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five thousand regular troops, under the Spartan king Leonidas, the brother of Cleomenes, to maintain the passage till the whole strength of the different states could be sent out; while the combined fleet of two hundred and seventy-one triremes, besides smaller vessels, was assembled in the neighbouring road of Artemisium in Euboea. Several attempts were made by the Persians to force the pass; but they were always repulsed with great slaughter, the narrow space not letting them profit by their numbers, and exposing them, without defence or escape, to the superior skill and steadiness of the Greeks, and the irresistible onset of their heavy phalanx. At length Xerxes was told of a path by which troops might be led across the mountains, and sending round a strong detachment to attack the Greeks in the rear, while his main army advanced on their front, he ensured their detruction. It was now impossible to stop the enemy, and an ordinary character would have thought it useless to sacrifice the lives of himself and his men, where no immediate military object worth the loss could be gained. But Leonidas saw that the greatest danger to Greece was in the terror occasioned by inequality of force, which disposed each state to seek its particular safety by deserting the common cause, or at least to neglect the general defence in order to provide for that of its own territory. Nothing was so likely to obviate this as the enthusiasm which might be excited by a great example of self-devotion; and his resolution to give such an example was confirmed by an oracle declaring that either Sparta or her king must perish. Dismissing, therefore, the rest of his army to serve their country with better hope elsewhere, he retained the three hundred Spartans who were with him. The Thespians, in number seven hundred, probably the whole force of the little commonwealth, declared themselves resolved to share his fate; and he detained the four hundred Thebans against their will, as hostages for the doubtful faith of their countrymen. The army would probably be more than doubled by the light-armed slaves and Helots, who, however, were of little value as soldiers. With this

scanty force the Greeks advanced to meet the enemy, and fighting like men whose only object was to sell their lives as dearly as possible, they made vast slaughter, and had the advantage till the Persian detachment came up in their rear; they then retreated to a hillock, and forming on the top, continued the struggle; when their spears were broken, fighting with their swords, and, if these failed, with their hands and teeth, till the Spartans and Thespians were all slain to a man. The Thebans had been obliged to fight till their companions retreated to the hillock, but then they surrendered in a body. This is well nigh the only occasion on which the petty state of Thespia becomes conspicuous in history; whereas Thebes was long great and flourishing, and at one time the predominant power in Greece; but all the bloody laurels of Thebes would be well exchanged for this one act of patriotic devotedness on the part of Thespiæ.

SEA-FIGHTS OFF ARTEMISIUM-EUBOEA OVERRUN BY THE

W

PERSIANS.

HEN the Persian fleet appeared at Artemisium, many of the Greeks, alarmed at its strength, had been inclined to retreat: but the Euboeans, not without the aid of bribery, persuaded them

to remain. Themistocles, the Athenian admiral, received from the Euboeans thirty talents, about $35,000, with part of which he brought over to his wishes the Lacedæmonian and Corinthian commanders, keeping the larger portion to himself. Three battles were fought with no decisive result, but generally in favour of the Greeks; and the Athenians, who had at first supplied one hundred and twenty-seven ships out of two hundred and seventy-one, and afterwards added fifty-three more, won the highest praise in every battle. Besides, the fleet of Xerxes, which had before suffered severely off Mount Pelion, in Thessaly, was here again overtaken by a storm, which destroyed many vessels. But on hearing of the defeat at Thermopyla, the Grecian fleet

was withdrawn, and the Persians took unresisted possession of Euboea. Before leaving the island, Themistocles erected stones at all the watering-places, with inscriptions reproving the Ionians for assisting the invaders of their mother country, and calling on them either to desert the armament, or if that were impossible, at least to be slack in their service. By this he hoped either to influence the conduct of the Ionians, or, failing in this, at least to make them suspected, and thus to take from the enemy the effective service of an important part of his naval force.

REPULSE OF THE PERSIANS FROM DELPHI.

