The Historians' History of the World 03

The Persians, arriving at Eretria, came near Tamynæ, Chærea, and Ægilia; making themselves masters of these places, they disembarked the horse, and prepared to attack the enemy. The Eretrians did not think proper to advance and engage them; the opinion for defending the city had prevailed, and their whole attention was occupied in preparing for a siege. The Persians endeavoured to storm the place, and a contest of six days was attended with very considerable loss on both sides. On the seventh, the city was betrayed to the enemy by two of the more eminent citizens, Euphorbus, son of Alcimachus, and Philager, son of Cyneas. As soon as the Persians got possession of the place, they pillaged and burned the temples to avenge the burning of their own temples at Sardis. The people, according to the orders of Darius, were made slaves.

After this victory at Eretria, the Persians stayed a few days, and then sailed to Attica, driving all before them, and thinking to treat the Athenians as they had done the Eretrians. There was a place in Attica called Marathon, not far from Eretria, well adapted for the motions of cavalry: to this place therefore they were conducted by Hippias, son of Pisistratus.

As soon as the Athenians heard this, they advanced to the same spot, under the conduct of ten leaders, with the view of repelling force by force. The last of these was Miltiades. His father Cimon, son of Stesagoras, had been formerly driven from Athens by the influence of Pisistratus, son of Hippocrates. During his exile, he had obtained the prize at the Olympic games, in the chariot-race of four horses. This honour, however, he transferred to Miltiades his uterine brother. At the Olympic games which next followed he was again victorious, and with the same mares. This honour he suffered to be assigned to Pisistratus, on condition of his being recalled; a reconciliation ensued, and he was permitted to return. Being victorious a third time, on the same occasion, and with the same mares, he was put to death by the sons of Pisistratus, Pisistratus himself being then dead. He was assassinated in the night, near the Prytaneum, by some villains sent for the purpose: he was buried in the approach to the city, near the hollow way; and in the same spot were interred the mares which had three times obtained the prize at the Olympic games. If we except the mares of Evagoras of Sparta, no other ever obtained a similar honour. At this period, Stesagoras, the eldest son of Cimon, resided in the Chersonesus with his uncle Miltiades; the youngest was brought up at Athens under Cimon himself, and named Miltiades, from the founder of the Chersonesus.

This Miltiades, the Athenian leader, in advancing from the Chersonesus, escaped from two incidents which alike threatened his life: he was pursued as far as Imbros by the Phœnicians, who were exceedingly desirous to take him alive, and present him to the King; on his return home, where he thought himself secure, his enemies accused, and brought him to a public trial, under pretence of his aiming at the sovereignty of the Chersonesus; from this also he escaped, and was afterwards chosen a general of the Athenians by the suffrages of the people.

The Athenian leaders, before they left the city, despatched Phidippides to Sparta: he was an Athenian by birth, and his daily employment was that of a courier. To this Phidippides, as he himself affirmed, and related to the Athenians, the god Pan appeared on Mount Parthenius, which is beyond Tegea. The deity called him by his name, and commanded him to ask the Athenians why they so entirely neglected him, who not only wished them well, but who had frequently rendered them service, and would do so again. All this the Athenians believed, and as soon as the state of their affairs permitted, they erected a temple to Pan near the citadel: ever since the above period, they venerate the god by annual sacrifices, and the race of torches.

Phidippides, who was sent by the Athenian generals, and who related his having met with Pan, arrived at Sparta on the second day of his departure from Athens. He went immediately to the magistrates, and thus addressed them: “Men of Lacedæmon, the Athenians supplicate your assistance, and entreat you not to suffer the most ancient city of Greece to fall into the hands of the barbarians: Eretria is already subdued, and Greece weakened by the loss of that illustrious place.” After this speech of Phidippides, the Lacedæmonians resolved to assist the Athenians; but they were prevented from doing this immediately by the prejudice of an inveterate custom. This was the ninth day of the month, and it was a practice with them to undertake no enterprise before the moon was at the full: for this, therefore, they waited.