Mosaics of Grecian History Part 28

But, as GILLIES remarks, "The glory of Miltiades survived him.

At the distance of half a century, when the battle of Marathon was painted by order of the state, it was ordered that the figure of Miltiades be placed in the foreground, animating the troops to victory--a reward which, during the virtuous simplicity of the ancient commonwealth, conferred more real honor than all that magnificent profusion of crowns and statues which, in the later times of the republic, were rather extorted by general fees than bestowed by public admiration." [See Oration of aesehines, pp. 424-426.]

ARISTI'DES AND THEMIS'TOCLES.

After the death of Miltiades, Themistocles and Aristides became the most prominent men among the Athenians. The former, a most able statesman, but influenced by ambitious motives, aimed to make Athens great and powerful that he himself might rise to greater eminence; while the later was a pure patriot, wholly dest.i.tute of selfish ambition, and knew no cause but that of justice and the public welfare. The poet THOMSON thus characterizes him:

Then Aristides lifts his honest front; Spotless of heart, to whom the unflattering voice Of Freedom gave the name of Just.

In pure majestic poverty revered; Who, e'en his glory to his country's weal Submitting, swelled a haughty rival's fame.

But the very integrity of Aristides made for him secret enemies, who, although they charged him with no crimes, were yet able to procure his banishment by the process of ostracism, in which his great rival, Themistocles, took a leading part. This kind of condemnation was not inflicted as a punishment, but as a precautionary measure against a degree of personal popularity that might be deemed dangerous to the public welfare. The process was as follows: In an a.s.sembly of the people each man was at liberty to write on a sh.e.l.l the name of the person whom he wished to have banished, and if six thousand votes or more were recorded, that person against whom the greatest number of votes had been given was banished for ten years, but with leave to enjoy his estate, and return after that period. PLUTARCH relates the following incident connected with the banishment of Aristides: "An illiterate burgher coming to Aristides, whom he took for some ordinary person, and giving him his sh.e.l.l, desired him to write 'Aristides' upon it. The good man, surprised at the adventure, asked him 'Whether Aristides had ever injured him?'

'No,' said he, 'nor do I even know him; but it vexes me to hear him everywhere called the Just.' Aristides made no answer, but took the sh.e.l.l, and, having written his own name upon it, returned it to the man. When he quitted Athens, he lifted up his hands toward heaven, and, agreeably to his character, made a prayer, very different from that of Achilles; namely, 'that the people of Athens might never see the day which should force them to remember Aristides.'"

But it was, perhaps, fortunate for the liberties of Greece that Themistocles, instead of Aristides, was left in full power at Athens. "The peculiar faculty of his mind," says THIRLWALL, "which Thucydides contemplated with admiration, was the quickness with which it seized every object that came in its way, perceived the course of action required by new situations and sudden junctures, and penetrated into remote consequences. Such were the abilities which were most needed at this period for the service of Athens."

Soon after the battle of Marathon a war had broken out between Athens and aegina, which still continued, and which gave Themistocles an opportunity to exercise his powers of ready invention and prompt execution. aegina was one of the wealthiest of the Grecian islands, and possessed the most powerful navy in all Greece. Themistocles soon saw that to successfully cope with this formidable rival, as well as rise to a higher rank among the Grecian states, Athens must become a great maritime power. He therefore obtained the consent of the Athenians to devote a large surplus then in the public treasury, but which belonged to individual citizens, to the building of a hundred galleys; and, by this sacrifice of individual emolument to the general good, the Athenian navy was increased to two hundred s.h.i.+ps. But the foresight of Themistocles extended still farther, and it was no less his design, in making Athens a first-cla.s.s maritime power, to protect her against Persia, which, as he well knew, was preparing for another and still more formidable attack on Greece.

III. THE SECOND' PERSIAN INVASION.

For three years subsequent to the battle of Marathon Darius made great preparations for a second invasion of Greece, intending to lead his forces in person; but death put an end to his plans.

