His cavalry

to attack when the forces of the enemy were divided. came up and prevented the Lacedaemonians from proceeding. It The battle. was on the slopes under Hysiae, near the modern village of Kriekouki, that Pausanias was compelled to turn and withstand the Persian horsemen, who were speedily supported by the main body advancing under Mardonius himself. The Persians threw up a light barricade of their wicker shields, from behind which they discharged innumerable arrows. Under this fire the Greeks hesitated; for the victims were unfavourable. At length Pausanias, looking towards the temple of Hera, invoked the goddess; and after his prayer the prophets obtained good omens from the sacrifices. The Lacedaemonians no longer held back. Along with the Tegeates who were with them they carried the barricade and pressed the Persians backward towards the temple of Demeter which stood on a high acclivity above them. In this direction the battle raged hotly; but the discipline of the best spearmen of Greece approved itself brilliantly; and, when Mardonius fell, the battle was decided.

The Lacedaemonians and Tegeates had borne the brunt of the day. At the first attack, Pausanias had dispatched a hasty messenger to the Athenians. As they marched to the scene they were attacked by the Greeks of the left wing of the enemy's army, who effectually hindered them from marching farther. Meanwhile the tidings had reached the rest of the Greek army at Plataea, that a battle was being fought and that Pausanias was winning it. They hastened to the scene, but the action was practically decided before their arrival; some of them were cut off, on the way, by Theban cavalry. The defeated host fled back across the Asopus to their fortified camp; the Greeks pursued, and stormed it. The tent of Mardonius was plundered by the men of Tegea, who dedicated in Spoils. the temple of Athena Alea in their city the brass manger of his horses; while his throne with silver feet and his scimitar were kept by the Athenians on the Acropolis, along with the breastplate of Masistius, as memorials of the fateful day. The body of Mardonius was respected by Pausanias, but it was mysteriously stolen, and none ever knew the hand that buried it. The slain Greek warriors, among whom was the brave Amompharetus, were buried before the gates of Plataea, and the honour of celebrating their memory by annual sacrifice was assigned to the Plataeans, who also agreed to commemorate the day of the deliverance of Hellas by a "Feast of Free- Festival of dom" every four years. Pausanias called the host together, and in Eleutheria. the name of the Spartans and all the confederacy guaranteed to Plataea political independence and the inviolability of her town and territory. The hour of triumph for Plataea was an hour of humiliation for Thebes. Ten days after the battle the army advanced

against the chief Boeotian city and demanded the surrender of the leaders of the medizing party. On a refusal, Pausanias laid siege to the place, but presently the leaders were given up, by their own wish, for they calculated on escaping punishment by the influence of bribery. But Pausanias caused them to be executed, without trial, (Pindar.) at Corinth. A Theban poet who sympathised with the national effort of Hellas might well feel "distressed in soul."

The battle had been won simply and solely by the discipline and prowess of the Spartan hoplites. The plans of the exceptionally able commander, who was matched indeed with a commander abler than himself, were frustrated once and again through the want of unity and cohesion in his army, through the want apparently of tactical skill-most of all perhaps through the half-heartedness of the The legend Athenians. Never do the Athenians appear in such an ill light, as of the battle; in the campaign of Cithaeron; and in no case have they exhibited Athenian so strikingly their faculty of refashioning history, in no case so sucsentations. cessfully imposed their misrepresentations on the faith of posterity.

