present. They would not receive them, but addressed them as follows: "We live at too great a distance, and such assistance would be of little value to you; for you would often be enslaved before any of us could be informed of it. We advise you, therefore, to give yourselves up to the Athenians, who are your neighbours, and are not backward in assisting." The Lacedæmonians gave this advice, not so much from any good-will to the Platæans, as from a desire that the Athenians might be subject to toil, by being set at variance with the Boeotians. The Lacedæmonians, accordingly, gave this advice to the Platæans, and they did not disregard it, but when the Athenians were performing the sacred rites to the twelve gods, they sat down at the altar as suppliants, and delivered themselves up. But the Thebans, having heard of this, marched against the Platæans, and the Athenians went to assist; and as they were about to engage in battle, the Corinthians interfered; for happening to be present, and mediating between them, at the request of both parties, they prescribed the limits to the country in the following manner: that the Thebans should leave alone those of the Boeotians who did not wish to be ranked among the Boeotians. The Corinthians, having made this decision, returned home; but the Boeotians attacked the Athenians as they were departing, and having attacked them were worsted in the battle. The Athenians, therefore, passing beyond the limits which the Corinthians had fixed for the Platæans-passing beyond these, they made the Asopus and Hysiæ to be the boundary between the Thebans and Platæans. The Platæans, therefore, gave themselves up to the Athenians in the manner above described; and at that time came to assist them at Marathon.

The opinions of the Athenian generals were divided, one party not consenting to engage, "because they were too few to engage with the army of the Medes"; and the others, among whom was Miltiades, urging them to give battle. When, therefore, they were divided, and the worst opinion was likely to prevail, thereupon, for there was an eleventh voter who was appointed minister of war among the Athenians, for the Athenians in ancient times gave the minister of war an equal vote with the generals, and at that time Callimachus of Aphidna was minister of war; to him, therefore, Miltiades came and spoke as follows: "It now depends on you, Callimachus, either to enslave Athens, or, by preserving its liberty, to leave a memorial of yourself to every age, such as not even Harmodius and Aristogiton have left. For the Athenians were never in so great danger from the time they

were first a people. And if they succumb to the Medes, it has been determined what they are to suffer when delivered up to Hippias; but if the city survives, it will become the first of the Grecian cities. How, then, this can be brought to pass, and how the power of deciding this matter depends on you, I will now proceed to explain. The opinions of us generals, who are ten, are divided: the one party urging that we should engage; the other, that we should not engage. Now if we do not engage, I expect that some great dissension arising among us will shake the minds of the Athenians, so as to induce them to a compliance with the Medes. But if we engage before any dastardly thought arises in the minds of some of the Athenians, if the gods are impartial, we shall be able to get the better in the engagement. All these things, therefore, are now in your power, and entirely depend on you. For if you will support my opinion, your country will be free, and the city the first in Greece; but if you join with those who would dissuade us from an engagement, the contrary of the advantages I have enumerated will fall to your lot." Miltiades, by these words, gained over Callimachus, and the opinion of the minister of war being added, it was determined to engage. Afterward the generals whose opinions had been given to engage, as the command for the day devolved upon each of them, gave it up to Miltiades; but he, having accepted it, would not come to an engagement before his own turn to command came.

When it came round to his turn, then the Athenians were drawn out in the following order for the purpose of engaging: The war minister, Callimachus, commanded the right wing, for the law at that time was so settled among the Athenians that the war minister should have the right wing. He having this command, the tribes succeeded as they were usually reckoned, adjoining one another; but the Platæans were drawn out last of all, occupying the left wing. Now, ever since that battle, when the Athenians offer sacrifices and celebrate the public festivals which take place every five years, the Athenian herald prays, saying, "May blessings attend both the Athenians and the Platæans!" At that time, when the Athenians were drawn out at Marathon, the following was the case their line was equal in extent to the Medic line, but the middle of it was but few deep, and there the line was weakest; but each wing was strong in numbers. When they were thus drawn out, and the victims were favourable, thereupon the Athenians, as soon as they were ordered to charge, advanced against the barbarians in double-quick time, and the

space between them was not less than eight stades. But the Persians, seeing them charging at full speed, prepared to receive them; and they imputed madness to them, and that utterly destructive, when they saw that they were few in number, and that they rushed on at full speed, though they had no cavalry nor archers. So the barbarians surmised. The Athenians, however, when they engaged in close ranks with the barbarians, fought in a manner worthy of record. For they, the first of all the Greeks whom we know of, charged the enemy at full speed, and they first endured the sight of the Medic garb, and the men that wore it; but until that time the very name of the Medes was a terror to the Greeks. The battle at Marathon lasted a long time; and in the middle of the line, where the Persians themselves and the Sacæ were arrayed, the barbarians were victorious; in this part, then, the barbarians conquered, and having broken the line, pursued to the interior; but in both wings the Athenians and the Platæans were victorious; and having gained the victory, they allowed the defeated portion of the barbarians to flee; and having united both wings, they fought with those that had broken their centre, and the Athenians were victorious. They followed the Persians in their flight, cutting them to pieces, till, reaching the shore, they called for fire and attacked the ships.

