Xerxes / Makers of History

by Jacob Abbott

Nor were the hopes of divine interposition which this wonder awakened disappointed in the end; for, as soon as the detachment of Persians came near the hill on which Delphi was situated, loud thunder burst from the sky, and a bolt, descending upon the precipices near the town, detached two enormous masses of rock, which rolled down upon the ranks of the invaders. The Delphian soldiers, taking advantage of the scene of panic and confusion which this awful visitation produced, rushed down upon their enemies and completed their discomfiture. They were led on and assisted in this attack by the spirits of two ancient heroes, who had been natives of the country, and to whom two of the temples of Delphi had been consecrated. These spirits appeared in the form of tall and full-armed warriors, who led the attack, and performed prodigies of strength and valor in the onset upon the Persians; and then, when the battle was over, disappeared as mysteriously as they came.

Consternation at Athens.
The inhabitants advised to fly.

In the mean time the great body of the army of Xerxes, with the monarch at their head, was advancing on Athens. During his advance the city had been in a continual state of panic and confusion. In the first place, when the Greek fleet had concluded to give up the contest in the Artemisian Channel, before the battle of Thermopylæ, and had passed around to Salamis, the commanders in the city of Athens had given up the hope of making any effectual defense, and had given orders that the inhabitants should save themselves by seeking a refuge wherever they could find it. This annunciation, of course, filled the city with dismay, and the preparations for a general flight opened every where scenes of terror and distress, of which those who have never witnessed the evacuation of a city by its inhabitants can scarcely conceive.

Scenes of misery.

The immediate object of the general terror was, at this time, the Persian fleet; for the Greek fleet, having determined to abandon the waters on that side of Attica, left the whole coast exposed, and the Persians might be expected at any hour to make a landing within a few miles of the city. Scarcely, however, had the impending of this danger been made known to the city, before the tidings of one still more imminent reached it, in the news that the Pass of Thermopylæ had been carried, and that, in addition to the peril with which the Athenians were threatened by the fleet on the side of the sea, the whole Persian army was coming down upon them by land. This fresh alarm greatly increased, of course, the general consternation. All the roads leading from the city toward the south and west were soon covered with parties of wretched fugitives, exhibiting as they pressed forward, weary and wayworn, on their toilsome and almost hopeless flight, every possible phase of misery, destitution, and despair. The army fell back to the isthmus, intending to make a stand, if possible, there, to defend the Peloponnesus. The fugitives made the best of their way to the sea-coast, where they were received on board transport ships sent thither from the fleet, and conveyed, some to Ægina, some to Salamis, and others to other points on the coasts and islands to the south, wherever the terrified exiles thought there was the best prospect of safety.

Some of the inhabitants remain.

Some, however, remained at Athens. There was a part of the population who believed that the phrase "wooden walls," used by the oracle, referred, not to the ships of the fleet, but to the wooden palisade around the citadel. They accordingly repaired and strengthened the palisade, and established themselves in the fortress with a small garrison which undertook to defend it.

Situation of the Acropolis.
Magnificent architectural structures.
Statue of Minerva.
The Parthenon.

The citadel of Athens, or the Acropolis, as it was called, was the richest, and most splendid, and magnificent fortress in the world. It was built upon an oblong rocky hill, the sides of which were perpendicular cliffs, except at one end, where alone the summit was accessible. This summit presented an area of an oval form, about a thousand feet in length and five hundred broad, thus containing a space of about ten acres. This area upon the summit, and also the approaches at the western end, were covered with the most grand, imposing, and costly architectural structures that then existed in the whole European world. There were temples, colonnades, gateways, stairways, porticoes, towers, and walls, which, viewed as a whole, presented a most magnificent spectacle, that excited universal admiration, and which, when examined in detail, awakened a greater degree of wonder still by the costliness of the materials, the beauty and perfection of the workmanship, and the richness and profusion of the decorations, which were seen on every hand. The number and variety of statues of bronze and of marble which had been erected in the various temples and upon the different platforms were very great. There was one, a statue of Minerva, which was executed by Phidias, the great Athenian sculptor, after the celebrated battle of Marathon, in the days of Darius, which, with its pedestal, was sixty feet high. It stood on the left of the grand entrance, towering above the buildings in full view from the country below, and leaning upon its long spear like a colossal sentinel on guard. In the distance, on the right, from the same point of view, the great temple called the Parthenon was to be seen, a temple which was, in some respects, the most celebrated in the world. The ruins of these edifices remain to the present day, standing in desolate and solitary grandeur on the rocky hill which they once so richly adorned.