Greco-Persian Wars

“ The Greek custom, then, is no good one; and when I marched as far as the land of Macedonia, it came not into their thoughts to fight. But against you, O king! who shall make war? For you will have at your back the multitudes of Asia, and all your ships; for myself, I think there is not so much boldness in Hellas as that; but if time should show me wrong in my judgment, and those men were foolhardy enough to do battle with us, they would be taught that we are the greatest warriors no earth. ”

“ What they did, therefore, was done of set purpose, that they might be able to say to the Persian, “O king, we whose power is as great as any, and who could have furnished as many ships as any state save Athens,—we, when the Greeks essayed to gain our aid in this war, would not resist you nor do aught displeasing to you.” ”

“ Had they been able to hold together, and especially had Athens and Sparta done so, they could have prevailed against the Persian in Asia Minor and maintained the independence of their kinsmen in Ionia. But their jealous fears of anything that might limit their freedom as independent states made any permanent alliance impossible, and the long years of the Peloponnesian War, of all wars in history one of the most humiliating, because so unnecessary and unjustifiable, had bred hatreds and suspicion, greed and jealousy, from which Greece never recovered. ”

“ And yet the Human Spirit will win something out of all eventualities, even war, if Kama and the Cycles permit. In a non-political sense the Persian Wars bore huge harvest for Greece; the Law used them to that end. The great effort brought out all the latent resources of the Athenian mind: the successes heightened Greek racial feeling to a pitch. —What! we could stand against huge Persia?—then we are not unworthy of the men that fought at Ilion, our fathers; the race and spirit of anax andron Agamemnon is not dead! Ha, we can do anything; there are no victories we may not win! ”

“ Thus for our part we act honestly by the Greeks; but what of you, who once were in great dread lest we should make terms with the Persian? Because now you have clear knowledge of our temper and are sure that we will never betray Hellas, and because the wall that you are building across the Isthmus is well-nigh finished, to-day you take no account of the Athenians, but have deserted us for all your promises that you would withstand the Persian in Boeotia, and have suffered the foreigner to march into Attica. For the nonce, then, the Athenians are angry with you ”

“ These places, then, were thought by the Greeks to suit their purpose; for after due survey they reckoned that the foreigners could not make use of their multitude, nor of their horsemen; and therefore they resolved, that here they would encounter the invader of Hellas. Then, hearing that the Persian was in Pieria, they broke up from the Isthmus and set out with their army to Thermopylae and their fleet to Artemisium. ”

“ If you make no haste to fight at sea, but keep your ships here and abide near the land, or even go forward into the Peloponnese, then, my master, you will easily gain that end wherefor you have come. For the Greeks are not able to hold out against you for a long time, but you will scatter them, and they will flee each to his city; they have no food in this island, as I am informed, nor, if you lead your army into the Peloponnese, is it likely that those of them who have come from thence will abide unmoved; they will have no mind to fight sea-battles for Athens. ”

“ It is clear that her satraps continued to manage the western trade and equally clear that the wealth of her empire increased in greater ratio than that of the Greek cities. There is little evidence for Hellenic commercial expansion consequent on the Persian wars, but much for continued and even increasing Hellenic poverty. In the event Persia found herself in a position almost to regain by gold what she had lost by battle, and to exercise a financial influence on Greece greater and longer lasting than she ever established by arms. ”

“ So they ran pell-mell and shouting, as though they would utterly make an end of the Greeks; but Pausanias, when the cavalry attacked him, sent a horseman to the Athenians, with this message: “Men of Athens, in this great issue which must give freedom or slavery to Hellas, we Lacedaemonians and you Athenians have been betrayed by the flight of our allies in the night that is past. Now therefore I am resolved what we must forthwith do; we must protect each other by fighting as best we can. ”

“ The purpose of their putting out to sea was, that the Greeks might have no liberty even to flee, but should be hemmed in at Salamis and punished for their fighting off Artemisium. And the purpose of their landing Persians on the islet called Psyttalea was this, that as it was here in especial that in the sea fight men and wrecks would be washed ashore (for the island lay in the very path of the battle that was to be) , they might thus save their friends and slay their foes. ”

“ For a long time they fought at Marathon; and the foreigners overcame the middle part of the line, against which the Persians themselves and the Sacae were arrayed; here the foreigners prevailed and broke the Greeks, pursuing them inland. But on either wing the Athenians and Plataeans were victorious; and being so, they suffered the routed of their enemies to fly, and drew their wings together to fight against those that had broken the middle of their line; and here the Athenians had the victory, and followed after the Persians in their flight, hewing them down, till they came to the sea. ”

“ For it were strange indeed, that we, who have subdued and made slaves of Sacae and Indians and Ethiopians and Assyrians and many other great nations, for no wrong done to the Persians but of mere desire to add to our power,—that we, I say, shall not take vengeance on the Greeks for unprovoked wrong-doing. What have we to fear from them? Have they mighty hosts or abundance of wealth to affright us? Their manner of fighting we know, and their wealth we know, that it is but little ”

“ But when the allies withstood this, the Athenians waived their claim, deeming the safety of Hellas of prime moment, and seeing that if they quarrelled over the leadership Hellas must perish; wherein they judged rightly; for civil strife is as much worse than united war as war is worse than peace. ”

“ We of Asia regarded the rape of our women not at all; but the Greeks, all for the sake of a Lacedaemonian woman, mustered a great host, came to Asia, and destroyed the power of Priam. Ever since then we have regarded Greeks as our enemies.” The Persians claim Asia for their own, and the foreign nations that dwell in it; Europe and the Greek race they hold to be separate from them.
5. Such is the Persian account of the matter: in their opinion, it was the taking of Troy which began their feud with the Greeks. But the Phoenicians do not tell the same story about Io as the Persians. ”

