Thermopylæ taken, and Artemisium deserted, the way southwards, both by land and sea, was now open to the invading force. No doubt the general plan of future operations was discussed in the Persian council of war. It may be that, owing to the presence of the Spartan Demaratos, some faint echo of the discussion reached Greek ears. It may be, too, that Herodotus’ story of the interview of Demaratos and Achæmenes with Xerxes after the capture of Thermopylæ contains some hint of the general lines which it followed. According to his tale, the main question was whether a part of the fleet should create a diversion against Sparta in South Peloponnese, or whether such a division of the naval forces might be undesirable. Achæmenes was strongly in favour of keeping the fleet together and crushing the Greeks by mere weight of numbers; and Xerxes decided in favour of this plan. It is needless to say that the story cannot be taken au pied de la lettre. In its main lines it may be true; in one of its details it contains what is almost certainly an anachronism. That the desperate defence of the pass may have suggested to some members of the council of war the advisability of taking measures to distract the attention of Sparta from the general defence is extremely likely. Herodotus puts the suggestion in the mouth of Demaratos, who is also represented as proposing a way in which his plan could be carried out—by the occupation of Kythera, a large island off the mouth of the Laconian gulf. ROUTE FROM THERMOPYLÆ. “Chilon,” he said, “who was the wisest man among us, asserted that it would be better for Sparta were the island not above water but below it, because he always expected that something of the kind which I am describing to you would come from it, not with special reference to your expedition, but because he dreaded all invasions alike.” Demaratos then proposed to the king that he should make this island the base of operations against the Lacedæmonian territory.

So runs the tale in Herodotus.

The mention of Kythera in this connection, taken in conjunction with the evidence which this part of the history affords of its having been composed during the early years of the Peloponnesian war, suggests that Herodotus has probably attributed to Demaratos in 480 a strategical proposal which was much discussed in Athens at the time at which he wrote, T. iv. 53, ff. and which was actually carried out a few years later when Nikias in 424 occupied this island.

The reliable part of Herodotus’ story is probably confined to the raising of the question whether or not some diversion against Sparta should be attempted. Into this account Herodotus has inserted a detail borrowed from a similar strategic question of his own day.

The way in which the advance by sea should be conducted being settled, it was necessary to decide upon the line or lines of advance by land. From Thermopylæ to the Attic border the Greek military highway is defined with singular clearness by the nature of the country. Œta forms the first barrier to be passed. The question of the utility of the Asopos ravine has been already discussed. For the purposes of a large army it is impracticable. Infantry could only pass through it in single file; and even a slight accident, or a slight rise in the stream, would block it. For a lightly equipped column with numbers not so large as to make it impossible for it to live on the country in its passage of the Dorian and Phocian plains, it would be a practicable route under circumstances such as existed at the time. Little opposition was to be expected; and it would be merely the question of a day or two before a junction could be effected with the main army, which would reach Parapotamii where the Phocian plain ends and the Bœotian begins, by the great route by way of Hyampolis. Besides the Asopos ravine there were three other routes from Thermopylæ southwards. The first of these led out of the pass up a steep ascent of one hour, and crossed the range of Œta, by way of the modern Boudenitza, to the ancient Elatæa. It is a mere mountain path, a way which an army without a heavy baggage train might adopt in an emergency, or by which a force defeated at Thermopylæ might secure its retreat. The second left the coast road near Thronion and passed up the valley of the Boagrios river, at the head of which it crossed the mountain ridge, and descended to Elatæa. It was certainly of importance in later times, though not fitted for the passage of a heavy baggage train, and difficult for cavalry. Hence, probably, there is no trace of its having been used by the Persian army on this occasion. The route by Atalanta and Hyampolis is admirably adapted for the advance of a large force. It presents but few difficulties to cavalry or baggage-train, and affords but few facilities to the defence. In this very part of his history Herodotus, in his excursus on the pre-existing relations between the Thessalians and Phocians, gives an example which shows pretty clearly that it was the route by which incursions of the Thessalian cavalry had to be feared. In an undated, but presumably recent war between the two peoples, H. viii. 28. the Phocians had inflicted a severe defeat on the raiding cavalry in the pass near Hyampolis. They had dug a trench across it, filled it with large pottery, and covered it with earth. Into this the Thessalian horsemen had fallen, and had incurred signal disaster.

