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Although the Greeks were virtually the victors in these engagements, at least one-half of their vessels were disabled; and, hearing of the defeat of Leonidas at Thermopylae, they resolved to retreat. Having sailed through the Euboean Sea, the fleet kept on its way until it reached the Island of Salamis, in the Saron'ic Gulf.
In the Saron'ic Gulf, between Attica and Ar'golis, were the islands of Sal'amis and AEgi'na, the former the scene of the great naval conflict between the Greeks on the one side and the Persians, under Xerxes, on the other, and the latter long the maritime rival of Athens.
With the poets Arcadia was a land of peace, of simple pleasures, and untroubled quiet; and it was natural that the pipe-playing Pan should first appear here, where musical shepherds led their flocks along the woody vales of impetuous streams. Ar'golis, east of Arcadia, was mostly a rocky peninsula lying between the Saron'ic and Argol'ic gulfs.
Entering now upon the isthmus which leads into Southern Greece, we find the little state of Corinth, with its famous city of the same name, keeping guard over the narrow pass, with one foot on the Corinthian Gulf and the other on the Saron'ic, thereby commanding both the Ionian and AEge'an seas, controlling the commerce that passed between them, and holding the keys of Peloponnesus.
The headland cliffs that darkly down O'er the Saron'ic waters frown, Are passed with the swift one's lurid stride, And the huge rock glares on the glaring tide. With mightier march and fiercer power It gained Arach'ne's neighboring tower Thence on our Ar'give roof its rest it won, Of Ida's fire the long-descended son! Bright harbinger of glory and of joy!
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