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protection of Athens enabled them to maintain, and, in return for this inestimable favour, they discovered towards their benefactors, on the present, as well as on every future occasion, the sincerest proofs of gratitude and respect. The Athenian army, now ready to take the field, consisted of about ten thousand freemen, and of probably a still greater number of armed slaves. The generals might certainly have collected a larger body of troops; but they seem to have been averse to commit the safety of the state to the fortune of a single engagement; neither would it have been prudent to leave the walls of Athens, and the other fortresses of Attica, altogether naked and defenceless. It had been a matter of deliberation in the assembly, whether they ought not to stand a siege rather than venture a battle. The Athenian fortifications, indeed, had not attained that strength which they afterwards acquired, yet they might have long resisted the artless assaults of the Persians; or had the latter got possession of the walls, the long, narrow, and winding streets of Athens would have enabled a small number of men to make an obstinate, and perhaps a successful defence, against a superior but less determined enemy. But all hopes from this mode of resistance were damped by the consideration that an immense host of Persians might surround their city, and reduce them by famine.

The Persians (for under the name of Persians are comprehended the various nations which followed the standard of Datis and Artaphernes) were not deficient in martial appearance, nor perhaps entirely destitute of valour, being selected with care from the flower of the Asiatic provinces. But compared with the regularity of the Greek battalions, they may be regarded as a promiscuous crowd, armed in each division with the peculiar weapons of their respective countries, incapable of being harmonised by general movements, or

united into any uniform system of military arrangement. Darts and arrows were their usual instruments of attack; and even the most completely armed trusted to some species of missile weapon. They carried in their left hand light targets of reed or osier, and their bodies were sometimes covered with thin plates of scaly metal; but they had not any defensive armour worthy of being compared with the firm corselets, the brazen greaves, the massy bucklers of their Athenian opponents. The bravest of the Barbarians fought on horseback; but in all ages the long Grecian spear has proved the surest defence against the attack of cavalry, insomuch that even the Romans, in fighting against the Numidian horsemen, preferred the strength of the phalanx to the activity of the legion. The inferiority of their armour and of their discipline was not the only defect of the Persians; they wanted that ardour and emulation which, in the close and desperate engagements of ancient times, were necessary to animate the courage of a soldier. Their spirits were broken under the yoke of a double servitude, imposed by the blind superstition of the Magi, and the capricious tyranny of Darius; with them. their native country was an empty name; and their minds, degraded by the mean vices of wealth and luxury, were insensible to the native charms, as well as to the immortal reward of manly virtue.

Miltiades, the Athenian general, posted his men in a good position. He had caused the ground in front to be strewed in the night with the branches and trunks of trees, in order to interrupt the motion, and break the order of the Persian cavalry, which in consequence of this precaution seem to have been rendered incapable of acting in the engagement. In the morning his troops were drawn up in battle-array, in a long and full line; the bravest of the Athenians on the right, on the left the warriors of Platea, and in the middle the slaves,

who had been admitted on this occasion to the honour of bearing arms. By weakening his centre, the least valuable part, he extended his front equal to that of the enemy; his rear was defended by the hill above mentioned, which, verging round to meet the sea, likewise covered his right; his left was flanked by a lake or marsh. Datis, although he perceived the skilful disposition of the Greeks, was yet too confident in the vast superiority of his numbers to decline the engagement, especially as he now enjoyed an opportunity of deciding the contest before the expected auxiliaries could arrive from Peloponnesus.

When the Athenians

saw the enemy in motion they ran down the hill, with unusual ardour, to encounter them; a circumstance which proceeded, perhaps, from their eagerness to engage, but which must have been attended with the good consequence of shortening the

time of their exposure to the slings and darts of the Barbarians.

