CHAPTER XLII.
BATTLES OF PLATÆA AND MYKALE. — FINAL REPULSE OF THE PERSIANS.
Though the defeat at Salamis deprived the Persians of all hope from farther maritime attack of Greece, they still anticipated success by land from the ensuing campaign of Mardonius. Their fleet, after having conveyed the monarch himself with his accompanying land-force across the Hellespont, retired to winter at Kymê and Samos: in the latter of which places large rewards were bestowed upon Theomêstor and Phylakus, two Samian captains who had distinguished themselves in the late engagement. Theomêstor was even nominated despot of Samos under Persian protection.[293] Early in the spring they were reassembled, to the number of four hundred sail, but without the Phenicians, at the naval station of Samos, intending, however, only to maintain a watchful guard over Ionia, and hardly supposing that the Greek fleet would venture to attack them.[294]
For a long time, the conduct of that fleet was such as to justify such a belief in its enemies. Assembled at Ægina in the spring, to the number of one hundred and ten ships, under the Spartan king Leotychidês, it advanced as far as Delos, but not farther eastward: nor could all the persuasions of Chian and other Ionian envoys, despatched both to the Spartan authorities and to the fleet, and promising to revolt from Persia as soon as the Grecian fleet should appear, prevail upon Leotychidês to hazard any aggressive enterprise. Ionia and the western waters of the Ægean had now been for fifteen years completely under the Persians, and so little visited by the Greeks, that a voyage thither appeared, especially to the maritime inexperience of a Spartan king, like going to the Pillars of Hêraklês,[295]—not less venturesome than the same voyage appeared fifty-two years afterwards to the Lacedæmonian admiral Alkidas, when he first hazarded his fleet amidst the preserved waters of the Athenian empire.
Meanwhile the hurried and disastrous retreat of Xerxes had produced less disaffection among his subjects and allies than might have been anticipated. Alexander, king of Macedon, the Thessalian Aleuadæ,[296] and the Bœotian leaders, still remained in hearty coöperation with Mardonius: nor were there any, except the Phocians, whose fidelity to him appeared questionable, among all the Greeks northwest of the boundaries of Attica and Megaris. It was only in the Chalkidic peninsula, that any actual revolt occurred. Potidæa, situated on the isthmus of Pallênê, together with the other towns in the long tongue of Pallênê, declared themselves independent: and the neighboring town of Olynthus, occupied by the semi-Grecian tribe of Bottiæans, was on the point of following their example. The Persian general, Artabazus, on his return from escorting Xerxes to the Hellespont, undertook the reduction of these towns, and succeeded perfectly with Olynthus. He took the town, slew all the inhabitants, and handed it over to a fresh population, consisting of Chalkidic Greeks, under Kritobulus of Torônê. It was in this manner that Olynthus, afterwards a city of so much consequence and interest, first became Grecian and Chalkidic. But Artabazus was not equally successful in the siege of Potidæa, the defence of which was aided by citizens from the other towns in Pallênê. A plot which he concerted with Timoxenus, commander of the Skiônæan auxiliaries in the town, became accidentally disclosed: a considerable body of his troops perished while attempting to pass at low tide under the walls of the city, which were built across the entire breadth of the narrow isthmus joining the Pallenæan peninsula to the mainland: and after three months of blockade, he was forced to renounce the enterprise, withdrawing his troops to rejoin Mardonius, in Thessaly.[297]
The latter, before he put himself in motion for the spring campaign, thought it advisable to consult the Grecian oracles, especially those within the limits of Bœotia and Phocis. He sent a Karian, named Mys, familiar with the Greek as well as the Karian language, to consult Trophônius at Lebadeia, Amphiaraus, and the Ismenian Apollo at Thebes, Apollo at mount Ptôon near Akræphiæ, and Apollo at the Phocian Abæ. This step was probably intended as a sort of ostentatious respect towards the religious feelings of allies upon whom he was now very much dependent: but neither the questions put, nor the answers given, were made public: and the only remarkable fact which Herodotus had heard was, that the priest of the Ptôian Apollo delivered his answer in Karian, or at least in a language intelligible to no person present except the Karian Mys himself.[298] It appears, however, that at this period, when Mardonius was seeking to strengthen himself by oracles, and laying his plans for establishing a separate peace and alliance with Athens against the Peloponnesians, some persons in his interest circulated predictions, that the day was approaching when the Persians and the Athenians jointly would expel the Dorians from Peloponnesus.[299] The way was thus paved for him to send an envoy to Athens,—Alexander, king of Macedon; who was instructed to make the most seductive offers, to promise reparation of all the damage done in Attica, as well as the active future friendship of the Great King, and to hold out to the Athenians a large acquisition of new territory as the price of their consent to form with him an equal and independent alliance.[300] The Macedonian prince added warm expressions of his own interest in the welfare of the Athenians, recommending them, as a sincere friend, to embrace propositions so advantageous as well as so honorable: especially as the Persian power must in the end prove too much for them, and Attica lay exposed to Mardonius and his Grecian allies, without being covered by any common defence as Peloponnesus was protected by its isthmus.[301]
