Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/157

 BATTLE OF SALAMIS. — RETREAT OF XERXES. 133 tains Ameinias and Lykomedes (the former, brother of the poet .iEschylus) were the first to obey either the feminine voice or the inspirations of their own ardor : though according to the version current at -3Sgina, it was the -^ginetan ship, the can'ier of the -^akid heroes, which first set this honorable example. 1 The Naxian Demokritus was celebrated by Simonides as the third ship in action. Ameinias, darting forth from the line, charged with the beak of his ship full against a Phenician, and the two became entangled so that he could not again get clear : other ships came in aid on both sides, and the action thus became gen- eral. Herodotus, with his usual candor, tells us that he could procure few details about the action, except as to what concei'ned Artemisia, the queen of his own city : so that we know hardly anything beyond the general facts. But it appears that, with the exception of the Ionic Greeks, many of whom — apparently a greater number than Herodotus likes to acknowledge — were lukewarm, and some even averse,^ the subjects of Xerxes con- ducted themselves generally with great bravery : Phenicians, Cyprians, Kilikians, Egyptians, vied Avith the Persians and TO Tuv 'E?.?^^vuv GTpaTOTTedov, oveidlaacrav Trporepov tuSe • 'Q daifiovioc, fi^XP'- lioaov ETi Tzpvfivav avuKpovEad-F ; ^schylus (Pers. 396-415) describes finely the war-shout of the Greeks and the response of the Persians : for very good reasons, he does not notice the incipient backwardness of the Greeks, which Herodotus brings before us. The war-shout, here described by .^^schylus, a warrior actually engaged, shows us the difference between a naval combat of that day and the im- proved tactics of the Athenians fifty years after^-ards, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian wax-. Phonnio especially enjoins on his men the neces- sity of silence (Thucyd. ii, 89). ' Simonides, Epigram 138, Bergk ; Plutarch, De Herodot. Malignitate, C.36. According to Plutarch (Themist. 12) and Diodoms (xi, 17), it was the Persian admiral's ship which was first charged and captured : if the fact had been so, JEschylus would probably have specified it. gives a long list of the names of those who fought against Athens, does not make any allusion to the Ionic or to any other Greeks as having formed part of the catalogue. See Blomfield ad ^schyl. Pers. 42. Such silence easily admits of explanation : yet it affords au additional reason for believ- ing that the persons so admitted did not fight very heartily.
 * Herodot. viii, 85; Diodor. xi, 16. JSschylus, in the Persse, though he