These things had irritated and vexed the Thessalians very much. They

were eager for revenge, and they were very ready to guide the armies of

Xerxes into the country of their enemies in order to obtain it.

 

The troops advanced accordingly, awakening every where, as they came on,

the greatest consternation and terror among the inhabitants, and

producing on all sides scenes of indescribable anguish and suffering.

They came into the valley of the Cephisus, a beautiful river flowing

through a delightful and fertile region, which contained many cities and

towns, and was filled every where with an industrious rural population.

Through this scene of peace, and happiness, and plenty, the vast horde

of invaders swept on with the destructive force of a tornado. They

plundered the towns of every thing which could be carried away, and

destroyed what they were compelled to leave behind them. There is a

catalogue of twelve cities in this valley which they burned. The

inhabitants, too, were treated with the utmost cruelty. Some were

seized, and compelled to follow the army as slaves; others were slain;

and others still were subjected to nameless cruelties and atrocities,

worse sometimes than death. Many of the women, both mothers and maidens,

died in consequence of the brutal violence with which the soldiers

treated them.

 

The most remarkable of the transactions connected with Xerxes's advance

through the country of Phocis, on his way to Athens, were those

connected with his attack upon Delphi. Delphi was a sacred town, the

seat of the oracle. It was in the vicinity of Mount Parnassus and of the

Castalian spring, places of very great renown in the Greek mythology.

 

Parnassus was the name of a short mountainous range rather than of a

single peak, though the loftiest summit of the range was called

Parnassus too. This summit is found, by modern measurement, to be about

eight thousand feet high, and it is covered with snow nearly all the

year. When bare it consists only of a desolate range of rocks, with

mosses and a few Alpine plants growing on the sheltered and sunny sides

of them. From the top of Parnassus travelers who now visit it look down

upon almost all of Greece as upon a map. The Gulf of Corinth is a silver

lake at their feet, and the plains of Thessaly are seen extending far

and wide to the northward, with Olympus, Pelion, and Ossa, blue and

distant peaks, bounding the view.

 

Parnassus has, in fact, a double summit, between the peaks of which a

sort of ravine commences, which, as it extends down the mountain,

becomes a beautiful valley, shaded with rows of trees, and adorned with

slopes of verdure and banks of flowers. In a glen connected with this

valley there is a fountain of water springing copiously from among the

rocks, in a grove of laurels. This fountain gives rise to a stream,

which, after bounding over the rocks, and meandering between mossy banks

for a long distance down the mountain glens, becomes a quiet lowland

stream, and flows gently through a fertile and undulating country to the

sea. This fountain was the famous Castalian spring. It was, as the

ancient Greek legends said, the favorite resort and residence of Apollo

and the Muses, and its waters became, accordingly, the symbol and the

emblem of poetical inspiration.

 

The city of Delphi was built upon the lower declivities of the

Parnassian ranges, and yet high above the surrounding country. It was

built in the form of an amphitheater, in a sort of _lap_ in the hill

where it stood, with steep precipices descending to a great depth on

either side. It was thus a position of difficult access, and was

considered almost impregnable in respect to its military strength.

Besides its natural defenses, it was considered as under the special

protection of Apollo.

 

Delphi was celebrated throughout the world, in ancient times, not only

for the oracle itself, but for the magnificence of the architectural

structures, the boundless profusion of the works of art, and the immense

value of the treasures which, in process of time, had been accumulated

there. The various powers and potentates that had resorted to it to

obtain the responses of the oracle, had brought rich presents, or made

costly contributions in some way, to the service of the shrine. Some had

built temples, others had constructed porches or colonnades. Some had

adorned the streets of the city with architectural embellishments;

others had caused statues to be erected; and others had made splendid

donations of vessels of gold and silver, until at length the wealth and

magnificence of Delphi was the wonder of the world. All nations resorted

to it, some to see its splendors, and others to obtain the counsel and

direction of the oracle in emergencies of difficulty or danger.