The three minor routes join this major route at Parapotamii. There is, however, a loop of the main road, which, starting from Hyampolis, passes over a ridge to Orchomenos and joins the main road again outside the mountain gate at Parapotamii.

Near this point in Mid Bœotia the invader from the north is faced by a barrier of a composite character, which, though not homogeneous, is one of the most effective in the whole of Greece. From the west the spurs of Helicon came down to the marshy expanse of Lake Kopais, a hundred square miles of shallow reed-covered mere, when the winter rains had raised it to its full height. From Kopais to the Euripus extended a narrow mountainous region, never rising to any great height, but exceedingly rough and broken, and affording no way of passage through it better than a mere track.

The consequence of this natural formation of the country was that an invader from the north was confined in his advance to the narrow breadth of land between Helicon and Kopais. So this mere ribbon of country became the great battle-ground of Greece, and on it the fate of the land was again and again decided at Chæronea, Koronea, and elsewhere. This part of the great northern route may be said to end at Thebes, which town, like Larisa and Lamia, was not merely a point where important roads converged, but also a point which must be passed in the passage from the North. To it came the great road which has just been described, and also a hardly less important road, which ran from Chalkis on the Eastern sea, and was continued through it to Kreusis on the Corinthian Gulf. Thebes was thus one of the great strategic positions in Greece.

Xerxes’ main object after taking Thermopylæ was to strike at Attica. Two minor objects had to be attained by the way; the punishment of the Phocians, and the plunder of Delphi.

The Phocians were the only people in the north, so Herodotus says, who did not medize. The Bœotians, wavering if not disloyal before, doubtless medized en masse after Thermopylæ had shown them the insincerity of the Council at the Isthmus with regard to the defence of the north. It is difficult to account for the Phocian attitude. H. viii. 30. Herodotus says they were simply actuated by the desire to take the opposite side to the Thessalians. It is possible that they dared not trust to the mercy of the Persian, seeing they had taken part in the defence of Thermopylæ. Besides, their own deadly foes were in the enemy’s camp. Whatever their motive was, H. viii. 30, ad fin. they took the moral ground of refusing to be traitors to their fatherland, and rejected the offer of the Thessalians to save them at a price.

The first step in the march south which Herodotus describes is the invasion of Phocis. H. viii. 31. A body of troops, under the guidance of the Thessalians, made their way into Doris, that dreary little upland plain at the head of the Kephissos basin. The route taken must have been by the Asopos defile. Doris was left unharmed. It had medized; and, besides, the Thessalians intervened on its behalf. Its poverty may have had something to do with its salvation on this occasion.148

From Doris the invaders passed into Phocis. There is no natural boundary between the two plains; and the records of the history of this region, dim though they are, point to a frequent shifting of the frontier. The Phocians had one retreat to which they could always resort; and, before the invasion was on them, they took to the heights of Parnassus, whose great humped mass rises more than seven thousand five hundred feet above the plain. It was evidently the accustomed refuge of the race. They had adopted the same plan at the time of the undated Thessalian attack on their country.

The actual place of refuge on this occasion was Tithorea, not apparently at this time the city which it became later, but a strong natural position, which could be easily defended. PERSIAN RAID ON DELPHI. Many of them, however, had made their way to Amphissa, at the head of the Krissæan plain, not far from Delphi, passing thither, doubtless, through Dorian territory by way of the direct pass through the mountains from Kytinion to Amphissa, which is the southern continuation of the Thermopylæ-Delphi route by way of the Asopos ravine.

The destruction which the Persians wrought in Phocis was complete in so far as the plain was concerned. Its cities were plundered and destroyed; and the great oracular shrine at Abæ, close to Hyampolis, was robbed of its treasures and burnt to the ground.

