=126.= Mounds were raised over the brave and illustrious dead. Only to Aristodemus, the Spartan, who had incurred disgrace by returning alive from Thermopylæ, no honors were decreed. The soil of Platæa became a second “Holy Land.” Thither every year embassies from the states of Greece came to offer sacrifices to Zeus, the deliverer, and every fifth year games were celebrated in honor of liberty. The Platæans themselves, exempt henceforth from military service, became the guardians of the sacred ground, and to attack them was decreed to be sacrilege.
=127.= On the day of the victory of Platæa, a no less important advantage was gained by the Greeks at Mycale, in Ionia. Here a large land force, under Tigra´nes, had been stationed by Xerxes for the protection of the coast, and hither the Persian fleet retired before the advance of the Greeks. The Persians drew their ships to land, and protected them by intrenchments and strong earth-works. The Greeks, finding the sea deserted, approached near enough to make the voice of a herald heard, who exhorted the Ionians in the army of Tigranes to remember that they, too, had a share in the liberties of Greece. The Persians, not understanding the language of the herald, began to distrust their allies. They deprived the Samians of their arms, and placed the Milesians at a distance from the front to guard the path to the heights of Mycale. The Greeks, having landed, drove the Persians from the shore to their intrenchments, and the Athenians first became engaged in storming the barricades. The native Persians fought fiercely, even after their general was slain, and fell at last within their camp. All the islands which had given assistance to the Medes were now received into the Hellenic League, with solemn pledges never again to desert it.
Athens incurred the vengeance of the Persian king by aiding a revolt of the Asiatic Greeks. The first invasion of Greece, by Mardonius, failed; a second and larger force, under Datis and Artaphernes, ravaged Naxos and part of Eubœa, but was defeated by Miltiades and 11,000 Greeks, at Marathon. An unsuccessful attempt, upon Paros destroyed the fame of Miltiades, and he died under a charge of having received bribes from the Persians. Aristides succeeded him in popular favor, but was at length exiled through the influence of Themistocles. The latter urged the naval preparations of his countrymen, and Athens then first became a great maritime power. A congress at Corinth, B. C. 481, united the Greek forces under Spartan command. The Delphic oracle promising safety to the Athenians only within walls of wood, they abandoned their city and took refuge on the fleet. A few hundreds of Spartans and Thespians withstood the Persian host at Thermopylæ, until betrayed by a Malian guide. The invaders were totally defeated in a naval combat at Salamis, and Xerxes retired to Persia. Mardonius, failing to end the war by diplomacy, was finally overthrown in the battles of Erythræ and Platæa; and the land and naval forces of the Persians were at the same time destroyed at Mycale, in Asia Minor.