THE INVASION OF GREECE AND THE BATTLE OF MARATHON.
B.C. 512-490
Great battles.--Progress of the Persian empire.--Condition of
the Persian empire.--Plans of Darius.--Persian power in
Thrace.--Attempted negotiation with Macedon.--The seven
commissioners.--Their rudeness at the feast.--Stratagem of
Amyntas's son.--The commissioners killed.--Artifice of the
prince.--Darius's anger against the Athenians.--Civil dissensions
in Greece.--The tyrants.--Periander.--His message to a neighboring
potentate.--Periander's intolerable tyranny.--His wife
Melissa.--The ghost of Melissa.--A great sacrifice.--The reason
of Periander's rudeness to the assembly of females.--Labda the
cripple.--Prediction in respect to her progeny.--Conspiracy
to destroy Labda's child.--Its failure.--The child
secreted.--Fulfillment of the oracle.--Hippias of Athens.--His
barbarous cruelty.--Hippias among the Persians.--Wars between the
Grecian states.--Quarrel between Athens and AEgina.--The two wooden
statues.--Incursion of the AEginetans.--They carry off the
statues.--Attempt to recover the statues.--They fall upon their
knees.--The Athenian fugitive.--He is murdered by the women.--The
Persian army.--Its commander, Datis.--Sailing of the
fleet.--Various conquests.--Landing of the Persians.--State of
Athens.--The Greek army.--Miltiades and his colleagues.--Position
of the armies.--Miltiades's plan of attack.--Onset of the
Greeks.--Rout of the Persians.--Results of the battle.--Numbers
slain.--The field of Marathon.--The mound.--Song of the Greek.
In the history of a great military conqueror, there seems to be often
some one great battle which in importance and renown eclipses all the
rest. In the case of Hannibal it was the battle of Cannae, in that of
Alexander the battle of Arbela. Caesar's great conflict was at
Pharsalia, Napoleon's at Waterloo. Marathon was, in some respects,
Darius's Waterloo. The place is a beautiful plain, about twelve miles
north of the great city of Athens. The battle was the great final
contest between Darius and the Greeks, which, both on account of the
awful magnitude of the conflict, and the very extraordinary
circumstances which attended it, has always been greatly celebrated
among mankind.
The whole progress of the Persian empire, from the time of the first
accession of Cyrus to the throne, was toward the westward, till it
reached the confines of Asia on the shores of the AEgean Sea. All the
shores and islands of this sea were occupied by the states and the
cities of Greece. The population of the whole region, both on the
European and Asiatic shores, spoke the same language, and possessed
the same vigorous, intellectual, and elevated character. Those on the
Asiatic side had been conquered by Cyrus, and their countries had been
annexed to the Persian empire. Darius had wished very strongly, at the
commencement of his reign, to go on in this work of annexation, and
had sent his party of commissioners to explore the ground, as is
related in a preceding chapter. He had, however, postponed the
execution of his plans, in order first to conquer the Scythian
countries north of Greece, thinking, probably, that this would make
the subsequent conquest of Greece itself more easy. By getting a firm
foothold in Scythia, he would, as it were, turn the flank of the
Grecian territories, which would tend to make his final descent upon
them more effectual and sure.
This plan, however, failed; and yet, on his retreat from Scythia,
Darius did not withdraw his armies wholly from the European side of
the water. He kept a large force in Thrace, and his generals there
were gradually extending and strengthening their power, and preparing
for still greater conquests. They attempted to extend their dominion,
sometimes by negotiations, and sometimes by force, and they were
successful and unsuccessful by turns, whichever mode they employed.
One very extraordinary story is told of an attempted negotiation with
Macedon, made with a view of bringing that kingdom, if possible, under
the Persian dominion, without the necessity of a resort to force. The
commanding general of Darius's armies in Thrace, whose name, as was
stated in the last chapter, was Megabyzus, sent seven Persian officers
into Macedon, not exactly to summon the Macedonians, in a peremptory
manner, to surrender to the Persians, nor, on the other hand, to
propose a voluntary alliance, but for something between the two. The
communication was to be in the form of a proposal, and yet it was to
be made in the domineering and overbearing manner with which the
tyrannical and the strong often make proposals to the weak and
defenseless.
