Though the resolution of the Greek deputies assembled at the Isthmus, to defend conjointly Thermopylæ and the Eubœan strait, had been taken, seemingly, not long after the retreat from Tempê, their troops and their fleet did not actually occupy these positions until Xerxes was known to have reached the Thermaic gulf. Both were then put in motion; the land-force under the Spartan king Leonidas, the naval force under the Spartan commander Eurybiadês, apparently about the latter part of the month of June. Leonidas was the younger brother, the successor, and the son-in-law, of the former Eurystheneid king Kleomenês, whose only daughter Gorgo he had married. Another brother of the same family—Dorieus, older than Leonidas—had perished, even before the death of Kleomenês, in an unsuccessful attempt to plant a colony in Sicily; and room had been thus made for the unexpected succession of the youngest brother. Leonidas now conducted from the Isthmus to Thermopylæ a select band of three hundred Spartans,—all being citizens of mature age, and persons who left at home sons to supply their places.[133] Along with them were five hundred hoplites from Tegea, five hundred from Mantineia, one hundred and twenty from the Arcadian Orchomenus, one thousand from the rest of Arcadia, four hundred from Corinth, two hundred from Phlius, and eighty from Mykenæ. There were also, doubtless, Helots and other light troops, in undefined number, and probably a certain number of Lacedæmonian hoplites, not Spartans. In their march through Bœotia they were joined by seven hundred hoplites of Thespiæ, hearty in the cause, and by four hundred Thebans, of more equivocal fidelity, under Leontiadês. It appears, indeed, that the leading men of Thebes, at that time under a very narrow oligarchy, decidedly medized, or espoused the Persian interest, as much as they dared before the Persians were actually in the country: and Leonidas, when he made the requisition for a certain number of their troops to assist in the defence of Thermopylæ, was doubtful whether they would not refuse compliance, and openly declare against the Greek cause. The Theban chiefs thought it prudent to comply, though against their real inclinations, and furnished a contingent of four hundred men,[134] chosen from citizens of a sentiment opposed to their own. Indeed the Theban people, and the Bœotians generally, with the exception of Thespiæ and Platæa, seem to have had little sentiment on either side, and to have followed passively the inspirations of their leaders.
With these troops Leonidas reached Thermopylæ, whence he sent envoys to invite the junction of the Phocians and the Lokrians of Opus. The latter had been among those who had sent earth and water to Xerxes, of which they are said to have repented: the step was taken, probably, only from fear, which at this particular moment prescribed acquiescence in the summons of Leonidas, justified by the plea of necessity in case the Persians should prove ultimately victorious:[135] while the Phocians, if originally disposed to medize, were now precluded from doing so by the fact that their bitter enemies, the Thessalians, were active in the cause of Xerxes, and influential in guiding his movements.[136] The Greek envoys added strength to their summons by all the encouragement in their power. “The troops now at Thermopylæ, they said, were a mere advanced body, preceding the main strength of Greece, which was expected to arrive every day: on the side of the sea, a sufficient fleet was already on guard: nor was there any cause for fear, since the invader was, after all, not a god, but a man, exposed to those reverses of fortune which came inevitably on all men, and most of all, upon those in preëminent condition.”[137] Such arguments prove but too evidently the melancholy state of terror which then pervaded the Greek mind: whether reassured by them or not, the great body of the Opuntian Lokrians, and one thousand Phocians, joined Leonidas at Thermopylæ.
That this terror was both genuine and serious, there cannot be any doubt: and the question naturally suggests itself, why the Greeks did not at once send their full force instead of a mere advanced guard? The answer is to be found in another attribute of the Greek character,—it was the time of celebrating both the Olympic festival-games on the banks of the Alpheius, and the Karneian festival at Sparta and most of the other Dorian states.[138] Even at a moment when their whole freedom and existence were at stake, the Greeks could not bring themselves to postpone these venerated solemnities: especially the Peloponnesian Greeks, among whom this force of religious routine appears to have been the strongest. At a period more than a century later, in the time of Demosthenes, when the energy of the Athenians had materially declined, we shall find them, too, postponing the military necessities of the state to the complete and splendid fulfilment of their religious festival obligations,—starving all their measures of foreign policy in order that the Theôric exhibitions might be imposing to the people and satisfactory to the gods. At present, we find little disposition in the Athenians to make this sacrifice,—certainly much less than in the Peloponnesians. The latter, remaining at home to celebrate their festivals while an invader of superhuman might was at their gates, remind us of the Jews in the latter days of their independence, who suffered the operations of the besieging Roman army round their city to be carried on without interruption during the Sabbath.[139] The Spartans and their confederates reckoned that Leonidas with his detachment would be strong enough to hold the pass of Thermopylæ until the Olympic and Karneian festivals should be past, after which period they were prepared to march to his aid with their whole military force:[140] and they engaged to assemble in Bœotia for the purpose of defending Attica against attack on the land-side, while the great mass of the Athenian force was serving on shipboard.
