of a century after the battle,
was much more inclined to emphasize its importance as a triumph of
aristocracy over democracy, than as a victory of Greek over barbarian.
With him the “party” tradition had more weight than the “national.”
Is it, then, to be assumed that the Athenian democrat had no honest
claim to a share in the victory? This is a question which, on the
extant evidence, is very difficult to answer.
One negative fact is quite certain. Marathon was _not_[69] a crowning
victory for the new democracy. The opposite was rather the case.
#MEDIZING TENDENCIES OF THE DEMOCRATS.#
At the same time it is quite conceivable that, at the last moment,
certain circumstances saved a large number of those in the plot
from themselves, and so brought about its failure.
The Persians made a gross blunder in treating Eretria as they did,
above all at that particular time. The news of what had happened
there reached Athens before even the Persians landed at Marathon. The
effect of the news would necessarily be to show the party supporting
Hippias their error in supposing that the Persians intended, in case
of success, to allow anything but their own feelings and their own
interests to dictate their policy towards the conquered states. Such a
disclosure must have given the resistance a solidarity which it would
otherwise have lacked. Many of those originally in the plot must have
been present in the army at Marathon. It is quite certain, apart from
the necessities of the military levy, that Miltiades would not have
left any considerable body of the malcontents in Athens. Yet there is
no mention of any difficulties in the army itself when at Marathon; nor
is there any “voluntary cowardice” in the battle. There the democrat
seems to have fought just as well as his political opponent.
The fate of Eretria was a lesson which the Athenian democrat never
forgot. Persia had undeceived him once and for all. The shock of
awaking to the terrible nature of the danger in which he had involved
his country by supposing his own interests to be identical with those
of Persia was so rude that its effects were permanent.
But the Persians went to Marathon in the expectation that disaffection
in Athens would do its work.
The position at Marathon offered several advantages.
(1) They could afford to bide their time there until they received word
that the conspiracy in Athens was ripe for fulfilment, because the fact
of the ground being suitable for cavalry would either deter the Greeks
from attacking them, or would give them a great advantage in case they
did so.
(2) If, as they no doubt hoped, and might well expect, the Greek army
marched thither to meet them, the conspiracy in Athens might proceed
unimpeded; and, when it was ripe, they might leave part of their army
at Marathon, a long day’s march from Athens, to occupy the attention
of the Athenians, while with the remainder they sailed round to
occupy the capital.
This last seems, at any rate, to have been the plan which they
attempted to carry out. It may or may not have existed in whole or in
part at the time of the landing at Marathon.
The Persian did not want to _fight_ at Marathon, though he was prepared
to do so in case the Athenians decided to attack on ground of his own
choosing.[70]
His great object was to get the Greek army as far as possible from
Athens, and, if possible, to keep it there.
The fact that the Persians did not, in spite of their knowledge of the
treachery within the town, attempt a direct assault on Athens, points
to the same conclusion, which is suggested by other considerations,
namely that the expedition was not on a very large scale. It was,
indeed, formed, and it acted throughout, upon the assumption that it
would receive a large measure of assistance from Athens itself.
◆H. vi. 103.◆
On hearing that the Persians had landed at Marathon, the Athenian army
marched to that place.
Before leaving the city, the generals had despatched a professional
despatch runner named Philippides[71] to Sparta, to summon assistance.
◆H. vi. 106.◆ He made a marvellously quick journey, for he is stated
to have arrived at Sparta on the day after leaving Athens; and if, as
would be presumably the case in a matter so urgent, he communicated his
message immediately to the Spartan authorities, he arrived there on the
9th day of the month, and thus left Athens on the 8th.[72]
#ATTITUDE OF SPARTA.#
◆H. vi. 106.◆
It is unnecessary to insist on the verbal accuracy of the message which
is put into his mouth by Herodotus; but the matter of it contains what
are, no doubt, the historic facts:—
(1) That the news of the fall of Eretria reached the Athenians _before_
they started for Marathon.
(2) That Philippides was despatched after this news arrived, but
(inasmuch as there is no mention of the landing of the Persians in
Attica) before the news of their landing had reached Athens.
The appeal to Sparta, and the Spartan answer, show that there must
have existed some agreement between the two states, to the effect that
Sparta would come to the aid of Athens in case of invasion. If, then,
the Persians had reckoned that the presence of Hippias with their army
would be sufficient to ward off Spartan interference, they had reckoned
on the stable policy of a government whose policy was in those years
most markedly unstable and uncertain.
But, though expressing themselves willing to come to the aid of Athens,
the Spartans alleged that they could not, without breaking the law,
start before the full moon; in other words, that their coming would be
delayed at least a week.[73]
On what day of the month the Athenians received the news of the landing
at Marathon, Herodotus does not say; but, inasmuch as the battle must
have taken place about the 16th,[74] and the armies were face to face
with one another for several days before the engagement took place, the
news can hardly have arrived later than the 10th day of the month.
On receipt of it, the Athenians started for Marathon. It would be a
long day’s march, and a hard journey over the rugged upper road.
On arriving there they encamped in the sacred precinct of Herakles.
◆H. vi 108.◆
An examination of the map will show how well the position was chosen.
It lay high up the rocky valley of Avlona, so near the point where the
two forks of the upper road to Athens from the Marathonian plain join
one another, that it commanded them both. Moreover, the army in this
position would threaten the flank of any body of troops who tried to
march on Athens by the lower road, which left the plain between the
foot of Mount Agrieliki, (to use its modern name), and the little marsh.
Herodotus’ account of the system of command existent at this time
in the Athenian army service is confused, and contains at least one
serious anachronism. It leaves the reader in a state of uncertainty as
to whether the polemarch Kallimachos or the “general” Miltiades was the
actual commander-in-chief.*
* * * * *
_On the Command at Marathon._
*He says (ch. 103): “They were led by ten generals, of whom Miltiades
was the tenth.” The last phrase closely resembles the quasi-official
phraseology of Thucydides, where he is mentioning the generals in
command of an expedition, and wishes to indicate the one who had
been appointed first in command. Though the phraseology of Herodotus
does not exactly correspond with that of the later author, yet the
resemblance is so close that it seems probable that he was under the
impression that the “strategi” of 490 held a position more closely
analogous to that of the strategi of his own day than was actually the
case. #THE COMMAND AT MARATHON.# It seems to imply that the command of
the army lay with them, and that in 490, as in later times, one of
them was appointed to be first in command for a particular expedition.
This last was certainly not the case. The ten strategi or “generals”
in 490 seem to have been the commanders of the contingents of the ten
tribes which Kleisthenes had instituted less than twenty years before;
and, in so far as the control of the army as a whole was concerned, to
have formed, under the presidency of the polemarch, a council of war.
In a later chapter (110), Herodotus says that each held a πρυτανηίη τῆς
ἡμέρης. In whatever sense the term πρυτανηίη may have been used, it is
plain from the context that Herodotus intends to imply that each of the
strategi in rotation commanded the army for one day.
It is quite certain that Herodotus is mistaken in this view; but it is
not easy to say how the mistake arose. The most probable explanation
is that he was trying to account for the prominent part played by
Miltiades in the version of the battle which he followed, by assigning
him a much higher official position in the army than he actually held.
Herodotus’ account of the events at Marathon is obviously taken from a
source wholly different to that of his defence of the Alkmæonidæ. The
former is a current tradition, relating the story from an aristocratic
point of view. The other is an Alkmæonid (and therefore, in a sense,
democratic) denial of a charge preserved in the “aristocratic”
tradition.
Herodotus had more difficulty in understanding the position of
Miltiades than we have at the present day.
His mistake with regard to Miltiades precludes him from giving any
definite account of the position of the polemarch Kallimachos. He does
not make any positive, direct statement as to his military rank, though
he represents him (chap. 109) as a sort of chairman of the council of
the strategi.
He evidently _supposes_ that he is not commander-in-chief, though he
mentions that he commanded the right wing, the post of honour, in the
battle.
He further speaks of the polemarch as an official “chosen by lot.”
◆Arist. Ath. Pol. 22.◆
We know from the “Constitution of Athens” this choice of lot was not
introduced into the selections for the archonship till 487. Herodotus’
statement is therefore an anachronism.
So far, then, as Herodotus’ meaning can be unravelled from the confused
account which he gives of the system of command at this time, he
seems to have supposed it to have been constituted on the following
lines:—
1. Supreme Control—Board or Council of War. Composed of—10
strategi + 1 polemarch (chosen, like the other archons, by lot),
who is apparently President of the Board.
2. Command in the field—Held by each of the strategi in rotation for
one day at a time.
3. Post of honour in the battle—Held by polemarch, as commanding the
right wing.
It may be doubted whether Herodotus took any very great interest in
the question of organization. It is quite certain that he had great
difficulty in getting reliable information about the matter. It would,
in fact, seem as if he had deduced the general system of command in 490
from—
(1) The system of command prevalent in later times.
(2) Two circumstances in his own narrative—
(_а_) The prominent part played by Miltiades;
(_b_) His belief that the polemarch and other archons were selected
by lot as early as 490.
From (1) he drew the conclusion that the supreme control lay with the
board of strategi, as it did in his own time.
From (1) and (2_a_) he concluded that the system prevalent in his time
of appointing one of the strategi as superior to his colleagues in the
command of some special expedition or department prevailed at the time
of Marathon; that is to say, that Miltiades was in a position analogous
to that which Perikles had held on several occasions in Herodotus’ own
time.
Still, he is evidently uncertain on this point; and he accounts for
Miltiades’ position by assuming a system of diurnal rotation in the
command, ◆H. vi. 110.◆ and by representing that some of Miltiades’
colleagues surrendered their days of command to him.
From (2_b_) he draws the very important conclusion that the polemarch
was no longer commander-in-chief.
He has ante-dated this particular application of the system of lot by
three years. It is obvious that the Athenian citizen would not entrust
his life when serving in the field to a commander appointed by such a
method. His belief in Providence, as represented by the lot, had its
limitations. Herodotus was probably well aware that, from the moment of
the introduction of the lot into the election of the archons, the
polemarch had ceased to command the army.
Perhaps, after all, the main difficulty which would be experienced by
an inquirer in the latter half of the fifth century into the system
of command existent in 490, would arise from the fact that that year
fell within what was a comparatively brief period of transition in
the Athenian army system, intermediate between the old organization
existent before the reforms of Kleisthenes, and the completely new
organization which was introduced between 490 and 480, probably in
487, and prevailed with hardly any modification during the rest of the
century.
The reforms of Kleisthenes, by substituting ten tribes for four, had
rendered a certain amount of army reorganization necessary. Thereafter
the army was constituted in ten tribal regiments, each commanded by one
of the strategi:[75] “they chose the generals by tribes, one from each
tribe.” What other _novelties_ there were in the system we do not know;
but of the system itself, as existent at Marathon, we derive a certain
amount of knowledge from the Aristotelian treatise on the Constitution
of Athens, and with its aid we may now proceed to set in order the
confused and mistaken account of Herodotus.
That treatise distinctly states (Ch. 22) that the polemarch was
chief-in-command at Marathon. This is, perhaps, a conclusion at which
a close student of Herodotus’ uncertain account would arrive. ◆H. vi.
109.◆ The attitude of Miltiades towards him at the celebrated Council
of War is that of an official inferior. His command of the right wing
would argue that he was, at least _de jure_, the chief of the army.
Of the position of the strategi the treatise says but little. It
seems certain, however, that, in addition to commanding the tribal
contingents, they formed, as Herodotus implies, a council of war
presided over by the polemarch.
This council of war seems to have had considerable powers. The more
important and general questions of war policy seem to have been decided
by its vote, rather than by the orders of the polemarch.
It is, perhaps, to this feature that we may attribute the undoubted
power which Miltiades exercised at this time. Herodotus sought to
account for it by ascribing to him a higher official position than
he actually possessed. He had not made up his mind what that
position was, and limited himself to making two vague and inconsistent
suggestions with regard to it. It is possible, however, to see that
Miltiades’ prominence at the time arose from his being the author of
a plan which he persuaded the council of war to adopt. It may be even
the case that Kallimachos and the council, when once the plan was
definitely adopted, left him with a free hand to carry it out; and that
this feature in the history of the time has survived in Herodotus’ tale
of the surrender to Miltiades by the other generals of their days of
command.
* * * * *
The historian himself makes no positive pronouncement on the matter.
He is aware that the victory was due to Miltiades, and he therefore
seeks to invest that general with special powers such as could be
conferred on particular generals at the time at which he wrote. Until
the discovery of the treatise on the “Constitution of Athens,” an
Aristotelian work, if not a work of Aristotle, the explanation of the
difficulties in Herodotus could only be a subject of conjecture.
◆Arist A. P. 22.◆
That treatise, however, states definitely that the polemarch was
commander-in-chief at Marathon, and that the ten generals were elected
one from each tribe. They were, in fact, commanders of the tribal
contingents.
But they were more than this. They formed a council of war at which the
polemarch presided. The major decisions with regard to all operations
were made by the council and not by the polemarch; and Miltiades’
prominence at the time was due to his having persuaded the council to
adopt his strategic and tactical plans. He seems, furthermore, to have
been given, either by Kallimachos or by the council, a free hand in
carrying them out.
It is not unnatural that this should have come to pass.
The plan was good enough to recommend itself; it seems, indeed, to
have been one of the ablest designs traceable in the history of Greek
warfare; and it was very ably carried out.
#PERSIAN POSITION AT MARATHON.#
The designer was, moreover, at the time the most prominent and
most powerful man in Athens. He probably enjoyed a far greater military
reputation than any of his contemporaries, as having seen more service
than any one else, and, above all, as being acquainted with Persian
methods of warfare. He was eminently a man to whom Kallimachos might
defer, although his titular position was not higher than that of the
other generals.
◆H. vi. 108.◆
While the Athenians were encamped at the sacred precinct of Herakles,
they were joined by a contingent from the Bœotian town of Platæa.
Some twenty-nine years before this time the Athenians had taken the
little city under their protection against its formidable neighbour
Thebes, which had tried to force it to become a member of the Bœotian
confederacy. It was out of gratitude for the aid then given, and for
the protection afterwards extended to them, that the Platæans now
shared the perils of their benefactors.
While the Athenian position at Marathon is clearly determined by the
identification of the precinct of Herakles, the station taken up by
the Persian army must remain a matter of uncertainty. No topographical
detail by which it can be identified has survived. The “Soros” shows,
indeed, where the actual fight took place; but it does _not_ define
the position of the Persian army during the days of waiting before the
battle was fought. The only detail preserved in the various traditions
of the battle which can be said to cast any light on the position of
the original encampment of the Persian force is that the Persian fleet
was “anchored” at Marathon, not drawn up on shore.[76]
The truth of the detail is rendered probable by the general history
of events, in which it is conspicuously shown that the Persian design
demanded that a portion, at least, of their fleet should be ready to
start at a moment’s notice.
Except at the northern end, where the promontory of Kynosura forms
a natural breakwater, the bay of Marathon is open and exposed. As an
anchorage for vessels the northern end would naturally be chosen.
It may be presumed that the army would be encamped in the immediate
neighbourhood of the fleet; and, if so, its original position must have
been north of the Charadra, hidden from the Greek encampment by the
rise of the modern Mount Kotroni. Doubtless both sides had outposts in
view of the enemy’s camp.
◆H. vi. 109.◆
On their arrival at Marathon the Athenians held a council of war.
Herodotus’ account of it, though it must be regarded as a valuable
contribution to the history of the time, is somewhat distorted by the
evident fact that he did not understand the nature of the circumstances
by which the Greek generals were faced. He represents the question
under discussion as having been of an absolute character, namely,
whether the Athenians should take the offensive or remain on the
defensive. He involves himself consequently in an inconsistency.
Miltiades urges the immediate offensive, lest delay may give treachery
time to do its work in Athens itself. The opinions of the ten generals
are divided on the question; and it is to Kallimachos the polemarch,
who has the deciding vote, that the earnest appeal of Miltiades is
addressed. Kallimachos is persuaded, and not only that, but the four
generals who have voted for Miltiades’ plan hand over their days of
command to him. The latter, however, with singular inconsistency,
though he has urged the immediate offensive, defers the attack until
his own day of command has come round.
There can be no doubt that Herodotus, or the creator of the traditions
which he followed, has misunderstood the position at the time. The
question of the offensive, as discussed by the Athenian council of war,
was not an absolute question, but was relative to circumstances which
might at any moment supervene. Nor is it difficult to see what those
circumstances were. It is also clear that the Greek generals must have
been cognizant of them.
#THE ATHENIAN COUNCIL OF WAR.#
The Persians must have landed at Marathon some forty-eight hours
before the Greeks arrived there. The news of their landing had to be
carried to Athens; then the army had to march twenty-four miles over
a rugged road to reach its position at the Herakleion. The Athenian
generals must have started under the impression that the Persian army
intended to march from Marathon upon Athens. Scouts would, however,
inform them in the course of the march that the Persians showed no
signs of moving. Arriving near Marathon, they would find the strong
defensive positions in the passes leading from the plain unoccupied.
Surely this would convince the quick-witted Greek that the Persian
design was not what he had supposed it to be,—an immediate advance on
Athens,—but that either the landing at Marathon was a mere feint, _or_
that the Persian wished to choose his own ground for the battle. Once
at the Herakleion the position would further develop.
Strategically the Greek had attained a highly advantageous position.
The Persian could not advance on Athens by land without _either_
exposing his flank in an attempt to pass along the lower road,
_or_ committing himself to an assault on the strong position at
the Herakleion, where he could not use his cavalry, and where the
heavy-armed Greek would have an immense advantage.
Nor, on the other hand, could he embark and attempt the sea passage
round Sunium, without exposing himself to serious danger in the process
of embarkation.
From the purely military point of view, there was absolutely no reason
why, unless circumstances developed in one of these two directions, the
Greek should not bide his time. The only risk involved in so doing was
the possible working of treachery in Athens, a risk which must have
been very sensibly decreased since the arrival of the news of the fate
of Eretria. On the other hand, every day’s delay rendered the arrival
of the Spartans more possible.
The question debated by the council of war was not the mere abstract
question of the offensive, but whether, in case the Persians attempted
to move on Athens by land or by sea, they should be attacked in the
attempt; or whether, at the first sign of movement, the Athenians
should return to defend Athens.
The position on the Persian side was certainly less advantageous. Their
design can only be judged of by the record of what they did and did not
do.
Their omission to seize the passes leading from the Marathonian plain
towards Athens, although they had plenty of time to do so, must be
taken to imply conclusively that they never intended at any time to try
to advance by land from Marathon.
Nor does it seem to have been their primary intention to fight the
Athenians at Marathon. They were prepared to do so on ground of their
own choosing, if the Athenians showed a disposition that way; but their
main design was, having attracted the Athenians to Marathon, to keep
them there while treachery in Athens had time to do its work. So far,
they had everything to gain by delay.
But there was another factor on which they had to reckon, and that was
the Spartan army. It is impossible to doubt that they were kept well
informed by their friends in Athens of all that had passed. They must
have known of the message sent to Sparta, of the reply received, and of
the date at which the arrival of the Spartans might be expected. The
Spartans would start at full moon, on the 15th of the month. To the
Persian, then, the period of possible delay was limited.
During the days which followed the arrival of the Athenians at the
Herakleion, the Persians must have waited impatiently for that signal
which was to tell them that the conspirators had done their work in
Athens,—that signal which never came until too late. Day after day
passed, and still there was no sign. The Spartans would be starting
now: it was the fifteenth. It was not merely a question of their
arrival at Marathon: even if they reached Athens, the game was lost.
It was probably on the 16th day of the month that the Persians made up
their minds that something must be done. Unless they acted promptly,
they might as well not act at all. #THE PERSIAN FORCE IN THE BATTLE.#
The Spartans might be expected at Athens on the 18th or 19th.
They arrived there on the 17th, as a fact, making a march rapid beyond
expectation.
It was probably on the night between the 15th and 16th that the
Persian preparations were made. Herodotus knows little about what
happened until the armies faced one another for battle. Yet there are
indications and omissions in his story which point to the course which
events followed.
On the day of the battle the Greeks in the valley of Avlona found a
Persian army facing them in the southern part of the Marathonian plain.
◆H. vi 111.◆ It was evidently drawn up in battle array, for the Greek
formation seems to have been modified to suit that of the enemy.[77]
What was this Persian force which faced the Greeks? There are two
circumstances in Herodotus’ account which render it practically certain
that only a moiety of the land army of the expedition actually fought
in the battle. Herodotus never mentions the Persian cavalry as having
played any part at all in it. They had been landed in Eubœa at the time
of the attack on Eretria. ◆H. vi. 102.◆ Marathon had been chosen as a
landing-place, because, says Herodotus, it was suitable for cavalry.
Yet in the account of the battle they are never mentioned.[78] Had they
been in the battle they must have played a prominent part in it. It
must, therefore, be concluded that they were not there. If they were
not, where were they? Many conjectures have been made on this subject.
It seems almost certain that they were on the fleet; that they had
been already embarked, together with a large, if not the larger, part
of the Persian army.[79]
No rational estimate can, on the extant evidence, place the numbers of
those who fought on the Persian side in the actual battle at much above
20,000. It might even be reasonably argued that they did not amount
even to that sum.
Those numbers grew in the evolution of the tradition, until they
reached an enormous magnitude. Herodotus is silent on the subject. He
is fond of giving numbers on such occasions. It must be concluded that
he was not satisfied with his evidence on this point.[80]
Tradition surviving in various authors later than Herodotus gives
the number of the Athenians and Platæans at about 10,000 men. It is
probable that few had been left in Athens, so that the major part
of the levy would be present at Marathon. If any conclusion can be
drawn from the number of Athenians stated to have been present eleven
years later at Platæa it would seem as if tradition did not grossly
underestimate the number of those present on the Greek side.[81]
#PERSIAN AND ATHENIAN STRATEGY.#
On the available evidence, positive statement as to the proportion
of numbers between the two armies which fought in the battle is
impossible. All that can be said is that it is highly improbable that
the Persians outnumbered the Greeks by two to one, and quite possible
that the disproportion between the two armies was not very great.
It may be well now to form a conjecture as to the strategy which
prompted the Persian general to make this disposition of their forces.
It would seem that, fearing the arrival of the Spartans at Marathon,
or even at Athens, they had determined to carry out the plan they
had intended to put into operation as soon as they should receive
the signal from their Athenian confederates. The signal had not been
given; but they could not wait. They must take their chance at Athens,
and hope to find the treason there in a sufficiently forward state to
render their entrance into the city possible. So they divided their
forces, leaving a sufficient number at Marathon to occupy the attention
of the Athenians and to make it dangerous for them to move on Athens.
These troops had also to cover the embarkation of the major part of the
army, including the cavalry. With this latter part of their force they
intended to sail round and to attack Athens before either the Athenians
could come up from Marathon or the Spartans could arrive from Sparta.
It was for some such eventuality as this that Miltiades had been
waiting. He and his colleagues must have seen clearly that the Persians
could not afford to continue indefinitely a policy of delay. They must
have divined also that the delay could have but one meaning, namely,
that the enemy were waiting for a sign from their friends in Athens. It
is not difficult to understand the motives which actuated either side
at this crisis in the campaign.
The Persian troops left at Marathon had a double duty to perform.
They had to cover the embarkation of the rest of the army.
They had, also, to do everything in their power to detain the Athenian
army at Marathon. Had not this second duty devolved upon them, they
would doubtless have remained north of the Charadra, and would
probably have defended the line of that stream-bed. But in that case
the Athenians would have been given so long a start in their retirement
upon Athens, that it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to
harass and delay their march. Thus it became necessary to move nearer
to the Athenian encampment. They crossed the Charadra, and took up a
position prepared alike for battle or pursuit.
It is probable that the Persian generals reckoned rather on the latter
alternative. At this time the balance of military prestige was greatly
on their side. The conquerors of a continent were face to face with
the army of a canton, and were, moreover, superior in numbers to the
enemy. They may well have expected that the Greek would not dare to
fight, or, if he did fight, would be badly beaten. The successes gained
against them by the Ionians had not been on land; and they doubtless
judged of the trained hoplite of European Greece in the light of their
experience of the imperfectly trained Ionian hoplite they had recently
had encountered in Asia.
It is now possible to conjecture the reasons which had induced them
to re-embark their cavalry. The circumstances of transport forbid the
supposition that they were numerically very strong in this arm. Had
they left it at Marathon, it would not have been of service in pursuing
the Greeks along the rugged upper road. Even had it been sent round by
the lower road, its strength cannot have been such as to render it a
formidable obstacle to a strong unbeaten army making straight for its
goal at Athens.
But on board the fleet, cavalry might be of immense value for a dash on
the capital immediately on the arrival at Phaleron. There every minute
would be of importance; and, furthermore, in the open Athenian plain,
it would be able to get round opposition, if unable to sweep it aside.
#THE BATTLE ARRAY.#
There is no evidence on the subject; but it is almost inconceivable
that the lower road was not watched and guarded by some body of
Athenian troops; and, though the road itself is easy, there are, even
at the present day, places in the great tract of woodland through which
it passes which an unsupported body of cavalry would find very
difficult to force in face of opposition.
[Illustration: MARATHON FROM THE “SOROS.”
1. Valley of Vrana, or Avlona.
[_To face page_ 187.
]
The situation of the Athenian army was more simple, in that the council
of war had already provided for it. There was, indeed, as Miltiades had
foreseen, no alternative but to attack. An attempted retreat along the
rugged upper road, harassed by an enemy superior in numbers and lighter
in equipment, might end in disaster, and must end in the army arriving
at Athens too late to meet the force which was going round by sea.
Thus the battle was inevitable.
It must have been on the plain immediately off the entrance of the
valley of Avlona that the Athenians formed their battle array.
◆H. vi. 111.◆
Kallimachos the polemarch commanded on the right wing, which, together
with the centre and left centre, was formed of the Athenian tribal
regiments, while on the extreme left stood the Platæans. The length of
front was deliberately made equal to that of the Persians. A special
formation was however adopted. The centre was weakened, being only a
few ranks deep, while the wings were strengthened. The purpose of this
becomes evident in the course of the fight.
The position of the Persians seems to have been parallel with the
sea-shore, their centre being somewhere near where the “Soros” now
stands. They had evidently moved that part of their fleet which was
destined to remain behind at Marathon to the shore south of the mouth
of the Charadra, where it was drawn up in rear of the army.[82]
◆H. vi. 112.◆
The interval between the two armies, before the movement of attack
began, is stated by Herodotus to have been “not less than eight
stades,” that is to say, slightly less than one mile—a statement of
distance which is in accord with those circumstances which have been
already noticed as determining the position of the two armies.
◆H. vi. 112.◆
When they were in array, and the sacrifices became favourable, then
the Athenians, in accordance with their orders, advanced at the quick
step[83] upon the barbarians.
So rapid a method of advance was unparalleled, so Herodotus says, in
Greek warfare up to that time. The Greek hoplite seems to have been
incapable of rapid movement. In his equipment everything was sacrificed
to the effectiveness of his defensive armour. He was indeed the product
of a country in which the extremely limited extent of cultivable land
rendered it necessary for the citizens of each state to fight on
behalf of their annual produce. ◆Cf. H. viii. 9(2).◆ Hence in ordinary
Greek warfare the slow-moving, heavy-armed hoplite could always force
a battle on ground suited to his offensive tactics,—the alluvial
plain,—and had to be met with a force similarly equipped.
That the Greek advance was not altogether expected by the Persians may
well have been the case; they may even have thought, as Herodotus says,
that they were rushing upon their destruction. But when the historian
adds that the Athenians were the first Greeks to face the Medes and
their strange dress, he is obviously quoting the exaggerated Athenian
tradition of Marathon.
#THE BATTLE.#
◆H. vi. 113.◆
The battle was fierce and stubborn, and lasted a long time. The weak
Athenian centre gave way before the best troops of the enemy, the
Persians and the Sakæ, who were opposed to them.
Such an eventuality must have been foreseen by the Greek generals; it
seems, indeed, almost certain, from the subsequent development of the
fight, that the falling back of the centre was a pre-arranged feature
in the tactics of the battle. Herodotus, drawing his account largely
from popular tradition, and not finding any reference to such a design
in the sources of his information, represents the retreat of the centre
as a reverse, whereas it was the essential preliminary to that movement
which decided the battle.
The strong Athenian wings defeated, not without a severe struggle, the
troops opposed to them; but, being kept well in hand, refrained from
pursuing them. They wheeled round and assailed the victorious (_sic_)
Persian centre on either flank. The deliberate checking of the pursuit
of the wings points clearly to the fact that the falling back of the
Greek centre was an essential feature of the plan of battle. As has
been already said, that retreat was almost certainly a deliberate act,
which had been provided for in the orders given to the officers of the
wings before the battle began. It would have been difficult to check
the pursuit of a victorious citizen force, had not its officers been
aware beforehand that this formed an essential part of the whole design
of the battle.
It was in this fight that the Persians must have sustained their
severest losses, if the term fight can be applied to what, if the
numbers of the slain given by Herodotus be near the truth, must have
soon degenerated into a massacre.
Such of the Persian centre as escaped,—they cannot have been many in
number,—fled to the ships. On reaching the shore, the Greeks called
for means of setting fire to the vessels. As the fugitives from the
Persian wings must have already reached the shore, and had, no doubt,
hauled a large number of the ships into deep water, the success here
attained by the Greeks was not great. The enemy seem to have fought
with the courage of desperation to save their sole means of escape,
and the Athenian losses at this stage of the fight, if not large
numerically, included the polemarch Kallimachos and Stesilaos, one of
the generals. Other prominent citizens fell in the same combat.
◆Paus. i. 32. 7.◆
Pausanias mentions that part of the Persian army got involved in one of
the marshes, and was there slaughtered. This detail is derived from the
picture preserved in the Poikilé Stoa at Athens.[84]
The marsh referred to is evidently the great marsh at the north-east
end of the plain; for the cave of Pan is mentioned as lying somewhat
farther from the plain than the marsh itself. The unfortunates who
perished there seem to have been attempting to reach the shore of the
bay by making a large circuit.
◆H. vi. 115.◆
Of the result of the fight Herodotus says: “In this way, the Athenians
captured seven of the ships. But rowing rapidly out to sea, the
barbarians, with the remainder of their vessels, took from the island
in which they had left them, the slaves from Eretria, and sailed round
Sunium, wishing to reach Athens before the arrival of the Athenians. At
Athens it was alleged the barbarians adopted this plan, in accordance
with a design of the Alkmæonidæ, who were said to have, by previous
arrangement, signalled to the Persians with a shield when the latter
were already in their ships. So they sailed round Sunium. ◆H. vi. 116.◆
The Athenians, however, marched with all speed to save the city, and
succeeded in getting there before the arrival of the Persians. Having
come from the Herakleion at Marathon, they encamped on their arrival in
another Herakleion—that at Kynosarges. The barbarians on the high sea
off Phaleron, which was at that time the Athenian naval port, anchored
their ships off that place, and then sailed back to Asia.”
#THE PERSIAN DASH ON ATHENS.#
The exact interpretation of Herodotus’ meaning in this passage is not
quite certain. He seems, however, to incline to the opinion that
the whole Persian land force was engaged at Marathon, and that those
who escaped to the ships after the disaster, when already on board,
received the long-expected signal that the conspirators in Athens had
done their work, and so sailed round Sunium to Phaleron in the hope of
seizing Athens before the army from Marathon arrived. Nevertheless,
though time was all-important to them, they wasted precious moments in
removing the Eretrian prisoners from the islands in which they had been
deposited.
There can be little doubt that the manifest inconsistencies of this
story are due to Herodotus having attributed to the whole Persian
fleet what were really the movements of two sections of it, namely of
the division which must have started for Athens on the morning of the
battle, and of a second division which carried those who survived the
fight. The first of these, no doubt, made its way direct to Phaleron;
the second, after picking up the prisoners on the island, followed it,
and found it at anchor off Phaleron, whence the reunited force made its
way to Asia.
The _details_ of the shield incident hardly admit of discussion. The
incident itself is obviously a historical fact. Herodotus thinks it
took place _after_ the battle, because he is under the impression that
none of the Persians embarked before the battle was over.
From Marathon to Phaleron is not less than ninety miles by sea. The
data for calculating the pace of a trireme of this period are very
imperfect; but even at the most liberal computation of speed, and even
under the most favourable circumstances, such a voyage would have
demanded at least nine or ten hours; whereas, along, the easy route
afforded by the lower road, the Athenians could have reached Athens in
seven hours, or perhaps less. In the present instance the circumstances
were unfavourable. The vessels were heavily laden with troops, horses,
and baggage, to such an extent that their pace must have been reduced
by almost one-half; so that, if they started at daybreak on the day of
the battle, they cannot have been off Phaleron much before midnight.
It is extremely unlikely that the conspirators would have shown
such a signal after the battle was over, and at an hour when the
possibility of the Persians reaching Athens before the army would have
been hardly existent.
The ships which received the signal carried, doubtless, that part of
the force which did not take part in the battle, and whose embarkation
was covered by those who fought.
The intention of this embarkation, which must have been evident to the
Athenians, accounts for the promptness of their attack.
If nothing of the kind had been going on; if the whole Persian force
had been still in front of them, and had shown no disposition to move,
there is no reason why the Athenians should not have abided by their
policy of masterly inactivity. The conspiracy at Athens could not have
become dangerous before the Persians had got into actual touch with the
conspirators.
Some time in the morning of that day of the battle, probably while
it was still in progress, but not yet decided, the one half of the
Persian fleet started, and, immediately after starting, received the
long-delayed signal.
The Athenians, by dint of extreme haste, managed, after the battle was
over, to reach Athens before the enemy, and the latter never attempted
to land.
◆H. vi. 117.◆
The total Athenian losses in the battle amounted to 192 men. How many
Platæans fell, Herodotus does not mention; but Pausanias says that he
saw on the field a tomb sacred to their memory. Many light-armed slaves
must have perished in such a struggle.[85]
The Persian losses amounted to 6400. As has been already said,
these must have fallen mainly on the centre, of which, owing to the
circumstances of the battle, but few can have escaped.
◆Paus. i. 32. 5.◆
Pausanias says that the place of burial of the fallen Persians was not
recognizable in his day.
From Phaleron, Datis and Artaphernes sailed away to Asia, taking with
them the unfortunate Eretrian captives, who were sent far inland, and
were settled, by orders of Darius, at a place called Arderikka, not
very far from Susa.
#GREEK GENERALSHIP AT MARATHON.#
How long Datis and Artaphernes remained at Phaleron, history does not
say; but the Athenian army from Marathon cannot have been long at
Athens before the Spartan contingent arrived there. It had, presumably,
left Laconia on the 15th of the month, the day of full moon; and,
making an extraordinarily rapid march, it reached Athens in less than
three days. Its numbers are curiously small, only 2000 men; yet the
speed with which it travelled shows that the Spartans were in earnest.
They must have arrived very shortly after the battle, for they visited
the field to view the dead; and it is not conceivable that 6400 corpses
would be allowed to rot under a Greek sun, unburied for many days.
Despite its brevity, Herodotus’ account of Marathon contrasts
favourably in certain respects with his narratives of the battles of
ten years later.
Fewer details are given; but the main tactics employed are far more
clearly noted.
The Greek generalship during the brief campaign was, in respect to
both strategy and tactics, the best of the century. The difficulties
which Kallimachos and his colleagues had to face were great. The danger
was extreme. They might have been excused had they erred on the side
of caution. The boldest course, taken in the move to Marathon, proved
the most effective. It struck at the one weak point in the otherwise
admirable Persian design. It placed the Persians in the manifest
difficulty of a choice between two strategic evils. They would either
have to assail the Greeks at a great disadvantage, or would, in the
process of embarkation, have to face attack themselves with only a part
of their force.
Marathon has, and must always have, a great place in history. It made
a great and immediate impression on those who were its contemporaries.
Its story would certainly, in any age of the world, have gained by
exaggeration. It is only possible at the present day to surmise the
lengths to which that exaggeration went; but chance references in later
authors show that it went very far. Little of the exaggeration is found
in Herodotus. That honest old historian has winnowed out nearly all the
chaff from the crop of legends; though it cannot be doubted that
in the process he has cast away some of the good grain also.
The loss may have been unavoidable. The machinery for historical
criticism was in his day in its most primitive stage; and the good
grain in the material to be dealt with was smothered in valueless dust.
One, and, historically speaking, the most important side of the
exaggeration of after-time, must be mentioned. The Greek world, thanks
no doubt to the Athenian presentment of the tale, regarded Marathon as
a defeat inflicted on the full strength of Persia. It has been shown
that such cannot have been the case.
Marathon was sufficiently glorious to its victors to render any
exaggeration of the success attained superfluous. For the first time
in history the Greek had beaten the Persian on his own element, the
land. The army of a little state, possessed of no military reputation
worth speaking of, had defeated a superior force of the conquerors of a
continent. The Greek had shown himself able to face the best soldiers
of his age; and the consciousness of this fact, rapidly permeating
through the whole of the Hellenic world in Europe, gave the Greek
confidence,—nay, even rendered him all but callous and careless,—in
face of the great danger which threatened him ten years later.
Marathon was a greater Vimiero in that war which was to be fought out
in the Greek peninsula.
CHAPTER V.
THE ENTR’ACTE: B.C. 490–480.
◆H. vi. 132.◆
The victory of Marathon greatly increased the reputation of the man
to whose strategy the success was due. If the dispositions before
and during the battle are to be taken as a criterion of Miltiades’
military capacity, he must be given the highest place among those who
led Greek troops in the land warfare of this century. Never, indeed,
until Leuktra, did any Greek general display such ability for command;
and it may even be doubted whether the genius shown by Epaminondas in
his dispositions for that battle was superior to that of Miltiades in
dealing with the infinitely more complicated political and strategical
situation of the year 490.
He was now at the zenith of his reputation. The decline was fated to be
rapid. It was a feature in his life’s history which Herodotus could not
fail to emphasize. The greatness, the suddenness of the fall seemed to
illustrate in the most marked manner the uncertainty of human fortune.
By predilection Herodotus was almost as much a philosopher as an
historian. He was not satisfied with merely recording facts; he wished
to point their moral; and, consequently, in those cases in which
a story exemplifies in the concrete some important article of his
philosophical creed, he displays a tendency to emphasize that side, and
those features of it which have the most direct bearing on the moral
which he wishes it to convey. The relief of his picture aims rather at
philosophical than at historical effect.
It is so with his tale of the closing incident of Miltiades’ career.
The striking reverse of fortune needed, indeed, no emphasizing. The
catastrophe was sufficiently marked to point its moral even to
the dullest intelligence. But the feature of the story which the world
might fail to notice unless it were brought into high relief was the
self-incurred nature of the disaster. It is characteristic of his
philosophy that he regards Fate as acting on mortals internally rather
than externally, making them the instruments of their own doom. The
“agent provocateur” appears late on the stage. In the opening scene the
victim is himself the instrument of Fate.
This faith of his dominates his narrative of Miltiades’ disastrous
expedition against Paros. The man is alone responsible for the design.
His folly and impiety cause its failure. Like many another prominent
character who appears upon the stage of his history, he is one under a
doom. The circumstances outside his own personal action which must have
contributed so largely to the final catastrophe, are hardly apparent in
the story.
◆H. vi. 132.◆
“After the defeat [of the Persians] at Marathon, Miltiades, who had
previously enjoyed a great reputation at Athens, acquired a still
greater fame.
“He asked the Athenians to grant him seventy ships, together with an
army and money supplies, without telling them what land he proposed to
attack, but saying that, if they followed him, he would make them rich.
“Such was his pretext for the demand of the ships. The Athenians,
elated by his promises, granted them. ◆H. vi. 133.◆ After taking over
his forces, Miltiades sailed against Paros, on the pretext that the
Parians had been the aggressors in sending a trireme to Marathon with
the Persian. This was his alleged reason; but he had a grudge against
the Parians on account of Lysagoras, son of Tisias, a Parian by birth,
who had prejudiced Hydarnes the Persian against him. On arriving at the
object of attack, Miltiades with his force besieged the Parians, who
were shut up within their fortifications; and, sending in a messenger,
he demanded a hundred talents, saying that if they did not give it him,
he would not withdraw his army until he had destroyed them.”
The Parians refused the money, and took measures for the defence.
#THE EXPEDITION AGAINST PAROS.#
◆H. vi. 134.◆
So far, says Herodotus, the story is a pan-Hellenic one: but as to
what ensued, several versions were current. He only gives the Parian
tale. For the purposes of history all that is important in it is that
a certain Timo, priestess of Ceres Thesmophora, arranged to disclose
to Miltiades a way by which the city might be captured. In leaving the
temple he fell and dislocated his thigh.
◆H. vi. 135.◆
“Miltiades, therefore, being in evil plight, sailed back home, neither
bringing money to the Athenians, nor having acquired Paros, but having
besieged it for six and twenty days and laid waste the island.”[86]
There is an important sequel to the story. The Parians consulted the
oracle at Delphi as to whether they should punish the priestess.
“But the Pythian would not allow it, saying that Timo was not blameable
for this, ‘but that it was fated that Miltiades should not end well,
and that she had appeared to him as a guide to misfortunes.’”
The most striking point in the tale of this expedition to Paros is the
absence of adequate motive in the story as it stands. In addition to
this, it contains certain improbable details.
It is unlikely that the Athenians would entrust an expedition of this
size to either Miltiades or any one else, without knowing the
object of the expedition. Seventy ships would constitute nearly the
whole of the Athenian fleet of this time.
The authorities at Athens must have been well aware from the beginning
that Paros was the object of attack.
◆Cf. H. vi. 132, _ad init._◆
Of the date of the expedition there is no indication given in the story
except that Herodotus’ language implies a certain interval between
Marathon and its departure, during which Miltiades enjoyed a higher
reputation than before. It can hardly have been in the same year as
Marathon; and it cannot therefore be placed earlier than the spring of
489 B.C. Its motive may have been either commercial or strategic; but
in either case it aimed at the acquisition of a strong footing on the
islands which bridge the mid-Ægean. Naxos had certainly suffered in
490. It may even have remained in Persian occupation; and, if so, Paros
was destined to become what Samos and Naxos had successively been in
the past, the outpost of European Greek trade along this route.
Such must have been the real motive lying behind the pretext of the
medism of Paros.
The expedition was certainly a failure; and, rightly or wrongly,
Miltiades was made the scapegoat. The democrats welcomed the
opportunity of revenging their defeat of 493; so Xanthippos led the
accusers in their second political prosecution of the leader of the
aristocratic party. The charge brought against him was a capital one.
He himself was unable to conduct his own defence, for the injured thigh
was mortifying, and his end was near. His friends who fought on his
behalf succeeded so far that the penalty was reduced to a fine of fifty
talents. He did not live to pay the fine; but his son Kimon, destined
to become famous in the wars of twenty years later, paid it after his
death.
The curiously composite nature of the sources of Herodotus’ history
are well illustrated in those passages which relate to the career of
Miltiades. Some originate in a source peculiarly favourable to him;
others in one bitterly hostile. The Parian tale belongs conspicuously
to the latter class.
#PREPARATIONS FOR THE GREAT INVASION.#
He may have been by character, he certainly was by position, a man
about whom his Athenian contemporaries would form strong opinions,
whether good or evil. The leader of the aristocratic party at a period
which, whatever the obscurity of the details of the political history
of the time, was evidently one of fierce party contention, could not
hope in such a state as Athens to escape the defamation of political
opponents. Herodotus may or may not have ignored or toned down many of
the stories; but the fact remains that the worst he has to say of him
is not very bad, and even that is obviously intended to illustrate the
infatuation of a doom.
The real features of Miltiades are blurred in the historical portrait.
But, inasmuch as the most reliable part of the story is that which is
most favourable to him, it may be that the modern world will judge most
truly of him if it thinks of him at his best.
The extant history both of Greece and Persia during the years which
intervened between the Marathonian campaign and the great invasion of
480 is very fragmentary; but, as it was Herodotus’ object to tell the
tale of the relations between the two, such facts as he does mention
have in nearly every instance a direct bearing on those relations, and
the gaps in the story are not of the embarrassing character of those
which are so apparent in the narrative of the years preceding the
Ionian revolt, or, indeed, in that of the revolt itself.
◆H. vii. 1.◆
The failure at Marathon made Darius more desirous than ever to
prosecute his designs against Greece. In spite of the suppression of
the Ionian revolt, the events of the last twenty-five years must have
seriously shaken the prestige of Persia in the extreme western parts
of his territory. Darius’ life-work remained unfinished if he could
not consolidate this one corner of the great empire he had reconquered
so rapidly in the first years of his reign. That consolidation was
manifestly incomplete if the free kin of his turbulent subjects in the
far west were to be allowed to enjoy the reputation of having defied
his power.
He went to work slowly, for the task was great; and it was all
to do, since Datis and Artaphernes had failed to establish a footing
on the western mainland. Moreover, that expedition had shown him
the difficulty, if not the impossibility of isolating the immediate
object of attack. Pan-Hellenic sentiment may not at the time have been
stronger west than east of the Ægean; but its practical expression,
in the form of combination among the states, was infinitely easier on
the European than on the Asiatic side. The years of the revolt had
furnished him with all the data for an estimate of the formidable
character of this sentimental factor in the politics of this western
border of his empire. The punishment of the free Ionians, and the
establishment of a _tête-du-pont_ on the European shore, could only
be accomplished by a force sufficiently large to meet a formidable
combination among the Greek states.
In the years following Marathon,—the last years of his eventful
life,—he set to work to prepare for the great expedition. The work
was necessarily a work of time. Apart from the magnitude of the
undertaking, the last ten years must have severely strained even the
great resources of his empire. Moreover, those resources were, owing
to the methods on which the government of the empire was organised,
potential rather than active. Persia possessed the materials for a
great army; but she did not keep that army in commission. Prompt action
was impossible with her when the action was to be on a large scale.
Some years passed, and yet the blow did not fall on Greece. The
exhausted state of the empire, apart from the habitual slowness in
the working of its military machinery, must have delayed the progress
of the preparations. ◆H. vii. 2.◆ Darius, too, was in the decline of
his days; and it may well be that a failure in his health, apparent
some years before his actual death, led to those quarrels about the
succession, the story of which reached Greece, and is reproduced
by Herodotus, after his custom, with much circumstantial detail.
This failure of energy at the centre of the empire would entail a
corresponding lack of energy in the outlying parts of it.
#DEATH OF DARIUS.#
Whatever the progress made in the years immediately succeeding
Marathon,[87] an event took place in 486 which diverted the attention
of Darius to another part of the world. Egypt revolted.
But the old king was dying; and before the work of suppressing the
revolt was carried out, he passed away in 485.
Enough has been said about him in connection with his organization of
the empire to make it unnecessary to write his obituary here.
Singularly able, singularly enlightened, and, for the time in which he
lived, singularly humane, he stands forth in history as the greatest
Oriental that ever ruled in Western Asia.
In the year after Darius died the revolt in Egypt was suppressed.
During the six years which followed the Marathonian campaign the march
of events at Athens had been rapid.
The victory won by the democratic party in securing the condemnation
of Miltiades (probably in 489) shows that, after Marathon, the finely
balanced political scale had inclined in their direction.[88] The full
reasons for this change in the political situation are unknown, but the
failure at Paros must have largely contributed to it, if it was not its
main cause. But the democratic party which came into power somewhere
towards the close of 489 was a very different party to that of two
years earlier. Its Peisistratid leanings had been brought to a violent
and sudden end by the events of 490, and tyranny and its attendant
medism were for ever dead in Athens.
Still the fact that Aristides held an archonship in the official
year 489–488, suggests that the triumph was a triumph of a moderate and
not of an extreme democracy, the triumph of a party largely recruited
from among the moderates who must have supported the aristocrats in
their ascendency during the years preceding 490. This section would
require no urging to a policy of “anti-tyrannis”; and it may well have
been the case that the main body of the democrats, with eyes now opened
to the real nature of that they had misjudged, were anxious, under the
new order of things, to purge themselves of their past sins by the
punishment of those who had led them astray.
In the year after Aristides’ archonship the law of ostracism was
passed. It was immediately put in operation against the close friends
of tyranny, three being sent into exile, among them Megakles the
Alkmæonid. This in 488–487.
In the next year, the application of the lot to the selection of
archons robbed those officials of much of their prestige, if not of
their power.
Changed alike in sentiment and policy, the democracy of Athens
developed in the years immediately following Marathon into that
intensely patriotic party which contributed so largely to the salvation
of Greece in the greater war which was soon to come.
It was probably in the latter half of the ten years’ interval that
hostilities with Ægina broke out afresh. The two powers were still
at enmity in 481, when the Greeks, in view of the great invasion
which then so manifestly threatened them, sought to bring about a
reconciliation between such of the Greek states as were at variance
with one another.
Herodotus’ account of the relations between Athens and Ægina is very
confused, so much so that it is difficult to allocate the various
incidents which marked those relations even to their probable dates.
Yet there is no reason to doubt the main fact that a serious struggle
did take place between those states in this decade, and, probably, in
the latter half of it.
#THEMISTOCLES AND THE FLEET.#
In the history of the relations between Greece and Persia this war
is of doubtful importance;—doubtful, because it is not known how far it
played a part in bringing about one of the most momentous resolutions
that the people of Athens ever took.
The great development of the silver coinage system about this time had
made the demand for silver much greater than it had been previously. It
was possibly owing to this cause that one of the lessees who held from
the State silver mines at Laurion in South Attica, sought to increase
the output by exploring deeper levels than had hitherto been worked.
After sinking his shaft to a depth of 300 feet, he came upon lodes of
ore infinitely richer than those at the higher levels, to which the
workings had been hitherto confined.
The date generally attributed to this discovery and its results is 484
B.C. The income which the State derived from the mines increased so
greatly, that it became a question at Athens what had best be done with
the money.
This seems to have been about the time at which Themistocles, who
was destined to play so great a part in the war of 480, came to the
front in Athenian politics. He appears to have held high office some
years before this time,[89] but his predominating influence in Athens
coincides with the last five years of this decade. ◆H. vii. 144.◆ When
it was proposed that the money thus accruing to the State should be
divided among the citizens, he urged that a better use should be made
of it in building 200 vessels for the navy.
He carried the proposal. That is certain; but what is not certain is
the nature of the motive which induced him to make it.
Herodotus, whose account of Themistocles is drawn from sources hostile
to this great man and to that phase of home politics of which he was in
this and succeeding years the chief exponent,[90] attributes this
proposal not to a wise foresight as to the plans of Persia, ◆H. vii.
144.◆ but to the immediate necessities of the war with Ægina.
But Plutarch in his life of Themistocles has preserved a fuller record
of his policy in the years preceding the great war of 480, a record
which bears all the traces of reliability, and gives a wholly different
colouring to the circumstances of the time.
Themistocles’ policy with regard to naval matters was not suddenly
sprung upon the world in the year 484 but dated from what must
have been the very outset of his political career. Even before or
immediately after the time of Marathon, he is advocating this policy in
opposition to Miltiades.[91]
◆Plut. Them. 3.◆
Many regarded Marathon as the end of the war, but he looked upon it as
the beginning only.
Plutarch’s statement as to the early date at which Themistocles began
to advocate the policy which was fated to render his name famous,
has been received in later times with much suspicion, mainly on the
ground of the general unreliability of that historian as a recorder
of history. It is, indeed, frequently the case that his statements,
unless supported by actual or presumptive external evidence, cannot
be accepted as final. But in this particular instance the presumptive
evidence strongly corroborates his story.
Up to 500 B.C. Persia as a naval power had not played any part in the
Ægean. It seems, indeed, to have been during the Ionian revolt that she
developed to the full this arm of her service. After Ladé, in 494 the
Persian fleet in the Western seas becomes ever more prominent and more
important. Islands previously unsubdued begin to fall one by one into
her hands.
Was this a warning whose significance could have been misjudged by a
Themistocles?
#INCREASE IN THE ATHENIAN FLEET.#
Until 484, however, the success of his advocacy of increase in the
navy seems to have been but partial. But something had been done. The
Athens, which some nine years before [about 498 B.C.] had been compelled
to borrow ships from Corinth for use against Ægina, is able in 489 to
despatch a fleet of seventy ships with Miltiades to Paros. It was,
doubtless, on the question of expense, found impossible, in view of the
then resources of the State, to build and maintain a large number of
vessels.
The increase in the revenues from Laurion gave Themistocles and Athens
the opportunity for so doing. Herodotus, as has been seen, alleges that
Themistocles’ motive was the war with Ægina.
Plutarch, on the other hand, while saying that such was the object
on the face of his proposal, adds that his real motive was to make
preparations to meet the Persian.
To the people he used, in advocating his measure, that argument from
the present which would appeal to them, knowing well that the argument
from the future is not one which can be expected to move the feelings
of the masses, who have not the means of gauging what the future will
bring forth.
In this case again Plutarch’s account of the matter is supported by
other evidence.
The number of ships demanded was much larger than could have been
required for any war with Ægina. The Æginetan fleet may have suffered
severely in this war, but Ægina could only commission forty-two vessels
at the time of Salamis.
Nor can it have required a large amount of foresight on the part of any
statesman who cared to study the question, to understand that another
attack of Persia must come, and must come, too, at no remote period.
This measure must have been carried at Athens about the time when
Xerxes is described to have been deliberating upon an attempt to
conquer Greece.
◆Cf. H. vii. 7.◆
Succeeding his father in 485, Xerxes found himself heir to an Egypt in
revolt That revolt was suppressed in 484. The nature of the country
made revolt in Egypt ever formidable, and hence such preparations as
Darius had made for the invasion of Greece must have been to a
certain extent expended on the campaign in Egypt.
Much of the work of the last years of Darius’ life would have to be
done over again, if the great design of a conquest of the whole of
European Greece was to be persisted in.
The personality of Xerxes is much distorted in the records of Greek
historians. From Herodotus onward they with one consent aim at
emphasizing the contrast between the superficial magnificence and the
pitiful incapacity of the monarch who made so disastrous a failure
in his attack on Greece. Judged, indeed, by his known acts, Xerxes
appears to have been much less able and less energetic than his great
predecessor.
He was at first, says Herodotus, in some doubt as to whether to carry
out the design against Greece. He was, however, persuaded by Mardonius,
who, wishing to be made governor of Greece, advised him from motives of
self-interest.
It is obvious that Herodotus’ account of events which took place on
the Persian side must be received with the utmost caution, since the
occasions on which he could obtain anything resembling authentic
information on such points must have been few and far between. This
reported advice of Mardonius may be the mere creation of the fancy
of Greek tradition, seeking to attribute to the man who dragged on
the war to its disastrous close the responsibility for its inception.
But it is, on the other hand, quite possible that Herodotus did have
substantial evidence as to the part which Mardonius played in the
matter.
No great advantage from an historical point of view can be gained
by following the long account which Herodotus gives of the various
influences which were brought to bear on Xerxes for and against the
proposed expedition. ◆H. vii. 6.◆ Those persistent plotters against
the freedom of Hellas, the Peisistratidæ, appear once more, this time
with an oracle-monger in their train, a certain Onomakritos, who is
represented as plying Xerxes with oracles favourable to the Persian
prospects, while suppressing those which foretold disaster to the king.
#THE MEDISM OF THE ALEUADÆ.#
A far more significant influence is that asserted to have been
exercised by the Aleuadæ, whom Herodotus describes as “Kings in
Thessaly.” This great feudal family from Larisa found itself in a very
difficult and hazardous position. They were at the time supreme in this
border-land; but it was a supremacy which was threatened by the fact
that the Persian frontier had been advanced by Mardonius’ conquest
of Macedonia to within a few miles of their own stronghold. Their
Thessalian vassals were ofttimes inclined to kick against the pricks
of a quasi-serfdom; and, furthermore, their rulers must have been in a
position to gauge accurately the feeling that would be excited among
them in the event of a Persian advance, and in case the Greeks farther
south showed any disposition to aid them in resistance to that invasion
which must come sooner or later.
The attitude of the Aleuadæ some few years later, at the time of the
war, was indeed calculated to give rise in after-times to sinister
reports as to their previous proceedings; but their position at this
time between the upper millstone of Persia and the nether millstone
of Greece was so uncomfortable, that they may well have sought to
escape from it before the mill started working. It was a far cry to
Peloponnese from the banks of the Peneius, and a supremacy in Thessaly
under Persia was better than no supremacy at all. It is not strange,
then, if, in their providence of the future, they made friends of the
mammon of Persian unrighteousness.
It would flatter Greek conceit to think that their own renegade
countrymen could have so much influence for evil with the Great King;
and the part which these families of the Peisistratidæ and Aleuadæ are
represented to have played in determining the great war was doubtless
greatly exaggerated.
Apart from this motive for exaggeration, there was a tendency in
after-times to antedate the medism of those who sided with the Persian
in the war of 480.
Perhaps in the case of the Aleuadæ, however, later tradition may not
have been wholly unjust. It would be natural that they should seek
to make some arrangements with the great Power which was now at
their very gates. It was to their interest to do so; but no motive of
interest can be assigned to their reported advocacy of an invasion
of Greece; and this part of the tradition preserved in Herodotus was
probably a creation of the imagination of posterity.
◆H. vii. 8.◆
The language attributed by Herodotus to Xerxes and his counsellors
in the meeting at which the king announced his decision to undertake
the expedition against Greece, though it cannot have any claim to
an historical foundation, still less to historical accuracy, is
interesting as expressing the Greek idea of the working of the Oriental
mind.
Xerxes places before his council his reasons for undertaking the
expedition. He must not, as a conqueror, fall short of his great
predecessors. He must punish Athens, and, incidentally, conquer Greece.
The Empire of Persia must be universal.
Mardonius then speaks on the same side. He urges that the Ionians in
Europe must not remain free; a statement of an opinion which, whether
uttered or not on this particular occasion, seems to have been an
essential feature of the policy of those great Persian officials who
had ruled in Western Asia for twenty-five years past.
There are other passages in the reported speech which are of the utmost
interest. The acquisition of territory out of sheer lust of conquest is
advocated, implying, to Greek minds, a marked and striking contrast to
the utter absence of mere land-hunger in the Greek disposition.
Mardonius’ description of the methods of Greek warfare, how that
“having found out the fairest and most level spot, they go down to
it and fight,” is so apt that, though the words may never have been
uttered by Mardonius himself, they represent possibly, a sarcastic
criticism made by some Persian with whom Herodotus has spoken. The
Persian could not understand the limitations which the nature of the
land of Greece placed upon the methods of warfare of its inhabitants.
Finally, Mardonius urges that the Greek will be scared into submission
by the mere numbers with which Persia can take the field.
#XERXES DECIDES TO INVADE GREECE.#
◆H. vii. 10.◆
Of all the members of the council only one is represented as having
dared to oppose the scheme. This was Artabanos, son of Hystaspes,
and uncle of Xerxes. He represents the “little Persian” side of
contemporary politics.
He opens his speech with a passage which might have been culled from
a drama of Euripides. He proceeds to point out with what disastrous
results his warnings as to the “Scythian” expedition had been
disregarded. He then gives a forecast of the war which, had it been
made at this time, would have been singularly justified by events.
After this he indulges in philosophical remarks peculiarly in accord
with Herodotus’ own views, and winds up with an estimate of the Greeks
peculiarly flattering to that people.
The retort of Xerxes is conceived in the typical form that an absolute
monarch of the East might be expected to employ towards an adviser
whose advice was unpalatable.
It is almost inevitable that at a time so momentous the supernatural
should make its appearance in Herodotus’ history.
◆H. vii. 12, _seqq_.◆
Xerxes’ resolution is shaken by Artabanos’ advice. He even decides to
follow it, though warned in a dream not to change his resolution. The
warning comes a second time. He consults Artabanos, and suggests that
he should put on the royal apparel and sleep in the royal bed, and so
make experiment whether the dream would come to him. To him also the
vision comes; and he, too, is converted. So jealous are the gods of
human greatness, and so persistent were they in leading the great king
into disaster!
◆H. vii. 20.◆
Having decided on the expedition, Xerxes proceeded with his
preparations. Herodotus says that he took four whole years in making
them, and that he began them immediately after suppressing the revolt
of Egypt.
No useful end can be gained by following in detail through the pages
of Herodotus the exaggerated estimate which the Greek formed of the
magnitude of the expedition and of the preparations made for it.
All that will be attempted here will be to show what, on a sober
estimate of possibilities and probabilities, may be assumed to
have been the actual facts of the case. The obvious exaggerations of
the Greek estimate have led writers in modern times to what must be
regarded as exaggerated depreciations of the magnitude of this supreme
effort on the part of the great Empire.[92]
Whatever the obscurities of the detailed evidence, one reliable fact
seems to stand forth: that this was an unusual effort on the part
of Persia. The levy of troops for the expedition was certainly an
extraordinary one.
Allowing for the Greek exaggeration of numbers, there is reason
to suppose that the ordinary full levy of the Persian land forces
produced an army of about half a million. It had been called out for
the Scythian expedition, nearly twenty years before this time. This
full levy was, however, rarely made, and only when circumstances
imperatively demanded it. It is also noticeable that on such occasions
the Great King assumes the command.
It is quite possible that the number of troops put into the field
during the Ionian revolt amounted from beginning to end to numbers even
exceeding those of the ordinary general levy; but it is a noticeable
feature of that war that the Government at Susa carries it on by means
of reinforcements despatched at various times. There is nothing of the
nature of a single great levy.
It must be concluded that the troops employed on land in the campaign
of 480 amounted to more than half a million.[93]
In Herodotus the numbers of the expedition run into millions. The
exaggeration is so hopelessly great that it is impossible to draw any
conclusion from the statements made.[94]
#NUMBERS OF THE PERSIAN EXPEDITION.#
It is only when the historian deals with the relatively moderate
dimensions of the force left behind with Mardonius in 479, which he
says amounted to 300,000 men, that his evidence on this particular
point becomes worthy of consideration. The numbers he gives of the
Greek contingents at Platæa, derived apparently from some official
information, amount altogether to over 100,000 men. It may be regarded
as certain that Mardonius did not face the Greek on that occasion with
an army in a less proportion than two to one to that of the enemy.
If so, Herodotus’ statements must approximate to the truth. It is
probable, too, that Mardonius retained with him a considerable fraction
of the original land force, and this would be in general accord with
an estimate of over half a million for the total numbers of the land
army.[95]
The preparation and collection of such a force, drawn from every race
in that extensive empire, would be necessarily a work of time; and,
apart from this, the Orient does not work quickly. Whatever the faults
committed in the war, the excellence of the organization on the Persian
side must, in certain important respects, have been remarkable; and
that organization cannot, for the purposes of an expedition of such
magnitude, have been a brief work.
The exaggeration in Herodotus’ statement that the expedition took four
years to prepare, may not, therefore, be very great. One deduction must
be made. Egypt was not reduced until Darius had been dead a year, and
therefore its reduction may fall _late_ in 484; and, if so, the period
of preparation cannot have greatly exceeded three years.
It was early in these years of preparation that labourers were
sent to cut a canal through the low and narrow isthmus which connects
Mount Athos with the mainland of Chalkidike. The disaster to Mardonius’
expedition in 492 had aroused within the Persian breast a dread of this
formidable promontory.
The plan of the expedition was, indeed, a return to that of the
expedition of 492. Marathon had shown the Persians that an attack on
Greece, or even on Athens, in order to be successful, must be organized
on a larger scale than any expedition which could be put on board a
fleet The expedition of Mardonius had been successful as far as human
agency was concerned; that of Datis and Artaphernes, though launched
against an infinitely less formidable object of attack, had been a
serious failure. The most natural way of accounting for the contrast
would be the comparison of size.
While the canal at Athos was in process of construction, a bridge was
being built over the Strymon river, and ropes were being prepared for
the great bridges by which it was proposed to cross the Hellespont.
Large depôts of provisions were also collected at various points on the
intended route, at Leuké Akté in Thrace, at Tyrodiza in Perinthia, at
Doriskos, at Eion, and in Macedonia.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MARCH OF THE PERSIAN ARMY. PREPARATIONS IN GREECE.
It may be supposed that these preparations were more or less complete
by the time that the winter of 481 set in.
It was in the summer or autumn of this year that part of the land
army,[96] having assembled at Kritalla in Cappadocia, began its march
to Sardes. Herodotus enumerates the various places it passed, with
descriptions of interesting features at each, as in a guide-book.
Whether he had actually visited them himself or not, may be a matter
for discussion; he could, no doubt, get plenty of information with
regard to them from Ionian and other Greek merchants who traversed the
great trade routes, not to speak of what was contained in the works of
Ionian geographers.
Crossing the Halys river, the army entered Phrygia, and arrived at the
city of Kelænæ.
At that town it was entertained by a certain Pythios, son of Atys, a
Lydian, whose enormous wealth, as reported in Herodotus, recalls the
series of Greek legends in which this land plays the part of Manoa, the
city of pure gold of the legends of Elizabethan days.
From Kelænæ, the army journeyed past Anaua, with its salt lake, to
Kolossæ, a city of Phrygia, near which the Lykos, a tributary of the
Maeander, had an underground course, ten stades long. Thence by
Kydrara on the Lydian border, where was an inscribed boundary pillar
erected by Crœsus; and so by Kallatebos to Sardes.
◆H. vii. 32.◆
Arrived at Sardes, the king sent heralds to demand earth and water from
the States of Greece, with the exception of Athens and Lacedæmon. As in
the case of the Marathonian expedition, the Persian wished to form an
estimate of the amount of opposition which he might expect. ◆H. vii.
34.◆ Meanwhile the engineers at the Hellespont were constructing their
bridges at Abydos, where the strait is narrowest. Those who have seen
the strong current which flows through this channel will be best able
to appreciate the engineering skill of those who were responsible for
their construction.
One bridge was made by the Egyptians, the other by the Phœnicians. The
bridges first made were broken in a storm, and Herodotus tells several
tales of the childish expressions of vexation employed by Xerxes;
how he had the waters scourged; how he let fetters down into them,
and would have had them branded. The engineers were beheaded, _pour
encourager les autres_, after the simple, effective method of those
days. The new bridges were more permanent structures.
◆H. vii. 36.◆
Herodotus, doubtless, had plenty of opportunity in later
time of getting information as to the structural peculiarities of the
bridges from the Greeks of those parts; but his actual description is
somewhat obscure in respect to one important detail. The two bridges
seem to have left the Asiatic side at points quite close together. The
western one, that towards the Ægean, appears to have crossed the strait
direct, a distance which Herodotus gives as seven stades, or somewhat
over three-quarters of a mile. The other diverged in an oblique
direction up the strait towards the Propontis, and reached the European
shore some distance from its fellow. They were formed of triremes and
pentekonters, slung on long cables of flax or papyrus, there being 314
vessels in the western and 360 in the eastern bridge. #THE BRIDGE OVER
THE HELLESPONT.# The current flows rapidly from the Propontis; and
though Herodotus only mentions the eastern bridge as being anchored
up stream, it must be presumed that both were secured in that
way. In the same way both would have to be anchored down stream also,
by reason, as Herodotus himself mentions, of the south and south-west
winds.
In both bridges the prows of the supporting vessels were placed in such
a way as to meet the current, which at this point in the Hellespont,
owing to a bend in the course of the strait, runs, at one place just
north of Abydos, across the channel, slanting from the European to the
Asiatic shore.*
* * * * *
*_On the Passage describing the Details of the Structure of the
Bridge._
The passage is as follows:—(vii. 36).
Ἐζεύγνυσαν δὲ ὧδε, Πεντηκοντέρους καὶ τριήρεας συνθέντες, ὑπὸ μὲν τὴν
πρὸς τοῦ Εὐξείνου πόντου ἑξήκοντά τε καὶ τριηκοσίας, ὑπὸ δὲ τὴν ἑτέρην
τεσσερεσκαίδεκα καὶ τριηκοσίας, τοῦ μὲν Πόντου ἐπικαρσίας |τοῦ δὲ
Ἑλλησπόντου κατὰ ῥόον, ἵνα ἄνακωχεύῃ τὸν τόνον τῶν ὅπλων.|
The critical words are those underlined. Herodotus’ meaning is clear;
but the application of it is obscure. He means that the vessels of the
eastern bridge were “oblique in position,” whereas those of the western
were “down stream.”
The current at this point in the Hellespont does not follow the middle
line of the strait. There is a strong bend off Abydos, the channel,
which up to this point comes from the Propontis in a south-west
direction, turning due south. The current accordingly struck the
European shore near Sestos, and then rebounded on to the Asian shore
at Abydos (_cf_. Strabo, xiii. p. 591). The eastern bridge, therefore,
which went from Abydos in a line not greatly divergent from the
direct line from Abydos to Sestos, would have an axis inclined at
an acute angle to the line of the current at this point; therefore,
when Herodotus says its supporting vessels were oblique, does he mean
oblique to this line of current, as they would be, if their axes were
in their ordinary position at right angles to the axis of the bridge;
or has he in his mind a different kind of obliquity, _i.e._ were they
slewed round in such a way that their prows pointed up the stream,
which was itself oblique at this point?
As a practical question of engineering, it is infinitely more probable
that the latter was the case. The capable engineers who constructed
the bridge were extremely unlikely, in view of the fate of their
predecessors, to expose their work to the enormous strain which the
position of its supporting boats all but broadside on to the line of
current would have involved.
It cannot, however, be said that it is certain that Herodotus
would have thus interpreted his own description. At the same time,
descriptions by the ancients involving a reference to relative
positions have to be treated with the greatest caution. It is often the
case that the strictest meaning of their words is proved by the context
not to be the sense they wish to convey. In these days of maps and
instruments of precision, we are infinitely more strict, or, perhaps,
less liable to error in orientation, than those who did not possess
such things, save in the rudest possible form.
One of the commonest forms of mistake among ancient writers, in the
course of a description, is to alter the point of view, or the object
to whose position the positions of other objects are being referred.
Polybius conspicuously does so in describing the valley running up
from Lake Trasimene. A few chapters further on, Herodotus does the
same thing (vii. 42), for he describes the Persians in their march as
leaving Mount Ida on the _left_, whereas he should have said _right_,
thus confusing his own point of view from the sea with theirs.
Furthermore, apart from inaccuracy of orientation, there was a lack of
technical language, such as could be employed in such description. When
Herodotus says the boats of the western bridge were κατὰ ῥόον, “down
stream,” it is probable that he is merely employing a phrase which came
handy to him, instead of the cumbrous paraphrase he would have had to
employ to express the fact that their axes were at right angles to the
axis of the bridge, though this was the fact really in his mind. This
is the idea upmost in his mind when he speaks of those in the second
bridge as being ἐπικάρσιαι, “oblique.” Their axes were not at right
angles to the axis of the bridge.
#ROUTE FROM SARDES TO HELLESPONT.#
Six cables, two of white flax and four of papyrus, held each bridge in
place, and on these trunks of trees were placed. A roadway was
formed on this foundation, composed of brushwood with earth laid upon
it, and each bridge was fenced in throughout its whole length.
◆H. vii. 37.◆
After spending the winter of 481–480 at Sardes, Xerxes started on his
march at the beginning of spring. Herodotus asserts that his departure
was signalized by an eclipse of the sun. He is certainly mistaken in
attributing an eclipse to this date;[97] but popular tradition was but
too apt to mis-date such phenomena in order to make them coincide with
some momentous event in history.
◆H. vii. 40, 41.◆
The Persian household troops, gorgeously caparisoned, formed the
body-guard of the king on his march. The total number of this _corps
d’élite_ amounts to 24,000 in Herodotus’ enumeration.
Herodotus, writing for an audience that wished above all to be amused,
tells many a tale of the incidents of the march. They are pleasant
reading enough, but they are not history. They had, however, a serious
as well as a lighter side. He wished to bring before his countrymen
a picture of that life of the East which few of them, perhaps, could
realize; of the illogical decrees of absolutism; of anything and
everything which could display to them the contrast between a splendid
liberty and a splendid servitude.
◆H. vii. 42.◆
The route followed by the army in its march from Sardes to the
Hellespont led it over the river Kaïkos into Mysia. Then leaving
Mount Kane on the left, it passed through Atarneus to Karine. Thence
it marched through the plain of Thebe, and passing Adramyttion and
Antandros, and, keeping Mount Ida on the _right_,[98] it entered the
territory of Ilium. From there it passed near Rhoetion, Ophrynion and
Dardanos to Abydos.
◆H. vii. 44.◆
At Abydos Xerxes reviewed his army. A philosophical dialogue with
Artabanos on Herodotus’ pet philosophical theme is also attributed to
him by the historian. Later in the conversation the political
situation is discussed. There is one of those numerous and significant
references to the fact that the Athenians alone of the Ionian Greeks
had never been subdued by Persia, references which, if not always
historical in their setting, suggest that Herodotus had in conversation
with those acquainted with the workings of Persian policy, acquired the
idea that it was largely influenced by this motive. The advisability
of employing the Ionians of Asia in the impending expedition is also
debated.
◆H. vii. 58.◆
The fleet also had evidently assembled at the Hellespont; for, after
the army had crossed the bridge, it is reported to have sailed to Cape
Sarpedon, and there to have waited. From its landing near Sêstos, the
army marched up the Thracian Chersonese, leaving the city of Kardia on
the left, and passing through a town called Agora. Thence it rounded
the Bay of Melas, and crossed the river of that name. The waters of
this stream, says Herodotus, did not suffice for the purposes of the
army. He is anxious to emphasize in every way the magnitude of the
expedition; and the inadequacy of the rivers to meet the needs of the
great host is an ever recurrent theme in his history of it. In many
instances the detail would be true. The eastern torrent is reduced to
very small proportions in the summer months, and oft-times its bed is
quite dry.
From the Melas they marched westward, passing by Ænos, an Æolian city,
and the lake Stentoris, and so reached Doriskos. Thither also came the
fleet. The town itself was in the plain of the Hebros river, but not on
the actual coast. On the seashore near it stood Sale, a Samothracian
city, and Zona. Here Xerxes numbered his army. The method of numeration
reported may or may not have been actually employed. Ten thousand men
were collected on a space of ground; this was then marked out, and
the rest of the army was crowded on to this area in detachments. The
sum total was, says Herodotus, 1,700,000. This statement of numbers
has already been discussed. It is without doubt exaggerated at least
two-fold, if not more.
#THE PERSIAN FLEET.#
◆H. vii. 61, _seq_.◆
A list, continued through many chapters, is given of the various
contingents composing the host, together with their arms and other
details. To take it in detail would be wearisome, and is unnecessary.
It amounts to an enumeration of all the races in Asia known to the
Greeks. That most of them were represented in the motley crowd, is
doubtless the case; but it is probable that the list is founded on
information culled from Ionian geographers. ◆♠H. vii. 82.◆ Of the
generals commanding the army, Mardonius is the only one who has been in
the highest command before. The others are unknown to previous history.
One of them, Smerdomenes, is a son of the Otanes who had commanded in
the Hellespont some twenty-seven years before.
♠ “H. viii. 82.” replaced with “H. vii. 82.”
The number of war-vessels amounted to 1207. If this number be correct
(and there are no solid grounds for doubting it), the levy on this
occasion had been just double the ordinary naval levy of 600 ships.
The numbers of the contingent as reported by Herodotus are:—
Phœnicians and Syrians 300 ships
Egyptians 200 „
Cypriotes 150 „
Cilicians 100 „
Pamphylians 30 „
Lycians 50 „
Dorians of Asia 30 „
Carians 70 „
Ionians 100 „
Islanders 17 „
Æolians 60 „
Hellespontines 100 „
----
1207 ships.
Reckoning at least 100 of the ships from Cyprus as having been
contributed by Greeks, it will be seen that of the total of 1207, the
Greeks contributed 407 vessels.
Persians, Medes, and Sakæ served as marines on board the fleet. The
Phœnician ships, especially those of the Sidonians, were the best
sailers.
◆H. vii. 97.◆
Besides these first class vessels of the fleet, there were thirty- and
fifty-oared ships and transports to the number of 3000.
Artemisia, queen of Herodotus’ own native place, Halikarnassos, a lady
for whom he had a great admiration, seems to have commanded the whole
contingent of the Dorians of Asia.
◆H. vii. 101.◆
After reviewing the fleet off the Doriskan shore, Xerxes is reported to
have held a conversation with Demaratos, the exiled King of Sparta, and
to have heard some plain and unpalatable truths from him with regard
to the nature of the resistance he must expect to meet with from the
Greeks, and especially from the Spartans. It has its place in the plot
of the great drama. The king did not go to his fate unwarned.
Of the course of the army from Doriskos to Therma, but little need be
said. ◆H. vii. 121.◆ The army marched in three divisions, one, with
Xerxes, taking the well-known coast road, past various places named by
Herodotus: the Samothracian fortresses, Mesembria, and Stryme, a city
of the Thasians. Thence by the Greek cities of Maronea, Dikaea, and
Abdera: past Pistyros and certain forts of the Pierians. Mount Pangaeus
they left on their right, keeping, that is, on the coastward side of
it. They then reached Eion on the Strymon river, and passing that
stream by a bridge which had been constructed at Enneahodoi or Nine
Ways, marched to Akanthos by way of Argilos and Stagiros.
During this passage, says Herodotus, the inhabitants of the districts
through which the army passed were pressed into the service.
Herodotus thus describes the coast route with considerable detail,
mentioning, moreover, various geographical features which are not given
here. He has almost certainly traversed it, possibly in a journey
through Macedonia to Northern Greece, of which there are such evident
traces in his later books.
◆H. vii. 110, 111.◆
But, though he says that two of the Persian divisions took inland
courses, he gives no real indication of what they were, though the
mention of the Satræ and the description of their country suggests that
one at least of these routes went near the higher peaks of Rhodope.
#THE EXPEDITION AT THERMA.# It is, indeed, impossible on the
practical question of physical and military possibilities, if Herodotus
is right in his assertion with regard to this inland line of advance,
to identify it with any other than a route leading to the sources of
the Hebros, and then southward down the Axios or Strymon valleys into
Macedonia.[99]
From Akanthos the fleet made its way by the canal through Athos to
Therma, touching at various small Greek towns on the coast of the
Chalkidike peninsula, and impressing ships and men from them.
The main army made its way direct across the base of the peninsula to
Therma.
There the expedition rested.
From there the king went by ship to explore the great pass into
Thessaly, where the river Peneius has cut the deep vale of Tempe
between the heights of Olympus and Ossa. ◆H. vii. 130.◆ Herodotus
takes the opportunity to put into his mouth some striking comments on
the physical peculiarities of the region, which are, no doubt, the
historian’s own, derived from the personal knowledge of the land.
From Tempe Xerxes returned to the army at Therma.
It was after Xerxes had reached Therma that the real difficulties of
his land march began. Hitherto the route had traversed that north
shore of the Ægean along which, between the mountains and the sea,
nature has provided a strip of lowland which, though narrow, does not
present great physical obstacles to the march of an army. But now all
was different. It was as though, after traversing an unimpeded high
road, he had to enter upon a region of enclosures, whose mountain
walls, stupendous in difficulty, if not in height, forced him to take
a winding pathway leading from one to the other of the narrow
passages by which these walls were pierced. But this was not the only
serious consideration which those in charge of the expedition had to
face.
Hitherto the line of march, which had lain along the immediate sea
coast, had been peculiarly favourable to the plan of advance adopted,—a
plan founded essentially on the co-operation of the fleet with the land
forces.
It may well be supposed that the dual nature of this advance was
largely designed with intent to supply the commissariat of the army, as
well as with the idea of military co-operation between it and the fleet.
The huge numbers which Herodotus gives of the Persian army are not
merely open to doubt; they are practically impossible; but there
exists no evidence whatever which would justify the assumption that
the numbers were aught but very large indeed. They must have amounted
at the lowest estimate to several hundred thousand men. The expedition
was a great effort by a great empire, by far the greatest empire of its
time, and, during the short period of its vigorous life, one of the
greatest that the world has ever seen. The difficulty of transporting
such a force round the long circuit of the Ægean must have been
enormous; and the bare fact that it was transported successfully over
such a distance bears eloquent testimony to the military organization
of the empire which despatched it.
The tendency, which is sometimes displayed, to belittle the Persia of
this time is in violent disagreement with such evidence as is extant,
and is due to an attempt to read her history in the fourth century
into her history of one century earlier. If human ability is to be
judged by what human power can do, the mere fact that the organizers
of this expedition were able to bring a force of this magnitude over
hundreds of miles of difficult country, to keep it adequately supplied
with provisions, and to place it upon the field of operations in an
efficient state, must be taken as convincing proof of ability of no
ordinary kind.
#HERODOTUS AS A TOPOGRAPHER.#
As far as the commissariat is concerned, it is known from Herodotus
that it was, to a certain extent at any rate, requisitioned
from various regions through which the army passed; but it is also
quite certain that, except at a few points along the route, the land
traversed was not of a description that would render it possible for
the supplies of more than a fraction of the huge host to be drawn
from local resources, and that the victualling must have been largely
dependent on the fleet.
As far as Therma the association of the two branches of the expedition
was of a comparatively easy and unimpeded character; but from this
point onward the physical difficulties to be met and overcome were
infinitely greater. The land to be traversed was, on the whole, poorer
than that already passed, and the land route lay, in many places, at
some distance from the sea, so that co-operation would be much less
easy than it had been hitherto. And yet, despite these difficulties,
the commissariat seems to have been still adequately maintained.
Herodotus does not describe with any detail the course which the army
followed in its advance southward until, at any rate, Thermopylæ had
been passed. It is hardly likely that he possessed much information of
the incidents of the rapid march through Thessaly, though his remarks
about the physical characteristics of that peculiar region seem to
emanate from the recollection of one who has actually seen what he
is describing. When and how he went there cannot now be said, but
the evidence which he himself gives in many portions of his history
that he is describing from personal autopsy the scenes of the great
events which he narrates is overwhelming. Herodotus was not only the
most conscientious, he was also the best topographer among ancient
historians. The almost childlike simplicity of his narrative is
calculated to create a presumption that the writer would not be likely
to inquire into the question of truth or falsehood in the determined
fashion which a minute examination of the theatre of events implies.
The presumption would, in his case, be eminently erroneous. As a
traveller, as heir to the historio-geographers of Ionia, he did not
look upon history as having been formed, as it were, in a vacuum.
He saw, as a man of his insight must inevitably see, that it is the
land that creates the man, not the man the land,—a fact which
the marked characteristics of the Ægean region would impress upon a
consciousness far duller than was his.
Long before Xerxes had arrived at Therma the question of the defence
of Hellas had been the subject of anxious consideration and of violent
discussion among the Greek States. It is perhaps impossible to realize
to its fulness the alarm which the reported advance of the great
expedition created throughout the Hellenic world in Europe. The great
monarchy which some sixty years before had reached the Ægean; the
great power which for more than a generation past had filled the whole
eastern horizon of the Greek; the power which had subdued Asia, even
beyond the limits of the known world, and had conquered lands unknown,
whose terrors would certainly not be diminished in the myth and fable
of those who knew them not, was now advancing upon their own homeland.
The lack of unity at home, too, must have served greatly to increase
the anxiety of the situation. New combinations had to be formed, to be
sought; old enmities to be laid aside, for a while, at any rate; old
enemies to be reconciled, before anything resembling a united front
could be shown to the great Eastern power which was now putting forth
all its strength against them.
In most respects everything had to be done in a hurry.
It had not been possible for those who knew what had been going on for
some years past beyond the Ægean to rouse into action the lethargy
of the self-centred life of the barrier-bound states of Greece. One
phase of the situation was of peculiar irony. Athens, the state
which seems to have seen most clearly the coming storm, and to have
rightly apprehended its tremendous nature, had herself, consciously or
unconsciously, created a myth peculiarly calculated to lull the more
ignorant population of the country into a false sense of security. The
tale of Marathon was less than ten years old; but under the fostering
care of its parent, it had grown immensely during that period, and done
great credit throughout Greece to those who were responsible for its
origin and nurture. #APATHY OF THE GREEKS.# Its growth had been
unimpeded by the deadly enemy of young and promising myths, independent
evidence; for, owing to the fact that the Athenians had been
practically alone at Marathon, this can hardly be said to have existed;
and the history of the fight was only limited by the powers of its
creators. The myth had done its work: it had raised the reputation of
Athens in Greece generally to a great height, in singular, and, to the
Athenians, in pleasing contrast to the relative obscurity of the past.
But it had done more than this. It had, no doubt, created an impression
in the Greek mind generally that the great power of Persia was not so
great as had been imagined, if an army not by any means accounted the
best in Greece could inflict on it a blow supposed to be so crushing as
Marathon. To Athens alone was the falsity of this impression known; and
yet, even in the face of this great danger, whose greatness she also
could alone adequately gauge, she could not afford to dispel it. She
stood between the devil of a reputation and the deep sea of the truth.
Such was the situation in the years preceding 480. No joint preparation
was made, because its necessity was not apprehended. Men either did not
believe that the expedition would come to anything; or, if they did
believe it, they imagined that a power which had been successfully met
by one of the states of Greece, and that not the most powerful, could
be dealt with effectively by a combined force, without unnecessarily
prolonged preparation.
But when the news arrived that the expedition was on its way, and
reports, doubtless exaggerated, as to its magnitude poured into Greece,
there came a revulsion of feeling, and the former sense of security
gave place to hurried alarm.
◆H. vii. 32.◆
Before the expedition had actually started from Sardes, heralds had
been sent by Xerxes to all the Greek States, with the exception of
Athens and Sparta, to demand the earth and water of submission. The
treatment which those two States had on a previous occasion meted out
to certain Persian heralds who had been sent on a like errand, was not
such as to encourage a repetition of the experiment in their case,
◆H. vii. 134.◆ although the Spartans had themselves repented of this
breach of international law. Herodotus is probably only expressing the
feeling and expectation of the Greece of forty or fifty years before he
wrote, when he says that he does not know exactly what calamity befel
the Athenians in consequence of their having treated the heralds in the
fashion in which they did, except that their territory and city were
ravaged. He is, however, inclined to think that this did not happen in
consequence of the crime committed. Despite the somewhat grim humour
of the Athenian and Spartan action, it is evident that it shocked
that Greek reverence for international usage which is one of the most
striking developments of the civilisation of that extraordinary people.
It was while Xerxes was in Lower Macedonia that the heralds returned
from their mission.
The list of those who submitted is a noticeable one.
◆H. vii. 132.◆
The races of the region of Thessaly—of Greece, that is, north of Mount
Œta—submitted without exception (so Herodotus says); Thessalians,
Dolopians, Ænianians, Perrhæbi, Magnetes, Achæans of Pthiotis, and
Malians. There is nothing very extraordinary nor even blameworthy in
their action. The Peloponnesian policy or strategy, the fundamental
idea of which was to confine the main defence to the Isthmus of
Corinth, was already acquiring the upper hand in the Greek councils;
and the circumstances of the time were well calculated to give the
population of the north the impression that they were to be deserted,—a
true impression, as the sequel showed.
In Thessaly itself the political circumstances were unfavourable to a
display of patriotic feeling. That land of great plains, so contrasted
in its physical characteristics to the rest of Greece, had bred a
political system which was also in violent contrast to the forms of
government existing at the time in the other regions of the country.
There prevailed a quasi-feudalism such as might perhaps have found
some counterpart in the Argolic plain, when the lords of Mycenæ and
of Tiryns held sway, but the like of which had, by the beginning of
the fifth century, long vanished from the Hellenic lands. It was
the physical which produced the political contrast. #THESSALY.# The
fertile, unimpeded plains of Thessaly permitted the growth of rich
landed proprietors on a large scale, families of whom, like the Aleuadæ
in Larisa, or their relatives the Skopadæ in Krannon, or like Jason of
Pheræ in later days, were enabled to establish their supremacy over a
large area.
The great ambition of the Thessalian baron was to make himself Tagos,
or Captain of all Thessaly; which end he seems to have pursued without
scruple as to the means. When it was merely a question of maintaining
his power against reluctant forces at home, he had a powerful weapon
at his back in the feudal cavalry whose effectiveness was due to the
unimpeded nature of the field of operations. He could play a part,
and he did play a part, so long as Greece had a history of her own,
which would have been impossible in the intricate mountain regions of
the rest of the land. But nature had bestowed one more favour upon
his system, by raising the formidable barrier of Mount Œta between
him and the rest of Greece. That it was which prevented the Hellenic
spirit of independence from penetrating to the name-place, if not the
birth-place, of the Hellene; and the Thessalian, though one in body,
was never during the historic period one in spirit with the men of his
own race.
Thermopylæ was in no mere strategic sense the gate of Greece.
And yet in the spare glimpses of Thessalian history which are given
in the contemporary historians, it is evident that the mass of the
population did not at all times tamely acquiesce in this state of
semi-feudal submission. The few occasions on which Greek States did
interfere effectively in Thessalian affairs were provided by the
discontent of the governed many against the governing few. It may well
be supposed that some such state of things was in existence at this
time, or had been existent within a very recent period. ◆H. vii. 6,
8, 130.◆ The Aleuadæ, whom Herodotus describes as Kings in Thessaly,
had invited the Persian,—for motives of self-interest, it may be
certain,—to interfere in the affairs of Greece; and this invitation,
addressed to Xerxes some years before the actual march of invasion,
while the whole question was still in the air, contributed not a
little, so Herodotus says, to Xerxes’ final decision.[100]
◆H. vii. 172.◆
Despite this appeal on the part of the Aleuadæ, the Thessalians as
a body had at first no intention to medize. They disapproved of the
action of this family; and, before the Persians had crossed the
Hellespont, they sent a strongly worded appeal to the council of the
Greeks assembled at the Isthmus to help them with a large force to
defend the passage of Olympus: otherwise, they said, they must of
necessity yield to the barbarian.
The appeal did not remain without its effect. The Greeks determined
to send an army to guard the Vale of Tempe. Ten thousand heavy-armed
troops were despatched by sea up the Euripus, and, after landing at
Halos on the west shore of the Pagasætic Gulf, marched to Tempe.[101]
The despatching of these troops by sea has been taken to indicate that
the Greeks mistrusted the attitude of the Bœotians. It is, perhaps,
possible to attach too much importance to the symbolical submission
of the Northern States of Greece. The general course of events would
seem to indicate that one of two things was the case at this time. It
may have been that the heralds had not yet visited these States to
receive their submission when the expedition to Tempe took place—a
quite possible contingency when it is borne in mind that these events
are dated by Herodotus as occurring at a time when the Persian had not
yet crossed into Europe, whereas the heralds did not meet Xerxes until
he got to Therma. Or it may have been that, if such submission had been
made, it had been made with the mental reservation of the intention to
take part with the rest of Greece, provided the Southern States showed
a disposition to strike a blow in defence of the North.[102]
#EXPEDITION TO THESSALY.#
The Bœotian attitude at the time of Thermopylæ, as related by
Herodotus, is so extraordinary as to be incredible; and his
account of the attitude of these Northern States at this time suggests
the suspicion that the bitterness of feeling against them, which
undoubtedly existed after Platæa, has been antedated by him, and has
led to the growth of a story discreditable to them, relating to the
time immediately previous to the actual invasion. It is not difficult
to see that the Greek States of the South, by the selfishness of their
policy, made it necessary for the States of the North to seek their own
salvation by an attitude which, though on the face of it unpatriotic,
was forced on them by the situation.
Such is the conclusion which may be drawn from Herodotus’ narrative of
the events of this period. It is a tale undoubtedly coloured by
the bitterness of the feeling subsequently displayed to those Greeks
who were represented as having betrayed the Greek national cause. It
may be, after all, that the account of the matter in Diodorus, which
is more explicit, is also more true. If he is to be believed, neither
Locris nor Bœotia nor the Thessalians proper medized until the retreat
from Tempe left North Greece deserted for the time being.
[Illustration: THE VALE OF TEMPE.
[_To face page_ 231.
]
The expedition to North Thessaly was made under a gross misapprehension
as to the geography of the region. The Greeks who despatched it were
evidently under the impression that the Tempe pass was the only
practicable entrance into that country. It will be best to speak
in detail of the passes of this region when the march of Xerxes is
described; for the present suffice it to say that in Tempe itself
there is on the hills north of the Peneius River a path by which the
defence of the main road, which keeps on the south bank of the stream,
may be turned; and, furthermore, there are two other passes through
the Olympo-Cambunian chain, by which entrance may be obtained into the
Thessalian plain. The army, of which the Lacedæmonian contingent was
commanded by Evænetos,[103] and the Athenian by Themistocles, found
itself in a false position. It says something for Herodotus’ military
insight that, although he gives what was, so he says, the generally
received story, that the retreat was decided upon in consequence of a
message from Alexander, a Macedonian, describing the enormous numbers
of the Persian army, he believes the real reason to have been the
discovery that the Tempe defile could be turned by other passes.
The growth of sea communication, and the consequent disuse of some of
the old land routes, probably accounts for the ignorance which the
Greeks displayed of a region through which the old trade route to the
north must have passed.
The army returned to its ships at Halos, and so home. Then, says
Herodotus, the Thessalians, abandoned by their allies, readily took
part with the king.
That the Locrians of the East were among those who gave earth and
water is not surprising. Though within the gates of Thermopylæ, their
country was north of the Œta range. It was imperatively necessary that,
in case they were deserted, they should be in a position to make terms
with the invader; for the flood of invasion, unless stemmed, must pass
in full stream their way. The length of their narrow territory was
traversed by the great military highway from the North.
The fiasco of the expedition to Tempe had no doubt discouraged the
northern Greeks, and among the powers represented at the Isthmus it
must have told greatly in favour of the Peloponnesian strategy. Be that
as it may, the design of the Council at the Isthmus was to make the
defence a Panhellenic effort, and to persuade the whole Greek world to
lend a helping hand towards the preservation of the mother country.
It may be suspected that Athens roused and sustained the energy which
such an effort implied; but the official invitations sent out appealing
for assistance were evidently issued in the name of the Congress as a
body.[104]
The situation which the Congress had to face was not a little
complicated by the attitude of the oracle at Delphi. It prophesied not
good but evil of the prospects of the Hellenic cause. It seems quite
clear that the versions of the responses which Herodotus gives are
editions of the originals revised in certain particulars in accordance
with the event. He probably obtained them from records at Delphi
itself; and it may be supposed that the authorities of that sanctuary
would not allow a manifestly mistaken prophecy to remain upon their
books, when a slight alteration would place it in accord with what
actually happened. Even had the divine Delphi been much more free from
human frailty than it was, such emendations would have proved a sore
temptation to the priests.
#ATTITUDE OF DELPHI.#
The general aspect and tone of the oracles when they are freed
from what is manifestly suspicious, gives the impression that the
original responses predicted the fortunes of the Greeks in the
coming war in the most pessimistic language. There is no appeal or
encouragement to the self-sacrifice of great patriotism. Resistance
appears to be discouraged; and whether this was the intent or
not,—though the matter admits of little doubt—the effect of these
answers was to afford some of the powers concerned what they, at any
rate, considered a justifiable excuse for neutrality in the coming
struggle. The attitude of Delphi at this time is one of the most
interesting problems in the history of the period. When questions of
a purely Hellenic nature were concerned, its policy was calculated on
a basis of information such as its wide-spread and intimate relations
with the Greek states as a whole enabled it to acquire. In the present
instance, however, the great factor in the calculation, the real
intention of Persia, was an uncertain one. Yet it would seem as if
Delphi had made up its mind as to its nature.
The student of Greek History, insensibly imbued with knowledge after
the event, has a natural tendency to regard what is now known to have
been the object of the great expedition, the subjugation of all Greece,
as having been from the very first the declared and conspicuous design
of the Persian king. Yet, as a fact, Herodotus makes it perfectly clear
that this was not the case at the time,—at any rate, not wholly the
case. ◆H. vii. 138.◆ He tells us that the expedition was nominally
directed against Athens, ◆H. vii. 157.◆ but was really sent against all
Greece; and then, curiously enough, ◆H. vii. 139.◆ he goes on to show
in the very next chapter how disastrous for Greece it would have been
had Athens followed the policy which Delphi advocated. ◆H. vii. 139.◆
He expressly says that the oracles which came thence and filled the
Athenians with terror, did not induce them to abandon Greece. Despite
his general respect for such divine utterances, he is in this case
hardly at pains to conceal the fact that he believes that obedience to
the oracle would have brought with it a political disaster of appalling
magnitude to the whole of Hellas.
The two responses given to the Athenians on the two occasions on
which they consulted Delphi at some date immediately before the war are
of a very remarkable nature if taken apart from one another, and still
more remarkable if taken in contrast. The second indicates a complete
change of policy from that advocated in the first. The priests of
Delphi were no mere fortune-tellers. It may be taken for certain that
they did not speak at haphazard on an occasion so momentous. There was
something,—call it motive, or call it policy,—behind what they said.
In the present instance the remarkable feature in the case is that the
second response given is in so decided a contrast with the first that
the motives or policies which lie behind the two must be essentially
different. Were the policy advocated by Delphi a negligible quantity on
Greek History, the matter, though interesting, could form little more
than a subject for academic discussion. But in some way or other which
cannot now be fully realized, the method being secret, the oracle was
the voice of an inner ring, a secret society of Hellenic statesmen,
whose authority was due to the average excellence of the information on
which the policy they advocated was founded. Taking all the oracular
responses which were uttered at this time, they seem to fall under two
periods, during the earlier of which Delphic policy was distinctly
opposed to a Pan-hellenic effort against the invader.
The authorities at Delphi seem to have read the coming invasion in the
light of a tremendous punitive expedition against Athens, a revenge
for Marathon and Sardes. ◆H. vii. 138.◆ It has already been shown
on the evidence of Herodotus that these were the declared reasons
of the expedition. Believing this to be the case, it required no
great imaginative powers with respect to the future to foretell the
destruction of Attica. Hence the first of the two celebrated oracles
which caused the Athenian delegates such natural alarm. The Athenians
are told to fly to the ends of the earth, and the utter destruction of
their Greek home is foretold.
It was to Athens alone that such advice was given. Athens was the
object of the expedition, so Delphi thought; and if the object
were removed, the invasion might never take place. In any case, if
it did take place, it was possible that its object might be regarded
as attained if Attica and Athens were laid waste; and therefore it
was necessary, in consistency with this view, to discourage the
interference of the Greek States in the matter. ◆H. vii 148.◆ This is
the reason for the advice given to Argos and to the Cretans. ◆H. vii.
169.◆ If other States interfered the devastation might spread to the
whole of Greece.
It is quite conceivable that Delphi regarded this as being, under the
circumstances, the most patriotic policy which could be advocated. The
removal of the cause of offence would go far towards expiating the
offence itself. Such a course of action was in a way parallel to that
demanded by one Greek State from another in a case of sacrilegious
pollution.
Two questions now arise. In the first place, at what period in the
development of affairs prior to the invasion was this oracular response
delivered to the Athenians? Secondly, what interval elapsed between
it and the second? The first question hardly admits of an answer. The
wording of the oracle affords but a slender and uncertain clue; and
that, such as it is, is contained in the latter half of it. The answer,
as given in Herodotus, is in twelve lines of verse. ◆H. vii. 140.◆
Of these the first six refer to Athens alone. The last six, however,
extend the threat of destruction to other States of Greece. And yet
the inhabitants of those States are not advised to fly their land; the
exhortation to flight is addressed to Athens alone. If these words were
dictated by circumstances existent at the time they were spoken, they
can only be of the nature of a threat addressed to the other powers
of Greece; and, if so, they were probably uttered either during the
expedition to Tempe, or immediately after it, and were a warning of
what would happen to those who tried to resist the invader.
A further possibility is that the last six lines appeared in a revised
version of the original, made after the event.
