Historical Tales Volume X Part 9

Fortunately, there was an eleventh general, Callimachus, the war archon, or polemarch, who had a casting vote in the council of generals, and who, under persuasion of Miltiades, cast his vote for an immediate march to Marathon. The other generals who favored this action gave up to Miltiades their days of command, making him sole leader for that length of time. Herodotus says that he refused to fight till his own day came regularly round,--but we can scarcely believe that a general of his ability would risk defeat on such a childish point of honor. If so, he should have been a Spartan, and waited for the pa.s.sing of the full moon.

To Marathon, then, the men of Athens marched, and from its surrounding hills looked down on the great Persian army that lay encamped beneath, and on the fleet which seemed to fill the sea. Of those brave men there were no more than ten thousand. And from all Greece but one small band came to join them, a thousand men from the little town of Plataea. The numbers of the foe we do not know. They may have been two hundred thousand in all, though how many of these landed and took part in the battle no one can tell. Doubtless they outnumbered the Athenians more than ten to one.

Far along the plain stretched the lines of the Persians, with their fleet behind them, extended along the beach. On the high ground in the rear were marshalled the Greeks, spread out so long that their line was perilously thin. The s.p.a.ce of a mile separated the two armies.

And now, at the command of Miltiades, the valiant Athenians crossed this dividing s.p.a.ce at a full run, sounding their paean or war-cry as they advanced. Miltiades was bent on coming to close quarters at once, so as to prevent the enemy from getting their bowmen and cavalry at work.

The Persians, on seeing this seeming handful of men, without archers or hors.e.m.e.n, advancing at a run upon their great array, deemed at first that the Greeks had gone mad and were rushing wildly to destruction. The ringing war-cry astounded them,--a Greek paean was new music to their ears. And when the hoplites of Athens and Plataea broke upon their ranks, thrusting and hewing with spear and sword, and with the strength gained from exercises in the gymnasium, dread of these courageous and furious warriors filled their souls. On both wings the Persian lines broke and fled for their ships. But in the centre, where Datis had placed his best men, and where the Athenian line was thinnest, the Greeks, breathless from their long run, were broken and driven back. Seeing this, Miltiades brought up his victorious wings, attacked the centre with his entire force, and soon had the whole Persian army in full flight for its ships.

The marshes swallowed up many of the fleeing host. Hundreds fell before the arms of the victors. Into the ships poured in terror those who had escaped, followed hotly by the victorious Greeks, who made strenuous efforts to set the ships on fire and destroy the entire host. In this they failed. The Persians, made desperate by their peril, drove them back. The fleet hastily set sail, leaving few prisoners, but abandoning a rich harvest of tents and equipments to the victorious Greeks. Of the Persian host, some sixty-four hundred lay dead on the field, the ships having saved them from further slaughter. The Greek loss in dead was only one hundred and ninety-two.

Yet, despite this signal victory, Greece was still in imminent danger.

Athens was undefended. The fleeing fleet might reach and capture it before the army could return. In truth, the ships had sailed in this direction, and from the top of a lofty hill Miltiades saw the polished surface of a shield flash in the sunlight, and quickly guessed what it meant. It was a signal made by some traitor to the Persian fleet.

Putting his army at once under march, despite the weariness of the victors, he hastened back over the long twenty-two miles at all possible speed, and the worn-out troops reached Athens barely in time to save it from the approaching fleet.

The triumph of Miltiades was complete. Only for his quickness in guessing the meaning of the flashing shield, and the rapidity of his march, all the results of his great victory would have been lost, and Athens fallen helpless into Persian arms. But Datis, finding the city amply garrisoned, and baffled at every point, turned his ships and sailed in defeat away, leaving the Athenians masters of city and field.

And now the Spartans--to whom the full moon had come too late--appeared, two thousand strong, only in time to congratulate the victors and view the dead Persians on the field. They had marched the whole distance in less than three days. As for the Athenian dead, they were buried with great ceremony on the plain where they fell, and the great mound which covers them is visible there to this day.

_XERXES AND HIS ARMY._

The defeat of the Persian army at Marathon redoubled the wrath of King Darius against the Athenians. He resolved in his autocratic mind to sweep that pestilent city and all whom it contained from the face of the earth. And he perhaps would have done so had he not met a more terrible foe even than Miltiades and his army,--the all-conqueror Death, to whose might the greatest monarchs must succ.u.mb. Burning with fury, Darius ordered the levy of a mighty army, and for three years busy preparations for war went on throughout the vast empire of Persia. But, just as the mustering was done and he was about to march, that grisly foe Death struck him down in the midst of his schemes of conquest, and Greece was saved,--the great Darius was no more.

