chapter xxxi

. The legendary story there given as the provocation of Ægina to the war is evidently not to be treated as a real and historical cause of war: a state of quarrel causes all such stories to be raked up, and some probably to be invented. It is like the old alleged quarrel between the Athenians and the Pelasgi of Lemnos (vi, 137-140).

Among these heralds, some had gone both to Athens and to Sparta, for the same purpose of demanding earth and water. The reception given to them at both places was angry in the extreme. The Athenians cast the herald into the pit called the barathrum,[593] into which they sometimes precipitated public criminals: the Spartans threw the herald who came to them into a well, desiring the unfortunate messenger to take earth and water from thence to the king. The inviolability of heralds was so ancient and undisputed in Greece, from the Homeric times downward, that nothing short of the fiercest excitement could have instigated any Grecian community to such an outrage. But to the Lacedæmonians, now accustomed to regard themselves as the first of all Grecian states, and to be addressed always in the character of superiors, the demand appeared so gross an insult as to banish from their minds for the time all recollection of established obligations. They came subsequently, however, to repent of the act as highly criminal, and to look upon it as the cause of misfortunes which overtook them thirty or forty years afterwards: how they tried at that time to expiate it, I shall hereafter recount.[594]

[593] It is to this treatment of the herald that the story in Plutarch’s Life of Themistoklês must allude, if that story indeed be true; for the Persian king was not likely to send a second herald, after such treatment of the first. An interpreter accompanied the herald, speaking Greek as well as his own native language. Themistoklês proposed and carried a vote that he should be put to death, for having employed the Greek language as medium for barbaric dictation (Plutarch, Themist. c. 6). We should be glad to know from whom Plutarch copied this story.

Pausanias states that it was Miltiadês who proposed the putting to death of the heralds at Athens (iii, 12, 6); and that the divine judgment fell upon his family in consequence of it. From whom Pausanias copied this statement I do not know: certainly not from Herodotus, who does not mention Miltiadês in the case, and expressly says that he does not know in what manner the divine judgment overtook the Athenians for the crime, “except (says he) that their city and country was afterwards laid waste by Xerxês; but I do not think that this happened on account of the outrage on the heralds.” (Herodot. vii, 133.)

The belief that there must have been a divine judgment of some sort or other, presented a strong stimulus to invent or twist some historical fact to correspond with it. Herodotus has sufficient regard for truth to resist this stimulus and to confess his ignorance; a circumstance which goes, along with others, to strengthen our confidence in his general authority. His silence weakens the credibility, but does not refute the allegation of Pausanias with regard to Miltiadês,—which is certainly not intrinsically improbable.

[594] Herodot. vii, 133.

But if, on the one hand, the wounded dignity of the Spartans hurried them into the commission of this wrong, it was on the other hand of signal use to the general liberties of Greece, by rousing them out of their apathy as to the coming invader, and placing them with regard to him in the same state of inexpiable hostility as Athens and Eretria. We see at once the bonds drawn closer between Athens and Sparta. The Athenians, for the first time, prefer a complaint at Sparta against the Æginetans for having given earth and water to Darius,—accusing them of having done this with views of enmity to Athens, and in order to invade Attica conjointly with the Persian. This they represented “as treason to Hellas,” calling upon Sparta as head of Greece to interfere. And in consequence of their appeal, Kleomenês king of Sparta went over to Ægina, to take measures against the authors of the late proceeding, “for the general benefit of Hellas.”[595]

[595] Herodot. vi, 49. Ποιήσασι δέ σφι (Αἰγιμήταις) ταῦτα, ἰθέως Ἀθηναῖοι ἐπεκέατο, δοκέοντες ἐπὶ σφίσι ἔχοντας τοὺς Αἰγινήτας δεδωκέναι (γῆν καὶ ὕδωρ), ὡς ἅμα τῷ Πέρσῃ ἐπὶ σφέας στρατεύωνται. Καὶ ἄσμενοι προφάσιος ἐπελάβοντο· ~φοιτέοντές τε ἐς τὴν Σπάρτην, κατηγόρεον τῶν Αἰγινητέων τὰ πεποιήκοιεν, προδόντες τὴν Ἑλλάδα~. Compare viii, 144, ix, 7. ~τὴν Ἑλλάδα δεινὸν ποιούμενοι προδοῦναι~—a new and very important phrase.

vi, 61. Τότε δὲ τὸν Κλεομένεα, ἐόντα ἐν τῇ Αἰγίνῃ, ~καὶ κοινὰ τῇ Ἑλλάδι ἀγαθὰ προεργαζόμενον~, etc.

The proceeding now before us is of very great importance in the progress of Grecian history. It is the first direct and positive historical manifestation of Hellas as an aggregate body, with Sparta as its chief, and obligations of a certain sort on the part of its members, the neglect or violation of which constitutes a species of treason. I have already pointed out several earlier incidents, showing how the Greek political mind, beginning from entire severance of states, became gradually prepared for this idea of a permanent league with mutual obligations and power of enforcement vested in a permanent chief,—an idea never fully carried into practice, but now distinctly manifest and partially operative. First, the great acquired power and territory of Sparta, her military training, her undisturbed political traditions, create an unconscious deference towards her, such as was not felt towards any other state: next, she is seen in the proceedings against Athens, after the expulsion of Hippias, as summoning and conducting to war a cluster of self-obliged Peloponnesian allies, with certain formalities which gave to the alliance an imposing permanence and solemnity: thirdly, her position becomes recognized as first power or president of Greece, both by foreigners who invite alliance (Crœsus), or by Greeks who seek help, such as the Platæans against Thebes, or the Ionians against Persia. But Sparta has not been hitherto found willing to take on herself the performance of this duty of protector-general. She refused the Ionians and the Samian Mæandrius, as well as the Platæans, in spite of their entreaties founded on common Hellenic lineage: the expedition which she undertook against Polykratês of Samos, was founded upon private motives of displeasure, even in the estimation of the Lacedæmonians themselves: moreover, even if all these requests had been granted, she might have seemed to be rather obeying a generous sympathy than performing a duty incumbent upon her as superior. But in the case now before us, of Athens against Ægina, the latter consideration stands distinctly prominent. Athens is not a member of the cluster of Spartan allies, nor does she claim the compassion of Sparta, as defenceless against an overpowering Grecian neighbor. She complains of a Pan-Hellenic obligation as having been contravened by the Æginetans to her detriment and danger, and calls upon Sparta to enforce upon the delinquents respect to these obligations. For the first time in Grecian history, such a call is made; for the first time in Grecian history, it is effectively answered. We may reasonably doubt, whether it would have been thus answered,—considering the tardy, unimpressible, and home-keeping character of the Spartans, with their general insensibility to distant dangers,[596]—if the adventure of the Persian herald had not occurred to gall their pride beyond endurance; to drive them into unpardonable hostility with the Great King; and to cast them into the same boat with Athens for keeping off an enemy who threatened the common liberties of Hellas.

[596] Thucyd. i, 70-118. ἄοκνοι πρὸς ὑμᾶς (_i. e._ the Spartans) μελλητὰς καὶ ἀποδημηταὶ πρὸς ἐνδημοτάτους.

From this time, then, we may consider that there exists a recognized political union of Greece against the Persians,[597]—or at least something as near to a political union as Grecian temper will permit,—with Sparta as its head for the present. To such a preëminence of Sparta, Grecian history had been gradually tending; but the final event which placed it beyond dispute, and which humbled for the time her ancient and only rival—Argos—is now to be noticed.

[597] Herodot. vii, 145-148. Οἱ συνωμόται Ἑλλήνων ἐπὶ τῷ Πέρσῃ.

It was about three or four years before the arrival of these Persian heralds in Greece, and nearly at the time when Milêtus was besieged by the Persian generals, that a war broke out between Sparta and Argos,[598]—on what grounds Herodotus does not inform us. Kleomenês, encouraged by a promise of the oracle that he should take Argos, led the Lacedæmonian troops to the banks of the Erasinus, the border river of the Argeian territory. But the sacrifices, without which no river could be crossed, were so unfavorable, that he altered his course, extorted some vessels from Ægina and Sikyon,[599] and carried his troops by sea to Nauplia, the seaport belonging to Argos, and to the territory of Tiryns. The Argeians having marched their forces down to resist him, the two armies joined battle at Sêpeia, near Tiryns: Kleomenês, by a piece of simplicity on the part of his enemies, which we find it difficult to credit in Herodotus, was enabled to attack them unprepared, and obtained a decisive victory. For the Argeians, it is stated, were so afraid of being overreached by stratagem, in the post which their army occupied over against the enemy, that they listened for the commands proclaimed aloud by the Lacedæmonian herald, and performed with their own army the same order which they thus heard given. This came to the knowledge of Kleomenês, who communicated private notice to his soldiers, that when the herald proclaimed orders to go to dinner, they should not obey, but immediately stand to their arms. We are to presume that the Argeian camp was sufficiently near to that of the Lacedæmonians to enable them to hear the voice of the herald, yet not within sight, from the nature of the ground. Accordingly, so soon as the Argeians heard the herald in the enemy’s camp proclaim the word to go to dinner,[600] they went to dinner themselves; and in this disorderly condition they were easily overthrown by the Spartans. Many of them perished in the field, while the fugitives took refuge in a thick grove consecrated to their eponymous hero Argus. Kleomenês pursued and inclosed them therein; but thinking it safer to employ deceit rather than force, he ascertained from deserters the names of the chief Argeians thus shut up, and then invited them out successively by means of a herald,—pretending that he had received their ransom, and that they were released. As fast as each man came out, he was put to death; the fate of these unhappy sufferers being concealed from their comrades within the grove by the thickness of the foliage, until some one climbing to the top of a tree detected and proclaimed the destruction going on,—after about fifty of the victims had perished. Unable to entice any more of the Argeians from their consecrated refuge, which they still vainly hoped would protect them, Kleomenês set fire to the grove, and burnt it to the ground, insomuch that the persons within it appear to have been destroyed, either by fire or by sword.[601] After the conflagration had begun, he inquired for the first time to whom the grove belonged, and learnt that it belonged to the hero Argus.

[598] That which marks the siege of Milêtus, and the defeat of the Argeians by Kleomenês, as contemporaneous, or nearly so, is, the common oracular dictum delivered in reference to both: in the same prophecy of the Pythia, one half alludes to the sufferings of Milêtus, the other half to those of Argos (Herodot. vi, 19-77).

Χρεωμένοισι γὰρ Ἀργείοισι ἐν Δελφοῖσι περὶ σωτηρίης τῆς πόλιος τῆς σφετέρης, τὸ μὲν ἐς αὐτοὺς τοὺς Ἀργείους φέρον, τὴν δὲ παρενθήκην ἔχρησε ἐς Μιλησίους.

I consider this evidence of date to be better than the statement of Pausanias. That author places the enterprise against Argos immediately (αὔτικα—Paus. iii, 4, 1) after the accession of Kleomenês, who, as he was king when Mæandrius came from Samos (Herodot. iii, 148), must have come to the throne not later than 518 or 517 B. C. This would be thirty-seven years prior to 480 B. C.; a date much too early for the war between Kleomenês and the Argeians, as we may see by Herodotus (vii, 149).

[599] Herodot. vi, 92.

[600] Herodot. vi, 78; compare Xenophon, Rep. Laced. xii, 6. Orders for evolutions in the field, in the Lacedæmonian military service, were not proclaimed by the herald, but transmitted through the various gradations of officers (Thucyd. v, 66).

[601] Herodot. vi, 79, 80.

Not less than six thousand citizens, the flower and strength of Argos, perished in this disastrous battle and retreat. And so completely was the city prostrated, that Kleomenês might easily have taken it, had he chosen to march thither forthwith and attack it with vigor. If we are to believe later historians whom Pausanias, Polyænus, and Plutarch have copied, he did march thither and attack it, but was repulsed by the valor of the Argeian women; who, in the dearth of warriors occasioned by the recent defeat, took arms along with the slaves, headed by the poetess Telesilla, and gallantly defended the walls.[602] This is probably a mythe, generated by a desire to embody in detail the dictum of the oracle a little before, about “the female conquering the male.”[603] Without meaning to deny that the Argeian women might have been capable of achieving so patriotic a deed, if Kleomenês had actually marched to the attack of their city, we are compelled, by the distinct statement of Herodotus, to affirm that he never did attack it. Immediately after the burning of the sacred grove of Argos, he dismissed the bulk of his army to Sparta, retaining only one thousand choice troops,—with whom he marched up to the Hêræum, or great temple of Hêrê, between Argos and Mykênæ, to offer sacrifice. The priest in attendance forbade him to enter, saying that no stranger was allowed to offer sacrifice in the temple. But Kleomenês had once already forced his way into the sanctuary of Athênê, on the Athenian acropolis, in spite of the priestess and her interdict,—and he now acted still more brutally towards the Argeian priest, for he directed his helots to drag him from the altar and scourge him. Having offered sacrifice, Kleomenês returned with his remaining force to Sparta.[604]

[602] Pausan. ii, 20, 7; Polyæn. viii, 33; Plutarch, De Virtut. Mulier, p. 245; Suidas, v. Τελέσιλλα.

Plutarch cites the historian Sokratês of Argos for this story about Telesilla; an historian, or perhaps composer of a περιήγησις Ἄργους, of unknown date: compare Diogen. Laërt. ii, 5, 47, and Plutarch, Quæstion. Romaic. pp. 270-277. According to his representation, Kleomenês and Demaratus jointly assaulted the town of Argos, and Demaratus, after having penetrated into the town and become master of the Pamphyliakon, was driven out again by the women. Now Herodotus informs us that Kleomenês and Demaratus were never employed upon the same expedition, after the disagreement in their march to Attica (v, 75; vi, 64).

[603] Herodot. vi, 77.

Ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν ἡ θηλεῖα τὸν ἄρσενα νικήσασα Ἐξελάσῃ, καὶ κῦδος ἐν Ἀργείοισιν ἄρηται, etc.

If this prophecy can be said to have any distinct meaning, it probably refers to Hêrê, as protectress of Argos, repulsing the Spartans.

Pausanias (ii, 20, 7) might well doubt whether Herodotus understood this oracle in the same sense as he did: it is plain that Herodotus could not have so understood it.

[604] Herodot. vi, 80, 81: compare v, 72.

But the army whom he had sent home returned with a full persuasion that Argos might easily have been taken,—that the king alone was to blame for having missed the opportunity. As soon as he himself returned, his enemies—perhaps his colleague Demaratus—brought him to trial before the ephors, on a charge of having been bribed, against which he defended himself as follows: He had invaded the hostile territory on the faith of an assurance from the oracle that he should take Argos; but so soon as he had burnt down the sacred grove of the hero Argus,—without knowing to whom it belonged,—he became at once sensible that this was all that the god meant by _taking Argos_, and therefore that the divine promise had been fully realized. Accordingly, he did not think himself at liberty to commence any fresh attack, until he had ascertained whether the gods would approve it and would grant him success. It was with this view that he sacrificed in the Hêræum. But though his sacrifice was favorable, he observed that the flame kindled on the altar flashed back from the bosom of the statue of Hêrê, and not from her head. If the flame had flashed from her head, he would have known at once that the gods intended him to take the city by storm;[605] but the flash from her bosom plainly indicated that the topmost success was out of his reach, and that he had already reaped all the glories which they intended for him. We may see that Herodotus, though he refrains from criticizing this story, suspects it to be a fabrication. Not so the Spartan ephors: to them it appeared not less true as a story than triumphant as a defence, insuring to Kleomenês an honorable acquittal.[606]

[605] Herodot. vi, 82. εἰ μὲν γὰρ ~ἐκ τῆς κεφαλῆς~ τοῦ ἀγάλματος ἐξέλαμψε, αἱρέειν ἂν ~κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς~ τὴν πόλιν· ἐκ τῶν στηθέων δὲ λάμψαντος, πᾶν οἱ πεποιῆσθαι ὅσον ὁ θεὸς ἤθελε.