At Parapotamii the plunderers from the plain would meet with the main force, which must have come round by the Atalanta route, to which the destruction of Abæ and Hyampolis may presumably be attributed.149 It was from this point that a flying column was sent to attack Delphi, while the mass of the army held on its way through Bœotia. The route followed in the march to Delphi must have been the celebrated “divided way” (σχίστη ὁδός), made famous in the myth of Œdipus, H. viii. 35. for Herodotus mentions that they passed by Daulis and left Parnassus on their right. The object of this expedition was to seize the immensely valuable offerings at the great shrine, and especially those of Crœsus, the Lydian king.

The element of the supernatural plays so large a part in the tale of the adventures of this band of plunderers, that it is impossible to say with certainty what really happened. Some catastrophe overtook them in the immediate neighbourhood of Delphi itself; and the very remarkable physical characteristics of the neighbourhood of the town, together with the story in Herodotus divested of its supernatural element, render it possible to hazard a conjecture as to what was the actual nature of this catastrophe.

Delphi stood on a mere shelf of rock where the south slope of Parnassus sinks into a narrow cleft-like valley more than three thousand feet deep. On the north a perpendicular cliff of several hundred feet in height overhangs the site, and continues both east of it towards Amphissa until it meets the valley which comes south from that town; and also westward, towards the modern Aráchova, some two hours distant. South of the town the ground falls with great steepness towards the bottom of the Pleistos valley, two thousand five hundred feet below.

On the news of the approach of the Persians some of the inhabitants of Delphi fled to Amphissa, in whose strong acropolis, commanding the direct road from Kytinion and the north, some of the Phocian refugees had shut themselves. Others, however, had taken refuge in the Corycian cave and on the summit of the cliffs above the town; and it is to these latter that the quasi-supernatural disaster which overtook the Persians must be attributed. The latter, coming from the direction of Aráchova, arrived at the temple of Pronaia Athene, which lay outside and west of the sacred precinct, beyond the ravine down which the stream from the Castalian spring makes its way. Cf. H. viii. 39. At this point the road would pass under the cliffs, and doubtless the refugees on their summit rained a shower of rocks on the advancing Persian band, who fled in disorder. Nothing is said about the number of the band, but, as it was on a mere plundering raid, it was probably not large.150

The war had now reached its most critical stage.

On the return of the fleet from Artemisium, the Athenians discovered the desertion which had led to the disaster at Thermopylæ.

“They intended to call a council to consider the situation, since their expectation had been falsified; for they supposed that they would find the Peloponnesians in full force in Bœotia awaiting the barbarians. STRATEGIC SITUATION. They found nothing of the kind; nay, they heard that they were fortifying the Isthmus to the Peloponnese, making its salvation and defence their one great object, and letting the rest of Greece take its chance.”

They had evidently supposed that some large force was on its way to Thermopylæ at the time when the disaster took place, and had expected to find, at any rate, an army in Bœotia. What they actually discovered was that the Peloponnesians were fortifying the Isthmus, and were concentrating the defence on that point. The Peloponnesian party had at last shown its hand. Thermopylæ had been a mere pretence, an attempt to purchase the aid of the Athenian fleet, and, possibly, of the Northern States, at the cheapest rate possible,—at a much cheaper rate, indeed, than the price which had been actually paid. The idea of the Peloponnesians at this time evidently was that the Athenians might be led to suppose that, as the defence of so strong a position as Thermopylæ had been unsuccessful, no other position north of the Isthmus could possibly be regarded as tenable.

