Xerxes, twice defeated on land, prepared a naval battle. But Themistocles, the leader of the Athenians, having learned that the Ionians — for whose sake, in giving them help in the earlier war, Athens had turned the onslaught of the Persians upon itself — were bringing a fleet fitted out to the aid of Xerxes, resolved to tempt them over to his side and to draw them away from the enemy.
1 Xerxes bis uictus in terra nauale proelium parat. sed Themistocles dux Atheniensium cum intellexisset Ionas - quibus dum auxilium superiore bello praebet, in se Persarum impetum uerterat - in auxilium Xerxis instructam classem deducere, sollicitare eos parti suae hostique subtrahere statuit.
And since the opportunity of speaking with them was denied him, he ordered signs to be set up and fixed to the rocks in the places where the Ionians seemed likely to put in with their ships. In these he rebuked them with fitting reproach, as men who had once been allies and sharers in danger but were now unjustly idle, urged them with solemn exhortation to return to the rights of their ancient treaties, and above all advised them, once battle was joined, to back water as though giving way and to take themselves out of the war.
2 et quia conloquendi facultas negabatur, locis quibus Iones accessuri nauibus uidebantur proponi symbolos saxisque adfigi iubet, socios quondam et participes periculorum, nunc autem iniuste desides apta increpatione corripiens atque ad antiquorum iura foederum religiosa adhortatione persuadens praecipueque admonens, uti commisso proelio cedentium uice inhibeant remos seseque bello auferant.
The king, then, keeping part of the ships with him, remained on the shore as a spectator of the battle. Artemisia, on the other hand, queen of Halicarnassus, who had come to the aid of Xerxes, plunged into the fight most fiercely among the foremost leaders, so that, by a reversal of roles, womanly caution was to be seen in the man and manly daring in the woman.1
3 igitur rex, partem nauium sibi detinens, spectator pugnae in litore manet. contra autem Artemidora, regina Halycarnasi, quae in auxilium Xerxi uenerat, inter primos duces acerrime bello inmiscetur, ita ut uersa uice in uiro feminea cautela, in femina uirilis audacia spectaretur.
1Artemisia, queen of Halicarnassus (Herodotus 8.87–88); Orosius calls her Artemidora.
When the battle hung in the balance, the Ionians, in accordance with the instructions of Themistocles, began little by little to withdraw from the struggle; and their defection persuaded the Persians, who were already looking about for flight, to flee openly.
4 cum autem anceps pugna esset, Iones iuxta praeceptum Themistoclis paulatim se certamini subtrahere coeperunt: quorum defectio Persas iam fugam circumspicientes aperte fugere persuasit.
In this panic many ships were sunk and captured; yet more, fearing the savagery of the king as much as the ferocity of the enemy, slipped away to their homes.
5 in qua trepidatione multae naues mersae captaeque sunt, plures tamen saeuitiam regis uelut immanitatem hostis timentes domos dilabuntur.
Mardonius approached the king, anxious amid so many evils, urging that the king ought to return to his kingdom before adverse rumour should stir up revolution at home;
6 anxium tot malis regem Mardonius adgreditur suadens, regem in regnum redire oportere prius quam aduersa fama nouas res domi moliretur;
while he himself, if the remaining forces were handed over to him, would both exact vengeance from the enemy and ward off disgrace at home, or, if the adversities of war persisted, would indeed give way to the enemy, yet without dishonour to the king.
7 se autem, si residuae sibi copiae traderentur, et ultionem ab hoste exacturum et ignominiam domesticam propulsaturum, aut, si aduersa belli perseuerassent, cessurum se quidem hosti, sed tamen sine regis infamia.
The plan was approved and the army handed over to Mardonius. The king set out with a few men for Abydos, where he had joined his bridge as though conqueror of the sea. But finding the bridge broken up by the winter storms, he crossed in alarm in a fisherman’s skiff.
8 probato consilio exercitus Mardonio traditur. rex Abydum, ubi pontem ueluti uictor maris conseruerat, cum paucis proficiscitur. sed cum pontem hibernis tempestatibus dissolutum offendisset, piscatoria scapha trepidus transiit.
Here truly was something for the human race to behold and lament, measuring the changes of fortune by this contrast above all: that he should be content to hide in a tiny boat, under whom the very sea had before lain hidden and had borne the yoke of its captivity when the bridge was joined;
9 erat sane quod spectare humanum genus et dolere debuerit mutationes rerum hac vel maxime uarietate permetiens: exiguo contentum latere nauigio, sub quo ipsum pelagus ante latuisset et iugum captiuitatis suae iuncto ponte portasset;
that he should need the meanest service of a single slave, he to whose power — while mountains were cut through, valleys filled up and rivers drained dry — nature itself had given way.
10 uilissimo unius seruuli egere ministerio, cuius potentiae, dum montes exciduntur, ualles replentur, amnes exhauriuntur, ipsa etiam rerum natura cessisset.
The land forces, too, which had been entrusted to the generals, wasted away so badly through toil, hunger and fear, and, as disease grew more savage, so great a plague and so great a foulness of the dying arose, that the roads were filled with corpses, and even dread birds of prey and shameless beasts, enticed by the lure of food, followed the dying army.
11 pedestres quoque copiae, quae ducibus commissae fuerant, labore fame ac metu ita distabuerunt et crudescente morbo tanta pestis tantaque foeditas morientium exorta est, ut uiae cadaueribus replerentur, dirae etiam alites atque improbae bestiae escarum inlecebris sollicitatae moribundum sequerentur exercitum.