Herodotus, clearly not oversupplied with detailed information by his sources, mainly uses his account of this six-month period to fill out his portraits of central characters and to offer reconstructions of the strategic deliberations and diplomatic manoeuvring that took place after the battle of Salamis:
Mardonius could see that Xerxes thought the battle had been a complete disaster and suspected that the King had already decided on a speedy withdrawal from Athens. He reckoned it was likely he would have to pay the price for persuading the King to go to war with Hellas, so he decided that it would be best to take a gamble: to conquer, or to die a noble death in a great adventure. He was inclined to the view that he was going to conquer Hellas, so, with that in mind, he put a proposal to the King.
‘Master, do not grieve for what has happened to us or think of it as a disaster. The success of our enterprise will not be decided by ship-timber, but by men and horses. These Hellenes think they have won total victory but not a single one of them is prepared to come ashore and face you, nor will any of those already on dry land stand against you. And those who did have paid the price. So, let us make an immediate attempt on the Peloponnese, if you so decide. On the other hand, if you choose to hold back, that is also an option. Do not be depressed by the present situation, because the Hellenes cannot possibly avoid being subjugated by you, nor can they escape paying the penalty for the harm they have done you, just now and formerly. I urge you to do what I recommend.
‘But, if you have already decided to march your army away, then I have a different plan. Great King, you must not allow Persia to become the laughing-stock of Hellas. If you have suffered harm, it is not the Persians’ fault. You cannot say we Persians have shown ourselves to be cowards in any way. It was the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Cypriots and Cilicians who showed themselves to be cowards, so we Persians had nothing to do with what happened. Therefore, since we Persians are not the cause of the problem, take this advice from me. If you have decided not to stay here, you must head off home with most of your army. For my part, I will deliver Hellas to you as a subject nation after picking out 300,0001 of your troops for this purpose.’ (8.100)
Mardonius is presented as craftily steering the King towards approval of his personal agenda, to justify his earlier advice to invade Greece and to win glory for himself. Herodotus’ audiences, fully aware of the fate that was soon to befall him, would have enjoyed this recurrent note of dramatic irony.
Xerxes took what comfort he could from this, considering the difficulty of his position, and told Mardonius that he would give him an answer after consultations to determine which of the two plans he should follow. After talking with his Persian advisers,2 he decided to send for Artemisia because it was clear to him that previously she had been the only one to identify the right course of action. When she came in, Xerxes dismissed everyone, his advisers and his personal guard, and told her what Mardonius had said and asked her what she thought.
‘Great King,’ she replied, ‘advising you on what to do for the best is a difficult task. But, as things now stand, I think you personally should head for home and leave Mardonius here with the men he is asking for, if this is what he wishes. If he executes his plan and conquers Hellas as he says he will, the success will be yours, Master, since it will be your servants who have achieved it. On the other hand, if things turn out contrary to his expectations, it will not be so great a disaster, so long as you and your household are secure. For while you and your royal household live, the Hellenes will have to fight many battles for their survival. But, as for Mardonius, it will not matter much if he fails. And, if the Hellenes meet with some success, it will not be a true victory because they will have killed your servant only. But you will be marching home after burning Athens, your mission accomplished.’
Artemisia’s advice pleased Xerxes greatly because she had put his own thoughts into words. However, in my opinion, he was in such a state of terror that, even if everyone, male or female, had advised him to stay, he would not have stayed. So the King commended Artemisia for her counsel and sent her off to escort his sons (the half-blood princes3 who had accompanied him) to Ephesus. (8.102–03)
Artemisia is given the honour of a private audience and presents Xerxes with a cynical summary of the situation that conveniently matches his own conclusions. Her exit escorting the royal bastards home to Asia is one further indication of her standing in the Great King’s court, at least as imagined by Herodotus or his Halicarnassian sources.
Next, the Great King summoned Mardonius and commanded him to select the men he wanted from the army, and then to do his best to perform deeds that matched the promises he had made. That concluded the day’s activity, but that night4 at the King’s command, his generals put to sea from Phalerum and set sail with all speed for the Hellespont to protect the bridges for the King to cross over.5 When the Barbarians were off Cape Zoster, they thought the small headlands which jut out from the mainland there were enemy ships6 and scattered over a wide area. But after a while they realized that these were headlands not ships, regrouped and continued on their way.
The morning after the battle, the Hellenes saw that the Barbarian army was still in position7 and assumed that the fleet was still at Phalerum. Expecting to fight again, they made ready to defend themselves. However, when they had established that the ships had gone, they immediately decided to give chase and followed Xerxes’ fleet as far as Andros. When they had reached Andros without sighting the enemy, they held a council. Themistocles proposed that they should continue the pursuit on a course through the islands and sail directly to the Hellespont to destroy the bridges. However, Eurybiades spoke against this, arguing that the destruction of the bridges could have very bad consequences for Hellas. He reasoned that if the Great King was forced to stay in Europe, he would not remain inactive because, if he did so, he could neither carry on with his mission nor find a way to get home, and his army would die of starvation. However, if he were to take things actively in hand before it came to that, it was quite possible all of Europe, city by city, nation by nation, would be brought over to his side, either by conquest or by treaty. He would then be sustained by the fruits of the Hellenes’ yearly harvests. But in Eurybiades’ view the King would not stay in Europe after being defeated at sea, and so should be allowed to make his escape and return to his own country. From then on, he declared, the fighting should be over Barbarian territory. The other Peloponnesian generals were in agreement with this.
When Themistocles saw that he could not obtain a majority in favour of sailing to the Hellespont, he addressed the Athenians. They were angry that the Persians had got away and were quite prepared to sail for the Hellespont on their own, if the other Hellenes were not willing to. ‘It is something I have seen for myself on many occasions and heard of even more often,’ he said. ‘Beaten men backed into a corner will fight back and recover from their former disaster. So I say to you, let us not pursue men who are already running away. We and Hellas have driven off a great swarm of enemies by an unexpected stroke of good fortune. We did not bring this about. It was the gods and heroes who would not allow Europe and Asia to be ruled by one man, one impious and arrogant man who destroyed our temples and our homes and burned and cast down the images of our gods, and even bound the ocean in chains and thrashed it with whips. At present, the right thing for us to do is to remain in Greece for the time being and take care of ourselves and our households. Let each of us rebuild his home and attend to his crops, now we have driven out every one of the Barbarians. But when spring comes, let us set sail for the Hellespont and Ionia.’ He said this to put the Persians in his debt in case he ever needed a place of safety if the Athenians turned against him, and this did actually happen.
Themistocles was not being straight with the Athenians, but they were taken in. They had always thought he was wise, and now he was clearly demonstrating both wisdom and good judgement and they were ready to go along with whatever he said. Having brought them round, Themistocles immediately sent a delegation off in a boat. These were men he could trust not to reveal the message he had ordered them to give to the Great King, even under torture, and amongst them was his servant Sicinnus. When they reached Attica, the rest stayed in the boat and Sicinnus made his way into Xerxes’ presence, and this is what he said. ‘Themistocles son of Neocles, the Athenian commander who is the wisest and best in the entire Hellene Alliance, has sent me to tell you that he, Themistocles the Athenian, desiring to be of service to you, has restrained the Hellenes from giving chase to your ships and destroying the bridges over the Hellespont. You may make your way home without any hindrance.’ With the message delivered, Themistocles’ men sailed back in their boat. (8.107–10)
Herodotus implies here that the Persian fleet abandoned Phalerum overnight and headed home immediately the night after the battle. However, he tells us earlier that Xerxes ‘prepared his fleet for action as if he was going to fight another battle’ (8.97) and, if he is correct that work was started on a causeway across to Salamis after the battle, this could not have been attempted without naval support. In any case, even if the decision was taken immediately, some time would have been spent repairing battle damage and generally preparing for the return passage. If this activity was observed by the Hellenes, it could have led them to expect another attack and they were clearly not sure enough of the scale of their victory to go onto the offensive immediately. When they set off after the enemy, it is easier to imagine a shadowing operation than hot pursuit, but there is a ring of truth about Athenian advocacy of a more aggressive and vengeful strategy, championed by Themistocles, and opposition to this from the Spartan commander-in-chief and the more cautious Peloponnesians.
