After the defeat of Salamis, the position of the whole Persian expedition was one of extreme danger. The command of the sea had been lost for the time being, and the chances of its recovery were remote. A fleet which had been so severely handled was not likely to fight so well on a second occasion, even if it were possible to induce it to assume once more the offensive. It was infinitely more probable that the Greeks, who had hitherto acted almost entirely on the defensive, would now realize that they were in a position to become the attacking party. The question of the moment seemed to be how the Persian naval force could make good its retreat without exposing itself to further, and, it might be, irreparable, disaster. Xerxes, with the characteristic selfishness of a despot, seems to have concerned himself with making his own escape secure, and to have merely troubled himself about that of the fleet in so far as his own safety was dependent upon it. He had reason to doubt the loyalty of the Ionian contingent. It had, indeed, fought well in the battle; but the reverse which had been experienced would inevitably tend to quicken whatever element of disloyalty it contained. His main anxiety was for the bridge across the Hellespont.

The account which Herodotus gives of the measures which he took to give the Greeks the impression that he meditated a second attack, and to hide his intention to retreat, is of so strange a character that it has been largely discredited by modern authorities. PERSIAN COUNCIL OF WAR. H. viii. 97. “He set to work,” says the historian, “to carry a mole across to Salamis, and he tied Phœnician merchant-ships together, to act as pontoons, and as a defence. He further prepared for battle, as though about to fight a second sea-fight.” These preparations, so it is said, deceived all his own people save Mardonius, who, knowing his master well, was not under any illusion as to his real intentions.171

The evident alarm and despair with which Xerxes regarded the situation rendered Mardonius uneasy. An adviser whose counsels had ended in disaster,—and he was mainly responsible for persuading the king to undertake the great expedition,—might well be anxious as to the consequences which the failure might have for himself. Whether Herodotus had any real authority for his account of the advice which he represents Mardonius to have given Xerxes at this time, may perhaps be suspected; but the main outlines of it are worth quoting, even if they only reproduce what some contemporary Greek imagined that advice to have been. He is represented, in the first place, as seeking to minimize the disaster by arguing that it had only fallen upon one branch of the service, and that the land-army was in no wise impaired in efficiency by what had happened. If he did actually use this argument, he can only have used it because he thought that it was a sufficiently good one for the man to whom he was speaking. He had himself commanded the expedition of 492; and though on a much smaller scale, that venture had been brought to a premature conclusion by the storm which wrecked his fleet off Mount Athos. Mardonius was the last man who ought to have deceived himself as to the significance of the disaster at Salamis. Two courses, he said, were still open,—either to march with the whole army against the Peloponnese, or for Xerxes to withdraw with the major part of the land-forces, and leave him three hundred thousand men wherewith to complete the conquest of Greece. Such is the advice as reported. Whether a march on Peloponnese was possible at this time cannot be said, since the state of the Persian supplies is not known. In any case, Xerxes had no stomach for such a venture, and adopted the alternative suggestion, which offered a greater chance of security to his all-important self. H. viii 102. Moreover, this was the view of the matter which the astute Artemisia, whom he called into counsel, put before him.172

It must of necessity remain a matter for doubt whether Mardonius ever gave such advice. The retirement of the fleet to the Asian coast would give the Greeks the naval command of their side of the Ægean, and, that being so, the real line of communications was lost, and the alternative route by land along the North Ægean would be, even if it could be regarded as effective, liable to be cut by an attack from the sea. On the other hand, it is possible that he reckoned that he might maintain himself for some months, even for a year, on the food-resources of Thessaly and Bœotia; and in that space of time much might happen to reverse the ill-fortune of the moment. Besides all this, even if the conquest of Greece as a whole could not be effected, there did remain the possibility of advancing the Persian frontier south from Macedonia even as far as Kithæron, and of robbing Greece of her richest lands. That the Greeks feared something of this kind is shown by their subsequent advance to Platæa. That move was so inconsistent with the whole plan on which they had conducted the campaign on land, that it can only be accounted for on the hypothesis that they were actuated by some such fear.

