Mosaics of Grecian History by Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

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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 Hellespont, 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 passed 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 shore below, beheld at one view all his land
forces and all his ships. As he looked and saw the whole Hellespont
covered with the vessels of his fleet, and all the shore 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 Artabanus, 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 multitude 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 harass 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 God, 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 canal; how he made a bridge of boats across
the Hellespont, 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
Hellespont 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 passing o'er
The channel on a bridge from shore to shore;
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 Hellespont, 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 Hellespont
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 passed through Thessaly, and
arrived, without opposition, at the Pass of Thermop'ylae, a narrow
defile on the western shore 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 Pass 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 passage. 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 hardships, 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 breasts
The massy 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 pass 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 passage, 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 pass. 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 pass, 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 pass 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
Pass'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 shields
Clashing the war-song with a noble 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 passest 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 noble 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.
Hellas 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 pass, 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' shores 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 Hellas 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.

While fighting was in progress at Thermopylae, a Greek fleet,
under the command of the Spartan Eurybi'ades, that had been sent
to guard the Euboean Sea, encountered the Persian ships at
Artemis'ium. In several engagements that occurred, the Athenian
vessels, commanded by Themistocles, were especially distinguished;
and although the contests with the enemy were not decisive, yet,
says PLUTARCH, "they were of great advantage to the Greeks, who
learned by experience that neither the number of ships, nor the
beauty and splendor of their ornaments, nor the vaunting shouts
and songs of the Persians, were anything dreadful to men who know
how to fight hand-to-hand, and are determined to behave gallantly.
These things they were taught to despise when they came to close
action and grappled with the foe. Hence in this respect, and for
this reason, Pindar's sentiments appear just, when he says of the
fight at Artemisium,

"'Twas then that Athens the foundation laid
Of Liberty's fair structure.'"

Although the Greeks were virtually the victors in these engagements,
at least one-half of their vessels were disabled; and, hearing
of the defeat of Leonidas at Thermopylae, they resolved to retreat.
Having sailed through the Euboean Sea, the fleet kept on its way
until it reached the Island of Salamis, in the Saron'ic Gulf.
Here Themistocles learned that no friendly force was guarding
the frontier of Attica, although the Peloponnesian states had
promised to send an army into Boeotia; and he saw that there was
nothing to prevent the Persians from marching on Athens. He
therefore advised the Athenians to abandon the city to the mercy
of the Persians, and commit their safety and their hopes of victory
to the navy. The advice was adopted, though not without a hard
struggle; and those of the inhabitants who were able to bear arms
retired to the Island of Salamis, while the old and infirm, the
women and children, found shelter in a city of Argolis.

THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS.

Xerxes pursued his march through Greece unopposed except by
Thespiae and Plataea, which towns he reduced, and spread desolation
over Attica until he arrived at the foot of the Cecropian hill,
which he found guarded by a handful of desperate citizens who
refused to surrender. But the brave defenders were soon put to
the sword, and Athens was plundered and then burned to the ground.
About this time the Persian fleet arrived in the Bay of Phale'rum,
and Xerxes immediately dispatched it to block up that of the
Greeks in the narrow strait of Salamis. Eurybiades, the Spartan,
who still commanded the Grecian fleet, was urged by Themistocles,
and also by Aristides, who had been recalled from exile, to hazard
an engagement at once in the narrow strait, where the superior
numbers of the Persians would be of little avail. The Peloponnesian
commanders, however, wished to move the fleet to the Isthmus of
Corinth, where it would have the aid of the land forces. At last
the counsel of Themistocles prevailed, and the Greeks made the
attack. The engagement was a courageous and persistent one on
both sides, but the Greeks came off victorious. Xerxes had caused
a royal throne to be erected on one of the neighboring heights,
where, surrounded by his army, he might witness the naval conflict
in which he was so confident of victory. But he had the misfortune
to see his magnificent navy almost utterly annihilated. Among
the slain was the brother of Xerxes, who commanded the navy, and
many other Persians of the highest rank.

A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations--all were his!
He counted them at break of day--
And when the sun set, where were they?
--BYRON.

Anxious now for his own personal safety, the Persian monarch's
whole care centered on securing his retreat by land. He passed
rapidly into Thessaly, and, after a march of forty-five days,
reached the shores of the Hellespont to find his bridges washed
away.

But how returned he? Say; this soul of fire,
This proud barbarian, whose impatient ire
Chastised the winds that disobeyed his nod
With stripes ne'er suffered by the AEolian god--
But how returned he? say; his navy lost,
In a small bark he fled the hostile coast,
And, urged by terror, drove his laboring prore
Through floating carcasses and fields of gore.
So Xerxes sped; so sped the conquering race:
They catch at glory, and they clasp disgrace.
--JUVENAL, Satire X. Trans. by GIFFORD.

The ignominious retreat of Xerxes was in marked contrast to the
pomp and magnificence of his advance into Greece. Death from
famine and distress spread its ravages among his troops, and
the remnant that returned with him to Asia was but "a wreck, or
fragment, rather than a part of his huge host."

O'er Hellespont and Athos' marble head,
More than a god he came, less than a man he fled.
--LUIGI ALAMANNI. Trans. by AUBREY DE VERE.

A Celebrated Description of the Battle.