For the expression αἱρέειν κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς, compare Herodot. vi, 21, and Damm. Lex. Homer. v. ἀκρός. In this expression, as generally used, the last words κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς have lost their primitive and special sense, and do little more than intensify the simple αἱρέειν,—equivalent to something like “de fond en comble:” for Kleomenês is accused by his enemies,—φάμενοί μιν δωροδοκήσαντα, οὐκ ἑλέειν τὸ Ἄργος, παρέον εὐπετέως μιν ἑλεῖν. But in the story recounted by Kleomenês, the words κατ᾽ ἀκρῆς come back to their primitive meaning, and serve as the foundation for his religious inference, from type to thing typified: if the light had shone from the head or _top_ of the statue, this would have intimated that the gods meant him to take the city “_from top to bottom_.”

In regard to this very illustrative story,—which there seems no reason for mistrusting,—the contrast between the point of view of Herodotus and that of the Spartan ephors deserves notice. The former, while he affirms distinctly that it was the real story told by Kleomenês, suspects its truth, and utters as much of skepticism as his pious fear will permit him; the latter find it in complete harmony, both with their canon of belief and with their religious feeling,—Κλεομένης δέ σφι ἔλεξε, οὔτε εἰ ψευδόμενος οὔτε εἰ ἀληθέα λέγων, ἔχω σαφηνέως εἶπαι· ἔλεξε δ᾽ ὦν.... Ταῦτα δὲ λέγων, πιστά τε καὶ οἴκοτα ἐδόκεε Σπαρτιήτῃσι λέγειν, καὶ ἀπέφυγε πολλὸν τοὺς διώκοντας.

[606] Compare Pausanias, ii, 20, 8.

Though this Spartan king lost the opportunity of taking Argos, his victories already gained had inflicted upon her a blow such as she did not recover for a generation, and put her for a time out of all condition to dispute the primacy of Greece with Lacedæmon. I have already mentioned that both in legend and in earliest history, Argos stands forth as the first power in Greece, with legendary claims to headship, and decidedly above Lacedæmon; who gradually usurps from her, first the reality of superior power, next the recognition of preëminence,—and is now, at the period which we have reached, taking upon herself both the rights and the duties of a presiding state over a body of allies who are bound both to her and to each other. Her title to this honor, however, was never admitted at Argos, and it is very probable that the war just described grew in some way or other out of the increasing presidential power which circumstances were tending to throw into her hands. And the complete temporary prostration of Argos was an essential condition to the quiet acquisition of this power by Sparta. Occurring as it did two or three years before the above-recounted adventure of the heralds, it removed the only rival at that time both willing and able to compete with Sparta,—a rival who might well have prevented any effective union under another chief, though she could no longer have secured any Pan-Hellenic ascendency for herself,—a rival who would have seconded Ægina in her submission to the Persians, and would thus have lamed incurably the defensive force of Greece. The ships which Kleomenês had obtained from the Æginetans as well as from the Sikyonians, against their own will, for landing his troops at Nauplia, brought upon both these cities the enmity of Argos, which the Sikyonians compromised by paying a sum of money, while the Æginetans refused to do so.[607] And thus the circumstances of the Kleomenic war had the effect not only of enfeebling Argos, but of alienating her from natural allies and supporters, and clearing the ground for undisputed Spartan primacy.

[607] Herodot. vi, 92.

Returning now to the complaint preferred by Athens to the Spartans against the traitorous submission of Ægina to Darius, we find that king Kleomenês passed immediately over to that island for the purpose of inquiry and punishment. He was proceeding to seize and carry away as prisoners several of the leading Æginetans, when Krius and some others among them opposed to him a menacing resistance, telling him that he came without any regular warrant from Sparta and under the influence of Athenian bribes,—that, in order to carry authority, both the Spartan kings ought to come together. It was not of their own accord that the Æginetans ventured to adopt so dangerous a course. Demaratus, the colleague of Kleomenês in the junior or Prokleid line of kings, had suggested to them the step and promised to carry them through it safely.[608] Dissension between the two coördinate kings was no new phenomenon at Sparta; but in the case of Demaratus and Kleomenês, it had broken out some years previously on the occasion of the march against Attica; and Demaratus, hating his colleague more than ever, entered into the present intrigue with the Æginetans with the deliberate purpose of frustrating his intervention. He succeeded, and Kleomenês was compelled to return to Sparta; not without unequivocal menace against Krius and the other Æginetans who had repelled him,[609] and not without a thorough determination to depose Demaratus.

[608] Herodot. vi, 50. Κρῖος—ἔλεγε δὲ ταῦτα ἐξ ἐπιστολῆς τῆς Δημαρήτου. Compare Pausan. iii, 4, 3.

[609] Herodot. vi, 50-61, 64. Δημάρητος—φθόνῳ καὶ ἄγῃ χρεώμενος.

It appears that suspicions had always attached to the legitimacy of Demaratus’s birth. His reputed father Aristo had had no offspring by two successive wives: at last, he became enamored of the wife of his friend Agêtus,—a woman of surpassing beauty,—and entrapped him into an agreement, whereby each solemnly bound himself to surrender anything belonging to him which the other might ask for. That which Agêtus asked from Aristo was at once given: in return, the latter demanded to have the wife of Agêtus, who was thunderstruck at the request, and indignantly complained of having been cheated into a sacrifice of all others the most painful: nevertheless, the oath was peremptory, and he was forced to comply. The birth of Demaratus took place so soon after this change of husbands, that when it was first made known to Aristo, as he sat upon a bench along with the ephors, he counted on his fingers the number of months since his marriage, and exclaimed with an oath, “The child cannot be mine.” He soon, however, retracted his opinion, and acknowledged the child, who grew up without any question being publicly raised as to his birth, and succeeded his father on the throne. But the original words of Aristo had never been forgotten, and private suspicions were still cherished that Demaratus was really the son of his mother’s first husband.[610]

[610] Herodot. vi, 61, 62, 63.

Of these suspicions, Kleomenês now resolved to avail himself, exciting Leotychidês, the next heir in the Prokleid line of kings, to impugn publicly the legitimacy of Demaratus; engaging to second him with all his influence as next in order for the crown, and exacting in return a promise that he would support the intervention against Ægina. Leotychidês was animated not merely by ambition, but also by private enmity against Demaratus, who had disappointed him of his intended bride: he warmly entered into the scheme, arraigned Demaratus as no true Herakleid, and produced evidence to prove the original doubts expressed by Aristo. A serious dispute was thus raised at Sparta, and Kleomenês, espousing the pretensions of Leotychidês, recommended that the question as to the legitimacy of Demaratus should be decided by reference to the Delphian oracle. Through the influence of Kobôn, a powerful native of Delphi, he procured from the Pythian priestess an answer pronouncing that Demaratus was not the son of Aristo.[611] Leotychidês thus became king of the Prokleid line, while Demaratus descended into a private station, and was elected at the ensuing solemnity of the Gymnopædia to an official function. The new king, unable to repress a burst of triumphant spite, sent an attendant to ask him, in the public theatre, how he felt as an officer after having once been a king. Stung with this insult, Demaratus replied that he himself had tried them both, and that Leotychidês might in time come to try them both also: the question, he added, shall bear its fruit,—great evil, or great good, to Sparta. So saying, he covered his face and retired home from the theatre,—offered a solemn farewell sacrifice at the altar of Zeus Herkeios, and solemnly adjured his mother to declare to him who his real father was,—then at once quitted Sparta for Elis, under pretence of going to consult the Delphian oracle.[612]

[611] Herodot. vi, 65, 66. In an analogous case afterwards, where the succession was disputed between Agesilaus the brother, and Leotychidês the reputed son of the deceased king Agis, the Lacedæmonians appear to have taken upon themselves to pronounce Leotychidês illegitimate; or rather to assume tacitly such illegitimacy by choosing Agesilaus in preference, without the aid of the oracle (Xenophon, Hellen. iii, 3, 1-4; Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 3). The previous oracle from Delphi, however, φυλάξασθαι τὴν χωλὴν βασιλείαν, was cited on the occasion, and the question was, in what manner it should be interpreted.

[612] Herodot. vi, 68, 69. The answer made by the mother to this appeal—informing Demaratus that he is the son either of king Aristo, or of the hero Astrabakus—is extremely interesting as an evidence of Grecian manners and feeling.

Demaratus was well known to be a high-spirited and ambitious man,—noted, among other things, as the only Lacedæmonian king down to the time of Herodotus who had ever gained a chariot victory at Olympia; and Kleomenês and Leotychidês became alarmed at the mischief which he might do them in exile. By the law of Sparta, no Herakleid was allowed to establish his residence out of the country, on pain of death: this marks the sentiment of the Lacedæmonians, and Demaratus was not the less likely to give trouble because they had pronounced him illegitimate.[613] Accordingly they sent in pursuit of him, and seized him in the island of Zakynthus. But the Zakynthians would not consent to surrender him, so that he passed unobstructed into Asia, where he presented himself to Darius, and was received with abundant favors and presents.[614] We shall hereafter find him the companion of Xerxês, giving to that monarch advice such as, if it had been acted upon, would have proved the ruin of Grecian independence; to which, however, he would have been even more dangerous, if he had remained at home as king of Sparta.

[613] Plutarch, Agis, c. 11. κατὰ δή τινα νόμον παλαιὸν, ὃς οὐκ ἐᾷ τὸν Ἡρακλείδην ἐκ γυναικὸς ἀλλοδαπῆς τεκνοῦσθαι, τὸν δ᾽ ἀπελθόντα τῆς Σπάρτης ἐπὶ μετοικισμῷ πρὸς ἑτέρους ἀποθνήσκειν κελεύει.

[614] Herodot. vi, 70.

Meanwhile Kleomenês, having obtained a consentient colleague in Leotychidês, went with him over to Ægina, eager to revenge himself for the affront which had been put upon him. To the requisition and presence of the two kings jointly, the Æginetans did not dare to oppose any resistance. Kleomenês made choice of ten citizens, eminent for wealth, station, and influence, among whom were Krius and another person named Kasambus, the two most powerful men in the island. Conveying them away to Athens, he deposited them as hostages in the hands of the Athenians.[615]

[615] Herodot. vi, 78.

It was in this state that the affairs of Athens and of Greece generally were found by the Persian armament which landed at Marathon, the progress of which we are now about to follow. And the events just recounted were of material importance, considered in their indirect bearing upon the success of that armament. Sparta had now, on the invitation of Athens, assumed to herself for the first time a formal Pan-Hellenic primacy, her ancient rival Argos being too much broken to contest it,—her two kings, at this juncture unanimous, employ their presiding interference in coercing Ægina, and placing Æginetan hostages in the hands of Athens. The Æginetans would not have been unwilling to purchase victory over a neighbor and rival at the cost of submission to Persia, and it was the Spartan interference only which restrained them from assailing Athens conjointly with the Persian invaders; thus leaving the hands of the latter free, and her courage undiminished, for the coming trial.

Meanwhile, a vast Persian force, brought together in consequence of the preparation made during the last two years in every part of the empire, had assembled in the Aleïan plain of Kilikia, near the sea. A fleet of six hundred armed triremes, together with many transports, both of men and horses, was brought hither for their embarkation: the troops were put on board, and sailed along the coast to Samos in Ionia. The Ionic and Æolic Greeks constituted an important part of this armament, and the Athenian exile Hippias was on board as guide and auxiliary in the attack of Attica. The generals were Datis, a Median,[616]—and Artaphernês, son of the satrap of Sardis, so named, and nephew of Darius. We may remark that Datis is the first person of Median lineage who is mentioned as appointed to high command after the accession of Darius, which had been preceded and marked, as I have noticed in a former chapter, by an outbreak of hostile nationality between the Medes and Persians. Their instructions were, generally, to reduce to subjection and tribute all such Greeks as had not already given earth and water. But Darius directed them most particularly to conquer Eretria and Athens, and to bring the inhabitants as slaves into his presence.[617] These orders were literally meant, and probably neither the generals nor the soldiers of this vast armament doubted that they would be literally executed; and that before the end of the year, the wives, or rather the widows, of men like Themistoklês and Aristeidês would be seen among a mournful train of Athenian prisoners, on the road from Sardis to Susa, thus accomplishing the wish expressed by queen Atossa at the instance of Dêmokêdês.

[616] Herodot. vi, 94. Δᾶτίν τε, ἐόντα Μῆδον γένος, etc.

Cornelius Nepos (Life of Pausanias, c. 1) calls Mardonius a Mede; which cannot be true, since he was the son of Gobryas, one of the seven Persian conspirators (Herodot. vi, 43).

[617] Herodot. vi, 94. ἐντειλάμενος δὲ ἀπέπεμπε, ἐξανδραποδίσαντας Ἐρετρίαν καὶ Ἀθήνας, ἄγειν ἑωϋτῷ ἐς ὄψιν τὰ ἀνδράποδα.

According to the Menexenus of Plato (c. 17, p. 245), Darius ordered Datis to fulfil this order on peril of his own head; no such harshness appears in Herodotus.

The recent terrific storm near Mount Athos deterred the Persians from following the example of Mardonius, and taking their course by the Hellespont and Thrace. It was resolved to strike straight across the Ægean[618] (the mode of attack which intelligent Greeks like Themistoklês most feared, even after the repulse of Xerxês), from Samos to Eubœa, attacking the intermediate islands in the way. Among those islands was Naxos, which ten years before had stood a long siege, and gallantly repelled the Persian Megabatês with the Milesian Aristagoras. It was one of the main objects of Datis to efface this stain on the Persian arms, and to take a signal revenge on the Naxians.[619] Crossing from Samos to Naxos, he landed his army on the island, which was found an easier prize than he had expected. The terrified citizens, abandoning their town, fled with their families to the highest summits of their mountains; while the Persians, seizing as slaves a few who had been dilatory in flight, burnt the undefended town with its edifices sacred and profane.

[618] Thucyd. i, 93.

[619] Herodot. vi, 95, 96. ἐπὶ ταύτην (Naxos) γὰρ δὴ πρώτην ἐπεῖχον στρατεύεσθαι οἱ Πέρσαι, μεμνημένοι τῶν πρότερον.

Immense, indeed, was the difference in Grecian sentiment towards the Persians, created by the terror-striking reconquest of Ionia, and by the exhibition of a large Phenician fleet in the Ægean. The strength of Naxos was the same now as it had been before the Ionic revolt, and the successful resistance then made might have been supposed likely to nerve the courage of its inhabitants. Yet such is the fear now inspired by a Persian armament, that the eight thousand Naxian hoplites abandon their town and their gods without striking a blow,[620] and think of nothing but personal safety for themselves and their families. A sad augury for Athens and Eretria!

[620] The historians of Naxos affirmed that Datis had been repulsed from the island. We find this statement in Plutarch, De Malign. Herodot. c. 36, p. 869, among his violent and unfounded contradictions of Herodotus.

From Naxos, Datis despatched his fleet round the other Cyclades islands, requiring from each, hostages for fidelity and a contingent to increase his army. With the sacred island of Delos, however, he dealt tenderly and respectfully. The Delians had fled before his approach to Tênos, but Datis sent a herald to invite them back again, promised to preserve their persons and property inviolate, and proclaimed that he had received express orders from the Great King to reverence the island in which Apollo and Artemis were born. His acts corresponded with this language; for the fleet was not allowed to touch the island, and he himself, landing with only a few attendants, offered a magnificent sacrifice at the altar. A large portion of his armament consisted of Ionic Greeks, and this pronounced respect to the island of Delos may probably be ascribed to the desire of satisfying their religious feelings; for in their days of early freedom, this island had been the scene of their solemn periodical festivals, as I have already more than once remarked.

