See the observations on the battle of Marathon, made both by

Colonel Leake and by Mr. Finlay, who have examined and described

the locality; Leake, on the Demi of Attica, in Transactions of

the Royal Society of Literature, vol. ii, p. 160, _seq._; and

Finlay, on the Battle of Marathon, in the same Transactions, vol.

iii, pp. 360-380, etc.

Both have given remarks on the probable numbers of the armies

assembled; but there are really no materials, even for a probable

guess, in respect to the Persians. The silence of Herodotus

(whom we shall find hereafter very circumstantial as to the

numbers of the army under Xerxês) seems to show that he had no

information which he could trust. His account of the battle of

Marathon presents him in honorable contrast with the loose and

boastful assertors who followed him; for though he does not tell

us much, and falls lamentably short of what we should like to

know, yet all that he does say is reasonable and probable as to

the proceedings of both armies and the little which he states

becomes more trustworthy on that very account,—because it _is_ so

little,—showing that he keeps strictly within his authorities.

There is nothing in the account of Herodotus to make us believe

that he had ever visited the ground of Marathon.

Marathon, situated near to a bay on the eastern coast of Attica, and

in a direction E.N.E. from Athens, is divided by the high ridge of

Mount Pentelikus from the city, with which it communicated by two

roads, one to the north, another to the south of that mountain. Of

these two roads, the northern, at once the shortest and the most

difficult, is twenty-two miles in length: the southern—longer but

more easy, and the only one practicable for chariots—is twenty-six

miles in length, or about six and a half hours of computed march.

It passed between mounts Pentelikus and Hymettus, through the

ancient demes of Gargêttus and Pallênê, and was the road by which

Peisistratus and Hippias, when they landed at Marathon forty-seven

years before, had marched to Athens. The bay of Marathon, sheltered

by a projecting cape from the northward, affords both deep water and

a shore convenient for landing; while “its plain (says a careful

modern observer[648]) extends in a perfect level along this fine

bay, and is in length about six miles, in breadth never less than

about one mile and a half. Two marshes bound the extremities of the

plain: the southern is not very large, and is almost dry at the

conclusion of the great heats; but the northern, which generally

covers considerably more than a square mile, offers several parts

which are at all seasons impassable. Both, however, leave a broad,

firm, sandy beach between them and the sea. The uninterrupted

flatness of the plain is hardly relieved by a single tree; and an

amphitheatre of rocky hills and rugged mountains separates it from

the rest of Attica, over the lower ridges of which some steep and

difficult paths communicate with the districts of the interior.”

[648] See Mr. Finlay on the Battle of Marathon, Transactions,

etc., vol. iii, pp. 364, 368, 383, _ut suprà_: compare Hobhouse,

Journey in Albania, i, p. 432.

Colonel Leake thinks that the ancient town of Marathon was not

on the exact site of the modern Marathon, but at a place called

Vraná, a little to the south of Marathon (Leake, on the Demi of

Attica, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature,

1829, vol. ii, p. 166).

“Below these two points,” he observes, “(the tumuli of Vraná and

the hill of Kotróni,) the plain of Marathon expands to the shore

of the bay, which is near two miles distant from the opening of

the valley of Vraná. It is moderately well cultivated with corn,

and is one of the most fertile spots in Attica, though rather

inconveniently subject to inundations from the two torrents

which cross it, particularly that of Marathóna. From Lucian (in

Icaro-Menippo) it appears that the parts about Œnoê were noted

for their fertility, and an Egyptian poet of the fifth century

has celebrated the vines and olives of Marathon. It is natural

to suppose that the vineyards occupied the rising grounds: and

it is probable that the olive-trees were chiefly situated in the

two valleys, where some are still growing: for as to the plain

itself, the circumstances of the battle incline one to believe

that it was anciently as destitute of trees as it is at the

present day.” (Leake, on the Demi of Attica, Trans. of Roy. Soc.

of Literature, vol. ii, p. 162.)

Colonel Leake farther says, respecting the fitness of the

Marathonian ground for cavalry movements: “As I rode across the

plain of Marathon with a peasant of Vraná, he remarked to me that

it was a fine place for cavalry to fight in. None of the modern

Marathonii were above the rank of laborers: they have heard that

a great battle was once fought there, but that is all they know.”

(Leake, _ut sup._ ii, p. 175.)

The position occupied by Miltiadês before the battle, identified as

it was to all subsequent Athenians by the sacred grove of Hêraklês

near Marathon, was probably on some portion of the high ground above

this plain, and Cornelius Nepos tells us that he protected it from

the attacks of the Persian cavalry by felled trees obstructing the

approach. The Persians occupied a position on the plain; while their

fleet was ranged along the beach, and Hippias himself marshalled them

for the battle.[649] The native Persians and Sakæ, the best troops in

the whole army, were placed in the centre, which they considered as

the post of honor,[650] and which was occupied by the Persian king

himself, when present at a battle. The right wing was so regarded by

the Greeks, and the polemarch Kallimachus had the command of it; the

hoplites being arranged in the order of their respective tribes from

right to left, and at the extreme left stood the Platæans. It was

necessary for Miltiadês to present a front equal, or nearly equal,

to that of the more numerous Persian host, in order to guard himself

from being taken in flank: and with this view he drew up the central

tribes, including the Leontis and Antiochis, in shallow files, and

occupying a large breadth of ground; while each of the wings was in

stronger and deeper order, so as to make his attack efficient on

both sides. His whole army consisted of hoplites, with some slaves

as unarmed or light-armed attendants, but without either bowmen or

cavalry. Nor could the Persians have been very strong in this latter

force, seeing that their horses had to be transported across the

Ægean. But the elevated position of Miltiadês enabled them to take

some measure of the numbers under his command, and the entire absence

of cavalry among their enemies could not but confirm the confidence

with which a long career of uninterrupted victory had impressed their

generals.

[649] Herodot. vi, 107.

[650] Plutarch, Symposiac. i, 3, p. 619; Xenophon, Anabas. i, 8,

21; Arrian, ii, 8, 18; iii, 11, 16.

We may compare, with this established battle-array of the Persian

armies, that of the Turkish armies, adopted and constantly

followed ever since the victorious battle of Ikonium, in 1386,

gained by Amurath the First over the Karamanians. The European

troops, or those of Rum, occupy the left wing: the Asiatic

troops, or those of Anatoli, the right wing: the Janissaries are

in the centre. The Sultan, or the Grand Vizir, surrounded by the

national cavalry, or Spahis, is in the central point of all (Von

Hammer, Geschichte des Osmannischen Reichs, book v, vol. i, p.

199).

About the honor of occupying the right wing in a Grecian army,

see in particular the animated dispute between the Athenians and

the Tegeates before the battle of Platæa (Herodot. ix, 27): it

is the post assigned to the heroic kings of legendary warfare

(Eurip. Supplices, 657).

At length the sacrifices in the Greek camp were favorable for battle,

and Miltiadês, who had everything to gain by coming immediately to

close quarters, ordered his army to advance at a running step over

the interval of one mile which separated the two armies. This rapid

forward movement, accompanied by the war-cry, or pæan, which always

animated the charge of the Greek soldier, astounded the Persian

army; who construed it as an act of desperate courage, little short

of insanity, in a body not only small but destitute of cavalry or

archers,—but who, at the same time, felt their conscious superiority

sink within them. It seems to have been long remembered also among

the Greeks as the peculiar characteristic of the battle of Marathon,

and Herodotus tells us that the Athenians were the first Greeks who

ever charged at a run.[651] It doubtless operated beneficially in

rendering the Persian cavalry and archers comparatively innocuous,

but we may reasonably suppose that it also disordered the Athenian

ranks, and that when they reached the Persian front, they were both

out of breath and unsteady in that line of presented spears and

shields which constituted their force. On the two wings, where the

files were deep, this disorder produced no mischievous effect: the

Persians, after a certain resistance, were overborne and driven back.

But in the centre, where the files were shallow, and where, moreover,

the native Persians and other choice troops of the army were posted,

the breathless and disordered Athenian hoplites found themselves in

far greater difficulties. The tribes Leontis and Antiochis, with

Themistoklês and Aristeidês among them, were actually defeated,

broken, driven back, and pursued by the Persians and Sakæ.[652]

Miltiadês seems to have foreseen the possibility of such a check,

when he found himself compelled to diminish so materially the depth

of his centre: for his wings, having routed the enemies opposed to

them, were stayed from pursuit until the centre was extricated, and

the Persians and Sakæ put to flight along with the rest. The pursuit

then became general, and the Persians were chased to their ships

ranged in line along the shore: some of them became involved in the

impassable marsh and there perished.[653] The Athenians tried to

set the ships on fire, but the defence here was both vigorous and

successful,—several of the forward warriors of Athens were slain,—and

only seven ships out of the numerous fleet destroyed.[654] This

part of the battle terminated to the advantage of the Persians.

They repulsed the Athenians from the sea-shore, and secured a safe

reëmbarkation; leaving few or no prisoners, but a rich spoil of tents

and equipments which had been disembarked and could not be carried

away.

[651] Herodot. vi, 112. Πρῶτοι μὲν γὰρ Ἑλλήνων πάντων τῶν ἡμεῖς

ἴδμεν, δρόμῳ ἐς πολεμίους ἐχρήσαντο.

The running pace of the charge was obviously one of the most

remarkable events connected with the battle. Colonel Leake and

Mr. Finlay seem disposed to reduce the run to a quick march;

partly on the ground that the troops must have been disordered

and out of breath by running a mile. The probability is, that

they really were so, and that such was the great reason of the

defeat of the centre. It is very probable that a part of the

mile run over consisted of declivity. I accept the account of

Herodotus literally, though whether the distance be exactly

stated, we cannot certainly say: indeed the fact is, that it

required some steadiness of discipline to prevent the step of

hoplites, when charging, from becoming accelerated into a run.

