GREECE 



that Athens might be compelled to 

 make her own terms, involving at 

 least the withdrawal of her fleet 

 and the exposure of Peloponnesus 

 to attack from the sea, drove the 

 Spartans, to whom the control of 

 the land forces were assigned, to 

 occupy first the northern pass of 

 Tempe, and when it was found that 

 that could be turned, the nearer 

 pass of Thermopylae. 



Even then nothing more than 

 the advance guard bad been sent, 

 while the forces of the Athenians 

 and their island allies were on the 

 fleets which were engaged in hold- 

 ing the Persian navies at bay. The 

 Greek position was turned at Ther- 

 mopylae; and Leonidas, having 

 dismissed the major portion of his 

 troops, fell at the head of his three 

 hundred Spartans, winning thereby 

 immortal renown, but not saving 

 Hellas. The Persians overran At- 

 tica, but the Athenians drew the 

 fleets of the Barbarians into the 

 great naval engagement in the bay 

 of Salamis (480)" where they were 

 annihilated. 



Then at last, though again only 

 under threat of the Athenian with- 

 drawal, Sparta prepared for a vig- 

 orous offensive against the still 

 vast army which Xerxes yet re- 

 tained in Greece, an army which 

 was finally and utterly shattered in 

 479 at Plataea ; while the coup 

 de grace was simultaneously ad- 

 ministered to the Persian navy on 

 the Asiatic coast at Mycale. At the 

 same time the Hellenes in Sicily 

 under Gela, tyrant of Syracuse, 

 broke another Oriental wave by 

 a crushing defeat of the Cartha- 

 ginians at Himera in 480. 



The importance of these years to 

 the history, not only of Greece, but 

 of the world can hardly be over- 

 estimated. They saw the first grand 

 collision between Orientalism and 

 the vital spirit of Western civiliza- 

 tion. The triumph of Persia would 

 have turned Athens into another 

 Tyre at the best ; the triumph of 

 the Greeks made her the Athens of 

 Pericles, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Eu- 

 ripides, and Pheidias, the mother of 

 Socrates and Plato. 



GREECE 



Of all the Greek states, Athens 

 had the most to giin by a tame 

 submission, the most to suffer 

 through a bold defiance whatever 

 the result might be, the most to 

 lose hy defeat. She staked all and 

 saved her soul, and thereby saved 

 the soul of Europe. If Persia had 

 won, Greece would have been 

 emasculated, the Oriental tide 

 would have rolled on into Sicily, 

 and Italy, Rome, at that time 

 " mewing her mighty youth " 

 would have been submerged, the 

 very conception of political liberty 

 would have been blotted out. Nor 

 is it to be believed that, if this. Had 

 befallen, Greek thought and Greek 

 conceptions of art would have 

 attained to anything like that 

 development which during the next 

 century and a half gave the Greeks 

 that supremacy which has ever 

 since influenced the world. 



In 490 the great majority of the 

 Greeks probably believed that re- 

 sistance to the power of Persia was 

 all but hopeless. In 479 the Greek 

 attitude had become altogether 



Greece. Types of the inhabitants. 1. Man from Andravidha. 2. Shepherd of Morea in winter coat of straw. 3. 

 Mahomedan peasant. 4. Man from Dhmiyizana. 5. Gendarme of Samos. 6. Bride in costume of Patmos. 7. Peasant 



woman of Morea. 8. Woman of Corinth 