misrepre

They had no share in the victory; but they told the whole story afterwards so as to exalt themselves and to disparage the Spartans. They represented the night movements planned by Pausanias as a retreat before an expected attack of the enemy, and they invented an elaborate tale to explain how the attack came to be expected. Mardonius, they said, growing impatient of the delay, called a council of war, and it was decided to abandon defensive tactics and provoke a battle. Then Alexander of Macedon showed at this critical moment that his real sympathies were with Hellas and not with his barbarian allies. He rode down to the outposts of the Athenians, and, shouting, we must suppose, across the river, revealed the decision of the Persian council of war. Thus made aware of the Persian resolve to risk a battle, the Spartans proposed to the Athenians to change wings, in order that the victors of Marathon might fight with the Persians, whose ways of warfare they had already experienced, while the Spartans themselves could deal better with the Boeotians and other Greeks, with whose methods of fighting they were familiar. The proposal was agreed to, and as day dawned the change was being effected. But the enemy perceived it, and immediately began to make a corresponding change in their own array. Seeing their plan frustrated, the Greeks desisted from completing it; and both the adversaries resumed their original positions. Mardonius then sent a message to the Lacedaemonians, complaining that he had been deeply disappointed in them, for though they had the repute of never fleeing or deserting their post, they had now attempted to place the Athenians in the place of danger. He challenged them to stand forth as champions for the whole Greek

To this pro

host and fight against an equal number of Persians.
posal the Spartans made no reply. Then Mardonius began his
cavalry operations which led to the retreat of the Greeks from their
second position. The three striking incidents of this malicious tale,
the night-visit of Alexander, the fruitless attempt of the Spartans to
shirk the responsibility of their post on the right wing, the challenge
of Mardonius, are all improbable in themselves; but nevertheless
this story was circulated and believed, and has received a sort of
consecration in the pages of Herodotus.

SECT. 8. BATTLE OF MYCALE AND CAPTURE OF SESTOS

The battle of Cithaeron shares with Salamis the dignity of being Signifi decisive battles in the world's history. Pindar links them together cance of battle of as the great triumphs of Sparta and Athens respectively, battles Plataea; "wherein the Medes of the bent bows were sore afflicted." Notwithstanding the immense disadvantage of want of cavalry, the Lacedaemonians had turned at Plataea a retreat into a victory. The remarkable feature of the battle was that it was decided by a small part of either army. Sparta and Tegea were the actual victors; and on the Persian side, Artabazus, at the head of 40,000 men, had not entered into the action at all. On the death of Mardonius, that general immediately faced about and began without delay the long march back to the Hellespont. Never again was Persia to make a serious attempt against the liberty of European Greece; "a god," said a poet of the day—and the poet was a Theban—“ turned away the stone of Tantalus imminent above our heads." For the following century and a half, the dealings between Greece and Persia will only affect the western fringe of Asia, and then the balance of power will have so completely shifted that Persia will succumb to a Greek conqueror, and Alexander of Macedon will achieve against the Asiatic monarchy what Xerxes failed to achieve against the free states of Europe.

rial.

The tripod

One memorial of this victory of Europe over Asia has survived its memotill to-day. The votive offering which the Greeks sent to Delphi was a tripod of gold set upon a pillar of three brazen serpents, at Delphi. with the names of the Greek peoples who offered it inscribed upon the base. The pillar still stands in Byzantium, whither it was transferred after that city had been renamed Constantinople by her second founder. The immense booty which was found in the Persian camp was divided, when portions had been set apart for the gods and for the general who had led the Greeks to victory.

The achievement of the Hellenic army under Mount Cithaeron, which rescued Greek Europe from the invader, was followed in a

Battle of Mycale (middle of August, 479 B.C.).

few days by an achievement of the Hellenic fleet which delivered the
Asiatic Greeks from their master. The Greek fleet was still at Delos.
We saw that it was the policy of the Athenians to remain inactive
at sea until a battle had been fought on land. For a naval victory
would probably have meant the retreat of the Spartans from northern
Greece, on the calculation that the enemy would not attack Pelopon-
nesus without the co-operation of the fleet. But the armament at
Delos was drawn into action by a message from the Samians, seeking
to join the Greek league, and begging help against the Persian. For
the Persian fleet was at Samos, and hard by at Cape Mycale a large
Persian army, including many Ionian troops, was encamped. The
Samian request was granted; Leotychidas sailed to the island, and on
his approach the Persian ships withdrew to the shelter of Cape Mycale
and their army.
The Greeks landed; attacked, carried, and burned
the enemy's camp. Their victory was decided by the desertion of
the Ionians, who won their freedom on this memorable day. Mycale
followed so hard upon Plataea, that the belief easily arose that the
two victories were won on the same afternoon. There is more to be
said for the tradition that as the Athenians and their comrades assailed
the entrenchments on the shore of Mycale the tidings of Plataea
reached them and heartened them in their work.

