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:

There was one, a leader crowned, And armed for Greece that day; But the falchions made no sound On his gleaming war array. In the battle's front he stood, With his tall and shadowy crest; But the arrows drew no blood, Though their path was through his vest.

His sword was seen to flash Where the boldest deeds were done; But it smote without a clash; The stroke was heard by none! His voice was not of those Who swelled the rolling blast, And his steps fell hushed like snows— 'Twas the shade of Theseus passed!

Far sweeping through the foe With a fiery charge he bore; And the Mede left many a bow On the sounding ocean-shore. And the foaming waves grew red, And the sails were crowded fast, When the sons of Asia fled, As the shade of Theseus passed! When banners caught the breeze, When helms in sunlight shone, When masts were on the seas, And spears on Marathon.

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:

From Pentel'icus' pine-clad height [Footnote: Pentelicus overhangs the south side of the plain of Marathon.] A voice of warning came, That shook the silent autumn night With fear to Media's name. [Footnote: After the absorption of the Median kingdom into that of Persia, the terms Mede and Persian were interchangeably used, with little distinction.] Pan, from his Marathonian cave, [Footnote: Pan was said to have a famous cave near Marathon. For the somewhat prominent part which Pan played in the great Persian war, see Herodotus, vi. p.105.] Sent screams of midnight terror.

And darkling horror curled the wave On the broad sea's moonlit mirror. Woe, Persia, woe! thou liest low—low! Let the golden palaces groan! Ye mothers weep for sons that shall sleep In gore on Marathon.

Where Indus and Hydaspes roll, Where treeless deserts glow, Where Scythians roam beneath the pole, O'er hills of hardened snow, The great Darius rules: and now, Thou little Greece, to thee He comes: thou thin-soiled Athens, how Shalt thou dare to be free? There is a God that wields the rod Above: by him alone The Greek shall be free, when the Mede shall flee In shame from Marathon.

He comes; and o'er the bright AEgean, Where his masted army came, The subject isles uplift the paean Of glory to his name. Strong Naxos, strong Ere'tria yield; His captains near the shore Of Marathon's fair and fateful field, Where a tyrant marched before. And a traitor guide, the sea beside, Now marks the land for his own, Where the marshes red shall soon be the bed Of the Mede in Marathon.

Who shall number the host of the Mede? Their high-tiered galleys ride, Like locust-bands with darkening speed, Across the groaning tide. Who shall tell the many hoofed tramp That shakes the dusty plain? Where the pride of his horse is the strength of his camp, Shall the Mede forget to gain? O fair is the pride of the cohorts that ride, To the eye of the morning shown! But a god in the sky hath doomed them to lie In dust on Marathon.

Dauntless, beside the sounding sea, The Athenian men reveal Their steady strength. That they are free They know; and inly feel Their high election, on that day, In foremost fight to stand, And dash the enslaving yoke away From all the Grecian land. Their praise shall sound the world around, Who shook the Persian throne, When the shout of the free travelled over the sea From famous Marathon.

From dark Cithae'ron's sacred slope The small Plataean band Bring hearts that swell with patriot hope, To wield a common brand With Theseus' sons, at danger's gates, While spellbound Sparta stands, And for the pale moon's changes waits With stiff and stolid hands; And hath no share in the glory rare, That Athens shall make her own, When the long-haired Mede with fearful speed Falls back from Marathon.

"On, sons of the Greeks!" the war-cry rolls; "The land that gave you birth, Your wives, and all the dearest souls That circle round each hearth; The shrines upon a thousand hills, The memory of your sires, Nerve now with brass your resolute wills, And fan your valorous fires!" And on like a wave came the rush of the brave— "Ye sons of the Greeks, on, on!" And the Mede stepped back from the eager attack Of the Greek in Marathon.

Hear'st thou the rattling of spears on the right? Seest thou the gleam in the sky? The gods come to aid the Greeks in the fight, And the favoring heroes are nigh. The lion's hide I see in the sky, And the knotted club so fell, And kingly Theseus's conquering eye, And Maca'ria, nymph of the well. [Footnote: The nymph Macaria, daughter of Hercules, was said to have a fountain on the field of Marathon. There is a well near the north end of the plain, where the fountain is supposed to have been.] Purely, purely, the fount did flow, When the morn's first radiance shone; But eve shall know the crimson flow Of its wave, by Marathon.

On, son of Cimon, bravely on! [Footnote: Milti'ades, the general in command, whose father's name was Cimon.] And Aristides the just! Your names have made the field your own, Your foes are in the dust! The Lydian satrap spurs his steed, The Persian's bow is broken: His purple pales; the vanquished Mede Beholds the angry token Of thundering Jove, who rules above; And the bubbling marshes moan [Footnote: There are two extensive marshes on the plain of Marathon, one at each extremity. The Persians were driven back into the marsh at the north end.] With the trampled dead that have found their bed In gore, at Marathon.

The ships have sailed from Marathon On swift disaster's wings; And an evil dream hath fetched a groan From the heart of the king of kings. An eagle he saw, in the shades of night, With a dove that bloodily strove; And the weak hath vanquished the strong in fight, The eagle hath fled from the dove. [Footnote: Reference is here made to A-tos'sa's dream, as given by AEschylus in his tragedy of The Persians.] Great Jove, that reigns in the starry plains, To the heart of the king hath shown That the boastful parade of his pride was laid In dust at Marathon.

But through Pentelicus' winding vales The hymn triumphal runs, And high-shrined Athens proudly hails Her free-returning sons. And Pallas, from her ancient rock, [Footnote: Pallas, or Minerva.] With her shield's refulgent round, Blazes; her frequent worshippers flock, And high the paeans sound, How in deathless glory the famous story Shall on the winds be blown, That the long-haired Mede was driven with speed By the Greeks, from Marathon.

And Greece shall be a hallowed name, While the sun shall climb the pole, And Marathon fan strong freedom's flame In many a pilgrim soul. And o'er that mound where heroes sleep, [Footnote: This famous mound is still to be seen on the battle-field.] By the waste and reedy shore, Full many a patriot eye shall weep, Till Time shall be no more. And the bard shall brim with a holier hymn, When he stands by that mound alone, And feel no shrine on earth more divine Than the dust of Marathon.

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 AEsehines, 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:

Then Aristides lifts his honest front; Spotless of heart, to whom the unflattering voice Of Freedom gave the name of Just. In pure majestic poverty revered; Who, e'en his glory to his country's weal Submitting, swelled a haughty rival's fame.

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 AEgina, which still continued, and which gave Themistocles an opportunity to exercise his powers of ready invention and prompt execution. AEgina 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."