But there were also political considerations of the very highest importance which could not but affect the decision of Xerxes and the Persian authorities. The acknowledgment of complete failure such as would have been apparent had the whole force withdrawn en masse to Asia, must have shaken to its very foundations the great composite empire which was held together by the strong hand and the prestige of success. But could Xerxes on his return report that a force had been left to complete the reduction of Greece, the magnitude of the disaster which had fallen upon him might be concealed, until, at any rate, he was himself in a position to take measures to provide against any possible commotion which might be caused when the varied population of the empire came to realize the extent of the failure which had resulted in an expedition in which it had put forth all its strength. Whatever the advice of Mardonius may have been, these considerations must have been present with Xerxes and his council when they met to discuss the course to be adopted in view of what had happened at Salamis. Herodotus shows, from the words he attributes to Artemisia, that he was not oblivious to the wider possibilities of the situation.173

His account of the events which immediately resulted from Xerxes’ decision is complicated historically by the reappearance of Themistocles on the stage of his history. The historian does not attempt to conceal the prominence of that great man at Salamis; but in the description of the actual fighting his name is only incidentally mentioned, and personal details of him are conspicuous by their absence. But the tradition of the events succeeding the battle contained several ugly stories, some of them, indeed, capable of diverse interpretation, but all of them capable of being interpreted to Themistocles’ discredit. These the historian has inserted in his narrative, with the result that he has introduced into it an element which must excite suspicion, and which makes it very difficult to disentangle that in it which is reliable from that which is not so.

On the very night, it is said, after Xerxes’ decision had been taken, the commanders of the Persian fleet put out with all speed for the Hellespont, with orders to guard the bridge across the strait for the king’s return. It is not, perhaps, easy to see why so much store should be set by the bridge. The main point, it might have been imagined, would be to defend the Hellespont. Xerxes’ personal safety and his passage of the strait would in that case have been equally well secured.

One incident of the voyage is described which is intended to demonstrate the nervous state to which the Persian seamen had been reduced by their defeat. Near a place called Zoster, which is supposed to have been situated on the Attic coast the Persians mistook certain rocks for enemies’ ships, and fled “a long distance” before they discovered their mistake. The object of the story is evidently to emphasize the dramatic contrast between the confidence which preceded the battle and the depression which succeeded it.

The next day was well advanced before the Greeks discovered the flight. Seeing the land-army in its old position, they supposed the Persian fleet to be still at Phaleron, which bay would be hidden from their position in the strait by the high promontory of the Piræus; and, under this impression, they prepared to meet a second attack. It is remarkable, but quite evident, that the Greeks under-estimated alike the moral and material damage they had inflicted on the enemy. They show none of the jubilation which follows a decisive victory; and it must be concluded that the fight was more fierce and more stubborn on the part of the vanquished than any Greek historian has described it to have been. Then, says Herodotus, when they discovered that the fleet had sailed away, they started in pursuit, and proceeded as far as Andros without catching sight of it. This is not surprising, considering that it had, in all probability, twelve hours’ start. The statement that the fleet went as far as Andros, or even ventured to leave Salamis at this time, has been regarded with suspicion by some historians. QUESTIONS OF THE HELLESPONT BRIDGE. It is argued that with the land-army of the Persians still in Attica, the Greeks could not have ventured to withdraw their fleet from the strait, and have exposed the refugees on Salamis to attack.

But is it necessarily to be assumed that the Greeks did not leave any vessels behind to provide against such a contingency? It may even be doubted whether, after the withdrawal of the fleet, the Persian army had any means whatever at its disposal for the passage of the strait.

The short voyage to Andros was, no doubt, of the nature of a reconnaissance. It was manifestly important to know whether the enemy’s ships had definitely departed from Greek waters.

On arriving at Andros a Council of War was held as to the plan of operations for the immediate future. Themistocles’ view was that the pursuit should be continued, and that the bridge over the Hellespont should be destroyed. Eurybiades urged, on the other hand, that if the Persian army were thus cut off from its sole avenue of retreat, it must remain in Europe, and would be compelled to develop a policy of great activity for the mere purpose of obtaining supplies. The result of this, so he thought, would be the gradual subjection of the land, and the destruction of the annual produce of Greece. He therefore urged that the way of escape be left open. With him, as might be expected, the other Peloponnesian commanders agreed.

Themistocles, finding he could not prevail upon the Greeks as a body to adopt his plan, then addressed the Athenians, who were, so Herodotus says, eager to sail at once to the Hellespont, and ready to take the risk of so doing upon their own shoulders. His address is given in what profess to be the actual words of it. So far from urging them to follow out their desires, he emphatically dissuades them from this course; thus, apparently, completely reversing the advice he had first given. The change of counsel is plainly explicable on the ground that what he considered to be the best course for the fleet as a whole would, he thought, be risky and unadvisable for half the fleet to attempt But that is very far from being the interpretation which Herodotus puts upon it. H. viii. 109. “This,” says the historian, “he said with the intention of establishing a claim upon the Persian, in order that, in case any disaster should befall him at the hands of the Athenians, he might have a place of retreat. H. viii. 110. In saying this, Themistocles dissembled, but the Athenians believed him: for inasmuch as he had, previous to the recent events, been regarded as a clever man, and his cleverness and wisdom had been clearly confirmed by what had lately happened, they were ready to listen to what he said.”

