condemned to death, but Xerxes ordered that they
should be shown his total army and fleet, and then sent home to report
what they had seen. He hoped thus to double the terror of the Grecian
states.

At home two things were done. Athens and Sparta called a congress of all
the states of Greece on the Isthmus of Corinth, and urged them to lay
aside all petty feuds and combine for defence against the common foe. It
was the greatest and most successful congress that Greece had ever yet
held. All wars came to an end. That between Athens and AEgina ceased,
and the fleet which Athens had built was laid aside for a greater need.
The other thing was that step always taken in Greece in times of peril,
to send to the temple at Delphi and obtain from the oracle the sacred
advice which was deemed so indispensable.

The reply received by Athens was terrifying. "Quit your land and city
and flee afar!" cried the prophetess. "Fire and sword, in the train of
the Syrian chariot, shall overwhelm you. Get ye away from the sanctuary,
with your souls steeped in sorrow."

The envoys feared to carry back such a sentence to Athens. They implored
the priestess for a more comforting reply, and were given the following
enigma to solve: "This assurance I will give you, firm as adamant. When
everything else in the land of Cecrops shall be taken, Zeus grants to
Athene that the wooden wall alone shall remain unconquered, to defend
you and your children. Stand not to await the assailing horse and foot
from the continent, but turn your backs and retire; you shall yet live
to fight another day. O divine Salamis, thou too shalt destroy the
children of women, either at the seed-time or at the harvest."

Here was some hope, though small. "The wooden wall"? What could it be
but the fleet? This was the general opinion of the Athenians. But should
they fight? Should they not rather abandon Attica forever, take to their
wooden walls, and seek a new home afar? Salamis was to destroy the
children of women! Did not this portend disaster in case of a naval
battle?

The fate of Athens now hung upon a thread. Had its people fled to a
distant land, one of the greatest chapters in the history of the world
would never have been written. But now Themistocles, to whom Athens owed
its fleet, came forward as its savior. If the oracle, he declared, had
meant that the Greeks should be destroyed, it would have called Salamis,
where the battle was to be fought, "wretched Sal