That which the Athenian commanders did recognize was that, as in their absence at Artemisium no sort of attempt had been made to provide for the defence of either the passage by Lake Kopais or of the Kithæron-Parnes line of mountains, the military situation must be, perforce, accepted, and their efforts must be concentrated on inducing the allies to take a sound view of the necessities of the naval position. In its main outlines it was plain to the dullest intelligence. The defence of the Isthmus was as much, if not more, dependent on the fleet than that of Thermopylæ. If the Persians could once land troops in Argolis, the position at the Isthmus was fatally turned. The saving factor in the situation was that the fleet was just as necessary an adjunct for the Peloponnesian as for the Northern policy. But when it became a question how the fleet should act as an aid to the defence of the Isthmus, the decision was by no means so clear. The fighting on the last day at Artemisium had shown the danger of meeting a greatly superior force on open water, where the smaller fleet could be outflanked; and the coast in the immediate neighbourhood of the Isthmus itself afforded no position which, if taken up, would guarantee the Greek fleet from attack on either flank. That was evidently the ruling consideration which decided the Greeks, on the recommendation of Themistocles, to take up their station in Salamis strait But even after that position was taken up, Themistocles must have been painfully conscious that, if the Persians chose to ignore the Greek fleet at Salamis, and to sail straight to the Isthmus, the situation would be dangerous to the last degree.

It must be recognized that in this great war the darkness before the dawn of Greek victory was intense. The strategy which led the Greek fleet to take its station at Salamis was the strategy of despair. It was adopted because there was no alternative. The only possibility of success depended upon the Persians being induced to attack the fleet in its chosen position; and this accounts for the manifest anxiety which Themistocles showed to do everything, to run even the risk of a charge of the grossest treachery, in order to bring about an engagement in the strait. One thing favoured his design. The Persians had shown at Artemisium that they intended, if they could, not merely to defeat, but to capture the whole Greek fleet Salamis strait, consisting of two narrow channels by which the broad bay of Eleusis communicates with the Saronic gulf, would seem to them a position adapted by nature to the carrying out of this purpose; and it must have been with a view to encourage them in this idea that Themistocles left the western channel unguarded. He was playing a desperate game, under circumstances which were, however, sufficiently desperate to justify it. The dazzling brilliancy of the success attained by it has blinded posterity to the enormous risk which it entailed.

Herodotus does not enlarge on the feelings of the Athenians when they discovered what had been going on during their absence at Artemisium. REMOVAL OF THE POPULATION OF ATTICA. They must have felt bitterly that they had been the victims of a base desertion, and they probably expressed their feelings; but nothing in the whole course of the war is more honourable to them than the practical spirit and energy with which they faced the situation. It was indeed before Salamis rather than at Salamis that Athens saved Greece. “When they learnt what had happened,” says Herodotus, “they requested the fleet to touch at Salamis.” They appear to have already made up their minds what to do. It is probable that their previous experience of the selfish policy of the Peloponnesians had prepared them for the possibility of a position such as that in which they found themselves. The half-fulfilment of the first oracle delivered to them at Delphi was to be accomplished. The population of Attica was to be removed en masse to refuges beyond the reach of the Persian army; and it is not unlikely that under certain eventualities the Athenian authorities were prepared to carry out to the full the desperate advice which Delphi had given them. H. viii. 41. The proclamation of removal was issued, and the people of Attica fled to various places on the shores of the Saronic gulf, some to Ægina, some to Salamis, but the majority to Trœzen. The Athenians knew well that they could expect no mercy from the Persian. Marathon had been an unpardonable act of lèse mejesté, for which they would have in any case to pay dearly, and with the very life-blood of their people, if they, as well as the land, fell into the enemy’s power.

It is noticeable that in choosing their places of refuge they were careful not to give any hostages to the Peloponnesians. Trœzen was the base of naval operations. Ægina and Salamis were islands. All three were therefore within reach of their own powerful fleet, and out of reach of the Peloponnesian army at the Isthmus.

The news that the fleet from Artemisium had put in at Salamis brought thither the rest of the Greek fleet, which seems to have been gathering for some time previously at the port of Pogon151 in Trœzen, near the east end of the Argolic peninsula. The numbers now available were considerably larger than those which had fought at Artemisium.152

It seems to be implied by Herodotus’ language, as well as by the fact that their addition would raise the numbers of the Athenian fleet to two hundred, that the fifty-three Attic vessels were not part of the original fleet at Artemisium. If this be so, the net increase in the number of triremes at Salamis is forty-two. THE GREEK FLEET AT SALAMIS. Some of the original contingents, notably those of the Æginetans and Lacedæmonians, were increased; and several small contingents were added which had not been present at Artemisium. The almost absolute apathy of the Western States and of Magna Græcia is most marked. Corcyra is unrepresented.153 The great Kroton sends but one ship. Had Salamis turned out differently, they might have had bitter cause to regret their lack of patriotism. It is, however, possible that Magna Græcia, and even the towns of the extreme north-west of Greece, had their attention distracted at this time by the immanence of the life-and-death struggle between Gelo and the Carthaginians in Sicily.

