The Portable Greek Historians: The Essence of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius (Portable Library)

by M. I. Finley

  124. Xerxes meanwhile with his land force left Acanthus, and started for Therma, taking his way across the land. This road led him through Paeonia and Crestonia to the river Cheidorus, which, rising in the country of the Crestonians, flows through Mygdonia, and reaches the sea near the marsh upon the Vardar.

  125. Upon this march the camels that carried the provisions of the army were set upon by lions, which left their lairs and came down by night, but spared the men and the sumpter beasts, while they made the camels their prey. I marvel what may have been the cause which compelled the lions to leave the other animals untouched and attack the camels, when they had never seen that beast before, nor had any experience of it.

  126. That whole region is full of lions, and wild bulls with gigantic horns which are brought into Greece. The lions are confined within the tract lying between the river Nestus (which flows through Abdera) on the one side, and the Acheloüs (which waters Acarnania) on the other. No one ever sees a lion in the fore part of Europe east of the Nestus, nor through the entire continent west of the Acheloüs; but in the space between these bounds lions are found.

  127. On reaching Therma Xerxes halted his army, which encamped along the coast, beginning at the city of Therma in Mygdonia, and stretching out as far as the rivers Lydias and Haliacmon, two streams which, mingling their waters in one, form the boundary between Bottiaea and Macedonia. Such was the extent of country through which the barbarians encamped. The rivers here mentioned were all of them sufficient to supply the troops, except the Cheidorus, which was drunk dry.

  128. From Therma Xerxes beheld the Thessalian mountains, Olympus and Ossa, which are of a wonderful height. Here, learning that there lay between these mountains a narrow gorge through which the river Peneus ran, and where there was a road that gave an entrance into Thessaly, he formed the wish to go by sea himself, and examine the mouth of the river. His design was to lead his army by the upper road through the country of the inland Macedonians, and so to enter Perrhaebia, and come down by the city of Gonnus; for he was told that that way was the most secure. No sooner therefore had he formed this wish than he acted accordingly. Embarking, as was his wont on all such occasions, aboard a Sidonian vessel, he gave the signal to the rest of the fleet to get under way, and, quitting his land army, set sail and proceeded to the Peneus. Here the view of the mouth caused him to wonder greatly; and sending for his guides, he asked them whether it were possible to turn the course of the stream, and make it reach the sea at any other point.

  129. Now there is a tradition that Thessaly was in ancient times a lake, shut in on every side by huge hills. Ossa and Pelion—ranges which join at the foot—do in fact inclose it upon the east, while Olympus forms a barrier upon the north, Pindus upon the west, and Othrys towards the south. The tract contained within these mountains, which is a deep basin, is called Thessaly. Many rivers pour their waters into it; but five of them are of more note than the rest, namely, the Peneus, the Apidanus, the Onochonus, the Enipeus, and the Pamisus. These streams flow down from the mountains which surround Thessaly, and, meeting in the plain, mingle their waters together, and discharge themselves into the sea by a single outlet, which is a gorge of extreme narrowness. After the junction all the other names disappear, and the river is known as the Peneus. It is said that of old the gorge which allows the waters an outlet did not exist; accordingly the rivers, which were then, as well as the Lake Boebeïs, without names, but flowed with as much water as at present, made Thessaly a sea. The Thessalians tell us that the gorge through which the water escapes was caused by Poseidon; and this is likely enough; at least any man who believes that Poseidon causes earthquakes, and that chasms so produced are his handiwork, would say, upon seeing this rent, that Poseidon did it. For it plainly appeared to me that the hills had been torn asunder by an earthquake.

  130. When Xerxes therefore asked the guides if there were any other outlet by which the waters could reach the sea, they, being men well informed, made answer: “O King, there is no other passage by which this stream can empty itself into the sea save this one. For Thessaly is girt about with a circlet of hills.”