Herodotus’ account of the delivery of the second oracle gives the
impression that he supposed this to have been spoken immediately after
the first. The tale is a curious one, and discloses an attitude
of mind among the Greeks of that time to which no distinctly traceable
counterpart could be found at the present day. The demand for the
prophecy of smooth things, though sometimes raised even in our own
times, does not, if fulfilled, convey much comfort to the modern mind;
and such comfort as might be given could hardly be heightened by the
fact that the prophecy had been previously arranged. That was palpably
the case in this instance.
Herodotus tells the tale much as follows:—
The Athenian delegates, he says, were exceedingly depressed by the
first answer they had received. While they were in this state, Timon
the son of Androboulos, a man in the highest repute at Delphi, came
to them and suggested they should go again and consult the oracle as
suppliants. When people in Timon’s position make such suggestions, it
may be presumed that they are acting upon knowledge. It may even be
suspected that there was something in the previous answer which the
authorities were anxious to amend.
There are two features in the second oracle which are of the nature of
a forecast of events: the advice as to the reliance to be placed on
the defence of the wooden walls, and the purely prophetic reference to
Salamis. The first of these may be, probably is, a part of the original
utterance; the second, contained in the last two lines, is probably an
addition after the event, unless, which is improbable, Themistocles
influenced the wording of the answer. The first may be possibly
conceived as having brought about its own fulfilment; the second
refers to a measure which is unanimously attributed to the genius of
Themistocles.
But the most remarkable feature of the whole is the absence of any
reference to a flight to the ends of the earth, the essential and
most striking feature of the first response. The Athenians are indeed
told that they must abandon their country; but all reference to an
abandonment of Greece is conspicuously omitted.
It is superfluous to say that it is impossible at the present day to
account with certainty for the manifest incongruity between the two
utterances. #POLICY OF DELPHI.# At the same time, taking them as
they stand, there is one hypothesis as to their origin which accords
with the circumstances of the time. It is an hypothesis, moreover,
which tends to explain the cause for that strong expression of personal
opinion as to the part played by Athens in the salvation of Greece,
which Herodotus puts forward in the chapter immediately preceding his
record of their language, and in direct reference to them.
The first oracle seems to have been an expression of the policy which
Delphi was disposed to advocate in view of the coming invasion. This
policy can only have been founded on the genuine belief that Athens
was the sole object aimed at by the Persians, and could remain so,
if the rest of the Greek States would abstain from interference. The
best solution of the situation seemed to be the voluntary removal of
the Athenians to a land outside Hellas. If this was not the policy of
Delphi, her advice to the Cretans, and, above all, to Argos, is quite
inexplicable.
But whatever Delphi thought, there was a very general opinion
throughout Greece, and especially in Peloponnesus, that the coming
invasion did not aim merely at the punishment of Athens, but at the
reduction of Greece to the position of a satrapy of the Persian
Empire. It was known, too, at this time that the invading force was,
perhaps, relatively stronger on sea than on land. It is not difficult,
therefore, to imagine the blank dismay with which the Peloponnesian
States must have heard of the wording of the first of the two oracles
addressed to Athens, and no time can have been lost in setting
their representatives at Delphi to undo the baneful effect which
the pronouncement must have on the Athenian decision. Peloponnesus
intended, no doubt, to defend itself at the Isthmus; but the Spartans
had a perfectly clear comprehension of the necessary part which the
Greek fleet, of which the Athenians must furnish the most important
contingent, must play in the defence.
It is unnecessary to suppose that the pressure was exerted on the
oracle at the immediate initiative of persons who were present on the
spot when the Athenian delegates were given the first answer.
Herodotus is not strict on questions of chronology; possibly his
sources of information did not allow him to be so; and the interval
between the two oracles may have been quite considerable relative to
the rapid march of events. Meanwhile pressure had been brought to bear
on the authorities at Delphi from Peloponnesus, a part of the world
whose representations they could not afford to neglect. So the tone
of the first response was modified in the Peloponnesian interest. The
Athenian was still counselled to desert Attica, but not to seek safety
away from Greece; and the fleet is clearly pointed to as the means of
salvation.
It was not Salamis which Delphi foresaw. It may be doubted even whether
she had any belief in the policy advocated. The Isthmus and the
Peloponnesians demanded the Athenian fleet; and Delphi could not afford
to quarrel with her best friends.
The new oracle, whose meaning was obscured by the fact that the
previous one had been uttered, came near to being misinterpreted by
those to whom it was sent. They evidently saw from the first that it
was, in a sense, a reversal of its predecessor; but as to its positive
meaning they were in much doubt.
In the account of the debate upon it Herodotus introduces, practically
for the first time, to the stage of history, with a suddenness and
simplicity of expression which is almost dramatic, the name of
Themistocles. ◆H. vii. 143.◆ “There was a certain man of the Athenians,
who had recently come to the front (in the State), whose name was
Themistocles;”—“And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of
Gilead, said unto Ahab.” In both cases the dramatic effect of the story
of the lives of the men whose biography is thus opened is heightened by
the lack of anything resembling an introduction.
That a debate did take place on the meaning of the oracle is probably
the case; and the tradition which Herodotus followed doubtless
represents in the main the lines of argument adopted by either side.
The reference to Salamis and to the lines thereon in the response of
Delphi might seem to be evidence in favour of their genuineness; but
it is quite manifest that, if the oracle was spoken at anything
like the time at which Herodotus represents it to have been uttered, it
is inconceivable that the idea of fighting at Salamis can at that time
have entered into the head of Themistocles, much less into the minds of
those who directed affairs at Delphi. Themistocles’ great reputation in
the years which followed the war was very largely due to the part he
played with respect to the strategy and tactics of Salamis; and there
was every inducement for the oracle to put in after the event a claim
to the first suggestion of the famous plan. But, if any judgment can be
formed as to the approximate date at which this particular oracle was
issued, it can only be said that Salamis lay at that time in a future
impenetrable to human reckoning.
As the question of the exact bearing of these oracles has been
discussed at some length, it may be convenient to sum up in a few
sentences the hypotheses which have been suggested as to their origin
and tendency.
There seems to have been a belief current in Greece when first the news
of the coming expedition was noised abroad, that it was a punitive one
aimed, like that of Datis and Artaphernes, against Athens.[105] The
then recent events of 490 would lend colour to such a belief. When
the magnitude of the coming expedition became known, and reports as
to its real intent came across the Ægean, Greece as a whole began to
think that the danger was more widely threatening than had been first
supposed. Delphi did not share in this change of opinion, and continued
to regard the expedition as aimed against Athens alone. Holding this
view, she adopted the double course of trying to remove the cause of
offence by getting the Athenians to leave Greece, and of doing all
in her power to prevent Greece as a whole from being involved in the
matter. She was successful in preventing Crete and Argos from joining
in the Hellenic defence, and the second half of the first oracle
delivered to Athens, if a part of the original version, is a threat,
uttered possibly about the time of the expedition to Thessaly, to those
powers other than Athens who seemed inclined to make the question
a pan-Hellenic one. Whatever Delphi thought, Sparta had by that time
fully made up her mind that the danger was one which threatened the
whole of Greece, and was consequently exceedingly alarmed at the tenour
of the advice given by Delphi to the Athenians, the only result of
which would be to rob her of an adjunct to the defence whose value she
fully appreciated,—the Athenian fleet No time was lost in bringing
pressure to bear on Delphi. The result was the second oracle delivered
to Athens, which, in spite of its ambiguous wording, clearly advocated
a policy in strong contrast to that which the first response had laid
down.
The account of these oracles, which is, evidently, from the
chronological point of view, of the nature of a digression in
Herodotus’ history, is succeeded by the description of certain events
which must have taken place in the autumn and winter of 481.
Several measures are described which were adopted by the Council of
the Greeks which had been formed to take the necessary steps to resist
the coming invasion. A settlement was made of the outstanding disputes
between the Greek States, and especially of the war between Athens and
Ægina.
This settlement must, apparently, be attributed to the autumn of 481,
for the measures which were next taken, ◆H. vii. 145.◆ which are
expressly stated to have been subsequent to this reconciliation, were
contemporaneous with the presence of the Persian Army at Sardes, ◆H.
vii. 37.◆ and belong therefore to the winter of 481–480. The measures
were: the seeding of spies into Asia; the despatching of ambassadors to
solicit aid from Gelon of Syracuse, from Crete, from Corcyra, and from
Argos.
[Illustration: THE HARBOUR OF CORCYRA.]
[_To face page_ 241.
]
#CORCYRA.#
◆H. vii. 146, 174.◆
The tale of the fate of the spies is one upon which tradition was
likely to improve; but there is no reason to doubt the main incidents
of it; how they went to Sardes and were apprehended; how they were
only saved from execution by the interposition of Xerxes, who thought
it would be instructive to them to see what they wanted to see, and
that it might be very advantageous to him if they reported what
they had seen to those who sent them. Xerxes’ policy in the matter was
admittedly wise. Resistance is frequently due to misapprehension.
The States to whom appeals for aid were sent were all of them in
peculiar positions with reference not merely to their home affairs, but
also to their relations towards the mass of the Greek States.
The very nature of things as they existed in the fifth century before
Christ made it improbable, almost impossible, that Corcyra should
take a very active interest in the affairs of Greece generally. The
Hellenism of her continental neighbours in North-west Greece, in
Epirus, in Ætolia, in Acarnania, was as yet undeveloped. The range of
Pindus, by its oblique course from the very shores of the Adriatic
to those of the Corinthian Gulf, cut off that corner of the Greek
world from those outside influences and that wide experience which
contributed so largely towards making the Hellenism of the fifth
century what it was. Corcyra had no immediate neighbours from whom
she could catch the infection of the Hellenic spirit. It is hardly
strange if she did not interpret the unwritten law of Greek patriotism
in the sense in which it was interpreted by those who were much more
interested in upholding it. Selfish she appeared to the Greeks of this
time; and it can be seen by reading between the lines in Thucydides
that this was the impression she gave to her contemporaries half
a century later. She was severely—it may be, hardly judged. The
circumstances were peculiarly unfavourable to the development within
her of a pan-Hellenic spirit. Nature had placed her in an almost
ideal position in relation to one of the greatest trade routes of the
ancient world,—that from Greece to Italy and the West. Wealth came
easily to her. Her position allowed her to regard with equanimity the
competition of Corinth and the growing rivalry of Athenian trade.
However much there might be for her competitors, the very nature of
her position assured her of an ample sufficiency. So she lived on a
policy of sufferance, neither interfering nor interfered with. If the
Corcyrean was a spoilt child, he had been spoilt by mother nature. His
circumstances were such as were peculiarly calculated to encourage
a selfish patriotism. Had he voyaged the whole Mediterranean over, he
could not have found a fairer picture than that presented by his own
enchanted island. To himself, no doubt, he appeared the honest man; but
to his contemporaries of larger view he seemed, as it were, the “man
with the muck-rake” of Greek politics, over whose head the crown of
patriotism was held in vain.
It is conceivable that in the present instance Corcyra did not
understand to the full the nature of the danger which threatened
Greece. It had taken long to convince the states who sent her the
invitation that the attack was not directed against Athens alone. She
promised assistance, but evidently with a mental reservation to hold
back until the intention of the Persian was declared unmistakably.
Unfortunately for her reputation, she held back too long. When she
ought to have joined in, she did not—possibly she was too late to do
so; and it is not surprising if her contemporaries, who had borne the
burden of the struggle unaided by her, judged her hardly.
Not so severe, perhaps, should be the judgment of those who are in a
position to review the whole extent of the feeling which prevailed at
this critical time. Patriotism, when aroused, does not argue according
to the rules of logic; and so, remembering this, the severity of the
judgment passed by the Greek patriot on the Greek neutral may be
excused, or even in a sense justified. But it must also be borne in
mind that those who, with Delphi, regarded any joint action of the
Greek States in a quarrel which might be looked upon as concerning
Athens alone, to be calculated to bring suffering upon the whole of
Greece, or at any rate on those who took part in it, and therefore
impolitic, were also justified from their point of view. To them it
might seem as if Athens should lie on the bed she herself had made,
when she had alone among the great powers of Greece interfered in the
Ionian revolt.
#ATTITUDE OF ARGOS.#
Of the Crete of the earlier part of the fifth century but little is
known from the historians; and the modern exploration of the historic
remains on the island has, so far, thrown but little light on its
political relations at this time, whether internal or external.
It seems to have been divided up between a number of comparatively
small city States, which it would have been difficult to rouse to joint
action on any question which did not concern their special interests.
Herodotus does not pass any judgment on the conduct of the Cretans in
refusing aid, possibly because the refusal was in accordance with the
answer given by the Delphic oracle when consulted on the subject.
The attitude of Argos is not so easy to account for. She had, indeed,
suffered terribly by the loss of six thousand of her citizens in the
battle with the Lacedæmonians under Kleomenes. Delphi, in consistency
with its policy at the time, counselled against interference; but
the Argive tale was that, even so, they were ready to take part in
the defence, provided Sparta granted them a thirty years’ truce, and
provided she shared the supreme command of the allied forces with them.
◆H. vii. 149.◆ The proposal of a truce was entertained, if not actually
accepted; but Sparta refused to let Argos have more than one-third
of the command. The old question of the hegemony of Sparta and Argos
in the Peloponnese lay at the bottom of the refusal; but there is
manifestly a certain amount of improbability in the Argive account of
the affair as given by Herodotus. ◆H. vii. 151, _ad init._◆ He tells
another tale, which seems to have been of Athenian origin. It is to the
effect that Xerxes had been in direct communication with Argos, and
had practically ensured its neutrality, and that the terms demanded by
Argos from the other Greeks were proposed with a full knowledge that
they would be refused.
This tale was supported, so the historian says, by information obtained
at Susa by that mysterious embassy of Kallias; nevertheless, Herodotus
believes the Argive account, and rejects the tale current in the rest
of Greece.
If an author in the fifth century B.C. could not satisfactorily
discover the truth with regard to the matter, it is not likely that it
should be possible to do so at the present day. It may be that Argos,
from genuine conviction, followed the lead of Delphi, but provided
for a possible error in that policy by entering into some kind of
arrangement with the Persian.
The answer which the Greek Council sent to the Argives, as
reported by Diodorus, may be an invention of later times, but is so
peculiarly apt as to be worthy of quotation:—
“If,” it ran, “you think it a more dreadful thing to have a Greek
commander than a barbarian master, you are right in biding quiet; but
if you are ambitious to get the hegemony of Greece, you must earn a
position so splendid by doing something worthy of it.”
But the greatest military power in the Greek world at this time was
not situated in the mother country. Gelo, the tyrant of Syracuse in
Sicily, had at his command an armed force superior to that of any
other Greek State. His land army may not, indeed, have been greater
than the force which Sparta could put in the field; but he possessed,
besides, a navy as powerful as that of Athens. He seems to have been a
man of unusual capacity who, had death spared him for a while, might
have made Syracuse the centre of a considerable dominion in the West.
He was manifestly a desirable acquisition for the league of defence;
and it was very natural that a joint embassy should be sent to him to
ask his help in the coming peril. Herodotus describes the embassy with
considerable detail, but his account raises some difficulties which
cast a doubt, not perhaps on his truthfulness, but on the correctness
of his version of what took place.
It may be assumed that the speeches made by Gelo and the Greek
ambassadors are in their form the creation of the historian. The real
historical question is not as to the form, but as to the matter. ◆H.
vii. 157.◆ In the speech of the Greeks two points are peculiarly
prominent; it shows that there was an idea in certain quarters in
Greece that the expedition was directed against Athens alone; it is
further asserted that if Greece is subdued, Sicily’s turn for attack
will not fail to come quickly. The first of these is important as
throwing further light on the attitude of the Delphic oracle; the
second is an argument in accord with Herodotus’ own impression of the
situation at the time.
#GELO OF SYRACUSE.#
It is quite easy to see that there prevailed in antiquity
two views as to the exact significance of the coincidence of the
Carthaginian attack on Sicily with the invasion of Greece by Xerxes.
Herodotus never saw any connection between them. It is possible that
no hint of such a connection was apparent in the sources from which
he drew his story of the relations between Gelo and the embassy. ◆H.
vii 158.◆ He represents the former as being willing to send a very
considerable contingent to aid the Greeks at home, provided that the
latter will give him the command of the united force. The condition, if
the offer was ever made, was in no wise a surprising one. Considering
the magnitude of the help which Gelo is reported to have offered, it
was reasonable. ◆H. vii 159.◆ And yet it was refused, and that, too,
in language which cannot be regarded as otherwise than insulting. So
Gelo reduced his terms to the command of either the sea or land force.
And now the Athenian section of the embassy had a word to say. Their
refusal of the command by sea was, perhaps, somewhat more polite, but
hardly less explicit than had been that of the Spartans to the original
condition. Gelo’s answer, as reported, is brief, but marked by a wit
not unworthy of the distinguished literary society of his court: “My
Athenian friend, you seem to have commanders, without the likelihood of
any troops to command.”
After this, it may well be imagined, there was nothing more to be said
or done, and the embassy went home.
Gelo, however, is reported to have sent a treasure-ship to Delphi, to
watch the course of the war, with orders, in case the Persian won the
day, to surrender the treasure to him and offer the earth and water of
submission. The general origin of the tale so far is plainly indicated
by Herodotus. It is a story which existed—perhaps indeed was current—in
European Greece, for the historian, before proceeding to add further
details, expressly mentions that they were derived from Sicily.
◆H. vii. 165.◆
The Sicilians say, so he relates, that in spite of what had
occurred, Gelo would have aided the Greeks and submitted to the
Lacedæmonian command, had not circumstances arisen at home, in the
shape of a Carthaginian invasion, which prevented him from so
doing. Herodotus ascribes the invasion to the intervention of the
Carthaginians in favour of Terillos, tyrant of Himera, who had been
driven out of his government by Thero of Akragas. An immense army,
300,000 in number, composed, after the manner of the Carthaginian
armies, of nearly all the peoples in the Western Mediterranean, invaded
Sicily by way of Himera.
Such is Herodotus’ account of the events in Sicily at this critical
time, an account which closes with words of great significance, which
put a somewhat different complexion on the tale of the sending of the
treasure-ship to Delphi “Thus, not being able to help the Greeks (owing
to this invasion), Gelo sent the treasure to Delphi.”
Even if there existed no other evidence with regard to the events of
this period than that which Herodotus supplies, his narrative as it
stands would raise several serious difficulties.
It is, in the first place, quite impossible that an expedition of the
magnitude of that despatched by Carthage could have been got ready
without prolonged preparations such as could not have remained a secret
from the surrounding peoples, and especially from the Sicilian Greeks.
It would be calculated to excite the liveliest alarm among all who
could conceive themselves to be the objects of attack. Of the magnitude
of the expedition there can be no doubt. The numbers given in Herodotus
may not be correct, probably are not so; but, be that as it may, Sicily
itself bore testimony of an exceedingly practical kind to the magnitude
of the victory which was subsequently won at Himera. ◆Head. Hist.
Numm.◆ The victory itself, and the prosperity to which it gave rise,
caused something like a revolution in the coinage of Syracuse and of
the Siciliot states generally.
It is impossible to suppose that Gelo was unaware that the expedition
was being prepared, and, indeed, that Sicily was the object of it, long
before the expedition itself started. #LIBERTY AND TYRANNY.# It is
therefore, to say the least of it, doubtful whether he can ever have
entertained, or even have professed to entertain, any idea of
sending a force to help the Greeks at home. ◆H. vii. 165, _ad fin._◆
Even in Herodotus’ narrative it is stated that Gelo was aware of the
coming of the great Carthaginian expedition before the treasure was
despatched to Delphi. Why should Gelo have sought to buy off a Persian
attack from a distance when the great invasion was close upon him? If
he succumbed to the latter, the money would be thrown away. If he were
successful in warding it off, he might reasonably expect to be able to
resist any force which Persia could bring against him. The Ionian Sea
was not a Hellespont which might be bridged.
The tale of this despatch of treasure to Delphi is a strange one.
It may not be true. In any case the motive for it in Herodotus is
manifestly impossible. But the tale is not one which can be ignored.
The Greek of the fifth century was just as capable of suppressing
as of making history. His patriotism had a tendency to run on party
lines. The very intensity of the sympathy which he felt for all that
was Hellenic made him intensely hostile to any political system in
the Hellenic world, or to any representative of a system, which was
opposed to his own ideas; _optimi corruptio pessima_. The tyranny of
the great king over his subjects, even if they were Greeks, aroused
but a lukewarm resentment in the breast of the Greek democrat. He
hated with a much fiercer passion the tyranny of Greek over Greek.
The barbarian knew no better, because he was a barbarian; the Greek
ought to know, because he was a Greek. Nowhere and at no time in Greek
history can this feeling have been stronger than in the Athens of
the middle of the fifth century, under whose influence Herodotus so
manifestly wrote. The Great War had in his day become a story; he just
saved it from becoming a myth. The creative genius of the Greek did not
discriminate in subject-matter. History, both Ancient and Modern, went
alike info the melting-pot of his imagination, to be cast into a fable,
often beautiful, with a moral in its train. To such an influence as
this Herodotus was peculiarly susceptible. His genuinely conscientious
desire to write history in all truth was tinged with a piety which
induced an unconscious reservation of fact. He preferred the improbable
combined with a distinct moral lesson to the probable when no moral
lesson was conveyed. He wished to teach as well as to inform.
It is not necessary to suppose—there are, indeed, many reasons for
thinking it improbable,—that he ever departed from what he believed
to be true; but, at the same time, he was not possessed of the keen
critical faculty which would have been necessary to unravel the truth
from the falsehood of the tales which must have formed so largely the
basis of the history of the earlier part of the fifth century. His
account of Gelo is doubtless coloured by, if not reproduced from, the
tradition of the Greece of his time with regard to this incident in the
history of the great war. That war was regarded as far the greatest
of the triumphs of Hellenic freedom, a triumph of free institutions
over the monarchical system. The nature of the triumph would have
been largely discounted had it been necessary to record the name of
a hated tyrant upon the roll of fame. And so, may be, the connection
between Gelo’s victory and the war of liberation in Greece itself was
a thing almost forgotten in Hellas by the time of Herodotus. It may
have been hardly known to his generation, or only sufficiently known
to be resented and buried in silence. The tale as it was told was a
grand moral lesson to the democratic Greek. Even in the stress of the
severest need the free Greek had refused to sell his birthright of
command to a hated tyranny, though the price offered had been great.
And yet the issue had been triumphant. Could it be bearable that the
tyrant should be accorded a share in the triumph? The tradition which
Herodotus followed had some such motive behind it.
#PERSIA AND CARTHAGE.#
It may not be possible at the present time to arrive at aught
resembling a detailed knowledge of this side plot of the great drama
of 480, and even the circumstances of the information are not of such
a kind as to allow us to speak with ultimate assurance on the main
outlines of it; but the evidence, actual and presumptive, when
the several items are added and subtracted, leaves a large balance
of probability in favour of a view very different from that which
Herodotus has given to the world.
It is not, perhaps, unnatural that knowledge after the event should
tend to obscure the true appreciation of all that preceded it. There
is, however, one phase of the Persian expedition of 480 which stands
out above all others; and that is the splendid character of the
organization which placed the enormous host of Xerxes in middle Greece.
It was not merely the outcome of the experience of years of campaigning
half the world over; it must have been the outcome of some years of
preparation with an express end in view. Can it be supposed that in
these years the advantages of a diversion in the western world of
Greece escaped the notice of a people who gave such practical proof of
capacity? It cannot be too often said that it is a great historical
mistake to read the incapacity of the Persia of the fourth century into
its history at the beginning of the fifth.
The means of creating the diversion were both obvious and easy. Persia,
through the intermediary of her subjects the Phœnicians, had excellent
means of communicating with and influencing the great Carthaginian
power. This influence must have been largely increased by the favour
which Persia showed to the Phœnician as against the Greek trader.
It is unnecessary to point to the fact that Carthage would presumably
require but little persuasion to attack the rival Greek in Sicily at a
time when no help could possibly be given from Greece itself.
◆H vii. 166.◆
The Sicilian Greek seems to have had no sort of doubt as to the
connection between the invasion of his own island and that of the
mother country. ◆H. vii. 165. _ad init._◆ Herodotus, even in spite of
his bias towards the Greek version of the story, ◆H vii. 166.◆ gives
some hint of a different version in Sicily. ◆Frag. Hist. Græc.◆ He
does not apparently know much about it, as he does not mention Himera
as the locality of the decisive battle.
◆Frag. III. Schol. Pind.◆
It is in a fragment of Ephoros that occurs the first extant historical
reference to the connection between the two expeditions. ◆Pyth.
i. 146.◆ He says that Persian and Phœnician ambassadors were sent to
the Carthaginians, “ordering” them to invade Sicily with as large
an expedition as possible, and after subduing it, to come on to the
Peloponnese. Discredit has been cast on the passage in consequence
of the use of the word “order,” because, so it is said, the Persians
were not in a position to give orders to Carthage. But, supposing the
use of the word is not merely an instance of verbal inaccuracy, it is
quite conceivable that a Greek historian might use such an expression
to describe the supposed relations between the mother state of Phœnicia
and her colony. ◆Diod. xi. 1.◆ The historian Diodorus recognizes the
same connection between the two expeditions. He does not, however, make
any reference to Phœnician agency in the matter, nor does he speak of
an “order,” but of a diplomatic agreement.[106]
#SICILIAN TRADITION.#
One question remains: Did Gelo ever seriously entertain the idea
of sending help to the mother country? It is hardly conceivable that he
did. The Carthaginian preparations were on such a scale that he must
have been long forewarned of the coming storm. Whether he made any sort
of offer to the Greek embassy is quite another question.
If the Greek version of the story of the time provokes the suspicion
that it arose under influences inimical to the strict truth, the
Sicilian also, of which there is a hint in Herodotus, and some detail
in Diodorus, suggests in certain of its passages that it is not an
unadorned tale. That sentiment of the free Greek which, when the
history of the great war came to be written, led him to deny the
Sicilian tyrant all share in its glory, met a counter-sentiment in
Sicily, which claimed for the Sicilian Greek a share in the famous
triumph. Under such influences both exaggeration and suppression
of the truth were sure to take place. The Sicilian version was not
content with confining itself to the just claim that Gelo and Sicily
in the victory at Himera had contributed to the triumphant result of
the great war. It sought evidently to ascribe to the Sicilian Greek a
sympathetic, if not actual, share in the liberation of Greece itself.
◆Diod. xi 26.◆ Gelo is represented as having, after the victory of
Himera, prepared a fleet with a view to sending help to Greece, but
to have desisted from the design on receiving news of the victory at
Salamis. This is neither capable of proof nor disproof. The exact date
of Himera is not known, though there was a tradition that it was fought
on the same day as Salamis. If that be accepted, this addition to the
Sicilian version must be rejected; but if the tradition was merely of
that class which is found represented in the history of the time, and
which supplied the eternal demand for curious coincidences, then it
is possible that Himera was fought sufficiently long before Salamis
to make it possible for Gelo to entertain such a design; nor would it
have been strange had he sought to avenge himself on Persia for an
attack which she had provoked against him. It is possible, too, that
the epigram reported to have been engraved on an offering of Gelo at
Delphi[107] refers not merely to the true significance of Himera,
but also to the preparation of this expedition which was never sent.
This war in Sicily, and the questions which arise concerning it,
are of much greater importance to the study of this period of Greek
history than the comparative brevity of their treatment by Greek
historians might suggest to the mind of a reader who did not realize
to himself their full significance. The Greek tyrant in Sicily played
no small part in spreading and developing certain sides of that Greek
civilization which has contributed so largely towards the civilization
of the present day. The view, therefore, which was taken by one of the
greatest and most able of those tyrants as to the part which he should
play at a time when that civilization was threatened with extinction,
is not a minor matter in the history of Greece, or, indeed, of the
world. Nor, again, can the part played by Persia in the invasion of
Sicily be of small account. Persia at this time represented, in certain
respects,—and especially with respect to sheer capacity and breadth
of view, —the highest development which the great empires of the East
were able to attain; and its connection or lack of connection with the
attack on Sicily cannot but affect the judgment which the modern world
must pass on that capacity.[108]
To the Greeks gathered in council at the Isthmus the outlook, after
their retreat from Tempe, and after the return of the embassies, must
have been a gloomy one. Nothing had been gained, and much had been
lost. Thessaly with its cavalry, that arm in which the Greeks were
peculiarly weak, and their enemy peculiarly strong, had been perforce
left to its fate; and no one could doubt what that would be. The states
between Kithæron and Œta were wavering, ready to desert. They could
hardly be blamed. The backbone of the future resistance seemed to be
with Sparta and the states of the Peloponnesian league who followed
her lead. #QUESTION OF THE LINE OF DEFENCE.# It might well be suspected,
perhaps even then it was known, that, if they could have their
way, the defence of the Isthmus would be the beginning and the end of
their design. Northern Greece seemed but too likely to be left to its
fate, just as Thessaly had been. Was it strange that it should seek
to make terms of submission? In one of its states, moreover, and that
the most powerful from a military point of view, Bœotia, more sinister
influences were at work. The oligarchical party, at all times strong in
that country whose comparatively open nature left the many at the mercy
of the powerful few, seemed only too ready to play a part similar to
that which the Aleuadæ had played in Thessaly.
The attitude of Argos was also calculated to cause alarm. It must be
pointed out at the same time, that though it aggravated the situation
to a certain extent, it did not affect it so decisively as has been
imagined by modern commentators. The possibility of the landing of
Persian troops behind the defences of the Isthmus was not a question
so much dependent on the action of Argos as on the success or failure
of the Greek fleet in checking the advance of the enemy’s ships before
they succeeded in crossing the Saronic Gulf. Had the Persian fleet
once succeeded in establishing itself in some harbour of the coast of
Argolis, the defence of the Isthmus must have collapsed, whatever the
attitude of Argos might have been. This State, owing to the losses
it had suffered in the great defeat which Kleomenes and the Spartans
inflicted upon it, can hardly have been in a position to offer serious
resistance to a landing on its coasts.
Note.—The relation of date between the return of the embassies and
the retreat from Tempe is of considerable importance to a right
appreciation of the situation at this critical time. Herodotus
dates the events in Greece by the advance of Xerxes’ army. Thus
the expedition to Tempe is stated to have taken place βασιλέος τε
μέλλοντος διαβαίνειν ἐς τῆν Εὐρώπην ἐκ τὴς Ἀσίης, καὶ εὄντος ἤδη ἐν
Ἀβύδῳ. H. vii. 174.
Again, the embassies seem to have been despatched simultaneously to
Sicily, Corcyra, Crete and Argos (H. vii. 148, 153, etc.). That to
Sicily would almost certainly be the last to return. Gelo did not send
the treasure-ships to Delphi until after the visit of the embassy (H.
vii. 163, _ad init._), and he did not send them till _after_ he had
heard that Xerxes had crossed the Hellespont.
If, then, the rough chronology of Herodotus can be relied upon,—and
there is not any other source of information upon the subject
available,—the Greeks who assembled at the Isthmus after the
withdrawal from Tempe must have known that the resources then at their
disposal were all upon which they could reckon in the coming struggle.
_Note on the Carthaginian Invasion of Sicily._
The satisfactorily attested fact that a large Carthaginian Army
attacked Sicily simultaneously with the invasion of Greece by Xerxes
raises the very difficult question whether the coincidence in time
between the two attacks was anything more than accidental; and, if
it was, as to the exact nature of the relation between them. Before
discussing the question, it may be well to collect together the
various passages in ancient authors in which reference is made to the
nature of the Carthaginian campaign.
H. vii. 165.
Λέγεται δὲ καὶ τάδε ὑπὸ τῶν ἐν Σικελίῃ οἰκημένων, ὡς ὅμως, καὶ μέλλων
ἄρχεσθαι ὑπὸ Λακεδαιμονίων, ὁ Γέλων ἐβοήθησε ἂν τοῖσι Ἕλλησι, εἰ μὴ
ὑπὸ Θήρωνος τοῦ Αἰνησιδήμου Ἀκραγαντίνων μουνάρχου ἐξελασθεὶς ἐξ
Ἱμέρης Τήριλλος ὁ Κρινίππου, τύραννος ἐὼν Ἱμέρης, ἐπῆγε ὑπ’ αὐτὸν τὸν
χρόνον τοῦτον φοινίκων καὶ Λιβύων καὶ Ἰβήρων καὶ Λιγύων καὶ Ἑλισύκων
καὶ Σαρδονίων καὶ Κυρνίων τριήκοντα μυριάδας, καὶ στρατηγὸν αὐτῶν
Ἀμίλκαν τὸν Ἄννωνος, Καρχηδονίων ἐόντα βασιλέα˙ κατὰ ξεινίην τε τὴν
ἑωυτοῦ ὁ Τήριλλος ἀναγνώσας, καὶ μάλιστα διὰ τὴν Ἀναξίλεω τοῦ Κρητίνεω
προθυμίην, ὁς Ῥηγίου ἐὼν τύραννος, τὰ ἑωυτοῦ τέκνα δοὺς ὁμήρους
Ἀμίλκᾳ, ἐπῆγε μιν ἐπὶ τὴν Σικελίαν, τιμωρέων τῷ πενθερῷ·
Then there follows the statement that Gelon and Theron defeated
Hamilcar in Sicily the same day as Salamis was fought, after which we
get two accounts—the first presumably Greek, probably Syracusan, the
second Carthaginian—of Hamilcar’s disappearance in the battle, and a
further statement to the effect that the Carthaginians sacrificed to
him, and set up statues to him in Carthage and her colonies.
It is noticeable that in neither account does Herodotus mention Himera
as the locality of the battle.
Of the treasures sent by Gelon to Delphi, he tells us (vii. 163) that
Gelon, fearing that the Greeks might succumb to the Persian, but
considering it quite an impossible thing for the tyrant of Sicily
to go to Peloponnese to be put under the command of Lacedæmonians,
sent, immediately on hearing of the passage of the Hellespont by
the Persians, a certain Cadmus with three ships to Delphi with much
treasure and friendly words (καραδοκήσαντα τὴν μάχην ᾕ πεσέεται˙ καὶ ἤν
μὲν ὁ βάρβαρος νικᾷ, τὰ τε χρήματα αὐτῷ διδόναι, καὶ γῆν τε καὶ ὕδωρ
τῶν ἄρχει ὅ Γέλων˙ ἤν δὲ οἱ Ἕλληνες, ὀπίσω ἀπάγειν), and (_VII_. 164)
we are told that when the Greeks won in the sea-fight, and Xerxes
departed, Cadmus returned to Sicily, bringing all the treasure with
him.
A fragment of the history of Ephorus (Frag. _III_ Schol. Pind. Pyth.
I. 146) gives the following account of the matter:—
Ἐκ δὲ Περσῶν καὶ Φοινίκων πρέσβεις πρὸς Καρχηδονίους [παραγενέσθαι]
προστάσσοντας ὡς πλεῖστον δέοι στόλον˙ εἰς Σικελίαν τε βαδίζειν, καὶ
καταστρεψαμένους τοὺς τὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων φρονοῦντας πλεῖν ἐπὶ Πελοπόννησον.
#THE CARTAGINIAN INVASION OF SICILY.#
Diodorus, xi. 1, says:—
“Ὁ δὲ Ξέρξης.... βονλόμενος πάντας τοὺς Ἕλληνας ἀναστάτους ποιῆσαι,
διεπρεσβεύσατο πρὸς Καρχηδονίους περὶ κοινοπραγίας, καὶ συνέθετο
πρὸς αὐτοὺς. ὥστε αὐτὸν μὲν ἐπὶ τοὺς τὴν Ἑλλάδα κατοικοῦντας Ἕλληνας
στρατεύειν,
“Καρχηδονίους δὲ τοῖς αὐτοῖς χρόνοις μεγάλας παρασκευάσασθαι δυνάμεις,
καὶ καταπολεμῆσαι τῶν Ἑλλήνων τοὺς περὶ Σικελίαν καὶ Ἰταλίαν
οἰκοῦντας.”
These are the historical passages which bear on the subject.
Of non-historical passages, we have in the “Poetics” of Aristotle, 23,
a reference to the coincidence in date of the battles of Salamis and
Himera.
It is needless to say that we are here in the presence of evidence
which, if not actually conflicting, is at any rate extremely difficult
to reconcile.
Only one great fact stands out with certainty, namely, that two great
simultaneous attacks were made in 480 B.C. on the two great divisions
of the free Hellenic world. The question is: Were they part of one
great scheme, or was their coincidence purely fortuitous?
To speak with the appearance of assuredness on such a question would
be delusive, in that it would assume that there existed in the
evidence attainable a conclusiveness to which it cannot lay any claim.
Such as it is, it can only be judged by the law of probabilities.
Let us first take the probabilities of the case apart from the
evidence actually quoted here.
Phœnicia, the mother country of Carthage, was at this time within the
Persian dominion. Its population seems, on the whole, to have received
exceptionally favourable treatment from the Persian Government,
probably because it supplied the best material, animate and inanimate,
to the fleet of the empire. It would also be to the interest of the
Persian Government to encourage the most enterprising traders of its
dominion. Furthermore, the subjugation of Phœnicia had not broken the
tie of relationship between the mother country and the greatest of
its colonies. When, under Cambyses, the Persian dominions had been
extended as far as the Greater Syrtis, the Phœnicians had refused to
prosecute the war further against their kin (H. iii. 17–19); and it
had apparently been thought wise, if not necessary, to submit to this
refusal. From that time forward there had, in so far as is known,
been no unfriendly relations between Persia and Carthage. So long
as the Phœnician was well treated there was hardly a point on which
they could clash. In the present instance their interests manifestly
coincided. It was certainly to the interest of Xerxes that the
Sicilian Greeks should have their hands full at the time of his great
attack on Greece. The Persians had plenty of means of knowing that
there was a great Greek military power in Sicily which might render
important aid to the Greeks in the coming struggle. The Carthaginian,
on the other hand, might well think this a favourable opportunity for
crushing the ever-increasing Greek trade competition in the richest
island in the Mediterranean, at a time when the Sicilian Greek could
not expect help from the mother country.
It is, when we consider the part played by the Phœnicians
in Xerxes’ expedition, infinitely more probable that there was a
connection between the two expeditions than that there was not.
Whether the connection was of the intimate kind described by Diodorus
may perhaps be doubted, but certainly cannot be disproved. Ephoros and
Diodorus believe it to have been intimate; and the latter seems, in so
far as can be seen from the nature of the fragment of Ephoros, to have
had evidence on the subject quite independent of it.
No true canon of criticism can possibly assume that the silence of
Herodotus or any other ancient author on this or any other point
in ancient history is in any way conclusive. Not to speak of the
difficulties of gaining information at a period in which few written
records can have existed, the narrative of Herodotus is not unaffected
by the special influences to which the author was exposed. On the
question of evidence, it may be said that it would be in Sicily and
not in Greece that we should expect that written records of the
connection between the two expeditions would exist,—records which
Diodorus might have seen, though they never came to the knowledge
of Herodotus; and, on the question of influence, it would not be in
disaccord with Greek practice if the fact that Gelo refused to send
aid to Hellas should, quite apart from the grounds of his refusal,
have led the Greek world to ignore his participation in the great
battle for Greek liberty. The nature of his government could hardly
fail to emphasize such a tendency.
The animus of the tradition which Herodotus followed is clearly shown
by the motive attached to the reported despatch of the treasure-ship
to the Corinthian Gulf. Was it likely that Gelo would worry himself
about the distant danger from Persia, when the more immediate and, to
him, greater danger from Carthage threatened? Why should he attempt to
buy off a doubly hypothetical Persian attack when he was face to face
with an enormously powerful foe near at hand? If the treasure-ship
was sent, the sending of it looks like the act of a man who wished to
provide against possible disaster in Sicily. He had to place it beyond
reach of the Carthaginian fleet. He had to speculate on the ultimate
success of the Greeks. There was absolutely no other place in the
world where it was likely to be more safe than in the Corinthian Gulf,
though that might not be an ideal place of security.
[Illustration: MOUNTAINS OF THERMOPYLÆ, FROM PHALARA.
_From Sketch by E. Lear._]
1. Kallidromos (11 1⁄2 miles).
2. The Great Gable (Path of Anopæa).
3. Great Ravine at Thermopylæ.
4. Malian Gulf.
5. Mount Giona (28 miles).
6. Asopos Ravine.
7. Trachinian Cliffs.
8. Hot Springs.
[_To face page_ 257.
]
CHAPTER VII.
THERMOPYLÆ.
It was fortunate for the Greek cause that the council which met at
the Isthmus after the withdrawal from Tempe had at its disposal the
information necessary for forming a true estimate of the circumstances
of the time. It knew that no help was to come from outside the mainland
of Greece. It knew that Thessaly was lost, and that Bœotia, East
Locris, Phocis, and Doris, and last, though not least, Eubœa, must be
lost also, unless some prompt action were taken to save the situation
in those parts. And so, says Herodotus, “the Greeks, on coming to the
Isthmus, took counsel together, in view of what Alexander had told
them, as to where and in what parts they should establish the defence.”
The opinion which prevailed was, that they should guard the pass of
Thermopylæ, which they thought was narrower than the pass in Thessaly,
and nearer to their base. “They determined therefore to guard this
pass, and so prevent the passage of the barbarian into Greece, and that
the naval force should sail to Artemisium in the land of Histiæotis.”
There is no part of Greece where the strategical situation is so marked
as in the line of defence which runs along Mount Œta. Malis is verily
the entering in of the gate of Greece. The barrier of Mount Œta, the
tremendous nature of which can only be appreciated by those who have
seen it and traversed it, formed in a very real way the true boundary
of the land, and was recognized as such by the Greek historians of this
and after time. The Hellenism of the lands beyond it was a mere
shadow of the reality. Thessaly, in that widest sense which included in
the name all that lay between Œta, Pindus, and the Cambunian Mountains,
was in respect to civilization a debateable land, in which the
“barbarism” of the outer world to a great extent held sway. Nature had
so ordained it by an immutable decree when she raised Œta to be alike a
defence and a barrier to the Hellenism of the lands south of it.
Malis is separated from the plain of Thessaly by the range of Othrys.
This line of mountains is not of a uniform character. It branches
off from the backbone of Pindus in the West as a comparatively low
range, through which numerous paths, practicable at any rate for an
army without a large baggage train, lead into the upper valley of the
Spercheios,—the upper plain of Malis. As a main line of communication,
however, from the north, these paths are for two reasons comparatively
unimportant. In the first place, the two great roads through
Thessaly,—that from Larisa by way of Krannon to Thaumaki, and that from
Larisa to Thebes in Phthiotis,—afford but an extremely circuitous route
to their northern entrances; and, again, when these paths do reach the
upper plain of Malis, they are not continued southwards by any direct
routes across the chain of Œta; and it is necessary to traverse the
whole length of the Malian plain to the neighbourhood of Thermopylæ
before any practicable way leading south can be found. They could only
have been of strategic importance in this campaign had the Greeks
attempted to defend the eastern passes of Othrys, in which case the
Persians, by using them, could without much difficulty have turned the
defence.
[Illustration: MOUNT ŒTA AND PLAIN OF MALIS.
_From Sketch by E. Lear._]
[_To face page_ 259.
]
The part of Othrys east of the longitude of Lamia is of a loftier and
much more difficult character. It is rather a mass of mountains than
a single range. Viewed from Thermopylæ it presents the appearance of
a series of cones and ridges rising towards a central point, where it
attains a height of over six thousand feet. There are only two passes
through it which are practicable for an army with baggage; these may
be called respectively the pass of Thaumaki, and the pass of Thebes
in Phthiotis. #MARCH OF THE PERSIANS.# The pass of Thaumaki is a
direct continuation of the great route by way of Krannon. At Thaumaki
itself it is eminently defensible, as the rise from the Thessalian
plain is abrupt, and the road traverses a narrow ravine. From that
point southward the pass is not a difficult one. It enters the Malian
plain at Lamia.
The second of the two passages is more or less of a coast road,
skirting first the shores of the Pagasætic Gulf, and later those of the
Euripus and Malian Gulf. It debouched on the Malian plain at Phalara,
a small town which stood within half a mile of the modern Stylida and
about six miles from Lamia, by which latter town also the road must
have passed. It is possible that Lamia was not effectively fortified in
480. Still, the occupation of it could only have harassed, not stopped,
the invading army, since, owing to the presence of the fleet, the real
line of communication was on the sea.
◆H. vii. 196.◆
From two incidents mentioned in Herodotus it is evident that the
Persians adopted both these lines of advance. ◆H. vii. 196.◆ He says
that the numbers of the Persian army were so large, that of the rivers
of Achaia even the largest, the Apidanos, barely sufficed for its
purposes. This indicates the use of the Krannon-Thaumaki route.
The visit of Xerxes to Halos indicates that he, with part of his army,
took the coast route.
It was after entering the Malian plain that the real difficulties of
the campaign began. Xerxes and his army were face to face with Mount
Œta. It may be well to realize in so far as possible the prospect which
would meet his eye when, after completing the passage round Othrys,
he arrived at Phalara From that point of view nearly the whole length
of Œta would be extended before him as he faced southwards. Away to
the south-west, at a distance of from twelve to fifteen miles, stands
the highest and most imposing mass of the range, a great hummock
crowned by four or five peaks. The hummock itself rises some five
thousand feet almost sheer from the plain, and the peaks on it rise
some fifteen hundred feet more. In full view from Phalara, too, would
be that tremendous ravine, a dark, wedge-shaped cut in the side of the
mountain, which a comparatively small stream has hollowed out
to a depth of four thousand feet. As the eye travels eastward along
the range there is a decrease in the actual height of it, the general
level of the ridge being perhaps not more than four thousand feet. But
the face towards the plain is marked by the broad black band of those
famous rocks the Trachinian cliffs. They end suddenly towards the east,
where a thin, perpendicular, black streak in the mountain side marks
the exit of the great ravine of the Asopos.
It is a magnificent picture; but the background is as magnificent as
the picture itself. High as the range is, there rises above it in the
distance, behind the four-thousand-foot ridge, the great peak of Giona.
Though it is one of the most impressive peaks in Greece, its ancient
name is unknown. It is far away among the confused mass of the great
ranges of Northern Ætolia; and yet it seems so near when it is lit
up by the last rays of the setting sun, while all the foreground of
the broad Malian plain, and even of Œta, is involved in the deep blue
shadow of the eastern twilight. It rises from the east towards heaven
in a long, gradually ascending ridge, becoming steeper in the final
effort of its climb. Then, the highest summit once attained, it falls
sheer down into a valley of misty gloom.
[Illustration: THE GORGE OF THE ASOPOS.
[_To face page 261._
]
[Illustration: ASOPOS RAVINE.
[_To face page 261._
]
Immediately east of the Asopos defile the chain of Œta is at its
lowest, barely three thousand feet high, and it is over this part of
the range that the modern road is carried. The difficulties of passing
it do not, however, decrease in proportion to its height, and no
military way or path seems to have been practicable at this point.[109]
Farther east the range rises again into peaks of nearly five thousand
feet, faced towards the north by the great cliffs which overhang the
pass of Thermopylæ. #MT. ŒTA AND THE ASOPOS RAVINE.# Here the Malian
Gulf and not the plain forms the foreground of the picture, across
which, at a distance of eight or nine miles, a white line can be
discerned at the base of the cliffs, the great sulphur deposit of the
warm springs. This part of the Œta range was known as Kallidromos.
Away beyond Thermopylæ it extends towards the Euripus under the name
of Knemis, gradually bending in a more southerly direction down the
channel, until it is lost in the distance towards Atalanta. Behind it
and above it rises the great grey mass of Parnassus.
This very difficult range is rather turned than pierced by the pass of
Thermopylæ, the actual passage through the chain being many miles south
of the pass itself.
There is one point with reference to it which is not always recognized.
There was and is a second pass[110] through it leading direct to the
Dorian plain by way of the great ravine of the Asopos, a pass, too, of
which the Persian army actually made use after Thermopylæ had been won.
It would seem strange at first sight that the Persian generals, when
they found Thermopylæ so hard to force, did not nullify the defence of
it by marching into Doris this way.
The defile of the Asopos issues abruptly on to the Malian plain some
three and a half to four miles west of the Western Gate of Thermopylæ.
Its bottom is merely formed of the stony river bed, at first some fifty
yards wide, but rapidly contracting, until a little farther up the
chasm it is only twelve feet wide between absolutely sheer cliffs from
seven to nine hundred feet high. This winding rift in the mountains
continues for some three and a half miles from the entrance, and then
suddenly broadens out into a wide upland valley, behind the range of
Œta, from which there is a long but not difficult passage to the Dorian
plain.[111] This valley was, no doubt, the land of those Œteans whom
Thucydides mentions in his account of the circumstances leading to the
foundation of Heraklea Trachinia.
Another important point with regard to this route is, that it
was not merely the direct road to Delphi from the north, but the only
direct road. As such it must have been in frequent use, and, in the
flourishing days of the Delphi-Thermopylæ Amphictyony, of considerable
importance. It was, of course, by reason of its very nature, liable
to interruption by even a slight rise of the Asopos; and the frequent
storms which traverse the Malian plain even in summer render such a
possibility perennial. But even so it is a strange thing that in Greek
military history it is never used as a means of avoiding direct assault
on Thermopylæ.[112]
[Illustration: THERMOPYLAE, FROM BRIDGE OF ALAMANA.
_From Sketch by E. Lear._]
1. Site of Upper Drakospilia.
2. Mount Kallidromos.
3. Cliffs of West Gate.
[_To face page_ 263.
]
#THERMOPYLÆ AND ATREMISIUM.#
The true significance of the step which the council at the Isthmus
took in deciding to send a land force to Thermopylæ and the fleet
to Artemisium can only be appreciated if the intimate strategical
connection between the two places be realised. The dual nature of
the Persian advance necessitated a dual form of defence. Had the
invading force been merely a land army, the defence of the pass
of Thermopylæ alone would have been sufficient; but it is evident that
the Greeks fully appreciated the uselessness of attempting the defence
of that pass, if the Persian fleet were left free to land a large body
of troops in rear of it, and so turn the defence. Successful defence of
Thermopylæ was then absolutely dependent upon successful defence of the
Euripus.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THERMOPYLÆ, LOOKING TOWARDS ARTEMISIUM.
1. Malian Gulf.
2. Mount Othrys (circ. 15 1⁄2 miles).
3. Northern Branch of Euripus.
4. Site of Alpenoi.
5. Hills of North-west Eubœa.
]
[Illustration: CHANNEL OF ARTEMISIUM, FROM 1600 FEET ABOVE THERMOPYLÆ.
1. Malian Gulf.
2. Mount Othrys.
3. Northern Branch of Euripus.
4. Hills of North-west Eubœa.
5. Euripus.
[_To face page_ 264.
]
#DEFENCE OF THE STRAIT A NECESSITY.#
But there were other reasons which pointed not merely to the necessity
of defending the Euripus, but of establishing the defence of the
channel at the point at which it was established—at Artemisium.
[Illustration: ON THERMOPYLÆ-ELATÆA ROAD (_viâ_ MODERN BOUDENITZA).
_From Sketch by E. Lear._]
1. Mount Othrys.
2. Malian Gulf.
3. Deposit at Mouth of Spercheios.
[_To face page_ 265.
]
◆Paus. x. 21.◆
It was plainly important that the enemy’s fleet should be excluded from
the Malian Gulf. The road eastwards from Thermopylæ runs by the side
of the Gulf for a long distance after it has issued from the east gate
of the pass; and it would have been fatal to the defenders had troops
been landed there, since they would have been within short striking
distance of the Greek position, and so have rendered any escape by
way of the mountain path which leads by the modern Boudenitza to the
Phocian plain at Elatea difficult, if not impossible. But there was a
further possibility of which the Greek commanders must have been aware,
and against which they would have to provide. If it was possible 200
years after this time for the Athenian galleys to sail close in shore
and attack the flank of the army of Brennus when it was assailing the
narrow part of the pass, there must have been a very much greater
possibility of this being done in the year 480. On this rapidly
advancing shore that which was done in 279 B.C. with difficulty, and
not without danger, must conceivably have been a comparatively easy
matter in 480.
There was a further danger to be feared, supposing the northern bend
of the strait had been left open. Landing on the north coast of Eubœa,
a Persian force might have made its way to Chalets, and so have turned
Thermopylæ. In the wars of later Greece this was a measure recognized
as possible and actually put in practice by combatants commanding this
part of the strait. The Greeks were undoubtedly right in the choice of
Artemisium. As a naval station it possessed two further advantages: the
strait was comparatively narrow at that point, and, above all, it was
within sight of Thermopylæ.
From the hillside above the road through the pass, only 150 feet above
the level of the plain, the view extends right down this northern bend
of the Euripus. From a point still higher up, some 1600 feet above
the road, the whole channel is extended like a map. Signalling from
one position to the other by means of the smoke and fire signals
then used must have been quite easy, and it would be even possible from
this higher position at Thermopylæ to observe the movements of large
bodies of ships in the neighbourhood of Artemisium, though, owing to
the distance, a single ship would hardly be discernible to the naked
eye. It is quite clear that Herodotus was aware of the intimacy of the
relation between the two positions.[113]
The strategic capacity of those who were responsible for the Greek
plans in the war of 480 was never more advantageously displayed than in
this design of the dual defence of the pass and the strait. Had it been
carried out with equal wisdom, or even with more harmonious vigour,
Greece might perhaps have been spared the losses and anxiety of the
year that followed.
On the general question of Greek strategy let it be remarked at this,
the outset of the story of the great events of the war, that it is
unquestionably wrong to judge of it on the mere evidence of the direct
statements made by Herodotus. What may be derived from him is rarely
more than the mere narrative of events as related to him at the time,
long subsequent to the events themselves, when he made the collection
of material for his history. It is only too easy to imagine that the
strategical motives underlying those events, which cannot, even at the
time at which they were operative, have been known to many, must have
vanished from the popular story, even if they ever had any place in
it. It may also be doubted whether Herodotus would have been qualified
to appreciate fully such motives had the record of them survived until
his own day. What he has given to the world is the popular story
of the Persian war, distorted, it may be, at times by imaginative
additions, but, in so far as can be seen, drawn in the main from
veracious sources. The historian himself wanted to get at the truth
about the war. He brought to bear upon his material a certain amount
of critical acumen which the extreme simplicity of his language has a
tendency to conceal. #HERODOTUS AND STRATEGIC QUESTIONS.# In military
history he seems to have been under the disadvantage of lack of
practical experience; and consequently where he makes statements of
cause they are often unconvincing, sometimes demonstrably wrong. But
he made an honest endeavour to correct such errors as might arise from
his own inexperience by visiting the scenes of the great events which
he describes. His descriptions of the regions of Thermopylæ and Platæa
are undoubtedly those of an eye-witness; Salamis he must, Mykale he
may well have seen. He supplies consequently a vast accumulation of
reliable facts which make it possible in many cases to reconstruct
the design which lay behind them; and by that means it may be seen
that the Greek Council of War, in spite of its divisions, in spite of
half-hearted compromise of plans, was composed of men, some of whom, at
any rate, were quite able to grasp the large strategical considerations
involved in a war far greater than any of which they had had experience.
[Illustration: MAP SHOWING PASSES OF MOUNT OETA AND CONNECTION BETWEEN
ARTEMISIUM & THERMOPYLAE
London: John Murray, Albemarle Street.
_Stanford’s Geog^l. Estab^t. London._
]
The general design, then, in accordance with which the Greek forces
took up their position at Thermopylæ and Artemisium was in conception
admirable. For one of those mysterious reasons which so often recur in
Greek history, it was but half executed; and yet, in spite of this, it
only just fell short of a great success.[114]
If any criticism of the Greek plan of holding Thermopylæ is to
hold good, it must be based on the existence of the Asopos ravine,
which, in spite of the making of the new road, is still used by the
natives as a means of communication between the two plains.
Why did not Xerxes make use of this road?
The reasons for his not using it can only be stated conjecturally.
It is quite possible that he never discovered the existence of any sort
of road that way until Ephialtes led his men up it to reach the path of
the Anopæa. To one standing at the mouth of the ravine, it has all the
appearance of a mere torrent bed leading up among the hills.
#THE ASOPOS RAVINE.#
It is in any case hardly conceivable that any considerable force could
make its way through it with the commissariat train which would be its
necessary accompaniment. There is only just room for a loaded mule amid
the great boulders which block its bed. The Greeks were probably aware
of this.
It is also probable that the supplies for the Persian army had run
somewhat low. It had executed a march of many days without the
possibility of direct communication with the fleet, and the taking
of the coast road may have become a necessity. Xerxes may well have
expected to be able to re-open communications with the fleet almost
immediately. He evidently supposed that it would have no difficulty in
forcing the channel of the Euripus.
In failing, then, to take measures for the defence of this ravine,
as well as for the passage of Thermopylæ, it is possible that the
Greeks were guilty of an error; but it was an error of a minor kind.
The excellence of the general plan of adopting the Thermopylæ and
Artemisium line is not affected by it.
From the little that is known of those who were responsible for
the general conduct of the war, it would seem highly probable
that this great design was the work of Themistocles,—a view which
is confirmed by Herodotus’ account of the events which happened at
Artemisium. This extraordinary man seems, according to the practically
unanimous verdict of his own and after times, to have been endowed with
unusual capacity, which, in so far as a judgment can now be formed
upon the matter, appears to have consisted largely in a most marked
and unusual power of insight into the nature of the ruling factor in
a great situation. It was combined with an indomitable persistence in
attaining the end in view. In the present instance he had to exercise
this latter quality to the full.
The fact which stands out with most prominence in the general history
of the war of 480–479, is that the Peloponnesian Greeks were ever
hankering after the Isthmus as the line of defence against the huge
Persian expedition. Not merely one, but apparently several fortified
lines had been already begun there.
On the other hand, there existed a party in the Council, composed,
it may well be imagined, almost wholly, if not exclusively, of the
representatives of Athens on that body, who insisted on the necessity
of adopting some stronger line, and one sufficiently far north to
save the Northern States from compulsory medism. The advocates of
this Northern policy made up for the smallness of their numbers
by their vigour and intelligence; but the decisive factor in the
situation was the Athenian fleet. The selfish Corinthian trader and
the ignorant Peloponnesian farmer were, from sheer inexperience and
want of knowledge, utterly impervious to any argument founded on even
the most elementary strategic considerations, and do not even appear
to have fully recognized what the withdrawal of Athens and her fleet
from the defence would have meant to the patriot Greeks. Nothing
within their own meagre military experience could have taught them
the full significance of the dual nature of the Persian attack. #THE
PELOPONNESIAN POLICY.# Warfare as they understood it meant putting
on as much armour as a careful citizen could carry, and meeting a
similarly equipped foe on some piece of level ground, where he was
either ravaging or being ravaged. It was fortunate for the
Greek cause and for the advocates of the Northern policy that the
preponderant state in the Peloponnese consisted of a body of soldiers.
Stupid and dull of comprehension as the Spartan was when compared
with the quick-witted Athenian, yet even he must, from the very
circumstances of his life, since he lived for the profession of arms,
have acquired an elementary knowledge of the art of war, sufficient
to render him a capable judge of strategic questions, where the issue
was sufficiently plain. The Spartans were forced at this time into
an unwilling recognition of the fact that without the Athenian fleet
the defence must collapse; and the Athenians for their part made it
perfectly clear that, unless some effort was put forth on behalf of
Greece north of the Isthmus, Athenians and Athenian fleet alike would
vanish from Greece.
The outcome of this contention of interests was the determination to
defend Thermopylæ and Artemisium.
Drawing his history largely from Athenian sources, Herodotus brings
the selfishness of the Peloponnesian policy into special prominence.
Selfish, indeed, it must have seemed to the Greeks north of the
Isthmus, who probably recognized the strikingly defensible character
of the line formed by Œta, notwithstanding that their acquaintance
with the region north of the Bœotian plain seems to have been of an
imperfect character.[115]
But is it so strange that the Peloponnesian Greeks should have
preferred a defensive line which they did know, and in which they
believed, to one of which they had but imperfect knowledge? Some of
them had just been involved in what they must have regarded as a
fiasco,—that expedition to Thessaly.
Herodotus describes the decision to defend Thermopylæ as having
been taken immediately after the return from Thessaly. Whether that
was the case or not may be doubted. Herodotus himself, in another
passage, seems to imply that an interval occurred, at any rate between
the decision to defend Thermopylæ and the actual despatch of
troops thither. He mentions again the decision, and then describes
the despatch of troops from the Isthmus as having been made when the
Greeks “heard that the Persian was in Pieria.” Xerxes was at Abydos
when the expedition to Thessaly took place.[116] It is probable that
not a little time was spent in discussing the plan of defence. It is,
at any rate, quite plain from Herodotus’ account of Artemisium, that
a very large section of the Greeks there present longed to seize upon
any excuse for a retreat to the Isthmus. Was it, after all, considering
their knowledge at the moment, so selfish a policy to fix the defence
at a line in which they had some sort of confidence, rather than at
one where the chances of success were impossible of calculation?
The game they were playing must have seemed so desperate, that the
Peloponnesians may well have conceived it a wiser policy to try, with
some hope of success, to save a part of the land, than to attempt to
save all, with a prospect of disastrous failure. Selfish consideration
of their own special interests would naturally contribute to the
formation of their views on the strategical question; but, at the same
time, they had what must have seemed to them some very sound general
arguments in support of those views.
Herodotus shows quite clearly that there were times throughout the
whole period of the war when the contest between the two policies was
doubtful; times, too, when it seemed as if the Peloponnesian policy
must win the day. That they were all but in equilibrium at the time of
Artemisium, is evident. ◆Cf. H. vii. 206, _ad init._ and Diod. xi. 4.◆
The Northern policy had so far prevailed as to induce the Lacedæmonians
to make a plausible effort for the defence of the Northern Greeks,
who, if they thought themselves abandoned, would certainly refuse to
join in the defence of the Isthmus, and remaining at home, would be
forced to medize. #UNREALITY OF THE SPARTAN EFFORT.# On the other hand,
some practical demonstration of the apparent hopelessness of defending
Northern Greece, and of the apparent willingness of Sparta to make
some sacrifice on their behalf, might conceivably induce them to aid in
the defence of the Isthmus.
The tale of Thermopylæ is one of the strangest in the history of the
world, as well as one of the most famous. It is not merely that some of
the details of that most dramatic story are difficult to understand:
the motive of the main plot of the tragedy is obscure. Why was not the
defence of the pass a real effort on the part of those Greek states
which contributed to it? Of the unreality there can be no doubt.
Herodotus’ narrative makes it quite clear; and this is all the more
remarkable, as the historian himself is apparently wholly unaware that
what he relates will give this particular impression.
Thucydides had no illusions on the subject. In his account of the first
congress of the Peloponnesian allies preceding the Peloponnesian war,
he puts words into the mouth of the Corinthians which significantly
show what view Greece in after-times took of the Spartan action at this
period of the war:—
“The Mede, we ourselves know, had time to come from the ends of the
earth to Peloponnese, without any force of yours worthy of the name
advancing to meet him.”
The troops which were sent to the pass were:—
◆H. vii. 202.◆
Peloponnesians: 300 Spartans; 1000 Tegeans and Mantineans; 126
Orchomenians from Arcadia; 1000 from the rest of Arcadia; 400
Corinthians; 200 from Phlius; 30 Mykenæans.
Northern Greeks: 700 Thespians; 400 Thebans; 1000 Phocians; and the
whole force of the Opuntian Locrians.
Leaving out of the calculation the indeterminate number of the Opuntian
Locrians,—not a very serious deduction either as regards quantity
or quality, if the general military history of this people be any
criterion,—and adding the light-armed which would be present with
the Spartan force, a total of 7300 is arrived at as the sum of the
defenders of this all-important passage. Herodotus, whose narrative
of Thermopylæ is conspicuously drawn from Lacedæmonian sources,
is at considerable pains to emphasize the intention of the
Peloponnesians to send reinforcements. ◆H. vii. 203.◆ The Opuntian
Locrians are told that the force sent is merely an advance guard,
and that “the rest of the allies might be expected any day;” and are
further comforted, so Herodotus says, with a piece of philosophy after
the historian’s own heart: “The invader of Greece is not divine but
human; and there neither is nor will be the man who is not liable to
misfortune from the day of his birth; moreover, the greater the man,
the greater the misfortune.” This affords an unparalleled example of
the effectiveness of proverbial philosophy in war.
◆H. vii. 206.◆
“The men with Leonidas the Spartans despatched first, in order that
the other allies on seeing them might join in the expedition and not
medise, if they heard that they were delaying. They intended later,
the Carnean festival being the momentary obstacle, after celebrating
the feast and after leaving a garrison in Sparta, to come up _en
masse_ with all speed.”
The historian accounts for the delay of the other allies by saying that
they were celebrating the Olympian games; and, on the whole question,
further adds that the Peloponnesians generally never supposed that the
struggle at Thermopylæ would be so quickly brought to a decision. He
proceeds:—
“The Greeks at Thermopylæ, when the Persian arrived near the pass,
proceeded in their alarm to discuss the question of retreat. The other
Peloponnesians thought it best to go to Peloponnesus and guard the
Isthmus; but Leonidas, owing to the indignation of the Phocians and
Locrians at this proposed policy, decided to remain where he was and
to send off messages to the states, ordering them to come to their
aid, as the numbers at present with him were not large enough to keep
back the army of the Medes.”
#DOUBLE POLICY OF SPARTA.#
It can only be to these messengers, or to some despatched at a later
date, ◆H. vii. 230.◆ that Herodotus refers further on in his narrative,
where he gives an alternative version of the tale of Eurytos and
Aristodemos. With reference to Aristodemos he says:—
“Some say that, when sent as a messenger from the army, he refused to
return in time for the battle, though it was possible for him to
do so, but saved his life by loitering on the way, whereas his fellow
messenger came to the battle and met his death.”
It is possible to assume that the messengers which Leonidas is reported
to have sent were the first which he despatched for assistance; and,
if so, Aristodemos and Eurytos were either those messengers, or were
despatched at a later time. The noticeable point about the tale is
that they had time to return for the actual battle. If that be so,
reinforcements might have been despatched; and though _they_ might
not have found it possible to arrive in time, yet, had they been
despatched, that fact would hardly have been omitted from a tale of
Spartan origin.[117]
The general circumstances of the time and the details of the
Lacedæmonian story are such as to leave little doubt concerning the
real history of the Spartan policy at this particular stage of the war.
Sparta was acting under two impulses. She wished, on the one hand, to
concentrate the defence at the Isthmus. Her Peloponnesian allies wished
the same; and the difficulty of persuading them to any other design
must have been very great. On the other hand, there were most important
considerations which rendered the complete adoption of this design
impossible. The works for the defence of the Isthmus were certainly not
complete; and unless the Persian’s course was stayed, could hardly be
forward enough to resist his attack. Athens also would not hear of such
a policy; and Athens could not be ignored. The Northern States, too,
would medize.
And so, distracted by conflicting considerations, among which the
incompleteness of the works at the Isthmus cannot have been least,
Sparta played a double game. She sent a small contingent of her own
troops and of those of her allies to Thermopylæ, representing them
to be merely the advance guard of a larger force. She hoped, no
doubt, that the Phocians, Locrians, and Bœotians would accept this
instalment as surety for the discharge of the whole obligation, and
would contribute their share in full without delay. This hope
was destined to disappointment. The gangrene of Medism had no doubt
spread rapidly after the desertion of Thessaly; and it was not to be
checked by half remedies. Even the Opuntian Locrians suspected the
genuineness of the effort—a suspicion which, no doubt, the Bœotian
and Phocian shared to a still greater degree. The smallness of the
contingents which they despatched shows that they were distrustful of
the Peloponnesian good faith.
Except the small contingent with Leonidas, not a single member of the
Lacedæmonian land army seems to have set foot north of the Isthmus at
this time.
It cannot, however, be supposed that Leonidas was deliberately
sacrificed. There would be every reason to believe that if the worst
did come to the worst, he would be able to withdraw his small force
in safety. The Lacedæmonian authorities might reckon that even if the
Persian fleet forced the straits and landed men behind the pass, there
was a possibility of retreat by the mountain track which led by the
site of the modern Boudenitza to the ancient Elatæa. The path of the
Anopæa was a factor in the situation of whose existence they were quite
unaware when they sent Leonidas to the pass. But, even had it been
taken into the original calculation, Herodotus’ version of the events
at Thermopylæ subsequent to its capture by the Persians emphasizes the
fact that even then escape was possible; and this detail of that part
of his story is peculiarly supported by the geography of the region.
The Carnean and Olympian festivals served the Spartans and
Peloponnesians with an excuse for doing what they had all along
intended to do, viz.—to stay inside the Isthmus. This design accounts
for the ever restless desire of their Peloponnesian compatriots at
Artemisium to retreat from the Euripus. If they had regarded the effort
at Thermopylæ as serious, if they had supposed that their main army
might be expected there, would they have continually suggested the
desertion of a position whose retention was of vital importance to the
defence of Thermopylæ?
In all this drama Leonidas plays an unrehearsed part.
#TOPOGRAPHY OF THERMOPYLÆ.#
Note.—_Thermopylæ Past and Present._
Whatever view may be taken by any one who has visited Thermopylæ
regarding the details of the battle as described by Herodotus, there is
no reasonable doubt that the author’s exceedingly accurate description
of the topography of the district could only proceed from the pen of
one who had seen the place, and had examined it with some care. The
region which formed the scene of the events connected with the battle
is the ground at the foot of the northern slope of Mount Œta, extending
from the eastern end of the Trachinian cliffs, that is, from the mouth
of the Asopos ravine, for a distance of eight or nine miles, to a point
about half a mile beyond what was the east gate of Thermopylæ. There
were three “gates” or narrows in the pass, the West, the Middle, and
the East, all of which are mentioned by Herodotus. The middle one was
that to which the name Thermopylæ was especially applied, as the hot
springs are there situated.
If we may judge from the order of Herodotus’ description, it would
seen as if his examination of the district was made in the course
of a journey from North Greece southwards; for his enumeration of
the natural features takes them for the most part in order from west
to east. This hypothesis is supported, curiously enough, by the one
mistake which he makes as to the topography of the region. He wrote
evidently under the impression that the road through the pass ran
from north to south, for he describes various features on either side
as lying east or west of it (vii. 176). Coming from Lamia across the
plain, the road would be due north and south. In those days also it
is probable that the bend towards the west gate of the pass was more
gradual than at the present day; and the change of direction would not
be so noticeable.
Speaking of the region generally, he makes reference to (vii. 198)
the ebb and flow of the sea in the Malian gulf. This is connected
with the peculiar local tide-phenomenon in the Euripus. At Chalkis,
where the channel is contracted to a width that may be measured by
feet, the current induced by it is so strong that the Greek steamers
have at times to wait several hours before they can get through the
narrow passage. At the head of the Malian gulf, where the shore is
very low and flat, the phenomenon is peculiarly remarkable, and in
making the survey of Thermopylæ it was rather a puzzling feature
in the situation, rendering it difficult to fix the exact position of
prominent points along the coast.
Herodotus speaks of the Malian plain (vii. 198) as being divided
into two parts by the projection of the mountain at either side. The
greatest and highest mass of Œta, west of the Trachinian cliffs,
extends northwards towards Othrys, and marks off the upper plain of
Hypati, the ancient Hypata, from the lower plain of Lamia. The breadth
of the plain where it is broadest, [which he states to be at the city
of Trachis,] he gives at a figure which has been corrupted in the text.
The actual breadth from the exit of the Asopos defile to Lamia is about
eight miles, or about four hundred plethra.
His account of the natural features of the district begins outside the
limits of the region which formed the scene of operations. The rivers
Dyras and Melas may be identified with sufficient certainty under the
modern names of Gourgo-potamo and Mavra-neria.
Herodotus now enters upon the description of those features which did
have an influence upon the events of 480 B.C. “South of Trachis,” he
says (vii. 199), “there is a cleft in the mountain range which shuts
in the territory of Trachinia; and the river Asopos, issuing from the
cleft, flows for a while along the foot of the hills.”
The Asopos, at the present day, after issuing from the ravine, turns
eastwards through an angle of at least 45 degrees, and proceeds for a
distance of about two and a half miles in the direction of the north
foot of the hills which form the west gate of Thermopylæ. There is a
sort of bay in the range between the ravine and the west gate of the
pass. Herodotus’ description of it as flowing along the foot of the
hills would be applicable to its course at the present day. Its bed, a
broad stony channel, thickly sown with bushes of oleander and plane,
is one which is liable to alteration; but I could not find any trace
or evidence whatever of its having largely diverged from its present
course within recent times; and the modern maps of this district which
represent the river as running far out into the plain before turning
towards Thermopylæ are certainly wrong. No really reliable map of the
region as a whole at present exists. The best I have seen is one in
Hauvette’s Herodotus; and that contains several palpable errors.
#ROUTE OF HERODOTUS.#
Before reaching the hills at the west gate, the river takes a bend
slightly northwards of its former course, and passes the end of
this promontory of the range at a distance of about one-third of a
mile. After passing underneath the Lamia-Thermopylæ-Atalanta road, it
falls into the Spercheios a few hundred yards below the Alamana bridge.
Any consideration as to the exact position of its mouth in former times
is so much dependent on considerations connected with the Spercheios,
that they had better be left until the conjectural former course of
that river is described. This may, however, be said:—that the present
course of the Asopos seems to resemble to a great extent its course in
the time of Herodotus, though it must, in the interval, have passed
through many modifications.
Of the Spercheios Herodotus tells us, unfortunately, very little. I
venture, however, to think that it entered the gulf in those days at a
point farther west than is represented in the modern maps which have
conjecturally depicted the state of this region 500 years before Christ.
The description of Herodotus in Chapters 198 and 199 seems to be
almost certainly of the nature of a verbal map. He is describing what
he saw when travelling along a route from the north; and he begins
his description, as it is his intention to describe Thermopylæ, at
the Spercheios river. Whether the route he had traversed was that by
Thaumaki or that by Thebes in Phthiotis, he must have passed by way of
Lamia; for we know from Livy that that town blocked both those roads;
in fact, the physical characteristics of the region were such as to
render it practically certain that both must have passed that way. His
knowledge of Macedonian history and also of the Vale of Tempe and of
the sanctuary at Halos render it possible that he saw Thermopylæ in
the course of a journey from Macedonia to Greece; he expressly says in
Chapter 198 that he is describing the road from the point of view “of a
traveller from Achaia.”
His route map of the region seems to have been somewhat as follows:—
Anticyra—Near mouth of Spercheios.
|
| 20 stades. Circ. 2. m. 3 fur.
|
R. Dyras.
|
| 20 stades. 2. m. 3 fur.
|
R. Melas.
|
| 5 stades. 4 1⁄2 fur.
|
Trachis (doubtful whether on, near, or not near road).
|
| Distance not given.
|
R. Asopos.
|
|
|
R. Phœnix.
|
| 15 stades. 1 m. 6 fur.
| → Anthele somewhere here.
|
Thermopylæ.
#RIVER SPERCHEIOS.#
The fifteen stades from Phœnix river to Thermopylæ is the only one of
these distances which we can test at the present day. The fact that it
is very fairly correct makes for the presumption that the others
are near the truth.
◆Anticyra.◆
Anticyra seems to have been on the road. Herodotus does not state that
it was actually at the mouth of the Spercheios. The muddy, marshy
shore of the gulf is not a place where a permanent dwelling would be
established.
◆Rivers Dyras and Melas.◆
The detail which shows how very far the ancient line of road was up
the present plain of the Spercheios is the statement of the distances
between that river and the Dyras, and between the latter and the Melas.
This last is identified, with all but complete certainty, with the
Mavra-neria, or Black-water river. If this be so, the Dyras can be
no other than the Gourgo-potamo, (Leake, “Northern Greece,” ii. 25).
The fact that these streams were nearly two miles and a half apart at
the points where the road crossed them, shows that it must have been
necessary to make a great circuit in order to get round the then shore
of the gulf and the marshes which no doubt bordered it. The mouth of
the Spercheios must in those days have been several miles above the
site of the modern bridge of Alamana, which is at the present day at
least four or five miles from the present mouth of the river.
Even two hundred years after this time, the mouth of the river must
have been at a considerable distance from the west gate of Thermopylæ.
Had it been anywhere near the promontory which projects into the plain
at that point, the Greek light cavalry force which was watching the
river bank must have been cut off from the main army by the body of
Gauls whom Brennus sent to cross the mouth of the Spercheios. Infantry
might easily make their way over the low hills above this west gate;
but I doubt whether cavalry would be able to do so (Paus. x. 20; 7, 8;
21; 1).
The rapidity with which the head of the Malian gulf has been filled up
is very striking. This is chiefly due to the main river Spercheios. The
amount of solid matter brought down by that stream when the water is
high must be very large. The extraordinary length of the promontories
formed by the deposit at its mouth shows it to be so. But as far as the
plain in the neighbourhood of Thermopylæ is concerned, it seems to me,
after examining the ground, quite certain that the little streams which
come down from Œta have contributed more than half of the material
which has accumulated in the neighbouring plain.
◆Site of Trachis.◆
Though not strictly bearing on the events at Thermopylæ, the
description of the site of the city of Trachis is of considerable
importance from the point of view of the general topography of this
region in after-times.
Herodotus tells us that it is five stades, _i.e._ somewhat more than
half a mile from the Melas river. He also says that the plain is
broadest at this point, and that the Asopos ravine lies south of the
city (H. vii. 199).
Does he mean that Trachis was actually on the road? His language is
doubtful; but I venture to think that he does. He is, as we have seen,
under the impression that in traversing not merely the plain, but
even the pass of Thermopylæ, he was travelling south, whereas, after
passing the Melas, he must have been going nearly due east Therefore,
when he speaks of the Asopos ravine as being south of Trachis, he
means probably that it was the next noticeable point on the journey to
Thermopylæ. It would therefore seem probable that the Melas, Trachis,
and the Asopos ravine are three points on his road. The road evidently
crossed the Melas high up the stream, and the natural way from it to
Thermopylæ would be along the firm ground at the foot of the Trachinian
cliffs proper. It would thus pass certainly within two hundred yards of
the mouth of the ravine. The determinants then in his description of
the position of Trachis are (1) the distance from the Melas; (2) the
position of the ravine with regard to it, for which we must read “east”
for “south.”
Leake’s view, which has largely (_e.g._ in Stein, Rawlinson, etc.),
though not universally prevailed, is that Trachis was identical with
the lower part of that Heraklea whose ruins are on the mountain at
Sideroporto. To one who has seen this region Leake’s description is
very difficult to understand; and in the diary of his journey the time
of arrival at various places which he sets down are in certain respects
so incomprehensible as to lead to the suspicion that there is something
wrong in his calculation.
The diary reads as follows:—
8.15. Coming from Franzi across Gourgo-potamo.
8.25. Alpospata a quarter of a mile on right.
8.32. Near round hill, which looks like site of ancient acropolis;
man told L. that it was not so.
8.41. Vardhates half a mile to right.
8.46. Branch of Mavra-neria.
8.52. Foot of Trachinian cliffs.
8.59. Sources of Mavra-neria.
9.03. Catacombs in rocks. (Delay five minutes).
#COLONEL LEAKE’S ROUTE.#
9.08. Start from catacombs.
9.22. Crossed Asopus, half mile below ravine.
9.48. Road to Dhamasta, half a mile to right. Delay three minutes
till:—
9.51.
10.04. Beginning of west pass of Thermopylæ.
10.08. Phœnix river.
10.11. Salt spring.
10.20. End of pass: salt spring (_i.e._ at Turkish barracks).
10.30. Cross torrent of Anthele (_sic_).
10.40. Beginning of sulphur deposit.
The total result is that Leake did about thirteen and a half miles
over a rough and confused track, with, presumably, baggage mules in
his train, in two and a quarter hours. I can only say this, that what
he took thirty-nine minutes to do (9.22 to 10.04, with three minutes’
delay) took me fifty-five minutes of fast walking on two occasions,
the distance being three and a half miles, and the track difficult,
for the most part on the stony bed of the Asopos. Nor can I understand
how Leake, or any one else, could, between 8.46, or 8.59 and 9.03, get
from the Mavra-neria to the place in his map where he indicates the
position of the tombs. The statement is quite incomprehensible. Leake’s
map is hopelessly incorrect; but that does not wholly explain the
difficulty. As to the argument from the tombs, I can only say that the
whole face, not merely of the Trachinian cliffs proper, but even of the
rocky hillside which lies east of the Asopos ravine, is honeycombed
with them. A large number were discovered in the making of the new
road. My very strong impression is that Leake has placed the Trachis
of Herodotus several miles east of its true site, and that, though it
is not far from the Heraklea at Sideroporto, which may or may not have
been the Heraklea of the Peloponnesian war, yet that it was not in
any sense a lower part of that town. I am disposed to think that the
identification of the site with the remains on the steep, flat-topped
hill three miles west of Sideroporto, near the hamlet of Konvelo, will,
whenever the ruins are excavated, prove to be correct.
Strabo (428) gives the distance between Heraklea and Trachis as six
stades. If any reliability be attached to the statement, it can only
proceed from the assumption that after the establishment of the hill
fortress by Sparta, the population of one of the towns which it was
founded to protect either removed itself or was removed to the
immediate neighbourhood of its protector.
◆River Asopos.◆
The junction of the Asopos with the Spercheios is at the present day,
as has been said, a few hundred yards east of the bridge of Alamana,
off the west end of the west gate. In Herodotus’ time it entered the
sea independently, and it seems from his description as if its mouth
must have been near the point where it now joins the main river. In the
first place he expressly tells us that the Phœnix river joins it. That
river, so called, is to be identified with a little stream which issues
from the rocks of the west gate, whose bed is of a ruddy brown colour,
owing, no doubt, to its being impregnate with oxide of iron. This fact
alone shows that the Asopos mouth must have been at some point off,
that is, north of the west gate.
◆The site of Anthele.◆
The historian also tells us that it entered the sea near village of
Anthele, which he describes as having been between the Phœnix and
Thermopylæ proper. Leake in his sketch map places Anthele on the
great accumulation of _débris_ which is brought down by the stream
which issues from the great ravine just about half a mile west of the
hot springs. The site is impossible. This heap is traversed in every
direction by ever-shifting branches of the torrent, and anything built
upon it would be soon carried away. Such a site, on what is practically
a huge stream-bed, would also be excessively malarious. Herodotus
describes the situation almost unmistakably when he says (vii 200),
“There is a broad piece of land about it in which are the temple of
Amphictyonid Demeter, and the seats of the Amphictyons, and a temple
of Amphictyon himself.” This must be the fairly level piece of land
just inside the west gate, under the old Turkish cavalry barracks. The
latter stand at the extremity of a steep-sided shelf which projects
from the hill which forms the west gate; and I am strongly inclined
to think that one or both of the temples, and the seats of the
Amphiktyons, were on this somewhat commanding site, looking down upon
Anthele.
◆The West Gate.◆
Coming to the actual pass itself, along the line which Herodotus
followed, we enter it by the west gate. Herodotus says (vii. 176) that
the pass is not narrowest at Thermopylæ itself, _i.e._ at the middle
gate, but _before_ Thermopylæ and behind it, meaning by the latter,
as his next words show, the east gate. It will be seen that by using
the words “before Thermopylæ,” of the west gate, he again indicates
the route by which he visited the pass. #THE WEST GATE.# “In front,”
he says, “by the Phœnix river, near the city of Anthele, is
another place where only one waggon at a time can pass.” The road at
the present day does not traverse the whole of the west gate. Crossing
the bridge of Alamana, it arrives at the actual foot of the cliff at a
point somewhat east of the stream which is identified with the Phœnix.
In former days, coming from the west it would pass along the whole of
the foot of the steep slope or cliff in which this low promontory of
Œta ends towards the plain.
The total length of the passage, from the west end to the site of
the Turkish barracks, which I am inclined to identify with that of
the Amphiktyonid temples, is just under one mile,—about 1670 yards.
To the right, or south of the line of road, the hill rises either
very steeply, or in the form of a cliff, to a height of between two
and three hundred feet; above which the slope is gentle. The total
height attained by the promontory is not great, only varying between
three and four hundred feet above the level of the plain. The road
was in 480 artificially constructed at this point, as is indicated by
Herodotus’ use of the word δέδμηται (H. vii. 200). It can only have
been a few feet wide. At the present time, the ground between the left
or north side of the road and the Spercheios is in winter time marshy
throughout; and even in the month of August, 1899, the eastern portion
of it, extending from the road to the river, was impassable, though
there had been a long drought. In Herodotus’ time it would seem to have
been for the most part a marsh between the cliffs and the Asopos river,
though it may well be that the sea actually came up to the road towards
the east end of the gate. No passage is possible between the road and
the modern river; much less can it have been so in B.C. 480.
Leake speaks of the pass as “the false Thermopylæ,” and seems never
to have dreamt of its being a possible site of the battle of 480. It
would be quite indefensible to any force which was not large enough to
occupy and defend the wide, and, to a light-armed man, easy passage of
the hills above it. In some of the best known guide books the battle
is described as having taken place in this gate. I do not know the
authority for this statement. Apart from its indefensibility against
superior numbers, Herodotus makes it quite clear that the battle took
place near the hot springs in the middle gate.
On issuing from the west gate underneath the old barracks, the land
on the right is fairly level, the hill-side retiring somewhat. This
is, as I have already said, almost certainly the site of Anthele.
On the left of the road the marshy land still continues for a space.
But within a few hundred yards the road ascends in the form of a long
gradual hill, to descend further in like manner to the great lime and
sulphur deposits of the hot springs. This rise in the road is caused
by the intervention of a mass of stream _débris_, which has poured
out of a great chasm to the west of the hot springs and has extended
far out into the plain. Its magnitude is enormous absolutely, and,
relative to the mean magnitude of that torrent which has produced it,
astounding. On issuing from the ravine it forms a fan-shaped mass, one
mile in length from the chasm to the plain, with an extreme breadth
of three quarters of a mile. Its apex is over three hundred feet in
perpendicular height above its base. It is formed for the most part of
large material, the finer stuff having gone down to form the new land
of the plain. This is what Leake calls the plain of Anthele. East of
this great chasm this mass of _débris_ is edged by the great face of
Kallidromos, which rises almost sheer to a height of three thousand
feet above it. ◆The hot springs.◆ The eastern part of this great cliff
overhangs the deposit at the hot springs, a white, glistening mass of
lime impregnated with sulphur, which covers an area of ground five and
a half furlongs in length from east to west, with an average breadth
of one furlong; that is to say, about fifty-five acres of land. The
hot springs rise in the side of Kallidromos on the edge of the great
mass of _débris_ which has been described; and the water from them
is carried along an artificial channel, immediately at the foot of
the steep side of the mountain, for more than half a mile. The stream
first enters the baths, and then turns a mill, which may be called
the upper mill; after this it crosses the road and is carried by a
solid stone aqueduct to turn a second mill in the plain. The springs
are very copious. In the artificial channel the water rushes along
rapidly in a stream three feet broad by about eighteen inches deep, and
is of that bright clear green which Pausanias describes. ◆The Middle
Gate.◆ The original middle gate of the pass was undoubtedly under the
steep hill-side between the baths and the upper mill. Herodotus makes
that quite clear. Of the mountain overhanging it, he says that it is
“untraversable and precipitous, lofty, extending to Œta” (vii. 176).
Of the middle gate he says, “Again the entrance to Greece, through
Trachis, is at its narrowest point half a plethron in width” (vii.
176). #THE MIDDLE GATE.# “To the east (really the north) of the
road the sea and the marshes begin.” “There are also in this entrance
warm baths, which the natives call the caldrons, and an altar of
Herakles is built above them. A wall had been built at this passage,
and in old days there were gates in it. The Phocians built the wall for
fear of the Thessalians when these came from Thesprotis to settle in
the Æolid territory which they now possess. In case of the Thessalians
attempting to subjugate them the Phocians took this precaution, and at
that time they turned the hot water on to the passage, so that deep
channels might be formed in the ground, using every device to prevent
the Thessalians invading the country. This old wall had been built a
long time before, and the greater part of it had fallen down with age”
(vii. 176). “This place is called by most of the Greeks Thermopylæ,
but by the natives, and by those who dwell in the neighbourhood, Pylæ”
(vii. 201). “The Greeks with Leonidas, as though going to meet their
fate, now advanced into the broader parts of the neck much more than
before. Hitherto they had held their station within the wall, and from
this had gone forth to fight where the path was narrowest” (vii. 223).
Herodotus says that the Spartans “retreated to the narrow part of the
way, and, crossing the wall, came and took up their positions on the
mound, all of them in a compact body, except the Thebans. The mound
is in the pass where stands the stone lion in honour of Leonidas.”
◆The Three Gates.◆ The fact that this was regarded as “the gates” _par
excellence_ is shown by the passage in vii 201. The contour lines of
the map of the pass as it is at the present day illustrate in a very
remarkable way the description of it given by the ancient historian.
The curves of the five-yard contour line are most noticeable. It is
at the three gates of the pass as described by Herodotus that it
approaches most closely to the hill slope. At the west and east gates
it reaches the actual base of the mountain. At the middle gate it all
but does so; but the accumulation of matter from the hot springs has
somewhat pushed it back.
◆The old coast-line.◆
It cannot amount, of course, to more than a rough calculation, but I am
disposed to believe that in the cases where stream _débris_ has been
pushed forward into the plain, the ten-yard contour, and elsewhere the
five-yard contour, represent pretty closely the coast line as it was in
the last few centuries before Christ.
In 480 there appears to have been deep water close to the road, for
Herodotus in his account of the final attack of the Persians on
the pass speaks of many of them falling into the sea and perishing
(vii. 223). The truth of this detail is strongly supported by
Pausanias’ description (x. 21, 4) of how the Athenian fleet two
centuries later attacked the flank of the Gauls when they were
assailing the middle gate. I am inclined to think that the deep water
must have been at the base of the two mounds which stand at the east
end of it. The marshes spoken of (vii. 176) would be those formed at
the point where the hot springs reached the shore, probably several
hundred yards west of where they now come down to the aqueduct.
The breadth of half a plethron, or fifty feet, is evidently to be
applied to that part of the pass which extended from the first mound
westward in the direction of the modern baths (_vide_ Plan). South of
this the mountain side rises at a very steep angle, and, apart from its
steepness, is practically untraversable, owing to the nature of the
rock-strewn slope, and the thick brushwood which covers it.
◆The Phocian Wall.◆
The question as to the exact position of the Phocian wall is a somewhat
difficult one to solve. At the same time, I see strong reason to think
that the existing remains of wall foundations on the neck by which
the first mound is attached to the mountain side are relics of a wall
which, if not identical with, is identical in site with the one which
the Phocians built.
Of this wall I noted the following details. The general line of it
is distinct. It can be traced seventy or eighty yards south from the
summit of the mound along the neck of the ridge, and it seems to have
been carried down the north slope of the mound towards what is now the
sulphur deposit but which was in former times the sea. The detail of
its plan is somewhat indistinct, largely owing to its having been very
much cut about in constructing rifle pits for the expected defence of
the pass in the recent war with Turkey. It seems to have been planned
as a series of angle bastions projecting westwards, connected by
curtains a few yards long.
It is from three to three feet six inches thick, and formed of stones,
some of which are roughly squared, and have an average dimension of
fifteen inches by ten.
The significance of its position will best be understood when the
course of the ancient road through this part of the pass is described.
There can be no question as to the line of it. Coming from the west
across the great mass of _débris_ formed by the stream from the great
ravine, it must have passed close to the site of the present baths.
#THE PHOCIAN WALL.# Thence it must have run along the foot of
the mountain slope until it reached the point where the first mound
projects into the plain. As the sea must at that time have washed the
north foot of this mound, the road must have climbed the west slope of
it, which is not peculiarly steep, and must have passed over the neck
which connects it with the mountain. Hence it would be blocked by this
wall, which runs along the neck, and which was probably carried higher
up the mountain slope to the south. I could not find any traces of its
south end; that is to say, it certainly went farther up the mountain
side than I could trace it. I have no reasonable doubt we have here
the line, if not the actual remnants, of the wall of 480. The position
is a very strong one, such as a small body of men could defend against
largely superior numbers.
It seems fairly clear that the Phocians used the water from the hot
springs to damage the road between this mound and the modern baths.
The stream itself is not, and I do not think can have ever been, of
sufficient magnitude to form a serious obstacle in itself. The defence
would simply consist in making the narrow passage awkward, if not
impossible for cavalry.
This suggested position of the wall accords with the details of the
last struggle given in vii. 225. The Greeks fall back from the broader
part of the pass (probably near the baths) to the narrow part (between
that and the mound). _Then_ they cross the wall and take their position
on the mound. Furthermore, the fact mentioned at the end of the
chapter, that in the assault on the mound the Persians pulled down the
wall, shows pretty clearly where the latter must have been, _i.e._ on
the mound itself.
On this mound certain stone graves have recently been found. I
am afraid the discovery was made when the rifle pits were being
constructed. I could only get a vague account of their position and
none of their contents, if any.
One word of warning. Viewed from the side of the road, the first mound
looks like an integral part of the mountain slope, and the existence
of the deep little valley which separates it almost completely from
Kallidromos can only be ascertained by ascending the mound itself, or
by going up the valley between the first and second mounds of which the
little valley is a branch.
The line of wall which lies to the north of the present road among the
bushes west of the aqueduct to the lower mill has been suggested as a
remnant of the Phocian wall. The lime and sulphur deposit upon it,
similar to that on the present aqueduct, shows that it carried at one
time the stream from the hot springs to a mill which must have existed
at its extremity.
◆The country between the Middle and East Gate.◆
The distance from the east end of the west gate to the middle gate at
the first mound is one mile five furlongs. From the middle gate to the
east gate is one mile three furlongs. Adding to this the length of the
long passage of the west gate, which is nearly one mile, we find that
the total length of the whole pass is four miles. Taking into account
the necessary windings of the ancient road, the length of the pass was
probably four and a half miles at least to one travelling through it.
After crossing the stream from the hot springs, the modern road is flat
for a few hundred yards. At this point it passes on the right a salt
spring, which forms a pond beneath the third mound.
After this the road begins a long ascent up the side of another
fan-shaped mass of stream _débris_ similar to that found west of the
hot springs. In this case, however, the mass is the combined work of a
number of small torrents which come down from the mountains and issue
on the plain at a short distance from one another. The great line of
cliff which overhangs the middle gate now recedes. It continues indeed,
but high up the mountain side, and from its base a series of bastions
and rounded ridges come down towards the plain, separated from one
another by the deep ravines which the streams have cut.
As you ascend the hill on the road you pass, on your immediate right,
four more mounds or hillocks. The last, or sixth mound, is at the
top of the hill, and is a prominent object when viewed from the hot
springs. Shortly after passing it the road begins to descend again;
and about half a mile farther on you arrive at what was the east gate
of the pass. Here the passage was narrow and short. It was formed by a
somewhat lofty projecting ridge of the mountain slope, round the end
of which the road passed. The five-yard contour makes a sudden bend
inwards at this point. Herodotus tells us that, like the western gate,
it afforded passage to but one waggon, and that it was near Alpenos
(vii. 176). At the end of the same chapter he speaks of Alpenos as
being “very near the road,” and as being the place from which the
Greeks reckoned to supply their commissariat. #THE EAST GATE AND WALL.#
◆Site of Alpenos.◆ I think that the site of Alpenos is to be identified
with the remains of a walled acropolis on a hill which stands out into
the plain from the ὑπωρέη or lower slope of the mountain, about
half a mile beyond the east gate. Between it and the east gate there
must have been a bay of the sea, or harbour, to which, no doubt, the
Greek provision ships went. Leake places Alpenos quite close to the
middle gate (_vide_ his map), but that is quite inconsistent with H.
vii. 176. The incomprehensibility of the eastern part of his map of
Thermopylæ makes one suspect that either he had never visited the east
end of the pass, or, if he had, had done so very hurriedly.
[Illustration: THERMOPYLÆ BETWEEN MIDDLE AND EAST GATE.
_From Sketch by E. Lear._]
1. Kallidromos (1 mile).
2. High Mass of Œta (about 14 miles).
3. West Gate (about 3 3⁄4 miles).
[_To face page_ 290.
[Illustration: THE EAST GATE OF THERMOPYLÆ.
1. Site of Alpenoi.
2. Hills of North-west Eubœa.
3. Foot of Wall at East Gate.
_To face page_ 291.
]
From the east gate there runs up the ridge towards the high mountain
the remains of a remarkable wall (_vide_ map). I cannot find in history
any trace or hint of its origin. It was evidently a defence against
an enemy advancing from the westward; for the whole way along its
west front there is a steep fall in the ground. It goes up the hill
for half a mile in a south-west direction, and then, in order to keep
along the ridge, it bends through an angle, and may be traced going
S.S.E. to a point near the foot of the line of cliffs near the summit
of the mountain. It would afford a very strong defensive position to a
large force. I am inclined to think that it cannot be a mediæval work,
because by mediæval times the sea must have retired from the east gate
at its foot. The stones of it are of medium size. I fancy the outside
courses were of squared material, while the interior was of unsquared
stones set in mortar. Its width seemed to vary from eight to ten feet.
The defence of the line of the wall would be a necessary adjunct to the
defence of the east gate. It will be seen, therefore, that the latter
did not afford a position where small numbers could have faced an enemy
in great numerical superiority.
* * * * *
In entering upon the details of Herodotus’ account of the battle of
Thermopylæ, it is necessary to bear in mind that it is a story written
by a man who was indeed excellent as a topographer, but who seems to
have absolutely lacked, in so far as can be seen, that practical or
theoretical knowledge of war which alone could have enabled him to
judge of the probable truth or falsehood of the various motives of
events given in the sources, whether verbal or written, from which he
drew his story. Special circumstances in connection with the battle
made it more than likely that the real history of it would be
officially concealed. The only people who knew the whole story of the
events leading up to the great catastrophe were the authorities at
Sparta. They can hardly have anticipated a disaster such as actually
happened; but, after it had taken place, they had every interest in
putting a complexion upon it such as would absolve them, in so far as
possible, from blame. The result in Herodotus’ narrative is similar
to what we find in other like passages in his history: on the pure
question of facts he is reliable; but when he attempts to give the
motives lying behind facts, he is only too apt to produce unreliable
statements from his sources of information. He must not be judged too
hardly in this matter. It is probable that neither he nor any other
historian writing after 450 could have arrived at the truth concerning
the motives underlying the events of 480. It is not merely a question
of the absence of reliable records. He must have been influenced by the
view of the past taken by the men of his own day; and there is only too
much evidence in history of the extent to which the Greek permitted his
imagination to take liberties with facts. The very caution, too, which
he displays as an historian is evidently a prominent characteristic
of the man,—a characteristic which would almost inevitably lead him
to shun a collision with the views of those of his fellow-men with
whom he was most intimately connected in life and sentiment. But his
silence is sometimes eloquent. In the Thermopylæ narrative he mentions
Leonidas’ demand for reinforcements: he states that the intention of
sending them existed; but he never hints that even a show of carrying
out the intention was ever made. The inadequacy of the reasons which
he gives for the omission to send help,—the occurrence of the Carnean
and Olympian festivals, and the alleged miscalculation made by the
Spartans as to the time at which the Persians would arrive before the
pass,—is patent on impartial examination. He himself clearly shows
that the Greeks had information as to the movements of the Persian
army; for he says that Leonidas was despatched to Thermopylæ “when
they heard the Persian was in Pieria.” #FACT AND MOTIVE.# Leonidas and
his band were then in good time. Nor was any such mistake made in
despatching the fleet to Artemisium.
And when it is all over, what is the alleged cause of Leonidas’ death?
