09 - Xerxes, Makers of History by Jacob Abbott

Dive into the fascinating history of Xerxes, the formidable ruler of the Persian Empire, as he leads his forces in the dramatic invasion of Greece. Join Deon Gines as he unravels the intricate tapestry of power, conflict, and legacy during this pivotal era.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter nine of Xerxes by Jacob Abbott. This LibriVox recording
is in the public domain recording by Dion Jine's Salt
Lake City, Utah. The Battle of Thermopylae b c. Four eighty.
The pass of Thermopylae was not a ravine among mountains,

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but a narrow space between mountains and the sea. The
mountains landward were steep and inaccessible, the sea was shoal.
The passage between them was narrow for many miles along
the shore, being narrowest at the ingress and egress. In

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the middle the space was broader. The place was celebrated
for certain warm springs which here issued from the rocks,
and which had been used in former times for baths.
The position had been considered long before Xerxes day a
very important one in a military point of view, as

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it was upon the frontier between two Greek states that
were frequently at war. One of these states, of course,
was Thessaly. The other was Focus, which lay south of Thessaly.
The general boundary between these two states was mountainous and

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impassable for troops, so that each could invade the territories
of the other only by passing round between the mountains
and the shore at Thermopylae. The Phocaeans, in order to
keep the Thessalians out, had in former times built a
wall across the way and put up gates there, which

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they strongly fortified. In order still further to increase the
difficulty of forcing a passage, they conducted the water of
the warm springs over the ground without the wall, in
such a way as to make the surface continually wet
and miory. The old wall had now fallen to ruins,

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but the miory ground remained. The place was solitary and desolate,
and overgrown with a confused and wild vegetation. On one side,
the view extended far and wide over the sea, with
the highlands of Euboa in the distance, and on the other,

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dark and inaccessible mountains rose covered with forests, indented with
mysterious and unexplored ravines, and frowning in a wild and
gloomy majesty over the narrow passway which crept along the
shore below. The Greeks, when they retired from Thessaly, fell

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back upon Thermopylae and established themselves there. They had a
variously estimated from three to four thousand men. These were
from the different states of Greece, some within and some
without the Peloponnesus, a few hundred men only being furnished

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in general from each state or kingdom. Each of these
bodies of troops had its own officers, though there was
one general in chief who commanded the whole. This was
Leonidas the Spartan. He had brought with him three hundred
Spartans as the quota furnished by that city. These men

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he had specially selected himself, one by one from among
the troops of the city, as men on whom he
could rely. It will be seen from the map that
Thermopyla is at some distance from the Isthmus of Corinth,
and that of the states which would be protected by

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making a stand at the path, some were without the Isthmus,
and some within these states. In sending each a few
hundred men only two Thermopylae did not consider that they
were making their full contribution to the army, but only
sending forward for the emergency those that could be dispatched

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at once, And they were all making arrangements to supply
more troops as soon as they could be raised and
equipped for the service. In the meantime, however, Xerxes and
his immense hordes came on faster than they had expected,
and the news at length came to Leonidas in the

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past that the Persians with one or two millions of men,
were at hand, while he had only three or four
thousand at Thermopylae to oppose them. The question arose what
was to be done. Those of the Greeks who came
from the Peloponnesus were in favor of abandoning Thermopylae and

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falling back to the Isthmus. The Isthmus, they maintained, was
as strong and as favorable a position as the place
where they were, and by the time they had reached
it they would have received great reinforcements, whereas with so
small a force as they had then at command, it

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was madness to attempt to resist the Persian millions. This plan, however,
was strongly opposed by all those Greeks who represented countries
without the Peloponnesus, for by abandoning Thermopylae and falling back
to the Isthmus, their states would be left wholly at

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the mercy of the enemy. After some consultation and debate,
it was decided to remain at Thermopylae. The troops accordingly
took up their positions in a deliberate and formal manner, and,
entrenching themselves as strongly as possible, began to await the

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onset of the enemy. Leonidas and his three hundred were
foremost in the defile, so as to be the first
exposed to the attack. The rest occupied various positions along
the passage, except one corps, which was stationed on the
mountains above to guard the pass in that direction. This

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corps was from Focus, which, being the state nearest to
the scene of conflict, had furnished a larger number of
soldiers than any other. Their division numbered one thousand men,
These being stationed on the declivity of the mountain, left
only two or three thousand in the defile below. From