It is also noticeable that Herodotus makes one of his customary mistakes in addition, putting the number of the fleet, exclusive of pentekonters, at three hundred and seventy-eight; whereas, according to his own list, it should be three hundred and sixty-six.154

As at Artemisium, Eurybiades commanded the fleet. The Athenians, according to Herodotus, supplied the best ships.

Though the fleet had assembled at Salamis, it was by no means certain that it would remain there. The gathering had been designed to cover and assist the withdrawal of the population of Attica. It was quite certain that there would be a large party in favour of withdrawal to the Isthmus, and the risks, which have already been pointed out, attendant upon the occupation of the strait were so palpable, that they could hardly fail to afford a strong argument in favour of the Peloponnesian policy.

After the fleet had collected, a Council of War was held. It soon appeared that the majority were in favour of retiring to some point off the Isthmus. They argued that there, in case of defeat, they could withdraw to land held by their own troops, whereas a disaster at Salamis would mean that they would be blockaded on that not very fruitful island.

Before the decision was taken, an Athenian messenger arrived announcing that the Persian was already committing devastation in Attica.

Of Xerxes’ passage from Panopeus, near Parapotamii, to Attica, little is told by Herodotus. H. viii. 50. He must have taken the great route to Thebes, whence, after burning Thespiæ and Platæa, he probably made his way into Attica by the Dryoskephalæ and other passes.

There is a curious and somewhat self-contradictory tale in Herodotus about what occurred in Athens itself at this time. He says that the Persians “came upon the city deserted, but found a few of the Athenians in the temple, both the temple stewards and (certain) poor men, who, having fortified the Acropolis with planks, and wooden (breastworks), tried to defend themselves against the assailants. The reason they had not departed to Salamis was that they had not the means to do so; and, furthermore, because they thought that they had discovered the meaning of the oracular response which the Pythian gave them, namely, that the wooden wall should never be taken, and that this and not the ships was to be their salvation.” The historian then proceeds to give what purports to be a description of a siege of this fortification. The Persians took up their position on Areopagus, and confined their attack in the first place to the discharge of fire-bearing arrows against the wooden wall. The besieged replied by rolling down boulder stones upon the assailants, and “for a long time” Xerxes was at a loss how to force an entrance. Finally a party scaled one of the cliffs at an unexpected point, and the Acropolis was taken, and all its defenders massacred.

Such is, in brief, the extraordinary tale.

But the strangest part of the whole story is the account of the impression created in the fleet by the news of the capture.

The inconsistency between the description of the garrison and its defensive works, and the alarm created by the capture of the fortification, is so glaring as to be irreconcileable, and modern historians have naturally been led to form conjectures as to what really took place. It has been suggested that the tale is merely a reminiscence of the fact that some stragglers who had remained in the Acropolis were slaughtered by the Persians after their occupation of the city, an incident exaggerated in subsequent tradition. This, if true, would bring into still higher relief the absurdity of the panic in the fleet at Salamis.

A much more probable theory155 is that Herodotus, so far from overstating what took place, has considerably understated it, and that a real defence was attempted, and a serious disaster sustained. This does, at any rate, account for two important points in the narrative, (1) that the defence was successful “for a considerable time;” (2) that the panic caused was so great.

The evidence, other than that of Herodotus, as to what took place at this time, affords, unfortunately, but little help to the elucidation of the mystery. Diodorus, though in his account of the actual battle of Salamis he makes use of information which is certainly not drawn from Herodotus, has in this particular instance transcribed Herodotus’ description almost word for word.

