BATTLES OP PLAT^A AND MYKALE. 201 after days, with private forts of his ownJ To this motive for attacking the Chersonese may be added another, — the impor- tance of its corn-produce as well as of a clear passage through the Hellespont for the corn ships out of the Propontis to Athens and ^gina.2 Such were the reasons which induced Xanthippus and the leading Athenians, even without the cooperation of the Peloponnesians, to undertake the siege of Sestus, — the strong- est place in the peninsula, the key of the strait, and the centre in which all the neighboring Persian garrisons, from Kardia and elsewhere, had got together, under CEobazus and Artayktes.^ The Grecian inhabitants of the Chersonese readily joined the Athenians in expelling the Persians, who, taken altogether by surprise, had been constrained to throw themselves into Sestus, without stores of provisions or means of making a long defence. But of all the Chersonesites the most forward and exasperated were the inhabitants of Elasus, — - the southernmost town of the peninsula, celebrated for its tomb, temple, and sacred grove of the hero Protesilaus, who figured in the Trojan legend as the foi'emost warrior in the host of Agamemnon to leap ashore, and as the first victim to the spear of Hektor. The temple of Pro- tesilaus, conspicuously placed on the sea-shore, was a scene of worship and pilgrimage not merely for the inhabitants of Elteus, but also for the neighboring Greeks generally, insomuch that it had been enriched with ample votive offerings, and probable de- posites for security, — money, gold and silver saucers, brazen implements, robes, and various other presents. The story ran, that when Xerxes was on his march across the Hellespont into Greece, ArtayktSs, greedy of all this wealth, and aware that the monarch would not knowingly permit the sanctuary to be de- spoiled, preferred a wily request to him : " Master, here is the house of a Greek, who, in invading thy territory, met his just reward and pei'ished : I pray thee give his house to me, in order ' Xenoph. Ilellen. i, 5. 17. tu mvrov reixv- ^ Herodot. vii, 147. Schol. ad Aiistophan. Equites, 262. la illustration of the value set by Athens upon the command of the Hel- lespont, sec Demosthenes, Dc Fals. Legat. c. 59. ' Herodot. ix, 114, 115. "LrjaTov — (ppovpiov koc (pv'kanTjv tov navTd( "^XlTjcnovTov — Thucyd. viii, 62 : compare Xenophon, Hellenic, ii, 1, 25.
- Thucyd. viii. 102.
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