them. These disasters to the enemy greatly encouraged the Greeks,
who believed that they came directly from the gods; and they made it
possible for them to fight the naval battle of Salamis, and to win it.
So great was the alarm of Xerxes, who thought that the victors would
sail to the Hellespont, and destroy the bridge he had thrown over that
strait, that he ordered his still powerful fleet to hasten to its
protection. He himself fled by land, but on his arrival at the
Hellespont he found that the bridge had been destroyed by a storm; and
he must have been impressed as deeply as Napoleon was in this century,
that the elements had leagued themselves with his mortal enemies. After
his flight, and the withdrawal of his fleet from the war, the Persians
had not a chance left, and the defeat of his lieutenant Mardonius, at
Plataea, was of the nature of a foregone conclusion.

It is not possible to exaggerate the importance of the assistance which
the Greeks received from the storms mentioned, and it is not strange
that they were lavish in their thanks and offerings to Poseidon the
Saviour, or that they continued piously to express their gratitude
in later days. Mankind at large have reason to be thankful for the
occurrence of those storms; for if they had not happened, Greece must
have been conquered, and all that she has been to the world would have
been that world's loss. It was not until after the overthrow of the
Persians that Athens became the home of science, literature, art, and
commerce; and if Athens had been removed from Greece, there would have
been little of Hellenic genius left for the delight of future days. Not
only was most of that which is known as Greek literature the production
of the years that followed the failure of Xerxes, but the success of the
Greeks was the means of preserving all of their earlier literature. The
Persians were not barbarians, and, had they achieved their purpose, they
might have promoted civilisation in Europe; but that civilization would