While the danger was at some distance, the states of Greece looked to remote friends for assistance. Disappointed in these speculations, tho’ the vast armaments of their enemies were constantly rolling towards them, still there was no firmness in their union, no vigor in their resolutions.
The Persian army passed the Hellespont, and directed its march westward. It was then decided, that Thessaly was the frontier to be first attacked.
The Thessalians, than whom no people had been more forward in the common cause, hastened a remonstrance to Corinth, urging that unless they were immediately and powerfully supported, necessity would oblige them to make terms with the invaders.
This reasonable remonstrance roused the sluggish and hesitating councils of the confederacy. A body of foot was dispatched who soon occupied the valley of Tempe, the only pass from Lower Macedonia, into Thessaly.
In a few days, these troops being informed that there was another pass from Upper Macedonia, returned to the Corinthian Isthmus.
The Thessalians thus deserted made their submission.
“This retreat from Tempe appears to have been a precipate measure, rendered necessary by nothing so much as by the want of some powers of government extending over the several states which composed the confederacy.”—Mitford’s History of Greece.
With diminished forces, the defence of the confederates was now to be contracted. But in the conduct even of this business daily becoming more urgent, we find them laboring under the defects of their confederation.
“Destitute of any sufficient power extending over the whole, no part could confide in the protection of the whole, while the naval superiority of their enemy put it in his choice, where, when, and how to make his attacks; and therefore each republic seems to have been anxious to reserve its own strength for future contingencies.
Their generous hearts all beat at the call of freedom; but their efforts were embarrassed and enfeebled by the vices of their political constitution, to their prodigious detriment, and almost to their total destruction. For these vices, the ardor of heroism united with love of country could not compensate. These very vices therefore, may truly be said to have wasted the blood of patriots, and to have betrayed their country into the severest calamities.