The struggle was fierce and long, but though the Persians lost a greater number of ships than did the Greeks, yet the fleet under Eurybiades was so heavily damaged that even Themistocles saw that safety lay in retreat. At the same time tidings reached him of the defeat of Thermopylae, and he knew that Xerxes would soon be marching to the south. The fleet must hasten home to protect her own coasts.
So the Greek fleet set sail down the long Euboean strait and did not stop until it reached the island of Salamis. But as they sailed, Themistocles bade the captains of the Athenian fleets send some of their ships to the rocks where the Persians would search for water.
On these rocks Themistocles ordered to be cut in large letters these words, ‘Ye do wrong, O Ionians, by going against your fathers and bringing Hellas into slavery. If ye can, take our side; if ye cannot, then fight for neither. But if this also is impossible, at least in the battle be slack and lazy, remembering that ye are sprung from us and that we are fighting in a quarrel which ye began.’
By these words Themistocles hoped to win the Ionians to his side; or, if that might not be, he hoped at least to make Xerxes so suspicious of them that he would be afraid to let them take part in the battles which had yet to be fought.
CHAPTER XLIX
THEMISTOCLES URGES EURYBIADES TO STAY AT SALAMIS
After Xerxes had secured the pass of Thermopylae, a march of six days would bring him to Athens. There was no army in his way, for the Spartans and other tribes in Peloponnesus were now fortifying the Isthmus of Corinth, so as to protect their cities from the foe.
If the Athenians wished to save themselves they would have to desert their city and seek refuge elsewhere, for it was impossible to hold Athens against the great army that was marching towards her. Yet even to save their lives how hard it was to leave their homes, their temples, their gods!
The oracle at Delphi was consulted, and told them that ‘when all was lost a wooden wall should still shelter the Athenians.’ Some there were who believed that the oracle meant that if the Acropolis were fortified with timber it would not be taken by the Persians, and these shut themselves up in the citadel and refused to leave the city.
But Themistocles knew that the only way to save the people was to get them away from Athens, and he used all his eloquence to make them willing to go. When it seemed that he had failed, he tried another way—he began to work upon their superstitious fears. He told them that Athene, their own goddess, had already deserted the city, and taking with her her pet snake had gone to the sea. He assured them that the ‘walls of wood,’ of which the oracle had spoken, were the good ships that were at Salamis, waiting to defeat the Persians and put their fleet to flight.