Xerxes, son of Darius, succeeded him on the throne. This new monarch was the handsomest and stateliest man in all his army. But his fair outside covered a weak nature; timid, faint-hearted, vain, conceited, he was not the man to conquer Greece, small as it was and great as was the empire under his control; and the death of Darius was in all probability the salvation of Greece.

Xerxes succeeded not only to the throne of Persia, but also to the vast army which his father had brought together. He succeeded, moreover, to a war, for Egypt was in revolt. But this did not last long; the army was at once set in motion, Egypt was quickly subdued, and the Egyptians found themselves under a worse tyranny than before.

Greece remained to conquer, and for that enterprise the timid Persian king was not eager. Marathon could not be forgotten. Those fierce Athenians who had defeated his father's great host were not to be dealt with so easily as the unwarlike Egyptians. He held back irresolute, now persuaded to war by one councillor, now to peace by another, and finally--so we are told--driven to war by a dream, in which a tall, stately man appeared to him and with angry countenance commanded him not to abandon the enterprise which his father had designed. This dream came to him again the succeeding night, and when Artaba.n.u.s, his uncle, and the advocate of peace, was made to sit on his throne and sleep in his bed, the same figure appeared to him, and threatened to burn out his eyes if he still opposed the war. Artaba.n.u.s, stricken with terror, now counselled war, and Xerxes determined on the invasion of Greece.

This story we are told by Herodotus, who told many things which it is not very safe to believe. What we really know is that Xerxes began the most stupendous preparations for war that had ever been known, and added to the army left by his father until he had got together the greatest host the world had yet beheld. For four years those preparations, to which Darius had already given three years of time, were actively continued. Hors.e.m.e.n and foot-soldiers, ships of war, transports, provisions, and supplies of all kinds were collected far and near, the vanity of Xerxes probably inciting him to astonish the world by the greatness of his army.

In the autumn of the year 481 B.C. this vast army, marching from all parts of the mighty empire, reached Lydia and gathered in and around the city of Sardis, the old capital of Croesus. Besides the land army, a fleet of twelve hundred and seven ships of war, and numerous other vessels, were collected, and large magazines of provisions were formed at points along the whole line of march. For years flour and other food, from Asia and Egypt, had been stored in cities on the route, that the fatal enemy starvation might not attack the mighty host.

Two important questions occupied the mind of Xerxes. How was he to get his vast army on European soil, and how escape those dangers from storm which had wrecked his father's fleet? He might cross the sea in ships, as Datis had done,--and be like him defeated. Xerxes thought it safest to keep on solid land, and decided to build a bridge of boats across the h.e.l.lespont, that ocean river now known as the Dardanelles, the first of the two straits which connect the Mediterranean with the Black Sea. As for the other trouble, that of storms at sea, he remembered the great gale which had wrecked the fleet of Mardonius off the stormy cape of Mount Athos, and determined to avoid this danger. A narrow neck of land connects Mount Athos with the mainland. Xerxes ordered that a ship-ca.n.a.l should be cut through this isthmus, wide and deep enough to allow two triremes--war-ships with three ranks of oars--to sail abreast.

This work was done by the Phoenicians, the ablest engineers at that time in the world. A ca.n.a.l was made through which his whole fleet could sail, and thus the stormy winds and waves which hovered about Mount Athos be avoided.

This work was successfully done, but not so the bridge of boats. Hardly had the latter been completed, when there came so violent a storm that the cables were snapped like pack-thread and the bridge swept away. With the weakness of a man of small mind, on hearing of this disaster Xerxes burst into a fit of insane rage. He ordered that the heads of the chief engineers should be cut off, but this was far from satisfying his anger.

The elements had risen against his might, and the elements themselves must be punished. The h.e.l.lespont should be scourged for its temerity, and three hundred lashes were actually given the water, while a set of fetters were cast into its depths. It is further said that the water was branded with hot irons, but it is hard to believe that even Xerxes was such a fool as this would make him.

The rebellious water thus punished, Xerxes regained his wits, and ordered that the bridge should be rebuilt more strongly than before.

Huge cables were made, some of flax, some of papyrus fibre, to anchor the ships in the channel and to bind them to the sh.o.r.e. Two bridges were constructed, composed of large ships laid side by side in the water, while over each of them stretched six great cables, to moor them to the land and to support the wooden causeway. In one of these bridges no less than three hundred and sixty ships were employed.

And now, everything being ready, the mighty army began its march. It presented a grand spectacle as it made its way from Sardis to the sea.