Old Greece a tale of Athos would make out, Cut from the continent and sailed about; Seas bid with navies, chariots passing o'er The channel on a bridge from shore to shore; Rivers, whose depths no sharp beholder sees, Drunk, at an army's dinner, to the lees; With a long legend of romantic things, Which, in his cups, the browsy poet sings. —Tenth Satire. Trans. by DRYDEN.

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

Xerxes, the liberty of Greece to yoke, From Susa, his Memnonian palace high, Came to the sea, and over Hellespont Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joined. —Paradise Regained.

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'ylae, 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 AEgina 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, Plataeans, 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 Thermopylae.

THE BATTLE OF THERMOPYLAE.

When the Persian monarch reached Thermopylae, 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.

Stern were her sons. Upon Euro'tas' bank, Where black Ta-yg'etus o'er cliff and peak Waves his dark pines, and spreads his glistening snows, On five low hills their city rose: no walls, No ramparts closed it round; its battlements And towers of strength were men—high-minded men, Who heard the cry of danger with more joy Than softer natures listen to the voice Of pleasure; who, with unremitting toil In chase, in battle, or athletic course, To fierceness steeled their native hardihood; Who sunk in death as tranquil as in sleep, And, hemmed by hostile myriads, never turned To flight, but closer drew before their breasts The massy buckler, firmer fixed the foot, Bit the writhed lip, and, where they struggled, fell. —HAYGARTH.

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:

Long and doubtful was the fight; Day after day the hostile army poured Its choicest warriors, but in vain; they fell, Or fled inglorious. Foul treachery At last prevailed; a steep and dangerous path, Known only to the wandering mountaineers, By difficult ascent led to the rear Of the heroic Greeks. The morning dawned, And the brave chieftain, when he raised his head From the cold rock on which he rested, viewed Banner and helmet, and the waving fire From lance and buckler, glancing high amidst Each pointed cliff and copse which stretch along Yon mountain's bosom. Then he saw his fate; But saw it with an unaverted eye: Around his spear he called his countrymen, And with a smile that o'er his rugged cheek Pass'd transient, like the momentary flash Streaking a thunder-cloud—"But we will die" (He cried) "like Grecians; we will leave our sons A bright example. Let each warrior bind Firmly his mail, and grasp his lance, and scowl From underneath his helm a frown of death Upon his shrinking foe; then let him fix His firm, unbending knee, and where he fights There fall." They heard, and, on their shields Clashing the war-song with a noble rage, Rushed headlong in the conflict of the fight, And died, as they had lived, triumphantly.

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:

Go, stranger, and to Lac-e-dae'mon tell That here, obedient to her laws, we fell.

Stranger, to Sparta say that here we rest In death, obedient to her high behest.

Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passest by, That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.

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

Happy they, the chosen brave, Whom Destiny, whom Valor led To their consecrated grave 'Mid Thessalia's mountains dread. Their sepulchre's a holy shrine, Their epitaph, the engraven line Recording former deeds divine; And Pity's melancholy wail Is changed to hymns of praise that load the evening gale.

Entombed in noble deed's they're laid— Nor silent rust, nor Time's inexorable hour, Shall e'er have power To rend that shroud which veils their hallowed shade. Hellas mourns the dead Sunk in their narrow grave; But thou, dark Sparta's chief, whose bosom bled First in the battle's wave, Bear witness that they fell as best beseems the brave.

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.

On Phocis' shores the cavern's gloom Imbrowns yon solitary tomb: There, in the sad and silent grave Repose the ashes of the brave Who, when the Persian from afar On Hellas poured the stream of war, At Freedom's call, with martial pride, For his loved country fought and died. Seek'st thou the place where, 'midst the dead The hero of the battle bled? Yon sculptured lion, frowning near, Points out Leonidas's bier. —ANON.

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 Thermopylae:

They fell devoted, but undying; The very gale their names seemed sighing: The waters murmured of their name; The woods were peopled with their fame; The silent pillar, lone and gray, Claimed kindred with their sacred clay: Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain, Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain; The meanest rill, the mightiest river Rolled mingling with their fame forever.

THE ABANDONMENT OF ATHENS.

While fighting was in progress at Thermopylae, 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,

"'Twas then that Athens the foundation laid Of Liberty's fair structure.'"

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 Thermopylae, 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 Thespiae and Plataea, 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.

A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations—all were his! He counted them at break of day— And when the sun set, where were they? —BYRON.

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.

But how returned he? Say; this soul of fire, This proud barbarian, whose impatient ire Chastised the winds that disobeyed his nod With stripes ne'er suffered by the AEolian god— But how returned he? say; his navy lost, In a small bark he fled the hostile coast, And, urged by terror, drove his laboring prore Through floating carcasses and fields of gore. So Xerxes sped; so sped the conquering race: They catch at glory, and they clasp disgrace. —JUVENAL, Satire X. Trans. by GIFFORD.

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."

O'er Hellespont and Athos' marble head, More than a god he came, less than a man he fled. —LUIGI ALAMANNI. Trans. by AUBREY DE VERE.

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 AEschylus; 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 AEschylus held so prominent a place as to be at once recognized, even by a casual observer. Eight years after the latter battle AEschylus 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 AEschylus 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 AEschylus 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:

Woe to the towns of Asia's peopled realms! Woe to the land of Persia, once the port Of boundless wealth! All, at a blow, has perished! Ah me! How sad his task who brings ill tidings! But, to my tale of woe—I needs must tell it. Persians—the whole barbaric host has fallen!

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

Oh horror, horror, what a train of ills! Alas! Is Hellas then unscathed? And has Our arrowy tempest spent its force in vain? Raise the funereal cry—with dismal notes Wailing the wretched Persians. Oh, how ill They planned their measures! All their army perished!

Then the messenger exclaims:

I speak not from report; but these mine eyes Beheld the ruin which my tongue would utter. In heaps the unhappy dead lie on the strand Of Salamis, and all the neighboring shores. Oh, Salamis—how hateful is thy name! Oh, how my heart groans but to think of Athens!

Atossa at length finds words to say:

Astonished with these ills, my voice thus long Hath wanted utterance: griefs like these exceed The power of speech or question: yet e'en such, Inflicted by the gods, must mortal man, Constrained by loud necessity endure. But tell me all: without distraction, tell me All this calamity, though many a groan Burst from thy laboring heart. Who is not fallen? What leader must we wail? What sceptred chief, Dying, hath left his troops without a lord?