See the narrative of the battle of Kunaxa in Xenoph. Anabas. i,

8, 18; Diodor. xiv, 23: compare Polyæn. ii, 2, 3. The passage

of Diodorus here referred to contrasts the advantages with the

disadvantages of the running charge.

Both Colonel Leake and Mr. Finlay try to point out the exact

ground occupied by the two armies: they differ in the spot

chosen, and I cannot think that there is sufficient evidence

to be had in favor of any spot. Leake thinks that the Persian

commanders were encamped in the plain of Tricorythos, separated

from that of Marathon by the great marsh, and communicating with

it only by means of a causeway (Leake, Transact. ii, p. 170).

[652] Herodot. vi, 113. Κατὰ τοῦτο μὲν δὴ, ἐνίκων οἱ βάρβαροι,

καὶ ῥήξαντες ἐδίωκον ἐς τὴν μεσόγαιαν.

Herodotus here tells us the whole truth without disguise:

Plutarch (Aristeidês, c. 3) only says that the Persian centre

made a longer resistance, and gave the tribes in the Grecian

centre more trouble to overthrow.

[653] Pausan. i, 32, 6.

[654] Herodot. vi, 113-115.

Herodotus estimates the number of those who fell on the Persian side

in this memorable action at six thousand four hundred men: the number

of Athenian dead is accurately known, since all were collected for

the last solemn obsequies,—they were one hundred and ninety-two.

How many were wounded, we do not hear. The brave Kallimachus the

polemarch, and Stesilaus, one of the ten generals, were among the

slain; together with Kynegeirus son of Euphorion, who, in laying hold

on the poop-staff of one of the vessels, had his hand cut off by an

axe,[655] and died of the wound. He was brother of the poet Æschylus,

himself present at the fight; to whose imagination this battle at

the ships must have emphatically recalled the fifteenth book of the

Iliad. Both these Athenian generals are said to have perished in the

assault of the ships, apparently the hottest part of the combat. The

statement of the Persian loss as given by Herodotus appears moderate

and reasonable,[656] but he does not specify any distinguished

individuals as having fallen.

[655] Herodot. vi, 114. This is the statement of Herodotus

respecting Kynegeirus. How creditably does his character as an

historian contrast with that of the subsequent romancers! Justin

tells us that Kynegeirus first seized the vessel with his right

hand: that was cut off, and he held the vessel with his left:

when he had lost that also, he seized the ship with his teeth,

“like a wild beast,” (Justin, ii, 9)—Justin seems to have found

this statement in many different authors: “Cynegiri militis

virtus, multis scriptorum laudibus celebrata.”

[656] For the exaggerated stories of the numbers of Persians

slain, see Xenophon, Anabas. iii, 2, 12; Plutarch, De Malign.

Herodot. c. 26, p. 862; Justin, ii, 9; and Suidas, v. Ποικίλη.

In the account of Ktêsias, Datis was represented as having been

killed in the battle, and it was farther said that the Athenians

refused to give up his body for interment; which was one of the

grounds whereupon Xerxês afterwards invaded Greece. It is evident

that in the authorities which Ktêsias followed, the alleged

death of Datis at Marathon was rather emphatically dwelt upon.

See Ktêsias, Persica, c. 18-21, with the note of Bähr, who is

inclined to defend the statement, against Herodotus.

But the Persians, though thus defeated and compelled to abandon

the position of Marathon, were not yet disposed to relinquish

altogether their chances against Attica. Their fleet was observed

to take the direction of Cape Sunium,—a portion being sent to take

up the Eretrian prisoners and the stores which had been left in the

island of Ægilia. At the same time a shield, discernible from its

polished surface afar off, was seen held aloft upon some high point

of Attica,[657]—perhaps on the summit of Mount Pentelikus, as Colonel

Leake supposes with much plausibility. The Athenians doubtless saw

it as well as the Persians; and Miltiadês did not fail to put the

right interpretation upon it, taken in conjunction with the course

of the departing fleet. The shield was a signal put up by partisans

in the country, to invite the Persians round to Athens by sea, while

the Marathonian army was absent. Miltiadês saw through the plot, and

lost not a moment in returning to Athens. On the very day of the

battle, the Athenian army marched back with the utmost speed from the

precinct of Hêraklês at Marathon to the precinct of the same god at

Kynosarges, close to Athens, which they reached before the arrival of

the Persian fleet.[658] Datis soon came off the port of Phalêrum,

but the partisans of Hippias had been dismayed by the rapid return of

the Marathonian army, and he did not therefore find those aids and

facilities which he had anticipated for a fresh disembarkation in the

immediate neighborhood of Athens. Though too late, however, it seems

that he was not much too late: the Marathonian army had only just

completed their forced return-march. A little less quickness on the

part of Miltiadês in deciphering the treasonable signal and giving

the instant order of march,—a little less energy on the part of the

Athenian citizens in superadding a fatiguing march to a no less

fatiguing combat,—and the Persians, with the partisans of Hippias,

might have been found in possession of Athens. As the facts turned

out, Datis, finding at Phalêrum no friendly movement to encourage

him, but, on the contrary, the unexpected presence of the soldiers

who had already vanquished him at Marathon,—made no attempt again to

disembark in Attica, and sailed away, after a short delay, to the

Cyclades.

[657] Herodot. vi, 124. Ἀνεδέχθη μὲν γὰρ ἄσπις, καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ

ἔστι ἄλλως εἰπεῖν· ἐγένετο γάρ· ὃς μέντοι ἦν ὁ ἀναδέξας οὐκ ἔχω

προσωτέρω εἰπεῖν τουτέων.

[658] Herodot. vi, 116. Οὗτοι μὲν δὴ περιέπλωον Σούνιον. Ἀθηναῖοι

δὲ, ~ὡς ποδῶν εἶχον, τάχιστα~ ἐβοήθεον ἐς τὸ ἄστυ· καὶ ἔφθησάν τε

ἀπικόμενοι, πρὶν ἢ τοὺς βαρβάρους ἥκειν, καὶ ἐστρατοπεδεύσαντο

ἀπιγμένοι ἐξ Ἡρακληΐου τοῦ ἐν Μαραθῶνι ἐς ἄλλο Ἡρακληΐον το ἐν

Κυνοσάργει.

Plutarch (Bellone an Pace clariores fuerint Athenienses, c. 8,

p. 350) represents Miltiadês as returning to Athens on the _day

after_ the battle: it must have been on the same afternoon,

according to the account of Herodotus.

Thus was Athens rescued, for this time at least, from a danger

not less terrible than imminent. Nothing could have rescued her

except that decisive and instantaneous attack which Miltiadês so

emphatically urged. The running step on the field of Marathon might

cause some disorder in the ranks of the hoplites; but extreme haste

in bringing on the combat was the only means of preventing disunion

and distraction in the minds of the citizens. Imperfect as the

account is which Herodotus gives of this most interesting crisis, we

see plainly that the partisans of Hippias had actually organized a

conspiracy, and that it only failed by coming a little too late. The

bright shield uplifted on Mount Pentelikus, apprizing the Persians

that matters were prepared for them at Athens, was intended to have

come to their view before any action had taken place at Marathon,

and while the Athenian army were yet detained there; so that Datis

might have sent a portion of his fleet round to Phalêrum, retaining

the rest for combat with the enemy before him. If it had once become

known to the Marathonian army that a Persian detachment had landed at

Phalêrum,[659]—where there was a good plain for cavalry to act in,

prior to the building of the Phalêric wall, as had been seen in the

defeat of the Spartan Anchimolius by the Thessalian cavalry, in 510

B. C.,—that it had been joined by timid or treacherous Athenians,

and had perhaps even got possession of the city,—their minds would

have been so distracted by the double danger, and by fears for their

absent wives and children, that they would have been disqualified

for any unanimous execution of military orders, and generals as well

as soldiers would have become incurably divided in opinion,—perhaps

even mistrustful of each other. The citizen-soldier of Greece

generally, and especially of Athens, possessed in a high degree both

personal bravery and attachment to order and discipline; but his

bravery was not of that equal, imperturbable, uninquiring character,

which belonged to the battalions of Wellington or Napoleon,—it was

fitful, exalted or depressed by casual occurrences, and often more

sensitive to dangers absent and unseen, than to enemies immediately

in his front. Hence the advantage, so unspeakable in the case before

us, and so well appreciated by Miltiadês, of having one undivided

Athenian army,—with one hostile army, and only one, to meet in the

field. When we come to the battle of Salamis, ten years later, it

will be seen that the Greeks of that day enjoyed the same advantage:

though the wisest advisers of Xerxês impressed upon him the prudence

of dividing his large force, and of sending detachments to assail

separate Greek states—which would infallibly produce the effect of

breaking up the combined Grecian host, and leaving no central or

coöperating force for the defence of Greece generally. Fortunately

for the Greeks, the childish insolence of Xerxês led him to despise

all such advice, as implying conscious weakness. Not so Datis and

Hippias. Sensible of the prudence of distracting the attention of

the Athenians by a double attack, they laid a scheme, while the main

army was at Marathon, for rallying the partisans of Hippias, with a

force to assist them, in the neighborhood of Athens,—and the signal

was upheld by these partisans as soon as their measures were taken.

