The great Persian War and its preliminaries

by G. B. Grundy

It has been suggested that these tales, which were calculated in after-time to cast discredit on the behaviour of the Corinthians at this crisis, were invented at the period, later in the century, when Corinth was in the forefront of hostility to Athens. It is, however, very possible that the seeds of that hostility had been already sown, and were bearing fruit in 480. The evidence obtainable from the remains of this period which have been discovered in Sicily and in Magna Græcia, make it clear that in the latter part of the sixth and early years of the fifth century, of the great trading cities of Greece proper, Corinth and Athens divided between them the lion’s share of the trade with the West; There had, no doubt, been a rivalry between the two; but up to a certain point it had been of a peaceful character, neither party being strong enough to establish a supremacy over the other. Still, in the twenty years preceding the war, the changes in the coinage system of Sicily seem to indicate that Athens had been for some time gaining ground. That there was, however, no rupture in the peaceful, or even friendly, relations between the two towns is shown by the fact that Corinth actually aided Athens in one of her wars with Ægina by the loan of ships.

It is calculated that this loan of ships was made about the year 498.[156] Corinth, the Venice of Greece, was a trading state pure and simple; and trade questions must have had a preponderating influence on her policy. It would seem, then, that at the beginning of the fifth century she regarded Ægina as a more formidable trade rival than Athens. One cause for this suggests itself. The naval power of Ægina was at the beginning of the century superior to that of Athens, as the loan of vessels shows; and a trade rival is a much more serious competitor if backed by naval power than if working on the lines of purely peaceful competition. The next twenty years, however, brought about a complete change in the relative circumstances of the three states. Ægina had suffered severely in a war with Athens, which took place in the decade intervening between Marathon and Salamis. The naval power of Athens had, on the other hand, enormously increased from the moment when, in or about 484 the Athenians began to adopt the advice of Themistocles, and to devote the proceeds of the mines of Laurion to the building of a fleet, the like of which Greece had never seen at the command of any single one of her States. This is the probable cause of the original growth of that enmity between Corinth and Athens which was to bear fruit later in the century; and this may account for the attitude of Corinth at the time of the Great War.

Themistocles’ first speech consists of an argument; his second of a threat; but, as Herodotus points out, the second was delivered under the influence of the anger he felt at the injustice of the taunt which Adeimantos had hurled against himself and his countrymen. Never was anger more justifiable. The necessity for the removal of the population had been brought about by the fact that the Peloponnesian land forces at the Isthmus had made no preparation whatever to defend Attica during the time at which the fleet was at Artemisium.

One part of the argument is very striking, because it is, perhaps, the only passage in Herodotus which gives an indication of what must have been of necessity the case,—the dependence of the Persian army on the fleet Themistocles points out to the Greeks that, if they keep the Persian fleet at Salamis, the Persian army can never reach the Isthmus, or even invade the Megarid. More he does not say on this point, because he evidently assumed that his hearers would understand him. If the situation be considered, the only interpretation which they could pit upon his words was that the difficulty of commissariat would, under those circumstances, be an insuperable obstacle to the Persian advance. ORIGINAL AUTHORITIES. Their army, after crossing Kithæron, had left the rich lands of Greece, the plains of Bœotia and Thessaly, behind it. It might, indeed, have reached the Isthmus; but the maintenance of it even for a brief period in a region which could afford but little sustenance, and which was peculiarly inaccessible by land from the North, owing to the interposition of the great and difficult ridge of Geraneia, would become an impossibility.[157]

Map showing THE STRATEGICAL POSITION IN S. BOEOTIA, W. ATTICA AND THE ISTHMUS WITH PASSES OF KITHAERON, PARNES & GERANEIA

London: John Murray, Albemarle Street.
Stanford’s Geographical Estab^t. London.

Note on the Authorities for the Account of Salamis.

It is impossible to enter upon the description of the battle of Salamis without giving some short explanation of the views on the subject which the author has thought fit to adopt, since they differ fundamentally from those which are put forward in the best-known modern histories of Greece. The historians of the last generation do not seem to have recognized that the details of the battle as given by Herodotus present any difficulty of a serious character. His account was accepted as correct, against all other extant evidence on the subject, which was treated as either worthless or of inferior authority.

Apart from chance references in other writers, which are either mere commonplaces or historically valueless, the evidence available is supplied by four authors,—Æschylus, Herodotus, Diodorus, and Plutarch. Those who adopt Herodotus’ views regard the evidence of the other three authors as being, for various reasons, unreliable.