There can be little doubt that this tale is part of that unveracious Themistocles legend which Herodotus has woven into those traditions of the great war which he has followed in composing his history. Never is the animus against Themistocles more clearly shown; and in no instance is the absolute improbability of any single part of the legend more strikingly displayed. The tale is refuted by its context. Before starting for Andros, the Greeks had been deceived as to the movements of the Persian fleet, by observing the land-army in its original position. And yet, arrived at Andros, Themistocles is represented as actually proposing to cross the Ægean and cut off the retreat of an army whose retreat had not begun, and whose intention to retreat could not, if the story is to stand as it is written, have been known to him. It is inconceivable that any sane commander could possibly have advised the Greeks to attempt operations on the Asian coast at this stage of the war.174 Again, the object proposed was manifestly futile. What good could have been attained by breaking down the bridge, had not a sufficient force been left behind to maintain the command of the Hellespont against the Persian fleet? Could not a strait no broader than many parts of the lower Danube have been easily crossed by means of ship and boat transport? If the Greek fleet were once entangled in that region, could the possibility the Persian fleet or of part of it doubling back to the European coast be ignored? THE “THEMISTOCLES” TRADITION. Above all, did the Greek fleet know whither the enemy had gone? A very few hours’ start would have taken them far out of sight. They had had that start; and all that the Greeks at Andros could have known with certainty was that there were no ships between that place and Piræus.

It cannot be doubted that this passage in Herodotus is one of a series of excerpts from a history of Themistocles composed by a hostile political party. The tale of the Council at Andros merely serves the purpose of a peg whereon to found the charge of trickery or treachery which immediately follows it. The verisimilitude of the story is to be further supported by knowledge after the event. Themistocles did in after-time take refuge with the Persians. Was he, however, likely at the very crowning moment of his life to have foreseen the eventuality of his being obliged to do so?

The story is so corrupt that it is most difficult to select from it the element of truth which it may contain. It is possible that a reconnaissance was made as far as Andros, and that it was decided to go no farther. It is in the highest degree doubtful whether the tale of Themistocles’ communication with Xerxes at this time had any real foundation. The proposal to break down the bridge has all the appearance of a rechauffé served up with a new sauce, of the story which connected the hero of the last great battle, Marathon, with the proposal to break the Danube bridge during Darius’ Scythian expedition. It has been suggested that he gave the information in all honesty, because he wished to get Xerxes and his army out of the way. No doubt he and every other Greek did entertain that wish; but it is impossible to see how the message, in the form in which it was sent, could further its fulfilment. H. viii. 110. The last words of the message, “Now depart at your leisure,” singularly fail to accord with the conjectural explanation of Themistocles’ alleged conduct. There is, at the same time, every possibility that Themistocles did, after the retreat of the land-army had definitely begun, urge the advisability of offensive operations on the Asian coast at some period not long after the battle; and it is probable that such operations would have been eminently effective. But in this Themistocles legend these proposals have been purposely antedated, in order to adduce them as evidence of the truth of Themistocles’ suspicious communications with Xerxes, before the latter started on his return journey.

It is quite possible, too, that the rejection of these proposals led to Themistocles’ resignation of the command of the Athenian fleet. It is difficult to account for it in any other way. High as party feeling ran at Athens, the Athenian citizen showed a distinct preference for entrusting his life amid the chances and changes of war to men of known capacity, and the Strategia was less affected by the storms of political contention than the other high departments of government.

Tacked on to this last tale is the story of the siege of Andros. The Greek fleet, it is said, after renouncing all idea of further pursuit, laid siege to Andros; “For the Andrians first among the islanders refused to pay money on Themistocles’ demand; and when Themistocles put forward the argument that the Athenians had come, having with them two great gods, Persuasion and Force, so that they would certainly have to pay, they answered that Athens was naturally great and prosperous, being blest with such excellent gods, but, as far as the Andrians were concerned, their land was poor as poor could be, and two unprofitable gods, Poverty and Inability, left not their island, but ever abode there; and being cursed with these gods, they were not going to pay the money; for never could even the power of Athens be more powerful than their own inability.” So the siege began.

Themistocles’ demands were not confined to Andros. Large sums were extorted, under threat of siege, from the islanders, of whom the Karystians and Parians are named, because they had medized in the recent war.