First of all came the baggage, borne on thousands of camels and other beasts of burden. Then came one-half the infantry. The other half marched in the rear, while between them were Xerxes and his great body-guard, which is thus described by the Greek historian:

First came a thousand Persian cavalry and as many spearmen, each of the latter having a golden pomegranate on the rear end of his spear, which was carried in the air, the point being turned downward. Then came ten sacred horses, splendidly caparisoned, and following them rolled the sacred chariot of Zeus, drawn by eight white horses. This was succeeded by the chariot of Xerxes himself, who was immediately attended by a thousand horse-guards, the choicest troops of the kingdom, of whose spears the ends glittered with golden apples. Then came detachments of one thousand horse, ten thousand foot, and ten thousand horse. These foot-soldiers, called the Immortals, because their number was always maintained, had pomegranates of silver on their spears, with the exception of one thousand, who marched in front and rear and on the sides, and bore pomegranates of gold. After these household troops followed the vast remaining host.

The army of Xerxes was, as we have said, superior in numbers to any the world had ever seen. Forty-six nations had sent their quotas to the host, each with its different costume, arms, mode of march, and system of fighting. Only those from Asia Minor bore such arms as the Greeks were used to fight with. Most of the others were armed with javelins or other light weapons, and bore slight shields or none at all. Some came armed only with daggers and a la.s.so like that used on the American plains. The Ethiopians from the Upper Nile had their bodies painted half red and half white, wore lion-and panther-skins, and carried javelins and bows. Few of the whole army bore the heavy weapons or displayed the solid fighting phalanx of those whom they had come to meet in war.

As to the number of men thus brought together from half the continent of Asia we cannot be sure. Xerxes, after reaching Europe, took an odd way of counting his army. Ten thousand men were counted and packed close together. Then a line was drawn around them, and a wall built about the s.p.a.ce. The whole army was then marched in successive detachments into this walled enclosure. Herodotus tells us that there were one hundred and seventy of these divisions, which would make the whole army one million seven hundred thousand foot. In addition there were eighty thousand horse, many war-chariots, and a fleet of twelve hundred and seven triremes and three thousand smaller vessels. According to Herodotus, the whole host, soldiers and sailors, numbered two million six hundred and forty thousand men, and there were as many or more camp-followers, so that the whole number present, according to this estimate, was over five million men. It is not easy to believe that such a marching host as this could be fed, and it has probably been much exaggerated; yet there is no doubt that the host was vast enough almost to blow away all the armies of Greece with the wind of its coming.

On leaving Sardis a frightful spectacle was provided by Xerxes: the army found itself marching between two halves of a slaughtered man. Pythius, an old Phrygian of great riches, had entertained Xerxes with much hospitality, and offered him all his wealth, amounting to two thousand talents of silver and nearly four million darics of gold. This generous offer Xerxes declined, and gave Pythius enough gold to make up his darics to an even four millions. Then, when the army was about to march, the old man told Xerxes that he had five sons in the army, and begged that one of them, the eldest, might be left with him as a stay to his declining years. Instantly the despot burst into a rage. The request of exemption from military service was in Persia an unpardonable offence.

The hospitality of Pythius was forgotten, and Xerxes ordered that his son should be slain, and half the body hung on each side of the army, probably as a salutary warning to all who should have the temerity to question the despot's arbitrary will.

On marched the great army. It crossed the plain of Troy, and here Xerxes offered libations in honor of the heroes of the Trojan war, the story of which was told him. Reaching the h.e.l.lespont, he had a marble throne erected, from which to view the pa.s.sage of his troops. The bridges--which the scourged and branded waters had now spared--were perfumed with frankincense and strewed with myrtle boughs, and, as the march began, Xerxes offered prayers to the sun, and made libations to the sea with a golden censer, which he then flung into the water, together with a golden bowl and a Persian scimitar, perhaps to repay the h.e.l.lespont for the stripes he had inflicted upon it.

At the first moment of sunrise the pa.s.sage began, the troops marching across one bridge, the baggage and attendants crossing the other. All day the march continued, and all night long, the whip being used to accelerate the troops; yet so vast was the host that for seven days and nights, without cessation, the army moved on, and a week was at its end before the last man of the great Persian host set foot on European soil.

Then down through the Grecian peninsula Xerxes marched, doubtless inflated with pride at the greatness of his host and the might of the fleet which sailed down the neighboring seas and through the ca.n.a.l which he had cut to baffle stormy Athos. One regret alone seemed to come into his mind, and that was that in a hundred years not one man of that vast army would be alive. It did not occur to him that in less than one year few of them might be alive, for all thought of any peril to his army and fleet from the insignificant numbers of the Greeks must have been dismissed with scorn from his mind.

Like locusts the army marched southward through Thrace, eating up the cities as it advanced, for each was required to provide a day's meals for the mighty host. For months those cities had been engaged in providing the food which this army consumed in a day. Many of the cities were brought to the verge of ruin, and all of them were glad to see the army march on. At length Xerxes saw before him Mount Olympus, on the northern boundary of the land of h.e.l.las or Greece. This was the end of his own dominions. He was now about to enter the territory of his foes.

