, they nevertheless
abandoned Artemisium to the barbarians after they had received the news
of the overthrow at Thermopylae. For it was to no purpose for them to
stay there and keep the sea, the war being already within Thermopylae,
and Xerxes having possessed himself of the avenues. But Herodotus makes
the Greeks contriving to fly before they heard anything of Leonidas's
death. For thus he says: "But they having been ill-treated, and
especially the Athenians, half of whose ships were sorely shattered,
consulted to take their flight into Greece." (Ibid. viii. 18.) But let
him be permitted so to name (or rather reproach) this retreat of theirs
before the fight; but having before called it a flight, he both now
styles it a flight, and will again a little after term it a flight; so
bitterly does he adhere to this word "flight." "Presently after this,"
says he, "there came to the barbarians in the pinnace a man of Hestiaea,
who acquainted them with the flight of the Grecians from Artemisium.
They, because the thing seemed incredible, kept the messenger in
custody, and sent forth some light galleys to discover the truth."
(Herodotus, viii. 23.) But what is this you say? That they fled as
conquered, whom the enemies after the fight could not believe to have
fled, as having got much the better? Is then this a fellow fit to be
believed when he writes of any man or city, who in one word deprives
Greece of the victory, throws down the trophy, and pronounces the
inscriptions they had set up to Diana Proseoa (EASTWARD-FACING) to be
nothing but pride and vain boasting? The tenor of the inscription was as
follows:--

When Athens youth had in a naval fight
All Asia's forces on this sea o'verthrown,
And all the Persian army put to flight,
Than which a greater scare was ever known,
To show how much Diana they respected,
This trophy to her honor they erected.

Moreover, not having described any order of the Greeks, nor told us what
place every city of theirs held during the sea-fight, he says that in
this retreat, which he calls their flight, the Corinthians sailed first
and the Athenians last. (Ibid. viii, 21.)

He indeed ought not to have too much insulted over the Greeks that took
part with the Persians, who, being by others thought a Thurian, reckons
himself among the Halicarnassians, who, being Dorians by descent, went
with their wives and children to the war against the Greeks. But he
is so far fr