And in the first place, in this battle the war minister, Callimachus, was killed, having proved himself a brave man ; and among the generals, Stesilaus, son of Thrasylas, perished; and in the next place Cynægeirus, son of Euphorion, having laid hold of a ship's poop, had his hand severed by an axe and fell and, besides, many other distinguished Athenians were slain. In this manner the Athenians made themselves masters of seven ships: but with the rest the barbarians rowing rapidly back, and after taking off the Eretrian slaves from the island in which they had left them, sailed round Sunium, wishing to anticipate the Athenians in reaching the city. The charge prevailed among the Athenians that they formed this design by the contrivance of the Alcmæonidæ; for that they, having agreed with the Persians, held up a shield to them when they were on board their ships. They then sailed round Sunium. But the Athenians marched with all speed to the assistance of the city, and were beforehand in reaching it before the barbarians arrived; and having come from the precinct of Hercules at Marathon, they took up their station in another precinct of Hercules at Cynosarges: but the barbarians, having laid to with their fleet off Phalerum, for this

was at that time the port of the Athenians, having anchored their ships there for a time, they sailed away for Asia In

this battle at Marathon there died of the barbarians about sixty-four hundred men; and of the Athenians, one hundred and ninety-two: so many fell on both sides. The following prodigy occurred there: An Athenian, Epizelus, son of Cuphagoras, while fighting in the medley, and behaving valiantly, was deprived of sight, though wounded in no part of his body, nor struck from a distance; and he continued to be blind from that time for the remainder of his life. I have heard that he used to give the following account of his loss: He thought that a large heavy armed man stood before him, whose beard shaded the whole of his shield; that this spectre passed by him, and killed the man that stood by his side. Such is the account, I have been informed, Epizelus used to give.

Datis, on his way back with the armament to Asia, when he came to Myconus, saw a vision in his sleep: what the vision was is not related; but he, as soon as day appeared, caused a search to be made through the ships; and having found in a Phoenician ship a gilded image of Apollo, he inquired whence it had been taken; and having learned from what temple it was, he sailed in his own ship to Delos, and, as at that time the Delians had come back to the island, he deposited the image in the temple, and charged the Delians to convey the image to Delium of the Thebans; that place is on the coast, opposite Chalcis: Datis, accordingly, having given this charge, sailed away. The Delians, however, did not convey back this statue, but the Thebans themselves, twenty years afterward, carried it to Delium, in obedience to an oracle. Those of the Eretrians who had been enslaved, Datis and Artaphernes, as soon as they reached Asia, took up to Susa. But King Darius, before the Eretrians were made captive, harboured deep resentment against them, as the Eretrians had been the first to begin acts of injustice: but when he saw them brought into his presence, and subject to his power, he did them no other harm, but settled them in the Cissian territory at a station of his own, the name of which is Ardericca; it is two hundred and ten stades distant from Susa, and forty from the well which produces three different substances; for asphalt, salt, and oil are drawn up from it in the following manner: It is pumped up by means of a swipe, and instead of a bucket half of a wine skin is attached to it; having dipped down with this, a man draws it up and then pours the contents into a receiver; and being poured from this into another, it as

17

119

sumes three different forms: the asphalt and the salt immediately become solid, but the oil they collect, and the Persians call it rhadinace; it is black and emits a strong odour. Here King Darius settled the Eretrians; who, even to my time, occupied this territory, retaining their ancient language. Such things took place with regard to the Eretrians. Two thousand of the Lacedæmonians came to Athens after the full moon, making such haste to be in time that they arrived in Attica on the third day after leaving Sparta. But having come too late for the battle, they, nevertheless, desired to see the Medes; and having proceeded to Marathon, they saw the slain; and afterward, having commended the Athenians and their achievement, they returned home.

It is a marvel to me, and I can not credit the report, that the Alcmæonidæ ever held up a shield to the Persians by agreement, wishing that the Athenians should be subject to the barbarians and to Hippias; for they were evidently haters of tyrants more than, or equally with, Callias, son of Phoenippus, and father of Hipponicus. For Callias was the only one of all the Athenians who, when Pisistratus was driven from Athens, dared to purchase his goods when put up to sale by the public crier, and he devised everything else that was most hostile to him. This Callias deserves to have frequent mention made of him by every one: first of all, on account of what has been already mentioned, as being a man ardent in asserting the freedom of his country; and in the next place, on account of what he did at Olympia, having been victorious in the horse-race, and second in the chariot race, and having before won the prize in the Pythian games, he was distinguished among all the Greeks for the greatest munificence: moreover, with regard to his daughters, who were three in number, he behaved in the following manner: When they were of fit age for marriage he gave them a most magnificent present, and gratified their wishes; for he gave each to that man of all the Athenians whom she wished to select for her own husband. And the Alcmæonidæ were haters of tyrants, equally with, or not at all less than him. It is therefore a marvel to me, and I can not admit the charge, that they held up a shield, who at all times shunned the tyrants, and by whose contrivance the Pisistratidæ abandoned the tyranny. Thus, in my judgment, these were the persons who liberated Athens much more than Harmodius and Aristogiton, for they, by slaying Hipparchus, exasperated the survivors of the Pisistratidæ, but did not any the more put an end to the tyranny of the rest; whereas the Alcmæonidæ manifestly liberated