But though such magnanimous humanity may be sometimes taught by reason and religion to an individual, it can never be expected from a body of men, and least of all from men flushed with victory, and burning with all the fierce passions necessarily engendered in a bloody struggle for life or death, however just and holy the motive of the fray. Few victories are free from the stain of unnecessary bloodshed, even when won by mere professional soldiers, unprovoked by personal wrongs, and careless of the quarrel in which it pleases their rulers to employ them. The Athenians were men whose houses had been burnt, and whose families had suffered all the evils of a sudden emigration, while any who remained behind were undistinguishingly slaughtered. The other Greeks, if they had not endured it, had lived in fear of the like treatment at the hands of enemies whose warfare was habitually merciless. Assuredly, therefore, it is not a subject of wonder, or of harsh and unmitigated reproach, if the cruelties of the Persian soldiery were retaliated in kind.

Artabazus arrived in safety at Byzantium, (the modern Constantinople,) on the Bosphorus, whence he passed into Asia, but not without many of his followers being cut off by the Thracians, and many dropping on the way through fatigue and hunger. Meanwhile, the army of the Grecian confederacy marched against Thebes, and compelled that city to purchase its safety by delivering up the principal authors of its defection from the common cause, who were sent to Corinth by Pausanias, and there put to death.

BATTLE OF MYCALE.

ET another battle was fought in Asia, on the same day with that of Platea. The Samians, without the knowledge of their tyrant or the Persians, had sent messengers to invite the Grecian fleet at Delos, to pass over to Ionia, assuring

the commanders of their superiority to the Persian force in

those seas, and of the disposition of the Ionians to revolt. The Greeks complied; and on their approach the Persian leaders, feeling themselves too weak for a sea-fight, sent away the Phoenician ships, and bringing the others to the promontory of Mycale, near Miletus, where the land army was encamped, drew them upon the beach, (an easy thing with the light vessels used in ancient war,) and surrounded them with a rampart. The chief commander of the Greeks was Leotychides, a Spartan of one of the royal houses. On arriving, he repeated, with a similar double purpose, the stratagem of Themistocles at Artemisium. Sailing along the shore, he made proclamation by a herald to the Ionians, bidding them remember that the Greeks were fighting for their liberty. The Persians were already jealous of the Samians, because they had ransomed and sent home some Athenian prisoners: and their suspicions being strengthened and made more general by the proclamation, they disarmed the Samians, and sent the Milesians to guard the passes, under pretence of profiting by their knowledge of the country, but, really, to remove them from the camp.

The Athenians advancing along the beach, commenced the action, followed by the Corinthians, Trozenians, and Sicyonians. After some hard fighting they drove the enemy to his intrenchments, and then forced the enclosure, on which the mass of the army fled, the Persians only still resisting. It was not till now that the Lacedæmonians came up, having been impeded by steep and broken ground. On seeing the Greeks prevailing, the Samians, though unarmed, did what they could in their favour; and the other Ionians followed their example, and sided with the Greeks. The Milesians, who had been sent to guard the passes by the Persians, turned against them and slaughtered the fugitives. All Ionia now revolted. The fleet proceeded to Samos, where a consultation was held on the fate of that country. It could not protect itself unassisted, and its defence was a burden the Greeks were loath to support. The Peloponnesians proposed to remove the inhabitants, and settle them on

the lands of those states that had joined the common enemy. But the Athenians were averse to the desolation of Ionia, and jealous of the interference of others with their colonies; and when they urged the reception of the Ionians into the confederacy, the Peloponnesians gave way, and the Samians, Chians, and other islanders who had joined the fleet, were admitted.

The fleet now sailed to the Hellespont to destroy the bridge, but found it broken; upon which Leotychides, with the Peloponnesians, returned home, while the Athenians remained and formed the siege of Sestos, on the Hellespont, where the Persians from all the other towns of the Chersonese had collected. The siege was continued till the Persians were reduced to the extremity of famine, and then they escaped by night out of the place; but many were slain or taken in the pursuit. The Athenians having cleared the Chersonese of the invaders, returned home.