At the time when this plan was laid, they believed that the narrow pass of Thermopylæ was the only means of possible access for an invading army. But Leonidas, on reaching the spot, discovered for the first time that there was also a mountain-path starting from the neighborhood of Trachis, ascending the gorge of the river Asôpus and the hill called Anopæa, then crossing the crest of Œta and descending in the rear of Thermopylæ near the Lokrian town of Alpêni. This path-–then hardly used, though its ascending half now serves as the regular track from Zeitun, the ancient Lamia, to Salona on the Corinthian gulf, the ancient Amphissa–-was revealed to him by its first discoverers, the inhabitants of Trachis, who in former days had conducted the Thessalians over it to attack Phocis, after the Phocians had blocked up the pass of Thermopylæ. It was therefore not unknown to the Phocians: it conducted from Trachis into their country, and they volunteered to Leonidas that they would occupy and defend it.[141] But the Greeks thus found themselves at Thermopylæ under the same necessity of providing a double line of defence, for the mountain-path as well as for the defile, as that which had induced their former army to abandon Tempê: and so insufficient did their numbers seem, when the vast host of Xerxes was at length understood to be approaching, that a panic terror seized them; and the Peloponnesian troops especially, anxious only for their own separate line of defence at the isthmus of Corinth, wished to retreat thither forthwith. The indignant remonstrances of the Phocians and Lokrians, who would thus have been left to the mercy of the invader, induced Leonidas to forbid this retrograde movement: but he thought it necessary to send envoys to the various cities, insisting on the insufficiency of his numbers, and requesting immediate reinforcements.[142] So painfully were the consequences now felt, of having kept back the main force until after the religious festivals in Peloponnesus.
Nor was the feeling of confidence stronger at this moment in their naval armament, though it had mustered in far superior numbers at Artemisium on the northern coast of Eubœa, under the Spartan Eurybiadês. It was composed as follows: one hundred Athenian triremes, manned in part by the citizens of Platæa, in spite of their total want of practice on shipboard; forty Corinthian, twenty Megarian, twenty Athenian, manned by the inhabitants of Chalkis, and lent to them by Athens; eighteen Æginetan, twelve Sikyonian, ten Lacedæmonian, eight Epidaurian, seven Eretrian, five Trœzenian, two from Styrus in Eubœa, and two from the island of Keos. There were thus in all two hundred and seventy-one triremes; together with nine pentekonters, furnished partly by Keos and partly by the Lokrians of Opus. Themistoklês was at the head of the Athenian contingent, and Adeimantus of the Corinthian; of other officers we hear nothing.[143] Three cruising vessels, an Athenian, an Æginetan, and a Trœzenian, were pushed forward along the coast of Thessaly, beyond the island of Skiathos, to watch the advancing movements of the Persian fleet from Therma.
It was here that the first blood was shed in this memorable contest. Ten of the best ships in the Persian fleet, sent forward in the direction of Skiathos, fell in with these three Grecian triremes, who probably supposing them to be the precursors of the entire fleet sought safety in flight. The Athenian trireme escaped to the mouth of the Peneius, where the crew abandoned her, and repaired by land to Athens, leaving the vessel to the enemy: the other two ships were overtaken and captured afloat,—not without a vigorous resistance on the part of the Æginetan, one of whose hoplites, Pythês, fought with desperate bravery, and fell covered with wounds. So much did the Persian warriors admire him, that they took infinite pains to preserve his life, and treated him with the most signal manifestations both of kindness and respect, while they dealt with his comrades as slaves.
On board the Trœzenian vessel, which was the first to be captured, they found a soldier named Leon, of imposing stature: this man was immediately taken to the ship’s head and slain, as a presaging omen in the approaching contest: perhaps, observes the historian, his name may have contributed to determine his fate.[144] The ten Persian ships advanced no farther than the dangerous rock Myrmêx, between Skiathos and the mainland, which had been made known to them by a Greek navigator of Skyros, and on which they erected a pillar to serve as warning for the coming fleet. Still, so intense was the alarm which their presence—communicated by fire-signals[145] from Skiathos, and strengthened by the capture of the three look-out ships—inspired to the fleet at Artemisium, that they actually abandoned their station, believing that the entire fleet of the enemy was at hand.[146] They sailed up the Eubœan strait to Chalkis, as the narrowest and most defensible passage; leaving scouts on the high lands to watch the enemy’s advance.
