Artemisium; for of them, too, one might have many things to say--of the
assaults which they endured by sea and land, and how they repelled them. I
will mention only that act of theirs which appears to me to be the noblest,
and which followed that of Marathon and came nearest to it; for the men of
Marathon only showed the Hellenes that it was possible to ward off the
barbarians by land, the many by the few; but there was no proof that they
could be defeated by ships, and at sea the Persians retained the reputation
of being invincible in numbers and wealth and skill and strength. This is
the glory of the men who fought at sea, that they dispelled the second
terror which had hitherto possessed the Hellenes, and so made the fear of
numbers, whether of ships or men, to cease among them. And so the soldiers
of Marathon and the sailors of Salamis became the schoolmasters of Hellas;
the one teaching and habituating the Hellenes not to fear the barbarians at
sea, and the others not to fear them by land. Third in order, for the
number and valour of the combatants, and third in the salvation of Hellas,
I place the battle of Plataea. And now the Lacedaemonians as well as the
Athenians took part in the struggle; they were all united in this greatest
and most terrible conflict of all; wherefore their virtues will be
celebrated in times to come, as they are now celebrated by us. But at a
later period many Hellenic tribes were still on the side of the barbarians,
and there was a report that the great king was going to make a new attempt
upon the Hellenes, and therefore justice requires that we should also make
mention of those who crowned the previous work of our salvation, and drove
and purged away all barbarians from the sea. These were the men who fought
by sea at the river Eurymedon, and who went on the expedition to Cyprus,
and who sailed to Egypt and divers other places; and they should be
gratefully remembered by us, because they compelled the king in fear for
himself to look to his own safety instead of plotting the destruction of
Hellas.