The question is, Was a garrison of any kind left in the Acropolis?

H. viii. 41.

Herodotus has already given the words of the proclamation for the desertion of Attica: “The Athenians shall dispose their children and households in any place of safety they can.” Arist. Athen Polit. 23. Aristotle says that the Areopagus assisted the citizens with a vote of eight drachmas apiece. Plut. Them. 10. Plutarch speaks of a psephism proposed by Themistocles to the effect that (1) the city should be left to the care of Athene; (2) all able-bodied persons should embark on board the fleet; (3) the rest of the population should save itself where it could.

It has been suggested that Plutarch is here guilty of an historical error, (1) because Herodotus says nothing about embarkation on board the triremes; (2) because this embarkation is incredible, since the triremes had their complements already, and an addition to their crews would have been an embarrassment. H. viii. 95. It is concluded therefore that the land army did not as a whole embark. Some hoplites were posted at Salamis; but there is reason, so it is urged, to suspect that part of the army was left at Athens.

It is plain that, on the evidence available, any conjecture must involve its maker in certain difficulties. In the present instance one important objection immediately arises:⁠—no adequate motive can be urged for the suppression of the truth, if this conjecture represents it. Had such a disaster overtaken a considerable Athenian force, would not Herodotus, who is anxious to bring into prominence the sufferings and self-sacrifice of the Athenians in this war, have seized upon so noteworthy an example in point? Again, what conceivable object was to be gained under the circumstances by garrisoning the Acropolis? Furthermore, taking the history of the war as related, is it in the slightest degree likely that the Persians could, even by surprise, have taken such a position when defended by any considerable number of Greek hoplites? It is improbable to the last degree.

But the rejection of this theory does not lead to any positive results in the elucidation of the story. Herodotus has manifestly exaggerated or understated some detail of it.

His expression that the siege lasted “a considerable time” is not perhaps to be taken as being more precise than such expressions are in ordinary language. It may have been that some enthusiasts or belated citizens did conceive the idea that they could defend themselves, and possibly their property, in that remarkable stronghold until the danger was overpast, and that, considering the resources at their disposal, they did hold out for “a considerable time.” It may be that “the considerable time” was inserted by the historian to emphasize the hopelessness of the struggle against fate, as represented by the oracle. “It was fated,” he says, “in accordance with the oracle, that the whole of continental Attica should fall into the hands of the Persian.”

But how is the panic in the fleet at Salamis to be accounted for? The tale at Artemisium may suggest a solution. Herodotus shows himself very eager to bring into prominence the difficulty which Athens had in keeping the courage of the other Greeks to its sticking point; and this description of the panic and the consequent determination to withdraw to the Isthmus is identical in species with the frequent references in the Artemisium story to withdrawals or intended withdrawals either to Chalkis or to Mid Greece. Doubtless these stories do rest on a very solid basis of fact, though in themselves exaggerated. The Peloponnesians seem to have displayed an almost feverish anxiety to remove the defence to the Isthmus.

The near approach of the crisis in the war brings into peculiar prominence the man who was destined to play the greatest part in it. It cannot be accounted otherwise than strange that a historian so fair-minded as Herodotus should up to this point in his narrative have minimized the share which this remarkable man must have taken in determining the course of the Greek operations previous to Salamis. And yet, even from his account of the war, it is evident that Themistocles had been most prominent in whatever part of the Greek strategy had been due to Athenian initiative. He had commanded the contingent sent to Thessaly; he had commanded the Athenian fleet at Artemisium. In both cases the adoption of a line of defence so far north of Peloponnesus must have been due to Athenian influence; and it may be regarded as certain that Themistocles was mainly, if not entirely, responsible for the direction in which that influence made itself felt. In Thessaly there had indeed been a passive failure, and Artemisium had not been a success. It is clear, however, that in the latter case the Athenians did not attribute the lack of success to Themistocles, otherwise they could not have been expected to place themselves so entirely in his hands as they did at the time of Salamis. Probably the true significance of Thermopylæ was already surmised, if not understood, at Athens, soon after the fleet returned from Artemisium.