The whole language of the story suggests in the plainest possible way that Themistocles exacted these contributions for his own benefit. RETREAT OF THE PERSIAN ARMY. That such demands were made is no doubt the case. The bitterness of the feeling against the medized Greeks might well suggest that, as a punishment for their crime in taking up arms against their fellow-countrymen, they should be forced to contribute to the expenses of the defender of that which they had attacked; but to represent Themistocles as employing this fleet for his own selfish ends is plainly a colouring given to the story by the same hand that invented the previous tale of his relations with Xerxes.

Whatever may be the origin of the Themistocles legend in Herodotus taken as a whole, this particular section of it was almost certainly the creation of the aristocratic party, which was, be it said to its credit, the friend in after days of the subject allies, and therefore, apart from other political considerations of a more general kind, not likely to depict in a favourable light the first instance of the imposition of the island tribute, nor to deal sparingly with the man who might, with some show of plausibility, be regarded as its originator.

Another important question which suggests itself is whether this demand on Andros and these exactions from Karystos and Paros were made at this time, within a few days of Salamis. It is extremely unlikely that the Greek fleet, with only half of the danger at home averted, should have ventured at this moment to spend time over the siege of one of the island towns. The whole incident of the exactions looks as if it ought to be attributed to a somewhat later date.

The retreat of the Persian army began a few days after the naval battle. Mardonius accompanied it because, so Herodotus says, he wished to escort the king. The campaigning season also was far advanced, and he thought it would be better to winter in Thessaly. His real motive in retiring so far north,—a motive Herodotus could hardly appreciate, even if he ever heard it mentioned,—would be to shorten the line of communications, especially for commissariat purposes. He had now no fleet upon which to depend. Moreover, Thessaly was a rich country, whose local supplies would go far towards satisfying the temporary wants of his army. There he selected the men who were to remain with him for the next year’s campaign. He seems to have chosen the best troops in the huge and motley host, Persians, Medes, Sakæ, Bactrians and Indians; and Xerxes made no objection. And then the rest of the helpless throng departed on its long march round the North Ægean, to carry to Asia a terrible tale of suffering of which but few details have survived in the Greek historians. According to Herodotus, three hundred thousand men remained with Mardonius. It is commonly supposed that this number is largely exaggerated; but unless there is a proportionate exaggeration in the numbers of the Greek army present at Platæa, the force which the Persians opposed to them there can hardly have been less than two hundred and fifty thousand in number. Mardonius probably retained with him nearly the whole of the really effective land-force of the original expedition.

That part of the army which continued its retreat from Thessaly took forty-five days to reach the Hellespont. The misery of that time must have been unspeakable, and but few out of the many ever set foot again on Asian soil. The realities of a six weeks’ march of four hundred miles, in the case of a large force wholly unprovided with commissariat, must have been horrible beyond description. Starving themselves, they spread famine by their ravages wherever they went. In many places no food was obtainable, and then they ate the very grass by the way and the leaves of the trees. Dysentery was the inevitable result. The sick who fell by the road were left to the care of the natives; and, knowing the nature of those wild Thracian tribes of the North Ægean, it is not difficult to imagine that their fate must have been pitiable in the extreme. At last the survivors reached the Hellespont, to find that the bridge had been carried away in a storm; but they were transported to Abydos in boats. Not even then were their misfortunes over. Many of the starving multitude perished from giving undue satisfaction to their ravenous hunger.

Herodotus, though he mentions two accounts of the matter, is of opinion that Xerxes accompanied the army all through its retreat. AN INTERVAL IN THE WAR. He rejects a tale to the effect that on arriving at Eion, at the mouth of the Strymon, the king went the rest of the way by sea on a Phœnician ship, and was only saved from perishing in a northern gale by the devotion of certain Persians who accompanied him, and who sacrificed themselves in order to lighten the ship. Apart from the tale of devotion, the rejected version is manifestly the more probable. Not to speak of the horrors of the land-march, the king’s personal safety may well have been imperilled in the midst of an army which had undergone and was undergoing the sufferings of his. To Hydarnes was committed the conduct of the remainder of the retreat.

The siege of Andros turned out a failure. Karystos was attacked and its territory ravaged; and then a return was made to Salamis. It is evident that the Greeks themselves were at this time under the impression that the war in Europe was over, in so far as they were concerned; and eagerness of the Athenian section to carry the war into Asia, which Herodotus has antedated, may be ascribed to this time. The news that Mardonius had remained in Thessaly, with evident intent to renew the war next year, can hardly have reached Athens until several weeks at earliest from the time at which the retreat began.