Herodotus draws on less flattering elements of Themistocles’ personal legend to portray the smooth-talking political operator in action. But his fellow citizens would have been cheered by the idea of returning to the mainland to rebuild their homes and work their land, sowing the seed for the coming year’s harvest. At this point it may have been generally assumed that Xerxes’ entire invasion force had been seen off and there could have been ‘back channel’ exchanges between the two camps in which the Hellenes undertook not to impede the Barbarians’ retreat on sea or land. But if Sicinnus had delivered Themistocles’ first message, the disinformation that the alliance was collapsing just before the battle, he would have been the worst possible choice as bearer of this second message. It is, in any case, very unlikely that he would have been allowed to deliver it directly to the King. At least Plutarch names a different messenger in his version of the tale. Whether or not Themistocles was motivated by self-interest in his dealings with Persia in 480, the Athenians and Spartans turned against him about ten years later and he was ultimately made welcome at the Great King’s court as a valued adviser. He became governor of Magnesia in Asia, a rich city inland from Miletus on the River Maeander, where he lived comfortably for the final years of his life.
Satisfied that the Persians were headed east but before dispersing the Hellene fleet, Themistocles and Eurybiades led a brief campaign to collect reparations from islands that were considered to have medized:
The Hellenes now laid siege to the city of Andros. The Andrians were the first islanders to receive a demand for cash from Themistocles but would not pay. Themistocles declared that the Athenians had the support of two powerful gods named Persuasion and Pressure and that the Andrians therefore had no option but to pay up. The Andrians replied that they could now understand why Athens was so great and prosperous, being blessed with the support of such useful gods. But they declared that for their part they were blessed with an extreme shortage of land and supported by two useless gods who loved living on the island and would never leave it, and they were called Penury and Powerlessness. Since they were in possession of these gods, they could give no money, and the power of Athens could never be stronger than their weakness. The Andrians were put under siege because they responded in this way and would not pay up.
There was no limit to Themistocles’ greed. He sent the same representatives as he had sent to the King with threatening messages to the other islands, demanding money and saying that if they did not pay what he asked, he would bring the Hellene fleet and blockade them and take their cities. By means of these threats Themistocles collected large sums from the Carystians and Parians. They had heard that he was laying siege to Andros because the island had medized, and they knew of his reputation as the best of all the generals, so they were afraid of him and paid up. I cannot say if other islands sent money but I believe some did, not only these two. In any case, payment did not protect the Carystians from harm. However, the Parians bought Themistocles off and they avoided being attacked. So, without the other commanders knowing, Themistocles sailed out of Andros and collected cash from the islanders. (8.111–12)
Herodotus clearly has no inclination to challenge what were very probably slanders invented in later years to blacken Themistocles’ character. Herodotus implies that he was acting on his own initiative to raise as much money as possible for himself, using the Hellene fleet as if it was his personal resource. But he was not in command of the fleet and, in any case, the alliance badly needed to raise funds to cover the costs of a very expensive campaign, and securing the approaches to mainland Greece through the Cyclades was an important strategic priority. However, this episode would also have resonated strongly with the Athenians’ enemies at the time of the Peloponnesian War as a reminder of their increasingly aggressive raising of cash from former allies in pursuit of imperial power.
The land forces with Xerxes waited for a few days after the sea-battle and then set off to Boeotia by the same routes as they had come. Mardonius felt he should escort the King. He had, in any case, decided that it was too late in the year for campaigning and that it would be better to spend the winter in Thessaly and then mount an attack on the Peloponnese in the spring. On arrival in Thessaly, Mardonius selected as his first choice the whole of the Persian unit known as the Immortals, except for their commander, Hydarnes, who said that he would not leave the King’s side. Next, from the rest of the Persians, he picked out all those who had body armour8 and the elite unit of 1,000 cavalry, and also the Medes, Sacae, Bactrians and Indians, both their infantry and their cavalry. He chose these nations’ entire contingents, but from the rest he selected just a few individuals, either for their imposing looks or because he knew they had already done good service. He chose more of the Persians with their torques and bracelets than of any other nation apart from the Medes. Actually, there were as many Medes as Persians, but the Medes were not as tough as the Persians. So, Mardonius mustered a total of 300,000 men, cavalry included.9
At this time, while Mardonius was picking his army and while Xerxes was still in Thessaly the Lacedaemonians had consulted the Delphic oracle and received a response that stated they should demand compensation from Xerxes for the death of Leonidas and accept whatever offer the King might make. So, the Spartans despatched a herald immediately and he caught up with the whole army while it was still in Thessaly. He came into Xerxes’ presence, and said, ‘King of the Medes,10 the Lacedaemonians and the Heraclidae of Sparta demand that you pay compensation for the death of their king, slain by you while he defended Hellas.’ Xerxes burst out laughing and carried on laughing for a long time. Then he pointed to Mardonius, who happened to be standing next to him, and said, ‘So be it: Mardonius here will pay those people the appropriate compensation.’ The herald accepted this answer and withdrew. (8.113–14)
Herodotus lists the same main contingents when he sets out Mardonius’ order of battle at Plataea, but adds an estimated 50,000 medizing Hellenes enlisted later and also names some of the other nations represented by small units. He does not mention the Immortals again and it seems unlikely that they would have been separated from their commander, let alone the Great King himself. It made sense to pick the most heavily armed Persian troops, but they were probably an elite minority and not much more of a match for hoplites in terms of defensive equipment than their more lightly armed colleagues. In his description of Xerxes’ grand march out of Sardis, Herodotus includes two 1,000-strong elite cavalry units and it is more likely that Mardonius was allocated one of these than the 10,000 Immortals.
According to Herodotus, Xerxes laughed before Thermopylae when Demaratus warned him of the Spartans’ supreme fighting quality. That battle, as described by Herodotus and in later versions, might have given the King cause to regret this, but, if the unembroidered version is accepted, he could have been justifiably well pleased with his victory. There would be no justification for laughter on this occasion; the Great King’s response to the Spartan herald’s demand was to come true, but not as intended.
Xerxes left Mardonius in Thessaly and made his way as quickly as he could to the Hellespont. He reached the bridgehead in 45 days, bringing with him not a fraction, as the saying goes, of his invasion force. Wherever they went, whatever people the land belonged to, they commandeered their food and devoured it. If they could find no food, they ate growing plants and peeled the bark and stripped the leaves off the trees, both cultivated and wild. They were starving and left the land bare. There was an outbreak of plague in the ranks and many died of dysentery on the march. Xerxes left the sick behind, commanding each city he arrived at to care for them and feed them; these were cities in Thessaly, Siris of Paionia and Macedonia. He had left the sacred chariot of God in Siris on the way into Greece, but he did not recover it on the way back. The Paionians had given it to the Thracians, and when Xerxes demanded its return, they said its team had been put out to grass and then been stolen by some other Thracians who live upcountry by the source of the Strymon.
In fact, the Persians who had marched through Thrace to the Hellespont made a hurried crossing to Abydos by ship, because they found the bridge of boats had been broken up by a storm and was no longer there. They paused at this point and were issued with more rations than they had been given on the whole march. Then many of the army’s survivors died from overeating and from the different water they were drinking. Those that were left finally arrived at Sardis with Xerxes. (8.115–17)
Herodotus gives a somewhat contradictory impression of Xerxes’ march to the Hellespont. It took half the time of his whole army’s advance to the west, but an average of about 12km a day could not be described as headlong, especially for a more compact force. The hardships described may have been suffered by some stragglers, perhaps, but the arrangements made for the sick suggest an orderly retreat rather than a panicked withdrawal. The loss of the ceremonial chariot and its beautiful team to Thracian horse-thieves was an embarrassment, but it was probably left behind in northern Greece because it would have been an encumbrance on a march through increasingly hostile territory. Finally, it is unlikely that the Persians did not know that the bridges were no longer in place before they reached the Hellespont.
