Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE TO VOL. V
- Contents
- PART II CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE
- CHAPTER XXXVIII From the Battle of Marathon to the March of Xerxes against Greece
- CHAPTER XXXIX Proceedings in Greece from the Battle of Marathon to the time of the Battle of Thermopylæ
- CHAPTER XL Battles of Thermopylæ and Artemisium
- CHAPTER XLI Battle of Salamis.–Retreat of Xerxes
- CHAPTER XLII Battles of Platæ and Mykalê.–Final Repulse of the Persians
- CHAPTER XLIII Events in Sicily down to the expulsion of the Gelonian Dynasty and the establishment of Popular Governments throughout the Island
- CHAPTER XLIV From the Battles of Platæa and Mykalê down to the deaths of Themistoklês and Aristeidês
- CHAPTER XLV Proceedings of the Confederacy under Athens as head.-First formation and rapid expansion of the Athenian Empire
- CHAPTER XLVI Constitutional and Judicial Changes at Athens under Periklês
- Plate section
CHAPTER XLIV - From the Battles of Platæa and Mykalê down to the deaths of Themistoklês and Aristeidês
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2010
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE TO VOL. V
- Contents
- PART II CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE
- CHAPTER XXXVIII From the Battle of Marathon to the March of Xerxes against Greece
- CHAPTER XXXIX Proceedings in Greece from the Battle of Marathon to the time of the Battle of Thermopylæ
- CHAPTER XL Battles of Thermopylæ and Artemisium
- CHAPTER XLI Battle of Salamis.–Retreat of Xerxes
- CHAPTER XLII Battles of Platæ and Mykalê.–Final Repulse of the Persians
- CHAPTER XLIII Events in Sicily down to the expulsion of the Gelonian Dynasty and the establishment of Popular Governments throughout the Island
- CHAPTER XLIV From the Battles of Platæa and Mykalê down to the deaths of Themistoklês and Aristeidês
- CHAPTER XLV Proceedings of the Confederacy under Athens as head.-First formation and rapid expansion of the Athenian Empire
- CHAPTER XLVI Constitutional and Judicial Changes at Athens under Periklês
- Plate section
Summary
After having in the last chapter followed the repulse of the Carthaginians by the Sicilian Greeks, we now return to the central Greeks and the Persians a case in which the triumph was yet more interesting to the cause of human improvement generally. The disproportion between the immense host assembled by Xerxes, and the little which he accomplished, naturally provokes both a contempt for Persian force and an admiration for the comparative handful of men by whom they were so ignominiously beaten. Both these sentiments are just, but both are often exaggerated beyond the point which attentive contemplation of the facts rewill justify. The Persian mode of making war (which we may liken to that of the modern Turks, now that the period of their energetic fanaticism has passed away) was in a high degree disorderly and inefficient : the men indeed, individually taken, especially the native Persians, were not deficient in the qualities of soldiers, but their arms and their organisation were wretched and their leaders yet worse. On t he other hand, the Greeks, equal, if not superior, in individual bravery, were incomparably superior in soldier-like order as well as in arms : but here too the leadership was defective, and the disunion a constant source of peril.
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- A History of Greece , pp. 321 - 389Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010