Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/129

 BATTLE OF SALAMIS.- RETREAT OF XERXES. 105 and Peloponnesians in the defensibility of Thermopylre and Artemisium, that when the news of the disaster reached them, not a single soldier had yet been put in motion : the season of the festival games had passed, but no active step had yet been taken.i Meanwhile the invading force, army and fleet, was in its progress towards Attica and Peloponnesus, without the least preparations, — and, Avhat was still worse, without any com- bined and concerted plan, — for defending the heart of Greece The loss sustained by Xerxes at Thermojjylse, insignificant in proportion to his vast total, was more than compensated by the fresh Grecian auxiliaries which he now acquired. Not merely the Malians, Lokrians, and Doi-ians, but also the great mass of the Bceotians, with their chief town Thebes, all except Thespite and Platfea, now joined him.2 Demaratus, his Spartan com- panion, moved forward to Thebes to renew an ancient tie of hospitality with the Theban oligarchical leader, Attaginus, while small garrisons were sent by Alexander of Macedon to most of the Boeotian towns,3 as well to protect them, from plunder as to insure their fidelity. The Thespians, on the other hand, aban- doned their city, and fled into Peloponnesus ; while the Platceans, •who had been serving aboard the Athenian ships at Artemisium,4 were disembarked at Chalkis as the fleet retreated, for the pur- pose of marching by land to their city, and removing their fami- lies. Nor was it only the land-force of Xerxes which had been thus strengthened ; his fleet also had received some accessions from Karystus in Euboea, and from several of the Cyclades, — so that the losses sustained by the storm at Sepias and the fights at Artemisium, if not wholly made up, were at least in part repaired, while the fleet remained still prodigiously superior in number to that of the Greeks.^ ' Herodot. viii, 40, 71, 73. ' Herodot. viii, 66. Diodorus calls the battle of Thermopylffi a Kad- vieian victory for Xei-xes, — which is time only in the letter, but not in the spirit : he doubtless lost a greater number of men in the pass than the Greeks, but the advantage which he gained was prodigious (Diodor.xi, 12); and Diodorus himself sets forth the terror of the Greeks after the event (xi, 13-15). ' Plutarch, De Herodot. Malignit. p. 864 ; Herodot. viii, 34. 5*
 * Herodot. viii, 44, 50. * Herodot. viii, 66.