  Xerxes is said to have observed upon this: “Wise men truly are they of Thessaly, and good reason had they to change their minds in time and consult for their own safety. For, to pass by other matters, they must have felt that they lived in a country which may easily be brought under and subdued. Nothing more is needed than to turn the river upon their lands by an embankment which should fill up the gorge and force the stream from its present channel, and lo! all Thessaly, except the mountains, would at once be laid under water.”

  The king aimed in this speech at the Aleuadae, who were Thessalians, and had been the first of all the Greeks to make submission to him. He thought that they had made their friendly offers in the name of the whole people. So Xerxes, when he had viewed the place, and made the above speech, went back to Therma.

  131. The stay of Xerxes in Pieria lasted for several days, during which a third part of his army was employed in cutting down the woods on the Macedonian mountain range to give his forces free passage into Perrhaebia. At this time the heralds who had been sent into Greece to require earth for the king returned to the camp, some of them empty-handed, others with earth and water.

  132. Among the number of those from whom earth and water were brought were the Thessalians, Dolopians, Enianians, Perrhaebians, Locrians, Magnetians, Malians, Achaeans of Phthiotis, Thebans, and Boeotians generally, except those of Plataea and Thespiae. These are the nations against whom the Greeks that had taken up arms to resist the barbarians swore the oath which ran thus: “From all Greeks who delivered themselves up to the Persians without necessity, when their affairs are in good condition we will take a tithe of their goods, and give it to the god at Delphi.” So ran the words of the Greek oath.

  133. Xerxes had sent no heralds either to Athens or Sparta to ask earth and water, for a reason which I will now relate. When Darius some time before sent messengers for the same purpose, they were thrown, at Athens, into the barathron, at Sparta into a well, and bidden to take therefrom earth and water for themselves, and carry it to their king. On this account Xerxes did not send to ask them. What calamity came upon the Athenians to punish them for their treatment of the heralds I cannot say, unless it were the laying waste of their city and territory; but that I believe was not on account of this crime.

  134. On the Lacedaemonians, however, the wrath of Talthybius, Agamemnon’s herald, fell with violence. Talthybius has a temple at Sparta; and his descendants, who are called Talthybiadae, have the privilege of being the only persons who discharge the office of herald. When therefore the Spartans had done the deed of which we speak, the victims at their sacrifices failed to give good tokens; and this failure lasted for a very long time. Then the Spartans were troubled; and, regarding what had befallen them as a grievous calamity, they held frequent assemblies of the people, and made proclamation through the town, “Is any Lacedaemonian willing to give his life for Sparta?” Upon this two Spartans, Sperthias, the son of Aneristus, and Bulis, the son of Nicolaüs, both men of good birth, and among the wealthiest in the place, came forward and freely offered themselves as an atonement to Xerxes for the heralds of Darius slain at Sparta. So the Spartans sent them away to the Medes to undergo death.

  135. Nor is the courage which these men hereby displayed alone worthy of wonder; but so likewise are the following speeches which were made by them. On their road to Susa they presented themselves before Hydarnes. This Hydarnes was a Persian by birth, and had the command of all the men that dwelt along the sea-coast of Asia. He accordingly showed them hospitality, and invited them to a banquet, where, as they feasted, he said to them:

  “Men of Lacedaemon, why will you not consent to be friends with the king? You have but to look at me and my fortune to see that the king knows well how to honour merit. In like manner you yourselves, were you to make your submission to him, would receive at his hands, seeing that he deems you men of
merit, some government in Greece.”

  “Hydarnes,” they answered, “you are a one-sided counsellor. You have experience of half the matter; but the other half is beyond your knowledge. You understand a slave’s life; but, never having tasted liberty, you cannot tell whether it be sweet or no. Ah, had you known what freedom is, you would have bidden us fight for it, not with the spear only, but with the battle-axe.”

  So they answered Hydames.

  136. And afterwards, when they were come to Susa into the king’s presence, and the guards ordered them to fall down and do obeisance, and went so far as to use force to compel them, they refused, and said they would never do any such thing, even were their heads thrust down to the ground; for it was not their custom to worship men, and they had not come to Persia for that purpose. So they fought off the ceremony; and having done so, addressed the king in words much like the following:

  “O King of the Medes, the Lacedaemonians have sent us hither, in the place of those heralds of yours who were slain in Sparta, to make atonement to you on their account.”