But the rapidity of Miltiadês so precipitated the battle, that this

signal came too late, and was only given, “when the Persians were

already in their ships,”[660] after the Marathonian defeat. Even then

it might have proved dangerous, had not the movements of Miltiadês

been as rapid after the victory as before it: but if time had been

allowed for the Persian movement on Athens before the battle of

Marathon had been fought, the triumph of the Athenians might well

have been exchanged for a calamitous servitude. To Miltiadês belongs

the credit of having comprehended the emergency from the beginning,

and overruled the irresolution of his colleagues by his own

single-hearted energy. The chances all turned out in his favor,—for

the unexpected junction of the Platæans in the very encampment

of Marathon must have wrought up the courage of his army to the

highest pitch: and not only did he thus escape all the depressing

and distracting accidents, but he was fortunate enough to find this

extraneous encouragement immediately preceding the battle, from a

source on which he could not have calculated.

[659] Herodot. v, 62, 63.

[660] Herodot. vi, 115. Τοῖσι Πέρσῃσι ἀναδέξαι ἀσπίδα, ~ἐοῦσι ἤδη

ἐν τῇσι νηυσί~.

I have already observed that the phase of Grecian history best

known to us, amidst which the great authors from whom we draw our

information lived, was one of contempt for the Persians in the

field. And it requires some effort of imagination to call back

previous feelings after the circumstances have been altogether

reversed: perhaps even Æschylus the poet, at the time when he

composed his tragedy of the Persæ, to celebrate the disgraceful

flight of the invader Xerxês, may have forgotten the emotions with

which he and his brother Kynegeirus must have marched out from

Athens fifteen years before, on the eve of the battle of Marathon.

It must therefore be again mentioned that, down to the time when

Datis landed in the bay of Marathon, the tide of Persian success had

never yet been interrupted,—and that especially during the ten years

immediately preceding, the high-handed and cruel extinction of the

Ionic revolt had aggravated to the highest pitch the alarm of the

Greeks. To this must be added the successes of Datis himself, and

the calamities of Eretria, coming with all the freshness of novelty

as an apparent sentence of death to Athens. The extreme effort of

courage required in the Athenians, to encounter such invaders, is

attested by the division of opinion among the ten generals. Putting

all the circumstances together, it is without a parallel in Grecian

history, surpassing even the combat of Thermopylæ, as will appear

when I come to describe that memorable event. And the admirable

conduct of the five dissentient generals, when outvoted by the

decision of the polemarch against them, in coöperating heartily for

the success of a policy which they deprecated,—proves how much the

feelings of a constitutional democracy, and that entire acceptance

of the pronounced decision of the majority on which it rests, had

worked themselves into the Athenian mind. The combat of Marathon was

by no means a very decisive defeat, but it was a defeat,—and the

first which the Persians had ever received from Greeks in the field.

If the battle of Salamis, ten years afterwards, could be treated

by Themistoklês as a hair-breadth escape for Greece, much more is

this true of the battle of Marathon;[661] which first afforded

reasonable proof, even to discerning and resolute Greeks, that the

Persians might be effectually repelled, and the independence of

European Greece maintained against them,—a conviction of incalculable

value in reference to the formidable trials destined to follow.

Upon the Athenians themselves, the first to face in the field

successfully the terrific look of a Persian army, the effect of

the victory was yet more stirring and profound.[662] It supplied

them with resolution for the far greater actual sacrifices which

they cheerfully underwent ten years afterwards, at the invasion of

Xerxês, without faltering in their Pan-Hellenic fidelity; and it

strengthened them at home by swelling the tide of common sentiment

and patriotic fraternity in the bosom of every individual citizen.

It was the exploit of Athenians alone, but of all Athenians without

dissent or exception,—the boast of orators, repeated until it almost

degenerated into common-place, though the people seem never to have

become weary of allusions to their single-handed victory over a host

of forty-six nations.[663] It had been purchased without a drop of

intestine bloodshed,—for even the unknown traitors who raised the

signal-shield on Mount Pentelikus, took care not to betray themselves

by want of apparent sympathy with the triumph: lastly, it was the

final guarantee of their democracy, barring all chance of restoration

of Hippias for the future. Themistoklês[664] is said to have been

robbed of his sleep by the trophies of Miltiadês, and this is cited

in proof of his ambitious temperament; but without supposing either

jealousy or personal love of glory, the rapid transit from extreme

danger to unparalleled triumph might well deprive of rest even the

most sober-minded Athenian.

[661] Herodot. viii, 109. ἡμεῖς δὲ, εὕρημα γὰρ εὑρήκαμεν ἡμέας τε

καὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, νέφος τοσοῦτον ἀνθρώπων ἀνωσάμενοι.

[662] Pausanias, i, 14, 4; Thucyd. i, 73. φαμὲν γὰρ Μαραθῶνί τε

~μόνοι προκινδυνεῦσαι~ τῷ βαρβάρῳ, etc.

Herodot. vi, 112. πρῶτοι τε ἀνέσχοντο ἐσθῆτά τε Μηδικὴν ὁρέοντες,

καὶ τοὺς ἄνδρας ταύτην ἐσθημένους· τέως δὲ ἦν τοῖσι Ἕλλησι καὶ τὸ

οὔνομα τὸ Μήδων φόβος ἀκοῦσαι.

It is not unworthy of remark, that the memorable oath in the

oration of Demosthenês, de Coronâ, wherein he adjures the

warriors of Marathon, copies the phrase of Thucydidês,—οὐ μὰ τοὺς

ἐν Μαραθῶνι ~προκινδυνεύσαντας~ τῶν προγόνων, etc. (Demosthen. de

Coronâ, c. 60.)

[663] So the computation stands in the language of Athenian

orators (Herodot. ix, 27.) It would be unfair to examine it

critically.

[664] Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 3. According to Cicero (Epist.

ad Attic. ix, 10) and Justin (ii, 9) Hippias was killed at

Marathon. Suidas (v. Ἱππίας) says that he died afterwards at

Lemnos. Neither of these statements seems probable. Hippias would

hardly go to Lemnos, which was an Athenian possession; and had

he been slain in the battle, Herodotus would have been likely to

mention it.

Who it was that raised the treacherous signal-shield to attract

the Persians to Athens was never ascertained: very probably, in

the full exultation of success, no investigation was made. Of

course, however, the public belief would not be satisfied without

singling out some persons as the authors of such a treason; and the

information received by Herodotus (probably about 450-440 B. C.,

forty or fifty years after the Marathonian victory) ascribed the deed

to the Alkmæônids; nor does he notice any other reported authors,

though he rejects the allegation against them upon very sufficient

grounds. They were a race religiously tainted, ever since the

Kylonian sacrilege, and were therefore convenient persons to brand

with the odium of an anonymous crime; while party feud, if it did

not originally invent, would at least be active in spreading and

certifying such rumors. At the time when Herodotus knew Athens, the

political enmity between Periklês son of Xanthippus, and Kimon son

of Miltiadês, was at its height: Periklês belonged by his mother’s

side to the Alkmæônid race, and we know that such lineage was made

subservient to political manœuvres against him by his enemies.[665]

Moreover, the enmity between Kimon and Periklês had been inherited by

both from their fathers; for we shall find Xanthippus, not long after

the battle of Marathon, the prominent accuser of Miltiadês. Though

Xanthippus was not an Alkmæônid, his marriage with Agaristê connected

himself indirectly, and his son Periklês directly, with that race.

And we may trace in this standing political feud a probable origin

for the false reports as to the treason of the Alkmæônids, on that

great occasion which founded the glory of Miltiadês; for that

the reports were false, the intrinsic probabilities of the case,

supported by the judgment of Herodotus, afford ample ground for

believing.

[665] Thucyd. i, 126.

When the Athenian army made its sudden return-march from Marathon to

Athens, Aristeidês with his tribe was left to guard the field and

the spoil; but the speedy retirement of Datis from Attica left the

Athenians at full liberty to revisit the scene and discharge the

last duties to the dead. A tumulus was erected on the spot[666]—such

distinction was never conferred by Athens except in this case

only—to the one hundred and ninety-two Athenian citizens who had

been slain. Their names were inscribed on ten pillars erected at

the spot, one for each tribe: there was also a second tumulus for

the slain Platæans, a third for the slaves, and a separate funeral

monument to Miltiadês himself. Six hundred years after the battle,

Pausanias saw the tumulus, and could still read on the pillars the

names of the immortalized warriors;[667] and even now a conspicuous

tumulus exists about half a mile from the sea-shore, which Colonel

Leake believes to be the same.[668] The inhabitants of the deme of

Marathon worshipped these slain warriors as heroes, along with their

own eponymus, and with Hêraklês.

[666] Thucyd. ii, 34.

[667] Pausan. i, 32, 3. Compare the elegy of Kritias ap. Athenæ.

i, p. 28.

[668] The tumulus now existing is about thirty feet high, and two

hundred yards in circumference. (Leake, on the Demi of Attica;

Transactions of Royal Soc. of Literat. ii, p. 171.)

So splendid a victory had not been achieved, in the belief of the

Athenians, without marked supernatural aid. The god Pan had met

the courier Pheidippidês on his hasty route from Athens to Sparta,

and had told him that he was much hurt that the Athenians had as

yet neglected to worship him;[669] in spite of which neglect,

however, he promised them effective aid at Marathon. The promise

was faithfully executed, and the Athenians repaid it by a temple

with annual worship and sacrifice. Moreover, the hero Theseus was

seen strenuously assisting in the battle; and an unknown warrior,

in rustic garb and armed only with a ploughshare, dealt destruction

among the Persian ranks: after the battle he could not be found;

and the Athenians, on asking at Delphi who he was, were directed to

worship the hero Echetlus.[670] Even in the time of Pausanias, this

memorable battle-field was heard to resound every night with the

noise of combatants and the snorting of horses. “It is dangerous

(observes that pious author) to go to the spot with the express

purpose of seeing what is passing; but if a man finds himself there

by accident, without having heard anything about the matter, the gods

will not be angry with him.” The gods, it seems, could not pardon

the inquisitive mortal who deliberately pried into their secrets.

