The losses of the Persian fleet by storm and battle were repaired by reinforcements drawn from the islanders, Bœotians and others, upon its arrival at Phalerum, one of the ports of Athens. Xerxes in person presided at a council of war, when it was debated whether the fortune of another battle should be tried or no. All raised their voices in the affirmative, except Artemisia, a Grecian heroine, daughter of Lygdamis, and widow of another tyrant of Halicarnassus, who had joined the fleet with five galleys, which she herself commanded, attended regularly at the council board, and was high in the favour of the Persian monarch. She urged him to spare his ships, and not engage with an enemy as superior to his troops at sea as men to women; and said that nothing was to be gained by a battle, for he was already in possession of Attica, the great object of the campaign; and the adverse fleet, if he only remained quiet, would soon be compelled to disperse for want of provisions; while, if he advanced by land against Peloponnesus, it would immediately separate, and all would fly to their several homes, without caring to stay and fight in defence of the Athenians. Xerxes acknowledged the advice to be good, but was guided by the opinion of the majority; and attributing former defeats to the want of his personal presence and encouragement, he determined to be a spectator of the battle, which was ordered to take place upon the morrow. That same night the land forces marched towards the Isthmus, which so much alarmed the Peloponnesians, already discontented and uneasy lest they should be defeated and blockaded in Salamis, that the indecision of Eurybiades was loudly reprobated, and it was tumultuously resolved not to stay to risk a battle in behalf of an already conquered country. In this crisis Themistocles had recourse to a measure singularly illustrative of the bold and crooked policy which he loved to pursue. He despatched a trusty dependant to the hostile fleet, to say that the Athenian admiral, being well disposed to the king, had sent him to give information that the Greeks were on the point of flight; and that now was the time to strike a decisive blow, because they were at variance with each other, and in an engagement many would espouse the Persian cause. The bait was taken; the Persians landed a detachment on the little islet of Psyttaleia, lying between Salamis and the main, to overpower the crews of any vessels that might be driven ashore there, and sent a force round Salamis to occupy the other end of the strait between that islet and the continent, in which the Greeks were posted, and thus deprive them of the possibility of retreat. All this passed in the course of one evening, during which the dissensions of the Greeks, ignorant that they were blockaded, had protracted their council to a late hour of the night, when Aristides, surnamed the Just, a man hostile above all others to Themistocles, and who, through his