It is represented as an act of self-sacrifice. An oracle had declared
that one king must die, that Spartan liberty perish not. And so
Leonidas immolated himself on the altar of Patriotism.
This is a motive which would directly appeal to the piety of the
historian. But some contemporary sceptic might well have asked
why, under the circumstances, the hero of a deed of such splendid
self-sacrifice should have thought it right to involve therein the
Thespian and Theban contingents. That Leonidas’ act was one of the most
glorious recorded in history there is no reason to doubt: the question
is as to the motive.
How can the motive be judged of at the present day? Herodotus himself
supplies the apparatus of criticism by his narrative of the incidents
which occurred at Thermopylæ, which, when statements of motive are
excluded, is in nearly every single detail capable of verification on
the spot at the present day. The modern world possesses in it a sound
basis for an induction of the causes which produced the events. The
motives alleged here and in other parts of his history of the Persian
War are little more than hypotheses for the verification or disproof of
which the genuine honesty of the historian often supplies the means.
◆H. vii. 201.◆
Xerxes, on arriving at the Malian plain, pitched his camp in Trachinia,
commanding the country as far as Trachis. The Persian encampment
would seem to have stretched from the river Melas, or thereabouts,
to the entrance of the west gate of the pass. The Greek encampment
was in the middle gate, probably behind the first mound, either on
the ridge beyond the valley, or on the stream _débris_ over which
the modern road passes. The numbers of the Greek army must have been
about eight thousand, including the unstated numbers of the Opuntian
Locrians. Of these, however, one thousand Phocians were set to guard
the path of the Anopæa, more than three thousand feet above the gate.
Leonidas was in command. ◆H. vii. 204.◆ Even before the battle
brought him undying fame he seems to have been a man whose character
excited great admiration. The three hundred men whom he took with him
from Sparta were the royal bodyguard, picked men all, and fathers of
families, so Herodotus says. The historian evidently implies that in
so desperate a venture Leonidas considered it unadvisable to take with
him men whose death would blot out their name from the land of the
living. Is this detail quite consistent with the presumed intention to
send reinforcements? It is possibly a graphic touch added by Spartan
tradition after the event.
The Theban contingent was four hundred in number. Herodotus’ account of
all relating to it is so full of disputable motives that it has been
suggested that he followed a tradition which developed either under the
influence of the bitterness of feeling called forth by the attitude of
Thebes later on in the war, or of the violent enmity which sprang up
between Athens and Thebes in after-time, and which was at its height
at the time when Herodotus wrote. He represents Leonidas as taking the
Thebans with him under a sort of compulsion, because he suspected them
of a tendency to medize. There are several reasons urged for doubting
this version of the story of the Theban participation in the campaign.
1. It is doubtful whether Leonidas with so small a force as he had
with him could have coerced so powerful a State as Thebes.
◆Diod. xi. 4.◆
2. Ephoros says these Thebans were of the party opposed to medism.
3. If they were not, Xerxes committed a gross error of policy in
branding their prisoners after Thermopylæ.
◆Plut. Herod. Mal. 31–33.◆
4. Plutarch, a Bœotian himself, emphatically denies the truth of
Herodotus’ story.
Plutarch’s statements, in brief, are as follows:—
(_a_.) The fact that Thebes sent five hundred men to Tempe is proof
that up to the time of Thermopylæ Thebes supported the Greek
cause.
(_b_.) Leonidas had no suspicions against Thebes. He was treated with
special honour there.
#THE THEBAN CONTINGENT.#
(_c_.) If these Thebans were traitors to the Greek cause, why did
Leonidas retain so dangerous an element with him in the last
fight at Thermopylæ?
(_d_.) The chief of the Theban contingent was not Leontiades, but
Anaxandros.
The objections to the Herodotean version are by no means decisive in
character.
1. As far as coercion is concerned, Thebes had to reckon not merely
on Leonidas and his band, but on the whole Greek force at the
Isthmus.
2. Ephoros’ story is of later date, but really contributes the
strongest piece of evidence adduced against Herodotus.
3. The Theban prisoners had just been fighting against Xerxes in the
pass. He was not likely under the circumstances to discriminate
them as friends among foes.
4. Plutarch’s evidence, being that of a Bœotian, is liable to
suspicion. His evidence, too, taken in detail, is open to
criticism.
(_a_.) Plutarch’s argument is weak, because, as has been seen, the
contagion of medism spread in the North for the most part
after Tempe, and probably in consequence of the fiasco there.
(_b_.) There exists no means of judging of the truth or falsehood of
his assertions with regard to Leonidas.
(_c_.) Leonidas’ action is comprehensible on the supposition that he
wished to definitely embroil Thebes in the defence against the
Persian.
(_d_.) It is quite possible that the Bœotian Plutarch has discovered
a genuine mistake of Herodotus with regard to the name of the
Theban commander.
Two theories are possible: either that these Thebans were taken as
hostages for their fellow-countrymen’s behaviour; or that they joined
the expedition with a patriotism which stood the test of the extremest
danger. Perhaps the most telling piece of evidence against them
may seem to be the smallness of their contingent when compared with
that of the minor town of Thespiæ. But here again the explanation may
be that they shared the evident distrust with which the Northern States
regarded the Peloponnesian effort at Thermopylæ, and were ready to
fulfil their share of the obligation whenever they saw Sparta willing
to undertake hers.
The evidence is not of a kind which renders it possible at the present
day to decide between the truth of the respective versions. The motives
which Herodotus attributes to Leonidas and to the Thebans at this time
may not bear the stamp of _conclusive_ truth; but they convey, when
examined by the side of the contrary evidence, a stronger impression of
truth than of falsehood.
Xerxes’ first measure on taking up his encampment was to send a scout
to examine the Greek position.[118] He could not see the whole Greek
force, because those within the wall were hidden by it.[119]
Part, however, of the Spartan force was outside the wall, the men being
engaged in exercise and in combing their hair. Having ascertained their
numbers, the scout returned to Xerxes with his report. His description
of what was going on surprised the king, who appealed to the Spartan
Demaratos for an explanation. The latter told him that it was the
national custom of the Spartans to adorn themselves before facing
the danger of death in battle, and warned him that he must expect a
stubborn resistance. ◆H. vii. 210.◆ The king, it is said, did not
credit this, and allowed four days to pass “expecting ever that they
would run away.” Xerxes’ motive for the delay was probably somewhat
different from that given by Herodotus. #THE FIRST ATTACK.# The king
thought, no doubt, that his fleet would within a few days force
the passage of the Euripus, and that, the position of the Greeks being
thus turned, they would have to retreat, and would thus save him the
inevitable losses which must result from an attempt to force a pass so
strong.
On the fifth day his impatience got the better of him, and he began a
fierce assault with his Median and Kissian troops. After the Persians,
the Medes enjoyed the greatest reputation in the army. In spite of the
disparity of numbers, it was an unequal contest. Numbers were indeed
of little avail, the passage being very narrow,—only fifty feet in
width—and the Greeks having either flank protected by the mountain and
the sea. But it was in respect to actual arms that the disparity was
greatest. The Greek hoplite, with his heavy defensive armour and longer
spear, was far more than a match for the Mede, who practically lacked
defensive armour, and whose weapons of offence were of an inferior
character.
The battle lasted all day; ◆H. vii. 211.◆ for when it became clear that
the Medes could effect nothing, Xerxes sent his picked Persian troops,
the Immortals, to the assault. Even these signally failed to make an
impression on the Greek defence.
The excellence of the Lacedæmonian drill and discipline seems to have
been remarkable. They employed tactics which very few troops in the
world could employ in a narrow space in face of immensely superior
numbers:—an advance; then a pretended retreat, to draw the enemy on;
and then once more a right-about-face to the attack. The object of
this was, no doubt, to keep the enemy at close quarters. ◆Xen. Anab.
iii. 3, 9.◆ The one thing they had to fear was that the lighter armed
foe should confine himself to an attack with missiles, in which form
of fighting they must have suffered severely, without being able to
retaliate in adequate fashion.
The attack was repeated next day. The Persians hoped to win the pass by
sheer weight of numbers, knowing that they could afford to lose ten men
for every one of the enemy whom they placed _hors de combat_. But again
the attack failed.
The king’s position at this time must have been very critical.
Neither army nor fleet had forced a passage, nor had they been able
to resume touch with one another. They maintained a communication,
no doubt, by the coast road running along the north shore of the
Malian gulf; but the transport of supplies to the army, whether by
that route from the fleet, or from the Thessalian plain by the way of
Thaumaki, must have been a work of such difficulty and magnitude that
it is hardly possible to believe that it could have been adequately
maintained.
The failure to reinforce the garrison at Thermopylæ was the most
disastrous mistake which the Greeks made in the course of the war. Even
with the ridiculously small force which was sent, the defence came very
near being a success. Had an army only half the size of that which
fought at Platæa been there, neither pass nor path could ever have been
forced, and the fleet at Artemisium, or at least the Peloponnesian
section of it, would have fought with a very different spirit to that
which it actually displayed. Their stake at Thermopylæ was too small,
and their stake at the Isthmus too great to render them aught but
vacillating defenders of the channel. Had the stakes been reversed, had
the safety of their compatriots at the pass been largely involved, the
fleet would have been inspired with unanimous courage. And had it been
so, the advance of the Persians, in spite of their superior numbers,
might have been definitely checked. It is not probable, judging from
the results of the fighting which did actually take place, that either
side could have gained a decisive advantage over the other. Though
the Greek fleet suffered severely in the final combat, the Persians
were not successful in forcing the strait; and to them failure in both
strait and pass would have meant failure of the expedition.
◆Thuc. i. 69.◆
Men said in Greece in after time that the Persian was the rock on which
he himself made shipwreck. That expressed but half the truth. It was
true in the sense that the success in the war was not owing to good
management on the part of the Greeks. #THE PATH OF THE ANOPÆA.# It
was not true in the sense that the Persian’s mistakes were the main
factor in his failure. The main factor was conspicuously the
superiority of the Greek weapons in close fighting, a form of combat
which the Persian as the assailant could not avoid. It was a lesson
which the European Greek took long in learning. Aristagoras the Ionian
had pointed it out to Kleomenes when he visited him at Sparta in the
first year of the fifth century. And yet it was not until the early
years of the next century that the Greeks of Europe came to appreciate
to the full the effectiveness of their national panoply as compared
with that of the Persian. The incidents of the strange adventure of
the 10,000 which Xenophon recorded at last convinced them of the real
nature and magnitude of their strength when matched with the great
Empire of the East.
By Malian treachery and Phocian cowardice Xerxes was saved from the
desperate position in which he found himself after the failure of the
two days’ assault on the pass.
The tale runs thus in Herodotus:—
◆H. vii. 213.◆
“When the king was now at a loss to know what to do in the
circumstances in which he found himself, Epialtes, a Malian, came
to speak with him, thinking he would get some great reward from
the king, and told him of the path leading through the mountain to
Thermopylæ.... ◆H. vii. 215.◆ Xerxes approved of Epialtes’ proposal,
and being much pleased thereat, immediately despatched Hydarnes and
those he commanded.”
◆H. vii. 211.◆
Herodotus says in an earlier chapter that these were the Immortals.
“He started from the camp about the time of the lighting of the
lamps. Native Malians discovered this path, and, after doing so, led
the Thessalians by it against the Phocians, at the time when the
latter, after blocking the pass with a wall, were under cover from
attack. Ever since that time the path has been put to an ill use by
the Malians. The path is as follows: it begins from that part of the
Asopos river which flows through the defile.”[120]
“The mountains here and the path are both called by the same name,
Anopæa. This Anopæa extends along the ridge of the mountain, and
debouches at the city of Alpenos, which is the first Locrian town as
you come from Malis, and by the stone called Melampygos, and at the
seats of the Kerkopes, where it is narrowest. Such is the nature of
the path along which the Persians, after crossing the Asopos, marched
the whole night long, having the mountains of Œta on their right, and
those of Trachis on their left. Day was dawning when they arrived at
the summit of the mountain. At this part of the mountain, as I have
already shown, a thousand Phocian hoplites were on guard, protecting
their own country, and watching the path. For the pass below was
guarded by the troops I have mentioned; but the path through the
mountains Phocian volunteers undertook to guard for Leonidas. ◆H.
vii. 218.◆ It was not until the Persians reached the summit that the
Phocians discovered their presence in the following way. Owing to the
mountain being covered with oak forest, the Persian ascent had been
unobserved. There was no wind, but inasmuch as considerable noise was
inevitably made by the trampling of the feet upon the leaves, the
Phocians proceeded to run up and put on their armour. The Persians
came up immediately. When they saw men putting on their armour they
were amazed, for, never expecting that any one would appear and oppose
them, they had come upon an army. Hydarnes, then, fearing that the
Phocians were Lacedæmonians, questioned Epialtes as to the nature
of the force; and on hearing the truth, he drew up the Persians in
fighting order. The Phocians, however, assailed by a thick shower
of arrows, betook themselves in flight to the peak of the mountain,
thinking at first that they were the main object of attack, and
prepared to defend themselves to the death. Such was their intention;
but the Persians with Epialtes and Hydarnes paid no regard to the
Phocians, but proceeded to descend the mountain with all speed.”
[Illustration: SUMMIT OF ANOPÆA, LOOKING EAST.
1. Mount Saromata.
[_To face page_ 301.
]
_The Path of the Anopæa._
Leake gives what is, in so far as it goes, a fairly accurate
description of this path (“Northern Greece,” vol. ii.); but he does
not say that he actually traversed it. I am inclined to think that his
information was derived from the natives of old Drakospilia, which
seems to have been in existence in his time. When at Thermopylæ in
July–August, 1899, I was able to traverse the path from beginning to
end. On the first day I had no difficulty in tracing that part of it
which lies above the actual pass of Thermopylæ. I intended to follow
it to its end that day; but, at a monastery on the hills above the
plain west of the pass, we got upon a wrong track, leading straight
down into the plain about two miles east of the Asopos ravine. On
the next day I went up that ravine to try and discover a path, if
any, leading eastwards from it. It took an hour and a quarter to pass
through the ravine at a fairly fast walk. It is, as I have already
mentioned, a magnificent chasm, with perpendicular sides ranging from
seven hundred to nine hundred feet in height. Its width, never great,
is in one place contracted to twelve feet. Just as we were about to
issue upon the great upland valley of which I have before spoken, a
small valley opened out on the left of the ravine, _i.e._ eastward,
and up this a path led. I went up the path, which was a rough one and
steep, for several miles, until I reached the new main road, high up
on the mountain. On the next day I traced the path from that point
to near the monastery of the Panagia, whence on the first day we had
inadvertently diverged from it. For nine-tenths of the whole distance
from the east end of Thermopylæ to the Asopos ravine, it is absolutely
certain that this is the original path of the Anopæa, for the very
good reason that it traverses the only line which _can_ be traversed
in that very difficult country. In the neighbourhood of the monastery
the monks have caused new paths to be constructed, and it is therefore
not possible to say with certainty which was the original line of the
track. In mentioning distances, I can only speak approximately for the
latter two-thirds of the road, as I could get but few compass bearings
to points in my map, and these were all in the eastern third of the
way. I do not think that I have exaggerated the distances given, as I
have made allowances for the fact that in traversing an extremely rough
track, a large part of which runs through thick forest, distances
seem greater than they really are. The scenery throughout is most
beautiful, finer, I think, than anything I have seen in Greece. As the
track leads through a country inhabited, in so far as it is inhabited
at all, by semi-civilized Vlach shepherds, it would be unadvisable to
attempt to traverse it, at present, at any rate, save with a fairly
large party.
I append a detailed description of the path.
Beginning at the mouth of the Asopos ravine, it goes through that chasm
almost to its far extremity, a distance, I should say, of two and
three-quarter or three miles. For a man or loaded mule the track is not
difficult, and is still greatly used in spite of the making of the new
road. The new road involves a terrific climb. The bottom of the ravine
ascends but slowly; and it is possible to reach the Dorian plain from
its southern extremity without attaining any high elevation.
After passing through this ravine, you begin to ascend a valley whose
sides are dotted, if I remember rightly, by a scanty covering of small
fir-trees. You ascend this valley in a general direction eastwards,
until you emerge, after going from two to two and a half miles, on the
new road, at a height of perhaps two thousand feet. Crossing that, you
proceed through a more or less wooded country for some two miles, to
the monastery of the Panagia, along a very rough track. The monastery
is about two thousand to two thousand five hundred feet above the
plain. From it a steep ascent begins through low, thick forest on the
north side of the ridge of Œta, which at this point rises about one
thousand feet above you on the right, _i.e._ on the south. The forest
is largely composed of oak, but there are many fir-trees and some
planes. The track is so narrow that you are obliged to walk in single
file. About three miles from the monastery, when the height attained
cannot be less than three thousand two hundred feet, the forest alters
in character, and large fir-trees now predominate, which appear to the
non-botanical eye to be what are called Scotch firs.
At one point at this part of the track you emerge on a rocky platform
at the top of the rocks marked in my map as the Great Gable. The
traveller through the pass can see them from the road, if he looks up
the great ravine. They rise a little to the right of the line of the
ravine, and are a prominent object against the sky horizon of the high
range. #THE STATION OF THE PHOCIANS.# From this point the track leads
southwards to turn the upper part of the chasm of the Great Ravine,
at a point several miles from its exit near the hot springs. The
view down that ravine, with a foreground of giant firs and plane-trees,
the great flat plain of Malis in the middle distance, and the range
of Othrys in the background, is of extraordinary magnificence. After
descending into the ravine and ascending the far side of it, you arrive
at the site of Palaia-Drakospilia, a deserted village. From here you
ascend for a short distance through a primæval fir forest, to arrive at
an open space on the ridge which runs back from the great hill above
the hot springs at Thermopylæ. Half a mile away to the north, _i.e._
towards the summit above the pass, is an old φρούριον, which evidently
guarded the path in former days. There can be little doubt that this
is where the Phocians were stationed. It is at the true summit of the
path, a height of certainly three thousand two hundred and probably
of three thousand five hundred feet. It accords with the little
Herodotus tells us of the scene of the surprise, save that the trees
hereabouts are not oak, but firs. His mention of the oak-trees may,
however, be taken to apply to the oak forest through which you pass
before arriving at the Great Gable. From this point the path begins
to descend. It is very narrow; often steep and rocky. It goes down an
upland valley filled with dense primæval fir forest, between the ridge
which rises above the pass, and the main ridge of Œta, which rises
to a considerable height on the south, and is known by the name of
Saromata. This continues for several miles,—I cannot say how many, but
I should think not less than five; probably more, as it took us several
hours to traverse the distance. This section of the track ends at
Upper Drakospilia, a village visible from the road at Thermopylæ, and
some one thousand five hundred feet above the plain. From this place
there is at the present day a choice of roads down to the plain. The
easier leads down to a point near the east gate of the pass, near the
site which I believe to be that of Alpenoi. The other is a steep path
descending to the plain at a point about half-way between the middle
and east gates.
I reckon that the total distance from the Asopos ravine to the little
town of Alpenoi cannot be much less than seventeen miles.
* * * * *
The account given of the seizure of the path is a perfectly
comprehensible one. There is no question that, had the Phocians not
been caught unprepared, the Persians could never have got through.
Numbers would have been of little avail on a track that for the most
part allows only the passage of one, or, at most, two men at a time.
The fact that the defenders were, from the indications given in
Herodotus’ account, caught on what is at the present day practically
the only open ground after the monastery of the Panagia is passed,
affords but little excuse for them. They had committed an enormous
blunder in being taken unprepared; and this blunder was probably made
greater by their having deposited their arms in the fort, which is not
on the road, but half a mile away from it. Had they had their weapons
at hand they could have fallen back on the thick forest to the east of
the open space; and, had they done so, it is difficult to conceive how
the Persians could possibly have forced a passage. The allegation in
Herodotus that they allowed the enemy to pass under the misapprehension
that they were themselves the object of attack is probably a mere cloke
to a mistake in which cowardice played no small part—an excuse invented
by their friends in after-time. ◆H. vii. 217.◆ The Persians seem to
have arrived at this point while it was still dark, or at any rate,
in the dimness of the dawn. They started about 7.30 in the evening,
and must have reached this point before 4.30 next morning. That would
give them nine hours in which to accomplish the twelve or thirteen
miles from the mouth of the Asopos ravine. This is about the time which
they might have been expected to take over a path of the character of
that which they had traversed. At this rate of progression they would
probably take three hours more at least to arrive at the point from
which they would for the first time overlook the pass, the site of what
is now Upper Drakospilia. But when they had arrived there, it would
take much time for the long straggling column to come up; and it may
well have been many hours before they were in a position to venture
down the hill into the pass itself. Of the two paths which at the
present day descend from Drakospilia to the road, it is most probable
that only the easier one, which would lead them down to a point just
outside the east gate, existed at that time. #A FORLORN HOPE.# The
other seems to have been created by the needs of the modern
Drakospilia for direct communication with Lamia and its district. It is
very precipitous, very narrow, and easily capable of defence, whereas
the other is not.
So far the tale of Thermopylæ is borne out in the most conspicuous way
by the evidence. The remainder of the story, however, presents features
which, though in accord with the purely topographical circumstances of
the present day, raise problems of peculiar difficulty.
◆H. vii. 219.◆
The news that the Persians had discovered the existence of the path,
and had despatched a body of men to seize it, was brought to the Greek
camp by deserters during the night; its actual seizure seems to have
been reported after dawn by scouts, who probably made their way down
from the Phocian position by the precipitous mountain slopes east of
the middle gate. The tale of what ensued is thus told by Herodotus:—
“On hearing this news, the Greeks consulted together; and their
opinions were divided. Some were against deserting the position,
others of the opposite view. After this they separated, and some went
off, and, dispersing, went each to their several cities, while others
prepared to remain where they were with Leonidas. There is another
tale to the effect that Leonidas sent them away, in his anxiety to
save their lives, telling them, however, that it did not stand with
his honour and that of the Spartans present to leave the post they
had originally come to guard. I myself am most inclined to think that
Leonidas, when he saw that the allies were dispirited and unwilling to
share the danger, ordered them to depart, but thought it ignoble to do
so himself. For if he remained at his post, a great and glorious name
awaited him, and the prosperity of Sparta would not be blotted out.”
◆H. vii. 220.◆
The explanation of the last words is given in the tale which Herodotus
then proceeds to tell, to the effect that the Pythian oracle had
announced to Sparta, quite at the beginning of the war, that either
Sparta would be destroyed by the barbarians, or that its king would
perish. Herodotus thinks that it was because Leonidas remembered this
oracle, and wished to gain glory for the Spartans alone, that he sent
the allies away. He is more inclined to believe this than that
the allies, owing to a quarrel with him, went after so undisciplined a
fashion.
He regards as evidence in favour of this view the fact that Leonidas
ordered the seer Megistios, an Acarnanian, who had the previous night
warned them of the coming disaster, to depart; which he refused to do.
◆H. vii. 222.◆
“The allies, then, who were dismissed, went away and obeyed Leonidas,
save the Thespians and Thebans, who alone remained with the
Lacedæmonians. Of these the Thebans stayed against their will, and not
wishing to do so, for Leonidas kept them in the guise of hostages. The
Thespians showed every will to remain, refusing to leave Leonidas and
those with him and depart. So they stayed with them and shared their
death. Their leader was Demophilos, the son of Diadromos.”
This is a very remarkable incident in the narrative of an episode
which is itself undeniably one of the most remarkable in history.
It contains but little of that reliable element in Herodotus,—fact;
it contains much of the unreliable element,—motive. The facts are
plain, and there is no reason to doubt them. The Spartans, Thebans,
and Thespians remained and took part in the final struggle; the rest
of the allies departed. Who were the latter? By reference to the list
of those present in the pass it will be found that they were Tegeans,
Mantineans, other Arcadians, Corinthians, Phliasians, Mykenæans ◆Paus.
ii. 16, 5; x. 20, 2.◆ (though Pausanias mentions a tradition to the
effect that they remained), and the Opuntian Locrians. The calculation
can only be an approximate one, but, excluding the Phocians, who were
up on the path, and the Opuntian Locrians, whose number we do not know,
3500 remained, and 2800 departed.[121] This division is a somewhat
significant one.
The central motive in Herodotus’ story is undoubtedly the reported
oracle delivered to Sparta “quite early in the war.” It is unfortunate,
from the historical point of view, that the tradition assailed the
historian on his weakest side. He was incurable in this respect.
#DIFFICULTIES IN THE NARRATIVE.# Even the most glaring cases of
oracular dishonesty, to which he could not shut his eyes, such as
the tampering of the Alkmæonidæ with the oracle at Delphi in order
to bring about the expulsion of the Peisistratidæ, never killed his
faith in oracular responses in general. But in cases where, as in the
present instance, an oracle came to point a moral and adorn a tale, he
completely surrendered his critical faculty. The whole of Herodotus’
narrative hangs by this oracle. He rejects the story that half the army
deserted the defence of its own free will, in order, in accordance
with his prime motive, to produce a story to the effect that Leonidas
dismissed them, knowing that he himself had to make the great act of
self-abnegation, and not wishing to involve them therein. And yet
Leonidas keeps the Thebans with him, and the Thespians remain of their
own free will; and, apparently, he allows them to do so.
If this account be true, what was the position of those three thousand
five hundred Greeks who remained to face the Persian attack on front
and rear? It is not said that they sacrificed themselves to give
their friends time to escape, nor is there the slightest cause to
suppose that there was any reason whatever for their doing so. The
scouts from the top of the mountain must have been down in the camp at
least two hours before the Persians could arrive at the site of Upper
Drakospilia; and, even arrived there, the latter could not possibly
have descended into the pass before their numbers had gathered. It must
have been late in the morning before they came down, and probably past
midday before they began to assail the rear of the Greek position.
Those who escaped had only a mile and a half to go before they were out
of the pass at the east gate; and, once outside, they were in an easy
country, over which they could travel rapidly.
Taking the story as it stands, there is no possible strategic motive
for remaining to defend the middle gate; there is rather every reason
for not doing so. And the men who remained there must have been
perfectly aware that by remaining they merely sacrificed their own
lives without really contributing anything to the defence of their
fatherland. The intense sense of discipline among the Spartans
may, in so far as they are concerned, of itself account for an act
otherwise inexplicable. But what of the Thebans? Were they likely to
allow themselves to be forced to face certain death in a case where
none save a sentimental result could be attained, without displaying a
feeling such as would make them most undesirable participants in the
defence? And the Thespians? They must have amounted to a very large
proportion of the total available fighting force of their little town.
Were they likely to sacrifice themselves, as has been suggested, in the
hope that if the Greek cause prospered, they might become the head of
the Bœotian confederacy? How could they hope to attain such a result
by deliberately placing seven hundred of their citizens in a position
whose only issue was the gate of death? What measure of gratitude could
they expect from a people who were responsible for their great betrayal
at Thermopylæ?
It is plain that there must have been some reasonable and strong motive
which induced the Thespians to remain, and made it possible for the
Thebans to be retained with Leonidas. The reason given by Herodotus
is inadequate to the last degree. Some other must have existed. It is
probable that, as is often the case under such circumstances, part
of the true reason is present in some form in the statement of the
imagined motives. Two tales existed, so Herodotus says: one that the
allies went away; the other that they were sent away. Possibly each of
them contained a fraction of the truth. What was the situation on that
eventful morning? The news of the Persians having passed the summit
came not long after dawn. Leonidas must have known, if he had, as must
be supposed, taken any measures to get knowledge of the path, that the
Persians could not be in force at Upper Drakospilia, to use the modern
name, for some hours after the news reached him; and three thousand men
in the tangled forest which begins just outside the village might stop
the whole Persian army. He would thus be able to maintain the pass, if
he could hold his end of it. #DEPARTURE OF HALF THE GREEK ARMY.# Is it
not possible, then, that he divided his force into what, as has been
seen, was, roughly speaking, two halves, and “sent away” the one
half to seize the forest path before the Persians had time to debouch
from it in any strength? On the question of time it may be said that
from the middle gate to Upper Drakospilia is an hour and twenty minutes
by the direct but more difficult path, and about twenty minutes longer
by the easier path which comes down near the east gate.
It seems an essential factor in the situation that Leonidas believed
in and was able to persuade the Thespians and, it may be, the Thebans
too, of the possibility of still maintaining the pass. Had the division
sent to meet Hydarnes done its duty with energy, it is highly probable,
judging from the history of the previous fighting, that the event would
have justified his confidence. What happened to that division of two
thousand eight hundred men will never be known. It may be that for
some reason it arrived too late, and found the Persians in too strong
a force at Drakospilia. It may be that it never attempted to carry out
the orders, and retreated straightway through the east gate, and so to
Elatæa. Probably the latter was the case. Had there been a reasonable
excuse for their conduct it would have survived in history. But was
there _no_ excuse for their vanishing from the scene? They were face
to face with a fearful danger, greater even than the danger which had
faced them for a week past, great though that had been. They must
have been suffering under a bitter sense of desertion, left to their
fate, as it were, by those who sent them from the Isthmus. And who but
Sparta was responsible for this? “Had they not done enough?” they may
have argued. Were they to blame if, deserted themselves, they deserted
others? And who were those “others?” Spartans, men of the race which
had wished to sacrifice them; Thebans of suspicious loyalty; Thespians,
who were—well, not Peloponnesians. And so they could go off with half
a conscience, if not a whole one. Such reasoning would not do them
honour; but men, if dishonourably treated themselves, are but too apt,
in their bitter resentment, to lose the finer sense of honour.
The story of their shame but half-survived; Herodotus caught some echo
of it. Those who lived to tell it had most interest in concealing
it. The dead men at Thermopylæ could tell no tales; and the Thebans
were too much discredited to obtain credit. There was a conspiracy of
silence. The inaction of the Spartan authorities had borne terrible
fruit,—far more terrible, it may be believed, than the authorities ever
expected it would bear. Leonidas had been deserted and had died with
his brave band. It was no good blaming the allies who deserted him,
even had it been possible under the circumstances to establish the fact
of their desertion. These, too, could have retaliated with a tale which
would have brought discredit, or even infamy, on those who were really
responsible for the disaster.
Thus it was possible to conceal the truth, and the field was open
for invention. It was not difficult to supply a motive for a courage
so grand as that which Leonidas had displayed,—the motive of
self-sacrifice. That was absolutely the only motive which could account
to the world for the extraordinary circumstances of his death; and it
had the merit of being true.
He was represented as a victim self-immolated on the altar of his
country’s weal. The oracle had said that the king must die for his
people. And he did die, but a victim to the dishonour of a country
which left him and the brave men with him to their fate.
After the departure of the Peloponnesian allies, the last scene in the
tragedy began. ◆H. vii. 223.◆ Herodotus describes it in the simple but
beautiful language of a master-artist who seeks to do justice to the
grandest story of his time. Xerxes after making libation at sunrise,
waited until the time when the Agora is wont to fill, and then began
the attack; such being the instructions of Epialtes.[122]
“For the descent from the mountain is quicker and the distance much
shorter, than the way round the hills.”[123]
[Illustration: COAST AT MIDDLE GATE OF THERMOPYLÆ IN 480.
Scale 8″ to 1 mile.
1, 2, 3, mark the three positions of the defenders of the Pass.
[_To face page_ 310.
]
[Illustration: THERMOPYLÆ.]
[Illustration: THERMOPYLÆ: THE MIDDLE GATE.
1. The 1st Mound.
2. Upper Mill.
3. Modern Baths.
4. Great Ravine.
[_To face page_ 311.
]
#THE LAST FIGHT.#
“So the barbarians under Xerxes advanced; and the Greeks with
Leonidas, as though going to meet their death, came out much more into
the wider part of the pass than they had done hitherto”[124]
“Up to this time they had held their station within the wall, and from
this had gone out to fight where the path was narrowest.”[125]
“On this occasion, however, the battle took place outside the narrows,
and numbers of the Persians fell. For the commanders standing
behind the companies with whips in their hands lashed on every man,
continually urging them forward. Many of them fell into the sea and
were drowned, and a still larger number were trampled to death;
but no one heeded the dying. For as the Greeks knew the fate which
awaited them at the hands of those who were making the circuit of the
mountain, they displayed with recklessness and fury the most desperate
valour against the barbarians.”[126]
“By that time the spears of most of them were broken, but they
slaughtered the Persians with their swords. In this _melée_ fell
Leonidas, the bravest of men, and other famous Spartans with him,
whose names I found out, for they deserved record; in fact, I
discovered the names of all the three hundred.”[127]
The losses of the Persians were not confined to the rank and file of
the army. Many of their prominent men fell, among others two sons of
Darius.
“Over the body of Leonidas there was a fierce struggle between the
Lacedæmonians and Persians, until the Greeks by their valour rescued
it, and drove back the enemy four times. This battle lasted until
those with Epialtes came up. When the Greeks heard of their arrival,
they changed their plan of defence. For they retreated to the narrow
part of the pass-way, and, retiring even behind the cross wall, came
and took up their position all in a body, save the Thebans, on the
hillock. This hillock is in the pass where now stands the stone lion
set up in honour of Leonidas.”[128]
“In this position, while such as had swords, still defended themselves
with them, and even with their hands and teeth, they were buried by
the barbarians beneath showers of missiles; some assailed them in
front and pulled down the wall; some went round and attacked them on
all sides.”
From the tales which Herodotus tells of the personal incidents in
connection with the battle, there is but little to be gathered which
can be said to contribute to the history of the time.
◆H. vii. 229.◆
In the tale of the two men Eurytos and Aristodemos there is a purely
incidental detail which is, in its way, of significance. They had been
sent away from the camp by Leonidas, and lay at Alpenoi, “in the last
stage of ophthalmia.”
[Illustration: FIRST AND SECOND MOUNDS, MIDDLE GATE, THERMOPYLÆ.
1. Second Mound.
2. Little Valley.
3. First Mound.
Sulphur Deposit in foreground.
[_To face page_ 312.
]
#THE TOMB OF THE FALLEN.#
At the present day the reed-cutters in the marsh at the west gate
suffer from this disease.
◆H. vii. 233.◆
The Theban contingent did not take any part in the last battle on the
mound. When the Greeks retreated from the broader part of the pass, the
Thebans remained behind and surrendered. It is significant to note that
this surrender was made at the time when the Greeks were made aware
that the division of Hydarnes was going to attack them in the rear.
It was probably years afterwards, when Herodotus visited the scene of
the battle, that he made a copy of the inscription which was engraved
on the monument raised on the mound to the memory of the Peloponnesian
Greeks who had fallen. Its words summarized, no doubt, the impression
which the battle had made on the Greek world as a whole.
Their memory is recorded in the lines:—
“Here, with three hundred myriads, once fought
Four thousand men of Peloponnese.”
The next lines quoted by Herodotus refer to the Lacedæmonians alone:—
“Stranger, unto the Lacedæmonians tell
That here we lie obedient to their laws.”
The epitaph of the seer Megistios followed, written by his friend the
poet Simonides.
It is remarkable that in the lines recorded by Herodotus there is no
mention of the Thespians or other allies who came not from Peloponnese.
It seems, however, from what Strabo says, ◆Strabo, 425.◆ that five
memorial pillars were erected on the spot, one of which recorded the
memory of the Locrians who perished; ◆Anthol. Pal. Append. 94.◆ and
an epigram of the Megarian Philiades on the fallen Thespians is also
extant, which was very possibly that engraved on one of the stelæ on
the mound.
To contemporary Greeks, and to Greeks of after time, Thermopylæ seemed,
if not the most important, the most impressive page in the history
of the race. It was regarded as an act of pure self-sacrifice, whose
splendour was such as to place it outside the range of any logical
discussion as to its practical strategic value. The sole motive
which was attributed to the gallant band who fought the last fight was
a stern, unyielding sense of duty, such as might serve as a pattern to
all after-time. There can be no doubt that this popular view had an
enormous moral effect. It gave the Greek a higher ideal of his national
character at his best; and in the history of any nation any sacrifice
which can have that effect is but a small price to pay, even if the
purely practical result of the sacrifice be small.
Before attempting any estimate of the real nature of the sacrifice, it
will be well to realize how it happened that the Greek world generally
came to adopt what was, in certain important respects, a mistaken view
of it. Herodotus’ narrative shows clearly the cause of this phenomenon.
The circumstances of the disaster were such that the Spartan
authorities were left in a position to impress their own explanation
on the facts that came to light. Herodotus gives what was, no doubt,
the authorized version. Its origin is plain. It is from beginning
to end drawn from Lacedæmonian sources. The Spartan is not merely
the protagonist in the tragedy; he is practically the only actor who
appears on the stage in the final act, except the unfortunate Theban,
the villain of the piece. The whole story was calculated to elevate
the idea which the Greek world held of the Spartan character. In one
sense it had its effect. It is impossible to doubt that from that day
forward the Spartans were credited with an heroic courage which knew no
yielding. How strong, how thorough, how lasting was this conviction in
the Greek mind is shown by the tremendous impression produced more than
fifty years later by the surrender of the Spartans on Sphakteria, the
desperate nature of the position in which they found themselves failing
to save the shock to their national reputation. But is it not strange
that the Thespians did not share the reputation? In certain respects
the part which they played at Thermopylæ had been even more glorious
than that of Leonidas and his men. #THE LAST HOURS AT THERMOPYLÆ.# The
seven hundred citizens by whom they were represented constituted to
them an infinitely greater stake in the perilous game than the three
hundred Spartans and their attendant Helots did to Sparta.
But in one important respect the official Spartan version failed
conspicuously to have the effect which it was doubtless intended
to convey. The Greek did not at this or any other time allow his
admiration of the national character of the Spartan to warp his
judgment with regard to the Spartan government. He was perfectly well
aware that the personal bravery of the Spartans in the field stood in
strong contrast to the pusillanimity of the policy of their rulers. If
he had any illusions on the subject at the beginning of the war, the
events of the war itself were strikingly calculated to disillusion him.
There can be no possible question as to the personal bravery of the
Spartans in every action, whether on land or sea, in so far as pure
fighting qualities are concerned; there can be no question as to the
greatness of the Spartan contribution to the final result; but Sparta
got little credit for the result in after-time.
It is impossible to close this chapter without making some attempt
to form an estimate of the mental attitude with which Leonidas faced
the situation in which he found himself involved on the morning of
the final struggle in the pass. It is necessary, in examining the
popular story, to remember that Leonidas’ conduct is not represented
as a sacrifice to the stern duty imposed by Spartan discipline, but to
one of the alternatives put forward on the authority of an oracular
response. There was possibly a tinge of fatalism about the character
of the man which lent a colouring to the tale of his death current
at the time. He died, so it was said, to save his country, not from
actual, but from predicted disaster. If this was the case, it is
quite comprehensible that his Spartan bodyguard should be involved
in the fate of their master. To them Spartan law and custom made the
consequences of desertion worse than death. But, leaving the Theban
contingent out of the question, what, under the circumstances, could
possibly have induced the Thespians to involve themselves in the fate
of one who was sacrificing himself to a prediction which did not
concern them? What possible feeling, sentimental or practical,
could have prompted them to share the fate of a self-doomed man? That
was the weak spot in the Spartan version of Thermopylæ. No attempt
was made to explain it. The hypothesis which lay at the root of the
story made it inexplicable. Nor does it seem to have struck those
who invented this story, that under the theory put forward by them,
Leonidas, without any motive whatsoever, deliberately allowed 700
devoted men of a little Bœotian city to share a doom which was his and
his alone.
Leonidas died a nobler death than that. It was with the grander courage
of reason that he faced the terrible odds against him on that last day
of his life.
The fighting of the previous days had shown him the strength of the
position which he held at the middle gate. It was a desperate risk; but
there was just the possibility that by detaching half his force to stop
the encircling body of the foe in the difficult path which they were
travelling, he might still be able to maintain the pass, and if he did
maintain it he would do his country an inestimable service. It was thus
with half his little army that he deliberately chose to face an enemy
one hundred times his own numerical strength. He took a risk of whose
magnitude he must have been well aware, to win, in case of success,
a prize of incalculable greatness. He cannot have deluded himself,
he may be pardoned if he deluded his allies—as to the overwhelming
nature of the chances against them. He might have retreated. There
is an exaggerated tendency to assume that Spartan discipline at this
time forbade a commander, under any circumstances, to withdraw from a
position once taken up. Artemisium and, above all, Platæa, prove this
not to have been the case. He was under no such compulsion. What he
did dare to do was to face odds such as men had never faced before and
never have faced since, because by so doing he had a possible prospect
of conferring a service of enormous value on his country. He did this,
too, in spite of that bitter feeling of his countrymen’s desertion
which must have been present in his mind. Nor was the nobility of
his death marred by a useless sacrifice of the lives of devoted men.
#ORIGIN OF HERODOTUS’ VERSION.# Great as was the risk, the greatness
of the end to be attained in case of success justified his
associating others with himself in the desperate venture.
I have laid aside this account of Thermopylæ for some months, in order
to consider whether any other more reasonable explanation of the
circumstances might be drawn from Herodotus’ narrative of _facts_.
I do not, however, see any possibility of arriving at any other
conclusion from them, when taken in combination with the topographical
evidence, which happens in this case to be very clear. There was
certainly a possibility of defending the pass, even after Hydarnes had
forced the path. It may have been remote; but it existed all the same.
There were, however, too many people interested in concealing the
truth of what happened. The Spartan authorities had good reason for
so doing, and the very fact of two wholly different traditions being
in existence in Herodotus’ day with regard to the conduct of those
who did not remain with Leonidas until the end, shows that the latter
were able to exercise a concealment which was in all probability
much to their interest to exercise. A not very unreasonable excuse
for their conduct might well be that the circumstances on that last
day were absolutely desperate, owing to the omission of Sparta to
send reinforcements. It would be an ugly tale for the Lacedæmonian
Government, and all the more so as the only person who might have
denied it with authority had died in the battle.
CHAPTER VIII.
ARTEMISIUM.
While the events just described were taking place on land, a somewhat
desultory naval warfare was being waged in the channel north of Eubœa,
which, though in itself indecisive, was not without influence on the
ultimate issue of the war. The defence of the channel had been rightly
regarded as an absolutely necessary adjunct to that of the pass; and
the resolution to send troops to Thermopylæ had been accompanied by the
resolution to send to the North Euripus all the ships available. Even
Herodotus recognizes the intimacy of the connection between the two
positions. When visiting Thermopylæ he can hardly have failed to notice
the relation between them.
◆Cf. also H. viii. 21.◆
Speaking of it he says: “These places are near one another, so that the
forces stationed at them could communicate with one another.”
◆H. vii. 175.◆
Even from a point at Thermopylæ only a hundred and fifty feet above the
Malian plain it is possible to see right down this northern channel,
and to distinguish in the distance part of the outline of the island of
Skiathos.
The historian treats the Artemisium story as an episode in itself,
though he supplies means by which it may be chronologically connected
with the Thermopylæ narrative. This treatment is justified by the
fact that, though there was so intimate a connection between the two
positions from a strategical point of view, the actual fighting which
occurred at them was of a quite independent character in so far as he
could judge of it. But there is also another reason which probably
had still greater weight in determining the method which he employed.
#SPARTAN AND ATHENIAN SOURCES.# The story of Thermopylæ is plainly
of Spartan origin from beginning to end; that of Artemisium is drawn
from Athenian sources. There is a further difference between them. The
story of Thermopylæ is, in respect to motive, a popularized tale of
official origin, for which the authorities at Sparta were responsible.
That of Artemisium is derived mainly, like some other parts of
Herodotus’ military history, from some one who was present at the
engagements, but was not in a position to know the designs of those in
command. The tale is too confused for it to be possible to suppose that
it is founded largely on official documents or on official information
of any kind. The reasons given for important movements are such as
would be current in the gossip of the fleet, coloured by the evident
intention to bring into high relief the greatness of the service which
Athens did to the Greek cause at this time by saving the situation on
the Euripus. The impression which is so intentionally given was not
indeed a false one. The Athenians did save the situation at Artemisium
in so far as it could be saved. By so doing they contributed not a
little to the solidarity of the Greek resistance.
The method which Herodotus employed to bring the two series of events
into connection with one another is natural; but the result is curious.
His narrative of this part of the war is in the form of a twofold
diary of the incidents at Thermopylæ and at Artemisium respectively.
There are two points of contact between the two diaries—at their
beginning, the departure from Therma, and at their end, the disaster
at Thermopylæ. It is notable, however, that there is a discrepancy
of two days between them. It is probable that two days have somehow
been omitted from the Artemisium diary. A close examination of its
narrative makes it evident that the historian, either owing to his
own miscalculation, or to some error in his source of information,
has attributed to one period of twenty-four hours events which could
not conceivably have happened within so brief a space of time. That
it is a case of pure miscalculation, either on his own part or on
that of his authority, ◆H. viii. 15.◆ is further evident from his own
statement that the naval battles at Artemisium took place on the
same days as the battles in the pass at Thermopylæ; in other words,
that the events of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth days of
the Thermopylæ narrative were synchronous with those of the sixteenth,
seventeenth, and eighteenth days in the record of the Artemisium
journal as it stands in his work.[129]
◆H. viii. 1.◆
The fleet which the Greeks despatched to Artemisium was a large one,
composed of the following contingents:—
Athenians, 127 triremes, part of the crews of which were Platæans;
Corinthians, 40 triremes; Megareans, 20 triremes; Chalkidians,
(probably Athenian kleruchs from Chalkis,) manned 20 triremes
provided by Athens; Æginetans, 18 triremes; Sikyonians, 12 triremes;
Lacedæmonians, 10 triremes; Epidaurians, 8 triremes; Eretrians, 7
triremes; Trœzenians, 5 triremes; Styreans, 2 triremes; Keians, 2
triremes and 2 pentekonters: Opuntian Locrians, 7 pentekonters.
The total number Herodotus gives correctly as 271. The commander of
the fleet was the Spartan Eurybiades. #ATHENS AND ATHENIAN SOURCES.#
The story goes that, before the embassy was sent to Sicily, it had
been arranged that Athens should have the supreme command at sea,
but that the Peloponnesian allies opposed this arrangement even to the
extent that they threatened to withdraw their contingent altogether
if it were allowed to stand. And so, says Herodotus, the Athenians,
unwilling to sacrifice the national cause, with a laudable patriotism
waived their claim. The refusal of the Peloponnesians was not
unnatural. It was one thing to submit to the hegemony of the ancient
and respectable Sparta; it was another thing to place themselves under
the leadership of this pushing parvenu state, whose rise to importance
had been so extremely rapid. On the other hand, the magnanimous
attitude of Athens was based, no doubt, on the simple arithmetical
calculation that 270 ships were better than 150. Herodotus implies that
there had been a change in the attitude of the allies. The profound
dissatisfaction which they felt with the Northern policy may easily
account for this. At the time of the embassy to Sicily the question of
the locality of the defence had probably not been raised in a highly
controversial form.
[Illustration: PLAIN OF EUBŒA.
_From Sketch by E. Lear._]
1. Mount Dirphys (Delph).
[_To face page_ 321.
]
In this part of the Artemisium narrative the Athenian bias is as
strongly marked as elsewhere: it contrasts, however, with the major
portion of the story in the fact that it seems to rest upon an official
basis. The details of the numbers of the various contingents, and the
correct sum-total of the whole,—a trait lacking at times in Herodotus’
history,—render it unlikely that the information can have been derived
from mere tradition, or from personal recollection.
◆12th day.◆
The fleet of Xerxes remained at Therma for twelve days after the army
had departed. It had now the most difficult and dangerous part of
its voyage to perform. From Therma to the Pagasætic Gulf there is no
harbour into which it could put; and it is probable that the intention
was to perform the passage in one continuous stretch.
◆H. vii. 179.◆
The fast-sailing vessels were sent forward as scouts towards the island
Skiathos, which lies off the mouth of the Euripus. ◆H. vii. 179.◆ These
vessels came across three Greek ships, Trœzenian, Æginetan, and Attic
vessels respectively, engaged in a similar duty off the mouth of the
Peneius river. ◆H. vii. 182.◆ When the Persian vessels came into sight,
the Greek ships fled. Not merely were they outnumbered, but also up
to this time the Greeks had had no experience which could give them
confidence in their own naval equipment when matched against that of
the Persian. ◆H. vii. 180, 181.◆ The Trœzenian and Æginetan vessels
were taken with their crews; the Athenian ship was run aground at the
mouth of the Peneius. Those aboard her escaped to shore, and finally,
after what must have been an adventurous journey, made their way to
Athens. ◆H. vii. 179. 183.◆ Apparently on the same day, the main body
of the fleet left Therma, and, after sailing the whole day through,
“arrived at Sepias and the strand between the city of Kasthanea and the
Sepiad Cape, in Magnesia.”
◆H. vii. 182.◆
On this day the Athenian fleet was at Artemisium. The promontory of
that name, crowned by the temple of Artemis, was the north-east point
of the island of Eubœa. The actual station of the fleet must have been
at least ten miles from the promontory, well within the strait, at a
point west of the mouth of the Pagasætic Gulf, where the fair way is
much narrower than in the outer part of the channel. ◆H. vii. 176.◆ The
name “Artemisian shore” seems to have been applicable to this part of
the coast of Eubœa, as well as to the immediate neighbourhood of the
promontory.
The capture of the Greek outlook vessels was reported to the Greek
fleet at Artemisium by means of fire signals from Skiathos.[130]
[Illustration: THE NARROWS AT CHALKIS.
_From Sketch by E. Lear._]
1. Venetian Castle, now destroyed.
[_To face page_ 323.
]
#ALLEGED PANIC OF THE GREEKS.#
◆H. vii. 182.◆
The possibilities of the case preclude the supposition that the
Greek fleet received the news sufficiently early for them to move from
Artemisium on that day. It therefore becomes a serious historical
question as to what interpretation is to be put upon the account which
Herodotus gives of the next step taken by the fleet. He says, “On
hearing this news the Greeks were frightened, and removed from their
anchorage at Artemisium to Chalkis, with intent to guard the Euripus,
leaving watchers posted on the heights of Eubœa.”
There are almost overwhelming reasons for doubting the truth of the
motives of this story; though, as is so often the case in Herodotus’
narrative, the facts appear to be true. It is probable that the Greek
fleet _did_ move towards, if not to, Chalkis, and that watchers _were_
posted on the heights of Eubœa. But the reason given for this change of
station is that the Greeks were panic-stricken at the capture of their
three scouting vessels. This reason is inadequate and incredible.
1. The Greeks had made up their minds to face the Persians at
Artemisium. Is it credible that so small a disaster should have led
to the adoption of a resolution, the effect of which, under the
circumstances, must have deranged the whole plan of campaign?
2. If such a panic had taken place for a reason so insignificant, is
it probable that any human power could have induced the Greeks to
return a few days later to their former station?
3. Is it credible that they should have retreated without warning the
garrison at Thermopylæ which would in that case have been
sacrificed?
4. If that garrison had been warned, would it not have retreated from
that advanced post in the same way that the army had withdrawn
from Tempe?
5. It is extremely unlikely that the withdrawal was made at night. It
is almost certain that it must have been made on the morning after
the news had been received, by which time the storm which burst
upon the Persian fleet at the Sepiad strand had already begun.
6. The motive alleged is in the highest degree suspicious, because
all through the narrative the services of the Athenians in keeping
the fleet at Artemisium are emphasized in the most marked manner.
It is probable that the motive given is a pure fabrication invented
at Athens and current at Athens in after-time. It is also probable
that the real reason for the withdrawal of the Greek fleet was the
impossibility of remaining in the North Euripus during the storm.
Such storms spring up with astonishing suddenness in these seas,
and give little or no warning of their approach; and it is probable
that the Greek fleet, caught unprepared, had to run for it to the
inner strait, where, once round the corner of Eubœa, it would be
sheltered by the mountains which form the great precipices on the
Euripus north of Chalkis. Whether it went to Chalkis or not, it is,
of course, impossible to say. It is probable it did not do so, for
Mount Kandili[131] ceases before Chalkis is reached, and the narrow
part of the Strait is exposed to the east and north-east. There is no
difficulty in identifying the nature of the storm. It blew on shore on
the Sepiad strand, and therefore must have been one of those E.N.E.
gales from the Black Sea, which are the most violent and most dangerous
of the storm winds of the Ægean. They may occur at any time of year.
Such a storm would blow right down the north bend of the Euripus.
The army at Thermopylæ must have known of the retirement of the fleet;
but it must have known also that there was every intention of returning
to the former station so soon as the weather allowed. For that reason
it held its ground.
The adventures of the ten Persian ships did not end with their capture
of the Athenian vessels. Three of them came to grief on the rock called
Murmex, which is in the fairway just at the entrance of the channel.
#THE STORM AT THE SEPIAD STRAND.#
On the evening of the twelfth day of the journal the position appears
to be as follows: the Greek fleet was at Artemisium; the Persian at the
Sepiad strand outside the strait; the Persian scouting vessels, or,
rather, the seven survivors of them, ◆H. vii. 183.◆ were probably
engaged in erecting a pillar on the Murmex rock as a danger mark to the
rest of the fleet.
The Sepiad shore was not sufficiently extensive for it to be possible
to draw up the whole of the Persian fleet upon it. A large number of
the vessels were obliged to remain at anchor, with their bows facing
seawards, in eight lines. ◆13th day.◆ These were surprised at dawn by
the storm. It arose suddenly, the sea having previously been quite
calm. The wind was from the east or E.N.E., known in that region as the
“Hellespontian wind,” not less known, nor less obnoxious to sailors at
the present day than it was in the days of Herodotus. The destruction
wrought in the fleet was enormous. Four hundred warships and an unknown
number of transports are said to have perished. The numbers are no
doubt greatly exaggerated; but the loss relatively to the size of the
fleet seems to have been very considerable. Such were the events of the
thirteenth day at the Sepiad strand. The Greek fleet, driven from the
North Euripus on that morning by the storm, took refuge in the inner
channel,—“at Chalkis,”—so says Herodotus.[132]
◆14th day. 15th day.◆
The storm lasted during the fourteenth and fifteenth days, the fleets
remaining at their respective stations.
◆16th day.◆
The events of the sixteenth day are of special importance. They are
crowded together in the narrative in a way that raises the suspicion
that the chronological error in the story is to be sought in this part
of it.
◆H. vii. 192.◆
The storm had come to an end on the fourth day; but on the day
following its commencement the Greeks received news of the disaster at
the Sepiad strand from the watchers posted on the heights of the Eubœa.
◆14th day.◆
“When the Greeks heard this, after offering prayer to their preserver
Poseidon, and pouring libation, they hastened straightway to
Artemisium, hoping that but few ships would oppose them.” There is
manifestly some mistake here. The Greek fleet could not possibly
have made its way back to Artemisium in the face of the storm. ◆16th
day.◆ It must have waited until the storm had blown itself out; that
is to say, it could not have returned to its former station until the
sixteenth day. The tale as it stands supplies a motive for the return
of the fleet such as will fit in with the main motive of the story.
◆H. vii. 193.◆
“They came for a second time to Artemisium and took up their station
there, and from that day to this have been accustomed to address
Poseidon by the name of ‘saviour’ then given to him. The barbarian,
when the wind dropped and the sea went down, dragged the vessels down
into the water and sailed along the coast round the cape of Magnesia,
into the gulf leading to Pagasæ. There is a place in this Gulf of
Magnesia where it is said that Herakles was left by Jason and his
comrades when he had been sent from the Argo to fetch water, when they
were sailing to Aias in Colchis after the golden fleece; for their
intention was, after watering there, to put out to sea. From this
circumstance the place got its name of Aphetæ. Here the fleet of Xerxes
came to anchor.”
It is fairly clear from the description that Aphetæ must have been
situated at the extremity of the long curved peninsula which extends
west from the south end of Magnesia, enclosing the Pagasætic Gulf on
the south.
The only other event which can be reasonably ascribed to this sixteenth
day is the capture by the Greek fleet of fifteen Persian vessels
which were belated in starting for Aphetæ. It is not difficult to
demonstrate, on Herodotus’ own showing, that their capture cannot have
taken place until well on in the afternoon.
The tale is as follows:
◆H. vii. 194.◆
“Fifteen of these ships (the Persian) had put out much later, and in
some way or other caught sight of the Greek vessels at Artemisium.
The barbarians thought they were their own ships, and sailed into the
hands of their enemies.”
#GREEKS RETURN TO ARTEMESIUM.#
◆H. vii. 191, _ad fin._◆
The storm had not ceased until that very morning. It is quite certain
that the battered Persian fleet must have required some hours of
preparation before it could put out from the Sepiad strand; and it did
not reach Aphetæ until the early afternoon. The fifteen vessels must
have come up some hours later, well on in the afternoon, since the main
fleet had evidently disappeared into the Pagasætic Gulf before they
entered the channel; otherwise they could not have made the mistake
they did make. The story of their capture shows that on the afternoon
of that day the Greek fleet was already back at Artemisium. Had it come
up from Chalkis that morning? It is not impossible that it should have
done so; but it is improbable.[133]
◆H. vii. 196.◆
“So the Persian fleet, with the exception of the fifteen
vessels which, as I have said, Sandokes commanded, came to Aphetæ.”
The composite character of the sources of the historian’s narrative is
well illustrated by the next episode in the strange story. It is of the
nature of a by-plot in the drama inserted with a view to illustrate
not merely the services of the Athenians in saving the situation, but
also the twofold character of the man who now becomes for the first
time prominent in the story. ◆H. viii 4.◆ In brief the tale is that the
fleet, after returning to Artemisium, discovered that the disaster at
the Sepiad strand had by no means been so great as had been imagined.
So alarmed were the Greeks at this, that “they discussed whether they
should retreat from Artemisium to Middle Greece.” The Eubœans, who thus
saw themselves likely to be suddenly deserted without the possibility
of providing for the safety of their children and households,
implored Eurybiades to allow them time to remove them to a place of
security. Finding they could make no impression upon him, they resorted
to Themistocles, to whom they offered a bribe of thirty talents, if
he would take measures to keep the fleet where it was. Themistocles
undertook to do so, and proceeded to bribe Eurybiades with a gift
of five talents, and Adeimantos, the Corinthian admiral, with three
talents.
The tale excites the strongest suspicion of having been an invention
of after-time, concocted by political opponents of Themistocles.
Herodotus’ whole attitude to Themistocles is suspicious. He is quite
unable to suppress the greatness of the services which he rendered to
the Greek cause; but he is ever ready to discount the value of those
services either by tales discreditable to the personal character of the
man who rendered them, ◆H. vii. 144.◆ or by attributing to him motives
other than those which really prompted his action.
Nor do the details of the story, when taken into consideration, tend
to make it appear more probable. No doubt the Peloponnesian members of
the fleet seized every possible occasion for urging such a withdrawal.
It must have been known to them that the force sent to Thermopylæ
did not represent any real effort on their part. It could hardly be
expected that they should display any large amount of zeal in carrying
out a policy of which they wholly disapproved, and in the execution
of which their own authorities were so manifestly half-hearted. They
knew that, if they left Artemisium, the army must leave Thermopylæ; and
they were no doubt convinced that that was the very best thing which
could possibly happen. But on the practical question of withdrawal,
other considerations must have influenced those in command. Unless the
retreat from Thermopylæ were begun many hours before the withdrawal of
the fleet, the army must be caught in a trap. With a light-armed enemy
in vastly superior numbers in hot pursuit, the retreat could not have
been rapid, and the Persian fleet would have had ample time to land
troops in such a position as would make it possible to cut the line of
it.
#REPORTED BRIBERY OF THEMISTOCLES.#
There is no trace whatever in the Thermopylæ story of a message having
been received from the fleet advising the garrison of its intended
withdrawal. That may be attributed to the incompleteness of the
story itself. This explanation, however, can hardly be considered
satisfactory in view of the fact that, had anything of the kind
occurred, such an incident would hardly have been omitted from a
version the main object of which was to depict the disaster as an act
of deliberate self-sacrifice on the part of Leonidas.
The decisive factor in the situation was that, bribed or not,
Eurybiades and Adeimantos could not possibly leave the Thermopylæ
garrison in the lurch.[134] The real significance in this, as in the
other similar stories in Herodotus relating to this time, is that it
brings into relief the existence of a strong party within the fleet
which was wholly opposed to the Northern policy. It also for the first
time indicates the part which Corinth seems’ to have played in the
war as the leader of this party of opposition to the Athenian policy.
Thus far it is reliable. The rest of the tale is, as has been said,
suspicious to the last degree,—suspicious, in what may be called its
local colouring,—suspicious, owing to the appalling recklessness of the
assertions which Greek politicians did not hesitate to make respecting
their political opponents.
◆Diod. xi. 12.◆
Diodorus’ version of Artemisium presents so many marked differences
to that of Herodotus, that it is impossible to suppose that it is
either drawn from Herodotus, or even derived from a common source.
There is absolutely no hint of bribery in it, nor, indeed, is there
any reference to the restiveness of the Peloponnesian contingent. What
is emphasized is the fact that Themistocles’ personal influence in the
fleet, and especially with Eurybiades, was very great, and that he was
the _de facto_ commander. There is no tendency to belittle the services
of Athens, though her claims to merit are put upon a different basis.
It is probable, then, that the Greek fleet, after its return
to Artemisium on that sixteenth day, did not face the situation with
a unanimous determination to make a stubborn fight of it. It would
have been surprising had unanimity prevailed, since the circumstances
as they stood, and as they were intended to stand, at Thermopylæ
cannot possibly have been a secret to members of the Peloponnesian
contingents. Still, so long as Leonidas remained there, the strait had
to be defended.
The Persians at Aphetæ were animated by very different feelings. ◆H.
viii. 6.◆ The Greek fleet was not to be defeated merely, but to be
captured. ◆17th day.◆ It was determined to despatch a large squadron,
◆H. viii. 7.◆ two hundred in number, to circumnavigate Eubœa, and to
block the South Euripus.[135]
Exaggerated as are the numbers given in Herodotus, the mere fact that
the Persian commanders ventured thus to divide their fleet in face of
an enemy with 271 ships, together with the comparative ill-success with
which the Greeks fought with that part of the fleet which remained
at Aphetæ, shows that the Persians must, even after the disaster on
the Sepiad strand, have had a very large number of vessels at their
disposal.
Herodotus does not say, but he certainly implies, ◆H. viii. 7. _ad
fin._◆ that this flying squadron was despatched on the very day of the
arrival at Aphetæ. It is not necessary to insist that this was, under
the circumstances, hardly possible. The fleet had been terribly knocked
about by the storm. The storm itself had only ceased that very morning.
There had been no time to refit before leaving for Aphetæ; and the
fleet had only reached that anchorage early in the afternoon of that
sixteenth day. ◆H. viii. 7, _ad init._◆ These two hundred vessels,
moreover, were evidently despatched by daylight.[136]
#PERSIAN SQUADRON SENT ROUND EUBŒA.#
It is here, no doubt, that one of those missing days has been omitted
from Herodotus’ narrative of Artemisium. The despatch of the
squadron round Eubœa must have taken place on the morning of the
seventeenth day.
The one fear of the Persians at this time was that the Greek fleet
would run away. They, consequently, adopted the stratagem of sending
the squadron of two hundred vessels by the channel north of Skiathos,
so as to give the impression that it was sailing to Therma or
elsewhere. It was an effective manœuvre, because the island completely
fills in the sea horizon of the mouth of the channel.
◆H. viii. 7. 18th day.◆
On the next day[137] they reviewed their fleet at Aphetæ, but otherwise
lay quiet, intending to wait for news of the encircling squadron.
Of the destination of the two hundred the Greeks do not appear to
have had any suspicion whatever, until Skyllias the diver, deserting
the Persian fleet, made his way across the strait and gave them
information. The utter confusion of this part of the Artemisium
story renders it very difficult to arrive at anything resembling a
certain conclusion as to what actually took place in consequence of
the receipt of this news. It is hardly conceivable that those in
command of the Greek fleet should have been quite unprepared for the
eventuality of a squadron being sent round to intercept their retreat
by Chalkis. There is no direct evidence on this point; the slight
evidence which does exist is of a circumstantial character. ◆H. viii.
14.◆ After describing the disaster which overtook the two hundred
vessels, Herodotus says that the news of it was brought to the fleet
at Artemisium by a squadron of fifty-three Attic vessels, or, at any
rate,—for his language is not quite explicit,—that the news arrived
with that squadron. This is the first mention of this body of ships.
It seems highly probable that it had been at Chalkis, guarding the
narrow passage there, and that, on receiving news of the disaster to
the Persian flying squadron, it went to join the rest of the fleet at
Artemisium.
The escape of Skyllias is asserted to have been made during the review,
and the consultation among the Greeks as to what course they must
adopt in consequence of his information was held on the day of the
first engagement.[138]
Herodotus reports that they determined to remain where they were for
that day and the greater part of the following night, and then, after
midnight, to go and meet the ships coming up through the south channel.
It is quite intelligible that, if the Greeks had not provided for the
defence of the narrows at Chalkis, their position was such as to cause
alarm, and to demand desperate measures.
But the probability is that there never was any intention on the part
of the Greek commanders to leave the station at Artemisium until some
blow had been inflicted on the fleet at Aphetæ.[139]
The Attic vessels were probably guarding the strait, which at Chalkis
was so narrow as to be easily defensible. Under no circumstances
could the fleet at Aphetæ have been left free to land troops behind
Thermopylæ.[140]
#ATTACK ON PERSIANS AT APHETÆ.#
The subsequent action of the Greek commanders is in accord with such
a situation and such a design. They had not hitherto ventured to
attack the Persian. They were now forced to do so. Not until the fleet
at Aphetæ had been rendered incapable of making a movement down the
Euripus could the Greek fleet venture to meet the danger from the
south. And so the first attack took place that very night. Herodotus’
account of the action is a curious one,—that of a man who had heard
talk of certain naval technicalities without understanding them. These
very Greeks, who have been described as having, a few days before, fled
to Chalkis in consequence of the capture of three of their vessels,
and as having contemplated flight to mid Greece at the mere sight of
the Persian fleet, are now represented as making a quasi-experimental
attack on the foe they so much dreaded, from motives of purely
professional interest. “They wished to make trial of the Persian mode
of fighting, and to practise the manœuvre of cutting the line.” [141]
From the point of view of military history, the account of the first
engagement, as given by Diodorus, conveys a much stronger impression
of accuracy than that of Herodotus. ◆H. xi. 12.◆ Both represent the
Greeks as the attacking party; but Diodorus gives an excellent tactical
motive for their taking the offensive. A council of war being held,
all the commanders save Themistocles were in favour of remaining on
the defensive. He, however, persuaded them to adopt his plan of the
offensive by pointing out to them the advantage they would enjoy as
the attacking party, in that they, with their whole force prepared
for battle, would be able to choose their own time for attack, and
must take unawares an enemy whose fleet was not concentrated at one
anchorage.
This account is strongly supported by the fact that there is no single
harbour at that extremity of the Magnesian peninsula which could
accommodate more than a fraction of the Persian fleet, so that it would
necessarily be distributed over a considerable extent of coast-line.
On the general course of the engagement the two accounts are in
agreement. The Greeks, as might be expected, gained at first some
considerable success;—Herodotus says they took thirty ships; but,
when the whole of the enemy’s fleet had collected, the combat became
obstinate and indecisive, until the fall of night put an end to it.
◆H. viii. 12.◆
It was on the evening of this day that the second of those storms
took place which were destined to be so fatal to the Persian fleet.
#STORM AT THE HOLLOWS OF EUBŒA.# The quarter from which it came is not
expressly stated by Herodotus; but his accounts of its effects on the
north and south of Eubœa respectively leave no doubt that it was a gale
from the south or S.S.W.[142] At Aphetæ it caused considerable
alarm but little damage, the only effect being that the wreckage from
the battle of the afternoon was thrust in upon the Persian fleet.
In the South Euripus there was a very different tale to tell. The
Persian flying squadron, which had started from Aphetæ the day before,
appears to have been caught by the gale immediately after it had
rounded the southern Cape of Eubœa.[143] The result was a disaster
hardly less great than that which had happened at the Sepiad strand.
The whole two hundred were driven into those bays at the south end of
the west coast of Eubœa, which the ancients knew under the name of the
“Hollows.” Not a ship escaped. The destruction was complete.[144]
The effect of this disaster on the general course of the war can
hardly be over-estimated. It was not merely that the numerical
loss was great, but the position of the fleet at Artemisium must have
become exceedingly critical, had this squadron occupied the channel
south of Chalkis. Under such circumstances it is probable that the
decisive battle of the naval campaign would have been fought near that
place.[145]
◆19th day.◆
It was probably early in the night of the eighteenth day that the
disaster at the Hollows took place. The report of it was promptly
carried to Chalkis, at which place the fifty-three Attic vessels must
have ridden out the storm, since a gale from the south raises a very
ugly sea in the broader parts of the Euripus. It is evident that the
Greeks had established a regular signalling system on this coast; and
it is probable that it was by this means that the news reached the
squadron at Chalkis, which immediately started for Artemisium. ◆H.
viii. 14.◆ Herodotus’ language leaves it a somewhat open question as to
whether these ships brought the news to the fleet. All that is actually
stated is that the news arrived at Artemisium about the same time as
the fifty-three.
The Persian fleet, ignorant, no doubt, of the disaster in South Eubœa,
intended to bide quiet until some report of the two hundred reached it.
For the earlier part of the day it remained undisturbed. The Greeks
had probably found out to their dismay on the previous evening that
they were not strong enough to tackle the naval force which remained
at Aphetæ with any hope of decisive success. ◆H. viii. 14.◆ But the
arrival of the fifty-three Attic vessels, which can hardly have taken
place before midday, put new heart into them; and that afternoon they
attacked the Cilician contingent of the Persian fleet, inflicting
considerable damage.[146]
#THIRD SEA-FIGHT AT ARTEMISIUM.#
The Persian position, both at Thermopylæ and Artemisium, was at this
moment very precarious. The army had conspicuously failed to force the
pass, and the fleet had, so far, confined itself to the defensive.
◆Cf. H. viii. 15, _ad init._◆ Doubtless, urgent messages were coming
from Thermopylæ to Aphetæ, commanding that the strait should be forced
at any price. ◆20th day.◆ The Persian commanders, therefore, afraid
to defer longer the attack, took the offensive. It may well be that
the disadvantages of the position at Aphetæ from a defensive point of
view, which had been clearly demonstrated in the engagements of the
two previous days, had something to do with determining their course
of action. The battle which ensued was an obstinate one. It certainly
was not favourable to the Greeks, even less favourable, perhaps,
than is represented. ◆H. viii. 16.◆ The losses on both sides were
large, those of the Persians being the greater. It seems, however,
that, over and above the vessels actually destroyed, ◆H. viii. 18.◆
a large number were considerably damaged, and that the Athenian
contingent suffered especially in this respect. ◆H. viii. 19, 20.◆
The account which Herodotus gives of the events which took place
after the battle leaves it uncertain whether he considered that the
subsequent retirement from Artemisium was due primarily to the losses
incurred in the previous engagement, or to the receipt of the news
of the disaster at Thermopylæ. ◆Diod. xi. 13.◆ Diodorus mentions the
losses, but ascribes the retreat entirely to the news from Thermopylæ.
That disaster must have taken place early in the afternoon: the news
of it must have reached the fleet at Artemisium, by means of the
despatch-boat, very early in the evening. ◆H. viii. 21.◆ According to
Herodotus, the retreat had been discussed before the despatch-boat
arrived.[147] That it had been discussed may well have been the case;
but that it had been decided, and, above all, that Themistocles had
consented, to retire that very night, before the receipt of the news
from Thermopylæ, is doubtless untrue. Herodotus’ assertion incurs all
the more suspicion from the fact that he uses it as a peg whereon
to hang a tale illustrative of the disaster which is sure to befall
those who refuse to obey the advice of oracles. The Eubœans, he says,
had disregarded an oracle of Bakis, which had urged them to place their
sheep in security, in view of the coming war, and were now, on the
approaching retirement of the Greek fleet, in a position of extreme
difficulty as to the best means of saving their property. Themistocles’
proposal for dealing with the situation was simple and effective. He
said, “Kill the sheep: kindle fires: roast them and put them on board,
since it is better that they fall into our hands than into those of the
enemy. As to getting the fleet away in safety, I will look to that.”
He also hinted that he had a plan, which he did not then disclose, for
detaching the Ionians and Carians from the Persian fleet. So the other
Greek commanders looked to the sheep and the fires, while he devised
measures for retreat.
No tale could be more peculiarly illustrative of the wide distinction
which must be drawn between the facts of history as stated by Herodotus
and the motives which he propounds for certain courses of action.
It is doubtless perfectly true that a council of war was held that
evening, at which it was decided to retire from Artemisium; and that
Themistocles concurred in that decision. But, on the question of
motive, it may be taken as almost equally certain that this decision
was not come to in consequence of what had happened in the engagement
of that afternoon, but by reason of the news which had come from
Thermopylæ, which rendered the further presence of the fleet at
Artemisium not merely unnecessary, but, from the point of view of the
Greek commanders, unadvisable. In actual fact it may be regarded as
exceedingly doubtful whether Xerxes could have advanced southwards
without the aid of the fleet commissariat; but the idea uppermost in
the minds of the Greek commanders would be the extreme danger of such a
move on his part.
#GREEKS RETIRE FROM ARTEMISIUM.#
It is not difficult to see that the building of the fires that evening
on the Artemisium shore had probably little if any connection
with the provisioning of the fleet, but was part of the plan by which
Themistocles proposed to secure a safe withdrawal from the position.
The Persians were evidently to be deluded by the idea that the Greeks
had no intention of deserting their station; and the ruse employed to
attain this end would naturally suggest itself. It has been again and
again employed under similar circumstances.
The retreat began early in the night, the ships taking their departure
in order according to their position at the anchorage. ◆H. viii. 21.◆
The fact that the Corinthians led the way, and that the Athenians were
last to start, may merely signify that they formed respectively the
extreme left and right of the line; but, in view of the attitude of the
former at this time, it may be suspected that Herodotus had special
motives for mentioning the order of retirement.
Themistocles, with a fast sailing division, formed the rearguard. He
did not, apparently, intend so much to cover the retreat, as to visit
the various watering-places on the shores of the Euripus, and to affix
there a quasi-manifesto to the Ionian Greeks in the Persian fleet,
calling upon them to abstain, in so far as possible, from attacking
their fellow-countrymen. ◆H. viii. 22.◆ His object was, says Herodotus,
either to detach the Ionians from their allegiance to Xerxes, or to
make the king suspicious of their loyalty.
The Persians did not attempt to pursue the Greek fleet. ◆H. viii.
23.◆ The latter had, indeed, got a long start before its departure
was discovered. A Greek from North Eubœa brought the news to Aphetæ;
but his information was distrusted, and ships were sent across the
strait to discover whether it was true or not. This must have taken
place during the night, for it was at sunrise that the Persian fleet,
after receiving the report of the scouting vessels, moved across the
strait to Artemisium. At midday the Persians moved to Histiæa, where
they appear to have spent some time in ravaging the district in its
neighbourhood.
It is probable that the news of the disaster in the South Euripus
deterred the Persians from any attempt at pursuit. Nothing is said as
to how or when the news reached them; but it may be regarded as certain
that the tidings, which had arrived at Artemisium twenty-four
hours before, had in the interval made their way across the strait.
It was now possible for the Persian fleet to communicate by sea with
the captors of Thermopylæ; and it may easily be imagined that no time
was lost in sending supplies to the army. In connection with these
communications Herodotus relates a tale to the effect that Xerxes
invited the sailors to view the scene of battle, and took certain
ridiculously ineffective measures to conceal from them the magnitude of
the losses suffered. That the king did attempt to conceal the greatness
of the price he had paid for the capture of the pass may well have been
the case; but whether Greek tradition, with its marked tendency to
bring into high relief the childishness and foolishness of the Oriental
monarch, truly represented the measures taken to attain this end, may
well be doubted.
In Herodotus’ story of the great war the tale of Artemisium is perhaps
the least satisfactory of all the detailed accounts of the various acts
of the drama. It is not merely complicated by a chronological error
of considerable magnitude, the effect of which is to render the most
important part of the story, as it stands, incredible; but it is very
seriously distorted, from a historical point of view, by the addition
of material of a more than doubtful character, inserted with intent to
heighten the effect of the services of Athens at this critical time.
But the chronological error does not destroy the historical value of
his narrative, though it impairs it. Had Herodotus told his tale after
his usual manner, the error might not have crept into it. But just in
this part of his history he has tried to treat events in a somewhat
more business-like fashion than usual, and the attempt has not met with
complete success. Nature had not made him an arithmetician; and even
had it done so, his business-like method is sufficiently unbusinesslike
to render his mistake obscure until the story has been analyzed.
How far he is personally responsible for the Athenian bias of his
version, it is not possible to say at the present day. #HERODOTUS’
ACCOUNT OF ARTEMISIUM.# He was, no doubt, sufficiently philo-Athenian
to wish to place the undoubtedly great services of Athens to the
national cause at this time in the highest possible relief; and
he was sufficiently ignorant of strategical considerations to render
it probable that he could not detect in the version current at Athens
those fictitious additions, whose falsity must have become apparent
to any one who could appreciate the main lines of the strategy of
this part of the war. Had he understood not merely that there was a
connection between Thermopylæ and Artemisium, but that connection
was of so intimate a nature as to render the maintenance of the pass
absolutely dependent on the maintenance of the strait, he would have
treated with suspicion those repeated assertions of an intention on the
part of the commanders of the fleet to withdraw from their station,
or would have reduced them to a position of far less prominence in
the story, as being, what they no doubt were, mere indications of the
spirit which animated the irresponsible mass of those who formed the
crews of the Peloponnesian contingents.
And yet, in so far as can now be judged, his tale of Artemisium,—freed
from a chronological error for the correction of which the author
supplies the means, and with the essentially Athenian portions of it
reduced to their proper relief in the story,—is a reliable history of
this important period of the Great War.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VIII.
The Parallel Journals of Thermopylæ and Artemisium Reconstructed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
No. | Events at | Events at Artemisium. | Approximate time
of | Thermopylæ. | | of day.
day.| | |
----+------------------+---------------------------+------------------
| | |
12 | | Persian fleet leaves | Early morning.
| | Therma. |
| | Persian fleet arrives at | Evening.
| | Sepiad strand. |
| | Capture of Greek scouting | Probably before
| | vessels by Persian | midday.
| | advanced squadron. |
| | Greek fleet at |
| | Artemisium. |
| | Greek fleet receives | Evening, probably
| | news from Skiathos | late.
| | of the loss of the three|
| | vessels. |
| | |
13 | Persian army | First storm begins. |
| reaches Malis. | Wreck of part of Persian |
| | fleet at Sepiad strand. |
| | Greek fleet retires or is | Probably early
| | driven to inner strait | morning.
| | (Chalkis?). |
| | |
14 | Persian army | Storm continues. |
| inactive before| Persian fleet at Sepiad |
| Thermopylæ. | strand. |
| | Greek fleet in inner |
| | strait. |
| | Report of Persian |
| | disaster reaches Greek |
| | fleet. |
| | Greek fleet moves |
| | north [?] |
| | |
15 | Persian army | Storm continues. |
| inactive before| Fleets as on 14th day. |
| Thermopylæ. | |
| | |
16 | Persian army | Persian fleet moves to | Arrived early in
| still inactive.| and arrives at Aphetæ. | afternoon.
| | Greek fleet moves back |
| | to Artemisium. |
| | Greek fleet captures 15 |
| | Persian vessels. |
| | Greek commanders consult | Probably evening.
| | about retirement from |
| | Artemisium. |
| | |
17 | Persian army | Greek commanders on | Morning [?]
| still inactive.| Themistocles’ persuasion|
| | determine to remain at |
| | Artemisium. |
| | Persians despatch squadron| By daylight.
| | to circumnavigate |
| | Eubœa. |
| | |
18 | Persian army | Persians review their |
| makes first | fleet. |
| attack on | Skyllias carries news of | During the
| Thermopylæ. | the despatch of the | review.
| | 200 to the Greek fleet. | Arrived at
| | | Artemisium in
| | | the afternoon.
| | Greek fleet engages | Late in
| | Persian fleet at Aphetæ.| afternoon.
| | Second storm begins. | Early in evening.
| | Wreck of the 200 Persian | Early in the
| | vessels in the Hollows | night.
| | of Eubœa. |
| | Fifty-three Attic vessels |
| | at Chalkis. |
| | |
19 | Second attack on | Both fleets inactive. | Earlier part of
| Thermopylæ. | | day.
| | The 53 Attic vessels join | Earlier than the
| | the Greek fleet. | late afternoon.
| | Greek fleet receives news | About same time
| | of the wreck of the 200.| as above.
| | United Greek fleet attacks| Late afternoon.
| | Cilician contingent of |
| | Persian fleet. |
| | |
20 | Third and | Persian fleet takes |
| successful | offensive against Greek |
| attack on | fleet. |
| Thermopylæ. | General engagement. |
| | Greek commanders consult |
| | as to retirement. |
| | News of disaster at |
| | Thermopylæ reaches |
| | Greek fleet. |
| | Greek fleet retires from | Night.
| | Artemisium. |
----+------------------+---------------------------+------------------
CHAPTER IX.
SALAMIS.
Thermopylæ taken, and Artemisium deserted, the way southwards, both by
land and sea, was now open to the invading force. No doubt the general
plan of future operations was discussed in the Persian council of
war. It may be that, owing to the presence of the Spartan Demaratos,
some faint echo of the discussion reached Greek ears. It may be, too,
that Herodotus’ story of the interview of Demaratos and Achæmenes
with Xerxes after the capture of Thermopylæ contains some hint of
the general lines which it followed. According to his tale, the main
question was whether a part of the fleet should create a diversion
against Sparta in South Peloponnese, or whether such a division of the
naval forces might be undesirable. Achæmenes was strongly in favour of
keeping the fleet together and crushing the Greeks by mere weight of
numbers; and Xerxes decided in favour of this plan. It is needless to
say that the story cannot be taken _au pied de la lettre_. In its main
lines it may be true; in one of its details it contains what is almost
certainly an anachronism. That the desperate defence of the pass may
have suggested to some members of the council of war the advisability
of taking measures to distract the attention of Sparta from the general
defence is extremely likely. Herodotus puts the suggestion in the mouth
of Demaratos, who is also represented as proposing a way in which his
plan could be carried out—by the occupation of Kythera, a large island
off the mouth of the Laconian gulf. #ROUTE FROM THERMOPYLÆ.# “Chilon,”
he said, “who was the wisest man among us, asserted that it
would be better for Sparta were the island not above water but below
it, because he always expected that something of the kind which I am
describing to you would come from it, not with special reference to
your expedition, but because he dreaded all invasions alike.” Demaratos
then proposed to the king that he should make this island the base of
operations against the Lacedæmonian territory.
So runs the tale in Herodotus.
The mention of Kythera in this connection, taken in conjunction with
the evidence which this part of the history affords of its having been
composed during the early years of the Peloponnesian war, suggests that
Herodotus has probably attributed to Demaratos in 480 a strategical
proposal which was much discussed in Athens at the time at which he
wrote, ◆T. iv. 53, _ff_.◆ and which was actually carried out a few
years later when Nikias in 424 occupied this island.
The reliable part of Herodotus’ story is probably confined to the
raising of the question whether or not some diversion against Sparta
should be attempted. Into this account Herodotus has inserted a detail
borrowed from a similar strategic question of his own day.
The way in which the advance by sea should be conducted being settled,
it was necessary to decide upon the line or lines of advance by land.
From Thermopylæ to the Attic border the Greek military highway is
defined with singular clearness by the nature of the country. Œta forms
the first barrier to be passed. The question of the utility of the
Asopos ravine has been already discussed. For the purposes of a large
army it is impracticable. Infantry could only pass through it in single
file; and even a slight accident, or a slight rise in the stream, would
block it. For a lightly equipped column with numbers not so large as
to make it impossible for it to live on the country in its passage of
the Dorian and Phocian plains, it would be a practicable route under
circumstances such as existed at the time. Little opposition was to be
expected; and it would be merely the question of a day or two before a
junction could be effected with the main army, which would reach
Parapotamii where the Phocian plain ends and the Bœotian begins, by the
great route by way of Hyampolis. Besides the Asopos ravine there were
three other routes from Thermopylæ southwards. The first of these led
out of the pass up a steep ascent of one hour, and crossed the range of
Œta, by way of the modern Boudenitza, to the ancient Elatæa. It is a
mere mountain path, a way which an army without a heavy baggage train
might adopt in an emergency, or by which a force defeated at Thermopylæ
might secure its retreat. The second left the coast road near Thronion
and passed up the valley of the Boagrios river, at the head of which it
crossed the mountain ridge, and descended to Elatæa. It was certainly
of importance in later times, though not fitted for the passage of
a heavy baggage train, and difficult for cavalry. Hence, probably,
there is no trace of its having been used by the Persian army on this
occasion. The route by Atalanta and Hyampolis is admirably adapted
for the advance of a large force. It presents but few difficulties
to cavalry or baggage-train, and affords but few facilities to the
defence. In this very part of his history Herodotus, in his excursus on
the pre-existing relations between the Thessalians and Phocians, gives
an example which shows pretty clearly that it was the route by which
incursions of the Thessalian cavalry had to be feared. In an undated,
but presumably recent war between the two peoples, ◆H. viii. 28.◆ the
Phocians had inflicted a severe defeat on the raiding cavalry in the
pass near Hyampolis. They had dug a trench across it, filled it with
large pottery, and covered it with earth. Into this the Thessalian
horsemen had fallen, and had incurred signal disaster.
The three minor routes join this major route at Parapotamii. There
is, however, a loop of the main road, which, starting from Hyampolis,
passes over a ridge to Orchomenos and joins the main road again outside
the mountain gate at Parapotamii.
#ROUTE THROUGH BŒOTIA.#
Near this point in Mid Bœotia the invader from the north is faced by
a barrier of a composite character, which, though not homogeneous, is
one of the most effective in the whole of Greece. From the west
the spurs of Helicon came down to the marshy expanse of Lake Kopais,
a hundred square miles of shallow reed-covered mere, when the winter
rains had raised it to its full height. From Kopais to the Euripus
extended a narrow mountainous region, never rising to any great height,
but exceedingly rough and broken, and affording no way of passage
through it better than a mere track.
The consequence of this natural formation of the country was that
an invader from the north was confined in his advance to the narrow
breadth of land between Helicon and Kopais. So this mere ribbon of
country became the great battle-ground of Greece, and on it the fate
of the land was again and again decided at Chæronea, Koronea, and
elsewhere. This part of the great northern route may be said to end at
Thebes, which town, like Larisa and Lamia, was not merely a point where
important roads converged, but also a point which must be passed in
the passage from the North. To it came the great road which has just
been described, and also a hardly less important road, which ran from
Chalkis on the Eastern sea, and was continued through it to Kreusis
on the Corinthian Gulf. Thebes was thus one of the great strategic
positions in Greece.
Xerxes’ main object after taking Thermopylæ was to strike at Attica.
Two minor objects had to be attained by the way; the punishment of the
Phocians, and the plunder of Delphi.
The Phocians were the only people in the north, so Herodotus says,
who did not medize. The Bœotians, wavering if not disloyal before,
doubtless medized _en masse_ after Thermopylæ had shown them the
insincerity of the Council at the Isthmus with regard to the defence
of the north. It is difficult to account for the Phocian attitude. ◆H.
viii. 30.◆ Herodotus says they were simply actuated by the desire to
take the opposite side to the Thessalians. It is possible that they
dared not trust to the mercy of the Persian, seeing they had taken part
in the defence of Thermopylæ. Besides, their own deadly foes were in
the enemy’s camp. Whatever their motive was, ◆H. viii. 30, _ad
fin._◆ they took the moral ground of refusing to be traitors to their
fatherland, and rejected the offer of the Thessalians to save them at a
price.
The first step in the march south which Herodotus describes is the
invasion of Phocis. ◆H. viii. 31.◆ A body of troops, under the guidance
of the Thessalians, made their way into Doris, that dreary little
upland plain at the head of the Kephissos basin. The route taken
must have been by the Asopos defile. Doris was left unharmed. It had
medized; and, besides, the Thessalians intervened on its behalf.
Its poverty may have had something to do with its salvation on this
occasion.[148]
From Doris the invaders passed into Phocis. There is no natural
boundary between the two plains; and the records of the history of
this region, dim though they are, point to a frequent shifting of the
frontier. The Phocians had one retreat to which they could always
resort; and, before the invasion was on them, they took to the heights
of Parnassus, whose great humped mass rises more than seven thousand
five hundred feet above the plain. It was evidently the accustomed
refuge of the race. They had adopted the same plan at the time of the
undated Thessalian attack on their country.
◆H. viii. 32.◆
The actual place of refuge on this occasion was Tithorea, not
apparently at this time the city which it became later, but a strong
natural position, which could be easily defended. #PERSIAN RAID ON
DELPHI.# Many of them, however, had made their way to Amphissa, at
the head of the Krissæan plain, not far from Delphi, passing thither,
doubtless, through Dorian territory by way of the direct pass through
the mountains from Kytinion to Amphissa, which is the southern
continuation of the Thermopylæ-Delphi route by way of the Asopos ravine.
The destruction which the Persians wrought in Phocis was complete
in so far as the plain was concerned. Its cities were plundered and
destroyed; and the great oracular shrine at Abæ, close to Hyampolis,
was robbed of its treasures and burnt to the ground.
At Parapotamii the plunderers from the plain would meet with the main
force, which must have come round by the Atalanta route, to which the
destruction of Abæ and Hyampolis may presumably be attributed.[149] It
was from this point that a flying column was sent to attack Delphi,
while the mass of the army held on its way through Bœotia. The route
followed in the march to Delphi must have been the celebrated “divided
way” (σχίστη ὁδός), made famous in the myth of Œdipus, ◆H. viii. 35.◆
for Herodotus mentions that they passed by Daulis and left Parnassus on
their right. The object of this expedition was to seize the immensely
valuable offerings at the great shrine, and especially those of Crœsus,
the Lydian king.
The element of the supernatural plays so large a part in the tale of
the adventures of this band of plunderers, that it is impossible to say
with certainty what really happened. Some catastrophe overtook them in
the immediate neighbourhood of Delphi itself; and the very remarkable
physical characteristics of the neighbourhood of the town, together
with the story in Herodotus divested of its supernatural element,
render it possible to hazard a conjecture as to what was the actual
nature of this catastrophe.
Delphi stood on a mere shelf of rock where the south slope of Parnassus
sinks into a narrow cleft-like valley more than three thousand feet
deep. On the north a perpendicular cliff of several hundred feet in
height overhangs the site, and continues both east of it towards
Amphissa until it meets the valley which comes south from that town;
and also westward, towards the modern Aráchova, some two hours distant.
South of the town the ground falls with great steepness towards the
bottom of the Pleistos valley, two thousand five hundred feet below.
◆H. viii. 36.◆
On the news of the approach of the Persians some of the inhabitants
of Delphi fled to Amphissa, in whose strong acropolis, commanding the
direct road from Kytinion and the north, some of the Phocian refugees
had shut themselves. Others, however, had taken refuge in the Corycian
cave and on the summit of the cliffs above the town; and it is to these
latter that the quasi-supernatural disaster which overtook the Persians
must be attributed. The latter, coming from the direction of Aráchova,
arrived at the temple of Pronaia Athene, which lay outside and west of
the sacred precinct, beyond the ravine down which the stream from the
Castalian spring makes its way. ◆Cf. H. viii. 39.◆ At this point the
road would pass under the cliffs, and doubtless the refugees on their
summit rained a shower of rocks on the advancing Persian band, who fled
in disorder. Nothing is said about the number of the band, but, as it
was on a mere plundering raid, it was probably not large.[150]
The war had now reached its most critical stage.
On the return of the fleet from Artemisium, the Athenians discovered
the desertion which had led to the disaster at Thermopylæ.
◆H. viii. 40.◆
“They intended to call a council to consider the situation, since their
expectation had been falsified; for they supposed that they would find
the Peloponnesians in full force in Bœotia awaiting the barbarians.
#STRATEGIC SITUATION.# They found nothing of the kind; nay, they heard
that they were fortifying the Isthmus to the Peloponnese, making
its salvation and defence their one great object, and letting the rest
of Greece take its chance.”
They had evidently supposed that some large force was on its way to
Thermopylæ at the time when the disaster took place, and had expected
to find, at any rate, an army in Bœotia. What they actually discovered
was that the Peloponnesians were fortifying the Isthmus, and were
concentrating the defence on that point. The Peloponnesian party
had at last shown its hand. Thermopylæ had been a mere pretence, an
attempt to purchase the aid of the Athenian fleet, and, possibly, of
the Northern States, at the cheapest rate possible,—at a much cheaper
rate, indeed, than the price which had been actually paid. The idea
of the Peloponnesians at this time evidently was that the Athenians
might be led to suppose that, as the defence of so strong a position
as Thermopylæ had been unsuccessful, no other position north of the
Isthmus could possibly be regarded as tenable.
That which the Athenian commanders did recognize was that, as in
their absence at Artemisium no sort of attempt had been made to
provide for the defence of either the passage by Lake Kopais or of
the Kithæron-Parnes line of mountains, the military situation must
be, perforce, accepted, and their efforts must be concentrated on
inducing the allies to take a sound view of the necessities of the
naval position. In its main outlines it was plain to the dullest
intelligence. The defence of the Isthmus was as much, if not more,
dependent on the fleet than that of Thermopylæ. If the Persians could
once land troops in Argolis, the position at the Isthmus was fatally
turned. The saving factor in the situation was that the fleet was just
as necessary an adjunct for the Peloponnesian as for the Northern
policy. But when it became a question how the fleet should act as
an aid to the defence of the Isthmus, the decision was by no means
so clear. The fighting on the last day at Artemisium had shown the
danger of meeting a greatly superior force on open water, where the
smaller fleet could be outflanked; and the coast in the immediate
neighbourhood of the Isthmus itself afforded no position which, if
taken up, would guarantee the Greek fleet from attack on either flank.
That was evidently the ruling consideration which decided the Greeks,
on the recommendation of Themistocles, to take up their station in
Salamis strait But even after that position was taken up, Themistocles
must have been painfully conscious that, if the Persians chose to
ignore the Greek fleet at Salamis, and to sail straight to the Isthmus,
the situation would be dangerous to the last degree.
It must be recognized that in this great war the darkness before the
dawn of Greek victory was intense. The strategy which led the Greek
fleet to take its station at Salamis was the strategy of despair. It
was adopted because there was no alternative. The only possibility of
success depended upon the Persians being induced to attack the fleet in
its chosen position; and this accounts for the manifest anxiety which
Themistocles showed to do everything, to run even the risk of a charge
of the grossest treachery, in order to bring about an engagement in
the strait. One thing favoured his design. The Persians had shown at
Artemisium that they intended, if they could, not merely to defeat,
but to capture the whole Greek fleet Salamis strait, consisting of two
narrow channels by which the broad bay of Eleusis communicates with
the Saronic gulf, would seem to them a position adapted by nature to
the carrying out of this purpose; and it must have been with a view to
encourage them in this idea that Themistocles left the western channel
unguarded. He was playing a desperate game, under circumstances which
were, however, sufficiently desperate to justify it. The dazzling
brilliancy of the success attained by it has blinded posterity to the
enormous risk which it entailed.
Herodotus does not enlarge on the feelings of the Athenians when they
discovered what had been going on during their absence at Artemisium.
#REMOVAL OF THE POPULATION OF ATTICA.# They must have felt bitterly
that they had been the victims of a base desertion, and they probably
expressed their feelings; but nothing in the whole course of the
war is more honourable to them than the practical spirit and energy
with which they faced the situation. It was indeed before Salamis
rather than at Salamis that Athens saved Greece. “When they learnt what
had happened,” says Herodotus, “they requested the fleet to touch at
Salamis.” They appear to have already made up their minds what to do.
It is probable that their previous experience of the selfish policy of
the Peloponnesians had prepared them for the possibility of a position
such as that in which they found themselves. The half-fulfilment of the
first oracle delivered to them at Delphi was to be accomplished. The
population of Attica was to be removed _en masse_ to refuges beyond
the reach of the Persian army; and it is not unlikely that under
certain eventualities the Athenian authorities were prepared to carry
out to the full the desperate advice which Delphi had given them. ◆H.
viii. 41.◆ The proclamation of removal was issued, and the people of
Attica fled to various places on the shores of the Saronic gulf, some
to Ægina, some to Salamis, but the majority to Trœzen. The Athenians
knew well that they could expect no mercy from the Persian. Marathon
had been an unpardonable act of _lèse mejesté_, for which they would
have in any case to pay dearly, and with the very life-blood of their
people, if they, as well as the land, fell into the enemy’s power.
It is noticeable that in choosing their places of refuge they were
careful not to give any hostages to the Peloponnesians. Trœzen was the
base of naval operations. Ægina and Salamis were islands. All three
were therefore within reach of their own powerful fleet, and out of
reach of the Peloponnesian army at the Isthmus.
The news that the fleet from Artemisium had put in at Salamis brought
thither the rest of the Greek fleet, which seems to have been gathering
for some time previously at the port of Pogon[151] in Trœzen, near
the east end of the Argolic peninsula. The numbers now available were
considerably larger than those which had fought at Artemisium.[152]
It seems to be implied by Herodotus’ language, as well as by the fact
that their addition would raise the numbers of the Athenian fleet
to two hundred, that the fifty-three Attic vessels were not part of
the _original_ fleet at Artemisium. If this be so, the net increase
in the number of triremes at Salamis is forty-two. #THE GREEK FLEET
AT SALAMIS.# Some of the original contingents, notably those of
the Æginetans and Lacedæmonians, were increased; and several small
contingents were added which had not been present at Artemisium.
The almost absolute apathy of the Western States and of Magna Græcia
is most marked. Corcyra is unrepresented.[153] The great Kroton
sends but one ship. Had Salamis turned out differently, they might
have had bitter cause to regret their lack of patriotism. It is,
however, possible that Magna Græcia, and even the towns of the extreme
north-west of Greece, had their attention distracted at this time by
the immanence of the life-and-death struggle between Gelo and the
Carthaginians in Sicily.
It is also noticeable that Herodotus makes one of his customary
mistakes in addition, putting the number of the fleet, exclusive of
pentekonters, at three hundred and seventy-eight; whereas, according to
his own list, it should be three hundred and sixty-six.[154]
As at Artemisium, Eurybiades commanded the fleet. The Athenians,
according to Herodotus, supplied the best ships.
Though the fleet had assembled at Salamis, it was by no means certain
that it would remain there. The gathering had been designed to cover
and assist the withdrawal of the population of Attica. It was quite
certain that there would be a large party in favour of withdrawal
to the Isthmus, and the risks, which have already been pointed out,
attendant upon the occupation of the strait were so palpable, that they
could hardly fail to afford a strong argument in favour of the
Peloponnesian policy.
After the fleet had collected, a Council of War was held. It soon
appeared that the majority were in favour of retiring to some point
off the Isthmus. They argued that there, in case of defeat, they
could withdraw to land held by their own troops, whereas a disaster
at Salamis would mean that they would be blockaded on that not very
fruitful island.
Before the decision was taken, an Athenian messenger arrived announcing
that the Persian was already committing devastation in Attica.
Of Xerxes’ passage from Panopeus, near Parapotamii, to Attica, little
is told by Herodotus. ◆H. viii. 50.◆ He must have taken the great route
to Thebes, whence, after burning Thespiæ and Platæa, he probably made
his way into Attica by the Dryoskephalæ and other passes.