Pursuing his course without resistance along the islands, and demanding reinforcements as well as hostages from each, Datis at length touched the southernmost portion of Eubœa,—the town of Karystus and its territory.[621] The Karystians, though at first refusing either to give hostages or to furnish any reinforcements against their friends and neighbors, were speedily compelled to submission by the aggressive devastation of the invaders. This was the first taste of resistance which Datis had yet experienced; and the facility with which it was overcome gave him a promising omen as to his success against Eretria, whither he soon arrived.

[621] Herodot. vi, 99.

The destination of the armament was no secret to the inhabitants of this fated city, among whom consternation, aggravated by intestine differences, was the reigning sentiment. They made application to Athens for aid, which was readily and conveniently afforded to them by means of those four thousand kleruchs, or out-citizens, whom the Athenians had planted sixteen years before in the neighboring territory of Chalkis. Notwithstanding this reinforcement, however, many of them despaired of defending the city, and thought only of seeking shelter on the unassailable summits of the island, as the more numerous and powerful Naxians had already done before them; while another party, treacherously seeking their own profit out of the public calamity, lay in wait for an opportunity of betraying the city to the Persians.[622] Though a public resolution was taken to defend the city, yet so manifest was the absence of that stoutness of heart which could alone avail to save it, that a leading Eretrian named Æschinês was not ashamed to forewarn the four thousand Athenian allies of the coming treason, and urge them to save themselves before it was too late. They followed his advice and passed over to Attica by way of Orôpus; while the Persians disembarked their troops, and even their horses, in expectation that the Eretrians would come out and fight, at Tamynæ and other places in the territory. As the Eretrians did not come out, they proceeded to lay siege to the city, and for some days met with a brave resistance, so that the loss on both sides was considerable. At length two of the leading citizens, Euphorbus and Philagrus, with others, betrayed Eretria to the besiegers; its temples were burnt, and its inhabitants dragged into slavery.[623] It is impossible to credit the exaggerated statement of Plato, which is applied by him to the Persians at Eretria, as it had been before applied by Herodotus to the Persians at Chios and Samos,—that they swept the territory clean of inhabitants by joining hands and forming a line across its whole breadth.[624] Evidently, this is an idea illustrating the possible effects of numbers and ruinous conquest, which has been woven into the tissue of historical statements, like so many other illustrative ideas in the writings of Greek authors. That a large proportion of the inhabitants were carried away as prisoners, there can be no doubt. But the traitors who betrayed the town were spared and rewarded by the Persians,[625] and we see plainly that either some of the inhabitants must have been left or new settlers introduced, when we find the Eretrians reckoned ten years afterwards among the opponents of Xerxês.

[622] Herodot. vi, 100. Τῶν δὲ Ἐρετριέων ἦν ἄρα οὐδὲν ὑγιὲς βούλευμα, οἳ μετεπέμποντο μὲν Ἀθηναίους, ἐφρόνεον δὲ διφασίας ἰδέας· οἳ μὲν γὰρ αὐτῶν ἐβουλεύοντο ἐκλιπεῖν τὴν πόλιν ἐς τὰ ἄκρα τῆς Εὐβοίης, ἄλλοι δὲ αὐτῶν ἴδια κέρδεα προσδεκόμενοι παρὰ τοῦ Πέρσεω οἴσεσθαι προδοσίην ἐσκευάζοντο.

Allusion to this treason among the Eretrians is to be found in a saying of Themistoklês (Plutarch, Themist. c. 11).

The story told by Hêrakleidês Ponticus (ap. Athenæ. xii, p. 536), of an earlier Persian armament which had assailed Eretria and failed, cannot be at all understood; it rather looks like a mythe to explain the origin of the great wealth possessed by the family of Kallias at Athens,—the Λακκόπλουτος. There is another story, having the same explanatory object, in Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 5.

[623] Herodot. vi, 101, 102.

[624] Plato, Legg. iii, p. 698, and Menexen. c. 10, p. 240; Diogen. Laërt. iii, 33; Herodot. vi, 31: compare Strabo, x, p. 446, who ascribes to Herodotus the statement of Plato about the σαγήνευσις of Eretria. Plato says nothing about the betrayal of the city.

It is to be remarked that, in the passage of the Treatise de Legibus, Plato mentions this story (about the Persians having swept the territory of Eretria clean of its inhabitants) with some doubt as to its truth, and as if it were a rumor intentionally circulated by Datis with a view to frighten the Athenians. But in the Menexenus, the story is given as if it were an authentic historical fact.

[625] Plutarch, De Garrulitate, c. 15, p. 510. The descendants of Gongylus the Eretrian, who passed over to the Persians on this occasion, are found nearly a century afterwards in possession of a town and district in Mysia, which the Persian king had bestowed upon their ancestor. Herodotus does not mention Gongylus (Xenoph. Hellen. iii, 1, 6).

This surrender to the Persians drew upon the Eretrians bitter remarks at the time of the battle of Salamis (Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 11).

Datis had thus accomplished with little or no resistance one of the two express objects commanded by Darius, and his army was elated with the confident hope of soon completing the other. Alter halting a few days at Eretria, and depositing in the neighboring islet of Ægilia the prisoners recently captured, he reëmbarked his army to cross over to Attica, and landed in the memorable bay of Marathon on the eastern coast,—the spot indicated by the despot Hippias, who now landed along with the Persians, twenty years after his expulsion from the government. Forty-seven years had elapsed since he had made as a young man this same passage, from Eretria to Marathon, in conjunction with his father Peisistratus, on the occasion of the second restoration of the latter. On that previous occasion, the force accompanying the father had been immeasurably inferior to that which now seconded the son; yet it had been found amply sufficient to carry him in triumph to Athens, with feeble opposition from citizens alike irresolute and disunited. And the march of Hippias from Marathon to Athens would now have been equally easy, as it was doubtless conceived to be by himself, both in his waking hopes and in the dream which Herodotus mentions,—had not the Athenians whom he found been men radically different from those whom he had left.

To that great renewal of the Athenian character, under the democratical institutions which had subsisted since the dispossession of Hippias, I have already pointed attention in a former chapter. The modifications introduced by Kleisthenês in the constitution had now existed eighteen or nineteen years, without any attempt to overthrow them by violence. The Ten Tribes, each with its constituent demes, had become a part of the established habits of the country, and the citizens had become accustomed to exercise a genuine and self-determined decision in their assemblies, political as well as judicial; while even the senate of Areopagus, renovated by the nine annual archons successively chosen who passed into it after their year of office, had also become identified in feeling with the constitution of Kleisthenês. Individual citizens, doubtless, remained partisans in secret, and perhaps correspondents of Hippias; but the mass of citizens, in every scale of life, could look upon his return with nothing but terror and aversion. With what degree of newly-acquired energy the democratical Athenians could act in defence of their country and institutions, has already been related in a former chapter; though unfortunately we possess few particulars of Athenian history during the decade preceding 490 B. C., nor can we follow in detail the working of the government. The new form, however, which Athenian politics had assumed becomes partially manifest, when we observe the three leaders who stand prominent at this important epoch,—Miltiadês, Themistoklês, and Aristeidês.

The first of the three had returned to Athens, three or four years before the approach of Datis, after six or seven years’ absence in the Chersonesus of Thrace, whither he had been originally sent by Hippias about the year 517-516 B. C., to inherit the property as well as the supremacy of his uncle the œkist Miltiadês. As despot of the Chersonese, and as one of the subjects of Persia, he had been among the Ionians who accompanied Darius to the Danube in his Scythian expedition, and he had been the author of that memorable recommendation which Histiæus and the other despots did not think it their interest to follow,—of destroying the bridge and leaving the Persian king to perish. Subsequently, he had been unable to remain permanently in the Chersonese, for reasons which have before been noticed; yet he seems to have occupied it during the period of the Ionic revolt.[626] What part he took in that revolt we do not know. But he availed himself of the period while the Persian satraps were employed in suppressing it, and deprived of the mastery of the sea, to expel, in conjunction with forces from Athens, both the Persian garrison and Pelasgic inhabitants from the islands of Lemnos and Imbros. The extinction of the Ionic revolt threatened him with ruin; so that when the Phenician fleet, in the summer following the capture of Milêtus, made its conquering appearance in the Hellespont, he was forced to escape rapidly to Athens with his immediate friends and property, and with a small squadron of five ships. One of these ships, commanded by his son Metiochus, was actually captured between the Chersonese and Imbros; and the Phenicians were most eager to capture himself,[627]—inasmuch as he was personally odious to Darius from his strenuous recommendation to destroy the bridge over the Danube. On arriving at Athens, after his escape from the Phenician fleet, he was brought to trial before the judicial popular assembly for alleged misgovernment in the Chersonese, or for what Herodotus calls “his despotism” there exercised.[628] Nor is it improbable, that the Athenian citizens settled in that peninsula may have had good reason to complain of him,—the more so as he had carried out with him the maxims of government prevalent at Athens under the Peisistratids, and had in his pay a body of Thracian mercenaries. However, the people at Athens honorably acquitted him, probably in part from the reputation which he had obtained as conqueror of Lemnos;[629] and he was one of the ten annually-elected generals of the republic, during the year of this Persian expedition,—chosen at the beginning of the Attic year, shortly after the summer solstice, at a time when Datis and Hippias had actually sailed, and were known to be approaching.

[626] The chapter of Herodotus (vi, 40) relating to the adventures of Miltiadês is extremely perplexing, as I have already remarked in a former note: and Wesseling considers that it involves chronological difficulties which our present MSS. do not enable us to clear up. Neither Schweighäuser, nor the explanation cited in Bähr’s note, is satisfactory.

[627] Herodot. vi, 43-104.

[628] Herodot. vi, 39-104.

[629] Herodot. vi, 132. Μιλτιάδης, καὶ πρότερον εὐδοκιμέων—_i. e._ before the battle of Marathon. How much his reputation had been heightened by the conquest of Lemnos, see Herodot. vi, 136.

The character of Miltiadês is one of great bravery and decision,—qualities preëminently useful to his country on the present crisis, and the more useful as he was under the strongest motive to put them forth, from the personal hostility of Darius towards him; but he does not peculiarly belong to the democracy of Kleisthenês, like his younger contemporaries Themistoklês and Aristeidês. The two latter are specimens of a class of men new at Athens since the expulsion of Hippias, and contrasting forcibly with Peisistratus, Lykurgus, and Megaklês, the political leaders of the preceding generation. Themistoklês and Aristeidês, different as they were in disposition, agree in being politicians of the democratical stamp, exercising ascendency by and through the people,—devoting their time to the discharge of public duties, and to the frequent discussions in the political and judicial meetings of the people,—manifesting those combined powers of action, comprehension, and persuasive speech, which gradually accustomed the citizens to look to them as advisers as well as leaders,—but always subject to criticism and accusation from unfriendly rivals, and exercising such rivalry towards each other with an asperity constantly increasing. Instead of Attica, disunited and torn into armed factions, as it had been forty years before,—the Diakrii under one man, and the Parali and Pedieis under others,—we have now Attica one and indivisible; regimented into a body of orderly hearers in the Pnyx, appointing and holding to accountability the magistrates, and open to be addressed by Themistoklês, Aristeidês, or any other citizen who can engage their attention.

Neither Themistoklês nor Aristeidês could boast of a lineage of gods and heroes, like the Æakid Miltiadês:[630] both were of middling station and circumstances. Aristeidês, son of Lysimachus, was on both sides of pure Athenian blood. But the wife of Neoklês, father of Themistoklês, was a foreign woman of Thrace or of Karia: and such an alliance is the less surprising, since Themistoklês must have been born during the dynasty of the Peisistratids, when the status of an Athenian citizen had not yet acquired its political value. There was a marked contrast between these two eminent men,—those points which stood most conspicuous in the one, being comparatively deficient in the other. In the description of Themistoklês, which we have the advantage of finding briefly sketched by Thucydidês, the circumstance most emphatically brought out is, his immense force of spontaneous invention and apprehension, without any previous aid either from teaching or gradual practice. The might of unassisted nature[631] was never so strikingly exhibited as in him: he conceived the complications of a present embarrassment, and divined the chances of a mysterious future, with equal sagacity and equal quickness: the right expedient seemed to flash upon his mind extempore, even in the most perplexing contingencies, without the least necessity for premeditation. Nor was he less distinguished for daring and resource in action. When engaged on any joint affairs, his superior competence marked him out as the leader for others to follow, and no business, however foreign to his experience, ever took him by surprise, or came wholly amiss to him. Such is the remarkable picture which Thucydidês draws of a countryman whose death nearly coincided in time with his own birth: the untutored readiness and universality of Themistoklês probably formed in his mind a contrast to the more elaborate discipline, and careful preliminary study, with which the statesmen of his own day—and Periklês especially, the greatest of them—approached the consideration and discussion of public affairs. Themistoklês had received no teaching from philosophers, sophists, and rhetors, who were the instructors of well-born youth in the days of Thucydidês, and whom Aristophanês, the contemporary of the latter, so unmercifully derides,—treating such instruction as worse than nothing, and extolling, in comparison with it, the unlettered courage, with mere gymnastic accomplishments, of the victors at Marathon.[632] There is no evidence in the mind of Thucydidês of any such undue contempt towards his own age. Though the same terms of contrast are tacitly present to his mind, he seems to treat the great capacity of Themistoklês as the more a matter of wonder, since it sprung up without that preliminary cultivation which had gone to the making of Periklês.

[630] Herodot. vi, 35.

[631] Thucyd. i, 138. ἦν γὰρ ὁ Θεμιστοκλῆς βεβαιότατα δὴ ~φύσεως ἰσχὺν~ δηλώσας καὶ διαφερόντως τι ἐς αὐτὸ μᾶλλον ἑτέρων ἄξιος θαυμάσαι· ~οἰκείᾳ γὰρ συνέσει καὶ οὔτε προμαθὼν ἐς αὐτὴν οὐδὲν οὔτ᾽ ἐπιμαθὼν~, τῶν τε παραχρῆμα δι᾽ ἐλαχίστης βουλῆς κράτιστος γνώμων, καὶ τῶν μελλόντων ἐπὶ πλεῖστον τοῦ γενησομένου ἄριστος εἰκαστής. Καὶ ἃ μὲν μετὰ χεῖρας ἔχοι, καὶ ἐξηγήσασθαι οἷός τε· ὧν δὲ ἄπειρος εἴη, κρῖναι ἱκανῶς οὐκ ἀπήλλακτο. Τό τε ἄμεινον ἢ χεῖρον ἐν τῷ ἀφανεῖ ἔτι προεώρα μάλιστα· καὶ τὸ ξύμπαν εἰπεῖν, ~φύσεως μὲν δυνάμει, μελέτης δὲ βραχύτητι, κράτιστος δὴ οὗτος αὐτοσχεδιάζειν τὰ δέοντα ἐγένετο~.

[632] See the contrast of the old and new education, as set forth in Aristophanês, Nubes, 957-1003; also Ranæ, 1067.

About the training of Themistoklês, compared with that of the contemporaries of Periklês, see also Plutarch, Themistokl. c. 2.

