Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/111

Rh partly through the shameful desertion of the Samians and Lesbians during the battle (496 B.C.). The Persians soon afterwards took Miletus by storm (495 B.C.). The Greek cities of the Asiatic sea board and of the Thracian Cher sonese successively fell before them.

But the vengeance of Darius was not yet complete. He could not forget that Greeks from beyond the sea had helped to barn Sardis, and he resolved that the punishment of Athens and Eretria should be as signal as that of his own vassals in Ionia. A Persian army, under Mardonius, crossed the Hellespont and advanced through Thrace. But the Persian fleet which accompanied it was shattered by a storm in rounding Mount Athos. The progress of Mar donius was also checked by the Thracians, and he retreated to Asia.

The ambition of Mardonius had been to bring all European Hellas under the rule of the Achsemenidaa. The second Persian expedition, guided by more cautious counsel, had a narrower scope. It was directed strictly against those states which the great king had vowed to punish. The intrigues of the Pisistratidse were busy in promoting it, and Hippias was to lend his personal guidance to its leaders. But before the new force set out Persian agents were sent through Greece to demand the symbols of sub mission from the cities. Most of the islands feared to re fuse, ^Egina, now a prosperous maritime power, complied from another motive than fear. Even Persia was welcome to her as an ally against Athens. The Athenians called upon Sparta, whom they thus recognised as the head of Greece, to punish this treason to the Hellenic cause ; and Cleo- menes, after overcoming the opposition of his royal col league, Demaratus, took an arbitrary revenge on the vEginetans by depositing ten men of their chief families in the hands of the Athenians.

In 490 B.C. the second Persian expedition crossed the ./Egean under the command of Datis and Artaphernes. Naxos was sacked, Eretria was betrayed. It seemed hardly doubtful that Athens too must fall. The Persians landed in the bay of Marathon, enclosed by the spurs of Brilessus (Pentelicuss) and the hills of the Diacria. They thus avoided the dangers of a voyage round a rocky coast ; and no part of Attica, Hippias told them, was so favourable to cavalry, The Athenians had sent for help to Sparta; but a religious scruple forbade the Spartans to march before the time of the full moon. Nine thousand Athenian citizens, with the slaves who carried their shields, went forth to meet the Persians at Marathon, On the way they were joined by a thousand Plataeans, the whole force of that city, who came to stand by their old protectors. Miltiades, formerly the ruler of the Chersonese, was one of the ten Athenian generals. Five of these voted for awaiting Spartan help. The other five, led by Miltiades, were for giving battle at once ; and the vote of the polemarch, Callimachus, turned the scale in their favour. The Greeks charged down from the hillside upon the Persians. The Greek centre was driven in, but the Greek wings prevailed, and then closed upon the Persian centre. The Persians fled to their ships. Six thousand Persians fell. The Greek loss was about 192. Believing that traitors at Athens had signalled to the Persians to surprise the city while undefended, the army hastened back, The Persian fleet soon approached, but seeing troops on the shore, sailed away for Asia.

After the victory of Marathon Miltiades was all-power ful at Athens. He asked the people to give him a fleet, in order that he might strike another blow at Persia while the effects of Marathon were fresh. His demand was granted. But he employed the fleet in an attempt to wreak a private grudge on the island of Paros. At the end of twenty-six days he returned to Athens baffled, and suffering from a wound.,in the thigh. He was indicted for having deceived the people, and was sentenced to a fine of about 12,000. Being unable to pay it, he was disfran chised as a public debtor. His wound mortified, and he died, leaving debt and dishonour to his son. Aristides was now the most influential man at Athens, as Themistoclea was the ablest. Themistocles foresaw that the Persians would return, and that Athens could resist them only on the sea. He aimed therefore at creating an Athenian navy. Already (491 B.C.) he had persuaded the Athenians to set about fortifying the peninsula of the Piraeus, which, with its three harbours commanded by the height of Munychia, offered greater advantages thai) the open roadstead of Phalerum. He now urged that the revenues from the silver mines of Laurium should be applied to building a fleet. The frequent hostilities between Athens and ^Egina enforced the advice. Before 480 B.C. Athens had acquired 200 triremes. Aristides was at the head of a party who viewed this movement with alarm. Had not the naval empire of Miletus, Chios, and Samos been transient? The land-holding citizens who had fought at Marathon would give place to a mob of sailors and traders. An unstable democracy would carry the state out of the ancient ways. The strife of parties came to an issue. An ostracism was held, and Aristides was banished, probably in 484 or 483 B.C. Themistocles remained the leader of Athens in the new path which he himself had opened. Athens was now the first maritime power of Greece.

The repulse at Marathon had probably not prevented the Persian commanders from representing their expedition as in a great measure successful. Darius resolved on the complete subjugation of Greece. But, when vast prepara tions had been in progress for three years, he died, leaving the throne to Xerxes, the eldest of his four sons by Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus (485 B.C.). Xerxes was not, like his father, a born ruler or a trained warrior. But he was profoundly convinced that all human beings were the natural slaves of the Persian king ; and he was influenced by a strong war-party in the palace, with Atossa and Mardonius at its head. The house of Pisistratus, the ambitious Aleuadas of Thessaly, and Demaratus, the exiled king of Sparta, united in urging an invasion of Greece. It was in vain that Artabanus, the uncle of the king, argued on behalf of the moderate party at the court. Orders were given to raise such an armament as the world had never seen, a host which should display the whole resources of the empire from the Indus to the .^Egean, from the Danube to the Nile. Forty-six nations were represented by the forces which wintered at Sardis in 481 B.C. A fleet of 1200 triremes, and about 3000 transports and smaller craft, assembled near Cyme and Phocsea on the Ionian coast. In the spring of 480 B.C. Xerxes led about a million of men to the Hellespont, whither the fleet went before to meet them.

Greece was probably never stronger than it was at this time. The population of the Peloponnesus may have been about two millions. Athens, according to Herodotus, had 30,000 citizens. The Boeotian towns and the islands were prosperous. The proportion of slaves to freemen varied from perhaps four to one at Athens to as much as ten to one at Corinth or yEgina. Life was still simple and vigorous. Society was not divided into rich classes enervated by luxury and poor classes enfeebled by want. The public pahestras were schools of physical training for war. But that which Greece lacked was political unity. Aristocracy and democracy were already rival forces. Everywhere the aristocrats felt that a victory over Persia must have a national character, and must so far be a victory for the people. They inclined therefore to the Persian cause ; and the stand in defence of Greece was 