Xerxes by Jacob Abbott (ink book reader .txt) 📖
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In the mean time, the storm came on apace. The rising and roughening sea made the oars useless, and the wind howled frightfully through the cordage and the rigging. The galleys soon began to be forced away from their moorings. Some were driven upon the beach and dashed to pieces by the waves. Some were wrecked on the rocks at one or the other of the projecting points which bounded the bay on either hand. Some foundered at their place of anchorage. Vast numbers of men were drowned. Those who escaped to the shore were in hourly dread of an attack from the inhabitants of the country. To save themselves, if possible, from this danger, they dragged up the fragments of the wrecked vessels upon the beach, and built a fort with them on the shore. Here they intrenched themselves, and then prepared to defend their lives, armed with the weapons which, like the materials for their fort, were washed up, from time to time, by the sea.
Plunder of the wrecks.
Scyllias, the famous diver.
The storm continued for three days. It destroyed about three hundred galleys, besides an immense number of provision transports and other smaller vessels. Great numbers of seamen, also, were drowned. The inhabitants of the country along the coast enriched themselves with the plunder which they obtained from the wrecks, and from the treasures, and the gold and silver vessels, which continued for some time to be driven up upon the beach by the waves. The Persians themselves recovered, it was said, a great deal of valuable treasure, by employing a certain Greek diver, whom they had in their fleet, to dive for it after the storm was over. This diver, whose name was Scyllias, was famed far and wide for his power of remaining under water. As an instance of what they believed him capable of performing, they said that when, at a certain period subsequent to these transactions, he determined to desert to the Greeks, he accomplished his design by diving into the sea from the deck of a Persian galley, and coming up again in the midst of the Greek fleet, ten miles distant!
After three days the storm subsided. The Persians then repaired the damages which had been sustained, so far as it was now possible to repair them, collected what remained of the fleet, took the shipwrecked mariners from their rude fortification on the beach, and set sail again on their voyage to the southward.
Jealousy of the Athenians.
In the mean time, the Greek fleet had assembled in the arm of the sea lying north of Eubœa, and between Eubœa and the main land. It was an allied fleet, made up of contributions from various states that had finally agreed to come into the confederacy. As is usually the case, however, with allied or confederate forces, they were not well agreed among themselves. The Athenians had furnished far the greater number of ships, and they considered themselves, therefore, entitled to the command; but the other allies were envious and jealous of them on account of that very superiority of wealth and power which enabled them to supply a greater portion of the naval force than the rest. They were willing that one of the Spartans should command, but they would not consent to put themselves under an Athenian. If an Athenian leader were chosen, they would disperse, they said, and the various portions of the fleet return to their respective homes.
The Athenians, though burning with resentment at this unjust declaration, were compelled to submit to the necessity of the case. They could not take the confederates at their word, and allow the fleet to be broken up, for the defense of Athens was the great object for which it was assembled. The other states might make their peace with the conqueror by submission, but the Athenians could not do so. In respect to the rest of Greece, Xerxes wished only for dominion. In respect to Athens, he wished for vengeance. The Athenians had burned the Persian city of Sardis, and he had determined to give himself no rest until he had burned Athens in return.
It was well understood, therefore, that the assembling of the fleet, and giving battle to the Persians where they now were, was a plan adopted mainly for the defense and benefit of the Athenians. The Athenians, accordingly, waived their claim to command, secretly resolving that, when the war was over, they would have their revenge for the insult and injury.
A Spartan was accordingly appointed commander of the fleet. His name was Eurybiades.
Things were in this state when the two fleets came in sight of each other in the strait between the northern end of Eubœa and the main land. Fifteen of the Persian galleys, advancing incautiously some miles in front of the rest, came suddenly upon the Greek fleet, and were all captured. The crews were made prisoners and sent into Greece. The remainder of the fleet entered the strait, and anchored at the eastern extremity of it, sheltered by the promontory of Magnesia, which now lay to the north of them.
Dismay of the Eubœans.
The Greeks were amazed at the immense magnitude of the Persian fleet, and the first opinion of the commanders was, that it was wholly useless for them to attempt to engage them. A council was convened, and, after a long and anxious debate, they decided that it was best to retire to the southward. The inhabitants of Eubœa, who had been already in a state of great excitement and terror at the near approach of so formidable an enemy, were thrown, by this decision of the allies, into a state of absolute dismay. It was abandoning them to irremediable and hopeless destruction.
The government of the island immediately raised a very large sum of money, and went with it to Themistocles, one of the most influential of the Athenian leaders, and offered it to him if he would contrive any way to persuade the commanders of the fleet to remain and give the Persians battle where they were. Themistocles took the money, and agreed to the condition. He went with a small part of it—though this part was a very considerable sum—to Eurybiades, the commander-in-chief, and offered it to him if he would retain the fleet in its present position. There were some other similar offerings made to other influential men, judiciously selected. All this was done in a very private manner, and, of course, Themistocles took care to reserve to himself the lion's share of the Eubœan contribution. The effect of this money in altering the opinions of the naval officers was marvelous. A new council was called, the former decision was annulled, and the Greeks determined to give their enemies battle where they were.
The Persians had not been unmindful of the danger that the Greeks might retreat by retiring through the Euripus, and so escape them. In order to prevent this, they secretly sent off a fleet of two hundred of their strongest and fleetest galleys, with orders to sail round Eubœa and enter the Euripus from the south, so as to cut off the retreat of the Greeks in that quarter. They thought that by this plan the Greek fleet would be surrounded, and could have no possible mode of escape. They remained, therefore, with the principal fleet, at the outer entrance of the northern strait for some days, before attacking the Greeks, in order to give time for the detachment to pass round the island.
The Persians sent off the two hundred galleys with great secrecy, not desiring that the Greeks should discover their design of thus intercepting their retreat. They did discover it, however, for this was the occasion on which the great diver, Scyllias, made his escape from one fleet to the other by swimming under water ten miles, and he brought the Greeks the tidings.[E]
Euripus and Artemisium.
The Greeks dispatched a small squadron of ships with orders to proceed southward into the Euripus, to meet this detachment which the Persians sent round; and, in the mean time, they determined themselves to attack the main Persian fleet without any delay. Notwithstanding their absurd dissensions and jealousies, and the extent to which the leaders were influenced by intrigues and bribes, the Greeks always evinced an undaunted and indomitable spirit when the day of battle came. It was, moreover, in this case, exceedingly important to defend the position which they had taken. By referring to the map once more, it will be seen that the Euripus was the great highway to Athens by sea, as the pass of Thermopylæ was by land. Thermopylæ was west of Artemisium, where the fleet was now stationed, and not many miles from it. The Greek army had made its great stand at Thermopylæ, and Xerxes was fast coming down the country with all his forces to endeavor to force a passage there. The Persian fleet, in entering Artemisium, was making the same attempt by sea in respect to the narrow passage of Euripus; and for either of the two forces, the fleet or the army, to fail of making good the defense of its position, without a desperate effort to do so, would justly be considered a base betrayal and abandonment of the other.
The battle.
A stormy night.
Scene of terror.
The Greeks therefore advanced, one morning, to the attack of the Persians, to the utter astonishment of the latter, who believed that their enemies were insane when they thus saw them coming into the jaws, as they thought, of certain destruction. Before night, however, they were to change their opinions in respect to the insanity of their foes. The Greeks pushed boldly on into the midst of the Persian fleet, where they were soon surrounded. They then formed themselves into a circle, with the prows of the vessels outward, and the sterns toward the center within, and fought in this manner with the utmost desperation all the day. With the night a storm came on, or, rather, a series of thunder-showers and gusts of wind, so severe that both fleets were glad to retire from the scene of contest. The Persians went back toward the east, the Greeks to the westward, toward Thermopylæ—each party busy in repairing their wrecks, taking care of their wounded, and saving their vessels from the tempest. It was
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