Amidst the ornaments with which Athens was decorated during the

free working of her democracy, the glories of Marathon of course

occupied a conspicuous place. The battle was painted on one of the

compartments of the portico called Pœkilê, wherein, amidst several

figures of gods and heroes,—Athênê, Hêraklês, Theseus, Echetlus, and

the local patron of Marathon,—were seen honored and prominent the

polemarch Kallimachus and the general Miltiadês, while the Platæans

were distinguished by their Bœotian leather casques.[671] And the

sixth of the month Boëdromion, the anniversary of the battle,

was commemorated by an annual ceremony, even down to the time of

Plutarch.[672]

[669] Herodot. vi, 105; Pausan. i, 28, 4.

[670] Plutarch, Theseus, c. 24; Pausan. i, 32, 4.

[671] Pausan. i, 15, 4; Dêmosthen. cont. Neær. c. 25.

[672] Herodot. vi, 120; Plutarch, Camill. c. 19; De Malignit.

Herodoti, c. 26, p. 862; and De Gloriâ Atheniensium, c. 7.

Boëdromion was the third month of the Attic year, which year

began near about the summer solstice. The first three Attic

months, Hekatombæon, Metageitnion, Boëdromion, approach (speaking

in a loose manner) nearly to our July, August, September;

probably the month Hekatombæon began usually at some day in the

latter half of June.

From the fact that the courier Pheidippidês reached Sparta on

the ninth day of the moon, and that the two thousand Spartans

arrived in Attica on the third day after the full moon, during

which interval the battle took place, we see that the sixth day

of Boëdromion could not be the sixth day of the moon. The Attic

months, though professedly lunar months, did not at this time

therefore accurately correspond with the course of the moon. See

Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hellen. ad an. 490 B. C. Plutarch (in the

Treatise De Malign. Herodoti, above referred to) appears to have

no conception of this discrepancy between the Attic month and

the course of the moon. A portion of the censure which he casts

on Herodotus is grounded on the assumption that the two must

coincide.

M. Boeckh, following Fréret and Larcher, contests the statement

of Plutarch, that the battle was fought on the sixth of the month

Boëdromion, but upon reasons which appear to me insufficient.

His chief argument rests upon another statement of Plutarch

(derived from some lost verses of Æschylus), that the tribe

Æantis had the right wing or post of honor at the battle; and

that the public vote, pursuant to which the army was led out

of Athens, was passed during the prytany of the tribe Æantis.

He assumes, that the reason why this tribe was posted on the

right wing, must have been, that it had drawn by lot the first

prytany in that particular year: if this be granted, then the

vote for drawing out the army must have been passed in the first

prytany, or within the first thirty-five or thirty-six days of

the Attic year, during the space between the first of Hekatombæon

and the fifth or sixth of Metageitnion. But it is certain that

the interval, which took place between the army leaving the

city and the battle, was much less than one month,—we may even

say less than one week. The battle, therefore, must have been

fought between the sixth and tenth of Metageitnion. (Plutarch,

Symposiac. i, 10, 3, and Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie,

vol. i, p. 291.) Herodotus (vi, 111) says that the tribes were

arranged in line ὡς ἠριθμέοντο,—“as they were numbered,”—which

is contended to mean necessarily the arrangement between them,

determined by lot for the prytanies of that particular year. “In

acie instruendâ (says Boeckh, Comment. ad Corp. Inscript. p. 299)

Athenienses non constantem, sed variabilem secundum prytanias,

ordinem secatos esse, ita ut tribus ex hoc ordine inde a dextro

cornu disponerentur, docui in Commentatione de pugnâ Marathoniâ.”

Proœmia Lect. Univ. Berolin. æstiv. a. 1816.

The Proœmia here referred to I have not been able to consult,

and they may therefore contain additional reasons to prove the

point advanced, viz., that the order of the ten tribes in line

of battle, beginning from the right wing, was conformable to

their order in prytanizing, as drawn by lot for the year; but

I think the passages of Herodotus and Plutarch now before us

insufficient to establish this point. From the fact that the

tribe Æantis had the right wing at the battle of Marathon, we

are by no means warranted in inferring that that tribe had drawn

by lot the earliest prytany in the year. Other reasons, in my

judgment equally probable, may be assigned in explanation of the

circumstance: one reason, I think, decidedly _more_ probable.

This reason is, that the battle was fought during the prytany of

the tribe Æantis, which may be concluded from the statement of

Plutarch, that the vote for marching out the army from Athens

was passed during the prytany of that tribe; for the interval,

between the march of the army out of the city and the battle,

must have been only a very few days. Moreover, the deme Marathon

belonged to the tribe Æantis (see Boeckh, ad Inscript. No. 172,

p. 309): the battle being fought in their deme, the Marathonians

may perhaps have claimed on this express ground the post of

honor for their tribe; just as we see that at the first battle

of Mantineia against the Lacedæmonians, the Mantineians were

allowed to occupy the right wing or post of honor, “because

the battle was fought in their territory,” (Thucyd. v, 67.)

Lastly, the deme Aphidnæ also belonged to the tribe Æantis (see

Boeckh, _l. c._): now the polemarch Kallimachus was an Aphidnæan

(Herodot. vi, 109), and Herodotus expressly tells us, “the law

or custom _then_ stood among the Athenians, that the polemarch

should have the right wing,”—ὁ γὰρ νόμος τότε εἶχε οὕτω τοῖσι

Ἀθηναίοισι, τὸν πολέμαρχον ἔχειν κέρας τὸ δέξιον (vi, 111). Where

the polemarch stood, there his tribe would be likely to stand:

and the language of Herodotus indeed seems directly to imply

that he identifies the tribe of the polemarch with the polemarch

himself,—ἡγεομένου δὲ τούτου, ἐξεδέκοντο ὡς ἀριθμέοντο αἱ φυλαὶ,

ἐχόμεναι ἀλλήλων,—meaning that the order of tribes began by that

of the polemarch being in the leading position, and was then

“taken up” by the rest “in numerical sequence,”—_i. e._ in the

order of their prytanizing sequence for the year.

Here are a concurrence of reasons to explain why the tribe Æantis

had the right wing at the battle of Marathon, even though it may

not have been first in the order of prytanizing tribes for the

year. Boeckh, therefore, is not warranted in inferring the second

of these two facts from the first.

The concurrence of these three reasons, all in favor of the same

conclusion, and all independent of the reason supposed by Boeckh,

appears to me to have great weight; but I regard the first of the

three, even singly taken, as more probable than his reason. If my

view of the case be correct, the sixth day of Boëdromion, the day

of battle as given by Plutarch, is not to be called in question.

That day comes in the second prytany of the year, which begins

about the sixth of Metageitnion, and ends about the twelfth of

Boëdromion, and which must in this year have fallen to the lot of

the tribe Æantis. On the first or second day of Boëdromion, the

vote for marching out the army may have passed; on the sixth the

battle was fought; both during the prytany of this tribe.

I am not prepared to carry these reasons farther than the

particular case of the battle of Marathon, and the vindication

of the day of that battle as stated by Plutarch; nor would I

apply them to later periods, such as the Peloponnesian war. It

is certain that the army regulations of Athens were considerably

modified between the battle of Marathon and the Peloponnesian

war, as well in other matters as in what regards the polemarch;

and we have not sufficient information to enable us to determine

whether in that later period the Athenians followed any known

or perpetual rule in the battle-order of the tribes. Military

considerations, connected with the state of the particular army

serving, must have prevented the constant observance of any rule:

thus we can hardly imagine that Nikias, commanding the army

before Syracuse, could have been tied down to any invariable

order of battle among the tribes to which his hoplites belonged.

Moreover, the expedition against Syracuse lasted more than

one Attic year: can it be believed that Nikias, on receiving

information from Athens of the sequence in which the prytanies

of the tribes had been drawn by lot during the second year of

his expedition, would be compelled to marshal his army in a new

battle-order conformably to it? As the military operations of the

Athenians became more extensive, they would find it necessary to

leave such dispositions more and more to the general serving in

every particular campaign. It may well be doubted whether during

the Peloponnesian war _any_ established rule was observed in

marshalling the tribes for battle.

One great motive which induces critics to maintain that the

battle was fought in the Athenian month Metageitnion, is, that

that month coincides with the Spartan month Karneius, so that

the refusal of the Spartans to march before the full moon,

is construed to apply only to the peculiar sanctity of this

last-mentioned month, instead of being a constant rule for the

whole year. I perfectly agree with these critics, that the

answer, given by the Spartans to the courier Pheidippidês, cannot

be held to prove a regular, invariable Spartan maxim, applicable

throughout the whole year, not to begin a march in the second

quarter of the moon: very possibly, as Boeckh remarks, there may

have been some festival impending during the particular month in

question, upon which the Spartan refusal to march was founded.

But no inference can be deduced from hence to disprove the sixth

of Boëdromion as the day of the battle of Marathon: for though

the months of every Grecian city were professedly lunar, yet they

never coincided with each other exactly or long together, because

the systems of intercalation adopted in different cities were

different: there was great irregularity and confusion (Plutarch,

Aristeidês, c. 19; Aristoxenus, Harmon. ii, p. 30: compare also

K. F. Hermann, Ueber die Griechische Monatskunde, p. 26, 27.

Göttingen, 1844; and Boeckh, ad Corp. Inscript. t. i, p. 734).

