probably have carried it. But the Greek captain was too able so to err. Halting both wings simultaneously, and wheeling both inward, this to the spear, that to the shield, he closed them both into a compact body, in an inverse direction to that in which they fought before, with their backs now to the sea, and their faces to the mountains.

One charge more full on the rear of the victorious Persian centre, Themistokles and Aristides, rallying their men stoutly in their front, and the last enemy was broken; and, all but the after slaughter, the day won.

The Persians fled, not to their camp-that they left with all its pomp and treasures, striking no blow to defend it--but to their ships, slaughtered mercilessly now, not by the phalanx only, but by the light-armed slaves, who butchered them at pleasure. About the ships the fight again waxed hot and furious; and here it was a melée, each man fighting for himself, so that the Greeks had less advantage either of discipline or weapons. And here was slain the Polemarch Kallimachos, a man of great note on that day; and here, Stesileos, son of Thrasyleos, one of the ten generals; and here, with many other notable Athenians, Kynegeiros, son of Euphorion, but more remarkable as brother of the poet Aischylos, his arm lopped off with a battle-axe, as he grasped the stern-decoration of a Phoenician galley.

The Greeks took seven triremes, and won gold and silver in heaps,* and wealth, in plate and garments, unspeakable. But they won more than this--they won their liberty, and fame immortal, fame, even to this time unforgotten; that men who fight to-day for freedom,

"Still point to Greece, and turn to tread,
So sanctioned, on the tyrant's head."

Of the barbarians there had fallen about six thousand and

* Plutarch, Aristides, V.

four hundred men; of the Athenians one hundred and ninetytwo. But severe as had been the defeat, and total the discomfiture of the Oriental army, still the actual loss of six thousand, out of one hundred and twenty thousand men, was a mere nothing toward crippling them or putting an end to farther operations; unless so far as the moral effect of the rout is to be considered.

Accordingly, so soon as the fleet was under way, it steered straight for the headland of Sunion, now known as Cape Colonna, with wind and tide both favoring it, and, some of the ships pausing to take on board the Eretrian captives from the isle of Ægileia, doubled the promontory, and made all sail for Athens, hoping to surprise it, empty of its defenders; it is said, also, having secret information from the Alkmaionidai; which last is not credible, since it was they who expelled Hippias. Nor can it be doubted, that the appearance of the fleet at that juncture, before the arrival of news from the army, might have produced a fatal result, as the Athenians would naturally have supposed their forces to be annihilated, and, if they had not surrendered, would have probably made but a weak defence. Miltiades, however, and the noble troops he commanded were equal to the emergency; as they stood, reeking from that wonderful and glorious battle, without staying to rest themselves, or to break bread, with their heavy panoply and great shields, they made a forced march, with nine tribes of the ten, and the Plataians, at their utmost speed-for with tide and wind favoring, plying sail and oar, the fleet might reasonably be off the Phalerum, then the port of Athens,* in six hours, and they had more than fifteen miles to march ere they could reach it—and arrived there that same evening, and encamped on the hill of Kynosarges, without the city, and, what was remarked at the time as † Plutarch, Aristides, V.

* Herod. VI., 116.

singular, again in a Herakleion, consecrated ground of Herakles. The Persians made land shortly after their arrival, and cast anchor in the roadstead, but, seeing themselves anticipated, weighed again and made sail for Asia. One tribe alone, the tribe Antiochis, was left to guard the ground, the captives, and the treasure. If Athens had but one captain who could deliver such a battle as that of Marathon, she had but one man who could guard such a booty, and that was Aristides.