The seven Persians went to Macedon, which, as will be seen from the
map, was west of Thrace, and to the northward of the other Grecian
countries. Amyntas, the king of Macedon, gave them a very honorable
reception. At length, one day, at a feast to which they were invited
in the palace of Amyntas, they became somewhat excited with wine, and
asked to have the ladies of the court brought into the apartment. They
wished "to see them," they said. Amyntas replied that such a procedure
was entirely contrary to the usages and customs of their court; but
still, as he stood somewhat in awe of his visitors, or, rather, of the
terrible power which the delegation represented, and wished by every
possible means to avoid provoking a quarrel with them, he consented to
comply with their request. The ladies were sent for. They came in,
reluctant and blushing, their minds excited by mingled feelings of
indignation and shame.
The Persians, becoming more and more excited and imperious under the
increasing influence of the wine, soon began to praise the beauty of
these new guests in a coarse and free manner, which overwhelmed the
ladies with confusion, and then to accost them familiarly and rudely,
and to behave toward them, in other respects, with so much impropriety
as to produce great alarm and indignation among all the king's
household. The king himself was much distressed, but he was afraid to
act decidedly. His son, a young man of great energy and spirit,
approached his father with a countenance and manner expressive of high
excitement, and begged him to retire from the feast, and leave him,
the son, to manage the affair. Amyntas reluctantly allowed himself to
be persuaded to go, giving his son many charges, as he went away, to
do nothing rashly or violently. As soon as the king was gone, the
prince made an excuse for having the ladies retire for a short time,
saying that they should soon return. The prince conducted them to
their apartment, and then selecting an equal number of tall and
smooth-faced boys, he disguised them to represent the ladies, and gave
each one a dagger, directing him to conceal it beneath his robe. These
counterfeit females were then introduced to the assembly in the place
of those who had retired. The Persians did not detect the deception.
It was evening, and, besides, their faculties were confused with the
effects of the wine. They approached the supposed ladies as they had
done before, with rude familiarity; and the boys, at a signal made by
the prince when the Persians were wholly off their guard, stabbed and
killed every one of them on the spot.
Megabyzus sent an embassador to inquire what became of his seven
messengers; but the Macedonian prince contrived to buy this messenger
off by large rewards, and to induce him to send back some false but
plausible story to satisfy Megabyzus. Perhaps Megabyzus would not have
been so easily satisfied had it not been that the great Ionian
rebellion, under Aristagoras and Histiaeus, as described in the last
chapter, broke out soon after, and demanded his attention in another
quarter of the realm.
The Ionian rebellion postponed, for a time, Darius's designs on
Greece, but the effect of it was to make the invasion more certain and
more terrible in the end; for Athens, which was at that time one of
the most important and powerful of the Grecian cities, took a part in
that rebellion against the Persians. The Athenians sent forces to aid
those of Aristagoras and Histiaeus, and, in the course of the war, the
combined army took and burned the city of Sardis. When this news
reached Darius, he was excited to a perfect phrensy of resentment and
indignation against the Athenians for coming thus into his own
dominions to assist rebels, and there destroying one of his most
important capitals. He uttered the most violent and terrible threats
against them, and, to prevent his anger from getting cool before the
preparations should be completed for vindicating it, he made an
arrangement, it was said, for having a slave call out to him every day
at table, "Remember the Athenians!"
It was a circumstance favorable to Darius's designs against the states
of Greece that they were not united among themselves. There was no
general government under which the whole naval and military force of
that country could be efficiently combined, so as to be directed, in a
concentrated and energetic form, against a common enemy. On the other
hand, the several cities formed, with the territories adjoining them,
so many separate states, more or less connected, it is true, by
confederations and alliances, but still virtually independent, and
often hostile to each other. Then, besides these external and
international quarrels, there was a great deal of internal dissension.