Probably this sudden retreat was forced upon the generals by the panic of their troops, similar to that which king Leonidas, more powerful than Eurybiadês and Themistoklês, had found means to arrest at Thermopylæ. It ruined for the time the whole scheme of defence, by laying open the rear of the army at Thermopylæ to the operations of the Persian fleet. But that which the Greeks did not do for themselves was more than compensated by the beneficent intervention of their gods, who opposed to the invader the more terrible arms of storm and hurricane. He was allowed to bring his overwhelming host, land-force as well as naval, to the brink of Thermopylæ and to the coast of Thessaly, without hindrance or damage; but the time had now arrived when the gods appeared determined to humble him, and especially to strike a series of blows at his fleet which should reduce it to a number not beyond what the Greeks could contend with.[147] Amidst the general terror which pervaded Greece, the Delphians were the first to earn the gratitude of their countrymen by announcing that divine succor was at hand.[148] On entreating advice from their own oracle, they were directed to pray to the Winds, who would render powerful aid to Greece. Moreover, the Athenian seamen, in their retreat at Chalkis, recollecting that Boreas was the husband of the Attic princess or heroine Oreithyia, daughter of their ancient king Erechtheus, addressed fervent prayers to their son-in-law for his help in need. Never was help more effective, or more opportune, than the destructive storm, presently to be recounted, on the coast of Magnesia, for which grateful thanks and annual solemnities were still rendered even in the time of Herodotus, at Athens as well as at Delphi.[149]
Xerxes had halted on the Thermaic gulf for several days, employing a large portion of his numerous army in cutting down the woods and clearing the roads, on the pass over Olympus from upper Macedonia into Perrhæbia, which was recommended by his Macedonian allies as preferable to the defile of Tempê.[150] Not intending to march through the latter, he is said to have gone by sea to view it; and remarks are ascribed to him on the facility of blocking it up so as to convert all Thessaly into one vast lake.[151] His march from Therma through Macedonia, Perrhæbia, Thessaly, and Achæa Phthiôtis, into the territory of the Malians and the neighborhood of Thermopylæ, occupied eleven or twelve days:[152] the people through whose towns he passed had already made their submission, and the Thessalians especially were zealous in seconding his efforts. His numerous host was still farther swelled by the presence of these newly-submitted people, and by the Macedonian troops under Alexander; so that the river Onochônus in Thessaly, and even the Apidanus in Achæa Phthiôtis, would hardly suffice to supply it, but were drunk up, according to the information given to Herodotus. At Alus in Achæa, he condescended to listen to the gloomy legend connected with the temple of Zeus Laphysteus and the sacred grove of the Athamantid family: he respected and protected these sacred places,—an incident which shows that the sacrilege and destruction of temples imputed to him by the Greeks, though true in regard to Athens, Abæ, Milêtus, etc., was by no means universally exhibited, and is even found qualified by occasional instances of great respect for Grecian religious feeling.[153] Along the shore of the Malian gulf he at length came into the Trachinian territory near Thermopylæ, where he encamped, seemingly awaiting the arrival of the fleet, so as to combine his farther movements in advance,[154] now that the enemy were immediately in his front.
But his fleet was not destined to reach the point of communication with the same ease as he had arrived before Thermopylæ. After having ascertained by the ten ships already mentioned, which captured the three Grecian guardships, that the channel between Skiathos and the mainland was safe, the Persian admiral Megabates sailed with his whole fleet from Therma, or from Pydna,[155] his station in the Thermaic gulf, eleven days after the monarch had begun his land-march; and reached in one long day’s sail the eastern coast of Magnesia, not far from its southernmost promontory. The greater part of this line of coast, formed by the declivities of Ossa and Pelion, is thoroughly rocky and inhospitable: but south of the town called Kasthanæa there was a short extent of open beach, where the fleet rested for the night before coming to the line of coast called the Sêpias Aktê.[156] The first line of ships were moored to the land, but the larger number of this immense fleet swung at anchor in a depth of eight lines. In this condition they were overtaken the next morning by a sudden and desperate hurricane,—a wind called by the people of the country Hellespontias, which blew right upon the shore. The most active among the mariners found means to forestall the danger by beaching and hauling their vessels ashore; but a large number, unable to take such a precaution, were carried before the wind and dashed to pieces near Melibœa, Kasthanæa, and other points of this unfriendly region. Four hundred ships of war, according to the lowest estimate, together with a countless heap of transports and provision craft, were destroyed: and the loss of life as well as property was immense. For three entire days did the terrors of the storm last, during which time the crews ashore, left almost without defence, and apprehensive that the inhabitants of the country might assail or plunder them, were forced to break up the ships driven ashore in order to make a palisade out of the timbers.[157] Though the Magian priests who accompanied the armament were fervent in prayer and sacrifice,—not merely to the Winds, but also to Thetis and the Nereids, the tutelary divinities of Sêpias Aktê,—they could obtain no mitigation until the fourth day:[158] thus long did the prayers of Delphi and Athens, and the jealousy of the gods against superhuman arrogance, protract the terrible visitation. At length, on the fourth day, calm weather returned, when all those ships which were in condition to proceed, put to sea and sailed along the land, round the southern promontory of Magnesia, to Aphetæ, at the entrance of the gulf of Pagasæ. Little, indeed, had Xerxes gained by the laborious cutting through mount Athos, in hopes to escape the unseen atmospheric enemies which howl around that formidable promontory: the work of destruction to his fleet was only transferred to the opposite side of the intervening Thracian sea.