◆H. viii. 51.◆
There is a curious and somewhat self-contradictory tale in Herodotus
about what occurred in Athens itself at this time. He says that the
Persians “came upon the city deserted, but found a few of the Athenians
in the temple, both the temple stewards and (certain) poor men, who,
having fortified the Acropolis with planks, and wooden (breastworks),
tried to defend themselves against the assailants. The reason they
had not departed to Salamis was that they had not the means to do so;
and, furthermore, because they thought that they had discovered the
meaning of the oracular response which the Pythian gave them, namely,
that the wooden wall should never be taken, and that this and not the
ships was to be their salvation.” The historian then proceeds to give
what purports to be a description of a siege of this fortification. The
Persians took up their position on Areopagus, and confined their attack
in the first place to the discharge of fire-bearing arrows against the
wooden wall. The besieged replied by rolling down boulder stones upon
the assailants, and “for a long time” Xerxes was at a loss how to force
an entrance. Finally a party scaled one of the cliffs at an unexpected
point, and the Acropolis was taken, and all its defenders massacred.
#THE SIEGE OF THE ACROPOLIS.#
Such is, in brief, the extraordinary tale.
But the strangest part of the whole story is the account of the
impression created in the fleet by the news of the capture.
◆H. viii. 56.◆
“The Greeks at Salamis, on hearing what had happened to the Athenian
Acropolis, fell into such a state of panic, that some of the
commanders did not even wait for the settlement of the question under
discussion, but rushed to the ships, and set sail with intent to take
to flight. By those who remained it was decided to fight in front of
the Isthmus.”
The inconsistency between the description of the garrison and
its defensive works, and the alarm created by the capture of the
fortification, is so glaring as to be irreconcileable, and modern
historians have naturally been led to form conjectures as to what
really took place. It has been suggested that the tale is merely a
reminiscence of the fact that some stragglers who had remained in the
Acropolis were slaughtered by the Persians after their occupation of
the city, an incident exaggerated in subsequent tradition. This, if
true, would bring into still higher relief the absurdity of the panic
in the fleet at Salamis.
A much more probable theory[155] is that Herodotus, so far from
overstating what took place, has considerably understated it, and that
a real defence was attempted, and a serious disaster sustained. This
does, at any rate, account for two important points in the narrative,
(1) that the defence was successful “for a considerable time;” (2) that
the panic caused was so great.
The evidence, other than that of Herodotus, as to what took place at
this time, affords, unfortunately, but little help to the elucidation
of the mystery. Diodorus, though in his account of the actual battle
of Salamis he makes use of information which is certainly not drawn
from Herodotus, has in this particular instance transcribed Herodotus’
description almost word for word.
The question is, Was a garrison of any kind left in the Acropolis?
◆H. viii. 41.◆
Herodotus has already given the words of the proclamation for the
desertion of Attica: “The Athenians shall dispose their children and
households in any place of safety they can.” ◆Arist. Athen Polit. 23.◆
Aristotle says that the Areopagus assisted the citizens with a vote of
eight drachmas apiece. ◆Plut. Them. 10.◆ Plutarch speaks of a psephism
proposed by Themistocles to the effect that (1) the city should be
left to the care of Athene; (2) all able-bodied persons should embark
on board the fleet; (3) the rest of the population should save itself
where it could.
◆Against this cf. Thuc. i. 73.◆
It has been suggested that Plutarch is here guilty of an historical
error, (1) because Herodotus says nothing about embarkation on board
the triremes; (2) because this embarkation is incredible, since the
triremes had their complements already, and an addition to their crews
would have been an embarrassment. ◆H. viii. 95.◆ It is concluded
therefore that the land army did not as a whole embark. Some hoplites
were posted at Salamis; but there is reason, so it is urged, to suspect
that part of the army was left at Athens.
It is plain that, on the evidence available, any conjecture must
involve its maker in certain difficulties. In the present instance
one important objection immediately arises:—no adequate motive can be
urged for the suppression of the truth, if this conjecture represents
it. Had such a disaster overtaken a considerable Athenian force, would
not Herodotus, who is anxious to bring into prominence the sufferings
and self-sacrifice of the Athenians in this war, have seized upon so
noteworthy an example in point? Again, what conceivable object was
to be gained under the circumstances by garrisoning the Acropolis?
Furthermore, taking the history of the war as related, is it in the
slightest degree likely that the Persians could, even by surprise, have
taken such a position when defended by any considerable number of Greek
hoplites? It is improbable to the last degree.
But the rejection of this theory does not lead to any positive results
in the elucidation of the story. Herodotus has manifestly exaggerated
or understated some detail of it.
#THEMISTOCLES.#
His expression that the siege lasted “a considerable time” is not
perhaps to be taken as being more precise than such expressions are in
ordinary language. It may have been that some enthusiasts or belated
citizens did conceive the idea that they could defend themselves,
and possibly their property, in that remarkable stronghold until the
danger was overpast, and that, considering the resources at their
disposal, they did hold out for “a considerable time.” It may be that
“the considerable time” was inserted by the historian to emphasize
the hopelessness of the struggle against fate, as represented by the
oracle. “It was fated,” he says, “in accordance with the oracle, that
the whole of continental Attica should fall into the hands of the
Persian.”
But how is the panic in the fleet at Salamis to be accounted for? The
tale at Artemisium may suggest a solution. Herodotus shows himself
very eager to bring into prominence the difficulty which Athens had in
keeping the courage of the other Greeks to its sticking point; and this
description of the panic and the consequent determination to withdraw
to the Isthmus is identical in species with the frequent references
in the Artemisium story to withdrawals or intended withdrawals either
to Chalkis or to Mid Greece. Doubtless these stories do rest on a
very solid basis of fact, though in themselves exaggerated. The
Peloponnesians seem to have displayed an almost feverish anxiety to
remove the defence to the Isthmus.
The near approach of the crisis in the war brings into peculiar
prominence the man who was destined to play the greatest part in it.
It cannot be accounted otherwise than strange that a historian so
fair-minded as Herodotus should up to this point in his narrative
have minimized the share which this remarkable man must have taken in
determining the course of the Greek operations previous to Salamis. And
yet, even from his account of the war, it is evident that Themistocles
had been most prominent in whatever part of the Greek strategy had
been due to Athenian initiative. He had commanded the contingent sent
to Thessaly; he had commanded the Athenian fleet at Artemisium. In
both cases the adoption of a line of defence so far north of
Peloponnesus must have been due to Athenian influence; and it may be
regarded as certain that Themistocles was mainly, if not entirely,
responsible for the direction in which that influence made itself felt.
In Thessaly there had indeed been a passive failure, and Artemisium
had not been a success. It is clear, however, that in the latter case
the Athenians did not attribute the lack of success to Themistocles,
otherwise they could not have been expected to place themselves so
entirely in his hands as they did at the time of Salamis. Probably
the true significance of Thermopylæ was already surmised, if not
understood, at Athens, soon after the fleet returned from Artemisium.
Herodotus seems never to have succeeded in getting the character
of Themistocles into its true perspective. It is possible that the
tales told in after-time of his financial trickeries prejudiced the
honest old historian against him. Throughout his history he shows
himself an admirer of moral rather than intellectual greatness; and
this disposition on his part would inevitably tend to obscure his
appreciation of the great qualities of one whom tradition represented
to him as guilty of a most serious form of moral weakness. Whence he
drew the tradition he followed is another question. It may be that
during his sojourn in Athens he was associated with the political heirs
of the party opposed to Themistocles, and, if so, it may be certain
that he would hear little to Themistocles’ credit, and much that was
false to his discredit Still the tradition as to this peculiarly
bad characteristic of the man was very prevalent; and it is hardly
conceivable that the unanimity of the testimony of after-time was
founded on no sounder basis than inimical party tradition. It is, then,
possible that there was a real groundwork of truth in the accusations
which Herodotus brings against Themistocles, though the undue emphasis
which the historian lays on this side of the man’s character renders it
also probable that, if true, the accusations are not unexaggerated.
At the same time, the complete assumption of this truth is difficult,
in view of the silence of Thucydides on the matter. #THUCYDIDES’
ACCOUNT OF THEMISTOCLES.# It is plain that he considered the charges
sufficiently groundless to be ignored, and this in spite of the
fact that the course of his history forced him to recount the least
savoury portion of the great man’s career. Nor can it be assumed that
the historian’s judgment was warped by party considerations. Such
obliquities as are discernible in the biographical details in his
history are clearly traceable to personal rather than party enmities.
It is manifest that he had an intense admiration for Themistocles’
intellectual capacity; and it was fortunate for after-times that the
second great historian of the fifth century was led by circumstances
to draw the picture of the character of perhaps the most able man
which the century produced—a picture which, in the hands of the first
historian, had never got beyond the stage of mere preliminary sketches,
not artistically connected, never completed, and never perhaps intended
to be so. It is really the written judgment of Thucydides which has
enabled posterity to understand the influence of Themistocles at this
most critical period of Greek history, when the land was faced by
circumstances of a magnitude far outstripping the narrow bounds of
Greek experience. When the knowledge of experience cannot compass the
situation, the intuition of genius is the only possible means by which
the situation may be successfully met. And, if Thucydides is to be
believed, it was this special and most rare quality which Themistocles
possessed in such a remarkable degree.
◆T. i. 138.◆
“Themistocles was a man who displayed genius in the most unmistakable
way, and in this respect calls for admiration in a special and
unparalleled manner. For by his native intellectual power, unaided
by study or by the teaching of experience, he was capable of giving
the ablest opinion in emergencies only admitting of the briefest
consideration, and was skilled in forming a judgment upon coming
events even to the most distant future. Whatever came within the
range of his practice, he could explain; and he did not fail to form
an adequate judgment on that which lay beyond his experience. He
possessed a peculiar power of foresight into the good and evil of the
uncertain future. Speaking generally, by the very power of his genius,
in spite of the slightness of his application, he was unsurpassed in
devising intuitively what was required in an emergency.”
* * * * *
_Note on Translation of T._ i. 138, 3, καὶ οὔτε προμαθών
ἐς αὐτὴν οὐδὲν οὐτ ἐπιμαθών.
The translation I have adopted follows in its main lines that of
Croiset in his edition of Thucydides, to which attention is called in
M. Hauvette’s work on Herodotus. “Le génie naturel de Thémistocle ne
devait rien ni à l’étude préalable ni à cette autre sorte d’étude qui
sort de l’expérience, et surtout de l’expérience malheureuse.”
Such is Thucydides’ description of the man, delivered more than
sixty years after Salamis, when his cool judgment, unaffected by
political controversy, which had in the interval wholly changed its
ground, could sift without passion and without prejudice the evidence
that he found in existence in his own time. Themistocles may have been
dishonest; but Thucydides does not seem to have been satisfied that he
was so; and, that being the case, the modern world may well have some
doubts upon the subject.
Apart from the charges of dishonesty, Herodotus shows a tendency to
discount the merit of Themistocles in proposing the design which led
to the great victory. A previous example of the same tendency has been
noticed in the reference which the historian makes to the proposal to
allot the surplus from the mines at Laurion to the construction of
a fleet. It is there implied that Themistocles did not act with the
foresight with which he was credited; that the proposal had reference
to the war with Ægina, and not to any foreseen invasion from the side
of Persia. It is easy now to see that Herodotus’ allegation is most
certainly mistaken. The Persian design of revenging Marathon, conceived
before the death of Darius in 485, cannot have been a secret; and the
mere size of the fleet proposed renders it extremely unlikely that
Athens would have assented to the expense it involved, merely for the
purposes of an attack on a state which could only place one-fifth of
the number of ships in commission.
The allegation of Herodotus in the present instance is equally
unconvincing.
#THE TALE OF MNESIPHILOS.#
He describes the panic, as he asserts it to have been, caused by
the fall of Athens, and the consequent decision to withdraw the fleet
to the Isthmus, and implies that Themistocles was a consenting party
to the withdrawal. ◆H. viii. 57.◆ “On Themistocles coming on board
his ship, Mnesiphilos, an Athenian, asked him what had been decided
by the council.” On learning from him that it had been decided to
put out to the Isthmus and fight for the Peloponnese, he prophesied
that the whole force would break up, and Greece come to ruin. He
also advised Themistocles to do all he could to dissuade Eurybiades
from a design so disastrous. The animus of the story is shown by the
assertion that Themistocles went on board the commander’s vessel,
and used these arguments as his own. Of this Mnesiphilos more is
told in Plutarch. ◆Plut. Them.◆ He represents him to have been the
political tutor of Themistocles, and says that some people attributed
to Mnesiphilos much for which Themistocles got credit with the general
public. It may be surmised that the people who took this view were not
unconnected with the various other stories current in later times to
Themistocles’ discredit. The story in Herodotus is in itself not free
from improbability, and is inconsistent with what the author’s own
account of the battle shows to have been the reason for fighting in the
strait, namely, the desire to engage the numerically superior fleet in
a channel where its greater numbers would be of but little avail. The
last fight at Artemisium had probably taught the Greeks a lesson to
whose significance they could not shut their eyes; at any rate, in the
then state of feeling, it must have been a very powerful and compelling
motive which induced the Peloponnesian contingents to abide at Salamis.
The tale of Mnesiphilos supplies none such. The argument as to the
break-up of the defence is palpably weak. There would be infinitely
more fear of a dissolution of the naval force in case Salamis were
chosen as the scene of battle, than if it were determined to fight in
the immediate neighbourhood of the Isthmus, the very determination for
which the Peloponnesian party had been intriguing ever since the war
began.
This tale of Mnesiphilos is so suspicious that it cannot be
regarded as reliable history. Herodotus seems himself to have been
aware that it would convey an impression of improbability when read
beside the other tale of the motive which Themistocles urged for
fighting in the strait; for he attempts to reconcile the truth of the
two stories.
In his private interview with Eurybiades, Themistocles, so he says,
adopted as his own the argument suggested by Mnesiphilos, and with its
aid so far persuaded that much vexed but apparently honest patriot of
the inadvisability of the decision to which the Council of War had
recently come, that he consented to call another meeting to reconsider
the subject. This was the famous meeting at which the fate of Greece
was decided; and it may be regarded as certain that, as is invariably
the case with the crises of great historical tragedies, later tradition
did not allow the incidents of the situation to lose dramatic force in
the telling. Though the dramatic element is not absent from Herodotus’
version, it gives a strong impression of being in the main a true
account of what took place. The historian seems to have exercised a
powerful self-control over himself in writing the account of what he
knew well to have been the most critical moment in the history of his
race; and he has, in consequence, succeeded in making his description
of this gathering of the Greek commanders one of the most striking
pictures in his history.
◆H. viii. 59.◆
“And when they had assembled, before Eurybiades put the question about
which he had called the generals together, Themistocles spoke long and
earnestly. As he was speaking the Corinthian commander, Adeimantos,
the son of Okytos, said: ‘At the games, Themistocles, those who start
too soon are scourged.’ But he, justifying his action, answered, ‘Yes,
and those left at the post do not win the prize.’ On this occasion his
retort to the Corinthian was mild in character; but to Eurybiades he
did not use his previous arguments, to the effect that the fleet, if
it left Salamis, would disperse; for in the presence of the allies it
did not become him to accuse any one. #COUNCIL OF WAR AT SALAMIS.# He
relied on a different argument, and spoke as follows: ‘The salvation
of Greece is in your hands if you be persuaded by me to remain and
give battle in this place, and do not yield to those here present who
urge you to remove the fleet to the Isthmus. Hear now and judge
between the two plans. If you engage off the Isthmus you will fight in
the open sea, and it is highly inexpedient for us to put out thither,
because our ships are heavier and fewer in number; and, again, you
will lose Salamis, Megara, and Ægina, even if we are successful in
other respects. For the Persians’ land army will accompany their
fleet, and so you will be responsible for bringing them to the
Peloponnese, and will place the whole of Greece in peril. But if you
do as I say, you will find the following great advantages in my plan.
In the first place, by engaging in the strait with few ships against
many, we shall win a great victory, if the war takes the course that
may be expected; for it is in our favour to fight in the narrow seas,
just as it is in their favour to fight in the open. Again Salamis, in
which we have deposited our wives and children, will not fall into
the hands of the enemy. And there is this further advantage in the
plan, and one by which you set most store. Whether you remain here, or
whether you fight at the Isthmus, you will be just as much fighting
on behalf of the Peloponnese; and you will not, if you are wise,
attract the enemy towards the Peloponnese. If matters turn out as I
expect, and we win a naval battle, the barbarians will never reach the
Isthmus, nor advance further than Attica, but will retire in disorder:
and we shall be the gainers by the salvation of Megara, Ægina, and
Salamis, at which, according to an oracle, we should defeat the foe.
When men form reasonable plans they usually succeed; but if they form
unreasonable ones, the god refuses to fall in with human fancies.’
When Themistocles had made this speech, the Corinthian Adeimantos
again attacked him, bidding him hold his peace, as he had no
fatherland, and protesting against Eurybiades putting the vote for one
who had no state to represent; for he urged that Themistocles should
show of what state he was envoy, before he gave his vote with the
rest. The point of this reproach was that Athens had been captured and
was in the hands of the foe. On this occasion Themistocles spoke both
long and bitterly against him and the Corinthians, and demonstrated
that the Athenians had a State and country more powerful than that of
Corinth, so long as two hundred ships were manned by them; for none of
the Greeks could resist their attack.
“After this declaration he appealed to Eurybiades, speaking more
earnestly (than before). ‘If you,’ he said, ‘remain here and play the
man, all will be well; but if not, you will bring about the overthrow
of Hellas. For the decision of the war lies with the fleet. Therefore
be persuaded by me.
“‘But if you do not do this, we will take our families and go as
we are to Siris in Italy, which is our land of old, and the oracles
say is fated to be colonized by us. You, when bereft of such allies as
we have been, will remember my words.’
“After this speech of Themistocles Eurybiades changed his mind. My own
view is that he did so, fearing lest the Athenians should desert them
if he took the fleet to the Isthmus; for if the Athenians departed,
the remainder of the fleet was incapable of facing the enemy. He
decided therefore to remain, and give battle there.”
There are very noteworthy points about this remarkable narrative.
Despite his prejudice against Themistocles, Herodotus makes it quite
clear that he, and he alone, was responsible for the fleet remaining
at Salamis. Though the language of the story does not make it quite
clear, the remarks of Themistocles which provoked the first retort of
Adeimantos, seem to have been of the nature of individual exhortation
to the various commanders before the formal meeting opened. Apparently,
the first step in the regular Council of War was a statement made by
the president of the question to be discussed.
Herodotus is at special pains to mention that the argument suggested by
Mnesphilos was, of set purpose, not employed upon the present occasion.
It may be observed that if that argument had any applicability at
all, it could only be to the Æginetans and Megareans, whose lands
would be exposed to the Persian in case the decision to retire to
the Isthmus were persisted in. They had just as much, if not more,
cause than the Athenians had to wish the fleet to remain at Salamis,
therefore the reason given for the omission of the argument, namely,
that Themistocles did not wish to accuse any one, is highly improbable.
Had there been any soundness in it, had it, indeed, ever been used,
the Æginetans and Megareans would have recked little of being charged
with a desire to defend their own homes, if the charge had supplied an
argument for the carrying out of a policy which was a matter of life
and death to them.
#CORINTH AND ATHENS.#
The almost vindictive opposition of the Corinthian admiral to
Themistocles is not the least remarkable feature in the tale.
It will be remembered that something of a like kind had occurred at
Artemisium. When Themistocles, at the request of the Eubœans, advocated
the retention of the fleet at Artemisium, it was not merely with
Eurybiades, but also with the Corinthian admiral, that he had to deal.
It has been suggested that these tales, which were calculated in
after-time to cast discredit on the behaviour of the Corinthians at
this crisis, were invented at the period, later in the century, when
Corinth was in the forefront of hostility to Athens. It is, however,
very possible that the seeds of that hostility had been already sown,
and were bearing fruit in 480. The evidence obtainable from the remains
of this period which have been discovered in Sicily and in Magna
Græcia, make it clear that in the latter part of the sixth and early
years of the fifth century, of the great trading cities of Greece
proper, Corinth and Athens divided between them the lion’s share of the
trade with the West; There had, no doubt, been a rivalry between the
two; but up to a certain point it had been of a peaceful character,
neither party being strong enough to establish a supremacy over the
other. Still, in the twenty years preceding the war, the changes in
the coinage system of Sicily seem to indicate that Athens had been for
some time gaining ground. That there was, however, no rupture in the
peaceful, or even friendly, relations between the two towns is shown
by the fact that Corinth actually aided Athens in one of her wars with
Ægina by the loan of ships.
It is calculated that this loan of ships was made about the year
498.[156] Corinth, the Venice of Greece, was a trading state pure and
simple; and trade questions must have had a preponderating influence
on her policy. It would seem, then, that at the beginning of the fifth
century she regarded Ægina as a more formidable trade rival than
Athens. One cause for this suggests itself. The naval power of Ægina
was at the beginning of the century superior to that of Athens, as
the loan of vessels shows; and a trade rival is a much more serious
competitor if backed by naval power than if working on the lines
of purely peaceful competition. The next twenty years, however, brought
about a complete change in the relative circumstances of the three
states. Ægina had suffered severely in a war with Athens, which took
place in the decade intervening between Marathon and Salamis. The naval
power of Athens had, on the other hand, enormously increased from the
moment when, in or about 484 the Athenians began to adopt the advice
of Themistocles, and to devote the proceeds of the mines of Laurion to
the building of a fleet, the like of which Greece had never seen at the
command of any single one of her States. This is the probable cause of
the original growth of that enmity between Corinth and Athens which
was to bear fruit later in the century; and this may account for the
attitude of Corinth at the time of the Great War.
Themistocles’ first speech consists of an argument; his second of a
threat; but, as Herodotus points out, the second was delivered under
the influence of the anger he felt at the injustice of the taunt which
Adeimantos had hurled against himself and his countrymen. Never was
anger more justifiable. The necessity for the removal of the population
had been brought about by the fact that the Peloponnesian land forces
at the Isthmus had made no preparation whatever to defend Attica during
the time at which the fleet was at Artemisium.
One part of the argument is very striking, because it is, perhaps,
the only passage in Herodotus which gives an indication of what must
have been of necessity the case,—the dependence of the Persian army
on the fleet Themistocles points out to the Greeks that, if they keep
the Persian fleet at Salamis, the Persian army can never reach the
Isthmus, or even invade the Megarid. More he does not say on this
point, because he evidently assumed that his hearers would understand
him. If the situation be considered, the only interpretation which they
could pit upon his words was that the difficulty of commissariat would,
under those circumstances, be an insuperable obstacle to the Persian
advance. #ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES.# Their army, after crossing Kithæron,
had left the rich lands of Greece, the plains of Bœotia and
Thessaly, behind it. It might, indeed, have reached the Isthmus; but
the maintenance of it even for a brief period in a region which could
afford but little sustenance, and which was peculiarly inaccessible
by land from the North, owing to the interposition of the great and
difficult ridge of Geraneia, would become an impossibility.[157]
[Illustration: Map showing THE STRATEGICAL POSITION IN S. BOEOTIA, W.
ATTICA AND THE ISTHMUS WITH PASSES OF KITHAERON, PARNES & GERANEIA
London: John Murray, Albemarle Street.
_Stanford’s Geographical Estab^t. London._
]
* * * * *
_Note on the Authorities for the Account of Salamis._
It is impossible to enter upon the description of the battle of Salamis
without giving some short explanation of the views on the subject which
the author has thought fit to adopt, since they differ fundamentally
from those which are put forward in the best-known modern histories
of Greece. The historians of the last generation do not seem to have
recognized that the details of the battle as given by Herodotus present
any difficulty of a serious character. His account was accepted as
correct, against all other extant evidence on the subject, which was
treated as either worthless or of inferior authority.
Apart from chance references in other writers, which are either mere
commonplaces or historically valueless, the evidence available is
supplied by four authors,—Æschylus, Herodotus, Diodorus, and Plutarch.
Those who adopt Herodotus’ views regard the evidence of the other three
authors as being, for various reasons, unreliable.
In the case of Æschylus, the obvious objection is that he was a poet,
and that all the evidence he gives is contained in the “Persæ.” It
cannot, of course, be denied that this objection would, from the
historical point of view, be a very strong one, were Æschylus merely
giving a poetical account of a most dramatic scene, the description
of which he derived from others. But when it is remembered that
the poet was actually present as a combatant on board the Greek fleet,
it is manifest that his narrative, though cast in the poetical form,
cannot be ignored by the historian. One element in it, at any rate,
must be reckoned with: the stated facts of the author’s personal
observation. These are, indeed, few in number, but it so happens that
they are of very great importance; nor are they of a character such
as might suggest that they had been modified in any way for dramatic
purposes.
The evidence of Diodorus is ignored by modern authorities simply on the
ground that that author is so notoriously unreliable. That such is the
case, no one who knows his work would care to deny; but it is a fallacy
to treat the whole of his work as unsound, and to say, as has been
said by one eminent authority, that whenever the evidence of Herodotus
and Diodorus respectively differs on any particular point, that of
Herodotus is to be unhesitatingly preferred.
In the present case, Plutarch may, for the most part, be ignored. His
evidence is secondhand of the secondhand; and most details given by him
which are not found in any one of the three first-mentioned authorities
are either unimportant, highly suspicious, or demonstrably wrong.
The rejection of Herodotus’ account of the tactics pursued by the two
fleets rests on two grounds:—
(1) The evidence of the eye-witness Æschylus, which is quite
irreconcileable with Herodotus’ description.
(2) Objections of a most important character which must suggest
themselves to the mind of any one who has seen the strait, and might
well be suggested to any one who possesses a reliable map of it.
In so far as I am aware, Professor Goodwin, in an article on “Salamis”
in the _Journal of the Archæological Institute of America_, 1882–83,
was the first to point out the serious difficulties involved, not, as
he thought, in Herodotus’ account, but rather in the interpretation
which later historians had put upon it.
As the main basis of his argument he enunciated the necessity of taking
the evidence of Æschylus into serious consideration; he laid it down,
indeed, that that evidence, in so far as it was plainly drawn from
personal observation, must be regarded as superior in authority to any
evidence on the same point contained in other extant descriptions of
the fight. #INTERPRETATION OF EVIDENCE.# I venture to think that, in so
doing, Professor Goodwin rendered a most important service to the
study of a great chapter in Ancient History.
He further argued that the discrepancies between Æschylus and Herodotus
are apparent and not real, and are due to a mistaken interpretation of
Herodotus’ narrative.
It will be seen that I do not agree with the second part of Professor
Goodwin’s proposition. My belief is that the modern historians have
correctly interpreted Herodotus’ account; and that, so far as his
evidence is concerned, the mistake is in the evidence, and not in the
interpretation of it.
Though the detail must be reserved for discussion when the incidents of
the fight come to be examined in detail, it may be convenient for the
understanding of the problem involved, to give a brief sketch of the
line of argument which will be followed.
It is generally agreed—in fact, the evidence is unanimous on this
point—that the Persians drew up their fleet in some way so as to block
the eastern end of the Salamis strait; though the way in which they did
this is disputed. But the main points in dispute are:—
(1) As to the locality of the part of the other end of the strait
which they blocked so as to prevent the Greek fleet from escaping,
viz. whether it was the narrow portion of the eastern strait at the
point where it enters the bay of Eleusis, or whether it was the strait
between Salamis island and the Megarid coast.
(2) As to the position of the Persian fleet, especially at daybreak, on
the morning of the battle.
The scheme of the battle given in nearly all the modern histories of
Greece, represents the Persian fleet as drawn up on the morning of the
battle along the Attic coast, from the narrows at the entrance of the
bay of Eleusis almost to the mouth of Piræus harbour, while the Greek
fleet is opposite, extending from a point some way north of the island
of St. George almost to the end of Kynosura (_vide_ Grote, etc.).
I notice that this scheme has been adhered to in various histories of
Greece which are either new or have been re-edited since Professor
Goodwin’s article was published.
The objections to it which Professor Goodwin urged seem to me so
strong that I am surprised that the scheme is still adhered to by
great authorities on Greek history. The reason for this adherence I
have not seen stated in print I can only suppose that those who retain
the old view reject wholly the version of Diodorus, where it
differs from that of Herodotus, and would hold that the latter is not
contradicted in any essential respect by the, for historical purposes,
imperfect account of Æschylus. Professor Goodwin lays down the canon
that on any detail which Æschylus _does_ mention, he is the authority
to be followed, because he was an eye-witness. He further seeks to
reconcile Herodotus’ account with that of Æschylus, with the result
that he reproduces a history of the battle which is in nearly all
essential respects that of Diodorus.
The thesis which I propose to put forward is that we have in the tale
of Salamis one of the rare cases in which Diodorus has either obtained
better information than Herodotus or made better use of his information.
The arguments against the old scheme, of which the most convincing have
been already stated by Professor Goodwin, are:—
Since the passage between Attica and Psyttaleia is one thousand
three hundred yards wide;
And that between Ægaleos and Salamis one thousand five hundred
yards;
And between Ægaleos and St George Island one thousand two hundred
yards; _i.e._ the whole channel is very narrow;
(_a_) How could the Persian movement of cutting off be accomplished so
secretly that the Greeks got no wind of it? (H. viii. 78; Plut Them.
12; Arist. 8.)
How could the Persians have slipped along the other side of the narrow
strait in the night unperceived?
(_b_) Can we believe that the Greek fleet was allowed to form quietly
in line of battle at the other side of this narrow strait, in the very
face of the Persian fleet only a few hundred yards distant?
Surely the Persian fleet, being eager to capture the Greek fleet, would
have seized the ships while the crews were preparing to embark.
(_c_) Æschylus, an eye-witness, testifies that it was only after the
Greeks had rowed forward from their position that they were fairly seen
by the Persians (Æsch Pers. 400).
(_d_) Æschylus, Pers. 443–466; H. viii. 76, 95; Plut. Aris. 9, concur
in the statement that Xerxes landed a body of Persians on Psyttaleia,
because he thought that it would be a central point of the sea-fight.
Such are Professor Goodwin’s objections to the old scheme.
#NATURE OF ERROR IN HERODOTUS.#
To the last I would add that Herodotus expressly describes the measures
taken with regard to Psyttaleia as being synchronous with those for
blocking the straits (viii. 76).
Of these objections:—
(_a_) is strong, as being Herodotus’ own evidence; and it is on
Herodotus that the old scheme must rely. The passages quoted from
Plutarch are, however, manifestly from the Herodotean source.
Objections (_b_), (_c_), (_d_) seem to me unanswerable. As I read the
narrative, the old scheme of Grote and others cannot stand in face of
them.
In so far as my experience goes, I think that it may be demonstrated
that Herodotus’ mistakes, in his military history generally, arise
almost wholly from—
(1) Misreading of sources.
(2) Use of defective or mistaken sources; not from the invention of
imaginary facts.
His painful conscientiousness seems to be genuine, not fictitious. But,
eminently unmilitary himself, he was peculiarly liable to misunderstand
the information at his disposal with regard to military matters; and
this, as it seems to me, is exactly what has happened with regard to
his account of Salamis, and in the following way:—
It is, of course, a commonplace of criticism to say that Herodotus
gives us no account of the general movements or manœuvres of the two
fleets on the actual day of the battle, save that he mentions that the
Æginetan vessels fell on the Phœnician ships which the Athenians put to
flight. What I may call the enunciation of my proposition is this:—
This failure of information in this part of his narrative is due to
the fact that he had already, in the previous part of it, used up his
information on this point.
He antedated a movement made on the night preceding the battle to the
previous afternoon, and further antedated the movements in the battle
itself to the night preceding the battle.
It is curious and noticeable that, when this correction is made in
Herodotus’ dating, and in the mistaken accounts of movements which the
chronological error entailed, there is so close a resemblance between
the narratives of Herodotus and Diodorus that they may be suspected of
having been derived from sources which, if not absolutely identical,
were close in similarity.
The fleet of Xerxes was now at Phaleron, in the bay lying east
of the peninsula on which stood the town of Piræus. After spending
three days at Histiæa, subsequent to the departure of the army from
Thermopylæ, it had taken three days more to reach Phaleron. It is
probable, therefore, that it arrived there shortly before the army
reached Attic territory. Herodotus is of opinion that, despite the
losses at the Sepiad strand, at Thermopylæ, at Artemisium, and in the
Hollows of Eubœa, the net strength of the land and sea forces was,
owing to the accession of reinforcements, not less than before these
losses were incurred. For the numbers of the land forces he makes
out something resembling a case. It is probable that the addition
of the full contingents of Dorians and Locrians, and of all the
Bœotians, except the Platæans and Thespians, largely, if not entirely,
compensated for the losses suffered at Thermopylæ, great as they had
been. But that the naval contingents of Karystos, Andros, Tenos, and
the other islands, can have in any sensible measure compensated for the
losses suffered at Sepias, Artemisium, and the Hollows of Eubœa, is
plainly absurd. Herodotus has evidently, in his desire to magnify the
force opposed to the Greeks at Salamis, forgotten the enormity of the
losses he represents the Persians to have suffered in the two storms.
◆H. viii. 67–69.◆
It is difficult to say how much truth there is in the account given
of the Persian Council of War held before Salamis. It could hardly be
treated as serious history, were it not that Artemisia, a countrywoman
of Herodotus, is represented as having been present on the occasion,
and as having taken a prominent part in the discussion. She alone
advised against the attack; but her reported speech is so noticeably
marked by knowledge after the event, that much of the matter of it
cannot be regarded as genuine. At the same time, it is plain that
Herodotus did obtain from her, either directly or indirectly, details,
whether true or false, both of what happened at this meeting, and
of many personal incidents in the coming battle; and despite the
exultation with which he chronicles the Greek victory, he is evidently
anxious to record the wisdom of the queen of his native city.
#DESCRIPTION OF THE STRAIT.#
The theatre of the impending operations was the channel between Salamis
island and the mainland of Attica, or, rather, that eastern part of
it which stretches from the harbour of Piræus to the sharp bend which
the strait makes beyond Salamis town. After rounding the promontory
of Piræus, a fleet entering the strait would sail nearly due north.
The island of Psyttaleia lies across the entrance, and being of
considerable size (nearly three-quarters of a mile in length), greatly
detracts from the width of the channel, dividing it into two, the
western arm, between the elongated rocky promontory of Kynosura and the
island, being exactly half a mile wide, the eastern, between the island
and the mainland of Attica, being slightly more than three-quarters of
a mile in width. After passing Psyttaleia the channel turns west at
right angles, and now runs between Kynosura and Mount Ægaleos, with a
width of about two thousand yards, contracting opposite the site of the
ancient town of Salamis to a width of about thirteen hundred and fifty
yards. The strait then once more turns at right angles, and goes due
north to the bay of Eleusis, the fairway being blocked by the island
of St. George, where it is only twelve hundred yards in width on the
side towards Attica. Just before entering the bay of Eleusis it once
more contracts to the width of slightly more than fourteen hundred
yards. Taking a line down the centre of the channel, the distance from
Psyttaleia to the narrows of old Salamis is two miles and a half, and
from the latter point to the narrows at the entrance of the bay of
Eleusis about a mile and three-quarters. The scenery in the strait is
beautiful. Looking from the mainland of Attica north of Piræus harbour
along the arm of the channel which goes westward, the deep blue of the
water is contrasted with the brilliant yellows, reds, and browns of the
somewhat fantastically shaped hills of Salamis; while on the right the
pine woods of Ægaleos add a mingled dark and brilliant light green to
the colouring of the picture. Behind the hills of Salamis the grey hump
of Geraneia upon the Isthmus rises high into the air.
From Ægaleos, the view southward towards Psyttaleia is somewhat
different in character. The island, which rises to a considerable
height out of the water, occupies the central part of the middle
distance. The easternmost of the two channels is seen at its full
width. Piræus is in sight, and away behind it the somewhat featureless
shore of South Attica stretches into an apparent infinity towards
Sunium. The channel to the west of the island appears greatly
contracted, because Kynosura, with its serrated back, almost overlaps
the west end of Psyttaleia. Behind Kynosura rise the hills of South
Salamis; and in the far background the hills of Ægina are in sight.
Such is the scene of the great battle, as it shows itself in the
present day.
◆H. viii. 63.◆
The effect of Themistocles’ speech at the Council of War was to
persuade Eurybiades of the absolute necessity of remaining at Salamis.
Herodotus believes, [probably rightly,] that the threatened defection
of the Athenian fleet was what decided him to change the determination
to which the previous Council of War had come; and, if Herodotus’
language is to be taken as it stands, the decision was his own. There
is no mention of any further voting on the question. This decision
seems to have been taken on the day but one preceding the battle.
The position on the evening of that day was that the Persian fleet was
at Phaleron, while the Greek fleet lay at Salamis.
From the historical point of view, the critical point in the various
parallel accounts of the battle is the description of the events of the
next day, the eve of the great fight.
◆H. viii. 64.◆
At sunrise an earthquake occurred which was felt both by land and sea.
The Greeks determined, in consequence of it, to summon the sacred
heroes, the Æacidæ, to their aid, and despatched a ship to Ægina to
fetch their images, which were deposited in that island. Other ominous
events, less credible than the earthquake, are reported to have taken
place at this time.
◆H. viii. 70.◆
It is to this day that Herodotus ascribes the first movement of the
Persian fleet from Phaleron towards the mouth of the strait. He says
that it put out towards Salamis, but that the day was too far spent for
it to attempt to engage the Greek fleet before nightfall. #THE MESSAGE
OF THEMISTOCLES.# It must be concluded, therefore, that he attributes
this movement to the late afternoon. It seems highly probable that
the very serious difficulties which are raised by the later part of his
narrative of the movements preceding the battle are originally due to
his mistiming of this movement. ◆Cf. H. viii. 75.◆ He represents it as
having been made before Xerxes received Themistocles’ message to the
effect that the Greeks intended to fly, and, therefore, as not being
in any way causally connected with that message. On this point his
evidence is in conflict with that of Æschylus and Diodorus.
◆Æsch. Pers. 357, _ff_.◆
Æschylus’ account is, in brief, as follows: A message came to Xerxes
from the Greek fleet, and told him that the Greeks would, during the
night, disperse and seek safety in flight. Xerxes, failing to discern
the crafty nature of the message, ordered his captains, when night
came, to range the fleet in three lines, and “to guard the exits and
the roaring firths.” Furthermore, ships were ordered to make the
circuit of the “Island of Ajax,” so as to cut off the Greek retreat.
Æschylus evidently attributes the Persian movement to the receipt of
this message. But the most important point in his narrative is that
he attributes this first Persian movement to the night preceding the
battle, and not to the afternoon of the previous day. Had it taken
place on the afternoon of that day, as Herodotus alleges, those on
board the Greek fleet must have known of it. The movement of the whole
Persian fleet to the mouth of the strait could not have remained
a secret to the Greeks at Salamis, less than three miles from its
entrance.
To return to the message: Æschylus describes Xerxes as giving his
orders immediately on receipt of it, but bidding his officers wait till
nightfall. This raises a certain amount of probability that the receipt
of the message is to be dated to the late afternoon. ◆H. viii. 75, 76.◆
Furthermore, this very time of the despatch of the message is indicated
in Herodotus’ account.
The circumstances under which it was sent are as follows: Eurybiades’
decision had been taken on the previous day. It seems, as has been
already pointed out, as if the decision had been his own. If so, it is
not surprising that there should have been a considerable amount
of dissatisfaction existent among those commanders of contingents whose
opinions he had ignored.[158] ◆H. viii. 74.◆ They were anxious for
the safety of the Isthmus, and not without reason; ◆H. viii. 70.◆ for
Herodotus states that a few hours after this time, during the ensuing
night, the Persian army started on its march thither.
Another Council of War assembled. It was no longer proposed that the
whole fleet should sail away to the Isthmus; that proposition, in view
of the attitude taken up by the Athenians, could have had no real
effect if carried, and the decision of the council was apparently that
the Athenian, Megarean, and Æginetan contingents should remain at
Salamis, while the remainder of the fleet went to the Isthmus. This,
had it ever been carried out, could not have failed to be absolutely
disastrous to the Greek cause; nothing, under the circumstances, could
have been more fatal than the division of the Greek fleet at this
crisis of affairs. Though no such decision is mentioned by Æschylus
or Diodorus, there is every probability that the story is founded
upon fact. Diodorus’ evidence as to the extreme state of panic which
prevailed in the fleet at this moment is just as emphatic as that of
Herodotus.
There can be little doubt that the design of the Peloponnesians was
to transfer themselves from the sea to the land defence. ◆H. viii.
71.◆ For months past they had been fortifying the Isthmus, and by this
time they had brought their defensive works practically to a state of
completion, for they had employed large numbers of workers, and the
toil had been continuous, day and night. They had also taken measures
to render impassable the Skironid way, that most difficult coast road,
which ran along a mere shelf of the precipices of Geraneia above the
Saronic gulf. Why, instead of walling the Isthmus, they did not, after
blocking the Skironid way, provide for the defence of the two other
very difficult passes by which alone Geraneia could be traversed, it
is impossible to say. #THE PELOPONNESIANS.# It may be that their own
notorious incompetence in attacking artificial fortifications led
them to over-estimate the effectiveness of this form of defence.
Diodorus mentions that the wall ran from Lechæum to Cenchrea, and that
it was forty stades, or between four and a half and five miles, in
length. That such a work would require a very large number of men for
its effective defence in those days of short-range missiles and close
fighting is evident. Still, the numbers requisite might have been
supplied, had all the Peloponnesian states furnished contingents, and
had not part of the available forces of those who did come forward been
engaged on board the fleet. Argos and Achaia were unrepresented; and
if so low a number as one hundred and fifty be taken as the average
crew of each of the triremes furnished by the Peloponnesians, more than
thirteen thousand of their men were, for the time being, not available
at the Isthmus. It is highly probable the predominant feeling among
the Peloponnesian members of the fleet at Salamis was one of extreme
anxiety as to whether the force available with Kleombrotos at the wall
was sufficient to defend works so extensive.
Of the three main authorities for the incidents of this time, it is
Herodotus who gives the message of Themistocles in its fullest form.
His account is that, on finding the majority in the last Council of War
against him, Themistocles went quietly away and despatched a message to
Xerxes.[159] Sikinnos was the name of the messenger, so he says—a slave
of Themistocles, and tutor to his son.[160] Æschylus merely says that
he was a Greek, and Diodorus does not mention his name or quality.
It is interesting to note the terms of the message. It represents
the sender as being desirous for the success of the Persians. It
then proceeds to give two reasons why the king should attack
immediately: (1) because otherwise the Greek fleet would disperse;
(2) because, in case of the Persian attack, a section of the fleet
whose views coincided with those of the sender would attack the other.
◆Diod xi. 17.◆ Diodorus gives a brief account of the matter, and only
mentions the first of the two reasons.
The terms of the message must not be taken to indicate the motives
of the sender, other than his desire to induce the Persian to attack
without delay.
A very little consideration will show that the reasons urged in it
are not necessarily, either in whole or in part, identical with those
private motives which led to its being sent. Still, no Greek who knew
his countrymen at that time could have much doubt that the Persian
authorities would be kept fairly well informed of the main currents of
feeling in the Greek fleet. They must, for example, have been perfectly
well aware of the dissensions with regard to the place at which the
invasion should be resisted; and this knowledge alone would render
Xerxes and his advisers liable to credit the plausible but exaggerated
statement with reference to the length to which those dissensions had
gone. It is purely an accident that the first reason stated in the
message conveyed little more than the truth. Two dangers threatened
the strategy which had kept the fleet at Salamis: (1) the secession of
the Peloponnesian contingent; (2) the advance of the Persian fleet, or
even of a part of it, to the Isthmus, without risking an engagement
in the narrows. There is absolutely no reason why it should not have
gone there as a whole. The Greek fleet could not have remained at
Salamis had it done so, and would have been forced to fight at a
comparative disadvantage in the open. The ultimate result might not
have been different; but it would have been infinitely more uncertain.
Both strategical dangers were avoided, if only the Persians could be
persuaded to fight; and the long-headed Athenian had wit enough to
hold out to Xerxes the two inducements which would have most weight
with him,—the prospect of the capture of the Greek fleet, and the
desirability of striking while the dissension in it was at its height.
#PERSIAN MOVEMENT TO THE STRAIT.#
Xerxes fell into the trap laid for him, and modified his plans
accordingly. For the successful accomplishment of the new Persian
design three conditions were necessary:—the action must be prompt; it
must be secret; the blocking of the eastern and western channels of
Salamis strait must be carried out simultaneously. Even were there
not more conclusive reasons for rejecting the time of the movement of
the Persian fleet to the eastern strait as given by Herodotus, the
fact that it would have conspicuously failed to fulfil the two most
important of these evident conditions would render the accuracy of his
statement a matter for serious consideration.
But this does not afford any reason for rejecting Herodotus’ evidence
as to the _nature_ of the movement. His description of it clearly
identifies it with part of the movement which Æschylus and Diodorus
attribute to the night preceding the battle. The identity is further
confirmed by the fact that in all three historians no previous movement
on the part of the Persian fleet at Phaleron is mentioned. ◆H. viii.
70.◆ Herodotus says that the Persian fleet, on being ordered to put out
from Phaleron, sailed towards Salamis, and quietly took up its order in
its various divisions.
◆Æsch Pers. 366, _ff_.◆
Æschylus says that Xerxes’ orders were that the fleet should put out
after nightfall, and that “the close array of ships should be drawn
up in three ranks to guard the exits of the straits and the roaring
firths,” while others should circumnavigate the “Island of Ajax,” so as
to close that line of retreat to the Greek fleet.
Diodorus is practically in agreement with Æschylus in so far as the
latter goes. ◆Diod xi. 17.◆ The king, he says, placed credence in the
message which he had received, and hastened to prevent the naval forces
of the Greeks from getting near the land army. He therefore immediately
despatched the Egyptian contingent, ordering it to block the passage
between Salamis and the Megarid.[161] ◆Cf. Plut. Them. 12.◆ The rest
of the ships he sent towards Salamis, ordering them to attack the
enemy, and decide the struggle by a naval battle.
It is clear, then, that neither Æschylus nor Diodorus has any mention
of a movement of the Persian fleet from Phaleron until after the
receipt of Themistocles’ message; and Æschylus expressly states that
the movement to the east end of the strait was made after the fall of
night. ◆Plut. Them. 12.◆ As has been already pointed out, if it had
been made during the daytime, the Greeks on board the fleet, among whom
was Æschylus, could not have failed to know of it.
Plutarch, though unreliable as an independent witness, is in agreement
with Æschylus and Diodorus as to the Persian movement being subsequent
to the receipt of Themistocles’ message.
In connection with the blocking of the eastern strait an important
measure was taken. ◆♠H. viii. 76.◆ Persian troops were landed on the
island of Psyttaleia. Herodotus describes this as being subsequent to
the receipt of Themistocles’ message. ◆Æsch. Pers. 452.◆ Both he and
Æschylus say that the measure was taken in order that the troops there
might save such Persians and destroy such Greeks as were driven on to
it in the stress of the battle.
♠ “H. vii. 76.” replaced with “H. viii. 76.”
For some reason, then, the Persian commanders supposed that the island
would play a prominent part in the battle as designed by them. It is
impossible that they could have held any supposition of the kind, had
their plan of attack been such as is described in Herodotus, for in
that case the battle must have taken place several miles away up the
strait.
* * * * *
_Note on the Movement of the Persian Fleet on the Night
before the Battle, as described by Herodotus._
Before taking the historian’s account into consideration, it is
necessary to realize, in so far as possible, the exact nature of the
difficulties in which, as a historian, he was involved by his
mistiming of the Persian movement from Phaleron. He had failed to
connect the movement to the east end of the strait with Themistocles’
message. Despite this, he seems to be aware that the Persians _did_
make a movement in the night in consequence of the receipt of that
message, and that part of that movement consisted in closing the
western channel,—at some point or other near Salamis, he is led to
think. He is also aware that this movement during the night, including
the blocking of the western strait, was made after, and in consequence
of, the receipt of Themistocles’ message. He had already, without
knowing it, exhausted his sources of information with regard to the
major part of this night-advance. What those sources of information
were, it is impossible to say. The probability is that, in the form in
which he used them in composing this chapter of his history, they were
of a written kind,—possibly notes he had himself made on the subject of
the battle, taken years before from the verbal description of one who
was present at it.
Turning to his notes to seek for details of this night-movement, he
would, under the circumstances, suppose, naturally enough, that the
movements indicated in them as succeeding the movement he had already
described, were those made by the Persian fleet in the night. Two
pieces of evidence support this conjecture:—
(1) In spite of the confusion of his description, arising from the
misapplication of his information, it is possible to identify the
movements which he attributes to the fleet during the night with the
movements of the fleet in the actual battle, in so far as they are
indicated from other sources.
(2) The complete absence in his account of the actual battle of any
details of the general movements of the fleets is accounted for, if, as
is suggested, he had misapplied the information which he possessed on
this point,—if he had, in fact, used it up beforehand.
His description of this night-movement is given in the following words
“When midnight arrived, the west wing put out and made a turning
movement towards Salamis; and those about Keos and Kynosura put out
in order, and occupied the whole strait as far as Munychia with their
ships. The object of these movements was to rob the Greeks of the
possibility of retreat, so that vengeance might be taken upon them
when cut off in Salamis for the battles fought near Artemisium.”
◆H. viii. 76.◆
He then recurs to the occupation of Psyttaleia.
“Persians were disembarked on the island called Psyttaleia, in order
that, when the battle took place, as the damaged vessels and their
crews would be for the most part carried in that direction (for the
island lay in the line of the approaching sea-fight), they might save
their friends and destroy their foes.
“These measures they carried out quietly, so that the enemy might not
get wind of them.”
Any attempt to apply this description to the movement made on the night
preceding the battle renders the passage absolutely incomprehensible.
No useful end can be gained by discussing the difficulties at length.
It will be sufficient to point them out, in order to make their
insoluble character quite clear.
(1) What does Herodotus mean by the “west wing” of the Persian fleet?
He distinguishes it from the ships about Keos and Kynosura. Where were
their positions? Keos is not identifiable. Some suppose it to be an
alternative name for Kynosura. But of the identity of the latter there
can be no doubt. It is certainly the long narrow “dog’s tail” of a
peninsula to the west of Psyttaleia, jutting out from the island of
Salamis. There is an exactly similar peninsula at Marathon, which was
called by the same name. This being so, the ships about Kynosura could
only be the west wing of the fleet! How, then, does the distinction
arise in Herodotus?
(2) This “west wing” put out towards Salamis with intent, according to
Herodotus’ language in the next sentence, to prevent the Greeks from
escaping by the western strait. If so, they must have occupied the
narrows either at or just north of the island of St. George.
How did they get there unknown to the Greek fleet of over three hundred
vessels on the other side of the narrow strait, which, as has been
pointed out, contracts to a width of about three-quarters of a mile
opposite to old Salamis town? Could such a movement on the part of a
large body of ships have escaped their notice, even under the highly
improbable supposition that they had taken no precaution whatever to
prevent surprise? #THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE.# Is it conceivable that
the commanders who had at the time of Artemisium sent scouting vessels
up the Thessalian coast, and inaugurated a signalling system which
extended probably from Skiathos to South Eubœa, would have allowed
the fleet to lie at Salamis without placing sentinel vessels to observe
the straits in their immediate neighbourhood?
[Illustration: SALAMIS FROM THE SURVEY OF ATTICA MADE BY THE BERLIN
GENERAL STAFF.
London: John Murray, Albemarle Street.
_Stanford’s Geographical Estab^t. London._
]
(3) What did Herodotus suppose to be the position of the rest of the
fleet which held “all the strait as far as Munychia”?
Attempts have been made to argue that his language with regard to the
movement of ships “about Keos and Kynosura” refers to a blocking of the
strait at about the line of which Psyttaleia was the centre. The object
of this argument is, manifestly, to bring Herodotus into agreement with
Æschylus and Diodorus.
But can this interpretation of his description be maintained, when it
is remembered that Herodotus has already described a movement as having
taken place the previous afternoon with a view to blocking the strait
at that point? Again, Herodotus mentions Munychia as one end of the
line of ships, and evidently implies that at the other end it came in
contact with the ships which had been sent πρὸς τὴν Σαλαμῖνα to block
the western exit at the narrows before the bay of Eleusis. In other
words, it seems impossible to doubt that the interpretation which Grote
and others have put upon his description of the position taken up by
the Persian fleet on the night before the battle is perfectly correct.
It stretched in a long line (κατεῖχόν πάντα τὸν πορθμὸν), from the bend
of the strait at the end of Mount Ægaleos, along the shore of Attica to
Munychia. This interpretation is furthermore overwhelmingly supported
by his language in chapter 85, when he says:—
“Opposite to the Athenians were the Phœnicians, for these occupied
the wing on the side of Eleusis and the west. Over against the
Lacedæmonians were the Ionians. These occupied the wing towards the
east and the Piræus.”
The acceptance of this plan of the battle involves several difficulties
which are of a very serious character. If such was the position of the
Persian fleet,—
(1) How can Xerxes have supposed, as both Herodotus and Æschylus assert
he did, that the island of Psyttaleia would play a prominent part in
the battle?
(2) How can a movement on such a scale have been carried out during the
night, unknown to the Greek fleet on the opposite side of the narrow
strait? Any one who has been to Salamis can only give one answer
to this question.
(3) What possible protection on either flank would the narrow seaway
have afforded to the Greek fleet when advancing to meet the Persians in
this position? It must have been outflanked.
How, then, did it come to pass that in after-time the success at
Salamis was ascribed to Themistocles’ strategy, and this not merely in
the tradition of the battle, but by the commanders who actually fought
there? The success of that strategy was absolutely dependent on the
narrowness of the possible front of the fighting line.
(4) If such were the position of the two fleets when the fatal morning
dawned, they must have been in full view of one another, at a distance
of a few hundred yards, across the narrow strait.
◆Æsch. Pers. 400.◆
If so, how is it that the evidence of the eye-witness Æschylus is
utterly at variance with such a supposition?
It is really only possible to come to one conclusion on the subject. As
a description of the movement made in the night by the Persian fleet,
this passage in Herodotus is wholly mistaken. He has almost certainly
used in his description notes of the movements of the fleet made in
the actual battle, for the very good reason that he had previously
used his notes of the night-movement in describing a movement which he
supposed to have taken place on the previous afternoon. Either he did
not possess or he overlooked any note which he had made on the blocking
of the western strait; and in order to describe what he knew to have
taken place, as his reference to the arrival of Aristides shows, he
stretched what was probably only a note on the advance of the Persian
right wing in the battle, such as actually took place, as is known from
other evidence, into an advance of that wing so far as the narrows by
the island of St. George.
It is now possible to hazard a conjecture as to what he means by the
“west wing” in his description of the movement. It is probable that
when he used this term he had in his mind the position of the fleet
as he supposed it to be, not when the movement started, but when the
movement was complete; and it is noticeable that in chapter 85 he
expressly speaks of the wing which would be the eastern wing in the
original position, as the western wing.
#THE MORNING OF THE BATTLE.#
Occasion will be taken in discussing the details of the actual battle
to point out how nearly Herodotus’ description of the movement
during the night, when this exaggerated advance of the Persian right
wing has been eliminated, coincides with such evidence as is extant
elsewhere on the movements in the actual battle.
* * * * *
The movement of the Persian fleet seems not to have been completed
until shortly before dawn on the day of the battle. Its position at
that time appears to have been: (1) the main body was drawn up in a
line across the eastern strait, blocking the channels on either side
of Psyttaleia; while that island, between or in front of the bodies
of ships at either side, was occupied by Persian troops;[162] (2) the
western channel between Salamis island and the Megarid was occupied by
the two hundred vessels of the Egyptian squadron. The fairway in this
channel is quite narrow, as the depth of water on either side of it
is not sufficient to admit of the passage of even the shallow-draught
trireme. The Egyptian squadron would therefore be sufficiently numerous
to block it effectively, though the distance of this part of the strait
from the scene of the battle must have precluded all idea of the ships
posted there taking part in the actual fight. The Persians thought, no
doubt, that by sheer weight of numbers they would be able to force the
enemy’s fleet into the bay of Eleusis, and so into the clutches of the
blockading squadron.
◆H. will 78.◆
During the earlier part of the night, the Greek commanders, unaware
of the Persian movement, continued to dispute on the question of the
policy to be pursued. Themistocles must have known by that time that
his message had had its effect; but, until the western passage was
blocked, there was always the possibility of his plan turning out a
failure. It may well be that he fomented this “wrangle,” as Herodotus
calls it, in order to gain time. There is a partial conflict
of evidence between Herodotus and Diodorus as to the means by which
the news of the encircling movement was conveyed to the Greek camp.
◆Diod. xi. 17.◆ Diodorus says that a messenger sent by the Ionian
Greeks announced the fact. Herodotus, on the other hand, says that
the celebrated Aristides, who now for the first time appears on the
stage of his history, arrived from Ægina with the news. The tale is a
somewhat dramatic one, for the appreciation of which it is necessary to
gather together the fragmentary evidence which is available as to the
last few preceding years in the life of this famous Athenian statesman.
Herodotus’ introduction of him is brief, and certainly inadequate for
a true comprehension of his actual position at this critical time.
He speaks of his character in terms of the highest praise: “After
inquiring into the character of this man, I am disposed to think that
he was the best and most righteous man in Athens,”—a judgment which
the unanimous verdict of his own and after-time confirmed. But of his
previous career he says but little: he had been ostracized by the
people, and he was an enemy of Themistocles. There is no mention of
this ostracism having been withdrawn.
◆Plut. Them. 11; Arist. 8.◆
Plutarch refers to the incident at some length in his life of
Themistocles, and more briefly in his life of Aristides. The ostracism
seems to have resulted from bitter political strife between the
Aristocratic party, of which Aristides was the leader, though not
apparently an extremist member, and the Democratic party, led by
Themistocles. This took place, it seems, in 482.[163] The time of the
revocation of the decree is stated to have been “while Xerxes was
marching through Thessaly and Bœotia.” It must therefore have taken
place a few weeks at most before Salamis. Herodotus seems either
to have misunderstood or to have been misinformed as to the exact
political status of Aristides at this time. #ARISTIDES.# From what
he himself says, it is plain that the ostracism had been withdrawn,
though he does not mention the fact. Had Aristides appeared in the
fleet in a purely private capacity at the great crisis, it might be
conceivable that both he and his opponents tacitly agreed to ignore the
purely political sentence which had been passed upon him. But there is
evidence in Herodotus’ own narrative that Aristides was present in a
high official capacity as one of the Strategoi. It is hardly credible
that he could in any other capacity have entered the meeting of the
Council of War on his return from Ægina,[164] still less that towards
the close of the fight at Salamis he should have commanded the hoplites
who were landed at Psyttaleia.[165] How could he command hoplites on
active service unless he were a Strategos? Herodotus, for some reason
which it is impossible to explain, seems never to have studied the
system of command in the higher branches of the service which prevailed
at this time in Athens. His account of Marathon shows that to have
been the case. It is at the same time true that very considerable
modifications of the system had been introduced during the decade which
intervened between Marathon and Salamis.
Aristides’ action on his arrival from Ægina is somewhat remarkable.
Though he entered the Council of War, he did not communicate his
information, important though it was, to the meeting, but called out
his great political enemy, Themistocles, and imparted his news in the
first instance to him alone.
“Our political quarrels,” he said, “we must defer to another time;
our emulation at this moment must be as to which of us can render
the greatest services to his country. I tell you that it makes no
difference whether we say much or little to the Peloponnesians with
regard to their departure hence. For I say, from what I have myself
seen, that the Corinthians, and Eurybiades himself, will not, even
if they so desire, be able to sail out of the strait, for we are
surrounded by the enemy. Go into the meeting and tell them this.”
It is not difficult to conjecture what Aristides had actually
seen. He had come from Ægina, and evidently, in the course of the
voyage, had narrowly escaped capture by the squadron of two hundred
which had been sent round to the western strait.
His special mention of the Corinthians serves to emphasize what has
been already said with regard to the attitude of that people at this
particular time. They were evidently in the forefront of opposition to
Athens.
The concord between the views which the two ablest Athenians of this
time held with regard to the strategy to be pursued is shown by the
nature of Themistocles’ answer to Aristides’ communication. He makes
no secret to the latter of his having sent a message to Xerxes, an
avowal he would not have dared to make had he not been assured that
Aristides would agree with the motives which had induced him to send
the message. They must have had ample opportunity for discussing the
policy to be pursued. The return of Aristides from Ægina is not to be
taken as his first appearance in the fleet since the withdrawal of his
ostracism. One or two reasons may account for his having been to that
island at this time; either that he had been sent in command of the
ship which had been despatched to fetch the Æakidæ;[166] or that he had
superintended the deportation of the Attic refugees to that place.
After imparting his secret, Themistocles asked Aristides to inform
the Council of what he had seen, because, if he himself made the
announcement, it would be regarded with suspicion. #TRUE COURAGE OF
THE GREEKS.# This Aristides did; but even he could not persuade the
Peloponnesians of the truth of his information, and the discussion in
the Council proceeded until a Tenian ship, which deserted from the
enemy, confirmed the tidings in a way that admitted of no doubt It
must necessarily have been a brief space which intervened between the
announcement and its confirmation, but it must have been a time of
intense anxiety to the Athenian commanders. They must have realized
to the full the immensity of the danger to which the fleet would be
exposed did a portion of it sail away through the bay of Eleusis, and
in attempting the passage of the western strait under the impression
that it was open, become engaged with the powerful squadron there at a
distance of many miles from where the main battle must take place.
It is, perhaps, inevitable that the tale of the fierce dispute which
took place at this time in the fleet, and, above all, the continual
application of the term “run away” to the proposals made by the
Peloponnesian section, should convey the impression that the fleet as
a whole was not animated with a courageous determination to face the
danger of the situation. That impression is a false one. Taking the
reliable evidence as it stands, it does not seem just to accuse the
Greeks on board the ships at Salamis of a cowardly spirit.
The question was not one of facing the situation, but of where the
situation should be faced. So soon as they found themselves in a
position where dispute was no longer possible, all that might in the
past have seemed an indication of a vacillating spirit vanished, and
they faced the immensity of the danger with as true a courage as ever
the sailors of any nation faced a foe. It was a moment of exaltation,
which called forth all the best qualities of the Greek. Even Herodotus
must bear tribute to the greatness of the speech which Themistocles
delivered to his men: “Throughout contrasting what was noble with
what was base of all that comes within the range of man’s nature and
constitution, he bade them choose the better part.” And the speech was
not without its effect, even if the account which the poet Æschylus
gives of the feeling in the fleet he somewhat idealized.
“Then the whole fleet advanced, and one mighty cry was heard:
‘On! Sons of the Greeks! Free your fatherland!
Free your children, wives, the homes
Of your ancestral gods, and fathers’ graves.
Ye stand to win or lose your all.’”
No complete description of the various great tactical movements
in the battle has survived. Still, it is possible at the present day,
by dint of putting together the various fragments of information which
may be gathered from the ancient authors, to form a conception of them
which must be very close to the actual truth.
At dawn, on this eventful day, the Greek fleet lay where it had passed
the night, close to Salamis town, probably in the bay to the north of
it. The Persian fleet stretched across the broad eastern entrance of
the strait, in a line running almost due east and west, with Psyttaleia
near or in front of its centre.
From their position the Greeks moved out into the strait, and occupied
that part of it which lay between Salamis town and the Herakleion.
From Plutarch it is learnt that the Herakleion stood where the island
of Salamis is separated from the mainland by a narrow passage. It must
therefore have been on Mount Ægaleos, opposite Salamis town; and the
Greek line was originally formed in the narrow neck of the strait which
exists at that point.
The Persian position is defined by very strong evidence. Not to speak
of that already quoted with regard to the occupation of Psyttaleia,
which occurs in both Herodotus and Æschylus, certain statements of the
latter and of Diodorus render it still more certain. Æschylus describes
how the Persian ships fell foul of one another when they came into the
narrows, a statement which Diodorus makes with still greater precision
when he says that the Persians in their advance at first retained their
order, having plenty of sea-room, but when they came into the strait
they were compelled to withdraw some ships from the line, and fell into
much confusion.
These details show that their position must have been, as already
stated, in the broad part of the strait, just before the narrows begin;
and it will be seen that the strait contracts markedly in breadth so
soon as Kynosura is rounded. #THE GREEK AND PERSIAN ARRAY.# It is
further made clear that they were not in any way round Kynosura, or in
front of Psyttaleia, by the evidence of Æschylus, which shows that the
fleets were not in sight of one another before they moved forward,
though they came in sight of one another very soon after they began to
move.
[Illustration: SALAMIS, LOOKING SOUTH FROM MOUNT ÆGALEOS, WITH THE
ISLAND OF PSYTTALEIA IN THE CENTRE.
1. South-west Coast of Attica.
2. Point near Piræus Harbour.
3. Ægina.
4. Mountaains of Argolis.
5. Kynosura.
[_To face page_ 392.
]
It is unfortunate that Æschylus makes no mention of the positions of
the various contingents in either fleet. Evidence on this point by one
present in the battle would have been of the utmost value. On turning
to Herodotus and Diodorus it is remarkable to find that in so far as
their information overlaps, they are in accord with regard to such
details as they give of the Persian array, but not altogether so with
regard to the order of the Greek line. With respect to the Persian
fleet, they agree in placing the Greek contingent on the left wing,
and the Phœnicians on the right of the line. Diodorus further mentions
that the Cyprians were with the Phœnicians on the right wing, with the
Cilicians, Pamphylians, and Lycians next to them.
In the Greek fleet the Athenians were on the left wing. According
to Herodotus, the Lacedæmonians were on the right; but according to
Diodorus they were on the left, with the Athenians; while the Æginetans
and Megareans were on the right. In this conflict of evidence, it
is almost certain that Herodotus is correct. The fact that the
Lacedæmonian admiral was in command renders it extremely unlikely that
his contingent occupied any but a prominent place in the line; and
certain details of the fight indicate that the Æginetans were in the
immediate neighbourhood of the Athenians. It will thus be seen that the
most prominent contingents on either side were severally opposed to one
another in the battle, the Phœnicians on the Persian right facing the
Athenians on the Greek left, and the Ionian Greeks on the Persian left
facing the Lacedæmonians on the Greek right.
The two fleets seem to have moved forward almost simultaneously. As
the evidence with regard to the nature of their movements is somewhat
complicated, it may be well for the sake of clearness to deal with them
separately.
Before beginning the advance the Persian fleet was drawn up in three
lines; but a totally different formation was adopted when the
movement developed. Describing its appearance as it entered into the
narrow part of the strait, Æschylus speaks of it as coming forward in a
“stream” (ῥεῦμα) which can only refer to some formation in column, or
in something resembling a column. Diodorus supplies the connecting link
between the two formations, when he says that the Persians when they
came into the strait were compelled to withdraw some ships from the
line.
If the chart of the strait at this point be examined it will be seen
that, after passing Psyttaleia and Kynosura, it not only narrows but
turns westward at right angles. The Persian fleet had consequently to
accomplish a difficult manœuvre of a double kind, namely, (1) to reduce
the length of their front; (2) to execute a wheeling movement to the
left, of which their extreme left wing would form the pivot. In so far
as can be judged, what took place is this: their right, and possibly
their centre, having reduced their front, passed through the strait
east of Psyttaleia in some sort of column formation, and then wheeled
to the left, in order to turn the corner of the strait, while their
left wing marked time, as it were, in the strait west of Psyttaleia.
This wing would be hidden from the Greek fleet by the somewhat lofty
rock promontory of Kynosura. But the right wing passing east of
Psyttaleia would come almost immediately into sight of the Greeks, and
would present to them the appearance of the “stream,” which Æschylus
describes.[167]
#THE BATTLE SCENE.#
The scene, as the two great fleets advanced towards one another, must
have been one of the most magnificent that the world has ever beheld.
History can hardly present a parallel of a naval battle on such a
scale as Salamis, and none in which fleets so large have operated
in so comparatively confined a space. More than 2000 years later
the neighbouring Corinthian gulf was destined to be the scene of a
sea-fight which in respect to grandeur and picturesqueness most nearly
compared with Salamis, when Don John of Austria defeated the great
Turkish fleet in those waters which, later on in this very century,
were to be rendered famous by the exploits of the great Athenian
admiral, Phormio. In both these battles East and West met in one
momentous struggle for the command of the Mediterranean—it may perhaps
be said, without exaggeration, for the command of the world; and in
both the East succumbed so completely that the loser never recovered
from his defeat. Impossible as it is fully to realize the scenic effect
of a battle of such ancient date, the records of which are imperfect,
yet the area in which it was fought is so comparatively limited and
so well defined, that the traveller who visits the spot can bring the
scene before his imagination in a way that is impossible in the case
of most of the great fights of ancient history. Would that the
description of it had come down to the modern world from the pen of
him who described the last fight in the great harbour of Syracuse!
It was indeed a theme for that consummate artist in language. The
impression of magnitude which it conveyed to those who were present at
it is evident from the pages of Æschylus, where it is described with
the grand breadth of description due to a battle of giants. But the
historian wants more than he finds therein, and cannot but feel that
Thucydides was born half a century too late.
The evolution which the Persian fleet had to carry out in turning the
corner of the strait would have been difficult under any circumstances.
It was further complicated by the contraction of the sea-room after the
corner was turned, and by the necessity of performing it in face of a
powerful hostile fleet within comparatively short striking-distance.
The result was that the fleet fell into considerable confusion. Both
Æschylus and Diodorus testify to this fact. Diodorus’ account is
peculiarly consistent with the topographical circumstances. He says, as
has been already noticed, that the Persians in their advance at first
retained their order, having plenty of sea-room; but when they came to
the strait, they were compelled to withdraw some ships from the line,
and fell into much confusion.
The two fleets were now advancing rapidly to one another in the
straight channel which runs east from old Salamis town, of which
the breadth is 2000 yards. The actual fairway may be about one mile
in width. How much space in the line was allowed for each trireme
in battle array is not known, but it can hardly have been less than
sixty feet; and, if so, the utmost number of vessels in the front
line of either fleet cannot have exceeded ninety. Both fleets must,
therefore, in this order of advance, have been several lines deep.
There was no room for the employment of sea-tactics other than those
of the most simple kind. The battle must have been, from beginning to
end, a terrific _mêlée_ whose issue would depend on which side could
fight hardest and longest. The circumstances were all in favour of the
smaller fleet. #THE BEGINNING OF THE ENGAGEMENT.# The mere superiority
of the armament of its crews must have gone far to decide the
result, and the superior weight of its individual vessels could not
fail to tell in a combat of this character. With the knowledge born
after the event, it is easy to see that, despite the inferiority of
numbers, the better-armed fleet must have won the day, provided both
fought with equal courage; and the obstinate nature of the battle shows
that, though there may have been cases of cowardice on both sides,
these were the exception and not the rule.
The actual point of contact was, in all probability, north of and
towards the eastern extremity of Kynosura.
From certain details which are given of the fighting, there is strong
reason to suppose that the two fleets, either from accident or from
design, were in somewhat of an _échelon_ formation when the first
contact took place. Æschylus says that the Greek right wing led the
advance, and the remainder came behind. Æschylus also mentions,—and his
evidence on this point is supported by Herodotus,—that a Greek ship
began the battle by attacking a Phœnician vessel. As the Phœnicians
were on the Persian right, this ship must have belonged to the Athenian
contingent, which was on the Greek left; and the only conclusion to be
drawn is that, despite the advanced position of the Greek right, the
first contact took place at the opposite end of their line; in other
words, the Persian right must have been equally in advance of its line.
The wheeling movement, as has been already noticed, had not been a
success; and the Persian vessels which passed through the strait east
of Psyttaleia, and were on the outside of the movement, had got in
front of that part of the fleet which passed through the channel west
of the island, and formed its pivot. It is not difficult to perceive
what happened. This eastern column of vessels had entered the narrow
part of the strait with so extended a front that, when the time came
for the western column to wheel into line with them, it was left with
too little sea-room; confusion resulted, and the advance of the Persian
left wing was delayed. It was no doubt the undue advance of the Persian
right wing which made it possible for the Æginetans later in the
battle to fall upon the flank of the Phœnician contingent, and to deal
the blow which was subsequently regarded as being largely responsible
for the victory won.
Of the picturesque individual details of the fight, but few,
considering its magnitude, have survived; and these are not in all
cases reliable. Yet it is possible, by comparing and collating the
fragmentary accounts of the actual fighting, to form a general idea of
its most striking incidents.
There must have been many interested spectators of the action, Persians
on the mainland and Athenians on Salamis island, whose feelings must
have resembled those with which the Athenian army watched the battle in
the great harbour of Syracuse more than sixty years later.
Not the least interested of these onlookers was the Great King himself.
Surrounded by some of his chief men, he took his seat on the slope
of Mount Ægaleos above the Herakleion, at a point where, as Plutarch
remarks, the strait contracts in width. He must have been stationed
nearly opposite the town of Salamis, among the sparse pinewood which
probably then, as now, covered the slope of the hill.
The Persian fleet seems never to have had the opportunity of recovering
from the confusion into which it had fallen in the course of the
wheeling movement. Plutarch says, moreover, that Themistocles had
reckoned that the early morning wind, which raises somewhat of a sea in
the strait, would have a much greater effect on the Persian vessels,
which stood high in the water, than on the Greek ships. It would tend
to throw them into confusion, and thus expose their sides to the charge
of the hostile ships.[168]
#THE BATTLE.#
Of the form which the confusion took during the battle there is also
a certain amount of evidence. The front ranks of the Persian fleet
seem to have been unduly compressed laterally by the want of sea-room,
and longitudinally by the pressure of the ranks behind them; and the
confusion due to the last of these causes was much increased when the
beaten front ranks were forced back on those in rear. The fleet was,
indeed, too large for the area of operations, and some of the rearmost
ranks apparently, at a period in the battle which is not mentioned,
finding they could take no part in the fighting, backed and retreated
to the broader part of the strait, south of Psyttaleia. The consequence
was, according to Plutarch, that in the actual fighting the Greek fleet
was not outnumbered; and this may well have been the case.
Little is said of the actual mode of attack employed by the Greek
vessels; but, from what is related, it would appear that the Athenians,
at any rate, relying on the structural strength of their ships, sought
to ram the enemy with their bows, or shaved close past them in such
a way as to break the oars on one side, and so render their vessels
unmanageable for the time being; and then made use of the opportunity
to charge them sideways at their weakest point. Boarding must, in many
cases, have been resorted to, for which purpose thirty-six men were
available on the Attic vessels,—eighteen marines, fourteen hoplites,
and four bowmen. It may be conjectured that any superiority which the
Persians possessed in respect to their crews would consist in the
higher efficiency of their bowmen, javelinmen, and such-like. It was,
therefore, greatly to the advantage of the Greeks that the confinement
of the space within which the action was fought rendered it not merely
possible, but necessary, to fight at close quarters. A rather striking
instance of what might have happened in this respect, had the sea-room
been somewhat greater, is related by Herodotus. It occurred
probably towards the end of the battle, when the retreat of many of the
Persian ships had relieved the pressure in the strait. A Samothracian
craft had sunk or waterlogged an Athenian ship, when it was itself
attacked and waterlogged by an Æginetan vessel. Despite its desperate
situation, its crew, which consisted of javelinmen, cleared the decks
of its assailant with their weapons, and took the ship. The whole
incident runs so entirely counter to Herodotus’ marked partiality for
the Athenians, that there is no reason to doubt its genuineness.
The main credit for the victory seems to have been adjudged by the
verdict of contemporaries to the Athenians and Æginetans. Such, at
any rate, is the account of the historian; and the juxtaposition in
the roll of fame of these two Hellenic peoples, who were destined to
play an antagonistic part in the history of the next twenty years,
renders it probable that the verdict of the men of their own time has
been faithfully reported. There is little reason to doubt that their
contingents were next to one another in the Greek line of battle, and
were partners in a brilliant tactical movement against that portion of
the Persian fleet which was regarded as most formidable, the Phœnician
contingent. Herodotus says that while the Athenians pressed hard on
the vessels opposed to them, the Æginetans, presumably on the flank,
assailed these vessels of the Persian fleet as they were driven back.
It is, perhaps, possible to understand what happened on this wing
of the battle. It has been shown that in the course of the advance
the Phœnician contingent on the Persian right must have got in front
of the rest of the line, a mistake which it would be impossible to
correct in a battle fought under circumstances such as those which
prevailed at Salamis. Its flank would then be exposed to attack while
it was assailed in front, and of this the Æginetans seem to have taken
advantage.
It was in the course of this engagement that the Æginetans captured
that vessel of the enemy which had a few weeks before captured their
own scouting vessel on the Thessalian coast.
#THE IONIANS AT SALAMIS.#
Meanwhile the battle in the centre and on the Greek right had
been of a much more even character. It may even be suspected that in
that part the combat was going against the Greeks. The Greek right
was indeed in the same disadvantageous position as the Persian right:
it had advanced in front of the rest of the line, and thus exposed
itself to a flank attack. No details of what actually took place are
extant; but it is evident that the Ionian Greeks who opposed the
Lacedæmonians and other Greek contingents at this part of the line did
not get the worst of it. Herodotus who, as he shows in the account
of the Ionian revolt, had a very low opinion of Ionian courage and
intelligence, was not in the least likely to praise them unless the
praise was notoriously merited. He not merely admits, but says with
some emphasis, that they showed no lack of courage and determination in
the fight. Any effect which Themistocles’ appeal might have had upon
them was certainly not apparent at Salamis. He further remarks that he
knows the names of many of their captains who took Greek vessels, of
whom he will only mention the two Samians, Theomestor, who was made by
the Persians tyrant of Samos for his services, and Phylakos, who was
enrolled on the list of the king’s “benefactors,” and given a grant of
much land. These significant statements make it clear that in the early
part of the battle, at any rate, the Greek right wing had the worst of
the fight. More than that, they suggest a very probable reason for the
somewhat surprising courage and determination with which these Ionians
fought against their kinsmen. Whatever may have been the feelings of
the Ionians in general with regard to their countrymen over sea, their
leaders were attached to the Persians by strong ties of self-interest,
and formed a philo-Medic party in the Greek cities of the Asian coast.
The ruling powers in these cities depended on the support of the
Persian government for the maintenance of their position; and from
their ranks and from those of their followers, in all probability, the
officers, at any rate, of the Ionian contingent were drawn.
The Persian centre also seems to have at first made a stubborn
resistance to the onslaught of the Greeks, and for some time
after the Phœnicians and Cyprians had been defeated and driven back,
the Cilicians, Pamphylians, and Lycians continued to resist, though
assailed by the victorious right wing of the Greeks. But the struggle
was too unequal to last; and they, too, were obliged to retreat.
It is evident that the wave of victory advanced from left to right
along the Greek line, for now the Athenians, probably aided by the
Æginetans, though the latter are not actually mentioned by Diodorus,
joined in the attack on the right wing of the Persian fleet. The fight
cannot have been very prolonged; the Ionian Greeks were obliged to
retire; though, if the silence of history is to be taken as evidence,
they did not suffer irreparable loss either in the battle or in the
retreat. The mere weight of numbers against them rendered further
resistance useless.
The battle must have begun somewhere about seven o’clock in the
morning, for it was after dawn when the Greek fleet put out from the
station it had occupied during the night. It came to an end in the
afternoon, after some seven or eight hours’ fighting, it would seem.
It was presumably in this last battle on the Persian left that
Artemisia, that queen of Halikarnassos whose praise Herodotus has
already sung, performed the remarkable exploit reported by the
historian. There is a somewhat grave irony about the way in which he
tells the tale, as though, in spite of his admiration for this lady,
he were pointing a moral for those who might regard even the bravest
of her sex as rather uncertain allies amid the excitement of a pitched
battle. When the Persian fleet was already in disorder, evidently
towards the close of the fight,[169] an Attic vessel pursued her ship.
As she could not extricate herself in any ordinary fashion, owing to
her friends being in the way, she stood not on ceremony, but made
a way through her friends by purposely sinking a Kalyndian vessel.
#THE MASSACRE ON PSYTTALEIA.# The captain of the Attic ship, unaware
that he had a woman to deal with, naturally supposed that he had made
a mistake, and had been pursuing a friend instead of a foe, and so
allowed the brave but unscrupulous Amazon to escape. He had reason
to regret his mistake; for the Athenians, either because they regarded
her as a unique acquisition, or her action in commanding a ship against
them as a unique piece of impudence, had offered a large reward to any
captain who should capture her. Nor, if the whole tale be true, was
the Athenian captain the most distinguished victim of the deception
caused by her audacity. Xerxes was a spectator of the incident, so
Herodotus says, and imagined that the ship she sank was one of the
enemy’s vessels. As the rest of his fleet had by this time taken to
flight, the incident, by its apparently strong contrast with the bitter
circumstances of the moment, called from him the lament, “My men have
become women, and my women men.”
It is probable that the Greek pursuit was not carried far, if at all,
beyond the channels on either side of Psyttaleia. No information on
the subject is given by any of the historians, but the fact that
the Persian fleet left the troops on Psyttaleia, some of whom were
persons of note, to their fate, indicates that they were not allowed
to retire as far as that point unharassed by the victorious Greeks.
It may be that each contingent considered it another’s business to
rescue these unfortunates, but in any case the two channels must have
been in undisputed possession of the Greeks when Aristides carried out
what cannot have been the least bloody operation in a battle where
the losses on both sides must have been very great. He had, while the
battle was in progress, been stationed on what Herodotus calls “the
promontory of Salamis,” which would seem to mean that his men had lined
the shore of the strait from Salamis town eastward to the extremity of
Kynosura, with a view to rendering assistance to such vessels or their
crews as might be cast up there during the battle. When the strait was
clear of the enemies’ ships, he collected his men, and transported them
in boats to Psyttaleia, to attack the Persian garrison of the island.
The slaughter must have been grim and great. Only those were spared
from whom a heavy ransom might be expected.
No reliable statement survives of the losses in men sustained
by either side. Those of the Persians must have been very large, and
those of the Greeks in a battle of such a nature, and so prolonged,
cannot have been otherwise than severe. Probably the Persian losses
were never even approximately known, and, in the confusion of the time,
those of the Greeks never accurately ascertained. Herodotus says that
many of the Greeks from the disabled vessels escaped by swimming to
Salamis, and that the total loss on the Greek side was not very great;
but the very circumstances of the battle make the latter statement
hardly credible. Among the Persian killed was Ariamnes, the admiral in
command, a son of Darius and brother of Xerxes. He seems to have fallen
early in the fight; many other prominent Persians shared his fate.
Their defeat was not due to cowardice. Herodotus expressly says that
they fought better than at Artemisium.
The losses in ships are stated by Diodorus to have been forty on the
Greek side, while the Persians lost two hundred, not counting those
which were captured with their crews. It is very possible that these
numbers represent something like the truth.
After the battle each of the fleets retired to its temporary base of
operations, the Persian to Phaleron, the Greek to Salamis.
In each of the two passages in which he mentions the retiring places
of the fleets, Herodotus makes incidental statements of considerable
historical importance. He describes the Persian retirement as having
been “to Phaleron, to the protection of their land-army.” Perhaps he
means that this was merely a part of their land-forces, the other
having been despatched, as he has already stated, ◆H. viii. 70, _ad
fin._◆ on the night preceding the battle, on its march to the Isthmus.
But if that be not the case, it would seem as if the march had been
countermanded, and the army brought back in consequence of a change of
plan.
Speaking of the return of the Greek fleet to Salamis, Herodotus makes
it plain that the Greeks were inclined rather to under-estimate than to
over-estimate their success in the battle.
#THE CORINTHIANS AT SALAMIS.#
They expected that the king would make a second attack upon them with
the ships which still remained to him. To those possessed of knowledge
after the event, it may seem strange that the Greeks should ever
have entertained this feeling. It would appear as if they had been
so stunned by the immensity of the struggle in which they had been
engaged, that they were unable rightly to assess the enormous moral
damage they had inflicted on the foe.
The details of the battle which are recoverable at the present day
indicate clearly that to the Athenians and Æginetans the Greeks owed
their victory; and to them indeed their contemporaries awarded the palm.
Of the behaviour of the other individual contingents nothing can be
said to be known. Herodotus does, indeed, relate a story, which he
expressly states to be of Athenian origin, to the effect that the
Corinthians under Adeimantos retired from the Greek line, and began to
make their way to the western strait, but were stopped by a mysterious
messenger, who announced the victory of the Greeks; whereupon the
would-be runaways returned to Salamis. Herodotus evidently places
no credence in the tale; nor need the modern world do so. He says,
moreover, that its truth was denied by all the other Greeks.
If it had any foundation whatever in fact, it may be that the
Corinthian squadron was detached to observe the narrows near the island
of St George with a view to guarding against attack from the rear by
the Persian contingent which was known to be watching the western
strait. As the tale stands, it can only serve as a remarkable example
of the extent to which misrepresentation could be carried in Greece
under the impulse of the bitter enmities of a later time.
A defeat of such magnitude sustained in the presence of Xerxes himself
could not but lead to fierce dissensions among the various contingents
of the Persian fleet. The Phœnicians, that trading people which Persia
had always treated with marked favour at the expense of their rivals,
the Ionian Greeks, had to justify to their master the fact that they
had been the first to retire, whereas the Ionians had resisted to the
last. If Herodotus is to be believed, ◆H. viii. 90; D. xi. 19.◆ they
adopted the bold line of accusing the Greek contingents of cowardice in
the fight. This charge, said to have been made while the fight was in
progress, was immediately refuted by the gallantry of the Samothracian
crew in capturing the Æginetan ship which had disabled their vessel.
The accusers were executed; and, if Diodorus’ story be true, the
Phœnicians were so alarmed at the prospect of what might happen to them
from the angry Xerxes that, after retiring to Phaleron in the
afternoon, they fled in a body under cover of night to the Asian coast.
As, however, no trace of such a detail is found in any other historian,
and their statements are wholly inconsistent with it, it cannot be
regarded as serious history.
It was not, perhaps, until after the war was over that the Greeks
acquired sufficient perspective to gauge aright the full significance
of their victory on this day. It absolutely destroyed the very
foundation of the great strategical plan on which the invasion had
been conducted—the combined action of the fleet and army.[170]
Never, perhaps, has the influence of sea-power been more strikingly
exemplified in warfare than in the total reverse of circumstances which
resulted from Salamis. Up to this time the naval power of Persia had
been supreme in the Ægean and Eastern Mediterranean for many years
past; and the attempt which the Ionians had made to break it at Ladé
had by the completeness of its failure merely served to establish it on
a firmer basis. But from Salamis onward the decline was rapid, and the
Persian navy was never again as an unaided unit formidable in the Ægean.
Salamis was also decisive of the war in which it was fought. Having
lost the command of the sea, the Persians could not possibly maintain,
in a poor country such as Greece, the overwhelming land force with
which they had invaded it. The mere question of supplies rendered the
rapid withdrawal of the major part of it an imperative necessity.
#MARATHON, SALAMIS, AND PLATÆA.# Persia did not, indeed, give up the
struggle, but she was obliged to continue it with a force so
reduced in numbers that the Greeks were able to match it in fighting,
if not in actual numerical strength. Salamis was the turning-point of
the war. Platæa was the consummation of Salamis. After Salamis Southern
Greece was safe. Mardonius might have maintained himself for some time
in the rich lands of Bœotia, he might even have attempted to include
that region within the imperial frontier, but he could not have carried
on a sustained campaign in the poor districts to the south of the line
of Kithæron-Parnes line. The salvation of the North was won at Platæa.
In consideration of the circumstances, is it presumptuous to hazard the
opinion that Sir Edward Creasy was not wholly justified in preferring
Marathon to Salamis as one of the “fifteen decisive battles of the
World”? The decisive battles exemplified in his book are, with the
exception of Marathon, chosen apparently as marking the time at
which the tide of affairs of world-wide moment definitely turned to
an uninterrupted ebb or flow. But they are in nearly every case the
outcome of a chain of events extending, in many instances, over a
series of preceding years. If the first link in the chain is to be
regarded as decisive of the whole series of events, then, perhaps, the
choice of Marathon may be justified; but, on the same principle of
choice, the decisive battles of the world would have in many cases to
be sought for in comparatively obscure engagements. But if, as is the
case with most of the instances Sir Edward Creasy adduces, the supreme
decisive moment in a great situation is to be taken, then Salamis, not
Marathon, is to be chosen in the great Persian war of the first quarter
of the fifth century. The actual records of the time conspicuously fail
to support the view that from Marathon onward the tide of the struggle
with Persia flowed uninterruptedly in favour of the Greeks.
CHAPTER X.
FROM SALAMIS TO PLATÆA.
After the defeat of Salamis, the position of the whole Persian
expedition was one of extreme danger. The command of the sea had been
lost for the time being, and the chances of its recovery were remote.
A fleet which had been so severely handled was not likely to fight so
well on a second occasion, even if it were possible to induce it to
assume once more the offensive. It was infinitely more probable that
the Greeks, who had hitherto acted almost entirely on the defensive,
would now realize that they were in a position to become the attacking
party. The question of the moment seemed to be how the Persian
naval force could make good its retreat without exposing itself to
further, and, it might be, irreparable, disaster. Xerxes, with the
characteristic selfishness of a despot, seems to have concerned himself
with making his own escape secure, and to have merely troubled himself
about that of the fleet in so far as his own safety was dependent
upon it. He had reason to doubt the loyalty of the Ionian contingent.
It had, indeed, fought well in the battle; but the reverse which had
been experienced would inevitably tend to quicken whatever element of
disloyalty it contained. His main anxiety was for the bridge across the
Hellespont.
The account which Herodotus gives of the measures which he took to
give the Greeks the impression that he meditated a second attack, and
to hide his intention to retreat, is of so strange a character that it
has been largely discredited by modern authorities. #♠PERSIAN COUNCIL OF
WAR.# ◆H. viii. 97.◆ “He set to work,” says the historian, “to carry
a mole across to Salamis, and he tied Phœnician merchant-ships
together, to act as pontoons, and as a defence. He further prepared
for battle, as though about to fight a second sea-fight.” These
preparations, so it is said, deceived all his own people save
Mardonius, who, knowing his master well, was not under any illusion as
to his real intentions.[171]
♠ “PERSAIN COUNCIL” replaced with “PERSIAN COUNCIL”
◆H. viii. 100.◆
The evident alarm and despair with which Xerxes regarded the
situation rendered Mardonius uneasy. An adviser whose counsels had
ended in disaster,—and he was mainly responsible for persuading the
king to undertake the great expedition,—might well be anxious as to
the consequences which the failure might have for himself. Whether
Herodotus had any real authority for his account of the advice which
he represents Mardonius to have given Xerxes at this time, may perhaps
be suspected; but the main outlines of it are worth quoting, even if
they only reproduce what some contemporary Greek imagined that advice
to have been. He is represented, in the first place, as seeking to
minimize the disaster by arguing that it had only fallen upon one
branch of the service, and that the land-army was in no wise impaired
in efficiency by what had happened. If he did actually use this
argument, he can only have used it because he thought that it was a
sufficiently good one for the man to whom he was speaking. He had
himself commanded the expedition of 492; and though on a much smaller
scale, that venture had been brought to a premature conclusion by
the storm which wrecked his fleet off Mount Athos. Mardonius was the
last man who ought to have deceived himself as to the significance of
the disaster at Salamis. Two courses, he said, were still open,—either
to march with the whole army against the Peloponnese, or for Xerxes to
withdraw with the major part of the land-forces, and leave him three
hundred thousand men wherewith to complete the conquest of Greece. Such
is the advice as reported. Whether a march on Peloponnese was possible
at this time cannot be said, since the state of the Persian supplies is
not known. In any case, Xerxes had no stomach for such a venture, and
adopted the alternative suggestion, which offered a greater chance of
security to his all-important self. ◆H. viii 102.◆ Moreover, this was
the view of the matter which the astute Artemisia, whom he called into
counsel, put before him.[172]
It must of necessity remain a matter for doubt whether Mardonius ever
gave such advice. The retirement of the fleet to the Asian coast would
give the Greeks the naval command of their side of the Ægean, and, that
being so, the real line of communications was lost, and the alternative
route by land along the North Ægean would be, even if it could be
regarded as effective, liable to be cut by an attack from the sea. On
the other hand, it is possible that he reckoned that he might maintain
himself for some months, even for a year, on the food-resources of
Thessaly and Bœotia; and in that space of time much might happen to
reverse the ill-fortune of the moment. Besides all this, even if the
conquest of Greece as a whole could not be effected, there did remain
the possibility of advancing the Persian frontier south from Macedonia
even as far as Kithæron, and of robbing Greece of her richest lands.
That the Greeks feared something of this kind is shown by their
subsequent advance to Platæa. That move was so inconsistent with the
whole plan on which they had conducted the campaign on land, that it
can only be accounted for on the hypothesis that they were actuated by
some such fear.
#THEMISTOCLES AFTER SALAMIS.#
But there were also political considerations of the very highest
importance which could not but affect the decision of Xerxes and the
Persian authorities. The acknowledgment of complete failure such as
would have been apparent had the whole force withdrawn _en masse_ to
Asia, must have shaken to its very foundations the great composite
empire which was held together by the strong hand and the prestige of
success. But could Xerxes on his return report that a force had been
left to complete the reduction of Greece, the magnitude of the disaster
which had fallen upon him might be concealed, until, at any rate, he
was himself in a position to take measures to provide against any
possible commotion which might be caused when the varied population of
the empire came to realize the extent of the failure which had resulted
in an expedition in which it had put forth all its strength. Whatever
the advice of Mardonius may have been, these considerations must have
been present with Xerxes and his council when they met to discuss the
course to be adopted in view of what had happened at Salamis. Herodotus
shows, from the words he attributes to Artemisia, that he was not
oblivious to the wider possibilities of the situation.[173]
His account of the events which immediately resulted from Xerxes’
decision is complicated historically by the reappearance of
Themistocles on the stage of his history. The historian does not
attempt to conceal the prominence of that great man at Salamis; but in
the description of the actual fighting his name is only incidentally
mentioned, and personal details of him are conspicuous by their
absence. But the tradition of the events succeeding the battle
contained several ugly stories, some of them, indeed, capable of
diverse interpretation, but all of them capable of being interpreted
to Themistocles’ discredit. These the historian has inserted in his
narrative, with the result that he has introduced into it an element
which must excite suspicion, and which makes it very difficult to
disentangle that in it which is reliable from that which is not so.
◆H. viii. 107.◆
On the very night, it is said, after Xerxes’ decision had been
taken, the commanders of the Persian fleet put out with all speed for
the Hellespont, with orders to guard the bridge across the strait
for the king’s return. It is not, perhaps, easy to see why so much
store should be set by the bridge. The main point, it might have been
imagined, would be to defend the Hellespont. Xerxes’ personal safety
and his passage of the strait would in that case have been equally well
secured.
One incident of the voyage is described which is intended to
demonstrate the nervous state to which the Persian seamen had been
reduced by their defeat. Near a place called Zoster, which is supposed
to have been situated on the Attic coast the Persians mistook certain
rocks for enemies’ ships, and fled “a long distance” before they
discovered their mistake. The object of the story is evidently to
emphasize the dramatic contrast between the confidence which preceded
the battle and the depression which succeeded it.
The next day was well advanced before the Greeks discovered the flight.
Seeing the land-army in its old position, they supposed the Persian
fleet to be still at Phaleron, which bay would be hidden from their
position in the strait by the high promontory of the Piræus; and,
under this impression, they prepared to meet a second attack. It is
remarkable, but quite evident, that the Greeks under-estimated alike
the moral and material damage they had inflicted on the enemy. They
show none of the jubilation which follows a decisive victory; and it
must be concluded that the fight was more fierce and more stubborn
on the part of the vanquished than any Greek historian has described
it to have been. Then, says Herodotus, when they discovered that the
fleet had sailed away, they started in pursuit, and proceeded as
far as Andros without catching sight of it. This is not surprising,
considering that it had, in all probability, twelve hours’ start. The
statement that the fleet went as far as Andros, or even ventured to
leave Salamis at this time, has been regarded with suspicion by some
historians. #QUESTIONS OF THE HELLESPONT BRIDGE.# It is argued that
with the land-army of the Persians still in Attica, the Greeks could
not have ventured to withdraw their fleet from the strait, and
have exposed the refugees on Salamis to attack.
But is it necessarily to be assumed that the Greeks did not leave any
vessels behind to provide against such a contingency? It may even be
doubted whether, after the withdrawal of the fleet, the Persian army
had any means whatever at its disposal for the passage of the strait.
The short voyage to Andros was, no doubt, of the nature of a
reconnaissance. It was manifestly important to know whether the enemy’s
ships had definitely departed from Greek waters.
◆H. viii. 108.◆
On arriving at Andros a Council of War was held as to the plan of
operations for the immediate future. Themistocles’ view was that the
pursuit should be continued, and that the bridge over the Hellespont
should be destroyed. Eurybiades urged, on the other hand, that if the
Persian army were thus cut off from its sole avenue of retreat, it
must remain in Europe, and would be compelled to develop a policy of
great activity for the mere purpose of obtaining supplies. The result
of this, so he thought, would be the gradual subjection of the land,
and the destruction of the annual produce of Greece. He therefore urged
that the way of escape be left open. With him, as might be expected,
the other Peloponnesian commanders agreed.
Themistocles, finding he could not prevail upon the Greeks as a body to
adopt his plan, then addressed the Athenians, who were, so Herodotus
says, eager to sail at once to the Hellespont, and ready to take the
risk of so doing upon their own shoulders. His address is given in what
profess to be the actual words of it. So far from urging them to follow
out their desires, he emphatically dissuades them from this course;
thus, apparently, completely reversing the advice he had first given.
The change of counsel is plainly explicable on the ground that what he
considered to be the best course for the fleet as a whole would, he
thought, be risky and unadvisable for half the fleet to attempt But
that is very far from being the interpretation which Herodotus puts
upon it. ◆H. viii. 109.◆ “This,” says the historian, “he said with the
intention of establishing a claim upon the Persian, in order that, in
case any disaster should befall him at the hands of the Athenians,
he might have a place of retreat. ◆H. viii. 110.◆ In saying this,
Themistocles dissembled, but the Athenians believed him: for inasmuch
as he had, previous to the recent events, been regarded as a clever
man, and his cleverness and wisdom had been clearly confirmed by what
had lately happened, they were ready to listen to what he said.”
There can be little doubt that this tale is part of that unveracious
Themistocles legend which Herodotus has woven into those traditions of
the great war which he has followed in composing his history. Never is
the animus against Themistocles more clearly shown; and in no instance
is the absolute improbability of any single part of the legend more
strikingly displayed. The tale is refuted by its context. Before
starting for Andros, the Greeks had been deceived as to the movements
of the Persian fleet, by observing the land-army in its original
position. And yet, arrived at Andros, Themistocles is represented as
actually proposing to cross the Ægean and cut off the retreat of an
army whose retreat had not begun, and whose intention to retreat could
not, if the story is to stand as it is written, have been known to
him. It is inconceivable that any sane commander could possibly have
advised the Greeks to attempt operations on the Asian coast at this
stage of the war.[174] Again, the object proposed was manifestly futile.
What good could have been attained by breaking down the bridge, had
not a sufficient force been left behind to maintain the command of the
Hellespont against the Persian fleet? Could not a strait no broader
than many parts of the lower Danube have been easily crossed by means
of ship and boat transport? If the Greek fleet were once entangled in
that region, could the possibility the Persian fleet or of part of it
doubling back to the European coast be ignored? #THE “THEMISTOCLES”
TRADITION.# Above all, did the Greek fleet know whither the enemy
had gone? A very few hours’ start would have taken them far out of
sight. They had had that start; and all that the Greeks at Andros could
have known with certainty was that there were no ships between that
place and Piræus.