PON all occasions the Phocians were resolutely hostile to Xerxes, chiefly through hatred to the Thessalians; and now the Persian army advancing through Phocis, with the Thessalians for guides, laid waste the country with

fire and sword, till it entered Boeotia, where

it was received as in a friendly land. A detachment was sent against Delphi, chiefly for the great wealth contained in the temple. Alarmed at its approach, the Delphians consulted the oracle what should be done with the sacred treasure; but the answer was that they should not move it, for the god could protect his own. They then sent over their wives and children into Achaia, and themselves took shelter among the heights of Parnassus, and in what was called the Corycian cave. The Persians, on their approach, were attacked with a violent storm, and with rocks rolling down on them; and when they were thrown into consternation, the Delphians, sallying forth, completed their defeat and pursued them, with great slaughter, towards Boeotia. Many prodigies are said to have happened; a report produced, as we may suppose, partly by the imagination both of the defenders and assailants, excited by the reputed sanctity of the place, and partly by the arts of the priests employed for the encouragement of the one party, and the intimidation of the

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other. The storm was probably natural, and the rolling down of the rocks the act of the Delphians on the heights.

UNWORTHY CONDUCT OF LACEDEMON-TAKING OF ATHENS.

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PON this occasion the councils of Lacedæmon were directed by a spirit very different from that of Leonidas. Instead of advancing to the borders of Bootia, to protect their allies, the Peloponnesians

were fortifying the isthmus, in the hope that themselves might be thus preserved, though all the rest became a prey to the invader. If the Athenians had acted in a like temper of short-sighted selfishness, all Greece would have been enslaved. They had alone repelled a former invasion, but the present was too powerful; and, unable otherwise to save the city, they would have made a separate peace. Deprived of the Athenian squadron, which was more than half the fleet, the Greeks would have been unable to keep the sea; and either the defence of the isthmus must have been given up, and the troops dispersed to their respective cities, when there would have been no army to oppose the Persians in the field; or else the cities would have been successively taken by the fleet of Asia, while the best part of the population was absent. But the Athenians, when they found that, in consequence of the desertion of their allies, they could not preserve their city unless by submission, immediately resolved to abandon it. The fleet from Artemisium was assembled at Salamis to assist in their removal; their wives, children, and servants were transported to Salamis, Trozen, and Egina, while the able-bodied men were mostly serving in the ships; a few only were left behind, principally poor men, who were unable to support themselves in a foreign state, and some who conceived the wooden wall in the oracle to be spoken of the Acropolis. The Persians advanced on Athens, after burning Thespia and Platea: they entered the city, but the few Athenians in the Acropolis made an obsti

nate defence, rejecting all the offers held out by the Pisistratidæ to induce their surrender. At length, with great difficulty, the citadel was taken and burnt, and the defenders slaughtered.

DISPUTES IN THE FLEET, AND CONDUCT OF THEMISTOCLES.

EWS of this action alarmed the Greeks in Salamis so much, that many of the commanders were about to make a hasty flight without awaiting the general determination; and the rest being assembled in a council of war, it was resolved to retreat to the isthmus, and there expect the enemy. As Themistocles was returning to his ship, he was met by Mnesiphilus, an Athenian officer, who, on hearing the issue of the conference, exclaimed that Greece was lost if such a counsel were adopted; for the allies, if now allowed to retreat, could no longer be kept together, but would be scattered to their several cities. The suggestion falling in with the opinion of Themistocles, induced him to return to the Spartan Eurybiades, who commanded in chief, and pressing on him, with many additions, the arguments of Mnesiphilus, he persuaded him to call back the council. He now urged the commanders to remain, both on account of the advantage which the narrow strait of Salamis gave to the Greeks, inferior as well in the speed as in the number of their ships; and also because by so doing they would preserve Megara, Salamis, and Ægina, with the Athenian women and children deposited in the latter places. When he found them still obstinate, he declared that the Athenians, if their feelings and interests, after all they had done, were so little regarded, would abandon the armament, and taking on board their families would seek a settlement elsewhere. This threat prevailed, and it was agreed to remain; but at the approach of the enemy, the Peloponnesians again were eager to depart and provide for the defence of their own territories; on which

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