Journeys Through Bookland Volume Viii Part 5

THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE

For some time the Greeks had known that danger was threatening them, and in 480 B. C. they learned that it was well-nigh at their gates. Xerxes, the "Great King," whose heralds when announcing a decree began with the words, "All people and nations and languages," whose resources both of men and of treasures were more than could be estimated, was gathering his forces to proceed against Greece; and many were the rumors as to the size of his army.

"There were twelve hundred and seven great s.h.i.+ps; and in each s.h.i.+p there were two hundred rowers and thirty fighting men. Also he had of smaller s.h.i.+ps, having fifty oars or under, three thousand, and in each of these, taking one with another, there were eighty men. Therefore the whole number of the men that served on the s.h.i.+ps was five hundred and seventeen thousand and six hundred. Of foot soldiers there were seventeen hundred thousand, and of hors.e.m.e.n eighty thousand, and of Arabs riding on camels and of Libyans that fought from chariots twenty thousand. There were also one hundred and twenty s.h.i.+ps of Greeks that dwelt in Thrace and in the islands thereof, and in these twenty and four thousand men. To these must be added foot soldiers of the Thracians, the Paeonians, the Macedonians, and others. And the sum of the whole was two million six hundred and forty-one thousand six hundred and ten. And of all this great host there was none fitter to be the ruler for beauty and great stature than King Xerxes himself. Of those that followed the camp, and of the crews of the provision s.h.i.+ps and other vessels of transport, the number was more rather than less than the number of the fighting men. As for the women that ground the corn, and others that came with the army, and the horses and beasts of burden, and dogs, their number can not be told."

What could the Greeks do against so many? And yet when the envoys of King Xerxes came to the Greek states, demanding from each earth and water, as a sign that Xerxes was lord of land and sea, all the states but Thessaly, which Xerxes would enter first, refused. The Greek states were not always on friendly terms one with another; but the great danger that threatened them now united them in one common object--to repel the Persian invader and to save their temples and their idols from desecration. A council, at which were present deputies from all the Greek states, was held on the Isthmus of Corinth, and plans for defense were considered.

There were two narrow pa.s.ses through which Xerxes would have to come before he should find himself in Greece proper, and it was evident that it was at such places as these that the few Greeks could best withstand the numerous Persians. To Tempe, therefore, the northernmost of these pa.s.ses, a body of troops was hastily despatched, but they soon returned declaring that the defense of the pa.s.s was out of the question. All agreed then that the best plan would be to guard Thermopylae, which led from Thessaly into Locris. To-day a swampy plain almost three miles broad lies between Mount Oeta and the Maliac Gulf, but in ancient times there was but a stretch of sand not more than fifty feet wide at its broadest part, and in some places so narrow that a single wagon could scarce pa.s.s along it. The Greek fleet was posted off the coast to prevent the Persians from landing men beyond the pa.s.s, and a company was at once gathered for the defense of Thermopylae and put under the command of Leonidas, King of Sparta.

"Now, the Greeks that abode the coming of the Persians in this place were these--three hundred Spartans, heavy-armed men; and men of Tegea and Matinea a thousand, from each five hundred, and from Orchomenus one hundred and twenty, and from the rest of Arcadia a thousand. From Corinth there came four hundred, and from Phlius two hundred, and from Mycenae eighty. So many came from the Peloponnesus; of the Boeotians there came seven hundred from Thespiae and four hundred from Thebes.

Besides these there had come at the summons the Locrians of Opus with all the men that they had, and a thousand Phocians."

All of the Greeks knew that they were setting out on a dangerous enterprise, but to the Spartans it meant more than that. Leonidas himself felt that he was going to his death, for the oracle at Delphi had foretold that Sparta should be saved if one of her kings should perish, and Leonidas was more than willing to make this sacrifice for his state. His three hundred followers, trained from childhood to look upon death as infinitely preferable to defeat, had, with that courage which has made their name an epithet indicating the highest sort of bravery, celebrated their funeral games before setting out. When they came to the pa.s.s of Thermopylae, they found a new cause for fear. This was the path which led over the mountains, and which made possible a descent of the enemy to the rear of those stationed in the pa.s.s.

However, Leonidas was a.s.sured that this mountain track was practically unknown, and that the entrance to it was very difficult to find; so when he had sent a band of Phocians to guard it, he thought little more about it. Many of the soldiers, however, felt that they were being subjected to danger unnecessarily, and insisted that they be allowed to retreat to the Isthmus of Corinth. As this would have guarded only the Peloponnesus and have left the other states at the mercy of the Persians, Leonidas determined that they should remain where they were and await the onset of the enemy.

While they lay encamped in the pa.s.s, a scout sent by Xerxes rode up to see how strong the enemy were, and how they were employing their time.

In front of and on the walls were a number of the Greeks engaging in games and combing out their long hair. Surprised to see so few men, and to see those few busying themselves in such an apparently unnecessary way, the scout rode back and made his report to the Persian king. Now there was in the camp of Xerxes one Demaratus, who had formerly been King of Sparta, but who had been driven out and had joined himself to the Persian court. Xerxes sent for him and, describing to him what he considered the foolishness of the Greeks, asked what it might mean. In reply Demaratus said, "Thou hast heard from me, O King, the truth concerning these men before this, even when we were first beginning this war; but when thou heardest it thou didst laugh at me, though I told thee that which I knew would surely come to pa.s.s. For indeed, O King, I strive always with my whole heart to tell thee the truth. Hear, therefore, yet again what I say. These men are come hither to contend with us for the pa.s.s; and this they now prepare to do; and they have this custom among them, that when they are about to put their lives in peril they adorn their heads with exceeding care. Know, also, O King, that if thou canst subdue these men, and such others of their nation as have been left behind in Sparta, there is no nation upon the earth that will abide thy coming or lift up a hand against thee; for this city that thou now fightest against is the most honorable in all Greece, and these men are the bravest."

Incredulously Xerxes asked, "In what manner will these men, being so few, as we know them to be, fight with my great army?"

Demaratus replied, "O King, deal with me as with a liar if everything fall not out even as I have said."

After this, Xerxes allowed four days to pa.s.s, thinking that perhaps the Greeks would come to their senses and flee. "But on the fifth day, seeing that they were not departed, but as it seemed to him, were full of impudence and folly, he grew angry, and sent against them the Medes and the Cissians, giving them a command that they should take these Greeks alive and bring them before him. But when these men came up and fell upon the Greeks, many of them were slain. Then others came up into their places and ceased not from fighting, though indeed they suffered a very grievous slaughter, so that it was manifest to all men, and more especially to the King, that though he had very many that bore arms, yet had he but few men of war. And this battle endured throughout the whole day."

For two days the troops of Xerxes, even his great Ten Thousand, who were known as the Immortals, hurled themselves upon the Greeks, but they accomplished nothing, for they fought in a narrow place, where their greater numbers were of no help to them; and their spears were shorter than those of the Greeks, so that they were easily thrust through before they could come close enough to harm an enemy. Three times, it is said, while his troops were being driven backward, did Xerxes spring in despair from his throne at the sight of the peril of his army.

But on the evening of the second day there came to the camp of the Persian King a man named Ephialtes. On being ushered into the presence of Xerxes, this man admitted that he was a Greek, and proposed that for a great reward he should lead the Persian army over the hidden mountain path, and bring them to the rear of the Greek defenders. Of course Xerxes accepted the offer, and sent off one of his generals with a detachment to follow Ephialtes over the mountain path. In the morning the Phocians who had been set to guard this path were awakened by the sound of rustling in the underbrush and rushed from their camp only to see a detachment of Persian soldiers close upon them. Resolving to sell their lives dearly, they fled to the top of the mountain, where they thought that they might have the advantage of position over their enemies; but the Persians, paying no attention to them, pa.s.sed on down the mountain to fall upon the brave defenders of Thermopylae.

The Greeks in the pa.s.s knew when morning dawned of the danger that awaited them, for Megistias the soothsayer told of it, and certain messengers running before the Persians confirmed his prophecy. "Then the Greeks held a council, considering what they should do; and they were divided; for some would not leave the post where they had been set, and others were very eager to depart. And when the council was broken up, some departed, going each to their own cities, and others made ready to abide in the pa.s.s with Leonidas. Some say, indeed, that Leonidas sent away them that departed, having a care for their safety; but it did not become him and the Spartans that were with him, he said, to leave their post that they had come to keep at the first. And indeed it seems fit to be believed that Leonidas, seeing that the others were faint-hearted and would not willingly abide the peril, bade them go, but that he himself held it to be a shameful thing to depart. For he knew that he should get for himself great glory by abiding at his post, and that the prosperity of Sparta should not be destroyed."

The allies, therefore, with the exception of the Thespians and the Thebans, departed, and the brave remainder prepared themselves for their death. Hitherto, Leonidas had stood on the defensive in order to spare the lives of his men, but now, knowing that death must come, he desired only to work as great havoc among the Persians as possible, and he therefore marched his men out before the wall and fell upon the vanguard of the Persian army. It does not seem strange that the hired soldiers should have feared to meet this little band of Greeks, and indeed it is told that the Persian captains were obliged to go behind their troops and with whips scourge them to the fight. Many of the Persians were forced into the sea and so died; some were trodden under foot, and thousands fell by the hands of the Greeks. But it was not only the Persians who fell in this fierce struggle; Leonidas was one of the first who was slain, and many other Spartans fell with him.

But the death of their leader did not demoralize the Greeks--it only made them more reckless and more desperate. At length they saw that the end was close at hand; the "Immortals," who had come in the night over the mountain, had arrived, and were ready to fall upon their rear.

Closely pressed by the Persians, they drew back to the narrowest part of the pa.s.s, where they had fought on the preceding days, and there made their last stand. Their spears were broken, their swords were dulled; but even had their weapons been still of the best, it would have availed them little, for the Persians, all too well acquainted now with the Greek daring, refused to close with their enemies. In their well-nigh useless armour, which had been hacked from their limbs during their earlier encounters, the Greeks stood on a little hillock and braved the shower of Persian arrows and javelins. By the time the sun went down there remained not one of all the Grecian band, but before their death they had succeeded in slaying twenty thousand of the enemy. Xerxes inquired of Demaratus, in whose word he had come to have more confidence since witnessing the events of the last three days, whether there were many more men at Sparta like these; and when he was told that there were thousands, he realized that perhaps even his mighty army might not be a match for them. That all Greeks were not like the Spartans who had fallen at Thermopylae; that all Greek leaders were not as brave and as devoted as Leonidas--these facts Xerxes did not realize. The struggle which had proved so fatal to so many of his men had shown him that he was not so irresistible, and had thereby done much for the Greeks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEIR LAST ENCOUNTER]

Where the Greeks fell they were buried, and in after years pillars were set up to commemorate their bravery. One, in honor of those who fell before the allies were sent away, bore the words:

"Four times a thousand men from Pelops' land Three thousand times a thousand did withstand."

While over the Spartans by themselves there stood another column which bore the words,

"Go tell the Spartans, thou that pa.s.seth by, That here, obedient to their law, we lie."

MARCO BOZZARIS

_By_ FITZ-GREENE HALLECK

NOTE.--Marco Bozzaris, a Greek patriot of Suli, threw himself heart and soul into the Greek struggle for freedom. On August 20, 1823, he led a night attack against the Turks, who were encamped on the site of ancient Plataea. The Greek army was but a handful in comparison with that of the Turks, but the Turks were thrown into utter confusion, and the attacking party won a complete victory.

Bozzaris, however, was killed in the final attack.

At midnight, in his guarded tent, The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent, Should tremble at his power.

In dreams, through camp and court, he bore The trophies of a conqueror; In dreams his song of triumph heard; Then wore his monarch's signet-ring, Then pressed that monarch's throne--a king; As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing, As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight, in the forest shades, Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,-- True as the steel of their tried blades, Heroes in heart and hand.

There had the Persian's thousands stood, There had the glad earth drunk their blood, On old Plataea's day; And now there breathed that haunted air The sons of sires who conquered there, With arms to strike, and soul to dare, As quick, as far, as they.

An hour pa.s.sed on, the Turk awoke; That bright dream was his last; He woke--to hear his sentries shriek, "To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!"

He woke--to die midst flame, and smoke, And shout and groan, and sabre-stroke, And death-shots falling thick and fast As lightning from the mountain-cloud; And heard, with voice as trumpet loud, Bozzaris cheer his band: "Strike--till the last armed foe expires; Strike--for your altars and your fires; Strike--for the green graves of your sires, G.o.d, and your native land!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TURK AWOKE]

They fought--like brave men, long and well; They piled that ground with Moslem slain: They conquered--but Bozzaris fell, Bleeding at every vein.

His few surviving comrades saw His smile when rang their proud hurrah, And the red field was won; Then saw in death his eyelids close Calmly, as to a night's repose, Like flowers at set of sun.

Come to the bridal chamber, death, Come to the mother's, when she feels, For the first time, her first-born's breath; Come when the blessed seals That close the pestilence are broke, And crowded cities wail its stroke; Come in consumption's ghastly form, The earthquake shock, the ocean storm; Come when the heart beats high and warm, With banquet song and dance and wine,-- And thou art terrible; the tear, The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier, And all we know, or dream, or fear Of agony, are thine.

But to the hero, when his sword Has won the battle for the free, Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word, And in its hollow tones are heard The thanks of millions yet to be.

Come when his task of fame is wrought; Come with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought; Come in her crowning hour,--and then Thy sunken eye's unearthly light To him is welcome as the sight Of sky and stars to prisoned men; Thy grasp is welcome as the hand Of brother in a foreign land; Thy summons welcome as the cry That told the Indian isles were nigh To the world-seeking Genoese, When the land-wind, from woods of palm, And orange-groves, and fields of balm, Blew o'er the Haytian seas.

Bozzaris! with the storied brave Greece nurtured in her glory's time, Rest thee; there is no prouder grave, Even in her own proud clime.

She wore no funeral weeds for thee, Nor bade the dark hea.r.s.e wave its plume, Like torn branch from death's leafless tree, In sorrow's pomp and pageantry, The heartless luxury of the tomb.

But she remembers thee as one Long loved, and for a season gone.

For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed, Her marble wrought, her music breathed; For thee she rings the birthday bells; Of thee her babes' first lisping tells; For thine her evening prayer is said At palace couch and cottage bed.

Her soldier, closing with the foe, Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow; His plighted maiden, when she fears For him, the joy of her young years, Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears.

And she, the mother of thy boys, Though in her eye and faded cheek Is read the grief she will not speak, The memory of her buried joys,-- And even she who gave thee birth,-- Will, by her pilgrim-circled hearth, Talk of thy doom without a sigh; For thou art freedom's now, and fame's,-- One of the few, the immortal names That were not born to die.

A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM

_By_ EDGAR ALLEN POE

We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.

"Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided you on this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about three years past, there happened to me an event such as never happened before to mortal man--or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of--and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken me up body and soul. You suppose me a _very_ old man--but I am not. It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without getting giddy?"