Among the Athenians who nobly fought at Marathon, and who also
took part in the battle of Salamis, was the tragedian AEschylus;
and so much did he distinguish himself in the capacity of soldier,
that, in the picture which the Athenians caused to be painted
representing the former battle, the figure of AEschylus held so
prominent a place as to be at once recognized, even by a casual
observer. Eight years after the latter battle AEschylus composed
his tragedy of The Persians, which portrays, in vivid colors,
the defeat of Xerxes, and gives a fuller, and, indeed, better
account of that memorable sea-fight than is found even in the
pages of Herodotus.

Says MITFORD, "It is matter of regret, not indeed that AEschylus
was a poet; but that prose-writing was yet in his age so little
common that his poetical sketch of this great transaction is
the most authoritative, the clearest, and the most consistent
of any that has passed to posterity." In the famous tragedy of
AEschylus the account of the destruction of the Persian fleet is
supposed to be given by a Persian messenger, escaped from the
fight, to Atos'sa, the mother of Xerxes. The scene is laid at
Susa, the Persian capital, near the tomb of Darius. The whole
drama may be considered as a proud triumphal song in favor of
Liberty.

Atossa, appearing with her attendants, and anxious for news of
her son, first inquires in what clime are the towers of Athens--
the conquest of which her son had willed--and what mighty armies,
what arms, and what treasures the Athenians boast, and what mighty
monarch rules over them; and is told, to her surprise, that instead
of the strong bow, like the Persians, they have stout spears
and massy bucklers; and although their rich earth is a copious
fount of silver, yet the people, "slaves to no lord, own no kingly
power." Then enters the messenger, who exclaims:

Woe to the towns of Asia's peopled realms!
Woe to the land of Persia, once the port
Of boundless wealth! All, at a blow, has perished!
Ah me! How sad his task who brings ill tidings!
But, to my tale of woe--I needs must tell it.
Persians--the whole barbaric host has fallen!

At this astounding news the chorus breaks out in, concert:

Oh horror, horror, what a train of ills!
Alas! Is Hellas then unscathed? And has
Our arrowy tempest spent its force in vain?
Raise the funereal cry--with dismal notes
Wailing the wretched Persians. Oh, how ill
They planned their measures! All their army perished!

Then the messenger exclaims:

I speak not from report; but these mine eyes
Beheld the ruin which my tongue would utter.
In heaps the unhappy dead lie on the strand
Of Salamis, and all the neighboring shores.
Oh, Salamis--how hateful is thy name!
Oh, how my heart groans but to think of Athens!

Atossa at length finds words to say:

Astonished with these ills, my voice thus long
Hath wanted utterance: griefs like these exceed
The power of speech or question: yet e'en such,
Inflicted by the gods, must mortal man,
Constrained by loud necessity endure.
But tell me all: without distraction, tell me
All this calamity, though many a groan
Burst from thy laboring heart. Who is not fallen?
What leader must we wail? What sceptred chief,
Dying, hath left his troops without a lord?

The messenger tells her that Xerxes himself lives, and still
beholds the light, and then gives her a general summary of the
disasters that befell the Persians, the names of the chiefs that
were slain, the numbers of the horsemen, and the spearmen, and
the seamen that lay "slaughtered on the rocks," "buried in the
waters," or "mouldering on the dreary shore." At the request of
Atossa he then proceeds to give the following more detailed
account, which, as we have said, is the best history that we
have of this memorable naval conflict:

Our evil genius, lady, or some god
Hostile to Persia, led to every ill.
Forth from the troops of Athens came a Greek,
And thus addressed thy son, the imperial Xerxes:
"Soon as the shades of night descend, the Grecians
Shall quit their station: rushing to their oars,
They mean to separate, and in secret flight
Seek safety." At these words the royal chief,
Little dreaming of the wiles of Greece,
And gods averse, to all the naval leaders
Gave his high charge: "Soon as yon sun shall cease
To dart his radiant beams, and dark'ning night
Ascends the temple of the sky, arrange
In three divisions your well-ordered ships,
And guard each pass, each outlet of the seas:
Others enring around this rocky isle
Of Salamis. Should Greece escape her fate,
And work her way by secret flight, your heads
Shall answer the neglect." This harsh command
He gave, exulting in his mind, nor knew
What Fate designed. With martial discipline
And prompt obedience, snatching a repast,
Each manner fixed well his ready oar.

Soon as the golden sun was set, and night
Advanced, each, trained to ply the dashing oar,
Assumed his seat; in arms each warrior stood,
Troop cheering troop through all the ships of war.
Each to the appointed station steers his course,
And through the night his naval force each chief
Fix'd to secure the passes. Night advanced,
But not by secret flight did Greece attempt
To escape. The morn, all beauteous to behold,
Drawn by white steeds, bounds o'er the enlighten'd earth:

At once from every Greek, with glad acclaim,
Burst forth the song of war, whose lofty notes
The echo of the island rocks returned,
Spreading dismay through Persia's host, thus fallen
From their high hopes; no flight this solemn strain
Portended, but deliberate valor bent
On daring battle; while the trumpet's sound
Kindled the flames of war. But when their oars
(The paean ended) with impetuous force
Dash'd the surrounding surges, instant all
Rush'd on in view; in orderly array
The squadron of the right first led, behind
Rode their whole fleet; and now distinct was heard
From every part this voice of exhortation:

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