Before Chrill 481. 6^ 



had adled with unanimity, they would have been vidlorious. But cor- 

 ruption and difcord ruined their fleet. The Greeks were defeated (a°. 

 496), chiefly by means of the Phoenician naval forces ; and the Perfian 

 fetters were riveted upon the Ionian ftates more firmly than before. 

 [Herod. L. vi, cc. 6-4.2.] 



Darius, having fupprefl^d the Ionian rebellion, determined to take 

 vengeance upon the Greeks, and particularly the Athenians for their 

 interference. The expedition condudted by his fon-in-law Mardonius 

 was defeated by a fl:orm, which daflied 300 of his fhips and 20,000 of 

 his foldiers againft the rocks of Mount Athos (a° 494). The next at- 

 tempt was flill more unfortunate. The battle of Marathon (a° 490), 

 which raifed the glory of Athens to the fkies, and rendered the power 

 of Perfia contemptible in the eyes of Greece, is known to every reader 

 of hiftory. 



The Athenians are now entitled by their attention to commerce and 

 navigation to be confidered as a naval power. By the advice of The- 

 mifl:ocles, who ufed to fay, that the war with Perfia was not ended, but 

 only beginning, they applied the produce of their lllver mines to the 

 improvement of their marine efl:ablifliment. Being more defirous of 

 military, than of commercial, pre-eminence, they took upon them to 

 revenge the caufe of Greece upon fuch of the iflands as had yielded to 

 the Perfians. ^gina, though but a fmall rocky ifland, had long main- 

 tained a commercial and naval fuperiority over the other ftates of Greece. 

 It had fubmitted to the Perfians; and being thus obnoxious to the Athen- 

 ians as an enemy as well as a rival, it was fubdued by their fleet. They 

 next fupprefled the Corcyreans, a people, who, uniting merchandize 

 with piracy, had long infulted the neighbouring fhores of Greece, Italy, 

 and Sicily, with impunity. [Plutarch, in Themifl;. — Corn. Nep. in The- 

 mifi.] 



The Athenians, in expedlation of the ftorm which was to burft upon 

 them from the Eafl:, perfevered in the improvement of their fleet. 

 They built two hundred vefi!els of a burthen fuperior to any hitherto 

 ever feen in Greece ; and their fhips, and the valour of their foldiers 

 and failors, were, humanly fpeaking, the prefervation of Greece from 

 Perfian flavery. 



481 — Xerxes, the mighty monarch of Perfia and of a great part of 

 Afia, the heir of his father's revenge as well as of his crown, could not 

 enjoy his felicity, while he faw the fmall ftates of Greece independent 

 of his overgrown empire. Having fpent fome years in preparation, he 

 led feveral millions * of his devoted fubjeds of all ranks, fexes, and 



* Herodotus [L. vii, cc. i86, 187] calculates tion could be made. Perhaps a large allowance 



the whole number of the men whom Xerxes drr.g- ought to be made for Grecian exaggeration in this 



ged along with him to be 15,283,220, befides wo- account, 

 men, and ennuchs, of whofe numbers no calcula- 



