CHAPTER XVII. OF THE GREEKS AT SALAMIS AND OF THE CITY OF ATHENS.

fire to the barricade. Nevertheless the men held out, though indeed they were in evil case, and their wooden wall had failed them; nor would they hearken to the words of the sons of Pisistratus when these would have them surrender, but they rolled down great stones upon the barbarians as these came up to the gates, and so kept the place. And for many days Xerxes was in great doubt, and knew not how he should prevail over them; but at last they discovered a way of access. For it must needs be that the oracle should be fulfilled, that all the country of the Athenians upon the mainland should be conquered by the barbarians. Certain Persians climbed up the hill where there was no watch, no one believing that any man could mount by that way, so steep was it. (The place is on the face of the cliff, behind the gates and the way by which men commonly ascend.) So soon as the Athenians saw them now already on the top, some threw themselves from the wall and so perished; and some fled for refuge to the sanctuary. But the Persians, when they had opened the gates of the citadel for their fellows, slew all them that had taken sanctuary; and afterward they plundered the temple and burned all the citadel with fire. Then Xerxes, being now wholly master of Athens, sent off a messenger, a horseman, to Artabanus, to tell him of his good success. Also, on the second day after the sending of the herald, he commanded the Athenian exiles that had followed in his train to go up to the citadel and do sacrifice in the place according to the custom of their country. This he did either by reason of a dream, or because it repented him that he had burned the temple. And the exiles did as the King commanded. And when they were come to the citadel they found a marvelous thing. There was in the citadel a temple of Erectheus, whom the Athenians call the “earth-born,” and in the temple an olive tree, which Athene left for a memorial of her when she contended with Poseidon for the land of the Athenians. Now this olive had been burned with other things in the temple, but when the Athenians went up according to the King’s commandment, they found that there had sprung forth from the trunk a fresh shoot of a cubit in length.