The monarchical and the democratic principle were all the time
struggling for the mastery. Military despots were continually rising
to power in the various cities, and after they had ruled, for a time,
over their subjects with a rod of iron, the people would rise in
rebellion and expel them from their thrones. These revolutions were
continually taking place, attended, often, by the strangest and most
romantic incidents, which evinced, on the part of the actors in them,
that extraordinary combination of mental sagacity and acumen with
childish and senseless superstition so characteristic of the times.
It is not surprising that the populace often rebelled against the
power of these royal despots, for they seem to have exercised their
power, when their interests or their passions excited them to do it,
in the most tyrannical and cruel manner. One of them, it was said, a
king of Corinth, whose name was Periander, sent a messenger, on one
occasion, to a neighboring potentate--with whom he had gradually come
to entertain very friendly relations--to inquire by what means he
could most certainly and permanently secure the continuance of his
power. The king thus applied to gave no direct reply, but took the
messenger out into his garden, talking with him by the way about the
incidents of his journey, and other indifferent topics. He came, at
length, to a field where grain was growing, and as he walked along, he
occupied himself in cutting off, with his sword, every head of the
grain which raised itself above the level of the rest. After a short
time he returned to the house, and finally dismissed the messenger
without giving him any answer whatever to the application that he had
made. The messenger returned to Periander, and related what had
occurred. "I understand his meaning," said Periander. "I must contrive
some way to remove all those who, by their talents, their influence,
or their power, rise above the general level of the citizens."
Periander began immediately to act on this recommendation. Whoever,
among the people of Corinth, distinguished himself above the rest, was
marked for destruction. Some were banished, some were slain, and some
were deprived of their influence, and so reduced to the ordinary
level, by the confiscation of their property, the lives and fortunes
of all the citizens of the state being wholly in the despot's hands.
This same Periander had a wife whose name was Melissa. A very
extraordinary tale is related respecting her, which, though mainly
fictitious, had a foundation, doubtless, in fact, and illustrates very
remarkably the despotic tyranny and the dark superstition of the
times. Melissa died and was buried; but her garments, for some reason
or other, were not burned, as was usual in such cases. Now, among the
other oracles of Greece, there was one where departed spirits could be
consulted. It was called the oracle of the dead. Periander, having
occasion to consult an oracle in order to find the means of recovering
a certain article of value which was lost, sent to this place to call
up and consult the ghost of Melissa. The ghost appeared, but refused
to answer the question put to her, saying, with frightful solemnity,
"I am cold; I am cold; I am naked and cold. My clothes were not
burned; I am naked and cold."
When this answer was reported to Periander, he determined to make a
great sacrifice and offering, such as should at once appease the
restless spirit. He invited, therefore, a general assembly of the
women of Corinth to witness some spectacle in a temple, and when they
were convened, he surrounded them with his guards, seized them,
stripped them of most of their clothing, and then let them go free.
The clothes thus taken were then all solemnly burned, as an expiatory
offering, with invocations to the shade of Melissa.
The account adds, that when this was done, a second messenger was
dispatched to the oracle of the dead, and the spirit, now clothed and
comfortable in its grave, answered the inquiry, informing Periander
where the lost article might be found.
The rude violence which Periander resorted to in this case seems not
to have been dictated by any particular desire to insult or injure the
women of Corinth, but was resorted to simply as the easiest and most
convenient way of obtaining what he needed. He wanted a supply of
valuable and costly female apparel, and the readiest mode of obtaining
it was to bring together an assembly of females dressed for a public
occasion, and then disrobe them. The case only shows to what an
extreme and absolute supremacy the lofty and domineering spirit of
ancient despotism attained.
It ought, however, to be related, in justice to these abominable
tyrants, that they often evinced feelings of commiseration and
kindness; sometimes, in fact, in very singular ways. There was, for
example, in one of the cities, a certain family that had obtained the
ascendency over the rest of the people, and had held it for some time
as an established aristocracy, taking care to preserve their rank and
power from generation to generation, by intermarrying only with one
another. At length, in one branch of the family, there grew up a young
girl named Labda, who had been a cripple from her birth, and, on
account of her deformity, none of the nobles would marry her. A man of
obscure birth, however, one of the common people, at length took her
for his wife. His name was Eetion. One day, Eetion went to Delphi to
consult an oracle, and as he was entering the temple, the Pythian[J]
called out to him, saying that a stone should proceed from Labda which
should overwhelm tyrants and usurpers, and free the state. The nobles,
when they heard of this, understood the prediction to mean that the
destruction of their power was, in some way or other, to be effected
by means of Labda's child, and they determined to prevent the
fulfillment of the prophecy by destroying the babe itself so soon as
it should be born.