Herodotus seems never to have succeeded in getting the character of Themistocles into its true perspective. It is possible that the tales told in after-time of his financial trickeries prejudiced the honest old historian against him. Throughout his history he shows himself an admirer of moral rather than intellectual greatness; and this disposition on his part would inevitably tend to obscure his appreciation of the great qualities of one whom tradition represented to him as guilty of a most serious form of moral weakness. Whence he drew the tradition he followed is another question. It may be that during his sojourn in Athens he was associated with the political heirs of the party opposed to Themistocles, and, if so, it may be certain that he would hear little to Themistocles’ credit, and much that was false to his discredit Still the tradition as to this peculiarly bad characteristic of the man was very prevalent; and it is hardly conceivable that the unanimity of the testimony of after-time was founded on no sounder basis than inimical party tradition. It is, then, possible that there was a real groundwork of truth in the accusations which Herodotus brings against Themistocles, though the undue emphasis which the historian lays on this side of the man’s character renders it also probable that, if true, the accusations are not unexaggerated.

At the same time, the complete assumption of this truth is difficult, in view of the silence of Thucydides on the matter. THUCYDIDES’ ACCOUNT OF THEMISTOCLES. It is plain that he considered the charges sufficiently groundless to be ignored, and this in spite of the fact that the course of his history forced him to recount the least savoury portion of the great man’s career. Nor can it be assumed that the historian’s judgment was warped by party considerations. Such obliquities as are discernible in the biographical details in his history are clearly traceable to personal rather than party enmities. It is manifest that he had an intense admiration for Themistocles’ intellectual capacity; and it was fortunate for after-times that the second great historian of the fifth century was led by circumstances to draw the picture of the character of perhaps the most able man which the century produced—a picture which, in the hands of the first historian, had never got beyond the stage of mere preliminary sketches, not artistically connected, never completed, and never perhaps intended to be so. It is really the written judgment of Thucydides which has enabled posterity to understand the influence of Themistocles at this most critical period of Greek history, when the land was faced by circumstances of a magnitude far outstripping the narrow bounds of Greek experience. When the knowledge of experience cannot compass the situation, the intuition of genius is the only possible means by which the situation may be successfully met. And, if Thucydides is to be believed, it was this special and most rare quality which Themistocles possessed in such a remarkable degree.

Note on Translation of T. i. 138, 3, καὶ οὔτε προμαθών ἐς αὐτὴν οὐδὲν οὐτ ἐπιμαθών.

The translation I have adopted follows in its main lines that of Croiset in his edition of Thucydides, to which attention is called in M. Hauvette’s work on Herodotus. “Le génie naturel de Thémistocle ne devait rien ni à l’étude préalable ni à cette autre sorte d’étude qui sort de l’expérience, et surtout de l’expérience malheureuse.”

Such is Thucydides’ description of the man, delivered more than sixty years after Salamis, when his cool judgment, unaffected by political controversy, which had in the interval wholly changed its ground, could sift without passion and without prejudice the evidence that he found in existence in his own time. Themistocles may have been dishonest; but Thucydides does not seem to have been satisfied that he was so; and, that being the case, the modern world may well have some doubts upon the subject.

Apart from the charges of dishonesty, Herodotus shows a tendency to discount the merit of Themistocles in proposing the design which led to the great victory. A previous example of the same tendency has been noticed in the reference which the historian makes to the proposal to allot the surplus from the mines at Laurion to the construction of a fleet. It is there implied that Themistocles did not act with the foresight with which he was credited; that the proposal had reference to the war with Ægina, and not to any foreseen invasion from the side of Persia. It is easy now to see that Herodotus’ allegation is most certainly mistaken. The Persian design of revenging Marathon, conceived before the death of Darius in 485, cannot have been a secret; and the mere size of the fleet proposed renders it extremely unlikely that Athens would have assented to the expense it involved, merely for the purposes of an attack on a state which could only place one-fifth of the number of ships in commission.

The allegation of Herodotus in the present instance is equally unconvincing.