Under this mistaken impression they began to wind up the skein of past events, and after their patriotic victory to discuss who had deserved best of their common fatherland. The gods had been very good to them, much better, perhaps, than they themselves realized; and it was to them that their remembrance first turned. To Delphi was dedicated a tenth of the spoils. H. viii. 123. After dividing the rest of the plunder, the Greeks sailed to the Isthmus to decide by vote who of all of them had rendered the greatest services to his country in the recent war. The result was unfortunate. Each general having two votes gave the first to himself, and the majority gave the second to Themistocles. Under the circumstances they thought it best to forego the decision; and the various contingents departed home to their cities.

In spite of this the admiration of Themistocles burst forth, and that in a most unexpected quarter. He went to Sparta, where such honour was paid him as never had been previously paid to any foreigner, and never was again paid up to Herodotus’ own day.

There are certain elements in the political situation at this time which make it possible that party feeling ran high among the Athenians during the period which now ensued. Plat. Them. [Arist.] Athen. Pol. The Areopagus, which still continued to represent all that was exclusively aristocratic in Athens and Attica, had played a considerable part in the measures which had been taken for the public safety; and if the recently discovered Polity of Athens, which is attributed to Aristotle, is to be believed, it had gained considerable reputation thereby. On the other hand, the man of the hour was Themistocles; and he led political interests directly opposed to those which the venerable council represented. It may be that Themistocles’ resignation of the Strategia was not wholly unconnected with these struggles. He does not appear in history as a man likely to under-estimate his own personal worth; and the discovery that, in the turmoil of party strife, the world generally seemed to set a lower value upon it, may have given bitter offence to his pride. Herodotus gives no detail of these political events; H. viii. 125. though his introduction to a story which he evidently inserts because it contained such a bon-mot as he dearly loved, shows that an attack was made on Themistocles immediately after his return from Sparta. Timodemos of Aphidnæ was the name of the assailant. He reproached Themistocles with having taken to himself an honour due to his country; and, apparently, thinking the remark an effective one, repeated it on more than one occasion.175 Herodotus, who never discovered a lack of ready wit to be one of Themistocles’ defects, takes evident pleasure in recording the crushing retort: “The thing stands thus,” said he; “had I been from Belbina, I should not have been thus honoured by the Spartans, nor would you have been, good sir, even had you been from Athens.”

This is the last of the series of events in Greece which can be attributed to the year 480, but before proceeding to recount the history of the following year, it is necessary to recur briefly to what had meanwhile taken place in Sicily. The brevity of the reference is not due to the unimportance of the events themselves, but to the meagreness of the surviving records of them. Herodotus dismisses the subject in a few words; and the scheme of history which Diodorus had proposed to himself rendered it impossible for him to devote much space to them, despite the fact that this year was a most decisive one for the history of his native land.

After the departure of the Spartan and Athenian ambassadors, Gelo of Syracuse had been left alone to face that great storm which Persia had stirred up in the West with the evident intention of preventing the Sicilian and Italian Greek from taking part in the defence of the mother country. It was more than fortunate for the Sicilians that at this most critical moment of their history, such power as they could put forward was under the control of one strong hand. The tyrant, or tyrant city, was indeed at all times in Sicilian history necessary to the salvation of the Greeks, face to face as they were with the great Carthaginian power in the west of the island, supported by a central base but a few miles distant across a narrow sea.

There is no question that the Carthaginian preparations were on a very large scale, Diod. xi 20. though the numbers given by Diodorus are certainly exaggerated. In her struggle with Rome, more than two centuries later, Carthage, though in all probability more powerful than she was in 480, could not muster aught resembling the strength which the Sicilian historian attributes to her on this occasion. He states the number of the land forces to have been 300,000. The fleet, he says, consisted of 2000 warships, together with 3000 transports. It is manifestly useless to attempt what, in the absence of independent records, can be no more than a guess as to the actual numbers. All that can be with safety assumed is that they were very large. The name of the commander was Hamilcar.

The gods of the winds were hardly less kind to the Greeks of Sicily than they were to their fellow-countrymen at home. A storm overtook the expedition in the Libyan sea, and the vessels conveying the horses and chariots were lost. Hamilcar, however, conducted the remainder in safety to Panormos. He had no anxiety as to the result now that he had safely transported the bulk of his forces across the sea. Doubtless he reckoned on having to deal with a Sicily such as Sicily had been before the recent rise of Gelo’s power, in which the great force at his disposal would have been able to crush the Greek cities in detail.