Granting, therefore, that the answer given by the Spartans to

Pheidippidês is to be construed, not as a general rule applicable

to the whole year, but as referring to the particular month in

which it was given,—no inference can be drawn from hence as to

the day of the battle of Marathon, because either one of the two

following suppositions is possible: 1. The Spartans may have had

solemnities on the day of the full moon, or on the day before it,

in _other months_ besides Karneius; 2. Or the full moon of the

Spartan Karneius may actually have fallen, in the year 490 B. C.,

on the fifth or sixth of the Attic month Boëdromion.

Dr. Thirlwall appears to adopt the view of Boeckh, but does not

add anything material to the reasons in its favor (Hist. of Gr.

vol. ii, Append. iii, p. 488).

Two thousand Spartans, starting from their city, immediately after

the full moon, reached the frontier of Attica, on the third day of

their march,—a surprising effort, when we consider that the total

distance from Sparta to Athens was about one hundred and fifty

miles. They did not arrive, however, until the battle had been

fought, and the Persians departed; but curiosity led them to the

field of Marathon to behold the dead bodies of the Persians, after

which they returned home, bestowing well-merited praise on the

victors.

Datis and Artaphernês returned across the Ægean with their Eretrian

prisoners to Asia; stopping for a short time at the island of

Mykonos, where discovery was made of a gilt image of Apollo carried

off as booty in a Phenician ship. Datis went himself to restore it

to Dêlos, requesting the Delians to carry it back to the Delium,

or temple of Apollo, on the eastern coast of Bœotia: the Delians,

however, chose to keep the statue until it was reclaimed from them

twenty years afterwards by the Thebans. On reaching Asia, the Persian

generals conducted their prisoners up to the court of Susa, and

into the presence of Darius. Though he had been vehemently incensed

against them, yet when he saw them in his power, his wrath abated,

and he manifested no desire to kill or harm them. They were planted

at a spot called Arderikka, in the Kissian territory, one of the

resting-places on the road from Sardis to Susa, and about twenty-six

miles distant from the latter place: Herodotus seems himself to

have seen their descendants there on his journey between the two

capitals, and to have had the satisfaction of talking to them in

Greek,—which we may well conceive to have made some impression upon

him, at a spot distant by nearly three months’ journey from the coast

of Ionia.[673]

[673] Herodot. vi, 119. Darius—σφέας τῆς Κισσίης χώρης κατοίκισε

ἐν σταθμῷ ἑωϋτοῦ τῷ οὔνομα ἐστὶ Ἀρδέρικκα—ἐνθαῦτα τοὺς Ἐρετριέας

κατοίκισε Δαρεῖος, οἳ καὶ μέχρι ἐμέο εἶχον τὴν χώρην ταύτην,

φυλάσοντες τὴν ἀρχαίην γλῶσσαν. The meaning of the word σταθμὸς

is explained by Herodot. v, 52. σταθμὸς ἑωϋτοῦ is the same as

σταθμὸς βασιλήϊος: the particulars which Herodotus recounts about

Arderikka, and its remarkable well, or pit of bitumen, salt, and

oil, give every reason to believe that he had himself stopped

there.

Strabo places the captive Eretrians in Gordyênê, which would be

considerably higher up the Tigris; upon whose authority, we do

not know (Strabo, xv, p. 747).

The many particulars which are given respecting the descendants

of these Eretrians in Kissia, by Philostratus, in his Life of

Apollonius of Tyana, as they are alleged to have stood even in

the first century of the Christian era, cannot be safely quoted.

With all the fiction there contained, some truth may perhaps

be mingled; but we cannot discriminate it (Philostratus, Vit.

Apollon. i, c. 24-30).

Happy would it have been for Miltiadês if he had shared the honorable

death of the polemarch Kallimachus,—“animam exhalasset opimam,”—in

seeking to fire the ships of the defeated Persians at Marathon. The

short sequel of his history will be found in melancholy contrast with

the Marathonian heroism.

His reputation had been great before the battle, and after it

the admiration and confidence of his countrymen knew no bounds:

it appears, indeed, to have reached such a pitch that his head

was turned, and he lost both his patriotism and his prudence. He

proposed to his countrymen to incur the cost of equipping an armament

of seventy ships, with an adequate armed force, and to place it

altogether at his discretion; giving them no intimation whither

he intended to go, but merely assuring them that, if they would

follow him, he would conduct them to a land where gold was abundant,

and thus enrich them. Such a promise, from the lips of the recent

victor of Marathon, was sufficient, and the armament was granted,

no man except Miltiadês knowing what was its destination. He sailed

immediately to the island of Paros, laid siege to the town, and sent

in a herald to require from the inhabitants a contribution of one

hundred talents, on pain of entire destruction. His pretence for

this attack was, that the Parians had furnished a trireme to Datis

for the Persian fleet at Marathon; but his real motive, so Herodotus

assures us,[674] was vindictive animosity against a Parian citizen

named Lysagoras, who had exasperated the Persian general Hydarnês

against him. The Parians amused him at first with evasions, until

they had procured a little delay to repair the defective portions of

their wall, after which they set him at defiance; and Miltiadês in

vain prosecuted hostilities against them for the space of twenty-six

days: he ravaged the island, but his attacks made no impression

upon the town.[675] Beginning to despair of success in his military

operations, he entered into some negotiation—such at least was the

tale of the Parians themselves—with a Parian woman named Timô,

priestess or attendant in the temple of Dêmêtêr, near the town-gates.

This woman, promising to reveal to him a secret which would place

Paros in his power, induced him to visit by night a temple to which

no male person was admissible. He leaped the exterior fence, and

approached the sanctuary; but on coming near, was seized with a

panic terror and ran away, almost out of his senses: on leaping the

same fence to get back, he strained or bruised his thigh badly, and

became utterly disabled. In this melancholy state he was placed on

ship-board; the siege being raised, and the whole armament returning

to Athens.

[674] Herodot. vi, 133. ἔπλεε ἐπὶ Πάρον, πρόφασιν ἔχων ὡς οἱ

Πάριοι ὕπηρξαν πρότεροι στρατευόμενοι τριήρεϊ ἐς Μαραθῶνα ἅμα τῷ

Πέρσῃ. Τοῦτο μὲν δὴ πρόσχημα τοῦ λόγου ἦν· ἀτάρ τινα καὶ ἔγκοτον

εἶχε τοῖσι Παρίοισι διὰ Λυσαγόρεα τὸν Τισίεω, ἐόντα γένος Πάριον,

διαβαλόντα μιν πρὸς Ὑδάρνεα τὸν Πέρσην.

[675] Ephorus (Fragm. 107, ed. Didot; ap. Stephan. Byz. v. Πάρος)

gave an account of this expedition in several points different

from Herodotus, which latter I here follow. The authority of

Herodotus is preferable in every respect; the more so, since

Ephorus gives his narrative as a sort of explanation of the

peculiar phrase ἀναπαριάζειν. Explanatory narratives of that sort

are usually little worthy of attention.

Vehement was the indignation both of the armament and of the

remaining Athenians against Miltiadês on his return;[676] and

Xanthippus, father of the great Periklês, became the spokesman of

this feeling. He impeached Miltiadês before the popular judicature as

having been guilty of deceiving the people, and as having deserved

the penalty of death. The accused himself, disabled by his injured

thigh, which even began to show symptoms of gangrene, was unable

to stand, or to say a word in his own defence: he lay on his couch

before the assembled judges, while his friends made the best case

they could in his behalf. Defence, it appears, there was none; all

they could do, was to appeal to his previous services: they reminded

the people largely and emphatically of the inestimable exploit of

Marathon, coming in addition to his previous conquest of Lemnos. The

assembled dikasts, or jurors, showed their sense of these powerful

appeals by rejecting the proposition of his accuser to condemn him to

death; but they imposed on him the penalty of fifty talents “for his

iniquity.”

[676] Herodot. vi, 136. Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ ἐκ Πάρου Μιλτιάδεα

ἀπονοστήσαντα ἔσχον ἐν στόμασι, οἵ τε ἄλλοι, καὶ μάλιστα

Ξάνθιππος ὁ Ἀρίφρονος· ὃς θανάτου ὑπαγαγὼν ὑπὸ τὸν δῆμον

Μιλτιάδεα, ἐδίωκε τῆς Ἀθηναίων ἀπάτης εἵνεκεν. Μιλτιάδης δὲ,

αὐτὸς μὲν παρεὼν, οὐκ ἀπελογέετο· ἦν γὰρ ἀδύνατος, ὥστε σηπομένου

τοῦ μηροῦ. Προκειμένου δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐν κλίνῃ, ὑπεραπελογέοντο

οἱ φίλοι, τῆς μάχης τε τῆς ἐν Μαραθῶνι γενομένης πολλὰ

ἐπιμεμνημένοι, καὶ τὴν Λήμνου αἵρεσιν· ὡς ἑλὼν Λῆμνόν τε καὶ

τισάμενος τοὺς Πελασγοὺς, παρέδωκε Ἀθηναίοισι. Προσγενομένου

δὲ τοῦ δήμου αὐτῷ κατὰ τὴν ἀπόλυσιν τοῦ θανάτου, ζημιώσαντος

δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἀδικίην πεντήκοντα ταλάντοισι, Μιλτιάδης μὲν μετὰ

ταῦτα, σφακελίσαντός τε τοῦ μηροῦ καὶ σαπέντος, τελευτᾷ· τὰ δὲ

πεντήκοντα τάλαντα ἐξέτισεν ὁ πάϊς αὐτοῦ Κίμων.