On the following day, true to their word, for they had marched so soon as the moon was full, and with such speed that they performed within three days a distance of a hundred and fifty miles, came the Lacedæmonians, with two thousand shields, to the rescue; and, though they came too late, wishing to see the Medes, they marched to Marathon. One can conceive the joy, the pride, the pomp of that procession-all Athens pouring forth her youth, her manhood, and her beauty, to escort those brave auxiliaries, to that field of unexampled glory. One can imagine how they were entranced by the barbaric splendor of the camp, the tents, the spoils, the captured galleys; with what wonder, blended with disgust, they surveyed, now for the first time, the flat faces, and thick lips, and woolly heads, of the black Æthiopians, cold and stark in their lion hides and war paint; with what curiosity they turned over the ox-eared and ox-horned helmets of the Asiatic Thracians; how they proved the gleaming scale armor of the Persians; how they balanced the battleaxes of the Sacians, and tried the edges of the Colchian scymetars. One cannot doubt how they were feasted in the Akropolis, how the temples rang with triumphant Pæans, how the city smoked with incense. Then greatly praising the Athenians, and giving them great glory for that which they had done, they returned home secure and rejoicing.

Here ended Marathon; and would that here had ended, also, the career of its conqueror.

Miltiades was now the first man in Athens; his influence was immense, his popularity unbounded. Athens was, in those days, poor and incorrupt; barbaric wealth had not yet invaded, barbaric luxury not vitiated, Hellas; so for his great reward the Athenians, in the picture, which they caused to be painted of Marathon and suspended in the portico called Poikile, the beauteously adorned, he and Kallimachos were depicted, apart from the rest, in the foreground. Pausanias saw that very picture, in the days probably of the Antonines, with the battle shown there, as it raged hand to hand, the Plataians and Athenians, side by side; and a little farther off the Persians flying and entangled in the salt marsh, and the Greeks slaying them; and conspicuous above all the combatants Kallimachos and Miltiades, and the hero Echetlos, whose terrible eidolon the soldiers saw in the thickest of the fray, with his beard overshadowing all his buckler; and in the distance the Phoenician galleys.

But to return to the hero of this wonderful day, who should either have reposed here on his glory, or gone on to things yet greater, if greater there might be-for there is no battle known which in every point reflects more credit on its winner, than this of Marathon on Miltiades.

But history must be written, if history it is to be, truly; no place for partiality, no room for prejudice.

Availing himself of his unbounded popularity and weight, he now asked the Athenians for seventy galleys, with a land force to correspond, and a military chest proportionate; telling them -nothing of his intents, but that he would enrich them beyond all their hopes, by this expedition. And they, confiding in him absolutely, and supposing that he was about to foray on the maritime cities of the king, granted him all he asked, unquestioning. Then he sailed straight to Paros, under the pretext of exacting punishment or ransom from them, because they had served the Persians against Greece; but in reality to avenge a

REWARD AND PUNISHMENT.

95

private injury done to him by one of their citizens, Tisagoras, who had accused him to Hydarnes the Persian, in the original matter, it is to be supposed, of the bridge over the Danube. Be that as it may, he demanded of them a hundred talents, equal to about twenty-five thousand pounds sterling, which they refnsed to pay, and thereafter resisted him so strenuously, that, after being himself severely wounded, he was obliged to draw off his army, and return to Athens, disgraced and defeated.

Here he was at once impeached for malversation, and tried for his life. Making no defence himself, on the plea of illness, he was brought into court, wounded, in his litter, and his brother being present pled his cause strenuously with the people—so strenuously, that, although he was convicted, in pity for his fallen greatness, and in gratitude for the great deeds he had wrought in the deliverance of Athens, the capital condemnation was remitted; and he was only cast, as in a civil suit, for the expenses of the expedition, which he had diverted from the public service. to the prosecution of his own private animosities, and the furtherance of his own individual interests. As great a crime, certainly, as any of which the public servant, however high in station or renown, of a free state, can well be guilty, and meriting as severe and ignominious punishment.

Those expenses, amounting to some fifty talents, half the sum which he had endeavored unjustly to extort from the Parians, he was unable to pay on the moment; and, being thrown into prison, he chanced there to die of his wound, which probably would have proved fatal anywhere.

It was a sad fate, truly, for such a man, for such a captain. But it is far sadder, that a man who was capable of exploits so noble, should also be capable of crimes so base, as to render such a fate less, not greater, than his desert.

Much obloquy has been heaped on Athens on his account ; much ink has been spilt; and much fine writing wasted there