This offer, despatched in the spring, found the Athenians reëstablished wholly or partially in their half-ruined city. A simple tender of mercy and tolerable treatment, if despatched by Xerxes from Thermopylæ the year before, might perhaps have been sufficient to detach them from the cause of Hellas: and even at the present moment, though the pressure of overwhelming terror had disappeared, there were many inducements for them to accede to the proposition of Mardonius. The alliance of Athens would insure to the Persian general unquestionable predominance in Greece, and to Athens herself protection from farther ravage as well as the advantage of playing the winning game: while his force, his position, and his alliances, even as they then stood, threatened a desolating and doubtful war, of which Attica would bear the chief brunt. Moreover, the Athenians were at this time suffering privations of the severest character; for not only did their ruined houses and temples require to be restored, but they had lost the harvest of the past summer, together with the seed of the past autumn.[302] The prudential view of the case being thus favorable to Mardonius rather than otherwise, and especially strengthened by the distress which reigned at Athens, the Lacedæmonians were so much afraid lest Alexander should carry his point, that they sent envoys to dissuade the Athenians from listening to him, as well as to tender succor during the existing poverty of the city. After having heard both parties, the Athenians delivered their reply in terms of solemn and dignified resolution, which their descendants delighted in repeating. To Alexander they said: “Cast not in our teeth that the power of the Persian is many times greater than ours: we too know that, as well as thou: but we, nevertheless, love freedom well enough to resist him in the best manner we can. Attempt not the vain task of talking us over into alliance with him. Tell Mardonius that as long as the sun shall continue in his present path, we will never contract alliance with Xerxes: we will encounter him in our own defence, putting our trust in the aid of those gods and heroes to whom he has shown no reverence, and whose houses and statues he has burned. Come thou not to us again with similar propositions, nor persuade us, even in the spirit of good-will, into unholy proceedings: thou art the guest and friend of Athens, and we would not that thou shouldst suffer injury at our hands.”[303]
To the Spartans, the reply of the Athenians was of a similar decisive tenor: protesting their unconquerable devotion to the common cause and liberties of Hellas, and promising that no conceivable temptations, either of money or territory, should induce them to desert the ties of brotherhood, common language, and religion. So long as a single Athenian survived, no alliance should ever be made with Xerxes. They then thanked the Spartans for offering them aid during the present privations: but while declining such offers, they reminded them that Mardonius, when apprized that his propositions were refused, would probably advance immediately, and they therefore earnestly desired the presence of a Peloponnesian army in Bœotia to assist in the defence of Attica.[304] The Spartan envoys, promising fulfilment of this request,[305] and satisfied to have ascertained the sentiments of Athens, departed.
Such unshaken fidelity on the part of the Athenians to the general cause of Greece, in spite of present suffering, combined with seductive offers for the future, was the just admiration of their descendants, and the frequent theme of applause by their orators.[306] But among the contemporary Greeks it was hailed only as a relief from danger, and repaid by a selfish and ungenerous neglect. The same feeling of indifference towards all Greeks outside of their own Isthmus, which had so deeply endangered the march of affairs before the battle of Salamis, now manifested itself a second time among the Spartans and Peloponnesians. The wall across the Isthmus, which they had been so busy in constructing, and on which they had relied for protection against the land-force of Xerxes, had been intermitted and left unfinished when he retired: but it was resumed as soon as the forward march of Mardonius was anticipated. It was, however, still unfinished at the time of the embassy of the Macedonian prince to Athens, and this incomplete condition of their special defence was one reason of their alarm lest the Athenians should accept the terms proposed. That danger being for the time averted, they redoubled their exertions at the Isthmus, so that the wall was speedily brought into an adequate state of defence, and the battlements along the summit were in course of being constructed. Thus safe behind their own bulwark, they thought nothing more of their promise to join the Athenians in Bœotia, and to assist in defending Attica against Mardonius: indeed, their king Kleombrotus, who commanded the force at the Isthmus, was so terrified by an obscuration of the sun at the moment when he was sacrificing to ascertain the inclinations of the gods in reference to the coming war, that he even thought it necessary to retreat with the main force to Sparta, where he soon after died.[307] Besides these two reasons,—indifference and unfavorable omens,—which restrained the Spartans from aiding Attica, there was also a third: they were engaged in celebrating the festival of the Hyakinthia, and it was their paramount object, says the historian,[308] to fulfil “the exigences of the god.” As the Olympia and the Karneia in the preceding year, so now did the Hyakinthia, prevail over the necessities of defence, putting out of sight both the duties of fidelity towards an exposed ally, and the bond of an express promise.
Meanwhile, Mardonius, informed of the unfavorable reception which his proposals had received at Athens, put his army in motion forthwith from Thessaly, joined by all his Grecian auxiliaries, and by fresh troops from Thrace and Macedonia. As he marched through Bœotia, the Thebans, who heartily espoused his cause, endeavored to dissuade him from farther military operations against the united force of his enemies,—urging him to try the efficacy of bribes, presented to the leading men in the different cities, for the purpose of disuniting them. But Mardonius, eager to repossess himself of Attica, heeded not their advice: about ten months after the retreat of Xerxes, he entered the country without resistance, and again established the Persian head-quarters in Athens, May or June, 479 B. C.[309]
Before he arrived, the Athenians had again removed to Salamis, under feelings of bitter disappointment and indignation. They had in vain awaited the fulfilment of the Spartan promise, that a Peloponnesian army should join them in Bœotia for the defence of their frontier; at length, being unable to make head against the enemy alone, they found themselves compelled to transport their families across to Salamis.[310] The migration was far less terrible than that of the preceding summer, since Mardonius had no fleet to harass them; but it was more gratuitous, and might have been obviated had the Spartans executed their covenant, which would have brought about the battle of Platæa two months earlier than it actually was fought.