With what fortune he did so must be left for later tales.

_HOW THE SPARTANS DIED AT THERMOPYLae._

When Xerxes, as his father had done before him, sent to the Grecian cities to demand earth and water in token of submission, no heralds were sent to Athens or Sparta. These truculent cities had flung the heralds of Darius into deep pits, bidding them to take earth and water from there and carry it to the great king. This act called for revenge, and whatever mercy he might show to the rest of Greece, Athens and Sparta were doomed in his mind to be swept from the face of the earth. How they escaped this dismal fate is what we have next to tell.

As one of the great men of Athens, Miltiades, had saved his native land in the former Persian invasion, so a second patriotic citizen, Themistocles, proved her savior in the dread peril which now threatened her. But the work of Themistocles was not done in a single great battle, as at Marathon, but in years of preparation. And a war between Athens and the neighboring island of aegina had much to do with this escape from ruin.

To make war upon an island a land army was of no avail. A fleet was necessary. The Athenians were accustomed to a commercial, though not to a warlike, life upon the sea. Many of them were active, daring, and skilful sailors, and when Themistocles urged that they should build a powerful fleet he found approving listeners. Longer of sight than his fellow-citizens, he warned them of the coming peril from Persia. The conflict with the small island of aegina was a small matter compared with that threatened by the great kingdom of Persia. But to prepare against one was to prepare against both. And Athens was just then rich. It possessed valuable silver-mines at Laurium, in Attica, from which much wealth came to the state. This money Themistocles urged the citizens to use in building ships, and they were wise enough to take his advice, two hundred ships of war being built. These ships, as it happened, were not used for the purpose originally intended, that of the war with aegina.

But they proved of inestimable service to Athens in the Persian war.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PLACE OF a.s.sEMBLY OF THE ATHENIANS.]

The vast preparations of Xerxes were not beheld without deep terror in Greece. Spies were sent into Persia to discover what was being done.

They were captured and condemned to death, but Xerxes ordered that they should be shown his total army and fleet, and then sent home to report what they had seen. He hoped thus to double the terror of the Grecian states.

At home two things were done. Athens and Sparta called a congress of all the states of Greece on the Isthmus of Corinth, and urged them to lay aside all petty feuds and combine for defence against the common foe. It was the greatest and most successful congress that Greece had ever yet held. All wars came to an end. That between Athens and aegina ceased, and the fleet which Athens had built was laid aside for a greater need.

The other thing was that step always taken in Greece in times of peril, to send to the temple at Delphi and obtain from the oracle the sacred advice which was deemed so indispensable.

The reply received by Athens was terrifying. "Quit your land and city and flee afar!" cried the prophetess. "Fire and sword, in the train of the Syrian chariot, shall overwhelm you. Get ye away from the sanctuary, with your souls steeped in sorrow."

The envoys feared to carry back such a sentence to Athens. They implored the priestess for a more comforting reply, and were given the following enigma to solve: "This a.s.surance I will give you, firm as adamant. When everything else in the land of Cecrops shall be taken, Zeus grants to Athene that the wooden wall alone shall remain unconquered, to defend you and your children. Stand not to await the a.s.sailing horse and foot from the continent, but turn your backs and retire; you shall yet live to fight another day. O divine Salamis, thou too shalt destroy the children of women, either at the seed-time or at the harvest."

Here was some hope, though small. "The wooden wall"? What could it be but the fleet? This was the general opinion of the Athenians. But should they fight? Should they not rather abandon Attica forever, take to their wooden walls, and seek a new home afar? Salamis was to destroy the children of women! Did not this portend disaster in case of a naval battle?

The fate of Athens now hung upon a thread. Had its people fled to a distant land, one of the greatest chapters in the history of the world would never have been written. But now Themistocles, to whom Athens owed its fleet, came forward as its savior. If the oracle, he declared, had meant that the Greeks should be destroyed, it would have called Salamis, where the battle was to be fought, "wretched Salamis." But it had said "divine Salamis." What did this mean but that it was not the Greeks, but the enemies of Greece, who were to be destroyed? He begged his countrymen not to desert their country, but to fight boldly for its safety. Fortunately for Athens, his solution of the riddle was accepted, and the city set itself diligently to building more ships, that they might have as powerful a fleet as possible when the Persians came.

But not only Athens was to be defended; all Greece was in peril; the invaders must be met by land as well as by sea. Greece is traversed by mountain ranges, which cross from sea to sea, leaving only difficult mountain paths and narrow seaside pa.s.ses. One of these was the long and winding defile to Tempe, between Mounts Olympus and Ossa, on the northern boundary of Greece. There a few men could keep back a numerous host, and thither at first marched the small army which dared to oppose the Persian millions, a little band of ten thousand men, under the command of a Spartan general.