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:

Our evil genius, lady, or some god Hostile to Persia, led to every ill. Forth from the troops of Athens came a Greek, And thus addressed thy son, the imperial Xerxes: "Soon as the shades of night descend, the Grecians Shall quit their station: rushing to their oars, They mean to separate, and in secret flight Seek safety." At these words the royal chief, Little dreaming of the wiles of Greece, And gods averse, to all the naval leaders Gave his high charge: "Soon as yon sun shall cease To dart his radiant beams, and dark'ning night Ascends the temple of the sky, arrange In three divisions your well-ordered ships, And guard each pass, each outlet of the seas: Others enring around this rocky isle Of Salamis. Should Greece escape her fate, And work her way by secret flight, your heads Shall answer the neglect." This harsh command He gave, exulting in his mind, nor knew What Fate designed. With martial discipline And prompt obedience, snatching a repast, Each manner fixed well his ready oar.

Soon as the golden sun was set, and night Advanced, each, trained to ply the dashing oar, Assumed his seat; in arms each warrior stood, Troop cheering troop through all the ships of war. Each to the appointed station steers his course, And through the night his naval force each chief Fix'd to secure the passes. Night advanced, But not by secret flight did Greece attempt To escape. The morn, all beauteous to behold, Drawn by white steeds, bounds o'er the enlighten'd earth:

At once from every Greek, with glad acclaim, Burst forth the song of war, whose lofty notes The echo of the island rocks returned, Spreading dismay through Persia's host, thus fallen From their high hopes; no flight this solemn strain Portended, but deliberate valor bent On daring battle; while the trumpet's sound Kindled the flames of war. But when their oars (The paean ended) with impetuous force Dash'd the surrounding surges, instant all Rush'd on in view; in orderly array The squadron of the right first led, behind Rode their whole fleet; and now distinct was heard From every part this voice of exhortation:

"Advance, ye sons of Greece, from thraldom save Your country—save your wives, your children save, The temples of your gods, the sacred tomb Where rest your honor'd ancestors; this day The common cause of all demands your valor." Meantime from Persia's hosts the deep'ning shout Answer'd their shout; no time for cold delay; But ship 'gainst ship its brazen beak impell'd.

First to the charge a Grecian galley rush'd; Ill the Phoenician bore the rough attack— Its sculptured prow all shatter'd. Each advanced, Daring an opposite. The deep array Of Persia at the first sustain'd the encounter; But their throng'd numbers, in the narrow seas Confined, want room for action; and deprived Of mutual aid, beaks clash with beaks, and each Breaks all the other's oars: with skill disposed, The Grecian navy circled them around In fierce assault; and, rushing from its height, The inverted vessel sinks.

The sea no more Wears its accustomed aspect, with foul wrecks And blood disfigured; floating carcasses Roll on the rocky shores; the poor remains Of the barbaric armament to flight Ply every oar inglorious: onward rush The Greeks amid the ruins of the fleet, As through a shoal of fish caught in the net, Spreading destruction; the wide ocean o'er Wailings are heard, and loud laments, till night, With darkness on her brow, brought grateful truce. Should I recount each circumstance of woe, Ten times on my unfinished tale the sun Would set; for be assured that not one day Could close the ruin of so vast a host.

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:

Invidious fortune, how thy baleful power Hath sunk the hopes of Persia! Bitter fruit My son hath tasted from his purposed vengeance On Athens, famed for arms; the fatal field Of Marathon, red with barbaric blood, Sufficed not: that defeat he thought to avenge, And pulled this hideous ruin on his head! Ah me! what sorrows for our ruined host Oppress my soul! Ye visions of the night, Haunting my dreams, how plainly did you show These ills! You set them in too fair a light.

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:

With sacred awe The Persian law No more shall Asia's realm revere: To their lord's hand, At his command, No more the exacted tribute bear. Who now falls prostrate at the monarch's throne? His regal greatness is no more. Now no restraint the wanton tongue shall own, Free from the golden curb of power; For on the rocks, washed by the beating flood, His awe-commanding nobles lie in blood. —POTTER'S trans.

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:

Seest thou where, sublimely seated on a silver-footed throne, With a high tiara crested, belted with a jewelled zone, Sits the king of kings, and, looking from the rocky mountain-side, Scans, with masted armies studded far, the fair Saronic tide? Looks he not with high hope beaming? looks he not with pride elate? Seems he not a god? The words he speaks are big with instant fate.

He hath come from far Euphrates, and from Tigris' rushing tide, To subdue the strength of Athens, to chastise the Spartan's pride; He hath come with countless armies, gathered slowly from afar, From the plain, and from the mountain, marshalled ranks of motley war; From the land and from the ocean, that the burdened billows groan, That the air is black with banners, which great Xerxes calls his own.

Soothly he hath nobly ridden o'er the fair fields, o'er the waste, As the earth might bear the burden, with a weighty-footed haste; He hath cut in twain the mountain, he hath bridged the rolling main, He hath lashed the flood of Hel'le, bound the billow with a chain; And the rivers shrink before him, and the sheeted lakes are dry, From his burden-bearing oxen, and his hordes of cavalry; And the gates of Greece stand open; Ossa and Olympus fail; And the mountain-girt AEmo'nia spreads the river and the gale.

Stood nor man nor god before him; he hath scoured the Attic land, Chased the valiant sons of Athens to a barren island's strand; He hath hedged them round with triremes, lines on lines of bristling war; He hath doomed the prey for capture; he hath spread his meshes far; And he sits sublimely seated on a throne with pride elate, To behold the victim fall beneath the sudden swooping Fate.

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:

Wake thee! wake thee! blinded Xerxes! God hath found thee out at last; Snaps thy pride beneath his judgment, as the tree before the blast. Haste thee! haste thee! speed thy couriers—Persian couriers travel lightly— To declare thy stranded navy, that by cruel death unsightly Dimmed thy glory. Hie thee! hie thee! hence, even by what way thou camest, Dwarfed to whoso saw thee mightiest, and where thou wert fiercest, tamest!

Frost and fire shall league together, angry heaven to earth respond, Strong Poseidon with his trident break thy impious-vaunted bond; Where thou passed, with mouths uncounted, eating up the famished land, With few men a boat shall ferry Xerxes to the Asian strand. Haste thee! haste thee! they are waiting by the palace gates for thee; By the golden gates of Susa eager mourners wait for thee. Haste thee! where the guardian elders wait, a hoary-bearded train; They shall see their king, but never see the sons they loved, again.

