Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/214

 170 Outlines of European History Rise of Themistocles His plan for creation of a fleet Persian prep- arations for a third invasion Themistocles creates a fleet closed in on either side and thrust back the Persian wings in confusion. The Asiatic army crumbled into a broken multitude between the two advancing lines of Greeks. The Persian bow was useless, and the Greek spear everywhere spread death and terror. As the Persians fled to their ships they left over six thousand dead upon the field, while the Athenians lost less than two hundred men (Fig. 84).^ When the Persian commander, unwilling to acknowledge defeat, sailed around the Attic pen- insula and appeared with his fleet before the port of Athens, he found it unwise to attempt a landing, for the victorious Athenian army was already encamped beside the city. Among the men who stood in the Athenian ranks at Marathon was Themistocles, the ablest statesman in Greece, a man who had already occupied the office of archon, the head of the Athenian state. As archon Themistocles had striven to con- vince the Athenians that the only way in which Athens could hope to meet the assault of Persia was by making herself un- disputed mistress of the sea. He had failed in his effort. But now the Athenians had seen the Persians cross the ^gean with their fleet and land at Marathon. It was evident that a powerful Athenian navy might have stopped them. They began to listen to the counsels of Themistocles to make Athens the great sea power of the Mediterranean. Darius the Persian died without having avenged his defeat at Marathon, but his son and successor, Xerxes, took up the unfinished task. He was prevailed upon by his able general Mardonius to adopt the Hellespont route. When the Athenians- saw that Xerxes' commanders were cutting a canal behind the promontory of Athos, to secure a short cut and thus to avoid all risk of such a wreck as had overtaken their former fleet in rounding this dangerous point, Themistocles was able to induce the Assembly to build a great fleet of probably a hundred and eighty triremes. 1 The mound raised by the Athenians in honor of the fallen Greeks still marks the battlefield, a sacred memorial reverently visited by many travelers.