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what has been said of the stern and savage can
character of the Spartans, one would scarcely expect in them
any indications or displays of personal vanity. There was one particular,
it seems, however, in regard to which they were vain,
and that was in respect to their hair. They wore

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it very long. In fact, the length of the hair
was in their commonwealth a mark of distinction between freemen
and slaves. All the agricultural and mechanical labors were performed,
as has been already stated by the slaves, a body
which constituted in fact the mass of the population, and

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the Spartan freemen, though very stern in their manners and
extremely simple and plain in their habits of life, were,
it must be remembered, as proud and lofty in spirit
as they were plain and poor. They constituted a million aristocracy,
and a military aristocracy is always more proud and overbearing

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than any other. It must be understood, therefore, that these
Spartan soldiers were entirely above the performance of any useful labors.
And while they prized in character the savage ferocity of
the tiger, they had a taste in person for something
like his savage beauty. Too. They were never moreover more

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particular and careful in respect to their personal appearance than
when they were going into battle. The field of battle
was their particular theater of display, not only of the
substantial qualities of strength, fortitude, and valor, but also of
such personal adornments as were consistent with the plainness and

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severity of their attire, and could be appreciated by at
as rude and savage as theirs. They proceeded therefore, when
established at their post in the throat of the pass,
to adorn themselves for the approaching battle. In the meantime,
the armies of Xerxes were approaching. Xerxes himself, though he

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did not think it possible that the Greeks could have
a sufficient force to offer him any effectual resistance, thought
it probable that they would attempt to make a stand
at the pass, and when he began to draw near
to it, he sent forward a horseman to reconnoiter the ground.

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The horsemen rode into the pass a little way until
he came in sight of the enemy. He stopped upon
an eminence to survey the scene, being all ready to
turn in an instant and fly at the top of
his speed in case he should be pursued. The spartan's
life looked upon him as he stood there, but seemed

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to consider his appearance as a circumstance of no moment,
and then they went on with their avocations. The horsemen found,
as he leisurely observed them, that there was an entrenchment
thrown across the straits, and that the Spartans were in
front of it. There were other forces behind, but these

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the horsemen could not see. The Spartans were engaged, some
of them in athletic sports and gymnastic exercises, and the
rest in nicely arranging their dress, which was red and
showy in color, though simple and plain in form, and
in smoothing, adjusting and curling their hair. In fact, they

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seemed to be one and all preparing for an entertainment.
And yet these men were actually preparing themselves to be slaughter,
to be butchered, and one by one, by slow degrees,
and in the most horrible and cruel manner. And they
knew perfectly well that it was so. The adorning of

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themselves was for this express and particular end. The horsemen,
when he had attentively noticed all that was to be seen,
rode slowly back to Xerxes and reported the result. The
king was much amused at hearing such an account from
his messenger. He sent for Demaratus, the Spartan refugee, with

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whom the reader will recollect. He held a long conversation
in respect to the Greeks at the close of the
Great Review at Doriscus. When Demadus came, Serxes related to
him what the messenger had reported the Spartans in the past, said,
he present in their encampment the appearance of being out

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on a party of pleasure. What does it mean, you
will admit now, I suppose that they do not intend
to resist us. Demrodus shook his head. Your majesty does
not know the Greeks, said he. And I am very
much afraid that if I state what I know respecting them,

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I shall offend you. These appearances which your messenger observed
indicate to me that the men he saw were a
body of Spartans, and that they supposed themselves on the
eve of a desperate conflict. Those are the men practicing
athletic feats and smoothing and adorning their hair, that are

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the most to be feared of all the soldiers of Greece.
If you can conquer them, you will have nothing beyond
to fear. Cerxes thought this opinion of Demaratus extremely absurd.
He convinced that the party in the past was some
small detachment that could not possibly be thinking of serious resistance.

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They would He was satisfied now that they found that
the Persians were at hand. Immediately retire down the pass
and leave the way clear. He advanced therefore up to
the entrance of the pass, encamped there, and waited several
days for the Greeks to clear the way. The Greeks

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remained quietly in their places, paying apparently no attention whatever
to the impending and threatening presence of their formidable foes.
At length, Xerxes concluded that it was time for him
to act. On the morning therefore of the fifth day,
he called out a detachment of his troops sufficient as

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he thought for the purpose, and sent them down the
pass with orders to seize all the Greeks that were
there and bring them alive to him. The detachment that
he sent was a body of Meads, who were considered
as the best troops in the army, excepting always the immortals, who,

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as has been before stated, were entirely superior to the rest.
The Meads, however, Xerxes supposed, would find no difficulty in
executing his orders. The detachment marched accordingly into the pass.
In a few hours, a spent and breathless messenger came

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from them, asking for reinforcements. The reinforcements were sent toward night,
a remnant of the whole body came back faint and exhausted,
with a long and fruitless combat, and bringing many of
their wounded and bleeding comrades with them, the rest they
had left dead in the defile. Xerxes was both astonished

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and enraged at these results. He determined that this trifling
should continue no longer. He ordered the immortals themselves to
be called out on the following morning, and then, placing
himself at the head of them, he advanced to the
vicinity of the Greek entrenchments. Here he ordered a seat

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or throned to be placed for him upon an eminence,
and taking his seat upon it, prepared to witness the conflict.
The Greeks in the meantime calmly arranged themselves on the
line which they had undertaken to defend, and awaited the charge.
Upon the ground on every side were lying the mangled

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bodies of the Persians slain the day before, some exposed
fully to view ghastly and horrid spectacles, others trampled down
and half buried in the mire. The immortals advanced to
the attack, but they made no impression. Their superior numbers
gave them no advantage on account of the narrowness of

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the defile. The Greeks stood, each corps at its own
assigned station on the line, forming a mass so firm
and immovable that the charge of the Persians was arrested
on encountering it, as by a wall. In fact, as
the spears of the Greeks were longer than those of

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the Persians, and their muscular and athletic strength and skill
were greater, it was found that, in the desperate conflict
which raged hour after hour along the line, the Persians
were continually falling, while the Greek ranks continued entire Sometimes
the Greeks would retire for a space, falling back with

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the utmost coolness, regularity, and order. And then when the
Persians pressed on in pursuit, supposing that they were gaining
the victory, the Greeks would turn, so soon as they
found that the ardor of pursuit had thrown the enemy's
lines somewhat into confusion, and presenting the same firm and

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terrible front as before, would press again upon the offensive
and cut down their enemies with redoubled slaughter. Xerxes, who
witnessed all these things from among the group of officers
around him, upon the eminence was kept continually in a
state of excitement and irritation. Three times he leaped from

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his throne with loud exclamations of vexation and rage. All, however,
was of no avail. When night came, the immortals were
compelled to withdraw and leave the Greeks in possession of
their intrenchments. Things continued substantially in this state for one

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or two days longer, when one morning a Greek countryman
appeared at the tent of Xerxes and asked an audience
of the king. He had something, he said of great
importance to communicate to him. The king ordered him to
be admitted. The Greeks said that his name was Effialtus,

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and that he came to inform the king that there
was a secret path leading along a wild and hidden
chasm in the mountains, by which he could guide a
body of Persians to the summit of the hills overhanging
the pass at a point below the Greek entrenchment. This
point being once attained, it would be easy, Effialtus said,

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for the Persian forces to descend into the pass below
the Greeks, and thus to surround them and shut them
in and that the conquest of them would then be easy.
The path was a secret one and known to very few.
He knew it, however, and was willing to conduct a
detachment of troops through it on condition of receiving a

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suitable reward. The king was greatly surprised and delighted at
this intelligence. He immediately acceded to Effialti's proposals and organized
a strong force to be sent up the path that
very night. On the north of Thermopylae, there was a
small stream which came down through a chasm in the

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mountains to the sea. The path which Effialtus was to
show commenced here, and following the bed of this stream
up the chasm, it at length turned to the southward
through a succession of wild and trackless ravines, till it
came out at last on the declivities of the mountains,

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near the lower part of the pass, at a place
where it was possible to descend to the defiance below.
This was the point which the thousand Focayans had been
ordered to take possession of and guard when the plan
for the defense of the pass was first organized. They
were posted here, not with the idea of repelling any

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attack from the mountains behind them, for the existence of
the path was wholly unknown to them, but only that
they might command the defile below and aid in preventing
the Persians from going through, even if those who were
in the defile were defeated or slain. The Persian detachment

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toiled all night up the steep and dangerous pathway among rocks, chasms,
and precipices, frightful by day, and now made still more
frightful by the gloom of the night, They came out
at last in the dawn of the morning into valleys
and glens high up the declivity of the mountain and

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in the immediate vicinity of the Phocaean encampment. The Persians
were concealed as they advanced by the groves and thickets
of stunted oaks which grew here. But the morning air
was so calm and still that the Phocaean sentinels heard
the noise made by their tramping upon the leaves as

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they came up the glen. The Phocaeans immediately gave the alarm.
Both parties were completely surprised. The Persians had not expected
to find a foe at this elevation, and the Greeks
who had assented there had supposed that all beyond and
above them was an impassable and trackless desolation. There was

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a short conflict. The Phocaeans were driven off their ground.
They retreated up the mountain and toward the southward. The
Persians decided not to pursue them. On the other hand,
they descended toward the defile and took up a position
on the lower declivities of the mountain, which enabled them

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to command the paths below. Here they paused and awaited
Xerxes orders. The Greeks in the defile perceived at once
that they were now wholly at the mercy of their enemies.
They might yet retreat. It is true, for the Persian
detachment had not yet descended to intercept them. But if

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they remained where they were, they would in a few
hours be hemmed in by their foes. And even if
they could resist for a little time the double onset
which would then be made upon them, their supplies would
be cut off, and there would be nothing before them
but immediate starvation. They held hurried councils to determine what

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to do. There is some doubt as to what took
place at these councils. Though the prevailing to Stemoni is
that Leonidas recommended that they should retire. That is that
all except himself and the three hundred Spartans should do so,
you said he addressing the other Greeks are at liberty

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by your laws to consider in such cases as this,
the question of expediency, and to withdraw from a position
which you have taken, or stand and maintain it according
as you judge best. But by our laws such a
question in such a case is not to be entertained.

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Wherever we are posted there we stand, come life or
death to the end. We have been sent here from
Sparta to defend the pass of Thermopylae. We have received
no orders to withdraw here. Therefore we must remain, and
the Persians, if they go through the pass at all,

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must go through it over our graves. It is therefore
your duty to retire. Our duty is here, and we
will remain and do it. After all that may be
said of the absurdity and folly of throwing away the
lives of three hundred men in a case like this,

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so utterly and hopelessly desperate, there is still something in
the noble generosity with which Leonidas dismissed the other Greeks,
and in the undaunted resolution with which he determined himself
to maintain his ground, which has always strongly excited the
admiration of mankind, it was undoubtedly carrying the point of

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honor to a wholly unjustifiable extreme. And yet all the world,
for the twenty centuries which have intervened since these transactions occurred,
while they have unanimously disapproved in theory of the course
which Leonidas is pursued, have nonetheless unanimously admired and applauded it.

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In dismissing the other Greeks, Leonidas retained with him a
body of Thebans, whom he suspected of a design of
revolting to the enemy. Whether he considered his decision to
keep them in the past equivalent to a sentence of
death and intended it as a punishment for their supposed treason,

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or only that he wished to secure their continued fidelity
by keeping them closely to their duty, does not appear
at all events. He retained them and dismissed the other allies.
Those dismissed retreated to the open country below. The Spartans
and the Thebans remained in the past. There were also, it

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was said, some other troops who, not willing to leave
the Spartans alone in this danger, chose to remain with
them and share their fate. The Thebans remained very unwillingly. The
next morning, Xerxes prepared for his final effort. He began
by solemn religious services in the presence of his army

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at an early hour, and then after breakfasting quietly as usual,
and waiting, in fact, until the business part of the
day had arrived, he gave orders to advance. His troops
found Leonidas and his party not at their intrenchments as before,
but far in advance of them. They had come out

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and forward into a more open part of the defile,
as if to court and anticipate their inevitable and dreaded fate.
Here a most terrible combat ensued, one which for a
time seemed to have no other object than mutual destruction,
until at length Leonidas himself fell, and then the contest

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for the possession of his body superseded the unthinking and
desperate struggles of mere hatred and rage. Four times, the body,
having been taken by the Persians, was retaken by the Greeks.
At last, the latter retreated, bearing the dead body with them,
past their entrenchment, until they gained a small eminence in

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the rear of it, at a point where the pass
was whiter. Here the few that were still left gathered together.
The detachment which Effiltus had guided were coming up from below.
The Spartans were faint and exhausted with their desperate efforts,
and were bleeding from the wounds they had received. Their

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swords and spears were broken to pieces. Their leader and
nearly all their company were slain. But the savage and
tiger like ferocity which animated them continued unabated till the
last fought with tooth and nail, when all other weapons
fail them, and bit the dust at last, as they

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fell in convulsive and unyielding despair. The struggle did not
cease till they were all slain, and every limb of
every man ceased to quiver. There were stories in circulation
among mankind after this battle, importing that one or two
of the corps escaped the fate of the rest. There

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were two soldiers, it was said, that had been left
in a town near the pass, as invalids, being afflicted
with a severe inflammation of the eyes. One of them,
when he heard that the Spartans were to be left
in the past, went in of his own accord and
joined them, choosing to share the fate of his comrades.

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It was said that he ordered his servant to conduct
him to the place. The servant did so, and then
fled himself in great terror. The six soldier remained and
fought with the rest. The other of the invalids was saved,
but on his return to Sparta he was considered as
stained with indelible disgrace for what his countrymen regarded a

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base dereliction from duty in not sharing his comrade's fate.
There was also a story of another man who had
been sent away on some mission into Thessaly and who
did not return until all was over, And also of
two others who had been sent to Sparta and were

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returning when they heard of the approaching conflict. One of
them hastened into the pass and was killed with his companions.
The other delayed and was saved. Whether any of these
rumors were true, it is not now certain. There is, however,
no doubt that with at most a few exceptions such

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as these, the whole three hundred were slain. The Thebans
early in the conflict, went over in a body to
the enemy. Serxes came after the battle to view the ground.
It was covered with many thousands of dead bodies, nearly
all of whom, of course, were Persians. The wall of

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the entrenchment was broken down, and the breeches in it
choked up by the bodies. The morasses made by the
water of the springs were trampled into deep mire, and
were full of the mutilated forms of men and of
broken weapons. When Xerxes came at last to the body
of Leonidas and was told that that was the man

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who had been the leader of the band, he gloried
over it in great exultation and triumph. At length he
ordered the body to be decapitated, and the headless trunk
to be nailed to a cross. Serxes then commanded that
a great whole should be dug, and ordered all the
bodies of the Persians that had been killed to be

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buried in it, except only about one thousand, which he
left upon the ground. The object of this was to
conceal the extent of the loss which his army had sustained.
The more perfectly. To accomplish this end, he caused the
Great Grave, when it was filled up, to be strewed

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over with leaves, so as to cover and conceal all
indications of what had been done. This having been carefully affected,
he sent the message to the fleet, which was alluded
to at the close of the last chapter, inviting the
officers to come and view the ground. The operations of

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the fleet described in the last chapter, and those of
the army narrated in this took place. It will be
remembered at the same time and in the same vicinity.
Two For by referring to the map, it will appear
that Thermopylae was upon the coast exactly opposite to the

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channel or arm of the sea lying north of Euboa,
where the naval contests had been waged, so that while
Xerxes had been making his desperate efforts to get through
the pass, his fleet had been engaged in a similar
conflict with the squadrons of the Greeks directly opposite to him,

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twenty or thirty miles in the offing. After the Battle
of Thermopylae was over, Erxes sent for Demrodus and inquired
of him how many more soldiers there were in Greece
as Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans. Demrodus replied that
he could not say how many precisely there were in Greece,

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but that there were eight thousand such in Sparta alone.
Then asked the opinion of Damaradus as to the course
best to be pursued for making the conquest of the country.
This conversation was held in the presence of various nobles
and officers, among whom was the Admiral of the fleet,

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who had come with the various other naval commanders, as
was stated in the last chapter, to view the battlefield.
Demrodus said that he did not think that the king
could easily get possession of the Peloponnesus by marching to
it directly, so formidable would be the opposition that he

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would encounter at the Isthmus. There was, however, he said,
an island called Cythera, opposite to the territories of Sparta,
and not far from the shore of which he thought
that the King could easily get possession, and which once
fully in his power, might be made the base of

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future operations for the reduction of the whole peninsula. As
bodies of troops could be dispatched from it to the
mainland in any numbers and at any time. He recommended, therefore,
that three hundred ships with a proper complement of men,
should be detached from the fleet and sent round at

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once to take possession of that island. To this plan,
the admiral of the fleet was totally opposed. It was
natural that he should be so, since the detaching of
three hundred ships for this enterprise would greatly weaken the
force under his command. It would leave the fleet, he

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told the King, a miserable remnant, not superior to that
of the enemy, for they had already lost four hundred
ships by storms. He thought it infinitely preferable that the
fleet and the army should advance together, the one by
sea and the other on the land, and complete their

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conquests as they went along. He advised the king, too,
to beware of Demrotus's advice. He was a Greek, and
as such his object was the admiral believed to betray
and ruin the expedition. After hearing these conflicting opinions, the
King decided to follow the admiral's advice. I will adopt

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your council said he, but I will not hear anything
said against Demaratus, for I am convinced that he is
a true and faithful friend to me. Saying this, he
dismissed the council. End of Chapter nine.