Aeschylus gives no impression of order or control:
In a rush, the commanders of the ships that were left took flight,
Scattering without order before the wind.
The army that remained was wiped out in Boeotian territory.11
Some of us lay sick with thirst beside bright springs,
Others, lungs bursting, made it into the land of Phocis
And on to Phocian soil and then to the Malian gulf
Where the Spercheus river generously waters the plain.
And finally, running out of food, the country of Achaea
And the cities of Thessaly took us in.
By then very many had died,
Killed by our travelling companions, Starvation and Thirst.
We came to the land of Magnesia then onward to Macedonian soil,
Crossed the Axius river and the reedy marsh of Bolbe,
And reached Mount Pangaeus and the land of Edonia.
That very night God called up winter weather before its season
And froze hard the hallowed waters of the river Strymon.
Then men who formerly gave no thought to the gods
Prostrated themselves in prayer to Earth and Sky.
And, done with praying, set out across the frozen water.
Those of us who started before the sun-god spread his beams
Safely reached our goal. But then his bright orb
Played its burning rays across the ice and melted it,
And all the rest fell through.
Happy the man who earlier breathed his last!
Those who survived and reached safety,
Struggled through Thrace with great suffering.
They escaped, and they were few,
To return to hearth and homeland.
Now the Persian capital must mourn,
Yearning for the precious youth of its land.
This is all true, but in my telling of it
I have left out so much of the horror
Sent down upon the Persians by God.
(Persae 480–514)
The line mentioning that the army had been ‘wiped out in Boeotian territory’ is not Aeschylus’ only reference to the battle of Plataea in the play and his telescoped chronology with the Messenger’s allusion to the Persians’ defeat on land could explain the contradictions in Herodotus’ account of the retreat after Salamis. The hardships described by both writers are more likely to have been suffered on their homeward march by survivors from Plataea in the following year.
Herodotus collected a different and more detailed account of Xerxes’ crossing into Asia:
There is another version of this story that I heard. When the Great King reached Eion on the Strymon in the retreat from Athens, he travelled no further by land, but put Hydarnes in command of the troops to lead them to the Hellespont. He himself went on board a Phoenician ship and was transported to Asia. In the course of this voyage he was caught in rough seas whipped up by a gale known as the Strymonian. The ship was wallowing dangerously in the storm because there were so many Persians crowded on deck to make the voyage with him. In a fit of terror, the King shouted out to the helmsman, asking him if there was any way they could survive. The man replied, ‘Master, there isn’t any way unless we can somehow get rid of the crowd of passengers we have on deck.’ To continue the story, on hearing this Xerxes said, ‘Men of Persia, now is your chance to demonstrate how much you care for your King. It would seem that my survival depends on you.’ These were Xerxes’ words and his men saluted him and jumped into the sea, and the ship, now lighter, came safely back to Asia. As soon as he was ashore, Xerxes did two things: for saving the King’s life he rewarded the helmsman with a crown of gold, then he had him decapitated for losing so many Persians. So here we have a different tale about Xerxes’ journey home, but I do not believe a word of it, especially the story of what happened to the Persians. If the helmsman had really given that advice to Xerxes, in my view, not one in 10,000 could think that the King would not have ordered the men on deck to go below. Remember, these were Persians and of the highest rank. However, the rowers were Phoenician and he would surely have thrown an equal number of them overboard. As I have already said, Xerxes made his way home to Asia with the rest of his army by the land route.
And the main evidence for this is that on his way home Xerxes came to Abdera and sealed a bond of friendship with its citizens, presenting them with a gilded akinake and a tiara shot with gold. The people of Abdera say it was here on his way back from Athens that Xerxes first felt secure enough to change his clothes, but I do not believe this story. However, Abdera lies nearer to the Hellespont than the River Strymon and Eion, where he was said to have boarded the ship. (8.118–20)
Herodotus makes it very clear that he does not believe this story, but evidently likes it too much as an illustration of Barbarian despotic behaviour and unquestioning obedience to feel able to omit it.
In a digression in the closing pages of the Historia, Herodotus gives one more indication that Xerxes’ withdrawal was more measured than he implies elsewhere:
It happened that the Great King stayed in Sardis from the day he had arrived there after his defeat in the sea-battle and his withdrawal from Athens.12 While at Sardis he lusted after Masistes’ wife, who was also there. But his messages of love could not win her over and, out of respect for his brother Masistes, he would not use force, and the woman was able to hold out because she knew that force would not be used. So, when he saw that this was not working, Xerxes arranged a marriage between Darius, one of his sons, and Masistes’ daughter. This, he thought, would give him the best chance of winning over her mother. So, the couple were married with all the proper ceremonial and then Xerxes moved on to Susa. But when he had arrived there and had brought Darius’ bride into his house, he gave up on Masistes’ wife, switched his aim and successfully seduced Darius’ wife, Masistes’ daughter. Her name was Artaynte. (9.108)
There is no sense here of the distraught homecoming represented by Aeschylus; dalliance is a more appropriate description. The well-told story continues to a sordid and bloody end (at 9.113). The author’s purpose is to add final touches to his kaleidoscopic portrait of Xerxes and to display further examples of Barbarian behaviour and the workings of despotism for his audience to contrast with Hellene values; but it also shows that the King was in no great hurry to get back to Susa. A little later Herodotus returns once more to the question of Xerxes’ journey out of Europe:
Artabazus son of Pharnaces was already a famous man in Persia and set to become even more famous after the battle of Plataea. In command of 60,000 men from the army that Mardonius had assembled, he escorted the King as far as the straits. (8.126)
Leaving aside the exaggerated strength of Artabazus’ command, this has a plausible feel to it and may have been the version Herodotus favoured above the rest. A strong force was required to escort the Great King through potentially hostile territory and keep the cities they passed through friendly. This does suggest that most of the invading army was left behind with Mardonius. If Hydarnes and the Immortals were also with Xerxes, as is likely, they would have carried on to Sardis and then finally to Susa while Artabazus and his troops marched back to rejoin the army of occupation in northern Greece.
Xerxes was now back in Asia. Artabazus had come as far as Pallene on his way to rejoining Mardonius, who was now in winter quarters in Thessaly and Macedonia and had not yet ordered him to rejoin the rest of the army. Finding Potidaea in a state of insurrection, Artabazus took the view that he should suppress it. In fact, the Potidaeans had openly rebelled against the Barbarians as soon as the Great King had passed by their city at the time of his fleet’s withdrawal from Salamis, and the rest of Pallene13 had risen as well. So Artabazus laid siege to Potidaea, and, suspecting that Olynthus was also plotting rebellion against the King, he laid siege to that city also. After taking it, he marched the defenders out to a nearby lake and slaughtered them all. They were Bottiaeans who had been driven from their land at the head of the Gulf of Therme by the Macedonians. Artabazus installed Critobulus of Torone, a Chalcidian by birth, as governor and that is how Olynthus became a Chalcidian possession.
After taking Olynthus, Artabazus focused his attention on Potidaea, and he had the support of an undertaking from Timoxenus, the general in command of the Scioneans,14 to betray the city. I cannot say how this was arranged because there is nothing recorded, but this is what happened in the end. When Artabazus and Timoxenus wanted to communicate with each other, they would write a message and wrap it around the shaft of an arrow at the nock end, reattach the flights and shoot it to a prearranged spot. However, Timoxenus’ plot to betray Potidaea was discovered when Artabazus shot an arrow that missed the agreed spot and hit a Potidaean in the shoulder. As happens in war, a crowd quickly gathered around the wounded man and, as soon as they had extracted the arrow, the message was found and taken to the generals, who included allies from the rest of Pallene. They all read the letter and identified the traitor Timoxenus, but they decided not to indict him for carrying out this act of betrayal for his city’s sake15 because they did not want the Scionean people to have an everlasting reputation for treachery. So that was how Timoxenus’ treason was brought to light.
