attack from a large one. At Salamis they were defended in part by the
projections of the land, which protected their flanks, and prevented
their being assailed, except in front, and their front they might make a
very narrow one. At the isthmus, on the contrary, there was a long,
unvaried, and unsheltered coast, with no salient points to give strength
or protection to their position there. They could not expect to derive
serious advantage from any degree of co-operation with the army on the
land which would be practicable at the isthmus, while their situation at
sea there would be far more exposed and dangerous than where they then
were. Besides, many thousands of the people had fled to Salamis for
refuge and protection, and the fleet, by leaving its present position,
would be guilty of basely abandoning them all to hopeless destruction,
without even making an effort to save them.

This last was, in fact, the great reason why the Athenians were so
unwilling to abandon Salamis. The unhappy fugitives with which the
island was thronged were their wives and children, and they were
extremely unwilling to go away and leave them to so cruel a fate as they
knew would await them if the fleet were to be withdrawn. The
Corinthians, on the other hand, considered Athens as already lost, and
it seemed madness to them to linger uselessly in the vicinity of the
ruin which had been made, while there were other states and cities in
other quarters of Greece yet to be saved. The Corinthian speaker who had
rebuked Themistocles at first, interrupted him again, angrily, before he
finished his appeal.

"You have no right to speak," said he. "You have no longer a country.
When you cease to represent a power, you have no right to take a part in
our councils."

This cruel retort aroused in the mind of Themistocles a strong feeling
of indignation and anger against the Corinthian. He loaded his opponent,
in return, with bitter reproaches, and said, in conclusion, that as long
as the Athenians had two hundred ships in the fleet, they had still a
country--one, too, of sufficient importance to the general defense to
give them a much better title to be heard in the common consultations
than any Corinthian could presume to claim.

Then turning to Eurybiades again, Themistocles implored him to remain at
Salamis, and give battle to the Persians there, as that was, he said,
the only course by which any hope remained to them of the salvation of
Greece.