The Athenians and Ionians, led by the admiral Xanthippus, followed up the great victory by vigorous action in the Hellespont, while the Peloponnesians with Leotychidas, content with what they had achieved, returned home. The difference between the Athenian and the Spartan character, between the cautious policy of Sparta and the imperial instinct of Athens, is here distinctly and, it is not too much to say, momentously expressed. The Lacedaemonians were unwilling to concern themselves further with the Greeks of the eastern and north-eastern Aegean; the Athenians were both capable of taking a Panhellenic point of view, and moved by the impulse to extend Capture of their own influence. The strong fortress of Sestos, which stands by the straits of Helle, was beleaguered and taken; and with this event Herodotus closes his history of the Persian wars. The independence of the Hellespontine regions was a natural consequence of the victory of Mycale, but its historical significance lies in the fact that it was accomplished under the auspices of Athens. The fall of Sestos is the beginning of that Athenian empire, to which Pisistratus and the elder Miltiades had pointed the way.

Sestos,

478 B.C.

SECT. 9. GELON TYRANT OF SYRACUSE

While the eastern Greeks were securing their future development against the Persian foe, and were affirming their possession of the

Phoenician

c. 580 B.C.

Aegean waters, the western Greeks had been called upon to defend themselves against that Asiatic power which had established itself in the western Mediterranean and was a constant threat to their existence. The Greeks had indeed, on their side, proved a formidable check Struggle of and hindrance to the expansion of the dominion and trade of Carthage. Greek and The endeavours of this vigorous Phoenician state to secure the queen- in western ship of the western seas, from Africa to Gaul, from the coast of Spain Mediterto the shores of Italy, depended largely for their success on her close ranean in connexion and identity of interests with her sister-towns in Sicily; sixth cenand secondly, on her alliance with the strong pirate power of Etruria. tury. The friendly Phoenician ports of western Sicily-Motya, Panormus, and Solus-were an indispensable aid for the African city, both for the maintenance of her communications with Tuscany and for the prosecution of designs upon Sardinia and Corsica. In Corsican waters as well as in Sicily, the Phoenician clashed with the Greek. It was in the first quarter of the sixth century that Dorian adventurers The enterfrom Cnidus and Rhodes sought to gain a foothold in the barbarian prise of corner of Sicily, at the very gates of the Phoenicians. The name of Pentathlus, their leader was Pentathlus. He attempted to plant a settlement on Cape Lilybaeum, hard by Motya,- -a direct menace to the communications between Motya and Carthage. The Phoenicians gathered in arms, and they were supported by their Elymian neighbours; the Greeks were defeated and Pentathlus was slain. It was not the destiny of Lilybaeum to be the place of a Hellenic city; but long afterwards it was to become illustrious as the site of a Punic stronghold which would take the place of Motya, when Motya herself had been destroyed by a Greek avenger of Pentathlus. After their defeat Foundation the men of Pentathlus, casting about for another dwelling-place, of Lipara. betook themselves to the volcanic archipelago off the north coast of Sicily, and founded Lipara in the largest of the islands. This little state was organised on communistic principles. The soil was public Collectivproperty: a certain number of the citizens were set apart to till it for ism. the common use; the rest were employed in keeping watch and ward on the coasts of their little home against the descents of Tuscan rovers. This system was indeed subsequently modified: the land was portioned out in lots, but was redistributed every twenty years.

to Sicily

The attempt of Pentathlus, the occupation of the Liparaean group, Carthathe recent settlement of Acragas, pressed upon Carthage the need of ginian stemming the Greek advance. Accordingly we find her sending an expedition army to Sicily. The commander of this expedition, precursor of under many a greater, was Malchus; and it is possible that he was opposed Malchus, by Phalaris, who established a tyranny at Acragas. There was a long c. 560-50 war, of which we know nothing except that the invader was successful B.C. and Greek territory was lost to the Phoenician. In the northern seas