 

In the time of Xerxes, Delphi had been for several hundred years in the

enjoyment of its fame as a place of divine inspiration. It was said to

have been originally discovered in the following manner. Some herdsmen

on the mountains, watching their flocks, observed one day a number of

goats performing very strange and unaccountable antics among some

crevices in the rocks, and, going to the place, they found that a

mysterious wind was issuing from the crevices, which produced an

extraordinary exhilaration on all who breathed it. Every thing

extraordinary was thought, in those days, to be supernatural and divine,

and the fame of this discovery was spread every where, the people

supposing that the effect produced upon the men and animals by breathing

the mysterious air was a divine inspiration. A temple was built over the

spot, priests and priestesses were installed, a city began to rise, and

in process of time Delphi became the most celebrated oracle in the

world; and as the vast treasures which had been accumulated there

consisted mainly of gifts and offerings consecrated to a divine and

sacred service, they were all understood to be under divine protection.

They were defended, it is true, in part by the inaccessibleness of the

position of Delphi, and by the artificial fortifications which had been

added from time to time to increase the security, but still more by the

feeling which every where prevailed, that any violence offered to such a

shrine would be punished by the gods as sacrilege. The account of the

manner in which Xerxes was repulsed, as related by the ancient

historians, is somewhat marvelous. We, however, in this case, as in all

others, transmit the story to our readers as the ancient historians give

it to us.

 

The main body of the army pursued its way directly southward toward the

city of Athens, which was now the great object at which Xerxes aimed. A

large detachment, however, separating from the main body, moved more to

the westward, toward Delphi. Their plan was to plunder the temples and

the city, and send the treasures to the king. The Delphians, on hearing

this, were seized with consternation. They made application themselves

to the oracle, to know what they were to do in respect to the sacred

treasures. They could not defend them, they said, against such a host,

and they inquired whether they should bury them in the earth, or attempt

to remove them to some distant place of safety.

 

The oracle replied that they were to do nothing at all in respect to the

sacred treasures. The divinity, it said, was able to protect what was

its own. They, on their part, had only to provide for themselves, their

wives, and their children.

 

On hearing this response, the people dismissed all care in respect to

the treasures of the temple and of the shrine, and made arrangements for

removing their families and their own effects to some place of safety

toward the southward. The military force of the city and a small number

of the inhabitants alone remained.

 

When the Persians began to draw near, a prodigy occurred in the temple,

which seemed intended to warn the profane invaders away. It seems that

there was a suit of arms, of a costly character doubtless, and highly

decorated with gold and gems--the present, probably, of some Grecian

state or king--which were hung in an inner and sacred apartment of the

temple, and which it was sacrilegious for any human hand to touch. These

arms were found, on the day when the Persians were approaching, removed

to the outward front of the temple. The priest who first observed them

was struck with amazement and awe. He spread the intelligence among the

soldiers and the people that remained, and the circumstance awakened in

them great animation and courage.

 

Nor were the hopes of divine interposition which this wonder awakened

disappointed in the end; for, as soon as the detachment of Persians came

near the hill on which Delphi was situated, loud thunder burst from the

sky, and a bolt, descending upon the precipices near the town, detached

two enormous masses of rock, which rolled down upon the ranks of the

invaders. The Delphian soldiers, taking advantage of the scene of panic

and confusion which this awful visitation produced, rushed down upon

their enemies and completed their discomfiture. They were led on and

assisted in this attack by the spirits of two ancient heroes, who had

been natives of the country, and to whom two of the temples of Delphi

had been consecrated. These spirits appeared in the form of tall and

full-armed warriors, who led the attack, and performed prodigies of

strength and valor in the onset upon the Persians; and then, when the

battle was over, disappeared as mysteriously as they came.

 

In the mean time the great body of the army of Xerxes, with the monarch

at their head, was advancing on Athens. During his advance the city had

been in a continual state of panic and confusion. In the first place,

when the Greek fleet had concluded to give up the contest in the

Artemisian Channel, before the battle of Thermopylж, and had passed

around to Salamis, the commanders in the city of Athens had given up the

hope of making any effectual defense, and had given orders that the

inhabitants should save themselves by seeking a refuge wherever they

could find it. This annunciation, of course, filled the city with

dismay, and the preparations for a general flight opened every where

scenes of terror and distress, of which those who have never witnessed

the evacuation of a city by its inhabitants can scarcely conceive.

