Helmet and spear

by Alfred John Church

Again the "stars fought in their courses for Greece." That night there was a thunder-storm, with heavy rain and wind. The main body of the fleet did not suffer much material damage, but the crews were dismayed to see fragments of wrecks and bodies of the dead drifted in by the wind. These were, indeed, the tokens of a great disaster. The squadron that was sent round Eubœa had been driven on a lee shore and absolutely destroyed. On the morrow the Persians made no movement, but the Greeks repeated the tactics of the day before. The news of the disaster to the Persian squadron had reached them, and they had been joined by a reinforcement of Athenian ships. This gave them new courage besides increasing their strength. Before the close of the day they captured some Cilician ships.

On the third day the Persian commanders, made desperate by failure, for they served a master who exacted a cruel penalty for ill-success, moved forward to engage the enemy, the Greeks awaiting their attack. The order of the Persian attack was in the shape of a half-moon, and its object to outflank the enemy on either side. The Greeks accepted the challenge. The result was not decisive. The Greeks sunk and captured more ships than they themselves lost. But their own loss was serious. Of the Athenian fleet especially, more than half was so injured as to require repair. By this time, too, the position had ceased to have any strategic value. The pass of Thermopylæ had been forced by the Persians, and it was useless, therefore, to hold Artemisium. That night the Greek fleet retired southwards. Themistocles, before he went, caused to be engraved on a prominent rock an inscription which invited the Asiatic Greeks serving with the Persians to make common cause with their countrymen. "If these words," he reasoned with himself, "escape the knowledge of the king, they may bring these Greeks over to us; if they come to his knowledge, they will make him distrust them."

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Pausanias tells us that he saw at Delphi a statue of this Scyllias, which had been erected by the Amphictyonic Council. A statue of his daughter Hydna had formerly stood next to it, but had been carried off by Nero. The two were famous divers, and some marvellous legends had gathered about them. Pausanias was told that they had dragged away the anchors and moorings of the Persian ships during the storm, and so aggravated the disaster. Herodotus had heard a yet more marvellous story of how Scyllias had dived the whole distance, nearly ten miles, between the Persian station and the Greek, but adds characteristically, "My own opinion is that he made the passage in a boat."

IV

THE WOODEN WALLS

The retreat of the Greek forces from Thermopylæ and Artemisium left Athens without defence. There had been a promise that an army of the allies should make a stand against the invaders in Bœotia. No attempt was made to keep it. The only plan of defence that commended itself to the Peloponnesian States was to fortify the Isthmus of Corinth—and all the states outside the Peloponnesus, Athens excepted, were either pro-Persian or indifferent. As Athens was unwalled, there was no question of defending it; the only thing that could be done was to save as much life and property as was possible. For this the time was short, and might have been shorter than it actually was, for the Athenians had six days in which to transport their belongings to a place of safety, though the distance to be traversed by the invaders was not more than ninety miles. All the women, children, and persons incapacitated by illness or old age were put on shipboard, and carried either to Trœzen, a friendly city in the peninsula of Argolis, which had some tie of kinship with Athens, to Ægina, which was but ten miles away, or to Salamis, which was even nearer. The Athenians begged the allies to remain in the neighbourhood till the work of transport was accomplished, and Salamis happened to be the most convenient spot for this purpose.

The whole fighting strength of Athens was now embarked in its fleet. Years before, Themistocles, with a sagacity and prescience that seem almost miraculous, had counselled his countrymen to spend all their available resources in building ships. And only a few months before, the oracle of Delphi had advised the Athenians to trust in their "wooden wall," a phrase which this same statesman had interpreted as meaning the ships. No one, we may believe, knew better what it meant, as he had probably suggested it. The time had now come to put this counsel into practice. Every able-bodied Athenian took service in the fleet, the wealthy aristocrats, known as the "knights," setting the examples by hanging up their bridles in the temple of Athené.

It had never been the intention of the officers in command of the allied fleet to give battle at Salamis. They thought of nothing but the safety of the Peloponnesus; possibly they believed that nothing more than this could be hoped for. But when the Athenians, compelled as they were to abandon their city, asked for their help in saving non-combatants and such property as could be removed, they could not refuse. And now the question presented itself—Where are we to meet the Persian fleet? The captains assembled in the ship of Eurybiades the Spartan, who was in chief command, and debated on what was to be done. The general opinion was that they should retire from Salamis, from which there would be great difficulty in escaping, if escape should become necessary, and give battle somewhere off the coast of the Peloponnesus. In the midst of the discussion a messenger arrived with the news that the Persians had overrun all Attica, and had taken by storm the citadel of Athens, which a few enthusiasts had insisted on defending. These tidings could not have taken any one by surprise, but the fact that one of the great cities of Greece had fallen into the hands of the barbarians produced a panic. Some of the captains left without waiting for the decision of the council, and, hurrying to their own squadrons, prepared to depart. Those who stayed resolved to retire to the Isthmus and make a stand there.

As Themistocles was returning to his ship from the council, he was met by a friend who, in bygone years, had been his instructor in philosophy. The new-comer, on hearing the decision at which the council had arrived, denounced it most emphatically. "It means ruin for Greece," he said. "The fleet will not remain together to fight; every contingent will steal away, hoping to protect its own country. Go and persuade Eurybiades to reconsider the question."