seeing the furniture of Mardonius furnished with gold and silver and hangings of different colours, ordered the {170} bakers and the cooks to prepare a meal as they were used to do for Mardonius. Then when they did this as they had been commanded, it is said that Pausanias seeing the couches of gold and of silver with luxurious coverings, and the tables of gold and silver, and the magnificent apparatus of the feast, was astonished at the good things set before him, and for sport he ordered his own servants to prepare a Laconian meal; and as, when the banquet was served, the difference between the two was great, Pausanias laughed and sent for the commanders of the Hellenes; and when these had come together, Pausanias said, pointing to the preparation of the two meals severally: "Hellenes, for this reason I assembled you together, because I desired to show you the senselessness of this leader of the Medes, who having such fare as this, came to us who have such sorry fare as ye see here, in order to take it away from us." Thus it is said that Pausanias spoke to the commanders of the Hellenes. After the battle of Salamis, the Persian ships had withdrawn to Samos, and those of the Greeks to Delos, where they had spent the winter. In the spring, when the armies were marching out to meet at Plataea, the fleets moved slowly towards the Ionian coast, and on the same day as the battle of Plataea, so Herodotus tells us, they met in a fierce sea-fight, in which the Persians were completely routed. Thus on the same day, by land and sea, the Barbarian was defeated and Greece was free. She had proved that right was greater than might, and that in the cause of freedom the weaker might stand against the stronger and prevail. [1] Except where otherwise noted, Chapter IX is taken or adapted from the _History of Herodotus_. [2] See p. 385. [3] See p. 227. [4] Plutarch: _Life of Themistocles_. [5] Thucydides, I. [6] Plutarch: _Life of Themistocles_. [7] Plutarch: _Life of Aristeides_. [8] Plutarch: _Life of Aristeides_. [9] From the translation in _Greek History for Young Readers_ by Alice Zimmern. [10] Aeschylus: The Persians, translated by A. S. Way. {171} CHAPTER X THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE I. THE FORTIFICATIONS OF ATHENS The Persian had been defeated, and Greece was free. The Athenians had suffered more than any other state, for they had been forced to leave their city to be occupied by the enemy, and twice it had been burnt to the ground. Now, however, they were free to return. The city was utterly destroyed, but a great hope for the future filled their hearts when they found that the sacred olive tree on the Acropolis, which had been burnt by the Persians, was not dead after all, but had sent up fresh green shoots. Athena had not deserted them. Themistocles was now the acknowledged leader of Athens, and the hero of all Greece.