A Manual of Ancient History

by M. E. Thalheimer

B. C. 479.

125. Battle of Platæa. The Spartans were attacked while on the march, and sent immediately to the Athenians for aid. The latter marched to their assistance, but were intercepted by the Ionian allies of the Persians, and cut off from the intended rescue. Pausanias, thus compelled to engage with a small portion of his army, ordered a solemn sacrifice, and his men stood awaiting the result, unflinching, though exposed to a storm of Persian arrows. The omens were unfavorable, and the sacrifices were again and again renewed. At length Pausanias, lifting his eyes streaming with tears toward the temple of Hera, besought the goddess that if fate forbade the Greeks to conquer, they might, at least, die like men. At this moment the sacrifices assumed a more favorable aspect, and the order for battle was given.

The Spartan phalanx in one dense mass moved slowly but steadily against the Persians. The latter acted with wonderful resolution, seizing the pikes of the Spartans or snatching away their shields, while they wrestled with them hand to hand. Mardonius himself, at the head of his chosen guards, fought in the foremost ranks, and animated the courage of his men both by word and example. But he received a mortal wound, and his followers, dismayed by his fall, fled in confusion to their camp. Here they again made a stand against the Lacedæmonians, who were unskilled in attacking fortified places, until the Athenians, who had meanwhile conquered their Ionian opponents, came up and completed the victory. They scaled the ramparts and effected a breach, through which the remainder of the Greeks poured into the camp. The Persians now yielded to the general rout. They fled in all directions, but were so fiercely pursued, that, except the 40,000 of Artaba´zus, who had already secured their retreat, scarcely 3,000 escaped. The victory was complete, and immense treasures of gold and silver, besides horses, camels, and rich raiment, remained in the hands of the Greeks.

126. Mounds were raised over the brave and illustrious dead. Only to Aristodemus, the Spartan, who had incurred disgrace by returning alive from Thermopylæ, no honors were decreed. The soil of Platæa became a second “Holy Land.” Thither every year embassies from the states of Greece came to offer sacrifices to Zeus, the deliverer, and every fifth year games were celebrated in honor of liberty. The Platæans themselves, exempt henceforth from military service, became the guardians of the sacred ground, and to attack them was decreed to be sacrilege.

127. On the day of the victory of Platæa, a no less important advantage was gained by the Greeks at Mycale, in Ionia. Here a large land force, under Tigra´nes, had been stationed by Xerxes for the protection of the coast, and hither the Persian fleet retired before the advance of the Greeks. The Persians drew their ships to land, and protected them by intrenchments and strong earth-works. The Greeks, finding the sea deserted, approached near enough to make the voice of a herald heard, who exhorted the Ionians in the army of Tigranes to remember that they, too, had a share in the liberties of Greece. The Persians, not understanding the language of the herald, began to distrust their allies. They deprived the Samians of their arms, and placed the Milesians at a distance from the front to guard the path to the heights of Mycale. The Greeks, having landed, drove the Persians from the shore to their intrenchments, and the Athenians first became engaged in storming the barricades. The native Persians fought fiercely, even after their general was slain, and fell at last within their camp. All the islands which had given assistance to the Medes were now received into the Hellenic League, with solemn pledges never again to desert it.

RECAPITULATION.

Athens incurred the vengeance of the Persian king by aiding a revolt of the Asiatic Greeks. The first invasion of Greece, by Mardonius, failed; a second and larger force, under Datis and Artaphernes, ravaged Naxos and part of Eubœa, but was defeated by Miltiades and 11,000 Greeks, at Marathon. An unsuccessful attempt, upon Paros destroyed the fame of Miltiades, and he died under a charge of having received bribes from the Persians. Aristides succeeded him in popular favor, but was at length exiled through the influence of Themistocles. The latter urged the naval preparations of his countrymen, and Athens then first became a great maritime power. A congress at Corinth, B. C. 481, united the Greek forces under Spartan command. The Delphic oracle promising safety to the Athenians only within walls of wood, they abandoned their city and took refuge on the fleet. A few hundreds of Spartans and Thespians withstood the Persian host at Thermopylæ, until betrayed by a Malian guide. The invaders were totally defeated in a naval combat at Salamis, and Xerxes retired to Persia. Mardonius, failing to end the war by diplomacy, was finally overthrown in the battles of Erythræ and Platæa; and the land and naval forces of the Persians were at the same time destroyed at Mycale, in Asia Minor.

Growth of Athens.

128. Though their immediate danger was past, the Greeks did not suffer their enemies to rest. A fleet of fifty vessels was prepared, with the intention to rescue every Greek city in Europe or Asia which still felt the power of the Persian. Though Athens, as before, furnished more ships than all the other states, Pausanias commanded. He first wrested Cyprus from the Persians, and then proceeded to Byzantium, which he also liberated and occupied as a residence for seven years.