THE PERSIAN WARS.

Returning now to the political and military history of Greece, we find that, about the year 550 B.C., the independence of the Grecian colonies on the coast of Asia Minor was crushed by Croe'sus, King of Lydia, who conquered their territories. Thus the Asiatic Greeks became subject to a barbarian power; but Croesus ruled them with great mildness, leaving their political institutions undisturbed, and requiring of them little more than the payment of a moderate tribute. A few years later they experienced a change of masters, and, together with Lydia, fell by conquest under the dominion of Persia, of which Cyrus the elder was then king. Under Darius Hystas'pes, the second king after Cyrus, the Persian empire attained its greatest extent-- embracing, in Asia, all that at a later period was contained in Persia proper and Turkey; in Africa taking in Egypt as far as Nubia, and the coast of the Mediterranean as far as Barca; thus stretching from the Ægean Sea to the Indus, and from the plains of Tartary to the cataracts of the Nile. Such was the empire against whose united strength a few Grecian communities were soon to contend for the preservation of their very name and existence.

I. THE IONIC REVOLT.

Like the Lydians, the Persians ruled the Greek colonies with a degree of moderation, and permitted them to retain their own form of government by paying tribute; yet the Greeks seized every opportunity to deliver themselves from this species of thraldom, and in 502 B.C. an insurrection broke out in one of the Ionian states, which soon assumed a formidable character. Before the Persians could collect sufficient forces to quell the revolt, the Ionians sought the aid of their Grecian countrymen, making application first to Sparta, but in vain, and then to Athens and the islands of the Ægean Sea. The Athenians, regarding Darius as an avowed enemy, gladly took part with the Ionians, and, in connection with Euboe'a, furnished them a fleet of twenty-five vessels. The allied Grecians, though at first successful, were defeated near Ephesus with great loss. Their commanders then quarreled, and the Athenians sailed for home, leaving the Asiatic Greeks (divided among themselves) to contend alone against the whole power of Persia. Still, the revolt attained to considerable proportions, and was protracted during a period of six years. It was terminated by the capture of Miletus, the capital of the Ionian Confederacy, in 495 B.C. The inhabitants of this city who escaped the sword were carried into captivity by the conquerors, and the subjugation of Ionia was complete.

The principal achievement of the allied Grecians during this war was the burning of Sardis, the capital of the old Lydian monarchy. When Darius was informed of it he burst into a paroxysm of rage, directing his wrath chiefly against the Athenians and Euboeans who had dared to invade his dominions. "The Athenians!" he exclaimed, "who are they?" Upon being told, he took his bow and shot an arrow high into the air, saying, "Grant me, Jove, to take vengeance upon the Athenians." He also charged one of his attendants to call aloud to him thrice every day at dinner, "Sire, remember the Athenians!" As soon, therefore, as Darius had satisfied his vengeance against the Greek cities and islands of Asia, he turned his attention to the Athenians and Euboeans, in pursuance of his vow. He meditated, however, nothing less than the conquest of all Greece; but the Persian fleet that was to aid in carrying out his plans was checked in its progress, off Mount Athos, by a storm so violent that it is said to have destroyed three hundred vessels and over twenty thousand lives; and his son-in-law, Mardo'nius, who had entered Thrace and Macedon at the head of a large army, abruptly terminated his campaign and recrossed the Hellespont to Asia.

II. THE FIRST PERSIAN WAR.

Darius, having renewed his preparations for the conquest of Greece, sent heralds through the Grecian cities, demanding earth and water as tokens of submission. Some of the smaller states, intimidated by his power, submitted; but Athens and Sparta haughtily rejected the demands of the Eastern monarch, and put his heralds to death with cruel mockery, throwing one into a pit and another into a well, and bidding them take thence their earth and water.