“ This shall be matter for speech elsewhere; but now, we must not suffer our enemies to do as they desire; they must be pursued till they be overtaken and pay the penalty for all the harm they have wrought the Persians.”
59. With that, he led the Persians at speed across the Asopus in pursuit of the Greeks, supposing that they were in flight; it was the army of Lacedaemon and Tegea alone that was his goal; for the Athenians marched another way over the broken ground, and were out of his sight. ”

“ But as it is well with us for the nonce, let us abide now in Hellas and take thought for ourselves and our households; let us build our houses again and be diligent in sowing, when we have driven the foreigner wholly away; and when the next spring comes let us set sail for the Hellespont and Ionia.” This he said with intent to put somewhat to his credit with the Persian, so that he might have a place of refuge if ever (as might chance) he should suffer aught at the hands of the Athenians ”

“ But since it is idle to recall these matters—for they that were erstwhile valiant may now be of lesser mettle, and they that lacked mettle then may be better men now—enough of these doings of old time; and we, if we are known for no achievement (as we are, for more and greater than are any men in Hellas) , yet from our feat of arms at Marathon we deserve to have this honour, yea, and more beside; seeing that alone of all Greeks we met the Persian single-handed, nor failed in that high enterprise, but overcame six and forty nations. ”

“ They being thus minded, and the Persians hearing an evil report of them, at this moment Aristagoras the Milesian, driven from Sparta by Cleomenes the Lacedaemonian, came to Athens; for that city was more powerful than any of the rest. Coming before the people, Aristagoras spoke to the same effect as at Sparta, of the good things of Asia, and bow the Persians in war were wont to carry neither shield nor spear and could easily be overcome. This he said, and added thereto, that the Milesians were settlers from Athens, and it was but right to save them, being a very wealthy people ”

“ Presently, learning that Xerxes was at Sardis with his army, they planned to send men into Asia to spy out the king’s doings, and to despatch messengers, some to Argos, who should make the Argives their brothers in arms against the Persian, some to Gelon son of Dinomenes in Sicily, some to Corcyra, praying aid for Hellas, and some to Crete; for they hoped that since the danger threatened all Greeks alike, all of Greek blood might unite and work jointly for one common end. ”

“ The severe simplicity of Spartan life, the rigor of political and social institutions, the aristocratic form of government, and above all the military spirit and ambition, gave permanence to all conquests, so that in the Persian wars Sparta took the load of the land forces. The great rival power of Sparta was Athens, but this was founded on maritime skill and enterprise. It was to the navy of Athens, next after the hoplites of Sparta, that the successful resistance to the empire of Persia may be attributed. ”

“ So the cities set about these preparations; and the heralds that went to Hellas received that which the king’s proclamation demanded, from many of the dwellers on the mainland and all the islanders to whom they came with the demand. Among the islanders that gave earth and water to Darius were the Aeginetans. These by so doing straightway brought the Athenians upon them, who supposed the Aeginetans to have given the gift out of enmity against Athens, that so they might join with the Persians in attacking the Athenians ”

“ After this counsel of Leutychides’, the Greeks next brought their ships to land and disembarked on the beach, where they put themselves in array. But the Persians, seeing the Greeks prepare for battle and exhort the Ionians, first of all took away the Samians’ armour, suspecting that they favoured the Greeks; for indeed when the foreigners’ ships brought certain Athenian captives, who had been left in Attica and taken by Xerxes’ army, the Samians had set them all free and sent them away to Athens with provision for the way ”

“ In such manner did the Persians safeguard themselves from those Ionians who (they supposed) might turn against them if opportunity were given; for themselves, they set their shields close to make a barricade.
100. The Greeks, having made all preparation, advanced their line against the foreigners. As they went, a rumour sped all about the army, and a herald’s wand was seen lying by the water-line; and the rumour that ran was to the effect that the Greeks were victors over Mardonius’ army at a battle in Boeotia. Now there are many clear proofs of the divine ordering of things ”

“ This designation is given to Athens with special reference to the Persian wars; for the Persians destroyed everywhere the temples of the Greek gods (only in the single case of Delos are they said to have made an exception) , and the Athenians, in conquering the Persians, saved not only their own lives, but the temples of the gods from destruction.
Note 57 (p. 169) .
“Woe to the wretch, by their wrath smitten.”
Well., as usual, is too cautious in not changing μὴ κύρσας into δὴ κύρσας with Pauw and Mül., or μὴν with Lin. and Schoe. ”

“ These races, Ionian and Dorian, were the foremost in ancient time, the first a Pelasgian and the second an Hellenic people. The Pelasgian stock has never yet left its habitation, the Hellenic has wandered often and afar. For in the days of king Deucalion it inhabited the land of Phthia, then in the time of Dorus son of Hellen the country called Histiaean, under Ossa and Olympus; driven by the Cadmeans from this Histiaean country it settled about Pindus in the parts called Macednian; ”

“ Contemporaneously with the accession of Peisistratus, this state of things becomes altered both in and out of Hellas,—the former as a consequence of the latter: for at that time begins the formation of the great Persian empire, which absorbs into itself not only Upper Asia and Asia Minor, but also Phenicia, Egypt, Thrace, Macedonia, and a considerable number of the Grecian cities themselves; and the common danger, threatening the greater states of Greece proper from this vast aggregate, drives them, in spite of great reluctance and jealousy, into active union. ”

“ The selfish Corinthian trader and the ignorant Peloponnesian farmer were, from sheer inexperience and want of knowledge, utterly impervious to any argument founded on even the most elementary strategic considerations, and do not even appear to have fully recognized what the withdrawal of Athens and her fleet from the defence would have meant to the patriot Greeks. Nothing within their own meagre military experience could have taught them the full significance of the dual nature of the Persian attack. ”