The general character given of Plutarch,[633] though many of his anecdotes are both trifling and apocryphal, is quite consistent with the brief sketch just cited from Thucydidês. Themistoklês had an unbounded passion,—not merely for glory, insomuch that the laurels of Miltiadês acquired at Marathon deprived him of rest,—but also for display of every kind. He was eager to vie with men richer than himself in showy exhibition,—one great source, though not the only source, of popularity at Athens,—nor was he at all scrupulous in procuring the means of doing so. Besides being assiduous in attendance at the ekklesia and the dikastery, he knew most of the citizens by name, and was always ready with advice to them in their private affairs. Moreover, he possessed all the tactics of an expert party-man in conciliating political friends and in defeating political enemies; and though he was in the early part of his life sincerely bent upon the upholding and aggrandizement of his country, and was on some most critical occasions of unspeakable value to it,—yet on the whole his morality was as reckless as his intelligence was eminent. He will be found grossly corrupt in the exercise of power, and employing tortuous means, sometimes indeed for ends in themselves honorable and patriotic, but sometimes also merely for enriching himself. He ended a glorious life by years of deep disgrace, with the forfeiture of all Hellenic esteem and brotherhood,—a rich man, an exile, a traitor, and a pensioner of the Great King, pledged to undo his own previous work of liberation accomplished at the victory of Salamis.

[633] Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 3, 4, 5; Cornelius Nepos, Themist. c. 1.

Of Aristeidês we possess unfortunately no description from the hand of Thucydidês; yet his character is so simple and consistent, that we may safely accept the brief but unqualified encomium of Herodotus and Plato, expanded as it is in the biography of Plutarch and Cornelius Nepos,[634] however little the details of the latter can be trusted. Aristeidês was inferior to Themistoklês in resource, quickness, flexibility, and power of coping with difficulties; but incomparably superior to him, as well as to other rivals and contemporaries, in integrity, public as well as private; inaccessible to pecuniary temptations, as well as to other seductive influences, and deserving as well as enjoying the highest measure of personal confidence. He is described as the peculiar friend of Kleisthenês, the first founder of the democracy,[635]—as pursuing a straight and single-handed course in political life, with no solicitude for party ties, and with little care either to conciliate friends or to offend enemies,—as unflinching in the exposure of corrupt practices, by whomsoever committed or upheld,—as earning for himself the lofty surname of the Just, not less by his judicial decisions in the capacity of archon, than by his equity in private arbitrations, and even his candor in political dispute,—and as manifesting throughout a long public life, full of tempting opportunities, an uprightness without flaw and beyond all suspicion, recognized equally by his bitter contemporary the poet Timokreon,[636] and by the allies of Athens, upon whom he first assessed the tribute. Few of the leading men in any part of Greece were without some taint on their reputation, deserved or undeserved, in regard to pecuniary probity; but whoever became notoriously recognized as possessing this vital quality, acquired by means of it a firmer hold on the public esteem than even eminent talents could confer. Thucydidês ranks conspicuous probity among the first of the many ascendent qualities possessed by Periklês;[637] and Nikias, equal to him in this respect, though immeasurably inferior in every other, owed to it a still larger proportion of that exaggerated confidence which the Athenian people continued so long to repose in him. The abilities of Aristeidês, though apparently adequate to every occasion on which he was engaged, and only inferior when we compare him with so remarkable a man as Themistoklês, were put in the shade by this incorruptible probity, which procured for him, however, along with the general esteem, no inconsiderable amount of private enmity from jobbers whom he exposed, and even some jealousy from persons who heard it proclaimed with offensive ostentation.

[634] Herodot. viii, 79; Plato, Gorgias, c. 172. ἄριστον ἄνδρα ἐν Ἀθήνῃσι καὶ δικαιότατον.

[635] Plutarch (Aristeidês, c. 1-4; Themistoklês, c. 3; An Seni sit gerenda respublica, c. 12, p. 790; Præcepta Reip. Gerend. c. ii, p. 805).

[636] Timokreon ap. Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 21.

[637] Thucyd. ii, 65.

We are told that a rustic and unlettered citizen gave his ostracizing vote, and expressed his dislike against Aristeidês,[638] on the simple ground that he was tired of hearing him always called the Just. Now the purity of the most honorable man will not bear to be so boastfully talked of as if he were the only honorable man in the country: the less it is obtruded, the more deeply and cordially will it be felt: and the story just alluded to, whether true or false, illustrates that natural reaction of feeling, produced by absurd encomiasts, or perhaps by insidious enemies under the mask of encomiasts, who trumpeted forth Aristeidês as _The_ Just man at Attica, so as to wound the legitimate dignity of every one else. Neither indiscreet friends nor artful enemies, however, could rob him of the lasting esteem of his countrymen; which he enjoyed, with intervals of their displeasure, to the end of his life. Though he was ostracized during a part of the period between the battle of Marathon and Salamis,—at a time when the rivalry between him and Themistoklês was so violent that both could not remain at Athens without peril,—yet the dangers of Athens during the invasion of Xerxês brought him back before the ten years of exile were expired. His fortune, originally very moderate, was still farther diminished during the course of his life, so that he died very poor, and the state was obliged to lend aid to his children.

[638] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 7.

Such were the characters of Themistoklês and Aristeidês, the two earliest leaders thrown up by the Athenian democracy. Half a century before, Themistoklês would have been an active partisan in the faction of the Parali or the Pedieis, while Aristeidês would probably have remained an unnoticed citizen. At the present period of Athenian history, the characters of the soldier, the magistrate, and the orator, were intimately blended together in a citizen who stood forward for eminence, though they tended more and more to divide themselves during the ensuing century and a half. Aristeidês and Miltiadês were both elected among the ten generals, each for his respective tribe, in the year of the expedition of Datis across the Ægean, and probably even after that expedition was known to be on its voyage. Moreover, we are led to suspect from a passage in Plutarch, that Themistoklês also was general of his tribe on the same occasion,[639] though this is doubtful; but it is certain that he fought at Marathon. The ten generals had jointly the command of the army, each of them taking his turn to exercise it for a day: in addition to the ten, moreover, the third archon, or polemarch, was considered as eleventh in the military council. The polemarch of this year was Kallimachus of Aphidnæ.[640] Such were the chiefs of the military force, and to a great degree the administrators of foreign affairs, at the time when the four thousand Athenian kleruchs, or settlers planted in Eubœa,—escaping from Eretria, now invested by the Persians,—brought word to their countrymen at home that the fall of that city was impending. It was obvious that the Persian host would proceed from Eretria forthwith against Athens, and a few days afterwards Hippias disembarked them at Marathon, whither the Athenian army marched to meet them.

[639] Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 5.

[640] Herodot. vi, 109, 110.

Of the feeling which now prevailed at Athens we have no details, but doubtless the alarm was hardly inferior to that which had been felt at Eretria: dissenting opinions were heard as to the proper steps to be taken, nor were suspicions of treason wanting. Pheidippidês the courier was sent to Sparta immediately to solicit assistance; and such was his prodigious activity, that he performed this journey of one hundred and fifty miles, on foot, in forty-eight hours.[641] He revealed to the ephors that Eretria was already enslaved, and entreated their assistance to avert the same fate from Athens, the most ancient city in Greece. The Spartan authorities readily promised their aid, but unfortunately it was now the ninth day of the moon: ancient law or custom forbade them to march, in this month at least, during the last quarter before the full moon; but after the full they engaged to march without delay. Five days’ delay at this critical moment might prove the utter ruin of the endangered city; yet the reason assigned seems to have been no pretence on the part of the Spartans. It was mere blind tenacity of ancient habit, which we shall find to abate, though never to disappear, as we advance in their history.[642] Indeed, their delay in marching to rescue Attica from Mardonius, eleven years afterwards, at the imminent hazard of alienating Athens and ruining the Hellenic cause, marks the same selfish dulness. But the reason now given certainly looked very like a pretence, so that the Athenians could indulge no certain assurance that the Spartan troops would start even when the full moon arrived.

[641] Mr. Kinneir remarks that the Persian Cassids, or foot-messengers, will travel for several days successively at the rate of sixty or seventy miles a day (Geographical Memoir of Persia, p. 44).

[642] Herodot. ix, 7-10.

In this respect the answer brought by Pheidippidês was mischievous, as it tended to increase that uncertainty and indecision which already prevailed among the ten generals, as to the proper steps for meeting the invaders. Partly, perhaps, in reliance on this expected Spartan help, five out of the ten generals were decidedly averse to an immediate engagement with the Persians; while Miltiadês with the remaining four strenuously urged that not a moment should be lost in bringing the enemy to action, without leaving time to the timid and the treacherous to establish correspondence with Hippias, and to take some active step for paralyzing all united action on the part of the citizens. This most momentous debate, upon which the fate of Athens hung, is represented by Herodotus to have occurred at Marathon, after the army had marched out and taken post there within sight of the Persians; while Cornelius Nepos describes it as having been raised before the army quitted the city,—upon the question, whether it was prudent to meet the enemy at all in the field, or to confine the defence to the city and the sacred rock. Inaccurate as this latter author generally is, his statement seems more probable here than that of Herodotus. For the ten generals would scarcely march out of Athens to Marathon without having previously resolved to fight: moreover, the question between fighting in the field or resisting behind the walls, which had already been raised at Eretria, seems the natural point on which the five mistrustful generals would take their stand. And probably indeed Miltiadês himself, if debarred from immediate

## action, would have preferred to hold possession of Athens, and

prevent any treacherous movement from breaking out there,—rather than to remain inactive on the hills, watching the Persians at Marathon, with the chance of a detachment from their numerous fleet sailing round to Phalêrum, and thus distracting, by a double attack, both the city and the camp.

However this may be, the equal division of opinion among the ten generals, whether manifested at Marathon or at Athens, is certain,—so that Miltiadês had to await the casting-vote of the polemarch Kallimachus. To him he represented emphatically the danger of delay, and the chance of some traitorous intrigue occurring to excite disunion and aggravate the alarms of the citizens. Nothing could prevent such treason from breaking out, with all its terrific consequences of enslavement to the Persians and to Hippias, except a bold, decisive, and immediate attack,—the success of which he (Miltiadês) was prepared to guarantee. Fortunately for Athens, the polemarch embraced the opinion of Miltiadês, and the seditious movements which were preparing did not show themselves until after the battle had been gained. Aristeidês and Themistoklês are both recorded to have seconded Miltiadês warmly in this proposal,—while all the other generals agreed in surrendering to Miltiadês their days of command, so as to make him, as much as they could, the sole leader of the army. It is said that the latter awaited the day of his own regular turn before he fought the battle.[643] Yet considering the eagerness which he displayed to bring on an immediate and decisive

## action, we cannot suppose that he would have admitted any serious

postponement upon such a punctilio.

[643] Herodot. vi, 110.

While the army were mustered on the ground sacred to Heraklês near Marathon, with the Persians and their fleet occupying the plain and shore beneath, and in preparation for immediate action, they were joined by the whole force of the little town of Platæa, consisting of about one thousand hoplites, who had marched directly from their own city to the spot, along the southern range of Kithærôn and passing through Dekeleia. We are not told that they had been invited, and very probably the Athenians had never thought of summoning aid from this unimportant neighbor, in whose behalf they had taken upon themselves a lasting feud with Thebes and the Bœotian league.[644] Their coming on this important occasion seems to have been a spontaneous effort of gratitude which ought not to be the less commended because their interests were really wrapped up in those of Athens,—since if the latter had been conquered, nothing could have saved Platæa from being subdued by the Thebans,—yet many a Grecian town would have disregarded both generous impulse and rational calculation, in the fear of provoking a new and terrific enemy. If we summon up to our imaginations all the circumstances of the case,—which it requires some effort to do, because our authorities come from the subsequent generations, after Greece had ceased to fear the Persians,—we shall be sensible that this volunteer march of the whole Platæan force to Marathon is one of the most affecting incidents of all Grecian history. Upon Athens generally it produced an indelible impression, commemorated ever afterwards in the public prayers of the Athenian herald,[645] and repaid by a grant to the Platæans of the full civil rights—seemingly without the political rights—of Athenian citizens. Upon the Athenians then marshalled at Marathon its effect must have been unspeakably powerful and encouraging, as a proof that they were not altogether isolated from Greece, and as an unexpected countervailing stimulus under circumstances so full of hazard.

[644] Herodot. vi, 108-112.

[645] Thucyd. iii, 55.

Of the two opposing armies at Marathon, we are told that the Athenians were ten thousand hoplites, either including or besides the one thousand who came from Platæa.[646] Nor is this statement in itself improbable, though it does not come from Herodotus, who is our only really valuable authority on the case, and who mentions no numerical total. Indeed, the number named seems smaller than we should have expected, considering that no less than four thousand kleruchs, or out-settled citizens, had just come over from Eubœa. A sufficient force of citizens must of course have been left behind to defend the city. The numbers of the Persians we cannot be said to know at all, nor is there anything certain except that they were greatly superior to the Greeks. We hear from Herodotus that their armament originally consisted of six hundred ships of war, but we are not told how many separate transports there were; and, moreover, reinforcements had been procured as they came across the Ægean from the islands successively conquered. The aggregate crews on board of all their ships must have been between one hundred and fifty thousand and two hundred thousand men; but what proportion of these were fighting men, or how many actually did fight at Marathon, we have no means of determining.[647] There were a certain proportion of cavalry, and some transports expressly prepared for the conveyance of horses: moreover, Herodotus tells us that Hippias selected the plain of Marathon for a landing place, because it was the most convenient spot in Attica for cavalry movements,—though it is singular, that in the battle the cavalry are not mentioned.

[646] Justin states ten thousand Athenians, besides one thousand Platæans. Cornelius Nepos, Pausanias, and Plutarch give ten thousand as the sum total of both. Justin, ii, 9; Corn. Nep. Miltiad. c. 4; Pausan. iv, 25, 5; x, 20, 2: compare also Suidas, v. Ἱππίας.

Heeren (De Fontibus Trogi Pompeii, Dissertat. ii, 7) affirms that Trogus, or Justin, follows Herodotus in matters concerning the Persian invasions of Greece. He cannot have compared the two very attentively; for Justin not only states several matters which are not to be found in Herodotus, but is at variance with the latter on some particulars not unimportant.

[647] Justin (ii, 9) says that the total of the Persian army was six hundred thousand, and that two hundred thousand perished. Plato (Menexen. p. 240) and Lysias (Orat. Funebr. c. 7) speak of the Persian total as five hundred thousand men. Valerius Maximus (v, 3), Pausanias (iv, 25), and Plutarch (Parallel. Græc. ad init.), give three hundred thousand men. Cornelius Nepos (Miltiadês, c. 5) gives the more moderate total of one hundred and ten thousand men.

See the observations on the battle of Marathon, made both by Colonel Leake and by Mr. Finlay, who have examined and described the locality; Leake, on the Demi of Attica, in Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, vol. ii, p. 160, _seq._; and Finlay, on the Battle of Marathon, in the same Transactions, vol. iii, pp. 360-380, etc.

Both have given remarks on the probable numbers of the armies assembled; but there are really no materials, even for a probable guess, in respect to the Persians. The silence of Herodotus (whom we shall find hereafter very circumstantial as to the numbers of the army under Xerxês) seems to show that he had no information which he could trust. His account of the battle of Marathon presents him in honorable contrast with the loose and boastful assertors who followed him; for though he does not tell us much, and falls lamentably short of what we should like to know, yet all that he does say is reasonable and probable as to the proceedings of both armies and the little which he states becomes more trustworthy on that very account,—because it _is_ so little,—showing that he keeps strictly within his authorities.

There is nothing in the account of Herodotus to make us believe that he had ever visited the ground of Marathon.

