Page:History of Greece Vol V.djvu/347

GRECIAN CONFEDERACY UNDER ATHENS. 323 new nautical tactics, acquired by twenty years' practice of the Athenians since the Persian war, — over the old Hellenic ships and seamen, as shown in those states where, at the time of the battle of Marathon, the maritime strength of Greece had resided, — was demonstrated by a victory most complete and decisive. The Peloponuesian and Dorian seamen had as yet had no expe- rience of the improved seacraft of Athens, and when we find how much they were disconcerted with it, even twenty-eight years afterwards, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, we shall not wonder at its destructive effect upon them in this early battle. The maritime power of ^gina was irrecoverably ruined : the Athenians captured seventy ships of war, landed a large force upon the island, and commenced the siege of the city by land as well as by sea.i If the Lacedaemonians had not been occupied at home by the blockade of Ithome, they Avould have been probably induced to invade Attica as a diversion to the -3i^ginetans ; especially as the Persian Megabazus came to Sparta at this time on the part of Artaxerxes to prevail upon them to do so, in order that the Athenians might be constrained to retire from Egypt: this Per- sian brought with him a large sum of money, but was neverthe- less obliged to return without effecting his mission.^ The Co- rinthians and Epidaurians, however, while they carried to ^gina a reinforcement of three hundred hoplites, did their best to aid her farther by an attack upon Megara; which place, it was supposed, the Athenians could not possibly relieve without with- drawing their forces from -^gina, inasmuch as so many of their men were at the same time serving in Egypt. But the Athenians showed themselves equal to all these three exigencies at one and the same time, — to the great disappointment of their enemies. Myronides marched from Athens to Megara at the head of the citizens in the two extremes of military age, old and young ; these being the only troops at home. He fought the Corinthians near the town, gaining a slight, but debatable advantage, which he commemorated by a trophy, as soon as the Corinthians had returned home. But the latter when they arrived at home, were ' Thucyd. i, 105; Lysias, Orat. Fuiicbr. c. 10. Diodor. xi. 78 •Thucyd. i, 109.