He describes the panic, as he asserts it to have been, caused by the fall of Athens, and the consequent decision to withdraw the fleet to the Isthmus, and implies that Themistocles was a consenting party to the withdrawal. H. viii. 57. “On Themistocles coming on board his ship, Mnesiphilos, an Athenian, asked him what had been decided by the council.” On learning from him that it had been decided to put out to the Isthmus and fight for the Peloponnese, he prophesied that the whole force would break up, and Greece come to ruin. He also advised Themistocles to do all he could to dissuade Eurybiades from a design so disastrous. The animus of the story is shown by the assertion that Themistocles went on board the commander’s vessel, and used these arguments as his own. Of this Mnesiphilos more is told in Plutarch. Plut. Them. He represents him to have been the political tutor of Themistocles, and says that some people attributed to Mnesiphilos much for which Themistocles got credit with the general public. It may be surmised that the people who took this view were not unconnected with the various other stories current in later times to Themistocles’ discredit. The story in Herodotus is in itself not free from improbability, and is inconsistent with what the author’s own account of the battle shows to have been the reason for fighting in the strait, namely, the desire to engage the numerically superior fleet in a channel where its greater numbers would be of but little avail. The last fight at Artemisium had probably taught the Greeks a lesson to whose significance they could not shut their eyes; at any rate, in the then state of feeling, it must have been a very powerful and compelling motive which induced the Peloponnesian contingents to abide at Salamis. The tale of Mnesiphilos supplies none such. The argument as to the break-up of the defence is palpably weak. There would be infinitely more fear of a dissolution of the naval force in case Salamis were chosen as the scene of battle, than if it were determined to fight in the immediate neighbourhood of the Isthmus, the very determination for which the Peloponnesian party had been intriguing ever since the war began.

This tale of Mnesiphilos is so suspicious that it cannot be regarded as reliable history. Herodotus seems himself to have been aware that it would convey an impression of improbability when read beside the other tale of the motive which Themistocles urged for fighting in the strait; for he attempts to reconcile the truth of the two stories.

In his private interview with Eurybiades, Themistocles, so he says, adopted as his own the argument suggested by Mnesiphilos, and with its aid so far persuaded that much vexed but apparently honest patriot of the inadvisability of the decision to which the Council of War had recently come, that he consented to call another meeting to reconsider the subject. This was the famous meeting at which the fate of Greece was decided; and it may be regarded as certain that, as is invariably the case with the crises of great historical tragedies, later tradition did not allow the incidents of the situation to lose dramatic force in the telling. Though the dramatic element is not absent from Herodotus’ version, it gives a strong impression of being in the main a true account of what took place. The historian seems to have exercised a powerful self-control over himself in writing the account of what he knew well to have been the most critical moment in the history of his race; and he has, in consequence, succeeded in making his description of this gathering of the Greek commanders one of the most striking pictures in his history.

There are very noteworthy points about this remarkable narrative. Despite his prejudice against Themistocles, Herodotus makes it quite clear that he, and he alone, was responsible for the fleet remaining at Salamis. Though the language of the story does not make it quite clear, the remarks of Themistocles which provoked the first retort of Adeimantos, seem to have been of the nature of individual exhortation to the various commanders before the formal meeting opened. Apparently, the first step in the regular Council of War was a statement made by the president of the question to be discussed.

Herodotus is at special pains to mention that the argument suggested by Mnesphilos was, of set purpose, not employed upon the present occasion.

It may be observed that if that argument had any applicability at all, it could only be to the Æginetans and Megareans, whose lands would be exposed to the Persian in case the decision to retire to the Isthmus were persisted in. They had just as much, if not more, cause than the Athenians had to wish the fleet to remain at Salamis, therefore the reason given for the omission of the argument, namely, that Themistocles did not wish to accuse any one, is highly improbable. Had there been any soundness in it, had it, indeed, ever been used, the Æginetans and Megareans would have recked little of being charged with a desire to defend their own homes, if the charge had supplied an argument for the carrying out of a policy which was a matter of life and death to them.