Marathon, situated near to a bay on the eastern coast of Attica, and in a direction E.N.E. from Athens, is divided by the high ridge of Mount Pentelikus from the city, with which it communicated by two roads, one to the north, another to the south of that mountain. Of these two roads, the northern, at once the shortest and the most difficult, is twenty-two miles in length: the southern—longer but more easy, and the only one practicable for chariots—is twenty-six miles in length, or about six and a half hours of computed march. It passed between mounts Pentelikus and Hymettus, through the ancient demes of Gargêttus and Pallênê, and was the road by which Peisistratus and Hippias, when they landed at Marathon forty-seven years before, had marched to Athens. The bay of Marathon, sheltered by a projecting cape from the northward, affords both deep water and a shore convenient for landing; while “its plain (says a careful modern observer[648]) extends in a perfect level along this fine bay, and is in length about six miles, in breadth never less than about one mile and a half. Two marshes bound the extremities of the plain: the southern is not very large, and is almost dry at the conclusion of the great heats; but the northern, which generally covers considerably more than a square mile, offers several parts which are at all seasons impassable. Both, however, leave a broad, firm, sandy beach between them and the sea. The uninterrupted flatness of the plain is hardly relieved by a single tree; and an amphitheatre of rocky hills and rugged mountains separates it from the rest of Attica, over the lower ridges of which some steep and difficult paths communicate with the districts of the interior.”

[648] See Mr. Finlay on the Battle of Marathon, Transactions, etc., vol. iii, pp. 364, 368, 383, _ut suprà_: compare Hobhouse, Journey in Albania, i, p. 432.

Colonel Leake thinks that the ancient town of Marathon was not on the exact site of the modern Marathon, but at a place called Vraná, a little to the south of Marathon (Leake, on the Demi of Attica, in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, 1829, vol. ii, p. 166).

“Below these two points,” he observes, “(the tumuli of Vraná and the hill of Kotróni,) the plain of Marathon expands to the shore of the bay, which is near two miles distant from the opening of the valley of Vraná. It is moderately well cultivated with corn, and is one of the most fertile spots in Attica, though rather inconveniently subject to inundations from the two torrents which cross it, particularly that of Marathóna. From Lucian (in Icaro-Menippo) it appears that the parts about Œnoê were noted for their fertility, and an Egyptian poet of the fifth century has celebrated the vines and olives of Marathon. It is natural to suppose that the vineyards occupied the rising grounds: and it is probable that the olive-trees were chiefly situated in the two valleys, where some are still growing: for as to the plain itself, the circumstances of the battle incline one to believe that it was anciently as destitute of trees as it is at the present day.” (Leake, on the Demi of Attica, Trans. of Roy. Soc. of Literature, vol. ii, p. 162.)

Colonel Leake farther says, respecting the fitness of the Marathonian ground for cavalry movements: “As I rode across the plain of Marathon with a peasant of Vraná, he remarked to me that it was a fine place for cavalry to fight in. None of the modern Marathonii were above the rank of laborers: they have heard that a great battle was once fought there, but that is all they know.” (Leake, _ut sup._ ii, p. 175.)

The position occupied by Miltiadês before the battle, identified as it was to all subsequent Athenians by the sacred grove of Hêraklês near Marathon, was probably on some portion of the high ground above this plain, and Cornelius Nepos tells us that he protected it from the attacks of the Persian cavalry by felled trees obstructing the approach. The Persians occupied a position on the plain; while their fleet was ranged along the beach, and Hippias himself marshalled them for the battle.[649] The native Persians and Sakæ, the best troops in the whole army, were placed in the centre, which they considered as the post of honor,[650] and which was occupied by the Persian king himself, when present at a battle. The right wing was so regarded by the Greeks, and the polemarch Kallimachus had the command of it; the hoplites being arranged in the order of their respective tribes from right to left, and at the extreme left stood the Platæans. It was necessary for Miltiadês to present a front equal, or nearly equal, to that of the more numerous Persian host, in order to guard himself from being taken in flank: and with this view he drew up the central tribes, including the Leontis and Antiochis, in shallow files, and occupying a large breadth of ground; while each of the wings was in stronger and deeper order, so as to make his attack efficient on both sides. His whole army consisted of hoplites, with some slaves as unarmed or light-armed attendants, but without either bowmen or cavalry. Nor could the Persians have been very strong in this latter force, seeing that their horses had to be transported across the Ægean. But the elevated position of Miltiadês enabled them to take some measure of the numbers under his command, and the entire absence of cavalry among their enemies could not but confirm the confidence with which a long career of uninterrupted victory had impressed their generals.

[649] Herodot. vi, 107.

[650] Plutarch, Symposiac. i, 3, p. 619; Xenophon, Anabas. i, 8, 21; Arrian, ii, 8, 18; iii, 11, 16.

We may compare, with this established battle-array of the Persian armies, that of the Turkish armies, adopted and constantly followed ever since the victorious battle of Ikonium, in 1386, gained by Amurath the First over the Karamanians. The European troops, or those of Rum, occupy the left wing: the Asiatic troops, or those of Anatoli, the right wing: the Janissaries are in the centre. The Sultan, or the Grand Vizir, surrounded by the national cavalry, or Spahis, is in the central point of all (Von Hammer, Geschichte des Osmannischen Reichs, book v, vol. i, p. 199).

About the honor of occupying the right wing in a Grecian army, see in particular the animated dispute between the Athenians and the Tegeates before the battle of Platæa (Herodot. ix, 27): it is the post assigned to the heroic kings of legendary warfare (Eurip. Supplices, 657).

At length the sacrifices in the Greek camp were favorable for battle, and Miltiadês, who had everything to gain by coming immediately to close quarters, ordered his army to advance at a running step over the interval of one mile which separated the two armies. This rapid forward movement, accompanied by the war-cry, or pæan, which always animated the charge of the Greek soldier, astounded the Persian army; who construed it as an act of desperate courage, little short of insanity, in a body not only small but destitute of cavalry or archers,—but who, at the same time, felt their conscious superiority sink within them. It seems to have been long remembered also among the Greeks as the peculiar characteristic of the battle of Marathon, and Herodotus tells us that the Athenians were the first Greeks who ever charged at a run.[651] It doubtless operated beneficially in rendering the Persian cavalry and archers comparatively innocuous, but we may reasonably suppose that it also disordered the Athenian ranks, and that when they reached the Persian front, they were both out of breath and unsteady in that line of presented spears and shields which constituted their force. On the two wings, where the files were deep, this disorder produced no mischievous effect: the Persians, after a certain resistance, were overborne and driven back. But in the centre, where the files were shallow, and where, moreover, the native Persians and other choice troops of the army were posted, the breathless and disordered Athenian hoplites found themselves in far greater difficulties. The tribes Leontis and Antiochis, with Themistoklês and Aristeidês among them, were actually defeated, broken, driven back, and pursued by the Persians and Sakæ.[652] Miltiadês seems to have foreseen the possibility of such a check, when he found himself compelled to diminish so materially the depth of his centre: for his wings, having routed the enemies opposed to them, were stayed from pursuit until the centre was extricated, and the Persians and Sakæ put to flight along with the rest. The pursuit then became general, and the Persians were chased to their ships ranged in line along the shore: some of them became involved in the impassable marsh and there perished.[653] The Athenians tried to set the ships on fire, but the defence here was both vigorous and successful,—several of the forward warriors of Athens were slain,—and only seven ships out of the numerous fleet destroyed.[654] This part of the battle terminated to the advantage of the Persians. They repulsed the Athenians from the sea-shore, and secured a safe reëmbarkation; leaving few or no prisoners, but a rich spoil of tents and equipments which had been disembarked and could not be carried away.

[651] Herodot. vi, 112. Πρῶτοι μὲν γὰρ Ἑλλήνων πάντων τῶν ἡμεῖς ἴδμεν, δρόμῳ ἐς πολεμίους ἐχρήσαντο.

The running pace of the charge was obviously one of the most remarkable events connected with the battle. Colonel Leake and Mr. Finlay seem disposed to reduce the run to a quick march;

## partly on the ground that the troops must have been disordered

and out of breath by running a mile. The probability is, that they really were so, and that such was the great reason of the defeat of the centre. It is very probable that a part of the mile run over consisted of declivity. I accept the account of Herodotus literally, though whether the distance be exactly stated, we cannot certainly say: indeed the fact is, that it required some steadiness of discipline to prevent the step of hoplites, when charging, from becoming accelerated into a run. See the narrative of the battle of Kunaxa in Xenoph. Anabas. i, 8, 18; Diodor. xiv, 23: compare Polyæn. ii, 2, 3. The passage of Diodorus here referred to contrasts the advantages with the disadvantages of the running charge.

Both Colonel Leake and Mr. Finlay try to point out the exact ground occupied by the two armies: they differ in the spot chosen, and I cannot think that there is sufficient evidence to be had in favor of any spot. Leake thinks that the Persian commanders were encamped in the plain of Tricorythos, separated from that of Marathon by the great marsh, and communicating with it only by means of a causeway (Leake, Transact. ii, p. 170).

[652] Herodot. vi, 113. Κατὰ τοῦτο μὲν δὴ, ἐνίκων οἱ βάρβαροι, καὶ ῥήξαντες ἐδίωκον ἐς τὴν μεσόγαιαν.

Herodotus here tells us the whole truth without disguise: Plutarch (Aristeidês, c. 3) only says that the Persian centre made a longer resistance, and gave the tribes in the Grecian centre more trouble to overthrow.

[653] Pausan. i, 32, 6.

[654] Herodot. vi, 113-115.

Herodotus estimates the number of those who fell on the Persian side in this memorable action at six thousand four hundred men: the number of Athenian dead is accurately known, since all were collected for the last solemn obsequies,—they were one hundred and ninety-two. How many were wounded, we do not hear. The brave Kallimachus the polemarch, and Stesilaus, one of the ten generals, were among the slain; together with Kynegeirus son of Euphorion, who, in laying hold on the poop-staff of one of the vessels, had his hand cut off by an axe,[655] and died of the wound. He was brother of the poet Æschylus, himself present at the fight; to whose imagination this battle at the ships must have emphatically recalled the fifteenth book of the Iliad. Both these Athenian generals are said to have perished in the assault of the ships, apparently the hottest part of the combat. The statement of the Persian loss as given by Herodotus appears moderate and reasonable,[656] but he does not specify any distinguished individuals as having fallen.

[655] Herodot. vi, 114. This is the statement of Herodotus respecting Kynegeirus. How creditably does his character as an historian contrast with that of the subsequent romancers! Justin tells us that Kynegeirus first seized the vessel with his right hand: that was cut off, and he held the vessel with his left: when he had lost that also, he seized the ship with his teeth, “like a wild beast,” (Justin, ii, 9)—Justin seems to have found this statement in many different authors: “Cynegiri militis virtus, multis scriptorum laudibus celebrata.”

[656] For the exaggerated stories of the numbers of Persians slain, see Xenophon, Anabas. iii, 2, 12; Plutarch, De Malign. Herodot. c. 26, p. 862; Justin, ii, 9; and Suidas, v. Ποικίλη.

In the account of Ktêsias, Datis was represented as having been killed in the battle, and it was farther said that the Athenians refused to give up his body for interment; which was one of the grounds whereupon Xerxês afterwards invaded Greece. It is evident that in the authorities which Ktêsias followed, the alleged death of Datis at Marathon was rather emphatically dwelt upon. See Ktêsias, Persica, c. 18-21, with the note of Bähr, who is inclined to defend the statement, against Herodotus.

But the Persians, though thus defeated and compelled to abandon the position of Marathon, were not yet disposed to relinquish altogether their chances against Attica. Their fleet was observed to take the direction of Cape Sunium,—a portion being sent to take up the Eretrian prisoners and the stores which had been left in the island of Ægilia. At the same time a shield, discernible from its polished surface afar off, was seen held aloft upon some high point of Attica,[657]—perhaps on the summit of Mount Pentelikus, as Colonel Leake supposes with much plausibility. The Athenians doubtless saw it as well as the Persians; and Miltiadês did not fail to put the right interpretation upon it, taken in conjunction with the course of the departing fleet. The shield was a signal put up by partisans in the country, to invite the Persians round to Athens by sea, while the Marathonian army was absent. Miltiadês saw through the plot, and lost not a moment in returning to Athens. On the very day of the battle, the Athenian army marched back with the utmost speed from the precinct of Hêraklês at Marathon to the precinct of the same god at Kynosarges, close to Athens, which they reached before the arrival of the Persian fleet.[658] Datis soon came off the port of Phalêrum, but the partisans of Hippias had been dismayed by the rapid return of the Marathonian army, and he did not therefore find those aids and facilities which he had anticipated for a fresh disembarkation in the immediate neighborhood of Athens. Though too late, however, it seems that he was not much too late: the Marathonian army had only just completed their forced return-march. A little less quickness on the part of Miltiadês in deciphering the treasonable signal and giving the instant order of march,—a little less energy on the part of the Athenian citizens in superadding a fatiguing march to a no less fatiguing combat,—and the Persians, with the partisans of Hippias, might have been found in possession of Athens. As the facts turned out, Datis, finding at Phalêrum no friendly movement to encourage him, but, on the contrary, the unexpected presence of the soldiers who had already vanquished him at Marathon,—made no attempt again to disembark in Attica, and sailed away, after a short delay, to the Cyclades.

[657] Herodot. vi, 124. Ἀνεδέχθη μὲν γὰρ ἄσπις, καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἔστι ἄλλως εἰπεῖν· ἐγένετο γάρ· ὃς μέντοι ἦν ὁ ἀναδέξας οὐκ ἔχω προσωτέρω εἰπεῖν τουτέων.

[658] Herodot. vi, 116. Οὗτοι μὲν δὴ περιέπλωον Σούνιον. Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ, ~ὡς ποδῶν εἶχον, τάχιστα~ ἐβοήθεον ἐς τὸ ἄστυ· καὶ ἔφθησάν τε ἀπικόμενοι, πρὶν ἢ τοὺς βαρβάρους ἥκειν, καὶ ἐστρατοπεδεύσαντο ἀπιγμένοι ἐξ Ἡρακληΐου τοῦ ἐν Μαραθῶνι ἐς ἄλλο Ἡρακληΐον το ἐν Κυνοσάργει.

Plutarch (Bellone an Pace clariores fuerint Athenienses, c. 8, p. 350) represents Miltiadês as returning to Athens on the _day after_ the battle: it must have been on the same afternoon, according to the account of Herodotus.

