The Battle of Mycale - 479 B.C.
The Greeks when they understood that the barbarians had fled to the
mainland, were sorely vexed at their escape; nor could they determine
at first what they should do, whether they should return home, or proceed
to the Hellespont. In the end, however, they resolved to do neither,
but to make sail for the continent. So they made themselves ready for
a sea fight by the preparations of boarding bridges, and what else was
necessary; with which they sailed to Mycale. 
Now
when they came to the place where the camp was, they found no one venture
out to meet them, but observed the ships all dragged ashore within the
barrier, and a strong land force drawn up in battle array upon the beach,
a fortress newly built behind the enemy forces. Leotychides
thereforesailed along the shore in his ships, keeping as close hauled
to the land as possible, and by the voice of a herald thus addressed
the Ionians in a manner that they should remember that the Greeks were
there to free them from the Persians and to not offer any resistance
to the Greek force.
In this Leotychides had
the very same design which Themistocles
entertained at Artmisium. Either the barbarians
would not know what he had said, and the Ionians would be persuaded
to revolt from them; or if his words were reported to the former, they
would mistrust their Greek soldiers.
After Leotychides had
made this address, the Greeks brought their ships to the land, and having
disembarked, arrayed themselves for the battle. When the Persians saw
them marshalling their array, and bethought themselves of the advice
which had been offered to the Ionians, their first act was to disarm
the Samians, whom they suspected of complicity with the enemy. First
it had happened lately that a number of the Athenians who lingered in
Attica, having been made prisoners by the troops of Xerxes, were brought
to Asia on board the barbarian fleet; and these men had been ransomed,
one and all, by the Samians, who sent them back to Athens, well furnished
with provisions for the way. On this account, as much as on any other,
the Samians were suspected, as men who had paid the ransom for five
hundred of the king's enemies. After disarming them, the Persians next
dispatched the Milesians to guard the paths which lead up into the heights
of Mycale, because (the said) the Milesians were well acquainted with
that region: their true object, however, was to remove them to a distance
from the camp. In this way the Persians sought to secure themselves
against such of the Ionians as they thought likely, if occasion offered,
to make rebellion. They then joined shield to shield, and so made themselves
abreastwork against the enemy.
The
Greeks now, having finished their preparations, began to move towards
the barbarians; when lo! as they advanced, a rumor flew through the
host from one end to the other - that the Greeks had fought and conquered
the army of Mardonius in
Boeotia. At the same time a herald's wand [1] was observed
lying upon the beach. Whatever fear
the Greeks had vanished, and they charged more vigorously and at a quicker
pace. So the Greeks and the barbarians rushed with like eagerness to
the fray; for the Hellespont and the island formed the prize of which
they were about to fight.
As the Persians had drawn up their defense along the shoreline, the
Greek advancement had the Athenians (led by Xanthippus)
marching on the beach and the Lacedaemonians taking the higher ground
along the mountain side. So as the Lacedaemonians where hindered by
the rough terrain, the Athenians on the other wing had already closed
with the enemy. So long as the the wicker bucklers of the Persians continued
standing, they made a stout defense, and had not even the worst of the
battle; but when the Athenians, and the allies with them, wishing to
make the victory their own, and not share it with the Lacedaemonians,
cheered each other on with shouts, and attacked them with the utmost
fierceness, then at last the face of things become changed.
For,
busting through the line of shields, and rushing forwards in a body,
the Greeks fell upon the Persians; who, through they bore the charge
and for a long time maintained their ground, yet at length took refuge
in their entrenchment. Here the Athenians themselves, together with
those who followed them in the line of battle, the Corinthians, the
Sicyonians, and the Troezenians, pressed so closely on the steps of
their flying foes, that they entered along with them in to the fortress.
When the fortress was taken, the barbarians no longer offered resistance,
but fled hastily away, all save only the Persians. They still continued
to fight in knots of a few men against the Greeks, who kept pouring
into the entrenchment. It was at this time that two of the Persian commanders
of the fleet fled, while the two Persian commanders of the land force
died fighting.
The
Persians still however continued to hold out, when the Lacedaemonians,
and their part of the army, reached the camp, and joined in the remainder
of the battle. The number of Greeks who fell in the struggle was not
small; the Sicyonians especially lost many including their general.
The part of the Persian army that came from Samos, although disarmed,
still remained in the camp, seeing from the very beginning of the fight
that the victory was doubtful, did all that lay in their power to render
help to the Greeks and the other Ionians likewise, beholding their example,
revolted and attacked the Persians.
As for the Milesians, who had been ordered, for the better security
of the Persians, to guard the mountain-paths, that, in case any accident
befell them such as had now happened, they might not lack guides to
conduct them into the high tracts of Mycale, and who had also been removed
to hinder them from making an outbreak in the Persian camp; they, instead
of obeying their orders, broke them in every respect. For they guided
the flying Persians by wrong roads, which brought them into the presence
of the enemy; and at last they set upon them with their own hands, and
showed themselves the hottest of their adversaries. Ionia, therefore,
on this day revolted a second time from the Persians.
The
Greeks who then slaughtered the greater portion of the barbarians, either
in the battle or in the rout, set first to their ships and burnt them,
together with the bulwark which had been raised for their defense, first
however removed therefrom all the booty, and carrying it down to the
beach. Besides other plunder, they found many caskets of money. When
they had burnt the rampart and the vessels, the Greeks sailed away to
Samos, and there took counsel together concerning the Ionians, whom
they thought to removing out of Asia. The Spartans proposed to evacuate
the cities of the Ionian Greeks and bring the population to the Greek
mainland, as they did not consider it worth their trouble to defend
the Ionians everytime they were attacked. The Athenians, however, objected
to losing their colonies, and accepted the Ionian Greeks into the Delian
League against Persia. [2]
Only a scanty remnant of the barbarians that escaped ever made it back
to their capital of Sardis.
The
Greek fleet now boarded their boats and made way to the Hellespont,
to make sure that the bridge was destroyed once and for all.
References:
'Histories' by Herodotus published
by Wordsworth 1996 (Book 9, 96 to 107)
