Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 3.djvu/54

30 STATESMEN AND SAGES ceived and partly carried into effect the plans by which he intended to raise the power of Athens. His first object was to increase the navy of Athens ; and this he" did ostensibly to enable Athens to contend with ^Egina, but his real intention was to put his country in a position to meet the danger of a second Persian in- vasion, with which Greece was threatened. The manner in which he raised the naval power was this. Hitherto the people of Athens had been accustomed to divide among themselves the yearly revenues of the silver-mines of Laurion. In the year of his archonship these revenues were unusally large, and he persuaded his countrymen to forego their personal advantage, and to apply these revenues to the enlargement of their fleet. His advice .was followed, and the fleet was raised to the number of two hundred sail. It was probably at the same time that he induced the Athenians to pass a decree that for the purpose of keeping up their navy, twenty new ships should be built every year. Athens soon after made peace with /Egina, as Xerxes was at Sardis making preparations for invad- ing Greece with all the forces he could muster. At the same time Themistocles was actively engaged in allaying the disputes and hostile feelings which existed among the several states of Greece. He acted, however, with great severity toward those who espoused the cause of the Persians, and a Greek interpreter, who accompanied the envoys of Xerxes that came to Athens to demand earth and water as a- sign of submission, was put to death for having made use of the Greek tongue in the service of the common enemy. After affairs among the Greeks were tolerably settled, a detachment of the allied troops of the Greeks was sent out to take possession of Tempe, under the command of Themistocles, of Athens, and Euaenetus, of Sparta ; but on finding that there they would be overwhelmed by the host of the barbarians, they returned to the Corinthian isthmus. When Xerxes arrived in Pieria, the Greek fleet took its post near Artemisium on the north coast of Euboea, under the command of the Spartan admiral Eurybiades, under whom Themistocles condescended to serve in order not to cause new dissensions among the Greeks, although Athens alone furnished one hundred and twenty-seven ships, and sup- plied the Chalcidians with twenty others ; while the Spartan contingent was in- comparably smaller. When the Persian fleet, notwithstanding the severe losses which it had sustained by a storm, determined to sail round the eastern and southern coasts of Euboea, and then up the Euripus, in order to cut off the Greek fleet at Artemisium, the Greeks were so surprised and alarmed that Themistocles had great difficulty in inducing them to remain and maintain their station. The Euboeans, who perceived the advantages of the plan of Themis- tocles, rewarded him with the sum of fifty talents, part of which he gave to the Spartan Eurybiades and the Corinthian Adimantus to induce them to remain at Artemisium. In the battle which then took place, the Greeks gained consider- able advantage, though the victory was not decisive. A storm and a second engagement near Artemisium, severely injured the fleet of the Persians, but the Greeks also sustained great losses, as half of their ships were partly destroyed and partly rendered unfit for further service. When at the same time they