DARIUS DEMANDS EARTH AND WATER
The Ionic revolt was ended, but Darius had yet to punish the Athenians
for burning the city of Sardis. Eight years had now passed since she
had been destroyed, yet his anger against the Greeks was as fierce as
ever.
Daily during all these years a slave had said to him as he sat at
dinner, ‘Sire, remember the Athenians,’ and now, at length, his
vengeance was at hand.
Mardonius, one of the king’s generals, was ordered to invade Greece and
to bring back with him to Susa the Athenians who had dared to destroy
Sardis.
So Mardonius crossed the Hellespont, and began to march through Thrace
and Macedonia. His fleet, with part of his army, was to meet him later,
beyond the perilous promontory of Mount Athos.
The country through which Mardonius marched was wild, and inhabited by
rough and savage tribes. These tribes attacked the Persian troops so
fiercely that more than half of them were slain. Meanwhile the fleet
had encountered a terrible storm, and three hundred ships were dashed
to pieces upon the rocks near Mount Athos, while twenty thousand men
were drowned.
When Mardonius heard of this terrible disaster he knew that his troops
would not now be strong enough to invade Greece. So he went back to
Persia.
But Darius was as determined as ever to punish the Athenians. He spent
two years in preparations, and then, before he set out for Greece, he
sent heralds to the different states, demanding from each earth and
water. To give earth to the great king was to acknowledge him as ruler
of their land, to give water was to own that he was monarch of the sea.
Many of the states were afraid to refuse, and sent the earth and water
which Darius demanded, but among these was neither Athens nor Sparta.
So indignant were these two cities that a barbarian, as they called
Darius, should send such a demand to the free States of Greece, that
they treated his heralds with scant courtesy. The Athenians flung the
messenger who came to their city into a deep pit, while he who went to
Sparta was tossed into a well and told that there he would find the
earth and water that his king desired.
In the spring of 490 B.C. Darius sent the army and fleet that he had
assembled, across the Ægean Sea to the island of Euboea. Here there was
a city named Eretria, whose inhabitants had shared in the destruction
of Sardis. The Persians plundered the city and took its chief citizens
prisoners, loading them with chains.
Flushed with victory, the army then crossed over to Attica and landed
near the plain of Marathon. There where
The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea,’
a great battle was fought between the Greeks and the Persians.
Hippias, the tyrant who had fled from Athens many years before, had
been living under the protection of Darius and was now with the Persian
army. It is said that it was he who had advised the enemy to land at
Marathon.
The army of Darius was much larger than that of the Athenians, for it
was one hundred thousand strong, while the Greeks numbered only about
ten thousand trained soldiers.
The Greeks were commanded by ten generals. If they did not agree how
to attack the enemy or how to defend themselves, they consulted one of
the archons called the polemarch, or commander-in-chief. The polemarch
at this time was Callimachus. But the glory of the victory of Marathon
belongs not to Callimachus but to the general Miltiades.
It was Miltiades who had urged the Greeks to break up the bridge of
boats at the Danube and to leave Darius to his fate, and he had ever
rebelled against the lordship of the Persian king. He had done all he
could to encourage the Ionian revolt, and when it was crushed he fled
to Athens, to which city he belonged.
When the Persians landed at Marathon the ten Greek generals met
together to decide how best they might defend their country. Five of
them, among whom Miltiades was the most urgent, wished to march at once
to Marathon to attack the enemy. But the other five were more timid,
and said that it would be better to wait until they were joined by the
other Greek States before they risked a battle.
Then Miltiades rose in the council of war to beg Callimachus to give
his vote for war without delay. So sure was he of success that his
eagerness decided the polemarch to give his vote as Miltiades wished.
Thus it was settled that the army should march to Marathon without
delay.
At this time an army was usually drawn up for battle in three
divisions--the right wing, the left wing, and the centre.
On the field of Marathon, Miltiades made his wings as deep as possible,
but as his army was small, this left his centre less strong than that
of the enemy.