[Teaser] Avenging Leonidas part III

This script is still a work in progress, but here's a little something for you all to read before it's debut (TBA). Enjoy!

Departure of Xerxes

Autumn, 480 BC. After the victory at Salamis, the Greek alliance against the Persians found itself in a strange position. The Persian fleet had been defeated and driven off, but a mighty Persian army was still encamped in Greece. The autonomy of the Greek states hung by a thread, and the war was far from over.

In the days after Salamis, the leaders of the allied fleet were divided over what they should do next. The Athenian Themistokles wanted to sail to the Hellespont and destroy the pontoon bridge. Doing so would sever the only remaining Persian supply line now that their fleet was gone. But the Spartan Eurybiades, supreme commander of the fleet, disagreed. He thought it was better to leave the Persians with a way out of Greece than to trap them there and force them to fight for their survival. This is a common wisdom also found in Sun Tzu: always leave your enemy an escape route, because cornered men fight with the courage of desperation.

So the allied Greeks pursued the Persian ships only as far as the island of Andros before they abandoned the chase. But they did not turn back right away. Eurybiades and Themistokles needed money to pay their crews. Perhaps they also wanted to start punishing the Greeks who had submitted to Persia. They decided to lay siege to Andros, and began extorting money from other islands in the area. When they could not take Andros, they sailed to nearby Karystos and ravaged the land before the arrival of winter forced them to sail home.

Meanwhile, the Persians were taking advantage of the fact that the crossing at the Hellespont was still in their hands (though the pontoon bridge had been destroyed by a storm). Xerxes took the bulk of his imperial army and made his way back to Asia. The Greeks would later describe this as a panic flight: Xerxes was supposedly terrified by the loss of his ships, and ran off with his tail between his legs. In reality, though, even some Greek sources suggest that he was probably satisfied with his achievements and decided it was time to go home. Xerxes had led his army to victory at Thermopylai, conquered Central Greece, and captured Athens. He had avenged the rebellion of the Greeks and the burning of Sardis. In short, the Great King had done his duty. Another commander could now finish the job on his behalf.

The Greeks already knew who that commander would be: Mardonios, the son of Gobryas. When Xerxes was in Thessaly on his way back to the Hellespont, a Spartan envoy caught up with him and demanded an audience. Emboldened by the victory at Salamis, the Spartans told Xerxes that he would pay for the death of Leonidas.

“The Lakedaimonians and the Herakleidai of Sparta demand of you, king of the Medes, that you pay the penalty for the death of their king, whom you killed while he defended Greece.” (Hdt. 8.114.2)

When he heard this, Xerxes laughed and laughed. Then he pointed at the Persian nobleman by his side and said, “Mardonios will give you what you deserve.”

Mardonios was a member of one of the most prominent families in the Persian empire, with deep ties to the Achaemenid ruling house. His father Gobryas had been one of the seven nobles who put Darius on the throne, and the two families repeatedly intermarried. Mardonios was Xerxes’ nephew and also his brother-in-law. Mardonios had always hoped that, if he could complete the conquest of Greece, he would be made its satrap and would rule the region in the name of Persia. He was also an experienced commander, having led a prior campaign into Thrace in 492 BC. Mardonios now took control of the elite core of the army, including the 10,000 Immortals and the royal bodyguard. This would be the force that would break Greek resistance once and for all.

Undermining the Greek Alliance

That winter, there would be no further action. In winter, unpredictable weather kept ships in safe harbours and troops in camp. The Persians seized Olynthos in Northern Greece, but after their failure to take rebellious Potidaia, they retreated to winter quarters in Thessaly.

At the beginning of spring, Mardonios set his plan for the final conquest of Greece in motion. His first move was diplomatic. He understood the importance of the Athenian navy for the allies; Athens provided more than half the triremes. Without Athens, the other allies would not be able to protect their coastlines, even against a weakened Persian fleet. This made Athens the keystone of the alliance. Take it away, and the rest would collapse. And Mardonios had a good bargaining position against the Athenians: the city and its lands were at the mercy of his army. He knew the Athenians were still reeling from last year’s depredations. They would be desperate to avoid living as refugees for another year. This was Mardonios’ chance to separate them from the alliance. He sent a trusted agent to persuade them to change sides: king Alexander I of Macedon, a distant ancestor of Alexander the Great, but more importantly, a guest-friend and benefactor of the Athenians. He was a man both sides would listen to.

Alexander presented Mardonios’ offer to the Athenian Assembly. The Great King would forgive them, restore their lands to them, and even let them have any other land they wanted. He promised to let them live under their own laws instead of abolishing democracy and imposing a tyrant. He even promised to pay to rebuild their temples. All this Xerxes would offer the Athenians; all they had to do was submit. Alexander, in his own voice, urged them to accept the offer.

When the Spartans learned that Alexander was on his way to Athens, they had quickly sent their own envoys to attend the meeting, anxious to find out what the Athenians would do. These envoys now began to freak out. They begged the Athenians not to yield to the Persians, and even offered to feed their entire population for as long as the war would last. Luckily for them, the Athenians needed no persuading. Their reply to Alexander was unequivocal.

“Carry this answer back to Mardonios from the Athenians: that as long as the sun holds the course by which it now goes, we will make no agreement with Xerxes. We will fight him without ceasing, trusting in the aid of the gods and heroes he has disregarded and whose houses and adornments he has put to the torch.” (Hdt. 8.143.2)

As Alexander took off with this message, the Athenians turned to the Spartans. The Athenians would take care of themselves, they said, and did not need Spartan charity. They only needed one thing from the Spartans: “Send your army at once.”

But the Spartans did not send their army. Just like the year before, their strategy was to fortify the Isthmus of Corinth. Their army would not cross this line and leave the Peloponnese. As Mardonios marched south to reassert control and punish the Athenians for their insolent refusal to submit, the Athenians were forced once again to evacuate their territory. From the island of Salamis, they watched as Mardonios’ forces reoccupied their city. The Spartans had failed them once again.

Mardonios saw the opportunity to drive the wedge deeper. He sent another envoy to the Athenians on Salamis to make the same offer as before. When this envoy made his speech to the council, a councilor named Lykidas suggested that the envoy should be allowed to address the Assembly, and the Athenian people should be allowed to vote on the offer. In an unprecedented outburst of rage, the other council members surrounded Lykidas and stoned him to death on the spot. When word got out about what Lykidas had proposed, the women of Athens took to the councilor's house and murdered his wife and kids.

We could say this savage act showed the resolve of the Athenians: they refused even to hear of submission to Persia, and treated the mere suggestion as treason. But it could also show how nervous they were about their situation. The cracks were beginning to show. The people were suffering; the odds were stacked against them, and their vaunted allies refused to help. The councilors seem to have thought the only way to keep dissent from boiling over was to stamp out any sign of it with extreme prejudice.