Thus was Athens rescued, for this time at least, from a danger not less terrible than imminent. Nothing could have rescued her except that decisive and instantaneous attack which Miltiadês so emphatically urged. The running step on the field of Marathon might cause some disorder in the ranks of the hoplites; but extreme haste in bringing on the combat was the only means of preventing disunion and distraction in the minds of the citizens. Imperfect as the account is which Herodotus gives of this most interesting crisis, we see plainly that the partisans of Hippias had actually organized a conspiracy, and that it only failed by coming a little too late. The bright shield uplifted on Mount Pentelikus, apprizing the Persians that matters were prepared for them at Athens, was intended to have come to their view before any action had taken place at Marathon, and while the Athenian army were yet detained there; so that Datis might have sent a portion of his fleet round to Phalêrum, retaining the rest for combat with the enemy before him. If it had once become known to the Marathonian army that a Persian detachment had landed at Phalêrum,[659]—where there was a good plain for cavalry to act in, prior to the building of the Phalêric wall, as had been seen in the defeat of the Spartan Anchimolius by the Thessalian cavalry, in 510 B. C.,—that it had been joined by timid or treacherous Athenians, and had perhaps even got possession of the city,—their minds would have been so distracted by the double danger, and by fears for their absent wives and children, that they would have been disqualified for any unanimous execution of military orders, and generals as well as soldiers would have become incurably divided in opinion,—perhaps even mistrustful of each other. The citizen-soldier of Greece generally, and especially of Athens, possessed in a high degree both personal bravery and attachment to order and discipline; but his bravery was not of that equal, imperturbable, uninquiring character, which belonged to the battalions of Wellington or Napoleon,—it was fitful, exalted or depressed by casual occurrences, and often more sensitive to dangers absent and unseen, than to enemies immediately in his front. Hence the advantage, so unspeakable in the case before us, and so well appreciated by Miltiadês, of having one undivided Athenian army,—with one hostile army, and only one, to meet in the field. When we come to the battle of Salamis, ten years later, it will be seen that the Greeks of that day enjoyed the same advantage: though the wisest advisers of Xerxês impressed upon him the prudence of dividing his large force, and of sending detachments to assail separate Greek states—which would infallibly produce the effect of breaking up the combined Grecian host, and leaving no central or coöperating force for the defence of Greece generally. Fortunately for the Greeks, the childish insolence of Xerxês led him to despise all such advice, as implying conscious weakness. Not so Datis and Hippias. Sensible of the prudence of distracting the attention of the Athenians by a double attack, they laid a scheme, while the main army was at Marathon, for rallying the partisans of Hippias, with a force to assist them, in the neighborhood of Athens,—and the signal was upheld by these partisans as soon as their measures were taken. But the rapidity of Miltiadês so precipitated the battle, that this signal came too late, and was only given, “when the Persians were already in their ships,”[660] after the Marathonian defeat. Even then it might have proved dangerous, had not the movements of Miltiadês been as rapid after the victory as before it: but if time had been allowed for the Persian movement on Athens before the battle of Marathon had been fought, the triumph of the Athenians might well have been exchanged for a calamitous servitude. To Miltiadês belongs the credit of having comprehended the emergency from the beginning, and overruled the irresolution of his colleagues by his own single-hearted energy. The chances all turned out in his favor,—for the unexpected junction of the Platæans in the very encampment of Marathon must have wrought up the courage of his army to the highest pitch: and not only did he thus escape all the depressing and distracting accidents, but he was fortunate enough to find this extraneous encouragement immediately preceding the battle, from a source on which he could not have calculated.

[659] Herodot. v, 62, 63.

[660] Herodot. vi, 115. Τοῖσι Πέρσῃσι ἀναδέξαι ἀσπίδα, ~ἐοῦσι ἤδη ἐν τῇσι νηυσί~.

I have already observed that the phase of Grecian history best known to us, amidst which the great authors from whom we draw our information lived, was one of contempt for the Persians in the field. And it requires some effort of imagination to call back previous feelings after the circumstances have been altogether reversed: perhaps even Æschylus the poet, at the time when he composed his tragedy of the Persæ, to celebrate the disgraceful flight of the invader Xerxês, may have forgotten the emotions with which he and his brother Kynegeirus must have marched out from Athens fifteen years before, on the eve of the battle of Marathon. It must therefore be again mentioned that, down to the time when Datis landed in the bay of Marathon, the tide of Persian success had never yet been interrupted,—and that especially during the ten years immediately preceding, the high-handed and cruel extinction of the Ionic revolt had aggravated to the highest pitch the alarm of the Greeks. To this must be added the successes of Datis himself, and the calamities of Eretria, coming with all the freshness of novelty as an apparent sentence of death to Athens. The extreme effort of courage required in the Athenians, to encounter such invaders, is attested by the division of opinion among the ten generals. Putting all the circumstances together, it is without a parallel in Grecian history, surpassing even the combat of Thermopylæ, as will appear when I come to describe that memorable event. And the admirable conduct of the five dissentient generals, when outvoted by the decision of the polemarch against them, in coöperating heartily for the success of a policy which they deprecated,—proves how much the feelings of a constitutional democracy, and that entire acceptance of the pronounced decision of the majority on which it rests, had worked themselves into the Athenian mind. The combat of Marathon was by no means a very decisive defeat, but it was a defeat,—and the first which the Persians had ever received from Greeks in the field. If the battle of Salamis, ten years afterwards, could be treated by Themistoklês as a hair-breadth escape for Greece, much more is this true of the battle of Marathon;[661] which first afforded reasonable proof, even to discerning and resolute Greeks, that the Persians might be effectually repelled, and the independence of European Greece maintained against them,—a conviction of incalculable value in reference to the formidable trials destined to follow. Upon the Athenians themselves, the first to face in the field successfully the terrific look of a Persian army, the effect of the victory was yet more stirring and profound.[662] It supplied them with resolution for the far greater actual sacrifices which they cheerfully underwent ten years afterwards, at the invasion of Xerxês, without faltering in their Pan-Hellenic fidelity; and it strengthened them at home by swelling the tide of common sentiment and patriotic fraternity in the bosom of every individual citizen. It was the exploit of Athenians alone, but of all Athenians without dissent or exception,—the boast of orators, repeated until it almost degenerated into common-place, though the people seem never to have become weary of allusions to their single-handed victory over a host of forty-six nations.[663] It had been purchased without a drop of intestine bloodshed,—for even the unknown traitors who raised the signal-shield on Mount Pentelikus, took care not to betray themselves by want of apparent sympathy with the triumph: lastly, it was the final guarantee of their democracy, barring all chance of restoration of Hippias for the future. Themistoklês[664] is said to have been robbed of his sleep by the trophies of Miltiadês, and this is cited in proof of his ambitious temperament; but without supposing either jealousy or personal love of glory, the rapid transit from extreme danger to unparalleled triumph might well deprive of rest even the most sober-minded Athenian.

[661] Herodot. viii, 109. ἡμεῖς δὲ, εὕρημα γὰρ εὑρήκαμεν ἡμέας τε καὶ τὴν Ἑλλάδα, νέφος τοσοῦτον ἀνθρώπων ἀνωσάμενοι.

[662] Pausanias, i, 14, 4; Thucyd. i, 73. φαμὲν γὰρ Μαραθῶνί τε ~μόνοι προκινδυνεῦσαι~ τῷ βαρβάρῳ, etc.

Herodot. vi, 112. πρῶτοι τε ἀνέσχοντο ἐσθῆτά τε Μηδικὴν ὁρέοντες, καὶ τοὺς ἄνδρας ταύτην ἐσθημένους· τέως δὲ ἦν τοῖσι Ἕλλησι καὶ τὸ οὔνομα τὸ Μήδων φόβος ἀκοῦσαι.

It is not unworthy of remark, that the memorable oath in the oration of Demosthenês, de Coronâ, wherein he adjures the warriors of Marathon, copies the phrase of Thucydidês,—οὐ μὰ τοὺς ἐν Μαραθῶνι ~προκινδυνεύσαντας~ τῶν προγόνων, etc. (Demosthen. de Coronâ, c. 60.)

[663] So the computation stands in the language of Athenian orators (Herodot. ix, 27.) It would be unfair to examine it critically.

[664] Plutarch, Themistoklês, c. 3. According to Cicero (Epist. ad Attic. ix, 10) and Justin (ii, 9) Hippias was killed at Marathon. Suidas (v. Ἱππίας) says that he died afterwards at Lemnos. Neither of these statements seems probable. Hippias would hardly go to Lemnos, which was an Athenian possession; and had he been slain in the battle, Herodotus would have been likely to mention it.

Who it was that raised the treacherous signal-shield to attract the Persians to Athens was never ascertained: very probably, in the full exultation of success, no investigation was made. Of course, however, the public belief would not be satisfied without singling out some persons as the authors of such a treason; and the information received by Herodotus (probably about 450-440 B. C., forty or fifty years after the Marathonian victory) ascribed the deed to the Alkmæônids; nor does he notice any other reported authors, though he rejects the allegation against them upon very sufficient grounds. They were a race religiously tainted, ever since the Kylonian sacrilege, and were therefore convenient persons to brand with the odium of an anonymous crime; while party feud, if it did not originally invent, would at least be active in spreading and certifying such rumors. At the time when Herodotus knew Athens, the political enmity between Periklês son of Xanthippus, and Kimon son of Miltiadês, was at its height: Periklês belonged by his mother’s side to the Alkmæônid race, and we know that such lineage was made subservient to political manœuvres against him by his enemies.[665] Moreover, the enmity between Kimon and Periklês had been inherited by both from their fathers; for we shall find Xanthippus, not long after the battle of Marathon, the prominent accuser of Miltiadês. Though Xanthippus was not an Alkmæônid, his marriage with Agaristê connected himself indirectly, and his son Periklês directly, with that race. And we may trace in this standing political feud a probable origin for the false reports as to the treason of the Alkmæônids, on that great occasion which founded the glory of Miltiadês; for that the reports were false, the intrinsic probabilities of the case, supported by the judgment of Herodotus, afford ample ground for believing.

[665] Thucyd. i, 126.

When the Athenian army made its sudden return-march from Marathon to Athens, Aristeidês with his tribe was left to guard the field and the spoil; but the speedy retirement of Datis from Attica left the Athenians at full liberty to revisit the scene and discharge the last duties to the dead. A tumulus was erected on the spot[666]—such distinction was never conferred by Athens except in this case only—to the one hundred and ninety-two Athenian citizens who had been slain. Their names were inscribed on ten pillars erected at the spot, one for each tribe: there was also a second tumulus for the slain Platæans, a third for the slaves, and a separate funeral monument to Miltiadês himself. Six hundred years after the battle, Pausanias saw the tumulus, and could still read on the pillars the names of the immortalized warriors;[667] and even now a conspicuous tumulus exists about half a mile from the sea-shore, which Colonel Leake believes to be the same.[668] The inhabitants of the deme of Marathon worshipped these slain warriors as heroes, along with their own eponymus, and with Hêraklês.

[666] Thucyd. ii, 34.

[667] Pausan. i, 32, 3. Compare the elegy of Kritias ap. Athenæ. i, p. 28.

[668] The tumulus now existing is about thirty feet high, and two hundred yards in circumference. (Leake, on the Demi of Attica; Transactions of Royal Soc. of Literat. ii, p. 171.)

So splendid a victory had not been achieved, in the belief of the Athenians, without marked supernatural aid. The god Pan had met the courier Pheidippidês on his hasty route from Athens to Sparta, and had told him that he was much hurt that the Athenians had as yet neglected to worship him;[669] in spite of which neglect, however, he promised them effective aid at Marathon. The promise was faithfully executed, and the Athenians repaid it by a temple with annual worship and sacrifice. Moreover, the hero Theseus was seen strenuously assisting in the battle; and an unknown warrior, in rustic garb and armed only with a ploughshare, dealt destruction among the Persian ranks: after the battle he could not be found; and the Athenians, on asking at Delphi who he was, were directed to worship the hero Echetlus.[670] Even in the time of Pausanias, this memorable battle-field was heard to resound every night with the noise of combatants and the snorting of horses. “It is dangerous (observes that pious author) to go to the spot with the express purpose of seeing what is passing; but if a man finds himself there by accident, without having heard anything about the matter, the gods will not be angry with him.” The gods, it seems, could not pardon the inquisitive mortal who deliberately pried into their secrets. Amidst the ornaments with which Athens was decorated during the free working of her democracy, the glories of Marathon of course occupied a conspicuous place. The battle was painted on one of the compartments of the portico called Pœkilê, wherein, amidst several figures of gods and heroes,—Athênê, Hêraklês, Theseus, Echetlus, and the local patron of Marathon,—were seen honored and prominent the polemarch Kallimachus and the general Miltiadês, while the Platæans were distinguished by their Bœotian leather casques.[671] And the sixth of the month Boëdromion, the anniversary of the battle, was commemorated by an annual ceremony, even down to the time of Plutarch.[672]

[669] Herodot. vi, 105; Pausan. i, 28, 4.

[670] Plutarch, Theseus, c. 24; Pausan. i, 32, 4.

[671] Pausan. i, 15, 4; Dêmosthen. cont. Neær. c. 25.

[672] Herodot. vi, 120; Plutarch, Camill. c. 19; De Malignit. Herodoti, c. 26, p. 862; and De Gloriâ Atheniensium, c. 7.

Boëdromion was the third month of the Attic year, which year began near about the summer solstice. The first three Attic months, Hekatombæon, Metageitnion, Boëdromion, approach (speaking in a loose manner) nearly to our July, August, September; probably the month Hekatombæon began usually at some day in the latter half of June.

From the fact that the courier Pheidippidês reached Sparta on the ninth day of the moon, and that the two thousand Spartans arrived in Attica on the third day after the full moon, during which interval the battle took place, we see that the sixth day of Boëdromion could not be the sixth day of the moon. The Attic months, though professedly lunar months, did not at this time therefore accurately correspond with the course of the moon. See Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hellen. ad an. 490 B. C. Plutarch (in the Treatise De Malign. Herodoti, above referred to) appears to have no conception of this discrepancy between the Attic month and the course of the moon. A portion of the censure which he casts on Herodotus is grounded on the assumption that the two must coincide.

M. Boeckh, following Fréret and Larcher, contests the statement of Plutarch, that the battle was fought on the sixth of the month Boëdromion, but upon reasons which appear to me insufficient. His chief argument rests upon another statement of Plutarch (derived from some lost verses of Æschylus), that the tribe Æantis had the right wing or post of honor at the battle; and that the public vote, pursuant to which the army was led out of Athens, was passed during the prytany of the tribe Æantis. He assumes, that the reason why this tribe was posted on the right wing, must have been, that it had drawn by lot the first prytany in that particular year: if this be granted, then the vote for drawing out the army must have been passed in the first prytany, or within the first thirty-five or thirty-six days of the Attic year, during the space between the first of Hekatombæon and the fifth or sixth of Metageitnion. But it is certain that the interval, which took place between the army leaving the city and the battle, was much less than one month,—we may even say less than one week. The battle, therefore, must have been fought between the sixth and tenth of Metageitnion. (Plutarch, Symposiac. i, 10, 3, and Ideler, Handbuch der Chronologie, vol. i, p. 291.) Herodotus (vi, 111) says that the tribes were arranged in line ὡς ἠριθμέοντο,—“as they were numbered,”—which is contended to mean necessarily the arrangement between them, determined by lot for the prytanies of that particular year. “In acie instruendâ (says Boeckh, Comment. ad Corp. Inscript. p. 299) Athenienses non constantem, sed variabilem secundum prytanias, ordinem secatos esse, ita ut tribus ex hoc ordine inde a dextro cornu disponerentur, docui in Commentatione de pugnâ Marathoniâ.” Proœmia Lect. Univ. Berolin. æstiv. a. 1816.

