The great Persian War and its preliminaries

by G. B. Grundy

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.

THEMISTOCLES.

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.

T. i. 138.

“Themistocles was a man who displayed genius in the most unmistakable way, and in this respect calls for admiration in a special and unparalleled manner. For by his native intellectual power, unaided by study or by the teaching of experience, he was capable of giving the ablest opinion in emergencies only admitting of the briefest consideration, and was skilled in forming a judgment upon coming events even to the most distant future. Whatever came within the range of his practice, he could explain; and he did not fail to form an adequate judgment on that which lay beyond his experience. He possessed a peculiar power of foresight into the good and evil of the uncertain future. Speaking generally, by the very power of his genius, in spite of the slightness of his application, he was unsurpassed in devising intuitively what was required in an emergency.”