Note 181 — Chapter XL · BATTLES OF THERMOPYLÆ AND ARTEMISIUM.

See the story of the single Athenian citizen, who returned home alone, after all his comrades had perished in an unfortunate expedition to the island of Ægina. The widows of the slain warriors crowded round him, each asking him what had become of her husband, and finally put him to death by pricking with their bodkins (Herodot. v, 87).

In the terrible battle of St. Jacob on the Birs, near Basle (August, 1444), where fifteen hundred Swiss crossed the river and attacked forty thousand French and Germans under the Dauphin of France, against strong remonstrances from their commanders,—all of them were slain, after deeds of unrivalled valor and great loss to the enemy, except sixteen men, who receded from their countrymen in crossing the river, thinking the enterprise desperate. These sixteen men, on their return, were treated with intolerable scorn and hardly escaped execution (Vogelin, Geschichte der Schweizer Eidgenossenschaft, vol. i, ch. 5, p. 393).