In the spring of 490 B.C. a Persian fleet of six hundred ships, conveying an army of 120,000 men, and guided by the aged tyrant Hippias, directed its course toward the shores of Greece. Several islands of the Ægean submitted without a struggle. Euboea was severely punished; and with but little opposition the Persian host landed and advanced to the plains of Marathon, within twenty miles of Athens. The Athenians called on the PlatÆans and the Spartans for aid, and the former sent their entire force of one thousand men; but the Spartans refused to give the much-needed help, because it lacked a few days of the full moon, and it was contrary to their religious customs to begin a march during this interval. Meantime the Athenians had marched to Marathon, and were encamped on the hills that surrounded the plain. Their army numbered ten thousand men, and was commanded by Callim'achus, the Pol'emarch or third Archon, and ten generals, among whom were Milti'ades, Themis'tocles, and Aristi'des, who subsequently acquired immortal fame. Five of the ten generals were afraid to hazard a battle without the aid of the Spartans; but the arguments of Miltiades finally prevailed upon Callimachus to give his casting vote in favor of immediate action. Although the ten generals were to command the whole army successively, each for one day, it was agreed to invest Miltiades with the command at once, and intrust to his military skill the fortunes of Athens. He immediately drew up the little army in order of battle.

THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.

The Persians were extended in a line across the middle of the plain, having their best troops in the center, while their fleet was ranged behind them along the beach. The Athenians were drawn up in a line opposite, but having their main strength in the extreme wings of their army. Miltiades quickly advanced his force across the mile of plain that separated it from the foe, and fell upon the immense army of the Persians. As he had foreseen, the center of his line was soon broken, while the extremities of the enemy's line, made up of motley and undisciplined bands of all nations, were routed and driven toward the shore, and into the adjoining morasses. Miltiades now hastily concentrated his two wings and directed their united force against the Persian center, which, deeming itself victorious, was taken completely by surprise. The Persians, defeated, fled in disorder to their ships, but many perished in the marshes; the shore was strewn with their dead, and seven of their ships were destroyed. Their loss was six thousand four hundred; that of the Athenians, not including the PlatÆans, only one hundred and ninety two. Such, in brief, was the famous battle of Marathon. The Persians were strong in the terror of their name, and in the renown of their conquests; and it required a most heroic resolution in the Athenians to face a danger that they had not yet learned to despise.

LEGENDS OF THE BATTLE.

The victory at Marathon was viewed by the people as a deliverance by the gods themselves. It is fabled that before the battle the voice of the god Pan was heard in the mountains, uttering warnings and threatenings to the Persians, and inspiring the Greeks with courage. Hence the wonderful legends of the battle, in which Theseus, Hercules, and other local heroes are represented as engaging in the combat, and dealing death among the flying barbarians. In the following lines MRS. HEMANS has embraced the description which the Greeks gave of the appearance and deeds of Theseus on that occasion:

It is said that to this day the peasant believes the field of Marathon to be haunted with spectral warriors, whose shouts are heard at midnight, borne on the wind, and rising above the din of battle. Viewed in the light of such legends, the following poem on Marathon, by PROFESSOR BLACKIE, is full of interest and poetic beauty:

THE DEATH OF MILTIADES.

Soon after the Persian defeat, Miltiades, who at first received all the honors that a grateful people could bestow, met a fate that casts a melancholy gloom over his history, and that has often been cited in proof of the assertion that "republics are fickle and ungrateful." History shows, however, that the Athenians were not greatly in the wrong in their treatment of Miltiades. He obtained of them the command of an expedition whose destination was known to himself alone; assuring them of the honorableness and the success of the enterprise. But much treasure was spent, many lives were lost, and through the seeming treachery of Miltiades the expedition terminated in disaster and disgrace. It was found, upon investigation, that the motive of the expedition was private resentment against a prominent citizen of Paros. Miltiades was therefore condemned to death; but gratitude for his previous valuable services mitigated the penalty to a fine of fifty talents. His death occurred soon after, from a wound that he received in a fall while at Paros, and the fine was paid by his son Cimon.

As GROTE well observes, "The fate of Miltiades, so far from illustrating either the fickleness or the ingratitude of his countrymen, attests their just appreciation of deserts. It also illustrates another moral of no small importance to the right comprehension of Grecian affairs; it teaches us the painful lesson how perfectly maddening were the effects of a copious draught of glory on the temperament of an enterprising and ambitious Greek. There can be no doubt that the rapid transition, in the course of about one week, from Athenian terror before the battle to Athenian exultation after it, must have produced demonstrations toward Miltiades such as were never paid to any other man in the whole history of the commonwealth. Such unmeasured admiration unseated his rational judgment, so that his mind became abandoned to the reckless impulses of insolence, antipathy, and rapacity-- that distempered state for which (according to Grecian morality) the retributive Nemesis was ever on the watch, and which, in his case, she visited with a judgment startling in its rapidity, as well as terrible in its amount." [Footnote: "History of Greece," Chap. xxxvi.]