From Panormos, after repairing, in so far as possible, the damage suffered in the storm, he marched his army along the coast to Himera, the fleet keeping in touch with it meanwhile. His method of advance was consequently similar to that adopted by the Persians in their march round the Ægean. Arrived at Himera, he formed two camps, one for the army and one for the fleet. The arrangement of these camps is interesting, as showing that in the west, as in the east, the Greeks had to deal with a foe which, whatever his defects, was both capable and experienced in the organization of large expeditions over sea. The warships were drawn up on shore and surrounded by a stockade and deep ditch. The other camp was contiguous to the naval one, but ran inland to the summit of the neighbouring heights, to the west of the city of Himera, and facing it. Hamilcar thus secured his communications with his commissariat base,—the fleet. The provisions which he had brought with him he landed, and then despatched the empty transports to Libya and Sardinia to fetch a further supply. His plan was evidently not to attempt to assault the town on all sides. The loss of his cavalry would make it difficult for him to advance far from his sea-base; and, besides, he had to expect an attack from a relieving force. Having completed the fortification of his position, he took some of the best of his soldiers and advanced against the town, whose garrison came out to meet him, afraid, no doubt, of his establishing siege works in the immediate neighbourhood of their wall. It had, however, to retire with severe loss, a disaster which brought the Himerans to a state of despair. GELO MARCHES TO RESCUE HIMERA. But even thus early in the campaign the town was not wholly dependent on its own resources. Thero, tyrant of Akragas, who was content to play a subordinate part to Gelo in Sicilian politics, was either present in it, or,—for Diodorus’ language is capable of two interpretations,—in its neighbourhood, with a force whose numbers are not mentioned. Alarmed at the situation, and evidently not in sufficient strength to take the offensive against the Carthaginians, he sent an urgent message to Gelo to come with all speed. Gelo was ready, and the fact of his being so suggests that the defence against the invader was being conducted on a definite plan. Syracuse had evidently been chosen as the base of operations. Its communications with southern Sicily are both shorter and more easy than with the north. If the attack took place on the south, which was probably known to be unlikely, the central force at Syracuse would be within striking distance. It would seem, therefore, that Thero’s corps had been sent from the south to the north, where the attack was more likely to be made, to act as an army of observation, and to hold the enemy until Gelo could appear with the main army. The plan was a sound one.

The army with which Gelo started from Syracuse is stated to have numbered 50,000 infantry and 5000 cavalry. He made a rapid march, and his arrival infused new courage into the Himerans. He did not enter the city, but fortified a camp of his own outside it, and started active operations by sending out all the cavalry to cut off Carthaginian stragglers. Hamilcar must have been at this moment in a position of great disadvantage, owing to the loss of his horses in the storm. The number of the enemy captured by this raid of cavalry is stated to have been 10,000; it appears, in any case, to have been large.

But Gelo had no idea of confining himself to a passive defence of the place, knowing, in all probability, that the enemy might expect reinforcements, whereas the Siciliot forces present at Himera represented the utmost effort of which Sicily was capable. The Himerans had walled up their city gates. He caused them to be opened once more, and infused a spirit of cheerful confidence into the whole Greek army. In all likelihood this change of feeling was largely due to the comparative inactivity to which Hamilcar was reduced in face of the large force of Syracusan cavalry against which, owing to his own loss, he had not any similar force to match. Something of the kind is indicated by the fact that he sent a message to Selinus, urgently demanding assistance in this arm. Unluckily for him, the return messenger announcing its despatch fell into the hands of Gelo’s men. That able commander had been for some time devising plans by which he might not merely defeat, but utterly destroy, the invading army. The intercepting of this message suggested to him a means of doing so. He had apparently already made up his mind that an attack on the naval camp, and the destruction of the ships within it, must be part of his programme. The disclosure made by the message that the Carthaginians were expecting cavalry reinforcements suggested to him the design of substituting cavalry of his own for the looked-for horsemen of Selinus, so as to obtain access to the naval stockade. It was a bold plan, but it was entirely successful. Not the least fortunate circumstance about the matter was that on the very day on which the cavalry were expected Hamilcar was going to offer a great sacrifice; and this was apparently known to Gelo. The Syracusan horsemen were sent under cover of night, and after making a circuit,—the Greek camp being probably east of the town,—arrived at the naval camp from the western side just about dawn, and were admitted by the guards under the impression that they were the Selinuntian horse. Once inside the stockade, they proceeded immediately to kill Hamilcar and to set fire to the ships.

But this was only part of the whole plan. Watchers had been placed upon the heights, with orders to announce by signal the arrival of the cavalry within the stockade. On receiving the signal, Gelo, with the whole of the rest of his army, began an assault on the other Carthaginian camp, which was, as has been seen, situated on the heights above the naval encampment. THE BATTLE OF HIMERA. The Carthaginian commanders, unaware at first of what had been going on below them, led out their men to meet this attack, and for some time the battle was stubborn and bloody, both sides fighting with great bravery. The increase of the conflagration in the camp below, however, at last attracted their notice, and the arrival of a message announcing the death of Hamilcar completed the dismay of the Carthaginians and fired the courage of the Greeks. The former gave way, pursued by the Greeks, to whom orders were given to take no prisoners. Though the slaughter was a terrible one, it is hardly possible to accept Diodorus’ statement that one hundred and fifty thousand perished. Some of the survivors fled to a bare height, where they defied all direct attack; but they were compelled in the end to capitulate, owing to there being no water obtainable on the position.