Three months into the siege of Potidaea there was a great ebb-tide which lasted for a long time. Seeing their opportunity, the Barbarians set off through the shallows for the shore of Pallene.16 When they were about a third of the way to their objective, the sea flooded back; and the local people say that the surge was greater than on any of the many other previous occasions on which this had occurred. Some of the Barbarians, those who did not know how to swim, were drowned; the Potidaeans came out in boats and killed those who were able to swim. The people of Potidaea say that this tidal surge and the Persian losses in it came about because those same Persians who died in the sea had defiled the temple of Poseidon on the outskirts of the city and the image of the god in it, and I think this explanation is correct. So, Artabazus brought the survivors back to Mardonius in Thessaly, and that is what happened to the King’s escort.
The surviving ships of Xerxes’ fleet, after withdrawing from Salamis and reaching Asia, ferried the king and the troops with him over from the Chersonese to Abydos and then wintered at Cyme.17 (8.126–30)
Potidaea, Olynthus, Torone and Scione, with other cities of Chalcidice, had previously submitted to the Great King and contributed men and ships to the invasion force. They had not interfered with the Persian retreat after Salamis, but they posed a threat in Mardonius’ rear on the flank of the land route to Asia, and Artabazus clearly had the capability to carry out a winter campaign to secure Chalcidice. Ruthlessly clearing the non-Hellene Bottiaeans out of Olynthus and handing the city over to Hellene Chalcidians may have been calculated to win support from the local Hellenes. The three-month siege of Potidaea was a failure but was probably not as catastrophic as Herodotus implies. However, Artabazus’ efforts to win the city through treachery and his abortive attempt to launch an attack from the south are intriguing details. Poseidon, the earth-shaking god of the sea, may well have been credited with the tidal surge that thwarted the latter.
The Hellenes were unable to take Andros and went to Carystus next and laid waste its land.18 They then returned to Salamis, and the first thing they did was to set aside the pick of the spoils as offerings to the gods. After dividing the spoils, they sailed on to the Isthmus and set about choosing the man who had shown himself most worthy of the award for excellence in the fighting that year. But when the commanders gathered together and cast their votes at the altar of Poseidon to determine who should be first choice and who second, each of them voted for himself, thinking he had performed the best. However, a majority gave second place to Themistocles. So, others received only a single vote for first place while Themistocles had far more votes than anyone else for second.
The Hellenes were too full of envy to make the award and so sailed off homeward without making a decision. All the same, Themistocles was praised to the skies throughout all of Hellas and rated the cleverest of the Greeks by far. But, because he had not received the honour owed him by those that fought at Salamis, he immediately went to Lacedaemon desiring to be honoured there. Indeed, the Lacedaemonians welcomed him warmly and bestowed great honours on him. They presented Eurybiades with an olive wreath as his reward for excellence and gave a similar wreath to Themistocles for his cleverness and quick-wittedness. They also presented him with the finest chariot in Sparta, and, with much praise, sent him off home with the 300 picked Spartans who are known as the Knights to escort him as far as the Tegean border. Themistocles was the only man known to have ever been given such a send-off by Spartans.
When Themistocles returned to Athens, Timodemus of Aphidnae ranted and raged at him for visiting Lacedaemon. He was one of his political opponents, though otherwise of no distinction, and was insanely jealous of the man. He argued that the honours he had received from the Lacedaemonians were actually earned by the city of Athens, not by Themistocles personally. Timodemus carried on in this vein until Themistocles retorted, ‘Absolutely right! If I came from Belbina,19 I would not have been so honoured by the Spartans. But nor would you have been, dear sir, even though you are from Athens.’ And that put an end to that. (8.121–25)
At this point Themistocles leaves Herodotus’ stage, bowing out with a characteristic bon mot but on the sour note of the suggestion that he was behaving peevishly in seeking from the Spartans the honour he had not been granted at the Isthmus. He had no recorded involvement in the decisive campaigning of 479 and Diodorus offers an explanation for this:
After the battle of Salamis, all of Hellas credited the Athenians with the victory. They became puffed up with pride and it was plain to all that they intended to challenge the Lacedaemonians for command of the fleet. The Lacedaemonians anticipated this and were eager to deflate their arrogance. And so, when a vote was called to determine who should receive the awards for valour, they used their influence to secure the prize for Aegina out of all the cities, and the individual prize for Ameinias of Athens, the brother of the poet Aeschylus, because he was in command of the trireme that had been first to ram the Persian flagship, sinking it and killing the admiral. When the Athenians showed their anger at this unjustified slight, the Lacedaemonians were afraid that Themistocles, in his annoyance with what they had brought about, would plan some great evil against them and the rest of the Hellenes. So, they honoured him with twice the share of booty given to those who had been awarded the prize of valour. When Themistocles accepted this, the Athenian Assembly took away his generalship and gave it to Xanthippus. (Library of History 11.27)
It is more likely that Themistocles was simply not re-elected. He may have been pushing for a more aggressive naval strategy than there was popular appetite for in 479. Herodotus quotes him as saying after Salamis, ‘when spring comes let us sail for the Hellespont and Ionia’(8.109), but he may not have been able to swing a majority in favour of committing the entire fleet to a second consecutive long season of campaigning. It is possible this would have been Sparta’s preference, taking the war east with Athens doing the heavy lifting and a cynical explanation of their generosity to Themistocles. Anyway, in his version of a speech given by an Athenian delegation to the Spartans and their allies in the late 430s, Thucydides gives Themistocles the accolade he had undoubtedly earned:
The outcome of the battle of Salamis clearly demonstrates that the issue was decided in the Hellenes’ favour by their ships and that we Athenians made the three most valuable contributions: the largest number of ships; the wisest general; and the most steadfast courage. Towards the total of 40020 ships Athens contributed a little less than two thirds. Themistocles was in command. He brought it about that the battle was fought in the narrows and nobody can deny that this was our salvation. And that is why you bestowed greater honours on him than on any other visitor that has ever come to your country. (History of the Peloponnesian War 1.74)
The Hellenes may have believed or at least hoped that the Persians’ march north meant the entire invasion force was leaving Europe, but from early in the autumn they would have known that Mardonius was staying behind with a substantial army and would have been kept informed of Artabazus’ operations. For the next few months the two sides were separated by the width of central Greece on land, and at sea by the Aegean. But confrontation was inevitable once the new campaigning season arrived, and the outcome was very likely to be decisive, as it needed to be.
In the first flowering of spring Xerxes’ fleet mustered at Samos, where some of the ships had spent the winter. Most of the deck-fighting crews were Persians and Medes. New commanders joined the fleet, Mardontes21 son of Bagaeus and Artayntes son of Artachaees, and Artayntes brought in his nephew Ithamitres to be a commander alongside them. However, because of the major setback they had suffered, they did not advance further to the west and, indeed, were under no pressure to do so, but kept their station at Samos to guard against insurrection in Ionia. They had 300 ships in all, including some from Ionia. In fact, they did not expect the Hellenes to sail across to Ionia but reckoned that they would be content to defend their home territory. They arrived at this assessment on the basis that the Hellenes had not pursued them after they had sailed away from Salamis, and had been glad to be rid of them. Their confidence had been destroyed at sea, but the Persians expected Mardonius to win an easy victory on land. So, they stayed at Samos, pondering what damage they could do to the enemy and listening out for news of how things were turning out for Mardonius.
As for the Hellenes, they were roused to action by the arrival of spring and Mardonius’ presence in Thessaly. The army was not yet mustered, but a fleet of 110 ships gathered at Aegina. Their commander and admiral was Leotychidas22 son of Menares. He was descended from Heracles through several generations, and from the second of the two royal houses of Sparta. The Athenian commander was Xanthippus.
