Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/222

 198 mSTORY OF GREECE. Samians ; next, other lonians and iEolians ; lastly, the Milesians who had been posted to guard the passes in the rear, not only- deserted, but took an active part in the attack ; and the Milesians especially, to whom the Persians had trusted for guidance up to the summits of Mykale, led them by wrong roads, threw them into the hands of their pursuers, and at last set upon them with their own hands. A large number of the native Persians, together with both the generals of the land-force, Tigranes and Mardontes, perished in this disastrous battle : the two Persian admirals, Arta}Tites and Ithamithres, escaped, but the army was irretrieva- bly dispersed, while all the ships which had been dragged up on the shore fell into the hands of the assailants, and were burned. But the victory of the Greeks was by no means bloodless : among the left wing, upon which the brunt of the action had fallen, a considerable number of men were slain, especially Sikyonians, with their commander Perilaus.i The honors of the battle were awarded, first to the Athenians, next to the Corinthians, Siky- onians, and Troezenians ; the Lacedaemonians having done com- paratively little. Hermolykus the Athenian, a celebrated pankra- tiast, was the warrior most distinguished for individual feats of arms.2 The dispersed Persian array, so much of it at least as had at first found protection on the heights of Mykale, was withdrawn from the coast forthwith to Sardis under the command of Ar- tayntes, whom Masistes, the brother of Xerxes, bitterly re- proached on the score of cowardice in the recent defeat: the general was at length so maddened by a repetition of these in- sults, that he drew his cimeter and would have slain Masistes, had he not been prevented by a Greek of Halikarnassus named Xenagoras,3 who was rewarded by Xerxes with the government ' Herodot. ix, 104, 105. Diodorus (xi, 36) seems to follow diflferent authorities from Herodotus : his statement varies in many particulars, but is less probable. Herodotus does not specify the loss on either side, nor Diodorus that of the Greeks; but the latter says that forty thousand Persians and allies were slain. » Herodot. ix, 105. ' Herodot. ix, 107. I do not know whether we may suppose Herodotus to have heard this from his fellow-citizen Xenagoras.