Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Book III. by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton
page 81 of 156 (51%)
battle-axes, and casques of network; one hundred and fifty vessels
came from Cyprus, and one hundred from Cilicia; those who manned the
first differing in arms from the Greeks only in the adoption of the
tunic, and the Median mitres worn by the chiefs--those who manned the
last, with two spears, and tunics of wool. The Pamphylians, clad as
the Greeks, contributed thirty vessels, and fifty also were manned by
Lycians with mantles of goat-skin and unfeathered arrows of reed. In
thirty vessels came the Dorians of Asia; in seventy the Carians, and
in a hundred, the subjugated Ionians. The Grecian Isles between the
Cyaneae, and the promontories of Triopium and Sunium [57], furnished
seventeen vessels, and the Aeolians sixty. The inhabitants of the
Hellespont (those of Abydos alone excepted, who remained to defend the
bridges) combined with the people of Pontus to supply a hundred more.
In each vessel were detachments of Medes, Persians, and Saci; the best
mariners were the Phoenicians, especially those of Sidon. The
commanders-in-chief of the sea-forces were Ariabignes (son of Darius),
Prexaspes, Megabazus (son of Megabates), and Achaemenes (brother of
Xerxes, and satrap of Egypt).

Of the infantry, the generals were Mardonius, Tritantaechmes, son of
Artabanus, and Smerdones (cousin to Xerxes), Maistes (his brother),
Gergis, and Megabazus, son of that celebrated Zopyrus, through whom
Darius possessed himself of Babylon. [58]

Harmamithres and Tithaeus, who were Medes, commanded the cavalry; a
third leader, Pharnouches, died in consequence of a fall from his
horse. But the name of a heroine, more masculine than her colleagues,
must not be omitted: Artemisia, widow to one of the Carian kings,
furnished five ships (the best in the fleet next to those of Sidon),
which she commanded in person, celebrated alike for a dauntless
DigitalOcean Referral Badge