 

The immediate object of the general terror was, at this time, the

Persian fleet; for the Greek fleet, having determined to abandon the

waters on that side of Attica, left the whole coast exposed, and the

Persians might be expected at any hour to make a landing within a few

miles of the city. Scarcely, however, had the impending of this danger

been made known to the city, before the tidings of one still more

imminent reached it, in the news that the Pass of Thermopylж had been

carried, and that, in addition to the peril with which the Athenians

were threatened by the fleet on the side of the sea, the whole Persian

army was coming down upon them by land. This fresh alarm greatly

increased, of course, the general consternation. All the roads leading

from the city toward the south and west were soon covered with parties

of wretched fugitives, exhibiting as they pressed forward, weary and

wayworn, on their toilsome and almost hopeless flight, every possible

phase of misery, destitution, and despair. The army fell back to the

isthmus, intending to make a stand, if possible, there, to defend the

Peloponnesus. The fugitives made the best of their way to the sea-coast,

where they were received on board transport ships sent thither from the

fleet, and conveyed, some to Жgina, some to Salamis, and others to other

points on the coasts and islands to the south, wherever the terrified

exiles thought there was the best prospect of safety.

 

Some, however, remained at Athens. There was a part of the population

who believed that the phrase "wooden walls," used by the oracle,

referred, not to the ships of the fleet, but to the wooden palisade

around the citadel. They accordingly repaired and strengthened the

palisade, and established themselves in the fortress with a small

garrison which undertook to defend it.

 

The citadel of Athens, or the Acropolis, as it was called, was the

richest, and most splendid, and magnificent fortress in the world. It

was built upon an oblong rocky hill, the sides of which were

perpendicular cliffs, except at one end, where alone the summit was

accessible. This summit presented an area of an oval form, about a

thousand feet in length and five hundred broad, thus containing a space

of about ten acres. This area upon the summit, and also the approaches

at the western end, were covered with the most grand, imposing, and

costly architectural structures that then existed in the whole European

world. There were temples, colonnades, gateways, stairways, porticoes,

towers, and walls, which, viewed as a whole, presented a most

magnificent spectacle, that excited universal admiration, and which,

when examined in detail, awakened a greater degree of wonder still by

the costliness of the materials, the beauty and perfection of the

workmanship, and the richness and profusion of the decorations, which

were seen on every hand. The number and variety of statues of bronze and

of marble which had been erected in the various temples and upon the

different platforms were very great. There was one, a statue of Minerva,

which was executed by Phidias, the great Athenian sculptor, after the

celebrated battle of Marathon, in the days of Darius, which, with its

pedestal, was sixty feet high. It stood on the left of the grand

entrance, towering above the buildings in full view from the country

below, and leaning upon its long spear like a colossal sentinel on

guard. In the distance, on the right, from the same point of view, the

great temple called the Parthenon was to be seen, a temple which was, in

some respects, the most celebrated in the world. The ruins of these

edifices remain to the present day, standing in desolate and solitary

grandeur on the rocky hill which they once so richly adorned.

 

When Xerxes arrived at Athens, he found, of course, no difficulty in

obtaining possession of the city itself, since it had been deserted by

its inhabitants, and left defenseless. The people that remained had all

crowded into the citadel. They had built the wooden palisade across the

only approach by which it was possible to get near the gates, and they

had collected large stones on the tops of the rocks, to roll down upon

their assailants if they should attempt to ascend.

 

[Illustration: THE CITADEL AT ATHENS.]

 

Xerxes, after ravaging and burning the town, took up a position upon a

hill opposite to the citadel, and there he had engines constructed to

throw enormous arrows, on which tow that had been dipped in pitch was

wound. This combustible envelopment of the arrows was set on fire before

the weapon was discharged, and a shower of the burning missiles thus

formed was directed toward the palisade. The wooden walls were soon set

on fire by them, and totally consumed. The access to the Acropolis was,

however, still difficult, being by a steep acclivity, up which it was

very dangerous to ascend so long as the besiegers were ready to roll

down rocks upon their assailants from above.

 

At last, however, after a long conflict and much slaughter, Xerxes

succeeded in forcing his way into the citadel. Some of his troops

contrived to find a path by which they could climb up to the walls.

