HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

87

prince, acquired, by conquest and by industry, a naval force, which enabledhim not only to make war on, but to conquer various states, and at last, toturn his army against Greece, as well as against the Athenians themselves.

The latter indeed were the aggressors, prevailed on by the artful insinuationsof Aristagoras, an Ionian, who having been driven from his government by thearmy of the Persians, possessed sufficient address to persuade the people ofAthens, that it was incumbent on them, as the inhabitants of the parent state,to avenge the cause of their much wronged colonists. The resolution for warwas taken in an evil hour. The Persian having collected the whole navalforce of the Phoenicians to his own side, attacked and made himself com-plete master of Samos, Chios, and many other islands in the same quarter..The Ionians, however, fell not tamely beneath his yoke : they equipped theirwhole fleet, which is reported to have consisted of three hundred and threegallies, properly armed for war, resolving at least to contend for their liber-ties, with a firmness and intrepidity which certainly merited a better fate.The force of Cambyses, added to that of the Phoenicians, amounted to morethan six hundred vessels ; and the superiority of numbers, after an obstinatecontest, prevailed. The consequence of the victory was the destruction ofSamos, the massacre of the people of Chios, and the total depopulation of allthe neighbouring islands, whose inhabitants, either by consanguinity or treaty,,were in any degree connected with the principals in the dispute.

In consequence of this dreadful vengeance, the very name of the Persianbecame terrible all over Greece. His preparations hung over the minds ofthe people, notwithstanding their natural spirit and contempt of danger, assomewhat more to be feared than the stroke of death itself. Early in theensuing spring, Mardonius, the Persian generalissimo both by sea and land,having drawn together an immense fleet, principally from those countrieswhich, though stiled the allies of Persia, were in fact mere tributaries andvassals to her, commenced the dreadful scene of warfare—the Cilicians, thepeople of Cyprus, the Phoenicians, and many others, all joined, through com-pulsion, in the enterprize of intended destruction. Providence, however, as itwere in punishment of human arrogance, decreed its failure. A violent stormdestroyed, at one stroke, three hundred vessels, which passed under the deno-mination of triremes, together with all the military engines and implementsstored on board them, as well as the'whole of their crews, amounting; totwenty thousand persons. This information, provided it is correct, affords no

mcou- -