But, as GILLIES remarks, "The glory of Miltiades survived him. At the distance of half a century, when the battle of Marathon was painted by order of the state, it was ordered that the figure of Miltiades be placed in the foreground, animating the troops to victory--a reward which, during the virtuous simplicity of the ancient commonwealth, conferred more real honor than all that magnificent profusion of crowns and statues which, in the later times of the republic, were rather extorted by general fees than bestowed by public admiration." [See Oration of Æsehines, pp. 424-426.]

ARISTI'DES AND THEMIS'TOCLES.

After the death of Miltiades, Themistocles and Aristides became the most prominent men among the Athenians. The former, a most able statesman, but influenced by ambitious motives, aimed to make Athens great and powerful that he himself might rise to greater eminence; while the later was a pure patriot, wholly destitute of selfish ambition, and knew no cause but that of justice and the public welfare. The poet THOMSON thus characterizes him:

But the very integrity of Aristides made for him secret enemies, who, although they charged him with no crimes, were yet able to procure his banishment by the process of ostracism, in which his great rival, Themistocles, took a leading part. This kind of condemnation was not inflicted as a punishment, but as a precautionary measure against a degree of personal popularity that might be deemed dangerous to the public welfare. The process was as follows: In an assembly of the people each man was at liberty to write on a shell the name of the person whom he wished to have banished, and if six thousand votes or more were recorded, that person against whom the greatest number of votes had been given was banished for ten years, but with leave to enjoy his estate, and return after that period. PLUTARCH relates the following incident connected with the banishment of Aristides: "An illiterate burgher coming to Aristides, whom he took for some ordinary person, and giving him his shell, desired him to write 'Aristides' upon it. The good man, surprised at the adventure, asked him 'Whether Aristides had ever injured him?' 'No,' said he, 'nor do I even know him; but it vexes me to hear him everywhere called the Just.' Aristides made no answer, but took the shell, and, having written his own name upon it, returned it to the man. When he quitted Athens, he lifted up his hands toward heaven, and, agreeably to his character, made a prayer, very different from that of Achilles; namely, 'that the people of Athens might never see the day which should force them to remember Aristides.'"

But it was, perhaps, fortunate for the liberties of Greece that Themistocles, instead of Aristides, was left in full power at Athens. "The peculiar faculty of his mind," says THIRLWALL, "which Thucydides contemplated with admiration, was the quickness with which it seized every object that came in its way, perceived the course of action required by new situations and sudden junctures, and penetrated into remote consequences. Such were the abilities which were most needed at this period for the service of Athens." Soon after the battle of Marathon a war had broken out between Athens and Ægina, which still continued, and which gave Themistocles an opportunity to exercise his powers of ready invention and prompt execution. Ægina was one of the wealthiest of the Grecian islands, and possessed the most powerful navy in all Greece. Themistocles soon saw that to successfully cope with this formidable rival, as well as rise to a higher rank among the Grecian states, Athens must become a great maritime power. He therefore obtained the consent of the Athenians to devote a large surplus then in the public treasury, but which belonged to individual citizens, to the building of a hundred galleys; and, by this sacrifice of individual emolument to the general good, the Athenian navy was increased to two hundred ships. But the foresight of Themistocles extended still farther, and it was no less his design, in making Athens a first-class maritime power, to protect her against Persia, which, as he well knew, was preparing for another and still more formidable attack on Greece.

III. THE SECOND PERSIAN INVASION.

For three years subsequent to the battle of Marathon Darius made great preparations for a second invasion of Greece, intending to lead his forces in person; but death put an end to his plans. Xerxes, his son and successor, was urged by many advisers to carry out his father's intentions. His uncle Artaba'nus alone endeavored to divert him from the enterprise; but Xerxes, having spent four years in collecting a large fleet and a vast body of troops from all quarters of his extensive dominions, set out from Sardis with great ostentation, in the spring of the year 480, to avenge the disgrace of Marathon. HERODOTUS relates that, on reaching Aby'dos, on the Hellespont, Xerxes reviewed his vast host, and wept when he thought of the shortness of human life, and considered that of all his immense host not one man would be alive when a hundred years had passed away. The historian's account is as follows:

Xerxes at Abydos.

"Arrived here, Xerxes wished to look upon his host; so, as there was a throne of white marble upon a hill near the city, which they of Abydos had prepared beforehand, by the king's bidding, for his especial use, Xerxes took his seat on it, and, gazing thence upon the shore below, beheld at one view all his land forces and all his ships. As he looked and saw the whole Hellespont covered with the vessels of his fleet, and all the shore and every plain about Abydos as full as could be of men, Xerxes congratulated himself on his good-fortune; but, after a little while, he wept. Then Artabanus, the king's uncle (the same who at the first so freely spake his mind to the king, and advised him not to lead his army against Greece), when he heard that Xerxes was in tears, went to him, and said:

"'How different, sire, is what thou art now doing from what thou didst a little while ago! Then thou didst congratulate thyself, and now, behold! thou weepest.'

"'There came upon me,' replied he, 'a sudden pity when I thought of the shortness of man's life, and considered that of all this host, so numerous as it is, not one will be alive when a hundred years are gone by.'

"'And yet there are sadder things in life than that,' returned the other. 'Short. as our time is, there is no man, whether it be here among this multitude or elsewhere, who is so happy as not to have felt the wish--I will not say once, but full many a time--that he were dead rather than alive. Calamities fall upon us, sicknesses vex and harass us, and make life, short though it be, to appear long. So death, through the wretchedness of our life, is a most sweet refuge to our race; and God, who gives us the tastes we enjoy of pleasant times, is seen, in his very gift, to be envious.'"
--Trans. by RAWLINSON.

Much that is told about Xerxes--how he cut off Mount Athos from the main-land by a canal; how he made a bridge of boats across the Hellespont, where it is three miles wide, and ordered the waters to be scourged because they destroyed the bridge; how he constructed new bridges, over which his vast army crossed the Hellespont as along a royal road; and how his army drank a whole river dry--all of which is gravely related by Herodotus as fact, is discredited by the Latin poet JUVENAL, who attributes these stories to the imaginations of "browsy poets."

That Xerxes bridged the Hellespont, however, in the manner related by Herodotus, is an accepted fact of history. As MILTON says,

He crossed to Ses'tus, a city of Thrace, and entered Europe at the head of an army the greatest the world has ever seen, and whose numbers have been estimated at over two millions of fighting men. Having marched along the coast through Thrace and Macedonia, this immense force passed through Thessaly, and arrived, without opposition, at the Pass of Thermop'ylÆ, a narrow defile on the western shore of the gulf that lies between Thessaly and Euboea, and almost the only road by which Greece proper, or ancient Greece, could be entered on the north-east by way of Thessaly. In the mean time the Greeks had not been idle. The winter before Xerxes left Asia a general congress of the Grecian states was held at the isthmus of Corinth, at which the differences between Athens and Ægina were first settled, and then a vigorous effort was made by Athens and Sparta to unite the states and cities in one great league against the power of Persia. But, notwithstanding the common danger, only a few of the states responded to the call, and the only people north and east of the isthmus who joined the league were the Athenians, Phocians, PlatÆans, and Thespians. The command of both the land and naval forces was relinquished by Athens to the Spartans; and it was resolved to make the first stand against Persia at the Pass of ThermopylÆ.

THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLÆ.

When the Persian monarch reached ThermopylÆ, he found a body of but eight thousand men, commanded by the Spartan king Leonidas, prepared to dispute his passage. A herald was sent to the Greeks commanding them to lay down their arms; but Leonidas replied, with true Spartan brevity, "Come and take them!" When it was remarked that the Persians were so numerous that their darts would darken the sun, "Then," replied Dien'eces, a Spartan, "we shall fight in the shade." Trained from youth to the endurance of all hardships, and forbidden by their laws ever to flee from an enemy, the sons of Sparta were indeed formidable antagonists for the Persians to encounter.

Xerxes, astonished that the Greeks did not disperse at the sight of his vast army, waited four days, and then ordered a body of his troops to attack them, and lead them captive before him; but the barbarians fell in heaps in the very presence of the king, and blocked the narrow pass with their dead. Xerxes now thought the contest worthy of the superior prowess of his own guards, the ten thousand Immortals. These were led up as to a certain victory; but the Greeks stood their ground as before. The combat lasted a whole day, and the slaughter of the enemy was terrible. Another day of combat followed, with like results, and the confidence of the Persian monarch was changed into despondence and perplexity.

While in the uncertainty caused by these repeated failures to force a passage, Xerxes learned, from a Greek traitor, of a secret path over the mountains, by which he was able to throw a force of twenty thousand men into the rear of the brave defenders of the pass. Leonidas, seeing that his post was no longer tenable, now dismissed all his allies that desired to retire, and retained only three hundred fellow-Spartans, with some Thespians and Thebans--in all about one thousand men. He would have saved two of his kinsmen, by sending them with messages to Sparta; but the one said he had come to bear arms, not to carry letters, and the other that his deeds would tell all that Sparta desired to know. Leonidas did not wait for an attack, but sallying forth from the pass, and falling suddenly upon the Persians, he penetrated to the very center of their host, where the battle raged furiously, and two of the brothers of Xerxes were slain. Then the surviving Greeks, with the exception of the Thebans, fell back within the pass and took their final stand upon a hillock, where they fought with the valor of desperation until every man was slain. The Thebans, however, who from the first had been distrusted by Leonidas, threw down their arms early in the fight, and begged for quarter.

The conflict itself, and the glory of the struggle on the part of the Spartans, have been favorite themes with the poets of succeeding ages. The following description is by HAYGARTH:

The Greek historian Diodorus, followed by the biographer Plutarch and the Latin historian Justin, states that Leonidas made the attack on the Persian camp during the night, and in the darkness and in the confusion of the struggle nearly penetrated to the royal tent of Xerxes. On this basis of supposed facts the poet CROLY wrote his stirring poem descriptive of the conflict; but the statement of Diodorus, which is irreconcilable with Herodotus, is generally discredited by modern writers.

Monuments to the memory of the Greeks who fell were erected on the battle-ground, and many were the epitaphs written to commemorate the heroism of the famous three hundred; but the oldest, best, and most celebrated of these is the inscription that was placed on their altar-tomb, written by the poet SIMON'IDES, of Ce'os. It consists of only two lines in the Original Greek. [Footnote: The following is the original Greek of the epitaph: "O xeiu hangeddeiy Dakedaimouiois hoti taede keimetha, tois keiuoy hraemasi peithomeuoi."] All Greece for centuries had them by heart; but in the lapse of time she forgot them, and then, in the language of "Christopher North," "Greece was living Greece no more." There have been no less than three Latin and eighteen English versions of this epitaph; and herewith we give three of the latter:

Another inscription, said to have been written by Simonides for the tombs of the heroes of ThermopylÆ, is as follows:

Leonidas himself fell in the plain, and his body was carried into the defile by his followers. He was buried at the north entrance to the pass, and over his grave was erected a mound, on which was placed the figure of a lion sculptured in stone. The sculptured lion marked the grave of the hero down to the time Of Herodotus.

The poet BYRON, who was peculiarly the friend of Greece, and an earnest admirer of both the genius and the heroic deeds of her sons, has written the following lines commemorating the glory of those who fell at ThermopylÆ:

THE ABANDONMENT OF ATHENS.

While fighting was in progress at ThermopylÆ, a Greek fleet, under the command of the Spartan Eurybi'ades, that had been sent to guard the Euboean Sea, encountered the Persian ships at Artemis'ium. In several engagements that occurred, the Athenian vessels, commanded by Themistocles, were especially distinguished; and although the contests with the enemy were not decisive, yet, says PLUTARCH, "they were of great advantage to the Greeks, who learned by experience that neither the number of ships, nor the beauty and splendor of their ornaments, nor the vaunting shouts and songs of the Persians, were anything dreadful to men who know how to fight hand-to-hand, and are determined to behave gallantly. These things they were taught to despise when they came to close action and grappled with the foe. Hence in this respect, and for this reason, Pindar's sentiments appear just, when he says of the fight at Artemisium,

Although the Greeks were virtually the victors in these engagements, at least one-half of their vessels were disabled; and, hearing of the defeat of Leonidas at ThermopylÆ, they resolved to retreat. Having sailed through the Euboean Sea, the fleet kept on its way until it reached the Island of Salamis, in the Saron'ic Gulf. Here Themistocles learned that no friendly force was guarding the frontier of Attica, although the Peloponnesian states had promised to send an army into Boeotia; and he saw that there was nothing to prevent the Persians from marching on Athens. He therefore advised the Athenians to abandon the city to the mercy of the Persians, and commit their safety and their hopes of victory to the navy. The advice was adopted, though not without a hard struggle; and those of the inhabitants who were able to bear arms retired to the Island of Salamis, while the old and infirm, the women and children, found shelter in a city of Argolis.

THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS.

Xerxes pursued his march through Greece unopposed except by ThespiÆ and PlatÆa, which towns he reduced, and spread desolation over Attica until he arrived at the foot of the Cecropian hill, which he found guarded by a handful of desperate citizens who refused to surrender. But the brave defenders were soon put to the sword, and Athens was plundered and then burned to the ground. About this time the Persian fleet arrived in the Bay of Phale'rum, and Xerxes immediately dispatched it to block up that of the Greeks in the narrow strait of Salamis. Eurybiades, the Spartan, who still commanded the Grecian fleet, was urged by Themistocles, and also by Aristides, who had been recalled from exile, to hazard an engagement at once in the narrow strait, where the superior numbers of the Persians would be of little avail. The Peloponnesian commanders, however, wished to move the fleet to the Isthmus of Corinth, where it would have the aid of the land forces. At last the counsel of Themistocles prevailed, and the Greeks made the attack. The engagement was a courageous and persistent one on both sides, but the Greeks came off victorious. Xerxes had caused a royal throne to be erected on one of the neighboring heights, where, surrounded by his army, he might witness the naval conflict in which he was so confident of victory. But he had the misfortune to see his magnificent navy almost utterly annihilated. Among the slain was the brother of Xerxes, who commanded the navy, and many other Persians of the highest rank.

Anxious now for his own personal safety, the Persian monarch's whole care centered on securing his retreat by land. He passed rapidly into Thessaly, and, after a march of forty-five days, reached the shores of the Hellespont to find his bridges washed away.

The ignominious retreat of Xerxes was in marked contrast to the pomp and magnificence of his advance into Greece. Death from famine and distress spread its ravages among his troops, and the remnant that returned with him to Asia was but "a wreck, or fragment, rather than a part of his huge host."

A Celebrated Description of the Battle.

Among the Athenians who nobly fought at Marathon, and who also took part in the battle of Salamis, was the tragedian Æschylus; and so much did he distinguish himself in the capacity of soldier, that, in the picture which the Athenians caused to be painted representing the former battle, the figure of Æschylus held so prominent a place as to be at once recognized, even by a casual observer. Eight years after the latter battle Æschylus composed his tragedy of The Persians, which portrays, in vivid colors, the defeat of Xerxes, and gives a fuller, and, indeed, better account of that memorable sea-fight than is found even in the pages of Herodotus.

Says MITFORD, "It is matter of regret, not indeed that Æschylus was a poet; but that prose-writing was yet in his age so little common that his poetical sketch of this great transaction is the most authoritative, the clearest, and the most consistent of any that has passed to posterity." In the famous tragedy of Æschylus the account of the destruction of the Persian fleet is supposed to be given by a Persian messenger, escaped from the fight, to Atos'sa, the mother of Xerxes. The scene is laid at Susa, the Persian capital, near the tomb of Darius. The whole drama may be considered as a proud triumphal song in favor of Liberty.

Atossa, appearing with her attendants, and anxious for news of her son, first inquires in what clime are the towers of Athens-- the conquest of which her son had willed--and what mighty armies, what arms, and what treasures the Athenians boast, and what mighty monarch rules over them; and is told, to her surprise, that instead of the strong bow, like the Persians, they have stout spears and massy bucklers; and although their rich earth is a copious fount of silver, yet the people, "slaves to no lord, own no kingly power." Then enters the messenger, who exclaims:

At this astounding news the chorus breaks out in, concert:

Then the messenger exclaims:

Atossa at length finds words to say:

The messenger tells her that Xerxes himself lives, and still beholds the light, and then gives her a general summary of the disasters that befell the Persians, the names of the chiefs that were slain, the numbers of the horsemen, and the spearmen, and the seamen that lay "slaughtered on the rocks," "buried in the waters," or "mouldering on the dreary shore." At the request of Atossa he then proceeds to give the following more detailed account, which, as we have said, is the best history that we have of this memorable naval conflict:

After some farther account, by the messenger, of the magnitude of the ruin that had overwhelmed the Persian host, the mother of Xerxes thus apostrophizes and laments that "invidious fortune" which had pulled down this ruin on her son's devoted head:

In the Epode, or closing portion of the tragedy, the following "Lament" may be considered as expressing the feelings with which the Persians bewailed this defeat, with reference to its effects upon Persian authority over the Asiatic nations:

Among the modern poems on Xerxes and the battle of Salamis, is one by the Scotch poet and translator, JOHN STUART BLACKIE, from which we take the following extracts:

Then follows an account of the nations which formed the Persian hosts, their arrangement to entrap the Greeks, who were thought to be meditating flight, the patriotic enthusiasm of the latter, the naval battle which followed, and the disastrous defeat of the Persians, the poem closing with the following satirical address to Xerxes:

THE BATTLE OF PLATÆ'A.