It cannot be doubted that this passage in Herodotus is one of a series
of excerpts from a history of Themistocles composed by a hostile
political party. The tale of the Council at Andros merely serves the
purpose of a peg whereon to found the charge of trickery or treachery
which immediately follows it. The verisimilitude of the story is to be
further supported by knowledge after the event. Themistocles did in
after-time take refuge with the Persians. Was he, however, likely at
the very crowning moment of his life to have foreseen the eventuality
of his being obliged to do so?
The story is so corrupt that it is most difficult to select from it
the element of truth which it may contain. It is possible that a
reconnaissance was made as far as Andros, and that it was decided
to go no farther. It is in the highest degree doubtful whether the
tale of Themistocles’ communication with Xerxes at this time had any
real foundation. The proposal to break down the bridge has all the
appearance of a _rechauffé_ served up with a new sauce, of the story
which connected the hero of the last great battle, Marathon, with the
proposal to break the Danube bridge during Darius’ Scythian expedition.
It has been suggested that he gave the information in all honesty,
because he wished to get Xerxes and his army out of the way. No doubt
he and every other Greek did entertain that wish; but it is impossible
to see how the message, in the form in which it was sent, could further
its fulfilment. ◆H. viii. 110.◆ The last words of the message, “Now
depart at your leisure,” singularly fail to accord with the conjectural
explanation of Themistocles’ alleged conduct. There is, at the same
time, every possibility that Themistocles did, after the retreat of
the land-army had definitely begun, urge the advisability of offensive
operations on the Asian coast at some period not long after
the battle; and it is probable that such operations would have been
eminently effective. But in this Themistocles legend these proposals
have been purposely antedated, in order to adduce them as evidence
of the truth of Themistocles’ suspicious communications with Xerxes,
before the latter started on his return journey.
It is quite possible, too, that the rejection of these proposals led
to Themistocles’ resignation of the command of the Athenian fleet. It
is difficult to account for it in any other way. High as party feeling
ran at Athens, the Athenian citizen showed a distinct preference for
entrusting his life amid the chances and changes of war to men of
known capacity, and the Strategia was less affected by the storms of
political contention than the other high departments of government.
Tacked on to this last tale is the story of the siege of Andros. The
Greek fleet, it is said, after renouncing all idea of further pursuit,
laid siege to Andros; “For the Andrians first among the islanders
refused to pay money on Themistocles’ demand; and when Themistocles put
forward the argument that the Athenians had come, having with them two
great gods, Persuasion and Force, so that they would certainly have
to pay, they answered that Athens was naturally great and prosperous,
being blest with such excellent gods, but, as far as the Andrians were
concerned, their land was poor as poor could be, and two unprofitable
gods, Poverty and Inability, left not their island, but ever abode
there; and being cursed with these gods, they were not going to pay the
money; for never could even the power of Athens be more powerful than
their own inability.” So the siege began.
Themistocles’ demands were not confined to Andros. Large sums were
extorted, under threat of siege, from the islanders, of whom the
Karystians and Parians are named, because they had medized in the
recent war.
The whole language of the story suggests in the plainest possible way
that Themistocles exacted these contributions for his own benefit.
#RETREAT OF THE PERSIAN ARMY.# That such demands were made is
no doubt the case. The bitterness of the feeling against the medized
Greeks might well suggest that, as a punishment for their crime in
taking up arms against their fellow-countrymen, they should be forced
to contribute to the expenses of the defender of that which they had
attacked; but to represent Themistocles as employing this fleet for his
own selfish ends is plainly a colouring given to the story by the same
hand that invented the previous tale of his relations with Xerxes.
Whatever may be the origin of the Themistocles legend in Herodotus
taken as a whole, this particular section of it was almost certainly
the creation of the aristocratic party, which was, be it said to its
credit, the friend in after days of the subject allies, and therefore,
apart from other political considerations of a more general kind,
not likely to depict in a favourable light the first instance of the
imposition of the island tribute, nor to deal sparingly with the
man who might, with some show of plausibility, be regarded as its
originator.
Another important question which suggests itself is whether this demand
on Andros and these exactions from Karystos and Paros were made at this
time, within a few days of Salamis. It is extremely unlikely that the
Greek fleet, with only half of the danger at home averted, should have
ventured at this moment to spend time over the siege of one of the
island towns. The whole incident of the exactions looks as if it ought
to be attributed to a somewhat later date.
◆H. viii. 113.◆
The retreat of the Persian army began a few days after the naval
battle. Mardonius accompanied it because, so Herodotus says, he wished
to escort the king. The campaigning season also was far advanced, and
he thought it would be better to winter in Thessaly. His real motive
in retiring so far north,—a motive Herodotus could hardly appreciate,
even if he ever heard it mentioned,—would be to shorten the line of
communications, especially for commissariat purposes. He had now no
fleet upon which to depend. Moreover, Thessaly was a rich country,
whose local supplies would go far towards satisfying the temporary
wants of his army. There he selected the men who were to remain
with him for the next year’s campaign. He seems to have chosen the best
troops in the huge and motley host, Persians, Medes, Sakæ, Bactrians
and Indians; and Xerxes made no objection. And then the rest of the
helpless throng departed on its long march round the North Ægean, to
carry to Asia a terrible tale of suffering of which but few details
have survived in the Greek historians. According to Herodotus, three
hundred thousand men remained with Mardonius. It is commonly supposed
that this number is largely exaggerated; but unless there is a
proportionate exaggeration in the numbers of the Greek army present at
Platæa, the force which the Persians opposed to them there can hardly
have been less than two hundred and fifty thousand in number. Mardonius
probably retained with him nearly the whole of the really effective
land-force of the original expedition.
◆H. viii. 115.◆
That part of the army which continued its retreat from Thessaly took
forty-five days to reach the Hellespont. The misery of that time must
have been unspeakable, and but few out of the many ever set foot
again on Asian soil. The realities of a six weeks’ march of four
hundred miles, in the case of a large force wholly unprovided with
commissariat, must have been horrible beyond description. Starving
themselves, they spread famine by their ravages wherever they went. In
many places no food was obtainable, and then they ate the very grass
by the way and the leaves of the trees. Dysentery was the inevitable
result. The sick who fell by the road were left to the care of the
natives; and, knowing the nature of those wild Thracian tribes of
the North Ægean, it is not difficult to imagine that their fate must
have been pitiable in the extreme. At last the survivors reached the
Hellespont, to find that the bridge had been carried away in a storm;
but they were transported to Abydos in boats. Not even then were their
misfortunes over. Many of the starving multitude perished from giving
undue satisfaction to their ravenous hunger.
◆H. viii. 119.◆
Herodotus, though he mentions two accounts of the matter, is of opinion
that Xerxes accompanied the army all through its retreat. #AN INTERVAL
IN THE WAR.# He rejects a tale to the effect that on arriving
at Eion, at the mouth of the Strymon, the king went the rest of the
way by sea on a Phœnician ship, and was only saved from perishing in
a northern gale by the devotion of certain Persians who accompanied
him, and who sacrificed themselves in order to lighten the ship. Apart
from the tale of devotion, the rejected version is manifestly the more
probable. Not to speak of the horrors of the land-march, the king’s
personal safety may well have been imperilled in the midst of an army
which had undergone and was undergoing the sufferings of his. To
Hydarnes was committed the conduct of the remainder of the retreat.
◆H. viii. 121.◆
The siege of Andros turned out a failure. Karystos was attacked and its
territory ravaged; and then a return was made to Salamis. It is evident
that the Greeks themselves were at this time under the impression that
the war in Europe was over, in so far as they were concerned; and
eagerness of the Athenian section to carry the war into Asia, which
Herodotus has antedated, may be ascribed to this time. The news that
Mardonius had remained in Thessaly, with evident intent to renew the
war next year, can hardly have reached Athens until several weeks at
earliest from the time at which the retreat began.
Under this mistaken impression they began to wind up the skein of past
events, and after their patriotic victory to discuss who had deserved
best of their common fatherland. The gods had been very good to them,
much better, perhaps, than they themselves realized; and it was to them
that their remembrance first turned. To Delphi was dedicated a tenth of
the spoils. ◆H. viii. 123.◆ After dividing the rest of the plunder, the
Greeks sailed to the Isthmus to decide by vote who of all of them had
rendered the greatest services to his country in the recent war. The
result was unfortunate. Each general having two votes gave the first
to himself, and the majority gave the second to Themistocles. Under
the circumstances they thought it best to forego the decision; and the
various contingents departed home to their cities.
In spite of this the admiration of Themistocles burst forth, and
that in a most unexpected quarter. He went to Sparta, where such honour
was paid him as never had been previously paid to any foreigner, and
never was again paid up to Herodotus’ own day.
There are certain elements in the political situation at this
time which make it possible that party feeling ran high among the
Athenians during the period which now ensued. ◆Plat. Them. [Arist.]
Athen. Pol.◆ The Areopagus, which still continued to represent all
that was exclusively aristocratic in Athens and Attica, had played
a considerable part in the measures which had been taken for the
public safety; and if the recently discovered Polity of Athens,
which is attributed to Aristotle, is to be believed, it had gained
considerable reputation thereby. On the other hand, the man of the
hour was Themistocles; and he led political interests directly opposed
to those which the venerable council represented. It may be that
Themistocles’ resignation of the Strategia was not wholly unconnected
with these struggles. He does not appear in history as a man likely
to under-estimate his own personal worth; and the discovery that, in
the turmoil of party strife, the world generally seemed to set a lower
value upon it, may have given bitter offence to his pride. Herodotus
gives no detail of these political events; ◆H. viii. 125.◆ though his
introduction to a story which he evidently inserts because it contained
such a _bon-mot_ as he dearly loved, shows that an attack was made on
Themistocles immediately after his return from Sparta. Timodemos of
Aphidnæ was the name of the assailant. He reproached Themistocles with
having taken to himself an honour due to his country; and, apparently,
thinking the remark an effective one, repeated it on more than one
occasion.[175] Herodotus, who never discovered a lack of ready wit to
be one of Themistocles’ defects, takes evident pleasure in recording
the crushing retort: “The thing stands thus,” said he; “had I been from
Belbina, I should not have been thus honoured by the Spartans, nor
would you have been, good sir, even had you been from Athens.”
#THE WAR IN SICILY.#
This is the last of the series of events in Greece which can be
attributed to the year 480, but before proceeding to recount the
history of the following year, it is necessary to recur briefly to
what had meanwhile taken place in Sicily. The brevity of the reference
is not due to the unimportance of the events themselves, but to the
meagreness of the surviving records of them. Herodotus dismisses the
subject in a few words; and the scheme of history which Diodorus had
proposed to himself rendered it impossible for him to devote much space
to them, despite the fact that this year was a most decisive one for
the history of his native land.
After the departure of the Spartan and Athenian ambassadors, Gelo of
Syracuse had been left alone to face that great storm which Persia
had stirred up in the West with the evident intention of preventing
the Sicilian and Italian Greek from taking part in the defence of the
mother country. It was more than fortunate for the Sicilians that at
this most critical moment of their history, such power as they could
put forward was under the control of one strong hand. The tyrant, or
tyrant city, was indeed at all times in Sicilian history necessary to
the salvation of the Greeks, face to face as they were with the great
Carthaginian power in the west of the island, supported by a central
base but a few miles distant across a narrow sea.
There is no question that the Carthaginian preparations were on a
very large scale, ◆Diod. xi 20.◆ though the numbers given by Diodorus
are certainly exaggerated. In her struggle with Rome, more than two
centuries later, Carthage, though in all probability more powerful
than she was in 480, could not muster aught resembling the strength
which the Sicilian historian attributes to her on this occasion. He
states the number of the land forces to have been 300,000. The fleet,
he says, consisted of 2000 warships, together with 3000 transports. It
is manifestly useless to attempt what, in the absence of independent
records, can be no more than a guess as to the actual numbers. All that
can be with safety assumed is that they were very large. The name of
the commander was Hamilcar.
The gods of the winds were hardly less kind to the Greeks of Sicily
than they were to their fellow-countrymen at home. A storm
overtook the expedition in the Libyan sea, and the vessels conveying
the horses and chariots were lost. Hamilcar, however, conducted the
remainder in safety to Panormos. He had no anxiety as to the result now
that he had safely transported the bulk of his forces across the sea.
Doubtless he reckoned on having to deal with a Sicily such as Sicily
had been before the recent rise of Gelo’s power, in which the great
force at his disposal would have been able to crush the Greek cities in
detail.
From Panormos, after repairing, in so far as possible, the damage
suffered in the storm, he marched his army along the coast to Himera,
the fleet keeping in touch with it meanwhile. His method of advance
was consequently similar to that adopted by the Persians in their
march round the Ægean. Arrived at Himera, he formed two camps, one
for the army and one for the fleet. The arrangement of these camps is
interesting, as showing that in the west, as in the east, the Greeks
had to deal with a foe which, whatever his defects, was both capable
and experienced in the organization of large expeditions over sea. The
warships were drawn up on shore and surrounded by a stockade and deep
ditch. The other camp was contiguous to the naval one, but ran inland
to the summit of the neighbouring heights, to the west of the city of
Himera, and facing it. Hamilcar thus secured his communications with
his commissariat base,—the fleet. The provisions which he had brought
with him he landed, and then despatched the empty transports to Libya
and Sardinia to fetch a further supply. His plan was evidently not
to attempt to assault the town on all sides. The loss of his cavalry
would make it difficult for him to advance far from his sea-base; and,
besides, he had to expect an attack from a relieving force. Having
completed the fortification of his position, he took some of the best
of his soldiers and advanced against the town, whose garrison came
out to meet him, afraid, no doubt, of his establishing siege works in
the immediate neighbourhood of their wall. It had, however, to retire
with severe loss, a disaster which brought the Himerans to a state of
despair. #GELO MARCHES TO RESCUE HIMERA.# But even thus early in
the campaign the town was not wholly dependent on its own resources.
Thero, tyrant of Akragas, who was content to play a subordinate part to
Gelo in Sicilian politics, was either present in it, or,—for Diodorus’
language is capable of two interpretations,—in its neighbourhood, with
a force whose numbers are not mentioned. Alarmed at the situation, and
evidently not in sufficient strength to take the offensive against
the Carthaginians, he sent an urgent message to Gelo to come with all
speed. Gelo was ready, and the fact of his being so suggests that the
defence against the invader was being conducted on a definite plan.
Syracuse had evidently been chosen as the base of operations. Its
communications with southern Sicily are both shorter and more easy
than with the north. If the attack took place on the south, which was
probably known to be unlikely, the central force at Syracuse would be
within striking distance. It would seem, therefore, that Thero’s corps
had been sent from the south to the north, where the attack was more
likely to be made, to act as an army of observation, and to hold the
enemy until Gelo could appear with the main army. The plan was a sound
one.
◆Diod. xi. 21.◆
The army with which Gelo started from Syracuse is stated to have
numbered 50,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry. He made a rapid march, and
his arrival infused new courage into the Himerans. He did not enter the
city, but fortified a camp of his own outside it, and started active
operations by sending out all the cavalry to cut off Carthaginian
stragglers. Hamilcar must have been at this moment in a position of
great disadvantage, owing to the loss of his horses in the storm. The
number of the enemy captured by this raid of cavalry is stated to have
been 10,000; it appears, in any case, to have been large.
But Gelo had no idea of confining himself to a passive defence of
the place, knowing, in all probability, that the enemy might expect
reinforcements, whereas the Siciliot forces present at Himera
represented the utmost effort of which Sicily was capable. The Himerans
had walled up their city gates. He caused them to be opened once more,
and infused a spirit of cheerful confidence into the whole Greek
army. In all likelihood this change of feeling was largely due to
the comparative inactivity to which Hamilcar was reduced in face of
the large force of Syracusan cavalry against which, owing to his own
loss, he had not any similar force to match. Something of the kind
is indicated by the fact that he sent a message to Selinus, urgently
demanding assistance in this arm. Unluckily for him, the return
messenger announcing its despatch fell into the hands of Gelo’s men.
That able commander had been for some time devising plans by which he
might not merely defeat, but utterly destroy, the invading army. The
intercepting of this message suggested to him a means of doing so. He
had apparently already made up his mind that an attack on the naval
camp, and the destruction of the ships within it, must be part of his
programme. The disclosure made by the message that the Carthaginians
were expecting cavalry reinforcements suggested to him the design of
substituting cavalry of his own for the looked-for horsemen of Selinus,
so as to obtain access to the naval stockade. It was a bold plan, but
it was entirely successful. Not the least fortunate circumstance about
the matter was that on the very day on which the cavalry were expected
Hamilcar was going to offer a great sacrifice; and this was apparently
known to Gelo. The Syracusan horsemen were sent under cover of night,
and after making a circuit,—the Greek camp being probably east of the
town,—arrived at the naval camp from the western side just about dawn,
and were admitted by the guards under the impression that they were the
Selinuntian horse. Once inside the stockade, they proceeded immediately
to kill Hamilcar and to set fire to the ships.
But this was only part of the whole plan. Watchers had been placed
upon the heights, with orders to announce by signal the arrival of
the cavalry within the stockade. On receiving the signal, Gelo, with
the whole of the rest of his army, began an assault on the other
Carthaginian camp, which was, as has been seen, situated on the heights
above the naval encampment. #THE BATTLE OF HIMERA.# The Carthaginian
commanders, unaware at first of what had been going on below them, led
out their men to meet this attack, and for some time the battle
was stubborn and bloody, both sides fighting with great bravery. The
increase of the conflagration in the camp below, however, at last
attracted their notice, and the arrival of a message announcing the
death of Hamilcar completed the dismay of the Carthaginians and fired
the courage of the Greeks. The former gave way, pursued by the Greeks,
to whom orders were given to take no prisoners. Though the slaughter
was a terrible one, it is hardly possible to accept Diodorus’ statement
that one hundred and fifty thousand perished. Some of the survivors
fled to a bare height, where they defied all direct attack; but they
were compelled in the end to capitulate, owing to there being no water
obtainable on the position.
It was a brilliant and crushing victory for the Sicilian Greeks, so
complete and so lasting in its results, that it marked the beginning of
an era of peace and prosperity destined to last for many years.
Diodorus, with a pardonable pride in the exploits of his
fellow-countrymen, draws a comparison between the victory at Himera and
that which the Greeks won at Platæa in the following year. There is
one important point of contrast which he does not mention, but which
will be appreciated by those who are acquainted with the stories of
those two great battles. The resistance which the Carthaginian troops
offered to the Greek hoplite in close fighting was evidently much
more stubborn than that offered by the Persian infantry. It was not
a question of courage; it was not a question of physique. In these
two respects the Persian was probably superior to the Greek, and not
inferior to any contemporary race. The difference was in panoply. The
African and Spaniard wore defensive armour, such as the Oriental never
learnt to use because the climate of the lands wherein his campaigns
were mostly fought rendered the burden of the weight of it too grievous
to be borne. The resistance offered to the Eastern conqueror took the
form of legions of cavalry and mobile bodies of light-armed infantry,
and to meet them he had to employ forces of a similar kind. Against
such, in a land of infinite distances like Western Asia, an
army of hoplites might, if the enemy adopted tactics suitable to the
nature of his force and to the nature of the country, be reduced to
impotence, if not brought to destruction. The campaigns of Alexander
are supposed to have proved the opposite to be the case. Those who take
that view of them seem to forget that the enemy opposed to him adopted
tactics wholly unsuited to the nature of their army, and fought the
very pitched battles which they should have scrupulously avoided. Had
the Persians in that war employed the tactics which three centuries
later led to Carrhæ, the campaigns of Alexander might have ended in
the neighbourhood of the Amanus. The military history of the East and
West in the centuries preceding the Christian era is ruled by one
great limitation. East could not gain any decisive advantage over West
in the West, nor West over East in the East, unless the enemy made a
fundamental error in tactics.
The resources of the East in light cavalry were out of all proportion
to any number of this arm which the West could, even with the utmost
effort, put into the field; and such a force, properly employed, must
have always made the immense plains of the Euphrates or of Media
untraversable to a Western army. In like manner, against the heavy
infantry of the West, accompanied by a proper quota of light-armed
troops, the light infantry of the East were helpless in regions where
it could not be supported by its cavalry; and west of Taurus, such
regions were the rule and not the exception. The eastern Taurus was,
indeed, the military frontier between East and West.
This generalization may appear to be somewhat wide; but the results of
every single battle in which East and West came into conflict support
it. There are no exceptions. Such cases as appear to be so afford the
strongest evidence of the truth of it: in every one of them the loser
committed some glaring tactical error which robbed him of the essential
advantages which the very nature of things afforded him.
#GELO MAKES PEACE WITH CARTHAGE.#
As a pure example of the military art, Himera did more credit to
the victors than did Platæa. It was won by reason of a well-devised
plan; Platæa, in spite of an ill-devised one. In its results it was
hardly less decisive, though these results were not of a character
to attract the attention of the modern world so forcibly as the
after-effects of Platæa.
Its actual date in 480 is uncertain. Diodorus assigns it to the same
day as Thermopylæ. Unfortunately, the historians of this period display
so marked a tendency to discover such coincidences of date that any
statement of this kind cannot be regarded as reliable.
◆Diod. xi. 24.◆
Of all the great expedition, only twenty warships escaped from
Himera, and these, over-laden with fugitives, perished in a storm on
the way home. The news of the disaster was carried to Carthage by a
few survivors who managed to reach the coast in a small boat. The
consternation which it excited was naturally terrible; and for some
time the Carthaginians lived in daily expectation of the appearance of
Gelo’s fleet on the African coast.
In order, if possible, to ward off the fatal catastrophe which,
under the circumstances, must have resulted from such an invasion,
ambassadors were despatched to Syracuse with all speed to make the best
terms they could. In point of fact, the alarm on this particular score
was groundless. Gelo seems to have been content to leave well alone,
and to reap the fruits of his victory in Sicily, without attempting
conquest over-sea. It is obvious that, had he been otherwise inclined,
the history of the world might have been changed by the destruction or
permanent crippling of the Carthaginian power.
The disposal of the large number of prisoners which had been taken
was first provided for. They were distributed among the Sicilian
towns. Akragas got more than her due share, because the fugitives
from Himera, fleeing inland to the mountains, had ultimately arrived
in the territory of that city, where they were captured in large
numbers. The magnificence of the temples and public works of that
great town was largely due to the employment of these prisoners on
their construction.[176] That page of history which records
Gelo’s reception of the Carthaginian embassy is obscure. The facts
are sufficiently plain. He demanded extraordinarily moderate terms:
a war subsidy of two thousand talents of silver, and the expenses of
the construction of two temples. But why such moderation was observed
by him at a time when he could without doubt have brought about the
withdrawal of all the Punic settlements in Sicily, is not explained.
Nor, in the silence of history, can any adequate motive for his action
be suggested, unless he took the view that he would best secure a
lasting peace by such a policy. The Carthaginians attributed his
treatment of them to the influence of his wife Demarete; and it is
recorded to the credit of a people whose good points are not, from the
force of circumstances, brought into prominence in Greek and Latin
history, that they showed their gratitude to her by the free gift of
one hundred talents of gold. Gelo, having exhausted sentiment in the
late negotiations, exercised the persuasion of a husband, ◆Head. Hist.
Num sub Syracuse.◆ and appropriated the treasure to the establishment
of that magnificent silver coinage which has excited the admiration of
later ages.
Thus ended this brief but important chapter in Sicilian history. The
Greek of Greece sought to ignore its significance; his posterity but
half remembered it; and the great historian of the latter half of
the century accepted the maimed tradition as he found it. But to the
historical inquirer of the present day, who has all the evidence before
him, this episode must appear not the least glorious part of the great
struggle which saved western civilization.
◆H. viii. 126.◆
Among the troops who shared in the retreat of Xerxes’ army to the
Hellespont, was a body of sixty thousand men selected from those which
Mardonius had chosen. They were under the command of Artabazos, about
whom and whose family Herodotus seems to have had special facilities
for acquiring information. #ARTABAZOS BESIEGES POTIDÆA.# It may be
suspected that this intimacy was due to the successive tenure in
after-time of the Daskylian satrapy in Northen Asia Minor by
Artabazos, his son, and grandson. The reason for his accompanying
the march to the Hellespont was, so Herodotus says, that he might
escort the king. It is more probable that the main motive lay in the
organization of the new main line of communications along the North
Ægean, with reference especially to commissariat. On his return
from the Hellespont, he found the line threatened at one point by a
rising against the Persian power, which had broken out in Pallene,
the westernmost of the peninsulas of Chalkidike, and in the country
immediately north of it, about the town of Olynthos. The desperate
state of the king’s army in its passage by their territory had
evidently given the citizens of this region the idea that the days of
the Persian dominion in Europe were numbered, and that thus they might
with safety throw off the yoke without further delay. The insurrection,
though confined to this small region, threatened what was now the
sole line of communications. It was imperative to crush it forthwith.
This Artabazos set to work to do in the course of his return march to
Thessaly. He laid siege to Potidæa, the chief town of Pallene, which
stood on the narrow isthmus which connected the peninsula with the
mainland, and, having walls from sea to sea, prevented all access
to the peninsula itself to any force unaccompanied by a fleet. Its
position was consequently one of great strength. Olynthos was by no
means so strongly placed, but was of still greater importance to
Artabazos, as more directly blocking the great highway from Asia. This
latter town he took apparently without much trouble, and massacred its
Bottiæan inhabitants at a lake hard by. He handed over the place to the
Chalkidian Greeks, under the command of a native of Torone.
He then proceeded to blockade Potidæa on the side of the mainland,
that towards the peninsula being inaccessible to him. The siege was
marked by one of those attempted acts of treachery which too often blot
the records of Greek courage. The commander of the contingent from
one of the Pallenian towns, Skione, entered into communication with
the Persian by means of written messages concealed in the feathers
of an arrow which was shot to a place previously agreed upon.
Unfortunately for the success of the plan, Artabazos on one occasion
missed the mark, and hit one of the besieged in the shoulder. His
friends gathering round him discovered the writing wrapped round the
shaft, and carried it to the generals. The Skionian commander was,
however, spared for the time being, lest the stigma of treachery should
attach to his fellow-citizens.
The siege had lasted three months when an extraordinary ebb of the sea
took place, rendering it possible for the besiegers to make their way
on either side of the town towards Pallene. This phenomenon was not
rare at Potidæa, so Herodotus says, but on this occasion it occurred on
a larger scale than usual. It was probably due to one of those volcanic
disturbances for which the Ægean has been ever noted. Had the Persians
taken immediate advantage of the opportunity thus offered, they might
have got into the town, but, probably distrusting the nature of what
must have seemed to them a very extraordinary occurrence, they were
late in venturing upon the passage, and the returning flow came upon
them when but two-thirds of the way across. Those who could not swim
were drowned, and those who could were destroyed by the garrison, who
put out in boats for that purpose. How many lives were lost history
does not say, but the disaster was sufficiently great to make Artabazos
throw up the siege. The capture of Olynthos had made the road fairly
secure.
◆H. viii. 130.◆
After its hurried retreat from the European shore the Persian fleet
had made its way to the Hellespont, where it had awaited the arrival
of the retreating army, and had ferried it over to Asia. Nothing could
show more clearly the futility of the alleged proposal of Themistocles
to break down the Hellespont bridge. From Abydos it sailed to Kyme,
where part of it wintered, while the remainder proceeded to Samos.
On the appearance of spring the whole fleet assembled at the latter
place, not, says Herodotus, with any intention of crossing the Ægean
from thence, but to provide against possible revolt in Ionia. #GREEK
COMMANDERS IN 479.# The position was well chosen for that purpose; but,
more than this, the island lay at the eastern end of the shortest
and most used passage of the Ægean, where an almost continuous line of
islands stretches from Sunium to the Asian coast, affording protection
against northern and southern gales. If the Greek fleet should sail
to Asia, this was the route it would most probably take. Herodotus
says they did not expect its coming, because there had been no pursuit
after the retreat from Salamis. It may be apprehended that the Persian
commanders were better able than Herodotus to gauge the significance of
that fact, and that the expectations which the historian attributes to
them are of his own suggestion.
It does not appear as if there were any formed intention of resuming
the offensive in the Western Ægean in order to give support to
Mardonius whenever he should re-open the campaign, though, if Herodotus
is to be believed, ◆H. viii. 130, _ad fin._◆ plans of attack of some
kind were discussed. Whatever they may have been, they were not put
into immediate operation; and the appearance of the Greek fleet on the
Asian coast later in the year completely altered the situation.
The approach of spring warned the Greeks that they must make
preparations to meet the impending attack of Mardonius. With
incomprehensible but characteristic dilatoriness, no immediate effort
was made to collect the army, though a fleet of a hundred and ten ships
gathered at Ægina under a new commander, the Spartan Leutychides.
Moreover, Themistocles no longer commanded the Athenian contingent, his
place being taken by Xanthippos. Possible reasons for this remarkable
and important change have been already suggested. Of the actual reasons
nothing is known.
There was, moreover, in this year, a change not merely in the
_personnel_, but also in the system of command which prevailed during
the previous year in the Athenian contingent. The Athenian army had
played no part at Thermopylæ, and at Salamis it had acted, in so far
as it did act, in immediate conjunction with the fleet. It had been,
therefore, possible to place both arms of the service under the control
of one supreme commander,—Themistocles. In 479, however, it was evident
that the altered circumstances of the war would necessitate the
employment by Athens of a considerable force on land, acting quite
independently of the fleet. It would be impossible, therefore, for
one man to command both; and a separate command on land was given to
Aristides, another member of the College of Ten Strategi. He may or may
not have been placed under the general control of Xanthippos. As events
turned out, he must have exercised a practically independent command.
An arrangement of this kind would, had the circumstances arisen but a
few years earlier, have raised considerable constitutional difficulty;
but between 490 and 480 the whole system of military and naval control
had been completely remodelled.
At the time of Marathon, the supreme command was in the hands of one
of the archons, with the title of Polemarch, and the ten strategi were
subordinate to him, being merely the commanders of the contingents
furnished by the ten Kleisthenic tribes, and also forming a council
of war. In the course of the official year 487–486, the method of lot
was introduced into the election of the nine archons, of whom the
polemarch was one. The most thoroughgoing democrat at Athens, being,
as a citizen, liable to service in war, would hardly fail to see the
undesirability of entrusting his life to a general chosen by this
method. That special form of fatalism would have few attractions for
him. Thus the constitutional change with regard to the archonship
necessitated some change in the arrangements of the military and naval
commands. The polemarch was no longer commander-in-chief. That office
was vested in the members of the board of strategi, which henceforth
had absolute control of military and naval affairs. As strategi, all of
the ten were in a position of equality; and it is probable that each
was allotted his own special department of administration, either on
election, or by mutual arrangement between the members of the elected
board. A board so constituted might work well in times of peace, but
in time of war such a divided command could only lead to confusion and
inefficiency. #APPEAL FOR AND FROM IONIAN GREEKS.# The people therefore
reserved to itself the power of allotting special commands to strategi
of its own choice, or even of appointing one member of the board a
generalissimo (στρατηγός αὐτοκράτωρ).
It was under this constitutional arrangement that the mode of command
adopted in 479 was possible.
It was while the fleet was at Ægina that the Greeks received the first
direct appeal for aid from the Ionian Greeks. Doubtless the populations
of the cities along the Asian coast were much stirred at this time by
the disaster which had befallen the great expedition. That the Ionian
contingent had shared in those disasters was a consideration which
would affect but slightly the sentiments of the mass of the Ionian
population; since, as has been already pointed out, that contingent
represented merely the dominant philomedic minorities in the various
Ionian towns. With the unbroken power of Persia to back them, those
minorities could not be assailed with any hope of success; but now
that that power was shaken, it might seem that the time had arrived
for action. In Chios, at any rate, a plot was formed to murder the
local tyrant Strattis. It miscarried, and six of the chief conspirators
fled for their lives across the Ægean, where they made an appeal,
first to Sparta, and then to the fleet at Ægina, to strike a blow for
the liberty of their countrymen beyond the sea. Herodotus’ silence as
to their reception at Sparta is eloquent; but his description of the
effect of their appeal on the fleet is one of the most remarkable,
and probably one of the most misinterpreted passages in his history,
◆H. viii. 132.◆ “The refugees, with difficulty, induced the fleet to
go as far as Delos; all beyond was to the Greeks a land of danger,
for they knew not even how it lay, and fancied it all to be full of
the enemy’s troops. As for Samos, it seemed to them as far off as the
Pillars of Hercules. So it befell that the Persians were afraid to sail
westward of Samos, and the Greeks dare not go eastward of Delos, though
the Chians entreated them so to do. So fear stood between them and
protected them.”
This passage, even in its manifest rhetorical exaggeration, is
interesting. The evident intention of the historian is to mark the fact
that the mutual feelings of the two adversaries had entered upon a
second stage.
He has spared no pains to draw a striking contrast between the
exaggerated confidence prevailing on the Persian side up to the time of
Salamis, and the corresponding lack of it among the Greeks. The balance
of fear had been heavy against his countrymen. But now, at the opening
of the campaign of 479, he is equally anxious to show that the scale
had altered, and was now in equilibrium. With the dramatic instinct
of the Greek, he wishes to indicate in one striking sentence that the
turning-point in the tragedy has been reached. He was telling, as he
well knew, the most exciting story in the history of the world up to
his own time, and he may be pardoned, perhaps, if in his anxiety to
emphasize its climax he has employed the language of exaggeration.
But when it becomes a question of determining the extent of the
exaggeration, it may be suggested that there is perhaps less
exaggeration in his statement than in the criticisms which have been
passed upon it. May it not be that the eastern shore of the Ægean
was to the European Greek of 480 a far less known region than might,
without reflection, be assumed? Twenty years had passed since the
outbreak of the Ionian revolt. Was not the attitude of Athens and
Eretria in the first year of it peculiarly calculated to render
communications between the two shores difficult and rare? The trade of
the Ionian cities must have practically ceased during the seven years
of the struggle; and, in any case, Persia, in her bitter resentment at
the interference of the two states of European Greece, was not likely
to encourage the visits of traders from the other side of the sea.
Every avenue of trade in the Asian waters must have been unsafe to the
Greek, not merely on account of the possible presence of the Persian
fleet, but by reason of the swarm of privateers which the south coast
of West Asia was ever ready to produce. #THE SILENT ÆGEAN.# And when
the revolt was over, was it probable that the Persians would allow
the Greek trader free access to information with regard to the plans
of the expeditions of 492 and 490, or, amid the access of bitterness
which arose from the failure of the latter year, with regard to the
preparations made for a great revenge? If intercourse did
continue, how does it arise that the Greeks were ignorant of the
magnitude and real intent of the expedition of 480, up to within a
few months of its arrival in Greece? The Ionian must have known long
before. Why did he not tell the Greek trader, if that trader was a
frequent visitor to his ports? After-ages do not realize the nature
of the blow dealt to trade by a prolonged period of war, even if the
active warlike operations be not continuous. To take examples from
the history of England. Those who read the story of the Seven Years’
War mark with pride the absolute predominance which Great Britain had
gained upon the seas by the year 1761. And yet, in that very year,
eight hundred and twelve English trading ships were captured by the
enemy,—no small fraction of the British trading fleet of those days.
During the wars of the Napoleonic period when, after Trafalgar, Britain
for many years commanded the sea, the English Channel, the greatest
trade highway in the world, was almost as deserted as that Northern
Ocean which Tacitus describes.
Is it not possible, at least, that Herodotus has in his mind a state
of things lasting for many years in the Ægean similar to that which
prevailed in the Channel in the first years of the nineteenth century?
He may have exaggerated the feelings of the Greek sailors at this time;
but who at the present day can say to what length of exaggeration he
has gone?
CHAPTER XI.
THE CAMPAIGN OF PLATÆA.
◆H. viii. 131.◆
While these events were occurring in Middle Greece, Mardonius, in the
far North, was preparing to move. It is said that before starting
he despatched an envoy to make inquiries of the oracles of Northern
Greece, at Lebadeia, Abæ, and Mount Ptoon, on what subject Herodotus is
unable to say with certainty—on the circumstances of the time, he is
inclined to think.
◆H. viii. 136.◆
A much more important envoy was despatched to Athens in the person
of Alexander, the son of Amyntas, a member of the royal house of
Macedonia, who was connected with the Persians by family ties, and with
the Athenians by his having held for them the position of Proxenos, or
consular agent, in his own country.
It may fairly be doubted whether Herodotus got the tale of Alexander’s
mission from an Athenian or from a Macedonian source, or whether he
combined information derived from both. ◆H. viii. 136.◆ The reference
to the character of the Athenian people has, on the one hand, a strong
Attic flavour about it, H. viii. 137 _et seqq_. while the knowledge of
the Macedonian royal family displayed here and elsewhere in his work
suggests that Herodotus acquired his information on the spot in the
course of a visit to that country.[177]
[Illustration: PLAIN OF THEBES AND MOUNT KITHAERON.
_From Sketch by E. Lear._]
1. Kithæron (about 15 miles).
2. Ridge between Parasopia and Plain of Thebes.
3. Thebes.
[_To face page_ 436.
]
This tale might, consequently, be derived from Macedonia. #MARDONIUS
AND ATHENS.# This supposition is, however, rendered unlikely, owing
to the excessively mistaken forecast which Alexander is described to
have made of forthcoming events; and its Attic origin is the
more probable. It is needless to say that that does not make for the
veracity of a story whose evident intention is, like that of so many
of the stories of this time, to bring into relief the self-denying
patriotism of Athens. Yet, in spite of this, the story in itself is
credible enough.
◆H. viii. 136.◆
Mardonius, so the tale runs, had made up his mind that if he could win
over the Athenians to the Persian side he would thereby deprive the
forces opposed to him of a people both numerous and brave, who were,
moreover, mainly responsible for the disaster of the previous year. By
this means he hoped to gain once more command of the sea, and expected
to be infinitely superior to the enemy on land. This design, Herodotus
thinks, was probably suggested to him by the oracles he had recently
consulted.
The most remarkable reference, so far, is to the recovery of the
command of the sea. No one could better estimate than Mardonius the
full significance of the loss of that command. He must have known well
that, unless it were recovered, he could at best obtain but a partial
measure of success. Anything of the nature of a prolonged campaign to
the southward of Bœotia would be, on the mere question of commissariat,
impossible; and a brief campaign was not to be looked for. A foe
which had been formidable with the courage of despair was likely to
be more formidable when animated with the courage of a hope following
despair. He had, no doubt, accumulated during the winter in Thessaly
as large a commissariat as possible; but it is beyond conception that
he could have greatly increased the necessarily limited supplies
obtainable locally by transport along that route of four hundred
miles whose use had only been contemplated a month or two before, and
whose organization must necessarily have been of the most hurried
description. He must win Athens over, or modify his plans.
To her accordingly was offered a free pardon for the past on the
part of the Great King, the enjoyment of her existing lands, and any
accession of territory she liked. Nor did Alexander the envoy fail to
point out to the Athenians the contrast between such a prospect and
their actual state as the people who had suffered most from the war.
◆H. viii. 141.◆
The news of Alexander’s visit to Athens, and of its object, created
considerable alarm at Sparta. An embassy was despatched with all speed
to counteract the possible ill-effects of his proposals. This embassy
was actually present when Alexander spoke; for the latter had been
kept waiting for several days before he had been allowed to bring his
business before the assembly. The astute Athenians had made up their
minds to use Alexander as a lever wherewith to move the sluggish
Sparta to action. They do not seem to have had any intention whatever
of taking Mardonius’ message into consideration. When Alexander had
done speaking, the Spartan ambassadors addressed the assembly. They
urged that it would be gross desertion on the part of the Athenians
to renounce their share in a war which had been provoked by them, and
by them alone. Turning to more material matters, they promised to
alleviate the sufferings of the Athenians by undertaking the support of
the non-effective part of the population.
The Athenian answer to Mardonius’ message was as firm as their
determination: “So long as the sun runs his course in the heavens, we
will never make terms with Xerxes.”
The answer to the Lacedæmonians as reported by Herodotus is, in
sentiment and language alike, one of the finest passages in Greek prose.
“The fear of the Lacedæmonians lest we should make terms with the
barbarians is, humanly speaking, very natural. And yet, knowing well,
as you do, the spirit of Athens—that there is not in the wide world
gold sufficient nor land so exceeding fair and good that we would
accept it as the price of our own defection and of the enslavement
of Hellas,—your fear, we think, does you but small credit. There are
many powerful considerations which would forbid our so acting, even
had we the will to do so. #ATHENS AND SPARTA.# First and foremost is
the burning and destruction of the images and temples of the gods,
which we, so far from making terms with the doers of these deeds,
must of necessity avenge to the full. Secondly, there is that tie of
blood and language which binds the Greek world together, our common
share in our religious foundations and sacrifices, our community of
manners—things which it would disgrace the Athenians to betray. Know
this, if you did not before know it, that so long as a single Athenian
survives, we will never make terms with Xerxes. We admire your kindly
thought for us, in that, homeless as we are, you are willing to support
our families. That kindness on your part is complete, but we will
endure as we are, without burdening you.
“But now, these things being so, send forth your army with all speed,
for we imagine that the invasion of our land by the barbarian will not
be long deferred, so soon as he hears our message refusing compliance
with his demands. Ere, then, he enters Attica, there is time for us to
meet him in Bœotia.”
And so the Spartan ambassadors went home.
The Athenians evidently hoped that they would be able to save their
land from the devastation of the previous year by persuading the allies
to meet the enemy in Bœotia.
Their hopes were natural, but they were not destined to be fulfilled;
and, if by Bœotia the Bœotian plain was meant, it was fortunate they
remained unfulfilled.
On receipt of the answer from Athens Mardonius started on his march
from Thessaly without delay. The feudal families of that region had
thoroughly espoused the Persian cause, and their attitude, as well as
that of the Bœotians, shows that the dominant section in the two great
territories of the North had definitely made up their minds that,
whatever the fate of the South might be, those regions were to become
part of the Persian Empire. ◆H. ix. 2.◆ The Theban advice to Mardonius
to remain in Bœotian territory and seek to conquer Greece by corrupting
the leading men of its various states, shows that the medization of
the ruling powers in Bœotia was not merely a passive attitude. One
thing, however, Mardonius had made up his mind to do—to capture Athens
a second time. Herodotus attributes the intention to mere vanity, but
any one or all of three practical reasons made its acquisition of
importance to him. Its recapture might induce Xerxes from his base
on the Asian coast to attempt to regain the command of the sea. Its
possession might bring pressure to bear on the Athenian authorities,
and aid his design of detaching that people from the forces of
resistance. Finally, in case he intended to advance on the Isthmus, the
possession of the Acropolis would protect his left flank. He occupied
Athens without striking a blow, the population having been removed, as
in the previous year, to Salamis. Having occupied it, he reopened the
negotiations which Alexander had attempted but a short time before.
The result was the same. The spirit of the people was shown by their
stoning to death Lykides, a member of the council, for merely proposing
that the message should be communicated to the Assembly. Even his wife
and children were murdered in a similar way by the Athenian women at
Salamis.
◆H. ix. 6.◆
This second withdrawal to Salamis comes somewhat as a surprise in
Herodotus’ narrative, for his account of the visit of the Spartan
embassy to Athens at the time of Alexander’s presence there makes it
appear that an understanding had been arrived at by which Athens might
be spared a second invasion. The explanation comes later. “So long as
the Athenians expected that an army would come from Peloponnese to help
them, they remained in Attica.” But when the presence of the enemy in
Bœotia was announced, and it became impossible to hope that help from
the South could arrive in time, they retired to Salamis, as they had
done the year before. They also despatched an embassy to Sparta to
protest against the delay.
The strong appeal to patriotism made in their last communication to
the Lacedæmonian embassy had failed to impress a people whose very
institutions and training rendered them incapable of forming a real
conception of the true spirit of a pan-Hellenic policy. Their stern
discipline, moreover, was only too well calculated to render them mere
tools of those set over them; and the delay in the present instance
was probably due to the policy of an inner ring of the government at
Sparta. The records of the time afford no certain clue to the motives
lying behind that policy. #ATHENIAN EMBASSY AT SPARTA.# It is possible
that it aimed at forcing the hand of the Athenians, and compelling
them to take part in the defence of the Isthmus.
◆H. ix. 7.◆
Sparta having failed to listen to persuasion, Athens had recourse,
as on previous occasions, to threats. The Spartans were told that if
Athens found herself deserted, she would seek her salvation in her
own way; it was more than hinted that Mardonius’ offer might become
a question of practical politics. The Spartan excuse for delay was
similar to that urged for the desertion of Thermopylæ, the celebration
of a festival. The story of the reception of the ambassadors is one
of the strangest in the strange history of this time. They bitterly
reproached the Lacedæmonians with their conduct. They put the very
worst construction on the Spartan policy, which had, they said,
inflicted on patriotism an amount of suffering which it dare not have
inflicted on uncertain fidelity. It is probable that the reproach was,
in so far as the Spartan authorities were concerned, well deserved.
From the language used by the Athenians it is evident that they
believed that the Spartans had agreed to join in operations in Bœotia
merely in order to keep Athens from medizing before the wall at the
Isthmus was absolutely completed.[178]
That was the construction Athens put upon their conduct at this time;
but it is probable that the more correct interpretation of their
extraordinary policy is that by delaying they would be able to transfer
the defence to the wall, and could, under any circumstances, rely on
the devotion of Athens to the common cause.
Turning to the question of the future war policy, the Athenian
ambassadors proposed that, as Bœotia had been lost, the enemy should be
met in Attica; and they mentioned the Thriasian plain between Eleusis
and Mount Ægaleos as admirably designed for a field of battle. [It must
be remembered that this recommendation was made at a time when the
Greeks were without experience of the effectiveness of the Persian
cavalry on ground suited to its operations.]
The Ephors deferred their answer to the following day; from that to the
next, and so on, until ten days had been wasted. They were waiting,
says Herodotus, for the completion of the wall. They were, too,
waiting, no doubt, until events in the North developed sufficiently to
make it impossible for Athens to propose any other line of defence.
This unsatisfactory state of things was brought to an end, so Herodotus
says, by a warning addressed to the Ephors by Chileos, a Tegean, who
had great influence in Sparta. He pointed out that if Athens joined the
Persian, wall or no wall, the doors of the Peloponnese would be opened
wide. Herodotus evidently supposed that until this moment such an idea
had never occurred to the Spartan authorities, despite the experiences
of Artemisium and Salamis in the previous year. In all probability,
what really influenced these authorities was the fact that an able man,
whose opinion they valued, was not so sure as they themselves were,
that Athenian loyalty would endure much longer the severe test to which
it was being put.
Their next act was a very strange one. Without saying a word to the
ambassadors, they despatched under cover of night a force of five
thousand Spartans, each of whom was accompanied by seven helots. There
were, therefore, forty thousand in all. The number of light-armed
helots is remarkable, certainly above the usual quota allotted to a
force of five thousand heavy-armed.[179]
#SECRET DESPATCH OF SPARTAN ARMY.#
In constituting this force, the unusual number of light-armed in
the army which it would have to meet would naturally be taken into
consideration. The circumstances of population in the Spartan
territories, moreover, were such that any unusual increase in the
numbers employed on any expedition would be supplied by the increase
in this branch of the service. The commander of this large force was
Pausanias. Kleombrotos had been in command at the Isthmus in the
previous year, but had died shortly after bringing back his army
thence.[180] It must have been prepared for departure for some time
past No such force could start on short notice.[181]
The ambassadors, knowing nothing of this sudden march, and weary of
the continual procrastination, were prepared to leave Sparta on the
following morning. Before the deception was discovered the Athenian
delegates actually stated that, in consequence of Sparta’s attitude,
Athens would make terms with Persia, and, more than that, would
accompany the Persians in their invasion. Truly the Spartan government
policy had very nearly brought Greece to ruin.
The surprise of the indignant envoys may then be imagined when they
were told in answer by the Ephors that they had every reason to believe
that their army was, by that time, at Orestheion on its march
against “the strangers,” as they called the barbarians. Orestheion was
in the small plain of Asea, S.S.E. of the Arcadian plain, where one of
the great roads from Sparta northward met the main road coming from
Messenia to the Arcadian plain. The fact that they took this route is
interesting, because it almost certainly indicates that they wished to
avoid Argos, from which, as will be seen, a certain amount of trouble
was to be expected.
Thus the truth came out; and the envoys started without delay in
pursuit of this phantom army, accompanied by five thousand picked
hoplites of the Periœki.
The truth about the attitude of Argos at this time is rendered
uncertain by the fact that, after the war was over, the patriot Greeks
regarded not merely those races which had medized, but also those
who had not taken part with them, as having been enemies of their
fatherland. That of itself would give rise to a number of traditions
of doubtful credibility with respect to the attitude of such neutrals.
Nevertheless, the attitude of Argos was highly suspicious, and there
is no doubt that it was firmly believed in after-time that she had had
traitorous relations with Persia.
◆H. ix. 12.◆
Herodotus asserts that the Argives sent a messenger about this time to
Mardonius, who was in Athens, saying that they were unable to carry out
the promise that they had made to him to stop the Spartan army on its
march northwards. This tale is to a certain extent supported by the
fact that the Spartans, instead of adopting the shorter route north by
the Thyreatic plain and Argos, adopted the longer one indicated by the
mention of Orestheion. Argos was, by its strategical position, ever a
serious obstacle to Sparta’s communication with the north.
#KITHÆRON AND PARNES.#
Mardonius had, up to this time, refrained from damaging Athens and
Attica, in the hope that the Athenians would change their minds, and
accept his proposals; but, failing to persuade them to do so, and
hearing of the advance of this army to the Isthmus, he set fire to
Athens, and began to withdraw to Bœotia; “because,” says Herodotus,
“Attica was not a country for cavalry, and if he were defeated in
an engagement his only line of retreat was through strait places, so
that a few men could stop him.” He determined, therefore, to retreat,
and make Thebes his base of operations, as lying in a region eminently
adapted to the use of cavalry. His evident fear was lest the Greek
forces should work up through the Megarid and seize the difficult
passes of the Kithæron-Parnes range in his rear.
As this range is of great importance in the campaign which was at
this time about to open, it may be well to describe its nature, and
to enumerate the passes by which it is pierced. It was regarded by
the Greeks as an effective and important line of defence; and the
difficulties which it presented to various armies which had occasion
to traverse or to attempt to traverse it in the warfare of the fifth
and fourth centuries before Christ, show that their estimate of its
defensive possibilities was not a mistaken one. As its name implies, it
is in reality composed of two short ranges, Kithæron on the west, and
Parnes on the east. These are connected by an upland country known to
the ancients by the name of Panakton, whose approaches on either side
are, from a military point of view, of a very difficult character. The
chain as a whole may be said to form a continuous barrier stretching
from the head of the gulf of Corinth to the southern part of the
Euripus. Both Kithæron and Parnes are sharply-edged, steep-sided
ridges, whose highest points rise to a height of four thousand five
hundred feet above sea-level, while the general elevation of each chain
is about three thousand feet. Though not, as will be seen, of any great
height, they offer comparatively few passages. There are six points at
which the range may be traversed. Of these the western series, four in
number, are of importance in reference to the battle of Platæa itself,
while the two eastern passes afford alternative routes for an army
retreating, like that of Mardonius, from Athens to Thebes.
At the extreme west of the range, where it sinks with sudden abruptness
into the gulf of Corinth, it is turned rather than traversed by what is
little better than a mountain track, which led from the Bœotian port
of Kreusis to the Megarean town of Ægosthena. From Ægosthena a
road led southwards to Pagæ, and so round the western bastions of Mount
Geraneia to the Isthmus. It was also quite possible to reach Megara by
a branch of this route.
◆Cf. Xen. Hell. v. 4; vi. 4.◆
The difficulties of this pass are such that it was rarely used for
military purposes, and it seems to have played no part whatever in the
operations of 479.
The second pass is that which the road from Platæa to Megara formerly
traversed. It crosses Kithæron a little more than a mile eastward of
Platæa, entering a deep valley which runs into the chain from the
north, and ascending steeply from the head of the valley to the summit
of a col in the ridge. Its character forbids the supposition that it
can ever have been used for wheeled vehicles, and its importance must
have been mainly due to the fact that it is the only one of this series
of passes, with the exception of the track by Ægosthena, by which
land communication between Northern Greece and the Peloponnese could
be maintained without entering Attic territory. The road south of it,
towards Megara, traverses the troublesome hill region of the Northern
Megarid.[182] The fact that Platæa practically commanded the northern
end of this pass rendered the town one of the most important strategic
positions in Greece, both in the fifth and in the fourth centuries. It
will be hereafter seen that this pass must have played an important
part in the operations of the Greek army at Platæa.
The third pass is one by which the road from Platæa to Athens crossed
the range. It is little more than a mile to the east of that last
mentioned. Remains of the road are visible on the north side, entering
a somewhat broad valley running into the hills. It must have always
been an easy pass, and the ancient wheel-ruts worn in the rock show
that it was used by wheeled vehicles.[183] #PASSES BETWEEN ATTICA AND
BŒOTIA.# The road, after traversing it, turned east, and joined,
near Eleutheræ, the road from Thebes to Eleusis by way of the pass of
Dryoskephalæ. This pass also played an important part in the operations
at Platæa.
The fourth pass was well known under its Attic name of Dryoskephalæ,
and though not traversed by the direct road between Thebes and Athens,
must have been largely used by those going from one place to the
other, owing to the route by way of it being more easy than the direct
road by Phyle. From the Bœotian side, near the site of the ancient
Erythræ, the ascent is steep; it must have always been necessary to
make it by a series of zigzags. The summit once reached, the descent
is gradual, down a long stream-valley which abuts on a small plain of
Attica beneath the fortress of Eleutheræ. As a pass, it was probably
always more difficult than that on the Platæa-Athens road, but as the
route from Thebes through it was more direct, it became the most used
of the passes of Kithæron, and seems to have been the only one which
had a special name in ancient times. The road through it was continued
southward through a not very difficult country, as country goes in
Greece, to the Thriasian plain and Eleusis, passing by or very near the
fortress of Œne, whose importance must have been due to its position
with reference to this road. Near Eleusis it joined the Sacred Way to
Athens. Of the importance of this pass at the time of the battle of
Platæa it is hardly necessary to speak.
The fifth of the series of passes is that on the direct road between
Thebes and Athens. After ascending from the Bœotian plain to the
plateau of Panakton, it traverses the upland pastures of that region,
and enters a difficult country, where it was commanded by the important
Attic fortress of Phyle. Thence it reaches the head of the Athenian
plain. Mardonius might certainly have made use of this route for
his retreat. He preferred, however, the more roundabout way through
the sixth pass. It may have been, on the whole, an easier route.
Furthermore, Mardonius, who seems to have been more apprehensive than
he need at this moment have been that his retreat might be cut
off, evidently thought that the route furthest from the Greek lines of
advance would be safest.
The sixth pass leads from the plain of Athens into the lower basin
of the Asopos. It was commanded near its summit by that fortress of
Dekeleia which was destined to become so famous in the latter part of
the Peloponnesian war. After passing Dekeleia, it was possible, instead
of continuing along the road due north, to diverge to the left and
follow a stream-valley to Tanagra. From Tanagra there must always have
been a good, though not absolutely direct, road to Thebes, and also an
easy passage up the Asopos valley.
◆H. ix. 14.◆
Herodotus, after describing Mardonius’ preparations for leaving Athens,
says that when already on his way it was reported to him that a body of
a thousand Lacedæmonians had been pushed forward to Megara. On hearing
this, he wheeled about, and led his army as far as Megara, while his
cavalry overran the whole of the Megarid. Herodotus’ intention in
mentioning the incident is made sufficiently clear by the words which
follow: ◆H. ix. 14, ad fin.◆ “This is the furthest point west in Europe
which the Persian army reached.” ◆Paus. i. 44, 4.◆ It is to this
expedition that a tradition mentioned by Pausanias must be referred—a
tradition which preserved the record of the advance of the Medes to
Pagæ.
There is no reason to doubt that the Persian raid into the Megarid is
an historical fact, recorded by Herodotus and preserved in this chance
tradition. It is not, however, at all likely that it was made by the
whole Persian army, or that it was made at the time Herodotus mentions.
His object in relating the story is plainly indicated, and in his
desire to make his main point, he has probably not been over careful as
to exactness in date.
If Mardonius wished, as is represented by the historian, to secure
his safe passage to Bœotia, he would hardly have turned back with all
his force. Had he done so, his natural line of withdrawal would have
been by Dryoskephalæ. #MARDONIS RETREATS TO BŒOTIA.# The raid into
Megara seems to have been a cavalry reconnaissance, whose object was to
discover what the Greeks were doing at the Isthmus, and, moreover,
it was probably made several days at least before the time indicated by
Herodotus.
◆H. viii. 15.◆
The actual line of retreat Herodotus describes with some detail. He
first went to Dekeleia, whence guides despatched by the Bœotarchs
conducted him to Sphendale, and so to Tanagra. From thence he made
his way up the Asopos valley to Skolos, where he formed a stockaded
camp.[184]
It is impossible to arrive at any real comprehension of the history of
this stage of the war without deducing from the action of Mardonius the
nature of the designs, both political and strategical, which led him to
adopt the course of action which he did.
It is evident, in the first place, that he had given up all idea of an
attack on the fortifications of the Isthmus. It is also evident that
he had recognized from the first that the only possibility offered him
of an attack on that position was in the event of his winning over
Athens to his side. If he could not do so, he would be liable to have
his communications cut at any moment in the very difficult region of
the Megarid. The negotiations with Athens had conspicuously failed.
It would be absurd to suppose that he was not prepared for such an
eventuality even before he started for Thessaly; he may be conceived
even to have recognized that, after the events of the previous
year, the probability of success in the negotiation was remote.[185] If
this be the case, it is to be concluded that he had some alternative
design in his mind, which he intended to carry out in case the first
miscarried. The very circumstances under which the history of the
time was written forbade the possibility of the nature of that design
becoming known to after-ages, and the only surviving indications of
what he planned are afforded by what he did.
It is amply proved in the Greek historians that the disaster of the
previous year had left the ruling powers of the north just as loyal to
Persian interests as they had been before Salamis. If anything, their
loyalty had increased. Their contingents were with Mardonius. They had
practically staked their all on his success; and only his presence
could save them from the severe retaliation which the patriotic Greeks
might be expected to inflict on those who had joined the enemies of
their country. If Mardonius’ strategy at this time be any indication
of his policy, that policy aimed at the establishment of a new Persian
frontier at the Kithæron-Parnes line, with Thessaly, Phocis, and Bœotia
in a similar position to the vassal states of Thrace and Macedonia.
His strategical plan was well based. The Kithæron-Parnes line offered
a much easier defence against an assailant from the south than against
one from the north, because the continuous valleys of the Œroë and
Asopos formed a natural highway running lengthwise along the chain,
such a highway as was conspicuous by its absence on the southern side.
By this highway an army could be moved rapidly from one point to the
other, according to the locality of the pass through which the attack
might be delivered. #CHANGE IN GREEK PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.# On the south
no such facilities existed, and an army on the north which made a
feint at one of the eastern passes, and so attracted an enemy to its
defence, could move to one of the western passes, and get through
it long before the defender could move from his original defensive
position.[186]
Thus Mardonius was well placed. He had a fortified base at Thebes, in
a rich country, and a country well adapted to his strength in cavalry;
and he had a fortified camp on the strategic line of highway which the
Asopos valley afforded.
It is little short of a calamity for the history of this time that
Herodotus has omitted to account for the absolute change in the Greek
plan of campaign which is indicated by the advance of the army from
the Isthmus into Bœotia. It had manifestly been the intention of the
Spartans up to the very last moment to await attack at the Isthmus; it
may be certain that the other Peloponnesian States entertained this
design still more emphatically. And yet, in spite of this, they follow
the enemy to Bœotia, and shortly after their arrival there develop an
offensive movement of a most unmistakable character. Athens must have
been mainly responsible for this remarkable change; but what were the
motives of Athens? It was too late to save Attica. The mischief there
had been done. And yet these Greeks were persuaded to develop a policy
whose boldness is in conspicuous contrast to the purely defensive
attitude they had hitherto adopted in all their land operations, and
to inaugurate the new policy in a region peculiarly favourable to that
arm of the enemy’s force from which they had most to fear and against
which they had nothing to match. It can only have been carried out
under the impetus of some great and well-grounded alarm; and in view
of the silence of the ancient historian, the only conclusion that it
is possible to draw from the acts of either side is that the Greeks,
through the Athenians, suspected the existence of a design to establish
a new Persian frontier at Kithæron.
It was consequently necessary to take the offensive and the risk it
involved, unless they were ready to submit to the existence of the
Persian terror at their very doors. Whether its continued existence
would have been possible without the regaining of the command of the
sea is another question; but, considering the attitude of Bœotia and
Thessaly, it would be unsafe to assert the impossibility. In any case,
the Greeks regarded those possibilities from so near a perspective,
that their field of vision must have been contracted to the one
dangerous alternative.
◆H. ix. 19.◆
The Lacedæmonian army, which was last heard of at Orestheion in
Arcadia, arrived at the Isthmus and encamped there. The patriotic
States of Peloponnese, seeing the Spartans on the move, despatched
their contingents thither also, or, rather, the complements of their
contingents, since it must be concluded that the wall had not been
without any defenders up to this time. From the Isthmus the whole army
moved forward to Eleusis, where the Athenian land-army from Salamis
joined it. The whole combined force then moved north along the road to
Dryoskephalæ.[187]
[Illustration: PLAIN OF KAPAIS, FROM THEBES.
_From Sketch by E. Lear._]
[_To face page_ 452.
]
Shortly after passing the summit of the pass the Greek army would
arrive in full view of the Bœotian plain, which from that elevated
place appears more flat than it really is. The comparative monotony
of the scenery of the plain itself is disguised by distance; and that
which strikes the eye most forcibly is the contrast between this huge
extent of comparatively low level ground, and the magnificent frame of
mountains which forms the horizon on every side. To the north-west,
Helicon descends in a long and highly serrated slope, behind which the
hump of Parnassus in the far distance towers to a great height. #LIMITS
OF THE FIELD OF OPERATIONS.# The northern horizon is bounded by that
southern extension of the Œta range which lies between Kopais and the
North Euripus, though Kopais, or what was once Kopais, is out of sight
behind a comparatively low ridge in the neighbourhood of Thebes.
To the north-east, Mount Ptoon is visible; and over its lower ridge the
great cliffs of Mount Mekistos, on the Eubœan side of the Euripus, are
just discernible. Away to the east, though hidden from sight at the top
of the pass by a high bastion of Kithæron, the truncated cone of Mount
Dirphys in Mid-Eubœa is the most prominent object.
There are but few extensive views in Greece comparable with it, and
perhaps only one which excels it, that from Thaumaki on the road from
Lamia northward, when the great plain of Thessaly, with its fringing
ranges, is spread out like a sea before the spectator.
From the pass the Greeks descended to a position which extended across
the road by which they had come, at the point at which it debouched
fully on the plain. Before describing this position in detail it may
be well to give a brief general description of the ground on which the
prolonged struggle took place.
Its limits may be clearly defined. To the south its boundary is the
limit of cultivation, where the rocky foot of Kithæron begins to rise
from the rounded ridges of the plain. Outside this line the ground
was impracticable for cavalry operations, and, though both armies at
different times traversed this ground, no fighting took place beyond
the line, or even in its neighbourhood. On the north, the limits are
equally well defined by the river Asopos, although again in this case
the major part of the Persian army was, during nearly the whole of the
operations, to the north of the stream. The only fighting, however,
which can possibly have taken place beyond it occurred during the
assault on the Persian camp after the battle. To the east the limit may
be taken as the line of the Thebes-Athens road; while to the west an
imaginary line running due north from the town of Platæa to the Asopos
will well define its utmost extent in that direction. The area of this
field is about fifteen square miles, the dimensions from north to south
and from east to west being about three and a half and four miles
respectively.
In respect to the lie of its surface it may be divided into two
parts. The southern portion of it along the foot of Kithæron consists
of ridges running south and north, divided from one another by
stream-valleys,—spurs, in fact, of the great mountain, but of no great
height.[188] Of these the easternmost is much loftier than the others.
On the westernmost is the site of the town of Platæa.
North of these ridges a distinctly marked line of depression extends
across the field from east to west. It runs up the course of a
brook,[189] in a south-westerly direction, to the site of the modern
Kriekouki. After reaching the bottom of that village it turns at right
angles and goes north-west in a line parallel to, and immediately north
of, the watershed between the basins of the Asopos and Œroë, reaching
the flat alluvial plain north of Platæa, just west of the springs of
Apotripi, the traditional Gargaphia.
This depression is of considerable importance in relation to the
general scheme of the operations of the Greek army on the field:—
(_a_) Because it forms the dividing line between the first and intended
third positions and the second position, that is to say, between the
positions which were chiefly remarkable for their defensive character,
and that position which was assumed with the manifest intention of
taking a vigorous offensive.
(_b_) Because in it the Greek army, after marching from the first
position, took up its order before occupying the second position.
(_c_) Because in it the two combats which ultimately decided the battle
were fought.
The plain which has been mentioned in reference to the western
extremity of this depression extends without any break from the north
end of the site of the town of Platæa to the Asopos river. The plain is
the only flat land in the whole battle-field.
[Illustration: PLAIN OF PLATÆA AND KITHÆRON.
_From Sketch by E. Lear._]
[_To face page_ 454.
]
#DESCRIPTION OF THE FIELD.#
North of the depression rise three ridges or hills.[190] These
ridges are separated from one another by two deep stream-valleys.[191]
The slope of these ridges northward toward the Asopos is longer and
more gradual than on the south.
In general appearance the plain of Bœotia at this part resembles the
Wantage downs in such parts as the ploughland predominates over the
pasture. The great grey wall of Kithæron to the south rises into the
air, and dwarfs into insignificance the inequalities of the plain,
rendering, moreover, all horizontal distances most deceptive to the eye.
It may be assumed with absolute confidence that the accidents of
the terrain in this region of Greece are for all practical purposes
identical with those which existed more than two thousand years ago.
There is no evidence of great surface-changes such as are brought
about in other parts of Greece by the torrents which sweep down in
violence from the mountains. In Upper Parasopia such torrents do not
exist. Their non-existence can hardly be ascribed to inferior rainfall,
for the Bœotian climate is not more dry than that of other parts of
Greece. The probable cause is the peculiarly porous nature of the
soil, and, presumably, of the underlying rock, which absorbs a large
amount of water which would in other parts of Greece escape along the
surface.[192]
In the flat plain between Platæa and the Asopos river, the courses
of the various streams which traverse it are without doubt liable to
alterations, but the characteristics of the stream-beds as to width,
depth, and so forth, are undoubtedly the same as they were in the past.
The passes which actually debouch upon the field are, as has been
already mentioned, three in number. It is remarkable that in Herodotus’
account of the battle that of Dryoskephalæ is the only one mentioned.
It is, however, quite clear from Herodotus that, while the Greeks were
in the second position on the battle-field, the Dryoskephalæ pass, and
also that on the Platæa-Athens road, were both held by the Persian
cavalry, and the supplies of the army during the time must have come
through the pass on the Platæa-Megara road.[193]
#HERODOTUS’ ACCOUNT OF PLATÆA.#
Before entering upon the actual description of the battle itself,
it may be well to say one word about the general character of the
account of it which Herodotus has given to the world. Its length
and elaboration are greater than that devoted by the author to the
description of any other single act or scene in the history of his
time. The historian had evidently expended extraordinary trouble in
its preparation, and had done his utmost to arrive at all the facts
and to relate them with accuracy. Any failure in the latter respect is
owing either to the nature of his source or sources of information, or
to a misapprehension of military details due to his want of special
knowledge and experience. But whatever these defects may be, his
narrative is by far the best of the accounts which have survived until
the present day, a fact which is capable of proof by reason of the
extraordinary manner in which, in spite of certain obscurities, it
harmonizes with the present state of the region wherein the incidents
occurred. There can be no reasonable doubt that he visited the field,
and that, where he gives topographical details, they are the result of
autopsy. Some of the difficulties which arise with reference to his
description are more probably due to want of knowledge on the part of
the modern than on the part of the ancient historian. Some, again, are
attributable to that natural difficulty, which must ever arise, when
any one attempts to follow exactly the description, however clear, of
a complicated piece of ground as seen by the eyes of another man; and
this difficulty is not decreased when the language employed does not
possess that wealth of technical vocabulary which is at the service
of the writer of the present day. It is so easy to fail to realize
these difficulties under which Herodotus wrote. Official records were
probably non-existent: written records of any kind, if existent, were
probably of the most meagre kind; and the historian must have been
obliged to have recourse to the narratives of those who were actually
present at the operations. It must have cost an infinite amount of
trouble to collect the information, and to piece together the different
narratives; and yet, despite the immense difficulty of dealing
with evidence of this kind, Herodotus has left an account of the battle
which is not merely of interest and value from the point of view of
general history, but also in the narrower field of exclusively military
history.
Platæa was no ordinary engagement. It was really a campaign of several
weeks, conducted within an extraordinarily limited field of operations.
During that brief time, and within that small area, the strength
and weakness of East and West matched in battle against one another
were exemplified in a most striking way. The lesson it taught was
so tremendous, so wide in application, that men could not grasp it.
Perhaps it was as well for the world that they did not.
◆H. ix. 19.◆
The Greeks having descended from the summit of the pass of Dryoskephalæ
towards the Bœotian plain, discovered that the Persians were encamped
upon the Asopos, and took up their position “on the foothills of
Kithæron.”[194] ◆H. ix. 22.◆ Herodotus refers later to this position as
having been at Erythræ. The site of that small town has been somewhat
in dispute; it appears to have been in the hollow on the north side of
the mountain into which the road from Dryoskephalæ descends.[195]
#FIRST POSITION OF THE GREEKS.#
The position taken up by the Greeks is recognizable without difficulty
at the present day. Their right was on the high bastion of Kithæron,
east of Erythræ, stationed for the most part, in all probability, in
the neighbourhood of the old fort which here overhangs the road. Their
centre was on the low ground, _à cheval_ of the Thebes road. Their left
was probably on the slopes of the high ridge (ridge 1 in the map) to
the east of the site of Kriekouki. The numbers present at this time are
not known. All that is known is that, after considerable reinforcements
had come in, from a hundred thousand to a hundred and ten thousand
Greeks were in the field. It is not therefore possible to say what
would be likely to be the length of the Greek front in this first
position.
The strength of the position would be great. Their right and left
wings would be unassailable by cavalry, and only assailable by infantry
at a great disadvantage. Only on the flat ground in front of Erythræ
would it be possible for the Persian cavalry to attack them, and this
only along the right or east portion of the low ground, since the
left or west portion of their centre would be protected by deep and
precipitous stream-gullies which are there at this day, and must have
existed in a similar form at the time of the battle. #ATTACK BY PERSIAN
CAVALRY.# The comparatively advanced position of their centre in front
of Erythræ, instead of on the difficult ground south of its site, was
probably due to their being largely dependent on the wells of the
little town for their supply of water.
[Illustration: THE FIRST POSITION AT PLATÆA.
1. Greek right.
2. Greek centre.
3. Greek left.
4. Site of Erythræ.
5. Pass of Dryoskephalæ.
[_To face page_ 460.
]
◆H. ix. 20.◆
Mardonius, seeing that the Greeks had taken up this position, and
that they showed no disposition to come down into the plain, sent
against them the whole of his cavalry, under the command of Masistios,
a Persian of high reputation. On getting near the Greeks it did
not attack in a body,—the deep stream courses opposite the Greek
left centre would make that difficult,—but, owing evidently to the
narrowness of the front assailable, attacked in squadrons, and did
a great deal of damage. The Megareans were drawn up at the most
assailable point, and were hard pressed by an assault which evidently
aimed at cutting the Greek army in two, and seizing their direct
line of retreat by way of the pass. The narrowness of the assailable
front appears emphatically in Herodotus’ account of the message the
Megareans despatched for assistance. They speak of themselves as being
single-handed in the fight, and beg to be relieved from their position.
They threaten even that, unless help be sent, they will be obliged to
leave their post. Pausanias, who led the great Spartan contingent and
commanded the whole army, had some difficulty in finding volunteers
for the post of danger. Finally the Athenian picked troops, under the
command of Olympiodoros, accompanied by a body of bowmen, undertook to
occupy the critical position. Aristides, who commanded the Athenian
contingent, would see clearly the pressing nature of the danger. ◆H.
ix. 22.◆ The Persians continued their attack by squadrons until their
leader, Masistios, had his horse wounded by an arrow. It reared and
threw him, close, apparently, to the Greek line of battle; for the
Athenians immediately rushed towards him. He was killed, and his horse
was captured. The Persians had not noticed the fall of their commander,
and it was not until they had retired and had come to a stand-still
that the loss was discovered. With shouts of encouragement to one
another, the horsemen turned upon the Greeks, eager to gain possession
of their leader’s body. They came no longer in squadrons, but in what
must have been one column of horse, many ranks in depth. The Athenians
called on the rest of the army to aid them, but before the latter
came up the attack fell. The Athenians, only three hundred in number,
were pressed back from the place where Masistios lay; the fight was too
unequal. But when the other Greeks came up the Persian horsemen retired
and were obliged to leave the body in the hands of the enemy. After
retreating a distance of two stades, they held a consultation, and
decided that, having lost their general, the best thing they could do
was to retire to the camp.
In this combat the Persian cavalry was evidently taught a severe
lesson. They found out the mistake of attacking unshaken heavy infantry
at close quarters, a fundamental error in tactics which they did not
repeat again in the course of the battle. From this time forward the
Persians used their cavalry to inflict damage on the immobile Greek
force by assailing it with missiles from a distance, and by cutting its
lines of communication. They had learnt their lesson: the Greeks had
not.
It is evident that the latter drew a wholly mistaken conclusion from
the results of the fight, ◆H. ix. 25.◆ and that their previous fear
of the enemy’s cavalry gave place to an unwarranted confidence in
their ability to face it on any ground. They were now prepared to
carry out tactically that offensive movement which they had begun
strategically by their advance into Bœotia. It would seem as if their
original design had been to use the Dryoskephalæ-Thebes road as their
line of advance, a design which was checked in part by the nervousness
originally pervading the greater part of their army as to the result of
a rencontre with the Persian cavalry, and still more by the fact that
they could see that the fortified Persian camp was saddled, as it were,
on their proposed line of advance. From Herodotus’ description it would
appear as if that camp were on both sides of the Asopos river, and that
the point at which the Thebes-Dryoskephalæ road crosses that river at
the present day must have been well within its area.
#MOVEMENT FROM THE FIRST POSITION.#
It was, then, in consequence of their elation at the success which they
had won over the Persian cavalry, and probably also in consequence
of the decision of the Greek commanders to take the offensive
along a line other than that of the direct route to Thebes, that the
Greeks moved from the position which they had hitherto occupied. It was
plain that in that position no decisive result could be obtained. The
extreme importance of this movement makes it necessary that Herodotus’
description of it should be follow with the utmost care:—
◆H. ix. 25.◆
“After this they decided to go down towards Platæa. For the Platæan
country seemed to them to be a much more suitable place for encampment
than that about Erythræ. It was better supplied with water, and had
other advantages. They determined therefore that they must move to
that region and to the spring of Gargaphia, which is situated in it,
and form a regular encampment. Taking up their arms, therefore,
they went along the foot hills of Kithæron by Hysiæ to the Platæan
country, and on arriving there they proceeded to take up their order by
contingents near the spring of Gargaphia and the precinct of the hero
Androkrates, along hills of no great height and level country.”
* * * * *
_The Position of the Persian Camp._
Herodotus (ix. 15) describes the position of the camp as follows:
Παρῆκε δὲ αὐτοῦ (Mardonius) τὸ στρατόπεδον ἀρξάμενον ἀπὸ Ἐρυθρέων παρὰ
Ὑσίας, κατέτεινε δὲ ἐς τὴν Πλαταιίδα γῆν, παρὰ τὸν Ἀσωπὸν ποταμὸν
τεταγμένον. Οὐ μέντοι τό γὲ τεῖχος τοσουτον ἐποιέετο, ἀλλ’ ὡς ἐπὶ δέκα
σταδίους μάλιστά κῃ μέτωπον ἕκαστον.
Earlier in the same chapter he speaks of the Persian force as having
arrived ἐς Σκῶλον, ἐν γῇ τῇ Θηβαίων.
I could not find any traces of the ruins of Skolos; ◆_Vide_ note on
p. 449.◆ but if the distance given in the passage of Pausanias (ix.
4, 3) already quoted is in any sense reliable, it lay four and a
half miles east of the point where the Platæa-Thebes road crossed
the Asopos; that is to say, about a mile and a half east of the
Dryoskephalæ-Thebes road. Comparing this statement with Herodotus’
description of the position of the Persian army as stretching from
Erythræ and Hysiæ, the conclusion which must be arrived at is
that its encampment was on the low ground on either side of the
Dryoskephalæ-Thebes road, and on the Asopos river.
The passage in Herodotus (ix. 31) πυθόμενοι τούς Ἓλληνας εἶναι ἐν
Πλαταιῇσι, from the use of the word πυθόμενοι, would seem to indicate
that the first phase of the second position of the Greeks was not in
view of the Persian camp. If so, that camp was on the low ground, and
did not extend southward to either of those heights called in the map
the Long ridge and the Plateau.
* * * * *
At the risk of appearing to anticipate the evidence, it is necessary
for the clear understanding of the somewhat complicated operations of
this period of the battle, to state that the movement this indicated is
not the _complete_ movement to the second position, nor, consequently,
is the position adopted the position finally taken up by the Greeks.
That second position had three phases, of which this is the first.
It is possible to follow without difficulty this movement which
Herodotus describes. It is evident that the Greek army first matched
west along the south or upper part of the ridges[196] which descend
from Kithæron towards the plain. Their object was evidently to keep, in
so far as possible, on the rocky hill slopes, where their march could
not be imperilled or interrupted by cavalry attack. In this march they
passed Hysiæ. The position of that small place is not, as has been
already said, determinable with certainty; but it seems most probable
that its site is to be looked for immediately above the village of
Kriekouki, and, if so, it would lie almost on the line of march which
Herodotus indicates.
* * * * *
_The Site of Hysiæ._
Tradition gives the site of the modern Kriekouki as that of Hysiæ.
Water being so important in this region, it is worthy of notice that,
except in case of prolonged drought, Kriekouki is well supplied in this
respect, which would render it likely that the site or its immediate
neighbourhood would have been chosen for habitation in ancient times.
As I have already indicated, I think Hysiæ stood just outside the
area of the modern village, to the south of it, _i.e._ higher up
the hillside. There is a mound there with a more or less circular
enclosure at the top, quite close to the great bend of the loop-road
above the Kriekouki. The enclosure may possibly mark the site of the
foundations of an ancient φρούριον. Other remains I could not find.
Hysiæ was at best but a little place, and, if it stood on that site,
whatever remnants of it survived till modern times would inevitably
be swept away for the building of the large village of Kriekouki, in
whose walls, too, are stones which appear to have been taken from
pre-existing buildings. This site accords with the little that is told
us in ancient authors of the position of Hysiæ. It lies east of the
line of road from Athens to Platæa, at a distance of something less
than half a mile. To the traveller coming along the road from Eleutheræ
it would therefore be, as Pausanias says (ix. 2, i), “a little to
the right of the road.” It is also west of the site of Erythræ, as
Herodotus (ix. 15) indicates Hysiæ to have been.
* * * * *
#MOVEMENT TO THE SECOND POSITION.#
After moving some distance westward along the foothills the Greek army
must have turned in a north and north-westerly direction to reach the
position which Herodotus describes. ◆H. ix. 25.◆ He mentions the spring
of Gargaphia and the precinct of Androkrates[197] as the two points
defining the position, and indicates clearly what that position was,
for the spring may be identified at the present day, and the precinct
is referred to in Thucydides’ account of the escape of the two hundred
and twelve from Platæa, in such a way that its site must lie somewhere
within a comparatively small area of ground.
* * * * *
_The Spring of Gargaphia._
The spring of Alopeki or Apotripi, at the head of the brook A 1, is
pointed to by local tradition as the ancient Gargaphia. This spring
does not give a very copious supply of water. I believe it does not
always run dry in summer; but in August, 1899, after the long drought
of that year, it was yielding no water whatever. The state of things in
that month was such that the inhabitants of Kriekouki were absolutely
dependent for water for themselves and their cattle on a group of
springs lying east of Apotripi, distant from it about three-quarters
of a mile, and forming the source of Stream A 4. These are the springs
which Colonel Leake, rightly, as I firmly believe, identified with
Gargaphia. The chief of these springs has, in modern times, been
enclosed in a wall. What is quite certain is that one of these two
groups is the Gargaphia.
Herodotus says (ix. 49) that the whole Greek army watered from the
springs. As the battle took place in September, the greater yield
of water from the eastern group of springs supports its identity as
against Apotripi.
Herodotus also says (ix. 51) that the “Island” was ten stades from the
spring.
Those who have visited the field since I was there in 1892 seem to be
agreed that I was right in my identification of the “Island.”
The distance of the eastern springs from the “Island” is just about ten
stade. Apotripi is about the same distance from it.
Herodotus says (ix. 52) that the spring was twenty stades from the
Ἥραιον which, he says, is πρὸ τῆς πόλιος τῆς Πλαταιέων. The eastern
springs are sixteen stades from the approximate position of that
temple; Apotripi is but twelve stades off.
It will, I think, be seen that the evidence of Herodotus is in favour
of the eastern springs.
_The Precinct of the Hero Androkrates._
The evidence of Thucydides enables us to determine approximately the
position of this Heroön. He says (iii. 24) that the two hundred and
twelve who escaped made their way from Platæa
“along the road leading to Thebes, having on their right the
hero-chapel of Androkrates ... and for six or seven stades the
Platæans advanced along the Thebes road, and then, turning, went
along the road leading to the mountain to Erythræ and Hysiæ.”
This can only mean that the Heroön was in the angle between the road
to Thebes and the road to the mountains; and as these people only went
about three-quarters of a mile along the Thebes road, it is evident
that, if Thucydides be correct, the Heroön was to the right of the road
and within three-quarters of a mile of Thebes. I have marked in the map
the conjectural site of the building on the extremity of the last low
ridge of the mountain before it sinks into the plain. There are at that
point the remains of what has been an oblong building constructed of
good squared blocks. I am almost certain that it is Hellenic work.
Mr. W. J. Woodhouse, in a recent number of the _Journal of Hellenic
Studies_ (Part I. 1898), dissents from my view as to the position of
the Heroön of Androkrates.
His argument is as follows:—
(1) If the Heroön lay hard by the road, constituting a familiar
landmark, Thucydides’ remark is pointless.
(2) There were two other roads from Platæa to Thebes, viz. those
through Dryoskephalæ and the Pass on the Platæa-Athens road
respectively.
(3) Plutarch places the Heroön near the ancient temple of Demeter.
Mr. Woodhouse accordingly suggests that the Heroön stood on the site
of the church of St. John, on the Asopos ridge.
I would point out:—
(1) That Thucydides’ language [iii. 24] is not pointless, even if
the Heroön be near “the road leading to Thebes,” inasmuch as he
indicates a point near the road which the fugitives certainly
passed before they turned to the right, and thus diminishes the
comparative vagueness of the “six or seven stades” which follow.
It does not seem unnatural that he should wish to make quite
clear the fact that they passed the Heroön before they turned,
_i.e._ that it lay within the angle through which they turned.
I would also point out, that it is not the fact of the Heroön
being on the right of the _road_, which Thucydides emphasizes,
but it being on the right of the _Platæans_ as they went along
the road. The site of the church of St. John is eighteen stades
from Platæa. Thucydides would hardly say that persons who only
went “six or seven stades” along this road ever had that site
upon their right hand.
(2) The alternative routes Mr. Woodhouse mentions are alternative
routes from Platæa in much the same sense that the route by
Bletchley is an alternative railway route from Oxford to London.
“The road leading [from Platæa] to Thebes” could only mean the
ordinary direct road. An author using that expression would not
imagine that his meaning could be doubtful.
(3) Plutarch’s topography of Platæa is quite hopeless. It was
evidently not a side of historical inquiry in which he took the
slightest real interest
* * * * *
#PRECINCT OF ANDROKRATES.#
There can be little doubt that the Greek army on descending from the
hillside of Kithæron proceeded to form in something resembling order
of battle on the low ground near the bottom of the depression which
extends across the field, or on the flattish ridge which forms the
watershed between the Œroë and the Asopos. In this position their left
would be near, but probably north of the hero-chapel of Androkrates;
their right would be near the Gargaphia. The position of the centre
and the right would, moreover, be “on hills of no great height;”
that is to say, on the lower ends of the ridges which come down from
Kithæron, while their left would be in the plain before Platæa, the
“level country” of which Herodotus speaks. On this ground they would
be completely hidden from the Persian camp by the intervening ridges
to the north of them, which rise a hundred and twenty feet above the
Gargaphia spring, and much more than that above the plain of Platæa.
This first phase or development of the second position of the Greeks
was probably not of long duration. The nature of the ground provides an
explanation of it. After completing this march from the first position,
the Greeks seem to have been anxious to form their army in something
like order of battle before ascending to the summit of the northern
ridges (the Asopos ridge), for on arriving there they would be in full
view of the enemy, and at no great distance from the Persian camp. In
other words, they deployed their army out of sight of the enemy.
There seems to have been a certain amount of quarrelling between the
various contingents as to the order to be taken in the line of battle.
#NUMBERS OF THE GREEK ARMY.# Herodotus describes at some length such
a dispute between the Tegeans and Athenians as to who should take
position on the extreme left; but then he dearly loved that kind of
traditional history which he represents the two disputants as
having introduced into their arguments.
The matter was decided in favour of the Athenians. It is clear that the
Greeks at this time had a high opinion of the fighting qualities of the
people which had faced the Persians alone at Marathon.
◆H. ix. 28.◆
The Greek army was now larger in numbers than when it entered Bœotia.
Reinforcements had been coming in day by day. The total given by
Herodotus at this point in his narrative may be taken to represent the
largest number present at any time on the field, though it must not,
perhaps, be assumed that all these troops were actually with the army
immediately after the first development of the second position had been
completed.[198]
The total number amounts to more than a hundred and eight thousand men,
of whom more than one-third were heavy-armed infantry. When it
is remembered that with the exception of two thousand eight hundred,
all the troops were drawn from the Peloponnese, Megara, and Attica,
and that, besides these, large numbers of the men of military age
were serving on board the fleet at this time, the strenuous nature of
the effort which Greece put forth in this year can best be realized.
There is one curious point about the list in Herodotus. Manifest as is
his admiration for Aristides, it is in this passage only in his long
account of Platæa that he mentions him as commander of the Athenian
contingent.
After giving the numbers of the various contingents of the Greek army,
Herodotus closes the account with a remark which, in view of his
previous description of their position as being in the neighbourhood
of the precinct of Androkrates and the spring of Gargaphia, is
difficult to understand. He says, “These (troops) were drawn up in
regular order upon the Asopos.” If by the Asopos is to be understood
what is undoubtedly the main stream of that river, the army in the
first development of the second position cannot have been even in its
immediate neighbourhood, much less upon it. It cannot have been at any
point less than a mile and a half distant. The probable explanation is
that the name of Asopos was applied by the inhabitants of Platæa, in so
far as the upper course of that stream is concerned, to the brook which
has its rise in the springs of Apotripi.[199]
#MOVEMENT OF THE PERSIANS.#
◆H. ix. 31.◆
On receiving information of the movement of the Greeks, the Persians
moved westward along the Asopos, keeping, as it would appear from
subsequent events, to the north of the river. If Herodotus’ language
is accurate in wording,[200] it must be understood that this movement
was made before the second position of the Greeks had entered upon
its second phase; that is, while they were still out of sight of the
Persian army behind the line of the northern ridges. Herodotus gives
the Persian array in some detail. For all practical purposes of the
story of the battle it is sufficient to know that the Persians proper
were at this time on the left wing, opposite to the Lacedæmonians on
the Greek right, and with a front overlapping that of the Tegeans.
The other Asiatics formed the centre, opposite to the smaller Greek
contingents, while the Bœotians and other medized Greeks on the Persian
right were opposite to the Athenians, Platæans, and Megareans on the
Greek left.
◆H. ix. 31.◆
Of the medized Greeks the Phocians were only represented by a fraction
of their force. The remainder of that people had refused to medize, and
from their strong refuge in Parnassus were evidently doing their best
to interrupt the Persian line of communications, an operation for which
their position was admirably adapted, as it was on the flank of the
route from the north, at that point near Parapotamii and Chæronea
where the available is peculiarly restricted.
The total number of the barbarian portion of the Persian army Herodotus
gives at three hundred thousand. The numbers of the medized Greeks he
does not know, but reckons to have been about fifty thousand. Probably
there is an exaggeration in both estimates; but it cannot be very great
in the first case. The numbers opposing the Greeks were certainly much
superior to their own. The Thessalian element among the medized Greeks,
whose numbers may have been very large, renders it impossible to make
even a guess at the amount of truth in Herodotus’ estimate.
It is now necessary to consider what was the object of this movement
of the Greeks to their second position. The main motive mentioned by
Herodotus is the superiority of the water-supply at the new position.
No one who has been in this part of Bœotia in the dry season would be
inclined to under-estimate the importance of such a motive. But if the
question of water had been the only motive, an equally good supply
might have been obtained from the Vergutiani spring, and the wells or
springs which must have supplied the contemporary town of Platæa. The
position taken up in that case would have been beyond the reach of the
Persian cavalry—it would, in fact, have been nearly identical with the
proposed position at the “Island,” which became a prominent factor in
the later developments of the battle.
If the motives given by Herodotus in his account of Platæa be examined,
it will be seen that they are obviously those which would suggest
themselves to one who had been present at the battle, but who had not
been of sufficiently high military rank to be conversant with the
designs of those in command. It was on some such man that Herodotus
relied for his information; of actual official information he had
little or none. He can only say where the army went, what positions it
took up, and what were the incidents and issues of the combats which
were fought. It is further plain that, as in the case of Thermopylæ, he
supplemented this information by a personal examination of the ground.
#THE OFFENSIVE.#
It is, therefore, from the incidents of the battle that a judgment must
be formed as to the nature of the design or designs which determined
those incidents. In the present instance the three most remarkable
factors in the situation were:—
(1) The Greeks had deliberately taken up a position far more advanced
than they need have done, if guided by physical conditions alone.
(2) They had, after their march from their original position, deployed
their army in order of battle before coming in sight of the enemy.
(3) Their new position was attained, not by a direct forward movement,
but by a strong inclination to the left.
The first factor can only be interpreted in the sense that the Greeks
intended to assume a vigorous offensive; the second indicates that the
attack was to be of the nature of a surprise; the third that it aimed
at an assault on the Persian flank.
In judging from the subsequent history of the battle, it seems probable
that, had it been possible to carry out this programme in its entirety,
the result would have been a great success. It must have led to close
fighting; and in close fighting the Greek hoplite was infinitely
superior to anything which the Persian could oppose to him. The failure
of the plan—for it certainly did fail—was due to the fact that the
Persians discovered the movement of the Greeks before the latter were
ready to attack; and a surprise was impossible. Moreover, they took up
a new position in which they could not be outflanked. This the Greeks
must have discovered when they completed the second development of the
second position.
This second development of the new position is indicated though not
described in Herodotus’ narrative. Had the Greeks remained in the
position stretching from the Gargaphia to the Heroön, the Asopos could
not have played the part which it did in the subsequent fighting. ◆H.
ix. 31.◆ The historian has described the movement of the Persians as
having been to “the Asopos, which flows in this part,” that is to
say, approximately opposite the new Greek position. The Asopos here
must be the stream above and below the point where the brook
joins it. ◆But _vide_ note, p. 470. H. ix. 30.◆ The brook to which he
has previously applied the name Asopos could not form the obstacle
which is implied in the account of the fighting which occurred
subsequently.[201] It is evident what the nature of the movement of the
Greek army must have been. The whole army, after deploying on the low
ground, advanced up the slope of the Asopos ridge. The right must have
been to the east of the site of the church of St. John. Westwards the
line extended along the curve of the ridge, and the extreme left was
probably on the low ground at the north end of the plain of Platæa,
though the amount of the extension in this direction must necessarily
be a matter of uncertainty. The sight of the Persian army drawn up on
the far side of the Asopos, which must have met the eyes of the Greeks
when they reached the summit of the ridge, would clearly demonstrate
to them that the attempted surprise had failed. The position for the
moment was, indeed, one of stalemate; ◆H. ix. 33–37.◆ and that this was
recognized by both sides is shown by Herodotus’ tale of the sacrifices
offered in both camps on the day subsequent to the attainment of the
position. The conclusions drawn from them were favourable to the
maintenance of the defensive, but unfavourable to the adoption of the
offensive by crossing the Asopos. It may be suspected that the Greek
commanders assisted in the interpretation of the omens. Mardonius
also had a prophet in his employ, a Greek from Elis, whose previous
treatment by the Spartans had been such as to guarantee his loyalty
to any cause opposed to theirs. He also advised the maintenance of
the defensive, and his advice accorded with that of a third prophet
who accompanied the medized Greeks. Prophecy and tactics combined had
brought matters to an _impasse_ for the time being.
◆H. ix. 38, 39.◆
Eight days thus passed without, apparently, any active operations being
undertaken by either side. The Greeks profited most by the delay.
Reinforcements to their army kept coming in through the passes in their
rear, and their numbers were considerably increased. #EFFECTIVENESS OF
PERSIAN CAVALRY.# Mardonius’ attention was called to this fact
by a Theban named Timegenides, who suggested that the Persian cavalry
should be sent to assail the bands traversing the pass of Dryoskephalæ.
The advice was taken, and on the very next night the cavalry was
despatched. The fatal weakness of the new Greek position was now made
apparent. On its right flank a wide space of practicable ground,
traversed, moreover, by the Thebes-Dryoskephalæ road, had been left
open, by which the Persian cavalry could without difficulty and without
opposition reach the mouth not merely of the Dryoskephalæ pass, but
also of that other pass on the Platæa-Athens road, the only two really
effective lines of the Greek communications. The Greek army, by taking
up so advanced a position, had ceased to cover those passes, and even
the Platæa-Megara pass was but imperfectly protected.
The cavalry raid met with immediate and startling success. A Greek
provision-train of five hundred pack animals, with their drivers
and, presumably, their escort, was annihilated at the mouth of the
Dryoskephalæ pass.
◆H. ix. 40.◆
During the two next days there was a good deal of skirmishing on the
main line of the Asopos, but neither side crossed the stream, so
that no decisive result was arrived at. This form of fighting was
nevertheless distinctly disadvantageous to the Greeks, who suffered
from the missiles of the Persian cavalry without being able to
retaliate in any decisive fashion. The Asopos is not a large stream,
and at this time of year would be easily traversable at any point. Its
bed is sufficiently deep to render it a serious obstacle to the passage
of cavalry, if the crossing were disputed, but an undisputed passage
could be made without difficulty at almost any point of this part of
its course.
◆H. ix. 41.◆
Mardonius was becoming impatient at the indecisive character of the
operations. The two armies had now been for eleven days facing one
another on either side of the Asopos. He had evidently made up his mind
that this state of things could not continue, and that a movement of
some kind must be made. Artabazos, who had commanded at the siege of
Potidæa, advised withdrawal to Thebes, which was only six miles
north of their position; it was strongly fortified, and, as the Persian
base of operations, was, so he said, amply provided with supplies.[202]
◆H. ix. 41, _ad fin._◆ He pointed out that they were possessed of ample
funds wherewith a campaign of bribery among the leading men of the
Greek states might be instituted. The Thebans advocated the same line
of action. They knew their countrymen; so apparently did Herodotus, as
his language shows. Mardonius, however, would have none of such advice;
he believed his army to be a better fighting machine than that of the
Greeks; and it is impossible not to recognize the truth of his view as
matters then stood.
A certain amount of light seems to be thrown on this reported
discussion between the Persian commanders by an incident which
Herodotus reports to have occurred on the night of the same day.
Alexander the Macedonian, who has already appeared prominently in
the history of this time as Mardonius’ representative in the recent
negotiations with the Athenians, is said to have ridden up to the line
of the Greek outposts and to have demanded speech with the commanders
of the army.[203] After reciting his attachment to the Greek cause, he
made one startling revelation as to the state of things in the Persian
army, which, if true, would go far to explain the subsequent course of
events, and mould put a new complexion upon the advice which Artabazos
is represented to have given. He said that he believed Mardonius
intended to attack on the following day. If he deferred doing so, the
Greeks were not to retire from their position, because the Persian
supplies are running short. #EVOLUTIONS.# If this statement is true,
it accounts for the pronounced offensive which Mardonius assumed from
this time forward; and, if the enormous difficulties under which the
Persians laboured as to their line of communications be taken into
consideration, it is extremely probable that it was true. The action
of the Phocian refugees away northward was sure to make itself felt in
this department of the war.
This part of Herodotus’ narrative takes the form of a series of scenes
in which the various prominent actors on either side are introduced
upon the stage and use language suitable to the situation; but, though
unreliable in form, it can hardly be doubted that these tales indicate
in a more or less direct way the actual course of events. That tale
among them which is least easy to understand or explain relates to what
passed in the Greek camp after Alexander’s message had been reported to
the generals.
Pausanias, as commander of the Spartans, is reported to have been
alarmed at the prospect of an attack on the following day, and to have
proposed to the Athenians that they should exchange places in the line
with the Spartans, in order that they might then face the Persian
contingent of whose fighting they had had experience at Marathon. The
Athenians accepted the proposal willingly; they even said they had
been on the point of making it themselves. The exchange was made; but
the Bœotians, who noticed it, reported the matter to Mardonius, who
made a corresponding change in his own line The Greeks, noticing this,
returned to their original order.
As an account of what actually happened this can hardly be taken
literally. It seems to refer to some evolution which either Herodotus
or his informant did not understand, though what that evolution was it
is impossible to say. The Athenian element in the story is evident.
◆H. ix. 48.◆
The tale which follows, that Mardonius sent a challenge to the Spartans
to fight an equal number of his army, cannot be taken as serious
history. Mardonius was well aware that until the Greek infantry were
thoroughly shaken by his cavalry it would be unwise to assail them
with the Persian foot-soldiers. His action which immediately followed
shows this quite clearly. ◆H. ix. 49.◆ He intended,—it may be under
the stress of necessity,—to take the offensive in some form. It was
probably a case of victory or withdrawal. That being so, he
despatched the whole of his numerous cavalry against the Greek army.
Herodotus describes the attack in language which leaves no doubt as to
the gravity of the situation which it created.
“When the cavalry rode up, they harassed the whole Greek army by
hurling javelins and shooting arrows, being horsebowmen, who could
not be brought to close combat. The spring of Gargaphia, too, from
which the whole Greek army got water, they spoiled and filled up.
Lacedæmonians alone were in position by the spring; it was at some
distance from the various positions of the rest of the Greeks, while
the Asopos was near them. Being driven back, however, from the Asopos,
they resorted to the spring, for it was not possible for them to get
water from the river, owing to the cavalry and bowmen.”[204]
This remarkable passage indicates with singular clearness what took
place at this exceedingly critical moment of the battle. The Greek left
was forced by the cavalry to retire from the Asopos, where they had on
previous days been skirmishing with the enemy, and to take refuge on
the Asopos ridge away from the flat ground.[205] The second position of
the Greeks attained, in other words, its third phase or development, in
which the whole Greek army was confined to a position on the summit of
the ridge.