Xerxes, his son and successor, was urged by many advisers to carry out his father's intentions. His uncle Artaba'nus alone endeavored to divert him from the enterprise; but Xerxes, having spent four years in collecting a large fleet and a vast body of troops from all quarters of his extensive dominions, set out from Sardis with great ostentation, in the spring of the year 480, to avenge the disgrace of Marathon. HERODOTUS relates that, on reaching Aby'dos, on the h.e.l.lespont, Xerxes reviewed his vast host, and wept when he thought of the shortness of human life, and considered that of all his immense host not one man would be alive when a hundred years had pa.s.sed away. The historian's account is as follows:

Xerxes at Abydos.

"Arrived here, Xerxes wished to look upon his host; so, as there was a throne of white marble upon a hill near the city, which they of Abydos had prepared beforehand, by the king's bidding, for his especial use, Xerxes took his seat on it, and, gazing thence upon the sh.o.r.e below, beheld at one view all his land forces and all his s.h.i.+ps. As he looked and saw the whole h.e.l.lespont covered with the vessels of his fleet, and all the sh.o.r.e and every plain about Abydos as full as could be of men, Xerxes congratulated himself on his good-fortune; but, after a little while, he wept. Then Artaba.n.u.s, the king's uncle (the same who at the first so freely spake his mind to the king, and advised him not to lead his army against Greece), when he heard that Xerxes was in tears, went to him, and said:

"'How different, sire, is what thou art now doing from what thou didst a little while ago! Then thou didst congratulate thyself, and now, behold! thou weepest.'

"'There came upon me,' replied he, 'a sudden pity when I thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by.'

"'And yet there are sadder things in life than that,' returned the other. 'Short. as our time is, there is no man, whether it be here among this mult.i.tude or elsewhere, who is so happy as not to have felt the wish--I will not say once, but full many a time--that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities fall upon us, sicknesses vex and hara.s.s us, and make life, short though it be, to appear long. So death, through the wretchedness of our life, is a most sweet refuge to our race; and G.o.d, who gives us the tastes we enjoy of pleasant times, is seen, in his very gift, to be envious.'"

--Trans. by RAWLINSON.

Much that is told about Xerxes--how he cut off Mount Athos from the main-land by a ca.n.a.l; how he made a bridge of boats across the h.e.l.lespont, where it is three miles wide, and ordered the waters to be scourged because they destroyed the bridge; how he constructed new bridges, over which his vast army crossed the h.e.l.lespont as along a royal road; and how his army drank a whole river dry--all of which is gravely related by Herodotus as fact, is discredited by the Latin poet JUVENAL, who attributes these stories to the imaginations of "browsy poets."

Old Greece a tale of Athos would make out, Cut from the continent and sailed about; Seas bid with navies, chariots pa.s.sing o'er The channel on a bridge from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e; Rivers, whose depths no sharp beholder sees, Drunk, at an army's dinner, to the lees; With a long legend of romantic things, Which, in his cups, the browsy poet sings.

--Tenth Satire. Trans. by DRYDEN.

That Xerxes bridged the h.e.l.lespont, however, in the manner related by Herodotus, is an accepted fact of history. As MILTON says,

Xerxes, the liberty of Greece to yoke, From Susa, his Memnonian palace high, Came to the sea, and over h.e.l.lespont Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joined.

--Paradise Regained.

He crossed to Ses'tus, a city of Thrace, and entered Europe at the head of an army the greatest the world has ever seen, and whose numbers have been estimated at over two millions of fighting men. Having marched along the coast through Thrace and Macedonia, this immense force pa.s.sed through Thessaly, and arrived, without opposition, at the Pa.s.s of Thermop'ylae, a narrow defile on the western sh.o.r.e of the gulf that lies between Thessaly and Euboea, and almost the only road by which Greece proper, or ancient Greece, could be entered on the north-east by way of Thessaly. In the mean time the Greeks had not been idle. The winter before Xerxes left Asia a general congress of the Grecian states was held at the isthmus of Corinth, at which the differences between Athens and aegina were first settled, and then a vigorous effort was made by Athens and Sparta to unite the states and cities in one great league against the power of Persia. But, notwithstanding the common danger, only a few of the states responded to the call, and the only people north and east of the isthmus who joined the league were the Athenians, Phocians, Plataeans, and Thespians. The command of both the land and naval forces was relinquished by Athens to the Spartans; and it was resolved to make the first stand against Persia at the Pa.s.s of Thermopylae.

THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLae.

When the Persian monarch reached Thermopylae, he found a body of but eight thousand men, commanded by the Spartan king Leonidas, prepared to dispute his pa.s.sage. A herald was sent to the Greeks commanding them to lay down their arms; but Leonidas replied, with true Spartan brevity, "Come and take them!" When it was remarked that the Persians were so numerous that their darts would darken the sun, "Then," replied Dien'eces, a Spartan, "we shall fight in the shade." Trained from youth to the endurance of all hards.h.i.+ps, and forbidden by their laws ever to flee from an enemy, the sons of Sparta were indeed formidable antagonists for the Persians to encounter.

Stern were her sons. Upon Euro'tas' bank, Where black Ta-yg'etus o'er cliff and peak Waves his dark pines, and spreads his glistening snows, On five low hills their city rose: no walls, No ramparts closed it round; its battlements And towers of strength were men--high-minded men, Who heard the cry of danger with more joy Than softer natures listen to the voice Of pleasure; who, with unremitting toil In chase, in battle, or athletic course, To fierceness steeled their native hardihood; Who sunk in death as tranquil as in sleep, And, hemmed by hostile myriads, never turned To flight, but closer drew before their b.r.e.a.s.t.s The ma.s.sy buckler, firmer fixed the foot, Bit the writhed lip, and, where they struggled, fell.

--HAYGARTH.

Xerxes, astonished that the Greeks did not disperse at the sight of his vast army, waited four days, and then ordered a body of his troops to attack them, and lead them captive before him; but the barbarians fell in heaps in the very presence of the king, and blocked the narrow pa.s.s with their dead. Xerxes now thought the contest worthy of the superior prowess of his own guards, the ten thousand Immortals. These were led up as to a certain victory; but the Greeks stood their ground as before. The combat lasted a whole day, and the slaughter of the enemy was terrible.

Another day of combat followed, with like results, and the confidence of the Persian monarch was changed into despondence and perplexity.

While in the uncertainty caused by these repeated failures to force a pa.s.sage, Xerxes learned, from a Greek traitor, of a secret path over the mountains, by which he was able to throw a force of twenty thousand men into the rear of the brave defenders of the pa.s.s. Leonidas, seeing that his post was no longer tenable, now dismissed all his allies that desired to retire, and retained only three hundred fellow-Spartans, with some Thespians and Thebans--in all about one thousand men. He would have saved two of his kinsmen, by sending them with messages to Sparta; but the one said he had come to bear arms, not to carry letters, and the other that his deeds would tell all that Sparta desired to know. Leonidas did not wait for an attack, but sallying forth from the pa.s.s, and falling suddenly upon the Persians, he penetrated to the very center of their host, where the battle raged furiously, and two of the brothers of Xerxes were slain. Then the surviving Greeks, with the exception of the Thebans, fell back within the pa.s.s and took their final stand upon a hillock, where they fought with the valor of desperation until every man was slain. The Thebans, however, who from the first had been distrusted by Leonidas, threw down their arms early in the fight, and begged for quarter.

The conflict itself, and the glory of the struggle on the part of the Spartans, have been favorite themes with the poets of succeeding ages. The following description is by HAYGARTH:

Long and doubtful was the fight; Day after day the hostile army poured Its choicest warriors, but in vain; they fell, Or fled inglorious. Foul treachery At last prevailed; a steep and dangerous path, Known only to the wandering mountaineers, By difficult ascent led to the rear Of the heroic Greeks. The morning dawned, And the brave chieftain, when he raised his head From the cold rock on which he rested, viewed Banner and helmet, and the waving fire From lance and buckler, glancing high amidst Each pointed cliff and copse which stretch along Yon mountain's bosom. Then he saw his fate; But saw it with an unaverted eye: Around his spear he called his countrymen, And with a smile that o'er his rugged cheek Pa.s.s'd transient, like the momentary flash Streaking a thunder-cloud--"But we will die"

