oy ae 
went pean no refuge ; and their defeat was 
a i woe: fra 2h _ Still 2 Pome of their 
fleet were so , principal port of Attica 
could not admit half its numbers ; and the Greeks were 
expecting a renewal of the action on the following day. 
But the Persian commanders _ to have concerted 
no measures on the supposition of a retreat ; and a hasty 
order during the night, directed the whole fleet to steer 
immediately for the Hellespont. The army, thus des- 
titute of the supplies derived from the ships, and un- 
_provided with sufficient magazines on land, fell back 
upon the fri province of Beeotia, and speedily re- 
treated inte Thessaly. Three hundred thousand men 
_. were chosen to remain, under the command of Mardo- 
_nius, to complete the conquest of Greece in the follow- 
ing summer. Of this number, 60,000 of the best troops 
were selected as a royal guard, to accompany their mo- 
>. march as far as the espont on his return to Persia, 
< The rest of the immense multitude which he had led 
Per- into Greece, left to their own resources, suffered be- 
my yond description, from the haste of their march, and the 
“want of ines. They subsisted by rapine from 
- friends as wellas foes; and were reduced at last to eat 
‘the very grass from the ground, and the bark from the 
‘trees. Disease destroyed whom famine had spared ; 
and the towns of Thessaly, Macedonia, and Thrace, 
- “were crowded with the sick and the dying. Upon 
“reaching the Hell t, the bridges were Rated: to 
‘have been destroyed by the violence of the current and 
the storms; but the fleet had arrived to transport the 
wretched remains of the Persian host ; and its discom- 
-fited monarch proceeded to Sardis, not indeed entirely 
unattended, as some of the Greek historians relate, but 
with such a diminished retinue as might almost be call- 
ed nothing, when compared with the incalculable num- 
bers who formerly surrounded his person, and obeyed 
__ his command. 
wal of Early in the following spring, the Persian fleet as- 
sembled at Samos; and Mardonius, having attempted 
without success to detach the Athenians from the Gre- 
cian confederacy, compelled them again hastily to aban- 
don their country ; and, withont opposition, regained 
+ ion of Athens. ‘The Athenian people, under 
_ the protection of their fleet, withdrew to Saliams; and 
there, though deprived of their country, and disappoint- 
ed of the timely assistance which they ought to have 
received from the Peloponnesian states, still rejected, 
with the most enthusiastic animity, ail the conci- 
_ liatory proposals of Persia. The Lacedemonians, who 
_ ‘were at the head of the allies, at length ashamed of 
_ their ungenerous and dastardly delays, dispatched an 
army of 5000 Spartans and 35,000 Helots, under the 
~ eommand of Pausanias. These were joined at the 
isthmus by the other Peloponnesian troops, and by the 
Athenian army under Aristides. Mardonius, secretly 
apprized of their march, gave up the city of Athens 
and its surrounding territories to be pillaged by his 
troops, and fell ren upon his magazines in Beotia, 
where he extended his camp along the course of the 
Asopus to the frontiers of Platwa. The confederated 
Greeks, animated by the propitious omens which had 
- been indicated at their solemn sacrifices, advanced with 
confidence to meet the Persians, and pitched their camp 
at the foot of Mount Cithwron, on the opposite side of 
_ the river Asopus, composing a force of 110,000 men. 
‘Mardonius, who appears from the account given by 
Herodotus (the most impartial historian of the Persian 
invasion) to have been deficient neither in courage or 
policy, anxious to draw the Greeks from their advan. 
ee ee 
a a” . 
ee Pt 8 OR 
GREECE. 
tageous position, harassed them greatly with incessant 
charges by his cavalry ; and more than ten days were 
spent in various evolutions on both sides to gain the 
superiority of the ground, and to induce each other 
to commence the attack, In one of these move- 
ments, the greater part of the Grecian troops, ex- 
cepting only the Tegeans, Lacedemonians, and Athe- 
nians, actually fled to the walls of Platwa; and the 
Persian commander, imagining the retreat to be 
general, hastily advan with his infantry as to 
certain victory. A fierce engagement ensued, in which 
the Persian soldiers, though insufficiently armed for 
close fight, and unequal to the Greeks in the practice 
of war, discovered no inferiority in point of courage 
and enterprise; and were often seen, in their vigorous 
assaults, seizing and breaking with their hands the 
long spears of their opponents. Multitudes perished 
in these vain attempts to penetrate the Spartan pha- 
lanx. Their efforts, after ated failures, began to 
relax. The Greeks advanced in their turn ; and confu- 
sion soon became general among the Persian infantry. 
Their commander Mardonius, while leading on a cho- 
sen body of cavalry to mp his broken troops, re- 
ceived a mortal wound ; and his fall was the signal for 
flight to the whole Persian army. Artabazus, next in 
command, who is said to have dissented from his ge- 
neral in the conduct of the battle, as soon as he was 
assured of the rout of the main body, retreated with 
40,000 men towards Phocis ; but the Persian and Bao- 
tian cavalry stil] kept the field, and afforded considcr- 
able protection to the flying infantry. The Lacedemo- 
nians and Athenians, however, having succeeded in 
carrying the Persian camp by assault, a dreadful slaugh-~ 
ter ensued; and, excepting the detachment which had 
escaped under Artabazus, only 3,000 finally survived 
of 260,000 Asiatics, who composed the rest of the army 
of Mardonius. In the mean time, the Grecian fleet, 
which had remained during the summer inactive at 
Delos, was encouraged, by a private assurance of the 
favourable disposition of the Tonians, to attack the Per- 
sian fleet at Samos. The Persian admiral, having suf- 
fered the Phenician squadron to depart, in the idea that 
the season was too far advanced for naval operations, 
as soon as he received intelligence of the approach of 
the Greeks, hastily sailed from Samos ; and, passing to 
the opposite promontory of Mycale, drew his galleys 
upon the beach, and prepared to defend them on shore. 
The Greeks, resolving to attack the fortified camp, dis- 
embarked their forces in two divisions, one under the 
command of Xanthippus the Athenian, and the other 
led by Leotychides the Lacedemonian. The former 
arriving first at the Persian entrenchments, imme- 
diately commenced the assault; and, aided by the 
Greeks in the Persian service, had entered the ram- 
part, before the Lacedemonians came up. The other 
Asiatics instantly fled from the Athenian assailants ; 
but the native Persians resisted with the utmost bra- 
very, till the arrival of the Lacedemonians, when they 
were completely overpowered, and almost entirely cut 
to pieces, The victorious Greeks, after carrying off 
the most valuable part of the spoil, set fire to the camp, 
and consumed the whole of the Persian fleet on the 
very same day that their army was annihilated at 
Platea. This successful resistance of Greece to the 
Persian invasion, holds out an encouraging example to 
all free states, to maintain their independency against 
any power, however formidable ; and clearly shews, 
that an obstinate determination never to submit, accom 
panied with wise counsels and steady discipline, will 
467 
Greece. 
—— 
Battle at 
Myeale. 
