detaching the Ionians and Carians from the Persian fleet. So the other Greek commanders looked to the sheep and the fires, while he devised measures for retreat. No tale could be more peculiarly illustrative of the wide distinction which must be drawn between the facts of history as stated by Herodotus and the motives which he propounds for certain courses of action. It is doubtless perfectly true that a council of war was held that evening, at which it was decided to retire from Artemisium; and that Themistocles concurred in that decision. But, on the question of motive, it may be taken as almost equally certain that this decision was not come to in consequence of what had happened in the engagement of that afternoon, but by reason of the news which had come from Thermopylæ, which rendered the further presence of the fleet at Artemisium not merely unnecessary, but, from the point of view of the Greek commanders, unadvisable. In actual fact it may be regarded as exceedingly doubtful whether Xerxes could have advanced southwards without the aid of the fleet commissariat; but the idea uppermost in the minds of the Greek commanders would be the extreme danger of such a move on his part. #GREEKS RETIRE FROM ARTEMISIUM.# It is not difficult to see that the building of the fires that evening on the Artemisium shore had probably little if any connection with the provisioning of the fleet, but was part of the plan by which Themistocles proposed to secure a safe withdrawal from the position. The Persians were evidently to be deluded by the idea that the Greeks had no intention of deserting their station; and the ruse employed to attain this end would naturally suggest itself. It has been again and again employed under similar circumstances. The retreat began early in the night, the ships taking their departure in order according to their position at the anchorage. ◆H. viii. 21.◆ The fact that the Corinthians led the way, and that the Athenians were last to start, may merely signify that they formed respectively the extreme left and right of the line; but, in view of the attitude of the former at this time, it may be suspected that Herodotus had special motives for mentioning the order of retirement. Themistocles, with a fast sailing division, formed the rearguard. He did not, apparently, intend so much to cover the retreat, as to visit the various watering-places on the shores of the Euripus, and to affix there a quasi-manifesto to the Ionian Greeks in the Persian fleet, calling upon them to abstain, in so far as possible, from attacking their fellow-countrymen. ◆H. viii. 22.◆ His object was, says Herodotus, either to detach the Ionians from their allegiance to Xerxes, or to make the king suspicious of their loyalty.