  Then Xerxes answered with true greatness of soul that he would not act like the Lacedaemonians, who, by killing the heralds, had broken the laws which all men hold in common. As he had blamed such conduct in them, he would never be guilty of it himself. And besides, he did not wish to free the Lacedaemonians from the stain of their former outrage by putting the two men to death in return.

  137. This conduct on the part of the Spartans caused the anger of Talthybius to cease for a while, notwithstanding that Sperthias and Bulis returned home alive. But many years afterwards it awoke once more, as the Lacedaemonians themselves declare, during the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians.

  In my judgement this was a case wherein the hand of Heaven was most plainly manifest. That the wrath of Talthybius should have fallen upon ambassadors, and not slacked till it had full vent, so much justice required; but that it should have come upon the sons of the very men who were sent up to the Persian king on its account—upon Nicolaüs, the son of Bulis, and Aneristus, the son of Sperthias (the same who raided Halieis, the refuge of the Tirynthians, when cruising in a well-manned merchant ship)—this does seem to me to be plainly a supernatural circumstance. These two men, having been sent to Asia as ambassadors by the Lacedaemonians, were betrayed by Sitalces, the son of Teres, king of Thrace, and Nymphodorus, the son of Pythes, a native of Abdera, and being made prisoners at Bisanthe, upon the Hellespont, were conveyed to Attica, and there put to death by the Athenians, at the same time as Aristeas, the son of Adeimantus, the Corinthian. All this happened, however, very many years after the expedition of Xerxes, and I return to my subject.

  138. The expedition of the Persian king, though it was in name directed against Athens, threatened really the whole of Greece. And of this the Greeks were aware some time before; but they did not all view the matter in the same light. Some of them had given the Persian earth and water, and were bold on this account, deeming themselves thereby secured against suffering hurt from the barbarian army; while others, who had refused compliance, were thrown into extreme alarm. For whereas they considered all the ships in Greece too few to engage the enemy, it was plain that the greater number of the people did not wish to take part in the war, but favoured going over to the Medes.

  139. And here I feel constrained to deliver an opinion which most men, I know, will mislike, but which, as it seems to me to be true, I am determined not to withhold. Had the Athenians, from fear of the approaching danger, quitted their country, or had they without quitting it submitted to the power of Xerxes, there would certainly have been no attempt to resist the Persians by sea; in which case the course of events by land would have been the following. Though the Peloponnesians might have carried ever so many breast-works across the Isthmus, yet their allies would have fallen off from the Lacedaemonians, not by voluntary desertion, but because town after town must have been taken by the fleet of the barbarians; and so the Lacedaemonians would at last have stood alone, and, standing alone, would have displayed prodigies of valor, and died nobly. Either they would have done thus, or else, before it came to that extremity, seeing one Greek state after another embrace the cause of the Medes, they would have come to terms with Xerxes; and thus, either way Greece would have been brought under Persia. For I cannot understand of what possible use the walls across the Isthmus could have been, if the king had had the mastery of the sea. If then a man should now say that the Athenians were the saviours of Greece, he would not exceed the truth. For they truly held the scales; and whichever side they espoused must have carried the day. They too it was who, when they had determined to maintain the freedom of Greece, roused up that portion of the Greek world which had not gone over to the Medes; and so, next to the gods, they repulsed the invader. Even the terrible oracles which reached them from Delphi, and struck fear into their hearts, failed to persuade them to fly from Greece. They had the courage to remain faithful to their land, and await the coming of the foe.

  140. When the Athenians, anxious to consult the oracle, sent their messengers to Delphi, hardly had the envoys completed the customary rites about the sacred precinct, and taken their seats inside the sanctuary of the god, when the Pythoness, Aristonice by name, thus prophesied:

  “Wretches, why sit ye here? Fly, fly to the ends of creation,

  Quitting your homes, and the crags which your city

  crowns with her circlet.