[Footnote J: For a full account of these oracles, see the history of
Cyrus the Great.]
They accordingly appointed ten of their number to go to the place
where Eetion lived and kill the child. The method which they were to
adopt was this: They were to ask to see the infant on their arrival at
the house, and then it was agreed that whichever of the ten it was to
whom the babe was handed, he should dash it down upon the stone floor
with all his force, by which means it would, as they supposed,
certainly be killed.
This plan being arranged, the men went to the house, inquired, with
hypocritical civility, after the health of the mother, and desired to
see the child. It was accordingly brought to them. The mother put it
into the hands of one of the conspirators, and the babe looked up into
his face and smiled. This mute expression of defenseless and confiding
innocence touched the murderer's heart. He could not be such a monster
as to dash such an image of trusting and happy helplessness upon the
stones. He looked upon the child, and then gave it into the hands of
the one next to him, and he gave it to the next, and thus it passed
through the hands of all the ten. No one was found stern and
determined enough to murder it, and at last they gave the babe back to
its mother and went away.
The sequel of this story was, that the conspirators, when they reached
the gate, stopped to consult together, and after many mutual
criminations and recriminations, each impugning the courage and
resolution of the rest, and all joining in special condemnation of the
man to whom the child had at first been given, they went back again,
determined, in some way or other, to accomplish their purpose. But
Labda had, in the mean time, been alarmed at their extraordinary
behavior, and had listened, when they stopped at the gate, to hear
their conversation. She hastily hid the babe in a corn measure; and
the conspirators, after looking in every part of the house in vain,
gave up the search, supposing that their intended victim had been
hastily sent away. They went home, and not being willing to
acknowledge that their resolution had failed at the time of trial,
they agreed to say that their undertaking had succeeded, and that the
child had been destroyed. The babe lived, however, and grew up to
manhood, and then, in fulfillment of the prediction announced by the
oracle, he headed a rebellion against the nobles, deposed them from
their power, and reigned in their stead.
One of the worst and most reckless of the Greek tyrants of whom we
have been speaking was Hippias of Athens. His father, Pisistratus, had
been hated all his life for his cruelties and his crimes; and when he
died, leaving two sons, Hippias and Hipparchus, a conspiracy was
formed to kill the sons, and thus put an end to the dynasty.
Hipparchus was killed, but Hippias escaped the danger, and seized the
government himself alone. He began to exercise his power in the most
cruel and wanton manner, partly under the influence of resentment and
passion, and partly because he thought his proper policy was to strike
terror into the hearts of the people as a means of retaining his
dominion. One of the conspirators by whom his brother had been slain,
accused Hippias's warmest and best friends as his accomplices in that
deed, in order to revenge himself on Hippias by inducing him to
destroy his own adherents and supporters. Hippias fell into the snare;
he condemned to death all whom the conspirator accused, and his
reckless soldiers executed his friends and foes together. When any
protested their innocence, he put them to the torture to make them
confess their guilt. Such indiscriminate cruelty only had the effect
to league the whole population of Athens against the perpetrator of
it. There was at length a general insurrection against him, and he was
dethroned. He made his escape to Sardis, and there tendered his
services to Artaphernes, offering to conduct the Persian armies to
Greece, and aid them in getting possession of the country, on
condition that, if they succeeded, the Persians would make him the
governor of Athens. Artaphernes made known these offers to Darius, and
they were eagerly accepted. It was, however, very impolitic to accept
them. The aid which the invaders could derive from the services of
such a guide, were far more than counterbalanced by the influence
which his defection and the espousal of his cause by the Persians
would produce in Greece. It banded the Athenians and their allies
together in the most enthusiastic and determined spirit of resistance,
against a man who had now added the baseness of treason to the wanton
wickedness of tyranny.