Plato (Gorgias, c. 153, p. 516) says that the Athenians passed a

vote to cast Miltiadês into the barathrum (ἐμβαλεῖν ἐψηφίσαντο),

and that he would have been actually thrown in, if it had not

been for the prytanis, _i. e._ the president, by turn for that

day, of the prytanizing senators and of the ekklesia. The

prytanis may perhaps have been among those who spoke to the

dikastery on behalf of Miltiadês, deprecating the proposition

made by Xanthippus; but that he should have caused a vote once

passed to be actually rescinded, is incredible. The Scholiast

on Aristeidês (cited by Valckenaer ad Herodot. vi, 136) reduces

the exaggeration of Plato to something more reasonable—Ὅτε γὰρ

ἐκρίνετο Μιλτιάδης ἐπὶ τῇ Πάρῳ, ~ἠθέλσαν~ αὐτὸν κατακρημνίσαι· ὁ

δὲ πρύτανις εἰσελθὼν ~ἐξῃτήσατο~ αὐτὸν.

Cornelius Nepos affirms that these fifty talents represented the

expenses incurred by the state in fitting out the armament; but we

may more probably believe, looking to the practice of the Athenian

dikastery in criminal cases, that fifty talents was the minor

penalty actually proposed by the defenders of Miltiadês themselves,

as a substitute for the punishment of death. In those penal cases at

Athens, where the punishment was not fixed beforehand by the terms of

the law, if the person accused was found guilty, it was customary to

submit to the jurors, subsequently and separately, the question as to

amount of punishment: first, the accuser named the penalty which he

thought suitable; next, the accused person was called upon to name

an amount of penalty for himself, and the jurors were constrained to

take their choice between these two,—no third gradation of penalty

being admissible for consideration.[677] Of course, under such

circumstances, it was the interest of the accused party to name,

even in his own case, some real and serious penalty,—something which

the jurors might be likely to deem not wholly inadequate to his crime

just proved; for if he proposed some penalty only trifling, he drove

them to prefer the heavier sentence recommended by his opponent.

Accordingly, in the case of Miltiadês, his friends, desirous of

inducing the jurors to refuse their assent to the punishment of

death, proposed a fine of fifty talents as the self-assessed penalty

of the defendant; and perhaps they may have stated, as an argument in

the case, that such a sum would suffice to defray the costs of the

expedition. The fine was imposed, but Miltiadês did not live to pay

it; his injured limb mortified, and he died, leaving the fine to be

paid by his son Kimon.

[677] That this was the habitual course of Attic procedure in

respect to public indictments, wherever a positive amount of

penalty was not previously determined, appears certain. See

Platner, Prozess und Klagen bei den Attikern, Abschn. vi, vol.

i, p. 201; Heffter, Die Athenäische Gerichtsverfassung, p.

334. Meier and Schömann (Der Attische Prozess, b. iv, p. 725)

maintain that any one of the dikasts might propose a third

measure of penalty, distinct from that proposed by the accuser

as well as the accused. In respect to public indictments, this

opinion appears decidedly incorrect; but where the sentence to

be pronounced involved a compensation for private wrong and an

estimate of damages, we cannot so clearly determine whether there

was not sometimes a greater latitude in originating propositions

for the dikasts to vote upon. It is to be recollected that

these dikasts were several hundred, sometimes even more, in

number,—that there was no discussion or deliberation among

them,—and that it was absolutely necessary for some distinct

proposition to be laid before them to take a vote upon. In regard

to some offences, the law expressly permitted what was called a

προστíμημα; that is, after the dikasts had pronounced the full

penalty demanded by the accuser, any other citizen who thought

the penalty so imposed insufficient, might call for a certain

limited amount of additional penalty, and require the dikasts to

vote upon it,—ay or no. The votes of the dikasts were given, by

depositing pebbles in two casks, under certain arrangements of

detail.

The ἀγὼν τιμητὸς, δίκη τιμητὸς, or trial including this separate

admeasurement of penalty,—as distinguished from the δίκη

ἀτίμητος, or trial where the penalty was predetermined, and

where was no τίμησις, or vote of admeasurement of penalty,—is

an important line of distinction in the subject-matter of Attic

procedure; and the practice of calling on the accused party,

after having been pronounced guilty, to impose upon himself a

_counter-penalty_ or _under-penalty_ (ἀντιτιμᾶσθαι or ὑποτιμᾶθαι)

in contrast with that named by the accuser, was a convenient

expedient for bringing the question to a substantive vote of the

dikasts. Sometimes accused persons found it convenient to name

very large penalties on themselves, in order to escape a capital

sentence invoked by the accuser (see Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat.

c. 34, p. 743, R). Nor was there any fear, as Platner imagines,

that in the generality of cases the dikasts would be left under

the necessity of choosing between an extravagant penalty and

something merely nominal; for the interest of the accused party

himself would prevent this from happening. Sometimes we see him

endeavoring by entreaties to prevail upon the accuser voluntarily

to abate something of the penalty which he had at first named;

and the accuser might probably do this, if he saw that the

dikasts were not likely to go along with that first proposition.

In one particular case, of immortal memory, that which Platner

contemplates actually did happen; and the death of Sokratês was

the effect of it. Sokratês, having been found guilty, only by a

small majority of votes among the dikasts, was called upon to

name a penalty upon himself, in opposition to that of death,

urged by Melêtus. He was in vain entreated by his friends to name

a fine of some tolerable amount, which they would at once have

paid in his behalf; but he would hardly be prevailed upon to name

any penalty at all, affirming that he had deserved honor rather

than punishment: at last, he named a fine so small in amount, as

to be really tantamount to an acquittal. Indeed, Xenophon states

that he would not name any counter-penalty at all; and in the

speech ascribed to him, he contended that he had even merited the

signal honor of a public maintenance in the prytaneium (Plato,

Apol. Sok. c. 27; Xenoph. Apol. Sok. 23; Diogen. Laërt. ii, 41).

Plato and Xenophon do not agree; but taking the two together, it

would seem that he must have named a very small fine. There can

be little doubt that this circumstance, together with the tenor

of his defence, caused the dikasts to vote for the proposition of

Melêtus.

According to Cornelius Nepos, Diodorus, and Plutarch, he was put

in prison, after having been fined, and there died.[678] But

Herodotus does not mention this imprisonment, and the fact appears

to me improbable: he would hardly have omitted to notice it, had

it come to his knowledge. Immediate imprisonment of a person fined

by the dikastery, until his fine was paid, was not the natural and

ordinary course of Athenian procedure, though there were particular

cases in which such aggravation was added. Usually, a certain

time was allowed for payment,[679] before absolute execution was

resorted to, but the person under sentence became disfranchised and

excluded from all political rights, from the very instant of his

condemnation as a public debtor, until the fine was paid. Now in

the instance of Miltiadês, the lamentable condition of his wounded

thigh rendered escape impossible,—so that there would be no special

motive for departing from the usual practice, and imprisoning him

forthwith: moreover, if he was not imprisoned forthwith, he would

not be imprisoned at all, since he cannot have lived many days

after his trial.[680] To carry away the suffering general in his

couch, incapable of raising himself even to plead for his own life,

from the presence of the dikasts to a prison, would not only have

been a needless severity, but could hardly have failed to imprint

itself on the sympathies and the memory of all the beholders; so

that Herodotus would have been likely to hear and mention it, if it

had really occurred. I incline to believe therefore that Miltiadês

died at home: all accounts concur in stating that he died of the

mortal bodily hurt which already disabled him even at the moment

of his trial, and that his son Kimon paid the fifty talents after

his death. If _he_ could pay them, probably his father could have

paid them also. And this is an additional reason for believing that

there was no imprisonment,—for nothing but non-payment could have

sent him to prison; and to rescue the suffering Miltiadês from being

sent thither, would have been the first and strongest desire of all

sympathizing friends.

[678] Cornelius Nepos, Miltiadês, c. 7; and Kimon, c. 1;

Plutarch, Kimon, c. 4; Diodorus, Fragment. lib. x. All these

authors probably drew from the same original fountain; perhaps

Ephorus (see Marx, ad Ephori Fragmenta, p. 212); but we have no

means of determining. Respecting the alleged imprisonment of

Kimon, however, they must have copied from different authorities,

for their statements are all different. Diodorus states, that

Kimon put himself voluntarily into prison after his father had

died there, because he was not permitted on any other condition

to obtain the body of his deceased father for burial. Cornelius

Nepos affirms that he was imprisoned, as being legally liable to

the state for the unpaid fine of his father. Lastly, Plutarch

does not represent him as having been put into prison at all.

Many of the Latin writers follow the statement of Diodorus: see

the citations in Bos’s note on the above passage of Cornelius

Nepos.

There can be no hesitation in adopting the account of Plutarch

as the true one. Kimon neither was, nor could be, in prison,

by the Attic law, for an unpaid fine of his father; but after

his father’s death, he became liable for the fine, in this

sense,—that he remained disfranchised (ἄτιμος) and excluded from

his rights as a citizen, until the fine was paid: see Dêmosthen.

cont. Timokrat. c. 46, p. 762, R.

[679] See Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, b. iii, ch. 13, p.

390, Engl. Transl. (vol. i, p. 420, Germ.); Meier und Schömann,

Attisch. Prozess, p. 744. Dr. Thirlwall takes a different view

of this point, with which I cannot concur (Hist. Gr. vol. iii,

Append. ii, p. 488); though his general remarks on the trial of

Miltiadês are just and appropriate (ch. xiv, p. 273).

Cornelius Nepos (Miltiadês, c. 8; Kimon, c. 3) says that the

misconduct connected with Paros was only a pretence with the

Athenians for punishing Miltiadês; their real motive, he affirms,

was envy and fear, the same feelings which dictated the ostracism

of Kimon. How little there is to justify this fancy, may be seen

even from the nature of the punishment inflicted. Fear would have

prompted them to send away or put to death Miltiadês, not to fine

him. The ostracism, which was dictated by fear, was a temporary

banishment.