  Neither the head nor the body is firm in its place, nor at

  bottom

  Firm the feet, nor the hands; nor resteth the middle uninjur’d.

  All—all ruined and lost. Since fire, and impetuous Ares,

  Speeding along in a Syrian chariot, hastes to destroy her.

  Not alone shalt thou suffer; full many the towers he will

  level,

  Many the shrines of the gods he will give to a fiery

  destruction.

  Even now they stand with dark sweat horribly dripping.

  Trembling and quaking for fear; and lo! from the high

  roofs trickleth

  Black blood, sign prophetic of hard distresses impending.

  Get ye away from the temple; and brood on the ills that

  await ye!”

  141. When the Athenian messengers heard this reply, they were filled with the deepest affliction: whereupon Timon, the son of Androbulus, one of the men of most mark among the Delphians, seeing how utterly cast down they were at the gloomy prophecy, advised them to take an olive branch, and entering the sanctuary again, consult the oracle as suppliants. The Athenians followed this advice, and going in once more, said, ”O Lord, we pray thee reverence these boughs of supplication which we bear in our hands, and deliver to us something more comforting concerning our country. Else we will not leave thy sanctuary, but will stay here till we die.” Upon this the priestess gave them a second answer, which was the following:

  “Pallas has not been able to soften the lord of Olympus,

  Though she has often prayed him, and urged him with

  excellent counsel.

  Yet once more I address thee in words than adamant

  firmer.

  When the foe shall have taken whatever the limit of

  Cecrops

  Holds within it, and all which divine Cithaeron shelters,

  Then far-seeing Zeus grants this to the prayers of

  Athena;

  Safe shall the wooden wall continue for thee and thy

  children.

  Wait not the tramp of the horse, nor the footmen mightily

  moving

  Over the land, but turn your back to the foe, and retire

  ye.

  Yet shall a day arrive when ye shall meet him in battle.

  Holy Salamis, thou shalt destroy the offspring of women,

  When men scatter the seed, or when they gather the harvest.”

  142. This answer seemed, as indeed it was, gentler than the former one; so the envoys wrote it
down, and went back with it to Athens. When, however, upon their arrival, they produced it before the assembly, many and various were the interpretations which men put on it; two, more especially, seemed to be directly opposed to one another. Certain of the old men were of opinion that the god meant to tell them the Acropolis would escape; for this was anciently defended by a palisade; and they supposed that barrier to be the ”wooden wall” of the oracle. Others maintained that the fleet was what the god pointed at; and their advice was that nothing should be thought of except the ships, which had best be at once got ready. Still such as said the “wooden wall” meant the fleet were perplexed by the last two lines of the oracle—

  “Holy Salamis, thou shalt destroy the offspring of women,

  When men scatter the seed, or when they gather the harvest.”

  These words caused great disturbance among those who took the wooden wall to be the ships; since the interpreters understood them to mean that, if they made preparations for a sea-fight, they would suffer a defeat off Salamis.

  143. Now there was at Athens a man who had lately made his way into the first rank of citizens: his name was Themistocles; but he was known more generally as the son of Neocles. This man came forward and said that the interpreters had not explained the oracle altogether aright—“For if,” he argued, “the clause in question had really referred to the Athenians, it would not have been expressed so mildly; the phrase used would have been ‘Luckless Salamis,’ rather than ‘Holy Salamis,’ had those to whom the island belonged been about to perish in its neighbourhood. Rightly taken, the response of the god threatened the enemy, and not the Athenians.” He therefore counselled his countrymen to make ready to fight on board their ships, since they were the wooden wall in which the god told them to trust. When Themistocles had thus cleared the matter, the Athenians embraced his view, preferring it to that of the interpreters. The advice of these last had been against engaging in a sea-fight; all the Athenians could do, they said was, without lifting a hand in their defence, to quit Attica, and make a settlement in some other country.