Besides these internal dissensions between the people of the several
Grecian states and their kings, there were contests between one state
and another, which Darius proposed to take advantage of in his
attempts to conquer the country. There was one such war in particular,
between Athens and the island of AEgina, on the effects of which, in
aiding him in his operations against the Athenians, Darius placed
great reliance. AEgina was a large and populous island not far from
Athens. In accounting for the origin of the quarrel between the two
states, the Greek historians relate the following marvelous story:
AEgina, as will be seen from the map, was situated in the middle of a
bay, southwest from Athens. On the other side of the bay, opposite
from Athens, there was a city, near the shore, called Epidaurus. It
happened that the people of Epidaurus were at one time suffering from
famine, and they sent a messenger to the oracle at Delphi to inquire
what they should do to obtain relief. The Pythian answered that they
must erect two statues to certain goddesses, named Damia and Auxesia,
and that then the famine would abate. They asked whether they were to
make the statues of brass or of marble. The priestess replied, "Of
neither, but of wood." They were, she said, to use for the purpose the
wood of the garden olive.
This species of olive was a sacred tree, and it happened that, at this
time, there were no trees of the kind that were of sufficient size for
the purpose intended except at Athens; and the Epidaurians,
accordingly, sent to Athens to obtain leave to supply themselves with
wood for the sculptor by cutting down one of the trees from the sacred
grove. The Athenians consented to this, on condition that the
Epidaurians would offer a certain yearly sacrifice at two temples in
Athens, which they named. This sacrifice, they seemed to imagine,
would make good to the city whatever of injury their religious
interests might suffer from the loss of the sacred tree. The
Epidaurians agreed to the condition; the tree was felled; blocks from
it, of proper size, were taken to Epidaurus, and the statues were
carved. They were set up in the city with the usual solemnities, and
the famine soon after disappeared.
Not many years after this, a war, for some cause or other, broke out
between Epidaurus and AEgina. The people of AEgina crossed the water in
a fleet of galleys, landed at Epidaurus, and, after committing various
ravages, they seized these images, and bore them away in triumph as
trophies of their victory. They set them up in a public place in the
middle of their own island, and instituted games and spectacles around
them, which they celebrated with great festivity and parade. The
Epidaurians, having thus lost their statues, ceased to make the annual
offering at Athens which they had stipulated for, in return for
receiving the wood from which the statues were carved. The Athenians
complained. The Epidaurians replied that they had continued to make
the offering as long as they had kept the statues; but that now, the
statues being in other hands, they were absolved from the obligation.
The Athenians next demanded the statues themselves of the people of
AEgina. They refused to surrender them. The Athenians then invaded the
island, and proceeded to the spot where the statues had been erected.
They had been set up on massive and heavy pedestals. The Athenians
attempted to get them down, but could not separate them from their
fastenings. They then changed their plan, and undertook to move the
pedestals too, by dragging them with ropes. They were arrested in this
undertaking by an earthquake, accompanied by a solemn and terrible
sound of thunder, which warned them that they were provoking the anger
of Heaven.
The statues, too, miraculously fell on their knees, and remained fixed
in that posture!
The Athenians, terrified at these portentous signs, abandoned their
undertaking and fled toward the shore. They were, however, intercepted
by the people of AEgina, and some allies whom they had hastily summoned
to their aid, and the whole party was destroyed except one single man.
He escaped.
This single fugitive, however, met with a worse fate than that of his
comrades. He went to Athens, and there the wives and sisters of the
men who had been killed thronged around him to hear his story. They
were incensed that he alone had escaped, as if his flight had been a
sort of betrayal and desertion of his companions. They fell upon him,
therefore, with one accord, and pierced and wounded him on all sides
with a sort of pin, or clasp, which they used as a fastening for their
dress. They finally killed him.
The Athenian magistrates were unable to bring any of the perpetrators
of this crime to conviction and punishment; but a law was made, in
consequence of the occurrence, forbidding the use of that sort of
fastening for the dress to all the Athenian women forever after. The
people of AEgina, on the other hand, rejoiced and gloried in the deed
of the Athenian women, and they made the clasps which were worn upon
their island of double size, in honor of it.
The war, thus commenced between Athens and AEgina, went on for a long
time, increasing in bitterness and cruelty as the injuries increased
in number and magnitude which the belligerent parties inflicted on
each other.
Such was the state of things in Greece when Darius organized his great
expedition for the invasion of the country. He assembled an immense
armament, though he did not go forth himself to command it. He placed
the whole force under the charge of a Persian general named Datis. A
considerable part of the army which Datis was to command was raised in
Persia; but orders had been sent on that large accessions to the army,
consisting of cavalry, foot soldiers, ships, and seamen, and every
other species of military force, should be raised in all the provinces
of Asia Minor, and be ready to join it at various places of
rendezvous.
Darius commenced his march at Susa with the troops which had been
collected there, and proceeded westward till he reached the
Mediterranean at Cilicia, which is at the northeast corner of that
sea. Here large re-enforcements joined him; and there was also
assembled at this point an immense fleet of galleys, which had been
provided to convey the troops to the Grecian seas. The troops
embarked, and the fleet advanced along the southern shores of Asia
Minor to the AEgean Sea, where they turned to the northward toward the
island of Samos, which had been appointed as a rendezvous. At Samos
they were joined by still greater numbers coming from Ionia, and the
various provinces and islands on that coast that were already under
the Persian dominion. When they were ready for their final departure,
the immense fleet, probably one of the greatest and most powerful
which had then ever been assembled, set sail, and steered their course
to the northwest, among the islands of the AEgean Sea. As they moved
slowly on, they stopped to take possession of such islands as came in
their way. The islanders, in some cases, submitted to them without a
struggle. In others, they made vigorous but perfectly futile attempts
to resist. In others still, the terrified inhabitants abandoned their
homes, and fled in dismay to the fastnesses of the mountains. The
Persians destroyed the cities and towns whose inhabitants they could
not conquer, and took the children from the most influential families
of the islands which they did subdue, as hostages to hold their
parents to their promises when their conquerors should have gone.
[Illustration: THE INVASION OF GREECE.]
The mighty fleet advanced thus, by slow degrees, from conquest to
conquest, toward the Athenian shores. The vast multitude of galleys
covered the whole surface of the water, and as they advanced,
propelled each by a triple row of oars, they exhibited to the
fugitives who had gained the summits of the mountains the appearance
of an immense swarm of insects, creeping, by an almost imperceptible
advance, over the smooth expanse of the sea.
The fleet, guided all the time by Hippias, passed on, and finally
entered the strait between the island of Euboea and the main land to
the northward of Athens. Here, after some operations on the island,
the Persians finally brought their ships into a port on the Athenian
side, and landed. Hippias made all the arrangements, and superintended
the disembarkation.
In the mean time, all was confusion and dismay in the city of Athens.
The government, as soon as they heard of the approach of this terrible
danger, had sent an express to the city of Sparta, asking for aid. The
aid had been promised, but it had not yet arrived. The Athenians
gathered together all the forces at their command on the northern side
of the city, and were debating the question, with great anxiety and
earnestness, whether they should shut themselves up within the walls,
and await the onset of their enemies there, or go forth to meet them
on the way. The whole force which the Greeks could muster consisted
of but about ten thousand men, while the Persian host contained over a
hundred thousand. It seemed madness to engage in a contest on an open
field against such an overwhelming disparity of numbers. A majority of
voices were, accordingly, in favor of remaining within the
fortifications of the city, and awaiting an attack.
The command of the army had been intrusted, not to one man, but to a
commission of three generals, a sort of triumvirate, on whose joint
action the decision of such a question devolved. Two of the three were
in favor of taking a defensive position; but the third, the celebrated
Miltiades, was so earnest and so decided in favor of attacking the
enemy themselves, instead of waiting to be attacked, that his opinion
finally carried the day, and the other generals resigned their portion
of authority into his hands, consenting that he should lead the Greek
army into battle, if he dared to take the responsibility of doing so.