On the extreme right matters were no less serious. #CAVALRY ATTACK
OF THE PERSIANS.# The cavalry had got round the Greek flank to the
Gargaphia spring, and after driving away what was probably a
Lacedæmonian detachment on guard there, had rendered the spring
unserviceable. The Greek army was consequently without water, and its
retirement from the position could be at most a question of hours.
The situation of the Greek army was as critical as it well could be.
Between them and the rough ground at the immediate foot of the mountain
lay a band of country over which cavalry could ride; and they were
cut off, not merely from their water supply, but also from the lines
of communication afforded by the three passes. ◆Cf. H. ix. 50.◆ The
convoys were blocked by the Persian cavalry, and were unable to reach
the camp.
◆Cf. H. ix. 51, _ad init._ and 52, _ad init._◆
This fierce attack seems to have lasted two days. On the morning of the
second day a Council of War was held, and it was decided, if the attack
were not renewed that day, to move to a position which Herodotus calls
the “Island.” The attack was, however, renewed, and the movement had to
be postponed.[206]
The passage in which Herodotus describes and explains the nature of
the proposed movement is not merely of the greatest importance in the
history of the battle, but is perhaps still more important as showing
the pains which he took to get as accurate a knowledge as possible of
the scenes of the greatest events which he describes. It is peculiarly
noticeable in the case of Thermopylæ, and it is not less noticeable in
this account of Platæa. It is impossible to conceive that he should
have been able to write the description of the “Island,” unless he had
actually seen the ground. His informant as to the incidents of the
battle cannot be presumed to have described it to him, since no part of
the Greek army ever attained the position, and he cannot therefore be
supposed to have seen it.
“At a meeting of the Greek generals,” he says, “it was determined,
should the Persians omit to renew the attack that day, to go to the
Island. It is ten stades distant from the Asopos and from the spring
of Gargaphia, at which they were at the time stationed, in front of
the city of Platæa. This is how there comes to be an island on the
mainland: the river, flowing from Kithæron divides high up the hill,
and then flows down towards the plain, the streams being about three
stades distant from one another, and then they join.... The name of
the (combined) stream is Œroë.... To this position they determined to
move, in order that they might have a plentiful water-supply, and the
cavalry might not do them damage as when drawn up on their front. They
determined to move in the second watch of the night,[207] so that the
Persians might not see them leaving their position, and their cavalry
might not pursue them, and throw them into confusion. They determined,
further, on arriving at the new position, which the Œroë, daughter of
the Asopos, encloses in its course from Kithæron, to send the half of
their army in the course of the night to Kithæron, in order that it
might rescue the service corps which had gone for provisions; for it
was blocked in Kithæron.”
[Illustration: PLATÆA: “ISLAND,” FROM SIDE OF KITHÆRON.
1. Foot of Helicon.
2. Parnassos.
3. Plain of Platæa.
4. “Island.”
[_To face page_ 480.
]
* * * * *
_Note on the Position of the “Island.”_
In order to understand this very important passage, it is necessary to
examine the evidence, both documentary and topographical, as to the
position of the νῆσος or Island. It will be well to tabulate the facts
which Herodotus mentions with regard to it.
(1) It is ten stades from the Asopos.
(2) It is ten stades from the spring of Gargaphia.
(3) It is πρὸ τῆς τῶν Πλαταιέων πόλιος.
(4) The river divides ἄνωθεν ἐκ τοῦ Κιθαιρῶνος, and flows down into the
plain.
(5) The streams are ὅσνπερ τρία στάδια distant from one another.
(6) The streams afterwards join one another.
(7) The name of the river is Œroë.
(8) There was a plentiful water supply at the νῆσος.
#THE ISLAND.#
(9) The cavalry could not annoy the Greeks there, ὥσπερ κατιθὺ ἐόντων.
Both Leake (“Northern Greece”) and Vischer (“Erinnerungen aus
Griechenland”) identify a strip of flat ground, lying in the plain due
north of the site of the town of Platæa between two of the stream-beds
of the Œroë, as the “Island” of which Herodotus speaks.
This identification may be tested by the facts given by Herodotus:
(1) This piece of ground is ten stades from A 1, which, as I have
said, is apparently the upper part of the Asopos of Herodotus.
(It is thirteen or fourteen stades from the branch of the river
which comes down from Leuktra.)
(2) It is considerably over ten stades, viz. fifteen or sixteen
stades, from the spring which Leake identifies, rightly, as I
think, with the Gargaphia.
(3) It is before or in full view of the city of Platæa.
(4) The words used by Herodotus do not seem to be those which he
might have been expected to use in describing this piece of land.
The streams divide at a point more than two miles above this.
(5) (6) (7) are adequately fulfilled by it.
It is when we come to (8) and (9), which are the very reasons stated by
Herodotus for the movement to the “Island,” that the position indicated
absolutely fails to accord with the conditions.
In respect to water supply it is conspicuously deficient; and of the
three streams which cross the plain at this point one was absolutely
dry at the time of my visit (Dec., 1892); and this one was that which
would have formed the side of the “Island” towards the Persian army,
viz. O 1.
The second contained water, but in a much less quantity than before
it entered the plain. The third contained water also, but not in any
quantity.
This was at a period of peculiarly heavy rains.
In September all of them would almost certainly be dry by the time they
reached this part of the plain. O 1, being a pure drainage stream,
would be, under ordinary circumstances, dry along its whole course at
that time of year.
There would, under no conceivable circumstances, have been water enough
in this conjectured νῆσος, at that time of year, to supply an army
one-tenth the number of the Greek force. We cannot even assume
exceptionally heavy rain (a most extraordinary circumstance in the
month of September), for in that case the lands of the Asopos would
have been impassable for cavalry, and even infantry would have been
unable to cross them. I speak from personal experience. I wanted to
get down to the river, in order to get points of survey upon it, since
its course is not distinguishable with certainty, even from a furlong
off; but after getting into plough, into which I sank above my knees,
and after my Albanian servant had come down and nearly disappeared with
my plane table, I gave it up. I could not reach it at that point; and
that part of the Asopos had to remain marked in my map by a dotted line
which, although it gives the course very nearly, does not pretend to
the same accuracy as the rest of the map.
Condition (9) really contains two conditions.
(1) The Persian cavalry could not damage the Greeks so much in the
former position, because—
(2) They would not attack them on the front
Applying (1) to this conjectured νῆσος, I have no hesitation in saying
that the stream-beds which bound it afford no serious obstacles to
cavalry for at least ninety out of every hundred yards of their
course. A horse could cross them in most places without even easing
from its gallop, and, apart from this, the effectiveness of the
recent attacks of the Persian cavalry had been due to the fact that
it had been fighting with missiles and not at close quarters, as
Herodotus expressly says. The Greeks could not have faced them across
a watercourse a yard or two broad, so as to be able to prevent their
passing it, even had the passage been a work of some difficulty to a
mounted man. If further argument on this point be necessary, I can
only say that it is impossible to conceive how the generals of the
Greeks, having found the Asopos an utterly insufficient protection,
could have supposed that the army would be in safety behind these much
slighter watercourses. Have the stream-beds altered in character? If
any alteration has taken place, it can only have taken the form of the
raising of the plain by earth brought down from the uplands, the result
of which would be that the channels would be deeper now than at the
time of the battle.
Condition (9, 2).—Had the Greek position been on this ground, the
attack would certainly have been on the front.
[Illustration: BŒOTIAN PLAIN, FROM PLATÆA-MEGARA PASS.]
[Illustration: PLATÆA—WEST SIDE OF Νῆσος.
[_To face page_ 482.
]
There is another point mentioned by Herodotus which is very difficult
to reconcile with the location of the νῆσος in the position in which
Leake and Vischer place it. #“ISLAND” OF LEAKE AND VISCHER.# He says
(ix. 56) that when the Athenians and Lacedæmonians did actually
begin their movement thither, οἱ μὲν (the Lacedæmonians) τῶν τε ὄχθων
ἀντείχοντο καὶ τῆς ὑπωρέης του Κιθαιρῶνος, φοβεόμενοι τὴν ἵππον.
Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ κάτω τραφ θέντες ἐς τὸ πεδίον, etc.
Since the Lacedæmonians, had they marched direct from the Asopos ridge
to this νῆσος, would not have had to traverse a longer stretch of
ἱππάσιμος χῶρος than if they had gone round by the ὑπωρέη (_vide_ map),
it is difficult to see why they should have adopted the infinitely more
circuitous route.
I do not, however, wish to lay too much stress upon this argument,
as I believe the real object of the course taken by the Spartans to
have been the relief of the convoys blocked up in the pass on the
Platæa-Athens road, a reason which may be deduced from Herodotus’ own
words in describing the decision to move to the “Island” (ix. 51)—“They
determined, on arriving at this place (the ‘Island’), to send off half
the army towards Kithæron in the course of this night, to recover the
attendants who had gone after the provisions, they being blocked up in
Kithæron.”
It does not seem likely that, after the damage which they had suffered
in the second position, they could have come to the decision to send
off from the νῆσος of Leake and Vischer one half of the army to the
pass. It would be obliged to march across a mile of ἱππάσιμος χῶρος
between Platæa and Ridge 4, and to venture itself, at a distance of
from two and a half to three miles from the remainder of the army.
The reason which mainly influenced both Leake and Vischer in thus
determining the site of the νῆσος was no doubt the question of distance
from the Asopos. They assumed that when Herodotus used that name he
meant the stream coming from Leuktra and the west. It is almost beyond
doubt that he does not mean this stream. The Asopos to him was the
stream A 1 with the main stream below the junction of A 1; and it is
extremely likely that what was the Asopos to him was also the Asopos
to the Platæans. It is only necessary to stand on the site of Platæa
and look northward over the plain in order to understand how this
nomenclature would arise. The course of A 1 is traceable all along the
west foot of the Asopos ridge; but the upper course of the main stream
is undistinguishable unless the river be in flood.
As this piece of ground fails in such important particulars to
harmonize with Herodotus’ account of the “Island,” it remains to be
considered whether it is possible to apply his description to any other
part of the field.
One fact is quite evident from Herodotus: the “Island” lay between the
branches of the Œroë.
I think it is to be found high up in the interval between the branch
streams, at the point indicated in the map, and that it consisted
of Ridge 4, and possibly of Ridge 3 also. Any one who takes the
higher track from Kriekouki to Kokla cannot fail to be struck by the
peculiarity of the ground, should he happen to look down towards the
plain at the point where the road passes close to the narrow strip of
land which separates the sources of the streams O 1 and O 3. These
sources, as will be seen from the map, are close together, and the
ridge which separates them is quite low at the narrowest part. The
stream O 3 (east branch) flows down towards the plain at first in a
deep valley with a very steep slope towards the “Island,” which valley
it leaves at the point where the streams which unite to form O 3 have
their junction. From this point it flows beneath the “Island,” which
rises steeply above it, whereas on the other side of the stream, _i.e._
on the west side, the ground slopes quite gradually up to the rounded
back of the low-lying Ridge 5.
The stream O 1 flows down to the plain in a deep depression.
It is true that at the present day these streams do not join
immediately on reaching the plain; but to show how possible it is that
their courses in the flat alluvial ground may have altered again and
again, within certain limits, in the course of time, I may mention that
when Colonel Leake visited this ground, the stream O 2 did not join O 3
at the point where it now joins it, but was a separate stream from it
at the point where the Kokla-Thebes track passes the branches of the
Œroë, _i.e._ more than a mile below their present junction.
There is another very striking point about this piece of ground, which
is noticeable in its contouring in the map. Its insular character is,
if I may so say, emphasized by a large hillock which rises on it close
to O 3, and which is a most prominent object, especially when viewed
from Platæa itself. This hillock may be identified by any one visiting
the ground, owing to its having on the south slope of it a white
building, the only building existing between Kriekouki and Kokla.
#THE “ISLAND.”#
It will be found on examination of the evidence that this locality
corresponds most closely with the description of the “Island,” given by
Herodotus, and furthermore that the incidents of the battle, as related
by Herodotus, support in a remarkable degree the hypothesis that this
is the island which he describes. It may be compared with the nine
conditions deducible from Herodotus with the following result:—
(1) It is, like the “Island” of Leake and Vischer, ten stades from
the stream A 1, the Asopos of Herodotus.
(2) It is, unlike their “Island,” ten stades from the Gargaphia
spring.
(3) It may be peculiarly well described as being πρὸ τῆς τῶν
Πλαταιέων πόλιος.
(_a_) Because, the site of Platæa city has a slope this way, in
fact, “verges” towards the east, as well as towards the
north.
(b) Because, looking at it from the site of Platæa across the low
Ridge 5, it [especially the hillock] stands out in a remarkable
way.
(4) The division of the streams ἄνωθεν ἐκ τοῦ Κιθαιρῶνος, whether it
be taken as that between O 1 and O 3, or between O 1 and O 2, is
peculiarly striking in either case, the head waters of the
streams nearly touching.
(5) O 3 and O 2 are three stades from one another. O 3 and O 1 are
nearly four stades.
(6) The streams _do_ join now, but may well have joined at a point
higher up their course at the time at which the battle was fought.
(7) The streams are the head waters of the Œroë.
(8) The water-supply of O 3 is derived, as will be seen, from seven
streams. On these streams are two large springs, one of which is
called by Leake the spring of Vergutiani, ◆Paus ix. 2, 3.◆ and is
apparently the πηγή of Pausanias. Beside these two springs there
are numerous smaller ones, and O 3 as it passes beneath the
hillock on the “Island,” is quite a large stream; but, like the
other streams which flow to the plain, its volume goes on
decreasing the further it gets into the flat country.
(9_a_) Reference to the map will show how well the condition is
fulfilled by the ground. The position would be unassailable
by cavalry on south and west. On the west, the slope of the
“Island” is very steep indeed; on the east of the valley of
the stream O 1 is deep. It would seem, too, from the large
accumulation of rocks and stones which have been removed from
the cultivated land at this part, as if this Eastern slope of
the “Island” was till recent times of the same nature as the
rocky hillside of Kithæron.
If, however, O 2 be taken as the boundary of the “Island,” then there
would be this rocky ground on the far side of it The valley of O 2 is
not, however, so deep as that of O 1.
The only point, then, at which this ground would be assailable by
cavalry would be at the north end or bottom of the slope. This brings
me to the second part of Condition 9.
(9_a_) The last fact mentioned explains Herodotus’ words, ὥσπερ κατιθὺ
ἐόντων.
Such, then, are the reasons, taken from Herodotus, which induce me to
take what may appear to be, and is, I confess, a very decided view as
to the position of the ground called the “Island.”
I think, too, that there are other considerations of a strategic
character which support this view.
A brief examination of the map will show that it would have been
difficult for the Greek generals to have chosen a spot in the whole
neighbourhood of Platæa which would have rendered their position in
case of disaster a more hopeless one than it would have been had they
withdrawn to the “Island” of Leake and Vischer. The possibility of
disaster must have been very present to their minds at the time at
which the decision was made to move to the “Island.”
Herodotus’ description of the state of the army under the continued
attacks of the Persian cavalry is brief but graphic. Its position
was, beyond doubt, exceedingly serious. But what would have been its
position had disaster overtaken it on that tongue of land in the plain
of Platæa? It would in the first place have been surrounded by the
Persian cavalry, since the ground between it and Platæa, a considerable
stretch of land, is all ιππάσιμος χῶρος, and to all intents and
purposes absolutely flat. Supposing even that it did try to cut its way
out, it would have been obliged either to retreat to the west towards
the Corinthian Gulf, or to make its way to one of the passes. In either
case the result must have been the practical, if not actual, ruin of
the Greek army.
The way to the Corinthian Gulf, however, would be outside all
calculation, since—
#MOVEMENT TO THE “ISLAND.”#
(1) There was no fleet in the gulf which could possibly have
transported even a small fraction of the force across it
(2) The only path across Kithæron west of Platæa must, from Xenophon’s
description (Xen. Hell. v. 4; and vi. 4), have been an exceedingly
difficult one. It is, moreover, some nine or ten miles distant
from Platæa. It cannot, in fact, have ever entered into the
calculations of the Greek generals.
As regards the three passes which lead on to the field, can we, if
we bear in mind the condition of the Greek army at the time of the
movement, suppose for a moment that the Greek generals would move to
a position farther away from the passes than they were before the
movement began? Surely their natural course would be to retire to
the higher ground, where they would be in comparative safety from
the Persian cavalry, and where, in the position I have indicated,
they would be exactly between the passes on the Platæa-Megara and
Platæa-Athens roads respectively, and where, too, they would be in easy
communication with both by way of the rocky part of the Kithæron slope.
The last piece of evidence bearing on this point is afforded by the
remarkable tale of Amompharetos, the Spartan officer who refused to
move from the second position with the rest of the Lacedæmonian force.
The reason which prompted (H. ix. 53) him in his refusal is stated by
Herodotus to have been the disgrace of retreating before the enemy.
The feeling is hardly comprehensible if the movement was to be to the
“Island” in the plain; it is comprehensible if it was to be towards
Kithæron, since he might well suspect that the real design of Pausanias
was to retreat through the mountain into Attica.
* * * * *
At the time at which this resolution was taken the Greeks were for
the moment a beaten army. What might have happened had the proposed
movement ever become an actual fact cannot of course be said, but it
is extremely probable that a leakage through the passes would have
commenced, by which its numbers would have been so rapidly reduced that
an absolute withdrawal from Bœotia would have shortly become necessary.
Had that been the case, Northern Greece must have been lost. It would
have been very difficult after what had happened to keep together
so composite a force in an advanced but purely defensive position. As
far as the Greek generals were concerned, their design, doubtless, was
to remain on the defensive in Bœotia, now that their offensive strategy
had not met with success, and to starve the enemy out of the country.
Alexander of Macedon had reported to them the approaching failure of
the Persian supplies.
They had failed in attempting to take the offensive in a country which
was peculiarly adapted for the operations of cavalry. They had been
led by the success they had achieved in the first position into the
mistake of remaining in a position which could only be justified by an
active offensive, not recognizing that their success on that occasion
had been due to the wrong use which Mardonius or Masistios had made of
their numerous cavalry. The passes formed, as it were, their immediate
base; and they had not recognized that by leaving an interval between
themselves and that base they exposed their line of communications
to the attacks of an arm against whose mobility they had nothing to
match, and had rendered themselves assailable from all sides by a
mode of assault which made it impossible for them to retaliate in
adequate fashion. It was their first experience of the possibilities
of cavalry action on a large scale; and it is noticeable that in the
many subsequent years of warfare with Persia in that century they never
again willingly exposed themselves to the possibility of such a reverse
as they had suffered in the second position at Platæa.
The curious piece of land, with its curious name of the “Island,” which
was fixed upon by the Greek commanders as the goal of the proposed
movement, is easily recognizable at the present day, owing to the
accuracy with which Herodotus describes it. It is one of those ridges
which extend northwards into the plain from the foot of the rocky slope
of Kithæron; but it is remarkable among them for two peculiarities.
#LAST HOURS ON THE ASOPOS RIDGE.# The streams which bound it on either
side have their sources on the mountain slope above it within but a few
yards of one another, so that it may be said to be all but surrounded
by water; and the ordinarily rounded back of these northward
stretching ridges is varied in this case by a steep and very noticeable
natural mound which rises upon it. It is nearly two miles due south of
the ridge which formed the Greek second position, and about one mile
due east of the town of Platæa. As a position it offered the distinct
advantage of being within touch of the Platæa-Athens and Platæa-Megara
passes, and of affording the army comparative immunity from cavalry
attack.
The Greek commanders were disappointed in their hope or expectation
that the cavalry attack would not be renewed on that day, on the
morning of which the Council of War was held. The Persians had plain
evidence of the effectiveness of the method they were employing; and
for the whole of a second day the Greeks had to support a series of
assaults without being able to inflict any proportionate damage on
the foe. Those who have been in the plains of Bœotia during the heat
of the late summer and early autumn will best appreciate the terrible
hardships which the army suffered. For at least forty hours it must
have been wholly cut off from water, and for a considerable part of
that time must have been undergoing severe exertion and supporting
severe losses under a burning sun upon that dusty, rolling plain. It
is evident indeed that the Persian cavalry withdrew during the night;
but they had, before doing so, rendered the Gargaphia spring unusable.
The longed-for darkness came at last, and at the appointed hour the
movement began. It began, indeed,—but it ended vary differently
from what had been intended. With the exception of the Spartans and
Athenians, the Greek army, without waiting for further orders, started
off in haste at the time appointed, —but not to the “Island,” so says
Herodotus. They never even thought of so doing, but were glad to take
refuge just outside the town of Platæa, around the temple of Hera.[208]
It is quite plain that Herodotus believed that the centre of the
Greek army fled in something resembling a panic, and neither obeyed,
nor intended to obey, orders. When the story is examined it is found to
contain several features which are very difficult to reconcile with the
colouring which Herodotus has given to it. If these Greeks intended to
fly, why did they not make directly for the Platæa-Megara pass, which
must have been open? Why did they go to Platæa?
Having gone thither, why did they not seize upon the town?
It has been suggested that in going thither they were carrying out
orders, and that the position at the Heræon was part of the position of
which the “Island” was another part. The nature of the ground between
the two positions, and their distance apart, does not render this very
probable.
The probability is that, like so many stories of incidents in Greek
history, this particular one has suffered from the exaggeration of some
of its true details, and the loss of others.
It is not strange that the events of the last two days’ fighting on
the Asopos ridge should have created disposition to panic throughout
the Greek army. Doubtless such a disposition did exist, and showed
itself in the hurried departure of a large portion of the army. But
even Herodotus does not say that the departure was premature. So far,
the tale may give a true representation of the facts of the case.
#RETIREMENT OF GREEK CENTRE.# What in all probability took place was
that the retiring force started without taking due precautions to
ascertain the exact line of retreat, or to provide itself with
guides who could lead it amid the darkness of the night to the position
which had been appointed as the rendezvous of the army. If that were
so, a mistake was not merely possible, but almost inevitable. In that
country of rise and fall which lies between Kithæron and the Asopos,
one slope resembles another, and one stream is similar in character
to its neighbours, so that there is a conspicuous absence of those
landmarks which may serve as a guide to one who traverses it by night.
It is not difficult to imagine their position when they found
themselves at the Heræon. They must have arrived there in the night,
and may have thought it well to wait until dawn disclosed the true
position of the rallying point of the Greek army. From the Heræon
the “Island” would be full in sight, when the advance of daylight
had rendered the surrounding country visible. But the dawn can have
brought but little comfort to them. It is more easy to realize the
scene that met their eyes than the intensity of this anxiety which
that scene aroused. Away to the east the “Island”—empty, unoccupied.
To the north-east the Persian army pouring in streams over the ridge
which they had evacuated during the night, and from the hollow beneath
that ridge two clouds of dust arising, sole indication of the terrible
struggle which was going on beyond the intervening ridges. This is not
merely a picture of the imagination and no more. It is what these men
_must_ have seen from their position at Platæa; for the narrative of
Herodotus indicates with sufficient clearness the time and the locality
of the battles which were fought on that fatal morning by the right and
left wings of the Greek army.
It would be unjustifiable to pass a decisive judgment on the conduct of
those Greeks. The extent of their cowardice is not indeed calculable.
The tradition which Herodotus followed tended manifestly to depict the
whole attitude of the Peloponnesian Greeks, both on this and other
occasions in the war, in the most unfavourable light. There can be
little doubt that the tradition was Athenian in origin.
It is not, however, necessary to assume that in this or any other
particular instance the truth was distorted in order to cloke Athenian
failings. The animosities of that later time at which Herodotus wrote
his history are quite sufficient to account for the discoloration of
facts, and in this particular instance there does not appear to be any
valid reason for supposing that the Athenians had anything to conceal.
Much had happened during the night of which the Greek centre was wholly
unaware.
Pausanias on the right wing, on seeing that the troops in the centre
had begun the movement of retirement, gave orders to the Spartans to do
the same. He supposed that the other Greeks would, according to orders,
withdraw to the “Island;” and, as has been seen, it is probable that
the latter had every intention of so doing.
A question now arises which is of very great importance with regard
to the history of the battle. Was it the intention of Pausanias that
his Spartans on the right wing should likewise withdraw direct to the
“Island,” or did he intend to carry out some other operation before
joining the rest of the army in that position? Herodotus, whose
attention is at this point in his narrative distracted by the not
unimportant tale of Amompharetos, makes no direct statement on the
subject, but he furnishes sufficient indirect evidence to render it
almost certain that the march of the Spartans neither was, nor was
intended to be, directed straight to the “Island,” but aimed first at
the accomplishment of a design which was at the moment of the utmost
importance to the army. It is further noticeable that the indirect
evidence of Herodotus is peculiarly supported by the light which is
thrown upon the further incidents of the battle by the topography of
the field.
In describing the resolution to move to the “Island,” Herodotus,
it will be remembered, says that it was the intention of the Greek
commanders to send half the army to relieve the provision trains which
were blocked in the passes; and the other evidence shows that the
Spartans’ movement from the second position had this immediate object
in view.[209]
#OBSTINACY OF AMOMPHARETOS.#
When, therefore, Pausanias saw the Greek centre was starting for the
“Island,” he gave orders to his division of forty thousand Spartans
and helots to move also, intending to march towards the pass on the
Platæa-Athens road, and, possibly, towards Dryoskephalæ pass also. For
the moment, however, his plan was completely upset by the obstinacy and
insubordination of one of his captains, Amompharetos, who, so Herodotus
says, commanded the Pitanate division of the Lacedæmonian force.[210]
The refusal to obey was evidently based on the supposition that the
withdrawal from the position was nothing less than a preliminary to
a retreat.[211] Orders and expostulations proving alike unavailing,
persuasion was tried, but with no better effect. The whole night seems
to have been wasted in the dispute, for it was not until day was
dawning that Pausanias moved away, reluctant to leave the regiment
to its fate, but hoping that when Amompharetos found himself alone he
would make up his mind to follow. The Tegeans accompanied the Spartans
in their movement.
That movement is described in some detail by Herodotus. While the
Athenians, who had been suspiciously waiting for the Spartans to move,
turned down towards the plain, the latter kept to the hills, and made
for the slopes of Kithæron, from fear of the Persian cavalry.[212]
Amompharetos, on seeing that the rest of the Spartan army was leaving
him in good earnest, started slowly after it, which movement being
perceived by Pausanias, he stopped the main body in order to wait for
him. He had by that time advanced ten stades, or a little more than a
mile, from his previous position, and he waited at a place which is
described as having been near the river Moloeis, in what was called the
Argiopian country, where was a temple of Eleusinian Demeter.
* * * * *
_The Temple of Eleusinian Demeter, etc._
Herodotus, in the words recently quoted, gives the following facts:—
(1) That Pausanias, with the main body of the Spartans, advanced ten
stades, and then waited for Amompharetos and his regiment.
(2) That he waited at the river Moloeis, in what is called the
Argiopian country.
(3) That there is a temple of Eleusinian Demeter in that part.
To which may be added from an earlier chapter:—
(4) Pausanias, after failing to persuade Amompharetos, starts at dawn:
his movements Herodotus describes as having been as follows:—
◆H. ix. 56.◆
“He gave the signal and led away the whole of the rest of his
force through the hills; the Tegeans also followed him.... For the
Lacedæmonians intended to keep to the hilly ground and the foot-slopes
of Kithæron, because they feared the cavalry.”
#TEMPLE OF ELEUSIAN DEMETER.#
Circumstances (1) and (2) may be taken together.
This is the first mention of the river Moloeis.
Nothing is known of the position of the Argiopian country; but it may
be surmised that it had some more or less striking characteristic which
caused it to be called by a special name.
Any identification of these two geographical features must be a matter
of extreme uncertainty.
After my stay at Kriekouki in 1892–1893, I was disposed to identify the
brook A 5 with the river Moloeis. I am inclined, after revisiting the
country in August, 1899, to think that the brook A 6 is more probably
the stream mentioned by Herodotus. It is the largest of the streams
which traverse the field, save, of course, the Asopos itself, and
Leake, in his map, assigns to it the name of the main stream. Though
the Spartan army after advancing ten stades from the Asopos ridge would
not be actually on this brook, yet, even granting to the measurement
given a greater accuracy than perhaps it can claim, the position
attained might be described as περὶ ποταμὸν Μολόεντα.
The matter, however, is so uncertain, that it is impossible to insist
on either of these two identifications against the other.
The name Argiopian has been supposed to mean “white rock,” and,
adopting this interpretation, one visitor to the region has discovered
that there is a patch of white rock on the side of Kithæron which
is a prominent object from the plain. As we were in August, 1899,
encamped in the plain near the head of brook A 5, I had ample
opportunity for observing the north slope of Kithæron. No such patch
was then visible on the dull grey-green rock slopes of the mountain.
As to the interpretation of the name I am, I confess, sceptical. The
interpretation of place-names in Greece, as elsewhere, is a most
dangerous though fascinating pastime; and it is but too often the case
that the most obvious interpretation is the most incorrect. All, I
think, that can be safely assumed in the present instance is that the
Argiopian country was a stretch of land marked off in some way from
its surroundings, and I venture to think that either the Long Ridge or
the Plateau has sufficient peculiarities, _quâ_ ground, to render it
possible that either of them might in ancient times have been known by
a distinctive local name.
The temple of Eleusinian Demeter is a more important landmark in the
history of the battle.
I venture to think that the ruins of the church of St. Demetrion
are probably on or near the site of that temple, and that the τέμενος
of the temple was on the flat top of that mound of the Long Ridge. The
reasons which may be adduced for this identification are as follows:—
(_a_) The Christians, in cases in which they adopted an ancient
temple, or the site of an ancient temple, for a church, were apt, in
dedicating the new sanctuary, to make a pious pun on the dedication
of the pre-existing pagan shrine. This kind of nomenclature has been
peculiarly common in Greece.
(_b_) It is true that Pausanias mentions several temples of Eleusinian
Demeter as having existed in this immediate neighbourhood, no one of
which can be supposed to have stood in this position.
But it is also clear that the temple mentioned by Herodotus is not any
one of these mentioned by Pausanias.
Cf. Paus. ix. 4, 2, at Platæa; ix. 4, 3, at Skolos; ix. 9, 1, Grove of
Demeter at Potniæ on the road from Thebes to Platæa, ten stades from
Thebes, _i.e._ about sixty stades from Platæa.
The omission of Pausanias to mention the one to which I refer may
possibly be accounted for by the fact that it lay, if I am right, _not_
near the great road from Athens to Thebes, _viâ_ Dryoskephalæ, but near
the alternative and probably much less frequented route between the two
towns by way of the Platæa-Athens pass.
(_c_) Pausanias (ix. 2, 6) says: “The trophy of the battle of Platæa
which the Greeks set up stood about fifteen stades from the city.”
It would be in accordance with Greek custom that this trophy should be
set up in that part of the field where the decisive engagement took
place. If, as I take it, it was fought just south of the hill on which
the ruined church of St Demetrion stands, a trophy placed on or near
that site would be almost exactly two miles from the town of Platæa, or
a little more than seventeen stades.
(_d_) This hypothesis as to the site of the temple receives peculiar
confirmation, as I shall show, from the account given by Herodotus of
the subsequent incidents of the battle, but it will, I think, be best
to take the order of the incidents as given by Herodotus.
In Plutarch’s life of Aristides (xi.) is a topographical detail which
would present considerable difficulty, were it not accompanied by
other details which show the absolute valuelessness of Plutarch as an
authority on the topographical question. He is speaking of the time at
which a move from the first position was contemplated: “Near Hysiæ
Kithæron is a quite ancient temple called (the shrine) of Eleusinian
Demeter and Kore.” He says further on that the rocky slope of Kithæron
meets the plain near the temple, and then adds that the Heroön of
Androkrates was there also, surrounded by a thick grove of trees.
Pausanias mentions (ix. 2, 1) a temple of Apollo among the ruins of
Hysiæ, but says not a word of any temple of Eleusinian Demeter being
found there.
But the reference to the position of the Heroön of Androkrates shows
that either Plutarch has made a great error, or that his language is
hopelessly inexact.
If latter be assumed to be the case, the temple of Demeter to which I
have referred might, I think, be described as being near what I take to
be the site of Hysiæ. It might even, owing to the height of Kithæron,
be described as underneath that mountain. As to the position of the
temple being near the edge of the ύπωρέη, it may be pointed out that
the site of the modern Kriekouki is a part of the rocky mountain-side
which projects far into the plain, but stops far short of the church of
St. Demetrion.
But even the utmost looseness of language will hardly account for the
assertion that the Heroön of Androkrates was near this temple, still
less that it was near the site of Hysiæ.
The explanation of the difficulty is, I take it, that Plutarch was
a biographer and not an historian; and consequently he may not
have thought, nay, he evidently did not think it necessary to deal
intimately with the topography of the battle. There is very little
topographical detail given by him, though as a Bœotian he had most
probably traversed one or more of the roads which cross the field. He
makes no mention of the νῆσος, either directly or indirectly:—a most
strange omission if he insisted at all on topographical detail.
There is in the passage above referred to a clause which is in direct
conflict with Herodotus’ narrative. Plutarch speaks of τὰς
ὑπωρείας ... ἄφιππα ποιούσας τὰ καταλήγοντα καὶ συγκυροῦντα τοῦ πεδίου
πρὸς τὸ ἱερόν, whereas Herodotus describes a cavalry attack as having
taken place upon this ground. Furthermore,—and this is a most important
point if Herodotus’ account of the fighting be correct,—the temple of
Demeter certainly lay on the Persian line of retreat after they had
been defeated by the Spartans; that is to say, it was almost certainly
between the place where the final action took place or began and the
Persian camp.
Again, I think that the words of Herodotus, in describing the first
phase of the second position of the Greeks as “near the Spring of
Gargaphia and the τέμενος of Androkrates the Hero, through hills of no
great height and level country,” can only mean that the τέμενος was
on the left of the Greek line; for the ἀπέδος χῶρος can only be the
plain between Platæa and the Asopos which comes from Leuktra, and this
position for the τέμενος accords with the details given by Thucydides.
How, then, the τέμενος be described as near the temple of Demeter, if
the latter was near Hysiæ?
On the question of the value of Plutarch’s evidence relative to the
battle, I agree with Colonel Leake:—
“It is scarcely worth while to advert to the particulars in which the
other ancient authors who have related this great event differ from
Herodotus; Diodorus and Plutarch lived so long afterwards that they
cannot have much weight against the testimony of the contemporary
historian. The former does not, however, deviate from it in any
important point, and the contradictions of the latter are undeserving
of much respect, as being those of a Bœotian angry with Herodotus for
having spoken freely of the disgraceful conduct of his countrymen,
and thinking no mode of exculpation so effectual as that of throwing
general discredit on the historian’s accuracy.” (“Travels in Northern
Greece,” vol. ii. p. 353.)
The movement of the Spartans was directed towards the pass on the
Platæa-Athens road. It was evidently their object to avoid as much as
possible the unimpeded ground of the plain on which the Persian cavalry
could act, and with this intent they seem to have diverged slightly
from the direct route to the pass in order to gain the northern end of
that rocky bastion of Kithæron whereon the modern Kriekouki stands,
a point at which the rocky mountain foot projects for some distance
into the plain. #SPARTANS LEAVE THE SECOND POSITION.# They would thus
take a direction S.S.E. from their position on the Asopos ridge, and
must have passed the now useless Gargaphia spring on their way.
After proceeding thus for ten stades, or about a mile and a furlong,
they waited for Amompharetos and his company, whose reluctant movement
from the late position they would be able to see from the moment that
it began. It must therefore have been near the head waters of the two
streams which run northwards on either side of the Long Ridge that this
delay took place; and either the easternmost of these streams or the
larger brook which skirts the site of Kriekouki on the west would seem
to be the river Moloeis of which Herodotus speaks. Looking northward
from that position, the highest point of the Long Ridge would rise
in front of them in the form of a flat-topped table-land, bounded on
either flank by the steep-sided stream valleys,[213] with the temple
of Eleusinian Demeter, of which Herodotus speaks, upon its summit. The
flat table-land itself formed doubtless that sacred precinct of the
goddess of which Herodotus has something more to tell. Somewhere in the
neighbourhood was the Argiopian country of which the historian speaks,
all trace of whose name and identity has long vanished into the past.
Possibly the plateau to the east of the Long Ridge bore that name in
ancient times.
It was in the position which they had thus attained that they were
fated to fight the decisive engagement by which the long-drawn struggle
was won. They never reached that rocky projection where Kriekouki now
stands.[214]
◆H. ix. 57.◆
“Those with Amompharetos joined them, and the whole of the barbarian
cavalry assailed them,” says Herodotus, in one significant sentence.
In the gathering light of the dawn the Persians beyond the Asopos had
noticed that the ridges which the Greeks had occupied for more than
a fortnight past were vacant, and had sent forward their cavalry to
overtake the retreating enemy. Amompharetos seems to have just managed
to reach the main body before the attack fell; but the reunited force
had no time to move before the cavalry was upon it. The ground on which
it stood at the time was as unfavourable as it well could be. The
bottom of the ridge lying west of Kriekouki sinks into the depression
in a long gentle slope, affording a terrain admirably suited to the
operations of the Persian cavalry; and it was on this ground that the
Spartans were obliged to make their stand. The object of the cavalry
attack was evidently to prevent the Greeks from attaining, before the
Persian infantry should have time to come up, the strong position
which the rocky slopes of Kithæron would afford. Mardonius made the
fatal mistake of supposing that the Greeks were a broken as well as a
beaten army,[215] and his sole anxiety seems to have been to render the
victory complete. Had he been able to appreciate the real circumstances
of the case, had he been content to abide by the tactics he had
employed on the previous days, the whole history of the battle might
have been changed.
◆H. ix. 59.◆
Having despatched his cavalry in pursuit of the Greeks, Mardonius lost
no time in hurrying forward his infantry across the Asopos on the
track of the retreating foe.[216] It is interesting to notice that it
was against the Lacedæmonians and Tegeans alone that his efforts were
directed, the line of retreat of the Athenians on the right wing of the
Greeks being hidden from him by the hills.[217]
It was with the Persian infantry that Mardonius led the way; but the
rest of the army followed with much speed and little order, eager to
take part in the rout of the enemy with whom they had been so long face
to face. They must have ascended the long gradual slope of the theatre
which is formed by the curve of the Asopos ridge on its north front,
and, arrived at its summit, they would see on the low ground southward
the large mass of the Lacedæmonian contingent engaged by their cavalry.
#BEGINNING THE GREAT FIGHT.#
Pausanias had no illusions as to the serious nature of the cavalry
attack, but sent an urgent message to the Athenians, who were at this
time making straight for the Island, to come to his help with all
speed.[218] The message is recorded, after the manner of Herodotus, in
what purport to be the words actually used. Without unduly insisting
upon the letter, its spirit is remarkable. The Spartans are represented
as having placed the worst construction upon the conduct of the Greek
centre in withdrawing from the position on the Asopos ridge before they
had done so themselves. And yet it will be remembered that Herodotus
expressly says that these “runaways” did not leave that position until
the hour which had been originally fixed for that movement. But here
these allies are represented as cowards and traitors to their friends.
The whole question of the conduct of the Greek centre at this stage
of the battle is an exceedingly difficult one; the only thing which
seems to be clear is that those Greeks who bore the burden and heat of
this day of decisive battle rightly or wrongly regarded them as having
yielded to a panic of fear. The condemnation was probably unjust; but
it is not possible to demonstrate conclusively that it was so.
◆H. ix. 61.◆
The Athenian help never reached the Spartans, and so they were left to
fight the battle alone. It was no small combat. Over fifty thousand
Greeks on the one side were face to face with what must have been
numerically a still more formidable force—a force which may have been
indeed several times their own in number. The Persian cavalry adhered
to the tactics which had been so effective on the previous days,
avoiding close fighting, and making the assault with arrows and missile
weapons from behind a barrier of shields. Many of the Lacedæmonians
fell, and many more were wounded in this unequal combat, in which
they must have been able to inflict but little damage on their mobile
opponents. The sacrifices were unfavourable; and so the Greeks did not
take the offensive. Pausanias must have been wholly in agreement
with the sacrifices, knowing well, it may be apprehended, that his only
chance of salvation lay in offering a firm front to the attack, and in
preventing the assailant horse from finding its way through the line
of Greek shields. The Persian infantry was, of course, by this time
aiding the assault, and it must indeed have been their shields which
were set up to form the extemporized stockade. This went on for a long
time. Pausanias was probably waiting till the press of the enemy became
sufficiently great to deprive their front ranks of that mobility from
which the Greek hoplite had most to fear. When this state of things
supervened he let his men loose upon the foe, after offering up a
prayer to Hera, which that goddess answered by rendering the sacrifices
favourable. It is probable that the attention which the Greek commander
paid to sacrificial omens was due rather to their effect on the minds
and courage of the common soldiers than to any undue trust which he
placed in them as indications of the tactical policy to be pursued.
◆H. ix. 62.◆
The Tegeans were the first to attack the mass of barbarians opposed to
them, and after an interval the Lacedæmonians did the same. They first
had to break through the barricade of shields; then the battle became
a fierce hand-to-hand struggle. Herodotus bears testimony to the fact
that the Persians were no whit inferior in courage, but being without
heavy defensive armour, they were no match for the most experienced
and best drilled infantry in Greece. ◆Cf. ix. 62, _ad fin._◆ They
evidently made fierce efforts to break through the iron-clad line of
the enemy, charging singly and in groups. But it was all of no
avail; not even the most desperate courage could compensate for the
immense disparity of weapons, and the men who had “made the tour of
Asia on foot,” and had fought and conquered the numerous peoples of
the East, found themselves utterly unable to cope with an army drawn
from one small corner of the Western Continent. Mardonius had made a
terrible miscalculation when he launched his comparatively light-armed
infantry against the Greek hoplites. He paid for his mistake with his
own life. ◆H. ix. 63.◆ Surrounded by a picked #FLIGHT OF THE PERSIANS.#
body of Persians, he was himself in the midst of the _mêlée_, and
was naturally marked out by the Greeks for attack. At last he fell, but
not until the assailants had paid dearly for their success.
[Illustration: PLATÆA: PANORAMA FROM SCENE OF LAST FIGHT.
1. Hills North of Kopais.
2. Mount Kandili (Mekistos) in Eubœa.
3. Hills between Kopais and Euripus.
4. Mount Dirphys in Eubœa.
5. Valley of Stream A 4.
6. Temenos of Demeter.
7. Valley of Stream A 5.
8. The Plateau.
[_to face page_ 502.
]
It is not difficult at the present day to follow the course of this
struggle.[219] After their commander’s fall the Persians gave way, and
were pushed down the gradual slope towards the stream valleys which
ran on either side of the precinct of Demeter,[220] affording them
direct lines of retreat to their camp. The stream of fugitives would
divide where the rise of the ground towards the precinct begins, and
would naturally take the easier and quicker routes afforded by these
valleys. ◆H. ix. 65.◆ They fled in disorder to their camp and stockade.
Herodotus notes with pious emphasis the fact that, though the fight
had raged near the temple, none of the sacrilegious destroyers of
her temple at Eleusis fell within the consecrated ground about this
shrine of Demeter. On more materialistic grounds it would be extremely
unlikely that men flying for their lives in panic flight should ascend
the hill whereon the sanctuary and its precinct stood, when easier
avenues of retreat were ready for them on either side of it.[221]
Such were the fortunes of what had been the Greek right wing. It is
now necessary to follow the movements of the Athenians who had been
stationed on the left of the second position.
It is clear that the two days’ cavalry attack had driven back the Greek
left from the Asopos; and, in the final phase of its tenure of the
second position, the army must have been massed on the summit of the
Asopos ridge; so that the left would be at no great distance from the
right.
◆H. ix. 54.◆
The Lacedæmonian delay in starting upon the movement of retirement
seems to have aroused suspicion in the minds of the Athenians,
if Herodotus’ narrative is to be believed. He does not mention any
specific cause for the distrust in the present instance, other than the
delay caused by the obstinacy of Amompharetos, attributing it rather to
general grounds: “They knew the Lacedæmonians had a way of intending
one thing and saying another.” The conduct of the Athenians is not
consistent with the tale of suspicion; and the tale itself probably
does something less than justice to the Athenian motives for remaining
at their post of danger. It is noticeable that when they do move they
take a wholly different line to the Spartans, showing that they did not
suspect them of any intention of deserting the army, and consequently
the only conceivable motive they can have had in waiting must have been
the desire that the withdrawal should be covered, if necessary, by a
sufficient number of the Greek army. As, however, the Spartans started
just before daylight, and the Persians did not immediately discover the
movement, the Athenians evidently thought that there would be no danger
in carrying out the original design; so, while their allies made their
way towards the passes, they took the easiest route to the Island.
They apparently started on their movement about the same time as the
Lacedæmonians. Their course can be traced with fair certainty. From
their position on the Asopos ridge north of the ruins of the church of
St John, they did not take the direct line for the Island, which would
have led them past the site of that modern sanctuary, but descended to
the western slope of the ridge to the Platæan plain.[222]
On reaching it they would pass up the course of that stream which
Herodotus identifies with the upper Asopos,[223] and would be marching
in a straight line for the Island. #ATHENIANS AND MEDIZED
GREEKS.# The route adopted was indeed but little longer than the
direct route, and would be easier, as it lay along the level plain. ◆H
ix. 60.◆ It must have been at some point in the course of this march
that the message from Pausanias reached them, announcing the attack
of the Persian cavalry, and urgently entreating them to come to his
assistance, or at any rate to send their bowmen to his help. ◆H. ix.
61.◆ On receiving this the Athenians diverged from the line of march,
and started towards the place where the Spartans were being sore
pressed by the cavalry. Shortly after this change of direction had
taken place they were attacked by the medized Greeks who were with the
Persian force, and were thus prevented from assisting the Spartans. The
circumstance that this fight seems to have been out of sight of that
part of the Greek army which was at Platæa, renders it probable that
the Athenians had turned from the plain along the line of the modern
track which leads from Leuktra to Dryoskephalæ, and that the medized
Greeks, coming up over the Asopos ridge in the neighbourhood of the
church of St. John, overtook them in the hollow near the springs of
Apotripi, where a fierce engagement took place. ◆H. ix. 67.◆ Although
the rest of the medized Greeks voluntarily played the coward on this
occasion, the Bœotians showed that they had not espoused the Persian
cause to no purpose, and for a long time maintained an obstinate
struggle, losing three hundred of their best and bravest in the battle.
In the end they had to give way, and fled in disorder to Thebes.
◆H. ix. 68.◆
The whole Persian army was now in full flight, save the cavalry, which
made a brave and, for the time being, a successful effort to cover
the retreat, though it could not prevent the pursuing Greeks from
inflicting severe losses upon the fugitives.
◆H. ix. 69.◆
It was at this time, says Herodotus, that the Greeks at Platæa first
heard that a battle had taken place, and that Pausanias and his men
had won the day. They must have spent an anxious morning on that rocky
slope near the Heræon, not venturing to move, because uncertain what
they ought to do, and knowing nothing of their friends save that they
were not at the Island, where, according to arrangement, they
should have been. They may perhaps have seen the Athenians moving
along the foot of the Asopos ridge shortly after dawn, and the Persian
army as, a little later, it streamed across that ridge, must have been
plainly visible; but from the moment when the Athenians disappeared
into the hollow near the springs of Apotripi, until they received this
message, all they can have seen or heard must have been the clouds of
dust rising from two points in the depression beneath the northern
ridges, and the confused and distant noise of an engagement. They seem
to have played an inglorious, if not a cowardly, part in sitting still
while these things were going on; but if it be borne in mind that
the little they did see of the movements of their friends and of the
enemy on the fatal morning was wholly inexplicable by the orders they
themselves had received, or by anything that had happened within their
knowledge, their inaction may seem natural. Herodotus is not inclined
to put the best construction on the conduct of those who were drawn
largely from those Greek states which had advocated what seemed to him
the cowardly blunder of confining the defence to the Isthmus.
The receipt of the message, therefore, put them for the first
time in possession of certain information as to what had happened
since they had parted from their allies on the Asopos ridge on the
preceding night. The news, such as it was, was good; and they started
immediately with a view to take part in the victory. The details which
Herodotus gives of their movements afford conspicuous proof of his
remarkable excellence as a topographer, though they also illustrate his
limitations as a military historian.
The Greeks at Platæa divided into two bodies; and from the description
which the historian gives of the lines of advance which they adopted
there can be little doubt that, though he does not mention the fact,
they marched respectively on the two places where fighting was going
on. ◆H. ix. 69.◆ The advance was hurried and disorderly. The one body
was composed of the Corinthians and those with them—the right centre.
#THE GREEK CENTRE.# It took a line along the rocky slope of Kithæron
and through the hills, along the upper way leading straight to
the temple of Demeter. Its course was evidently along the rocky slope
at the south end of the ridge[224] which intervenes between Platæa
and the Island, over the head waters of the streams which form the
Island,[225] and then over the open and unimpeded ridges towards the
temple.[226] This division of the Greek centre seems to have reached
the Lacedæmonians in safety, and may even have taken part in the last
stages of the struggle near the temple. The other division, composed of
Megareans, Phliasians, and the rest of the Greek left centre, was not
so fortunate. ◆H. ix. 69.◆ They took “the most level way through the
plain.” Herodotus is evidently under the impression that they also were
making for the temple of Eleusinian Demeter; but the course they took,
which must have been along the base of the ridge between Platæa and the
Island,[227] together with the fact that they came across the Bœotian
cavalry at a time at which it cannot have been covering the retreat
of the medized Greeks,—at a time, that is to say, at which they were
still engaged with the Athenians,—suggests that they aimed at giving
assistance to their friends in that part of the field, and that the
Bœotian cavalry sought, not in vain, to prevent them from so doing. The
conjecture is further supported by Herodotus’ statement that they were
“near the enemy” when the Theban horse caught sight of them; and that
cavalry must presumably have been engaged at the time in battle with
the Athenians. Their disorderly and hurried advance cost them dear. The
Thebans cut them to pieces, killing six hundred of them, and driving
the rest in headlong rout towards Kithæron.
This was the only disaster which befell any section of the Greek army
on that eventful day. No doubt the Athenians and Lacedæmonians suffered
severely—more severely than the Greeks ever admitted; but in any case
they paid but a cheap price for their great victory.
◆H. ix. 63.◆
Herodotus is fully aware that it was to the superiority of
their weapons that the Greeks owed their success. “The main cause of
the Persian defeat was the fact that their equipment was devoid of
defensive armour. They sought, exposed as they were, to compete with
heavy armed infantry.”
The enthusiasm with which he hails the victory is rare with him.
Salamis left him comparatively cold; but of Platæa he says that there
“Pausanias the son of Kleombrotos the son of Anaxandrides gained the
most glorious victory on record.”[228]
The historian was right in thus attributing to Pausanias and his
Lacedæmonians the chief credit of the victory. The decisive conflict
was fought beneath the shadow of the temple of Eleusinian Demeter.
The two defeated bodies of the enemy fled in different directions.
The Persians retreated to their camp, where, thanks to the bravery
of their cavalry in covering their rout, they had time to man the
stockaded portion of it before the Greeks came up. The beaten Bœotians,
on the other hand, fled straight to Thebes, probably striking the
Platæa-Thebes road shortly after recrossing the Asopos.
◆H. ix. 66.◆
One division of the Persians, a body of forty thousand men, under the
command of Artabazos, neither took part in the final struggle nor took
refuge in the stockaded camp. With singular foresight, their commander
was strongly opposed to the attack on the apparently retreating Greeks,
apprehending that it could only end in disaster. He only brought up his
men in time to meet the stream of fugitives from the battle, and then
turned right about and departed without further ado for Phocis.
#LOSSES IN THE BATTLE.#
In the course of the pursuit the Lacedæmonians, as would be expected
from their position in the field, arrived first at the stockaded camp;
but, with that noteable incapacity in the attack on fortified places
which is one of the most striking and least comprehensible features in
Greek military history, they failed to make any impression on it,
until the Athenians, who possessed more skill in this respect, came up.
A successful assault was made, the Tegeans being the first to enter
the stockade. Then ensued a massacre, in which it is reported that
thirty thousand men perished. ◆H. ix. 82, _ad init._◆ Plunder, too,
of great value fell into the hands of the victors, for Xerxes, in his
precipitate flight to the Hellespont, had left behind him much of the
extraordinary paraphernalia which he, like other Oriental monarchs of
other ages, thought necessary to bring with him on campaign.
◆H. ix. 70.◆
It is doubtless the case that the numbers of those who perished on
the Persian side were very large, though much exaggerated in later
tradition. On the Greek side the losses, as given by Herodotus, were
ninety-one Lacedæmonians, seventeen Tegeans, and fifty-two Athenians.
It is evident that this statement refers only to those who fell in
the fighting of the last day of the battle; but, even so, it may
be suspected that there is a considerable understatement. It is,
indeed, the case that, throughout the history of the fifth and fourth
centuries, the losses of Greek armies in victorious combats against
Orientals are singularly small; but it is hardly credible that on the
present occasion, when the Persian infantry and cavalry fought with
all the confidence of success, that the large mass of their opponents,
the majority of whom were light-armed, lost but ninety-one men in a
somewhat protracted engagement; still less is it credible that the
Athenian loss was so small when matched against an enemy armed like
themselves.
Of the Greeks that took part in the fight, Herodotus considers that
the Lacedæmonians distinguished themselves most, and after them the
Athenians and Tegeans.
Any one who realizes the difficulties which must have faced the
historian of the fifth century when seeking to discover the truth with
respect to the incidents of a battle which had been fought years before
he began even to collect his materials, must admire the success which
Herodotus has attained in his description. At the same time, that
description is of such a nature, and is so manifest in its limitations,
that a careful reader can distinguish without difficulty the
kind of sources from which it is drawn. There is hardly any trace
whatever of any official record lying behind it; it does not even
seem as if the historian drew his information with regard to any one
of its incidents from any one who was acquainted with the design of
those in command. The account, as it stands, seems to be mainly built
upon a foundation of evidence furnished by some intelligent observer
or observers present at the fight in some subordinate position. This
fact would account for the entire absence of any mention of any plan,
strategic or tactical, on the part of the Greek generals. Two motives
continually brought forward for the movements of the Greek force are
the want of water and the damage wrought by the Persian cavalry; and
these are the very motives which would present themselves to the mind
of a Greek soldier to whom the plans governing the battle were unknown.
It is fortunate that sufficient details of a reliable character have
been preserved to make it possible to see the general nature of the
design entertained by those in command in what was certainly the
greatest and most interesting of the Hellenic battles of the fifth
century. But, while the major part of Herodotus’ narrative rests on
the basis of information thus supplied, there are undoubtedly parts
of it which are drawn from traditional sources. He seems to have
interwoven into the main story incidents drawn both from Athenian and
from Spartan, or possibly Pan-Hellenic traditions; for instance, the
tale of the shifting of the positions of the Athenians and Spartans
in the Greek line of battle, and possibly the tale of Amompharetos,
together with passages here and there which show a bias in favour of
some particular element in the Greek army. But, judged even by modern
standard, there is but little to find fault with in the account, in so
far as its fairness is concerned. The only section of it which shows
signs of personal feeling on the part of the narrator himself, is that
relating to the conduct of the Greek centre after the withdrawal from
the second position. #SURVEY OF THE BATTLE.# In that case it may be
suspected that what has appeared to him the reprehensible and selfish
policy of the Peloponnesian states in the previous period of the
war, has coloured his view of the conduct of their contingents on this
particular occasion. His failure to appreciate the strategy and larger
tactics is in accordance with what is found elsewhere in his history;
and though it renders his narrative difficult to unravel, it makes
the demonstrable accuracy of the tale which he does tell all the more
remarkable.
A battle so great and so important must necessarily excite the
imagination of any student of history. It is hardly an exaggeration to
say that much of the environment of our daily life at the present day
owes its existence to the issue of that struggle in the hollow beneath
the temple of Eleusinian Demeter. Had the great battle turned out
differently, as it so very nearly did, the whole history of the fifth
century might have been altered. Surely it was one of the strangest
battles ever fought; it was indeed more of the nature of a campaign
within an extremely circumscribed area. The operations were spread
over a period of certainly not less than three weeks, reckoning from
the arrival in Bœotia up to the time of the capture of Thebes; and it
is possible even to argue from Herodotus’ narrative that they covered
a period of four weeks. But the most remarkable point with regard to
them is not perhaps their protracted nature, but the extraordinary
variations of success and failure which attended the operations of
either side. It was eminently a battle in which the ultimate success
was due, not to the excellence of the dispositions made by the
victor, but to the mistakes made by the vanquished. Theoretically
those mistakes were hardly greater than those which the victor made:
practically they were fatal.
The Greeks arrived in Bœotia and took up their position with a general
intention of striking at the Persian and his base of operations along
the Dryoskephalæ-Thebes road. Finding this blocked by the Persian
position, they were probably somewhat at a loss as to what course to
pursue next. Opinions were, doubtless, divided as to the significance
of that factor of unknown but suspected value in the Persian camp, the
cavalry, for, owing to its absence at Marathon, the European Greeks
had had no opportunity of testing its effectiveness. Mardonius
was not slow in providing them with an experiment in his desire to win
what would have been a striking success by piercing the Greek centre,
and seizing the pass in its immediate rear, he made the mistake of
using his cavalry against unbroken heavy infantry in a position which
offered exceedingly restricted opportunities for such an attack, with
the inevitable result that his men were beaten back with considerable
loss. There can be little question that the Greek commanders misread
the results of that experiment, and mistakenly assumed that what had
occurred on the low ground in front of Erythræ gave satisfactory
assurance of the capacity of the Greek army to face the enemy’s cavalry
in the plain. It did not, apparently, occur to them that it was one
thing to face that cavalry in a position where the attack could only
be on their front, and, moreover, on but a small extent of that front,
and quite another thing to meet it on the open plain, where its extreme
mobility, compared with their own immobility, would render it able to
assail front, flank, and rear at the same time.
Their immediate object of attack was Thebes. It is little short of
absurd to suppose that a people such as the Greeks reversed without
cause the whole system on which they had hitherto conducted the war,
and entered Bœotia with a witless lack of design.
Their plan was to force the Persian to retire from Northern Greece,
and from Bœotia first of all, and so to get rid of the danger which
manifestly threatened them, the establishment of a new frontier of the
great Empire within their own borders. If the enemy’s tenure of Thebes
could be rendered impossible, he must retire northward; and against
Thebes therefore their operations were directly aimed. The fatal
weakness of their plan was their lack of cavalry; but it was the very
form of weakness whose significance, from their lack of experience in
that arm, they were least capable of gauging.
In spite of this, their design in moving to the second position might
have been effective, had they been able to execute it before the
Persians received information of what they were doing. #STRATEGY AND
TACTICS AT PLATÆA.# A flank attack suddenly delivered by the whole
Greek army could hardly have failed to lead to decisive results. With
such an end in view, they moved along the side of Kithæron, and then,
advancing into the plain, deployed the army in that depression which
was hidden from the Persian camp by the northern ridges,[229] so as
to be able to advance in battle array directly upon the Persian right
flank. But on reaching the summit of the Asopos ridge, they found
that their movement had been discovered by the enemy, and that he had
also moved in such a way as to make a flank attack and a surprise
alike impossible. The position was, for the time being, stalemate; and
remained so for at least a week, neither side venturing on a direct
frontal attack. But the situation began to develop rapidly so soon
as Mardonius launched his cavalry against the short Greek line of
communication with the passes. The position became desperate when he
began to use his horsemen in the effective way in which that excellent
Asiatic light cavalry could be used, to harass the Greek infantry by
a form of attack which they were wholly unable to meet in adequate
fashion.
The Greek force was obliged to retire from the Asopos ridge. Mardonius,
if he had only known it, had won the battle, in the sense that he had
rendered impossible all further offensive operations on the part of
the enemy in the plains of Bœotia. He was too eager to convert the
defeat into a rout, when, on seeing that the Greeks had evacuated
their position during the night, he launched the whole of his infantry
against them. The mistake was fatal, irremediable. The rout of his
infantry was such that no effort on the part of his cavalry could
restore the battle; all that it could do was to cover the retreat as
far as the stockaded ramp. Marengo is perhaps the only other great
battle in history which presents so startling a reversal of fortune.
Platæa was lost and won. Truly the Persian was the rock on which he
himself made shipwreck.
With the capture of the stockaded camp the battle ended. Two Greek
contingents arrived on the scene after the fighting was over, the
Mantineans and Eleians. The incident is chiefly remarkable as showing
how extraordinarily difficult it was to instil into the population
of the Peloponnese the necessity of prompt united action against the
common foe. Their delay does not seem to have been due to cowardice,
but to an absolute failure to appreciate the necessities of warfare
waged beyond their own borders, with an enemy who was prepared to
keep the field for an indefinite length of time. Their disappointment
in not sharing in the victory was no doubt genuine enough,—the
Mantineans are even reported to have offered to pursue the retreating
army of Artabazos as far as Thessaly,—but it is significant for the
trustworthiness of Greek official records that the Eleians, probably
owing to their close and friendly relations to Sparta at this time, got
their name engraved on the official lists both at Olympia and at Delphi
of those who had taken part in the battle.
◆H. ix. 77.◆
Many tales told by Herodotus of individual exploits display all
the traces of the embellishment of later tradition. One of them,
however, is notable. It may be true, or it may be an invention, for an
Æginetan plays the part of villain in the plot; but it shows in any
case the incorruptible character of a not unimportant side of Greek
civilization. An Æginetan of rank, named Lampon, is represented as
having advised Pausanias to requite on the dead body of Mardonius the
outrages which the barbarians had inflicted on the corpse of Leonidas
after his death at Thermopylæ. Pausanias’ striking answer lays down
the law that, even under circumstances of the greatest provocation,
Hellenic civilization should never imitate the barbarism of the
foreigner. It was, perhaps, owing to the very vagueness of their ideas
as to the afterworld, and to the prevalence of the old Homeric view
that in any case the future life could be at best but a shadow of
the present, that they regarded the mortality of the body with most
touching sympathy. To a people who lived, enjoyed, and appreciated
every moment of their vivid life amid the light and colour of the
East, the dead body, whether of Greek or Barbarian, was the material
presentment of the loss of all they valued most.
#AFTER THE BATTLE.#
The spoil which the Greeks collected from the Persian camp seemed to
them of enormous value; and Pausanias took special precautions
for its collection, employing the helots alone for this purpose. If
Herodotus is to be believed, these precautions were not entirely
successful; for the Æginetans persuaded the helots to sell them many
of the valuables for a mere nothing, and by that means acquired
considerable wealth. The tale, however, must be read in the light of
after-history, when the long-standing enmity between Athens and Ægina
reached its culminating point.
A tithe of the plunder was dedicated to Delphi, offerings being also
made at Olympia and the Isthmus. It belongs to the romance of history
that, amid the wholesale and irreparable destruction of the monuments
of the great ages of Greece, the most remarkable of the memorials
of the battle survives at the present day. Near the great altar at
Delphi was set up a golden tripod upon a lofty stand of three entwined
snakes, on which was engraved the names of the Greek states which had
sent contingents to Platæa. This most interesting and most important
monument of antiquity still in part remains. The snake pillar was
removed by Constantine to Constantinople. Amid all the vicissitudes
in the subsequent history of the great city it has survived. It still
stands in a mutilated form, the heads of the snakes having been broken
off, exposed, alas! to the weather in front of the great Mosque of
Sultan Achmet.
The burial of those who had died in the battle was next carried
out. The body of Mardonius had vanished—how, no one could say; but
Herodotus thinks that some Greeks had been paid to give it sepulture,
and he knows that many subsequently claimed and received money from
the son of Mardonius for having so done. The Greek dead were placed in
graves, according to their nationality, ◆Paus. ix. 2, 5.◆ and centuries
later Pausanias saw those graves by the side of the Platæa-Megara road,
just before it entered the town of Platæa. There are numerous rock-hewn
tombs remaining at the present day in the same locality; and it would
seem as if a cemetery had in later times been established on the ground
in which the heroes of the battle were buried. Among the Spartan dead
was Amompharetos, whose obstinacy had been so largely instrumental
in bringing about the victory. Some of the Greeks, says Herodotus, who
had no dead to bury, owing to the inglorious part they had played,
raised tombs there “for the sake of posterity.” The unfortunate
Æginetans, of whom the historian in this part of his history has no
good word to say, are reported to have caused such a tomb to be raised
at Platæa ten years after the event.[230]
The Greeks spent ten days over the distribution of the spoil and
the disposal of the dead. Before leaving Bœotia they determined to
settle the long account standing against the Thebans and the Bœotians
generally. They can hardly be blamed for the bitter feeling which the
policy of that people had aroused in their breasts. The treason of
Bœotia to the national cause had indeed been beyond forgiveness. From
the very outset its attitude had been doubtful and suspicious, even
before the time when the desertion of Thermopylæ afforded it some
excuse for an unpatriotic policy. It is very difficult to form any
certain idea of the motives which prompted the Bœotians to medize at
all in the first instance, and to medize so energetically in the end.
It is probable, however, that from the very beginning the oligarchs
in the various cities, adopting the policy of the feudal lords in
Thessaly, thought that they could best secure the permanence of their
own selfish interests by submission to Persia; and that subsequently
the determination of the other Greeks to make no attempt to defend the
land north of Geraneia caused the mass of the population to side with a
policy which afforded them some possibility of saving their rich lands
from wholesale ruin. The decision once taken, they displayed at least
the merit of thoroughness. #PUNISHMENT OF THE THEBANS.# Their medism
was by no means passive. They had staked all on the Persian success,
and could expect far less mercy from the Greek patriots than, as
a fact, they actually received. That being so, they remained faithful
to their new allies after Salamis, and showed no disposition to revolt
during that winter of 480–479, while Mardonius was far away north in
Thessaly. It may be that they were acquainted with that alternative
design of conquest whose conjectured existence can alone account for
the strategy of Greek and Persian alike previous to the battle of
Platæa. They had so thoroughly identified themselves with the invaders,
that the success of the Greek in the war might be expected to prove
far more dangerous to them than that of the Persian. Moreover, public
opinion in Bœotia was that of the few rather than that of the many;
and the few evidently conceived that their interests in the present
and future alike were intimately bound up in the success of Persia,
whose Government had shown in its treatment of the Ionians that it was
sufficiently civilized to appreciate the advisability of ruling Greeks
by means of Greeks.
The patriots seem to have recognized that the responsibility for
the treason of Bœotia rested not so much with the whole population
as with its leaders; ◆H. ix. 86.◆ for they aimed not at a wide
measure of revenge, but at the punishment of those prominent men
who had led the people astray. They marched on Thebes, and demanded
the surrender of the medizing party, and especially of the prime
instigators, Timegenides and Attaginos. The town was blockaded, but
still the Thebans refused to give up the men; so the wall was attacked
and the lands in the neighbourhood laid waste. On the ninth day of
the siege Timegenides proposed that, in order to save the country,
the assailants, if they wanted money, should be bought off; or, if
they persisted in their demand for the surrender of himself and his
fellow culprits, they should give themselves up, and take their
chance of a trial. His hope was, evidently, that bribery would do its
work. The Thebans gave up all save Attaginos, who escaped. It is a
strange commentary on Greek character that Pausanias did not entrust
the prisoners to the judgment of a pan-Hellenic court, fearing, as
Herodotus plainly hints, that bribery might secure their acquittal,
but took them away to Corinth, where he had them executed. It is,
perhaps, a still stranger commentary on Greek character that a Greek
historian should have dared to insert such a suspicion into an account
of what was in many respects the crowning incident in the national
history.
Of the fate of the defeated Persians Herodotus says nothing. They
probably streamed back to Asia in a miserable and ever diminishing
train. ◆H. ix. 89.◆ Even Artabazos, who made good his escape, thought
it necessary to conceal from the Thessalians what had happened in
Bœotia, and himself suffered severe losses in a retreat which must
have been a counterpart on a smaller scale of that of Xerxes the
year before. He did not venture along the coast route, but took an
inland course, and finally reached Asia across the Bosphorus by way of
Byzantion.
_Appendix Note 1.—The Account of the Battle given by Diodorus._
It is, perhaps, impossible to say from what authorities other than
Herodotus Diodorus drew his account of the battle. We have had reason
to see that, despite his carelessness as to chronological details, he
sometimes displays the merit of having followed valuable authorities
whose original work is not now extant. This is noticeably the case in
his account of Salamis. His narrative of Platæa seems to rest mainly
on the history of Herodotus, together with elaborations either of his
own or taken from his main authority, Ephoros. One great omission,
and his looseness in the treatment of his facts, make it impossible
to accept his evidence, where it differs from Herodotus’ version, as
being of historical importance. I do not therefore propose to do more
than tabulate the main points of resemblance and difference in the two
accounts.
(1) He, like Herodotus, says that the first position of the Greeks was
near Erythræ (D. xi. 29).
(2) He represents the Persian force as having been at Thebes when the
news of the Greek advance into Bœotia reached Mardonius. Herodotus does
not say this; but he does, of course, give an account of a banquet at
Thebes somewhere about this time, at which the principal Persians were
present (D. xi. 30).
#ACCOUNTS OF DIODORUS AND PLUTARCH.#
(3) His account of the first cavalry attack of the Persians
differs from that of Herodotus in certain details. He seems to
represent the Athenians as having been the first to be attacked; but
he also represents them as subsequently extricating the Megareans from
their dangerous position.
(4) He mentions, more emphatically perhaps than Herodotus, the feeling
of elation and confidence among the Greeks at the defeat of the Persian
horse and the death of Masistios, whom, however, he does not name.
(5) He mentions the movement to the second position, his description
of which corresponds very well with what I think must, from the
description of Herodotus, have been the locality of the second phase of
that position.
(6) The rest of his narrative appears to be a version of Herodotus’
account of the last great fight which took place in the course of the
movement to the “Island.” Consequently there is a large gap in his
narrative (D. xi. 30, 31).
Generally speaking, he represents the Greeks as having taken the
offensive in a more emphatic way than we should suppose did we take the
account of Herodotus without reading between the lines of it.
_Appendix Note 2.—The Account of the Battle given in Plutarch’s
“Aristides.”_
The account of the operations of the army as a whole, in so far as
it is given, follows closely the account of the same events given by
Herodotus, and is, apparently, largely taken from his narrative. It
is noteworthy, however, that all that Herodotus says relating to the
“Island” is omitted, and a doubt is expressed as to the accuracy of his
statement with regard to the part which the Greek centre played on the
decisive day of the struggle. The reasons given for this doubt would,
however, seem to indicate that Plutarch had not fully estimated the
significance of this part of Herodotus’ story. That Plutarch did not
rely wholly on Herodotus in writing the account of the operations of
the army is shown by his reference to Kleidemos for an unimportant and
not very probable detail (Plut. Arist. 19). Still, his narrative, in so
far as it relates to the events mentioned by Herodotus, coincides very
closely with the account of the latter.
_Appendix Note 3.—Note on Platæa._
In the _American Journal of Archæology_, 1890, p. 460, Mr. Irving Hunt,
who spent some time at Platæa as one of the members of the American
School of Archæology engaged in superintending excavations on the site
of the ruins of the town, has written an account of the battlefield.
A slight map of the field is added at the end of the volume; it is,
however, on a very small scale, and does not mark any natural features
at all save the streams.
Mr. Hunt seems to accept most of the identifications previously made by
Leake; and as these have been already discussed, there is no reason to
refer to them again here. The point, however, in his paper with which I
wish to deal at length is his determination of the site of the temple
of Eleusinian Demeter.
He places it “on high ground south-east of Platæa, where are the
foundations of a large Byzantine church, six minutes’ walk east of
the spring of Vergutiani.” Over the ground to which Mr. Hunt refers,
six minutes’ walk could be at most five or six hundred yards. He says
that it is probable that the trophy erected by the Greeks was near the
temple of Eleusinian Demeter. This was, no doubt, the case. He then
quotes Pausanias (ix. 2, 6), who states that this trophy was fifteen
stades from Platæa, ἀπωτέρω τῆς πόλεως, the comparative of distance
being used, as elsewhere in Pausanias, in a positive sense. Mr. Hunt
says that the ναός of which he speaks is at that distance from the
ruins of the city.
The Vergutiani spring is about 2100 yards from Platæa, therefore this
ναός is about thirteen stades from the city, a discrepancy of distance
which does not render the position impossible.
But when we come to compare the situation of this ναός with the details
in Herodotus, which enable us to fix approximately the position of the
temple of Eleusinian Demeter, some very serious difficulties arise.
(1) Pausanias had only moved ten stades from the second position when
he waited for Amompharetos in the neighbourhood of the temple. This
site is 4000 yards, _i.e._ twenty stades, from what is clearly defined
as the second position.
(2) This ναός is on the rocky ὑπωρέη. #TOPOGRAPHICAL CRITICISM.# Also,
from Herodotus’ account, the temple of Eleusinian Demeter must have
been between the Spartans and the Persian camp. If this, then,
coincides with its site, the Spartans, who must have been south of it,
were on ground on which cavalry could not act, and Herodotus’ account
of the cavalry attack becomes incomprehensible.
(3) A battle in this position must have been within sight of the Greek
centre at the Heræon. Herodotus’ views as to the conduct of the Greek
centre are not such as to render it probable that he would have implied
that the battle took place out of sight of them when in that position,
unless such had actually been the case.
(4) The topographical detail of Plutarch, to which Mr. Hunt refers, is
manifestly unreliable, as has been shown in a previous note.
CHAPTER XII.
MYKALE AND SESTOS.
The complete change from their former strategy on land which the Greeks
had shown by their advance into Bœotia had its counterpart in the
contemporaneous exploits of the fleet Herodotus has already described,
not without rhetorical exaggeration, that dread of the unknown which
kept the Greeks in the Western Ægean, and prevented them from carrying
the war to the Asian coast. But at some period, presumably in the late
summer of this year 479, all this fear was suddenly dispelled, and in
consequence of certain information given by some Samian refugees, and
of an appeal made by them, it was determined to carry the war into
the enemy’s waters. It is probable that this was by no means the sole
definite information which reached the ears of the European Greeks with
respect to the state of affairs on the Ionian coast. Throughout the
whole summer, in fact ever since Salamis, more or less authenticated
reports must have come to them of the possibilities of the situation
in those parts, which finally confirmed them in the opinion that the
time had come for offensive action. But the message from Samos was
very definite, and brought the news for which the Greeks had long been
waiting, that the Ionians, if supported by the presence of a fleet upon
this Asiatic coast, would revolt. The appeal, moreover, was couched
in a form which stirred the very depths of that peculiar national
spirit which abhorred the idea of the Hellene being any man’s subject.
Hegesistratos the Samian called upon them, “by the gods they all
worshipped, to save Greeks from slavery and drive away the barbarian.”
#A PHASE OF THE HELLENIC SPIRIT.# This Hellenic spirit was, and is,
a very noble thing, noblest perhaps in a peculiar limitation to
which it would be hard to find a parallel in history. It ever prompted
those inspired with it to trade-venture all the civilized world
over,—to colonization which necessitated indeed an encroachment on the
territory of others, but which never in any single instance aimed at
the acquisition of dominion over the lands or persons of others beyond
what was absolutely requisite for the new plantation. More than this
it did not demand. It knew not land-hunger. All that it postulated was
that the Greek should be free to settle where he liked, in the form
he liked, and with that political freedom which meant so much to him.
And so it is even now. A race, largely alien in blood, has imbibed the
very spirit of the land, and amid the struggles of the last century has
demanded with persistence the rights of freedom for all who bear the
name of Greek, but has never in any single instance sought to extend
its dominions over peoples who cannot claim the Hellenic name. It was
perhaps the very exclusiveness of the spirit which gave it that pent-up
strength which enabled it, under the ægis of the bastard Hellenism of
Macedonia, to establish in a few short years an influence destined to
last for centuries over a wide area of civilization peculiarly alien to
its own.
It is a very noticeable fact in the history of the fifth century that,
neither at this particular time nor later, is there any national idea
of action in Asia aiming at the expulsion of the Persian from regions
wherein the Greek had not settled. Even throughout the history of
Greek action in the whole region of the Mediterranean in the fifth
century only two apparent violations of the spirit are to be met
with,—the Athenian expedition to Egypt, and the aspirations with regard
to Carthage which Aristophanes attributes to the Athenian populace
at the time of the Peloponnesian War. And even these exceptions are
rather apparent than real, aiming, as they evidently did, not at the
acquisition of dominion over others, but at an assault on the jealous
“protectionist” policy of the Phœnician trader.
The summons from Samos was therefore one which was calculated to stir
the inmost nature of those to whom it was addressed; and sentiment,
combined with opportunity, induced the European Greeks to venture
that from which they had shrunk but a few months before.
Apart from this, it is quite plain that those who directed the great
operations had determined late in the summer of 479 to adopt the
offensive by sea as well as land, should a favourable opportunity for
so doing present itself; and it is a fact of extreme significance for
the study of military history in the historians of the fifth century
that no mention of such a design is found in Herodotus. It is quite
evident that he was seldom, if ever, able to acquire information as to
the plans upon which the operations of the war were carried on.
One of the assertions of the Samian Hegesistratos is striking from its
lack of correspondence with the general evidence on the subject of the
comparative merits of the Greek and Persian ships of this time. ◆H.
ix. 90, _ad fin._◆ He says that the Persians “are bad sailors, and not
capable of meeting the Greeks in battle.” In point of sailing qualities
the reference can only be to the non-Phœnician portion of the Persian
fleet. The Phœnician vessels of this time were handier and, probably,
better handled than the Greek; and some of the improvements made a
few years later by Kimon in Greek naval architecture were undoubtedly
suggested to his experience by certain points of superiority in the
vessels produced by the skilled shipwrights of Tyre and Sidon.
Hegesistratos was, of course, the advocate of intervention. ◆H.
ix. 91.◆ Leutychides, the Spartan commander of the Greek fleet, is
represented as having been persuaded by his advocacy, and to have
accepted his offer to accompany the fleet with the other members of the
deputation, in the guise of hostages for the truth of their assertion.
But much must have taken place before this time to render such a
decision on the part of a Spartan commander possible.
The fleet made straight from Delos to Samos, along the line of islands.
#MYKALE.# They arrived first at a place in Samos called Kalamoi, whose
position is not now known, but which, judging from the story of what
took place immediately afterwards, was probably on the east coast of
the island. ◆H. viii. 130.◆ The Persian fleet had been stationed
at the town of Samos ever since the beginning of the year, but now,
on the approach of the Greeks, it passed across the channel to the
mainland. For some inscrutable reason,—possibly because they could not
keep it in the Ægean against its will,—the Phœnician contingent had
been allowed to sail away. ◆H. viii. 130.◆ The number of ships in the
fleet originally stationed here had been three hundred, but though
still formidable in quantity, it must have been inferior in quality.
The Phœnicians had gone; and the Ionians would have been dangerous
allies were a Greek fleet on the east side of the Ægean. The Persians
therefore wished to decline an engagement, and retired to Mykale, where
a large land army, under the command of Tigranes, placed there by
Xerxes’ orders, was watching the Ionian towns. They intended to place
the fleet under the protection of this force, drawing up the ships on
shore, and running a stockade around them. This plan was carried out.
◆Strabo, 636.◆ Landing at the mouth of a brook named Guison, ◆Pliny, v.
113, etc.◆ which was on the south side of Mykale, the Persians took
up their station at a place whose name Skolopœis suggests that it was
derived from the stockade constructed on this occasion. Herodotus
further adds that there was a temple of Eleusinian Demeter in the
immediate neighbourhood.
The stockade constructed was apparently of a formidable character,
made of wood and stone. ◆H. ix. 97.◆ Herodotus says of it that it was
prepared alike in view of a siege and of a victory, referring doubtless
to some feature in its design which cannot now be conjectured.
The retirement of the Persian fleet to this strong position, and its
practical conversion into a land force, placed the Greeks at Samos in a
situation of considerable difficulty. They were, as might be expected,
prepared to contest the supremacy of the enemy by sea rather than by
land; and Leutychides may well have hesitated to employ the force he
had with him for an attack in which the fleet, as fleet, could play
little if any part. It was debated whether, under the circumstances,
they should sail to the Hellespont or return to Greece. It was finally
decided to take the bold course and to assail the enemy at Mykale,
though everything about the fleet was made ready in case, after all,
the Persians should risk a sea-fight.
On their reaching Mykale the enemy showed no sign whatever of a
disposition to put out and meet them. Seeing this, Leutychides in his
own ship sailed close in shore, and sought by means of a herald to
enter into communication with the Ionians in the enemy’s army, and to
persuade them to desert the Persians during the coming engagement, a
policy in which, as Herodotus remarks, he imitated that of Themistocles
at Artemisium. No immediate effect resulting from this appeal, ◆H. ix.
99.◆ Leutychides disembarked his troops without any opposition on the
part of the enemy, presumably, therefore, at some distance from their
camp. But whether owing to Leutychides’ action, or to the distrust
of the Ionians which the circumstances of the time must inevitably
have aroused among the Persians, measures were taken to render them
as innocuous as the situation permitted. The Samian contingent was
forthwith disarmed. The people of that island had rendered themselves
peculiarly open to suspicion by ransoming and forwarding home five
hundred Athenian prisoners which the Persians had picked up in Attica
at the time of Xerxes’ invasion. The Milesians also were despatched
from the camp on the pretext of acting as guards of the passes over the
peaks of Mykale, but really, so Herodotus says, in order to obviate the
danger of keeping them within the actual fortifications.
The Greeks now advanced to the attack. In reference to this advance
Herodotus mentions a curious tale. He says that a report ran through
the army at this moment to the effect that the Greeks were victorious
over Mardonius in Bœotia. Naturally enough, he ascribes this strange
rumour to supernatural influence, since, according to his narrative,
the two battles occurred on the same day. #A STRANGE REPORT.# It is
not perhaps impious to suggest that if, as he positively asserts, the
battle at Mykale was fought on the same day as the final engagement
at Platæa, the report which reached the Greek army in Asia related
to the success attained in the first position at Platæa some weeks
before this time, but was referred by later tradition to the final
defeat of Mardonius’ army. However the report arose, it greatly cheered
the Greeks. Herodotus, in speaking of their exultation, mentions
incidentally two noticeable facts with regard to their feelings at
this time. He says that their fear had been not for themselves, but
for the success of the Greeks against Mardonius. If it be remembered
that the fleet when at Delos must have heard of Mardonius’ retirement
from Attica, and had also, it would seem, heard of the march of the
home army into Bœotia, their fear strongly supports the conjecture that
they knew that the object of that army was not to merely guard the
passes of Kithæron, but to take the offensive against the Persian. It
is hardly conceivable that, after Mardonius’ retirement, they should
have felt apprehensions of this nature about the army, had its object
been merely the defence of the Kithæron range, since the enemy had
plainly shown by his retreat from Athens that his main desire was to
be north of that range, and that he would have but little motive for
throwing his men against mere defenders of passes which he had shown
that he did not want to use. Furthermore, the possible intentions of
Mardonius in making Thebes his headquarters may have alarmed the Greeks
by indicating the nature of a policy, not indeed so terrible as that
wherewith the expedition was originally undertaken, but constituting,
all the same, a most serious danger to all the states of Southern
Greece.
Relieved of this fear, they went into battle with a good heart,
feeling, says Herodotus, “that the Hellespont and the Islands would be
the prize of victory.” Not a word of the Ionian towns on the mainland.
The Persian position was indeed too strong in respect to these.
◆H. ix. 102.◆
The march was evidently parallel with the shore, along it and the level
ground in its neighbourhood, and also along the hillside, cut up, as
the hillsides of that land always are, by numerous water-courses. The
result was that the Athenians and those with them, advancing along
the unimpeded level, came into contact with the enemy before the
Lacedæmonians, who were advancing along the slope of the mountain.
If Herodotus’ description is strictly worded, ◆H. ix. 102.◆ the
Lacedæmonians were engaged in some kind of a turning movement.
The Athenians were therefore probably guilty of a tactical error in
beginning the attack before the movement was complete.
The Persians adopted the same form of defence as in the last fight
at Platæa, using their shields as a breastwork; and for some time
the battle was fought without advantage to either side, until the
Athenians and those with them, eager to win the victory before the
Lacedæmonians came up, broke through this barrier and fell in a mass
upon the Persians, who, after an obstinate resistance, retreated within
their fortifications. The Athenians, Corinthians, Sikyonians, and
Trœzenians, however, followed close on their heels, and seem to have
reached the breastwork with the fugitives, so that it was captured
without difficulty. Except the native Persian contingent, the enemy now
took to flight the former, however, resisted in scattered groups with
all the bravery of a great reputation,—the Old Guard of this Asiatic
Waterloo. In this combat two out of the four Persian generals fell. The
Lacedæmonians came up while it was in progress, and their arrival put
the coping stone on the enemy’s discomfiture. But the assailants, and
especially the Sikyonians, paid dearly for their victory, so Herodotus
says; and Greek historians are not in the habit of exaggerating Greek
losses in battles with barbarians. Meanwhile the disarmed Samians did
what they could to help the Greeks, and, following their lead, the
other Ionians attacked the Persians in the camp. The Milesians, who
had been sent to the peaks of Mykale, now played the part which, under
the circumstances, they might be expected to play. So far from acting
as guides to safety, they led the routed fugitives into the very hands
of the Greeks, and themselves took part with zeal in the slaughter
which ensued. At last Miletus had the opportunity of avenging its
destruction at the end of the Ionian revolt, and it is certain that the
bitterness of the last fourteen years found ample expression and ample
satisfaction on this day of revenge.
◆H. ix. 104, _ad fin._◆
“Thus,” says Herodotus, “Ionia revolted a second time from the
Persians.”
#THE FATE OF IONIA.#
He makes no comment upon the fact. It would have been difficult for him
to do so. He had regarded the first revolt as a conspicuous blunder,
probably because he looked upon it as premature. Even now he sings no
pæan of emancipation. Maybe the Halikarnassian believed that, in spite
of the brilliant success of the year, the permanent freedom of the
Ionian towns could never be secured so long as Persia retained its hold
on West Asia. He wrote with well-nigh a century of experience behind
him; he died a century before there arose a power upon the Ægean whose
unity of strength made it fit to cope with the dead weight of the
Persian power in Asia.
The Athenians were credited by popular tradition with having played
the greatest part in the battle; but it may be suspected that had
Leutychides’ version of the fighting survived, it might have contained
some criticism of the error of a premature attack, to which the escape
of a large part of the Persian army was probably due.
After destroying the enemy’s camp and fleet the Greeks withdrew to
Samos with such booty as they had captured.
◆H. ix. 106.◆
The action of the Ionians at Mykale had raised the whole question of
the future of the Asiatic Greeks. There was a large section in the
fleet who saw,—what the sequel proved to be correct,—that the European
Greeks were not in a position to maintain the freedom of continental
Ionia against the Persians for an indefinite space of time. That would
have meant the maintenance of a large garrison within the various
towns, such as the highly composite Greek alliance could not regard as
within the realm of practical politics. It was consequently proposed
to tranship the Ionians _en masse_ to the European shore, and to leave
Ionia to the Persian. The strategic position of the Ionian cities was
indeed fatally weak.
But, after all, it would hardly be the strategical question that
presented itself to the Greeks gathered at Samos. What they did know
was that these Ionian cities had failed to resist conquest by Lydia
and Persia, and had failed in one tremendous effort to throw off the
Persian yoke; and that one of the conspicuous causes of failure had
been the difficulty of sustained united action. Of the commercial
advantages and their causes, they were probably as well aware as
the best instructed modern student with the best maps at his disposal.
It was, no doubt, this balance of advantage and disadvantage which led
to the division of opinion in the council as to the best course to be
pursued. ◆H. ix. 106.◆ The Peloponnesians were in favour of planting the
Ionians on the lands of the medized Greeks at home. To this proposal
the Athenians offered an uncompromising resistance, and claimed that
they alone had the right to decide the matter, since the Ionians were
colonists of their own. The claim was a shadowy one; but the resistance
was successful. It is noticeable, however, that the Asiatic Greeks who
were in the first instance received into the alliance were Samians,
Chians, Lesbians, and the other islanders, but none of the inhabitants
of the cities of the mainland. Thus were sown the seeds of that famous
Delian League which was destined in the near future to play so great a
part in the history of the fifth century.
Throughout Greek history the Hellespontine region is the link between
Europe and Asia. To it the Oriental seeking to win empire in Europe
ever turned, while the European, whether on the defensive or the
offensive against the power of the East, was at all times anxious to
secure its possession. ◆H. ix. 114.◆ And thither now the fleet from
Samos sailed, under the impression, says Herodotus, that it would find
the bridge in existence. If such an impression did actually exist with
the Greeks at this time, the fact bears strong evidence to the silence
and desertion which in these years brooded over that highway of the
nations—the Ægean. The fleet was delayed on the voyage by adverse
winds, and was obliged to anchor for a time at Lektos. Thence it sailed
to Abydos, where the Greeks discovered for the first time that the
bridge was no longer in existence.
Hitherto Leutychides and the Spartans with him had shown in this
expedition an enterprise peculiarly foreign to them; but now once more
a fatal national characteristic began to reassert itself. #THE FLEET
SAILS TO THE HELLESPONT.# Whether because of that homesick conservatism
of the race which made it averse to ventures far beyond its borders,
and anxious when engaged in them to get quit of the matter in hand
at the earliest possible opportunity, or from a lack of intelligence
which failed to grasp the proper issue of a situation, Sparta was ever
wont to leave her tasks unfinished, especially if they demanded absence
far from home. And so it was now. On the plea that the only object of
the expedition to the Hellespont had been to ensure the destruction of
the bridge, they renounced all idea of further operations for the time
being, and set sail for home. It may be doubted whether they genuinely
believed that the disappearance of the bridge had removed all necessity
for further action in this region. The Athenians, at any rate, under
their leader Xanthippos, saw that the peril from Persia must ever be
recurrent, if that power continued to hold the Thracian Chersonese,
that tongue of land which in both ancient and modern times, though for
different reasons, has ever been of the greatest strategical importance
to Mediterranean powers. They determined therefore to clear the enemy
out of this, their _tête-du-pont_ in Europe.
The chief strategic position in the peninsula at that time was Sestos.
It lay on the European side of the great ferry of the Hellespont at
Abydos, and so commanded the main route from Asia to Europe.
As a place of great military importance, it was the strongest fortress
in those parts; and on the news of the arrival of the Greeks at the
Hellespont, the Persian population from all the neighbouring towns
collected thither under the command of Artauktes, the governor of
the region. He was a man who had got an evil reputation among the
Greeks owing to sacrilegious behaviour of the grossest character,
peculiarly calculated to arouse their most fierce resentment. The
arrival of the Greeks in the Hellespont had been so unexpected that
he was taken unawares, having made no preparations for a siege. But
the inexperience and incapacity of the Athenian assailants in the
attack on walled towns, despite the reputation they enjoyed among
their fellow-countrymen, who were themselves hopelessly impotent in
this department of the art of war, caused the siege to drag out a
weary length, until the wane of autumn brought with it that severity
of wintry weather from which all the lands within reach of the
inhospitable Euxine suffer at that time of year.
The Athenian soldiers and sailors began to weary of the apparently
endless blockade, and demanded of their leaders that they should be
taken home once more. This request Xanthippos and his captains refused,
saying that they must bide where they were until either the town were
taken or the Athenian Government sent for them. So they continued
to bear their hardships as best they could. Meanwhile the besieged,
reduced to the last extremity of want, ate even the leathern straps
of their beds. At last, in desperation, the Persian portion of the
inmates of the town escaped by night through the besiegers’ lines at
a point where there were but few men on guard; but here their success
ended. The natives of the Chersonese who were in the town informed the
Athenians by signal of their flight, and the latter started in hot
pursuit. One body of the fugitives made its escape to Thrace, to meet
with a miserable fate at the hands of the wild tribes of that region;
but the main body, under Artauktes, was overtaken by the Athenians near
Ægospotami, and after an obstinate defence, such as survived, including
Artauktes, were brought back as prisoners to Sestos. A tale which
Herodotus tells shows that the Persian commander had some apprehension
with regard to the retribution which his sacrilegious conduct might
bring upon him; for he made an offer to Xanthippos to pay one hundred
talents’ compensation for the outrage, and two hundred talents’ ransom
for himself and his son. To this offer Xanthippos turned a deaf ear.
The punishment inflicted on the Persian was a blot on Greek
civilization. He was nailed to a board, and his son was stoned to death
before his eyes. The Greek nature was capable in moments of revenge
of inflicting the death penalty in wholesale fashion on enemies who
had excited its bitter resentment; but the torture of a captured foe
was wholly alien to the spirit of the people. #END OF THE CAMPAIGN.#
Doubtless the Persians, with the ineradicable cruelty of the Oriental,
had given many precedents for such a form of revenge; but whether that
be so or not, this particular act was inexcusable in a people who
claimed for themselves a standard of civilization infinitely higher
than that of the world around them.
With the capture of Sestos the campaign of this famous year ended, and
with it the great war for the liberation of European Greece. Many years
were indeed fated to pass before the present struggle ceased. But from
this time forward the war entered upon a new phase, in which the Greek
was the assailant. Hitherto he had been acting purely on the defensive;
even the expedition across the Ægean had been but an act of the great
drama which was being played in Greece. The West had triumphed over
the East in one great effort, wherein the success had been rapid
and striking. But henceforward the tide of success was destined to
flow more slowly,—so slowly, indeed, that ere the end came, victor
and vanquished alike had sunk into decay, and alike had fallen into
subjection to that newer, broader, and more vigorous but less genuine
Hellenism which Macedonia evolved from her heritage in the older type.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WAR AS A WHOLE.
It is often an invidious task to examine the causes which lie behind
any great series of events in military history, because the most
efficient of them are in the majority of cases due to human error
rather than to human power. The historian of peaceful development is
not exempt from the necessity of compiling such records of frailty,
but by the very nature of things such tasks fall more frequently to
one who narrates the story of periods at which the sanity of the
sanest is troubled by the nervous tension involved in participation
in events whose issues and their results lie in the immediate, not in
the distant future. The errors of war may not be greater, but they
are less remediable than those of peace. There may be time to arrest
the latter’s slow decay; but the swift and often fatal stab of a lost
battle is the work of a moment. Men have in all ages been conscious
of the gravity of this truth; and the consciousness of it, apart
altogether from the inevitable physical fear, has rendered them less
capable at such times of the calculations of reason, or even, in some
instances, of common sense.
The great Persian War was of a special type. In the majority of cases
in which races and empires have come into collision, each side has had
some practical acquaintance with the resources, devices, and fighting
qualities of the other; and in many cases such experience has been
intimate and prolonged. #UNDETERMINED FACTORS.# But when the Persian
and the Greek of Europe came into collision in 480, such experience
can hardly be said to have existed on either side; or, in so far as
it did exist, it had been misleading. In only two instances had
the European Greek come into contact with the Persian on the field of
battle, and in both of them the same Greek state, the Athenian, had
alone been represented in the conflict. But, furthermore, the instances
had, from a military point of view, been indecisive, if not actually
fallacious. At Ephesus, in the first year of the Ionian revolt, a small
contingent of Athenians had been present on the defeated side, when the
Persians fell on the expedition which had burnt Sardes. Of the battle
practically nothing is recorded save the result; but this much may be
assumed with certainty,—that a fight in which a small body of European
Greeks had been defeated in partnership with hastily raised levies of
Ionians could not possibly afford any experience worth calling such
to either of the sides who were destined to take part in the war of
twenty years later. The Ionians of Asia, long under Persian rule, must
have been very deficient in military training when compared with the
Greek of Europe. Darius had, indeed, made use of them in the Scythian
expedition, but in that instance had employed them to guard the
lines of communication. It is manifestly improbable that the Persian
Government would encourage any advanced system of military exercises
in a people whose position at the very borders of the empire would
have rendered them, if accustomed to the use of arms, very dangerous
subjects.
Marathon was the other instance. It is a battle of problems, a problem
among battles, whose data are woefully imperfect. The only thing
about it which seems clear is that, for some reason which can only be
conjectured, it formed but an imperfect test of the fighting capacity
and methods of Greek and Persian respectively.
Thus, for all practical purposes, when the two races came into
conflict in 480 they were, militarily speaking, unknown quantities to
one another, and each had to learn how best to meet the strategy and
tactics of the enemy. The consequence was inevitable. Both sides made
grave mistakes of commission and omission; and it may be even said that
the victors made more than the vanquished, though not of such a fatal
character. The Corinthians were not indeed wrong when in later
days they summed up the causes of the issue of the war by saying that
“the Persian was the rock on which he himself made shipwreck;” for of
the two main reasons which led to the final victory of the Greeks, one
was undoubtedly the fatal nature of the mistakes which the Persians
made. They seem, relying on their prestige, and on their enormous
numbers, to have held their adversaries too cheaply; and from this
fundamental error all their other errors were generated.
Knowledge after the event renders it very difficult to appreciate the
circumstances of any particular date in history, and the difficulty
is all the greater if the events of the time immediately succeeding
be of such a nature as to completely change those circumstances.
Such is markedly the case in the instance under consideration. The
mental attitude of the Persian towards the Greek power after 479 is
well known to the modern world; and it is recognized indeed that a
great change must have been brought about in it by the events of that
and the preceding year; but the extent of the change is not perhaps
realized, because the very real nature of the grounds of confidence
with which Persia entered upon the war are not sufficiently taken
into consideration, and the efforts made by Herodotus to bring this
confidence into prominence are too apt to be regarded as aiming at the
greater glorification of his own race.
And yet the grounds for that confidence are plain. In a long and almost
unbroken series of wars the Persian had conquered Western Asia. He had
never met with the race which could face his own upon the set field of
battle, and this, not in an experience of a few years, but of half a
century. He might indeed feel that he had been tried in the balance of
warfare and not found wanting. Man’s success against him had never been
more than temporary.
It now remains to be considered why this confidence was ill-grounded.
The Persian had never seen the Greek heavy-armed infantryman at his
best, well disciplined, and fighting on ground suited to his tactics,
save perhaps at Marathon, when the test was probably regarded as
unconvincing. #ARMS AND THE LAND.# Herodotus points out the superiority
of his panoply to that of the comparatively light-armed Persian.
There is much more of the empirical than of the scientific in the
lessons of war; and the experience of all ages points to the fact that
an army which enjoys a noticeable superiority over its enemy in respect
to weapons will in all probability, if other things be equal, come off
victorious. Such exceptions as history can adduce to this rule are
rather apparent than real, and are, in the vast majority of cases, due
to the possessor of the superior arms adopting tactics either unstated
to them, or wholly at variance with the nature of the region wherein
fighting is being carried on. The Greeks at Platæa made a mistake of
the latter kind, which was only annulled by a greater mistake made
subsequently by the other side.
In this great war, then, the two most efficient causes of its issue
were (1) the undue confidence of the Persian, giving rise to fatal
mistakes; (2) the great superiority of the Greek panoply. A third,
of a negative character, may perhaps be added, namely, that the
nature of the country did not permit of the invader making use of
his most formidable arm,—the cavalry. The second and third causes
may be included in that wider generalization which has been already
discussed;—the West on its own ground must have prevailed over the East.
The immediate preliminaries of the actual invasion of Greek territory
bring into prominence the high state of efficiency which must have
been attained in the military organization of the Persian empire.
Leaving out of consideration the difficulties to be overcome before the
huge mixed force was collected at Sardes (which town became for the
time being, in place of Susa, the prime military base of the empire),
the organization which enabled this great army to be brought without
accident, or, in so far as present knowledge goes, without a hitch
of any kind, over the eight hundred miles of difficult country which
separated its base from Middle Greece, must have been the outcome of
a highly effective and highly elaborated system evolved by a people
whose experience was indeed large and long, but who must also have been
gifted with that very high form of mental capacity which is able to
carry out a great work of this nature. The secret of success,—it
may almost be said of possibility,—in the present instance was the
employment of the fleet for commissariat purposes. It was a method
of advance not new to Persian campaigning, the first instance of its
employment going back as far as the time of the invasion of Egypt by
Cambyses.
On the Greek side organization on so huge a scale was not called for.
Numbers were smaller, and distances in comparison insignificant; and
only at the end of the campaign, when the Athenian fleet was engaged
in the blockade of Sestos, had a long period of absence from the
commissariat base to be provided for. Still, what was done must have
been done on a system; and the system cannot be supposed to have been
a bad one, for there is no hint of its ever having broken down. It was
in all probability most severely tried when it became necessary to
keep up the supplies of the great host during the weeks it remained
at Platæa. Such mention of it as occurs in Herodotus’ narrative is
of a purely incidental character. It was a side of the war in which
he was not likely to take any great interest, even if he could have
obtained much information on the subject, or have appreciated the
significance of such information as he did obtain. The disaster to the
commissariat train in the pass of Dryoskephalæ is the most prominent
of the rare instances in which Herodotus mentions anything connected
with this department of the service. His reference to a signalling
system extending through Eubœa at the time of Artemisium,—a line of
communication which was in all probability carried to the Hellenic
base in the Saronic gulf,—shows that there was a certain amount of
elaboration in the organization on the Greek side.
#STRATEGY AND TACTICS.#
When it is borne in mind that the Greeks were in this war carrying on
operations on a scale infinitely exceeding anything of which they can
have had experience, it must be admitted as remarkable that, whatever
the defects of their military policy, whatever the mistakes they made,
they managed to evolve out of their experience of operations on a
small scale a system of organization which was applicable to the great
operations of this war, and which did not in any known instance
lead to a breakdown which can be attributed to defect in the system
itself.
Of the strategy and tactics of the war itself little can be said
which has not been already said in previous chapters; still, it may
be convenient to collect together the considerations on this question
which are suggested by the history of the two years’ campaigning.
Before doing so it is perhaps necessary to define as clearly as is
possible the distinction between strategy and tactics, and that not
merely in respect to the application of the terms themselves, but also
to a not unimportant difference which may exist between the ways in
which they may be employed.
Strategy is a term usually applied to the larger operations of war
prior to or intervening between such times as armies are in close
contact with one another.
When close contact takes place, and battle is immediately imminent or
in progress, the name tactics is applied to the operations which then
ensue, and which are necessarily on a smaller scale than those to which
the term strategy is applicable.
A further and important distinction is this:—the operations known
as tactics are the outcome of full consciousness on the part of the
commander or, it may be, of the trained soldiers who employ them,—that
is to say, that he or they know not merely what to do, but why to do
it. The knowledge acted upon is in a sense scientific, though the
reasons for the act may be various:—either that the operation has
proved effective in the past, or that the tactics of the enemy demand
it, or that it is called for by the nature of the ground. It is in
respect to the last reason that tactics and strategy are most nearly
comparable; and it is manifest that it is more easy to draw conclusions
as to the results of action on a small area of country, all of which
may be comprehended in one view, than in a large area such as would
form the theatre of strategical operations.
The operations of tactics are so much more mechanical than those
of strategy that it is difficult to conceive of them as being
unconsciously carried out.
With strategy that is not the case. It may be conscious or
unconscious. The strategical conditions of a country such as Greece,
or indeed of any country, must ever be fundamentally the same, though
liable to modification by the introduction of some great novelty
into the act of war, such as long-range missiles. An army operating
in Greece or elsewhere may fulfil the strategical conditions of the
country consciously or unconsciously. It fulfils them consciously if
it appreciates them,—that is to say, if its movements are determined
by them; but it may fulfil them unconsciously even if its movements
are determined by considerations which cannot be said to rest on any
strategical basis.
It is a very important question in the war of 480–479 whether either
or both of the two sides operated with a conscious or unconscious
strategy. Beyond question many of their operations were strategically
correct. This every one who is acquainted with the story of the war
must admit; but many of the greatest writers of Greek history have
silently or expressly assumed that the agreement between the operations
and the strategical conditions of the theatre of war was due to the
circumstance that, in a country of such pronounced characteristics
as those of Greece, the physical conditions were so marked that
the strategical conditions might be fulfilled from motives wholly
unconnected with them. This might undoubtedly be the case; but was it
so?
Two great strategic designs are apparent in the main plan of the
invaders:—
(1) To create a diversion in the Western Mediterranean by stirring up
Carthage to attack the Sicilian Greeks, and so prevent aid from that
quarter reaching the mother country;
(2) To make fleet and army act in co-operation, and, furthermore,
by means of the fleet, to maintain the command of the Ægean and its
sea-ways.
On the side of the defence no plans of such magnitude are apparent; for
the very good reason that the preparations to meet the invader were
made too late for the carrying out of any far-reaching design, even had
so composite a resisting force admitted of anything of the kind.
#THESSALY AND THERMOPYLÆ.#
The first strategic action of the Greeks was the expedition to North
Thessaly. That was undoubtedly conscious strategy. It was undertaken
under the supposition that the Vale of Tempe was the only entrance into
the country; and had this supposition been correct the strategy was
sound enough. The mistake made was topographical, not strategical.
It was again sound strategy which made the Greeks, when they discovered
their error, retire from a position which was indefensible with the
numbers present with them. Even had their available force been much
larger than it actually was, it would have been a mistake to try to
defend a mountain line traversed by several passages. A successful
attempt of that nature is rare in history, because the assailant is
able to choose the passage on which his main attack shall be directed,
whereas the defender has to distribute his force at all the possible
points of assault. Moreover, the passage once forced, the assailant can
generally threaten the lines of communication of the bodies of troops
defending the other passes.
Thermopylæ and Artemisium display most clearly the strategy of the
two contending sides. It did not perhaps demand much knowledge or
much intelligence to fix upon Thermopylæ as a point of defence. It
would be difficult to mention any other great highway in the world on
which a defensive position so strong by nature is afforded. It was,
on the other hand, a great strategic blunder on the part of Sparta
that, having sent a small force to the pass, she did not later forward
reinforcements. That was no doubt part of a still greater strategic
blunder,—the desire to concentrate the defence at the Isthmus. The
three days’ fighting at Thermopylæ proved conclusively that, had an
adequate force been present there, the army of Xerxes would in all
probability never have carried the pass. Sparta and the Peloponnese
generally neither did, nor wished to, appreciate the immense strength
of the position.
Did the Persians make a mistake in their assault on the pass? It would
seem not. They did not at first know of any way of turning it. They had
to take it, because it was the only route by which they could get their
baggage train past Mount Œta. That is the difficulty of Greek
campaigning. There are perhaps many routes in the country along which a
light marching force in moderate numbers can make its way; but those by
which troops with the ordinary paraphernalia of an army, and in numbers
too large to live on the country, can go, are very few.
The Greeks learnt a lesson from their homeland,—a lesson which Xenophon
expressed in striking language to the ten thousand Greeks when they
began their famous retreat: “My view is that we should burn our
waggons, that our baggage train regulate not our march, but we go by
whatever way be expedient for the army.”[231] In the present instance
Xerxes was confined to the one route: he had to assault the pass,
because in the then state of his knowledge of the country he could do
nothing else. That he or his generals appreciated the importance of the
path of the Anopæa so soon as they were informed of it is shown by the
employment of the best troops in the army for its seizure and use.
It is, however, fairly questionable whether the direct assault on
the pass formed part of the original Persian design at Thermopylæ.
The delay of several days which took place before the actual assault
was delivered, taken in connection with the contemporary events at
Artemisium, suggests that it was originally intended to wait until the
forcing of the Euripus by the fleet made it impossible for the Greeks
to maintain their position in the pass for fear of the landing of a
force in their rear. If such were the design, it was one which bears
testimony to the strategic capacity of him who conceived it. It was
brought to nought by a factor outside all human calculation, the storm
which broke upon the fleet when anchored at the Sepiad strand.
It was indeed at this period of the war that both the contesting
parties gave conspicuous proof of their appreciation of the strategic
conditions of the region in which their operations were being carried
on. #GENIUS AND EXPERIENCE.# In point of conception there was little
to choose between the plans of the assailant and that of the
defender, but in point of execution the Greek plan was wrecked by the
deliberate failure of those who were responsible for the land section
of the general defence. That of the Persian was upset by causes beyond
human control. It is noticeable that the invaders seem to have arrived
at Thermopylæ with a fair working knowledge of the region of the Malian
gulf and the North Euripus, and it must be suspected that the heralds
sent to Greece to demand earth and water acted when there in a twofold
capacity.
Whatever failure overtook the Greek defence at this time of the war was
due not to the plan, but to the way in which it was carried out. The
design to hold the land force of the enemy at Thermopylæ and his fleet
at Artemisium was excellently conceived. It was almost certainly the
work of Themistocles. Whether honest or dishonest, he was gifted with
that rare genius which enables a man to take in the necessities of a
situation vast beyond anything within his experience. The other Greek
commanders were men of an ordinary kind, who would in all probability
have frittered away the defence in a series of measures such as their
limited experience dictated, or, still more probably, have concentrated
at the Isthmus, where the strength of the land position would have been
more than negatived by the weakness of the position at sea.
Eurybiades, the commander-in-chief, is unfortunate in the setting in
which he appears in the history of the time. His must have been an
unenviable and difficult part. The diplomacy he had to employ in order
to accommodate contending policies would seem to both sides a proof
of vacillation. Herodotus’ picture of him is not wholly sympathetic;
and yet it makes it quite clear that he was intelligent enough to
appreciate the genius of the man who was technically his subordinate,
and diplomatic enough to give the advocates of the Northern policy a
victory without provoking a fatal outbreak among the advocates of a
different design. Nor is this a small tribute to the man’s capacity.
The Peloponnesians, and especially the Corinthian opponents of the
war-policy of Themistocles, were not people who could be kept in
order even by the strong hand of Sparta, unless history draws a
very misleading picture of the circumstances within the Peloponnesian
league; and the man who captained the Greek defence through the
troubles within and without of the year 480 cannot have been lacking
in ability, even though he had at his side a pilot of the genius of
Themistocles.
The failure to support Leonidas at Thermopylæ utterly changed the
strategical conditions on which the design of the defence had been
hitherto founded, and the practical surrender of the other defensive
lines north of the Isthmus completed the wreck of the plan. The Greek
fleet on its return to Salamis found that no effort had been made, and
no real intention had existed, to send an army even into Bœotia. It is
noteworthy, however, that if the fleet really did suppose that the army
was in Bœotia, and was not undeceived on this point until it arrived at
Salamis, its commanders made a great mistake in not holding the narrows
at Chalkis, and thus preventing the landing of Persian troops in rear
of the most eminently defensive passage in Bœotia, that long strip of
narrow land between Helicon and Kopais which extended from Chæroneia to
Haliartos.
The strategy which was forced upon Themistocles by the state of things
which he discovered in existence on his return to the Saronic gulf
was the strategy of despair. The position taken up at Salamis could
only be justified on the plea that there were no other narrow waters
between it and the Isthmus where the Greek fleet could be sheltered
from the disadvantage of meeting a more numerous fleet in the open,
a large portion of which, the Phœnician, was probably superior to it
in manœuvring power. Furthermore, _if_ the Persian commanders took
the view that the fleet at Salamis must be defeated before an advance
to the Isthmus were attempted, and detained their ships on the Attic
coast, then the Persian land army, unaccompanied by the fleet, would be
rendered incapable of any sustained attack on the fortifications which
the Peloponnesians had erected. #SALAMIS.# But that “_if_” was one of
terrible significance, and the evidently nervous desire of Themistocles
to bring about a battle must have been due to his recognition of
the precarious position in which the Greeks would be placed supposing
that the Persian fleet did choose to ignore them at Salamis. The most
fatal weakness in an altogether dangerous situation was that a large
portion of the population of Attica was on Salamis Island, and could
not possibly be left to the mercy of the foe. How it came about that
the Athenians gave such hostages to fortune, instead of removing them
to the coast of Argolis, can only be conjectured. The probability is
that the interval between the arrival of the Greek fleet at Salamis
and that of the Persian at Phaleron had been too brief to render it
possible for the whole Attic population to be transported across the
Saronic gulf.
The blunder which led Xerxes to attack the Greeks at Salamis was fatal
alike tactically and strategically. He had the game in his own hand,
if he could only have recognized the fact; but in his confidence of
success with the forces at his disposal, he wished not merely to
out-manœuvre but to capture the whole Greek fleet.
The results of Salamis were immediate. The defeat and moral
disorganization of the Persian fleet made it incapable of maintaining
its position on the west side of the Ægean, though in point of
material damage, relative to numbers, it is probable that it had not
suffered more severely than the fleet which had been opposed to it.
Its departure withdrew, as it were, the keystone of the Persian plan
of invasion; and the whole edifice of design fell into ruin which was
incapable of repair, though the wreck was not so complete as to render
it impossible for Mardonius to make use of the materials in the ensuing
year. The blow had fallen on the indispensable half of the invading
force; and, bereft of the aid of the fleet, the land army could no
longer maintain itself in a country whose natural resources were wholly
inadequate to supply its wants.
According to the account followed by Herodotus, Themistocles proposed
that the Greek fleet should immediately take the offensive on the
Asian coast. The evident confusion of the story as to date renders it
difficult to say whether the proposal was a wise one or not. It was,
however, rejected by Eurybiades, who up to that time had displayed
sound common sense; and if it was really made at the date to which
Herodotus attributes it, there can be little doubt that Eurybiades was
right. The time for offensive operations had not come; for anything of
the nature of a reverse on the Asian coast might have restored once
more all the evils of the previous situation in Greece; and it is quite
possible that some argument to this effect put forward by Eurybiades
has been translated into the form of his answer to Themistocles as
given by Herodotus.
The actual design which Mardonius had in his mind when he persuaded
Xerxes to leave with him in Thessaly the most effective part of the
army of invasion is beyond conjecture at the present day. Possibly he
had at the time no very definite plan, but was content to guide, and
be guided by, events. His retirement to Thessaly was certainly due to
the question of commissariat. The country was infinitely richer than
the rest of Greece, and, besides, he had to organize a new line of
communications along the North Ægean coast. With this intent, probably,
Artabazos accompanied the retreat of Xerxes as far as the Hellespont.
The winter gave Mardonius time to form his plans for the next campaign,
and though Herodotus does not profess to know what the plans were, the
operations during the summer of 479 give something more than a clue as
to their nature.
Mardonius seems to have formed a design of two alternatives.
He knew, on the one hand, that unless the Persian fleet could be
brought back across the Ægean, an attack on the Isthmus would be
hopeless, if not impossible; in other words, the complete subjugation
of Greece was out of the question. But so long as the Greek fleet
remained as powerful as at that moment, it was also hopeless to expect
the return of the Persian; and the first problem he had to solve was
how to rob the Greek fleet of its strength.
With this intent, negotiations were opened with Athens, through the
medium of Alexander the Macedonian. When this line of action proved
ineffective, he brought pressure to bear upon the Athenians by once
more invading their territory and occupying Athens. #DESIGNS OF
MARDONIUS.# This again had no effect, except to make them even
more stubborn in their refusal to treat.
The first alternative plan had failed at its outset, so he now resorted
to the second.
After burning Athens and committing devastation in Attica he retired
into Bœotia, using Thebes as his base of operations.
There are two remarkable facts in connection with this movement
The disaster at Salamis, and the consequent retirement of the Persian
army to Thessaly, had not shaken the loyalty of Bœotia to the Persian
cause, and this despite the fact that the Bœotians were not at the end
of 480 deeply committed either to the Persian, or against the Greek.
Bœotians had, indeed, been present in Xerxes’ army when it invaded
Attica; but there is nothing whatever on record which can favour the
supposition that the Bœotians had actually fought on the Persian side
previous to the winter of 480–479. Consequently they were not deeply
committed against the cause of patriotism. They had powerful excuses
to urge for their conduct; and had they come over to the side of
the defence in that winter, but little fault could have been found
with them, even by the most bigoted patriots. Sentiment was not a
characteristic of the Bœotian. His policy was ever to join the side
from which he had most to expect; and his attitude during the time
Mardonius was in Thessaly shows clearly that he was convinced that his
interest lay with the Persian. The ruling party in Bœotia believed that
their country was destined to become a part of the Persian Empire; and,
with the selfishness of interest common to oligarchies, were prepared
to accept their fate. They must have been convinced, rightly or
wrongly, that Mardonius did not intend to desert them. The conviction
was probably correct.
Mardonius’ retirement from Attica was an outward and visible sign of
his renunciation of all idea of the complete conquest of Greece. If he
had no other scheme of conquest in his mind at that moment, why did
he stay his retreat in South Bœotia? Because, so Herodotus says, he
thought that that country was more suitable for his cavalry. But
that implies that he entertained an expectation which, on the mere
question of fact as recorded by Herodotus, he could not possibly have
entertained,—that the Greeks would follow him into Bœotia. Up to that
time they had absolutely declined to take the offensive; and yet at
this moment Mardonius must have had reason to believe that he could
force them to change their whole policy in the war, and to become the
assailant in a region highly unfavourable to their type of force, and
highly favourable to his own.
It was a remarkable situation, the clue to which is not given in any
direct statement in Herodotus. It must, therefore, be sought in the
actions of the two opponents.
The opening of the campaign of 479 reveals several very important and
well-nigh inexplicable changes on the Greek side. The most remarkable
is the complete change in the command of the two principal contingents
of the Greek forces.
In spite of the conspicuous success of the preceding year,
Themistocles and Eurybiades are both set aside, and Xanthippos,
Aristides, Pausanias, and Leutychides take their place. The change
is extraordinary, unexpected, unexplained. Probably a combination of
various motives brought it about, but, in the absence of all real
evidence, nothing more than a guess can be made at what they were. The
fact that the remainder of the war would have to be fought out on land
rather than by sea had doubtless something to do with it. In the most
remarkable case, that of Themistocles, politics may have played a part.
It has also been suggested that his vexation at the refusal of the
Greek fleet at Andros to follow his advice, and to carry the war to the
Asian coast, led him to throw up his command.
As far as the course of the war is concerned, the main difference
between the general characteristics of the campaign of 480 and 479
brought about by the change of command, is that for the ability of
Themistocles to control circumstances was substituted an ability on the
part of the new commanders to be guided by them.
#PELOPONNESIAN STRATEGY IN 479.#
There can be no question as to what was at the beginning of this
year the Spartan view as to the plan on which the campaign was to
be conducted. It comprised nothing beyond a defence of the Isthmus.
The method adopted to carry out the plan was characteristic. It was
known, of course, that Athens would be absolutely opposed to it, as
she had been in the previous year, so not a word was said to her on
the subject; nay, she was even led to believe that her own design
would be supported by Sparta. Then was adopted a policy of passive
resistance,—a resistance so obstinate and so prolonged that the
tension upon the bonds which held the patriot states together was
all but brought to the breaking point. Whether the astuteness of the
Spartan government was sufficiently great to gauge with the utmost
accuracy the amount of tension possible without bringing about actual
fracture, or whether warning from outside opened its eyes to the fact
that it had carried its policy to the extremest edge of danger, must
be a matter of opinion. At the very last moment Sparta gave way.
Athenian determination had won a victory over Spartan obstinacy.
Sparta’s calculation had evidently been all through that if she
sat still and allowed circumstances in Attica to develop under the
agency of Mardonius, Athens would be forced to surrender her plan of
campaign, and to adopt at last, though late, the war policy which the
Peloponnesians had consistently advocated from the beginning.
The Athenian plan is definitely stated in Herodotus. It consisted in
the first instance in meeting the enemy in Bœotia before he could
invade Attica a second time. Its object seems clear,—the salvation
of Attica; but if that was the only object, how is it that the plan
remained unaltered after Attica had been overrun, and its salvation was
no longer in question?
The troops despatched suddenly from Sparta while the Athenian embassy
was present there were despatched to the _Isthmus_. What lever so great
did Athens use to induce Pausanias to meet her troops at Eleusis,
and take the offensive against Mardonius in Bœotia? Herodotus makes
no statement on the subject. It is quite evident, however, from the
incompleteness of this part of the history, that he experienced great
difficulty in collecting reliable materials for the story of the
events between Salamis and Platæa. But if the main circumstances of
the time—the _facts_, that is to say, that Herodotus _does_ mention—be
taken into consideration, it is evident that the state of affairs in
Northern Greece was such as must have caused the most serious alarm
to the patriots. Thessaly had medized long ago of its own free will.
Phocis and Opuntian Locris had done so partially and under compulsion;
and, worst of all, Bœotia had thrown in her lot with the Persian in the
most unequivocal manner. Must it not inevitably have been suggested to
the Greeks of the South that there was every fear that the Persian,
though his attempt to subjugate all Hellas had failed, was only too
likely, if let alone, to be able to push forward his frontier from
Macedonia to Bœotia, from Olympus to Kithæron? It was an eventuality
that not even the Peloponnesian could regard with equanimity; and if
any valid cause can be suggested for the sudden and complete change
in the plan of the Lacedæmonian commander-in-chief after his arrival
at the Isthmus, it is that his attention was called, probably by the
Athenians, to the very serious danger of allowing events in the North
an unchecked development. The very fact that Mardonius had deliberately
stayed his movement of retreat at Thebes renders it highly probable
that the extraordinary offensive movement of the Greeks was called for
by a danger that did not exist merely in their own Imagination: in
other words, that Mardonius’ alternative design was to keep what he
could, since he could not get what he would.
This offensive movement of the Greeks has always been accounted
extraordinary by those who have paid special attention to the military
history of the time. That it was probably due to Athenian persuasion
is generally agreed, but no adequate reason for the exercise of such
persuasion on the part of Athens at this particular moment has been
put forward, still less has any reason been adduced for the yielding
of Sparta to it. The mischief for that year had been done in Attica,
and movement into Bœotia could not remedy it. #GREEK FLEET IN 479.#
The winter was drawing nigh, in which Mardonius would—if Attica was
all that he aimed at—withdraw northward, as in the previous year.
It can only have been the fear that Mardonius had gone to Thebes
with intent to stay there, that moved the Greeks to an unprecedented
course of action. They knew perfectly well that, from a purely
tactical point of view, they had everything to lose and nothing to
gain by transferring the war into a country where that much-feared but
untried factor, the Persian cavalry, could come into play; and it is
inconceivable that they can have moved north except under the stress
of what they regarded as a grave necessity. It is quite a different
question whether they took what were, under the circumstances, the
best strategical measures. Had, for instance, a force been sent with
the fleet under Leutychides to the Malian gulf, Mardonius’ position in
Bœotia would have become so perilous that it is hardly possible that he
would have ventured to retain it; and it may even be doubted whether he
could ever have won his way back past Mount Œta.
The best strategy on the Greek side in this year’s campaigning was
carried out by the commanders of the fleet; especially by Xanthippos,
the admiral of the Athenian contingent. The caution displayed in
waiting in the Western Ægean until the Ionians gave some signal was
probably wise. A move eastward before receipt of information as to
the real state of affairs on the Asian coast, as to the numbers and
position of the Persian fleet, and especially as to the whereabouts of
the Phœnician section of it, might have unduly hazarded the results
of the success already obtained on the western coast of the Ægean. On
arrival at Samos, a bold and successful attack was made on the Persian
force at Mykale. It was necessary to crush the main resistance before
further operations were attempted. After this the Spartans went home,
while the Athenians continued the campaign by a strategic move of the
highest importance. In attacking Sestos and the Thracian Chersonese,
they assailed the all-important _tête-du-pont_ in Europe, and by their
success rendered Persian operations from the Asiatic side to the north
of the Propontis difficult, if not impossible, as the Chersonese lay
on the flank of any advance from the direction of the Bosphorus
towards Macedonia and Greece. The command of the Hellespont was also
the first step towards the freeing of the great trade route to the corn
regions on the north coast of the Euxine.
The strategy of the two contending sides in the war of 480–479 must
have been deliberate. It cannot have been unconscious. The agreement
with the strategic conditions of the regions wherein fighting took
place is too close to render any such view tenable. Nor is it strange
that such should have been the case. On the one side was a race
with a war experience greater beyond comparison than that of any
other contemporary nation; on the other, a people whose quickness of
intellect rendered it peculiarly capable of supplying the defects of
experience by appreciation of the exigencies of the situation. The
Greek was among the nations what Themistocles was among the Greeks.
Though the tactics employed by either side were, as events befell, more
decisive of the issue of the war than their strategy, the question
relating to them is more simple, and may be discussed more briefly.
Of the naval tactics but little is told. From the account of Salamis
it would appear as if the aim of the Greek in an engagement was so to
steer his ship as to break as much as possible of the enemy’s oarage on
one side, and, having thus rendered his opponent’s vessel more or less
unmanageable, to ram the weakest part of its structure, the flank, with
the beak and stem of his own. It may be safely assumed that it is an
anachronism on the part of Herodotus to assign the manœuvre of cutting
the line (διέκπλους) to this period.
The fact that the vessels carried each a certain number of heavy-armed
infantry, as well as marines, and were fitted with boarding bridges
(ἀπόβαθρα), shows clearly that boarding held a prominent place in
Greek naval tactics. #LAND TACTICS.# To Kimon in later years is no
doubt due the elaboration of what may be called the “ship tactics” at
the expense of the boarding tactics, an innovation most effective in
wars between Greek and Greek, but an improvement of doubtful value in
wars with other races, where the panoply of the Greek heavy-armed
infantryman could hardly fail to be effective in close fighting. It was
left for the Roman to prove conclusively the mistake of this policy.
Perhaps it was forced on Kimon by the growing unpopularity among
the richer classes of hoplite service aboard the fleet in the long
years of warfare after 479, and not brought about by purely tactical
considerations.
The land tactics were naturally dictated by the armament of the two
opponents, the nature of the forces at their disposal, and the ground
on which at different times they came into conflict. The composition
of the Persian army placed it at a considerable disadvantage in such a
country as Greece. This disadvantage was much emphasized by the fact
that, during the campaign of 480, and, in a sense, during that of 479
also, it was the attacking force in a country which greatly favoured
the defence. Not until Mardonius took up the defensive in Bœotia was
it possible for the Persians to chose ground favourable to the nature
of their force. Against a foe of greatly superior mobility, the policy
of the defensive was the only one which the Greek army could adopt
with any hope of success, supposing that the enemy adopted tactics
suitable to his force. The difference between the two armies was, that
the Greek had everything to hope from close fighting, the Persian from
the opposite; and in every case throughout the war in which reverse or
disaster fell on either party, it was due to its having been forced,
either by the nature of the position or by some tactical error of
its own, into adopting that method of combat for which it was least
adapted. If it were not a misnomer to speak of that which is manifest
as a secret, it might be said that this is the whole secret of tactical
success and failure in the war. It was illustrated in the most marked
manner in all the three great land battles, at Thermopylæ, at Platæa,
at Mykale.
The circumstances at Thermopylæ forced the Persians to adopt tactics
involving close fighting. But it is noticeable that the Persian
soldiers and the Persian commanders did not altogether take the same
view on this question. The commanders evidently thought that
they must win the pass by mere pressure of numbers, and be prepared
to sustain losses, absolutely great, but, considering the immense
disparity between the two armies, relatively small. Probably also
circumstances rendered it all-important for them to force the pass as
soon as possible; and this could, owing to the nature of the ground,
only be accomplished by close fighting.
But the Persian soldier, soon after the attack began, discovered that
he was no match for the better-armed Greek, and proceeded, on his own
responsibility, to adopt tactics less dangerous to himself, an assault
with missiles, to which the enemy could make no effective reply. This
is clearly shown by the tactics which the Spartans were compelled to
resort to, the charge forward, and then a pretended retreat, with a
view to drawing the enemy on. But the circumstances were such that
neither side could absolutely force the other to adopt disadvantageous
tactics: nor even with whips and other severe methods of encouragement
could the Persian commanders induce their men to a sustained assault at
close quarters. In the last battle on the mound the Greeks were not cut
down, but buried beneath a shower of missiles.
Platæa affords three very remarkable examples of the contrast of
tactics. It was a battle of mistakes, in which each side conspicuously
failed to play its own game. At the first position of the Greeks the
Persian threw away his excellent cavalry in an attack on a necessarily
limited portion of the front of the unshaken Greek heavy infantry,
where outflanking was impossible, and only close fighting could be
really effective. The result was inevitable.
In the second position, the Greeks made the mistake of seeking to
maintain an advanced position in the plain, after the object with which
they had in all probability attained it, a surprise flank attack on the
Persians, had miscarried. #TACTICAL MISTAKES.# In view of the excessive
immobility of their army as compared with that of the enemy, the danger
that their line of communication with the passes, short though it was,
might be cut, was evident; and their position permitted the cavalry to
harass them on all sides by that form of attack to which it was
best adapted. The mistake cost them dearly: it ought to have cost them
the battle.
On the retirement of the Greeks from this position, Mardonius threw
away the success he had gained by hurling his light-armed infantry
against the large Spartan contingent. By doing so he threw away all
the advantage which he possessed by reason of his mobile force of
cavalry. The tactics of Pausanias were excellent, but could only
have been possible with a highly trained force, such as that which
he had under his command. He held his men back, despite a galling
shower of missiles, until, as it would seem, the foremost ranks of
the enemy behind their barrier of shields were deprived of all power
of retreating by the pressure of the ranks in rear of them. Then he
charged; and in the close fighting which ensued, the Persian had no
chance, despite that quality of conspicuous bravery in which he appears
never to have been lacking.
The same inevitable issue of battle resulted from the close fighting at
the assault on the Persian stockade.
At Mykale the Persians again made the mistake of meeting the Greeks in
that form of battle which was most eminently favourable to the more
heavily armed man, though in that case the extreme embarrassment of the
circumstances in which they found themselves may have necessitated the
line of action which they adopted.
Such, then, are the conclusions which may be drawn from the history of
the war as a whole. Perhaps the story has many morals; it certainly
has one which in later days, under the sobering influence of personal
experience, Thucydides expressed when he said that “he is the best
general who makes the fewest mistakes.” He was doubtless right,
owing to the multitude and variability of the factors in war. But in
this, the first and greatest of the wars between Greek and Persian,
the liability to error was increased by the incalculability of many
factors whose exact value only the knowledge of experience could gauge,
an experience lacking at the time, but from which both Greek and
Macedonian profited in later years.
CHAPTER XIV.
HERODOTUS AS THE HISTORIAN OF THE GREAT WAR.
A history of the war would be incomplete unless the writer made an
attempt to render an account of the evidence which the narrative
affords of the methods employed by the great historian to whom the
knowledge of almost all that is worth knowing concerning it is due. The
story of the war is the climax of Herodotus’ work. All the manifold
information which he gives of the times preceding it is merely an
overture to the history of the struggle in which the fate of Greece,
and it may be of Europe, was decided. But this preliminary portion
of his work, though intensely interesting from a critical point of
view, and though artistically one with the purely Hellenic part of his
narrative, does not fall within the scope of a criticism which aims
mainly at summing up the results of an inquiry as to the amount of
light which the land of Greece at the present day casts upon the work
of an author of more than 2000 years ago.
The term “father of history,” commonly applied to Herodotus, is of
no small significance in relation to the circumstances under which
his work was done. Of itself it implies a genius that overcame many
difficulties, and which was peculiarly creative, in that it introduced
into the educated world a form of literature of which no previous
example can be said to have existed.
But this is not all. Under his hand the new literature was given a form
which, though modified by later writers, must still serve as a pattern
to those who write with twenty centuries of experience behind them.
#INFLUENCE OF CONTEMPORARIES.# It is easy to point out defects in
Herodotus’ work as a whole,—lack of arrangement, and what not,—and it
is demanded by the interests of history that such defects should be
pointed out; but, in so doing, it should be remembered that the work
criticized is not merely the foundation but a large part of the edifice
of that school of experience which renders such criticism possible, and
that the apparatus for it is largely supplied by the many excellences
of the historian’s method.
◆Contemporary colouring.◆
Any attempt to examine the work of a writer of history must, if it
is to be in any sense successful, take into account the contemporary
colouring of time and place under which the work was composed. This,
true of every age of the world, is peculiarly demanded in the case of
a work of the fifth century before Christ, when the local colouring
was of such peculiar vividness as to affect to an unusual degree the
view of those who lived and wrote under its influence. There are many
sides to this question, a full discussion of which would demand much
time, and would not be wholly apposite to the purpose of this chapter.
It will be sufficient to speak of those aspects which must affect a
judgment of Herodotus as historian of the Persian War.
As the pioneer in a new form of literature, he was peculiarly liable
both to affect, and to be affected by, the interests of the audience
for which he wrote; and the latter tendency could not fail to be
emphasized by the extreme susceptibility which the Greek displayed
to the feelings of his contemporaries. The interests of an audience
uneducated in history must necessarily be limited. A writer writing for
such an audience would naturally tend towards a form of composition in
which the narrative dealt mainly with such incidents as are especially
calculated to excite men’s interest. Hence it arises that the two great
historians of the fifth century were, above all, historians of the
military events of their time; and their work as writers of history in
the larger sense is made subservient to the more limited scope of their
main design.
◆Research.◆
Herodotus started on his task as a military historian with little or no
practical experience, but with an immense capacity for taking pains.
Excellence and defect alike have left their impress on his work;
but it may be said without prejudice that his diligence of research
has more than counterbalanced his lack of experience. The general
result is that he has given to the world the data necessary for a true
understanding of the events of the time of which he wrote, though he
has in many instances failed to grasp their significance, and in a few
instances has evidently misinterpreted them.
A reference has been made to “prejudice” in judging Herodotus. No
author has perhaps suffered more than he from the existence of this
feeling in the minds of those who have criticized him. The very
lovableness of the man, so transparent in his writings, seems to have
been the cause which has produced exaggerated appreciation of his work,
whose very exaggeration has, human nature being what it is, called into
existence depreciations at least equally unsound.
On the general question, before entering into details, this much may
be said: that the main lesson which is conveyed to one who prosecutes
inquiry in Greece at the present day on such points as are calculated
to throw light upon the nature of his work is that, while it would be
a mistake to regard him as a paragon of accuracy, he in many cases
attained to an accuracy which was wonderful, considering the means at
his disposal.
In examining the work of any historian, great or small, the inquiry
must resolve itself into three sections: (1) the influence of the
personal character of the historian on his work; (2) the influence on
his work exerted by the associations of the time at which he wrote; (3)
the nature of the materials which lay to his hand. The purely Hellenic
history in Herodotus’ work throws considerable light on all these three
points.
Theoretically it is, for the sake of dearness, desirable to keep these
sections distinct: practically it is not possible to do so, since they
must necessarily overlap.
◆Influence of personal character.◆
The most prominent personal characteristic of the historian which
influenced his work was the absolute honesty with which he stated what
he believed to be the truth, and the infinity of the pains which he
took to arrive at it. #DILIGENCE IN INQUIRY.# It does not follow that
what he believed to be true was true, but he did all that he could
to get at the facts; and there is no single instance in his history
of the war in which he can be shown to have deliberately perverted
them. He had, like other men, his prejudices and predilections. He was
affected, as all men must be, by the views held at the time at which
he wrote concerning the time of which he wrote; and it is to these
influences, and not to historical dishonesty on his part, that any fair
judgment of him must attribute the obvious or suspected misstatements
which are found in his Hellenic history. If this is not the case, he
was one of the strangest compounds of the true and the false that
ever lived. The dishonest historian does not want to know the truth;
whereas it can be shown, not merely from Herodotus’ own language, but
from actual facts existent at the present day, that Herodotus ardently
desired to do so. Perhaps the most marked examples of this desire are
afforded by the demonstrable care and pains which he devoted to his
inquiries into the topography of the scenes of two events which are of
peculiar interest,—the battles of Thermopylæ and Platæa. There can be
no real question that he visited both places, and, not merely that, but
that his examination of them was extremely careful. Whatever defects
there are in the narrative of those two great battles are not of a
topographical character, but are due almost entirely to difficulties in
obtaining information. It may be argued that a man who took such pains
to discover the truth of topographical detail, would be likely to take
similar pains with details not topographical.
◆Deliberate omissions.◆
Another remarkable characteristic of his work is the way in which he
will deliberately leave an important story incomplete, rather than
insert details for which he had no real foundation of information.
There are several examples of this. The history of the Ionian revolt,
the most important section of the preliminary part of his work, is
very defective. There are serious omissions, and the whole story is
excessively fragmentary. A dishonest historian would have been tempted
to round off the tale: an unscrupulous one would not have hesitated to
do so.
But the most remarkable narrative of the incomplete type is that
of Marathon. The best of raconteurs is content to give a mutilated
account of what was reckoned, by the Athenian at any rate, one of
the greatest events of Greek history; and the omissions are of such
a character that it is almost impossible to believe that they can
have been unconscious. Nor can it be supposed but that any amount of
information of a certain type was available to him at the time at which
he was at Athens. He must have rejected a large mass of the traditional
evidence as unsatisfactory; otherwise the amount of descriptive
narrative which he could have devoted to the battle would have been
much greater than it is. The evident mistakes in such parts of the
tradition as he does reproduce show the difficulty he experienced in
arriving at the facts relating to the events of that time. The ten
years of the past which had intervened between the campaign of Datis
and Artaphernes and the great war made, no doubt, a world of difference
to an author of later date, who was obliged to rely largely for his
facts on contemporary oral evidence.
◆Prejudice.◆
Another class of narratives bearing on the question of the author’s
honesty consists of those which contain matter suggestive of the
suspicion that personal prejudice led him to deliberate perversion
of facts. The question is not in the present instance as to the fact
of perversion; but as to whether it was or was not of a deliberate
character. There can be but little doubt that personal prejudice of
various kinds did colour his views, and led him to do injustice to some
of the men and events of the time.
In the story of the Ionian revolt he displays a most marked antipathy
to the Ionians. He has hardly a good word to say of them in any
department of life; their literary men are very inferior persons; their
kinsmen across the sea were ashamed to claim connection with them; they
were pusillanimous, if not actually cowardly, in their conduct during
the war. Not one of these judgments can be regarded as sound, and the
last and most severe is conspicuously refuted by the plain fact that it
took Persia nigh seven years to crush their resistance, and that only
at the expense of very serious loss to herself.
#SOURCE OF “PREDUDICES.”#
If these were untruths due to mere malignity on the part of the
historian, statements which he knew to be untrue, it might be expected
that he would display the same animus against the Ionians in all other
parts of his history in which they are prominent. This is, however,
very far from being the case. He specially records their bravery at
Salamis. This record might be interpreted as intended to prejudice
them in the eyes of the Greeks, did not his account of Mykale bring
into prominence their services to the Greek cause on that occasion. It
is, therefore, probable that the variation in his attitude towards the
race is due largely to the variety of the sources of his information,
combined, no doubt, with a strong personal feeling on his own as to
their action on different occasions. His information on the subject
of the revolt was certainly obtained from sources unfriendly to them,
among which it may be presumed that the tradition current in his own
time in Halikarnassos and the Dorian cities of Asia generally was not
the least prominent. These cities certainly played no great part in the
revolt; they probably stood aloof altogether; and those who have failed
to fight the fight of liberty are not apt to be well disposed to those
who have fought and failed. Moreover, they may have regarded the revolt
as a colossal political blunder; and Herodotus may have acquired this
view, which he held most strongly himself, from the older men of his
native city who remembered the terrible time.
In Ionia itself, in Herodotus’ own day, the traditions of the revolt
were probably highly contradictory. It is plain from the reliable
material in his account, that its failure would lead to mutual
recrimination between the members of the various cities which had taken
part therein; and such recriminations would inevitably tend to confirm
the low opinion which Herodotus had heard expressed in his home-land
concerning the conduct of the Ionians at the time of the revolt. His
impressions were wrong; but it is perhaps not unnatural that he should
have formed them.
He displays the bias of his personal opinion very decidedly in his
references to Themistocles. In this case also it is probable that
he adopted views which he had frequently heard expressed by
others. The Themistocles legend which he followed seems to have been
originally a separate tradition which he has interwoven into the
general traditions relating to the war of 480. It was probably created
by the political party opposed to Themistocles, with members of which
Herodotus must have come into contact during his sojourn in Athens.
Themistocles’ services at the time of Salamis were too notorious to be
wholly buried in oblivion; but the legend as Herodotus received it left
nothing unsaid which might discount their value. The suggestion that
the Greeks should fight in the strait is attributed to Mnesiphilos; and
Themistocles is represented as having adopted it without acknowledgment.
In like manner his persuasion of the Athenians to use the increased
proceeds of the mines at Laurion for the purposes of the fleet is
ascribed, not to a foresight which foresaw the coming of the storm from
Asia four years before it burst, but to the immediate necessities of
the war with Ægina.
Further tales to his discredit are those of his financial
corruptibility at Artemisium and Andros, and the self-seeking intent of
his message to Xerxes with respect to the Hellespont bridge. All three
contain elements of inherent improbability which, while they do not
refute them, render them of doubtful credibility.
Was Herodotus honest in his conviction of the truth of these ill-tales?
No author that ever lived has been at less pains to conceal his
individuality in what he wrote. His narrative is peculiarly personal.
It is, therefore, far more easy in his writings to judge of the mental
attitude of the writer than is usually the case in literature, and
especially in historical literature, whether ancient or modern.
He was not merely conscious but absolutely convinced of the reign of
moral law in human affairs. #PRESENT COLOURING OF PAST EVENTS.# He
would, therefore, feel extreme repugnance for such moral weakness as
that with which Themistocles was charged; and this very characteristic
would lead him, if once convinced of the general existence of such
weakness, to give credence to any and every tale which might be adduced
to illustrate it. The tales, too, were mere rose-water stories
compared with some of the charges which Aristophanes does not hesitate
to bring against political opponents, and may have seemed to Herodotus
to be stamped with the moderation of truth when compared with some of
the political gossip in the Athens of his day.
The whole question of this Themistocles legend is one of the most
difficult in Greek history. It is certain, on the one hand, that
Herodotus had a distinct animus against the man. It seems also certain
that the version of it which the historian followed was either the
creation of political opponents or, at any rate, was strongly infected
with the feeling which Themistocles’ conduct during the latter years of
his life, as interpreted by the Athenians, must inevitably have aroused
with regard to him.
◆Influence of contemporary feeling.◆
There are other parts of Herodotus’ narrative of the war which are
manifestly coloured by the events of later years. Compelled, no doubt,
to resort to Athens for many of his materials, he would inevitably
reflect largely in his history the Athenian political feeling of the
time at which he wrote.
The most noticeable instance of its influence upon him is shown in
his treatment of the Corinthians. This people could not be accused
of having played an unpatriotic part during the war, and yet no
opportunity is lost of placing their conduct in an unfavourable
light. They are represented as being foremost in opposition to such
measures as after-events proved to have been of the greatest benefit
to the national cause, and finally a distinct, and almost certainly
unfounded, charge of cowardice at Salamis is brought against them. That
Herodotus thought the war policy which they advocated, the defence
of the Isthmus, a mistaken one, is evident; but this view of his is
not sufficient to account for his treatment of them. That can only be
attributed to an Athenian tradition which had been strongly influenced
by the bitter and long-continued hostility which arose between Athens
and Corinth some twenty years after the events of 480.
There are other passages in his history which must be attributed to the
use of materials drawn from a similar source, similarly infected.
The story of the behaviour of the Greek centre after the withdrawal
from the second position at Platea, in which the Corinthians and
Megareans are brought into special prominence, is probably one of them.
To a like origin may be ascribed the various tales to the discredit
of the Æginetans in reference to the events immediately following the
battle. The case of the Æginetans is especially interesting, because
the author’s treatment of them resembles his treatment of the Ionian
Greeks. He records their noticeable bravery at Salamis. This diversity
of treatment affords strong evidence that the animus displayed by
him had its origin in the sources from which he drew his history,
independent of personal feeling.
◆Sources and records.◆
It is easy to say that he might have guarded against accepting _ex
parte_ statements as history. But those who realize the magnitude of
the difficulties under which he worked will be rather inclined to
marvel at the success with which he managed to overcome them, than
to moralize on the instances in which he succumbed. He was writing
the history of a period many years after it had closed. Of official
records but few can have existed; and the instance of the inscription
on the tripod, commemorating the battle of Platea, shows that such
records were not always trustworthy. The semi-official records in the
shape of copies of oracular responses were still more unreliable.
And what was there beyond these? Current traditions, some perhaps
pan-Hellenic, but the majority originating in different Greek states,
with an amount of local colouring as varied as the variety of their
sources. Some of the traditions may have been committed to writing.
But who could have reconciled the truth of the numerous versions of
the same story on which the lively imagination of the Greek had had
full play for many years? #EFFECT OF PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS.# Lastly,
there was the purely oral evidence of those who had been present at
events; and it says much for the critical capacity and diligent inquiry
of the historian that, despite the notorious difficulty of dealing
with evidence of this kind, much of his work which may be proved at
the present day to be accurate must have been drawn from such a
source. Could a skilled historian of the nineteenth century have done
much better work with such materials at his disposal? The history of
the campaigns of 1805 and 1806, composed under like conditions, not
less than thirty years after they took place, would have been strange
reading.
◆Religious feeling.◆
The strong individuality which is impressed on, and expressed by,
almost every page he wrote was so marked, that it could not fail
to affect in some form or other his character as an historian. His
personal piety has left indelible trace in his writings. His critical
capacity was deliberately laid aside wherever he saw, or thought he
saw, the hand of God at work in the world. This is most noticeably
displayed in his treatment of the oracles relating to events of the
time of which he wrote. His attitude towards them is very remarkable.
This ultramontane of the fifth century before Christ never lost
faith in them, despite the fact that he records instances of their
fallibility and even of their actual dishonesty.
Such an attitude could not fail to introduce a specific element of
unreliability into his work.
But this personal characteristic affected his writings in another way.
It made him at times anxious not merely to inform, but to instruct,—to
show men the better way as he understood it. He consequently preferred
a tale with a moral to one without; and oftentimes when he gives two
versions of the same story, he expresses his personal belief in the
less probable of the two, evidently for no other reason than that the
moral conveyed by it is either more obvious or more impressive.
The mere fact, again, that he does give in many instances two versions
of the same story shows that he was anxious to do justice to those who
were affected by them. The two versions of the conduct of Argos at
the time of the war are, perhaps, the most striking instance of his
wish to deal fairly with all those whom he brought upon the stage of
history. His attitude towards the unpatriotic Greeks renders it certain
that, had he always allowed his personal bias undue weight in the
balance of historical writing, the conduct of Argos would not have been
represented as open to two possible interpretations, one of them much
more favourable than the other.
◆Unprejudiced judgments.◆
The expressions of his own personal judgment on historical questions
which arise in his narrative are for the most part stated with
reference to the motives which prompted certain actions, and are of
very various value. On purely military questions they are, with the
striking exception of his statement of opinion as to the motive of the
withdrawal of the army from Thessaly, as a rule of little weight. He
did not possess that practical knowledge of war and of command which
alone could have rendered his personal views on such questions a matter
of serious consideration. His excellence as a military historian is not
on that side. It lies in his having been a diligent, accurate, honest
recorder of facts, in so far as a man could be who wrote under the
circumstances under which he wrote.
◆Rhetoric and drama.◆
It is very fortunate for the world that he was not appreciably affected
by that craze for rhetoric which prevailed in the Athens of the last
years of his life,—that rhetoric which was to play such havoc with
the written history of a later age. He was probably too old to be
largely influenced by that which seemed to the older men of the time an
undesirable or, when they suffered from its exercise, even pernicious
fad, even though certain sides of it might appeal strongly to his
literary instinct. If contemporary writing did at all influence this
creator of literature in a new form, it is perhaps in the works of the
great dramatists that the source of such influence is to be sought. In
any case, it was not sufficiently strong to affect his reliability as
an historian. The reports of speeches in his work in what profess to be
the actual words of the speaker, in cases in which it is certain that
the actual words cannot have survived, is to be attributed to dramatic
rather than to rhetorical feeling; and the absence of the latter
influence in his work generally is shown by the conspicuous absence of
a fundamental canon of rhetoric,—the ordered arrangement of topic.
#SOURCES.#
◆Sources.◆
To discuss fully the possible sources of information to which Herodotus
had recourse in various parts of his work would in itself lake up
a volume, wherein much of the matter would be highly controversial.
It will be sufficient here to point out as briefly as possible those
sources which are indicated either clearly or with high probability as
lying behind his narrative of the war and its immediate prelude:—
1. The historian’s personal observation and personal inquiry;
2. Records, official and semi-official;
3. Tradition [some preserved in previous authors].
Under the heading of personal observations may be included—
(_a_) His topographical inquiries.
(_b_) His inquiries from persons who had taken part in or had
witnessed events.
Among records, the following sources may be suggested:—
(_a_) Inscriptions set up in various cities;
(_b_) (Probably) official lists other than inscriptions;
(_c_) Records of oracular responses.
The traditions, of which he manifestly made important use, are of great
variety of origin. Sometimes he mentions their source; more frequently
the nature of his information clearly indicates it.
(_a_) Pan-Hellenic, or Patriotic Greek;
(_b_) Athenian (Pan-Athenian; Aristocratic);
(_c_) Spartan (Official; Popular);
(_d_) Argive;
(_e_) Arcadian;
(_f_) Sicilian;
(_g_) Macedonian;
(_h_) Asiatic Dorian;
(_i_) Ionian;
(_k_) (Possibly) Persian sources;
(_l_) Delphic.
This list, long as it is, is absolutely confined to the sources for
the story of the war, and that, too, of its main incidents. Were the
sources for the history of Greece before the opening of the fifth
century, for the non-Hellenic history, or even for minor incidents of
the war, to be taken into consideration, their discussion would extend
to many chapters.
The most remarkable general characteristic about this aspect of his
work is the composite, sometimes extremely composite, nature of the
sources employed in drawing up the account of any single one of the
main incidents. A second characteristic, hardly less remarkable,
is that those parts of his work whose truth is most conspicuously
demonstrable originate in the majority of cases in the historian’s
personal observation and personal inquiry.
◆Autopsy, and the evidence of eye-witnesses.◆
The most noticeable examples of the accuracy of his personal
observation, and of the diligence and care of his inquiries from
persons who were present at events, is afforded by the correctness with
which he describes the topography of Thermopylæ and Platæa, and the
close agreement of the incidents of those battles as recorded by him
with the nature and accidents of the ground at the present day. There
is no single statement of pure fact in his accounts of those battles
upon which suspicion is thrown by a minute examination of the areas
within which they were fought. The majority of them are positively
capable of proof by the results of such an examination. The manifest
errors in these two accounts do not lie in statement of fact, but in
statement of motive, and are fully explicable by the circumstances
under which the story was told. In neither case does he produce any
evidence that he was able to get information as to the motives which
influenced those in command. The story of the fighting in both cases
is a soldier’s story. The details of the first two days of the defence
of Thermopylæ were derived from some one who was present at, or a
spectator of, the fight, of which there were many survivors. Those
of the final scene are of the same character, though in that case it
is more difficult to conjecture who was the informant. #AUTOPSY AND
TOPOGRAPHY.# From certain indications in the story, it seems that parts
of it at any rate may have been derived from some one who viewed it
from the Persian side, possibly some Malian who had been temporarily
impressed as a servant, and with whom Herodotus conversed when
he visited the spot in later years. Such are the details (vii. 208)
with regard to some of the Lacedæmonians being hidden from view of
the Persian scout by the interposition of the wall, and some of
the information given with reference to Epialtes (vii. 213). It is
quite beyond question that Herodotus had traversed the ground. His
topographical information can be followed in detail by any one who
visits the region at the present day.
The only uncertainty concerns the exact sites of one or two
places which he mentions outside the area of fighting, such as
the Amphiktyonic temple; but even these are identifiable with
high probability; and it is the use of the spade, not Herodotus’
information, which is wanting.
The rest of his information with regard to Thermopylæ, with the sole
exception of the copies of the inscriptions on the monuments, is
traditional in origin, emanating from Sparta.[232]
Artemisium he may have seen in the distance in the course of a land
journey from the north. The knowledge which he displays of Halos, in
his account of Xerxes’ visit to the place, renders it probable that he
had traversed the route which leads round the east end of Othrys on to
the Malian plain, and in going that way he would pass in full view of
Aphetæ and Artemisium. His topographical description of these places
is, in so far as it is called for, accurate enough. That is, however,
the only portion of the Artemisium story which can be set down to aught
of the nature of personal examination. Nor, indeed, can any part of
that story be safely attributed to the evidence of an eye-witness
of events. The list of the contingents of the Greek fleet may be taken
from official records of some sort; the rest of the story seems to be
drawn from tradition.
The tale of Salamis is, perhaps, the most extraordinary in the whole
of his history. There can be little doubt that when he wrote it he had
in his possession notes of information given him by some one who was
present at the battle. Probably he never compiled its history of the
battle until some years after he had taken the notes, at a time when
his informant was not within his reach, possibly dead and gone. He must
have known the topography of the strait; he could hardly have lived in
Athens without doing so.
How did he come to make the serious error which he undoubtedly did
make? There may be differences of opinion as to the nature of the
error, still more as to its cause; but as to the existence of it the
topographical evidence, as well as the contemporary account of the
eye-witness Æschylus, leave no reasonable doubt. The mistake does not
appear, in so far as can be judged, to have existed in his original
information. His account, despite the confusion inevitable to the
nature of his mistake, points to its being founded on evidence which
may have been in all essential particulars in accord with that of
Æschylus and Diodorus. The matter has already been discussed at length
in reference to the battle itself. Suffice it now to say that the most
probable explanation of it is that, using his notes of information some
time after they had been given him, he mistimed a movement mentioned in
them, and by so doing threw his narrative out of gear.
In the Salamis story, as elsewhere, the traditional element is present
in various forms. As in the case of Artemisium, the list of the ships
may be founded upon an official basis.
The story of Platæa is, perhaps, the most remarkable that he wrote.
How he ever arrived at the truth with regard to that scene of confused
fighting must excite the wonder of every student of history. #FACTS
AND JUDGMENTS.# It is plain that he was peculiarly well satisfied
with his evidence, for he was not in the habit of treating at length
incidents whose description rested on testimony with which he was
dissatisfied, however important these incidents might be. His account
of Marathon affords proof of that; and there other ominous silences
in his narrative which can only have been due to lack of reliable
information. His topographical evidence on Platæa is undoubtedly
due to autopsy. Not merely are his direct statements on the subject
marvellously correct; but the whole of the topography implied in his
account of the many incidents of the battle is marvellously correct
also. His information was manifestly derived from one who had fought at
Platæa; and the character of the story is such as to render it possible
that he not merely visited the scene of it himself, but visited in
company with one who had fought there. His account exemplifies in a
peculiar way both his excellences and his limitations as a military
historian. His own diligent inquiry led him to make the best use
possible of the evidence at his command; but that evidence was not
obtained from one who was conversant with the plans of those who
directed the operations, nor had the historian himself such knowledge
and experience as would enable him to form sound inductions as to the
nature of those plans from information of the kind which was at his
disposal.
The traditional element in his account of Platæa is probably far less
in proportion than that in any one of the longer sections of his
history. Of official record only the list of the Greek contingents
shows probable traces.
Such are the major parts of his history in which the evidence of
autopsy on his part, or on the part of his sources of information, is
most strikingly displayed.
One minor passage, that relating to Xerxes’ visit to the vale of Tempe,
must be mentioned. The considerations on the physical geography of
Thessaly, which are put into the mouth of the Great King, are almost
certainly those of the historian himself, derived from his personal
knowledge of the region. This view is further supported by the remark
he makes on his own authority in reference to the withdrawal of the
Greek force from that region, that he believes it was due to the
discovery that Tempe was not the only pass into the country from the
north.
With regard to the other two great battle-grounds of this period,
the evidence of autopsy is doubtful Herodotus’ account of Marathon
makes it probable that he had not seen the ground. His account of
the battle, such as it is, is marked by certain mistaken deductions,
probably his own, resting on a basis of misinformation. The remainder
of it is obviously traditional in origin.
Whether Herodotus had ever seen the ground at Mykale is very doubtful.
He certainly had never examined it in detail. It is, however, quite
possible that some of his information with regard to it was drawn from
an eye-witness.
◆Oracles.◆
Mention has already been made of certain traces of the use of official
records of a secular origin. It now remains to consider those oracular
responses, whose actual wording in their official written form came
under his notice, whether at the place at which they were delivered,
or in the city to which they were given. The great difficulty is to
determine whether, in the individual cases in which he quotes oracles,
his quotation is drawn from an official version, or from a version
accepted by tradition. Positive cases of the latter mode of quotation
are more easy to recognize than positive cases of the former; though
in nearly all cases alike he gives what purports to be, and may be,
the actual wording of the response. Nevertheless, the two kinds of
quotation demand that the material quoted, even if identical in form,
should be regarded as coming under two different classes of evidence.
It must not be necessarily assumed that an oracle copied from an
official record at Delphi is better historical evidence than one
preserved in the memory of those to whom it was delivered. It is too
probable that the opposite is the case. There are many strong reasons
for the suspicion that in certain instances the hand of the editor
brought the record up to date by alterations and additions made in the
light of after-events. The oracles relative to Salamis are a case in
point. #ORACLES.# Delphi did no doubt possess sources of information
with regard to Greek politics generally, which rendered it able to give
very useful advice to those who consulted it; but it is impossible to
believe that either at Delphi, or anywhere else, the course of
the war could have been so far calculated before the actual struggle
began, as that the circumstances which made it so imperative to fight
at Salamis should have been foreseen.
It is in the history of the period at which apparently this oracle was
delivered, when the Greek states to which the council of defence had
appealed for help were making up their minds what attitude to adopt
in the coming war, that Herodotus makes most use of the evidence of
oracles. There is no reason, save in the case of the Salamis oracle
above mentioned, to suspect that those which he quotes are in aught but
their original form. They show that Delphi had a definite policy at the
time, founded upon the conviction that Athens, and Athens alone, was
the goal of the Persian expedition; and even after the war was over
Delphi might have argued with some show of reason, though not on the
solid basis of fact, that, had its advice been followed, its conviction
would have turned out true.
One other very important oracle quoted by Herodotus with reference to
the history of the war, is that which was alleged to have brought about
the self-sacrifice of Leonidas. From the way in which the historian
mentions it, it is obvious that he did not draw it from any source
independent of the tradition of the battle, to which, indeed, it
supplied the main motive.
◆Traditions.◆
It is often very difficult to trace with anything approaching certainty
the exact source of the various traditions which Herodotus followed
in different minor sections of his history. In some cases it is only
possible to make a guess at their origin; and a discussion of them,
not in itself very profitable, is but too apt to lead to even less
profitable results. It is quite certain, as has been already said, that
in many parts of his narrative he combined information of very diverse
origin and of very various value.
A statement in a sentence in the midst of a long passage oftentimes
shows that its origin differs from that of its context. It is not
proposed to deal with such variations of the general pattern, but
to seek rather to arrive at some definite conclusion as to the
“provenance” of the chief authorities lying behind the main sections of
the historian’s work.
The account of the Ionian revolt is, as it would appear, drawn largely
from traditional sources. It is, of course, probable that Herodotus
in his early years actually talked with men who had played a part in
it; but it is also probable, on the other hand, that he had not at
that period of his life any formed intention of writing his history.
The traditions which he followed were undoubtedly unfavourable to the
Ionians. They were also defective in information. Their origin must
certainly be attributed to the Asiatic coast of the Ægean; and this
fact, together with these two main characteristics above mentioned,
points to the Dorian Greeks of the cities of the Carian coast, of which
Halikarnassos, Herodotus’ birthplace, was one, as having been mainly
responsible for them.
The attitude of these Dorians at the time of the revolt would be only
too calculated to make them unfavourable to those who had taken part in
it. Such information as Herodotus could get from Ionian sources would
be coloured by mutual recriminations, and would not, consequently, be
calculated to disabuse his mind of its first impression.
Some few examples of the use of official records and inscriptions are
apparent, but they are few and far between.
The Marathon story seems to be almost wholly traditional, derived
from two Athenian sources of opposite tendency,—the one aristocratic,
wherein the services of the Miltiades were brought into prominence, the
other democratic, wherein the medizing tendencies of the Alkmæonidæ
were, in so far as possible, disguised and excused. These two versions,
with additions of his own, Herodotus has combined into his narrative;
but there must have been a large mass of matter in both traditions
which he has rejected as unreliable, probably owing to the absolute
impossibility of reconciling the statements in the one version with
those in the other.
#PARTIALITY OF GREEK TRADITION.#
The confused history of the wars between Athens and Ægina, one of which
falls within the decade between 490 and 480, is related on the
basis of an Athenian version, which the historian himself has probably
edited in certain parts: but the whole tradition was so confused that
he has evidently been able to make comparatively little out of it.
The sources for the period immediately preceding the war of 480 are, as
might be expected in the history of a time at which many of the less
prominent of the Greek states appear on the stage, of a very varied
character. To the employment of the records at Delphi in this part of
the historian’s work reference has been already made; but, in addition
to these official records, he appears to have made use of tradition
surviving at Delphi itself, especially with reference to the relations
of the oracle with Athens at that particular time.
The main basis of his account of the negotiations with Gelo and of
the events in Sicily in the period immediately succeeding them is a
tradition which was current throughout European Greece, whose manifest
tendency was to exclude the Sicilian tyrant from all participation,
direct or indirect, in the struggle for Hellenic freedom. He expressly
mentions, indeed, that there was a Sicilian version which differed from
it in certain respects; but he evidently attached but little importance
to it. That he made a mistake in his choice of authority there can be
little doubt; but, apart from the natural predisposition of one who
knew the tale of tyranny on the Asiatic coast, and had every reason to
dislike it, the Greek version had probably taken firm root by the time
at which he collected his materials. The Sicilian version, with its
probable exaggerations, is preserved in Diodorus.
In discussing the attitude of Argos at this time, he expressly
reproduces two traditions, giving his preference to that of local
Argive origin. The other was probably that which was carried current
among the Greeks who had been patriotic, though certain details in it
suggest that it was originally from an Athenian source; and part of it
originated more than thirty years after the war, at the time of the
negotiations which led to the mysterious Peace of Kallias.[233]
The tale of the negotiations with Corcyra, as well as of Corcyra’s
attitude at the time of Salamis, rests on a tradition which was in all
probability current among all the patriot Greeks. Corcyra was never
popular. The social Greek hated its individualism as a state in the
Hellenic world.
The tradition which Herodotus reproduces relating to the motives which
prompted the advice given by Themistocles to the Athenians regarding
the mines at Laurion is all part of that Themistocles legend which he
has consistently followed. Its origin has been already attributed to
the aristocratic party in Athens.
The absence of any attempt to tone down the picture drawn of the medism
of the Northern states points to the fact that the materials for it
were furnished by tradition current among the patriot Greeks.
The tale of Thermopylæ is one of the few stories of greater length in
the history in which the traditional element is homogeneous throughout.
The actual facts of the fighting were probably obtained from
examination of the ground, combined with the evidence of eye-witnesses.
But the whole motive of the story—the causes, that is to say, which
produced these facts—was drawn from a tradition, one and indivisible,
and that tradition was of Lacedæmonian origin. It was more than
that; it was no popular tale, but an official version of events. It
became pan-Hellenic, for the very good reason that the extraordinary
circumstances of the battle did not render the existence of any other
version possible. It would be mere repetition of a long argument
to recapitulate the reasons for this view: they have been already
stated in dealing with the account of the battle itself. The oracular
element contained in it was quite sufficient to prejudice Herodotus
in its favour; but even he does not seem to have been satisfied with
the reasons put forward for leaving Leonidas to his fate; and he was
evidently in doubt as to the true facts of what occurred on the last
day of the defence of the pass.
The tale of Artemisium would appear to have been drawn from
two sources, both of them Athenian. #PERSIAN SOURCES.# The
Themistocles legend of aristocratic origin is interwoven with a
pan-Athenian version, whose object was to emphasize in every possible
way the services of Athens to the national cause at this period of the
war, and the many difficulties she encountered in combating the fatal
policy of withdrawal to the Isthmus.
The same pan-Athenian tradition, combined with the Themistocles legend,
shows itself in the account of the events between Artemisium and the
actual fighting at Salamis.
Alike in the accounts of Thermopylæ and Salamis, descriptions are given
of events which occurred on the Persian side; even discussions which
took place in the Persian Council of War are reported in what profess
to be the actual words used. The latter may be dismissed with the
remark that they are instances in which the dramatic instinct got the
better of the historical sense of the historian. But it is impossible
to say that the matter in the description and discussions is wholly
unhistorical. The prominence of Artemisia in one of them suggests
that it is founded on a Halikarnassian tradition of his own day. The
remainder may rest partly on traditions carried back to Asia by Greeks
who were with Xerxes’ army. Herodotus himself, who had relations with
Persians in high positions in later times, may have derived incidental
information from them. But these Persian tales in his history of the
war must be regarded as indicating only the drift of the truth.
The tale of Salamis, in so far as it is not founded on notes from a
personal narrative, suggests an origin in pan-Hellenic tradition. The
credit given to the Æginetan on the one side, and to the Ionians on the
other, can only have been the outcome of general consent. No doubt, the
more or less personal details of the fighting are drawn from a variety
of sources, Ionian, Halikarnassian, Athenian, and what not; and the
tale of the would-be Corinthian cowardice shows unmistakably the traces
of the cloven foot of later Athenian enmity.
The comparative briefness of the tale of Mykale suggests that Herodotus
had not the opportunity of getting much information with regard to
that important battle. As it stands, it presents no certain trace of
origin, but is probably the version of the story which was generally
current in Greece. Despite its brevity, it is, in contrast with the
story of Marathon, one which raises no difficulties. The evidence
was not evidently large in quantity; but, such as it is, it has all
the appearance of having been sound. It affords, moreover, another
example of that fact, to which reference has been already made on
several occasions, that Herodotus did not write history on the basis of
testimony with which he was not satisfied.
The view adopted in this volume on the right use of Herodotus’ work
as a basis for history is not likely to commend itself to extremists.
It is perhaps due to the strong personality of the old historian that
his critics have at all times shown a tendency to divide themselves
into two camps, one of which champions not merely his honesty, but his
absolute accuracy, while the other bitterly assails both. In a work so
great and so extensive as his, it is almost inevitable that the amount
of accuracy obtained in various parts of it should vary very greatly.
The multiplicity, too, of his sources of information would necessarily
promote the same tendency.
As an historian he has suffered alike from his admirers and detractors.
He has been credited with a kind of inspiration. He has been decried
as a forger of history. It would be waste of time to discuss views so
extreme. Any one acquainted with the conditions under which his history
must have been composed will understand the ♠impossibility of attaining
complete accuracy under such circumstances. Any one who takes the
trouble to examine the proofs of the charges of forgery brought against
him will know that they have often been founded on mistaken premisses,
and are in no single instance convincing.
♠ “impossibilty” replaced with “impossibility”
But there is an intermediate attitude taken towards his work by a
certain section of the learned world, about which a few words must
be said. #MODERN CRITICISM.# There is a widespread tendency to adopt
the view that, whatever the inaccuracies contained in his writings,
they represent the high-watermark of knowledge attainable at the
present day concerning the period of Greek history of which he
wrote; and that, therefore, fertile criticism of his work aiming at
any reconstruction of the story is impossible. Such reconstructions
are, moreover, frequently stigmatized as attempts to read the ideas
of the nineteenth century after Christ into the history of the fifth
century before Christ. A charge, of the kind can only be founded on the
assumption that Herodotus was qualified not merely to record the acts
of the men of the period of which he wrote, but to appreciate to the
full the ideas and motives which produced the acts of those who were
presumably the most skilled men of their day in special departments of
life.
The evidence which is given in this volume, with respect at least
to the military history of this period, does not support such an
assumption. Putting aside detail, the general conclusions to which it
points are three in number:—
1. The extraordinary accuracy of statements of fact in Herodotus;
2. His lack of information as to the motives of those in command;
3. His lack of experience such as might have enabled him to form
deductions as to those motives.
If the evidence on which the first of these conclusions is founded be
held to justify it, it is not too much to assert that the modern world
is provided with the means of forming a sound judgment as to the causes
underlying the history of the most critical years of the fifth century.
The debt of civilization to Herodotus does not require exaggeration.
INDEX.
A
Abæ, 349, 436
Abdera, 220
Abydos, 110, 213 _n._, 214 ff., 217, 253, 272, 418, 430, 530 f.
Acarnania, 241
Achæans, 226, 229 _n._
Achæmenes, 344
Achæmenids (family of), 33, 38, 41, 83
Achaia, 379
Achaia, Phthiotis, 259, 279
Acilius Glabrio, 260 _n._, 264 _n._
Adeimantos, 328, 329, 364 f., 368, 405
Adramyttion, 217
Æakes, 129 f., 134
Ægaleos, Mt., 372, 375, 385, 392, 398 _n._, 452
Ægina, Æginetans (wars with Athens), 53, 77, 154 ff., 158 _n._, 202,
204, 205, 240, 320, 353, 354 and _n._, 355 _n._, 362, 365 f., 367 f.,
373, 376, 378, 388, 389, 393, 397, 400, 401, 405, 406, 431, 433,
469 _n._, 514–516 and _n._, 562, 577
Ægospotami, 532
Ægosthena, 446
Ænianians, 226, 229 _n._
Ænos, 218
Æolian Greeks, 51, 91, 137, 140, 218, 219
Æschines, 162
Æschylus, 354 _n._, 369 ff., 377 and rest of chap. ix. _passim_,
especially 391, 392, 394, 397, 570
Ætolia, 241, 260 _n._, and 262 _n._, 263 _n._
Africa. African, 425
Agathyrsi, 58
Agora, 218
Agrieliki, Mt., 163 ff., 174
Akanthos, 152, 220, 221
Akragas [Agrigentum], 246, 254, 423, 427 f.
Alamana Bridge, 279 f., 284 f.
Aleuadæ, 207, 227 f., 230 _n._, 252
Alexander (of Macedonia), 68, 231, 257, 436 ff., 476 and _n._, 488, 546
Alexander the Great, 426
Alkmæonidæ, 23, 77, 157, 166 ff., 175, chap. iv. _passim_, 201 _n._,
202, 307, 574
Alpenos (oi), 290 f., 300, 303, 311 _n._, 312
Alyattes, 14, 18, 19
Amanus, Mt., 426
Amasis, 36
Amathus, 101 ff.
Ambrakiots, 354 _n._, 469 _n._
Amompharetos, 487, 492, 499, 504, 510, 516, 520
Amorges, 115
Amphictyony, 262, 284 f., 569
Amphipolis, 66, 116
Amphissa, 348 ff.
Amyntas, 68
Anaktorians, 469 _n._
Anaua, 213
Anaxandros, 295
Anaxilas, 254 _n._
Androkrates, Temenos of, 464, 465 ff.; site, 466 _n._, 470, 497
Andros, 374, 412 ff., 417, 419, 562
Anopæa, 268, 269 _n._, 271 _n._, chap. vii. _passim_ (descn., 300 ff.),
542
Antandros, 56, 69, 217
Anthele, 280–284, 296 _n._
Anticyra, 280 f.
Antigonus, 263 _n._
Antiochus, 264 _n._
Aphetæ, 320 _n._, 326 ff., 342, 343, 569
Apidanos, R., 259
Apollonia, 51
Apotripi Springs, 454, 465 ff., 470, 478 _n_., 505, 506
Aráchova, 350
♠ “Arachova” replaced with “Aráchova”
Arcadia, 273, 306, 444, 567
Arderikka, 192
Ardys, 12
Argilos, 220
Argiopian country, 494 ff., 499
Argos, Argolis, 226, 235, 237, 240, 243 f., 250 _n._, 253, 351, 353,
379, 444, 545, 565, 567, 575
Ariamnes, 404
Aristagoras, 47, 78, chap. iii. _passim_, 159, 299
Aristides, 202, 386, 388 ff., 403, 461, 470, 496, 547
Aristocratic traditions, 170, 175, 203
Aristodemos, 274 f., 312
Aristomenes, 12
Aristophanes, 170, 179 _n._, 523, 563
Aristotle, 175, 177 f., 255, 358, 420
Artabanos, 209, 217 f.
Artabazos, 428 ff., 475, 476 _n._, 508, 514, 518, 546
Artaphernes, 42, 69, 74, 76, 78 ff., chap. iii. _passim_, 147 ff., 159,
201 _n._
Artaphernes (younger), 160, chap. iv. _passim_, 200
Artauktes, 531 ff.
Artemisia, 113 _n._, 220, 374, 402 f., 410, 577
Artemisium, 265 f., 270, 271, 276, 298, chap. viii. _passim_, 351,
353 f., 355, 358, 359, 374, 383, 404, 441 _n._, 538, 541, 562, 569,
576 f.
Artybios, 105
Asea, 444
Asia Minor, Geographical, 7, 13
Asopos, R., Bœotia, 448 and chap. xi. _passim_, especially 470 and
_n._, 473
Asopos, R., Malis, 260 ff., 277 ff., 299 ff., 345 f., 348
Assyria, 8 f., 10, 12, 14–16, 39
Astyages, 16, 17
Atalanta, 261, 279, 309, 346, 349
Atarneus, 140 f., 217
Athens, Athenians,
Ægina, 53, 98, 154 f., 158 _n._, 202, 240, 562, 574 f.
Army, 431, 461, 468, 469 _n._, at Platæa, 500 ff., 503 ff., 519; at
Mykale, 527, 529–532
Constitutional, 174 ff., 389, 431
Fleet, 93, 198,
203 ff., 237, 265, 270 f., 320, 337, 351, 354, 355, 365, 368, 393,
405, 552 f.
General, Delphi, 232, 240, 262 _n._; siege, 356 ff., 436 ff., 530, 545
Internal politics, 76 f., 166 ff., 199, 201 ff., 388, 416, 419, 563
Ionian revolt, 92–98, 133, 167
Persia, 72, 74, 76, 77 f., 81, chap. iv., 214, 224 ff., 232, 241 f.,
357, 546
Strategy, 270 f., 275, 359 f., 523, 549, 550 f.
Trade, 367
Athenian sources, 54, 98, 155, chap. iv., 319, chap. viii. _passim_,
321, 324, 340, 341, 405, 477, 491 f., 508 _n._, 510, 563, 567, 574,
575, 576
Athos, Mt., 151, 153, 212, 221
Atossa, 72
Attaginos, 517
Attica, 159, 162, 234 f., 353, 355, 356, 358, 372, 444, 445, 526, 549
Atyadæ, 6
Avlona (valley), 164 f., 174, and chap. iv. _passim_
Axios, R., 221
B
Bactrians, 418
Bakchylides, 28
Bithynia, 18, 60
Bœotia, Bœotians, 77, 228, 229 and _n._, 231, 252, 257, 262 _n._, 275,
346 f.; routes, 346, 347, 350, 374, 407, 410, 439, 440, 445, and chap.
xi. _passim_ (especially 452, 455, 471, 477, 498, 505, 507, 512, 513,
519 ff.), 527, 544, 547, 549
Bosphorus, 50, 115
Boudenitza 265, 276, 346
Branchidæ [Temple of the], 22, 89
Brennus, 262 _n._, 265, 268 _n._, 281
Brygi, 150 f.
Bury, Prof., 357 _n._, 389, 390 _n._
Busolt, 155 _n._
Byzantion, 49, 50 _n._, 51 _n._, 56, 69, 99, 120 f., 135, 145, 518
C
Cadmus, 254 _n._
Cambunian Mts., 231, 257
Cambyses, 36 f., 55, 255, 538
Cappadocia, 213
Caria, 18, 29, 31, 91, 99 ff., chap. iii. _passim_, 219, 338
Carrhæ, 426
Carthage, Carthaginians, 131, 245 ff., 254 ff. _n._, 355, 421–428, 523,
540
Cenchrea, 379
Chabrias, 456 _n._
Chæronea, 347, 544
Chalkidike, 151, 429
Chalkis, 77, 134, 162, 265, 277, 320, 323 ff., 331, 332 and _n._,
342 f.; route, 347, 354 _n._, 469 _n._
Charadra, 163 f. and chap. iv. _passim_
Charopinos, 94
Chileos, 442
Chilon, 344
Chios, 30, 83, 118, 120, 125, 129, 136 ff., 433, 530
Chronology, 107 f., 111, 114; revolt, chap. iii. _passim_, and 142–144,
151, 172 f., 197 _n._, 198, 203 _n._, 229, 235, 237, 239, 240, 250,
251, 253 _n._, 271 f., 272 _n._, 319 f., 320 _n._, 330 f., 332 and _n._,
342, 343, 377, 388, 390 _n._, 417, 427, 448
Cilicia, Cilicians, 106, 123, 148, 160, 219, 336 _n._, 343, 393, 402
Cimmerians, 10, 12
Clinton (Fasti), 203 _n._
Constantine, 515
Constantinople, 515
Corcyra, 240 ff., 355 and _n._, 369 _n._, 576
Corinth, 21, 37, 77, 78, 205, 241, 270, 273, 306, 320, 328, 329, 339,
354 _n._, 355, 364 f., 367 f., 389 f., 398 _n._, 405, 469 _n._; at
Platæa, 506, 517, 528, 535, 543, 563 f.
Cornelius Nepos, 184 _n._
Corsica, 131
Creasy, Sir Edward, 407
Crete, Cretans, 235, 237, 240, 242
Crœsus, 18–28, 55, 97, 214, 349
Croiset, 362
Cyaxares, 15
Cyclades, 82
Cyprus, 36, 99 _n._, 100 ff., 123, 125, 219, 393, 402
Cyrene, 74, 75
Cyrus, 16, 17, 33
D
Dardanos, 110, 217
Darius (special references), organization, 39 ff.; policy, 58, 148 f.,
160, 201 _n._; last years and death, 200, 201, 205, 206, 362
Daskylian satrapy, 428
Datis, 160 ff., chap. iv. _passim_, 200
Daulis, 349
Daurises, 110 ff., 115
Dekeleia, 448, 449
Delbrück, 210 _n._, 267 _n._
Delian League, 530
Delos, 161, 433, 524, 529
Delphi, Delphic Oracle, 11, 14, 22, 25–27, 77, 197; war, 232–240, 242,
243, 244, 246 f., 262, 305, 307, 347, 348; topography, 349 f., 353,
356, 419, 514, 515, 567, 572 f., 575
Demaratos, 77, 154 f., 220, 296, 344 f.
Demarete, 428
Demokedes, 72 f.
Demophilos, 306
Demosthenes, 262 _n._
Diodorus, 27, 228 ff. _n._, 244, 250; sources, 250 _n._; 251, 255 f.,
272, 275, 294, 329, 330 _nn._, 334, 336 _n._, 337, 357, 369 ff.;
sources, 373, 377, chap. ix., 378 onwards _passim_ (especially 388,
392, 393, 394, 404, 406, 421–428), 498; on Platæa (518, 519 _n._), 570,
575
Dionysios (of Phokæa), 31, 126 ff., 334 _n._
Dionysios (of Halikarnassos), 203
Dirphys, Mt., 453
Dolonki, 145
Dolopians, 226, 229 _n._
Dorians (of Asia), 18, 29, 31, 99, 219, 220, 561, 574
Doris, Dorians, 257, 261, 264 _n._, 267 _n._, 302, 345 f., 348 and _n._,
374, 567
Doriskos, 212, 218, 220
Drakospilia (old), 301, 303
Drakospilia (new), 303–305, 307, 309 f., 312 _n._
Dryoskephalæ, 356, 447–449 452, and chap. xi. _passim_ (especially 475,
493 _n._)., 538
Dyras, R., 278 ff., 281
E
Eclipses, 15, 217 and _n._, 443 _n._
Egypt, Egyptians, 24, 32, 35, 36, 46, 74, 75, 123, 201 f., 205, 209,
211, 214, 219, 381 and _n._, 387, 523, 538
Eion, 212, 220, 419
Elatæa, 265, 276, 346
Eleusinian Demeter, temple of, site, 494 ff., 503, 507, 508, 520
Eleusis, 352, 371, 375, 385, 391, 447, 452 and _n._, 549
Eleutheræ, 447, 452 _n._, 456 _n._, 465 _n._
Elis, Eleians, 513, 514
Enneahodoi, 220
Epaminondas, 195
Ephesus, 14, 94, 98, 101, 108, 122, 125, 130, 535
Ephoros, 197 _n._, 249, 250 _n._, 254 _n._ f., 294 f., 518 _n._
Epialtes, 268, 299 f., 310, 569
Epidaurus, 320, 354 _n._, 469 _n._
Epirus, 241
Eretria, 72, 94, 98, 142 ff. (_i.e._ chap. iv. _passim_), 320,
336 _n._, 354 _n._. 434, 469 _n._
Eryihræ (Asia), 125
Erythræ (Bœotia), 447, 449 _n._; site, 458 and _n._, 459 ff., 465 _n._,
467 _n._, 512, 518 _n._
Ethiopia, 38
Eubœa, 82, 161 f., 183, 257, 263 _n._, 265, 318, and chap. viii.
_passim_; “Hollows,” 335 and _n._, 343, 374, 384, 453, 538
Euesperides, 74
Euphrates, 426
Euripus, 162, 228, 261, 264, 265, 269, 276, 277, chap. viii. _passim_,
347, 542
Eurybiades, 320, 328 ff., 355, 362 ff., 376, 389, 413, 543, 545 f.
Euxine (colonies), 54, 56, 57
Euxine (Sea), 58, 120, 145, 215 _n._
Evænetos, 229, 231
Evalkides, 98
G
Gargaphia Spring, 454, 463, 465 ff.; site, 465 _n._; 470, 478 and _n._,
480, 485, 489, 499
Gauls, 262 _n._, 267 _n._, 281, 288
Gaumata, 38
Gelo, 240, 244–256, 355, 421–428, 575
Geraneia, Mt., 369, 375, 378, 446
Getæ, 51, 59
Giona, Mt., 260
Goodwin, Professor, 370 ff.
Gorgo, 92
Gorgos, 101 f.
Gourgo-Potamo, 278 f., 282
Greeks of Asia, character, 45 ff., 85, 118; literature, 133
Greek legend in history, 32, 48
Grote, 371, 373, 385
Gyges, 10 ff.
H
Hæmus, 51
Haliartos, 544
Halikarnassos, 113 _n._, 220, 402, 561, 577
Halos, 228, 231, 259, 279, 567
Halys, 12, 13, 15, 23, 96 f., 213
Hamilcar, 254 _n._, 421–428
Harpagos, 31, 140 f., 148
Hauvette, 155 _n._, 187 _n._, 278, 362
Head [Hist. Numm.], 428
Hebros, R., 218, 221
Hecatæus, 89, 91, 116
Hegesistratos, 524
Helicon, Mt., 347, 452, 544
Hellespont [region], 18, 56, 57, 64, 83, chap. iii. _passim_, 145 and
219, 527, 530 ff.
Hellespont, 7, 212; bridge, 214 ff. and _n._, 250 _n._; wind, 324, 408,
412, 414, 418, 562
Heraklea Trachinia, 261, 263 _n._, 264 _n._, 268 _n._, 282 f., 430, 525
Herakles, Precinct of, 164, 174, 179, 181 ff., 190
Hermionians, 354 _n._, 469 _n._
_Herodotus_,
Anachronisms, 127, 156, 333 _n._
Autopsy. 213, 220, 277 ff., 313, 436, 457, 472, 569, 571 f.
Fact and motive, 85, 291 ff., 293, 306, 308, 323, 326, 338, 568
Historical element in fiction, 102 ff., 208, 218, 433 f.
Influence of his contemporaries, 292, 294, 328, 334 _n._, 345, 360,
369 _n._ 444, 515, 516, 557, 559, 563 f.
Judgments, 93, 101, 103, 125, 129, 132, 231, 244, 431, 441 _n._, 518,
529, 561, 566
Omissions, 79 f., 156, 256, 451, 538, 549 f., 559 f.
Prejudice, 80, 86, 89, 104, 115, 116, 126 ff., 137, 328, 329 _n._,
340 f., 358, 360, 362, 400, 401, 411 f., 413 f., 490 f., 501 _n._,
506, 510, 511, 516 _n._, 536, 560, 561 ff., 564
Rationalization, 16
Religion and philosophy, 55, 195 f., 209, 226, 247 f., 274, 293,
306 f., 338, 358, 562, 565
Sources of information, 53, 65, 69, 70, 80, 98, 104, 113, 125, 127
and _n._, 128 f., 146 _n._, 162 _n._, 167, 175, 197, 198, 203, 206,
210 _n._, 213, 214, 218, 219, 232, 245, 249, 254 _n._, 266 f., 273,
314, 318 f., 321, 324, 332 _n._, 344 f., 360, 373, 374, 414, 417,
428 f., 436, 457, 472, 477, 501 _n._, 508 _n._, 509, 510, 514, 516
and _n._, 560 and chap. xiv. _passim_ (especially 564 ff.)
Topography, 216, 223, 267, 277 f., 291 f., 335 _n._, 457, 468, 506 f.,
559, 568
Treatment of evidence, 89, 110, 156 f., 169, 180 f., 184, 189, 190 f.,
193 f., 267, 273, 332 _n._, 340 f., 373, 374, 377, 382, 383, 386, 405,
428, 457, 458, 558, 565, 567
Himera, 246, 251, 254 _n._, 422 ff.
Hipparchos, 168
Hippias, 49 _n._, 74, 77 f., 81, 92, 159, 166, 168 f., 173
Histiæa, 339, 374
Histiæotis, 257
Histiæus, 54 f., 66, 68 f., chap. iii. _passim_; character, 141–2
Hogarth, 262 _n._
Hunt, Irving, 520 _n._
Hyampolis, 262 _n._, 346, 349
Hydarnes, 196, 269 _n._, 299 f., 309, 311 _n._, 313, 317, 419
Hymeës, 110, 115
Hypata, 278
Hysiæ, 456, 459 _n._, 463, 464; site, 464 _n._, 467 _n._, 497
I
Iatragoras, 91
Ida, Mt, 216, 217 and _n._
Ilium, 217
Imbros, 69
India, Indians, 32, 418
Ionian Greeks, 51, 54 f., 102 f., 119, 124 ff., 137, 147, 148 ff., 159,
208, 213, 218, 219, 338, 339, 385, 393, 401 f., 405 f., 408, 414 _n._,
433 ff., 517, 522, 525 ff., 535, 560 f.; sources, 567, 577
Ionian revolt, 47, 48, 53, chap. iii., 146, 147, 199, 210, 242, 434,
528, 560 f., 574
Ionian Sea, 247
Isagoras, 74, 166
“Island” at Platæa. _Vide_ Nesos
Ister, 51 ff.
Isthmus (of Corinth), 226, 228, 238; defence, 253, 257, 270, 272–275,
295, 298, 351, 352, 353, 355 ff., 369, and chap. ix., _passim_
(especially 404), 440 ff., 446, 449, 451, 452, 506, 515, 541, 544,
546, 549
Italiot Greeks, 131, 255, 355, 421
Italy, 365
J
Jason (of Pheræ), 227
Justin, 184
K
Kaïkos, R., 140, 217
Kalamoi, 524
Kalauria, 353
Kalchedon, 50, 58 _n._, 56, 69, 145
Kale Akte, 134
Kallatebos, 214
Kallias, 243, 575
Kallidromos, Mt., 261, 286, 289, 312
Kallimachos, 174 ff., and chap. iv. _passim_
Kalyndos, 402
Kandili, Mt., 324; 325 _n._
Kane, 217
Kardia, 218
Karystos, 161 f., 374, 416, 417
Kasthanea, 322
Kaukasa, 83
Kaunos, 99
Kelænæ, 213
Keos, Keians, 320, 354 _n._
Keos (Salamis), 383 ff.
Kephallenia, 469 _n._
Kephisia, 164
Kephissos, R., 348
Kimon (elder), 49
Kimon (younger), 105, 198, 524, 552
Kissians, 297
Kithæron, Mt., 252, 351, 410, 443 _n._; passes of Kithæron-Parnes,
445–448, 449 _n._, 451, 453 f., chap. xi. _passim_, 527
Klazomenæ, 14, 115
Kleidemos, 519
Kleisthenes, 74, 166, 175, 177
Kleisthenes (of Sikyon), 166
Kleombrotos, 379, 443 and _n._
Kleombrotos (younger), 456 _n._
Kleomenes, 74, 76, 77, 91 ff., 154 f., 243, 253, 299
Knemis, Mt., 261
Koës, 52, 66, 91
Kokla, 484
Kolophon, 11, 14
Kolossæ, 213
Konvelo, 283
Kopais, L., 347, 351, 452, 544
Koresos, 94
Koronea, 347
Kotroni, Mt., 180
Kourion, 106
Krannon, 227, 258
Kreusis, 347, 446
Kriekouki, 446 _n._, 454, and chap. xi. _passim_
♠ “Kreikouki” replaced with “Kriekouki”
Kritalla, 213
Kroton, 73, 133 f. 354 _n._, 355
Ktesias, 52, 56, 409 _n._
Kybebe, 97
Kydrara, 214
Kyme, 14, 30, 115, 430
Kynosura (Marathon), 163, 180, 384
Kynosura (Salamis), 371, 375, 383 ff., 392 ff., 403
Kythera, 128, 344 f.
Kytinion, 349 f.
Kythnians, 354 _n._
L
Labraunda, 113 f.
Labynetos, 15
Ladé, 50 _n._, 122 _n._, 124 ff., 135, 151, 334 _n._, 406
Lamia, 258 f., 277, 279, 347
Lampon, 514
Lamponium, 56, 69
Lampsakos, 110
Larisa, 207, 258, 347
Laurion, 203, 205, 368, 562
Leake, Preface, 281 ff., 285, 291, 301 f., 310 _n._, 449 _n._,
456 _n._, 458 _n._, 466 _n._, 471 _n._. 481, 482 f., 484, 498, 520
Lebadeia, 436
Lechæum, 379
Lemnos, 69
Leonidas, 272 _n._, and chap. vii. _passim_, 329, 514, 544, 573
Leontiades, 295
Lepreans, 469 _n._
Leras, 116
Lesbos (Mytilene), 66, 69, 91, 120 f., 125, 130, 135, 137, 140 f., 530
Leukadians, 354 _n._, 469 _n._
Leuke Akte, 212
Leuktra, 195, 471 _n._, 481
Leutychides, 155, 431, chap. xii. _passim_, 548
Libya, Libyans, 38, 254 _n._, 422
Ligyes-Ligurians, 254 _n._
Limni, 325 _n._
Livy, 260 _n._, 264 _n._, 279, 335 _n._
Locri (Opuntii), 229 _n._, 231, 232, 257, 273 ff., 293, 300 and _n._,
306, 313, 320, 354 _n._, 374
Lolling, 165
Lycia, 31, 219, 393, 402
Lydia, Lydians, 5 ff., 28, 29–31, 95, 97, 166, 214, 529
Lykides, 440
Lykos, 213
Lysagoras, 196
M
Macan, Herodotus, iv., v., vi., 65 _nn._, chap. iii. various notes,
155 _n._, 161 _n._
Macedonia, 65, 70, 145 ff., 207, 212, 221, 226, 262 _n._, 268 _n._,
279, 450, 523, 533, 555, 567
Mæandrios, 37
Magna Græcia, 367
Magnesia (near Sardes), 11, 31, 37
Magnesia, Magnetes (Thessaly), 226, 229 _n._, 320 _n._, 322, 326
Malea, Cape, 355 _n._
Malene, 140
Malis, Malians, 226, 229 _n._, 257, 264 _n._, 267 _n._, 277 ff., 299,
300, 303, 320 _n._, 348 _n._, 354 _n._, 551
Mantinea, Mantineans, 273, 306, 493 _n._, 513, 514
Marathon, 50 _n._, 53, 72, 79, 145, chap. iv. _passim_; topography,
155 _n._, 204; legend, 224 f., 353, 362, 389, 407, 415, 476, 511, 535,
560, 574
Mardonius [expedition of 492], 48, 148 ff., 159, 206–208, 211, 219,
407, 409 f., chap. x. _passim_, chap. xi. _passim_; death, 502, 503,
515, 545 ff., 549 ff.
Marengo, 513
Marsyas, R., 113 and _n._ f.
Masistios, 461 f., 488, 519
Mausolos, 113 _n._
Mavra-neria, 278, 282
Mazares, 30, 31
Media, Medes, 15, 219, 297, 418, 426
Medism, 166 ff., 201, 207, 226 ff., 270, 272, 275 f., 294, 347 f.,
439 f., 444, 450, 505, 516 f., 530, 547 f., 550
Megabates, 83 ff.
Megabazos 64 ff.
Megara, Megareans, 262 _n._, 320, 354 _n._, 365, 366, 368, 378, 387,
393, 445, 446, 448, 449, 456, 461, 469 _n._, 507, 519, 564
Megistios, 306, 313
Mekistos, Mt., 324 _n._, 453
Melas, R., 218
Melas, R. (Malis), 278 f., 293
Mesembria, 51
Mesembria (on N. Ægean), 220
Messenia, 442 _n._
Metiochos, 146
Miletus, 14, 29, 37, 54, 80, chap. iii. _passim_, 168, 526, 528
Miltiades, 49, 52 f. (trial), 55, 56, 145, chap. iv. _passim_, 195–199,
204
Mnesiphilos, 363 ff., 562
Moloeis, R., 494 ff., 499
Munro, 155 _n._, 172 _n._
Munychia, 385, 395 _n._
Murmex, 324 f.
Mykale, 124, 130, 163 f., 184 _n._, 267, chap. xii. first part
_passim_, 551, 555, 561, 572, 577 f.
Mykenæ, 273, 306, 469 _n._
Mykonos, 197 _n._
Mylassa, 113, 115
Myrkinos, 66, 68 f., 116 f.
Mysia, 18, 115, 217
Mytilene. _Vide_ Lesbos
Myus, 125
N
Nabonidus, 16, 24, 27, 32
Naxos, 47, 69, 81–89, 158, 161, 354 _n._
Nebuchadrezzar, 15, 16
Neokles, 456 _n._
“Nesos” at Platæa, 466 _n._, 472, 479; site, 480–487, 488, and rest of
chap. xi. _passim_ (especially 507, 519)
Nicæa, 262 _n._
Nikias, 345
O
Oarus, 52
Œroë, R., 450, 454, 455 _n._, 467, 480, 481, 484 ff.
Œta, Mt., 226, 227, 232, 252, chap. vii. _passim_; description,
257 ff., 345 f., 452, 542, 551
Œtæans, 261, 264 _n._, 300 _n._, 348 _n._
Olympia, 514, 515
Olympos, Mt., 221, 228; passes, 231
Olynthos, 429 f.
Onesilos, 101 f.
Onomakritos, 206
Orchomenos [Arcadia], 273, 469 _n._
Orchomenos [Bœotia], 346
Orestheion, 442 _n._, 444, 452
Orœtes, 37, 39
Oropos, 162
Ossa, Mt., 221
Otanes, 65, 69 f., 71, 76, 83, 110, 115, 148, 219
Othrys, Mt., 258, 303
P
Pæeonians, 66 ff., 93
Pagæ, 446, 448
Pagasætic Gulf, 228, 321 ff.
Paisos, 110
Paktyas, 30
Pallene, 429
Pamphylia, 100, 109, 125, 219, 393, 402
Pan, Cave of, 190
Panakton, 445, 447
Pangæus, Mt., 70, 220
Panormos, 422
Panopeus, 356
Parapotamii, 346, 349, 356
Parasopia, 449 _n._, 455
Parnassus, Mt., 348 ff., 452, 471
Parnes, Mt., 351, _Vide_ Kithæron
Paros, 196 ff., 201, 205, 416 f.
Pausanias (Sparta), 105, 443, and chap. xi. _passim_, 548, 555
Pausanias (author), 165, 190, 192 and _n._, 262, 265, 267 _n._, 281,
286, 288, 306, 312, 355 _n._, 448, 449 _n._, 456 _n._, 459 _n._,
463 _n._, 465 _n._, 485, 496, 497, 515, 520
Pedasos, 114 ff., 119, 123, 134
Peisistratidæ, 158, 201, 206, 307
Peisistratos, 166, 168
Peloponnesus, Peloponnesians, strategy, 232; hegemony, 243;
strategy, 270 ff., 298, 321, 329, 344, 351, 359, 379, 391, 514, 530
Peloponnesian League, 78, 154 _n._, 544
Peloponnesian War, 273, 334 _n._, 345
Peneius, R., 221, 231, 321
Perikles, 157, 176
Perinthos, 65, 145, 212
Perkote, 110
Perrhæbi, 226, 229 _n._
Persia, Persians, 16; civilization, 33–35; organization, 39 ff., 82,
147, 211, 222, 249; army, 44, 49, 50, 109, 113, 121, 160 (Marathon),
184 _n._, 186, 200 (B.C. 480), 210 f., 211 _n._, 217, 218 f.; policy,
58 f., 64, 66, 146 and _n._, 147 ff., 153, 158, 208, 218, 232 ff., 249,
411; fleet, 50, 101, 151, 153 f., 160, 204 (B.C. 480), 218 ff., 222,
276, 374, 406, 430, 524; strategy, 368, 406, 409 f., 451, 471, 540;
army, 222, 374, 554; policy, 449 ff., 535; fleet, 538; organization,
537 f.; sources, 577
Phalæcus, 262 _n._
Phalara, 259
Phaleron, 186, 190 ff., 374, 376 ff., 404, 412, 545
Philaid family, 146
Philip of Macedon, 262 _n._, 268 _n._
Philip of Macedon (younger), 263 _n._
Philippides, 172, 173
Philius, 273, 306, 469 _n._, 507
Phocis, Phocians, 257, 262 _n._, 265, 273, 274 ff.; wall, 287–289, 293,
299 ff., 345 ff., 347 f., 450, 471, 477, 508
Phœnicia, Phœnicians, 35, 36, 99 ff., 119, 129, 131 ff., 145 f., 214,
219, 249, 250, 254, 255 f., 373, 385, 393, 397, 400, 402, 405 f., 523,
524, 525
Phœnix, R., 280–284
Phokæa, 31, 125, 126 ff.
Phormio, 395, 398 _n._
Phrygia, 6, 7, 10, 213
Phrynichos, 133, 167
Phyle, 447
Pieria, 220, 272, 292
Pindar, 167, 249, 254 _n._
Pindus, Mt., 241, 258
Piræus, 371, 374, 375, 385
Platæa, 163, 179 ff., 184 _n._, 211, 230, 267, 320, 356, 407, 410, 418,
427, chap. xi. _passim_ (especially 469 _n._, site of town, 489 _n._),
526, 527, 537, 538, 554 f., 568, 579 f.
Pliny, 525
Plutarch, 95, 100, 173 _n._, 204, 205, 294 f., 358, 362, 369 ff., 388,
392, 398, 467 _n._, 468 _n._, 496, 497 f., 519, 520 _n._, 521
Pogon, 353 _n._
Poikilé Stoa, 190
♠ “Poikile” replaced with “Poikilé”
Polichne, 137
Polybius, 216, 263 _nn_.
Polykrates, 35–37, 55, 72
Potidæa, 429 ff., 469 _n._
Potniæ, 496
Prasias, Lake, 67 and _n._, 68
Priene, 14, 31, 125
Propontis, 64, 70, 99, 107, 214
Pseudo-Smerdis, 38, 148
Psyttaleia, 372 ff., 375, 382, 384, 385, 392 ff., 403
Pteria, 15, 27
Ptoon, Mt., 436, 453
Pythios, 213
R
Rawlinson, 282
Rhegion, 254 _n._
Rheitoi, 452
Rhodope, Mt., 220
Rhoetion, 217
Romans, 268 _n._
Routes, Ephesus to Sardes, 94; Ægean, 35, 153; Marathon, 164 f.,
174; Asia Minor, 213 ff.; Thrace, 220, 221; North Greece, 221 f.;
Thessaly, 231; North Greece, 232; Greece to Sicily, 241; Mount
Othrys, 258 f.; Thessaly, 258 f.; Mount Œta, 260, 261; Delphi, 262;
road through Thermopylæ, 288–289; Thermopylæ to Thebes, 345 f.;
Thermopylæ to Delphi, 349, 350; Schiste, 349; Thermopylæ-Phocis,
349 _n._; Bœotia, 356; Geraneia, 378; Ægean, 431; North Ægean,
437; Lakonia, 442 _n._; Peloponnese, 444; Attica and Bœotia,
445–448; Kreusis to Isthmus and Megara, 446; Platæa-Megara, 446
and _n._; Platæa-Athens, 446 f.; Thebes-Eleusis-Athens, 447;
Thebes-Phyle-Athens, 447 f.; Athens-Dekeleia-Bœotia, 448; South
Bœotia, 448; Eleutheræ-Eleusis-Athens, 452 _n._; Platæa-Athens,
456 _n._; Platæa-Megara, 456 _n._; Thespiæ-Dryoskephalæ, 460;
Dryoskephalæ-Thebes, 462; Platæa-Thebes, 467 _n._; Leuktra to
Dryoskephalæ, 505; Platæa-Megara, 515
S
Sakæ, 57, 189, 219, 418
Salamis (Cyprus), 101 ff., 577
Salamis (Attica), 205, 236, 238 f., 251, 267, 352, chap. ix. _passim_;
topography, 375 ff., 408–412, 419, 431, 434, 440, 441 _n._, 443 _n._,
452, 508, 516, 518, 522; general strategy, 544 ff., 561, 570
Salmydessos, 51
Samos, Samians, 31, 35–37, 51 _n._, 81, 106, 125 ff., 161, 401, 430,
433, 522 f., 534 f., 529, 530
Samothrace, 218, 220, 400, 406
Sandokes, 327
Sardes, 25, 27, 30, 68, 69 f., 70, 74, 82, 94 f., 108, 213 f., 228,
240, 535, 537
Sardinia, 116, 118, 254 _n._, 422
Saromata, Mt., 303
Saronic Gulf, 253, 352, 538, 545
Sarpedon, 218
Salræ, 220
Scythians, 10, 57, 145
Scythian expedition, 48 ff., 70, 72, 75, 85, 146 _n._, 209, 210, 415,
535
Selinus, 424
Selymbria, 145
Sepias, 322, 323 ff., 342, 374
Seriphians, 354 _n._
Sestos, 56, 215, 218, chap. xii. latter part. 538, 551
Sicily, 131, 134, 244–256, 321, 355, 367, 421–428, 540, 567, 575
Sideroporto, 263 _n._, 264, 268 _n._, 282
Sidon, 73, 219
Sigeon, 49 _n._, 78
Sikinnos, 379
Sikyon, 320, 354 _n._, 469 _n._, 528
Simonides, 313
Siphnians, 354 _n._
Siris, 365, 369 _n._
Sisimakes, 115
Skiathos, 318, 321 f., 331, 335 _n._, 342, 384
Skione, 429
Skironid Way, 378
Skolopœis, 525
Skolos, 449 and _n._, 463, 496
Skopadæ, 227
Skyllias, 331, 343
Smerdomenes, 219
Smyrna, 14
Soli, 106
Soros (at Marathon), 165 ff.
Spaniards, 425
Sparta, 25, 29, 37, 76, 91 ff., 154 f. and _n._, 159, 168, 172 f.,
182, 193, 220, 225 f.; Tempe 229, 231, 237, 240; Argos, 243; Sicily,
245, 252; Argos, 253; Sicily, 254 _n._; strategy, 271; Thermopylæ,
chap. vii. _passim_; people and government, 315; fleet, 320, 344, and
North Greece, 348 _n._; fleet, 354 and _n._, 385, 401, 420, 433, 438;
policy, 440 ff.; army, 442 and _n._, 443, 456, 469 _n._; at Platæa,
492 ff.; army, 493; at Platæa, 498 ff., 508, 512 ff.; at Mykale,
527 ff.; characteristic, 530, 531, 541; strategy, 549; sources, 567,
569 _n._, 576
Spercheios, R., 258, 263 _n._, chap. vii. _passim_
Sphendale, 449
Stagiros, 220
Stamata, 164
Stein, 282, 389, 443 _n._
Stentoris, Lake, 218
Stesenor, 106
Stesilaos, 190
St. George Island, 371 f., 375, 384, 386, 405
Strabo, 23, 52, 106 _n._, 113, 215, 283, 335 _n._, 525
Strategic questions, Artemisium, 318, 331 f.
Attica. 440, 445
Bœotia, 544
Cyprus, 105
Eubœa, 265
General, 113, 124, 153, 157, 266 f., 267 _n._, 298 f., 321, 351,
359 ff., 365, 406, 409 f., 413, 415, 416, 422, 432, 437, 449 ff.,
462, 522, 524, chap. xiii. _passim_
Greece, 159, 171 f. (Marathon), 178, 179 ff., 185, 193, 226
Hellespont, 530
Isthmus, 378
Kithæron-Parnes, 445–448, 450, 451
North Greece, 268
Œne, 447
Peloponnesian, 270 ff.
Peloponnesus, 345, 444
Persian, 344 f.
Platæa, 473 ff., 476 _n._, 488, 492, 510, 511
Platæa town, 446
Salamis, 352, 380 f., 386
Thebes, 347
Thermopylæ, 263 ff., 269, 298, 316
Thermopylæ and Artemisium, 543
Thessaly, 230 _n._, 232, 541
Thracian Chersonese, 531
West Asia, 7, 13, 90, 96, 105, 112
Strattis, 433
Stryme, 220
Strymon, 66 ff., 72, 120, 136, 139, 212, 220, 221
Stylida, 259, 327 _n._
Styreans, 320, 354 _n._, 469 _n._
Suidas, 179 _n._, 183 _n._, 184 _n._
Sunium, Cape, 181 ff., 190, 376
Susa, 69, 72, 75, 76, 102 f., 109, 121, 141, 149, 243, 537
Sybaris, 133 f., 369 _n._
Syloson, 37
Synetos, 229 _n._
Syracuse, 244 ff., 421–428
Syria, 219
Syrtis, Greater, 255
T
Tabalos, 30
Tacitus, 62, 63, 149 _n._
Tactics and equipment, 92, 126, 129 f.; Marathon, 183 ff., 193, 195,
208, 269 _n._, 270 f., 297, 299, 322, 334 and _n._; Salamis, 386, 394,
396, 399, 400, 425–427, 437, 441, 442, 462, 473 ff., 477, 478, 500,
501, 502, 508, 510, 512 ff., 525, 528, chap. xiii. _passim_
Tanagra, 448, 449, 451 _n._
Tanais, 52
Tarentum, 73
Taurus Mountains, 7 f., 12, 15, 24, 426
Tearos, 51
Tegea, Tegeans, 273, 306, 468, 469 _n._, 471, 494, 500, 502, 509
Tempe, Vale of, 221, 228 and _n._ and ff., 231 f., 235, 252, 253 ff.,
257, 271 _n._, 279, 294, 541, 571
Tenedos, 141, 146
Tenos, 161, 374, 389
Teos, 125
Terillos, 246, 254 _n._
Thasos, 137, 139, 141, 152, 220
Thaumaki, 258 f., 279, 298, 453
Thebes, 179, 273, 293; attitude at Thermopylæ, 294–296, 306, 308 f.,
313, 314, 347, 356, 439, 445, 447, 448, 451, 456, chap. xi. _passim_
(especially 476, 505, 512, 516 ff., 518 _n._), 527, 546
Thebes in Pthiotis, 258, 279
Themistocles, 203 ff., 229 _n._, 231, 236, 238 f., 270, 328 ff.,
337 ff., 343, 352 and rest of chap. ix. _passim_ (especially 358,
359 ff., 368, 369 _n._, 391). 411 ff., 417, 419 f., 431, 543 ff.,
561 ff.
Theomestor, 401
Theopompos, 156
Therma, town sand gulf, 151, 221, 228, 319, 320 _n._, 321 f., 327 _n._,
331
Thermopylæ, 128, 163, 223, 227, 229, 232, chap. vii. _passim_;
description, 277 ff., 318 ff., 320 _n._, 323, 328 f., chap. viii.
_passim_. 345 ff., 351, 374, 441, 514, 516, 541 ff., 568; sources,
569 _n._, 576
Thero, 246, 254 _n._, 423
Thespiæ, 273, 293, 306, 308 f., 313, 314, 356, 460
Thesprotis, 287
Thessaly, 207, 221, 223, 226 f., 229 _n._, 239, 252, 257 f., 271, 272,
276, 287, 298, 299, 346 ff., 347 f., 359, 369, 384, 410, 417, 419, 437,
439, 450, 453, 472, 516 f., 518, 541, 546, 566
Thirlwall. 55
Thrace, Thracians, 50, 60, 64 ff., 69, 93 f., 118, 120, 136, 141,
145 ff., 218–220, 418, 450, 532, 551
Thracian Chersonese, 49, 54, 65, 145 f., 218, 531
Thriasian Plain, 166, 441, 447, 452 _n._
Thucydides, 116, 161 _n._, 174 _n._, 241, 261, 264 _n._, 273, 298,
333 _n._, 345, 360 ff., 459 _n._, 460 _n._, 465, 466 _n._, 493 _n._,
498, 555
Thurii, 369 _n._
Thyreatic Plain, 444
Tigranes, 525
Timegenides, 475, 517
Timo, 197
Timodemos, 420
Timon, 236
Tithorea, 348
Tmolos, Mt., 94
Torone, 429
Trachis, 260, 264 _n._, 277 ff., 280; site, 281 f., 286, 293, 300,
348 _n._
Trade questions, 53, 94, 97 _n._., 105, 120, 134, 198, 241, 249, 367,
369 _n._, 434, 435, 523, 529, 530, 552
Trœzen, 320, 321, 353 and _n._, 354 _n._, 469 _n._, 528
Tyrants (Greek), 52, 54 ff., 86, 87, 91, 124 ff., 148, 169, 202,
247 f., 252
Tyras, 52
Tyrodiza, 212
Tyrrhenians, 131
V
Valerius Maximus, 335 _n._
Vergutiani Spring, 456, 472, 485, 520
Villa, 446 _n._
Vischer, 481 ff., 487
Vrana, 164
W
War, the great, issues, 1 ff., 21
Woodhouse, W. J., 467 _n._
X
Xanthippos, 198, 431 f., 531 ff., 548 f., 551 f.
Xenophon, 188 _n._, 297, 299, 446, 487, 542
Xerxes (special references), 205 f., 214, 398, 403, 408, 509
Z
Zanklé, 134
♠ “Zankle” replaced with “Zanklé”
THE END.
* * * * *
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
[Illustration: PASS OF THERMOPYLAE
London: John Murray, Albemarle Street.
_Stanford’s Geographical Establishment, London._
]
[Illustration: BATTLEFIELD OF PLATAEA
London: John Murray, Albemarle Street.
_Stanford’s Geographical Establishment, London._
]
Footnotes.
[1] See note at the end of the Preface.
[2] It would be misleading to claim any exact accuracy for the
chronology of this period. All that can be said is that the dates
given are nearly correct. It is, therefore, undesirable to use the
preposition “in” when the preposition “about” represents in reality the
extent of our knowledge.
[3] Herodotus, speaking probably of the earlier part of the reign,
mentions twenty. The Behistun inscription enumerates twenty-three; the
inscription of Naksh-i-Rustem twenty-eight.
[4] Any date after 511 is highly improbable, because in that year
Hippias was driven out of Athens and retired to Sigeum. Had the
expedition taken place after his arrival there, it is almost certain
that he would have accompanied Darius. Other considerations tend in the
same direction.
[5] Herodotus says seven hundred thousand men and six hundred ships.
This would imply that somewhat more than the ordinary general levy of
the Empire was called out for the expedition. The numbers are almost
certainly exaggerated.
The number of ships, viz. six hundred, as stated by Herodotus, is
somewhat suspicious. The Persian fleet at Ladé is stated to have been
six hundred (H. vi. 9). At Marathon it is the same (vi. 95). These
may be mere vague calculations without any real foundation; it may
be that six hundred was the ordinary official number of vessels that
belonged to the Persian war fleet, and that Herodotus has assumed that
on each of these occasions the whole fleet was employed. In the present
instance, he does not mention any save the Greek contingents. It is
extremely unlikely that the Greeks could furnish six hundred vessels.
They could only raise three-fifths of that number at the time of the
battle of Ladé. Still, Herodotus knows so little about the present
expedition, that his omission to mention other contingents, if not a
mere oversight, may be due to the want of information.
♠ “at Lade” replaced with “at Ladé”
[6] As it is important to note the exact nature of the traceable
evidence on which Herodotus bases the various details he gives of the
campaign, it may be pointed out in the present case that he states
that Darius set up pillars with bilingual inscriptions at the point
of crossing, and that the Byzantians removed them to their city, and
used them for the altar of the temple of Artemis Orthosia. One stone,
covered with Assyrian letters, was left in the temple of Dionysus.
This is apparently the statement of one who has seen them there; and
the sentence which follows, in which Herodotus gives his own view as to
the position of the bridge, tends to confirm this impression.
Those who have seen the terrific current off Seraglio Point at
Constantinople will understand that the bridge could hardly have been
constructed opposite Kalchedon.
Herodotus’ residence at Samos would enable him to obtain some sort of
information with regard to the work of a Samian architect. He must
have seen, too, the picture of the bridge, with the accompanying
inscription, dedicated by Mandrocles, the engineer, in the temple of
Hera.
[7] Probably further up, since there are great marshes on the north
side of the river near the mouths of the Sereth and Pruth. It is more
probable that it was between Tchernavoda and the great bend to the
Delta.
[8] An examination of the map will show that this point, though its
exact identification has not yet been satisfactorily ascertained, must
have been on or close to the direct route from Byzantion northwards.
[9] It may seem strange to suppose for one moment that the words could
apply to those cities whose subjection to Persia is certainly _implied_
in the earlier part of the account of the Scythian expedition. It must
be remembered, however, that Herodotus never mentions the circumstances
or even the fact of their previous reduction.
[10] I take it that the Lake Prasias of Herodotus is to be identified
with the lower of the two lakes of the Strymon, and not with the Upper,
as in Kiepert’s recent Atlas.
[11] Οὐκ ... ἀρχὴν Translation very uncertain, _vide_ Liddell & Scott’s
Lexicon. _May_ mean “not originally,” or even “not at all.”
[12] I would refer those who wish to examine it in detail to the
excellent notes on the subject in Macan’s “Herodotus,” vol. i p. 162,
_ff_.
[13] Macan, _ad loc. cit._
[14] Manuscript text ἄνεως or ἄνεος gives no sense. Restorations
proposed ἄνεσις or ἀνανέωσις. _Vide_ Macan, note, vol. i. p. 170.
[15] In attempting to write the history of the revolt, I have been
immensely aided and considerably influenced by the acute analysis of
that section of Herodotus’ history which is contained in Mr. Macan’s
edition of H. iv., v., vi. I have not in all cases, as will be seen,
adopted his conclusions in detail. The very excellence of Mr. Macan’s
work renders it all but impossible to avoid plagiarism in matter if not
in actual words. But if I am guilty, I am guilty of the sincerest form
of flattery.
[16] Cf. H. v. 96, _ad fin_. and 97, where Herodotus clearly _implies_
that the demand had been made no long time before Aristagoras arrived
at Athens, which was, of course, after the events at Naxos, and after
the die of revolt had been cast.
[17] As Macan points out, the story was in all probability a celebrated
story of the period; and “the man with the tattooed head” played the
same part in Greek legend as “the man with the iron mask” in that of
later days.
[18] _Vide_ Macan, “Herod.”
[19] Cf. H. v. 49. Ὡς Λακεδαιμόνιοι λέγουσι.
[20] The detail of the “guides” is improbable. The road the expedition
followed was the high road from Ephesus to Sardes.
[21] The ἐβοήθεον τοῖσι Λυδοῖσι in H. v. 102 is a somewhat remarkable
expression. It might have been thought that it was Artaphernes, cooped
up in the citadel of Sardes, who would be first in the thoughts of the
Persian commanders. Did the Lydians still remember against the Greek
the betrayal of Crœsus? Or had Persia been favouring the Lydian against
the Greek trade, and so forwarded the conspiracy of revolt? It appears
as if we have a faint trace of one of those numerous lost motives of
the history of the fifth century.
[22] The προπυνθανόμενοι indicates that they had early information of
the attack. It cannot, however, have reached them prior to the landing
near Ephesus, for Artaphernes was caught unprepared, and it cannot
be supposed that he received later intelligence than the commanders
farther inland.
[23] Another possible cause may have been a change in the preponderance
of political parties at Athens during this year.
[24] Cf. opening words of v. 103.
[25] Mr. Macan attributes the spread of the revolt from Cyprus to
Byzantion to the autumn of 498 (vol. ii. p. 69). I do not understand
his reasons for so doing. Herodotus (v. 103) seems to cite the
expedition to Byzantion as an example of the energy which the Ionians
threw into the revolt in spite of the refusal of the Athenians to give
further aid, a refusal which must be attributed to the winter of 498–97.
[26] I am fully aware of the significance of the words ὡς καὶ τοὺς
Ἴωνας ἐπύθετο ἀπεστάναι. But I would suggest that, reading them with
their context, they point to the beginning of a plot of revolt, rather
than to its actual outbreak.
[27] Mr. Macan proposes an Athenian origin for this tale of the events
at Susa. Yet the Athenians were not likely to suggest to the world that
they had brought on Greece all the trouble of the period of the great
war. Herodotus may have simply reproduced, with additions by himself, a
pan-Hellenic version of a famous tale.
[28] Herodotus applies the name to a promontory, but Strabo, 682, says
that the Keys are two islands off the east coast of Cyprus.
[29] To show the utter confusion of Herodotus’ narrative in this
respect, it is only necessary to point out that he implies that
Daurises immediately (v. 116) after the battle near Ephesus proceeded
to reduce part of the Hellespontine district, which, if his previous
account of the course affairs is to be credited (v. 103) did not revolt
until months after the battle. Moreover, Daurises (v. 117) wins rapid
successes in this region, and then is recalled by the revolt in Caria,
which cannot have been brought about (v. 103), at the most moderate
calculation, within six months of the battle near Ephesus.
[30] My view, stated briefly, is that the events recounted in H. v.
116, _ff_., cannot be earlier than 496.
[31] Ταύτας μὲν ἐπ᾽ ἡμέρῃ ἑκάστῃ αἵρεε.
[32] Not the celebrated stream of the Marsyas legend.
[33] Herodotus mentions Pixodaros of Kindys, a son of Mausolos, as
proposer of the first of those alternative plans. The connection of
the name Mausolos with Halikarnassos a century later, 377–353 (_vide_
Macan), suggests the possibility that this man had also a connection
with Herodotus’ native town, and that the story, like those tales of
Artemisia in the narrative of the campaign of 480, is a part of the
historian’s work which can be definitely assigned to a Halikarnassian
source.
[34] H. v. 120, Μιλήσιοι τε καὶ οἱ τούτων σύμμαχοι cannot mean a
Pan-Ionian force. The nearness of Labraunda seems to have encouraged
the Milesians and their nearest neighbours to venture on an attempt to
save Caria. The other Ionians, in all probability, had their attention
occupied by a Persian army sufficiently large to make it necessary for
them to stay and guard their homes.
[35] On the manifest improbability of Hecatæus having proposed anything
of the kind, _vide_ Macan, vol. i., note on p. 267.
[36] Ἐπιστάμενος seems to be used emphatically.
[37] I think it best to postpone the discussion of the evidence on this
point until, taken in its chronological order, it is complete.
[38] The taking of Miletus is evidently assumed by Herodotus to have
occurred in the same campaigning season as the battle of Ladé. There is
no trace of a winter intervening between the battle and its capture.
Cf. H. vi. 18.
[39] Ἀγνωμοσύνῃ τε διεχρέωντο.
[40] Chapter 17.
[41] The existence of such a tale in Herodotus suggests the possibility
that his anti-Ionian bias was founded on something more than
Halikarnassian or Dorian prejudice; that it was, indeed, largely based
upon the colouring given to the story of the revolt by those sections
of the populations of the Ionian towns who were dissatisfied with the
way in which the operations were carried on, or whose conduct had been
such as to excite the criticism of those insurgents who had shown a
more persistent courage.
[42] Cf. Οὐκ ἔχω ἀτρεκέως συγγράψαι; ἀλλήλους γὰρ καταιτιῶνται.
[43] “In column,” probably a detail in accordance with Herodotus’
previous statement as to the “manœuvre of cutting the line;” in
fact, a conjecture of the historian’s own. The Chians are described
as “διεκπλέοντες” in the course of the battle. Had Dionysios of
Phokæa, then, so convinced them of the value of this manœuvre that
they practised it, in spite of the fact that they had forty marines on
board each vessel, _i.e._ were prepared for a wholly different form of
tactics?
[44] As Macan and others point out, this dedication was probably made
after Mykale.
[45] H. vi. 23, 24.
[46] The emphatic mention of these Lesbians in this passage has
suggested the idea that this attack on Chios was an act of spite on the
part of the Æolian Lesbians against the Ionian Chians.
Those who maintain this view seem to leave out of account two difficult
questions which it must raise:—
(1) What conceivable object can the Lesbians have had—
(_a_) In making such an attack for such a motive;
(_b_) In running the great risk it involved at a time when the
victorious Phœnician fleet was within a few hours’ sail of
Chios?
(2) Taking Herodotus’ tale as it stands, who are the Ionians (Chap,
xxviii., _ad init._) who accompany Histiæus and the Æolians in their
attack on Thasos, if they are not from Chios?
[47] _Vide_ Kiepert’s most recent map of Asia Minor.
[48] Artaphernes there, and therefore campaigning season probably over.
[49] Like many other geographical names of ancient and modern times,
this was used in both a wider and a narrower sense. It is applied by
Herodotus in some passages to the whole region from the Pontus to the
Hellespont; in others to the immediate neighbourhood of the Hellespont.
It is used here in the wider sense.
[50] The practical difficulties of the history are rendered all the
greater by the uncertainty of the interpretation of the text in the
opening of H. vi. 40.
[51] The all but complete absence of any details of Miltiades’ life
between the time of the Scythian expedition and the end of the Ionian
Revolt seems to me to support the view that there is very little
_documentary_ evidence underlying Herodotus’ history, save that of
inscriptions and of other official documents, demonstrable instances
of whose use are rare. Had the historian made large use of private
memoirs, supposing such existed, it is unlikely that he would have
omitted to have recourse to the records of the Philaid family.
[52] The significance of this last assertion is very striking. The
reference is to the Ionian towns especially, which, on the indication
of purely general evidence, might be supposed to have been tributary to
Athens at the time to which Herodotus refers.
The question raised belongs obviously to a period much later than 479
B.C., and must be left for discussion in a work dealing with the period
between the Persian and Peloponnesian wars.
Meanwhile I would refer English students of Greek history to the long
note on the subject in Macan, “Herod.” iv., v., vi., vol. i. p. 302.
[53] _E.g._. Strattis of Chios., H. viii. 132.
[54] Cf. H. vi. 43.
[55] The employment of Mardonios on this political business, in a case
in which Artaphernes might have been expected to be the agent for the
carrying out of this particular act of policy, suggests that Darius
had in his mind considerations similar to those which are described by
Tacitus as having influenced the Roman Government in the settlement
of Britain after the revolt of the Iceni: “Missus igitur Petronius
Turpilianus tanquam exorabilior et delictis hostium novus, eoque
pœnitentiæ mitior” (Tac. Agric. xvi.).
[56] It has sometimes been assumed that this was, on the part of
Athens, a direct recognition of Sparta, not merely as the chief power
in Greece, but as exercising some sort of control over Athens itself.
The assumption is possible, but not necessary.
[57] The second part of the objection seems inconsistent with
Herodotus’ own statement, v. 75, that a law had been made some years
before in Sparta to the effect that the two kings might not both
accompany a military expedition. It is, however, possible that this law
applied merely to the command of the army in time of war (_cf_. the
circumstances under which it was made), and that when other important
Government business abroad was on hand, the custom of the Spartan
constitution provided that both kings should take part in it, that each
might act as a check upon the other. It is evident in this instance
that Kleomenes was not in a position to enforce his demands, and even
on the second occasion there is no suggestion of armed interference.
[58] It is not a part of the design of this chapter to discuss in
detail either (_a_) the various palpably unhistorical references to
incidents of the campaign made by the orators of the fourth century, as
well as by later classical authors;
or (_b_) the numerous and varied reconstructions of the history of the
time which have been attempted by modern writers.
The policy thus adopted with regard to the latter is not due to want of
respect, but to want of space. Any full discussion of these theories
would make a book in itself.
They are very fully explained and discussed in—
(1) Busolt’s “Griechische Geschichte;”
(2) Macan, Herod. iv.–vi, vol. 2, Appendix 10,
(3) Hauvette’s “Hérodote;”
and to these I would refer any student who wishes to survey the whole
field of possible and impossible theory.
I owe much to these able summaries of critical discussion, as well as
to other papers which I have read at different times in various German
periodicals.
A very valuable article on the constructive side of the history of the
campaign is that by Mr. J. A. R. Munro, in the _Journal of Hellenic
Studies_, vol. xix., Part II., 1899.
With respect to the ancient authorities, the majority of modern critics
seem to be in agreement that the amount of reliable evidence outside
Herodotus is very small.
The topographical details observable at the present day which have a
bearing on the history of the actual fight are few, though important.
[59] It must at the same time be pointed out that the statement is not
above suspicion in certain respects. Herodotus says, for instance,
that “many of the continentals” and “all the islanders” gave earth and
water. ◆_Cf_. H. vi. 96.◆ Did Naxos give “earth and water”? It is a
very remarkable exception. Who were these “continentals”? Of all the
states only one is mentioned by name—Ægina. Did Ægina really Medize
at this time, or was it merely that Athens feared she might do so, or
might, at any rate, take the opportunity afforded by a Persian attack
to pay off old scores?
[60] The same number as on the Scythian expedition, and at Ladé; and
therefore not on this account very reliable.
[61] Cf. H. vi. 94: Ἐσβαλόμενοι δὲ τοὺς ἵππους ἐς ταύτας [τὰς
ἱππαγωγοὺς νέας] Καὶ τὸν πεζὸν στρατὸν ἐσβιβάσαντες ἐς τὰς νέας, ἔπλεον
ἑξακοσίῃσι τριήρεσι ἐς τὴν Ἰωνίην.
[62] Various exaggerated estimates of these numbers are given in later
historians. Modern authorities have formed estimates varying from
30,000 to 50,000.
6400 Persians fell at Marathon, when the Persian centre must have
been almost wiped out, but when not more than half the Persian army
was engaged in the battle. This would suggest 20,000 as the number
of Persians at Marathon, and about 40,000 as the number of the whole
expedition.
[63] Thuc. ii. 8 is, of course, irreconcilable with this statement. I
do not propose to discuss a question which really does not admit of
any certain solution. There is, of course, a mistake somewhere, but we
cannot pretend at the present day to say where it lies. For discussion,
_vide_ Macan, vol. i. p. 353.
[64] The tale, or, at any rate, certain elements of it, manifestly
originate in a source at Chalkis.
[65] I adopt Stein’s suggestion that κατέργοντες is used
intransitively, as being the most probable of the suggestions which
have been made with regard to the translation or amendment of this
doubtful passage.
[66] _Vide_ “Zur Topographie von Marathon” in the Mittheilungen des
Deutschen Archæologischen Instituts, i. pp. 67–94 (1876).
[67] H. vi. 124: ἀνεδέχθη μὲν γὰρ ἀσπίς· καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἔστι ἄλλως
εἰπεῖν, ἐγένετο γάρ· ὃς μέντοι ἦν ὁ ἀναδέξας, οὐκ ἔχω προσωτέρω εἰπεῖν
τούτων.
[68] Sparta, doubtless, would not act with the Alkmæonidæ.
[69] As represented in some histories of Greece.
[70] As the object of this chapter is not to refute the theories
of others, but to examine and explain the evidence bearing on the
campaign, I do not propose to point out defects in theories which
differ from my own. I am most nearly in agreement with Mr. J. A. R.
Munro. I had formed my opinions on the main questions of the campaign
before I read his article, but it has supplied me with arguments of an
important character which certainly had not occurred to me before I
read it.
[71] In the accepted text of Herodotus the name is Pheidippides, which
is almost certainly a textual error.
[72] These chronological details are important, as they enable us to
construct a diary of events, which is not without its significance in
the narrative of the truce.
[73] It is impossible to say how far this excuse for delay was genuine.
[74] The Persian dead are still unburied when the Spartans visit the
field. ◆H. vi. 120.◆ They leave Sparta on the 15th, and arrive at
Athens on the 17th. A period of several days intervened between the
arrival of the Athenians at Marathon and the battle.
Plutarch (De Herod. Malign. 26) asserts that the battle took place on
the 6th of Boedromion. He accuses Herodotus of suppressing the fact
that the Athenians held a festal procession in honour of the battle on
the 6th of this month.
It is true that the festival did take place on this date; but the day
was chosen, not because it was the date of the battle, but because it
was the festival of Artemis Agrotera, to whom a vow had been made in
case of success, probably before the army started from Athens.
[75] Cf. (Arist.) Athen. Polit. 22.
[76] The original passage in which this is mentioned is the scholion
on Aristophanes, Knights, 778: ἐν Μαραθῶνι: τόπος τῆς Ἀττικῆς εἰς ὃν
ἐνώρμησαν Δᾶτις καὶ Ἀρτάβαζος Μηδικοὶ σατράπαι, etc.
Suidas, a very late author in the 10th and 11th centuries of our
era, reproduces the information, drawing it evidently from the
above-mentioned source.
[77] The fact that the Persians were in battle array seems to
invalidate the theory which has been put forward, that the Persians,
when the Greeks rushed upon them, were marching towards the lower road,
with intent to reach Athens that way. If that had been so, it is not
possible to imagine that the battle could have been the set battle
which it appears to have been according to Herodotus’ description.
His description of the main incidents of the fight seems the most
absolutely reliable part of his narrative.
[78] In the late author Suidas there is a note which gives a positive
support to this negative fact of Herodotus’ silence. He says that the
expression χωρίς ἱππεῖς had become a proverbial expression, originating
from the fact that when Datis invaded Attica, the Ionians who were with
him informed the Athenians that the cavalry were away, and so Miltiades
attacked and won the victory.
[79] The total loss of the Persians is given by Herodotus at 6400.
This is not likely to be an understatement in that 6400 must have been
included the greater part of the Persian centre, which seems to have
been all but annihilated, if the circumstances of the battle be taken
into consideration. It is thus against probability that more than
20,000 Persian troops took part in the engagement.
The comparative smallness of the Persian numbers is further indicated
by the words which tradition attributed to Miltiades. He is said in
the course of his appeal to Kallimachos (ch. 109) to have spoken
confidently of success in case the Greeks took the offensive. There
is no reason to insist on such words having been actually used by
Miltiades. The important historical point is that in the tradition
of the battle which Herodotus followed such language was attributed
to him, language which could not conceivably have been used had the
Persians very greatly outnumbered the Greeks.
[80] Numbers varying from 100,000 to 500,000 are given by various later
authors.
[81] Cornelius Nepos, Justin, Suidas, give estimates of from 9000 to
10,000 Athenians, and 1000 Platæans. Herodotus (ix. 28, 29) gives the
Athenian numbers at Platæa as 8000 hoplites and 8000 light-armed, and
this at a time when many citizens were serving on the fleet at Mykale.
The number 10,000 at Marathon is probably an understatement, though not
one of a gross character.
[82] The Persian position is indicated by three circumstances:—
(1) The position of the “Soros,” which would presumably be situated
where the majority of the Athenians must have fallen, _i.e._ in the
centre of the line; and where, too, the decisive blow of the battle was
struck.
(2) The fact, expressly mentioned by Herodotus, that the Greek centre
was (Chap. 113) driven inland (ἐς τὴν μεσόγαιαν).
(3) The fact that (Chap. 115) the barbarians who escaped seem to have
reached their ships without difficulty.
Hauvette, in assuming the Persians to have been in a position close
to the Charadra, parallel to it, and south of it, ignores these three
points, and places the Persians in about the most disadvantageous
position they could have chosen in the whole plain.
[83] This seems the most probable translation of the word δρόμῳ. Apart
from the physical impossibility of a heavy-armed infantryman advancing
a space of nearly one mile “at a run,” or “at the double,” the word
δρόμῳ seems to be used in a technical sense, taken, as it were, from
the Greek infantry “drill-book” of Herodotus’ own time, implying a pace
faster than that denominated by the technical word βάδην. (For βάδην,
_vide_ Xen. Hell. v. 4. 53, etc.) There cannot be any certainty on this
point, because we know so little of Greek infantry drill at this period.
Another possible explanation of the passage may be that Herodotus has
ascribed to the whole length of the advance a form of movement which
was only adopted when the Greeks came within range of missiles.
[84] Cf. Paus. i 15. 3, where he is describing the picture: Τὸ δὲ ἔσω
τῆς μάχης φεύγοντές εἰσιν οἱ βάρβαροι καὶ ἐς τὸ ἕλος ὠθοῦντες ἀλλήλους.
Those who met this fate must presumably have belonged to the Persian
centre, who would be cut off from the ships by the closing in of the
Greek flanks.
[85] Cf. Paus. i. 32. 3: Καὶ ἕτερος [τάφος] Πλαταιεῦσι Βοιωτῶν καὶ
δούλοις. ἐμαχέσαντο γὰρ καὶ δοῦλοι τότε πρῶτον.
[86] _Ephoros_ [Fragm. 107, Fragm. Histor. Græc.] attributes the
raising of the siege to the fact that the Athenian fleet imagined that
a signal implied that the Persian fleet was still at the neighbouring
island of Mykonos.
He thus seems to assume that the Parian expedition followed
_immediately_ upon Marathon.
It cannot be said that the vague direct evidence on the question
determines this point. It is, however, in the highest degree unlikely
that the expedition was undertaken in the same year as Marathon; and
the detail with regard to the Persian ships seems to have been inserted
in the story either by Ephoros or his original authority,
either (_a_) in order to rationalize a story in which the motive was
inadequate,
or (_b_) because the version followed was one favourable to Miltiades.
Despite his chronological vagueness, Herodotus (vi. 132) clearly
_implies_ an interval between Marathon and the Parian expedition, in
which Miltiades’ reputation stood very high.
[87] In some histories of Greece, discredit is cast upon Herodotus’
assertion that the preparation for the great invasion was begun in the
last years of Darius. In the absence of evidence, this denial of the
stated fact must rest on the basis of general probability.
In reference to this point I would urge that the most noticeable
feature of Darius’ policy towards the west is its extreme tenacity
of purpose. His plans had met with the severest checks in the course
of their operation, yet he and his brother Artaphernes had persisted
in their designs of conquest and acquisition in Europe, whenever
circumstances rendered military and political interference possible.
[88] This is attributed in some Greek histories to the discovery of the
treason of the Alkmæonidæ. So far from being caused by that, it took
place in spite of it.
[89] Cf. Clinton, “Fasti Hellenici,” 11^3, 26.
The archon’s name recorded for Ol. 71, 4, is Themistocles. His identity
with the great Themistocles is highly probable, though not certain.
Dionysius of Halikarnassos says that Themistocles was archon in the
official year, 493–492.
[90] This point will be more fully discussed in dealing with the
charges of corruption brought against Themistocles in Herodotus’
history of the war.
[91] Cf. Plut. Them. 4. ἔπραξε δὲ ταῦτα Μιλτιάδου κρατήσας
ἀντιλέγοντος. ὡς ἱστορεῖ Στμσίμβροτος. Stesimbrotos is a fifth century
writer.
[92] _E.g._ Delbrück attributes to Xerxes an army of from 65,000 to
75,000 combatants.
[93] Herodotus (vii. 60) reckons the land army at 1,700,000, and the
total effective at 2,641,610 (vii. 185). He (vii. 186) says that this
number must be doubled in order to arrive at the full total of the
expedition.
[94] Herodotus probably arrived at these numbers from information
picked up from various towns all round the Ægean, furnished by persons
who had witnessed the passage of the army, or had heard of it from
others who had been eye-witnesses. The enormous exaggerations of
estimate made by eye-witnesses in estimating the numbers of a crowd
of quite moderate dimensions, may easily account for the impossible
numbers stated to and by Herodotus.
[95] Those who state a much smaller number than this do not take into
account the Oriental reliance on numbers, an Eastern characteristic
which the Persian, unless he is much traduced, fully shared.
I hesitate to express any conjecture as to the possible maximum of the
land force on this occasion. No evidence on this point can be said to
exist.
[96] The description of the route adopted renders it improbable that
this body of troops included much more than the local levies of Western
Asia. Sardes was the real place of rendezvous, though it is possible
that some of the contingents did not join the main force until it
arrived at Abydos.
[97] Calculations show that the only eclipses about this time visible
at Sardes occurred on October 2, 480 (mentioned H. ix. 10), and
February 16, 478.
[98] Herodotus says on the _left_. It is obvious that he has confused
his point of view, and is speaking from that of a traveller voyaging in
a ship up the coast.
[99] The physical difficulties of the interior of the Balkan
peninsula, together with the practical question of commissariat,
render it probable that Herodotus is mistaken as to the nature of this
inland march, and of the troops which undertook it. The main body of
the army must almost certainly have pursued the coast road, which was
easy, supplied with depôts of stores, and in touch with the fleet. The
divisions which went inland were probably large detachments sent to
inspire awe in the breasts of the inland tribes, so as to discourage
them from any attempt to cut the line of communications.
[100] _Vide_ also p. 207.
[101] The expedition to Thessaly must have been in the spring of 480.
The Thessalian deputies came to the Isthmus “as soon as they were
informed that the Persian was about to cross over into Europe” (H. vii.
172). Xerxes spent the winter of 481–480 at Sardes, and started thence
“at the beginning of the spring” (H. vii. 37).
[102] _The Expedition to Tempe in Diodorus._—The account of the Tempe
expedition as given by Diodorus differs in certain most important
particulars from the brief narrative in Herodotus. It is possible
that the manifest absurdity of the chronology in the historian’s work
has created an undue prejudice against him as a source of evidence, a
tendency increased by the second-hand nature of his information. It
seems to me, however, that this latter characteristic constitutes a
very strong reason for treating his information with respect. There is
no reason why a bad historian should be a bad copyist; and whatever the
man himself may have been, the writers from whose work he plagiarized
so freely may in some cases have been most reliable witnesses. The
passage on Tempe is in Bk. XI. ch. ii. 13, and it may be well to note
the points in which he agrees with, and in which he differs from, the
account in Herodotus.
Diodorus. Herodotus.
1. The Greeks sent ten thousand Gives the same number—ten
hoplites to Thessaly to seize the thousand.
passes to Tempe.
2. On hearing of the size of the Mentions this as the
Persian force. _reported_ cause of
_withdrawal_ from Tempe.
3. Synetos was leader of the Evænetos.
Lacedæmonians.
4. Themistocles leader of the Same.
Athenians.
5. Ambassadors sent by the No mention.
Lacedæmonians to the other States,
asking them to send forces to join in
the defence of the passes.
6. They were eager to include the No mention.
whole of the Greek States in the
defending forces, and to get them
to take part in the war against the
Persians.
7. They left Tempe because the Believes the real reason for
majority of the Thessalians and the departure to have been the
other Greeks in that neighbourhood discovery that there were
gave earth and water to Xerxes’ other passes by which Tempe
envoys. could be turned.
8. Ænianians, Dolopians, Malians, |
Perrhæbians, Magnetes, medize while |
army still at Tempe. | Makes no distinction between
| the time at which these two
9. Achæans (Phthiotis), Locri, | sets of States medized.
(Opuntian), Thessalians, Bœotians, |
after the departure of Greek force |
from Tempe. |
It is quite plain that the account of Diodorus is not borrowed from
Herodotus, nor does it show traces of having had, either in whole or
even in part, a common source. In certain respects it is the more
probable tale of the two. For example, the comparative smallness of
the numbers sent is explained by the fact that the Lacedæmonians and
Athenians hoped that the other Greeks would send contingents. Again,
the size of the Persian force is given as a reason for going to Tempe,
while Herodotus gives it as a reason for leaving the same, though he is
inclined to reject the tale. It is inconceivable that the Greeks should
at this time have been totally ignorant of the magnitude of the Persian
force. Diodorus’ tale admits of the common-sense explanation that,
having made up their minds to defend the North, they thought it best
to choose a place where the Persian superiority in numbers would be of
as little advantage as possible, though it was mainly for political
purposes that so advanced a position was taken up.
In speaking of the medization of the States or clans, he evidently
uses Θέτταλοι in Chapter II. in a general sense of the population of
the region of Thessaly, whereas in Chapter III. he uses it of the
Thessalians, properly so-called. There is nothing in Herodotus which
contradicts Diodorus’ account of the medization. Both accounts may be
true, though that of Diodorus is the fuller one. There is one point in
it which is peculiarly supported by what Herodotus says. The Aleuadæ
medized; but the mass of their subjects disapproved of this policy,
and called in the Southern Greeks. The great Thessalian lords were
lords of the plain rather than of the mountain. It was consequently
the population of the plain which was opposed to their policy. It is
therefore a remarkable fact that the tribes of the Thessalian region,
which Diodorus mentions as having medized in the first instance, are
those of the bordering mountain region; whereas those of the great
plain remained true to the Greek cause until the withdrawal of the army
from Tempe left them exposed to the overwhelming flood of the invasion.
[103] Diodorus gives his name as Synetos.
[104] The Thessalian appeal to the Congress at the Isthmus to send a
force to Tempe is made to the προβόυλοι τῆς Ἑλλάδος, but the expression
used by Herodotus in vii. 145 and 172, οἱ περὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα Ἕλλήνες τὰ
ἀμείνω φρονέοντες, has almost an official ring about it.
[105] Cf. language used by the Greek embassy to Gelo at Syracuse (H.
vii. 157).
[106] It has been asserted that this passage from Diodorus is drawn
from the passage of Ephorus, of which the fragment is a survival. It
would seem to me that the essential difference between the two points
to a difference of origin, and that they are two pieces of evidence on
the question, and not one.
_Note on the Sequence of Events in Relation to the Negotiations with
Gelo._
It would, perhaps, be a mistake to lay too much stress on the
indications of date in Herodotus with reference to the somewhat crowded
incidents of this time. The actual dates cannot be settled, though
it is possible to arrive at some idea of Herodotus’ views as to the
sequence of events.
(_a_.) The Greek spies were sent to Asia at the time when Xerxes’ army
was collected at Sardes (vii. 146).
(_b_.) The embassies to Gelo, Argos, etc., were sent after the despatch
of the spies (vii. 146, _ad init._, 148, _ad init_.).
(_c_.) Gelo, _after_ the departure of the joint embassy (vii. 163), and
when he heard that Xerxes had crossed the Hellespont (_ibid_.), sent
the treasure-ships to Delphi.
(_d_.) _Before_ he sent these vessels he knew that he had to expect a
Carthaginian attack (vii. 165, _ad fin_.).
The evidence is inconclusive. We lack the means of deciding the
sequence of the departure of the embassy and of the acquisition of the
information with regard to the coming of the Carthaginian expedition.
[107] Bergk, “Pœtæ Lyrici Græci,” Ed. 4, v. iii. p. 485: Πολλὴν δὲ
παρασχεῖν σύμμαχον Ἕλλησιν χεῖρ᾿ ἐς ἐλευθερίην.
[108] _Vide_ Note at end of chapter.
[109] Livy, xxxvi. 15—“Hoc jugum (Œta) ab Leucate et man ad occidentem
verso per Ætoliam ad alterum mare orienti objectum tendens ea aspreta
rupesque interjectas habet, ut non modo exercitus sed ne expediti
quidem facile ullas ad transitum calles inveniant;” and again (Livy,
xxxvi. 17), Acilius Glabrio, speaking of Thermopylæ, “Quippe portæ sunt
hæ, et _unus_ inter duo maria clausis omnibus velut naturalis transitus
est.”
[110] There is considerable mule traffic through it at the present day.
[111] It would, I reckon, be possible for a traveller to go from one
plain to the other by this route without attaining a height much over a
thousand feet.
[112] It may be well to adduce one or two striking instances of this,
apart from the one at present under consideration:—
1. Circ. 350 B.C., Thermopylæ was the great obstacle to Philip’s
advance south. His energies were centred in getting hold of the pass.
He never attempted an assault upon it, but finally got hold of it by
bribing Phalæcus, the Phocian condottiere. He then left a garrison at
Nicæa near Thermopylæ (Dem. ad Ep. Phil. 4). There must have been some
supreme objection from a military point of view to the Asopos pass,
since Philip, who can hardly be suspected of military incapacity,
never tried to turn Thermopylæ by using it. He was not pressed for
time. He patiently allowed years to elapse before he got hold of
Thermopylæ. Thermopylæ was all-valuable to him, and, what is more
striking, absolutely necessary, in his opinion, for an advance
southwards. (_Vide_ Hogarth, “Philip and Alexander”).
2. In 279 B.C. (Pausanias, x. 20) Brennus, with more than 150,000
Gauls, invaded Greece. The object of the expedition was plunder and
nothing else. If he could have got past Thermopylæ that object would
have been attained. With such numbers he could have done what he
liked, especially if, after getting through the Asopos defile, he had,
before going south, turned Thermopylæ by way of Hyampolis and forced
the Greeks to evacuate that pass. Pausanias, who seems to have ample
information as to the details of this Celtic raid, gives the following
list of the defending force:—
Bœotians, 10,000 infantry, 500 cavalry; Phocians, 3000 infantry, 500
cavalry; Megareans, 4000 infantry; Ætolians, 7000 infantry, with
numerous light armed, and cavalry; Athenians, 1000 infantry, 500
cavalry, with numerous triremes; Mercenaries from Macedonia and Asia,
1000 infantry.
The total cannot have been far short of 25,000 men.
The force was so large that the commanders were enabled not merely to
provide for the defence of the pass itself, but were also able to send
out cavalry and light armed to dispute the passage of the Spercheios,
a move which Brennus, who was, as Pausanias remarks, “not altogether
wanting in understanding, nor, for a barbarian, without a certain
amount of experience in devising stratagems,” frustrated by sending a
number of his men across the bar at the river mouth. On this the Greek
advanced guard retreated to the pass. Brennus then had bridges thrown
across the river, and attacked Heraklea. The Heraklea of that date was
probably situated on the mountain immediately west of the mouth of the
Asopos ravine, on a site now known as Sideroporto. He did not take the
place; and Pausanias adds in reference to this, that Heraklea was to
him “a matter of lesser moment: he considered the main point to be to
drive out of the pass those who were in occupation of it, and to make
good his passage into Greece south of Thermopylæ.”
It is of course manifest that such a passage as the Asopos ravine
would be easily defensible, and the Herakleots may have blocked it.
There is no question that, had it been passable, Brennus might have
used it. The striking fact is that he did not use it, but spent his
strength on a terrific failure at Thermopylæ.
3. In 224 (_vide_ Polyb. xi. 52) Antigonus, wishing to get to the
Isthmus, marched with his army by way of Eubœa. “He took this route,”
says Polybius, “because the Ætolians, after trying other expedients
for preventing Antigonus bringing this aid, now forbade his marching
south of Thermopylæ with an army, threatening that, if he did, they
would offer armed opposition to his passage.”
It is to be noted that, as at the time of Brennus’ assault, the
defenders of the pass were also in possession of Heraklea.
4. In B.C. 208 (_vide_ Polyb. x. 41) the Ætolians, seeking to prevent
the passage of Philip of Macedon southwards to aid his allies, “secure
the pass of Thermopylæ with trenches and stockades and a formidable
garrison, satisfied that they would then shut out Philip, and entirely
prevent him from coming to the assistance of his allies south of the
pass.”
In this case also (_vide_ chap. 42) the Ætolians were in possession of
Heraklea.
5. In a passage already quoted, Livy (xxxvi. 15) is most emphatic in
his statement that the only practicable military route by Œta is that
through Thermopylæ. He is describing the attack of the Romans under
Acilius Glabrio upon the troops of Antiochus who were defending the
pass, and it is again reported that the allies of the defenders were
in possession of Heraklea.
We are now in possession of practically all the data which can
be obtained from the ancient historians with regard to the exact
significance of the Asopos ravine, and the route through it. It must
of course be borne in mind that the information of the historian Livy
with regard to the topography of the Thermopylæ region was second-hand;
but yet, in spite of that, there is a certain consistency about the
evidence which enables us to form highly probable conclusions with
regard to the exact value of this factor in the strategical geography
of the region.
It seems to me to have been a recognized principle in later times that
an effective defence of Œta included the occupation of Heraklea as well
as of Thermopylæ, and the only conceivable reason for the existence of
such a view is that Heraklea commanded the passage of the Asopos ravine.
The site of the Heraklea of this period is to be sought, I venture to
think, at the place called Sideroporto, where there are large remains
of a strongly fortified town. It is high on the slope of Œta, in an
exceedingly inaccessible position, in the angle, as it were, between
the Asopos ravine and the line of the Trachinian cliffs.
A local tradition, probably of recent date, and due, like so many
traditions of modern Greece, to the visit of some inquirer whom the
natives regarded as an authority, attaches the name of Heraklea to
certain ruins which stand on the summit of a remarkable flat-topped
mountain in the valley at the head of the Asopos ravine, to which
reference has been already made, between the plains of Malis and Doris.
It is infinitely more probable, however, that this was the stronghold
of those Œteans whom Thucydides mentions.
The site is more than two hours distant from the nearest point of the
Malian plain, at the outlet of the Asopos ravine.
[113] Cp. H. vii. 175, _ad fin_.
[114] It has been criticized in modern times on strategical principles
(_e.g._ by Delbrück), for which a universality of truth has been
claimed. It is said that, given two adversaries of equal strength,
that one places himself at a disadvantage who attempts to defend the
passage of a range of mountains. It is manifest that the assailant
can concentrate his efforts on the forcing of one passage, whereas
the defender has to distribute his defence among all the practicable
passages of the chain. In the particular case of Mount Œta it is urged
that there was, besides Thermopylæ, at least one practicable passage,
and this is stated to have followed the modern road from Malis into
Doris; which passes over the low part of the chain immediately east of
the Asopos ravine.
Could it be proved that such a road ever existed the general criticism
would be sound. As a fact, all but demonstrable proof exists that no
such road, practicable from a military point of view, ever did exist
in ancient times. Leave out of the calculation the Greek of 480 and
the Gaul of 279—although in the case of the latter, if Pausanias’
evidence be worth anything, the Malians showed a very pardonable desire
to expedite his departure from the region, and would have been most
anxious to show Brennus such a road, had it existed—and merely take
into consideration the Greek, the Macedonian, and the Roman of later
times. For years and years these peoples were fighting in every part of
North-East Greece. They knew its topography by heart. The land became
the veriest strategic chessboard that ever existed in ancient warfare,
on which every move could be calculated to a nicety. And yet Thermopylæ
remained the same—that square on the board where king and consul could
alike be checked. Could it have been so had such a path existed?
It has already been seen that the holding of Heraklea was regarded as a
necessary factor in the defence of Thermopylæ. That Heraklea was almost
certainly situated at Sideroporto, commanding the Asopos ravine indeed,
but cut off by that very ravine—a mere crack several miles long and
nine hundred feet deep—from the line taken by this imaginary road; that
is to say, Heraklea would have been absolutely useless for its defence.
If it existed, why then did neither Greek, Macedonian, nor Roman use
it? Why did Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander, shirk the
attack on a pass which he could so easily have avoided?
It has already been said that the Greeks have made a new road along
that line. It is an excellent piece of work, but so great is the climb
to the summit of the pass that a two-horse carriage takes three hours
to accomplish it. The gradient of the hill-side can best be imagined
when it is stated that after climbing for an hour and a quarter along
this road, the traveller finds himself within less than half a mile
of the point from which the climb began, and the greater part of that
half-mile is vertical.
In criticizing ancient warfare a tendency is but too frequently
displayed to ignore the main factor of all warfare—the human element.
In criticizing Greek warfare in particular, it is, moreover, too often
the case that the critic is either unaware of, or has never realized,
the nature of the country with which he is dealing. An ordinary Greek
hill-side, though it appears easy of passage when viewed from even a
short distance, presents difficulties which can hardly be paralleled
in any other country in Europe. Thick, low, strong bush, much of it
thorny, covers it just to a sufficient depth to hide the thickly sown,
razor-edged rocks beneath. Human nature as represented by the Greek
hoplite in his heavy armour could not face it, and progress over it
even for a light-armed man is very slow and very exhausting. The
strategy and tactics of war are bounded by the difficult rather than
by the impossible. There can be no question that the passage over this
part of the range of Œta can never have been practicable to anything
more than the merest skeleton of a flying column, and could not
possibly have been ♠negotiated by any force sufficiently large to affect
the defence of Thermopylæ by any turning movement, or sufficiently well
provided with provisions to accomplish the long circuit which such a
turning movement would have demanded.
♠ “negociated” replaced with “negotiated”
There is one more striking proof that such a road did not exist in 480.
Had it existed it must have crossed that path of the Anopæa by which
Hydarnes and his men turned the pass. If so, why did he make the long
circuit by the Asopos ravine, when a shorter way was practicable?
[115] Cf. the mistake made as to the defensive nature of the position
at Tempe; also, the ignorance of the existence of the path of the
Anopæa at Thermopylæ.
[116] The expedition to Thessaly was made while Xerxes was at Abydos,
certainly not later than April, 480. The departure of Leonidas for
Thermopylæ took place a little before the Carnean festival, about the
beginning of the month of August.
[117] Diodorus’ account of the circumstances preceding the battle is
manifestly an imaginary tale of indeterminate origin concocted after
the event.
[118] This seems to indicate that the Persian camp was altogether
outside the west gate, and not any part of it in the plain of Anthele.
[119] This shows clearly that the wall was not, as some have supposed,
on the low ground at the pass of the middle gate, but on the neck of
the first mound (_vide_ note on Topography of Thermopylæ). Had it been
on the low ground, the scout would, from the comb of the mass of stream
_débris_ of the great ravine, have been able to see over it.
[120] These last words are, I believe, the true translation of the
expression in Herodotus. There would be little point in repeating the
fact of the river flowing through the ravine as a sort of mark of the
identity of a stream whose course the historian had recently described
with considerable detail. There is much point in the indication of what
investigation at the present day shows to have been the fact, that this
path did start from the Asopos ravine.
My own impression is that it sprang into use originally as a means
of communication between that upper valley which I have mentioned as
existing in the range of Œta, and probably also the Dorian plain, and
Thermopylæ, when a flood of the Asopos rendered the ravine impassable.
It would also form a direct means of communication between the Œteans
and Locrians without passing through Trachinia.
[121] It is of course impossible to deduct the number of killed in the
previous fighting, simply because we have no information as to what
that number was.
[122] Epialtes’ calculation that the circuit of the path would be
completed about the middle of the morning must, judging from the
details given of the actual march, have been singularly correct.
[123] Leake says that the descent was not much less than the ascent
in actual distance; but that as the ground was better, and the march
performed by daylight, the time spent was shorter. Leake is certainly
in error. The place were the Phocians were surprised is recognizable
with certainty, I think, at the present day. It corresponds with what
Herodotus tells us of the incident, and it is absolutely the only place
along the whole path where the events narrated could have taken place.
When the Persians reached that point, which is probably the highest
altitude attained by the path, they would have traversed two-thirds
of the whole distance. I must say that Leake’s attempt to reconcile
his views with those of Herodotus by saying that the rest of the path
is easier than that previously traversed is quite contrary to my own
actual experience. From the summit to Drakospilia its character is that
of a track winding amid rocks through a thick fir forest. Not until you
get close to Drakospilia does the country really open up.
[124] They advanced, that is to say, to a position somewhere near the
modern baths.
[125] They had fought, that is, on the low ground at the foot of
Kallidromos immediately to the west of the mound.
[126] The statement that they already knew that they must be taken in
the rear is in accord with Herodotus’ idea of what took place. It is,
however, probable that they heard early from Alpenoi, to which some of
their sick had been sent, of the fact that the other division of their
army had not succeeded in stopping, or, possibly, had not attempted to
stop Hydarnes.
[127] The pillar at Sparta, with their names inscribed upon it,
remained standing in Pausanias’ time (iii. 14, 1).
[128] The position was well designed for a last desperate stand. The
rear was protected by the small but deep valley between the first and
second mound. It is noticeable that they did not attempt to defend the
wall. It may seem strange that they should not have done this. The
position of the wall, however, running along the neck of land joining
the hillock and the slope at Kallidromos, would expose its defenders
to an attack from the rear. The Greeks evidently retreated from their
position near the modern baths; through the narrows between that and
the hillock; and up to the west slope of the latter, passing the wall
at the summit of the slope on to the mound itself.
[129] The parallel diary of events as it appears in Herodotus is as
follows:—
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Day.| Thermopylæ. | Artemisium.
----+------------------------------+----------------------------------
| Persian army leaves Therma. |
| |
12 | | Persian fleet leaves Therma
| | and reaches Magnesian coast.
| |
13 | | Storm begins in morning.
| |
14 | Army reaches Malis. | Storm continues.
| |
15 | | Storm continues.
| |
16 | | Storm ceases. Fleet moves to
| | Aphetæ. Despatch of 200 vessels
| | round Eubœa. First sea fight.
| |
17 | | Second sea fight after the
| | arrival of 53 Athenian ships.
| |
18 | First attack on Thermopylæ. | Third sea fight. News of disaster
| | at Thermopylæ in the evening.
| |
19 | Second attack on Thermopylæ. |
| |
20 | Disaster at Thermopylæ. |
---+------------------------------+----------------------------------
[130] Herodotus does not give any indication as to the time at which
the Greeks received news of the disaster. It is necessary therefore
to make certain calculations as to the earliest possible moment at
which the news can have reached them. As far as can be seen from the
narrative, the ten Persian scouting vessels started from Therma on the
same day as the main body of the fleet, but probably at an earlier
hour. It must have been well on in the morning before they came upon
the Greek vessels off the mouth of the Peneius, which is fifty miles
from Therma. The only conceivable means by which news of the engagement
could have reached Skiathos, some seventy miles south of this point, is
by the appearance of those ten vessels with the captured Greek ships
in their company. That being the case, the Greek fleet at Artemisium
cannot have received the news before the evening of the day.
[131] The ancient Mekistos.
[132] It is more probable that it was under the shelter of the great
cliffs of Mount Kandili, in the neighbourhood of the modern Limni.
There is a sandy shore for many miles at the foot of those cliffs, upon
which vessels might be conveniently drawn up.
[133] A nine-knot steamer takes about seven hours from Chalkis
to Stylida, which is about the same distance as from Chalkis to
Artemisium. There is no question that a trireme could maintain a
high rate of speed for hours together. Nor is there reason to doubt
Herodotus’ statement that the voyage of the Persian fleet from Therma
to the Sepiad strand took but one day, a distance, that is to say, of
one hundred and twenty miles in fourteen hours of daylight, over eight
miles an hour—even supposing that such a large number of vessels could
put out and put in in the dark. The probability is, however, that the
fleet never went to Chalkis at all; or, if it did, that it moved up the
Euripus after receiving the news of the disaster to the Persian fleet,
so as to be ready to go to Artemisium without delay so soon as the
storm ceased.
[134] The strong bias which Herodotus displays in his references to
Themistocles is of itself sufficient to render the tale of bribery
open to suspicion. Furthermore, the sum mentioned, thirty talents, is
an extraordinarily large sum for the people of North Eubœa to raise at
short notice.
[135] Diod. xi. 12, mentions this, but gives the number of the squadron
as three hundred.
[136] Diodorus gives no exact indication of the time of despatch,
though he mentions it immediately after describing the arrival at
Aphetæ.
[137] Same day as first engagement (_vide_ note over page).
[138] If any calculation can be made from this very defective chapter
of Herodotus’ history, this day must have been the eighteenth day. ◆H.
viii 14, 15.◆The three combats at Artemisium are represented as having
taken place on successive days. The last took place on the day of the
disaster at Thermopylæ, _i.e._ the twentieth day. Therefore the first
took place on the eighteenth, ◆H. viii. 9.◆ and it is represented as
having taken place on the evening of the day on which the council of
war was held.
[139] This view is supported by Herodotus’ account of what took place
next day. The storm in which the Persian flying squadron is wrecked
takes place on the evening of the eighteenth day. When the storm
ceased we do not know. But it is certain that the fifty-three Attic
vessels must have ridden it out at Chalkis, and that they, after it
was over, made the long voyage from Chalkis to Artemisium, where they
found the Greek fleet. The storm must have been a brief one; and if,
as Herodotus says, there had been a definite resolution on the part of
the Greek commanders to move south in the early hours of the morning
of the nineteenth day, no reason is apparent why it should not have
been carried out. The real design of the Greeks was probably to make an
attempt to beat the divided Persian fleet in detail.
[140] Though Herodotus is aware of a connection between the positions
at Thermopylæ and Artemisium, there is nothing whatever in his account
which suggests that he understood how necessary the connection was
for the maintenance of the pass. Had he appreciated this, he would
hardly have treated as serious history such parts of the Artemisium
tradition of his time as asserted that the responsible Greek commanders
ever entertained the idea of such action as must have inevitably
sacrificed the lives of the defenders of the pass. He has given the
irresponsible gossip and criticism of the Peloponnesian section of
the fleet the appearance of responsible and authoritative design, and
has served up the whole with copious Attic sauce. There is, however,
no reason for supposing that the historian was in any way guilty of
historical dishonesty. He simply did not possess that knowledge of
military affairs which would have enabled him to see the flaws in the
evidence which came to his hand; and this negative defect was further
complicated by what was, from the point of view of strict history, the
positive one of accepting anything in the tradition of the war which
would bring into relief the patriotic services of Athens. If we tone
down the intensely Attic colouring in Herodotus’ account of Artemisium,
that is to say, such passages as are designed to bring into relief
the difficulty of keeping the fleet at its station, we have, in all
probability, a good historical account, in so far as it goes, of this
part of the campaign of 480.
[141] The manœuvre of the διέκπλους seems one of the most simple
things in the world when it has been discovered. Yet in modern times
it took the English sailors more than a century of hard fighting to
find out its effectiveness. Thucydides, who knows what he is talking
about in naval matters, certainly conveys the impression that it was an
invention of his own time, or, at any rate, that it had, as a manœuvre,
been gradually evolved within the period of the Pentekontaëtia. And
yet, here we have it at Artemisium! Nay, more than that, fourteen
years earlier, according to Herodotus, Dionysios of Phokæa was trying
to teach it to those unappreciative Ionians at Ladé. It is probable
that both in this passage and in the one relating to Ladé, Herodotus
is guilty of an anachronism in attributing that manœuvre to the naval
warfare of the first quarter of the fifth century. The term was
probably much in men’s mouths at the time which he wrote, and, in his
ignorance of naval matters, he assumed that the ruling idea in the
sea tactics of his own day might be safely attributed to the previous
generation. Compare also H. viii. 11 with Thuc. ii. 83, _ad fin_.
[142] There is an undesigned consistency between the two accounts of
the effects of the storm in North and South Eubœa respectively. A
glance at the map will show that, (1) in the North, the driving of the
wreckage towards the shores of Aphetæ; (2) in the South, the driving of
the 200 vessels upon the Hollows of Eubœa, both indicate a storm from
the South or S.S.W.
[143] It seems to have taken some thirty hours to round Skiathos, and
voyage down the east coast of Eubœa.
[144] The identity of these bays with Τά Κοίλα has been called in
question in modern times. If this passage in Herodotus were the only
evidence we possessed, the question of their position would manifestly
be a very open one. All that Herodotus’ language seems to indicate
is that they were a well-known feature in the geography of South
Eubœa. Had they not been so, we should have expected so painstaking a
topographer to have given some indications of their actual position.
His silence, and the inference to be drawn from it, is not without
significance. The Hollows would hardly have been a well-known feature
had they been east of the South Cape, away from the line of sea
traffic; whereas on the west shore they would be in full view of all
vessels using the frequented passage of the Euripus. I think, too, that
any one who has seen that coast of Eubœa, either from Attica, or when
passing up the channel, cannot but have been struck with the depth of
the colour which the retiring coast-line of these bays gives to the
Eubœan landscape thus viewed. Their recesses give that appearance of
“hollowness” from which the ancient name must have been derived. We are
not, however, dependent on Herodotus alone for indications as to their
locality. _Vide_ Liv. 31, 47; Strabo, 445; Valer Max. 1, 8, 10.
[145] It is exceedingly unlikely that the Persian squadron would have
been able to force the narrows at Chalkis, if, as was almost certainly
the case, the fifty-three Attic vessels were ready to defend it. But
had they put in at Eretria and blocked the channel south, the position
of the main Greek fleet, in case of anything resembling a reverse at
Artemisium, would have been very precarious.
[146] The fact that they were able to single out a special contingent
for attack confirms, by implication, Diodorus’ statement as to the
scattered nature of the anchorage at Aphetæ.
[147] The effect of the engagement on the minds of the Greeks is
mentioned in language which is almost, word for word, a repetition of
that which he has used on a previous occasion. He says, Δρησμὸν δὴ
ἐβούλευον ἔσω ἐς τὴν Ἑλλάδα.—H. viii. 18. Cf. the expression in viii. 4.
[148] In speaking of Doris, Herodotus says: Ή δὲ χώρη αὕτη ἐστὶ
μητρόπολις Δωριέων τῶν ἐν Πελοποννήσῳ. That the land had a Dorian
population in the fifth century B.C. is undoubtedly the case; but
its claim to be metropolis of the Dorians of the south was in all
probability set up by the Spartan authorities, as affording a
convenient pretext for interference in Greek affairs north of Isthmus.
It is probable that this corner of Greece, of which the Malian plain
was the centre, contained patches of various peoples which had in
different ages traversed the peninsula, or which had been driven into
its mountain fastnesses by the passage of invaders:—Dorians, Œtæans,
Trachinians, etc., were probably such remains of larger tribes.
[149] Herodotus seems from his language to assume (viii. 31) that
the whole army had come south by the Dorian route. That is, either a
mistake; or, more probably, the impression his language gives is due to
a mere omission. Few details are given of any part of the route of the
army.
[150] The position at Delphi, from a military point of view, is by no
means weak, provided Amphissa be occupied, and the great pass from the
north be thus closed. Under those circumstances, unless the assailant
is in a position to land troops at the head of the Krissæan gulf, the
only line of attack is along this easily defensible path from the
west. It is imaginable that Xerxes, knowing it to be an open town,
under-estimated the difficulty of its capture.
[151] Pogon is an almost land-locked harbour between the island of
Kalauria and the mainland.
[152] A Comparison of the Lists of Vessels at Artemisium and Salamis
respectively.
T. = trireme; P. = pentekonters.
------------------------------+----------------------+--------------
| Artemisium. | Salamis.
| |
Athenians (some Platæans in | {127 T. |
crews at Artemisium) | 53 T. later} 180 T. | 180 T.
Corinthians | 40 T. | 40 T.
Megareans | 20 T. | 20 T.
Chalkidians in Athenian ships | 20 T. | 20 T.
Æginetans | 18 T. | 30 T.
Sikyonians | 12 T. | 15 T.
Lacedæmonians | 10 T. | 16 T.
Epidaurians | 8 T. | 10 T.
Eretrians | 7 T. | 7 T.
Trœzenians | 5 T. | 5 T.
Styreans | 2 T. | 2 T.
Keians | 2 T.; 2 P. | 2 T.; 2 P.
Opuntian Locrians | 7 P. | —
Hermionians | — | 3 T.
Ambrakiots | — | 7 T.
Leukadians | — | 3 T.
Naxians | — | 4 T.
Kythnians | — | 1 T.; 1 P.
Krotonians | — | 1 T.
Malians | — | 2 P.
Siphnians | — | 1 P.
Seriphians | — | 1 P.
+--------------------- +--------------
| 324 T.; 9 P. | 366 T.; 7 P.
------------------------------+----------------------+--------------
Æschylus gives 310 as the number of the Greek fleet. Valuable as is
the testimony of the poet with regard to those incidents in the battle
which he observed as an eye-witness, his evidence on the dry question
of numbers is not likely to be exact.
[153] She did, indeed, send sixty vessels, to observe, so said the
patriot Greeks, how the war went, but not with any intention of taking
part therein. The Corcyræans’ own excuse for their non-participation
was that their fleet had been unable to round Malea.
[154] The mistake may be that of a manuscript copyist; but such
mistakes are so common in the text of Herodotus, that they afford
strong ground for supposing that the historian was, like the men of
his time, inaccurate in numerical calculations. The mistake may be
in the detailed list. ◆Paus. ii. 29. 5.◆ Pausanias implies that the
Æginetan contingent was superior in numbers to that of the Corinthian,
that is to say, more than forty. If the number were forty-two, the
total given by Herodotus would be correct; and it is noticeable in this
reference that he himself, in speaking of the number of ships which
Ægina supplied, ◆H. viii. 46.◆ says: “Of the islanders the Æginetans
supplied thirty; they had indeed other ships manned; but with these
they were guarding their own country; but with the thirty best sailers
they fought at Salamis.”
[155] By Professor J. W. Bury.
[156] Macan, Herod, iv., v., vi., “Athens and Ægina.”
[157] _Note on the Reference to Siris in Themistocles’ Speech._—The
reference to Siris inevitably suggests that this reported passage in
Themistocles’ speech is an invention of later date arising from the
colonization of Thurii in or about 443. The rapid growth of Athenian
trade in the earlier part of the fifth century, and its peculiar
development along the western route, render it possible, however, that
an idea of settlement on or near the deserted city of Sybaris may have
been long anterior to the actual settlement, and may have been mooted
even before 480. If Plutarch is to be believed, Themistocles had direct
relations with Corcyra, and gave the name of Sybaris to one, and the
name of Italia to the other of his daughters (Plut. Them. 32).
[158] H. viii. 74. τέλος δὲ ἐξερράγη ἐς τὸ μέσον. Cf. also Diod. xi.
16, _ad fin_.
[159] This Council of War must have been held on the morning of the day
preceding the battle. It lasted, in all probability, several hours,
and, if so, this would indicate the afternoon as the time at which
Xerxes received the message of Themistocles. On this point, then, the
indications in the narrative of Æschylus and Herodotus are in agreement.
[160] Plut. Them. also mentions the same name; but the testimony is
probably dependent on that of Herodotus.
[161] There is a curious triangular concord at this point in the
history.
Diodorus says that the Egyptian contingent was sent to block the strait
towards the Megarid (xi. 17).
Plutarch says 200 vessels were sent to close the passage round Salamis
(Them. 12).
Herodotus mentions that the Egyptian contingent numbered 200 (vii. 89).
[162] This would account for the fact implied by Æsch. Pers. 400: the
two fleets when they started their movement were not in sight of one
another, though, very shortly after the movement began, the Persian
fleet was visible to the Greeks. The latter would first catch sight of
it after it rounded the Kynosura promontory and the island.
[163] Cf. Arist. 8, where the revocation is said to have taken place
τρίτῳ ἔτει after the sentence.
[164] Cf. Stein’s brief note on the translation of the words στὰς ἐπὶ
τὸ συνέδριον in H. viii. 79.
[165] In so far as I know, this last very important point was first
raised by Prof. J. B. Bury in an article in the _Classical Review_ on
“Aristides at Salamis.”
[166] This is Professor Bury’s suggestion. It is open to the objection
that Herodotus expressly mentions the arrival of this vessel (H.
viii. 83) _immediately_ before the battle began. But this objection
is not by any means insuperable. It is much more probable, under the
circumstances, that Herodotus made a mistake as to the time of its
arrival, than that it managed at the time he mentions to force its way
through the blockading fleets at either end of the strait.
[167] It would seem as if it were a description of this movement, taken
from his notes on, or sources of information for, the details of the
battle, which Herodotus has used by mistake in describing the movement
of the Persian fleet during the night. He has, of course, intensely
confused the original description by reading into it what he knew to be
the object of that night-movement—the surrounding of the Greek fleet
by blocking the issues both to east and west of it; but, eliminating
this motive from his description, it is possible to see that in its
original form it must have resembled very closely the description of
the advance of the Persian fleet which has been drawn from the details
which Æschylus and Diodorus give.
H. viii. 76. “The west wing put out and made a circling movement
towards Salamis.” It has been already pointed out that by “west wing”
Herodotus evidently means, not the west wing in the original formation,
but the west wing when the fleet had completed the movement, and had
taken up the position which he imagined it to have assumed when the
movement was complete. This “west wing” would be the east wing in the
original position. That it cannot have been the original west wing has
been pointed out in a previous note.
If this correction be made, Herodotus’ language in describing this
movement is peculiarly applicable to the movement of that part of
the Persian fleet which entered the strait by the channel east of
Psyttaleia—ἀνῆγον κυκλούμενοι πρὸς τὴν Σαλαμῖνα; and the applicability
becomes still more striking in view of the evidence, which will be
given later, that this wing of the Persian fleet got in advance of the
other.
The left wing, which would use the channel west of Psyttaleia, is
equally referred to in the words: “Those about Keos and Kynosura put
out in order,” to which he adds, in accordance with his knowledge
that part of the object of the night-movement was the blocking of the
straits, “And they occupied the whole strait as far as Munychia with
their ships.”
[168] This phenomenon of the morning wind is very common in the Greek
seas. It will be remembered that Phormio based his tactics in his first
battle with the Corinthian fleet just outside the Corinthian gulf on
its occurrence. I have experienced it there; and on the three occasions
on which I have been through the Strait of Salamis, once in the summer
of 1895, and twice in the summer of 1899, I have experienced it on each
occasion. It began in all three cases quite suddenly, a little before
seven in the morning, blowing from the west, right down that part of
the strait south of Ægaleos. It was extremely violent while it lasted,
though it did not raise a dangerous sea. To the inexperienced it gave
the impression that it meant the beginning of a very windy day. On two
occasions it ceased about 8.30, on the other, shortly after nine, and
the dead calm by which it had been preceded ensued once more.
[169] As is shown by the presence of an Attic vessel opposite the
Persian left, where her ships must almost certainly have been.
[170] Cf. Æsch. Pers. 724,—Ναυτικὸς στρατὸς κακωθεὶς πεζὸν ὤλεσε
στρατόν. Thuc. i. 73, 5.—Νικωθεις γὰρ ταῖς ναυσίν ὡς οὐκέτι αὐτῷ ὁμοίας
οὔσης της δυνάμεως κατὰ τάχος τῷ πλέονι τοῦ στρατοῦ ἀπεχώρησεν.
[171] Modern historians have taken this account of the intended or
attempted construction of the mole too seriously. It has been pointed
out, for instance, that the only point in the strait east of the bay of
Eleusis at which it could possibly be carried out, is at the narrows
where the island of St. George contracts the width of the channel, and
that it is impossible that, under the circumstances as they stood,
Xerxes should have been able to bring vessels to that part of the
strait. But Herodotus never attempts to give the impression that the
operation was ever undertaken seriously; he makes it plain, indeed,
that it was not. If that were so, and it was merely designed to give
the Greeks a wrong impression, it did not in the least matter whether
it was made at a possible or impossible point. Ktesias, Pers. 26, and
Strabo, 395, say that the mole was begun before the battle. This would
imply that a serious attempt was made to construct it. The notorious
unreliability of Ktesias, and the lateness of Strabo’s evidence, render
this account of the matter unworthy of consideration.
[172] H. viii. 103. Λέγουσα γὰρ ἐπετύγχανε τὰ πὲρ᾿ αὐτὸς ἐνόεε.
[173] Οὐδεμία συμφορὴ μεγάλη ἔσται σεό τε περιεόντος καὶ ἐκείνων τῶν
πρηγμάτων περὶ οἶκον τὸν σόν.
[174] It has been suggested that the real intention was to induce the
Ionians to revolt. The behaviour of this contingent in the recent
battle was not calculated to encourage such a plan, conceived within a
few days of the actual fight.
[175] Ἐπείτε οὐκ ἐπαύετο λέγων ταῦτα ὁ Τιμόδημος, etc.
[176] May it not be suggested that some archæologist acquainted with
the extant remains of Phœnician Carthage might confer a distinct
service on history by examining the structures at Agrigentum which date
from this period? The workman as well as the designer must have set his
mark there.
[177] It has already been remarked that his description of Thermopylæ
is that of a traveller coming from the north—“from Achaia”—as he
himself says.
[178] Herodotus himself (ix. 8) takes this view of the matter. He
implies that the Spartans did not care whether the Athenians medized
or not after the wall was completed. It is quite out of the question,
however, to suppose that the Spartans could have regarded with
equanimity the possible transference of the Athenian fleet to the
Persian side. They had the experience of Artemisium and Salamis to
guide them.
[179] It is sometimes assumed from H. vii. 229, that the usual quota
was one helot to each hoplite; but a more probable interpretation of
that passage is that the reference is to the personal armed servant
who accompanied each hoplite to war, and that it cannot be deduced
therefrom that the body of these formed the whole number of the helots
present on an ordinary occasion.
Modern criticism of the impossibility of despatching so large a force
unknown to the Athenian embassy is not convincing. We do not know the
place at which it gathered. It is extremely likely that a large number
of helots were drawn from Messenia, and joined the army at Orestheion,
where the great route from Messenia meets the route from Sparta by way
of the valley of the Eurotas.
[180] His departure from the Isthmus is ascribed by Herodotus to the
fact that when he was sacrificing ἐπὶ τῷ Πέρσῃ an eclipse of the sun
took place. This eclipse has been calculated to have occurred on the
2nd of October, 480. If so, it would be about the time of the Persian
retreat from Attica after Salamis, and Stein’s conjecture that the
sacrifice had something to do with a plan to harass the Persian
retreat, has a certain amount of probability in its favour.
[181] If Sparta had been careless as to whether Athens medized or not,
she might, probably would, have despatched troops to the Isthmus at an
earlier date. But if she was waiting until pressure of circumstances
forced Athens to adopt Peloponnesian views as to the line of defence,
then the delay is accounted for. Had her army been at the Isthmus
when Mardonius advanced into Bœotia, the Athenians would certainly
have called upon it to carry out the agreement, and march to the
northward of Kithæron. In that case the Spartan government would have
been obliged either to comply, or, by a refusal, to show in the most
unmistakeable manner possible the war policy which it intended to adopt.
[182] I was, I confess, surprised to find in August, 1899, that,
in spite of the excellent road to Megara from Bœotia by the way of
Eleusis, the track on the old line of the Platæa-Megara road is still
largely used.
[183] A road has been constructed through it in recent years, running
from Kriekouki on the Bœotian side to Villa on the south of the range.
[184] I am inclined to think that the site of Skolos is that which
Leake, and others following him, have identified with Erythræ. Paus.
ix. 4, 3, says that if before crossing the Asopos river on the road
from Platæa to Thebes, you turned off down the stream, and went about
forty stades, _i.e._ four and three-quarter miles, you came to the
ruins of Skolos. This would place it not far east of the road from
Thebes to Dryoskephalæ. He speaks of Skolos in another passage as a
village of Parasopia beneath Kithæron, a rugged place, and δυσοικητός.
That seems to preclude the idea of its being near the river, which
traverses alluvial lands at this part of its course. The ruins
identified by Leake as Erythræ cannot belong to that town if the
testimony of Herodotus and Pausanias is accurately worded. This point
will be discussed in a later note. In actual fact, however, the exact
site of Skolos is very difficult to determine. My main reason for
suggesting that it stood where Leake places Erythræ is that those ruins
are the only ruins in the neighbourhood indicated by Pausanias, and are
certainly not the ruins of Erythræ.
[185] It is necessary to pursue so obvious a line of argument, because,
for some incomprehensible reason, modern historians have thought it
right to judge of the plans of these able Persian commanders as though
they were dictated by no higher considerations than such as might occur
to an untutored savage.
[186] The weakness of this line in case of attack from the north was
conclusively shown twenty years later in the manœuvres which led to the
battle of Tanagra.
[187] It is almost certain that an ancient road from Eleusis followed
the eminently natural line taken by the modern road from Eleusis to
Eleutheræ. There was also, in all probability, a route from Athens to
Eleutheræ which did not enter Eleusis at all, but, branching from the
Sacred Way near the Rheitoi after traversing the low pass through Mount
Ægaleos, went up the Thriasian plain and joined the road from Eleusis
among the low hills of Western Attica.
[188] These ridges will be found numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, in the
accompanying map.
[189] Marked A 6 in the map.
[190] Called in the map, for purposes of distinction, the Asopos ridge,
the Long ridge, and the Plateau.
[191] Those of the streams marked A 4 and A 5 on the map.
[192] During my stay at Kriekouki, in December ’92–January ’93, the
rainfall was at times extraordinarily heavy. Nevertheless, I had not on
any occasion the slightest difficulty in crossing any of the streams,
and it was not even necessary to get wet in so doing. On one occasion
also I happened to be following the line of one of the watercourses
leading to the Œroë amid a downpour of rain such as we rarely see in
England, which had been going on with more or less continuity for the
previous fourteen hours; and yet, as I descended the brook towards the
plain the water became less and less until, on the plain, there was no
water running in the stream bed.
[193] Pausanias knew the roads through these two passes.
(1) Platæa-Athens road.
He says (xi. 1, 6) that Neokles, the Bœotarch, in his surprise of
Platæa in the year 374, led the Thebans οὐ τὴν εὐθεῖαν ἀπὸ τῶν Θηβῶν
τὴν πεδιάδα, τὴν δὲ ἐπὶ Ὑσιὰς ἦγε πρὸς Ἐλευθερῶν τε καὶ τῆς Ἀττικῆς.
There will be occasion to show that Hysiæ was in all probability a
small place, on a site just outside the southernmost end of the village
of Kriekouki. It was therefore at the eastern side of the opening
of the valley through which the road from Platæa to Athens passed.
The remains of that ancient road are, however, at the other side of
the valley opening; and, therefore, Hysiæ was not upon it. Probably,
however, down the valley came a track which is still used, and which,
after passing through the village of Kriekouki, goes due north to
Thebes in a line parallel to the main road from Dryoskephalæ. This
would be the road which Pausanias here mention. It would, in entering
the valley to the pass, go close to this site of Hysiæ. Of the identity
of this site it will be necessary to speak in a later note.
In 379, after the revolution in Thebes (X. H. v. 4, 14), the Spartans
despatched Kleombrotos with a force to Bœotia. As Chabrias, with
Athenian peltasts, was guarding “the road through Eleutheræ,” he went,
κατὰ τὴν εἰς Πλαταιὰς φέρουσαν.
This is almost certainly the Platæa-Athens pass. Kleombrotos probably
did not discover that the Dryoskephalæ pass was guarded until he got
to Eleutheræ. After doing so he turned to the left and made his way
through the Platæa-Athens pass, exterminating a small body of troops
which attempted to defend it.
(2) The Platæa-Megara road.
Pausanias (ix. 2, 3) says, Τοῖς δὲ ἐκ Μεγάρων ἰοῦσι πηγή τέ ἐστιν ἐν
δεξιᾷ καὶ προελθοῦσιν ὀλίγον πέτρα· καλοῦσι δὲ τὴν μὲν Ἀκταίωνος κοίτην.
In the previous sentence he has expressly spoken of the road from
Eleutheræ to Platæa. The Megara road is therefore a different road. The
κοὶτη Ἀκταίωνος can, I think, be determined with sufficient certainty
at the present day. It is on the top of a low cliff, probably the πέτρα
mentioned, overhanging the sources of the stream O 3. Near the foot of
the cliff is an ancient well, known in Leake’s time as the Vergutiani
Spring.
[194] Ἐπὶ τῆς ὑπωρέης τοῦ Κιθαιρῶνος.
[195] The site of Erythræ.
Colonel Leake identified it with certain ruins which are found at
the foot of the mountain slope several miles east of the road from
Dryoskephalæ to Thebes. The available evidence seems to me to be
strongly against this view.
(1) The traditional site is where I have placed it, though I am afraid
that but little stress can be laid on traditions in modern Greece.
(2) Its comparatively frequent mention by Greek writers seems to
indicate that, though a small place, its position was of some
importance. If Leake’s view be correct this cannot have been the case.
If it were where I believe it to have been, it would be at the northern
exit of one of the most important passes in Greece. There is an ancient
φρουρίον on the bastion of Kithæron to the east of the site. Its
remains are so scanty, however, that they do not afford any clue as to
its date.
(3) There are remains of ancient buildings on the site. There are
also remains of an ancient well, besides which is a heap of stones,
from which two stones were obtained a few years ago with inscriptions
showing them to have belonged to a temple of Eleusinian Demeter.
Pausanias mentions so many temples in the neighbourhood dedicated
to that deity, that the discovery contributes but little to the
identification of the site. I was informed at Kriekouki last year
(August, 1899) that those particular stones were known to have been
originally discovered on another site. As neither my informant nor any
one else could tell me whence, why, or by whom they were removed, I did
not place much credence in the report.
(4) Pausanias says (ix. 2, 1), Γῆς δὲ τῆς Πλαταιίδος ἐν τῶ Κιθαιρῶνι
ὀλίγον τῆς εὐθείας ἐκτραπεῖσιν ἐς δεξιὰν Ὑσιῶν καὶ Ἐρυθρῶν ἐρείπιά ἐστι;
and further on (ix. 2, 2), he says, referring to the road of which he
is speaking: αὕτη μὲν (_i.e._ ὅδος) ἀπ’ Ἐλευθερῶν ἐς Πλάταιαν ἄγει.
The road referred to is of course the Athens-Platæa road, on which he
is travelling towards Platæa. Can any one suppose that Pausanias would
have used the expression quoted, especially the word ὀλίγον, had the
ruins of Erythræ, as Leake conjectured, lain some three and a half
miles away from the nearest point of this road, and hidden from it,
moreover, by the great projecting bastion of Kithæron, which is shown
at the south-east corner of the accompanying map?
Leake quotes Thucydides (iii. 24), who says that the two hundred and
twelve fugitives from Platæa first took the Thebes road in order to put
their pursuers off the scent, and then turning, ᾔεσαν τὴν πρὸς τὸ ὄρος
φέρουσαν ὁδόν ἐς Ἐρύθρας καὶ Ὑσιάς, καὶ λαβόμενοι τῶν ὀρῶν διαφεύγουσιν
ἐς τὰς Ἀθήνας. Meanwhile the pursuers were searching the road along the
ὐπωρέη. This last road would lead the pursuers near the site where I
conjecture Hysiæ to have stood, and the objection may be raised that it
is unlikely that the fugitives would have gone to a place close to the
road along which they could see the pursuers were searching for them.
It is, however, to be remarked that Thucydides does _not_ say that they
went to either Erythræ or Hysiæ. Had he intended to imply this he would
have mentioned those places in their proper order, Hysiæ first and
Erythræ second. Whenever he refers to the actual _course_ taken by a
body of men, or by a fleet, he invariably mentions the places _touched
at_ or _arrived at_ in their geographical order. _Vide_ Th. ii. 48, 1;
ii. 56, 5; ii. 69, 1; iv. 5, 2; vii. 2, 2; vii. 31, 2.
The passage seems perfectly comprehensible and in accord with the
hypothesis which I put forward with respect to the positions of Hysiæ
and Erythræ. These fugitives, turning from the Platæa-Thebes road,
took the track which in modern times leads from Pyrgos to Kriekouki,
and which in ancient times would be the road from Thespiæ to Hysiæ,
Erythræ, and the passes. They did not go _to_ but _towards_ those
places, making in reality for those high rugged bastions to the
north-east of the pass of Dryoskephalæ.
But, after all, Pausanias’ words in the passage quoted dispose
effectively of Colonel Leake’s site. He would not have described a
place twenty-five stades away from the road as a _short_ distance to
the right of it.
(5) Herodotus (ix. 15) speaks of the Persian camp as ἀρξάμενον ἀπὸ
Ἐρυθρέων παρὰ Ὑσιάς, κατέτεινε δὲ ἐς τὴν Πλαταίιδα γῆν. These words
merely show that Erythræ was east of Hysiæ.
(6) Perhaps one of the strongest pieces of evidence is Herodotus’
statement that the first Greek position was “at Erythræ.” Is it
conceivable that the Greek force, especially in its then state of
feeling with regard to the Persians, would be likely, after issuing
from the pass of Dryoskephalæ, to turn east along Kithæron, leave the
pass open, and take up a position with their backs to a part of the
range through which there was no passage of retreat?
(7) We are told later that their reason for moving to their second
position was the question of water-supply. This accords with the
present state of the locality about the traditional Erythræ. The
streams in that neighbourhood have but little water in them in the dry
season.
(8) The ground in this neighbourhood accords peculiarly with the
description given by Herodotus of the first engagement.
[196] Marked ridges 1, 2, 3, 4, in the map.
[197] These positions will be found marked upon the accompanying map.
It is necessary, however, to explain the evidence on which they are
determined.
[198] The details of the contingents given by Herodotus are:—
Lacedæmonians—
Spartans 5000
Periœki 5000
Helots 35,000
Tegeans 1500
Corinthians 5000
Potidæans 300
Orchomenians (Arcadia) 600
Sikyonians 3000
Epidaurians 800
Trœzenians 1000
Lepreans 200
Mykenæans and Tirynthians 400
Phliasians 1000
Hermionians 300
Eretrians and Styreans 600
Chalkidians 400
Ambrakiots 500
Leukadians and Anaktorians 800
Paleans from Kephallenia 200
Æginetans 500
Megareans 3000
Platæans 600
Athenians 8000
Miscellaneous light-armed troops 34,500
======
Total 108,200
[199] _I.e._ A 1. In the days before scientific survey there was
frequently the utmost confusion with regard to the application of names
to the head streams of main rivers. This generally took the form of
applying the name of the main stream to several of its feeders. The
tendency of the local population was to apply the well-known name to
that upper tributary which was in their immediate neighbourhood, and
was therefore best known to them. Examples of this are frequent in
England; the upper waters of the Thames are a case in point. In early
sketch maps it will be found that the name Thames is applied with the
utmost diversity to the head streams of the river, and even a tributary
so far down as the Evenlode is sometimes given the name of the main
river. This is, I fancy, what has taken place with regard to the
Asopos. The Platæans, with whom Herodotus must have come in contact in
the course of his visit to the region, called this stream, A 1, by the
name of the main river, and consequently “Asopos” in Herodotus is to be
understood to mean this stream up to its junction with the stream which
comes from the west, rising not far from Leuktra, and, after that, to
refer to what is really the main river. From Platæa itself the course
of this stream is plainly traceable in the plain, running along the
western base of the Asopos ridge. The stream coming from Leuktra is
not visible, and it is quite conceivable that Herodotus never had any
definite knowledge of its existence. In Leake’s time (_vide_ his sketch
map) the inhabitants of Kriekouki seem to have called the stream, A
6, Asopos. It is not so called at the present day. My own impression
is, however, that Herodotus, although he heard the Platæans speak of A
1 as the Asopos, may in one passage refer to the stream from Leuktra
with a special attribute: τὸν Ἀσωπὸν τὸν ταύτῃ ῥέοντα (♠H. ix. 31). A
sentence previously, at the end of ♥Chapter 30, he has a reference to
the Asopos without any qualification, οὗτοι μὲν νὺν ταχθέντες ἐπὶ τῷ
Ἀσωπῷ ἐστρατοπεδἐυοντο, and this reference is undoubtedly to A 1, which
is to him, as other references in his narrative show, the upper Asopos
“ordinarily so called.”
♠ “H. ix. 26” replaced with “H. ix. 31”
♥ “Chapter 25” replaced with “Chapter 30”
[200] H. ix. 31, _ad init._, πυθόμενοι τοὺς Ἕλληνας εἶναι ἐν Πλαταιῇσι.
[201] Cf. especially the mention of the Asopos and its context in
Chapter 40.
[202] It will be remarked that Artabazos’ statement on this point is in
direct conflict with that reported by Herodotus to have been made at
the same time by Alexander of Macedon to the Greeks.
[203] It appears later (Chap. 46, _ad init._) that it was to the
Athenian generals alone that Alexander’s story was in the first
instance imparted. That tends to confirm, what the lie of the ground
would suggest, that the Greek left was nearer the Asopos than the right
wing.
[204] This is one of the most important passages in Herodotus’
description of the battle. It indicates more clearly than has been
hitherto indicated, the position of the Greeks in their second position.
In the first place, if we remember that the Lacedæmonians were on the
Greek right, it will be seen that it forms a very strong argument in
favour of the identification of Gargaphia which has been adopted.
Had it been at Apotripi it would certainly have been near the Greek
centre. It also shows the obliquity of the Greek line with respect to
the course of the Asopos; in other words, that it was, as might be
expected, extended along the Asopos ridge.
[205] This is shown still more clearly in the account of the withdrawal
from this position.
[206] The three developments of the Greek second position may be summed
up as follows:—
1. The Greek right was near the spring of Gargaphia, not on the Asopos
ridge, while the left was near the Heroön of Androkrates.
2. After a forward movement of the whole line, the right took up
position on the Asopos ridge, while the line extended along the course
of that ridge, until the left was actually on the Asopos.
3. The left, when its position on the plain became untenable, took to
the higher ground of the north extension of the Asopos ridge.
[207] It would seem as if this determination were not come to at the
morning council. Their idea at that time appears to have been to move
during the night, in case the enemy did not renew their attack. As the
attack was renewed, the movement was deferred until the following night.
[208] The members of the American school at Athens who excavated parts
of the site of Platæa some years ago were inclined to believe that at
the time of the battle the town stood on the higher or southern end of
the bastion which is now strewn with the traces of the successive towns
which have occupied the site; and that it did not extend northward
to the point where the bastion sinks more or less abruptly into the
plain. They also believed that they discovered the foundations of the
temple of Hera on this north extension of the bastion. I am disposed
to think that their conjecture as to the position of the contemporary
town is correct, though the question is not of sufficient importance
with respect to this particular passage in Greek history to render
it desirable or necessary to quote the mass of evidence on which the
opinion is founded. The position of the temple of Hera as determined by
them agrees with the brief mention of it in this passage of Herodotus.
[209] Herodotus, in words already quoted, says that it was the
intention of the Greeks, on moving to the “Island,” to detach a part
of the army to relieve the attendants who were blocked in the pass.
This is certainly the Dryoskephalæ or the Platæa-Athens pass, probably
the latter, which they were attempting to use as an alternative way,
after the fearful disaster which had befallen the former provision
train in the exit of the Dryoskephalæ pass. Herodotus shows, too,
that this relief was urgently required, since the Greek army was
running short of provisions; for, although the Platæa-Megara pass must
have been open, it is of such a character as to render it impossible
that the commissariat for a force of 100,000 men could be adequately
maintained through its channel. It is therefore in the very highest
degree probable that an attempt, at any rate, was made to carry out
this part of the arrangement between the generals. Now, the Spartan
force on the right of the Greek line would be, in so far as position
was concerned, that portion of the Greek army on which this duty would
naturally devolve. The mission of this force for the relief of the pass
was one of extreme danger and difficulty, and it would be natural that
the service should devolve on that part of the army which enjoyed the
highest military reputation. It was, I venture to think, while carrying
out this movement that the Spartans became involved in that series of
events which led to the last catastrophe in the great tragedy.
[210] Thucydides (i. 20) denies that such a division or regiment
existed in the Spartan army.
[211] Even in the Spartan army indiscipline was apt to make its
appearance without the existence of such a substantial motive as in the
present instance. Cf. the insubordination of the Spartan officers at
the battle of Mantinea in 418 B.C. (Thuc. v. 72).
[212] That they never reached the rocky ὑπωρέη is plain from the
incidents of the battle that followed.
[213] Of A 4 and A 5.
[214] The ὑπωρέη of Herodotus.
[215] Cf. the tale H. ix. 58.
[216] Δρόμῳ διαβάντας τὸν Ἀσωπὸν (H. ix. 59).
[217] It will be seen, when the details of the Athenian retreat come to
be examined, how noticeably this detail accords with the account which
Herodotus gives of that retreat.
[218] Some modern commentators have regarded this detail mentioned by
Herodotus as a convincing proof of the Athenian bias in his narrative.
To me it seems eminently natural, after the experience of the previous
days, that Pausanias or any other commander should have summoned help
under the circumstances. I shall, moreover, have occasion to show that
the Athenians did undoubtedly diverge from their march to the Island in
the direction in which the Spartan battle with the Persians took place.
[219] It is clear from Herodotus’ subsequent account of the proceedings
of the Greek centre that this battle took place out of sight of that
part of the army which had retired to Platæa.
[220] H. ix. 62: Ἤδη ἐγίνετο ἡ μάχη ἰσχυρὴ παρ’ αὐτὸ τὸ Δημήτριον.
[221] This incidental detail mentioned by Herodotus peculiarly supports
the view that the temple must have stood on the site of the church of
St. Demetrion.
[222] This is clearly shown in Herodotus’ narrative. He distinctly
speaks of the Athenians as having at the beginning of the movement
“turned down towards the plain” (H. ix. 56, κάτω τραφθέντες ἐς τὸ
πεδίον); and in a still more remarkable passage he says that, when
Mardonius led his Persians across the Asopos in pursuit of the Greeks,
“he did not see the Athenians, who had turned down towards the plain,
by reason of the (intervening) hills” (H. ix. 59). The hills mentioned
are evidently the northern extension of the Asopos ridge.
[223] A 1 in the map.
[224] Ridge 5.
[225] Thus far διὰ τῆς ὑπωρέης (H. ix. 69).
[226] _I.e._ ridges 3 and 2; cf. H. ix. 69, διὰ ... τῶν κολωνῶν.
[227] Ridge 5.
[228] I confess I cannot understand the argument of those who regard
Herodotus’ account of Platæa as being tainted throughout with a lying
Athenian tradition. In so far as the narrative provides evidence of its
source or sources, there is at least as much matter in it which may be
attributed to Spartan as to Athenian origin.
[229] The Asopos ridge, the Long ridge, and the Plateau.
[230] The treatment meted out to the Æginetans in the narrative of
Platæa, as contrasted with the account which Herodotus gives of their
conduct at Salamis, points to the very various character of the sources
from which he drew his history. This part of the Platæan narrative is
undoubtedly drawn from a tradition highly coloured by the relations
which existed between Athens and Ægina twenty years after Platæa was
fought.
[231] Xen. Anab. iii. 2, 27. The striking words are μὴ τὰ ζεύγη ἡμῶν
στρατηγῇ.
[232] I have had occasion to speak of the Thermopylæ narrative under
various aspects in relation to the sources from which it is derived.
To prevent any misconception, I should like to sum up briefly my
conclusions.
(1) The whole “motivation” of the story is derived from a version of
official origin at Sparta.
(2) The incidents of the actual fighting may be derived partly from a
Spartan source, probably of an unofficial character. The description of
some of them, however, rests on ♠information picked up by Herodotus at
Thermopylæ itself from natives of the region.
♠ “infornation” replaced with “information”
[233] For these two points cf. H. vii. 152.
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