ATHENS REBUILT-LACEDÆMONIANS OPPOSE THE REBUILDING OF THE WALLS-CRAFTY POLICY OF THEMISTOCLES.

MMEDIATELY after the battle of Platæa, the Athenian people had begun to bring back their families, and to rebuild their city and ramparts. But the jealousy excited in the Peloponnesians by the power and spirit which Athens had

displayed, was far stronger than their gratitude for what it had done and suffered in the common cause. An embassy arrived from Peloponnesus, to urge the Athenians not to go on with the fortifications, but rather, as far as in them lay, to demolish the walls of all other cities out of Peloponnesus, that the enemy, if he again returned, might have no strong place to fix his head quarters in, as recently in Thebes. If the demand had been complied with, Athens would have become entirely subject to Lacedæmon. At the same time it was dangerous to refuse, since, from the past

conduct of Lacedæmon, there was little ground to expect that gratitude would prevent it from any action prompted by jealousy, or ambition; while it was vain to hope that the military force of Athens, always inferior to that of Lacedæmon, and now further weakened by the number of citizens absent with the fleet, would be able to maintain itself without the aid of walls, against the united strength of Peloponnesus. In this difficulty, Themistocles advised them immediately to send away the Lacedæmonian ambassadors, to raise up the walls, with the utmost possible celerity, men, women, and children all joining in the work; and choosing himself and some others as ambassadors to Lacedæmon, to send him thither at once; but to detain his colleagues till the walls had attained a sufficient height for defence. He was accordingly sent to Lacedæmon, where he put off his audience from day to day, excusing himself by saying, that he waited for his colleagues, who were daily expected, and wondered that they were not come. But when reports arrived that the walls were gaining height, he bade the magistrates not trust to rumour, but send some competent persons to examine. They sent accordingly, and at the same time Themistocles secretly directed the Athenians to detain the Lacedæmonian commissioners, but with the least possible show of compulsion, till himself and his colleagues should return. The latter were now arrived, and brought news that the walls had gained the height required; and Themistocles declared to the Lacedæmonians, that Athens was already sufficiently fortified, and that henceforth if the Lacedæmonians and their allies had any thing to propose, they must do it as to persons able to judge both of the common interest and their own; that when it seemed best to abandon the city, the Athenians had determined and done it for themselves; and that in the deliberations of the confederacy, they had appeared in judgment inferior to none; that they thought it best for themselves and for all, that their city should be fortified, since there could be no equality nor freedom of debate on the concerns of the alliance without such an approach to equality

in defensive means as might insure to each a certain degree of independence and security. The Lacedæmonians were secretly mortified at their failure, and probably not the less so from the consciousness that the attempt had been an unhandsome one; but their discontent did not break out openly, and the ambassadors on each part went home unquestioned.

PAUSANIAS-BEGINNING OF ATHENIAN EMPIRE.

URING the following year, Pausanias being appointed to command the confederate fleet, reduced most of Cyprus, and then proceeding to the Bosphorus, besieged and took Byzantium

from the Persians. But his mind was drunk

with glory and power, and he now aspired to hold, under Persia, the dominion of Greece. He favoured the escape of the prisoners taken in Byzantium, and with them he sent a letter to Xerxes, in which he asked his daughter in marriage, and promised to effect the subjugation of Greece. On receiving a favourable answer, his pride swelled yet higher, and led him to conduct not more profligately arrogant than absurdly impolitic. He assumed the Median dress and mode of life, and took a body-guard of Medes and Egyptians; and he daily treated the allies with extravagant haughtiness and severity, insomuch that the Ionians, already preferring as leaders the Athenians, their kinsmen and most active liberators, now urged them to take the command, and, if necessary, to resist Pausanias. At this crisis Pausanias was called home, under a charge of treason; and forthwith the whole fleet, excepting the Peloponnesians, took the Athenians for leaders. Dorcis was sent out to replace Pausanias, but the allies refusing him obedience, he withdrew with his squadron from the fleet; and the Lacedæmonians acquiesced the more readily in the change from weariness of the war, from fear lest their officers should, like Pausanias, be corrupted into disobedience to the laws, and from holding the Athenians equal to the