Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/152

124 about their task of restoration. The conference once more assembled at Corinth and passed sentence on the medizing party at Thebes and other cities, and the rest, after dividing the spoil and deciding on the prize of valour, dispersed to their several homes. One question which helped to keep Greece divided was thus settled. But the honour of those states which had stood for Greek freedom was perpetuated by the inscription on a bronze stand of twisted serpents, on which once stood a golden tripod, placed by Pausanias at Delphi, and still existing at Constantinople, to which it was transferred seven hundred years later by Constantine the Great. It contains the names of thirty-one states, which include not only those who fought at Plataea, but those who had taken any part in the war by land or sea.

For it was not only continental Greece that was saved. The benefit reached the islanders and the Greek cities in Asia. Early in the spring of B.C. 479 the Greek fleet of 110 ships mustered at Aegina, and in response to an urgent request from Samos started for the coast of Asia. For some time it remained at Delos, not venturing for some time to approach a district which, though it contained many Greek cities, had for twenty years been regarded as under the undisputed sway of the great king. The Cyclades were indeed securely Greek, and had only suffered a passing visitation of the Persian fleet; but to attack the islands off the Asiatic shore, and Asia itself, seemed too venturesome. At the same time the Persian fleet mustered at Samos, but feared to go