Here, after a desperate combat with those who were stationed to guard

the place, they succeeded in gaining admission, and then opened the

gates to their comrades below. The Persian soldiers, exasperated with

the resistance which they had encountered, slew the soldiers of the

garrison, perpetrated every imaginable violence on the wretched

inhabitants who had fled there for shelter, and then plundered the

citadel and set it on fire.

 

The heart of Xerxes was filled with exultation and joy as he thus

arrived at the attainment of what had been the chief and prominent

object of his campaign. To plunder and destroy the city of Athens had

been the great pleasure that he had promised himself in all the mighty

preparations that he had made. This result was now realized, and he

dispatched a special messenger immediately to Susa with the triumphant

tidings.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XI.

 

THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS.

 

B.C. 480

 

Situation of Salamis.--Movements of the fleet and the army.--Policy of

the Greeks.--Reasons for retreating to Salamis.--A council of

war.--Consultations and debates.--Conflicting views.--The council breaks

up in confusion.--Themistocles.--Interview with

Mnesiphilus.--Themistocles seeks Eurybiades.--Urges a new council.--The

council convened again.--Themistocles rebuked.--Themistocles's arguments

for remaining at Salamis.--Fugitives at Salamis.--Views of the

Corinthians.--Excitement in the council.--Indignation of

Themistocles.--Eurybiades decides to remain at Salamis.--An

earthquake.--Advance of the Persians.--Perilous situation of the

Greeks.--Xerxes summons a council of war.--Pompous preparations.--Views

of the Persian officers.--Views of Queen Artemisia.--Artemisa's

arguments against attacking the Greek fleet.--Effect of Artemisia's

speech.--Feelings of the council.--Discontent among the

Greeks.--Sicinnus.--Bold stratagem of Themistocles.--He sends Sicinnus

to the Persians.--Message of Themistocles.--Measures of the

Persians.--The Persians take possession of the Psyttalia.--The Greeks

hemmed in.--Aristides.--He makes his way through the Persian

fleet.--Interview between Aristides and Themistocles.--Their

conversation.--Aristides communicates his intelligence to the

assembly.--Effect of Aristides intelligence.--Further news.--Adventurous

courage of Parжtius.--Gratitude of the Greeks.--Final preparations for

battle.--Friendly offices.--Xerxes's throne.--His scribes.--Summary

punishment.--Speech of Themistocles.--He embarks his men.--Excitement

and confusion.--Commencement of the battle.--Fury of the

conflict.--Modern naval battles.--Observations of

Xerxes.--Artemisia.--Enemies of Artemisia.--Her quarrel with

Damasithymus.--Stratagem of Artemisia.--She attacks

Damasithymus.--Artemisia kills Damasithymus.--Xerxes's opinion of her

valor.--Progress of the battle.--The Persians give way.--Heroism of

Aristides.--He captures Psyttalia.--The Greeks victorious.--Repairing

damages.--Xerxes resolves on flight.--The sea after the

battle.--Fulfillment of an ancient prophecy.

 

 

Salamis is an island of a very irregular form, lying in the Saronian

Gulf, north of Жgina, and to the westward of Athens. What was called the

Port of Athens was on the shore opposite to Salamis, the city itself

being situated on elevated land four or five miles back from the sea.

From this port to the bay on the southern side of Salamis, where the

Greek fleet was lying, it was only four or five miles more, so that,

when Xerxes burned the city, the people on board the galleys in the

fleet might easily see the smoke of the conflagration.

 

The Isthmus of Corinth was west of Salamis, some fifteen miles, across

the bay. The army, in retreating from Athens toward the isthmus, would

have necessarily to pass round the bay in a course somewhat circuitous,

while the fleet, in following them, would pass in a direct line across

it. The geographical relations of these places, a knowledge of which is

necessary to a full understanding of the operations of the Greek and

Persian forces, will be distinctly seen by comparing the above

description with the map placed at the commencement of the fifth

chapter.

