the frontier of Attica, although the Peloponnesian states had
promised to send an army into Boeotia; and he saw that there was
nothing to prevent the Persians from marching on Athens. He
therefore advised the Athenians to abandon the city to the mercy
of the Persians, and commit their safety and their hopes of victory
to the navy. The advice was adopted, though not without a hard
struggle; and those of the inhabitants who were able to bear arms
retired to the Island of Salamis, while the old and infirm, the
women and children, found shelter in a city of Argolis.


THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS.

Xerxes pursued his march through Greece unopposed except by
Thespiae and Plataea, which towns he reduced, and spread desolation
over Attica until he arrived at the foot of the Cecropian hill,
which he found guarded by a handful of desperate citizens who
refused to surrender. But the brave defenders were soon put to
the sword, and Athens was plundered and then burned to the ground.
About this time the Persian fleet arrived in the Bay of Phale'rum,
and Xerxes immediately dispatched it to block up that of the
Greeks in the narrow strait of Salamis. Eurybiades, the Spartan,
who still commanded the Grecian fleet, was urged by Themistocles,
and also by Aristides, who had been recalled from exile, to hazard
an engagement at once in the narrow strait, where the superior
numbers of the Persians would be of little avail. The Peloponnesian
commanders, however, wished to move the fleet to the Isthmus of
Corinth, where it would have the aid of the land forces. At last
the counsel of Themistocles prevailed, and the Greeks made the
attack. The engagement was a courageous and persistent one on