The Historians' History of the World 03 [Greece to the Peloponnesian War]

Still, we are left in almost entire ignorance of the proceedings of Athens, as conducting the newly established confederate force: for it is certain that the first ten years of the Athenian hegemony must have been years of most active warfare against the Persians. One positive testimony to this effect has been accidentally preserved to us by Herodotus, who mentions, that “before the invasion of Xerxes, there were Persian commanders and garrisons everywhere in Thrace and the Hellespont, all of whom were conquered by the Greeks after that invasion, with the single exception of Mascames, governor of Doriscus, who could never be taken, though many different Grecian attempts were made upon the fortress. Of those who were captured by the Greeks, not one made any defence sufficient to attract the admiration of Xerxes, except Boges, governor of Eion.” Boges, after bravely defending himself, and refusing offers of capitulation, found his provisions exhausted, and further resistance impracticable. He then kindled a vast funeral pile, slew his wives, children, concubines, and family, and cast them into it, threw his precious effects over the wall into the Strymon, and lastly, precipitated himself into the flames. His brave despair was the theme of warm encomium among the Persians, and his relatives in Persia were liberally rewarded by Xerxes. This capture of Eion, effected by Cimon, has been mentioned, as already stated, by Thucydides; but Herodotus here gives us to understand that it was only one of a string of enterprises, all unnoticed by Thucydides, against the Persians. Nay, it would seem from his language, that Mascames maintained himself in Doriscus during the whole reign of Xerxes, and perhaps longer, repelling successive Grecian assaults.

The valuable indication here cited from Herodotus would be of itself a sufficient proof that the first years of the Athenian hegemony were full of busy and successful hostility against the Persians. And in truth this is what we should expect: the battles of Salamis, Platæa, and Mycale, drove the Persians out of Greece, and overpowered their main armaments, but did not remove them at once from all the various posts which they occupied throughout the Ægean and Thrace. Without doubt, the Athenians had to clear the coasts and the islands of a great number of different Persian detachments: an operation never short nor easy, with the then imperfect means of siege, as we may see by the cases of Sestus and Eion; nor, indeed, always practicable, as the case of Doriscus teaches us. The fear of these Persians, yet remaining in the neighbourhood, and even the chance of a renewed Persian invading armament, formed one pressing motive for Grecian cities to join the new confederacy: while the expulsion of the enemy added to it those places which he had occupied. It was by these years of active operations at sea against the common enemy, that the Athenians first established that constant, systematic, and laborious training, among their own ships’ crews, which transmitted itself with continual improvements down to the Peloponnesian War: it was by these, combined with the present fear, that they were enabled to organise the largest and most efficient confederacy ever known among Greeks, to bring together deliberative deputies, to plant their own ascendency as enforcers of the collective resolutions, and to raise a prodigious tax from universal contribution. Lastly, it was by these same operations, prosecuted so successfully as to remove present alarm, that they at length fatigued the more lukewarm and passive members of the confederacy, and created in them a wish either to commute personal service for pecuniary contribution, or to escape from the obligation of service in any way. The Athenian nautical training would never have been acquired, the confederacy would never have become a working reality, the fatigue and discontents among its members would never have arisen, unless there had been a real fear of the Persians, and a pressing necessity for vigorous and organised operations against them, during the ten years between 477 and 466 B.C.