(He cried) "like Grecians; we will leave our sons A bright example. Let each warrior bind Firmly his mail, and grasp his lance, and scowl From underneath his helm a frown of death Upon his shrinking foe; then let him fix His firm, unbending knee, and where he fights There fall." They heard, and, on their s.h.i.+elds Clas.h.i.+ng the war-song with a n.o.ble rage, Rushed headlong in the conflict of the fight, And died, as they had lived, triumphantly.

The Greek historian Diodorus, followed by the biographer Plutarch and the Latin historian Justin, states that Leonidas made the attack on the Persian camp during the night, and in the darkness and in the confusion of the struggle nearly penetrated to the royal tent of Xerxes. On this basis of supposed facts the poet CROLY wrote his stirring poem descriptive of the conflict; but the statement of Diodorus, which is irreconcilable with Herodotus, is generally discredited by modern writers.

Monuments to the memory of the Greeks who fell were erected on the battle-ground, and many were the epitaphs written to commemorate the heroism of the famous three hundred; but the oldest, best, and most celebrated of these is the inscription that was placed on their altar-tomb, written by the poet SIMON'IDES, of Ce'os. It consists of only two lines in the Original Greek. [Footnote: The following is the original Greek of the epitaph: O xeiu hangeddeiy Dakedaimouiois hoti taede keimetha, tois keiuoy hraemasi peithomeuoi.] All Greece for centuries had them by heart; but in the lapse of time she forgot them, and then, in the language of "Christopher North," "Greece was living Greece no more." There have been no less than three Latin and eighteen English versions of this epitaph; and herewith we give three of the latter:

Go, stranger, and to Lac-e-dae'mon tell That here, obedient to her laws, we fell.

Stranger, to Sparta say that here we rest In death, obedient to her high behest.

Go, tell the Spartans, thou who pa.s.sest by, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

Another inscription, said to have been written by Simonides for the tombs of the heroes of Thermopylae, is as follows:

Happy they, the chosen brave, Whom Destiny, whom Valor led To their consecrated grave 'Mid Thessalia's mountains dread.

Their sepulchre's a holy shrine, Their epitaph, the engraven line Recording former deeds divine; And Pity's melancholy wail Is changed to hymns of praise that load the evening gale.

Entombed in n.o.ble deed's they're laid-- Nor silent rust, nor Time's inexorable hour, Shall e'er have power To rend that shroud which veils their hallowed shade.

h.e.l.las mourns the dead Sunk in their narrow grave; But thou, dark Sparta's chief, whose bosom bled First in the battle's wave, Bear witness that they fell as best beseems the brave.

Leonidas himself fell in the plain, and his body was carried into the defile by his followers. He was buried at the north entrance to the pa.s.s, and over his grave was erected a mound, on which was placed the figure of a lion sculptured in stone.

The sculptured lion marked the grave of the hero down to the time Of Herodotus.

On Phocis' sh.o.r.es the cavern's gloom Imbrowns yon solitary tomb: There, in the sad and silent grave Repose the ashes of the brave Who, when the Persian from afar On h.e.l.las poured the stream of war, At Freedom's call, with martial pride, For his loved country fought and died.

Seek'st thou the place where, 'midst the dead The hero of the battle bled?

Yon sculptured lion, frowning near, Points out Leonidas's bier.

--ANON.

The poet BYRON, who was peculiarly the friend of Greece, and an earnest admirer of both the genius and the heroic deeds of her sons, has written the following lines commemorating the glory of those who fell at Thermopylae:

They fell devoted, but undying; The very gale their names seemed sighing: The waters murmured of their name; The woods were peopled with their fame; The silent pillar, lone and gray, Claimed kindred with their sacred clay: Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain, Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain; The meanest rill, the mightiest river Rolled mingling with their fame forever.

THE ABANDONMENT OF ATHENS.