Also the troops soon realized that there were other passes from Macedonia into Thessaly that the Persians were more likely to use than Tempe. The last thing they were willing to risk was to have their position turned and to find the enemy in their rear. So they withdrew south to the Isthmus of Corinth and all the northern Greeks and the Boeotians immediately submitted to Xerxes, still some hundreds of miles away.
—
The sacred snake was missing. It inhabited an enclosure at the temple of Athena on the Acropolis. Every day it was given a share of the first fruits of sacrifices to the goddess, usually a honey-cake. Then the priests noticed that the food was being left untouched. They looked around, but could not find the snake anywhere. Was this a bleak portent for the city? Was the goddess abandoning Athens in the face of the Persian invasion?
More likely it was a trick of Themistocles. One would not be surprised to learn that the snake was locked up in a box in his house. He was certain of his war strategy; his problem was to persuade the demos he was right. He believed that the war could only be won at sea and there was a good chance that Xerxes could not be stopped from invading Attica. The departure of the snake was a forewarning that the Athenian population would have to be evacuated for the duration of hostilities, most probably to the island of Salamis and the small state of Troezen across the Saronic Bay from Attica. This was a traumatic prospect that his fellow-citizens found hard to accept.
Themistocles was perfectly willing to manipulate the supernatural to back his rational arguments. So when the delegates to the oracle at Delphi returned home with their mysterious advice, he tried to turn the Pythia’s hexameters to his advantage. It was obvious, he told the ecclesia, probably in the summer of 481, that the wooden walls did not refer, as some thought, to the fence on the edges of the Acropolis. It was a metaphor for the fleet. In the sea lay safety.
And as for the sinister allusion that Salamis would destroy many mothers’ sons, Themistocles disagreed with the idea that the god was predicting a Greek defeat in the island’s waters. If that had been the meaning of the oracle, the verse would have read “O cruel Salamis…” or something of the kind. The phrase “divine Salamis” clearly pointed to a Greek victory and heavy Persian casualties.
The assembly preferred Themistocles’ analysis to that of the oracular experts. At last, he had won the day, for if he was right about the oracle he was also right about his policy of victory at sea and civilian evacuation.
Although there is no evidence, the suspicious mind may detect his secret hand at Delphi. The oracle was on good terms with the Persians. In an edict Darius had written: “The god [Apollo] had spoken complete truth to the Persians.” Themistocles will surely have taken steps to present the Greek point of view, arguing that Greek prospects were greatly improved following the formation of the anti-Persian alliance. Palms may well have been greased to override Apollo’s first disastrous response to Athenian inquiry.
The debate that took place in Athens in 480 was one of the most important in the history of the democracy. Herodotus summarized what the citizens agreed by a substantial majority.
After their deliberations about the oracle, they decided to confront the barbarian’s invasion of Hellas with all their people and their ships in obedience to the god, together with those of the Hellenes who were willing to join them.
“Obedience to the god” was formal wording for fighting at sea and abandoning their beloved city. Detailed arrangements were agreed, and publicized; old men and movable property were to be sent to Salamis and women and children to Troezen. Adult citizens and resident foreigners (metics) were to join their ships, “starting tomorrow.” It must have been at this agonizing juncture that the temple serpent slithered its way down from the Acropolis (or was smuggled out in a box). A dramatic intervention, whether divine or human, had a good chance of stiffening the common will.
A general evacuation probably began in June with Athenian warships acting as ferries. It was a complicated and lengthy operation. The well-to-do who could afford the disruption must have gone first. Farmers will have waited until the harvest was in before leaving. Former Archons on the Areopagus council raised a subscription for those who ran out of money.
Dogs howled at being left behind. Xanthippus, back from exile, sailed off in his trireme and his hound plunged into the water, swam alongside the boat, and staggered out of the waves at Salamis, only to collapse and die.
Political opponents rallied to the common cause. Cimon, the handsome young son of Miltiades with a head of thick and curly hair, and a group of his noble friends who were all riders in the cavalry staged a demonstration to assert the loyalty of the aristocracy and its backing for Themistocles. They dedicated their bridles at the temple of Athena on the Acropolis and then walked down to the coast—to symbolize the fact that “what the city now needed was not brave horsemen but men to fight at sea.”
While most of the population readied itself for departure, a few obstinate old men, who thought they knew more about oracles than Themistocles, joined the officials on the Acropolis and barricaded themselves in.
There was another group whom Themistocles had to win over to his point of view—his allies in the Peloponnese. Many of them believed that it would be best to fortify the Isthmus of Corinth and defend the peninsula. This would mean leaving mainland Greece, including Attica, to its fate. Themistocles made it clear that this was completely unacceptable. The Athenian fleet of two hundred triremes would leave the alliance and probably sail to Sicily where the city would be refounded. This was a serious threat, for the rump of the Greek fleet would be no match for the Persians, who had unchallengeable mastery of the seas.
It was eventually agreed that a stand would be made at the pass at Thermopylae and the waters around Artemisium, exactly what the Athenians wanted. Time was running out and a small army, under the command of the Spartan king Leonidas, marched off north at once. It was now August 480 and the Carneia festival was on again, and this year the Olympic Games, in theory a time of truce. But on this occasion at least some troops were allowed to leave Sparta. Meanwhile the Greek fleet of about 270 frontline warships also set sail (a reserve was left behind to guard Attica, Aegina, and Salamis).
—
The Great King was pleased with himself. With impressive planning and logistical support, a huge army and fleet had been assembled. He did not believe they would face much resistance. Traveling with him was Demaratus, the Spartan king who had been unjustly deposed through the machinations of his fellow-monarch, the late Cleomenes. In 491 he had escaped to Persia where Xerxes’ father, Darius, had given him a warm welcome. For the Persian court Demaratus was a mine of information on all things Hellenic.
“So tell me,” Xerxes asked him, “will the Hellenes stand their ground and use force to resist me?”
“Majesty, shall I tell you the truth or what will please you?”
“Tell me the truth.”
“While I commend all Greeks, what I will say now applies only to the Spartans. There is no way they will accept your stated intention of enslaving all Hellas. Even if the other city-states come to see things your way, the Spartans will certainly oppose you in battle. Even if they can field only one thousand hoplites they will fight you.”
“Demaratus, how can you say such a thing? One thousand men fight my army!”
The Spartan replied that his fellow-countrymen were governed by law, by the rules of their community, and that prohibited them from fleeing in battle. He concluded:
“I am quite willing to shut up, but you did ask me to speak my mind.”
Xerxes made a joke of the conversation and sent Demaratus away gently. But, he told himself, the man was talking rubbish.