The Proœmia here referred to I have not been able to consult, and they may therefore contain additional reasons to prove the point advanced, viz., that the order of the ten tribes in line of battle, beginning from the right wing, was conformable to their order in prytanizing, as drawn by lot for the year; but I think the passages of Herodotus and Plutarch now before us insufficient to establish this point. From the fact that the tribe Æantis had the right wing at the battle of Marathon, we are by no means warranted in inferring that that tribe had drawn by lot the earliest prytany in the year. Other reasons, in my judgment equally probable, may be assigned in explanation of the circumstance: one reason, I think, decidedly _more_ probable. This reason is, that the battle was fought during the prytany of the tribe Æantis, which may be concluded from the statement of Plutarch, that the vote for marching out the army from Athens was passed during the prytany of that tribe; for the interval, between the march of the army out of the city and the battle, must have been only a very few days. Moreover, the deme Marathon belonged to the tribe Æantis (see Boeckh, ad Inscript. No. 172, p. 309): the battle being fought in their deme, the Marathonians may perhaps have claimed on this express ground the post of honor for their tribe; just as we see that at the first battle of Mantineia against the Lacedæmonians, the Mantineians were allowed to occupy the right wing or post of honor, “because the battle was fought in their territory,” (Thucyd. v, 67.) Lastly, the deme Aphidnæ also belonged to the tribe Æantis (see Boeckh, _l. c._): now the polemarch Kallimachus was an Aphidnæan (Herodot. vi, 109), and Herodotus expressly tells us, “the law or custom _then_ stood among the Athenians, that the polemarch should have the right wing,”—ὁ γὰρ νόμος τότε εἶχε οὕτω τοῖσι Ἀθηναίοισι, τὸν πολέμαρχον ἔχειν κέρας τὸ δέξιον (vi, 111). Where the polemarch stood, there his tribe would be likely to stand: and the language of Herodotus indeed seems directly to imply that he identifies the tribe of the polemarch with the polemarch himself,—ἡγεομένου δὲ τούτου, ἐξεδέκοντο ὡς ἀριθμέοντο αἱ φυλαὶ, ἐχόμεναι ἀλλήλων,—meaning that the order of tribes began by that of the polemarch being in the leading position, and was then “taken up” by the rest “in numerical sequence,”—_i. e._ in the order of their prytanizing sequence for the year.

Here are a concurrence of reasons to explain why the tribe Æantis had the right wing at the battle of Marathon, even though it may not have been first in the order of prytanizing tribes for the year. Boeckh, therefore, is not warranted in inferring the second of these two facts from the first.

The concurrence of these three reasons, all in favor of the same conclusion, and all independent of the reason supposed by Boeckh, appears to me to have great weight; but I regard the first of the three, even singly taken, as more probable than his reason. If my view of the case be correct, the sixth day of Boëdromion, the day of battle as given by Plutarch, is not to be called in question. That day comes in the second prytany of the year, which begins about the sixth of Metageitnion, and ends about the twelfth of Boëdromion, and which must in this year have fallen to the lot of the tribe Æantis. On the first or second day of Boëdromion, the vote for marching out the army may have passed; on the sixth the battle was fought; both during the prytany of this tribe.

I am not prepared to carry these reasons farther than the

## particular case of the battle of Marathon, and the vindication

of the day of that battle as stated by Plutarch; nor would I apply them to later periods, such as the Peloponnesian war. It is certain that the army regulations of Athens were considerably modified between the battle of Marathon and the Peloponnesian war, as well in other matters as in what regards the polemarch; and we have not sufficient information to enable us to determine whether in that later period the Athenians followed any known or perpetual rule in the battle-order of the tribes. Military considerations, connected with the state of the particular army serving, must have prevented the constant observance of any rule: thus we can hardly imagine that Nikias, commanding the army before Syracuse, could have been tied down to any invariable order of battle among the tribes to which his hoplites belonged. Moreover, the expedition against Syracuse lasted more than one Attic year: can it be believed that Nikias, on receiving information from Athens of the sequence in which the prytanies of the tribes had been drawn by lot during the second year of his expedition, would be compelled to marshal his army in a new battle-order conformably to it? As the military operations of the Athenians became more extensive, they would find it necessary to leave such dispositions more and more to the general serving in every particular campaign. It may well be doubted whether during the Peloponnesian war _any_ established rule was observed in marshalling the tribes for battle.

One great motive which induces critics to maintain that the battle was fought in the Athenian month Metageitnion, is, that that month coincides with the Spartan month Karneius, so that the refusal of the Spartans to march before the full moon, is construed to apply only to the peculiar sanctity of this last-mentioned month, instead of being a constant rule for the whole year. I perfectly agree with these critics, that the answer, given by the Spartans to the courier Pheidippidês, cannot be held to prove a regular, invariable Spartan maxim, applicable throughout the whole year, not to begin a march in the second quarter of the moon: very possibly, as Boeckh remarks, there may have been some festival impending during the particular month in question, upon which the Spartan refusal to march was founded. But no inference can be deduced from hence to disprove the sixth of Boëdromion as the day of the battle of Marathon: for though the months of every Grecian city were professedly lunar, yet they never coincided with each other exactly or long together, because the systems of intercalation adopted in different cities were different: there was great irregularity and confusion (Plutarch, Aristeidês, c. 19; Aristoxenus, Harmon. ii, p. 30: compare also K. F. Hermann, Ueber die Griechische Monatskunde, p. 26, 27. Göttingen, 1844; and Boeckh, ad Corp. Inscript. t. i, p. 734).

Granting, therefore, that the answer given by the Spartans to Pheidippidês is to be construed, not as a general rule applicable to the whole year, but as referring to the particular month in which it was given,—no inference can be drawn from hence as to the day of the battle of Marathon, because either one of the two following suppositions is possible: 1. The Spartans may have had solemnities on the day of the full moon, or on the day before it, in _other months_ besides Karneius; 2. Or the full moon of the Spartan Karneius may actually have fallen, in the year 490 B. C., on the fifth or sixth of the Attic month Boëdromion.

Dr. Thirlwall appears to adopt the view of Boeckh, but does not add anything material to the reasons in its favor (Hist. of Gr. vol. ii, Append. iii, p. 488).

Two thousand Spartans, starting from their city, immediately after the full moon, reached the frontier of Attica, on the third day of their march,—a surprising effort, when we consider that the total distance from Sparta to Athens was about one hundred and fifty miles. They did not arrive, however, until the battle had been fought, and the Persians departed; but curiosity led them to the field of Marathon to behold the dead bodies of the Persians, after which they returned home, bestowing well-merited praise on the victors.

Datis and Artaphernês returned across the Ægean with their Eretrian prisoners to Asia; stopping for a short time at the island of Mykonos, where discovery was made of a gilt image of Apollo carried off as booty in a Phenician ship. Datis went himself to restore it to Dêlos, requesting the Delians to carry it back to the Delium, or temple of Apollo, on the eastern coast of Bœotia: the Delians, however, chose to keep the statue until it was reclaimed from them twenty years afterwards by the Thebans. On reaching Asia, the Persian generals conducted their prisoners up to the court of Susa, and into the presence of Darius. Though he had been vehemently incensed against them, yet when he saw them in his power, his wrath abated, and he manifested no desire to kill or harm them. They were planted at a spot called Arderikka, in the Kissian territory, one of the resting-places on the road from Sardis to Susa, and about twenty-six miles distant from the latter place: Herodotus seems himself to have seen their descendants there on his journey between the two capitals, and to have had the satisfaction of talking to them in Greek,—which we may well conceive to have made some impression upon him, at a spot distant by nearly three months’ journey from the coast of Ionia.[673]

[673] Herodot. vi, 119. Darius—σφέας τῆς Κισσίης χώρης κατοίκισε ἐν σταθμῷ ἑωϋτοῦ τῷ οὔνομα ἐστὶ Ἀρδέρικκα—ἐνθαῦτα τοὺς Ἐρετριέας κατοίκισε Δαρεῖος, οἳ καὶ μέχρι ἐμέο εἶχον τὴν χώρην ταύτην, φυλάσοντες τὴν ἀρχαίην γλῶσσαν. The meaning of the word σταθμὸς is explained by Herodot. v, 52. σταθμὸς ἑωϋτοῦ is the same as σταθμὸς βασιλήϊος: the particulars which Herodotus recounts about Arderikka, and its remarkable well, or pit of bitumen, salt, and oil, give every reason to believe that he had himself stopped there.

Strabo places the captive Eretrians in Gordyênê, which would be considerably higher up the Tigris; upon whose authority, we do not know (Strabo, xv, p. 747).

The many particulars which are given respecting the descendants of these Eretrians in Kissia, by Philostratus, in his Life of Apollonius of Tyana, as they are alleged to have stood even in the first century of the Christian era, cannot be safely quoted. With all the fiction there contained, some truth may perhaps be mingled; but we cannot discriminate it (Philostratus, Vit. Apollon. i, c. 24-30).

Happy would it have been for Miltiadês if he had shared the honorable death of the polemarch Kallimachus,—“animam exhalasset opimam,”—in seeking to fire the ships of the defeated Persians at Marathon. The short sequel of his history will be found in melancholy contrast with the Marathonian heroism.

His reputation had been great before the battle, and after it the admiration and confidence of his countrymen knew no bounds: it appears, indeed, to have reached such a pitch that his head was turned, and he lost both his patriotism and his prudence. He proposed to his countrymen to incur the cost of equipping an armament of seventy ships, with an adequate armed force, and to place it altogether at his discretion; giving them no intimation whither he intended to go, but merely assuring them that, if they would follow him, he would conduct them to a land where gold was abundant, and thus enrich them. Such a promise, from the lips of the recent victor of Marathon, was sufficient, and the armament was granted, no man except Miltiadês knowing what was its destination. He sailed immediately to the island of Paros, laid siege to the town, and sent in a herald to require from the inhabitants a contribution of one hundred talents, on pain of entire destruction. His pretence for this attack was, that the Parians had furnished a trireme to Datis for the Persian fleet at Marathon; but his real motive, so Herodotus assures us,[674] was vindictive animosity against a Parian citizen named Lysagoras, who had exasperated the Persian general Hydarnês against him. The Parians amused him at first with evasions, until they had procured a little delay to repair the defective portions of their wall, after which they set him at defiance; and Miltiadês in vain prosecuted hostilities against them for the space of twenty-six days: he ravaged the island, but his attacks made no impression upon the town.[675] Beginning to despair of success in his military operations, he entered into some negotiation—such at least was the tale of the Parians themselves—with a Parian woman named Timô, priestess or attendant in the temple of Dêmêtêr, near the town-gates. This woman, promising to reveal to him a secret which would place Paros in his power, induced him to visit by night a temple to which no male person was admissible. He leaped the exterior fence, and approached the sanctuary; but on coming near, was seized with a panic terror and ran away, almost out of his senses: on leaping the same fence to get back, he strained or bruised his thigh badly, and became utterly disabled. In this melancholy state he was placed on ship-board; the siege being raised, and the whole armament returning to Athens.

[674] Herodot. vi, 133. ἔπλεε ἐπὶ Πάρον, πρόφασιν ἔχων ὡς οἱ Πάριοι ὕπηρξαν πρότεροι στρατευόμενοι τριήρεϊ ἐς Μαραθῶνα ἅμα τῷ Πέρσῃ. Τοῦτο μὲν δὴ πρόσχημα τοῦ λόγου ἦν· ἀτάρ τινα καὶ ἔγκοτον εἶχε τοῖσι Παρίοισι διὰ Λυσαγόρεα τὸν Τισίεω, ἐόντα γένος Πάριον, διαβαλόντα μιν πρὸς Ὑδάρνεα τὸν Πέρσην.

[675] Ephorus (Fragm. 107, ed. Didot; ap. Stephan. Byz. v. Πάρος) gave an account of this expedition in several points different from Herodotus, which latter I here follow. The authority of Herodotus is preferable in every respect; the more so, since Ephorus gives his narrative as a sort of explanation of the peculiar phrase ἀναπαριάζειν. Explanatory narratives of that sort are usually little worthy of attention.

Vehement was the indignation both of the armament and of the remaining Athenians against Miltiadês on his return;[676] and Xanthippus, father of the great Periklês, became the spokesman of this feeling. He impeached Miltiadês before the popular judicature as having been guilty of deceiving the people, and as having deserved the penalty of death. The accused himself, disabled by his injured thigh, which even began to show symptoms of gangrene, was unable to stand, or to say a word in his own defence: he lay on his couch before the assembled judges, while his friends made the best case they could in his behalf. Defence, it appears, there was none; all they could do, was to appeal to his previous services: they reminded the people largely and emphatically of the inestimable exploit of Marathon, coming in addition to his previous conquest of Lemnos. The assembled dikasts, or jurors, showed their sense of these powerful appeals by rejecting the proposition of his accuser to condemn him to death; but they imposed on him the penalty of fifty talents “for his iniquity.”

[676] Herodot. vi, 136. Ἀθηναῖοι δὲ ἐκ Πάρου Μιλτιάδεα ἀπονοστήσαντα ἔσχον ἐν στόμασι, οἵ τε ἄλλοι, καὶ μάλιστα Ξάνθιππος ὁ Ἀρίφρονος· ὃς θανάτου ὑπαγαγὼν ὑπὸ τὸν δῆμον Μιλτιάδεα, ἐδίωκε τῆς Ἀθηναίων ἀπάτης εἵνεκεν. Μιλτιάδης δὲ, αὐτὸς μὲν παρεὼν, οὐκ ἀπελογέετο· ἦν γὰρ ἀδύνατος, ὥστε σηπομένου τοῦ μηροῦ. Προκειμένου δὲ αὐτοῦ ἐν κλίνῃ, ὑπεραπελογέοντο οἱ φίλοι, τῆς μάχης τε τῆς ἐν Μαραθῶνι γενομένης πολλὰ ἐπιμεμνημένοι, καὶ τὴν Λήμνου αἵρεσιν· ὡς ἑλὼν Λῆμνόν τε καὶ τισάμενος τοὺς Πελασγοὺς, παρέδωκε Ἀθηναίοισι. Προσγενομένου δὲ τοῦ δήμου αὐτῷ κατὰ τὴν ἀπόλυσιν τοῦ θανάτου, ζημιώσαντος δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἀδικίην πεντήκοντα ταλάντοισι, Μιλτιάδης μὲν μετὰ ταῦτα, σφακελίσαντός τε τοῦ μηροῦ καὶ σαπέντος, τελευτᾷ· τὰ δὲ πεντήκοντα τάλαντα ἐξέτισεν ὁ πάϊς αὐτοῦ Κίμων.

Plato (Gorgias, c. 153, p. 516) says that the Athenians passed a vote to cast Miltiadês into the barathrum (ἐμβαλεῖν ἐψηφίσαντο), and that he would have been actually thrown in, if it had not been for the prytanis, _i. e._ the president, by turn for that day, of the prytanizing senators and of the ekklesia. The prytanis may perhaps have been among those who spoke to the dikastery on behalf of Miltiadês, deprecating the proposition made by Xanthippus; but that he should have caused a vote once passed to be actually rescinded, is incredible. The Scholiast on Aristeidês (cited by Valckenaer ad Herodot. vi, 136) reduces the exaggeration of Plato to something more reasonable—Ὅτε γὰρ ἐκρίνετο Μιλτιάδης ἐπὶ τῇ Πάρῳ, ~ἠθέλσαν~ αὐτὸν κατακρημνίσαι· ὁ δὲ πρύτανις εἰσελθὼν ~ἐξῃτήσατο~ αὐτὸν.

Cornelius Nepos affirms that these fifty talents represented the expenses incurred by the state in fitting out the armament; but we may more probably believe, looking to the practice of the Athenian dikastery in criminal cases, that fifty talents was the minor penalty actually proposed by the defenders of Miltiadês themselves, as a substitute for the punishment of death. In those penal cases at Athens, where the punishment was not fixed beforehand by the terms of the law, if the person accused was found guilty, it was customary to submit to the jurors, subsequently and separately, the question as to amount of punishment: first, the accuser named the penalty which he thought suitable; next, the accused person was called upon to name an amount of penalty for himself, and the jurors were constrained to take their choice between these two,—no third gradation of penalty being admissible for consideration.[677] Of course, under such circumstances, it was the interest of the accused party to name, even in his own case, some real and serious penalty,—something which the jurors might be likely to deem not wholly inadequate to his crime just proved; for if he proposed some penalty only trifling, he drove them to prefer the heavier sentence recommended by his opponent. Accordingly, in the case of Miltiadês, his friends, desirous of inducing the jurors to refuse their assent to the punishment of death, proposed a fine of fifty talents as the self-assessed penalty of the defendant; and perhaps they may have stated, as an argument in the case, that such a sum would suffice to defray the costs of the expedition. The fine was imposed, but Miltiadês did not live to pay it; his injured limb mortified, and he died, leaving the fine to be paid by his son Kimon.