Where thy weeping mother waits thee, Queen Atossa waits to see Dire fulfilment of her troublous, vision-haunted sleep in thee. She hath dreamt, and she shall see it, how an eagle, cowed with awe, Gave his kingly crest to pluck before a puny falcon's claw. Haste thee! where the mighty shade of great Darius through the gloom Rises dread, to teach thee wisdom, couldst thou learn it, from the tomb. There begin the sad rehearsal, and, while streaming tears are shed, To the thousand tongues that ask thee, tell the myriads of thy dead!

THE BATTLE OF PLATAE'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 Plataea. 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 Plataea, when he encountered that part of the Grecian army composed mostly of Spartans and Lacedaemonians, 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 Lacedaemonians 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 Lacedaemonians, 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 Plataea 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,

"The fate Of unborn ages hung upon the fray: T'was at Plataea, in that awful hour When Greece united smote the Persian's power. For, had the Persian triumphed, then the spring Of knowledge from that living source had ceased; All would have fallen before the barbarous king— Art, Science, Freedom: the despotic East, Setting her mark upon the race subdued, Had stamped them in the mould of sensual servitude."

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 Plataea 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 Plataea. 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 Plataea. 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:

With torch and brand the Persian horde swept on from east to west, To storm the hives that we had stored, and smoke us from our nest; Then we laid our hand to spear and targe, and met him on his path; Shoulder to shoulder, close we stood, and bit our lips for wrath. So fast and thick the arrows flew, that none might see the heaven, But the gods were on our side that day, and we bore them back at even. High o'er our heads, an omen good, we saw the owlet wheel, And the Persian trousers in their backs felt the good Attic steel. Still as they fled we followed close, a swarm of vengeful foes, And stung them where we chanced to light, on cheek, and lip, and nose. So to this day, barbarians say, when whispered far or near, More than all else the ATTIC WASP is still a name of fear. —Trans. by W. LUCAS COLLINS.



CHAPTER X.

THE RISE AND GROWTH OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE.

I. THE DISGRACE AND DEATH OF THEMISTOCLES.

Six years after the battle of Plataea the career of Xerxes was terminated by assassination, and his son, Artaxerxes Longim'anus, succeeded to the throne. In the mean time Athens had been rebuilt and fortified by Themistocles, and the Piraeus (the port of Athens) enclosed within a wall as large in extent as that of Athens, but of greater height and thickness. But Themistocles, by his selfish and arbitrary use of power, provoked the enmity of a large body of his countrymen; and although he was acquitted of the charge of treasonable inclinations toward Persia, popular feeling soon after became so strong against him that he was condemned to exile by the same process of ostracism that he had directed against Aristides, and he retired to Argos (471 B.C.) Some time before this a Grecian force, composed of Athenians under Aristides, and Cimon the son of Miltiades, and Spartans under Pausanias the victor of Plataea, waged a successful war upon the Persian dependencies of the AEgean, and the coasts of Asia Minor. The Ionian cities were aided in a successful revolt, and Cyprus and Byzantium—the latter now Constantinople—fell into the hands of the Grecians. Pausanias, who was at the head of the whole armament, now began to show signs of treasonable conduct, which was more fully unfolded by a communication that he addressed to the Persian court, seeking the daughter of Xerxes in marriage, and promising to bring Sparta and the whole of Greece under Persian dominion.

When news of the treason of Pausanias reached Sparta, he was immediately recalled, and, though no definite proof was at first furnished against him, his guilt was subsequently established, and he perished from starvation in the Temple of Minerva, whither he had fled for refuge, and where he was immured by the eph'ors. The fate of Pausanias involved that of Themistocles. In searching for farther traces of the former's plot some correspondence was discovered that furnished sufficient evidence of the complicity of Themistocles in the crime, and he was immediately accused by the Spartans, who insisted upon his being punished. The Athenians sent ambassadors to arrest him and bring him to Athens; but Themistocles fled from Argos, and finally sought refuge at the court of Persia. He died at Magne'sia, in Asia Minor, which had been appointed his place of residence by Artaxerxes, and a splendid monument was raised to his memory; but in the time of the Roman empire a tomb was pointed out by the sea-side, within the port of Piraeus, which was generally believed to contain his remains, and of which the comic poet PLATO thus wrote:

By the sea's margin, on the watery strand, Thy monument, Themistocles, shall stand. By this directed to thy native shore, The merchant shall convey his freighted store; And when our fleets are summoned to the fight Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight. —Trans. by CUMBERLAND.

Although "the genius of Themistocles did not secure him from the seductions of avarice and pride, which led him to sacrifice both his honor and his country for the tinsel of Eastern pomp," yet, as THIRLWALL says, "No Greek had then rendered services such as those of Themistocles to the common country; and no Athenian, except Solon, had conferred equal benefits on Athens. He had first delivered her from the most imminent danger, and then raised her to the pre-eminence on which she now stood. He might claim her greatness; and even her being, as his work." The following tribute to his memory is from the pen of TULLIUS GEM'INUS, a Latin poet:

Greece be thy monument; around her throw The broken trophies of the Persian fleet; Inscribe the gods that led the insulting foe, And mighty Xerxes, at the tablet's feet. There lay Themistocles; to spread his fame A lasting column Salamis shall be; Raise not, weak man, to that immortal name The little records of mortality. —Trans. by MERIVALE.

* * * * *

II. THE RISE AND FALL OF CIMON.

Foremost among the rivals of Themistocles in ability and influence, was Cimon, the son of Miltiades. In his youth he was inordinately fond of pleasure, and revealed none of those characteristics for which he subsequently became distinguished. But his friends encouraged him to follow in his father's footsteps, and Aristides soon discovered in him a capacity and disposition that he could use to advantage in his own antagonism to Themistocles. To Aristides, therefore, Cimon was largely indebted for his influence and success, as well as for his mild temper and gentle manners.

Reared by his care, of softer ray appears Cimon, sweet-souled; whose genius, rising strong, Shook off the load of young debauch; abroad The scourge of Persian pride, at home the friend Of every worth and every splendid art; Modest and simple in the pomp of wealth. —THOMSON.

On the banishment of Themistocles Aristides became the undisputed leader of the aristocratical party at Athens, and on his death, four years subsequently, Cimon succeeded him. The later was already distinguished for his military successes, and was undoubtedly the greatest commander of his time. He continued the successful war against Persia for many years, and among his notable victories was one obtained on both sea and land, in Pamphyl'ia, in Asia Minor, and called

THE BATTLE OF EURYM'EDON.