When all the ships had gathered at Aegina, an Ionian delegation arrived at the Hellene camp. They had been in Sparta a short while before, making an appeal to the Lacedaemonians to liberate Ionia. One of its members was called Herodotus,23 son of Basilides. They had been in a group of seven conspiring to assassinate Strattis, tyrant of Chios,24 but their plot was uncovered when one of the conspirators gave their plan away. The remaining six managed to slip out of Chios to Sparta, and then on to Aegina where they appealed to the Hellenes to sail to Ionia. They persuaded them to go as far as Delos. They did this with some difficulty because the Hellenes were afraid of whatever lay beyond. They knew nothing about those parts and thought the enemy was everywhere, and it seemed to them that Samos was as far away as the Pillars of Heracles. So, it came about that in their fearfulness the Barbarians did not dare sail further west than Samos, while the Hellenes did not dare sail further east than Delos in response to the Chians’ pleading. Fear patrolled the space between the two sides. (8.130–32)
Herodotus is probably correct that the priority for the Persian fleet was to police Ionia, but it also represented a threat which the Hellenes could not ignore to the sea-lanes from the Black Sea, to the islands of the Aegean and even to the mainland. The immediate priority for the Hellene fleet was probably to protect the more strategically important Aegean islands and to guard against a landing on the east coast of the Peloponnese behind their defensive line at the Isthmus or further forward. It had reassembled in much less force than for the previous year’s naval campaign to retain sufficient manpower on land to oppose Mardonius’ occupying army when it came south. The placing of a Spartan king in command of the allied fleet may reflect recognition of the importance of its mission, and perhaps the intention or hope was that it should be enlarged at some point.
Herodotus’ remark that the Hellenes were afraid to venture further outside their home waters may reflect the views of those, including Themistocles, who were in favour of a more aggressive strategy. In any case, the eastern waters of the Aegean would have been quite familiar to regular Hellene seamen, but caution was justified whilst the Barbarian fleet included the Phoenicians, and outnumbered the Hellenes by such a factor. Delos was, in any case, a good point in the middle of the Aegean from which to parry any new seaborne attack on the Greek mainland and, no doubt, selected for its significance as a Hellene religious centre. The Hellenes did sail further east than Delos when the Ionians had convinced them that they planned to revolt a second time, but the Athenians were probably not prepared to move until they knew the Peloponnesians were marching north to join up with the Athenian army and the rest of the allies in central Greece.
The Greeks, then, sailed to Delos. Mardonius, while wintering in Thessaly, had sent a Carian called Mys to travel round and consult as many oracles as possible. I don’t know what Mardonius wanted to find out from the oracles when he gave Mys this task because no one has been able to tell me, but I suppose he wanted to know what they had to say about his present business, and that was all. Mardonius read25 whatever it was that the oracles had to say and then sent Alexander of Macedon as his envoy to Athens. He chose him partly because he had family connections with Persia and partly because he knew of his service to Athens as proxenos and benefactor.26 He thought he could use Alexander to win the Athenians over, having heard that they were both numerous and valiant as a people. He also understood that they had been the chief architects of the disaster that had befallen the Persians at sea. He was confident that he could easily achieve superiority at sea if he succeeded in winning the Athenians over, and this would indeed have been the case. He thought he was much the stronger on land anyway. So, this was how he reckoned he could gain the upper hand over the Hellenes. Perhaps the oracles had foretold this and advised Mardonius to form an alliance with the Athenians, and perhaps it was in obedience to them that he sent Alexander as his envoy. (8.133, 136)
Herodotus is probably right that Mardonius was seeking support from the oracles for his strategy, if this was forthcoming, and favourable responses could be bought. But their shrines would also have been good sources of intelligence on the intentions and mood of the various cities they served, and there was advantage in being seen to show respect for the gods of Hellas by consulting them.
Alexander’s speech before the Athenian Assembly is brilliantly crafted and staged by Herodotus, deftly contrasting the straightforwardness of Xerxes’ gracious offer, Mardonius’ hectoring threats and the Macedonian king’s emollient advice. It is very unlikely that all these negotiations took place neatly on the same day or even in the same place. But Herodotus drew on many memories, some of them eyewitness, and perhaps also on contemporary written records, though none has survived, to distil the main mood, arguments and even some of the words that were spoken into his elegant dramatizations of pivotal dialogues between the main players. Herodotus adds power to the drama here by naming only one of the direct speakers, Alexander. Persia is distanced by the device of Xerxes and Mardonius’ reported speech, and Sparta and Athens speak in their turn as nations:
So, Alexander came to Athens as Mardonius’ envoy. This is the speech he gave. ‘Men of Athens, Mardonius says, “I have a message from the Great King – I forgive the Athenians all the wrong they have done me. Mardonius, this is my command. Return their land to the Athenians and let them take for themselves more besides, whatever land they wish. Let them live under their own laws.27 And, if indeed they wish to agree terms with me, you shall rebuild all their temples which I burnt down. These are the Great King’s commands, which I must obey, so long as you do not make it impossible for me. And now hear what I, Mardonius, have to say. Why are you so insane as to wage war against the Great King? You cannot defeat him, and you cannot hold out against him forever. You saw the size of his army and what it is capable of. You know the power of the force I now command. Even if you defeat us and win victory (and if you think you have a hope, you are out of your minds), another much larger army will come along! So, don’t even think of trying to measure up to the Great King. You will lose your land and be running for your lives forever. Make peace with the Great King instead. You can do this on the best possible terms because he wills it so. Stay free and form an alliance with us without trickery or deceit.”’28
Alexander continued, ‘Athenians, that was the message Mardonius charged me with delivering to you. For my part, I will make no mention of the goodwill I have shown you, which you would not be hearing about for the first time anyway, but it is my earnest wish that you accept what Mardonius proposes. I can see clearly that you will not be able to go on fighting a war with Xerxes forever. If I had seen that you were able to, I would never have come before you to make such a speech. But the Great King’s might is beyond human and his arm is long. So, I fear for you if you do not immediately agree a treaty while the terms offered to you are so excellent. Out of all the Hellene allies, your land lies most directly in the path of invasion and it never escapes devastation; the land you possess is marked out as a battleground. Accept the Great King’s offer, for it is a great thing for you that he is ready to forgive you, only you out of all the peoples of Hellas, your offences, and that he wishes to be your friend.’ That was the speech Alexander gave. (8.140)
The Athenians do not respond to Alexander immediately. The drama is heightened by the revelation at this point that a Spartan delegation is also present at the meeting:
Now, the Lacedaemonians had heard that Alexander had come to Athens to talk the Athenians into agreeing terms with the Great King. They recalled certain oracles29 predicting that they and the rest of the Dorians would be driven out of the Peloponnese by the Medes and the Athenians, and they were very afraid that the Athenians might indeed agree terms with the Persians. So, they immediately resolved to send envoys and it happened that these were present at the same session of the Council as Alexander. This was because the Athenians had waited until they arrived, delaying proceedings in full knowledge that the Lacedaemonians were going to find out that an envoy had been sent by the Persians to offer terms; they knew that the Lacedaemonians would send their own envoys as quickly as possible. This they did with the set purpose of making their intentions clear to the Lacedaemonians.
So, when Alexander had finished, the envoys from Sparta joined the debate. ‘We have been sent by the Lacedaemonians to urge you not to do Hellas grievous harm by accepting the Great King’s terms. That would be an unjust and disgraceful thing for any Hellene to do, but most of all for you Athenians. There are a number of reasons. It was you who stirred up this war, which we had no wish for.30 From the start the fighting was over your land, and now all Hellas is involved. That apart, it is intolerable that, on top of it all, you Athenians, who have been known of old as liberators on many occasions, should become responsible for the enslavement of Hellas.31 Nevertheless, we grieve with you in your sufferings, not least the loss of two harvests32 and the ruination of your prosperity over such a length of time. By way of compensation, the Lacedaemonians and their allies formally announce that they will take into their care your women and all other non-combatant members of your households for as long as this war lasts.
‘Do not let Alexander the Macedonian seduce you by adding his own polish to Mardonius’ words. Isn’t this how this tyrant would behave, conspiring with a tyrant?33 But not you, if you are in your right minds! For you know that Barbarians cannot be trusted or believed.’ That was the speech the Spartan envoys gave.
The Athenians responded to Alexander first. ‘We do know that the power of the Mede is far greater than ours so there is no need to criticize us on that count. All the same, we will do our very best to defend ourselves to preserve our freedom. But do not attempt to mislead us into agreeing to the Barbarian’s terms. We will not agree. So, go back now and tell Mardonius what the Athenians have to say. “As long as the sun holds his present course, we will never, ever agree terms with Xerxes. We will come out and fight him, putting our trust in our allies, the gods and the heroes to whom he showed no reverence when he burnt their shrines and their statues.”
‘As for you, do not ever again appear before the Athenians with such a proposal, and never again try to persuade us to do wrong under the pretext of granting us a favour. We would not want something untoward to happen to our proxenos and friend.’34 That was the answer the Athenians gave to Alexander.
And now, this was the Athenians’ reply to the Spartan envoys. ‘The Lacedaemonians are only human to fear that we will agree terms with the Barbarian. But we think it shameful that you should think such a thing, familiar as you are with the spirit of the Athenians. There is no gift of any amount of gold, no gift of lands surpassing all others in fairness and richness anywhere on earth, that could persuade us to medize and condemn Hellas to slavery. There are many powerful considerations that stop us doing this, even if we wanted to. First and above all, we must fully avenge the burning and destruction of the images and shrines of our gods, and give no thought to any kind of treaty with the man who committed these crimes. Then, there are the things that make us Hellenes,35 our shared origins and our language, the shrines of our gods and the sacrificial rites that we have in common, and our very way of life.36 It would be a terrible thing for Athens to betray all of that.
‘If by any chance you do not already know this, be assured that so long as there is one Athenian standing, we will agree no treaty with Xerxes. Nevertheless, we are deeply touched by your concern for us, your recognition of the ruination we are suffering and your offer to take our households into your care. That is extremely generous of you, but we shall continue to hold out as best we can without becoming a burden to you. However, with circumstances as they are, you must now send out your army with all speed. We reckon that it will not be long before Mardonius is here, bearing down upon us as soon as he receives our message that we will not do what he demands. Now it is time for us to march out together to meet him in Boeotia before he reaches Attica.’ That was the Athenians’ reply, and the envoys returned to Sparta. (8.141–44)
The Athenians’ robust response to Persia’s demands is in the form of an oath. The first half of their response to the Spartans is equally high-toned. It is their sacred duty to avenge the insults suffered by their gods and to keep faith with the values that bind all Hellenes together. As Herodotus repeatedly shows, this bond was fragile, and, at any level of detail, ethnic origins, language, religion and ethos showed broad diversity, and he was, of course, conscious as he wrote, that imperialistic Athens was casting a long shadow over Hellas. However, at ‘razor’s edge’ moments such as this one in the war against the Barbarians, there was sufficient belief in Hellas, amongst the small minority of poleis that fought it, to hold them together. But self-interest, powered by ‘love of freedom’ in its many shades, was probably always more influential. It was fortunate that perceptions of self-interest and of the interests of Hellas coincided at these moments.
When Alexander had come back and told him what the Athenians had said, Mardonius led his army off towards Athens at a brisk pace. On the way he gathered troops from all the places he passed through. The leaders of Thessaly did not regret what they had already done and helped him on his way with even greater enthusiasm; Thorax of Larissa, who had helped Xerxes in his flight, now openly gave Mardonius safe passage into Greece. When the army reached Boeotia, the Thebans tried to keep Mardonius there, advising him that he could find no better country than theirs for his base. They insisted that he go no further, but stay where he was and find ways of conquering the whole of Hellas without having to fight a battle. They pointed out that it would be difficult even for the whole world to overcome the Hellenes by force of arms if those who were currently united stayed together. ‘But, if you take our advice,’ the Thebans argued, ‘you will be able to find out their true states of mind with little difficulty. Send cash to the men in positions of influence in their cities, and by doing this you will split Hellas apart. After that, with the help of those who have come over to your side, you will easily defeat any who oppose you.’
That was the advice the Thebans offered, but Mardonius ignored it because it was his burning passion37 to take Athens for a second time. This was partly fuelled by the arrogant folly of the man, and partly because he intended to use a chain of beacons across the islands to inform the Great King at Sardis that he had taken the city. However, when he reached Attica, he found no Athenians there, as in the previous year, and discovered that most of them were on Salamis or aboard their ships. So, he did capture the city, but it was deserted. Nine months had passed since the Great King’s capture of Athens and Mardonius’ occupation. (9.1–3)
Contrary to the impression Herodotus gives here and his treatment of this character elsewhere, Mardonius knew what he was doing. He did not need to be told that the co-operation of Hellene states could be bought and that the Hellene Alliance, such as it was, was far from robust. The chain of beacons across the Aegean and into Asia, whatever the source of the story, must have been an invention. Most of the islands of the Aegean had been back under Hellene control since the autumn of 480 and the Persian fleet had withdrawn to the western shores of Asia, so this option was not available to Mardonius. However, for most it would have brought to mind the opening scene of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (first performed in 458, 14 years after Persae) in which news of the fall of Troy reaches Mycenae by fire signals, a prelude to the bloody death of the victorious king. Nor was the second occupation of Athens the act of vanity that Herodotus suggests. It made perfect psychological sense to send the Athenians an ultimatum from their own city. The threat of further destruction of land and property, including any rebuilding that had been done since the Persians’ last visit, could be left unspoken. Mardonius’ foremost priority was to apply pressure to the fault-line that divided Athens and Sparta.
When Mardonius reached Athens, he sent a man from the Hellespont called Murychides38 to Salamis bearing the same offer of terms that Alexander the Macedonian had presented to the Athenians. He made this offer for the second time because, though fully aware of the Athenians’ hostile reaction to it on the first occasion, he was hopeful that they would relent from their obstinate folly now that Attica was under the power of his spear.39 That was his purpose in sending Murychides over to Salamis. He came before the Council and delivered Mardonius’ message and Lycides, one of its members, said that it seemed to him that the best course was to receive the offer brought to them by Murychides and lay it before the people.40 He proposed this either because he had been bribed by Mardonius, or even because he liked the idea. However, it made the rest of the Athenians in the Council furiously angry and had the same effect on the crowd outside, when they got word of it. They gathered around Lycides and stoned him to death, though they did allow Murychides the Hellespontian to leave unharmed. Salamis was in uproar because of this business and, when the women of Athens heard what had happened, they passed the word to each other and went on their own initiative to Lycides’ house, and stoned his wife and children to death. (9.4–5)
The shocking mob violence that led to the death of Lycides and his family would not have been easily forgotten. The act would have been regarded as anathema, ‘accursed’, and if Herodotus doubted the truth of the story, he would surely have at least given a hint that he did, or not have mentioned the episode at all for fear of offending his Athenian audience. It can, in any case, be regarded as a graphic indication of the tense and volatile mood of the Athenian evacuees, now aggravated by Mardonius’ presence in Attica.
Now, this is how the Athenians’ second evacuation to Salamis came about. They stayed in Attica for as long as they had hopes that troops from the Peloponnese would come to their aid but, when the Peloponnesians continued to drag their feet and news came that the invader was now in Boeotia, then they shipped their possessions out and made the crossing to Salamis.
At the same time, they sent envoys to Lacedaemon to rebuke the Lacedaemonians for standing back and watching while the Barbarians invaded Attica, and for not joining up with the Athenians to confront them in Boeotia. Additionally, the delegation was charged with reminding the Lacedaemonians of the great rewards the Persians had promised the Athenians if they changed sides, and with warning them that they would find some other way of protecting themselves, if the Lacedaemonians did not come to their defence. At this time, the Lacedaemonians were celebrating the festival of Hyacinthus and they attached great importance to the performance of the rites.41 Also, they were in the process of adding the battlements to complete the wall they were building across the Isthmus. (9.6–7)
For all the talk of meeting the invaders in Boeotia, this second occupation of Athens may have been anticipated as a likely worst case. The second evacuation was very probably not as large-scale an operation as the first. With Mardonius and his substantial army wintering in northern Greece and doubtless making no secret of his intention to march south again in the coming year, it is possible that a significant proportion of the population of Athens and Attica did not return home from Salamis, Troezen and Aegina. A decision may have been taken not to sow seed to prevent the occupying army feeding itself from the harvest.
Spartan observance of religious festivals had caused similar delays at the times of Marathon and Thermopylae. Here it seems that the same pragmatism was applied as in the case of the Carnea festival and Leonidas’ deployment at Thermopylae: while the rites were being performed, it seems there was no interruption to the work of fortifying the Isthmus, if there was much to be done; Herodotus tells us earlier that it was close to completion immediately after the disaster at Thermopylae.
When the Athenian envoys arrived in Lacedaemon, bringing with them envoys from Megara and Plataea,42 they came before the ephors and said, ‘the Athenians have sent us to tell you that the King of the Medes is ready to give us back our country, and wishes us to be his allies on fair and equal terms without trickery or deceit, and will grant us any land we may choose in addition to our own. But, because we respect Zeus, the god of Hellas, and would think it a dreadful crime to betray Hellas, we have not consented, even though the rest of the Hellenes are doing us wrong by betraying us utterly.
‘We know that there will be more profit for us in agreeing terms with the King than in fighting a war with him. But no, we will not willingly agree terms with him! There is absolutely no deceit in our dealings with fellow Hellenes. But what of you? You were terrified that we might agree terms with the Great King, but now that you have a clear idea of our intentions and are assured that we will never betray Hellas, now that the wall which you are building across the Isthmus is well on the way to being finished, you do not care about us. You have abandoned us in spite of the promise you made that you would confront the Persians in Boeotia,43 and you have permitted the Barbarians to march into Attica. The people of Athens are now incensed by your dishonourable behaviour and insist that you send an army to return with us with all speed to meet the Barbarians in Attica. Since Boeotia is lost, the most suitable place in our territory to give battle is the Thriasian plain.’
After listening to this, the ephors put off answering until the next day and then again until the day after. They did this for ten days, putting off answering from day to day. Meanwhile the Peloponnesians were all working frantically on the wall across the Isthmus, and it was nearly finished. I am unable to explain why it was that the Lacedaemonians were so frantically afraid that the Athenians might medize when Alexander the Macedonian came to Athens, but now they did not seem to care at all. It is possible that they thought they no longer needed the Athenians, now that the Isthmus was fortified, whereas, when Alexander came to Attica, the wall was unfinished and they were working at it in great fear of the Persians.
But, finally, the Spartans despatched their troops and gave their answer, and this is how it came about. On the day before what would have been the Athenian delegation’s final hearing, Chileos, a Tegean, who had more influence with the Lacedaemonians than any other outsider,44 asked the ephors exactly what the Athenians had been saying to them. When they told him, he promptly replied, ‘Ephors, gentlemen, this is how it is. If the Athenians are not in league with us but join with the Barbarians in an alliance, wide gateways into the Peloponnese will swing open before the Persians, however strong a wall you throw across the Isthmus.45 You must take heed of what they are asking you before they decide to do something that will bring about the fall of Hellas.’
This was the advice Chileos gave to the ephors, and they immediately took it to heart. They said nothing to the envoys who had come from Athens, Plataea and Megara, but they gave orders for 5,000 Spartans to march that night with seven Helots assigned to each of them.46 They put Pausanias son of Cleombrotus47 in command. Pleistarchus48 son of Leonidas had the right to lead the army, but he was still a boy. Pausanias was his guardian and also a cousin. Cleombrotus son of Anaxandridas, Pausanias’ father, had died in the previous year, shortly after leading the troops who had been building the wall back from the Isthmus. He brought the army back from the Isthmus because the sun had grown dark in the sky49 while he was offering a sacrifice to determine what action to take against the Persians. Pausanias chose a man from the same family, Euryanax50 son of Dorieus, to share responsibility.
So, Pausanias and his men set off from Sparta and, at daybreak, the envoys came before the ephors, but they knew nothing of this and had actually decided to depart themselves and go back home. They came before the ephors and said, ‘Now stay where you are, Lacedaemonians, keep your Hyacinthia, have fun in your celebrations,51 and betray your allies utterly. Wronged by you and lacking allies, the Athenians will agree the best terms they possibly can with the Persians. It is plain to see that we will then become the Great King’s allies and campaign on his side against any land, wherever Persia leads us. Then you will find out what you have brought upon yourselves.’ The ephors’ response was to tell them on oath that they believed their army was already at Orestheum52 and on the march towards the ‘foreigners’ (this was what they called the Barbarians). The envoys were completely unaware of this and questioned the ephors until they had all the facts, which greatly surprised them. They set off after the army as quickly as they could and 5,000 Lacedaemonian hoplites, the pick of the perioikoi, left with them. So, they pressed on towards the Isthmus.
As soon as the Argives found out that Pausanias and his men were on the march from Sparta, they sent the fastest long-distance runner they could find as a herald53 to Attica. They had previously promised Mardonius that they would keep the Spartans out of the war, but on reaching Athens, this is what he had to say to Mardonius: ‘The Argives have sent me to tell you that the youth of Lacedaemon54 is on the march and that the Argives cannot stop them. Good luck with your plans for dealing with this!’ The herald delivered this message and left, and Mardonius, on hearing it, no longer had any desire to stay in Attica. Before he had this information, he had restrained himself. He wanted to know how things stood with the Athenians and to discover their intentions, so he had not ravaged or pillaged the countryside of Attica because he had remained hopeful that the Athenians would agree to the terms. But when he learned the truth of the matter, that he was not going to persuade them to do this, he withdrew from Attica before Pausanias’ army had reached the Isthmus. But first he set fire to Athens, demolishing any wall, house or shrine that was still standing. He led his army away because Attica was not good cavalry country, and because, if he gave battle there and met with defeat, there would be no escape route except a pass so narrow that a few men could block it. And so he decided to fall back on Thebes and give battle there on ground suitable for cavalry with a friendly city at his back. (9.7–13)
Herodotus builds dramatic tension by contrasting Athenian urgency, even desperation, with Spartan stolidity and procrastination. Audiences who had memories of this critical time would have recognized the moods, attitudes and thought processes of the main protagonists that underlay his reconstruction of speeches and events. The wall had probably been finished some months earlier and may have been defensible if not complete the previous autumn, but Herodotus’ cliff-hanging timing adds to the drama. The Peloponnesians surely understood the importance of control of the sea in this defensive plan and did not need to be reminded of it by an ‘outsider’; the argument had been well rehearsed in diplomatic activity prior to Salamis. A Persian fleet based on Samos was not such an immediate threat, and the mission of the Hellene fleet, now stationed at Delos, included keeping the Barbarian fleet away from the Isthmus and the shores of the Peloponnese. But the Hellene fleet was at not much more than a quarter of the strength mustered at Salamis and included only around 40 of the 200 triremes Athens had available, and Persia still had the capacity to outnumber the largest fleet the Hellenes could muster by a significant margin. Full commitment on the part of the Athenians would be essential if the Persians elected to sail west. Athenian manpower would also be a very important element in a land campaign; 8,000 of the 41,000 hoplites to be deployed in Boeotia were Athenian. However, the Athenians could not man their entire fleet and put 8,000 hoplites in the field at the same time. The Spartans would have understood this reality. Perhaps believing that the Athenians’ resounding pledge to keep faith with the alliance was not actually conditional upon the Hellenes mounting a land campaign north of the Isthmus, they were hoping to be able to settle for a Peloponnesian-resourced land operation at the Isthmus, with flank and rear protected if necessary by the full Hellene navy.
Whether or not the Athenians formally delivered their unequivocal threat to medize, and it is significant that Herodotus places this after Pausanias had marched, the Spartans finally concluded that they had no option but to agree to their demands, perhaps also recognizing that giving battle was a better strategy than passive defence. Negotiations with other Peloponnesian states, including Chileos’ Tegea, and concerns about potential threats from Messenia and Argos, may have contributed to the delay, probably with a measure of typical bloody-mindedness. It is likely that the Argives, still weakened by their massive losses at the battle of Sepeia 15 years before, would have been brushed aside by Pausanias’ force if they had attempted to stop them and Herodotus reflects this and the hollowness of their promise in their ‘herald’s’ perfunctory message.
It seems Athens was not completely destroyed, even this second time. There is archaeological and literary evidence that some major structures survived. According to Thucydides:
After the departure of the Barbarians from their country, the Athenian people immediately set about bringing back their children and wives and what possessions they had left from the places where they had sent them, and prepared to rebuild their city and their fortifications. Only isolated sections of the city wall had been left standing, and many of the houses were in ruins. The most important Persians had been quartered in the few that survived. (History of the Peloponnesian War 1.89)
Mardonius’ reasons for abandoning Attica were sound. He had the option of meeting the Hellenes on the Thriasian plain, which would have given ample space for cavalry manoeuvre and the possibilities of opposing an Athenian landing from Salamis and attacking the Peloponnesians at the western end of the plain before they could fully deploy. However, though there was more than one route over the mountains out of western Attica, they were potentially dangerous choke points and the advantages of fighting in Boeotia tipped the balance. He would have friendly Thebes at his back and his supply lines would be shortened and the Hellenes’ stretched. The coastal plain south of Athens might have been considered but ruled out on similar grounds. The Hellenes had to fight. Mardonius had the advantage of being able to choose the battleground.
Notes
1 A modest fraction of the immense headline figure that Herodotus cites for the army, but, of course, the customary shorthand for ‘a very large force’. The reality was probably between a third and a quarter of this, still a very large army for the time.
2 A group close to the King of the highest-ranking and most trusted courtiers, but clearly they were not involved in all his decision-making.
3 The sons of his concubines, princes but of lesser status than the sons born to the King’s wives.
4 It is very unlikely that the fleet sailed that night, having spent the previous night at sea and much of the day fighting and losing a battle.
5 Herodotus tells us a little later that the bridges were no longer in place when Xerxes reached the Hellespont. As discussed earlier, they may have been dismantled quite soon after his army had crossed into Europe.
6 A somewhat unlikely error, but it is possible there were some panicky false sightings of triremes moving out from the mainland, even though neither side would have contemplated a night attack.
7 Along the shore on the opposite side of the straits.
8 Presumably meaning the Persians and Medes who wore ‘fish-scale’ body armour as mentioned earlier (7.61). But more than once Herodotus implies that Barbarian body armour, if worn at all, was inferior to hoplite body armour. However, the hoplite shield and spear were the most significant factors when it came to close combat.
9 The true figure was probably in the region of 100,000 and a large proportion of the original invasion force.
10 Not a conventional way of addressing the Great King and possibly indicating some lack of respect.
11 At Plataea.
12 Xerxes would have arrived in Sardis well before the end of 480 and his attempted seduction must have taken up several weeks.
13 The westernmost of the three peninsulas of Chalcidice.
14 Scione, the southernmost city of the peninsula, was allied to Potidaea and had sent troops to assist in the defence.
15 A plea in mitigation that was not uncommon in Hellene criminal cases.
16 Potidaea straddled the narrow neck of the peninsula and Artabazus was trying to exploit an exceptional tidal event, caused by local conditions or possibly seismic activity, to get troops round to the south side of the city.
17 Cyme was an important seaport city of Aeolis on the west coast of Asia. It is unlikely that the whole fleet spent time ferrying the King and his men across the Hellespont before wintering at Cyme.
18 This was hard on the Carystians if they had already paid up to Themistocles, but may be taken as evidence that his moneymaking enterprise, there at least, was a slanderous invention.
19 A small barren island some way off the southern tip of Attica, and probably uninhabited.
20 Generously rounded up.
21 The previous year he had been in command of a contingent of ‘islanders from the Erythraean Sea’ (here taken to mean the Persian Gulf). These seem to have been Medians who had been settled there so these would have been high-quality troops, evidence of Mardontes’ status.
22 Successor to Demaratus after Cleomenes had engineered his deposition in 491. As for Leonidas before Thermopylae, Herodotus list his ancestors all the way to Heracles.
23 No family connection, but the author would have enjoyed the coincidence.
24 Tyrant of Chios from at least the time of Darius’ Scythian campaign. He was presumably deposed at the beginning of the Ionian Revolt but reinstated after its suppression. The Chians had put up the strongest resistance to the Persians at the battle of Lade in 494.
25 Mardonius almost certainly could not understand Greek or read in any language (literacy and foreign languages were not amongst the accomplishments of most Persian nobles).
26 Alexander’s sister was married to Boubares, one of the Persians in charge of digging the Athos canal. The role of proxenos was similar to that of a consul, representing a foreign state’s interests in his home country.
27 This state of autonomia did not generally imply true independence and certainly would not in this instance. Athens would have been a subject state owing absolute loyalty to the Great King, supplying military levies whenever required, paying tribute and no longer a true demokratia.
28 Similar formulaic declarations of good faith appear in the texts of 5th-century Hellene treaties quoted by Thucydides.
29 Whatever the origins of these oracles, true or invented, their message added credibility to concerns that the Athenians might be persuaded to medize and was quite possibly manipulated by the Athenians to strengthen their bargaining position in negotiations with the Spartans.
30 Meaning Athens’ involvement in the Ionian Revolt. The following sentence embraces Marathon and Salamis.
31 Ironic in the context of Athens’ later imperialism.
32 Harvest time was still to come at this point in 479. This could be simply an anachronistic slip on Herodotus’ part, or indicate that the Athenians decided not to sow once they knew that the Persians would be back with no certainty that they could be held in Boeotia.
33 Both were actually hereditary monarchs, but tyranny was a more emotive term.
34 This was not an empty warning. There was a real danger of mob violence, as events proved shortly afterwards on Salamis.
35 To Hellenikon; ‘Hellenism, Greekness’.
36 Ethos.
37 Herodotus is using the language of sexual desire here.
38 Like Mys, otherwise unknown, but also like Mys (a Carian) from the eastern edge of the Hellene world. Both probably had some knowledge of Aramaic.
39 Here Herodotus gives Mardonius some credit for strategic thinking.
40 The functions of the 500-strong Council (boule) included preparing proposals for the Assembly (all male citizens of voting age) to consider and vote upon.
41 This festival, in honour of Apollo as well as the hero he accidentally killed, lasted three days and was celebrated in early June.
42 These two were the only other cities from north of the Isthmus which had not yet medized or been overrun but they do not otherwise feature in this episode. Plataea had been burnt by the Persians in 480 but the Plataeans kept the faith with the Athenians.
43 This is the first and only mention of any such promise.
44 The Spartans regarded even their closest Hellene neighbours as ‘foreigners’, an equally good translation for the word xenos in this context.
45 Herodotus has already made this point: ‘I cannot see that the fortification of the Isthmus would have served any useful purpose if the Great King had control of the sea’.
46 This total of 35,000 is clearly a significant exaggeration but indicates a much more extensive mobilization than usual of the Helot population of Laconia and Messenia.
47 Leonidas’ younger brother, very close to him in age, and regent for a few months.
48 Leonidas’ successor as king.
49 2 October, 480 is the date calculated for this partial eclipse. The large Peloponnesian force under Cleombrotus was presumably there to hold the Isthmus line if necessary as well as to build the wall. Eclipses were taken very seriously as omens and this may of itself have been sufficient justification for Cleombrotus’ retreat. But Xerxes’ withdrawal to the north may already have begun.
50 It is possible that Euryanax was appointed to this position by the ephors in recognition of Pausanias’ youth and inexperience (he was in his mid 20s). His father Dorieus, who died in Sicily in 510, was Leonidas’ elder brother and it is not known why Euryanax did not succeed Cleomenes, Dorieus and Leonidas’ senior half-brother, on his death in 490.
51 The second of the three days of the festival was given over to singing and dancing.
52 Not the most direct route to the Isthmus, but better suited to a large army with baggage train.
53 As an ordinary messenger he probably would not have been allowed over the Isthmus line, but heralds were regarded as neutral and had special rights.
54 Meaning ‘of military age’, between 20 and 45 in the case of Sparta. Perhaps 3,000 stayed behind for home defence.