When Xerxes returned to his own dominions he left his general, Mardo'nius, with three hundred thousand men, to complete, if possible, the conquest of Greece. Mardonius passed the winter in Thessaly, but in the following summer his army was totally defeated, and himself slain, in the battle of PlatÆa. Two hundred thousand Persians fell here, and only a small remnant escaped across the Hellespont. We extract from BULWER'S Athens the following eloquent description of this battle, both for the sake of its beauty and to show the effect of the religion of the Greeks upon the military character of the people. Mardonius had advanced to the neighbor-hood of PlatÆa, when he encountered that part of the Grecian army composed mostly of Spartans and LacedÆmonians, commanded by Pausa'nias, and numbering about fifty thousand men. The Athenians had previously fallen back to a more secure position, where the entire army had been ordered to concentrate; and Pausanias had but just commenced the retrograde movement when the Persians made their appearance.

BULWER says: "As the troops of Mardonius advanced, the rest of the Persian armament, deeming the task was now not to fight but to pursue, raised their standards and poured forward tumultuously, without discipline or order. Pausanias, pressed by the Persian line, lost no time in sending to the Athenians for succor. But when the latter were on their march with the required aid, they were suddenly intercepted by the Greeks in the Persian service, and cut off from the rescue of the Spartans.

"The Spartans beheld themselves thus unsupported with considerable alarm. Committing himself to the gods, Pausanias ordained a solemn sacrifice, his whole army awaiting the result, while the shafts of the Persians poured on them near and fast. But the entrails presented discouraging omens, and the sacrifice was again renewed. Meanwhile the Spartans evinced their characteristic fortitude and discipline--not one man stirring from the ranks until the auguries should assume a more favoring aspect; all harassed, and some wounded by the Persian arrows, they yet, seeking protection only beneath their broad bucklers, waited with a stern patience the time of their leader and of Heaven. Then fell Callic'rates, the stateliest and strongest soldier in the whole army, lamenting not death, but that his sword was as yet undrawn against the invader.

"And still sacrifice after sacrifice seemed to forbid the battle, when Pausanias, lifting his eyes, that streamed with tears, to the Temple of Juno, that stood hard by, supplicated the goddess that, if the fates forbade the Greeks to conquer, they might at least fall like warriors; and, while uttering this prayer, the tokens waited for became suddenly visible in the victims, and the augurs announced the promise of coming victory. Therewith the order of battle ran instantly through the army, and, to use the poetical comparison of Plutarch, the Spartan phalanx suddenly stood forth in its strength like some fierce animal, erecting its bristles, and preparing its vengeance for the foe. The ground, broken into many steep and precipitous ridges, and intersected by the Aso'pus, whose sluggish stream winds over a broad and rushy bed, was unfavorable to the movements of cavalry, and the Persian foot advanced therefore on the Greeks.

"Drawn up in their massive phalanx, the LacedÆmonians presented an almost impenetrable body--sweeping slowly on, compact and serried--while the hot and undisciplined valor of the Persians, more fortunate in the skirmish than the battle, broke itself in a thousand waves upon that moving rock. Pouring on in small numbers at a time, they fell fast round the progress of the Greeks --their armor slight against the strong pikes of Sparta--their courage without skill, their numbers without discipline; still they fought gallantly, even when on the ground seizing the pikes with their naked hands, and, with the wonderful agility that still characterizes the Oriental swordsmen, springing to their feet and regaining their arms when seemingly overcome, wresting away their enemies' shields, and grappling with them desperately hand to hand.

