(2) The fact, expressly mentioned by Herodotus, that the Greek centre was (Chap. 113) driven inland (ἐς τὴν μεσόγαιαν).
(3) The fact that (Chap. 115) the barbarians who escaped seem to have reached their ships without difficulty.
Hauvette, in assuming the Persians to have been in a position close to the Charadra, parallel to it, and south of it, ignores these three points, and places the Persians in about the most disadvantageous position they could have chosen in the whole plain.
[83] This seems the most probable translation of the word δρόμῳ. Apart from the physical impossibility of a heavy-armed infantryman advancing a space of nearly one mile “at a run,” or “at the double,” the word δρόμῳ seems to be used in a technical sense, taken, as it were, from the Greek infantry “drill-book” of Herodotus’ own time, implying a pace faster than that denominated by the technical word βάδην. (For βάδην, vide Xen. Hell. v. 4. 53, etc.) There cannot be any certainty on this point, because we know so little of Greek infantry drill at this period.
Another possible explanation of the passage may be that Herodotus has ascribed to the whole length of the advance a form of movement which was only adopted when the Greeks came within range of missiles.
[84] Cf. Paus. i 15. 3, where he is describing the picture: Τὸ δὲ ἔσω τῆς μάχης φεύγοντές εἰσιν οἱ βάρβαροι καὶ ἐς τὸ ἕλος ὠθοῦντες ἀλλήλους. Those who met this fate must presumably have belonged to the Persian centre, who would be cut off from the ships by the closing in of the Greek flanks.
[85] Cf. Paus. i. 32. 3: Καὶ ἕτερος [τάφος] Πλαταιεῦσι Βοιωτῶν καὶ δούλοις. ἐμαχέσαντο γὰρ καὶ δοῦλοι τότε πρῶτον.
[86] Ephoros [Fragm. 107, Fragm. Histor. Græc.] attributes the raising of the siege to the fact that the Athenian fleet imagined that a signal implied that the Persian fleet was still at the neighbouring island of Mykonos.
He thus seems to assume that the Parian expedition followed immediately upon Marathon.
It cannot be said that the vague direct evidence on the question determines this point. It is, however, in the highest degree unlikely that the expedition was undertaken in the same year as Marathon; and the detail with regard to the Persian ships seems to have been inserted in the story either by Ephoros or his original authority,