"When the deluge of the Persian arms rolled back to its Eastern
bed, and the world was once more comparatively at rest, the
continent of Greece rose visibly and majestically above the rest
of the civilized earth. Afar in the Latian plains the infant
state of Rome was silently and obscurely struggling into strength
against the neighboring and petty states in which the old Etrurian
civilization was rapidly passing into decay. The genius of Gaul
and Germany, yet unredeemed from barbarism, lay scarce known,
save where colonized by Greeks, in the gloom of its woods and
wastes.

"The ambition of Persia, still the great monarchy of the world,
was permanently checked and crippled; the strength of generations
had been wasted, and the immense extent of the empire only served
yet more to sustain the general peace, from the exhaustion of
its forces. The defeat of Xerxes paralyzed the East. Thus Greece
was left secure, and at liberty to enjoy the tranquillity it had
acquired, and to direct to the arts of peace the novel and amazing
energies which had been prompted by the dangers and exalted by
the victories of war."

On the very day of the battle of Plataea the remains of the Persian
fleet which had escaped at Salamis, and which had been drawn
up on shore at Myc'a-le, on the coast of Ionia, were burned by
the Grecians; and Tigra'nes, the Persian commander of the land
forces, and forty thousand of his men, were slain. This was the
first signal blow struck by the Greek at the power of Persia on
the continent. "Lingering at Sardis," says BULWER, "Xerxes beheld
the scanty and exhausted remnants of his mighty force, the fugitives