"Foremost of a band of a thousand chosen Persians, conspicuous by his white charger, and still more by his daring valor, rode Mardonius, directing the attack--fiercer wherever his armor blazed. Inspired by his presence the Persians fought worthily of their warlike fame, and, even in falling, thinned the Spartan ranks. At length the rash but gallant leader of the Asiatic armies received a mortal wound--his skull was crushed in by a stone from the hand of a Spartan. His chosen band, the boast of the army, fell fighting around him, but his death was the general signal of defeat and flight. Encumbered by their long robes, and pressed by the relentless conquerors, the Persians fled in disorder toward their camp, which was secured by wooden intrenchments, by gates, and towers, and walls. Here, fortifying themselves as they best might, they contended successfully, and with advantage, against the LacedÆmonians, who were ill skilled in assault and siege.

"Meanwhile the Athenians gained the victory on the plains over the Greek allies of Mardonius, and now joined the Spartans at the camp. The Athenians are said to have been better skilled in the art of siege than the Spartans; yet at that time their experience could scarcely have been greater. The Athenians were at all times, however, of a more impetuous temper; and the men who had 'run to the charge' at Marathon were not to be baffled by the desperate remnant of their ancient foe. They scaled the walls; they effected a breach through which the Tege'ans were the first to rush; the Greeks poured fast and fierce into the camp. Appalled, dismayed, stupefied by the suddenness and greatness of their loss, the Persians no longer sustained their fame; they dispersed in all directions, falling, as they fled, with a prodigious slaughter, so that out of that mighty armament scarce three thousand effected an escape."

But the final overthrow of the Persian hosts on the battle-field of PlatÆa has an importance far greater than that of the deliverance of the Greeks from immediate danger. Perhaps no other event in ancient history has been so momentous in its consequences; for what would have been the condition of Greece had she then become a province of the Persian empire? The greatness which she subsequently attained, and the glory and renown with which she has filled the earth, would never have had an existence. Little Greece sat at the gates of a continent, and denied an entrance to the gorgeous barbarism of Asia. She determined that Europe should not be Asiatic; that civilization should not sink into the abyss of unmitigated despotism. She turned the tide of Persian encroachment back across the Hellespont, and Alexander only followed the refluent wave to the Indus.

"'Twas then," as SOUTHEY says,

Furthermore, on this subject we subjoin the following reflections from the author previously quoted:

"When the deluge of the Persian arms rolled back to its Eastern bed, and the world was once more comparatively at rest, the continent of Greece rose visibly and majestically above the rest of the civilized earth. Afar in the Latian plains the infant state of Rome was silently and obscurely struggling into strength against the neighboring and petty states in which the old Etrurian civilization was rapidly passing into decay. The genius of Gaul and Germany, yet unredeemed from barbarism, lay scarce known, save where colonized by Greeks, in the gloom of its woods and wastes.

"The ambition of Persia, still the great monarchy of the world, was permanently checked and crippled; the strength of generations had been wasted, and the immense extent of the empire only served yet more to sustain the general peace, from the exhaustion of its forces. The defeat of Xerxes paralyzed the East. Thus Greece was left secure, and at liberty to enjoy the tranquillity it had acquired, and to direct to the arts of peace the novel and amazing energies which had been prompted by the dangers and exalted by the victories of war."

On the very day of the battle of PlatÆa the remains of the Persian fleet which had escaped at Salamis, and which had been drawn up on shore at Myc'a-le, on the coast of Ionia, were burned by the Grecians; and Tigra'nes, the Persian commander of the land forces, and forty thousand of his men, were slain. This was the first signal blow struck by the Greek at the power of Persia on the continent. "Lingering at Sardis," says BULWER, "Xerxes beheld the scanty and exhausted remnants of his mighty force, the fugitives of the fatal days of Mycale and PlatÆa. The army over which he had wept in the zenith of his power had fulfilled the prediction of his tears; and the armed might of Media and Egypt, of Lydia and Assyria, was now no more!"

In one of the comedies of the Greek poet ARISTOPH'ANES, entitled The Wasps, which is designed principally to satirize the passion of the Athenians for the excitement of the law courts, there occurs the following episode, that has for its basis the activity of the Athenians at the battle of PlatÆa. We learn from this episode that the appellation, the "Attic Wasp," had its origin in the venomous persistence with which the Athenians, swarming like wasps, stung the Persians in their retreat, after the defeat of Mardonius. Occurring in a popular satirical comedy, it also shows how readily any allusion to the famous victories of Greece could be made to do service on popular occasions--an allusion that the dramatist knew would awaken in the popular heart great admiration for him and his work: