Persia from the Earliest Period to the Arab

58
HISTORY OF PERSIA.
between Greece and the capital of Persia alone
preserved to the Persians,
for another hundred and
fifty years, an empire, the fate of which was already
doomed on the plains of Plataea. The immediate re-
sult of the successes of the Greeks was the loss to
Persia of her European provinces, and the recovery by
Macedonia, Paeonia, and Thrace, of liberties their early
and tame submission to the Persians hardly entitled
them to regain ; and what was a greater misfortune
to the great king, the decision of the conquerors to
transfer the war to Asia Minor.
Thus, at once collecting their fleet, the Athenians
made an attack on the Persians at Mycale, and
routed utterly the remains of the fleet which had
escaped from Salamis; while, soon after, Cimon, the
son of Miltiades, completely destroyed at the mouth
of the Eurymedon (B.C. 466) a Phoenician fleet of
more than 300 vessels together with the Persian
army encamped along the shore, crushing also, near
Cyprus, another squadron on its way to help their
brethren. It is likely that these repeated misfor-
tunes aroused discontent in Persia, for, not long after-
wards, Xerxes was murdered by two of his chief men,
as some have thought at the instigation of his wife
Amestris (the Vashti of Esther), who might well have
been jealous of his too notorious gallantries.
There is
little that can be said for Xerxes, for, during a reign
of twenty years, he was scarcely more than an ordinary
Oriental despot, the nominal head of a Court where
licence of every kind existed unchecked. The intrigues
of the seraglio, the bane of most Oriental dynasties, in
his reign began to produce their usual results; but the