High o'er our heads, an omen good, we saw the owlet wheel,
And the Persian trousers in their backs felt the good Attic
steel.
Still as they fled we followed close, a swarm of vengeful foes,
And stung them where we chanced to light, on cheek, and lip,
and nose.
So to this day, barbarians say, when whispered far or near,
More than all else the ATTIC WASP is still a name of fear.
--Trans. by W. LUCAS COLLINS.




CHAPTER X.

THE RISE AND GROWTH OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE.

I. THE DISGRACE AND DEATH OF THEMISTOCLES.

Six years after the battle of Plataea the career of Xerxes was
terminated by assassination, and his son, Artaxerxes Longim'anus,
succeeded to the throne. In the mean time Athens had been rebuilt
and fortified by Themistocles, and the Piraeus (the port of Athens)
enclosed within a wall as large in extent as that of Athens, but
of greater height and thickness. But Themistocles, by his selfish
and arbitrary use of power, provoked the enmity of a large body
of his countrymen; and although he was acquitted of the charge
of treasonable inclinations toward Persia, popular feeling soon
after became so strong against him that he was condemned to exile
by the same process of ostracism that he had directed against