THE SPOILS OF VICTORY
Meanwhile the Athenians and Peloponnesians, liberated from the immediate presence of the enemy either on land or sea, and passing from the extreme of terror to sudden ease and security, indulged in the full delight and self-congratulation of unexpected victory. On the day before the battle, Greece had seemed irretrievably lost: she was now saved even against all reasonable hope, and the terrific cloud impending over her was dispersed. In the division of the booty, the Æginetans were adjudged to have distinguished themselves most in the action, and to be entitled to the choice lot; while various tributes of gratitude were also set apart for the gods. Among them were three Phœnician triremes, which were offered in dedication to Ajax at Salamis, to Athene at Sunium, and to Poseidon at the Isthmus of Corinth; further presents were sent to Apollo at Delphi, who, on being asked whether he was satisfied, replied, that all had done their duty to him except the Æginetans: from them he required additional munificence on account of the prize awarded to them, and they were constrained to dedicate in the temple four golden stars upon a staff of brass, which Herodotus himself saw there. Next to the Æginetans, the second place of honour was awarded to the Athenians; the Æginetan Polycritus, and the Athenians Eumenes and Aminias, being ranked first among the individual combatants.
Besides the first and second prizes of valour, the chiefs at the isthmus tried to adjudicate among themselves the first and second prizes of skill and wisdom. Each of them deposited two names on the altar of Poseidon: and when these votes came to be looked at, it was found that each man had voted for himself as deserving the first prize, but that Themistocles had a large majority of votes for the second. The result of such voting allowed no man to claim the first prize, nor could the chiefs give a second prize without it; so that Themistocles was disappointed of his reward, though exalted so much the higher, perhaps, through that very disappointment, in general renown. He went shortly afterwards to Sparta, where he received from the Lacedæmonians honours such as were never paid before or afterwards to any foreigner. A crown of olive was indeed given to Eurybiades as the first prize, but a like crown was at the same time conferred on Themistocles as a special reward for unparalleled sagacity; together with a chariot, the finest which the city afforded. Moreover, on his departure, the three hundred select youths called hippeis, who formed the active guard and police of the country, all accompanied him in a body as escort of honour to the frontiers of Tegea. Such demonstrations were so astonishing, from the haughty and immovable Spartans, that they were ascribed by some authors to their fear lest Themistocles should be offended by being deprived of the general prize.[b]
SYRACUSAN VICTORY OVER CARTHAGE
On the very same day on which the Persians were defeated at Salamis, another portion of the Hellenic race, the Sicilian Greeks, also obtained a victory over an immense barbarian force. There is reason to believe that the invasion of Sicily by the Carthaginians was concerted with Xerxes, and that the simultaneous attack on two distinct Grecian peoples, by two immense armaments, was not merely the result of chance. It was, however, in the internal affairs of Sicily that the Carthaginians sought the pretext and the opportunity for their invasion. About the year 481 B.C., Theron, despot of Agrigentum, a relative of Gelo, the powerful ruler of Syracuse, expelled Terillus from Himera, and took possession of that town. Terillus, backed by some Sicilian cities which formed a kind of Carthaginian party, applied to the Carthaginians to restore him. The Carthaginians complied with the invitation; and in the year 480 B.C., Hamilcar landed at Panormus with a force composed of various nations, which is said to have amounted to the enormous sum of three hundred thousand men. Having drawn up his vessels on the beach, and protected them with a rampart, Hamilcar proceeded to besiege the Himeræans, who on their part prepared for an obstinate defence. At the instance of Theron, Gelo marched to the relief of the town with fifty thousand foot and five thousand horse. An obstinate and bloody engagement ensued, which, by a stratagem of Gelo’s, was at length determined in his favour. The ships of the Carthaginians were fired, and Hamilcar himself slain. According to the statement of Diodorus, one hundred and fifty thousand Carthaginians fell in the engagement, while the greater part of the remainder surrendered at discretion, twenty ships alone escaping with a few fugitives. This account may justly be regarded as an exaggeration; yet it cannot be doubted that the victory was a decisive one, and the number very great of the prisoners and slain.
In Sicily, Greek taste made the sinews of the prisoners subserve the purposes of art; and many of the public structures which adorned and distinguished Agrigentum rose by the labour of the captive Carthaginians. Thus were the arms of Greece victorious on all sides, and the outposts of Europe maintained against the incursions of the semi-barbarous hordes of Asia and Africa.[f]
FOOTNOTES
[31] In the years 1821 and 1822, during the struggle which preceded the liberation of Greece, the Athenians were forced to leave their country and seek refuge in Salamis three several times. These incidents are sketched in a manner alike interesting and instructive by Dr. Waddington, in his Visit to Greece (London, 1825), Letters vi, vii, x. He states, p. 92, “Three times have the Athenians emigrated in a body, and sought refuge from the sabre among the houseless rocks of Salamis. Upon these occasions, I am assured, that many have dwelt in caverns, and many in miserable huts, constructed on the mountain-side by their own feeble hands. Many have perished too, from exposure to an intemperate climate; many, from diseases contracted through the loathsomeness of their habitations; many, from hunger and misery. On the retreat of the Turks, the survivors returned to their country. But to what a country did they return? To a land of desolation and famine; and in fact, on the first reoccupation of Athens, after the departure of Omer Brioni, several persons are known to have subsisted for some time on grass, till a supply of corn reached the Piræus from Syra and Hydra.” In the war between the Turks and Venetians in 1688, the population of Attica was forced to emigrate to Salamis, Ægina, and Corinth.
[32] Compare the account given in Pausanias (X, 23) of the subsequent repulse of Brennus and the Gauls from Delphi: in his account, the repulse is not so exclusively the work of the gods as in that of Herodotus: there is a larger force of human combatants in defence of the temple, though greatly assisted by divine intervention: there is also loss on both sides. A similar descent of crags from the summit is mentioned. Many great blocks of stone and cliff are still to be seen near the spot, which have rolled down from the top, and which remind the traveller of these passages. The attack here described to have been made by order of Xerxes upon the Delphian temple seems not easy to reconcile with the words of Mardonius: still less can it be reconciled with the statement of Plutarch, who says that the Delphian temple was burnt by the Medes.