=Reasons for the Greek Victory.=--The Median war was not a national war between Greeks and barbarians. All the Greeks of Asia and half the Greeks of Europe fought on the Persian side. Many of the other Greeks gave no assistance. In reality it was a fight of the Great King and his subjects against Sparta, Athens, and their allies. The conquest of this great horde by two small peoples appeared at that time as a prodigy. The gods, said the Greeks, had fought for them. But there is less wonder when we examine the two antagonists more closely: the Persian army was innumerable, and Xerxes had thought that victory was a matter of numbers. But this multitude was an embarrassment to itself. It did not know where to secure food for itself, it advanced but slowly, and it choked itself on the day of combat. Likewise the ships arranged in too close order drove their prows into neighboring ships and shattered their oars. Then in this immense crowd there were, according to Herodotus, many men but few soldiers. Only the Persians and Medes, the flower of the army, fought with energy; the rest advanced only under the lash, they had come under pressure to a war which had no interest for them, ill-armed and without discipline, ready to desert as soon as no one was watching them. At Platæa the Medes and Persians were the only ones to do any fighting; the subjects kept aloof. The Persian soldiers were ill-equipped; they were embarrassed by their long robes, the head was poorly protected by a felt hat, the body ill-defended by a shield of wicker-work. For arms they had a bow, a dagger, and a very short pike; they could fight only at a great distance or hand-to-hand. The Spartans and their allies, on the contrary, secure in the protection of great buckler, helmet and greaves, marched in solid line and were irresistible; they broke the enemy with their long pikes and at once the battle became a massacre.