HISTORY OF GREECE. 



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and by heavy fetters thrown into it ; and the work 

 was recommenced. At the same time, to avoid 

 the perilous promontory of Mount Athos, a ship- 

 canal, a mile and a half long, was cut across the 

 isthmus, of which traces are visible to this day. 

 The armament of Xerxes marched from Sardis 

 early in 480 B.C. and took seven days and nights 

 to cross the bridge in two columns. Herodotus 

 makes the fighting-men and ships' crews exceed 

 2,500,000, the camp-attendants being at least equal 

 in number. 



Xerxes met with little opposition till he came 

 the famous Pass of Thermopylae, where the 

 range of Mount (Eta approaches close to the 

 Eubcean Gulf. Here it had been decided to make 

 a stand, and here the Spartan king, Leonidas, 

 with a small army of 300 chosen Spartans, with 

 their attendant Helots, and about 5000 soldiers 

 from other states, was stationed to guard the 

 ' Gates ' (pylce\ 



For two days the Persians kept up renewed 

 ults on the pass, but making no impression. 

 At last a treacherous Greek conducted a Persian 

 detachment by a circuitous path over the moun- 

 tains, which could thus attack Leonidas in the 

 rear, and now Thermopylae was no longer defens- 

 ible. Retreat for a Spartan was out of the 

 question ; but, with the exception of 700 Thes- 

 pians, the other Greeks retired. Leonidas and 

 his devoted band now advanced, driving the Per- 

 sians before them, until Leonidas having fallen, 

 and their spears being broken, they were over- 

 whelmed with missiles, and slain to a man ; 20,000 

 Persians are said to have fallen. During the 

 struggle at Thermopylae, the united Greek fleet 

 had been keeping up a desultory warfare with the 

 Persian fleet in the Eubcean channel ; but on the 

 pass being carried, retired to the island of Salamis, 

 opposite to Athens. 



Nothing now stood between that devoted city 

 and the destructive storm of Persian vengeance. 

 The leading man of Athens at that time was 

 Themistocles, whose aim had been to foster the 

 maritime spirit of the Athenians, and who had 

 induced them greatly to increase their war-vessels. 

 An oracle had declared the safety of Athens to be 

 in her 'wooden wall,' and Themistocles now inter- 

 preted that to mean her fleet. The Athenians 

 therefore hurriedly removed their families to 

 Salamis, jEgina, and the Peloponnesus, and be- 

 took themselves to their ships. The hosts of 

 Xerxes soon poured down over Attica, laid waste 

 the deserted country, and plundered and burned 

 the temples and whole city of Athens. At the 

 same time, the Persian fleet arrived, and Xerxes 

 resolved to attack the Greek ships which were 

 posted in the Strait of Salamis ; but from a lofty 

 throne erected on a rocky height overlooking the 

 scene, he beheld his fleet driven into confusion 

 and flight. 



The presumptuous confidence of the monarch 

 now gave place to alarm for his personal safety, 

 and leaving Mardonius with 300,000 select troops 

 to complete the subjugation of Greece, he hurried 

 home by the way he came, multitudes perishing 

 of famine and disease on the march. The following 

 spring, Mardonius sought to detach the Athe- 

 nians by offering them tempting terms of alli- 

 ance against the Peloponnesians ; but the Athe- 

 nians shewed a courage and devotion to the 

 common cause of Hellas, which, under the same 



depressing circumstances, perhaps no other Greek 

 state was capable of, and which the Peloponnesians 

 repaid by selfish and ungenerous neglect. He 

 then once more laid waste Attica, and retired into 

 Bceotia. Here, near the town of Platasa, he was 

 encountered by the united Greeks, 1 10,000 strong, 

 under Pausanias, and defeated with prodigious 

 slaughter, so that only a fraction of the army left 

 by Xerxes reached Asia. On the same day the 

 remains of the Persian fleet were captured and 

 destroyed by the Greek fleet on the coast of Asia 

 Minor. Thus was Greece finally saved from 

 coming under the dominion of Persia (479 B.C.). 



It is sad to think that Themistocles and Pau- 

 sanias ended their career as traitors to Hellas. 

 Pausanias, with insane ambition, entered into 

 secret negotiations with Xerxes to bring Greece 

 under the Persian dominion, as a satrapy for 

 himself: being discovered, he was put to death 

 by his countrymen. Themistocles, the ablest man 

 in Greece, was involved in the same intrigues, but 

 escaped to the Persian monarch, who received 

 him with great favour, and gave him a govern- 

 ment in Asia Minor, where he died. 



THIRD PERIOD : 478-404 B.C. 

 Athens the Leading State of Maritime Greece. 



To preserve the freedom of the now liberated 

 Greek cities on the islands and coasts of the 

 jEgasan, a confederation was formed, of which 

 Athens, from her powerful fleet, naturally became 

 the head. Each state was bound to furnish a 

 fixed quota to the united fleet, and Athens, as 

 head, enforced the regulation. A rivalry thus 

 sprung up between Sparta and Athens ; the land 

 states still clung to Sparta as their head, while 

 the maritime states drew towards Athens. This 

 leadership on the part of Athens, became in the 

 end a sort of dominion. Individual members of 

 the confederacy, becoming weary of personal ser- 

 vice, prevailed on the Athenians to provide ships 

 and men for an equivalent in money ; which the 

 Athenians, having a decided genius for naval war- 

 fare, were willing enough to do. Thus, the allies, 

 instead of equals, became gradually tribute-paying 

 subjects of Athens ; and when any member grew 

 tired of paying the contribution, and had to be 

 compelled, Athens came to be looked upon as a 

 despot, and to be feared and hated accordingly. 

 Jealousy of the rising power of Athens led Sparta 

 to combine with the oligarchical party in Corinth 

 and Bceotia for her humiliation ; but after a 

 struggle, the Athenians succeeded in establishing 

 their influence on land also, from the borders of 

 the Corinthian territory to the Pass of Thermopylae, 

 forcing their opponents into exile, and putting the 

 governments on a democratic footing. Athens 

 was now (about 456 B.C.) at the summit of its 

 power. 



Pericles. 



For above forty years, beginning about 470 B.C. 

 the destinies of Athens were guided by Pericles, 

 the most remarkable man that Greece ever pro- 

 duced. His character combined the integrity of 

 Aristides the Just with the comprehensive views 

 of Themistocles ; to which were superadded a 

 command of temper never disturbed, sound dis- 

 cretion, literary and philosophical education, and 

 an eloquence such as no one had heard or 



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