The great Persian War and its preliminaries

by G. B. Grundy

There seems to have been a belief current in Greece when first the news of the coming expedition was noised abroad, that it was a punitive one aimed, like that of Datis and Artaphernes, against Athens.[105] The then recent events of 490 would lend colour to such a belief. When the magnitude of the coming expedition became known, and reports as to its real intent came across the Ægean, Greece as a whole began to think that the danger was more widely threatening than had been first supposed. Delphi did not share in this change of opinion, and continued to regard the expedition as aimed against Athens alone. Holding this view, she adopted the double course of trying to remove the cause of offence by getting the Athenians to leave Greece, and of doing all in her power to prevent Greece as a whole from being involved in the matter. She was successful in preventing Crete and Argos from joining in the Hellenic defence, and the second half of the first oracle delivered to Athens, if a part of the original version, is a threat, uttered possibly about the time of the expedition to Thessaly, to those powers other than Athens who seemed inclined to make the question a pan-Hellenic one. Whatever Delphi thought, Sparta had by that time fully made up her mind that the danger was one which threatened the whole of Greece, and was consequently exceedingly alarmed at the tenour of the advice given by Delphi to the Athenians, the only result of which would be to rob her of an adjunct to the defence whose value she fully appreciated,—the Athenian fleet No time was lost in bringing pressure to bear on Delphi. The result was the second oracle delivered to Athens, which, in spite of its ambiguous wording, clearly advocated a policy in strong contrast to that which the first response had laid down.

The account of these oracles, which is, evidently, from the chronological point of view, of the nature of a digression in Herodotus’ history, is succeeded by the description of certain events which must have taken place in the autumn and winter of 481.

Several measures are described which were adopted by the Council of the Greeks which had been formed to take the necessary steps to resist the coming invasion. A settlement was made of the outstanding disputes between the Greek States, and especially of the war between Athens and Ægina.

This settlement must, apparently, be attributed to the autumn of 481, for the measures which were next taken, H. vii. 145. which are expressly stated to have been subsequent to this reconciliation, were contemporaneous with the presence of the Persian Army at Sardes, H. vii. 37. and belong therefore to the winter of 481–480. The measures were: the seeding of spies into Asia; the despatching of ambassadors to solicit aid from Gelon of Syracuse, from Crete, from Corcyra, and from Argos.

THE HARBOUR OF CORCYRA.

[To face page [241].

CORCYRA.

H. vii. 146, 174.

The tale of the fate of the spies is one upon which tradition was likely to improve; but there is no reason to doubt the main incidents of it; how they went to Sardes and were apprehended; how they were only saved from execution by the interposition of Xerxes, who thought it would be instructive to them to see what they wanted to see, and that it might be very advantageous to him if they reported what they had seen to those who sent them. Xerxes’ policy in the matter was admittedly wise. Resistance is frequently due to misapprehension.