After dispersing a fleet of two hundred ships Cimon landed his troops, flushed with victory, and completely routed a large Persian army. The poet SIMONIDES praises this double victory in the following verse:

Ne'er since that olden time, when Asia stood First torn from Europe by the ocean flood, Since horrid Mars first poured on either shore The storm of battle and its wild uproar, Hath man by land and sea such glory won As by the mighty deed this day was done. By land, the Medes in myriads press the ground; By sea, a hundred Tyrian ships are drowned, With all their martial host; while Asia stands Deep groaning by, and wrings her helpless hands. —Trans. by MERIVALE.

The same poet pays the following tribute to the Greeks who fell in this conflict:

These, by the streams of famed Eurymedon, There, envied youth's short brilliant race have run: In swift-winged ships, and on the embattled field, Alike they forced the Median bows to yield, Breaking their foremost ranks. Now here they lie, Their names inscribed on rolls of victory. —Trans. by MERIVALE.

On the recall of Pausanias from Asia Minor Sparta lost, and Athens acquired, the command in the war against Persia. Athens was now rapidly approaching the summit of her military renown. The war with Persia did not prevent her from extending her possessions in Greece by force of arms; and island after island of the AEgean yielded to her sway, while her colonies peopled the winding shores of Thrace and Macedon. The other states and cities of Greece could not behold her rapid, and apparently permanent, growth in power without great dissatisfaction and anxiety. When the Persian war was at its height, a sense of common danger had caused many of them to seek an alliance with Athens, the result of what is known as the Confederacy of Delos; but, now that the danger was virtually passed, long existing jealousies broke out, which led to political dissensions, and, finally, to the civil wars that caused the ruin of the Grecian republics. Sparta, especially, had long viewed with indignation the growing resources of Athens and was preparing to check them by an invasion of Attica, when sudden and complicated disasters forced her to abandon her designs, and turn her attention to her own dominions. In 464 B.C. the city was visited by an earthquake that laid it in ruins and buried not less than twenty thousand of its chosen citizens; and this calamity was immediately followed by a general revolt of the Helots. BULWER'S description of this terrible earthquake, and of the memorable conduct of the Laconian government in opposing, under such trying circumstances, the dreadful revolt that occurred, has been greatly admired for its eloquence and its strict adherence to facts.

The Earthquake at Sparta and the Revolt of the Helots.

"An earthquake, unprecedented in its violence, occurred in Sparta. In many places throughout Laconia the rocky soil was rent asunder. From Mount Ta-yg'e-tus, which overhung the city, and on which the women of Lacedaemon were wont to hold their bacchanalian orgies, huge fragments rolled into the suburbs. The greater portion of the city was absolutely overthrown; and it is said, probably with exaggeration, that only five houses wholly escaped disaster from the shock. This terrible calamity did not cease suddenly as it came; its concussions were repeated; it buried alike men and treasure: could we credit Diodorus, no less than twenty thousand persons perished in the shock. Thus depopulated, impoverished, and distressed, the enemies whom the cruelty of Sparta nursed within her bosom resolved to seize the moment to execute their vengeance and consummate her destruction. Under Pausanias the Helots were ready for revolt; and the death of that conspirator checked, but did not crush, their designs of freedom. Now was the moment, when Sparta lay in ruins—now was the moment to realize their dreams. From field to field, from village to village, the news of the earthquake became the watchword of revolt. Up rose the Helots—they armed themselves, they poured on—a wild and gathering and relentless multitude resolved to slay, by the wrath of man, all whom that of nature had yet spared. The earthquake that leveled Sparta rent their chains; nor did the shock create one chasm so dark and wide as that between the master and the slave.

"It is one of the sublimest and most awful spectacles in history —that city in ruins—the earth still trembling, the grim and dauntless soldiery collected amid piles of death and ruin; and in such a time, and such a scene, the multitude sensible not of danger, but of wrong, and rising not to succor, but to revenge—all that should have disarmed a feebler enmity giving fire to theirs; the dreadest calamity their blessing—dismay their hope. It was as if the Great Mother herself had summoned her children to vindicate the long-abused, the all-inalienable heritage derived from her; and the stir of the angry elements was but the announcement of an armed and solemn union between nature and the oppressed.

"Fortunately for Sparta, the danger was not altogether unforeseen. After the confusion and the horror of the earthquake, and while the people, dispersed, were seeking to save their effects, Archida'mus, who, four years before, had succeeded to the throne of Lacedaemon, ordered the trumpets to sound as to arms. That wonderful superiority of man over matter which habit and discipline can effect, and which was ever so visible among the Spartans, constituted their safety at that hour. Forsaking the care of their property, the Spartans seized their arms, flocked around their king, and drew up in disciplined array. In her most imminent crisis Sparta was thus saved. The Helots approached, wild, disorderly, and tumultuous; they came intent only to plunder and to slay; they expected to find scattered and affrighted foes —they found a formidable army; their tyrants were still their lords. They saw, paused, and fled, scattering themselves over the country, exciting all they met to rebellion, and soon joined with the Messenians, kindred to them by blood and ancient reminiscences of heroic struggles; they seized that same Ithome which their hereditary Aristodemus had before occupied with unforgotten valor. This they fortified, and, occupying also the neighboring lands, declared open war upon their lords." [Footnote: "Athens: Its Rise and Fall," pp. 176, 177.]

"The incident here related of the King of Sparta," says ALISON, "amid the yawning of the earthquake and the ruin of his capital, sounding the trumpets to arms, and the Lacedaemonians assembling in disciplined array around him, is one of the sublimest recorded in history. We need not wonder that a people capable of such conduct in such a moment, and trained by discipline and habit to such docility in danger, should subsequently acquire and maintain supreme dominion in Greece." The general insurrection of the Helots is known in history as the THIRD MESSENIAN WAR. After two or three years had passed in vain attempts to capture Ithome, the Spartans were obliged to call for aid on the Athenians, with whom they were still in avowed alliance. The friends of Pericles, the rival of Cimon and the leader of the democratic party at Athens, opposed granting the desired relief; but Cimon, after some difficulty, persuaded his countrymen to assist the Lacedaemonians, and he himself marched with four thousand men to Ithome. The aid of the Athenians was solicited on account of their acknowledged skill in capturing fortified places; but as Cimon did not succeed in taking Ithome, the Spartans became suspicious of his designs, and summarily sent him back to Athens.

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III. THE ACCESSION OF PERICLES TO POWER.

The ill success of the expedition of Cimon gave Pericles the opportunity to place himself and the popular party in power at Athens; for the constitutional reforms that had been gradually weakening the power of the aristocracy were now made available to sweep it almost entirely away. The following extract from BULWER'S Athens briefly yet fully tells what was accomplished in this direction:

"The Constitution previous to Solon was an oligarchy of birth. Solon rendered it an aristocracy of property. Clisthenes widened its basis from property to population; and it was also Clisthenes, in all probability, who weakened the more illicit and oppressive influences of wealth by establishing the ballot of secret suffrage, instead of the open voting which was common in the time of Solon. The Areop'agus was designed by Solon as the aristocratic balance to the popular assembly. This constitutional bulwark of the aristocratic party of Athens became more and more invidious to the people, and when Cimon resisted every innovation on that assembly he only insured his own destruction, while he expedited the policy he denounced. Ephial'tes, the friend and spokesman of Pericles, directed all the force of the popular opinion against this venerable senate; and at length, though not openly assisted by Pericles, who took no prominent part in the contention, that influential statesman succeeded in crippling its functions and limiting its authority."

With regard to the nature of the constitutional changes effected, the same writer adds: "It appears to me most probable that the Areopagus retained the right of adjudging cases of homicide, and little besides of its ancient constitutional authority; that it lost altogether its most dangerous power in the indefinite police it had formerly exercised over the habits and morals of the people; that any control of the finances was wisely transferred to the popular senate; that its irresponsible character was abolished, and that it was henceforth rendered accountable to the people." The struggle between the contending parties was long and bitter, and the fall of Cimon was one of the necessary consequences of the political change. Charged, among other things, with too great friendship for Sparta, he was driven into exile. Pericles now persuaded the Athenians to renounce the alliance with Sparta, and he increased the power of Athens by alliances with Argos and other cities. He also continued the construction of the long walls from Athens to the Piraeus and Phalerum—a project that Themistocles had advised and that Cimon had commenced.

The long existing jealousy of Sparta at last broke out in open hostilities. While the siege of Ithome was in progress, Sparta, still powerful in her alliances, sent her allied forces into Boeotia to counteract the growing influence of the Athenians in that quarter. The indignant Athenians, led by Pericles, marched out to meet them, but were worsted in the battle of Tan'agra. Before this conflict began, Cimon, the banished commander, appeared in the Athenian camp and begged permission to enter the ranks against the enemy. His request being refused, he left his armor with his friends, of whom there were one hundred among the Athenians, with the charge to refute, by their valor, the accusation that he and they were the friends of Sparta. Everyone of the one hundred fell in the conflict. About two months after, in the early part of the year 456 B.C., the Athenians wiped off the stain of their defeat at Tanagra by a victory over the combined Theban and Boeotian forces, then in alliance with Sparta; whereby the authority and influence of Sparta were again confined to the Peloponnesus.

The Athenians were now masters of Greece, from the Gulf of Corinth to the Pass of Thermopylae, and in the following year they sent an expedition round the Peloponnesus, which captured, among other cities, Naupactus, on the Corinthian Gulf. The third and last Messenian war had just been concluded by the surrender of Ithome, on terms which permitted the Messenians and their families to retire from the Peloponnesus, and they joined the colony which Athens planted at Naupactus. But the successes of Athens in Greece were counterbalanced, in the same year, by reverses in Egypt, where the Athenians were fighting Persia in aid of In'arus, a Libyan prince. These, with some other minor disasters, and the state of bitter feeling that existed between the two parties at Athens, induced Pericles to recall Cimon from exile and put him in command of an expedition against Cyprus and Egypt. In 449, however, Cimon was taken ill, and he died in the harbor of Ci'tium, to which place he was laying siege.

Before the death of Cimon, and through his intervention, a five years' truce had been concluded with Sparta, and soon after his death peace was made with Persia. From this time the empire of Athens began to decline. In the year 447 B.C. a revolt in Boeotia resulted in the overthrow of Athenian supremacy there, while the expulsion of the Athenians from Pho'cis and Lo'cris, and the revolt of Euboea and Megara, followed soon after. The revolt of Euboea was soon quelled, but this was the only success that Athens achieved. Meanwhile a Spartan army invaded Attica and marched to the neighborhood of Eleusis. Having lost much of her empire, with a fair prospect of losing all of it if hostilities continued, Athens concluded a thirty years' truce with Sparta and her allies, by the terms of which she abandoned her conquests in the Peloponnesus, and Megara became an ally of Sparta (445 B.C.)

THE "AGE OF PERICLES."

With the close of the Persian contest, and the beginning of the Thirty Years' truce, properly begins what has been termed the "Age of Pericles"—the inauguration of a new and important era of Athenian greatness and renown. Having won the highest military honors and political ascendancy, Athens now took the lead in intellectual progress. Themistocles and Cimon had restored to Athens all that of which Xerxes had despoiled it—the former having rebuilt its ruins, and the latter having given to its public buildings a degree of magnificence previously unknown. But Pericles surpassed them both:

He was the ruler of the land When Athens was the land of fame; He was the light that led the band When each was like a living flame; The centre of earth's noblest ring, Of more than men the more than king.

Yet not by fetter nor by spear His sovereignty was held or won: Feared—but alone as freemen fear; Loved—but as freemen love alone; He waved the sceptre o'er his kind By nature's first great title—mind! —CROLY.

Orator and philosopher, as well as statesman and general, Pericles had the most lofty views. "Athens," says a modern writer, "was to become not only the capital of Greece, but the center of art and refinement, and, at the same time, of those democratical theories which formed the beau ideal of the Athenian notions of government." Athens became the center and capital of the most polished communities of Greece; she drew into a focus all the Grecian intellect, and she obtained from her dependents the wealth to administer the arts, which universal traffic and intercourse taught her to appreciate. The treasury of the state being placed in the hands of Pericles, he knew no limit to expenditure but the popular will, which, fortunately for the glories of Grecian art, kept pace with the vast conceptions of the master designer. Most of those famous structures that crowned the Athenian Acropolis, or surrounded its base, were either built or adorned by his direction, under the superintendence of the great sculptor, Phidias. The Parthenon, the Ode'um, the gold and ivory statue of the goddess Minerva, and the Olympian Jupiter—the latter two the work of the great sculptor himself—were alone sufficient to immortalize the "Age of Pericles." Of these miracles of sculpture and of architecture, as well as of the literature of this period, we shall speak farther in a subsequent place.

Of the general condition and appearance of Athens during the fourteen years that the Thirty Years' Truce was observed, HAYGARTH gives us the following poetical description:

All the din of war Was hushed to rest. Within a city's walls, Beneath a marble portico, were seen Statesmen and orators, in robes of peace, Holding discourse. The assembled multitude Sat in the crowded theatre, and bent To hear the voice of gorgeous Tragedy Breathing, in solemn verse, or ode sublime, Her noble precepts. The broad city's gates Poured forth a mingled throng—impatient steeds Champing their bits, and neighing for the course: Merchants slow driving to the busy port Their ponderous wains: Religion's holy priests Leading her red-robed votaries to the steps Of some vast temple: young and old, with hands Crossed on their breasts, hastening to walks and shades Suburban, where some moralist explained The laws of mind and virtue. On a rock A varied group appeared: some dragged along The rough-hewn block; some shaped it into form; Some reared the column, or with chisel traced Forms more than human; while Content sat near, And cheered with songs the toil of Industry.

But, as the poet adds,

Soon passed this peaceful pageant: War again Brandished his bloody lance—

and then began that dismal period between the "Age of Pericles" and the interference of the Romans—embracing the three Peloponnesian wars, the rising power of Macedonia under Philip of Macedon, the wars of Alexander and the contentions that followed—known as the period of the civil convulsions of Greece.



CHAPTER XI.

THE PELOPONNESIAN WARS, AND THE FALL OF ATHENS.

CAUSES OF THE FIRST WAR.

The various successful schemes of Pericles for enriching and extending the power of Athens were regarded with fear and jealousy by Sparta and her allies, who were only waiting for a reasonable excuse to renew hostilities. The opportunity came in 435 B.C. Corinth, the ally of Sparta, had become involved in a war with Corcy'ra, one of her colonies, when the latter applied to Athens for assistance. Pericles persuaded the Athenians to grant the assistance, and a small fleet was dispatched to Corcyra. The engagement that ensued, in which the Athenian ships bore a part —the greatest contest, Thucydides observes, that had taken place between Greeks to that day—was favorable to the Corinthians; but the sight of a larger Athenian squadron advancing toward the scene of action caused the Corinthians to retreat. This first breach of the truce was soon followed by another. Potidae'a, a Corinthian colony, but tributary to Athens, revolted, on account of some unjust demands that the Athenians had enforced against it, and claimed and obtained the assistance of the Corinthians. Thus, in two instances, were Athens and Corinth, though nominally at peace, brought into conflict as open enemies.

THE CONGRESS AT SPARTA.—THE PERSECUTION OF PERICLES.

The Lacedaemonians meanwhile called a meeting of the Peloponnesian Confederacy at Sparta, at which AEgina, Meg'ara, and other states made their complaints against Athens. It was also attended by envoys from Athens, who seriously warned it not to force Athens into a struggle that would be waged for its very existence. But a majority of the Confederacy were of the opinion that Athens had violated her treaties, and the result of the deliberations was a declaration of war against her. Not with any real desire for peace, but in order to gain time for her preparations before the declaration was made public, Sparta opened negotiations with Athens; but her preliminary demands were of course refused, while her ultimatum, that Athens should restore to the latter's allies their independence, was met with a like demand by the Athenians —that no state in Peloponnesus should be forced to accommodate itself to the principles in vogue at Sparta, "Let this be our answer," said Pericles, in closing his speech in the Athenian assembly: "We have no wish to begin war, but whosoever attacks us, him we mean to repel; for our guiding principle ought to be no other than this: that the power of that state which our fathers made great we will hand down undiminished to our posterity." The advice of Pericles was adopted, all farther negotiations were thereupon concluded, and Athens prepared for war.

Although the political authority of Pericles was now at its height, and his services were receiving unwonted public recognition, he had many enemies among all classes of citizens, who made his position for a time extremely hazardous. These at first attacked his friends—Phidias, Anaxagoras, Aspasia, and others—who were prominent representatives of his opinions and designs. The former was falsely accused of theft, in having retained for himself a part of the gold furnished to him for the golden robe of Athene Par'thenos, and of impiety for having reproduced his own features in one of the numerous figures on the shield of the goddess. He was cast into prison, where he died before his trial was concluded. Anaxagoras, having exposed himself to the penalties of a decree by which all who abjured the current religious views were to be indicted and tried as state criminals, barely escaped with his life; while Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles, charged with impiety and base immorality, was only saved by the eloquence and tears of the great statesman, which flowed freely and successfully in her behalf before the jury. Finally, Pericles was attacked in person. He was accused of a waste of the public moneys, and was commanded to render an exact account of his expenditures. Although he came forth victorious from this and all other attacks, it is evident, as one historian observes, that "the endeavors of his enemies did not fail to exercise a certain influence upon the masses; and this led Pericles, who believed that war was in any case inevitable, to welcome its speedy commencement, as he hoped that the common danger would divert public attention from home affairs, render harmless the power of his adversaries, strengthen patriotic feeling, and make manifest to the Athenians their need of his services."

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THE FIRST PELOPONNESIAN WAR.

On the side of Sparta was arrayed the whole of Peloponnesus, except Argos and Acha'ia, together with the Megarians, Phocians, Locrians, Thebans, and some others; while the allies of Athens were the Thessalians, Acarnanians, Messenians, Plataeans, Chi'ans, Lesbians, her tributary towns in Thrace and Asia Minor, and all the islands north of Crete with two exceptions—Me'los and The'ra. Hostilities were precipitated by a treacherous attack of the Thebans upon Plataea in 431 B.C.; and before the close of the same year a Spartan army of sixty thousand ravaged Attica, and sat down before the very gates of Athens, while the naval forces of the Athenians desolated the coasts of the Peloponnesus. The Spartans were soon called from Attica to protect their homes, and Pericles himself, at the lead of a large force, spread desolation over the little territory of Megaris. This expedition closed the hostilities for the year, and, on his return to Athens, Pericles was intrusted with the duty of pronouncing the oration at the public funeral which, in accordance with the custom of the country, was solemnized for those who had fallen in the war.

This occasion afforded Pericles an opportunity to animate the courage and the hopes of his countrymen, by such a description of the glories and the possibilities of Athens as he alone could give. Commencing his address with a eulogy on the ancestors and immediate forefathers of the Athenians, he proceeds to show the latter "by what form of civil polity, what dispositions and habits of life," they have attained their greatness; graphically contrasting their institutions with those of other states, and especially with those of the Spartans, their present enemies.

The Oration of Pericles. [Footnote: From "History of Thucydides," translated by S. T. Bloomfield, D. D., vol. I., p. 366.]

"We enjoy a form of government not framed on an imitation of the institutions of neighboring states, but, are ourselves rather a model to, than imitative of, others; and which, from the government being administered not for the few but for the many, is denominated a democracy. According to its laws, all participate in an equality of rights as to the determination of private suits, and everyone is preferred to public offices with a regard to the reputation he holds, and according as each is in estimation for anything; not so much for being of a particular class as for his personal merit. Nor is any person who can, in whatever way, render service to the state kept back on account of poverty or obscurity of station. Thus liberally are our public affairs administered, and thus liberally, too, do we conduct ourselves as to mutual suspicions in our private and every-day intercourse; not bearing animosity toward our neighbor for following his own humor, nor darkening our countenance with the scowl of censure, which pains though it cannot punish. While, too, we thus mix together in private intercourse without irascibility or moroseness, we are, in our public and political capacity, cautiously studious not to offend; yielding a prompt obedience to the authorities for the time being, and to the established laws; especially those which are enacted for the benefit of the injured, and such as, though unwritten, reflect a confessed disgrace on the transgressors."

Having referred to the recreation provided for the public mind by the exhibition of games and sacrifices throughout the whole year, as well as to some points in military matters in which the Athenians excel, Pericles proceeds as follows: "In these respects, then, is our city worthy of admiration, and in others also; for we study elegance combined with frugality, and cultivate philosophy without effeminacy. Riches we employ at opportunities for action, rather than as a subject of wordy boast. To confess poverty with us brings no disgrace; not to endeavor to escape it by exertion is disgrace indeed. There exists, moreover, in the same persons an attention both to their domestic concerns and to public affairs; and even among such others as are engaged in agricultural occupations or handicraft labor there is found a tolerable portion of political knowledge. We are the only people who account him that takes no share in politics, not as an intermeddler in nothing, but one who is good for nothing. We are, too, persons who examine aright, or, at least, fully revolve in mind our measures, not thinking that words are any hindrance to deeds, but that the hindrance rather consists in the not being informed by words previously to setting about in deed what is to be done. For we possess this point of superiority over others, that we execute a bold promptitude in what we undertake, and yet a cautious prudence in taking forethought; whereas with others it is ignorance alone that makes them daring, while reflection makes them dastardly.

"In short, I may affirm that the city at large is the instructress of Greece, and that individually each person among us seems to possess the most ready versatility in adapting himself, and that not ungracefully, to the greatest variety of circumstances and situations that diversify human life. That all this is not a mere boast of words for the present purpose, but rather the actual truth, this very power of the state, unto which by these habits and dispositions we have attained, clearly attests; for ours is the only one of the states now existing which, on trial, approves itself greater than report; it alone occasions neither to an invading enemy ground for chagrin at being worsted by such, nor to a subject state aught of self-reproach, as being under the power of those unworthy of empire. A power do we display not unwitnessed, but attested by signs illustrious, which will make us the theme of admiration both to the present and future ages; nor need we either a Homer, or any such panegyrist, who might, indeed, for the present delight with his verses, but any idea of our actions thence formed the actual truth of them might destroy: nay, every sea and every land have we compelled to become accessible to our adventurous courage; and everywhere have we planted eternal monuments both of good and of evil. For such a state, then, these our departed heroes (unwilling to be deprived of it) magnanimously fought and fell; and in such a cause it is right that everyone of us, the survivors, should readily encounter toils and dangers."

After paying a handsome tribute to the memory of the departed warriors whose virtues, he says, helped to adorn Athens with all that makes it the theme of his encomiums, Pericles exhorts his hearers to emulate the spirit of those who contributed to their country the noblest sacrifice. "They bestowed," he adds, "their persons and their lives upon the public; and therefore, as their private recompense, they receive a deathless renown and the noblest of sepulchres, [Footnote: While kings, in dusty darkness hid, Have left a nameless pyramid, Thy heroes, though the general doom Hath swept the column from their tomb, A mightier monument command— The mountains of their native land! These, points thy muse, to stranger's eye— The graves of those that cannot die! —BYRON.] not so much that wherein their bones are entombed as in which their glory is preserved—to be had in everlasting remembrance on all occasions, whether of speech or action. For to the illustrious the whole earth is a sepulchre; nor do monumental inscriptions in their own country alone point it out, but an unwritten and mental memorial in foreign lands, which, more durable than any monument, is deeply seated in the breast of everyone. Imitating, then, these illustrious models—accounting that happiness is liberty, and that liberty is valor—be not backward to encounter the perils of war. [Footnote: It was a kindred spirit that led our own great statesman, Webster, in quoting from this oration, to ask: "Is it Athens or America? Is Athens or America the theme of these immortal strains? Was Pericles speaking of his own country as he saw it or knew it? or was he gazing upon a bright vision, then two thousand years before him, which we see in reality as he saw it in prospect?"] For the unfortunate and hopeless are not those who have most reason to be lavish of their lives, but rather such as, while they live, have to hazard a chance to the opposite, and who have most at stake; since great would be the reverse should they fall into adversity. For to the high-minded, at least, more grievous is misfortune overwhelming them amid the blandishments of prosperity; than the stroke of death overtaking them in the full pulse of vigor and common hope, and, moreover, almost unfelt."

Says the historian from whose work the speech of Pericles is taken: "Such was the funeral solemnity which took place this winter, with the expiration of which the first year of the war was brought to a close." DR. ERNST CURTIUS comments as follows on the oration: "With lofty simplicity Pericles extols the Athenian Constitution, popular in the fullest sense through having for its object the welfare of the entire people, and offering equal rights to all the citizens; but at the same time, and in virtue of this its character, adapted for raising the best among them to the first positions in the state. He lauds the high spiritual advantages offered by the city, the liberal love of virtue and wisdom on the part of her sons, their universal sympathy in the common weal, their generous hospitality, their temperance and vigor, which peace and the love of the beautiful had not weakened, so that the city of the Athenians must, in any event, be an object of well-deserved admiration both for the present and for future ages. Such were the points of view from which Pericles displayed to the citizens the character of their state, and described to them the people of Athens, as it ought to be. He showed them their better selves, in order to raise them above themselves and arouse them to self-denial, to endurance, and to calm resolution. Full of a new vital ardor they returned home from the graves, and with perfect confidence confronted the destinies awaiting them in the future." [Footnote: "The History of Greece," vol. iii., p. 66; by Dr. Ernst Curtius.]

THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS.

In the spring of 430 B.C. the Spartans again invaded Attica, and the Athenians shut themselves up in Athens. But here the plague, a calamity more dreadful than war, attacked them and swept away multitudes. This plague, which not only devastated Athens, but other Grecian cities also, is described at considerable length, with a harrowing minuteness of detail, by the Latin poet LUCRETIUS. His description is based upon the account given by Thucydides. We give here only the beginning and the close of it: