Page:The American encyclopedia of history, biography and travel (IA americanencyclop00blak).pdf/74

 combatants fought with all the keenness of personal resentment. The slaughter in such engagements was correspondingly great, the fight seldom terminating till one of the parties was nearly destroyed, or at least greatly reduced in numbers.

It was a people so animated and prepared that the hosts of Persia were about to encounter. Compelled to meet the invaders unassisted, the Athenians were able to march an army of only 9000 men, exclusive of about as many light-armed slaves, into the field. With Miltiades as their leader and commander-in-chief, they met the Persians in battle on the plain of Marathon, thirty miles from Athens, and by great skill and courage, and the force of their close phalanx of spearmen, completely conquered them. Upwards of 6000 Persians were slain on the field, while the number killed of the Athenians was but 192. This is reckoned by historians one of the most important victories in ancient times, for it saved the independence of the whole of Greece. To the disgrace of the fickle Athenians, they afterwards showed the greatest ingratitude to Miltiades, and put him in prison on a charge of favoring the Persians. He died there the year after his great victory. Soon after, the citizens of Athens, on a plea equally unfounded, banished Aristides, an able leader of the aristocratic party in the state, and who, from his strict integrity and wisdom, was usually entitled 'Aristides the Just.' On the banishment of this eminent individual, Themistocles, a person who was more democratic in his sentiments, became the leader of the councils of the Athenians. Meanwhile the Grecian liberties were again menaced by the Persians. Xerxes, son of Darius, marched an army across the Hellespont by a bridge of boats from the Asiatic shore, and led it towards the southern part of Greece. The utmost force that the confederate Greeks could oppose to the countless host of Persians, did not exceed 60,000 men. Of these, a band of Spartans, numbering 8,000 soldiers, under Leonidas their king, was posted at the pass of Thermopylae, to intercept the enemy, and here they discomfited every successive column of the Persians as it entered the defile. Ultimately, foreseeing certain destruction, Leonidas commanded all to retire but 300, with whom he proposed to give the Persians some idea of what the Greeks could submit to for the sake of their country. He and his 300 were cut off to a man. Xerxes took possession of Attica and Athens, but in the naval battle with the Athenian fleet at Salamis, which occurred soon after [October 20, 480 ], his army was utterly routed, and its scattered remains retreated into Asia.

By this splendid victory the naval power of Persia was almost annihilated, and the spirit of its monarch so completely humbled, that he durst no longer undertake offensive operations against Greece. Here, therefore, the war ought to have terminated; but so great and valuable had been the spoils obtained by the confederate forces, that they were unwilling to relinquish such a profitable contest. The war, therefore, was continued for twenty years longer, less, apparently, for the chastisement of Persia, than for the plunder of her conquered provinces.

But now that all danger was over, many of the smaller states, whose population was scanty, began to grow weary of the contest, and to furnish with reluctance their annual contingent of men to reinforce the allied fleet. It was, in consequence, arranged that those states whose citizens were unwilling to perform personal service, should send merely their proportion of