over their victory; impossible also to exaggerate the real importance of the achievement or the substantial results which it secured. The Persians did not at this time appear to the Athenians as they appeared to them many years afterwards, and as they generally appear to ourselves, as effeminate and unwarlike, over whom any victory would be comparatively easy. On the contrary, they were regarded as invincible warriors, who, in unchecked conquest, had overrun nation after nation greater and mightier than the Greeks, and who were fresh from the subjugation of their kinsmen in Ionia. "The Athenians," says Herodotus, "were the first of the Greeks who advanced running on their enemies, and the first who. endured the sight of the Median dress and of those who wore it; for hitherto the very name of the Medes had been a terror to Greece." The Athenians must have remembered how these Persians had driven them, not long ago, from Sardis, and how they had just cruelly conquered Eretria. The memory of that day of Marathon became one of the most potent influences of Athenian history. Demosthenes, in the noblest of his orations, adjures the mighty dead who perilled their lives at Marathon. The name became a rallying cry for brave and patriotic men. At Athens their deeds were commemorated on the walls of the Painted Porch, where, amidst gods and heroes, were seen the figures of Miltiades and Callimachus, the Platæans with their Boeotian leather casques, and the Medes with their turbaned heads, their scymitars and lunar shields. On the field itself a stately sepulchre, adorned with the pillars bearing the names of the ten tribes, commemorated the fallen Athenians. A separate mound was consecrated to the Platæans and the valiant faithful slaves. In after time a special tomb was devoted to the memory of Miltiades. We can hardly wonder if the supernatural was mixed up with these glorious events. The story was told how Phidippides, the fleet courier, heard the cheering voice of Pan in the mountains, and dropped down dead for joy when he told the glad tidings to the Athenian magistrates. Legends told how the hero, Theseus, took part in the battle; how other local heroes and imaginary gods of the mythology fought on the side of the Athenians.

Two centuries afterwards it was believed that, when night came on, the devoted plain of Marathon resounded with the snorting of steeds and the noise of warriors. "It is dangerous," says the Greek writer Pausanias, "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." Vain and baseless legends we know all these to be! Nevertheless, it was a true instinct that whispered to the grateful Athenians that it was not their own prowess nor yet blind chance which had given them this great deliverance. The future destiny of Europe hung on the issue of the field of Marathon. It was one of the most decisive of those few battles that have been called the decisive battles of the world. Our modern history is not remotely, but closely and immediately, affected by this great conflict between the East and West. If the Persians had won the day Greece would have been reduced to the condition of a mere Oriental satrapy, and the intellectual life of Europe might have been irretrievably retarded. But the Moral Governor of the World watched over its destinies and guided them in the courses which, in His love and wisdom, He had decreed. If ever we are to recognize that Providence of God in History, which is never obscure to the devout and thoughtful, it is on such a day as that of Marathon. He had assigned its own place in human history to the marvellous people whom their invaders sought to crush, and so they were to be saved from their enemies. As St. Paul, centuries afterwards, reminded the descendants of these very Athenians on their own Acropolis, "He hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though He be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being."

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CHAPTER XVII.

FROM THE BATTLE OF MARATHON TO THE BATTLE OF

SALAMIS.

IT had been well for the fame of Miltiades if, like Callimachus, whose magnanimity and good sense had so materially assisted in bringing to pass the glorious result, he had fallen on the field of Marathon. The brave polemarch had fallen; and there, too, the exiled despot Hippias had perished. The conqueror was received at home with every demonstration of honour and attachment. Themistocles complained that the trophies of Miltiades would not suffer him to sleep. But the last chapter of his history records one of the most striking of those lessons which are perpetually teaching us of the inconstancy of popular favour and the transitory nature of human glory.

The retreat of the Persians had removed from the minds of the Athenians any further apprehensions of invasion. Miltiades now persuaded them to act on the offensive. He proposed to the Athenians that they should fit out a fleet of seventy vessels with a corresponding armed force. He would not reveal whither he proposed to conduct the expedition; he only promised that he would take them to a land where they might enrich themselves with abundance of gold. The Athenians gave him the extraordinary confidence which he demanded. Miltiades, however, was guilty of abusing their confidence. He had a private grudge against a citizen of the isle of Paros, and he availed himself of this opportunity to gratify his resentment. He demanded. a heavy penalty from the Parians and laid siege in form to the town of Paros. The Parians set him at defiance, and he besieged the place for many days without gaining any advantage. In the course of this time he received a dangerous wound, and was obliged ultimately to withdraw his forces. The Athenian people were naturally exasperated by the way in which they had been treated.

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