The two armies closed; the battle was rather fierce than long. The Persian sword and Scythian hatchet penetrated, or cut down, the centre of the Athenians; but the two wings, which composed the main strength of the Grecian army, broke, routed, and put to flight the corresponding divisions of the enemy. Instead of pursuing the vanquished, they closed their extremities and attacked the Barbarians who had penetrated their centre The Grecian spear overcame all opposition; the bravest of the Persians perished in the field; the remainder were pursued with great slaughter; and such was their terror and surprise, that they fought for refuge, not in their camp, but in their ships. So the liberty of Athens and of Greece was preserved.

ANCIENT BRONZE HELMET.

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XERXES

THE FOLLY OF A TYRANT-GLORIOUS STAND OF THE SPARTANS AT THERMOPYLÆ.

[graphic]

INE years after the

battle of Marathon, and in the fourth year of his reign,

Xerxes found himself uncontrolled master of the East, and in possession of such a fleet and army as flattered him with the hopes of universal empire. The three last years of Darius

were spent in preparing for the Grecian expedition. Xerxes, who succeeded to his sceptre and to his revenge, dedicated four years more to the same hostile purpose. Amidst his various wars and pleasures, he took care that the artisans of Egypt and Phoenicia, as well as of all the maritime provinces of Lower Asia, should labour, with unremitting diligence, in fitting out an armament adequate to the extent of his

ambition. Twelve hundred ships of war, and three thousand ships of burden, were at length ready to receive his commands. The former were of a larger size and firmer construction than any hitherto seen in the ancient world: they carried on board, at a medium, two hundred seamen, and thirty Persians who served as marines. The ships of burden contained, in general, eighty men, fewer being found incapable of rowing them. The whole amounted to four thousand two hundred ships, and about five hundred thousand men, who were ordered to rendezvous in the most secure roads and harbours of Ionia. We are not exactly informed of the number of the land forces, which were assembled at Susa. It is certain, however, that they were extremely numerous, and it is probable that they would continually increase on the march from Susa to Sardis

by the confluence of many tributary nations to the imperial standard of Xerxes.

When the army had attained its perfect complement, we are told that it consisted of seventeen hundred thousand infantry, and four hundred thousand cavalry; which, joined to the fleet above mentioned, made the whole forces amount to near two millions of fighting men. An immense crowd of women and eunuchs followed the camp of an effeminate people. These instruments of pleasure and luxury, together with the slaves necessary in transporting the baggage and provisions, equalled, perhaps exceeded, the number of the soldiers. The slow march of his immense army, and, still more, its tedious transportation across the seas which separate Europe from Asia, ill suited the rapid violence of his revenge. Xerxes therefore ordered a bridge of boats to be raised on the Hellespont, which, in the narrowest part, is only seven stadia, or seven eighths of a mile in breadth. Here the bridge was formed with great labour; but whether owing to the awkwardness of its construction, or to the violence of a succeeding tempest, it was no sooner built than destroyed. The great king ordered the directors of the work to be beheaded; and, proud of his tyrannic power over feeble man, displayed an impotent rage against the elements. In all the madness of despotism he commanded the Hellespont to be punished with three hundred stripes, and a pair of fetters to be dropped into the sea, adding these frantic and ridiculous expressions: "It is thus, thou salt and bitter water, that thy master punishes thy unprovoked injury, and he is determined to pass thy treacherous streams notwithstanding all the insolence of thy malice." After this absurd ceremony, a new bridge was made of a double range of vessels, fixed by strong anchors on both sides, and joined together by cables of hemp and

reed, fastened to immense beams driven into the opposite shores. The decks of the vessels, which exceeded six hundred in number, were strewed with trunks of trees and earth, and their surface was still further smoothed by a covering of plants. Over this the army, in seven days and nights, passed.

The Persian forces were now safely conducted into Europe; and the chief obstacle to the easy navigation of their fleet along the coasts of Thrace, Macedon, and Thessaly, to the centre of the Grecian states, was removed by the dividing of mount Athos. Through the fertile plains of Lesser Asia the whole army had kept in a body; but the difficulty of supplies obliged them to separate into three divisions in their march through the less cultivated countries of Europe. Before this separation took place, the whole fleet and army were reviewed by Xerxes, near Doriscus, a city of Thrace, at the mouth of the river Hebrus. Such an immense collection of men assembled in arms, and attended with every circumstance of martial magnificence, gave an opportunity for seeing, or at least for supposing, many affecting scenes. The ambition of the great king had torn him from his palace of Susa, but it could not tear him from the objects of his affection, and the ministers of his pleasure. He was followed by his women, and by his flatterers, and all the effeminate pride of a court was blended with the pomp of war. While the great body of the army lay every night in the open air, Xerxes and his attendants were provided with magnificent tents. The splendour of his chariots, the mettle of his horses, which far excelled the swiftest racers of Thessaly, the unexampled number of his troops, and, above all, the bravery of the immortal band, a body of ten thousand Persian cavalry, so named because their number was constantly maintained from the flower of the whole army, seemed sufficient to the

admiring crowd to raise the glory of their sovereign above the condition of humanity; especially since, among so many thousands of men as passed in review, none could be compared to Xerxes in strength, in beauty, or in

stature.

But amidst this splendour of external greatness, Xerxes felt himself unhappy. Having ascended an eminence to view his camp and fleet, his pride was humbled with the reflection that no one of all the innumerable host could survive an hundred years. The haughty monarch of Asia was melted into tears. The conversation of his kinsman and counsellor, Artabanus, was ill calculated to console his melancholy. That respectable old man, whose wisdom had often moderated the youthful ardour of Xerxes, and who had been as assiduous to prevent, as Mardonius had been to promote, the Grecian war, took notice that the misery of human life was an object far more lamentable than its shortness. "In the narrow space allotted them, has not every one of these in our presence, and indeed the whole human race, often wished rather to die than to live? The tumult of passions disturbs the best of our days; diseases and weakness accompany old age; and death, so vainly dreaded, is the sure and hospitable refuge of wretched mortals."

Xerxes was not of a disposition steadily to contemplate the dictates of experience and the maxims of philosophy. He endeavoured to divert those gloomy reflections which he could not quite banish, by receiving the submission of the various nations who were now presented to him.

Meanwhile the Greeks, ceasing from internal feuds, sent to consult the oracles, for, although the perpetual dissensions between rival states frequently weakened the authority of the Amphictyonic confederacy, it appeared on the present, as on many other occasions, that the Greeks acknowledged the

obligation of a tacit alliance to defend each other against domestic tyrants and foreign barbarians.

Before they had an opportunity of learning the will of the gods, or of discovering the intentions of their distant allies, ambassadors arrived from those communities of Thessaly which still adhered to the interest of Greece, praying a speedy and effectual assistance to guard the narrow passes which lead into their country. There is a valley near the coast of the Egean, between the lofty mountains of Ossa and Olympus, which afforded the most convenient passage from Macedon into Thessaly. This singular spot, commonly called the valley of Tempé, is about five miles in length, and, where narrowest, scarcely an hundred paces in breadth; but is adorned by the hand of Nature with every object that can gratify the senses or delight the fancy. The gently-flowing Peneus intersects the middle of the plain.

Its waters are increased by perennial cascades from the green mountains, and thus rendered of sufficient depth for vessels of considerable burden. The rocks are everywhere planted with vines and olives, and the banks of the river, and even the river itself, are overshadowed with lofty forest-trees, which defend those who sail upon it from the sun's meridian ardour. The innumerable grottoes and arbours carelessly scattered over this delightful scene, and watered by fountains of peculiar freshness and salubrity, invite the weary traveller to repose; while the musical warbling of birds conspires with the fragrant odour of plants to soothe his senses, and to heighten the pleasure. which the eye and fancy derive from viewing the charming variety of this enchanting landscape; from examining the happy intermixture of hill and dale, wood and water; and from contemplating the diversified beauty and majestic grandeur of Nature under her most blooming and beneficent aspects.

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