[677] That this was the habitual course of Attic procedure in respect to public indictments, wherever a positive amount of penalty was not previously determined, appears certain. See Platner, Prozess und Klagen bei den Attikern, Abschn. vi, vol. i, p. 201; Heffter, Die Athenäische Gerichtsverfassung, p. 334. Meier and Schömann (Der Attische Prozess, b. iv, p. 725) maintain that any one of the dikasts might propose a third measure of penalty, distinct from that proposed by the accuser as well as the accused. In respect to public indictments, this opinion appears decidedly incorrect; but where the sentence to be pronounced involved a compensation for private wrong and an estimate of damages, we cannot so clearly determine whether there was not sometimes a greater latitude in originating propositions for the dikasts to vote upon. It is to be recollected that these dikasts were several hundred, sometimes even more, in number,—that there was no discussion or deliberation among them,—and that it was absolutely necessary for some distinct proposition to be laid before them to take a vote upon. In regard to some offences, the law expressly permitted what was called a προστíμημα; that is, after the dikasts had pronounced the full penalty demanded by the accuser, any other citizen who thought the penalty so imposed insufficient, might call for a certain limited amount of additional penalty, and require the dikasts to vote upon it,—ay or no. The votes of the dikasts were given, by depositing pebbles in two casks, under certain arrangements of detail.

The ἀγὼν τιμητὸς, δίκη τιμητὸς, or trial including this separate admeasurement of penalty,—as distinguished from the δίκη ἀτίμητος, or trial where the penalty was predetermined, and where was no τίμησις, or vote of admeasurement of penalty,—is an important line of distinction in the subject-matter of Attic procedure; and the practice of calling on the accused party, after having been pronounced guilty, to impose upon himself a _counter-penalty_ or _under-penalty_ (ἀντιτιμᾶσθαι or ὑποτιμᾶθαι) in contrast with that named by the accuser, was a convenient expedient for bringing the question to a substantive vote of the dikasts. Sometimes accused persons found it convenient to name very large penalties on themselves, in order to escape a capital sentence invoked by the accuser (see Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat. c. 34, p. 743, R). Nor was there any fear, as Platner imagines, that in the generality of cases the dikasts would be left under the necessity of choosing between an extravagant penalty and something merely nominal; for the interest of the accused party himself would prevent this from happening. Sometimes we see him endeavoring by entreaties to prevail upon the accuser voluntarily to abate something of the penalty which he had at first named; and the accuser might probably do this, if he saw that the dikasts were not likely to go along with that first proposition.

In one particular case, of immortal memory, that which Platner contemplates actually did happen; and the death of Sokratês was the effect of it. Sokratês, having been found guilty, only by a small majority of votes among the dikasts, was called upon to name a penalty upon himself, in opposition to that of death, urged by Melêtus. He was in vain entreated by his friends to name a fine of some tolerable amount, which they would at once have paid in his behalf; but he would hardly be prevailed upon to name any penalty at all, affirming that he had deserved honor rather than punishment: at last, he named a fine so small in amount, as to be really tantamount to an acquittal. Indeed, Xenophon states that he would not name any counter-penalty at all; and in the speech ascribed to him, he contended that he had even merited the signal honor of a public maintenance in the prytaneium (Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 27; Xenoph. Apol. Sok. 23; Diogen. Laërt. ii, 41). Plato and Xenophon do not agree; but taking the two together, it would seem that he must have named a very small fine. There can be little doubt that this circumstance, together with the tenor of his defence, caused the dikasts to vote for the proposition of Melêtus.

According to Cornelius Nepos, Diodorus, and Plutarch, he was put in prison, after having been fined, and there died.[678] But Herodotus does not mention this imprisonment, and the fact appears to me improbable: he would hardly have omitted to notice it, had it come to his knowledge. Immediate imprisonment of a person fined by the dikastery, until his fine was paid, was not the natural and ordinary course of Athenian procedure, though there were particular cases in which such aggravation was added. Usually, a certain time was allowed for payment,[679] before absolute execution was resorted to, but the person under sentence became disfranchised and excluded from all political rights, from the very instant of his condemnation as a public debtor, until the fine was paid. Now in the instance of Miltiadês, the lamentable condition of his wounded thigh rendered escape impossible,—so that there would be no special motive for departing from the usual practice, and imprisoning him forthwith: moreover, if he was not imprisoned forthwith, he would not be imprisoned at all, since he cannot have lived many days after his trial.[680] To carry away the suffering general in his couch, incapable of raising himself even to plead for his own life, from the presence of the dikasts to a prison, would not only have been a needless severity, but could hardly have failed to imprint itself on the sympathies and the memory of all the beholders; so that Herodotus would have been likely to hear and mention it, if it had really occurred. I incline to believe therefore that Miltiadês died at home: all accounts concur in stating that he died of the mortal bodily hurt which already disabled him even at the moment of his trial, and that his son Kimon paid the fifty talents after his death. If _he_ could pay them, probably his father could have paid them also. And this is an additional reason for believing that there was no imprisonment,—for nothing but non-payment could have sent him to prison; and to rescue the suffering Miltiadês from being sent thither, would have been the first and strongest desire of all sympathizing friends.

[678] Cornelius Nepos, Miltiadês, c. 7; and Kimon, c. 1; Plutarch, Kimon, c. 4; Diodorus, Fragment. lib. x. All these authors probably drew from the same original fountain; perhaps Ephorus (see Marx, ad Ephori Fragmenta, p. 212); but we have no means of determining. Respecting the alleged imprisonment of Kimon, however, they must have copied from different authorities, for their statements are all different. Diodorus states, that Kimon put himself voluntarily into prison after his father had died there, because he was not permitted on any other condition to obtain the body of his deceased father for burial. Cornelius Nepos affirms that he was imprisoned, as being legally liable to the state for the unpaid fine of his father. Lastly, Plutarch does not represent him as having been put into prison at all. Many of the Latin writers follow the statement of Diodorus: see the citations in Bos’s note on the above passage of Cornelius Nepos.

There can be no hesitation in adopting the account of Plutarch as the true one. Kimon neither was, nor could be, in prison, by the Attic law, for an unpaid fine of his father; but after his father’s death, he became liable for the fine, in this sense,—that he remained disfranchised (ἄτιμος) and excluded from his rights as a citizen, until the fine was paid: see Dêmosthen. cont. Timokrat. c. 46, p. 762, R.

[679] See Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, b. iii, ch. 13, p. 390, Engl. Transl. (vol. i, p. 420, Germ.); Meier und Schömann, Attisch. Prozess, p. 744. Dr. Thirlwall takes a different view of this point, with which I cannot concur (Hist. Gr. vol. iii, Append. ii, p. 488); though his general remarks on the trial of Miltiadês are just and appropriate (ch. xiv, p. 273).

Cornelius Nepos (Miltiadês, c. 8; Kimon, c. 3) says that the misconduct connected with Paros was only a pretence with the Athenians for punishing Miltiadês; their real motive, he affirms, was envy and fear, the same feelings which dictated the ostracism of Kimon. How little there is to justify this fancy, may be seen even from the nature of the punishment inflicted. Fear would have prompted them to send away or put to death Miltiadês, not to fine him. The ostracism, which was dictated by fear, was a temporary banishment.

[680] The interval between his trial and his decease is expressed in Herodotus (vi, 136) by the difference between the present

## participle σηπομένου and the past participle σαπέντος τοῦ μηροῦ.

Thus closed the life of the conqueror of Marathon. The last act of it produces an impression so mournful, and even shocking,—his descent from the pinnacle of glory to defeat, mean tampering with a temple-servant, mortal bodily hurt, undefended ignominy, and death under a sentence of heavy fine, is so abrupt and unprepared,—that readers, ancient and modern, have not been satisfied without finding some one to blame for it: we must except Herodotus, our original authority, who recounts the transaction without dropping a single hint of blame against any one. To speak ill of the people, as Machiavel has long ago observed,[681] is a strain in which every one at all times, even under a democratical government, indulges with impunity and without provoking any opponent to reply; and in this instance, the hard fate of Miltiadês has been imputed to the vices of the Athenians and their democracy,—it has been cited in proof, partly of their fickleness, partly of their ingratitude. But however such blame may serve to lighten the mental sadness arising from a series of painful facts, it will not be found justified if we apply to those facts a reasonable criticism.

[681] Machiavel, Discorsi sopra Tito Livio, cap. 58. “L’ opinione contro ai popoli nasce, perchè dei popoli ciascun dice male senza paura, e liberamente ancora mentre che regnano: dei principi si parla sempre con mille timori e mille rispetti.”

What is called the fickleness of the Athenians on this occasion is nothing more than a rapid and decisive change in their estimation of Miltiadês; unbounded admiration passing at once into extreme wrath. To censure them for fickleness is here an abuse of terms; such a change in their opinion was the unavoidable result of his conduct. His behavior in the expedition of Paros was as reprehensible as at Marathon it had been meritorious, and the one succeeded immediately after the other: what else could ensue except an entire revolution in the Athenian feelings? He had employed his prodigious ascendency over their minds to induce them to follow him without knowing whither, in the confidence of an unknown booty: he had exposed their lives and wasted their substance in wreaking a private grudge: in addition to the shame of an unprincipled project, comes the constructive shame of not having succeeded in it. Without doubt, such behavior, coming from a man whom they admired to excess, must have produced a violent and painful revulsion in the feelings of his countrymen. The idea of having lavished praise and confidence upon a person who forthwith turns it to an unworthy purpose, is one of the greatest torments of the human bosom; and we may well understand that the intensity of the subsequent displeasure would be aggravated by this reactionary sentiment, without accusing the Athenians of fickleness. If an officer, whose conduct has been such as to merit the highest encomiums, comes on a sudden to betray his trust, and manifests cowardice or treachery in a new and important undertaking confided to him, are we to treat the general in command as fickle, because his opinion as well as his conduct undergoes an instantaneous revolution,—which will be all the more vehement in proportion to his previous esteem? The question to be determined is, whether there be sufficient ground for such a change; and in the case of Miltiadês, that question must be answered in the affirmative.

In regard to the charge of ingratitude against the Athenians, this last-mentioned point—sufficiency of reason—stands tacitly admitted. It is conceded that Miltiadês deserved punishment for his conduct in reference to the Parian expedition, but it is nevertheless maintained that gratitude for his previous services at Marathon ought to have exempted him from punishment. But the sentiment upon which, after all, this exculpation rests, will not bear to be drawn out and stated in the form of a cogent or justifying reason. For will any one really contend, that a man who has rendered great services to the public, is to receive in return a license of unpunished misconduct for the future? Is the general, who has earned applause by eminent skill and important victories, to be recompensed by being allowed the liberty of betraying his trust afterwards, and exposing his country to peril, without censure or penalty? This is what no one intends to vindicate deliberately; yet a man must be prepared to vindicate it, when he blames the Athenians for ingratitude towards Miltiadês. For if all that be meant is, that gratitude for previous services ought to pass, not as a receipt in full for subsequent crime, but as an extenuating circumstance in the measurement of the penalty, the answer is, that it was so reckoned in the Athenian treatment of Miltiadês.[682] His friends had nothing whatever to urge, against the extreme penalty proposed by his accuser, except these previous services,—which influenced the dikasts sufficiently to induce them to inflict the lighter punishment instead of the heavier. Now the whole amount of punishment inflicted consisted in a fine which certainly was not beyond his reasonable means of paying, or of prevailing upon friends to pay for him, since his son Kimon actually did pay it. And those who blame the Athenians for ingratitude,—unless they are prepared to maintain the doctrine that previous services are to pass as full acquittal for future crime,—have no other ground left except to say that the fine was too high; that instead of being fifty talents, it ought to have been no more than forty, thirty, twenty, or ten talents. Whether they are right in this, I will not take upon me to pronounce. If the amount was named on behalf of the accused party, the dikastery had no legal power of diminishing it; but it is within such narrow limits that the question actually lies, when transferred from the province of sentiment to that of reason. It will be recollected that the death of Miltiadês arose neither from his trial nor his fine, but from the hurt in his thigh.

[682] Machiavel will not even admit so much as _this_, in the clear and forcible statement which he gives of the question here alluded to: he contends that the man who has rendered services ought to be recompensed for them, but that he ought to be punished for subsequent crime just as if the previous services had not been rendered. He lays down this position in discussing the conduct of the Romans towards the victorious survivor of the three Horatii, after the battle with the Curiatii: “Erano stati i meriti di Orazio grandissimi, avendo con la sua virtù vinti i Curiazi. Era stato il fallo suo atroce, avendo morto la sorella. Nondimeno dispiacque tanto tale omicidio ai Romani, che lo condussero a disputare della vita, non ostante che gli meriti suoi fussero tanto grandi e si freschi. La qual cosa, a chi superficialmente la considerasse, parrebbe uno esempio d’ ingratitudine popolare. Nondimeno chi lo esaminerà meglio, e con migliore considerazione ricercherà quali debbono essere gli’ ordini delle republiche, biasimearà quel popolo piuttosto per averlo assoluto, che per averlo voluto condannare: e la ragione è questa, che nessuna republica bene ordinata, non mai cancellò i demeriti con gli meriti dei suoi cittadini: ma avendo ordinati i premi ad una buona opera, e le pene ad una cattiva, ed avendo premiato uno per aver bene operato, se quel medesimo opera dipoi male, lo gastiga senza avere riguardo alcuno alle sue buone opere. E quando questi ordini sono bene osservati, una città vive libera molto tempo: altrimenti sempre rovinera presto. _Perchè se, ad un cittadino che abbia fatto qualche egregia opere per la città, si aggiunge oltre alla riputazione, che quella cosa gli arreca, una audacia e confidenza di potere senza temer pena, far qualche opera non buona, diventerà in breve tempo tanto insolente, che si risolverà ogni civiltà._”—Machiavel, Discorsi sop. Tit. Livio, ch. 24.

The charge of ingratitude against the Athenian popular juries really amounts to this,—that, in trying a person accused of present crime or fault, they were apt to confine themselves too strictly and exclusively to the particular matter of charge, either forgetting, or making too little account of, past services which he might have rendered. Whoever imagines that such was the habit of Athenian dikasts, must have studied the orators to very little purpose. Their real defect was the very opposite: they were too much disposed to wander from the special issue before them, and to be affected by appeals to previous services and conduct.[683] That which an accused person at Athens usually strives to produce is, an impression in the minds of the dikasts favorable to his general character and behavior. Of course, he meets the particular allegation of his accuser as well as he can, but he never fails also to remind them emphatically, how well he has performed his general duties of a citizen,—how many times he has served in military expeditions,—how many trierarchies and liturgies he has performed, and performed with splendid efficiency. In fact, the claim of an accused person to acquittal is made to rest too much on his prior services, and too little upon innocence or justifying matter as to the particular indictment. When we come down to the time of the orators, I shall be prepared to show that such indisposition to confine themselves to a special issue was one of the most serious defects of the assembled dikasts at Athens. It is one which we should naturally expect from a body of private, non-professional citizens assembled for the occasion, and which belongs more or less to the system of jury-trial everywhere; but it is the direct reverse of that ingratitude, or habitual insensibility to prior services, for which they have been so often denounced.

[683] Machiavel, in the twenty-ninth chapter of his Discorsi sopra T. Livio, examines the question, “Which of the two is more open to the charge of being ungrateful,—a popular government, or a king?” He thinks that the latter is more open to it. Compare