It was a brilliant and crushing victory for the Sicilian Greeks, so complete and so lasting in its results, that it marked the beginning of an era of peace and prosperity destined to last for many years.

Diodorus, with a pardonable pride in the exploits of his fellow-countrymen, draws a comparison between the victory at Himera and that which the Greeks won at Platæa in the following year. There is one important point of contrast which he does not mention, but which will be appreciated by those who are acquainted with the stories of those two great battles. The resistance which the Carthaginian troops offered to the Greek hoplite in close fighting was evidently much more stubborn than that offered by the Persian infantry. It was not a question of courage; it was not a question of physique. In these two respects the Persian was probably superior to the Greek, and not inferior to any contemporary race. The difference was in panoply. The African and Spaniard wore defensive armour, such as the Oriental never learnt to use because the climate of the lands wherein his campaigns were mostly fought rendered the burden of the weight of it too grievous to be borne. The resistance offered to the Eastern conqueror took the form of legions of cavalry and mobile bodies of light-armed infantry, and to meet them he had to employ forces of a similar kind. Against such, in a land of infinite distances like Western Asia, an army of hoplites might, if the enemy adopted tactics suitable to the nature of his force and to the nature of the country, be reduced to impotence, if not brought to destruction. The campaigns of Alexander are supposed to have proved the opposite to be the case. Those who take that view of them seem to forget that the enemy opposed to him adopted tactics wholly unsuited to the nature of their army, and fought the very pitched battles which they should have scrupulously avoided. Had the Persians in that war employed the tactics which three centuries later led to Carrhæ, the campaigns of Alexander might have ended in the neighbourhood of the Amanus. The military history of the East and West in the centuries preceding the Christian era is ruled by one great limitation. East could not gain any decisive advantage over West in the West, nor West over East in the East, unless the enemy made a fundamental error in tactics.

The resources of the East in light cavalry were out of all proportion to any number of this arm which the West could, even with the utmost effort, put into the field; and such a force, properly employed, must have always made the immense plains of the Euphrates or of Media untraversable to a Western army. In like manner, against the heavy infantry of the West, accompanied by a proper quota of light-armed troops, the light infantry of the East were helpless in regions where it could not be supported by its cavalry; and west of Taurus, such regions were the rule and not the exception. The eastern Taurus was, indeed, the military frontier between East and West.

This generalization may appear to be somewhat wide; but the results of every single battle in which East and West came into conflict support it. There are no exceptions. Such cases as appear to be so afford the strongest evidence of the truth of it: in every one of them the loser committed some glaring tactical error which robbed him of the essential advantages which the very nature of things afforded him.

As a pure example of the military art, Himera did more credit to the victors than did Platæa. It was won by reason of a well-devised plan; Platæa, in spite of an ill-devised one. In its results it was hardly less decisive, though these results were not of a character to attract the attention of the modern world so forcibly as the after-effects of Platæa.

Its actual date in 480 is uncertain. Diodorus assigns it to the same day as Thermopylæ. Unfortunately, the historians of this period display so marked a tendency to discover such coincidences of date that any statement of this kind cannot be regarded as reliable.

Of all the great expedition, only twenty warships escaped from Himera, and these, over-laden with fugitives, perished in a storm on the way home. The news of the disaster was carried to Carthage by a few survivors who managed to reach the coast in a small boat. The consternation which it excited was naturally terrible; and for some time the Carthaginians lived in daily expectation of the appearance of Gelo’s fleet on the African coast.

In order, if possible, to ward off the fatal catastrophe which, under the circumstances, must have resulted from such an invasion, ambassadors were despatched to Syracuse with all speed to make the best terms they could. In point of fact, the alarm on this particular score was groundless. Gelo seems to have been content to leave well alone, and to reap the fruits of his victory in Sicily, without attempting conquest over-sea. It is obvious that, had he been otherwise inclined, the history of the world might have been changed by the destruction or permanent crippling of the Carthaginian power.