The two armies were at this time encamped in sight of each other on
the plain of Marathon, between the mountain and the sea. They were
nearly a mile apart. The countless multitude of the Persians extended
as far as the eye could reach, with long lines of tents in the
distance, and thousands of horsemen on the plain, all ready for the
charge. The Greeks, on the other hand, occupied a small and isolated
spot, in a compact form, without cavalry, without archers, without, in
fact, any weapons suitable either for attack or defense, except in a
close encounter hand to hand. Their only hope of success depended on
the desperate violence of the onset they were to make upon the vast
masses of men spread out before them. On the one side were immense
numbers, whose force, vast as it was, must necessarily be more or less
impeded in its operations, and slow. It was to be overpowered,
therefore, if overpowered at all, by the utmost fierceness and
rapidity of action--by sudden onsets, unexpected and furious assaults,
and heavy, vigorous, and rapid blows. Miltiades, therefore, made all
his arrangements with reference to that mode of warfare. Such soldiers
as the Greeks, too, were admirably adapted to execute such designs,
and the immense and heterogeneous mass of Asiatic nations which
covered the plain before them was exactly the body for such an
experiment to be made upon. Glorying in their numbers and confident of
victory, they were slowly advancing, without the least idea that the
little band before them could possibly do them any serious harm. They
had actually brought with them, in the train of the army, some blocks
of marble, with which they were going to erect a monument of their
victory, on the field of battle, as soon as the conflict was over!
At length the Greeks began to put themselves in motion. As they
advanced, they accelerated their march more and more, until just
before reaching the Persian lines, when they began to run. The
astonishment of the Persians at this unexpected and daring onset soon
gave place, first to the excitement of personal conflict, and then to
universal terror and dismay; for the headlong impetuosity of the
Greeks bore down all opposition, and the desperate swordsmen cut their
way through the vast masses of the enemy with a fierce and desperate
fury that nothing could withstand. Something like a contest continued
for some hours; but, at the end of that time, the Persians were flying
in all directions, every one endeavoring, by the track which he found
most practicable for himself, to make his way to the ships on the
shore. Vast multitudes were killed in this headlong flight; others
became entangled in the morasses and fens, and others still strayed
away, and sought, in their terror, a hopeless refuge in the defiles of
the mountains. Those who escaped crowded in confusion on board their
ships, and pushed off from the shore, leaving the whole plain covered
with their dead and dying companions.
The Greeks captured an immense amount of stores and baggage, which
were of great cost and value. They took possession, too, of the marble
blocks which the Persians had brought to immortalize their victory,
and built with them a monument, instead, to commemorate their defeat.
They counted the dead. Six thousand Persians, and only two hundred
Greeks, were found. The bodies of the Greeks were collected together,
and buried on the field, and an immense mound was raised over the
grave. This mound has continued to stand at Marathon to the present
day.
The battle of Marathon was one of those great events in the history of
the human race which continue to attract, from age to age, the
admiration of mankind. They who look upon war, in all its forms, as
only the perpetration of an unnatural and atrocious crime, which rises
to dignity and grandeur only by the very enormity of its guilt, can
not but respect the courage, the energy, and the cool and determined
resolution with which the little band of Greeks went forth to stop the
torrent of foes which all the nations of a whole continent had
combined to pour upon them. The field has been visited in every age by
thousands of travelers, who have upon the spot offered their tribute
of admiration to the ancient heroes that triumphed there. The plain is
found now, as of old, overlooking the sea, and the mountains inland,
towering above the plain. The mound, too, still remains, which was
reared to consecrate the memory of the Greeks who fell. They who visit
it stand and survey the now silent and solitary scene, and derive from
the influence and spirit of the spot new strength and energy to meet
the great difficulties and dangers of life which they themselves have
to encounter. The Greeks themselves, of the present day,
notwithstanding the many sources of discouragement and depression with
which they have to contend, must feel at Marathon some rising spirit
of emulation in contemplating the lofty mental powers and the
undaunted spirit of their sires. Byron makes one of them sing,
"The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For, standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave."