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

It

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

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

nians.

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

CHAPTER XX.

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

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

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

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

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

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

L

something like a threat of personal violence in case he should again be the bearer of such proposals; whilst to the Lacedæmonians they protested that no temptations, however great, should ever induce them to desert the common cause of Greece and freedom. In return for this disinterested conduct, all they asked was that a Peloponnesian army should be sent into Boeotia for the defence of the Attic frontier; a request which the Spartan envoys promised to fulfil.

No sooner, however, had they returned into their own country than this promise was completely forgotten. As on the former occasion, the Lacedæmonians covered their selfishness and indifference beneath the hypocritical garb of religion. The omens were unfavourable; the sun had been eclipsed at the moment when Cleombrotus, the Spartan king, was consulting the gods respecting the expedition; and, besides this, they were engaged in celebrating the festival of the Hyacinthia. But no omens or festivals had prevented them from resuming with unremitting diligence the labour of fortifying the isthmus, and the walls and battlements were now rapidly advancing towards completion.

§4. When Mardonius was informed that the Athenians had rejected his proposal, he immediately marched against Athens, accompanied by all his Grecian allies; and in May or June, B.C. 479, about ten months after the retreat of Xerxes, the Persians again occupied that city. With feelings of bitter indignation against their faithless allies, the Athenians saw themselves once more compelled to remove to Salamis. But even in this depressed condition, the naval force of the Athenians still rendered them formidable; and Mardonius took advantage of his situation to endeavour once more to win them to his alliance. Through a Hellespontine Greek, the same favourable conditions were again offered to them, but were again refused. One voice alone, that of the senator Lycidas, broke the unanimity of the assembly. But his opposition cost him his life. He and his family were stoned to death by the excited populace.

In this desperate condition the Athenians sent ambassadors to the Spartans to remonstrate against their breach of faith, and to implore them, before it was too late, to come forwards in the common cause of Greece. The ambassadors were also instructed to intimate that necessity might at length compel the Athenians to listen to the proposals of the enemy. This message, however, was very coolly received by the Lacedæmonians. For ten days no answer whatever was returned; and it can scarcely be doubted that the reply, which they at last thought fit to make, would have been a negative, but for a piece of advice

which opened their eyes to the consequences of their selfish policy. Chileos, a Tegean, a man whose wisdom they revered, and whom they consulted on this occasion, pointed out to them that their fortifications at the isthmus would prove of no avail in case the Athenians allied themselves to the Persians, and thus, by means of their fleet, opened a way into the heart of Peloponnesus. It is strange that the Lacedæmonians should have needed this admonition, which seems obvious enough; but selfishness is proverbially blind.

The conduct of the Spartans was as prompt as their change of resolution had been sudden. That very night 5000 citizens, each attended by seven Helots, were despatched to the frontiers: and these were shortly followed by 5000 Lacedæmonian Periœci, each attended by one light-armed Helot. Never before had the Spartans sent so large a force into the field. Their example was followed by other Peloponnesian cities; and the Athenian envoys returned to Salamis with the joyful news that a large army was preparing to march against the enemy, under the command of Pausanias, who acted as regent for Plistarchus, the infant son of Leonidas.

§ 5. Mardonius, on learning the approach of the Lacedæmonians, abandoned Attica, and proceeded by the pass of Decelea, across Mount Parnes into Boeotia, a country more adapted to the operations of cavalry, in which his strength principally lay. Whilst he still entertained a hope that the Athenians might be induced to join his arms, he had refrained from committing any depredations on their territory; but finding this expectation vain, he employed the last days of his stay in burning and devastating all that had been spared by the army of Xerxes. After crossing the frontiers of Boeotia, and marching a day or two along the Asopus, he finally took up a position on the left bank of that river, and not far from the town of Platea. Here he caused a camp to be constructed of ten furlongs square, and fortified with barricades and towers. The situation was well selected, since he had the friendly and well fortified city of Thebes in his rear, and was thus in no danger of falling short of provisions. Yet the disposition of his army was far from being sanguine. With the exception of the Thebans and Boeotians, his Grecian allies were become lukewarm or wavering; and even among the Persians themselves, the disastrous flight of their monarch in the preceding year had naturally damped all hes of the successful issue of a campaign which was now to be conducted with far inferior forces.

Meanwhile, the Lacedæmonian force collected at the isthmus was receiving reinforcements from the various states of Pelo