Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/112

Rh eventually made by a few states only. Sparta, as the lead ing city of Greece, took the first step towards the forma tion of a national party, by convening a congress at the isthmus of Corinth in the autumn of 481. Here Them- istocles showed his statesmanship by prevailing on the Athenians to abstain from disputing the hegemony of Sparta. Most of the Peloponnesian cities were represented at the congress. But Argos and Achaia, jealous of Sparta, held aloof. In Boeotia, Thebes, the enemy of Athens, favoured Persia. In Thessaly the dynasty of the Aleuadse were the active allies of the invader. Gelon of Syracuse refused to aid unless he were to lead. The Corcyreans promised sixty ships, but did not send them. Crete also failed to help. The states which fought against Persia were then these only, Sparta with her Pelopon nesian allies, Athens, ^Egiua, Megara, Plataea, Thespian. This national league expressed indeed the principle of Greek unity, but Greece was far from being united. The "medizing" party was strong, and it counted some adher ents in many even of the patriotic cities. Wherever democracy had enemies Persia had friends.

The first idea of the national defence was to arrest the torrent of invasion at some northerly point which could be held against great numerical odds. Tempe proving unten able, it was resolved to makfi a stand at Thermopylae. When Leonidas had fallen with his 300 Spartans and the 700 Thespians who shared their heroic death, the next ob ject of the Peloponnesian allies was to guard the isthmus hens, of Corinth. The peculiar misfortune of Athens in the war was her position between two gates, the first of which had been forced by the enemy. The Greek leaders seem to have assumed at first that it was vain to oppose the Persian land forces in an open field. Xerxes occupied Athens, and the flames which destroyed its houses and temples at last avenged the burning of Sardis. The Greek ships, which had gained some advantage over the Persian fleet at Artemisium in the northern waters of the Euboean strait, had moved to Salamis as soon as it was known that the Persians had passed Thermopylae. The homeless popula tion of Athens had been conveyed to Salamis, ^gina, and Trcezen before the arrival of Xerxes. And now the fore cast of Themistocles was verified. Athens, and Greece itself, were saved chiefly by the Athenian ships, 200 in number out of a total of 366. The Peloponnesian leaders wished to withdraw the fleet to the isthmus. Themistocles saw that if it left Salamis it would disperse. He sent word to Xerxes that the Greeks meditated escape. The Persian fleet surrounded them in the night. Next day the tie of battle of Salamis was fought. Of 1000 Persian ships, 200 imis. were destroyed ; the rest fled. It was on the same day that Gelon of Syracuse defeated the Carthaginians at Himera in Sicily (480 B.C.). Xerxes lost heart and re treated to Asia, leaving Mardonius with 300,000 men to finish the war. In the summer of 479 Athens was again occupied and destroyed by the Persians. Now at length Sparta came to the rescue. Pausanias, the guardian of the young son of Leonidas, led 110,000 of the allies into Boeotia, and utterly defeated the army of Mardonius near Plataea (479 B.C.). On the same day the troops of the Greek fleet defeated those of the Persian fleet in a battle on the shore at Mycale near Miletus. This victory set Ionia free from Persia.

The Persian wars had revealed both the weakness and the strength of Greece. The hereditary aristocracy of Thessaly had shown that they were eager to establish the supremacy of their house with the help of Asiatic despotism. Such states as Argos and Thebes had not been ashamed to indulge jealousy and party spirit by betrayal of the com mon cause. Even Sparta and the Peloponnesian allies had been disposed to confine their endeavours to the defence of their own peninsula, leaving Athens and the northern cities to their fate. On the other hand the struggle had brought into strong relief the contrast between absolute monarchy and constitutional freedom. This appeared in two things : the Greek strategy was superior ; and the Greek troops fought better. Athens, in particular, had shown how both the intelligence and the spirit of citizens are raised by equal laws. The mistakes of the invaders, which, to a Greek mind, might well have seemed the work of Ate, were such as are natural when a vast force is directed by the intemperance of a single will. Artemisia, and Demaratus advised Xerxes to occupy Cythera. The Thebans advised Mardonius to sow dissension among the Greeks by means of bribes. Both counsels were judicious, and both were neglected. Time is, in war, the surest ally of superior numbers and resources ; but the impatience of the Persian commanders staked everything on a few pitched battles. Again, the Persians, unlike the Lydians of old, destroyed the Greek temples. They thus conferred an immense moral advantage on their antagonist. He could no longer doubt that he was helped by his gods.

IV. The Period of Athenian Supremacy, 478-404 B.C.

In the space from the Persian to the Peloponnesian War the central interest belongs to Athens. The growth of Athenian empire, the successive phases through which it passed, and its influence on the rest of Greece, the inner development of Athenian life, political, intellectual, social, these are the salient features in a period of about fifty years. The first care of Themistocles after the repulse of the Persian invasion was to restore the fortifications of Athens. The jealous interference of Sparta, instigated by ^Egina and Corinth, was defeated by his ingenuity. A wall of larger circuit than the old one was built round Athens, and a strong wall was also carried round the Piraeus. The Persians had been driven out of Ionia, but they still held many places on the Thracian and Asiatic coasts. The Spartan Pausanias, commanding the Greek fleet, took Byzantium from the Persians in 478. He now formed the design of making himself a despot, and his adoption of the manners of a Persian grandee became so offensive to the Greek captains that they requested the Athenian commanders to assume the leadership of the fleet. Pausanias was recalled to Sparta, and his successor found that the hegemony had already changed hands. The league, of which Athens now became the head (477 B.C.), was intended to continue the national defence against Persia. Its special purpose was to guard the vEgean. Aristides was chosen to assess the rate of contribution for the members. The representatives of the several cities met at the temple of Apollo in Delos, where the common fund was also deposited. Hence the league was called the Confederacy of Delos. It was only gradually that this free confederacy, with Athens for a president, passed into an Athenian empire over tributary cities. At first each city contributed ships to the common fleet. But the practice arose of allowing some cities to contribute money instead of ships. A city which did this had no control over Athens, and no protection against attack. One after another of the discontented allies revolted from Athens, and was forcibly reduced to the condition of a subject. Naxoe was the earliest example (466 B.C.) ; Thasos was the next (465 B.C.); and as early as 449 B.C. only three insular allies remained free, Samos, Lesbos, and Chios. The transfer of the common fund from Delos to Athens (about 459 B.C.) was merely the outward sign of a change in which most members of the original league had already been compelled to acquiesce. In the earlier years of the Confederacy the work for which it had been formed was not neglected. Of the successes gained against Persia the 