 

It had been the policy of the Greeks to keep the fleet and army as much

as possible together, and thus, during the time in which the troops were

attempting a concentration at Thermopylж, the ships made their

rendezvous in the Artemisian Strait or Channel, directly opposite to

that point of the coast. There they fought, maintaining their position

desperately, day after day, as long as Leonidas and his Spartans held

their ground on the shore. Their sudden disappearance from those waters,

by which the Persians had been so much surprised, was caused by their

having received intelligence that the pass had been carried and Leonidas

destroyed. They knew then that Athens would be the next point of

resistance by the land forces. They therefore fell back to Salamis, or,

rather, to the bay lying between Salamis and the Athenian shore, that

being the nearest position that they could take to support the

operations of the army in their attempts to defend the capital. When,

however, the tidings came to them that Athens had fallen, and that what

remained of the army had retreated to the isthmus, the question at once

arose whether the fleet should retreat too, across the bay, to the

isthmus shore, with a view to co-operate more fully with the army in the

new position which the latter had taken, or whether it should remain

where it was, and defend itself as it best could against the Persian

squadrons which would soon be drawing near. The commanders of the fleet

held a consultation to consider this question.

 

In this consultation the Athenian and the Corinthian leaders took

different views. In fact, they were very near coming into open

collision. Such a difference of opinion, considering the circumstances

of the case, was not at all surprising. It might, indeed, have naturally

been expected to arise, from the relative situation of the two cities,

in respect to the danger which threatened them. If the Greek fleet were

to withdraw from Salamis to the isthmus, it might be in a better

position to defend Corinth, but it would, by such a movement, be

withdrawing from the Athenian territories, and abandoning what remained

in Attica wholly to the conqueror. The Athenians were, therefore, in

favor of maintaining the position at Salamis, while the Corinthians were

disposed to retire to the shores of the isthmus, and co-operate with

the army there.

 

The council was convened to deliberate on this subject before the news

arrived of the actual fall of Athens, although, inasmuch as the Persians

were advancing into Attica in immense numbers, and there was no Greek

force left to defend the city, they considered its fall as all but

inevitable. The tidings of the capture and destruction of Athens came

while the council was in session. This seemed to determine the question.

The Corinthian commanders, and those from the other Peloponnesian

cities, declared that it was perfectly absurd to remain any longer at

Salamis, in a vain attempt to defend a country already conquered. The

council was broken up in confusion, each commander retiring to his own

ship, and the Peloponnesians resolving to withdraw on the following

morning. Eurybiades, who, it will be recollected, was the

commander-in-chief of all the Greek fleet, finding thus that it was

impossible any longer to keep the ships together at Salamis, since a

part of them would, at all events, withdraw, concluded to yield to the

necessity of the case and to conduct the whole fleet to the isthmus. He

issued his orders accordingly, and the several commanders repaired to

their respective ships to make the preparations. It was night when the

council was dismissed, and the fleet was to move in the morning.

 

One of the most influential and distinguished of the Athenian officers

was a general named Themistocles. Very soon after he had returned to his

ship from this council, he was visited by another Athenian named

Mnesiphilus, who, uneasy and anxious in the momentous crisis, had come

in his boat, in the darkness of the night, to Themistocles's ship, to

converse with him on the plans of the morrow. Mnesiphilus asked

Themistocles what was the decision of the council.

 

"To abandon Salamis," said Themistocles, "and retire to the isthmus."

 

"Then," said Mnesiphilus, "we shall never have an opportunity to meet

the enemy. I am sure that if we leave this position the fleet will be

wholly broken up, and that each portion will go, under its own

commander, to defend its own state or seek its own safety, independently

of the rest. We shall never be able to concentrate our forces again. The

result will be the inevitable dissolution of the fleet as a combined and

allied force, in spite of all that Eurybiades or any one else can do to

prevent it."

 

Mnesiphilus urged this danger with so much earnestness and eloquence as

to make a very considerable impression on the mind of Themistocles.

Themistocles said nothing, but his countenance indicated that he was

very strongly inclined to adopt Mnesiphilus's views. Mnesiphilus urged

him to go immediately to Eurybiades, and endeavor to induce him to

obtain a reversal of the decision of the council. Themistocles, without

expressing either assent or dissent, took his boat, and ordered the

oarsmen to row him to the galley of Eurybiades. Mnesiphilus, having so

far accomplished his object, went away.

 

Themistocles came in his boat to the side of Eurybiades's galley. He