The disposal of the large number of prisoners which had been taken was first provided for. They were distributed among the Sicilian towns. Akragas got more than her due share, because the fugitives from Himera, fleeing inland to the mountains, had ultimately arrived in the territory of that city, where they were captured in large numbers. The magnificence of the temples and public works of that great town was largely due to the employment of these prisoners on their construction.176 That page of history which records Gelo’s reception of the Carthaginian embassy is obscure. The facts are sufficiently plain. He demanded extraordinarily moderate terms: a war subsidy of two thousand talents of silver, and the expenses of the construction of two temples. But why such moderation was observed by him at a time when he could without doubt have brought about the withdrawal of all the Punic settlements in Sicily, is not explained. Nor, in the silence of history, can any adequate motive for his action be suggested, unless he took the view that he would best secure a lasting peace by such a policy. The Carthaginians attributed his treatment of them to the influence of his wife Demarete; and it is recorded to the credit of a people whose good points are not, from the force of circumstances, brought into prominence in Greek and Latin history, that they showed their gratitude to her by the free gift of one hundred talents of gold. Gelo, having exhausted sentiment in the late negotiations, exercised the persuasion of a husband, Head. Hist. Num sub Syracuse. and appropriated the treasure to the establishment of that magnificent silver coinage which has excited the admiration of later ages.

Thus ended this brief but important chapter in Sicilian history. The Greek of Greece sought to ignore its significance; his posterity but half remembered it; and the great historian of the latter half of the century accepted the maimed tradition as he found it. But to the historical inquirer of the present day, who has all the evidence before him, this episode must appear not the least glorious part of the great struggle which saved western civilization.

Among the troops who shared in the retreat of Xerxes’ army to the Hellespont, was a body of sixty thousand men selected from those which Mardonius had chosen. They were under the command of Artabazos, about whom and whose family Herodotus seems to have had special facilities for acquiring information. ARTABAZOS BESIEGES POTIDÆA. It may be suspected that this intimacy was due to the successive tenure in after-time of the Daskylian satrapy in Northen Asia Minor by Artabazos, his son, and grandson. The reason for his accompanying the march to the Hellespont was, so Herodotus says, that he might escort the king. It is more probable that the main motive lay in the organization of the new main line of communications along the North Ægean, with reference especially to commissariat. On his return from the Hellespont, he found the line threatened at one point by a rising against the Persian power, which had broken out in Pallene, the westernmost of the peninsulas of Chalkidike, and in the country immediately north of it, about the town of Olynthos. The desperate state of the king’s army in its passage by their territory had evidently given the citizens of this region the idea that the days of the Persian dominion in Europe were numbered, and that thus they might with safety throw off the yoke without further delay. The insurrection, though confined to this small region, threatened what was now the sole line of communications. It was imperative to crush it forthwith. This Artabazos set to work to do in the course of his return march to Thessaly. He laid siege to Potidæa, the chief town of Pallene, which stood on the narrow isthmus which connected the peninsula with the mainland, and, having walls from sea to sea, prevented all access to the peninsula itself to any force unaccompanied by a fleet. Its position was consequently one of great strength. Olynthos was by no means so strongly placed, but was of still greater importance to Artabazos, as more directly blocking the great highway from Asia. This latter town he took apparently without much trouble, and massacred its Bottiæan inhabitants at a lake hard by. He handed over the place to the Chalkidian Greeks, under the command of a native of Torone.

He then proceeded to blockade Potidæa on the side of the mainland, that towards the peninsula being inaccessible to him. The siege was marked by one of those attempted acts of treachery which too often blot the records of Greek courage. The commander of the contingent from one of the Pallenian towns, Skione, entered into communication with the Persian by means of written messages concealed in the feathers of an arrow which was shot to a place previously agreed upon. Unfortunately for the success of the plan, Artabazos on one occasion missed the mark, and hit one of the besieged in the shoulder. His friends gathering round him discovered the writing wrapped round the shaft, and carried it to the generals. The Skionian commander was, however, spared for the time being, lest the stigma of treachery should attach to his fellow-citizens.

The siege had lasted three months when an extraordinary ebb of the sea took place, rendering it possible for the besiegers to make their way on either side of the town towards Pallene. This phenomenon was not rare at Potidæa, so Herodotus says, but on this occasion it occurred on a larger scale than usual. It was probably due to one of those volcanic disturbances for which the Ægean has been ever noted. Had the Persians taken immediate advantage of the opportunity thus offered, they might have got into the town, but, probably distrusting the nature of what must have seemed to them a very extraordinary occurrence, they were late in venturing upon the passage, and the returning flow came upon them when but two-thirds of the way across. Those who could not swim were drowned, and those who could were destroyed by the garrison, who put out in boats for that purpose. How many lives were lost history does not say, but the disaster was sufficiently great to make Artabazos throw up the siege. The capture of Olynthos had made the road fairly secure.