[680] The interval between his trial and his decease is expressed

in Herodotus (vi, 136) by the difference between the present

participle σηπομένου and the past participle σαπέντος τοῦ μηροῦ.

Thus closed the life of the conqueror of Marathon. The last act

of it produces an impression so mournful, and even shocking,—his

descent from the pinnacle of glory to defeat, mean tampering with a

temple-servant, mortal bodily hurt, undefended ignominy, and death

under a sentence of heavy fine, is so abrupt and unprepared,—that

readers, ancient and modern, have not been satisfied without finding

some one to blame for it: we must except Herodotus, our original

authority, who recounts the transaction without dropping a single

hint of blame against any one. To speak ill of the people, as

Machiavel has long ago observed,[681] is a strain in which every one

at all times, even under a democratical government, indulges with

impunity and without provoking any opponent to reply; and in this

instance, the hard fate of Miltiadês has been imputed to the vices of

the Athenians and their democracy,—it has been cited in proof, partly

of their fickleness, partly of their ingratitude. But however such

blame may serve to lighten the mental sadness arising from a series

of painful facts, it will not be found justified if we apply to those

facts a reasonable criticism.

[681] Machiavel, Discorsi sopra Tito Livio, cap. 58. “L’ opinione

contro ai popoli nasce, perchè dei popoli ciascun dice male senza

paura, e liberamente ancora mentre che regnano: dei principi si

parla sempre con mille timori e mille rispetti.”

What is called the fickleness of the Athenians on this occasion is

nothing more than a rapid and decisive change in their estimation of

Miltiadês; unbounded admiration passing at once into extreme wrath.

To censure them for fickleness is here an abuse of terms; such a

change in their opinion was the unavoidable result of his conduct.

His behavior in the expedition of Paros was as reprehensible as at

Marathon it had been meritorious, and the one succeeded immediately

after the other: what else could ensue except an entire revolution in

the Athenian feelings? He had employed his prodigious ascendency over

their minds to induce them to follow him without knowing whither,

in the confidence of an unknown booty: he had exposed their lives

and wasted their substance in wreaking a private grudge: in addition

to the shame of an unprincipled project, comes the constructive

shame of not having succeeded in it. Without doubt, such behavior,

coming from a man whom they admired to excess, must have produced

a violent and painful revulsion in the feelings of his countrymen.

The idea of having lavished praise and confidence upon a person who

forthwith turns it to an unworthy purpose, is one of the greatest

torments of the human bosom; and we may well understand that the

intensity of the subsequent displeasure would be aggravated by this

reactionary sentiment, without accusing the Athenians of fickleness.

If an officer, whose conduct has been such as to merit the highest

encomiums, comes on a sudden to betray his trust, and manifests

cowardice or treachery in a new and important undertaking confided

to him, are we to treat the general in command as fickle, because

his opinion as well as his conduct undergoes an instantaneous

revolution,—which will be all the more vehement in proportion to his

previous esteem? The question to be determined is, whether there be

sufficient ground for such a change; and in the case of Miltiadês,

that question must be answered in the affirmative.

In regard to the charge of ingratitude against the Athenians, this

last-mentioned point—sufficiency of reason—stands tacitly admitted.

It is conceded that Miltiadês deserved punishment for his conduct in

reference to the Parian expedition, but it is nevertheless maintained

that gratitude for his previous services at Marathon ought to have

exempted him from punishment. But the sentiment upon which, after

all, this exculpation rests, will not bear to be drawn out and stated

in the form of a cogent or justifying reason. For will any one really

contend, that a man who has rendered great services to the public,

is to receive in return a license of unpunished misconduct for the

future? Is the general, who has earned applause by eminent skill

and important victories, to be recompensed by being allowed the

liberty of betraying his trust afterwards, and exposing his country

to peril, without censure or penalty? This is what no one intends

to vindicate deliberately; yet a man must be prepared to vindicate

it, when he blames the Athenians for ingratitude towards Miltiadês.

For if all that be meant is, that gratitude for previous services

ought to pass, not as a receipt in full for subsequent crime, but

as an extenuating circumstance in the measurement of the penalty,

the answer is, that it was so reckoned in the Athenian treatment of

Miltiadês.[682] His friends had nothing whatever to urge, against

the extreme penalty proposed by his accuser, except these previous

services,—which influenced the dikasts sufficiently to induce them to

inflict the lighter punishment instead of the heavier. Now the whole

amount of punishment inflicted consisted in a fine which certainly

was not beyond his reasonable means of paying, or of prevailing

upon friends to pay for him, since his son Kimon actually did pay

it. And those who blame the Athenians for ingratitude,—unless they

are prepared to maintain the doctrine that previous services are to

pass as full acquittal for future crime,—have no other ground left

except to say that the fine was too high; that instead of being fifty

talents, it ought to have been no more than forty, thirty, twenty,

or ten talents. Whether they are right in this, I will not take upon

me to pronounce. If the amount was named on behalf of the accused

party, the dikastery had no legal power of diminishing it; but it

is within such narrow limits that the question actually lies, when

transferred from the province of sentiment to that of reason. It will

be recollected that the death of Miltiadês arose neither from his

trial nor his fine, but from the hurt in his thigh.

[682] Machiavel will not even admit so much as _this_, in the

clear and forcible statement which he gives of the question here

alluded to: he contends that the man who has rendered services

ought to be recompensed for them, but that he ought to be

punished for subsequent crime just as if the previous services

had not been rendered. He lays down this position in discussing

the conduct of the Romans towards the victorious survivor of

the three Horatii, after the battle with the Curiatii: “Erano

stati i meriti di Orazio grandissimi, avendo con la sua virtù

vinti i Curiazi. Era stato il fallo suo atroce, avendo morto la

sorella. Nondimeno dispiacque tanto tale omicidio ai Romani,

che lo condussero a disputare della vita, non ostante che gli

meriti suoi fussero tanto grandi e si freschi. La qual cosa, a

chi superficialmente la considerasse, parrebbe uno esempio d’

ingratitudine popolare. Nondimeno chi lo esaminerà meglio, e con

migliore considerazione ricercherà quali debbono essere gli’

ordini delle republiche, biasimearà quel popolo piuttosto per

averlo assoluto, che per averlo voluto condannare: e la ragione

è questa, che nessuna republica bene ordinata, non mai cancellò

i demeriti con gli meriti dei suoi cittadini: ma avendo ordinati

i premi ad una buona opera, e le pene ad una cattiva, ed avendo

premiato uno per aver bene operato, se quel medesimo opera dipoi

male, lo gastiga senza avere riguardo alcuno alle sue buone

opere. E quando questi ordini sono bene osservati, una città vive

libera molto tempo: altrimenti sempre rovinera presto. _Perchè

se, ad un cittadino che abbia fatto qualche egregia opere per

la città, si aggiunge oltre alla riputazione, che quella cosa

gli arreca, una audacia e confidenza di potere senza temer pena,

far qualche opera non buona, diventerà in breve tempo tanto

insolente, che si risolverà ogni civiltà._”—Machiavel, Discorsi

sop. Tit. Livio, ch. 24.

The charge of ingratitude against the Athenian popular juries really

amounts to this,—that, in trying a person accused of present crime

or fault, they were apt to confine themselves too strictly and

exclusively to the particular matter of charge, either forgetting,

or making too little account of, past services which he might have

rendered. Whoever imagines that such was the habit of Athenian

dikasts, must have studied the orators to very little purpose. Their

real defect was the very opposite: they were too much disposed to

wander from the special issue before them, and to be affected by

appeals to previous services and conduct.[683] That which an accused

person at Athens usually strives to produce is, an impression in the

minds of the dikasts favorable to his general character and behavior.

Of course, he meets the particular allegation of his accuser as well

as he can, but he never fails also to remind them emphatically, how

well he has performed his general duties of a citizen,—how many times

he has served in military expeditions,—how many trierarchies and

liturgies he has performed, and performed with splendid efficiency.

In fact, the claim of an accused person to acquittal is made to

rest too much on his prior services, and too little upon innocence

or justifying matter as to the particular indictment. When we come

down to the time of the orators, I shall be prepared to show that

such indisposition to confine themselves to a special issue was one

of the most serious defects of the assembled dikasts at Athens. It

is one which we should naturally expect from a body of private,

non-professional citizens assembled for the occasion, and which

belongs more or less to the system of jury-trial everywhere; but it

is the direct reverse of that ingratitude, or habitual insensibility

to prior services, for which they have been so often denounced.

[683] Machiavel, in the twenty-ninth chapter of his Discorsi

sopra T. Livio, examines the question, “Which of the two is more

open to the charge of being ungrateful,—a popular government, or

a king?” He thinks that the latter is more open to it. Compare

chapter fifty-nine of the same work, where he again supports a

similar opinion.

M. Sismondi also observes, in speaking of the long attachment of

the city of Pisa to the cause of the emperors and to the Ghibelin

party: “Pise montra dans plus d’une occasion, par sa constance à

supporter la cause des empereurs au milieu des revers, combien la

reconnoissance lie un peuple libre d’une manière plus puissante

et plus durable qu’elle ne sauroit lier le peuple gouverné par un

seul homme.” (Histoire des Républ. Italiennes, ch. xiii, tom. ii,

p. 302.)

The fate of Miltiadês, then, so far from illustrating either the

fickleness or the ingratitude of his countrymen, attests their just

appreciation of deserts. It also illustrates another moral, of no

small importance to the right comprehension of Grecian affairs; it

teaches us the painful lesson, how perfectly maddening were the

effects of a copious draught of glory on the temperament of an

enterprising and ambitious Greek. There can be no doubt, that the

rapid transition, in the course of about one week, from Athenian

terror before the battle to Athenian exultation after it, must have

produced demonstrations towards Miltiadês such as were never paid

towards any other man in the whole history of the commonwealth. Such

unmeasured admiration unseated his rational judgment, so that his

mind became abandoned to the reckless impulses of insolence, and

antipathy, and rapacity;—that distempered state, for which (according

to Grecian morality) the retributive Nemesis was ever on the watch,

and which, in his case, she visited with a judgment startling in

its rapidity, as well as terrible in its amount. Had Miltiadês

been the same man before the battle of Marathon as he became after

it, the battle might probably have turned out a defeat instead of

a victory. Dêmosthenês, indeed,[684] in speaking of the wealth

and luxury of political leaders in his own time, and the profuse

rewards bestowed upon them by the people, pointed in contrast to

the house of Miltiadês as being noway more splendid than that of a

private man. But though Miltiadês might continue to live in a modest

establishment, he received from his countrymen marks of admiration

and deference such as were never paid to any citizen before or after

him; and, after all, admiration and deference constitute the precious

essence of popular reward. No man except Miltiadês ever dared to

raise his voice in the Athenian assembly, and say: “Give me a fleet

of ships: do not ask what I am going to do with them, but only

follow me, and I will enrich you.” Herein we may read the unmeasured

confidence which the Athenians placed in their victorious general,

and the utter incapacity of a leading Greek to bear it without mental

depravation; while we learn from it to draw the melancholy inference,

that one result of success was to make the successful leader one

of the most dangerous men in the community. We shall presently be

called upon to observe the same tendency in the case of the Spartan

Pausanias, and even in that of the Athenian Themistoklês. It is,

indeed, fortunate that the reckless aspirations of Miltiadês did not

take a turn more noxious to Athens than the comparatively unimportant

enterprise against Paros. For had he sought to acquire dominion and

gratify antipathies against enemies at home, instead of directing

his blow against a Parian enemy, the peace and security of his

country might have been seriously endangered.

[684] Dêmosthenês, Olynth. iii, c. 9, p. 35, R.

Of the despots who gained power in Greece, a considerable proportion

began by popular conduct, and by rendering good service to their

fellow-citizens: having first earned public gratitude, they abused

it for purposes of their own ambition. There was far greater danger,

in a Grecian community, of dangerous excess of gratitude towards

a victorious soldier, than of deficiency in that sentiment: hence

the person thus exalted acquired a position such that the community

found it difficult afterwards to shake him off. Now there is a

disposition almost universal among writers and readers to side

with an individual, especially an eminent individual, against the

multitude; and accordingly those who under such circumstances suspect

the probable abuse of an exalted position, are denounced as if they

harbored an unworthy jealousy of superior abilities. But the truth

is, that the largest analogies of the Grecian character justified

that suspicion, and required the community to take precautions

against the corrupting effects of their own enthusiasm. There is

no feature which more largely pervades the impressible Grecian

character, than a liability to be intoxicated and demoralized by

success: there was no fault from which so few eminent Greeks were

free: there was hardly any danger, against which it was at once

so necessary and so difficult for the Grecian governments to take

security,—especially the democracies, where the manifestations of

enthusiasm were always the loudest. Such is the real explanation of

those charges which have been urged against the Grecian democracies,

that they came to hate and ill-treat previous benefactors; and the

history of Miltiadês illustrates it in a manner no less pointed than

painful.

I have already remarked that the fickleness, which has been so

largely imputed to the Athenian democracy in their dealings with

him, is nothing more than a reasonable change of opinion on the

best grounds. Nor can it be said that fickleness was in any case

an attribute of the Athenian democracy. It is a well-known fact,

that feelings, or opinions, or modes of judging, which have once

obtained footing among a large number of people, are more lasting and

unchangeable than those which belong only to one or a few; insomuch

that the judgments and actions of the many admit of being more

clearly understood as to the past, and more certainly predicted as to

the future. If we are to predicate any attribute of the multitude,

it will rather be that of undue tenacity than undue fickleness; and

there will occur nothing in the course of this history to prove that

the Athenian people changed their opinions on insufficient grounds

more frequently than an unresponsible one or few would have changed.

But there were two circumstances in the working of the Athenian

democracy which imparted to it an appearance of greater fickleness,

without the reality: First, that the manifestations and changes

of opinion were all open, undisguised, and noisy: the people gave

utterance to their present impression, whatever it was, with perfect

frankness; if their opinions were really changed, they had no shame

or scruple in avowing it. Secondly,—and this is a point of capital

importance in the working of democracy generally,—the _present_

impression, whatever it might be, was not merely undisguised in its

manifestations, but also had a tendency to be exaggerated in its

intensity. This arose from their habit of treating public affairs

in multitudinous assemblages, the well-known effect of which is,

to inflame sentiment in every man’s bosom by mere contact with a

sympathizing circle of neighbors. Whatever the sentiment might

be,—fear, ambition, cupidity, wrath, compassion, piety, patriotic

devotion, etc,[685]—and whether well-founded or ill-founded, it was

constantly influenced more or less by such intensifying cause.

This is a defect which of course belongs in a certain degree to

all exercise of power by numerous bodies, even though they be

representative bodies,—especially when the character of the people,

instead of being comparatively sedate and slow to move, like the

English, is quick, impressible, and fiery, like Greeks or Italians;

but it operated far more powerfully on the self-acting Dêmos

assembled in the Pnyx. It was in fact the constitutional malady

of the democracy, of which the people were themselves perfectly

sensible,—as I shall show hereafter from the securities which

they tried to provide against it,—but which no securities could

ever wholly eradicate. Frequency of public assemblies, far from

aggravating the evil, had a tendency to lighten it. The people

thus became accustomed to hear and balance many different views

as a preliminary to ultimate judgment; they contracted personal

interest and esteem for a numerous class of dissentient speakers;

and they even acquired a certain practical consciousness of their

own liability to error. Moreover, the diffusion of habits of public

speaking, by means of the sophists and the rhetors, whom it has been

so much the custom to disparage, tended in the same direction,—to

break the unity of sentiment among the listening crowd, to multiply

separate judgments, and to neutralize the contagion of mere

sympathizing impulse. These were important deductions, still farther

assisted by the superior taste and intelligence of the Athenian

people: but still, the inherent malady remained,—excessive and

misleading intensity of present sentiment. It was this which gave

such inestimable value to the ascendency of Periklês, as depicted by

Thucydidês: his hold on the people was so firm, that he could always

speak with effect against excess of the reigning tone of feeling.

“When Periklês (says the historian) saw the people in a state of

unseasonable and insolent confidence, he spoke so as to cow them into

alarm; when again they were in groundless terror, he combated it, and

brought them back to confidence.”[686] We shall find Dêmosthenês,

with far inferior ascendency, employed in the same honorable task:

the Athenian people often stood in need of such correction, but

unfortunately did not always find statesmen, at once friendly and

commanding, to administer it.

[685] This is the general truth, which ancient authors often

state, both partially, and in exaggerated terms as to degree:

“Hæc est natura multitudinis (says Livy); aut humiliter servit

aut superbe dominatur.” Again, Tacitus: “Nihil in vulgo modicum;

terrere, ni paveant; ubi pertimuerint, impune contemni.” (Annal.

i, 29.) Herodotus, iii, 81. ὠθέει δὲ (ὁ δῆμος) ἐμπεσὼν τὰ

πρήγματα ἄνευ νοῦ, χειμάῤῥῳ ποταμῷ ἴκελος.

It is remarkable that Aristotle, in his Politica, takes little or

no notice of this attribute belonging to every numerous assembly.

He seems rather to reason as if the aggregate intelligence of

the multitude was represented by the sum total of each man’s

separate intelligence in all the individuals composing it (Polit.

iii, 6, 4, 10, 12); just as the property of the multitude, taken

collectively, would be greater than that of the few rich. He

takes no notice of the difference between a number of individuals

judging jointly and judging separately: I do not, indeed, observe

that such omission leads him into any positive mistake, but it

occurs in some cases calculated to surprise us, and where the

difference here adverted to is important to notice: see Politic.

iii, 10, 5, 6.

[686] Thucyd. ii, 65. Ὅποτε γοῦν αἴσθοιτό τι αὐτοὺς παρὰ καιρὸν

ὕβρει θαρσοῦντας, λέγων κατέπλησσεν πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ φοβεῖσθαι· καὶ

δεδιότας αὖ ἀλόγως ἀντικαθίστη πάλιν ἐπὶ τὸ θαρσεῖν.

These two attributes, then, belonged to the Athenian democracy;

first, their sentiments of every kind were manifested loudly and

openly; next, their sentiments tended to a pitch of great present

intensity. Of course, therefore, when they changed, the change

of sentiment stood prominent, and forced itself upon every one’s

notice,—being a transition from one strong sentiment past to another

strong sentiment present.[687] And it was because such alterations,

when they did take place, stood out so palpably to remark, that

the Athenian people have drawn upon themselves the imputation of

fickleness: for it is not at all true, I repeat, that changes of

sentiment were more frequently produced in them by frivolous or

insufficient causes, than changes of sentiment in other governments.

[687] Such swing of the mind, from one intense feeling to

another, is always deprecated by the Greek moralists, from the

earliest to the latest: even Demokritus, in the fifth century B.

C., admonishes against it,—Αἱ ἐκ μεγάλων διαστημάτων κινεόμεναι

τῶν ψυχῶν οὔτε εὐσταθέες εἰσὶν, οὔτε εὔθυμοι. (Democriti

Fragmenta, lib. iii, p. 168, ed. Mullach ap. Stobæum, Florileg.

i, 40.)